On writing, rejection, and Pitch Wars (warning: maudlin)

[lisefrac]

Originally published at Lise Fracalossi. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been writing a lot more lately. You probably noticed.

A funny thing has happened - I’ve turned into one of those people whose happiness seems to be dependent on how well their writing is going. To be fair, I’ve always had a bit of this; it’s just that in the past, there

Comments

[sovay]

(The short stories I have out there, while certainly flawed, are basically to the point where I don’t know what or how to fix - truly they’ve escaped more than being released).

Do you have beta-readers for your short fiction as well as your novels?

I know there are things I would do differently if I were writing this novel today; the beginning probably could benefit from some editing along these lines. Hell, it could be completely rewritten.

Similarly, can you get the sort of feedback that will tell you if it's fear talking or if a rewrite from scratch is necessary?

[lisefrac]

I do have beta readers for my short stories -- I have a ready-made writing group with my VPeeps. The two pieces I'm circulating now have been through two rounds of edits with them. I've made what changes I thought jibed with what I was trying to do, and I've fixed what I know how to fix. In general, though, the readers I have don't provide a lot of "this is how you should fix this" feedback, because we all seem to agree it's of limited usefulness.

Getting beta readers for my novels is actually the harder part. Even getting people to take a peek at the first chapter is hard. On the other end, I have people who read them and love them, but don't provide feedback.

On the other other hand, I've never specifically asked for feedback of the "revise, rewrite, query, or trunk it?" variety.

[sovay]

On the other other hand, I've never specifically asked for feedback of the "revise, rewrite, query, or trunk it?" variety.

I don't think it could hurt. One of my freelance jobs is as a developmental editor and the problems you're describing with Gods & Fathers sound like they're in that field: is there a deep structural issue with this novel that I can't see because I've been writing it for so long/is the pacing of the novel off in ways I don't know how to fix/does it need a complete sentence-level rewrite or is the language basically fine and the ordering of the narrative is the problem/other narrative issues? So if you don't have beta-readers with this skill, there are totally people out there who will do it for you! (Although if you trust your regular beta-readers, I'd start by asking them straight out and see what happens.)

[lisefrac]

I am curious, since while I've heard of developmental editors, I'm not sure in what context they work. Do you do it for a publication, or can anyone hire you?