"The secret of all good writing is sound judgment." (Horace, ARS POETICA (13-8 B.C.))

Don't rush your manuscript to agents and editors. Put them aside and forget them for a week or two, or a month or two, as you turn to other matters or other stories. When you pick them up again, you'll be reading with fresh eyes, and a different perspective. Your ability to do gain some distance from your work will improve over time. As you learn your writing "flaws," you'll learn to look for them as you write and as you read. Your familiarity with your work will deepen, and you will be able to make plot and character decisions faster as well. Your writing becomes efficient without destroying your muse.   

During the four years it took to write SHAKEDOWN, I took two six-month breaks, and several smaller ones. Sound like a lot? It was. But the novel was much better for it. I gained a lot of objectivity, for one. But more importantly, all that 'think time" allowed me to know the characters better and, consequently, what they should do, how they would behave in different circumstances. It's through this distance that their voices finally eclipsed mine -- exactly what should happen.    

Don't try to fit a round peg into a square hole. If a plot line or character seems out of place or isn't fitting into the story, look at it closely. For me, the problem always went back to motivation -- what character trait or desire or goal was necessary to show? Why were their actions and feelings central to the plot, and why were they important? What was really at stake for them? If your answers are uncertain, take another direction. If you feel sure you're already on the right track, look at what you're actually conveying on the page, line by line -- and whose voice you are using to convey it.   

Go to workshops, and get constructive, objective feedback from people who are not close friends or family members. Friends and family may not be as objective as they need to be -- but it's also an issue of qualification. Most workshops are taught by writers -- they may be gifted writers, but they usually aren't editors, and their feedback will be different. You need professional editorial feedback and direction if you expect to submit a manuscript professionally, and you should get it before you submit the manuscript to anyone. 

If your story is giving you trouble or you're not sure where to go next, don't underestimate the technique of considering really major blowout changes, even writing them up in draft form. Ask yourself what happens to the story if a major character is eliminated, if a major action changes, or if part of the action is executed by or told through the eyes of another character. You will gain insight to your work that will surprise you. If I look back at my first draft, there is a different cast of characters, different actions, and different reasons for why things happened. In the first draft, the protagonist -- oddly, I realize now -- was more removed from the action than he should have been, and had little at stake. Even more odd, he wasn't a likeable guy. My editor put it best in those early days: "No woman is going to read this book."  


"Art is never finished, only abandoned." (Leonardo da Vinci)

If you've taken your manuscript through major revisions, there will come a point when you feel, absolutely, that you've done your best and the heavy lifting is done. You'll be sure that your manuscript is ready, and you'll be right. For me, part of that feeling was the certainty that no more changes were necessary, even though I knew I could tinker with it forever. I did tinker, through the copyediting phase before publication, but there came a point when the changes I made were only discernible to me. Few readers would have noticed them. 

Your timeline may be less than four years, or more. When I compare this "done" feeling to what I felt with that third draft that was prematurely submitted to agents, it's like night and day. With the last draft, there was no nagging doubt, no suspicion that I had gotten off easy. Did I just get to the end of my rope? It doesn't feel that way, but I also know that other writers and editors can still criticize my choices. They can still suggest a change that would suit the story well, maybe even make it better. But I'm not doing a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, either.  

When all is said and done, you have to be satisfied with your work, satisfied that you've told a good story whose artistic truth others will feel.  


Remember the concept of a self-imposed apprenticeship. Look at these borrowed quotes and realize that many writers have been down the same road ahead of you and cleared their own brambles, just as you will clear yours. Writing looks easy when an author is reading his work at a signing; it sounds easy when a bestselling author tells you he can write 600 pages in thirty days, or that the words just "flew" onto the page. It's all noise. At the end of the day, it's just you and your pen. It doesn't come easy for anyone.


Quotes from THE INTERNATIONAL THESAURUS OF QUOTATIONS (compiled by Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall De Bruhl).