“This Is How It Goes.”

March 23, 2015 | By | 15 Replies More
MM Finck

MM Finck

Allow me to set the scene – You recently completed writing the most difficult story of your career. You pulled it off! Your exhaustive research came through. The ending poured out of you like liquid diamonds. You redid the ending of your last novel a dozen times. This time, it felt like the story was saying, “Here it is. Take it. You’ve earned it.” You do another draft. The ending doesn’t change at all.

You submit the manuscript to your beta readers – more knowledgeable and successful than you’ve ever had access to before – and you set to chewing down your finger nails.

You question what you were thinking when you wrote it. It was too ambitious! Why, oh, why can’t you ever just write what you already know how to do? Who are you to invent some new story structure that no one has ever seen before? You are now going to be humiliated in front of the most knowledgeable and successful beta readers you’ve ever had. You need to throw up.

Your messenger app pings. “More later, but looooove it. Best thing you’ve ever written.” You can’t breathe. Every beta says the same thing – they love it. You signal your agent as to what is coming and how well received it’s been. She is stamping her feet, she’s so excited. Sweet Lord in heaven.

As if you could possibly get any happier, a trusted friend who knows you well at your personal tenet and thematic level, asks you to coffee. A coffee date during which she actually cries from the impact your story had on her. You cry too. With gratitude. With pride. You are flying now. It might actually happen. Dreams do happen. Why not yours? Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh… You send it to Super Agent and wait. Nerves again, but everyone assures you that she will love it. Days turn into weeks.

Computer pings. “Can we talk?”

Your stomach drops.

You talk. She decidedly does not love it.

You, stammering: But, but, but… I thought it was the best thing I’ve ever written.

Super Agent, matter-of-factly: It may be, but it won’t sell like this.

The sounds you just heard were my dreams and confidence being blown to bits.

Super Agent’s opinion – and she was right – was that I needed to do a major rewrite. The story concept was strong, but the story structure didn’t work at all. She said that she knew the audiences the editors who are interested in me are selling to, and the manuscript as I wrote it wouldn’t be a good fit. In publishing, not being “a good fit” is a death sentence.

You, shakily: But what about the betas, they liked it a lot.

Super Agent, calmly: Betas know writing. Agents know the market.

I’m going to be honest with you. This was a very dark day. My lips and hands trembled. For weeks, my breathing would be shallow and intermittent. I was overwrought with guilt. I had sacrificed, my friends and whole family had sacrificed, so much. For nothing. More than anything, I was humiliated. I was sorry too for wasting her time. I tortured myself with the questions of whether she regretted signing me, how many more chances I’d get before she let me go.

It was a Thursday. By Monday, I had pulled myself together. This is not because I’m some kind of hero. I’m not. But what choice did I have? There are only two: leaving it wrong or making it right.* I love my story and my characters. I have big dreams for my career. Super Agent was right on every count. There was only one thing I could do. Write it again. I wrote her an email thanking her.

Then I dedicated myself to taking my magnum opus apart, scene by scene, word by word. It was excruciating, but that wasn’t the only problem. Firstly, I had no idea how to put it back together any better than before. Cue the panic. Secondly, my heart was still in pieces. A sword of pain still protruded from my belly. Hanging in front of my eyes was a shroud of fear. Humiliation had a vise-grip on my chest.

Sometime later, still trudging along, I found myself talking to a writer-friend who happens to be an award-winning, bestselling author about a band when I abruptly spilled to her what had happened and how I felt. That’s what you always do when you’re embarrassed, right? Tell people you admire about your own shame. [Palm smacks forehead.]

That is when I heard the words that put me back together. She said to me, “This is how it goes.”

This friend who happens to be one of the most IQ-wise intelligent people I know and the writer of sentences and stories I can only aspire then shared with me her own experience. Her agent had said the same things to her. I can’t sell this. No one can sell this. Change it or write something else. Not just once.

Wait. What? This misery, this failure, this humiliating rejection… This is how it goes? I can be a talented writer, a born-to-be writer, a writer with a big future, and this overwhelming disgrace can still have happened to me?

Yes.

It happens all the time. Bad reviews and rejection do not mean that you aren’t innately talented enough or that you won’t be able to get your work to be what it needs to be.

I went back to Super Agent and apologized for being so awestruck and humiliated by her response to my manuscript. I knew I had taken risks in my attempt to do something ambitious. When I sent it to her, I’d said, “I tried some things. Tell me which ones don’t work.” But while I waited for her call, I’d forgotten my own words. I told Super Agent what my friend had said and she laughed. “MM, yes! This is the way it goes.” She went on to tell me the faith she has in me and the excitement for my story. Healing, healing, blood refilling my heart.

Since then I have heard countless stories about other well-published, successful authors, names you know, who’ve edited their books with their agents before they were even signed for months or even years. And then there are the writers whose books were bought as complete and then so deeply critiqued by the purchasing editor the authors essentially had to rewrite them.

So, when you get bad feedback, know what I didn’t: You are on a well-worn path, worn in first not just by wannabes but by the very best of us. This is the way to get where we’re going. When there are only two choices, chose a third – faith in yourself, like everyone successful before you.

With regard to the manuscript rebuild and the question of how-to, this is what worked for me:

  • Read and study comparable titles
  • Participate in a developmental workshop
  • Choose a single craft book and put your story through it

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

~ Pablo Picasso

See you on the path!

* There is also the very valid option of walking away from a story which every experienced writer has done at one time or another, but I will leave that to another article.

MM Finck writes women’s book club fiction and is represented by the wisest of Super Agents, Katie Shea Boutillier of the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York City. You can visit MM’s website http://www.mmfinck.com to learn more about her and her novels. She is also active on facebook http://www.facebook.com/mmfinck and twitter http://www.twitter.com/mmfinck. Reach out. It would make her day. Mention WWWB!

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing

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  1. Toughen up, buttercup! | Broadside | May 22, 2015
  1. Sabah says:

    What do you mean by: Choose a single craft book and put your story through it.

    • MM Finck says:

      Hi Sabah, Thank you for asking. There are countless books (not to mention online articles) out there to help a writer develop and structure their stories. I find that looking to more than one of these sources can stifle and overwhelm the writer. So I recommend choosing ONE and applying the exercises and guidance within to your manuscript. My favorite is Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel. Does that make more sense?
      ~MM

  2. amina menasra says:

    you are an exelent writter. i think that you are the best flower in the poetry field, i wish to you best days

  3. This is absolutely wonderful, honest, and exactly what we all need to hear. Good for you in taking the right path – making it right instead of leaving it “wrong.
    If writing a book was easy, we’d all have many, many published. Way to stick it out and I can’t wait to read your book!

    • MM Finck says:

      Jill, You should see my smile right now. You words have me flying. Thank you so much for such a dear compliment!! I can’t wait for you to read my book either! Or me, yours! 🙂
      ~MM

  4. MM: You are a professional and you are passionate about your writing. I don’t think of my writing as my “child” – not really – but when I have created something lovely, I like it and want everyone else to like it. Enter emotions – feeling sad, humiliated, discouraged, rather that jubilant. Feelings are OK. Then, as you did, I have to pull out the common sense tool and entertain the possibility that what sounded like bad news may be just the push I need to make my “treasure” even better. Thanks so much for sharing, MM. @LatelaMary

    • MM Finck says:

      You, Miss Mary, have it figured out! I understand to my very bones what you described. Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment. I’ll see you around the twittersphere. 🙂
      ~MM

  5. Wow…this is what I’ve felt, without the rejection of my agent, of course…I can’t even get to that point. It is a hard road, but the important thing is to never give up.

    • MM Finck says:

      The agent step is a huge one. If you take your own advice – “never give up” – you’ll get there too. I promise. Take every opportunity to make your work better (and to network), and you’ll get there. You’re here on booksbywomen.org. That’s all I need to know. You take your craft seriously and you are in the community. I believe in you! Thank you so much for the kindness of leaving a reply. I love replies. 🙂
      ~MM

  6. I have a beta who is clinically depressed. Loads of professional assessors and big-name publishers/editors have told me my books are fabulous. Not him. He sees the bad in the world, and in my work – no matter how much good there is all around. He’s incredibly valuable – both for improving my books and for reminding me that no piece of art is ever loved by the whole world at once.

    Felicity Banks

    • MM Finck says:

      Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I hope your friend finds himself on a path to light. There is so much good in the world and obviously in your work too with that much positive response.
      I agree with you completely about the need for criticism. It’s funny that what I used run from now I plead for. 🙂 I have a beta who is also impossible to impress. Sometimes he’s right. Sometimes he isn’t. But it’s always good to get his thoughts because he challenges me and I usually find a way, even if I don’t take his advice, to better my story in some other way as a result. I could write an whole article on critiques. Hey, maybe I should. 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Best of luck to you!
      ~MM

  7. Sigh. I felt you excitement, disappointment and resignation to change. All a metaphor for life, huh? I’m glad you found your peace and rewrote. The worst is to let your manuscript die during the disappointment phase.

    • MM Finck says:

      Whitney, thank you so much. To say that you felt what I felt through my article is the greatest compliment you can give. Very very kind of you to say. <3
      You know, it's funny. I think "change" is all there is. Writing is rewriting, right? The change I wrote about in this case was more foundational than most, but it's "how it goes." 🙂 I am so grateful for that experience. It was probably the most helpful thing for my career that could have happened. Kind of a "hit rock bottom, bounce up" kind of a situation, I guess. Plus, helping other writers is a passion of mine and every experience helps me do that. You know?
      Best of luck! Thanks again for taking the time to read and comment.
      ~MM

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