"But can't you just take a look at it?": What You're Really Saying When You Ask An Author To Read Your Unpublished Manuscript

I teach fiction writing. I am revising a novel. I have an MFA. It amazes me that even though I am an unpublished novelist myself, the combination of those three things alone brings all the writers out of the woodwork. In fact, as soon as I tell people any one of these things, somehow they think this qualifies me to read everything from the most experimental literary fiction to their spec script for Cold Case (yes, it's happened). But most importantly, they think I want to, and that I'll do it for free.

Now don't get me wrong; I am all about helping people with their writing, whether that's teaching them to establish a schedule for it, helping them figure out their psychological blocks, or giving feedback to my students and workshop partners. And I don't even mind reading short snippets of things for close friends who aren't in my genre. But when someone I barely know hits me up with their two unfinished screenplays and their 450-paged fantasy novel, I tend to blanche. In fact, I get nauseated. And it's not because I don't want to help another writer, because my heart goes out to any writer who is hungry for community and feedback. It's just that I can't help every writer.

"But can't you just take a look at it? A quick look? All of 20 minutes?" You'd be surprised how many people ask this. For a poem or a flash fiction piece, maybe that's realistic. But it is not realistic to ask that of someone when you are dealing with a larger body of work. It's also not even advisable. Reading someone's work thoroughly and with a critical eye takes time--lots of time. When my fiction students submit between 10 and 30 pages apiece for their graduate workshop, I block out an hour per student, per week. That's how long it takes to read the work, think about it, and offer a valuable critique. Maybe some people can do it faster, but not me. When one of my graduate students gave me her 250-paged manuscript last fall, I spent 15-20 hours reading and critiquing it, and then an additional 8-10 hours reviewing her revision later on. When I teach first-year composition, it takes me 10-20 minutes per student per essay, again, because I'm thorough and diligent. And I would not want to read and critique any other way.

That's the kind of workload writing teachers have, and we have to balance that with our own writing. A full-time author has to balance their writing with their marketing and other professional commitments, whether social networking, speaking engagements, book-club visits or signings. They, too, may critique full manuscripts occasionally, but not often and not for free, not unless you're their critique partners.

So when we say we can't do it, it isn't that we don't care about you or your work or that we don't want you to succeed; it's that we, like everyone else, have to carve out time for our writing (and blogging and families and any other personal pursuits) and there's just so much time and mental energy to go around. We also might turn you down because your work is not in our genre, not in our medium, or just not our aesthetic. You don't want someone reading your work who has a diametrically opposed sensibility. Sometimes that might work, but you really want to find critique partners who are more similar to you or have similar goals.

Finally, there are so many places now on the web for aspiring writers, so many forums where you can have your work critiqued. Go to those places first. Find two or three like-minded individuals who give you both encouraging and constructive feedback. Use that feedback to write multiple drafts. Put in what Colleen calls "the sweat equity."

Then read someone else's 250-paged manuscript and see if you can do it in 20 minutes.