A Spirit of Openness

There are so many qualities that are important to the career writer, but one of the most critical may be the spirit of openness.

Unless you're self-publishing, the process of bringing a book to fruition is far more of a collaborative venture than you might imagine. The term "submission" is apt, for when you start submitting your project, whether it's to an agent you hope will represent it or an editor you want to champion and acquire it, you're in a position of stepping back from your own words and listening to other points of view, based on the professional's experience.

Some of what these folks have to say will smack hard against the wall of your resistance. Whether it's because the suggestion contradicts your original vision or because your subconscious is screeching that making the requested changes will be a heck of a lot of work, this reaction (I call it the "This editor's a complete moron!" moment) is a predictable, even instinctive part of the revision process. And whether or not you'll make it in the publishing world depends a great deal on how you find a way to deal with it.

Early in my writing journey, I had a huge problem with taking direction. Ego-involved with the work as I was, I was terribly myopic when it came to any perceived criticism. This only began to change for me when I started rereading contest judges' feedback many months after I originally received it. Shockingly, I realized that in a lot of (though not all) instances, the judge was right on target, or at least that his/her suggestions pointed out a deficiency I might correct by some other means. Attempting to learn from this, I started to allow myself to react, however negatively I needed to, to disappointments to get my ego out of the way, and then re-reading comments a few weeks or months later to glean whatever wisdom I could from the suggestions.

Cue forward a few years, and lucky me! I'd sold to a New York publishing house, where I didn't often have the luxury of weeks or (especially) months to shove my ego out of the way. At that point, I was receiving my most significant editorial input via phone, where it is frowned upon (to put it mildly) to throw a tantrum and call the person on the other end of the conversation an idiot. So I began taking careful notes, promising to consider or try out all suggestions, and then getting off the phone to wail and gnash my teeth or call a long-suffering friend to gripe about how my agent/editor "didn't get it." I put a strict five-minute limit on the bitching portion of those calls.

And then I moved directly to the discovery stage, where I realized that, for the most part, the person who'd given me this advice really did have some great insights into what readers want to see. This isn't to say that I went with every suggestion. I didn't and still don't. But I do take time to think through every one, and often, I'll "test drive" the idea and see how it works out. Just this past week, I've done so, even though this particular opinion utterly conflicted with my initial instincts.

I did promise to try it out on the first chapter, however, and darn it all, I could almost immediately see that it was a great suggestion, even though it cost me dozens of hours of extra work. Will my agent and others ultimately agree it was a good choice? I have no idea, but I know that in making those changes, I also improved other story elements that I'm 100% certain made this proposal more viable. If I'd been unwilling to risk trying something different, I would never have found my way to these new elements.

There's something else to be gained as well, from opening yourself up to the spirit of colleagiality. In doing so, you make the publishing pro part of the team, someone with even more of a vested interest (other than the obvious financial aspects) in fighting for your book's success. Since we're all on the same team anyway, The Team of Creating, Producing, and Marketing a Successful Book, it's a great thing, not a failure, to get as many people on board with it as possible.

That myth you might have stuck in your head about the misanthropic lone writer in the ivory tower? That's rarely the way things work out in real life. Most successful writers understand they're only one factor in the formula and they'd better darned well listen to their peeps.

So how about the rest of you? Can you think of any changes you initially resisted that turned out to be a great help? How do you put your ego aside to deal with criticism?

Sunday Quote: Wallach on Critics as Hangmen

“Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck”
- Eli Wallach

While digging up epigraphs for a book I'm writing (working title: Hangman's Bayou), I came across this fabulous quote and immediately grokked it. Not that I don't love praise. I wag like a whipped puppy. But there's a huge danger in assigning any one critic, whether it be a reviewer, judge, agent, editor, or even a reader, too much importance.

If you allow others to be the only worthwhile judges of your work, you give away your power, your own sense of what resonates. And you risk falling victim to any negative word that comes your way.

I learned a lot about this while working with one particular agent. At my request (masochist that I am), I asked her to send me copies of rejections, but she would only send them in batches. When I put three to five together, I could see the reasons stated for the rejections (sometimes on work that ultimately sold to an editor who loved it, was well reviewed, and later won awards) were almost always contradictory. If I'd received each rejection right away, I might've been tempted to keep going back and revising -- likely eviscerating the raw story magic that eventually found its audience.

The best policy is to take the good and bad with a grain of salt. Remember it's not your manuscript's job to please every audience, but to find its particular fans. If you must read your reviews (I admit, I have to) try looking for a preponderance of opinion about your strengths and/or weaknesses rather than paying too much attention to the individual judgment.

So how do you handle good reviews and cope with bad ones?

Taking It Personally

One of the hardest things to learn in this business is not to take its assorted slings and arrows personally. What makes it almost impossible is the very personal nature of a novel. You're myopically focused on that baby for months and often years before it comes to fruition, and although there's generally a critique partner or partners, an agent, and an editor involved, the finished product has your name on the cover, your characters on its pages, and your central vision competing in the crassly-commercial marketplace.

Worse yet, your literary "off-spring" is competing for the hearts and minds of readers, most of whom come armed with strong opinions. Some of whom will not mind telling you in the form of "helpful" letters or (more often) e-mails. And more and more of whom will feel inclined to share their thoughts with the world in the form of blog posts, Amazon reviews, or drive-by postings on electronic bulletin boards. Some of these readers will be paid or volunteer reviewers, who will (in some cases) more professionally make their esteemed thoughts known.

This is all well and good when readers' opinions underscore your "genius." I totally cop to having warm-and-fuzzy feelings when that happens. But since no book has ever been written that will please every reader, you're bound to run into some of those who Just Don't Get It.

Maybe this person hates the kind of book you love and write. Maybe s/he has nasty preconceptions regarding the genre or subgenre or people with your first or last name. Maybe this "reviewer's" whole persona is wrapped so tightly around cynicism that her greatest joy is publicly eviscerating everything she sees or hears or reads. (For more on this, read Joni Rodger's post on the Rise of the Cleverati.)

Or maybe (and this is the scariest maybe of all) this person noticed some flaw that managed to slip past your (and your editor's and critique partners') notice. Because painful as the lessons are, you can occasionally learn some things about reader expectations from a disappointed consumer.

In the ten years I've been selling fiction, here are a few of the lessons I have learned.

1. Everyone has the right to choose his/her own reading material. Friends and family members don't have to read everything I write in order to prove their devotion. (They probably will with the first book or two, and then all bets are off.)
2. Keep copies of positive notes and reviews to remind yourself of their existence on the days when you get clobbered. Because you will tend to dismiss or forget the good and forever remember each syllable of badness heaped on your work. Even when good outnumbers bad a hundred to one.
3. Never confuse your work with your self. Remember that writing is one thing you do and not the sum total of who you are.
4. Politely thank people who write you a nice note or e-mail you a positive review.
5. Ignore nut jobs who send you mentally-unbalanced messages. Resist the temptation to write back and defend yourself or your work. You'll never convince them, you may incite much worse nastiness, and in some cases, make restraining orders a prominent feature of your life.
6. Ignore lousy reviews. Pretend you haven't seen them because few of your readers will have. By publicly griping or worse yet, launching into teary-wounded girl mode, you'll ensure that everybody reads the darned things... and forms negative opinions regarding your professionalism.
7. Don't read bulletin board, blog posts, or Amazon reviews of your work, if possible. If you read something unpleasant, pretend you haven't... and tell yourself this one person's opinion is beneath your notice (even when it isn't).

I'm not saying criticism doesn't hurt. It can leave you raw and bleeding and send you whining (privately, I hope) to your best buds for support. All I'm saying is you have to put on your big-girl panties and keep writing...

Because you're working to please the fans of your work, not the naysayers.