by Stephanie Morrill
Last Friday, on the Go Teen Writers Facebook Group, the topic came up of doubting one’s story, of being hypercritical of our work. How do you know when a story is good? How do you know you can stop editing and declare it done? Do the fears of the book sucking go away after a certain number of edits? Or will it always feel like a leap of faith when you send your manuscript to someone?
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| Connor, age 2, is all about the crazy leaps. |
I know every writer is different in how they handle their insecurities, so I doubt everything on this list will be helpful to you, but hopefully something is:
We all have doubts about what we’re writing. You’re not alone!
Something else bad first drafts help with is silencing the, “This book is terrible,” voices. I already know my first draft is bad, so when the voices kick up, I can say to them, “Yeah, I know it’s bad. But it’s just a first draft. I’ll fix it later.”
So if you haven’t given bad first drafts a try yet, it might be time!
When I was a new writer, I had a lot of trouble knowing which story ideas were big enough to sustain a full-length novel and which weren’t. It’s a skill I’ve been able to improve over the years. While I still have lots of doubts during the writing process, I feel like my judgment of what works and what doesn’t has been honed in the last decade.
But I wouldn’t have improved if I hadn’t had all those story ideas that went nowhere, so it was definitely worth it to try them out!
I try to take six weeks off from a story after I’ve finished a first draft. It’s pretty easy for me now (unless I have a deadline pressing!) but it wasn’t always. I wrote right before Me, Just Different that I was WAY excited about. I loved the story, and I was dying to get it back out and start on edits.
To distract myself, I decided to go to the bookstore and find a few YA books to read. This is when I discovered This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen, which became one of my all-time favorites. I basically did nothing but read for a day and a half. (Ah, the days before kids…)
Reading her book made me panic about mine. After a day or so, I caved and pulled out my manuscript. Oh, it was horrible! Sarah’s book was so funny and sarcastic and bursting with voice. Mine had none of that! I started rewriting mine, which led to me dissolving in tears within an hour. I was never going to be published!
My best friend (who wasn’t a writer) happened to call in the middle of this. When I told her what was going on, she said, “Stephanie! You’re supposed to put it away for six weeks! What are you doing with it out? You put that book away right now and don’t look at it until your calendar says.”
That was the last time I ever did that! It can be tempting to pull the draft back out, but I’ve found it’s rarely fruitful and that edits go much better when I’ve gotten some distance from the story.
Roseanna read it in a day and told me it was the best thing I had ever written.
I thought at first she was being sarcastic, but no. She really did love it. I couldn’t believe it. And then my agent loved it too. While I still had work to do on the story, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had convinced myself it was.
Sometimes it’s tough to see our own writing clearly, which is why writing friends are so valuable. (Also, I’ve noticed that when my main character is similar to me, the way Ellie is, my insecurity about the story skyrockets!)
If you’ve decided to get really serious about your writing, it might be time to invest in a professional edit or in attending a conference. They don’t come cheap, but this is a great way to get an idea of where your writing is.
You likely won’t wake up one day thinking, “Man, I feel ready for some really harsh criticism!” If you’re tender-hearted (like I am) you may have to make yourself send your book out. I was crazy scared, but I knew that I had to do it if I ever wanted to be published. Eventually you must decide if you want it enough to risk the pain involved.