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Overpolishing
Sep. 22nd, 2005 01:48 pmLesson #10- Where did my beautiful story go?
Polishing your story is a part of the process that every writer must go through. Think of your original story idea as a diamond in the rough-- you carefully chip it out of the rock, and then polish the gem until it gleams. But you're not satisfied, so you keep polishing it, and keep cutting new facets, until the gem is gone and you have nothing left.
This is what I call "Death by critique" and it's something we writers do to ourselves. In an effort to respond to critiques, comments from contest judges, and the perceived requirements of an agent or editor, the writer slowly strips away everything that is unique and fresh about their story, until they are left with a story that may be technically well-written, but it's completely bland and ordinary.
Consider the example of Jane Author. She has an idea for spy thriller set in the 1960's, featuring a Russian ballet dancer who has a secret life as a spy and his manager/controller. Think "I Spy" meets Mikhail Baryshnikov. There's a homo-erotic subplot between the dancer and the controller, and she's writing this in first person point of view.
She loves this story and has already written several chapters when her critique group convinces her that no one is publishing Cold War spy novels, so she changes it to a contemporary. Everyone likes the hero, but they think a ballet dancer is going to have limited appeal, so he becomes a NASCAR driver instead. She's heard that it's easier to break into romance writing than mainstream fiction, so she changes the manager to a woman and the romantic subplot becomes the main plot with the spying as a secondary plot. Finally she hears that romance publishers aren't thrilled with first person POV, so she rewrites the entire novel in third person. By the time she's finished, there's virtually nothing left of what originally drew her to this story.
She sends it to a publisher, who then rejects it. Why? Because Jane no longer loves this story, and neither does anyone else. It's bland, and ordinary. Everything unique about Jane's writing has been ruthlessly stripped out of the manuscript, until there was nothing to attract an editor.
Would the Cold War spy novel have sold? Maybe, maybe not. But it would have been recognizably Jane's story.
You need to learn to recognize your voice, what makes you unique as a writer. You need to trust your instincts. Critiques can be helpful, as can the advice of publishing professionals, but in the end you need to remember that this is your story, not their story.
Ask any editor or agent what they are looking for, and you'll hear "great stories" and "fresh voices". No one asks for a tepid recycling of a plot that has been done a thousand times before, where the prose has been carefully homogenized so that it has all the interest of a cereal box.
The sad thing is that we do this to ourselves. A friend of mine rewrote one of her books several times, changing the story until it was twisted out of all recognition and had lost any meaning for her. We don't even need critique groups-- sometimes the hunger to be published is so strong that we'll eviscerate one of our manuscripts simply because we think that the changes will make it more marketable.
Revising is an important step of writing, but if you no longer love the story after you've finished your revisions, then you've gone too far.
It took me a while to understand this. When I started writing I was part of a writers group, and the support that we gave each other was tremendous. We critiqued each other's works, and much of the input was valuable to me. But I still remember the moment when everyone agreed on what was wrong with my latest chapter and how I needed to fix it, and I knew they were wrong. I smiled and thanked them for their comments, but inside I was thinking "You're wrong. If I made those changes, I wouldn't be telling my story. I'd be telling your story instead."
I stuck to my guns, kept writing the story I wanted to write, and went on to sell it.
Writing is first and foremost an act of passion. Writing a novel will consume months (if not years) of your life, and you have to love what you are doing to make the effort worthwhile. If you write a story that you are passionate about, the editor will be able to see this. Similarly, if you constantly revise your story until you've lost all interest in the plot and the characters, the editor will know this as well.
Polish your story until it gleams and then know enough to let the story go. If you're lucky, it will find a publisher and reach an audience of appreciative readers. And while you're waiting for it to catch the eye of an agent or editor, start working on your next story.
I wish everyone success.
That's all for our series of Top 10 Mistakes. I hope folks have found this helpful, I know![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jennifer_dunne and I enjoyed putting this together. Here's the link to the index in case you missed any of the previous posts.
Polishing your story is a part of the process that every writer must go through. Think of your original story idea as a diamond in the rough-- you carefully chip it out of the rock, and then polish the gem until it gleams. But you're not satisfied, so you keep polishing it, and keep cutting new facets, until the gem is gone and you have nothing left.
This is what I call "Death by critique" and it's something we writers do to ourselves. In an effort to respond to critiques, comments from contest judges, and the perceived requirements of an agent or editor, the writer slowly strips away everything that is unique and fresh about their story, until they are left with a story that may be technically well-written, but it's completely bland and ordinary.
Consider the example of Jane Author. She has an idea for spy thriller set in the 1960's, featuring a Russian ballet dancer who has a secret life as a spy and his manager/controller. Think "I Spy" meets Mikhail Baryshnikov. There's a homo-erotic subplot between the dancer and the controller, and she's writing this in first person point of view.
She loves this story and has already written several chapters when her critique group convinces her that no one is publishing Cold War spy novels, so she changes it to a contemporary. Everyone likes the hero, but they think a ballet dancer is going to have limited appeal, so he becomes a NASCAR driver instead. She's heard that it's easier to break into romance writing than mainstream fiction, so she changes the manager to a woman and the romantic subplot becomes the main plot with the spying as a secondary plot. Finally she hears that romance publishers aren't thrilled with first person POV, so she rewrites the entire novel in third person. By the time she's finished, there's virtually nothing left of what originally drew her to this story.
She sends it to a publisher, who then rejects it. Why? Because Jane no longer loves this story, and neither does anyone else. It's bland, and ordinary. Everything unique about Jane's writing has been ruthlessly stripped out of the manuscript, until there was nothing to attract an editor.
Would the Cold War spy novel have sold? Maybe, maybe not. But it would have been recognizably Jane's story.
You need to learn to recognize your voice, what makes you unique as a writer. You need to trust your instincts. Critiques can be helpful, as can the advice of publishing professionals, but in the end you need to remember that this is your story, not their story.
Ask any editor or agent what they are looking for, and you'll hear "great stories" and "fresh voices". No one asks for a tepid recycling of a plot that has been done a thousand times before, where the prose has been carefully homogenized so that it has all the interest of a cereal box.
The sad thing is that we do this to ourselves. A friend of mine rewrote one of her books several times, changing the story until it was twisted out of all recognition and had lost any meaning for her. We don't even need critique groups-- sometimes the hunger to be published is so strong that we'll eviscerate one of our manuscripts simply because we think that the changes will make it more marketable.
Revising is an important step of writing, but if you no longer love the story after you've finished your revisions, then you've gone too far.
It took me a while to understand this. When I started writing I was part of a writers group, and the support that we gave each other was tremendous. We critiqued each other's works, and much of the input was valuable to me. But I still remember the moment when everyone agreed on what was wrong with my latest chapter and how I needed to fix it, and I knew they were wrong. I smiled and thanked them for their comments, but inside I was thinking "You're wrong. If I made those changes, I wouldn't be telling my story. I'd be telling your story instead."
I stuck to my guns, kept writing the story I wanted to write, and went on to sell it.
Writing is first and foremost an act of passion. Writing a novel will consume months (if not years) of your life, and you have to love what you are doing to make the effort worthwhile. If you write a story that you are passionate about, the editor will be able to see this. Similarly, if you constantly revise your story until you've lost all interest in the plot and the characters, the editor will know this as well.
Polish your story until it gleams and then know enough to let the story go. If you're lucky, it will find a publisher and reach an audience of appreciative readers. And while you're waiting for it to catch the eye of an agent or editor, start working on your next story.
I wish everyone success.
That's all for our series of Top 10 Mistakes. I hope folks have found this helpful, I know
jennifer_dunne and I enjoyed putting this together. Here's the link to the index in case you missed any of the previous posts. 
