Your book ISN'T for everyone: Dispelling the myth of Everyreader...

[Richard Sutton]

The following Jane Friedman forwarded post seemed to touch on lots of important points to consider when it comes time to pitch your work. Sadly, I think it's just as important for publishers to take this to heart...
https://janefriedman.com/the-myth-of-the-everyreader/

 

[Emurelda]

I think we need a B.A Baracus 'Pity the fool' meme.

This'll do.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Excellent, and YA didn't exist as a label when writers like Alan Garner were in full swing. Elidor was a children's book, and the Moonstone of Brisingamen. Red Shift was a book for adults, and many teens read both. Buying Harry Potter for my own elder child, 11, queues outside the bookshop at midnight (I gave that a miss but friends took their children to queue) and reading it to her at bed time, it nearly sent me to Snoresville. I couldn't believe how dull it was in comparison to Garner, and Ursula le Guin and TH White, but what did I know? She loved it.

 

[Jay Aitch]

"... A piece of common writing wisdom teaches that first drafts are for the author, and all subsequent drafts are for the reader..."

I had to comment on this one singular sentence in the above post.

What a wise comment on writing. It is not one I have ever heard before, but it not only makes sense, it gives me an uplifting message to remember. The brainstorming, scattergun, chuck everything against the wall (or page) approach of first draft is indeed a very personal and exciting journey. The rewrites are the graft, the "work" (if you can call it that) of our craft; to make our raw creativity into something readable.

 

[Emurelda]

"... A piece of common writing wisdom teaches that first drafts are for the author, and all subsequent drafts are for the reader..."

I had to comment on this one singular sentence in the above post.

What a wise comment on writing. It is not one I have ever heard before, but it not only makes sense, it gives me an uplifting message to remember. The brainstorming, scattergun, chuck everything against the wall (or page) approach of first draft is indeed a very personal and exciting journey. The rewrites are the graft, the "work" (if you can call it that) of our craft; to make our raw creativity into something readable.

Yes ...I like this way of putting it. Am grafting still.

 

[Matnov]

Yes ...I like this way of putting it. Am grafting still.

Ain't that the truth.

Never been comfortable with the label 'writer'. Most 5 year old's are writers. What I strive to be (and struggle with), and it is pure, hard, graft, is a rewriter. That is the difficult bit. Always felt that the first draft is the fun part. In that you can go wild, you can cheat, you can pontificate, you can do what ever you want and have a thoroughly smashing time doing so. But then the REAL work starts. The bit that separates the wheat from the chaff. I try not to pontificate to much about writing, for a variety of reasons, but I am a bore when it comes to the importance of finishing that first draft. Without that nothing happens. The most awful, but completed, first draft novel with at least a modicum of a beginning, middle and an end, puts to shame the most well constructed, literary master-piece that has yet to be completed in its first draft. Anybody who gets to that stage of the process, no matter how badly plotted or written it might be, is deserving of genuine respect, no matter what.

I currently am rewriting what I had thought was a perfectly acceptable novel, and which I had put out in an E-book format, but I am constantly cringing as I wade through what must now be the 9th or 10th draft. But, and I am confident in saying this, there is no better way of learning this craft. I am under no-illusions about my own talent, much beyond I feel I have stories to tell and enjoy doing so but the process of making that happen so that others can either enjoy or dislike my efforts, is bloody torture at times. But, and here I get all pious, I feel that there is very little worth doing in this world of ours that does not require more tears of frustration than it does of joy. Because when you can write or type 'The End', with at least a degree of genuine joy, then it is all worth it. At least until you have to go back and do it all again !

As to the actual topic of this thread, well horses for courses and all that jazz !

 

[Emurelda]

Anybody who gets to that stage of the process, no matter how badly plotted or written it might be, is deserving of genuine respect, no matter what.

Brilliantly put! That is why we must always celebrate that moment of accomplishing the first draft no matter how crap it is.

 

[Matnov]

Every first draft ever written is rubbish. That is the point. Most are awful but that does not matter in the slightest. They are the most crucial part of the process. Without a first draft, there cannot be a second or a third or a fiftieth and certainly no finished product. I am in genuine awe of anybody who can finish the first draft of anything that has at least a semblance of a recognisable format.

 

[Emurelda]

Every first draft ever written is rubbish. That is the point. Most are awful but that does not matter in the slightest. They are the most crucial part of the process. Without a first draft, there cannot be a second or a third or a fiftieth and certainly no finished product. I am in genuine awe of anybody who can finish the first draft of anything that has at least a semblance of a recognisable format.

I'm finding it challenging now to create a readable cohesive story. Lots of editing. The plot at places needs a complete overhaul so yep grafting away.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

All very true

 

[Richard Sutton]

Every first draft ever written is rubbish. That is the point. Most are awful but that does not matter in the slightest. They are the most crucial part of the process. Without a first draft, there cannot be a second or a third or a fiftieth and certainly no finished product. I am in genuine awe of anybody who can finish the first draft of anything that has at least a semblance of a recognisable format.

Agreed, but that doesn't really alter the fact that when a story takes off with a bit in its teeth during a draft session, there are few things that feel as good. First draft confidence has generated some of the most decisive, enlightened moments I can remember. At that point, the spirit of the tale is hatched. I don't believe that that part of the writing curve can be taught or honed, or fixed, etc. That part does belong to the writer. The cleaning and fixing and grafting and honing are the craft of writing, but any genius spark, I believe lies within the draft.