Send your novel out into the world and begin writing your next.
It’s almost a compulsion with writers to give a finished manuscript one more edit. No matter that you’ve already done multiple edits. No matter that your beta readers haven’t spotted any inconsistencies or that your partner has painstakingly highlighted typos, formatting errors and repeated words. What if I just give it another quick read through? What if I tighten up that scene of dialogue or rewrite the ending or set it in the past tense or…
There are always things in a manuscript you could change. But at some point changing things won’t make your work better, it just makes it different; it can make it worse.
Constantly rewriting a book runs the risk of it losing its freshness and vitality. You can always tell when a novel has been over-edited – the writing is flat and dull. The vocabulary may be precise and the imagery might be original but it feels stale. The unique fingerprints of an author have been erased. It becomes a book that could have been written by anybody.
Of course, major issues (anything flagged by beta readers or a scene that you know doesn’t land like it should) need fixing and a good edit is vital, but once you've done those things, at what point should you say 'it’s done'?
It can be hard to know when to call it. But another edit isn’t required every time you get more feedback. There will always be something a reader would change. Everyone does it with published books: Wouldn’t it be better if this were set in France instead of England or if the love interest had been younger/older/kinder/funnier? What if the dog hadn’t died (always an issue for me) or it was written in the past instead of the present tense?
Ask yourself these questions: Am I proud of this? Would I feel thrilled if someone else read it? If you answer yes to both, put your work away for a month and then read it one last time. Now, YOU ARE DONE. It won’t be perfect because no book ever is. The End is not only the end of your story but of your endless editing and tweaking.
Over fifteen years ago, before I did my MA in Professional Writing, before I learnt about structure and character building etc, I self-published a novel called God & Dallas. I’ve since changed the cover and made it available as an eBook (which makes it look as though I published it in 2016) but I’ve made no changes to it, even though I easily could.
Today, I would write a very different book, but I moved on from God & Dallas as soon as I published it. I’m proud of it and I love the conviction I had at the time that I could write a book when I knew almost nothing about writing books. I love that I wanted people to read it. And I love that it will always be my first novel. Untinkered. Untweaked. Just as I wanted it to be AT THE TIME. And people liked it. One person, not a friend (she says proudly), made my year by telling me it was their favourite book ever.
And it was The End for me not only because I’d achieved my aim but because I wanted to write other stories. I didn’t want to be a one-book wonder. Finding readers is really hard – keeping them requires that you write other books they’ll also love.
Send your finished book out into the world and let people read it. Some will love it. Some will give you a 1-star review. Some will buy it for all their friends because ‘it’s my favourite book ever’.
And start your next book now. What are you waiting for?
Comments