The only thing I'm having a problem with is the contradictory advice that 1) you need to learn to self-edit; 2) you can't judge the quality of your own work. If I can't judge the quality of my work, how am I supposed to self-edit it? To edit, I need to know what works and what doesn't, but I'm apparently not qualified to know this about my work. I know I'm probably boiling it down too much, or I might be talking apples and oranges, but I don't think so. I'm sure that to be a professional writer you have to be able to judge the quality of your writing somewhat in order to be able to edit it into publishable shape. No?
The two things do seem contradictory, don't they. But I know when some things are wrong with a story. I know all the mechanical aspects, for example. I think I know when a sentence reads horribly. I think I know when the writing is choppy and doesn't flow. And I do think, "Well, this would read better if I did this, or there would be more suspense if I did that, etc." Doesn't mean I'm right or wrong, but I think such things, and make changes accordingly.
What I don't know is whether it
works as a story. It's those nebulous elements such as story, characterization, imagination, etc., that I haven't a clue about. I simply cannot tell whether I've written a
story that anyone, anywhere, would enjoy reading.
For me, the answer to "If I can't judge the quality of my work, how am I supposed to self-edit it?" is that I simply do the best I can do, and that has to be enough.
The thing is this; I don't think anyone else can judge the quality, either, except in relationship to what that particular editor, and most of his particular readers, will enjoy.
An editor knows what he likes, and if he's any good, he also knows what the majority of his readers will like. But even he doesn't know what another editor will like, or what the majority of that editor's readers will like.
Really, I try to please editors as much as I try to please myself, simply because I have no idea how to judge the true quality of anything I write.
I mean, don't we all think what we write is good? The slush piles are filled to overflowing with bad stories, and this includes huge numbers of stories that have been read by many beta readers, by hired editors, by critique groups, etc. I have no doubt the beta readers, the hired editors, and the critique groups are telling the writers the stories are now good enough, that they like the stories, that the stories should be submitted, but the large majority of stories in any slush pile remain terrible, even when beta readers, hired editors, and critique groups have all had a go at them.
I doubt any of us would submit a story we
knew was bad,
knew didn't have a chance in hell of selling. If any of us, or if beta readers, hired editors, or critique groups could judge quality, could judge what works and what doesn't work, any better than we can, the slush piles would be overflowing with good stories, not bad ones.
Editors, I think, judge mechanical qualities very well, and story/character quality better than most of us, but it's also true that even most stories that editors buy soon vanish without a trace, and the stories that do survive and last are as much a mystery as the ones that vanish.
We do the best we can, as writers, and as editors, and we hope it's enough.
Seriously, I wouldn't post anything here that I wasn't happy with myself.
