maestrowork said:
There are many ways to learn the skills. You can invest $500 in a writing class taught by an experienced writer/published novelist. You can join a writing/crit group (but experiences vary). You can hire a mentor. You can pay $3000 and hire an editor to go one-on-one (sort of your private tutor, using your own ms. as teaching aid).
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Personally, I like taking classes. I think it's fun, hands-on, and I like the interactions between the students. I learned quite a lot from my writing classes.
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However, I think the problem is -- if you write a crappy novel and you expect a book doctor/editor to fix it and polish it to publishable quality, then you're on the wrong path, IMHO. I think you might as well just hire a ghost writer.
The premise was: a writer who already has a finished manuscript, and knows it needs work, but doesn't know
what. I can't believe that at this late stage a writing class would offer the precise, specific help that a one-on-one qualified editor/mentor could.
And then again, a writing class is not an option available to everyone. One of the advantages of the writing career is that you can do it ANWHERE. What if you happen to live in the middle of the Amazon - or, as in my case, a remote German village? How can you attend a writing class? What if you are so tied down with your day job, or if you are a single mom of small kids (or not even single) and just can't find the time for writing cass?
A freelance editor, however, can always be reached by snail mail or email - no matter where you live.
It seems to me, as well, that American editors are overpriced. $3000 seems far too much. I paid a little over $600 for my editor's report, and it was very detailed. She was one of the very best British freelancers, and still is. I would suggest to American writers to cast their eyes to Britain if they are looking for editing help.
There was no spelling or grammar help involved. She just mentioned that my work had a lot of typos and should be tidied up before submission - but in fact she submitted it herself in the end.
As for the crappy novel - trouble is, no writer thinks they've written a crappy novel, and that's the whole point: you can't tell yourself. So it would be the editor's job to be honest and say, look here, I don't think this can ever be publishable, and advise against a writing career. If more people turned to a freelancer before submission to agent or pub, perhaps those slush piles would be lower, and there'd be more room for the better stuff.
On the other hand, even if youi are told your novel is not publishable and cannot be made publishable, if you can afford it, why not still do the work on it, why not find out where you went wrong. You can learn an awful lot through working on it with an editor, and perhaps the next one WILL Be publishable.
I was lucky in that an agent took on my very first novel and gave me loads of advice on how to improve it. We worked on it for three years! That was three years of FREE editorial help. But who is prepared to do this kind of work with a new author, for free?
Finally, it could not be made publishable, but the work I did on it helped me enormously, and when I wrote the next one it was alreday much better from the outset.