I'd like to pay someone some money (cause I've got NO idea what I'm doing)

sandree

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Just to give a voice to the “pay someone to look at your work” option, I am doing this now. I am clear that I want to self publish and that I will not get the benefit of a publisher taking on the editing of my work. After having chapter crits and self-editing as well as I can, I am paying an editor. It is the most important piece of self publishing, IMO, therefore, worth the money. I know many here are going the traditional publishing route, so that is reflected in the advice given.

I am finding the editing experience positive and it is great to have several people (4 beta reads were included) looking at the entire work instead of just pieces of it. As a new author, the overall plot and structure is my weakest point so I needed this kind of help the most.

I also suffer from a lack of confidence or maybe it is just a lack of experience being in the author role. It’s hard to evaluate something that you are doing for the first time. So having some other eyes on the whole thing and feedback that is organized is kind of great...
 

angeliz2k

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Thing is, no one, not even a paid editor, can fix your book for you. It's always going to be on you to do that. If you want to improve your book, it is up to you to develop the skills to do that.

As others have said, the best way to develop those skills is to critique others' work and develop a truly critical eye of your own. I like to think that I'm a pretty good self-editor at this point. I use betas mostly to ensure that I'm not way off-track and to catch continuity errors. If they agree on a problem, I'll definitely address it.

I do have some really great beta-readers, though. They write in the same genre and the same time period, they're responsive, and because they're basically my target audience, I can gauge whether I'm hitting that audience how I want to. How did I find such great betas? Well, I found them here on AW, in part, after developing relationships. I also found some through the Historical Novel Society. I became part of the group, went to a meeting, and introduced myself with, "I write in the antebellum South". A few heads swiveled around in interest, because they, too, wrote in the antebellum South. We struck up a friendship. I've gotten invaluable feedback from them, and, I hope, given some useful feedback in return.

Is there any kind of writing group like that in your area, that focuses on your genre? Maybe there's an online group. I'm part of a Facebook group dedicated to finding/giving beta feedback on historical novels. If you can find a group like that, it will give you a good chance of finding someone interested in and knowledgeable about your genre. You can be up-front that you aren't able to reciprocate. Some people won't be willing to beta-read without reciprocation, but some might be.

I say all this because it seems like a massive investment for you to pay a developmental editor, and I'm not sure they're going to give you what you're looking for. They really aren't going to have a back-and-forth with you. A beta reader might.
 

BethS

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Critiquing is not about critiquing other people's work. I know that sounds absurd, but critiquing is about learning how to edit, revise, and see your own work in a completely different way.


This, and everything else you said.
 

Carrie in PA

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I don't mean to abandon the book, btw. But writing a few short stories (even if they come to nothing) can be wonderful for a brain reset.

I wrote a few short stories and a different novel, and now I'm back at MS1. I will never give up on it, not really. Even if it's never published. Maybe deviating into a novel is too much of a detour for you (I can understand that) but idk, flash fiction is fun and like a palette cleanser :)


I love love love writing prompts for this exact reason. Brain reset. I go on Pinterest and search for prompts and just write whatever pops into my head. There's ZERO pressure for it to be any good because it's never leaving my hard drive. Kind of like shooting hoops before a basketball game - no pressure, no real effort going into it, it's just warming up the muscles and letting the imagination have some fun.

Every now and then a prompt will turn into a bigger project, but 9 times out of 10, it's just for fun. :)
 

cornflake

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That it's still not good, basically. Know that putting it on here's an option, but am keen to get one on one with someone first.



Yeah I know -- think it'll just sink me down thousands even if the book never makes it back, but I still would be okay with that kind of cost.



Haven't touched it in a year actually. Tried to go back to it in the past few months and still have no idea what I'm doing.

And I've been to a few around Glasgow before, but I've found they haven't helped a lot? Huge focus on things I didn't have an issue with and not a lot of focus on my problem areas. None of them seemed to help a lot, but something might come up this year. I keep an eye out.



I hear ya. I am working towards that, but right now for personal reasons, I'm just not in the place to crit others work.

But I'm aware of the cost and am also considering what effect the sacrifices to my life would be if I put that money on the book rather than other things.



I see. Thank you -- that would obviously be quite important to me so for anyone I go for I'm not going to lob £6k on the table and then get a whole edit -- I'd start with a few pages to see if I liked how they responded to me.



I think that might be a plan to go for in the initial stages actually -- thank you.



Thank you for your response. Alas, moving onto another project isn't an option. Call it my own stubbornness, and if it means I fail completely with being a writer so be it -- I'd rather get 500 copies of this book sold than 5 million of any other. Call it dedicated idiocy(?)

My concern would be that if you feel it's still not good after getting feedback on here from a bunch of people, and your working on it for a long time, what would make it, in your eyes, good?

An editor is simply another person -- and there are working, experienced editors on here who comment in SYW. That's not to say you wouldn't get some specific feedback that'd open your eyes to something, or that working with someone one-on-one wouldn't be valuable to you. Just suggesting you might consider what would be good that you haven't been able to find and why you feel an editor would be the one to help you find it, if you see what I mean. Again, I'm not saying it's not possible an editor would help, but I don't know one would either, and don't want you to pin your hopes and money on something and end up in the same place.
 

Woollybear

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An editor is simply another person -- and there are working, experienced editors on here who comment in SYW.


Yes. Cornflake speaks wisdom.

I identified six potential editors about two months ago, ruled out three for various reasons after quick emails, had comparison edits from the other three, and taking that advice now and working through the whole manuscript again. (Oh I also hired for a 50-page edit five months ago.)

Each editor is valuable, and each is different. They did not come back with the same feedback at all. Most of the feedback was good. But each person was different.

I agree with Sandree that if self publishing is in my future, I want an editor as part of the process (thus the exercise to find the one I would like to work with.) So you have simpatico people here!! :) I'm putting the expense into the 'hobby' part of our budget. A chunk of the cost is my christmas gift this year.

But editors are each different and it's up to the writer to say, at some point, 'The End.'
 
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cornflake

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As to the 'they didn't come back with the same feedback' thing -- god knows there are utterly unqualified, inexperienced people posing as editors all over the fucking place. I've seen the mess they can leave behind. So there can indeed be plenty of people who call themselves editors who say different things about a ms because they don't have much idea of what they're doing; there can also be editors who have different ideas about what does or doesn't need altering because editors, even experienced, trained ones, are individual people.

However, quoting myself because I'm too lazy to retype --

Think of it like asking a bunch of people to help you decorate your house.

You live there; you made all the decisions and think it looks good, but hey, maybe someone could just, you know, suggest that thing that'd turn it into a magazine layout.

So, you ask 10 people over. One says the paint all needs to be changed. One says the furniture is too big and the rugs are too dark. Another says the paint should change and you need lighter curtains. A couple say better lighting/different fixtures because it's dark, and different paint.

You think, ok, and change the paint, the rugs, the furniture and the curtains. Then you invite them back and now they're like, 'hmm, I dunno, it's all so ... white.' You kill several and stash the bodies under the stairs.

You figure they were crazy anyway, can't please everyone and you should've just left it the way it was because they're just picking on shit to pick.

What you never put together is that they were actually all saying the same thing - the house is too dark. You just changed a lot of stuff to lighter colours, but that doesn't really help the underlying issue; it just made everything lighter-coloured. You tried to fix it by doing the things but missed the problem.

Had you maybe gotten sheer curtains to let in light, not white ones, and a colour of paint that was just a shade lighter, with maybe some new lamps and larger-watt bulbs, you might have had the magazine layout. It just can take some back-and-forth to figure out the problem, but there's usually a middle ground and when you take down the curtains people go 'oooh, that's much better, couch doesn't look so big now.'
 

VeryBigBeard

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I really worry that you're setting yourself for a misadventure with vanity publishing.

Those places prey on people in exactly your situation, offering quick validation in exchange for lots of money. The thing is, while that validation may feel nice at the time, you'd look back and regret it because it's very easy to publish a book that nobody reads or even ever hears about.

So you have to figure out what your goal actually is. Of course you want your book to exist, of course you want it to be worthwhile. Do you want it read? Enjoyed? What does that look like for you?

Self-publishing can get a book to simply exist, in that it'll have an Amazon page and maybe even a low-quality print copy or three. It can also be a totally legitimate option to achieve other goals, with adequate investment and skill--proper self-publishing is not for the faint of heart.

I was in your position when I first started, in that I had a book I loved a lot. And I suppose I might well have taken the same line if anyone had said the same to me. I know I certainly couldn't fathom working on any other projects for the first few years. I eventually workshopped it, spent a lot of time polishing and perfecting, and somehow got sucked into interning at a vanity publisher before realizing a.) that route wasn't what I wanted (it helped that I discovered AW around that time), and b.) that the book was good and dear to me, but that I could do better.

No book will ever be perfect, by the way. Often, when you're revising and not really getting anywhere, it's a sign that it's either ready or it needs another round of beta-reading to give you an idea where to go next. Eventually, you get to a point where the book feels about as polished as it's going to get. It's not that it doesn't have flaws and cringe-y parts, because every book does, but once you're rearranging the deck chairs it's usually best to let it go, move it to the querying/publishing phase, and start another project. (Be careful, too, about falling into the trap of comparing your MS to published books. Editing and proper production makes a published book on the shelves look and feel a lot more polished than any manuscript can hope to achieve.)
 

Sage

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I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't pay someone to help you, because in the end, that's your choice. Lots of people have given you reasons and options to stay as low cost as possible.

My concern, based on what you've said, is that you're spending your time, energy, and possibly money on the wrong book. Now I say this without knowing anything about your book or writing. The only thing I know for sure is that you said you haven't worked on this book in a while and that currently you hate it. My fear is that you spend your money on an editor and you spend your time and energy on following what they suggest, and you still end up with a book that you hate.

Most writers end up hating their work at some point, but it's usually either in the midst of working so hard on it that you can't consider another comma, or when the work is out there published and you've moved on to better books and writing and look back at that one with shame. If absence hasn't made your heart grow fonder of this one, what will working and reworking and reworking it do?

Anyway, I wasn't sure if anyone had suggested this to you or not, that maybe this isn't the right book to focus on, especially if you have limited energy to work on writing things.
 

thethinker42

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Well, I don't like it. So I want to work on it till I do.

That... doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, though. I've *hated* some of my books by the time I finished revising them, mostly because I was tired of beating my head against them, and because they're never going to 100% match what was in my head. I've been absolutely convinced some of my books were trash fires, but getting some outside feedback gave me some perspective, and I realized they were good books after all. I've written over 100 books and that still happens.

So if you don't like it, it's quite possible you're either burned out on it (even after putting it aside for a while) or you just aren't objective about it. Maybe both.
 

cool pop

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Beta readers don't require you doing anything for them. Most are just readers who enjoy certain genres. Some charge now but most will do it for free. They should be well-versed in your genre and they will let you know what works and what doesn't. If that's not an avenue you'd like to try, get a freelance editor or book doctor (do they still have those). They could help. I understand not wanting to deal with a critique group but there are beta readers who do not require swapping and who are not writers. They're just readers who enjoy reading. Authors also call them test readers.
 

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Once upon a time researchers were trying out new meds for blood pressure control, and they didn’t work, but the men involved in the trials all reported getting boners.
Thus the failed blood pressure control pill became Viagra.
Also the researcher whose bacteria samples kept getting killed off by a weird mold. At one point he stopped fixating on the loss of bacteria and instead concentrated on the mold itself, and this pesky experiment-ruiner became a medicine called ‘antibiotic’.

I think these two examples show that sometimes when you’re at your wit’s end about something not working along the lines you’re trying to force upon it, it pays to take a step back and reconsider the situation. Maybe your project just needs to be repurposed, and allowed to work in a different way, not in the way you’ve been trying to force upon it.

There’s a sunk cost fallacy pressure to keep at the project the way one has been keeping at it up to now, especially if it’s been years, and so much has been invested in it, and one begins to identify with the project in unhealthy ways, etc., but sometimes one should just take a step back, review the manuscript, and see that instead of forcing it to work in ways in which it can’t work, it should be allowed to work in ways it can work.
Then it’s just a question of the ego not throwing a toddler fit at the idea, but reacting in a more grownup manner, and then fixing the thing, and breathing actual life into it.

What I’d like to add is, that a book doesn’t have to work great on every level. It only needs to be broadly competent on 99% of the levels, and be very good at 1%. The 1% which makes it different and gives it its special taste.

One thing I’d recommend in the inspiration field, is to read outside of one’s cultural bubble. If a native of the anglosphere, for example—read some French, German, Italian, Russian stuff. Some Argentinian and Nigerian stuff.

It helps so much to get rid of the invisible chains that have been wrapping around one for so long, as an automatic byproduct of being inside a certain cultural bubble that restricts options and viewpoints by the mere fact of existing.

A German apocalyptic techno-thriller, a German Middle Grade fantasy, a French international thriller, a French (post)modern human condition satire, a Polish Sword & Sorcery, a Russian epic fantasy, a Russian werefox love story, some Nigerian bizarro splatterpunk, or Chinese sci-fi epic—all these, through the very fact of being products of different cultures, can subtly shock the system out of its dogmatic slumber. And thereby help figure out what one’s book is really about, and how it should really be written.

In fact, I'm going to use this last paragraph, or a variation of it, as my signature, at least for a while:)
 
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Layla Nahar

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I give feedback by simply stating how the writing affected me as a reader. Did it effectively create an experience in my mind? If it did, I say what I experienced *and why*. If it didn't, I say what prevented me from having an effective experience as a result of reading. So I side-step the question of "am I qualified to 'tell someone how to write'?" Each of us is an expert in how we react to the written word. That is expertise we can always share, and if we express it with awareness, it is very effective feedback for helping a writer understand his/her weaknesses.

(If you don't believe me, check out chapter 4 of Peter Elbow's (yes, his name is Elbow...) "Writing Without Teachers".)

ps - the 'and why' part of the feedback is key. Compare an SYW to a favorite piece of published writing. Why does the published writing grip you? Where the SYW fails to do so, what is going on in that passage?
 

J.Catherine

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Sorry for not doing individual replies figured it would be quicker and easier to reply this way --

When it comes to the question of publishing, or rather, book distribution, that isn’t my primary focus right now. When I started to write I never believed in a million years I’d be publishing worthy -- after all, it was hard, and I certainly wasn’t the best at writing. But when I actually managed to hammer out a whole book, and then got told it was good (yeah, from my gran, but still -- encouragement is nice wherever it comes from) I started to investigate what it would take.

This is when I discovered my book was worse than I thought, so I did a re-write and an edit for a year, posted on here, re-wrote and edited for another year after feedback, and now think I’m a lot closer to producing a manuscript that conveys my stories and characters in a way that’s appealing to most people who read fantasy books.

That’s my goal -- create something that shows my characters and my plot as intended, wrapped up in a pleasant-to-read literary format.

Now, what happens after that isn’t a huge concern. I will investigate traditional publishing, and if it gets picked up by an agent/publisher then great and I’ll go from there. If not, I will investigate self-publishing. Do I have/can I get the knowledge/skills/front money to make it a success? If so, then great. If not, I’ll get private prints -- ask for 10 for my birthday or something like that -- keep them on my bookshelf. Give them to my friends and relatives if they ask what they are -- read them to my kids one day. And if that’s all it will ever be, a bit of a shame, but life goes on.

So, what the book does in a distribution sense isn’t my biggest concern, probably because I know there are no guarantees and it’s unlikely that even if it does get published/self-published, it’s not going to earn a lot of money. It’s also not going to change the world. (I mean, never say never, but that’s not expected or required for me). But what IS my concern, is that I create something that does articulate my story well, in a readable way. Because this book is getting read, even if it’s just by my gran again, and I want it to be better at doing what it was meant to do than it currently is.

To address VBB’s point of vanity publishing though, I thank you for your concern and I am weary of this being a potential pitfall, but since I’ve already resolved in myself that publishing is not the ultimate goal (more a pleasant side effect if it comes around) it probably won’t be that much of an issue.

As to what an editor will and won’t do, and whether or not an editor is actually what I’m looking for, I have given this some thought after many of the responses here. I would be lying if I said there was no initial desire for me to have a constant back and forth thing with an editor. This seems to not be a thing, and that’s a pain -- and something I will consider no matter what way I go forward (may just be something I’ll have to deal with and accept no matter what way I go I will need to remove that from my expectations.)

I don’t have indispensable income. Some savings, yes, but buying an editor will mean no holidays for a little while and perhaps no new laptop when it’s needed in about a year. I do consider these things worth the sacrifice for my own personal fulfillment of having a book I think does it’s job (as outlined above).

Yet, I am taking on board that an editor may not give me advice that brings the book to (or closer to) that goal. However, free advice also may not. One of the things I liked about getting an editor is that I can see samples of their work, read their own productions, see where their experience is when it comes to what publishers (and therefore those who buy books to read books to enjoy books) want.

Another thing I was planning to do if I paid for an editor is not to drop thousands all at once then get a full book edit. Part of my plan was to negotiate editor advice for the first two or three chapters (my biggest problem areas, probably, since they are arguably some of the most important chapters in a novel) before deciding whether that advice was worth me spending money on a full novel.

However, one of my other goals was to perhaps not get the full book done, or say things like “this part I think is fine, I’m worried about this here, does it do x? Or z?”. This might be something better attuned to the skills of a beta reader though.

Which brings me onto my next point. After the discussions and responses on this thread, I am more seriously considering a beta-reader. I guess, some of my initial hesitation is that giving my novel to a beta-reader presents another level of vulnerability. Especially one I don’t pay or give anything else to in return.

I compare it to how I pay my therapist, and I don’t mind spending our interactions talking exclusively about me and my problems, and presenting the really ugly and irrational parts of myself, because I’m paying him. It doesn’t enrich his life much by having someone there who whines about themselves the whole time, except through monetary value. I guess because I don’t think my manuscript is ‘book worthy’ yet, I feel bad about asking someone to read it when I currently think it’s not ‘good enough’ in the same way I’d feel bad about having very me-based conversations with my therapist if I wasn’t paying him. I will examine this further in myself, thank you all for highlighting it to me.

Which brings me to my next point -- about my claim that the book is not ‘good enough’ and the fact that it will never be perfect, and it might be perfectly acceptable at the moment.

I think it’s a lot better than what it was previously when I first posted the first 2000 words or so on SYW. I took the advice given then and developed another re-write that deals with a lot of the original issues. But I can tell from looking at it now it is still lacking in something. Sometimes, I think the characters are 2D, sometimes I think the plot isn’t inspiring enough, sometimes, I think the ‘with-held information’ is uninteresting and doesn’t draw the reader in, sometimes I think I’m still not seeing what the issue is. I’ve tried very hard to work on each of these issues. I’ve read the advice on how to deal with them, I’ve pulled apart each paragraph, I’ve done diagram after diagram, I still don’t think I’m dealing with it.

The reason I want some advice is so I can see whether or not I’m on the right track about what I think is wrong, and do I think the reasons behind what is wrong is the same reason other people think that thing is wrong? For example, do I think the MC is too 2D because her actions are very gratuitous, and do others think that the MC is too 2D because there seems to be no intelligence behind how she is portrayed?

I do realise that’s getting slightly into cornflake’s point that lots of advice saying different things can have at it’s root a common problem. Perhaps this is also about seeing if people think what I think are the ‘major problems’ are major problems, or if they’re better/worse than I think.

And finally, there is a recognition that this manuscript will never be the bible. It’ll never be some sort of perfect, inconceivably amazing, life-changing thing and I know this. Funnily enough, I have this habit for reading authors in reverse and it warms me to read their recent stuff (better), then their older stuff (worse) and know that I will get better with every novel I write.

However, this manuscript is important to me, and I still think it’s got a lot of problems with it and I am unhappy with it currently.

Thank you for the advice on prompts and other things to do to re-jig my brain though. I will consider these in due course.
 

Woollybear

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Dude, you got this, I feels, man, yeah.

I suggest -- take a look 'inside' How Not to Write a Novel.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061357952/?tag=absowrit-20

You can read chapter 1 (or some of it) at the link and see the structure they use for each of 200 classic mistakes of beginning writers. Everything from getting the stakes wrong to the pointless prologue to 'opening with waking up' and so on and so on. Each classic mistake--they describe how a typical good novel (published) does it, and then how a typical ('bad') unpublished novel does it. Then they write a hilarious example taking that bad approach to eleven.

What's nice about the book is you start to feel *good* about all the mistakes that you aren't making. You start to feel like you are doing a few things right. !! :) And then you get a hunch for what few mistakes you *are* making. And you read those chapters and see an extreme example provided for that mistake and (you laugh hard at the humor they bring to it) and you see why it's bad.

Anyway. Good luck. I totally believe in you.
 

DancingMaenid

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My concern is that it sounds like you're looking for a way to make this book perfect to ensure that it will succeed, but there can come a point in the process of developing as a writer where it's hard to grow any more without doing things like critiquing/being critiqued and querying/submitting. There comes a point where it helps to put your work out there, because people's reactions can tell you things that go beyond technical ability.

You sew dresses, right? Imagine if you spent a bunch of time trying to perfect your sewing skills but never actually tried anything on. How would you know for sure if the fabric and patterns you choose are comfortable, or that all your seams were strong?

As for finding time to critique others' work, it's fine to only do a little at a time. The nice thing about the SYW forums is that people usually post fairly short pieces and there's no obligation to critique specific people by a specific deadline.
 

VeryBigBeard

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I compare it to how I pay my therapist, and I don’t mind spending our interactions talking exclusively about me and my problems, and presenting the really ugly and irrational parts of myself, because I’m paying him. It doesn’t enrich his life much by having someone there who whines about themselves the whole time, except through monetary value. I guess because I don’t think my manuscript is ‘book worthy’ yet, I feel bad about asking someone to read it when I currently think it’s not ‘good enough’ in the same way I’d feel bad about having very me-based conversations with my therapist if I wasn’t paying him. I will examine this further in myself, thank you all for highlighting it to me.

This is very much what beta-reading can be like. I mean, I'm not sure therapy is the first thing that comes to my mind, but I don't think your analogy is necessarily that far off. It depends on the individual arrangement. A lot of times, a good beta-read can lead to a kind of partnership/collaboration where people bounce ideas back and forth, work on problems, provide reassurance, etc. A lot of those last even once someone's published, even many times, because it's a hard thing to find anywhere else in the publishing process. Editors edit, etc. Agents sometimes fill this role as well, a bit, but usually a little more on the business-y side (though not always).

Of course, not all beta-reads work out that way. Some are just high-level reads. Some are closer to copy-edits. It comes down to finding something that helps. And like any critique, the reading can often help as much as being read, so it's not entirely true that you're just taking. Some people just enjoy the reading, too. You'll get out of it what you put in, like anything.

The reason I want some advice is so I can see whether or not I’m on the right track about what I think is wrong, and do I think the reasons behind what is wrong is the same reason other people think that thing is wrong? For example, do I think the MC is too 2D because her actions are very gratuitous, and do others think that the MC is too 2D because there seems to be no intelligence behind how she is portrayed?

I do realise that’s getting slightly into cornflake’s point that lots of advice saying different things can have at it’s root a common problem. Perhaps this is also about seeing if people think what I think are the ‘major problems’ are major problems, or if they’re better/worse than I think.

This, too, is very much beta-reading. The hardest part is that you'll get some conflicting feedback, but this is, in a way, actually the most valuable part, because it gives you a chance to see where divergence occurs and that gives you more data to figure out what might be going wrong. It is a very good tool for identifying what might be wrong when you're not quite sure, but your gut is telling you something's not right.

To address VBB’s point of vanity publishing though, I thank you for your concern and I am weary of this being a potential pitfall, but since I’ve already resolved in myself that publishing is not the ultimate goal (more a pleasant side effect if it comes around) it probably won’t be that much of an issue.

I get this.

It's just there are "vanity" editors and even beta-readers, too. And the whole self-publishing services thing, which is a minefield with the occasional bit of gold floating through it. Money should flow towards the writer. That's Yog's Law. It applies to all stages of the process.

It's OK not to worry about it at this point as long as you do the research when it comes time.

I think it’s a lot better than what it was previously when I first posted the first 2000 words or so on SYW. I took the advice given then and developed another re-write that deals with a lot of the original issues. But I can tell from looking at it now it is still lacking in something. Sometimes, I think the characters are 2D, sometimes I think the plot isn’t inspiring enough, sometimes, I think the ‘with-held information’ is uninteresting and doesn’t draw the reader in, sometimes I think I’m still not seeing what the issue is. I’ve tried very hard to work on each of these issues. I’ve read the advice on how to deal with them, I’ve pulled apart each paragraph, I’ve done diagram after diagram, I still don’t think I’m dealing with it.

And finally, there is a recognition that this manuscript will never be the bible. It’ll never be some sort of perfect, inconceivably amazing, life-changing thing and I know this. Funnily enough, I have this habit for reading authors in reverse and it warms me to read their recent stuff (better), then their older stuff (worse) and know that I will get better with every novel I write.

However, this manuscript is important to me, and I still think it’s got a lot of problems with it and I am unhappy with it currently.

I very much get this. It's hell, but it means you're a writer now.

For ex: I have a MS on query right now. I like it a lot--many days I wonder how I actually managed to write it--but there are still sleepless nights about parts of it I don't think are up to scratch. It has a weird cold open, and I dropped the words "chiaroscuro" "ecclesiastical" in my first paragraph, which I'm sure is going to just hook me all the readers :tongue. Its MC is a trickster god who has no idea how to use her own magic and so spends a large part of the story in this semi-bewildered improvisational state that some people seem to love while others hate. I have this nagging suspicion that Chapter 7 is still, basically, dysfunctional, which is a problem because it's supposed to motivate the whole plot. On the worst nights, I worry the entire thing is too absurd, will never make sense to anyone but me, and that no-one will get the extremely bizarre ending

It's been through beta-readers, many of whom have, in fact, pointed out some of these issues, which I have, in turn, worked on. From a technical perspective, I'm at a point where I don't know what more I can do. I've also spent seven years on it, and that sunk cost fallacy kicks in. I could do another round of betas, but it wouldn't ease my fears. I've looked at the feedback, looked at all the places it diverged, run it past my own instincts for what the book is, and this is what I got. Ergo, it is Done. On to querying agents, receiving polite rejections, and writing another (extremely weird) book.

So at the risk of being honest: this is kinda what it's like. It's not just that it will never be perfect, but that you'll have these passing moments of sheer terror, like you've shown up to the exam without a pencil or any pants. It's part of Impostor Syndrome. Some people get over it, or never get it at all. Others struggle with it every time. I get it with query letters, too, constantly thinking I've sent one with a horrible mistake to my top agent. (Or worse: I use a similar filename format for my query letters and referee dismissal reports. It's entirely possible I've sent a couple red card reports to agents and possibly a SFF novel to the discipline committee.)

All you can do is get on with it. Sometimes I find it helps to remember that you're a writer, and neurosis is in the job description.
 

angeliz2k

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To the OP, what I've taken away from all this for you is: you might be better off searching for a beta that fits your needs rather than a paid editor; and if you can, critiquing really is the best way to find mistakes and figure out ways to fix them yourself.

Of course, this thread is full of good thoughts/advice/ideas that go beyond that.
 

Barbara R.

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Sorry if this is wrong forum, had no idea where to put this thread.

After approximately three years of re-writes, re-edits, etc, I'm going in circles with edits and have no idea what I need to do anymore. Come hell or high water some variant of the story I wrote is being published/self-published, so I want to get it as good as possible before that happens. However, I don't know what to do with it anymore.

What I need is someone to look over the first few chapters and specifically tell me why they're bad, and then how to fix the problems. Or how to find out how to fix the problems.

But at the same time I do need someone to examine the whole book (roughly at first -- can give chapter synopsis' or something like that) to see where the plot lags/has problems, first of all, then a more detailed read through of it to see where there are other problems such as characterization, writing style, flow, and whatever else I'm doing wrong that I can't see anymore.

For all the problems, I need solutions. I also need to know how far off I am from the book being acceptable. I also really do need someone to be honest, but to retain in mind that I don't want to scrap this whole story.

Also since I'm paying I'd like to know what said individual has in terms of experience with the editing/writing/publishing businesses.

The goal for me is to get a copy that I'm confident to try and send to agents and the like.

Does anyone know how I'd even find such a person? Google is just bombarding me with things, and I have no idea how to find someone to do the things as specific as what I'm saying. I need someone I can work with and communicate with through the process.


...help.

Oy. Take a headline like yours, add in the fact that writers are always broke, and you're bound to get a flood of applicants. Scroll down on this page and you'll find some solid criteria you can use to evaluate them. The post refers to writing teachers, but it applies to editors as well. You want someone with a proven record of success in the industry, for starters. Most important: Get a sample edit first. It's all about the fit.
 

Sage

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In the end, what you want J, is a critique partner. You want to be able to have a back-and-forth conversation about what needs work and whether your changes are helping. That's not something you pay for with money, but instead with your own time. Critique partners mean you work together on both of your stuff. It's free to you in the sense of money, but you will have to give as much as you take. But whether time and energy is something you're willing to pay or not, that is what you're asking for.

As many have said before, what you lose in time by critiquing, you gain in experience and knowledge. This is an added bonus to the relationship you're looking for...but only if you're willing to give as well as take.