Archon Panel: Is it good yet?

My Literary Masterpiece! 5 Oct 2024, Saturday 3:00 – 4:00. You’ve been working on your novel for years, but you just can’t bring yourself to pull the trigger and try to sell it. How much polishing and rewriting is too much?

This is an interesting panel topic. I’m not sure I’ve seen this topic before. It does sort of fit with the recent over-workshopping posts here, such as this one. Over-polishing and an inability to let go isn’t quite the same thing as over-workshopping, though. Over-polishing sounds to me more like being stuck due to feelings of uncertainty, not like trying to take too much advice or the wrong advice in workshops.

At some relatively recent convention, I don’t remember the panel topic, but I do remember one of the convention attendees saying she had multiple complete novels, that one or more beta readers said they were great, but she wasn’t sure and hadn’t sent any of them into the world. I also remember that one hundred percent of the panelists said, “Stop waiting! Send them out! Do that now!” Something about this situation make us all feel like this person was unnecessarily holding on to those complete and polished manuscripts. That is what springs to mind when I see the description for this panel.

How would you make that call? Presuming you have never yet either queried agents OR self-published anything? How can you tell whether your manuscript(s) are in good shape and you should move forward? What if, as the panel description indicates, you’ve been hanging on to one or more novel for literally years, buffing out every blemish, but you’re still unable to let go?

I really don’t know. Here are some thoughts.

A) Is it your first-ever novel? The only one you’ve completed? I think my advice would be: set it aside. Get it out of your head, write something else. Something totally different, ideally. Different world, different protagonist — was your previous protagonist a teenage girl? Was the story a coming-of-age? This one is a guy in his fifties; the story is about self-sacrifice and saving the world.

If someone keeps fussing with their very first completed novel, that seems to me unlikely to go anywhere useful. I vehemently disagree that a first novel is always garbage, but I do think a first novel is probably going to be flawed in some important ways. Surely the author learned something by writing the first novel. Therefore, they should move on and write a second novel.

B) If multiple well-read friends are telling you the novel is great, it’s probably pretty good in at least some ways. This may be the time to find a real critique partner / beta reader / editor.

One non-friend who is experienced with the genre and who is on the analytical side may be all you need to confirm that the book is good enough. Taking revision advice from one or two people, not a crowd, is probably better, at least until you’ve got the confidence to ignore advice that doesn’t suit the story.

C) At some point, you have to let go. You have to decide it’s good enough and toss it into the world. I really don’t think there’s any way around the need to let go, other than waiting for your heirs to publish your book after your death, and that method does come with a few obvious drawbacks.

I will just note in passing that I didn’t ask anybody for advice about City. I sat down to write a book that would be good enough to publish, I wrote it, I revised it, and the minute I finished primary revision, I queried it. Seriously. Two months to write it and two months to get an offer of representation.

That was not my first-ever novel, of course. You know the saying that you need a million words of practice? I did not need a million words of practice. But I DID need HALF a million words of practice. That’s why I don’t feel it makes sense to obsess over your first-ever novel. Maybe come back to it later. A lot later.

I could not, at the time I wrote City, have revised my original fantasy trilogy properly. That took a lot more distance from it plus more practice putting stories together. Someone with a real knack for plotting could probably have done it much earlier, but even then, maybe it would be easier to write a few other novels first and then come back to the first one. Whatever wasn’t great about it, probably those not-great features will be much more obvious if you leave it alone for a year or two and write something else. If you do write another novel, then at the very least, you’ll have another finished novel, and that’s not nothing.

Here are a couple posts on this topic:

Is Your Book Good Enough for Publication? A Cold-Blooded Assessment — I think this is a good post. I think it’s asking the right questions.

How Do I Know if My Book is Good Enough? — This post is much more about the emotional state of the author than the state of the manuscript.

Is Your Novel Ready to Publish? 12 Signs You’re Still in the Learning Phase of Your Writing Career — This one is for manuscripts that aren’t as close to ready as the author might want.

Here’s what I personally think might be a good strategy for the “Is it good enough yet?” game —

If you think it’s ready to query, then query.

and

If you think it’s ready to self-publish, consider querying instead.

Because what can it hurt? Yes, it takes time to query, but why not give it, say, six months. You can use that time to write another novel or read about self-publishing and promotion. Or both. If you get clear signs of interest from agents, then you’re good to go. Either you can seriously pursue traditional publication, or, if you prefer, you can move into self-publishing with the clear understanding that agents were treating your novel like it was in the ballpark. If you get an offer of representation, that puts you in a good position and you can decide what to do on that basis.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Archon Panel: Is it good yet? appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.