5 Ways To Tell If Your Manuscript Is Ready

Whether you’re writing a manuscript to query with agents/publishers, to submit to competitions, or to indie publish, there comes a point when you have to decide if it’s ready to leave the safety of your computer files and go out into the world for others to see.

You may think the answer is an automatic yes. After all, you’ve been working on it for months, if not years. That much time means it’s ready by default, right?

Perhaps you’ve also shown it to beta readers or paid to have it edited, and it’s been given their tick of approval. Still, you’re not a writer if you aren’t doubting whether your work is good enough, so the instinct to delay, check things one more time, or edit again is strong.

You want to release the best version of your manuscript to give it the best chance to be signed up by agents and/or publishers, to place in competitions, or to be a reader’s new favorite book. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your MS should be as ready as possible, and these 5 ways will help you tell if it is.

5 Ways To Tell If Your Manuscript Is Ready1. You’ve Perfected Your Craft

Every draft teaches us something, and the same goes for books we’ve read and TV and movie entertainment we’ve consumed. They will show you what storytelling works and what doesn’t.

If you’ve also taken writing courses and/or made writing craft books a part of your life, you’ve been learning from them too, even if not every lesson is part of the manuscript you’re about to submit to the world.

If you’ve done these things to the best of your current ability, learned what you can, and applied it to your book, you’ve passed the first step in the readiness test!

2. You’ve Revised And Edited

Another sharpened skill that points to your MS being ready is the fact that you’ve revised and edited it as much as you can. This may also involve the work of an outside editor, too, but the first editor of all your words is you.

No one will know your paragraphs with the same depth, and if you have revised and edited your manuscript as much as you can, it is ready to go. Let it.

3. You’ve Reached Out For And Dealt With The Feedback

After you’ve gotten your words into the best shape you can, handing them over for feedback should be part of your game plan.

While you don’t have to take every suggestion on board, especially if it goes against your vision of the story, receiving and implementing feedback from the fresh eyes of others helps to spotlight your author blindspots and make your manuscript shine. Just ask yourself the following when reading feedback:

Is it a valid critique? (Yes: implement changes. No: ignore).Will this improve my book? (Yes: implement changes. No: ignore).Will this take it too far from my intentions? (Yes: ignore if not willing to make changes. No: consider/implement changes if they’ll make your MS better).

Taking that feedback and then using it to improve your manuscript is one of the final steps, and if you’ve already done this, there should be no hesitation to part with your work.

4. You’ve Added Intrigue And Emotion

Great stories do two things: hook the reader and make them care.

No matter the genre, if you have a hook that brings readers in, and then you can make them care about what is happening in your story and to your characters, you’ve got a winning manuscript on your hands.

If your book is missing intrigue and emotion, or the right balance of both, it may not be quite ready. But if it has characters who readers can relate to, a plot full of tension and stakes, emotional payoffs, and an ending that feels right, it is ready for the world.

5. You’ve Truly Done All You Can

While we all need a healthy dose of confidence in ourself and our writing ability to send manuscripts off for scrutiny in the query trenches or the publishing world, if you have any niggling thoughts about its readiness, don’t send it out.

Trying to convince yourself that it’s okay that the villain isn’t villainous enough, or that the subplot doesn’t completely work because it can get fixed after you’ve landed an agent, or if you gather too many bad reviews pointing it out, should not be issues you settle for.

No one is expecting a perfect manuscript, but if you know deep down that there are problems and you’re not fixing them because you want to be querying or publishing now, you’re doing your manuscript and those who will read it a disservice.

Fix what you are capable of before you query, before you submit, before you hit publish. Back your skills, do all you can to get that manuscript ready, and send it out knowing that you’ve put on the page the absolute best work.

If you can tick these five things off, congratulations! You have a manuscript ready to land in agent inboxes, be submitted to publishers, or become paperbacks and ebooks that are bought and read by readers who will love it just as much as you.

If not, don’t be disheartened. Fix what you can and run through these tips again. Once you can tick them off your list, you’ll have a manuscript that you’ve truly done all you can with, and one that is ready for everything the writing world can throw at it.

— K.M. Allan

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