You Can’t Afford Not To – On Crit Groups and Editors
It makes me want to cry, or maybe bang someone’s head against the wall. I came across yet another indie book with a fabulous story – told with the English skills of a 5th grader. Folks, you are not helping yourself by putting out what amounts to a rough draft as a finished novel. Your best friend may make a good cheering section (and you do need those), but he or she is NOT going to take the place of a good critique group of your peers or a professional editor. Usually, either one will do, if they are good. We have all seen books put out by the big publishing houses that are full of sloppy sentences, lost plot threads and general bad writing, so I am not advocating the exclusive use of professional editors. At the same time, unless your crit group is willing and able to take your work apart at the seams and be utterly ruthless (politely, of course) in pointing out what doesn’t work, where the writing needs to be tighter and that you really do need to lose that flowery description of the young maid’s dimples, they are not going to be much help. That ruthless tearing apart of your manuscript is what focuses your work and makes it polished. It seems like we have way to many writers out there who subscribe to the philosophy of “Good Enough”.
As I said in an earlier post, finding the right crit group is essential, even if you later also hire an editor. They will be with you through the process as a sounding board for thorny plot issues or possible sources for technical details. We have always had at least one grammar whiz that would bless the whole group with their ability to spot a missing comma. They point out errors in characterization. You do the same things for them. That seems to be one of the things that puts some newer writers off, the commitment to repay in kind on crits. I have been a part of several for years now, and can truthfully say the burden has never been that great. While there have been occasional OMG I need a final, nit-picky crit Now, those are extremely rare and seldom answered by the group at large, but only those who have the time right then. It doesn’t matter if you don’t happen to be a grammar whiz, you will have your own strength to contribute, I assure you.
The harsh bottom line is you may think you don’t have the time, but if you do not take the time to have every word of your work the best it can be when you send it out into the world, then the writing is a hobby for your own enjoyment, not a finished-for-publication book. It is like putting an apple pie on the table that’s half-baked and filled with whole apples from the tree. I don’t know about you, but I am embarrassed to find a small piece of seed has slipped into the filling.
Yes, I had that happen with Dream Song and pulled the book until some editing errors were corrected. The changes were so small, Amazon didn’t even list it as a revised edition. Yet, I still cringe when I think about it.
