The Quest for Perfection

As I slog through my manuscript accepting all the editorial changes my agent requested, trying to figure out how to reword passages, clarify particular points, etc., I'll admit, I'm experiencing a certain level of frustration.

Don't get me wrong. I am in full agreement with the changes my agent wants. They tighten up the writing, fix littly niggly problems and so forth. What is frustrating is despite all the effort I put into trying to get it right, it still wasn't. After I got it back from her assistant,  I went over the manuscript myself so many times I could have recited the thing by heart. I even read it aloud. I went through my agent's list of "Look for and fix these things..." and went through the manuscript several more times. Then, I joined a critique group. Individual chapters were critiqued by several people in the group. The entire manuscript was critiqued by two different people, including a university English professor. Despite all that, I still didn't get it right.

Obviously, my agent outranks all others at this point. If she wants a comma put here instead of there, so be it. If she doesn't like the way a sentence is worded, it gets changed. Yet, it's frustrating when she continues to tell her clients we need to make sure our manuscripts are as clean as possible. I doubt any of us is purposefully sending in bad manuscripts. I think we all hope that ours is up to par. I know it makes her job harder, but until I got mine back from her, I didn't really know exactly what she expected. I thought I had gotten rid of the passive verbs, the extraneous "said" tags, excess exclamation points, etc. I learned very quickly that my idea of what was acceptable differed greatly from my agent's. It was an eye opener.

I've learned so much during the process of trying to get my book published. Every step educates me further. Sure, it can be frustrating. I'll look at current bestsellers and  quickly identify a variety of things  they can get away with that I've been told are no-no's (i.e. prologues, lots of said tags...). I try and listen to my agent because she is undoubtedly more up on what is currently preferred by publishers. Why have an agent if you aren't going to listen to her?

So, I will continue in my quest for perfection. It won't be easy, but now I have a much better feel for what she's looking for. That can only help me with any future manuscripts I might ask her to represent. In the meantime, I think I'll go read up on commas!

The Return of the Manuscript

It only took four months, but at long last, my manuscript, Legend of the Gangster's Gold made its way home again. To be honest, as many times as I had gone over that manuscript, I was quite content with it being gone for awhile.  Yet, I was still eager to know what my agent thought of the entire thing. She'd only read the first few chapters prior to this, so it was all new to her.

That was my biggest fear. Would Dawn require me to rewrite massive parts of the book? Would she have second thoughts about even representing it? I know it wasn't perfect. It was my first  book ever (well, if you don't count the story I wrote in middle school about how the entire school was kidnapped by Nazis and we were forced to escape by digging tunnels with spoons. That was during my "Hogan's Heroes" phase). I knew it would need work, but was it trash? Yes, I know people have told me how much they enjoyed it, but I'm as insecure as the next fledgling writer, and I knew Dawn's opinion was going to be the one that mattered most.

It was with great fear and trepidation that I opened the innocuous email entitled simply "manuscript". This was it. I opened it and quickly scanned through all the red editorial marks swarming across the pages. Yet, despite their numbers, none of them were serious problems. They were where Dawn had eliminated the apparently never popular "said" tags, excess wordy words, changes in tense, etc. There were a few places she felt needed some clarification, but again nothing like "rewrite the entire second half of the book." I couldn't believe it. I was thrilled! Honestly, with as many time as I and my critique partners had gone over that manuscript, I would have thought we'd have found all the passive tense verbs, excess exclamation points, and improperly placed commas, but apparently, I was wrong. But, that's okay. I knew that having Dawn finally read it was the only way I would finally understand exactly what SHE wanted to see. Now, I know.

So, I am currently going through all 237 pages of my manuscript, making all the changes she requested as well as looking for additional ways to improve it. My goal is to have it done by next week prior to leaving on a trip. I think I'll make it. Then, I'll be just that much closer to realizing my dream!