What I’m Listening To: The space heater on the floor under my desk. It’s a chilly day today! Maybe it’s because I’m talking about story critique today? 😉

Something Cool: I’m putting together an accountability program for authors! If you need help with motivation to write, stay tuned. Details coming!

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Okay, so you’ve gotten your manuscript back from your editor or critique partner and now you want to curl up with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and cry into your Chunky Monkey.

Go ahead and do that. Wallow if you need to wallow. Getting critiqued is hard. It can hurt. And that’s okay. You can be sad about all that red ink (font) for a little while. But give yourself a time limit. And once you hit the end of that limit, pull yourself up by your inkwells and get to work.

I’ve been a pro editor since 2008. I’ve contracted with a couple publishing companies and I do freelance fiction editing. I’m a hard editor, but a good one. My authors all say that my first pass on a manuscript is the hardest and that’s true. It’s because I hit everything that I see on that first pass, whether it’s a misplaced comma or a plot hole.

Every…single…thing.

Even if it’s multiple instances of the same issue. I do this for a couple reasons. First, because it makes later edits a complete breeze. And second, if we, as writers, keep doing something over and over again it’s because we can’t see that we’re making the mistake. Having to fix it eleventy billion times makes us see it, and so in the future, when we’re writing so that we don’t make the mistake in the first place. (I learned that first-hand from a mentor in my MFA program!) This also makes both our jobs easier for story critique of future work.

So with these terrible, fiery edits (I promise, I’m also nice in my edits 😉 ), I give new-to-me authors some advice on how to handle the manuscript. Keep in mind that the following assumes the story critique is done with Track Changes.

Three steps to working through your story critique

1. Get your Ben & Jerry’s and your spoon. Sit down at the computer and read all of the story critique comments in the ms. Go through all of them without making any changes. You might want tissues and something soft to throw. You’ll get angry; you’ll get sad; you’ll laugh; you’ll yell at the screen. Most of all, you should make sure you’re eating your Chunky Monkey (or preferred flavor) as you go. Ice cream has been proven to help deal with emotional edits. (via the Institute of Venessa nods)

2. Now, put your Ben and Jerry’s back in the freezer (or in the garbage can, if you’re more like me) and jump into the meat of things. The first thing you’re going to do is go through the story critique and fix all the easy stuff. Review and accept (if applicable) the punctuation changes and the pronoun recommendations, the quick-fix suggestions, etc. If it will take you a minute or less, fix it during this pass. Make sure you delete the comment(s) associated with the changes you make. Consider it like checking off a to do list!

3. Once you’ve got those things done, your ms should look a lot less scary. You will likely have
fewer notes, but the work will be more in depth now. These will be things like plot holes, story inconsistencies, characterization issues. These will be a lot easier to deal with when you don’t have a bunch of minor changes all around them. You’ll have a clearer view of how you need to make changes.

Once you’re done with the three steps, make sure you do another full read of the ms. Though you may want to set it aside for a week or so to allow yourself some distance before you read through it.

Something to keep in mind: Just because the editor suggests a change, doesn’t mean you have to make it. It’s your book, after all. But do look at the suggestion objectively and not through the lens of, “But this is my *baby* and that idea couldn’t possibly ever work for my baby!” Because no matter what you might think, that statement is wrong. 🙂

If the idea really doesn’t work for your story, that’s one thing. But just make sure you’re not so emotionally involved with your story that a suggestion for change becomes an insult to your soul mate.

How about you? Have you had a rough edit? A difficult story critique?How did you cope and work through the suggestions? Chime in below!

Stay awesome! :)?

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