Is this tidbit true about writing?

* A bit of a rant.


Is it true that.... As a writer, we can write whatever we want and have creative control over our work?
I know I've talked about my writing (briefly) before and how I sometimes feel hopeless about it, like I'm at a dead-end with finding an agent. I query and I've done so with two different projects but no agent even requests to read more. They reject my work, which I understand, but no one out of hundreds even asks to read more.

Anyway, I write what I know and what would appeal to me as a reader. My stories are young adult and slow burners. I hired an editor once and they told me that it took forever (19 pages) to get the story going and that the slow burn is boring for readers and that my work isn't thoughtful enough for modern readers, and that my grammar and syntax could use work.

I don't write with the intention of winning a Pulitzer. I want to write to entertain people and to give them something to look forward to before/after school or work -- like I used to, I guess. Something that brings a smile to their face and they can look back on my book with a sense of nostalgia.

But it seems like everything is made to be high standard nowadays. Like, your novel can't contain this/that, it has to involve a political overtone, etc. That you can write what you want -- but not really.
And speaking of that, I worry about offending my readers. I know people have the mentality of 'there is no bad publicity', but I want positive attributes applied to my name. I want to make people and readers happy!!


I don't know if writing is even worth it at all right now, because in the last two months I've only heard crickets in my inbox (concerning agents... And querying for 2-3 years).

 

Strictly speaking it's not true when it comes to any kind of publishing. There are degrees of censorship depending on the country that you will by law have to adhere. Then follows the controls by your publisher and marketplace. Most of the strict controls in place are favourable for now (I have some reserves about my country's legislation but that's another thread) and probably have nothing to do with your YA designs, so it's not a huge concern.

But you're not referencing legality, more rather preference from agents/publishers. Agent and publisher selectivity is a combination of top-down (can have certain agendas or policies that reflect the nature of the company) and bottom-up (do what sells). I personally yearn for the notion that a writer is allowed to follow standards beyond the limiting confines of genre and end up being a trend-setter, but I don't think the publishing powers can keep a business running that way.

Overall the short answer is yes, generally speaking you have creative control over your work and write whatever you want. Specifically, though, if you're aiming to sell to a particular low common denominator via traditional means then more than a few concessions will have to be made. I should add though that concessions don't necessarily make art bad, and sometimes they even make it better. Regardless, they won't be part of your original vision.

I'm going to self publish material that pleases myself, because I believe my tastes will be satisfying to some other people at least. I will not make any money, though, haha. Actually, it will end up being a negative return most likely after cover, software, editing fees, and ads.

 

I'm not sure what was meant by "thoughtful." Did you ask? The other comments seem reasonable (and common) enough.

A story is like any other product: it has to meet certain standards to find a market. Writers seeking to publish work write for the market; the market doesn't adjust itself to accommodate a writers work. For example: 80% of the proposals I receive for a newsletter I edit don't fit the explicit guidelines provided upon request. The readership is interested in wildlife biology and closely related subjects. I don't print fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, haiku, etc. Want to know what most proposals consist of?

Superior writing skills are essential. There is simply too much competition to try and scrape by with basic or sub-basic grasp of written English. Pacing is also important. Slow burn translates as boring if a story doesn't has something special: particularly beautiful writing, remarkable humor, a clever build-up that pulls the reader forward. Years ago I wrote a novel that made me perfectly happy as a reader, but beta readers said multiple versions of, "I just couldn't get into it." Sadly, I set it aside and wrote other things. Ten years later, I pulled the rejected novel out of the closet, began to read it, and realized what people meant: the opening was b-o-r-i-n-g. The story took forever to get off the ground. No one lasted long enough to get to the good parts. Damn it. That realization hurt my heart, but ultimately improved my writing.

 

You always have control over your writing. Publishers always have control over their products. Doing business together may require compromise - and probably on your part, since they typically have more clout in the arrangement. Is it worth it? That's up to you.

Of course, the same applies to any other creative endeavor. You can paint anything you want, but you might have a hard time finding a gallery to show your sad clown watercolors.

 

If your grammar and syntax really could use work (I haven't read your stuff), and your beginnings really are boring, then those things might be bigger problems than some lack of thoughtfulness. They might be confounding variables, and your association of rejection solely with differences of taste may be inaccurate.

Besides, publishers are constrained by practical and commercial considerations, so there definitely are limits on what you can write and still get published. I mean, you could be a genius and still write things that few publishers would want to pick up because they don't think they will sell.

 

Just guessing by what you've written here, (forgive me if you've already tried/heard these things):

Cut out those 19 pages of slow beginning, you almost certainly don't need them. Start as close to the inciting incident* as you can. Add the backstory as you go.

Get feedback on that query letter. If no one is biting then it might be the query letter rather than the story.

Join a critique group or post stuff here for critique. Unless you were born a great writer, you need a lot of feedback with the goal of learning how to write.​

*Inciting incident has a broad definition, essentially what is the story about?

 

One thing I'd like to add is that it's difficult for anyone on the forum to answer why your manuscript is being rejected without seeing your work, your query letter, and synopsis.

Keep in mind most books get rejected, even well written books, and many authors say it takes one or two completed novels before they reach their potential. Even a good author may have a rejection to acceptance ratio of 10 to 1 or worse (I'm just throwing number out there, could be wrong).

I don't know what the proper etiquette is with agents, but if you've received dozens of rejections and no full requests, you could see if you could ask one of them, in a polite, personalized way, for helpful feedback. It's possible there are weaknesses you didn't realize and they just weren't interested in the full, or maybe (although unlikely) the query letter was poorly written and they never got around to reading the partial. It's important to find some objective feedback on if and why your samples are ending up in the 'Did Not Finish' pile.

It could be that they thought it was a clever idea but they felt your voice or style isn't very marketable to the masses.

I found this article below and thought it had some good advice. Although I'm skeptical of medium.com articles this is from a contributor I have a lot of respect for:

https://quotidianwriter.medium.com/4-writing-lessons-from-a-novel-contest-judge-da1eea619e17

 

Thank you everyone
I'd like to thank each of you individually, but I don't want to spam the thread! But if you're reading this, thank you. Everything you've said makes sense. I'm just feeling hopeless right now, but your positive and helpful words have given me optimism! I'd like to find a Beta reader in the near future to look over the first few chapters of my manuscript, or the query letter. Maybe it is the letter that's the problem after all.
So thank you You're all very nice.

 

You can write anything you want, that doesn't mean that anyone will want to publish it. You have to be conversant in what the genre is looking for and write to market. If you choose not to, then no agents or publishers will likely be interested. That doesn't stop you from doing it though, based on whatever goals you happen to have.

 

There is just so much competition with publishing that it's hard for a writer sometimes to know why their work is being rejected. There could be a lot wrong or maybe nothing is wrong other than the agent is into something else more. Believe me, I know all about rejection. But I also know about publishing and having my work finally accepted and in print. And I think being published feels so much better because I have experienced a crazy amount of rejection.

I think you can write whatever you want. If done well, there is a lot that doesn't matter. And I've never heard that it's hard to publish something with political undertones. In fact, I think there is a lot of published work that dives into that. But poor grammar is something that can hold a piece of writing back and make it easy for an agent or publisher to reject it. I have found that when I sell fiction it has to be good enough for the editor buying it to work with. That standard is very high and often hard to reach. In other words, flawless in my mind is just good enough to sell if I'm lucky. And then there is always work to do before it makes it into print.

As @Not the Territory said, I have found that when I start working with an editor (one buying my work not one that I'm hiring) is when a lot or even big changes can happen. I don't see it as giving up creative control. It can feel a little like that at first, but I will say that my work always comes out better for it. First, the writing quality has to be good enough to get you in the door. I wouldn't worry too much about compromising your creative vision. More so think about it as improving your creative vision since that's what editors, publishers, agents and even you as the writer ultimately want.

 

You have complete creative control over what you write, and you can write whatever you wish, in whatever way you wish.

Reader have complete control over whether to spend money on that, and control over what they choose to read.

Publishers and agents have control over whom they rep and buy.

If you're wanting people to read and enjoy your work, not simply to write for fun, then you must start accepting feedback and polishing your work. Basic grammar and syntax are a must - that's like saying you wanna be an Olympic swimmer but you haven't quite learnt how to swim yet. Well, I mean... You get my point. You're not looking at a publishable level of writing if you can't get your SPAG right, assuming you're not dyslexic or with some other kind of impairment that would make its grasp reasonably more difficult - and even then you'd need a proofreader to ensure it's all correct if it's getting published you want. You can't ask people to pay for a product and then try and argue the quality of the product doesn't matter. If you bought a chair and one of its legs broke on the first day, you'd ask for a refund. The carpenter can't say, "I thought I could make whatever I want! It was only a little wobbly!" No, not if you wanna be paid for the product.

It seems to me you've already received feedback on what you need to work on, so, if publishing is the goal, work on them.

The other day, an agent shared her querying stats. She's been opened since 1st April - about 2 weeks - and already received 900+ queries. In 2 weeks she's replied to just over 400 queries. Remember, none of this is paid. She still had actual clients to take care of, contracts to negotiate, actual books to sell that actually pays the bills. Now, do you think she's gonna read 19 pages to wait for something to happen before she judges whether or not she's gonna pass? Of course not. Not to mention, many agents allow only the first 5-10 pages as part of the sample - which means even if an agent was patient enough to read through your entire sample, still nothing would have happened, and they would have to judge the book based on that. Would you choose to read the full manuscript if you saw that nothing happened in the first 10 pages and that was the only sample you had of the book? Likely not.

If you've sent hundreds of query and not had a single request, hard though it is to query and get requests these days, this is indicative of your writing. Your query package is not up to par - and from the feedback you've already had on the quality of your writing as well as the 19 pages of nothing happening, it is both your query AND sample pages letting you down. Likely, if your writing is as weak as you have indicated, agents are not even getting past the query to the pages - because the query is way harder to write well than the pages, and you have told us already you did not write those pages well.

And let me tell you, self-publishing isn't any easier. If you're writing fiction and intend to sell, you have even less freedom than trad. Self-pubbed books written by authors earning 6 figures often stick with market trends and a nunber of hot tropes that work or are trending in their genre. Also certain genres do better in self-pub and others better in trad. You're also still required to get your SPAG right or look forward to 1 star reviews. Not to mention now you've got sales and marketing work to do on top of all this. It's not easier if you're serious about self-publishing and actually selling, not just pushing a book to rot on the internet shelf as opposed to just your laptop shelf.

As soon as you're writing for publication, and asking to be paid for your work, the game changes. You must sit down and really take a good look at your work and look at where it falls short, way short, and work on those areas. If you do, perhaps one day you will be published. So much is up to chance in publishing as well. But if you do not have a good grasp of SPAG nor a good grasp of pacing and story structure, then you're not at the level you need to be to be querying in the first place. Work on your craft more first.

 

All absolutely true.

This is where we start to separate the rank amateurs from the professionals. In reality, it doesn't matter if you have a problem. The expectations remain the same. An agent is going to reject an unorganized, badly written piece of drivel out of hand, no matter what excuses are offered. If someone has issues with producing a reasonably SPAG-problem-free work, then it's up to them to take the extra steps to fix it, not try to make excuses for it down the road. There aren't excuses. There are only corrections.

Keep in mind that most successful agents get far more submissions than that and most of the time, they have interns who give things the first pass. If you can't get past the interns, you will never get to the agent. They're too busy working with actual clients who make them money than to read the drivel in their slush pile hoping to find a gem in the buckets of... well, you know.

Exactly. Typically, it's because the work isn't ready. If agents aren't requesting full versions, it's because your query letter isn't good enough. If they are requesting fulls and not biting, it's because your book isn't good enough. Some will give feedback, depending on how much tie they have and how much interest they had in your work, others won't. If you're just getting form rejections or no rejections at all, assume your book just isn't good enough.

Nope, it's harder. There are more than 7000 books published on Amazon every single day. You have to compete with at least a portion of that, especially if you're publishing in a tough genre. You can't write what you want if you intend to make money. You have to write what your potential audience wants. Hopefully, the two will coincide but there are no guarantees. I know authors who absolutely hate what they have to write but that's what makes money so that's what they do. There are no excuses for writing crap. There are no excuses for using a non-professional cover. The second there is bad press about your writing, you're done. Pick another pseudonym, learn your craft and start over from scratch. Not only do you have all of the hard work writing the books, you also have all of the hard work of marketing, something that will take up at least as much, if not more of your time than the actual writing.

It's amazing how many people do absolutely no research into any of this. It's why most people who try to sell on Amazon fail utterly.

 

Well, I would add a caveat there. I wouldn't say rejections on fulls always means your book isn't quite good enough. It depends on whether you're getting consistent feedback amongst form rejections on the fulls. So consistent form rejections on fulls, as well as consistent feedback highlighting the same or similar elements as problem areas, would probably mean what you said - not quite good enough in certain areas. However, other times, it really could be it's just not right for the market right now, not right for the agents' list, or the agent already has something else similar on her list. That really is a thing too. It is simply hard to differentiate which of these scenarios fits your book.

It's worth bearing in mind too that agents often extensively edit your book once they rep you, so the definition of your book being "good enough for publication" is a little grey here - they wouldn't rep you if it wasn't good enough for publication, but then the extensive edits technically shows it's not yet good enough for publication at the same time. As well as that, the first 1-3 books of agented authors die on sub. Is it the book? It could be. Is it the market? It also could be. At some point, it does become rather hard to tell definitively. Worth keeping in mind also, is that there will always be people who don't like your book. It's a numbers game. If 1 person doesn't like your book, it's safe to ignore. If 10 people don't like your book, it's worth considering why and if it's mixed in with 10 others who DO like your book. Things have to be assessed as a whole, rather than looking at just one piece of evidence.

In the end, it's about catering to your audience and finding them. Question is, is there an audience?

 

All of which are decent points, but from every agent I've ever talked to, the biggest reason not to get represented is because the work just isn't good enough to be represented at all, even with rewrites and polish. You have to remember that agents reject 96% of submitted works. A fair number are "holy crap, this isn't even readable!" Trust me, I've been through some slush piles in my day. There's a lot of real awful stuff in there.

 

The Dunning–Kruger effect is real.

One day I'll have the courage to seek expert feedback of my best full length work and find out just where I stand on the curve.

Edit: But everyone on this forum (that doesn't get banned in their first few days) is taking the steps to improve their work, so whatever weaknesses anyone has, they are capable of improvement.

 

I don't even know about that. I can't think of any bad examples here but I've seen so many over the years who care more about their feelings than about their skill that it's hard to forget that there are a lot of really bad writers out there who can't understand what they're doing wrong and just don't care.

 

Yeah, that was sort of my point. Those writers who just come here for validation without seeking to improve don't last long.

But there's not a whole lot agents in the real world can do to keep them at bay, although I've heard there are occasional blacklists of really arrogant or argumentative aspiring authors.

 

I understand in many industries you have to toe the line in the beginning to get a foot in the door (weird mixed metaphor, sorry). Meaning do what they tell you they want. Get a few things published, start to make a name for yourself. Then down the line, if you develop some clout, you can start to do what you want. But it's like any job—first you have to show them you're willing to follow the rules and that you can handle the job. Then after you're in you can start to relax little by little and develop a style.

But I think you've gotta be pretty good. They're not going to let everybody loosen the rules and do whatever they want. Maybe only for the top 3 or 4 writers in the stable? Guessing.

Of course you're wanting to do it professionally, which means playing by their rules. If you self publish you can do whatever you want right off the bat.

 

Which isn't always a good thing in writing, there are far too many authors who get successful, to the point that their publishers are terrified to tell them to tone it down or follow the rules because they might lose sales. This is often where you start to see authors just run off at the keyboard because editors are afraid to tell them no. There's got to be a balance in there somewhere.

 

True. Everybody thinks they have what it takes, that they should be allowed to write without rules. But not many actually have the skills for it. You can't let writers self-determine that, it's determined by readers and editors.

 

I honestly don't think this is the case. I've never been one to follow any sort of formula. My style is often somewhat avant grade and can be quirky, and these works can still sell to big publishers, regardless of your publishing history. There was never a phase where I felt I needed to write a certain way before I could write what I want. It just has to be good more than it has to follow any sort of rules. A recent example of this is that I just had a zombie story sell to a well-established publication that has probably never published a zombie story ever. This isn't because I'm established. It's because the story was a good story. Don't get me wrong, it was rejected by several places before it sold. That's always been the case with me. My stories are always rejected by several places before they sell. And not everything I write sells, but I don't think I would be doing any better if I was aiming to please with a more vanilla story or always following a standard model for storytelling. I like to play around with both form and content. And I believe doing so has helped me more than hurt me.

 

That actually does sound right for freelance writing (not that I know from any kind of experience, I've never had anything published). I was going off the fact that apprently @SaturnDreary 's editors were giving her very specific advice on what changes to make, and my advice is basically 'Do what they're telling you to do'.

But it very well may be more a matter of the writing not being up to par, and the suggestions were aimed at helping her improve it.

 

Freelance writing makes me think of journalism work more than creative work like fiction. Sure, I'm selling short works to magazines and journals, but it's art in my mind. I do, however, follow the advice of editors and pretty much take all their suggestions and make changes accordingly. This seems to always elevate my writing. I don't see it as giving up control. These are improvements I'm making to my work by people who know their shit. I feel very lucky to have worked with some truly great editors.

I agree with you saying to do what the editor or agent wants, but it's not like you should just do that to get in the door. You should do it because it will make your writing stronger and better. There is a lot to be said for working with a good editor. The OP hired an editor. If you pay money for an editor's advice, it seems almost silly to not take it.

 

Lol see, I don't even know the terminology! I assumed you call it freelance if you write what you want to and submit it. Maybe that's writing on spec?