27. November 2011 by Gore Wehner.

Note to my friends who self-pub: I do not necessarily mean you, so please do not get your feathers in a ruffle over what I’m about to write.

First of all, let me say that I support authors who self-publish. I purchase their work. I read it. I may not read the entire book, but I will read as much as I can before putting down the story forever. But also realize I’ve done this with traditionally published work as well. Sometimes a book that has garnered great reviews and has been greatly touted by its publisher does nothing but bore me. All art is subjective.

But I do tend to have a more difficult time with self-published work. Why? Because it usually needs a ton of work to get it to a level where I can thoroughly enjoy it. Much of what I’ve found has been simple grammatical errors. (For example–this is the wrong way to write a sentence: “I think it looks darling,” she smiled. You cannot smile a sentence. You can say a sentence, you can even exclaim these words, though I wouldn’t too often. But it should be written: “I think it looks darling.” She smiled.)

Disclaimer: I am not perfect. I will make glaring errors, probably even in my posts. Maybe even in this one. But I am not trying to sell my blog posts. I am trying to educate, not make a profit. So finding an editor to go over my blog would be counterproductive. But if you are selling your work, you should pay an editor to line edit it! Or at the very least, ask a friend who knows her grammar (such as an English teacher) to go through it with eagle eyes. I cannot stand reading work that throws me out of the story because the author cannot construct a proper sentence. So cease and desist already, folks! Get yourself an editor.

Next up on my list of dislikes: male characters that have a feminine POV because the woman writing the character does not understand how different men are from women. Men and women have biological and psychological differences, and if you don’t agree, reverse the genders in your story and tell me if it still works for you. Trust me, your reader will not find your characters believable if they aren’t developed enough in the proper gender.

Example:

Terry slipped an arm around Chris. “I think you know what I want, Babe.”

Chris chuckled. “Oh I know, all right. You want a piece of me. But you should’ve thought about that while we were waiting in line at Macy’s. Tapping your foot and complaining isn’t exactly a turn-on.”

Terry gave an impish grin. “You’re cute when you’re mad, you know.”

“You’re just plain mad,” Chris said, shoving Terry playfully.

Tell me, who was the female and who was the male? Reverse the roles to read it the other way. Does it sound  strange to you?  If so, then you can see how important gender roles are. Still, in so many self-published novels, the guys sound…well…like women. They think like women. Act like women. I’m not asking you to have your men be brutes. But they aren’t going to be sizing up people the same way. I guarantee you a man is not going to look at a women’s clothes and think: The yellow gabardine fabric of her jacket clashed with her silky crimson lipstick.Yet, that’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been reading in the self-pubbed books. Most men do not know the name of fabrics, much less care about them. If you want to create a male character that does this, better give us good reason for why he’s knows about this type of thing. And why he would care.

These are just a few reasons why I have trouble getting through a self-published book. Again, it’s not every self-pubbed book. I’ve read many that are well-written, but it seems to be the majority. I worry that readers’ standards will drop if these points aren’t taken care of. So please, consider finding an editor. If not for my own reading pleasure, but for mankind’s.

I will still support your endeavors. But I won’t pick up your second book if I couldn’t get through the first.

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7. November 2011 by Gore Wehner.

It’s true. I am taking a leave of absence from the Creative Writing Masters Program. Why? Because I can’t do it all. There. I said it. I think sometimes we writers ask too much of ourselves. We want to succeed in our careers, improve in our craft all the while eating right, getting regular exercise, working our jobs, taking care of our kids, doing many errands and keeping our houses free from bugs and vermin (in other words, cleaning semi-regularly). But something has got to give. I know writers whose houses are filthy. I know writers whose children are in other people’s care. A lot. I know writers who are in desperate need of a health makeover. But they are writing. I’m not here to judge, I’m just here to explain…we can’t have it all. So I am putting my education on hold without guilt. Maybe a bit of disappointment, I am loving the class I’m taking. But after this semester I will have to wait until the littlest attends Kindergarten. Perhaps you’ve made sacrifices, too? It’s all right. Even putting your writing on hold is all right if that’s what you need to to do to get yourself together. It’s hard to be creative when you feel held down by a twenty-foot pile of rocks. Give yourself permission to give yourself room. In two years, I will return to college. What are your goals?

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26. October 2011 by Gore Wehner.

Years ago, I went to a writers conference and paid to have my work critiqued by a literary agent. Honestly, it was the best $40 I’d spent toward my career at that point. Why? Because he told me right to my face why the work would be rejected.

If there’s a better way to be humbled, I don’t know what it is.

Anyhow, it was a middle grade novel featuring two eleven-year-old girls and right away he let me know that these girls sounded exactly the same…and not only that, they didn’t sound like children.

My jaw thudded to my lap. Didn’t sound like children? Didn’t have unique voices? Yikes!

It forever changed the way I wrote my books. Could I have learned this a different way, maybe by reading how-to-write-4-kids books or maybe in critique groups with my peers? Maybe. But coming from  a respected agent with his thumb on the pulse of publishing, his words carried heavy weight.

I admit it depressed me at first. Not because I began to question my skills as a writer…I was well aware of being a work in progress. But because I’d spent so long perfecting the manuscript, and now I had to revise the Whole. Entire. Thing.

Blah.

After the critique, the agent asked if I had any other novels I was working on. I admitted I’d written five, but hadn’t tried to get them published. It was his turn to drop his jaw. “Why not?” he asked.

Now, I might have been naive, but I wasn’t clueless. I knew each of those novels needed work. A lot of work. “They’re just practice,” I admitted. And it was true. I enjoyed writing each one of them. Spent many anti-social hours editing them. But I knew they weren’t “there” yet, and I wasn’t going to waste my time and an agent’s time sharing them.

And that is why I highly recommend attending a writer’s conference and forking over the extra $30-$50 to have an editor, author, or agent give feedback on your writing. You can ask him or her questions in the allotted time you’re given (generally 10-20 minutes). You can discuss your other projects. You can address problems your having with your work. Take advantage of this time with a knowledgeable professional. It is worth every dime, I assure you.

If you come out of the meeting feeling frustrated or upset, consider what you have learned at the meeting. Did you not agree with the feedback? Sleep on it for a few nights. Research the advice the agent/editor/author gave you. If they felt your voice was weak, start googling “voice.” (And take a look at what I’ve had to say about it here on this blog.) If they said there wasn’t enough conflict, start sifting through similar books in the same genre to find how the author handled their story’s conflict.  In other words: be proactive. Doing something productive will make you feel better. And you just may find your mentor was correct…at least a smidgeon.

If you come out of the meeting feeling motivated, as I did, pat yourself on the back and then start working on finding how to fix the problems in your novel.

I put that novel away and started working on others that day, but I have taken the agent’s advice to heart, and my work since then has been much stronger. The money I spent? Worth it. You may wish to take a chance and do the same. You may want to bring some tape to hold your jaw in place, though.

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