How To Tell When a Manuscript Is “Ready”
“Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop,” the King of Hearts tells the eponymous heroine of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Sometimes, writing advice can feel like that. “Never submit a manuscript that isn’t polished,” we’ll read on agents’ blogs and editors’ Twitter.
Of course not! we promise. My manuscript will be as perfect as I can make it before it sees the light of day!
Only, uh, how exactly do I know when something’s as perfect as I can make it?
After all, every time I send something out, I’m confident I’ve done my best. But when I look at my novel from high school/undergrad, the series I worked on through grad school, the blog entry I wrote last week… well, I need to have some serious words with Past Me about our standards.
So how do I know when to submit a piece of work and when to shove it in a drawer until I can look at it more objectively?
Proposition 1: At the end of the first draft
You’ve got the whole story down. It’s all typed up. You’ve taught Microsoft Word your characters’ names so it stops flagging not-actually-spelling errors. Everything is legible.
If you are a genius or living in Groundhog Day where you’ve actually written versions of this “first” draft twenty times or really, really lucky this once, perhaps you actually are done.
Otherwise, you’re due a new book from the library or a box of your favourite chocolates. Because something’s gotta motivate you through the rest of the work.
Proposition 2: At the end of the second draft
You’re no naive n00b. You know writing has to be revised. And that’s what you’ve done: revised.
So now your manuscript should be perfect and ready to go, right? You want eggs cooked, you fry them. You want your room clean, you tidy it. You want your manuscript polished, you revise it.
Really? You are such an exceptional human being that you learn things instantly all the time? You’ve never had to try more than once to accomplish your goals? Revising once helps you get the manuscript exactly the way you intend it to be right now.
But revision is an iterated process that helps you discover what you want to intend the manuscript to be. Often, the only way to assess what you’re trying to do with your story is to write it out and see.
Proposition 3: At the end of the nth draft
Okay, but, like, after a certain number of drafts, you’re probably done, yeah? Didn’t that Malcolm Gladwell guy say that if you put 10, 000 hours into something, you become an expert millionaire*?
Unfortunately, this is not the way the world works. I can write 100 drafts, and they may all be terrible if I haven’t figured out the heart of the story.
Also, there’s no rule delineating exactly what a “draft” is. All “n drafts” means is “n times you thought you might be done.”
Proposition 4: After it’s published
I don’t have much experience with this, but I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to go to book stores and re-write your articles/stories/essays as they sit on the shelves. Right?
Proposition 5: After someone else likes it
Okay, but to get published, you have to send it to agents and editors and whoever else. And you’re not supposed to do that until it’s done. Catch 22?
So what about deciding you’re done if your friend or family member or online writing partners like it? And not just in the “yes, what a lovely novel, heh heh, now let’s talk about something else” way but in the actual “omg, yes, this is a great” way.
Well, it sure is a super-good feeling when someone else is taken away by your writing. Buuut… that’s just one person, and that one person doesn’t read dozens of queries and sample pages each week. And they aren’t going to stop reading at the first few paragraphs, even if they don’t like it, because they already like you. And they may share your idiosyncratic way of viewing the world.
Just because you like it doesn’t mean it’s any good. One friend’s opinion is just as subjective as yours, even if a little less biased.
Proposition 6: After everybody else likes it
So… never.
Proposition 7: After you’re sure you’re done
See above.
Proposition 8: After you feel good about it
One of my playwriting professors told us his personal yardstick: a piece of writing is ready if you can listen to other people read it and not want the ground to swallow you whole.
I know that cringing feeling when you hear your stuff come out stupider than it sounded in your head. And if writing does that to me, I can be pretty confident that it’s not ready. But, as the same professor pointed out, it can be tough to distinguish between this-is-terrible embarrassment and this-is-personal embarrassment. Are you blushing because the sex scene you wrote is awful, or because it may give your readers the wrong (or right!) idea about your private desires?
On the flip side, I’ve been pretty confident about stories that turned out to be pretty awful.
Proposition 9: After you feel terrible about it
Aren’t you sick of your manuscript yet? Are you so done with it that all you do is fiddle around changing individual words here and there instead of actually reading the darn thing?
This is one of my signs that my writing is ready to go out. It’s mainly pragmatic: it’s not like I’m going to change much about it no matter how much time I have, so I might as well send it now.
Sometimes, the restless-trying-to-make-this-perfect feeling does tell me I’ve made all the major changes that were in my bones. But the best it can confirm is that I’ve done as much as I can with what I’ve got right now. I’ve had that feeling a few times, sent out my writing, and got back amazing critiques or feedback that launched me right back into tear-up-the-foundations revisions.
So where does that leave me?
Proposition 10: After you run out of time
If you’re out of time — due date approaching, submission deadline in less than an hour, email has to be sent — that kind of solves your problem for you, doesn’t it?
Because writing will never be perfect. Even when it’s as good as I can get it, I’ll always be fiddling with choosing one word over another or re-ordering a pair of sentences. But in the end, you can only learn how good your writing is when it’s read.