The Best Advice

Boy this is a hard one. Advice. When to seek it, when to take it, when to just go out for another beer and forget what everyone is trying to tell you.

So, just for now, let's talk just about writing advice. Later, we can do advice about publishing.

You want advice on writing - don't ask me. There' s lots of places out there that will be more than happy to give you advice. Forums and websites and friends and reviewers and even some other authors. Readers want this. Readers demand that. No one will buy your book if you don't do this. It's not believable. It's too believable. When does it end.

That's the hard part - it has to end with you. You are the parent of this book, this child, and you get to make all the decisions that will affect its life. Now, just like any other parent, you can become blinded to your child's strengths and weaknesses (what weaknesses? you ask, horrified). So how can you properly judge your novel and not trust what everyone else is saying?

Well, first I say try a test. Go out onto a street corner and ask a question that requires a subjective answer to the next ten people that walk by. I bet you get ten different answers. Or try posting on a forum - My favourite book is ___ and wait to see how many people agree, disagree or can't believe you could even read such nonsense.

So once you have all those opinions, whose are you going to listen to? See the problem?

Well here's what I do now. I have some readers, people I trust that want me to succeed with my novel and have no other motive. And I ask them to read it and I note all their comments. If I get a consensus on a certain point then I'll go back and consider rewriting or reworking it. But generally, I use it more as a feel as to whether the novel is ready to go off to an agent/publisher.

Now those are the opinions I listen very closely to. My agent and my publisher make their livings off the sales of my books. They have a huge motivation to make my book the best it can be. I listen to every word they say and have wound up with much better stories because of it.

So whether your published or not, read those rejection letters. Learn from those comments. I swear you will not become a good writer the first time out. It takes dedication, committment and a thick skin to really hear what people are telling you about your baby and then dig into another month of rewrites. But in the end, you will be a writer, you will get published and you will be successful.

So, don't take shortcuts (self publishing), don't listen to absolutely everything that everyone says and don't forget to write every day.