Are You Open To Revisions? Really?

A pretty common phrase I see in query letters is when authors tell me, "I love this story and I am open to any suggestions you might make." This is truly something we want to see, both as agents and editors. Revisions are part of the publishing process. It is a necessary part as the ENTIRE team works hard to put the best product out there on the market for you!

And yet...

For a lot of authors, that statement isn't entirely true. While they say they are open to suggestions, what they are really saying is, "I'll listen but if I think my idea is better, well then..." OK, maybe not everyone, but there are indeed a lot of authors who do take this approach.

First of all, let's think about what we mean by revisions. You are getting "another pair of eyes" on your project. This time, however, the eyes looking at your story know the market. They know what is selling and they know how to craft that story to make it work for the readers. Woops, I guess I should note, when I am talking about editors here, I am talking about traditional editors. I am not referring to Hybrid and Contracted Editors. While these people know how to edit, oftentimes, they are providing a general approach and not editing targeted to their own publisher. There are rare exceptions if they worked for a publisher and they know who you are targeting...then they can really help. 

Anyway, off that side track.

When we provide these edits, we are keeping YOUR voice but molding the story, trimming here, adding there and so forth, to make it even stronger. In no way are we saying that the story is garbage. In fact, if you think about it, the simple fact that we are working with you under contract already says we are in your corner. What we are saying is, "We love all of these things, but what could be even stronger would be..."

Now, editors and agents are certainly open to counter plans. Please remember, that if you do decide to take that approach, you need to have a fully justifiable approach and be able to demonstrate that it works, not just in the story, but in terms of marketability. Remember, they are the professionals (especially the editors who know their readers). You have to trust them.

Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of authors, some have been my prior clients, who have believed their approach was correct and wanted to argue with the editor and in one case with me. I the case of the author-editor disagreements, this turned into phone calls coming to me of "Can you please talk to your author for me." Ugh. Not the conversation I like having. 

In the case of the author-agent situation that one revolved around where the author wanted to have me market her stories. She had a true Series/Category voice. I argued to trim her stories down and showed how to do it. She did not want to follow the suggestions, she knew better. She knew she was supposed to be at the big single title houses. So, her wish was my command. The rejections letters all said the same thing: "You really have a series/category voice and it doesn't fit here." When I last checked, she still has not published, even through self-publishing. Those rejection letters became far too much to deal with. 

I guess the point I am making here is simple. Listen to the revisions. If you want to discuss the revisions, do so, but don't argue. Remember, these are given to you in the hopes to make it better.

Oh, and one final note. If you are sending out queries and an editor or agent passes on your project but gives you revisions comments, LISTEN to them and FOLLOW THOSE SUGGESTIONS! You were just given the greatest present of all!

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Revisions Do Not Mean Writing A New Manuscript

I wanted to talk a bit about revisions today. I have several authors who are knee-deep in the middle of these right now so I thought it an appropriate topic. This is going to be one of those posts, however, that will be filled with a lot of "IF YOU" statements.

Revisions, as we know, are a necessary evil. As much as we would hope it to be the case, your story WILL NOT be perfect after the first draft. Critique partners, agents and editors will all find something you missed along the way. This means going back to work on that story and making those changes so it is ready to go to those editors, contests or to the readers after the editors have gone over your story.

Now, IF YOU have spent time planning your story ahead of time, these revisions are not going to be as troublesome as you think. The odds are, you caught a lot of those issues as you worked through that first project. Those of you flying by the seat of your pants as you were writing probably were not catching those mistakes.

I will also add that IF YOU were thinking as you wrote, the odds are you were already spotting areas that you and your agent or editor are probably going to want to fix. One of my authors, when she sends in her story to her editor already provides for her a list of about three things that she knows might be an issue. Does she want those to be problems? No. In fact, she is always hoping the editor comes back with, "No, everything is great." Most of the time, the editor comes back with an agreement of the issue but has already come up with some potential solutions.

The next bit IF YOU deals with your ability to see solutions. This is where you have to be a strong writer and someone who can see all of the small and large elements of your story. In this case, you have to understand how all of the parts are working together in your story. For most writers, however, they see only the plot. They see only the words on the page in front of them, and not the writing on all of the pages before or after.

Finally IF YOU are someone who can multitask, revisions should not be an major issue. This also connects to that prior point. Let me explain how one of my authors works. When she goes through her story, she has two documents open. One is her "CLIP BOARD" where everything she cuts goes to that document. As she works through the story and cuts things, she already knows if this is something that can be moved to another place in the story or if it just needs to be eliminated. To do this successfully means that you have to essentially think of two stories at one time.

As the title suggest, revisions does not mean starting over. It means attacking ONLY the problem areas and not massively over-hauling everything in the story. To do this, though, requires a trained author. And, as I have pointed out a lot in the last several posts, requires time and education.

Why Revisions Are So Difficult

So, you sent your story out to your editor or your agent. You love this story. You worked your "you know what" off and it contains all of your blood, sweat and tears. And then, you get that letter back saying something such as. "I really love the things you have done with this story but there are a few things that I think we need to work on." This is then followed up by pages of comments.

Ugh!

But the thing is that revisions are part of the entire writing process. It is the revision phase that really fleshes out that great story that you, your agent and your editor envisioned when you were discussing it at the proposal phase, But still, I get it. Revisions are tough. But why?

The biggest reason is that you, your agent, and your editor were looking at this story while wearing blinders. You know what I mean? Those things the race horse wear. Of course we are talking about this in the metaphorical sense. Each of the players in this story saw it being written one way. They saw the characters one way. They heard the discussions one way. And they saw the resolution of the conflict being played out in their unique way. When you have three sets of eyes looking at it this way, you will often run into things that seem to be impossible to resolve.

But this is not the case. The odds are, you are all looking at the exact same issues in the story. The struggle you are having is how to resolve those issues.

I know with many authors, they see the only way to resolve the story is a complete re-do of the entire story. They panic and see this changes as being something that will mandate time they simply feel they do not have in their life. The editors or the agents may also see it that way. But there is a solution.

As you look at the revisions, simply make a list of the problems and look at these in blocks of issues. What you will often find is that the issues back in Chapter 10 may all be fixed with a small tweak in Chapter 2. In other words, you made a mistake early on and for the next 8 chapters, you just dug your self into the problem deeper and deeper.

Secondly, look for the easy solutions. If you have great dialogue, but you ended up inserting another random character in the story to say those things, and the end result was a chapter that was just slowing the story down. You had to put that person into the story, work them in smoothly, get those lines out, and then work them out of the story. This is too much. Could another character figure this out? Could your protagonist just come to this understanding without bringing in someone else to tell them?

I always tell my authors to not panic when those revisions show up. Let's look at the comments and see what we can do.

Now, with that said, will there be times when the revisions are a pain. Yes. But now you know how to work through the problems.

Doing Revisions For Just One Editor/Agent? Necessary?

NOTE - Let me first say that this question deals with those authors who are still in search for that first contract with an editor or an agent.

You have been furiously sending out projects to editors and agents. You have this great story and you are looking forward to getting it published. Out of the blue, one of the editors or agents writes back with revision comments. They are passing on the project, but then follow up with the statement, "...however, if you would be interested in sending us a revised project, we look forward to reading it." Now what?

While this sounds like a great opportunity, I would encourage authors to stop and consider a few things before making those changes. 

Yes, we all want to see those revision comments, but it is important to remember that this business is extremely subjective. What works for one person is not necessarily going to work for another person. This means that those comments and revision notes are designed "just" for that one person. In simple terms, your story as it stands now may work well with those other editors and agents you have not heard from yet. 

It is also important to consider the time that it will take to make those revisions. That time you will be spending to make the changes just for this one person is time that will be taken away from other projects you may have going. This is going to be a gamble and there are no promises. In fact, most of the time, when editors and agents offer the chance to revise the project, there is also a comment that says there are not promises that the project will be accepted, even after the changes. 

But, there is a reverse side to this. If you are certain that story is going to work for that editor or agent, AND you are committed enough to that editor or agent, it may be worth the time and effort. If that editor or agent took the time to come up with the revision notes, then maybe they saw enough in the project and the time will be worth it. 

I think the key thing to consider here is this is a gamble. It is easy to say you are willing to take that gamble, but understand, it is just for one person. Those changes you make in that story may now be something that will never work for those other editors and agents, should this single person pass. 

The short and sweet of this is to stop and think.  

Thoughts on Revisions

This is a post from earlier, but it is always a good reminder...

It is the wishful thought of all authors of never seeing revisions for their stories. You have worked so hard and the thought of someone telling you that "you have a few things to work on" is far from what one would hope for. Yet, revisions are a necessary evil and sometimes, as much as we hate it, the revisions may be a bit more than we would hope for. I am bringing this up because one of my authors is working through some serious rounds of revisions now on a project. She had asked if I really thought the story would be something that would be able to be submitted, or was the project so far out of the running that it would be better to start on something new. Unfortunately, the answer is not that simple.

In reality, until we see all of the revisions and that final project, we can't say for certain if the story would be ready. In the case of my author, these revisions go back to the first moment she first queried me.

This story, (which I did reject) had some interesting points to it, but in terms of the over-haul necessary to make it ready, I passed on the project. She later submitted an amazing project to me and while that story is out on proposal, we went to work on this first project. As I said, the story needed some serious over-haul. It really required a complete make-over so she went to work on it.

Although she did the revisions as we talked about, the story still wasn't quite right. She literally had the penduleum swing too far in the opposite direction. So, we went to find that happy medium between the first and the second story. This is where we are now.

At this point, some of you might be saying, "why didn't we just find that happy medium the first time around?" The answer is simple. We couldn't see the errors. The first revision was a real shift in story that the revisions we are working on right now just weren't apparent. I think of this is working with a piece of furniture you are reconditioning. Sometimes you have to take off several layers of old paint just to get to the real wood and see what you can do.

This happens and you should be ready for it. Now, as for her question of whether or not I can forsee if the story will be good enough to send out, or should she just quit? At this point, I would say we are really close. We have to tie up a few loose ends but IF the last round of revisions works the way we think they will, then we should be good to go.

The simple point of revision is to not stress out. There is always an easy solution to the problem. I am a firm believer in finding the easy approach. Maybe it is getting rid of one character. Maybe it is changing the location of the story. You just have to look at all of the revision comments and see if there is one thing that will fix multiple problems. The odds are, the solution is there.

Revisions Often Make Problems Bigger

Revisions are a necessary evil. We have just finished pouring our heart and soul into a manuscript and now it is time to "fix it." I do think, it is a perceived belief that when we revise, we immediately start making it better, and, in a way, we are doing this. BUT, and this is a big one, there are times when the revision process opens up a lot of other problems that we didn't see in the first round.

I am in the middle of editing and revising a client's latest project. This is the second round and of revisions and I know she has put in a lot of work on this project. But, as I wrapped up the first read through of the story, it has come to the surface there is still a while to go before we can send this project out. Now, personally, I do not think this will be major, but the story line is going to have to shift a lot. That, in itself, may be difficult.

Why didn't we see this in the first place? Well, that is the issue with revisions. I often describe the revision process of working in layers. We scrub at that project to remove the first layer of issues. After that, we start to see more issues that were not visible because of the first layer. Think of it this

way. Have you watched those episodes of Property Brothers. The house renovations are going along great until they tear down a wall. It is then when they see the asbestos, or water damage. Well, there went the budget!

The same thing happens with a story. In the case of my author, the issues that we saw the first time were plot elements and organization. The story was in a real rough draft state. Now that we got that taken care of, other issues dealing with characterization and theme started to come to the surface.

I am always talking about the issue of time in writing and publishing. This is a craft that cannot be rushed and writers have to realize that. It is unfortunate that we are living in a world of get it done now! We have a publishing climate that pushes how fast a publisher can get that book to the readers. The impact of this is that we are not taking that time in the revision process.

Give the story a chance to be revised. Find those smaller problems and clean up those issues. In the end, even if you have to spend that additional time, you will be happier with the final product.

To Revise Or Not To Revise, That Is The Questions

After I pass on a project, there are a lot of times when I get an email back from the writer asking if they could revise the project and send it in again. This is a great question to ask and I certainly do encourage writers to ask that question of the editors and agents. But, with that said, there are some things to consider before doing this.

Authors have to remember, first and foremost, that the rejection they just received is just one person's thoughts and comments. The rejection might simply be a situation of a story not fitting with the right person. It might not be about the story or the writing at all. For this reason, dedicating the amount of time necessary to revise and edit that project on the gamble of that one single person might not be worth the effort.

As a connection to this, authors should be taking the time to see if there are patterns to the comments they get back from the editors and agents. If there are indeed several who have said the same thing, then we can take that "subjective" reason off of the table and maybe it is time to go back and make those revisions.

There might be a better approach, however. Instead of taking the time to go back and try to "fix" the project, learn from those comments and build something new for that editor or agent. Show that person you can take revision notes and grow from the knowledge that person passed on to you. I would also add that if you do take this approach, I would actually include in the query letter some of the comments that person said on the prior project AND THEN, highlight how you made those changes with this new manuscript. Don't just say you did, show it.

Here at Greyhaus, I do not look at revisions. I like to see new projects from authors and should one of the newer stories work, we can always go back and see if we can do something with that first rejected story.

Still, it is always good to ask. Just consider ahead of time, is it worth the time for this one chance?

To Revise or Not To Revise? That is the Question

So here is the scenario. You just received a rejection letter from an editor or an agent. They passed on your project but gave you some really great comments to work with on your writing. Do you revise? This is something that even agents face when we submit projects for our authors and we too have to make the decision to revise it or not. What I do believe is that most authors would scream a resounding YES to this question. Of course you revise it and prove to the editor or agent you can take those revisions, make the changes and create something that is truly what they want. Unfortunately, yes is not always the right answer. As an author, it is important to really examine the comments that were made about your story and look at the task ahead with a "cost-benefit" mindset. Will the time and effort that you put into the project be worth it in the long run? Will the changes require a complete over-haul of the book or are these minor changes? Will the changes be something that completely changes the story to something you don't want in the final project? It is also important to remember that the changes you make might only work for that one editor or agent. In other words, is there a chance that the project will work for someone else without making all of the changes? Think of it this way. This is a big commitment to make for one person! As I said earlier, this is something that agents face on a pretty regular basis. In fact, we just got a rejection back from an editor who loved the story, love the writing, but there were some tweaks that would have needed to be done to make it work. I had the chance to talk with the editor and we really worked through the things that would need to happen. In this case, we both came to the conclusion that making the changes for the middle would require changing a lot in the beginning. Those changes might actually tweak the story in the wrong way. I know it seems like a reasonable thing to simply say "I'll change it for you!" but before you do these changes, certainly take the time to think it through before you commit to it. I will tell you, sometimes it is better to look at the comments and make sure the new project you have is taking advantage of those comments.