Preparing for Criticism

Editorial services		Prepare for Criticism		The website for writers WritersServices has over 1300 pages	To help you find Search Contents FAQs
Editorial Services					Print and supply
New writers	Fed-up with rejection	Published authors	Office services	Cost & orderingFrom Subject Received mks@brisingamen.demon.co.uk Crew synopsis - Crewsynopsis.doc Sun 20/04/2008 15:53	Some writers' stories

Editorial Services

Prepare for Criticism

Exchange calculator

Manual process

Preparing for criticism

Getting a professional view

This page is intended for those who have decided to opt for our editorial services or other professional comment on their work.

It is very brave of you to submit your work to the scrutiny of an industry professional. Unlike friends and family, or even members of your writing group, an experienced reader will approach your work dispassionately. They do not know you, so their comments are going to be about what they read and the impression it leaves.

The reader or editor’s job is to give you a professional opinion, including advice on the work you could do to improve your writing, according to the description of the particular service you have chosen. Their job is to look at the structure of the manuscript and to advise on this and on the publishing possibilities. It is precisely this detached and expert opinion that you are paying for. Do not be surprised, therefore, if you find that, unlike your friends and family, they are not fulsome in their praise of your work, since their job is to tell you what is wrong with it, so that you can put it right.

As Carole Blake comments in her book From Pitch to Publication ‘It's a smart writer who listens to several sets of editorial criticism and then distils the best of them into a rewrite that turns a good book into a superb book…learning to accept and include in your work the results of well-meaning constructive criticism can be enormously beneficial to your work, and is a major step on the route to becoming a professional writer.’

Missing the point

Sometimes a writer finds that the report seems to miss the whole point or a significant event in the book. This might be an oversight, but you must also take it as a warning. It’s possible that you are so familiar with your story that you don’t realise that the characters and events do not convey the message you think they do. That is exactly what the report should tell you, because the expert reader is coming to it with no prior knowledge or assumptions. So take a close look at your work before blaming the reader for missing the point.

Reread

You will have to read your report several times. They are often quite dense. At first you will pick up the negative points, but re-reading it will give you the information you need to plan the further work which may need to be done. Then you will have to tackle the re-write. 'Amateurs revise: Professionals re-write'. We strongly recommend that you think through the editor’s comments carefully and use them as the basis for revising your work. This guidance is what you are paying for. Publishers’ editors often help their authors through extensive revisions of their work and you should use your report in the same way. Revision is the way to improve your work and give it a better chance of finding a publisher. See our Factsheet on Revision.

A Negative Report

Just occasionally, the professional will make it clear that they do not see any future for you as a writer. This will be bitterly disappointing to you. You might disagree. Our Rotten Rejections pages list some notorious publishing misjudgements of the past. However, there are millions of people who take part in creative writing groups and get a great deal of satisfaction out of attending the meetings and sharing their work with others, but who will never get it published. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the writing for its own sake, as many writers do.

Independence

The editor is working for you. They are under absolutely no instruction at all from us, other than to carry out a professional service. We have occasionally asked them to expand a point or clarify a comment before forwarding their comments to you. When returning the work to you, we often add a few comments about how to proceed and sometimes also some advice about the market.

We offer a range of services. This might appear to pose a conflict of interest. For instance, if the contracts expert says you should not sign a publisher's contract, she does so because this is her professional advice. She has no personal interest of any sort in WritersPrintShop. If a reader recommends that a manuscript needs copy-editing, they are not trying to get more work, as it is unlikely that they will be asked to undertake this work, which is done by a different set of freelances. Our expert editors and readers are highly experienced independent freelancers, who are not on the WritersServices’ payroll. They will always produce work which is of a high professional standard, to the best of their ability, and will offer clear and unbiased advice.

Be brave

To become a published author you must run the gauntlet of dispassionate criticism. It is not much fun but a vital part of the process to prepare your manuscript. You might not agree with the expert's view and you do not need to accept their verdict. However, we are certain that your work will be better received if you take their comments on board.

Site navigation