The Three Rs: Rewriting, Revision and Rejection

Rejection is a (big) part of any writer’s life. We’ve all read about how often great and successful writers were rejected before their novels were accepted—and knowing this can take the sting out of the rejections we receive. We can also take steps to try to limit the number of rejections we receive, by revising and rewriting our manuscripts until they are polished before submitting them. Fortunately, there are lots of agents, writers and editors out there who want to help us do just that, and here is some of the best advice I found in the blogosphere.

Weronika Janczuk, a new agent D4EO literary posts about what she thinks about when she critiques a manuscript in her post My Editorial Letters. It’s like a cheat sheet for writers—a list of all the things you need to consider when you are revising your novel.

Another agent, shares how she evaluates full manuscripts on Kidlit.com. Don’t be thrown by the kid lit angle—this is an excellent post and helpful regardless of the genre in which you write.

Ten Mistakes Writers Don’t See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do) from Holt Uncensored: Number one on this list is the use of repetition, such as repeating a crutch word. I’ve written about my crutch word, “just” a few times, and given you a couple ideas for finding yours (the find and edit feature of Word and using word clouds). The repetition referred to in this post goes a lot deeper than crutch words though...and that’s just the first item on the list.

Some practical suggestions on revisions:

• Scenes: Five Simple Questions for Revision from FictionNotes: These questions help you dig deeper into each scene to add depth, emotion and conflict to your novel. 
• The Writing is in the Rewriting. Deep down, we all know that, but when our critique partner suggests cutting a scene we really love, we don’t always want to listen. Stacey Ballis, in a guest post on Writer Unboxed, shares how she gets through the sometimes difficult process.
• Kathy Temean at Writing and Illustrating shares some practical suggestions for making the revision process easier and for making your sentences come to life in her post Novel Revisions.

Want to know why you’re being rejected?

• Agent Kristin , over at Pub Rants, passes along the disheartening news that she doesn’t read beyond the first two pages of 90% of the submissions she receives. She writes about four Killer Openings to avoid—killers because they kill your chances of having an agent read beyond them.
• Sarah, an associate literary agent with Curtis Brown, Ltd. shares the types of writers who “makes her reject you” in Lessons from Peggy Olson over at Glass Cases.
• And, saving perhaps the best for last, The Blood-Red Pencil blog offers the Top 25 Reasons Your Submissions are Rejected—after as little as one paragraph. The tips are from the Surrey, BC Writers Conference where agents and editors read aloud the first few pages of submissions to see how far they would read before they rejected the work.

Revise, Rewrite and (hopefully) avoid rejection.

Links Tent: Editing

My apologies for being missing in action over the last couple weeks. I'd tell you that it was due to the fact that the other rings in my life took up my time and left with me none for posting blogs, but I hate excuses and refuse to make them. Instead, I'll tell you I had sick kids, a sick me, a move to complete and NaNoWriMo to catch up on (and, yes, I'm still behind but finishing it is still a possibility).

Louise DeSalvo sums up my logic about not giving you these excuses (ahem) in her guest post on Christina Baker Kline's A Writing Life blog: Why Having Kids is No Excuse. I think this should be required reading for any writer who can't find time to write.

Chuck at the Guide to Literary Agents Blog shares these 7 Reasons Agents Stop Reading Your Chapters. These include some big picture problems that you'll want to take care of.

A. Victoria Mixon has some more big picture advice for you in her post Developmental Editing. She writes a developmental editing letter for an imaginary client, Xavier, who is actually a composite of several real clients and offers suggestions about theme, backstory and characters.

Writing Forward presents 10 Helpful Editing Tips that will work whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, a novel or a business letter.

C. Patrick Schulz focuses on the pesky adverb in his post: Tips on Eliminating Unnecessarily Overused Adverbs. You know you're not supposed to use them!

Finally, Janet Reid, Literary Agent has some sure-fire, undisputable advice for How to get no more rejections, EVER!