Chapter 4: Edit, edit, edit, until your eyes bleed.

I killed my first book by over-editing. I learned, on just about every website on creative writing, to edit, edit, edit, but don’t overcook it. This seemingly obvious bit of advice was a hard lesson for me. How would I know when to turn the heat off? If I kept having ideas about how to make the story better, shouldn’t I act on them? Shouldn’t I take the advice of friend readers about plot holes, lagging bits, irrelevant scenes? Apparently not. I thank my wonderful sister-in-law for pointing this out to me with my first book, so gently and with such empathy. She’d been on the editing road with me, endured so many drafts, been so supportive and I think she wanted the manuscript to live as badly as I did. But it didn’t. It’s dead. The characters are still alive – they are being cared for in a secure location. I check in on them every now and then.

For my second attempt, I wanted to write a love story that explored themes of control, in particular elder abuse. By this point I’d done a couple of creative writing courses and read voraciously any and every article on the internet about ‘How to write a good story’. I read the line ‘Show, don’t tell’ about 15,345,677 times, changed my phrasing from passive to active and searched high and low for ‘My Voice’. I tried to plot more, rather than fly by the seat of my pants. I made up an Excel spreadsheet with a narrative arc, all the characters and timelines and interactions and felt like a real author. I kept a notebook and filled it with edits and reminders. Finally, after editing, editing, editing, I felt my manuscript was ready to send off to all the publishers accepting unsolicited manuscripts. I went through each one, fulfilling their requirements, sticking to the submission guidelines like super glue. I started another spreadsheet just for the submissions, so I could track when they were sent, who got back to me, which ones rejected. (Spoiler alert: All of them.)

I wasn’t surprised. I know publishers receive millions of manuscripts that they have to wade through…well I don’t really, but on their websites, they all say they do, and given the long wait time for a reply, I can only believe them. I dutifully entered the date I received the rejection email into my spreadsheet. Not all of them responded, but after a year, I figured it was safe to put the word ‘Rejected’ in the cell. There were definitely low times, like when I wasn’t short listed for the Hachette Manuscript Development Program. I’d been so sure my manuscript was a winner, but no, they’d been swamped with uber-amazing entries that year, apparently. I sulked for a while and resentfully read through the names of those who’d been shortlisted. With a lot of practice, I got better at not letting rejection emails ruin my day, (except for the one from Text Publishing for my fourth book. I’d had a dream that they’d rung me up, so you know, my hopes were unusually high. It had been a very detailed dream; I remember the feel of the phone on the side of my head, my armpits sweating, the terror I might not be good enough to write another book. So, that’s one worry to cross off the list).

After the rejection column on my spreadsheet was full for my second book, I decided to engage an editor to do a structural edit and manuscript assessment. I tried not to tinker with the manuscript while I was waiting to hear back, and the second I saw the editor’s email come in, I let out a whoop of joy and dropped everything else. The editor gave some interesting feedback. I read and reread her appraisal and tried to work out exactly what she was saying. It was all quite general writing advice that could be applied to any story, nothing specific telling me: this is what is wrong with your story, Kate, and this is how you can make it a best seller. So annoying. Still, I ploughed on and took her advice on board, and did another edit, then I sent the MS to my sister-in-law for her to read with her book club. The feedback was incredible, and by incredible, I mean, I couldn’t believe how deeply they got into the story and how many things they had to say about even minor scenes. I felt humbled they’d taken their task as reviewers so seriously. I’d wanted specifics! There was so much constructive criticism it looked like a building site. I could barely wait to get back to work. I read the feedback through three times then sat down at my laptop to take notes about more edits. Then something weird happened. I got really, really depressed and couldn’t open the Word file. Not again. I still haven’t opened it. I love that story, and sometimes I wonder how the characters are going, I think of them standing at a bus stop, waiting for a bus that is running really, really late. It’s raining.

My third book was inspired by an event in my son’s life. A custody battle between him and his ex-girlfriend over a dog. It was crazy. He had to go to court because his ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence as a way to get the dog back. We (my husband and I and my son) spent all day at the local courthouse, waiting to be heard. His ex-girlfriend sat with her father ten or so metres away. She wouldn’t look at us. Her father came up after about five hours of waiting, scratched the top of his head and said, ‘Yeah, so, ahh, sorry about this.’ We had no words. The magistrate left it until the last case of the day and was clearly ticked off. She said to my son’s ex-girlfriend’s duty lawyer, ‘This is a property issue, not a domestic violence issue’ and so the duty lawyer explained that her client was suffering ‘emotional abuse’ by not being able to have the dog half of the time. Jeebus. I understand she wanted to keep seeing the dog, but I mean, seriously, ‘Domestic Violence’? Talk about burning the bridge. The magistrate sent us all home with a warning that costs would be incurred if the issue came before her again. It didn’t.

Anyway, this event got me thinking about custody battles and what if my son and his ex-girlfriend were fighting over a child, not a dog. I’ve never sent that one off to publishers. It needs work and when I was meant to be editing it without overcooking it, I had the urge to write a new story, a story written in the first person about two sisters growing up in suburban Brisbane in the seventies with a narcissistic mother.

Very different and divisive feedback about this one. Some were disturbed by events in the story, perhaps wondering if they were fact, rather than fiction. The editor (same one) said she was ‘surprised’ by the story and felt it was a lot darker than the other book – very different. She sounded disappointed, as was I when part of her assessment consisted of word for word generic writing advice that she’d given me for my other manuscript (the one that was so different to this one.) She had some good points though and I took them on board, injected some light, made the arcs tighter, sorted the resolution out so it was more satisfying, less depressing. It was the first time I’d received less than positive feedback and it made me stronger, more able to defend my writing choices. I fiddled with the story a bit more, wrote the dreaded synopsis, then sent it off. A few months later, I filled in the spreadsheet with the rejections, as they came in.

I had the title for my fifth book before I even started on the character profiles. ‘Velcro’. I fretted it might become a copyright issue long before I wrote the first chapter. Ugh, who am I kidding – I dreamed it would become a copyright issue. Unsurprisingly, ‘Velcro’ is a story about attachments, the unhealthy kind. There’s some abuse in there, but it’s a redemptive tale, with strong female characters. Again, the story came easily, then the editing process began. I was more disciplined this time, very conscious of making every sentence move the story along.