As someone who has evaluated more than six hundred stories in the past three years, I’ve come to a certain realization I’ve not seen proclaimed elsewhere: Often the writing or the mechanics of a story aren’t necessarily what bring it down; rather, it is the focus of the story itself, its level of inherent dramatic tension, thematic weight, and good old-fashioned compelling appeal that renders it unpublishable.
This is so obvious that it may not rock your writing world at first glance, but it should. Because, based on results, very few of those six hundred writers get that nuance. They simply chose the wrong story, or an inadequate story, to write. Their instincts didn’t show them a higher bar to reach for, and their submitted stories bore evidence of that fact.
Chances are that nobody told you that your story was weak. Even with stellar writing and textbook execution, the story you chose just wasn’t strong enough. Nobody at the writing conference will tell you this, or will even give you benchmarks or guidelines for determining whether your story idea is strong enough. This leaves you alone in determining how your story stacks up to the competition.
And that’s the problem. At least half the stories I’ve read as a story coach—and, I’d wager, half the manuscripts rejected by publishers—are less about the writer and the execution than about the inherent appeal and strength of the story itself.
Writing publishable fiction, however you publish it, is a lofty goal when viewed from a qualitative perspective. Sure, you can publish anything you want these days, without vetting it (though rigorous editorial vetting is still the staple of traditional publishing venues and nearly any agent worth her smelling salts). I sometimes get nailed for saying this bluntly, but some writing groups favor a kumbaya approach to writing, in which any story is worthy and any writer can make it if he really, really tries.
This absolutely cannot be true. Not every story idea is worth pursuing, even in the skilled hands of the world’s finest authors, and not every story written by a well-intentioned, even skilled, writer should be published.
I’m not seeking to discourage. I have no agenda in that direction. On the contrary, I seek to illuminate a realistic and achievable path toward helping solid writers create publishable stories, with a focus on turning pieces that aren’t currently working into ones that are. And, as a bonus morsel of truth, all this stuff applies with equal validity and power to both rejected and newly conceived projects as well.
If you’ve been rejected after your best and highest effort, then you already know how challenging writing a great story, a publishable story, really is. I’m hoping you’re ready to do the hard work—the real work and the proven work—that will take your story to the next level.
For the record, I agree with the kumbaya-humming groups about the part on trying. But it’s the definition of what trying really means that’s up for debate. This book is my take on that issue, with solid principles, logic, and proven experience to back me up.
I believe that there are two major reasons why a story doesn’t work, or doesn’t work well enough, which in the realm of professional storytelling is the same thing as failing. These two categories are the very things a writer should strive to conquer, not just in the revision phase but from the story’s inception.
If there are two reasons for why a story doesn’t work, it follows that there are two reasons why it does, and that the first set is the antithesis of the latter set. Like an airplane must have both power and lift, an athlete must have both timing and speed, and a song must have both melody and lyrics to achieve their purposes, effective stories need two separate dimensions of energy.
Just two.
Either (1) your story proposition isn’t strong enough, or (2) its execution isn’t effective enough. The flip side, then, says that when a story does work, it is because the story proposition is strong enough and its execution is indeed effective. In either case, two coins are spinning in the air, and how they land determines the fate of your story. Mining the gold of this truth requires that you understand what strong means and what effective entails. Not everyone agrees, so whom you listen to becomes a factor in your success.
While this seems simplistic at a glance, the fine print attached to either area of weakness is not. There is a long list of criteria and common missteps within both of these categories, and because both are products of imagination and choice on the part of the writer (which are nothing other than your story sensibilities calling the shots), the remedy becomes as imprecise as the explanation of the problem.
Beauty is a perception, and perception is everything in certain fields of endeavor, including writing. The criteria for the beauty of both levels of story effectiveness vary widely and reside very much in the mind, if not the eye, of the beholder. In other words, one reader’s masterpiece is another’s waste of time and money.
This is why stories are usually rejected by one or more agents or publishers before finding a home. You’d think professionals would be on the same page about what works and what doesn’t, but that’s hardly the case. The eyes of those beholders have different tastes and personal preferences (which become their favored criteria) and thus different lenses through which they view a story. Writers are the first to determine (and are quite alone in doing so) what is beautiful and functional within their stories, and when agents and editors and readers don’t agree—we’ve all heard tales of famous authors being rejected by dozens of agents—writers can always fall back on their hubris, reassuring themselves that those agents, editors, and readers just don’t get it.
But your readers may very well have gotten it. They just didn’t like it.
If you’re in this business to actually sell your fiction, hubris will destroy you. Because those agents, editors, and readers have to get it. And if they don’t, then it’s on you to understand why not, rather than, as a reflex or an uninformed response, attempting to breathe life into something that others perceive as comatose or flat or just less than compelling. It’s up to you to realize that you aren’t necessarily the arbiter of what is worthy and what is not.
You get a rejection, so in your state of denial you then decide to send it out to someone else. Not always the best approach. Then again, it may be the best choice available. You get to make that choice, and you have only your story sensibilities to guide you.
After a while, as more and more rejections pile up, we must consider the possibility that, at its core, the problem is with the author rather than those who have read and rejected the work.
It is always a question of degree, and sometimes revision is just another word for starting over.
If a story’s weakness resides in both the story-strength realm and the craft-execution realm, then revision becomes nothing short of a complete reboot on multiple levels. In turn, this says something about the state of the writer’s story sensibilities—the sum of instinct, knowledge, and experience, completely eradicated of ego—and becomes the first place to look for cause and effect as the revision process begins.
Story strength and craft execution provide an overarching context for the entire revision conversation. Determining in which of those two neighborhoods your work awaits is the first step in the revision process.
You have to decide. Which means, in order to do so with true confidence of your success, you have to know.
Or better put … what should we know, specifically?
There’s a good—if not scientifically precise—answer to that: The perception (and thus the fate) of a story is in its measurement across several standards, which include simple opinion and personal taste. We have a proven set of principles, criteria, and outcomes to use as benchmarks to help us decide. You’ll see lists of those in both realms soon enough, but for now, a higher-level view of story definition and storytelling craft is required.
We first need to tear into this story strength vs. craft execution issue and make sure our story sensibilities aren’t out there on a thin limb, very much alone.
Revision isn’t always a black-and-white proposition. In fact it rarely is. The two realms of revision—story and execution—are not mutually exclusive, but more often than not they act in tandem to sabotage the writer’s best intentions. They remain separate in the sense that you need completely different literary sensibilities to master them. Conversely—and inevitably—if you come up short in either realm, the whole story will be perceived as highly rejectable.
A quick analogy might help you understand this. Two students try out for the college tennis team. This is Division 1, a high level of tennis by any standard. Everyone at the tryout can beat anyone at the country club, including the club pro. Here, at the aspiring-professional level, greater-than-average talent and instinct are required. One player is well trained but weak and sluggish. Her strokes are pretty, but her shots are cream puffs in a game that often depends on spin and velocity. Good enough for high school, but not for the tryout. The other player demonstrates great natural speed and racquet control; she can hit the crap out of the ball but makes bad choices under pressure. She lacks an evolved sense of judgment or patience to go for winning shots, and her double faults and unforced ground stroke errors are too frequent. Experience counts, and the lack of it can get you cut from the team.
In this case, neither player makes the team. The first player is told that her game is good but not great, not strong enough to compete. She’s not quick enough, can’t cover the court well enough, and her serve comes in fat, ripe for the opponent to rip a winning return. The raw material of her game isn’t up to the level of the competition. Her game is generic. Other players who tried out brought a better game overall.
In this analogy, she is like the writer lacking in the story realm. This writer can write, but what she is writing is problematic. It’s just too weak, and too generic; it doesn’t stand out in a field of tough competition.
The other player, the one with the natural gifts, is told she needs to play the game at a higher level. She’s a big hitter, but her instincts and timing are off. She’ll get killed by a more schooled player, even if that player isn’t as strong. It doesn’t matter how hard you hit the ball if the opponent simply waits for you to get out of position to deliver a winning shot you can’t reach. Everyone hits big at this level (which is why the first player was cut), and a sense of touch and anticipation is required to compete.
In this analogy, she is like the writer lacking in the execution realm. This writer’s story rambles and includes side trips and diversions and lacks a sense of flow and structure. She makes bad choices at bad times, which is why in her career she consistently loses to authors with less raw talent.
Many of the other kids fail to make the team because they lack in both areas—they have a solid game but no differentiating abilities or skills, or a big game with no subtleties or touch. The two players described above define the scope of the specific improvements that might be required, and they fall into one of two realms: the raw strength and hunger that make a player powerful, or the timing and variable pace and patience that make a player formidable in all situations, at all levels.
Raw strength and athleticism (story) plus skill, timing, and intuitive sensibilities within the rules of the game (execution): The entire combination has to be stellar to make the team.
The rare player who brings this combination of talent to the tryout is like the writer who gets published. (And believe me when I say, when you submit a story to an agent or editor, you are very much trying out for a team, competing with other skilled writers against the same applied criteria.) If you display weakness in either the story or execution realms, you’ll be like the rejected player walking home alone, bag in hand, wondering what went wrong and perhaps thinking, They just don’t get me.
In fact, it is you who just isn’t getting it. You showed up with only half of what you need to reach your goal, to compete at the next level.
The good news is that both areas of weakness can be strengthened, fortified, and fixed. But the writer needs to know where to focus the work of fixing her game in each area, because each requires the other. We need to bring the whole game to the tryout. If you continue to practice without changing your ability to achieve a higher level of play—and do the work necessary to execute it—nothing will change.
We need to know more about what causes stories to be effective in order to make it happen.
Once again, the two highest realms of story weakness are:
Nobody said this would be easy. It looks easy when you read a tightly written story, and that’s the whole problem for many writers. It looks easy.
Here’s a sobering and rarely spoken perspective: If 990 out of 1,000 manuscripts are rejected, why do we then believe that the percentage of acceptance will go up after revision when the same rejected writers are doing the revising?
Some stories will indeed be accepted after revision. Most won’t. It is the reason that most won’t that we need to embrace—and avoid.
Of those 990 rejected stories, about half will be dismissed because the story idea, concept, or premise just isn’t good enough, even if the writing is perfectly fine. The other half will be tossed because the execution of a workable story just isn’t good enough. And, in overlaying those two groups, a majority of the stories rejected will have issues in both realms. The rejection slip you receive, or the feedback given by a critique group or a beta reader, may or may not be clear about the underlying issues that led to this outcome. And few will actually go so far as to tell you that your story idea isn’t strong enough, when in fact that may actually be the reason for its rejection.
To solve this paradox—that’s what it is, and one of our own creation—we must dive deep into the reasons and origins behind the flaws that cause rejection in the first place. The more often rejection occurs—because the first response to rejection is usually to send the story to a different agent or publisher, sometimes that very day, without a thought about revision—the more valuable is this insight.
Story … or craft? Which realm of revision awaits you, and how can you know?