Is your book too long?
From April’s Writing Magazine:
Read your work objectively. Does it still excite you?
‘Remember that if a book is boring you it is going to be boring your readers,’ says Simon Brett.
‘That sounds a bit glib but what I mean by that is if you have thought of something that is going to be a long scene and after a bit you find you have said everything you want, then stop. … every book has a shape and if you can’t feel that shape you probably shouldn’t be writing. I think there is more danger of the book being too long than too short.’
This is true, but the part about being objective is the hard part. I’ve only accomplished this after letting the book sit for a long while (over a year) without touching it. Maybe an impartial reader would work just as well?
Being objective is the hardest thing. I think you have to be suspicious of your own reactions when you read your own work.
A reader can help a lot - but there are as many opinions as there are readers, so you still have to develop a gut instinct for whether their criticism is down to a personal opinion or a flaw in your work.
In the heat of it, scenes may appear more complete than they might read weeks or months later. Perhaps the answer could be a combination of hang time and a panel of impartial readers. Allowing yourself space makes it easier to hear the advice readers might offer, plus gives the writer a more detached perspective about what is actually on the page.
“Read your work objectively.” Is that possible? I doubt it. Though I have found that the more I write, of anything (poetry, fiction, whatever), the more I can distance myself from previously written works. It’s not necessarily a matter of time for me, but just that filling up page after page with new words seems to loosen my connection to the previous words, if that makes any sense. Being able to step back and not feel intimately invested in a story or poem makes a huge difference in how I can read and revise it.
This is why I love writing sites where other eyes see your work, and by consensus you can often get a feel for what’s not right in a piece, I think. I agree with Sharon that the more you write, the quicker you ‘release’ the former pages. Some of these old stories and poems I’ve got, I read now and wonder who did that? Time helps too!
I’ve just finished a collaborative book with a friend - and it was written quickly as part of the rules, 300 pieces of 300 words. When we came to edit it, there were bits neither of us could remember writing and other bits we were both convinced we had written. It was the strangest feeling. I’m not sure if it was being impartial but certainly made us think about how we owned our writing.