I've been reading some of the posts on the forum and it seems that there is a
formula that you have to apply to your writing. If you don't want to use this
formula does that mean that you will never be published?

feathers

Hi Feathers, and welcome to WW.

What sort of thing are you writing at the moment?

I certainly don't believe there are formulae for writing good novels. Even within a particular genre - crime, say, or chick lit - where readers do have certain expectations of what the book will be like, it has to be fresh and new and different at the same time, and that's all in how you do it. Whenever you try to think of something that good novels or good writing have in common, you can always think of a good novel which does the exact opposite. The only real 'formula' is that whatever you write must keep the reader wanting to read more. Learning to do that is a lifetime's study, and your first novel is just the start!

There are some books which try to peddle a particular idea of plot or structure or kind of writing, but they're the worst kind in the end, even if they do seem to offer a nice comfortable do-what-I-tell-you-and-you'll-be-published set of rules. On the other hand there are some excellent books which can be really helpful when you've got as far as you can with your own writing, and know that you want to move it up a level but don't know how on your own.

You will see people discussing 'the rules' on WW, though lots of us don't regard them as rules to be learnt, but as jumping-off points for thinking about how writing works, and the different ways you can write any given part of a book. For any 'rule' I can think of, I could give you an example of when you should do the exact opposite, so I don't think you can really call them rules.

And you'll also see people discussing what the publishing industry 'wants' about wordcounts, or subjects, or whatever. There's some truth in things like: a book needs to be exceptional to get published if its outside the usual sort of length. But in my experience it's fatal to set out trying to write to order like that, because the writing you'll do best is your writing, not someone else's half-explained idea of what people were saying would sell a year ago. You need to find your voice and your writing first, and you can only do that by doing it. Having said 'your writing', though, there's still an awful lot of craft and technique involved. The point, though, is to learn and practice that craft so that you can write your book better, not to pass some non-existent test of whether your work ticks certain boxes. It's the best book you can write that stands the best chance of being published. It's not easy, and it takes most writers years, but it does happen.

Sorry, that turned into rather a long post! It's a subject that gets talked about a lot on WW, as you've noticed, so I hope you'll stick around and hear some other views.

Emma

That's a relief. I have been getting very stressed trying to fit the book I am writing into 'what publishers want.' I have found it impossible because I always come back to the way I have written it.

The subject matter does not fit any particular genre. This too has presented me with a problem and if you are a new writer no-one's going to go
out on a limb just to accommodate you. I am passionate about the subject matter so it's hard to change it in anyway.

Is it a good idea to send work to an editor? Is it very expensive?

Maybe I should put that question into another post but thank you for your reply. I have hope again.

Feathers

re: editors, I have just popped a short reply to this question on your earlier post in Novel II, but to reiterate, try uploading your work on WW first before going to the expense of paying for an editor.
Only go to an editor once you know what you want from them - it would be expensive to ask them to cover all the bases on one sitting. If you don't know the right questions to ask about our work, then you risk getting either a rather vague report back, or a very detailed one. If you haven't had practice in applying feedback to yuor work, then you may not know how to apply the suggested changes raised in an expensive editorial report.


- NaomiM

<Added>

I am passionate about the subject matter so it's hard to change it in anyway.

- that would be another reason why it's best to avoid going to an editor.

Naomi's right that editors can be very useful, but it's worth trying other, cheaper avenues first, specially in something like a group, where people get to know your work. In a group you also learn enormous amounts from reading other people's work and commenting, and reading comments not only on your work but on other people's too. That way you should begin to get an idea of whether your work is just a bit unusual (nothing wrong with that - get it really, really good and the book trade will be interested) or in fact still has a long way to go before it's good enough to start getting at least helpful rejections and a bit of interest. And, as Naomi suggests, it does actually take practice to read feedback and know how to incorporate it into your work, and how to tell when it's not helpful.

But for almost everyone it's a long, hard haul. One rejection is painful, and frustrating if as usual you get no feedback, but it's nothing in the long term. Many people on the site send submissions out in batches of ten, but only when they've had loads of feedback and revised and reworked it, and put it in a drawer for a month, and revised it again, and researched which agents to try, and so on.

Some of the groups are quieter than others: if you're not getting the feedback you want it's worth joining more than one.

<Added>

One last thought: when you say you're passionate about the subject matter, is that the story of the novel? In which case passionate is great, you just have to learn to write it really, really well. Or is it what you might call a non-fiction subject - an idea, a topic, a cause - which you're casting in fictional form? With this kind, it's not that you can't write a novel with that idea in the back of your head, it's that the book must absolutely work as a story for people who don't know and don't specially care about that idea/topic/cause. It's easy to assume that others will find it as compelling as you do, but it's a fact of life that they probably won't, at least not at the outset. It has to work as a novel for them, too.