You’ve Received Your Manuscript Assessment: What Now?
By now, you will have received your manuscript assessment report. If not, you’ve probably stumbled across the wrong blog post, but you’re welcome to stick around anyway!
If you have recently received your manuscript appraisal, you may be feeling any number of emotions. You might be feeling encouraged, disappointed, angry, or devastated. You might be thinking of throwing in the towel or launching yourself into your next draft with renewed confidence. In our experience, writers feel a myriad of emotions once they receive their manuscript appraisal.
Many of the writers we work with purchase a manuscript assessment in search of confirmation that they are ready to pursue publication, after months or possibly years of gruelling work. To then hear that your work isn’t commercially viable in its current state, or that there are fundamental issues that can only be resolved by a full rewrite, can prove to be gut-wrenching.
We’ve spoken with many writers regarding their experience of having their manuscript assessed, but there is one experience we’d especially like to share with you. This particular writer said the following:
“Upon first reading my report, kind and encouraging though it was, I could barely get through it. I dissolved into tears, because prior to submitting my manuscript for assessment I had felt so hopeful and excited by the prospect of soon sending it out to literary agents. I wanted to be furious and tried to refute the criticism I’d received, but on closer inspection I found it to be irrefutable. Though I was at first deeply upset, I began to realise that the report had provided an answer to that quiet feeling of dissatisfaction that always accompanied my writing. Though I had a sense that something was wrong, I was unable to put my finger on what it was until I received my report.
Once I had accepted that my manuscript would need a complete rewrite, I saw the report for what it was; a roadmap that would navigate me through my next drafts, providing a sharp sense of direction. I felt that I’d been given a compass and what had started as devastation soon became a feeling of confidence. I was sure-footed in my next draft and it shone through.”
Manuscript assessment reports are rarely easy reads and without the right approach, writers stand the risk of feeling disheartened and demotivated. This is never our intention. Our ambition is to encourage and empower you to give your manuscript the best chance of success.
To help you process your report and preserve your motivation for your next draft, we’ve listed some recommendations below.
Give Yourself Time & Space From Your Manuscript
It is crucial that you afford yourself the time and space to establish critical distance from your manuscript. The 2-3 weeks between submitting your manuscript for assessment and receipt of your report is the ideal opportunity to do this, helping you achieve an objective perspective on your work by the time it is returned to you. As writers, we adopt a distinct and sometimes unhelpful mentality when we are reading our own work. We continue to read from our author perspective and struggle to distance ourselves enough to empathise with the reader’s perspective. In this headspace, even valid criticism can feel unfair and unfounded. Time and space from your work can help you shake this mentality so that you can make the most of your report.
Give Yourself Time & Space From Your Report
Our manuscript assessments are comprehensive, coming in at approximately 3,000 words, and you may feel overwhelmed when you first read your report. Keep in mind that a manuscript assessment’s primary function is to provide constructive criticism, not to provide affirmation. As such, the vast majority of your report will be critical, which can make reading a manuscript assessment report an emotionally exhausting experience.
A writer’s motivation is a delicate thing and the success of your writing journey depends in part on how effectively you can preserve and protect this motivation. To prevent emotional exhaustion, we advise writers to read their report from start to finish once, then to take some time to process their initial reaction before returning to it. Your second and third reading will be less emotionally charged and will provide greater clarity.
Where to Start
If you’ve received your report and are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead of you, know that you’re not alone. This is how a great many writers feel when they first read their report. Writers typically go through several drafts of their manuscript before they are ready for publication. For most, this is a slow, iterative process of identifying areas for improvements and making those improvements gradually over the course of months or even years.
A manuscript assessment can help you expedite this process by providing a report that concentrates your areas for improvement into a single document; invaluable, but not for the faint-hearted.
Don’t be surprised if you feel dispirited or unsure where to begin. Here are some steps you can take to begin implementing the feedback in your report:
1. Grab a Highlighter & Divide Your Feedback Into Two Categories
Go through the report with a highlighter, separating the feedback into two separate categories (each associated with a different coloured highlighter): foundational and secondary improvements.
Foundational Improvements
These improvements will almost certainly require a full rewrite and are usually related to the premise, the plot, or the characters of your novel. If, for example, your protagonist’s character needs to be radically altered, and these changes can’t be implemented without compromising the plausibility of the plot, a rewrite is likely to be required. Similarly, if the premise of your novel is fundamentally flawed, this will be difficult to rectify effectively without a rewrite. It is for you to decide which improvements are foundational and which can be salvaged without the need for a rewrite.
Secondary Improvements
Secondary improvements do not require a rewrite, but can be rectified by editing. Improvements of this nature might include stylistic issues (i.e., overuse of cliché), minor character modifications (i.e., fleshing out otherwise two-dimensional sub-characters), and inconsistencies—to name a few.
2. If Foundational Improvements Have Been Recommended, Start There
Depending on the current state of your manuscript, you may discover that no foundational improvements have been recommended in your report. This can be quite reassuring, as secondary improvements are significantly less time-consuming and essentially amount to refinements, rather than complete reconstruction.
If foundational improvements have been recommended, however, this may come as a shock, particularly if you submitted in the hopes of being ready for publication. Though it can of course be upsetting to realise that a rewrite is necessary, we’d encourage you to continually remind yourself that your report feedback—if properly implemented—is likely to save you the pain of a series of rejection letters from agents.
If you ever feel like giving up, remember that Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger took 10 years to write, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo took 12 years, and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein took a whopping 16 years—which should serve as a stark reminder that it’s not how long it takes to get there that matters; it’s just getting there.
Once you’ve accepted that a rewrite is needed, it’s time to crack your knuckles and get to work. First and foremost, separate the foundational improvements flagged in your report from the secondary improvements. This will help you hone in on the foundational improvements and plan your next draft. Trying to address foundational and secondary improvements simultaneously can quickly leave you feeling inundated, which is why we always advise writers to begin with foundational improvements.
Start by making a list of each of the foundational improvements recommended. Here’s an example of what your list might look like:
Resolve the plot hole
Change the protagonist’s motivations and make them more active
Introduce secondary characters and devise interconnected sub-plots
Once you have your list, take some time to seriously consider and make a note of which other areas of your story are likely to be impacted by these changes. After all, there’s no sense in resolving a plot hole only to create another. At this stage, you may find that foundational changes throw other aspects of your novel off-kilter, creating a domino effect that topples much of your story. This is especially the case if you are trying to resolve plot holes.
Before beginning your rewrite, outline your plot carefully and meticulously, addressing each of the foundational improvements recommended. We would advise you to share your outline with family, friends, and—most importantly—other members of the writing community. An experienced critique partner should be able to help you identify any areas of weakness before you begin writing anew. Alternatively, you can make the most of our plot assessment service.
Once your plot is ready, return to the secondary improvement recommendations.
3. Devise Practical Solutions For Secondary Improvement Recommendations
Having highlighted the secondary improvements in your report, we recommend making a list and addressing them individually, devising a plan of action for resolving each of them and the order for doing so. The way in which you resolve secondary issues will depend on whether your report has also recommended foundational improvements. If you have decided upon a rewrite, many of the secondary improvements will not be implemented as edits, but from scratch.
For instance, if you have a stylistic issue with the overuse of clichés and are rewriting your manuscript, resolving this issue might be as simple as being especially conscious of the use of clichés as you write. Some writers find it useful to take measures, such as sticking post-it notes with reminders above their laptop screen, to keep stylistic issues of this nature front of mind.
If you are not conducting a rewrite, you will rely on editing to resolve these issues. In this example, you might set aside a week to comb through your manuscript from start to finish, identifying clichés and replacing them one-by-one. By dedicating a readthrough to a single area of improvement, like clichés, you can focus on that particular area and be especially thorough. A methodical approach to making manuscript improvements can make the task feel less daunting. Many writers find that scheduling their editing improves their accountability and motivation.
Your schedule might look something like this:
Week 1: Replace clichés
Week 2: Strengthen dialogue
Week 3: Improve upon world-building in the first chapter
Week 4: Eliminate inconsistencies
Week 5: Review instances of exposition and improve
Week 6: Make sub-characters more three-dimensional
You may find that certain solutions present themselves to you organically during the editing process, so the planning stage shouldn’t necessarily be set in stone.
4. Before Making Any Changes, Save Your Manuscript
Saving the manuscript you submitted for assessment before making any edits serves two purposes.
Firstly, doing so allows you to be liberal and bold with your edits, safe in the knowledge that your original manuscript remains accessible. If you find yourself going overkill with your edits, you will be able to revive your previous draft.
Secondly, saving a copy of your previous manuscript provides you with a point of comparison, a benchmark of sorts, that can be a source of great encouragement as your writing journey continues. When the slog to the finish line feels endless and you’re tempted to cut your losses, return to your previous manuscript and remind yourself of how far you have come. Most writers we speak to are entirely unaware of how drastically they have improved until they revisit old work.
Your Report is an Opportunity, Not a Dead-End
Please be aware that the suggestions listed above are no more than just that. Our primary goal in compiling these suggestions is to help writers who might feel defeated by their feedback to take action and muster the courage to soldier on with the next draft.
Your report isn’t the end; it’s the start. We truly hope that you will see your manuscript assessment report, critical though it may be, for the opportunity it presents. The opportunity to improve upon not only your manuscript, but your craft and your ability to critically interrogate your own writing.
Lastly, we encourage you to approach your report with an open mind and to view its criticisms as an interrogation not of your ideas, but of their execution.
We want your book to succeed.
We want you to succeed.
And we thank you most sincerely for entrusting us with your manuscript.