Writing.Com General Discussion

I've written my novel, edited it, then scrapped it and repeated the process three more times. Talk about loving your story, eh? So here I am, having just finished the first edit (incarnation #4), and now comes the really scary part: letting someone else read it.

I really think that I can get this story published, but I'm no fool, I know that many other people think the same of their stories when they quite plainly aren't up to the mark. The average agent rejects 200 submissions a week. I'm far too invested in the story, and understand it too well, to tell whether it really is good enough, hence having to hand it over to other people to read to get their opinions and hopefully some good advice too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not soliciting for reviews (although if you want to, feel free to volunteer). I just wanted to talk about how scary it is to pass your baby that you've been nurturing for years over to someone else for the first time. They might not like it, or they may like the story but think the writing is awful, or think the story stinks but the writing is great. To get published, you need a great story and great writing, and it has to be better than hundreds, possibly thousands of other submissions the agent receives.

So you have to set yourself up for a big disappointment and some heavy criticism just to get a feel for whether you have a chance or not. Rejections from an agent are probably easier to handle, on the grounds that if they don't like it, you just won't hear from them again.

I've written many stories, but none of them were written for nything other than the sheer enjoyment of writing, so nobody else was ever going to read them. Right now, I'm realising that nothing can prepare you for this moment, and I'm feeling real fear.

In case you are wondering, it's a sci-fi novel of 120k words. Two characters, one location and six threads.