Is Any Help Better Than No Help At All?

As a writer, it's almost guaranteed you have favorite authors. There are bound to be those books that will lie on your shelf dormant for generations, and then there are the ones you read with all the intensity and fervor you can muster. You have to know: what made this author so good they had to be published?

Maybe, like myself, you've taken the time to write your favorite author to let them know how much you enjoyed their book (every author, no matter how popular they may be, loves to hear from their audience). Perhaps you tossed in a brief mention of a novel-in-progress you're working on. Wouldn't it be a dream if they offered to look over your manuscript and offer some pointers?

But not all published authors are perfect fits for unpublished ones. Two years ago I was working on a novel, and like most authors, I felt passionate about certain parts of the book. Through a long set of circumstances that can only be described as "God in motion", a well-known, award-winning author and I began to correspond. He asked to see the first chapters of my new book and I gladly sent them to him, excited and nervous to see what he thought.

A few days later I got an email from him with long notes about certain parts of my manuscript. Some areas I couldn't help but agree with, while others I didn't feel so good about--but he was the published author and I
was the writing hopeful, so I started rewriting. My entire first chapter was gone in a keystroke. Characters changed dramatically, and my story went places I wasn't getting comfortable with. Finally, we reached the "last straw": a single sentence.

Now, you think after losing an entire chapter and revamping almost the whole first four chapters, a single sentence wouldn't have been such a big deal--but it was. I was in love with that sentence. It was the new opening sentence to my book and I felt it set the stage perfectly. I wasn't going to give it up easily. But my author/mentor kept going back to it, saying I had to remove it or I would kill the suspense for the entire story. It became frustrating for both of us, so I did the only thing I could think of: I thanked him for his help and decided to give it a try my way. I went to the Mount Hermon Christian Writer's Conference a few months later and submitted my manuscript to a few publishers and agents, some of whom he'd suggested.

God blessed me and I walked away from the conference with an agent AND a publisher for the book. It was all God, and I'm the first to admit that. He gives me the story ideas and often I'm as surprised as anyone else when plot twists happen. It's the way I love to write.

But here's the big thing that sold my manuscript: the first sentence. The publisher told me when he read the first sentence to the selection committee they were raising hands and asking when it was coming out. Those few words I had fought so diligently for came through for me.

As you write, be open to suggestions from people. Never be afraid to accept help, and never be afraid to listen to criticism. But at the end of the day, it's still YOUR story. You need to be happy with what you've written. Never be ashamed to say, "Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll keep it like this." Now don't be so stubborn you miss out on something that could truly shape your book in a great way, but if you feel a part of the book is really important, hold on to it. Trust your instincts. Believe in yourself, and believe in what you've written. Maybe someone else just doesn't understand where you're coming from--and that's ok.

Just as long as you believe.