Finding The Lesson When Writng Goes Wrong

Six words in the poster above. Six words that hold a book's worth of advice. When things don't go right in your writing life, look for the lesson. 

I could stop right there and still feel as though I'd offered you something today. But let's explore this a bit more. 

When we face rejections, we need to do a bit of analyzing. We should look at the submission with an objective eye. Ask questions like What is lacking? What are the positives that I can repeat? Why would this piece be rejected more than once? Are the mechanics as perfect as I can make them? Are the opening or concluding paragraphs weak? Did I follow the guidelines? 

If you belong to a critique group, you're there to find out what's wrong (and what's right) about your writing. When you receive criticism in the same spots from more than one person, take it as a good lesson. If 3 out of 4 of your submissions come back with comments like This was well done until the ending. It felt flat. Or Your sentences are far too long. Break them into two, or even three.  Or Your basic story is good, but you have done far more telling than showing. Maybe your first reaction is as negative as you felt the comments were. Take a second look and glean the lessons you can learn from these critiques. 

In my critique group, many rewrite the piece and submit it for critique a second time. (Twice is maximum). If the writer has learned from the critiques of the first sub, she'll produce a much-improved piece the second time. Having others point out our problem areas is actually a blessing. If we heed the advice, we're going to become better writers. 

If you receive five critiques and only one is mostly negative, don't take it as a reason to toss the piece. Remember that every critique is the opinion of one person. Just as a rejection is the opinion of one editor or one editorial board. If the majority of the critiques you get are negative, then you should be gracious enough to know that you have something to correct, something to learn. If a submission is rejected by half a dozen editors, you know you have some work to do to resurrect whatever you had sent multiple times.

Here's another situation. You've worked on a short story for weeks--writing the first draft, revising and editing a few times. You're fed up with working on it and want to call it finished. You put it away for a few days, then pull it up and read it with fresh eyes. As much as you want to say it is complete, you can't do it. You see several places that need clarification, need more emotion, tell too much instead of showing. Do you go ahead and start submitting it to editors, or do you keep working on it? It failed your reading, so shouldn't you admit that you learned something about your writing? Admit that you still have certain areas where you need to improve? If you give up and start the submission Ferris wheel going, that story may keep bouncing back. Better to learn early on and do one more rewrite before starting the submission process.

Failing hurts. No doubt about that. Instead of falling into the doldrums, do what our poster says. Consider it a lesson, not a failure. If we don't learn something from defeat, we're lost.