“Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've often read manuscripts - including my own - where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have thought: “This is where the novel should actually start.” A huge amount of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it.” FeelsShouldTwoCharacterStoriesMovingMy OwnNovelCuttingCrazyInformationEmotionalHugeAmountSceneIncludingDetailsAttachmentFadesChaptersManuscriptsLess Is MoreSmall Details Author:Sarah Waters
“As an editor, I read Charlotte Rogan's amazing debut novel, 'The Lifeboat,' when it was still in manuscript. I read it in one night, and I really wanted my company to publish it, but we lost it to another house. It's such a wonderful combination of beautiful writing and suspenseful storytelling.” WritingStillsWantedBeautifulNightHouseLostCompanyNovelWonderfulStorytellingCombinationEditorsPublishOne NightManuscriptsDebutBeautiful WritingCharlotteLifeboats Author:Karen Thompson Walker
“I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.” WritingYearsNovelAgentsSparesPublishersManuscriptsSpare TimeMatterhorn Author:Karl Marlantes
“In the usual way I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of "normal" work. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does.” WayShouldChildrenDoeStillsBookSoulFeelingsJobsNightWishFeltNovelTakenStupidNormalAdultsTwentiesSevenKillingHatedUsaUsualRescuePublishersDay And NightManuscriptsDamnationDrudgery Author:Tanith Lee
“Just about everything significant in my life happened after I passed forty. I was a housewife and mother, but yearned to be a writer. I worked at my writing whenever I could snatch a moment, and I assembled several manuscripts. I was just about forty when my first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published. Then a few months later came The Good Earth. My career was launched at last, and it has given me the richest possible satisfaction” WritingFirstsMomentsEarthLastsMotherGivenCareersNovelHappenedWindMonthsWestSatisfactionEastSignificantFortyHousewifeManuscriptsLife HappensGood Earth Author:Pearl S. Buck
“It is not as easy to emigrate with steel mills as it is with the manuscript of a novel.” EasyNovelSteelMillsManuscripts Author:Golo Mann
“Don't wait for success, but for the respect and interest of those who read you. At the start it could be a classmate, someone who shares your interests. Before sending off the manuscript for a novel to a publishing house, it would be a good idea to try writing short stories, and publishing them in a local magazine.” WritingTryingIdeasStoriesWould BeHouseWaitingInterestNovelShareLocalsMagazinesShort StoryGood IdeasPublishingManuscriptsClassmatesWriting ShortPublishing HouseWriting Short Stories Author:Dacia Maraini
“Since my first novel was rescued from a slush pile, it makes me sad that most publishing houses no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. Nor are many willing to take chances on novels that are not deemed immediately "marketable."” FirstsHouseChanceAcceptingNovelWillingPublishingTake A ChanceManuscriptsPublishing HouseSlush Author:Katherine Paterson
“Novels are completed when they are finished, but the memoir changes its own conclusion by virtue of being written... I was not at all the same person, when I handed the manuscript to the publisher, as I had been when I began. A memoir may always be retrospective, but the past is not where its action takes place.” MayPersonsActionPastNovelVirtueWrittenFinishedMemoirConclusionPublishersManuscriptsRetrospective Author:Nuala O'Faolain
“There's never any humongous next draft. I know a writer who every time he finished a novel - you would know his name very well - but his editor would come and live with him for a month. And they would go through the manuscript together.” KnowsWellsTogetherNextNamesNovelMonthsFinishedEditorsManuscripts Author:Dean Koontz
“I think the trick of writing a good picture book manuscript is to leave that space for illustration. An illustrated novel can do the same thing.” ThinkingWritingBookCan DoSpaceNovelTricksManuscriptsIllustrationPicture Books Author:Mac Barnett
“There is an energy, a romance in writing the first novel that can never be duplicated again. I was entirely absorbed in that world as I wrote the book [The Kite Runner] and to see the final page of that manuscript whir out of the printer was a very special feeling indeed.” WorldWritingFirstsBookFeelingsRomanceEnergyNovelSpecialPagesFinalsRunnersManuscriptsKitesPrinter Author:Khaled Hosseini