From Enthusiastic Amateur To Professional Author

May 2015

My blog is about the experience of graduating from an enthusiastic amateur to a professional author, and each post will look at a different aspect of that experience. This post is about the importance of getting good quality feedback on your writing, and how that can help you get an agent and a book deal.

Every writer has to start somewhere. For me, writing was an enjoyable hobby that I indulged when I wasn’t taking care of my family or working as a Research Consultant—a job which took me all over the UK.

I wrote short stories, flash fiction and the occasional poem. The notion of writing an entire novel seemed daunting and time consuming and something real writers did, not hobbyists like me.

And then my life changed completely. Suddenly I had time on my hands and the question that cast a shadow over the ways I chose to spend that time, (reading, taking classes, cycling ever longer distances, dining with friends), was ‘could I actually write a novel?’

My website gives away the answer to that question of course but the process is long, fraught and testing. It’s filled with extreme highs and lows and definitely not for the faint hearted. But it’s also wonderful, and that’s why we do it.

I’m not going to start at the beginning however, but jump ahead to when you have an actual manuscript—a complete draft of your novel. Once you have got over the relief and excitement of having finished it, and stopped glowing with pride at how impressive it looks, you think, ‘what now?’

Tempting though it might be to send it straight out to agents and publishers in the form of a submission (a covering letter, synopsis and the first three chapters), there is a crucial step I urge you to take first, and that is to get professional feedback.

Along the way you may well have asked family and friends to read and comment on chapters. Invariably they will tell you they love it, but that’s probably because they love you. Perhaps you belong to a writing group and have shared excerpts with them, eagerly jotting down their responses and advice and trying not to look crushed if your work isn’t unanimously praised. But if you are serious about being a professional writer you need professional, objective feedback on your work, and for that you need a literary consultant.

If you Google ‘Literary Consultants’ you will be presented with a long list, but The Writer’s Workshop advice on the subject is a good place to start. It explains what Literary Consultants do and why you need one. They offer their own consultancy service and like many others, additional services such as mentoring, proofreading and short courses.

Another long established consultancy is TLC (The Literary Consultancy). As well as manuscript assessment it offers a comprehensive range of services including a mentoring scheme, literary events, writing workshops and writing holidays.

I used two consultancies to review my first novel, Learning To Speak American. The first was Cornerstones who liked it so much they considered referring it on to an agent, before deciding it wasn’t quite ready. I can’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed but I also knew that I was nearly there. I made the revisions they suggested and some others that they didn’t. I wanted a fresh perspective on this new draft and was recommended to a much smaller but perfectly formed consultancy—The Manuscript Doctor. The agency’s founder, Wanda Whiteley, also loved it and after some minor revisions, asked if she could send it to an agent? The Eureka moment. The moment that made all those solitary hours with my laptop worthwhile. The surge of elation I hardly dared believe I would ever experience. Yes, was my reply.

So five years after deciding that I would write a novel, I was signed by Robert Kirby of United Agents and less than a year later, I had a two-book deal with Bonnier Publishing’s new imprint for debut authors, Twenty7 Books .

http://unitedagents.co.uk/colette-dartford

https://twenty7books.wordpress.com/authors/

Next time: The Novice Novelist

Resources: Endless, but those I can personally recommend –

http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/blog/how-to-choose-a-literary-consultant/

https://literaryconsultancy.co.uk

http://cornerstones.co.uk

http://www.manuscriptdoctor.co.uk