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Below we meet one nightmarish example and then we proceed to examine alternative ways to defang their relentless ilk, techniques engineered to dilute their power enough to ensure future events will be less disrupted. And make no mistake, a determined and ego-wounded narcissist can wreck a workshop. Truly, they are the bane of writing teachers and workshop leaders alike.

by Michael Neff

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A Case of Manga in Monterey

Six years ago while immersed in the radiant dawn of mid-April in Pacific Grove, California, I met with one writer from my assigned retreat group beside a charming outdoor fire pit at a local motel on the Monterey Peninsula. A mature woman from San Luis Obispo, Constance arrived at the retreat with a beginner draft of her very first novel, a rather long YA fantasy. Prior to arrival, I'd reviewed her "sell sheet" wherein she'd jotted down her synopsis, pitch, hook line, comps, tag, and various other elements relevant to utilization by agents and publishers who might wish to adequately understand her premise and plot, as well as the novel's market potential--rather like a query letter, but more complex, and also a great developmental tool for stimulating workshop discussion, i.e., if no plot is present in the sell sheet then 99.9 times out of 100 it's not in the novel either.  

When she sat down with me all was cordial. I foresaw no immediate future meltdown. And why would I? She discussed her work, "pitched" the story to me, and as her editor of the moment, I asked appropriate questions designed to help me understand. What I learned, however, squared with my earlier assessment. First, her novel was way too long for a breakout YA fantasy (158,000 words), and second, her plot, as it presented itself, interwove confusingly with no less than four distinct stories (or what appeared as such). 

This condition was not atypical for neophyte writers. I'd seen it dozens of times over the years, and my duty was clear. Between the story lines, there existed one very interesting tale. I informed her of this fact and told her if we could focus on that particular aspect of the current novel and flesh it out that we'd also solve the problem of the manuscript being way too long.

What happened next was totally unexpected, and in fact, rather bizarre. 

Such a condition was not atypical for neophyte writers. I'd seen it dozens of times over the years, and my duty was clear.

Her eyes began to quiver and water. Yes, quiver, like a Manga-animated character. Both surprised and baffled, I immediately tried to calm her and reassure her that various degrees of plot misfires were typical for new writers. I told her we would work together and make the story as competitive and publishable as it needed to be. And wasn't this why she came to the retreat in the first place? To get feedback and improve her work?

Apparently not. 

To my further astonishment, without another word she rose from her chair, turned, and walked away. Just like that. We'd met for no more than 15 minutes. In that small space of time, and despite my reassurances and sound advice, she quite literally had transmogrified into a state of fuming rage, though I did not fully understand the extent of it at the time. 

Later, after meeting with several other writers--all of whom were enthused and eager to edit--I wrote Constance an email apologizing if perhaps I seemed too gruff or inappropriate in any way, and reassured her once more that her best interests were my priority. Regardless, I heard nothing back, at least, not that afternoon. Little did I realize that the ash fall from Vesuvius had already begun and eruption was scheduled for the following day.

Upon meeting with my writers in town the next morning by 9:30 AM, I was informed that Constance had been seen parked with her husband on the main street in downtown Pacific Grove around 8 AM. And what were they doing? The two of them were on the lookout to intercept any writers she recognized as belonging to the retreat. And why? So she could talk them into demanding their "retreat fees be returned at once!" After all, the event was obviously a fraud because the faculty were incompetent and cruel. Well, it didn't work so well for Constance. The writers she managed to lasso refused to go along with her righteous rebellion, and, understandably, were both surprised and irritated by her behavior--mostly because their own experiences at the retreat were opposed to hers. 

She quite literally had transmogrified into a state of fuming rage...  Little did I realize that the ash fall from Vesuvius had already begun and eruption was scheduled for the following day.

 
No surprise there.

Irritated by this absurd turn of events, I hoped that the agitated Constance--who by this time was beyond redemption--would discover a way to magically teleport herself back to San Luis Obispo, and without further ado. But no, it was not going to be that simple, my foolish optimism notwithstanding. By mid-afternoon that day I'd received no less than seven emails from her, each of them portraying indisputable evidence of a truly unhinged and self-deluded personality. Though futile, I attempted to answer with rational responses. For example, "Why would I invite you to this retreat simply for the purpose of sabotaging your career?" However appeals to sense and logic made zero difference.

No surprise there either.

According to Constance, I'd schemed to wreck her novel, contrived reasons to trash it, failed to praise her prose, and was plainly a fraud who didn't understand good work when I saw it--unlike her writer's group at home who knew without doubt that she was a talented writer nearing publication. On top of that, her sputtering spouse, Cleon (not a writer), also began writing me, stressing the same themes plus calling me various names. Was I really a "Denebian Slime Devil?" The man knew his Star Trek, but the mounting drama of their self-victimization was off the scale, even comical. Finally, by early evening, the Folie à deux mattered not, and in the wee hours of morning, bereft of further destructive options, Constance and Cleon fled Monterey never to be heard from again.

Over the many years, one begins to notice distinct patterns in the behavior of malignant workshop narcissists. Constance began her transmogrification as noted above, but in group environments the malignant nearly always initiates secession from the union by overtly arguing and sniping at faculty, usually the workshop leader, in an attempt to discredit them. After all, the righteous MN has had enough and it's time to set things straight! They're essentially reclaiming dominion and reasserting their flawlessness. It usually takes up to 48 hours before this first symptom occurs, and when it does, it comes on suddenly. You rarely expect it because narcissists can appear normal, even pleasant at first. There also exists a subgroup who are careful to not openly carp and snipe, rather, they evolve into the phase below, saving their salvos of snark for later in the evening when the faculty are absent.

I'd schemed to wreck her novel, contrived reasons to trash it, failed to praise her prose, and was plainly a fraud who didn't understand good work when I saw it--unlike her writer's group at home who knew without doubt that she was a talented writer nearing publication.

Next phase, the true malignant always works behind the scenes to recruit co-conspirators. Not being in a group, Constance resorted to collaring writers on the street, and it didn't work. Most of the time, thankfully, the narcissist cannot persuade others to rebel in any meaningful way, however, just the fact of their incessant complaining creates a disturbing circumstance for everyone concerned. If need be, they will attempt to bully fellow workshoppers into joining in the revolution. A plan is made and by the following morning, the taint of disruption is in the air. This all might sound ridiculous to the average person, and yes, there is a degree of absurdity to the circumstance, but we've had the misfortune of experiencing it in an unforgettable way.  

___________________

Pulling the Fangs of the Malignant Narcissist 

If you're a workshop leader or teacher, you'll find several techniques below for softening or disallowing the narcissist blow (including the dreaded X LIST), and for strengthening the resolve of the majority of normal writers should they discover themselves being recruited.  

As follows:

1. Consider emailing this article ahead of the event. If nothing else, it provides writers with a reference point regarding Phase I and II modus operandi symptoms. It also places the potential narcissist on notice that their antics will be recognized for what they are by everyone present. Feel free if necessary to copy and paste directly into your email.

2. Email also a copy of the now famous Thin Skin Test.

3. Prior to the event, inform the writers that narcissism and negativity will not be tolerated. It isn't fair to the other writers and serves no productive purpose. If appropriate, inform them that narcissists who disrupt will be escorted from the event. 

4. Don't play the narcissist game during the actual event. As soon as you verify to yourself that a Phase I eruption is in progress, call a break, and talk to the narcissist outside the circle of the group, but in plain sight. 

5. Inform the entire group that a designated question and comment period will be forthcoming. In this way you can most likely channel the narcissist into a specific time slot wherein you can involve other writers in productive discussions that will dilute the agenda of the narcissist.

6. If you have an assistant or fellow faculty member, make certain they support you. The narcissist will always be hesitant to take on two as opposed to a single workshop leader.

7. Begin critique by first reviewing "positive" aspects of the writer's project. This will inject positivity into any potential narcissist and thereby serve to delay, if not prevent, appearances of negative behavior.

8. Finally, the X LIST. There exists a very large email list and certain social media accounts wherein survivors post the identities and activities of really terrible narcissist writers, thus warning others against dealing with them. It isn't foolproof, however, who wants to be known nationwide as the biggest threat with a dark narcissist heart?

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Workshops or classes that operate in MFA fashion dilute the narcissists quite effectively because critique falls to members of the group, thus hampering the ability of the narcissist to target while also providing soothing balm in the form of ill-thought critiques accompanied by the loud sounds of back slapping.

But if you're doing your job as a workshop leader or teacher, you need to give your students honest critique on every level, even if it might sting for a minute.

Otherwise you are doing them a great disservice.

Review-3_TheSoapMaker.pdf

How to prepare before sending queries to agents, e.g., utilize Publisher's Marketplace to intelligently narrow down the best possible candidates. Algonkian Writer Conferences reviews each step in turn.

Here is our take on the smartest way to go about it. As a bonus, you learn a lot of insider knowledge about the business (like who is in "the club" and who is not--see below) along the way. You might also come to the realization that your ms is not yet ready. Such illumination is always a positive thing.

1. Join Publisher's Marketplace and review it for at least a month (yes it costs a few bucks, but so what?).
2. Search out the deals made during the past two years in your specific genre (or specific sub-niche in your genre). Why? Because it will clearly define who is in the club. Every genre has a club composed of favored publishers and literary agencies. This data mining is going to take a few hours at least, but it's worth it.
3. Make certain the "deals" you review and mine are with major publishers, imprints, or well-regarded mid-sized presses. If your novel is more literary in nature, make certain the deals are at least with respected and traditional small presses. If you become desperate just to get your foot in the door, you might adjust expectations accordingly.
4. With data in hand you'll know the top agencies making the most sales, and the top agents in those agencies. Now, put the top agents on hold for the time being, but choose at least a dozen agencies working in your genre based on the criteria above. And if you haven't already, make double certain you haven't made one of these top seven mistakes.
5. Instead of the top agents, identify the "hungry agents" in these top agencies. Use other sources like MS Wish List if you must. Choose the agent minus a full belly, yes, but only those who have transcended their salad days. Why? Because they'll likely take more time with you, be more lenient, perhaps more open to your story idea, perhaps more willing to provide editorial notes? Perhaps? 
6. As for transcending salad days, make certain your picks have at least four to five sales to major publishers under their belts, and in this way, you'll know they've made their mark and are evolving, as opposed to showing signs of dropping out as so many do. It's a very high turnover business. VERY HIGH.
7. Once the above is done, especially if you have not already done so, review your list on MS Wish List just to verify you've nailed the best people.
8. When you query, note in the very beginning something like, "I saw you on Publisher's Marketplace..." because this will mark you as a professional.

________________

Once you've satisfied above, move on to writing the perfect query letter.

A few other slivers of advice:

• Trying to cold-query superpowered agencies like CAA is utter futility.
• Agents with clients on social media who twitter forth with gushing comments is meaningless. 
• Agents getting axed by grinders is equally meaningless. 
• Personalities are such fragile creations subject to taste and circumstance. Focus rather on the eight steps above. 

What should be percolating in the aborning author's mind from the very start?

Purpose and Passion

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 (Best of Writer's Edge)

 

"The truth is that if all other things are equal, the author with better writing skills is the one who will rise out of the pack."

 

As the stakes continue to rise in the publishing business, writers are adopting a wide range of strategies to advance themselves out of the midlist and onto better-selling plateaus. I myself have recommended a number of such strategies. Recently, however, as I respond again and again to the question of what one can do to escape midlist oblivion, it's begun to dawn on me that many writers have been ignoring the most obvious answer: write better. 

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If you are not Annie Proulx, you need to work on developing a powerful literary voice. All writer styles and voices are in large part a fusion of past immersions into good (or bad) literature. It‘s so true that you only write as well as you read. The writing of good authors soaks into you, becomes part of you, defines your ability to express.

The point of the following prose drills is to speed up that process by a hundred fold. The selection of writers is diverse, beginning with a little Shakespeare and on up to modern lit. The names of the writers are not important, only their prose.

Each of the following blocks of narrative is to be written in long hand, as many times as you can manage. During the writing of it, repeat the phrases and portions of the narrative to yourself, read them to yourself as you go. After each block is finished, reread the entire block to yourself. Feel the rhythm, the sense of word use, the flow of it. The more times you do this, the more it will become a part of you. Continue through till the end and then start over. Do this for a few weeks. You‘ll be astonished at the results.

See you at the National Book Awards!

_____________

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune - often the surfeit of our own behavior - we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves and trechers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on - an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!

Our last king, whose image even now appeared to us, was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, thereto picked on by a most emulate pride, dared to the combat, in which our valiant 'Hamlet - for so this side of our known world esteemed him - did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact, well ratified by law and heraldry, did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands which he stood seized of to the conqueror.

Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, wherein we saw thee quietly inured, hath opened his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again. What may this mean, that thou, dead corpse, again, in complete steel, revisit thus the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous, and we fools of nature so horridly to shade our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like a while they bore her up - which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and imbued unto that element; but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years - twenty years largely wasted, the years of the wars, trying to learn to use words, and every attempt is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure because one has only learnt to get the better of words for the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which one is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling, undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer by strength and submission, has already been discovered once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope to emulate - but there is no competition - there is only the fight to recover what has been lost and found and lost again and again. But perhaps neither gain nor loss, For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business, I can only say, there we have been, but I cannot say where.

And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time. This is concentration without elimination, both a new world and the old made explicit, understood in the completion of its partial ecstasy, the resolution of its partial horror, Time past and time future allow but a little consciousness, To be conscious is not to be in time but only in time can the moment in the rose garden, the moment in the arbor where the rain beat, the moment in the draughty church at smokefall be remembered, involved with past and future, Only through time is time conquered. Only a flicker over the strained time-ridden faces distracted from distraction by distraction, filled with fancies and empty of meaning, tumid apathy with no concentration, men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind that blows before and after time, wind in and out of unwholesome lungs time before and time after.

In my beginning is my end. In succession houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. In that open field on a summer midnight, if you do not come too close, you can hear the music of the weak pipe and the little drum; and we see them dancing around the bonfire, the association of man and woman in daunsinge, signifying matrimony - a dignified and commodious sacrament. Two and two, necessary conjunction, hold each other by the hand or the arm which betokens concord. Round and round the fire, leaping through the flames, or joined in circles, rustically solemn or in rustic laughter lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes, earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth, mirth of those long since under earth, nourishing the corn.

Trampling its granite; their red backs gleam under my window around the stone corners; nothing more graceful, nothing nimbler in the wind. Westward the wave-gleaners, the old gray sea-going gulls are gathered together, the northwest wind wakening their wings to the wild spirals of the wind-dance. Fresh as the air, salt as the foam, play birds in the bright wind, fly falcons forgetting the oak and the pinewood, come gulls from the Carmel sands and the sands at the rivermouth, from Lobos and out of the limitless power of the mass of the sea, for a poem requires multitude, multitudes of thoughts, all fierce, all flesh-eaters, musically clamorous bright hawks that hover and dart headlong, and ungainly grey hungers fledged with desire of' transgression, salt slimed beaks, from the sharp rock-shores of the world and the secret waters.

You remembered a day in August when it was foggy and sleet struck the front of your jacket with little ringing sounds and then a blue hole in the clouds opened wider and wider, like the rainbow ring that you had seen around the sun on the day before the mist had poured down from the ridges like some cold-glaring white liquid; and now the blue hole got bigger and sun came out and it was exactly 32 degrees F and you could see across the river valley again to the low brown ridge of gravel with the blue sky behind; and the wind was chilly and between the rocks grew green wet ribbons of tundra and the arctic was so beautiful that all at once you knew that you could live and die here. Snowdrifts lay steeply against that ridge, corrugated by wind rain, and the river flowed down the sand in dark blue braids. No bird sang; no sound of life was heard, but a black little spider crawled feebly in a warm spot on the mud.

The peacefulness is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them shutting their mouths on it, like a communion tablet. It is Russia I have to get across, it is some war or other. I am dragging my body quietly through the straw of the boxcars. I am stepping from this skin of old bandages, boredoms, old faces. The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right, white as a knuckle and terribly upset. It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet with the 0-gape of complete despair.

They're out of the dark's ragbag, these two moles dead in the pebbled rut, shapeless as flung gloves, a few feet apart. One, by himself, seemed pitiable enough, little victim unearthed by some large creature from his orbit under the elm root. The sky's far dome is sane and clear. Leaves, undoing their yellow caves between the road and the lake water, bare no sinister spaces. Already the moles look neutral as the stones. Their corkscrew noses, their white hands uplifted, stiffen in a family pose. I enter the soft pelt of the mole. Light's death to them: they shrivel in it. They move through their mute rooms while I sleep, palming the earth aside, grubbers after the fat children of root and rock. By day, only the topsoil heaves.

I shall never get you put together entirely, pieced, glued, and properly jointed. Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles proceed from you great lips. It's worse than a barnyard. Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. Thirty years now I have labored to dredge the silt from your throat. I am none the wiser. Scaling little ladders with gluepots and pails of Lysol I crawl like an ant in mourning over the weedy acres of your brow to mend the immense skull-plates and clear the bald, white tumuli of your eyes.

All morning, with smoking breath, the handyman has been draining the goldfish ponds. They collapse like lungs, the escaped water threading back, filament by filament, to the pure Platonic table where it lives. The baby carp litter the mud like orangepeel. Southbound cars flatten the doped snakes to ribbon.

I think of the lizards airing their tongues in the crevice of an extremely small shadow, and the toad guarding his heart's droplet. The desert is white as a blind man's eye, comfortless as salt. Snake and bird doze behind the old masks of fury. We swelter like firedogs in the wind. The sun puts its cinder out. Where we lie the heat-cracked crickets congregate in their black armorplate and cry.
 

In this country there is neither measure nor balance to redress the dominance of rocks and woods, the passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds. The horizons are too far off; the colors assert themselves with a sort of vengeance. Each day concludes in a huge splurge of vermilions and night arrives in one gigantic step. These rocks conceive a dynasty of perfect cold. In a month we'll wonder what plates and forks are for. I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here. The Pilgrims and Indians might never have happened. Planets pulse in the lake like bright amoebas, the pines blotting our voices up with the lightest breeze.

Despite her wild compulsion to talk and despite the frightened ravenous curiosity of her dormitory clique whom she awakened by sobbing over their beds, Melanie wasn't able to say clearly what finished happening half an hour ago. She remembered the Turk suddenly abandoned English and raved at her in furious Turkish ' and she told them about that and about the obscene tatoo flashing on his chest when she ripped his shirt open, and that he stopped the car on a country road, and there was a tall hedge, maples, sycamore, and a railroad track nearby, and a train was passing, passing, and passing, and beyond her moans, and later an animal trotting quickly on the gravel. a mysterious nightscreech, the sound of moon, and then, with no discontinuity, the motor starting it's cough and wretch and a cigarette waving at her mouth already lighted as if the worst were over and someone had started thinking of her in another way.

But Mrs. Gruenwald all this time was rising and sinking like a whale, she was in a sea of her own waves and perhaps of self-generated cold, out in the middle of the lake. She cared little that Morgana girls who learned to swim were getting a dollar from home. She had deserted them, no, she had never really been with them. Not only orphans had she deserted. In the water she kept so much to the profile that her single pushing-out eyeball looked like a little bottle of something. It was said she believed in evolution.

Nina stood and bent over from the waist. Calmly, she held her cup in the spring and watched it fill. They could all see how it spangled like a cold star in the curling water. The water tasted the silver cool of the rim it went over running to her lips, and at moments the cup gave her teeth a pang. Nina heard her own throat swallowing. She paused and threw a smile about her. After she had drunk she wiped the cup on her tie and collapsed it, and put the little top on, and its ring over her finger. With that, Easter, one arm tilted, charged against the green bank and mounted it. Nina felt her surveying the spring and all from above. Jinny love was down drinking like a chicken, kissing the water only.

It was the kind of hospital you'd walk into and see an old orderly mapping barefoot - with an Aztec face straight out of the Anthropology Museum - stringmop mopping the waiting room, and held stop to watch you all the way down the hall, even though you'd know they must see plenty of Americans in there. Then there'd be the woman in the business office - young and pretty but with one smaller arm, with maybe something wrong with it, dangling half-hidden under her sweater. She'd be wearing a crucifix just like Dona's - the old cook back at the house - and she'd look suddenly up at you in such a way that at first you'd think she was going to start wailing like Dona did, the night before when you arrived - wailing in Spanish, over and over again the same thing - saying, "Oh, when will you bury him, Senora, when will you bury him, for he wanders in this house and calls out to me every night like before!"

That pavement that had in it a little lump that went right across the middle, almost like a little small curb-type thing that would cause a something that was rolled over it to bump as it went over. I did not tell about that, and I also did not tell about the sheet - white and thick and longer, it seemed to me, than the kind of sheets you would see on beds back at the house - and about the way that sheet hung down so limply - almost wetly - on all sides from the humanish shape with the sticking-straight-up-feet on one end that trembled as they pulled out the cart and rolled it toward where I was standing out there.

The orderlies pulled back that sheet at the same time they were rolling the cart along toward me both at once, in this long graceful motion - so that the cart was rolling forward at the same time that the sheet was being pulled back, so that the body seemed to be merging toward me like a something being pushed forward out one end of a something else sliding away all in one smooth motion.

The mouth is a permanent fixture in the back of my mind. But there is nothing I can think of to say that will convey to you the look of that thing that seemed impossible to have ever been a mouth - that made it seem to me unthinkable that this would be what a human mouth could ever be reduced to - that I couldn't help but feel made it absurd to think that mouths exist at all. That that mouth could have uttered that hoarse weeping we heard ... And right in that moment I was seeing that mouth-thing, that half-open scissors-cut in a faceless bag of salt, the thingness of that bag-thing - its blind cartoon X's for eyes - like a being that wanted to cry out.

As I think of it now, we talked about our weaknesses. We were clothed in the darkness and a little drunk and tired. How I hated being weak. That was my confession. We had tried to put up hay that day, and the bales were wet. I could lift them off the ground but couldn't muster enough strength to pitch them up onto the rack. Steve - Steve worried loneliness. It was a little puzzle. He only felt it after people had come to visit. After they were gone after a few days, he didn't notice he was alone again. But if friends visited because they thought he needed the company. He wanted them to come but hated the loneliness they brought with them and left behind. He found it curious that he didn't miss people more. That feeling frightened him.

It was a wonderful conversation that contained all kinds of emptiness. The silences of one who really is getting out of the habit of speaking. The natural pauses. The silence of not knowing what to say. The desire to say nothing that will fill up the silence. It was the talk of people who knew they should be sleeping and say only enough to keep the conversation going. Above us, that night, I like to think the sky was expanding, is still expanding. Another vacuum.

________________________

Have you ever been in writer workshops and reacted to criticism of your writing or story by demanding the other writer defend their decision in such detail that it served your purpose of making certain they never gave you unfavorable critique again?

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Part II

• Is the first major plot point that changes the course of action and begins the second act of this novel clearly defined? Can you state it? Keep in mind that the first major plot point begins the plot line noted above, i.e., the rising action of the story as a whole.
• Insofar as you know, does the story as presented to you display the mandatory tropes of the genre? If so, how? Be inclusive with your response. Demonstrate knowledge of your genre and its tropes. Does the author do anything to present or frame the tropes in a unique manner?
• Does the novel possess a setting and/or unique world that works to high-concept the novel, or at least make the story much more interesting and unique? If so, what features of this setting do you find unique or valuable to the story when compared to others? Do specific circumstances or characters evolve from the setting that make it valuable? If so, what or who are they?
• What novel(s) published in the last few years does this story most closely compare to? Why? This must be supportable with specifics and not general statements. Does it compare favorably? Is it sufficiently unique despite the comparison? If so, why?
• Why is this story, as presented, one that publishers will buy? To put it more simply, why is this story one that readers will pay to read? Respond to this with clarity and detail.

Narrative, Scenes and Style
How does the story read? Each one of the following bullet points must be addressed.

• Is the prose itself completely free of errors and ambiguity? Does the writer say more with less or is she/he wordy? Are the verbs sufficiently active or too much variation of "to be"? Also, is the writer good at description? Not sure? Ask them to provide examples of description of objects, events and people.
• Is the reader oriented spatially or do characters feel disembodied? If this narrative were film, would it make sense?
• Is the narrative sufficiently engaging? If yes, what makes it engaging? If no, what should be done to make it engaging? Be specific.
• Does the narrative include, as a whole, the three primary levels of conflict, i.e., internal, social, and plot related? If so, list them one at a time, and their context. If not, what should be done to include them?

 Part II

• Are the scenes set properly? Do they have a defined beginning, middle and end? Do we get a clear concept of who/what/where, etc?
• Does the prose itself evidence mastery of the form given the demands of the genre? If so, how? If not, why? What can be done to improve it?
• Does the narrative present situations, issues, circumstances, characters or plots that seem too predictable or stale from overuse? Or would you term the narrative more unpredictable and original, insofar as possible given the demands of the genre? 
• If more than one point of view, does the writer juggle the multiple POVs with skill? If so, how? If not, why not? Ask for more narrative samples as necessary.

Characters

The main thing here is to focus on the manner in which the characters reveal themselves in the course of the narrative, via dialogue and action.

• Do they feel real or simply two dimensional?
• Do we observe them at their best or worst in the course of performing an action?
• Is the author using show-don't-tell techniques to portray them or simply delivering exposition?
• Do you feel any sympathy or empathy towards them?
• Is there anything unique about them or do they feel overly stereotypical?

Many months, or even years later, you finally learn the enormity of your mistakes. Those popular writer magazines and the sociable little group of amateur writers that looked like a great plan, at first, now appear unreliable and even time wasting. At this juncture, you will either deny reality, quit altogether, or else vow to become a true and humble apprentice to the art of novel writing. 

Ne confondez jamais une seule défaite avec une défaite finale.    

The process above is nearly inevitable for the vast majority of aspiring authors, and only the eternal narcissist is incapable of achieving a productive second stage. We've discussed this subject more than once. Of course, such a personality will always disagree and fume like a child, but what about less volatile, less serious forms of counterproductive ego?

About a year past, a screenplay writer I knew who lived in Kalamazoo called and asked me to help him convert his screenplay into a novel. I'd known this fellow for years (let's call him BOB) and he'd won various contests, even had a thriller-action screenplay optioned a few times by major studios, including Lions Gate. Nonetheless, he decided one day to convert one of his script creations into a full blown commercial novel, and intended to accomplish this incredible transformation in no less than six months. After all, he needed to make haste in order to attend a writer conference in Seattle where he felt reasonably certain a "smart agent" would sign him.

Now, I knew that Bob wasn't a narcissist as such. I'd been present when he accepted critique, and I'd been around him and talked with him enough that I would have seen the N flag raised more than once. Like other writer workshop leaders and teachers, I possess a fairly good sense for narcissist eruptions in the making, even in the early stages. But this wasn't Bob's way, as I've noted. However, upon speaking with him on the phone about his forced novel conversion deadline (keep in mind, he knew zip about novel writing), he reacted with disbelief. He could not grasp that transforming a 96 page screenplay into an 86,000+ word novel could actually take longer, perhaps far longer than six months. 

Even if he were already a veteran novel writer working under the best of circumstances, it would most likely take eight to 12 months to augment and gilt a sufficiently suitable masterpiece. But as a rank beginner, we must assume that between the clueless planning and actual execution (that would include at least three major revisions), then a final editorial scalding of one kind or another (barring any Oh-Shit-I-Neglected-to-do-XYZ), Bob was looking at a minimum of two years, but perhaps upwards of four or more. If he devoted full-time and worked closely with a professional novel editor, page by page, scene by scene, line by line, perhaps only one year? But the dollar cost would be tremendous.

Regardless, Bob avoided me after that phone conversation for a long time. I emailed him, inquired now and then, but he would always sound optimistic without divulging details. Finally, more than four years  later, we got together one night for dinner. He was excited to tell me he'd written a new thriller with a major Hollywood producer behind it, and when I inquired about the novel conversion, he just shook his head and said, "I've moved on." 

Via a few other bits of information reluctantly delivered, I surmised that Bob had finally assembled a creaking shipwreck of a manuscript within a year's time, sent it out to agents, and following 50 or more boilerplate rejections, the ms finally served as cheap tinder for the living room fireplace.

The above is one of my stand-out examples, but there are many. These writers in question were not narcissists as such, no, but their egos just couldn't allow them to believe they were wrong in certain crucial circumstances, or accept they did not yet possess the necessary skill-set to accomplish the huge task before them.

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Dear Mr. or Ms. (name of agent):

( Open by noting you saw a relevant deal they concluded on PM. It marks you as a true professional. )
 
I noted in Publishers Marketplace that you represented XYZ Title to ABC Publisher, and I am querying because I have recently completed a novel that might work for your list. You may recall that we met at the XYZ conference [if this is relevant] and thank you so much for your feedback OR manuscript request [again, if relevant].

[Next comes information about the novel--TITLE first, then genre and comps] The Great American Novel is a domestic thriller novel of 92,000 words [comparisons to other novels] comparable to Gone Girl meets Hunt for Red October. 

• The concept of "borrowing" or getting story ideas, entire structure, or themes from other books or films can't hurt and might actually lead to publication; but I maintain you step carefully. The concept may already be overdone, a stale trope.
• His advised method of transposing the "structure" of one type of genre novel onto another can be productive--reminiscent of Italian writers in the old days transposing Japanese samurai scripts into spaghetti westerns. Another good example is the transposing of BATTLE ROYALE into THE HUNGER GAMES (different genre? debatable). 
• Helpful to note plot points and/or scenes that successful stories have in common. 
• Concept of "interviewing" your character to learn about them, is a very good one. Ask them questions, get in their heads, role play.
• Asking what character wants and needs, and how they're different.
• Careful with choice of primary protagonist viewpoint. The story needs to be personal to the viewpoint character. 
• Partitioning a novel into three basic part: PROMISE, PROGRESS, PAYOFF. Yes, very basic, but helpful for new writers.
• Finally, his idea for "mind priming" before you hit the paper is a good one, e.g., you consider the ways in which you can make an important scene very visual and thrilling, and you roll it around in your head like a lozenge under the tongue. You savor it and play with it.

by Michael Neff

Very Important Questions to Ask Yourself

So you're searching high and low for a decent and experienced freelancer to read your novel ms and provide it with the healing touch it needs. You most likely will require thorough developmental editing, not to mention narrative or sample line edits at a minimum. Okay. So where to go? There are Google pages full of poor editorial services out there and just about anyone can claim to be a novel editor. Therefore, how to winnow forth the quality expertise you must have?

Below are a few questions to ask yourself before engaging any editorial service: 

• Do you get to review the credentials of the precise person who will be working on your ms?
• Do the credentials include any real-time experience working in tandem with New York publishing or mid-sized publishers or quality independent presses at least?
• Is there a demonstrable track record of commercial or literary publication of any kind associated with past clients of this particular person or service?
• Is the proposed editor of your ms an actual writer of fiction, narrative nonfiction, or novels with a track record of any kind? (self-publishing not included)
• Do the accolades or testimonials about the business or editor appear to include a lot of buzz phrasing rather than pointers to actual contracts?

Be careful out there!

But what about professional, tested, and proven advice? Below are ten bullet points for aspiring authors designed to help them overcome any confusion or misdirection when it comes to starting the novel. However, before you investigate, make certain you've already prepared by first reading this *very* sensible prologue.

Note: the list below makes an assumption that the writer is a relative novice and currently searching for direction and focus--the same stage we've all endured. For those in the second stage, or higher, the list might well begin further down. Nonetheless, we cannot stress enough how important it is to fully understand your genre. Eat and breathe it. Know the currents in the market, what makes for a "high concept" story in this context. You'll never be published otherwise.

KEY CONCEPTS: genre, high concept, Publisher's Marketplace, self-editing, readers, core development strategies, craft and research, story premise, SATG Novel, novel hook, first draft outline, inciting incident, plot point.

Choose Your Genre

Historical, thriller, women's fiction, mystery cozy, etc. Focus on one that will consume you, one you have passion for. Passionless choice never bodes well (can you guess why?). If on the fence, consider what kind of author do you wish to be known as five years from now? A thriller author? Horror author? Mystery?... Makes a difference, no? So be specific and take a slot (no "slot" shaming). You are attempting to break into a crowded and tough marketplace with a breakout novel. As of this point, you have no real idea how difficult it will really be in a country as big as America. Best to begin wisely.

WARNING: failing to locate yourself firmly in one genre will only result in failure. And believe us when we tell you that agents and publishers will be merciless in their demand that you understand and obey the rules of that genre. From the heart, but smart. One last thing--you cannot invent your own genre. Don't try. Don't even ask. For the love of all that is holy!

Mercilessly Immerse

Read the classics in your genre combined with the latest and hottest. Look up "best book" lists, read reviews on Amazon, dive into review journals dedicated to your genre, and obtain a membership at Publisher's Marketplace. It's never too early to familiarize yourself with who is publishing what in your genre. At PM it's all there. And no, we don't get a kickback. As a bonus, you get to review expertly written hook lines for new novels bought by publishers, thereby also getting a chance to note the type of high concept stories in the works. Invaluable! Truly. 

Via obsessive immersing, you'll also get an idea which authors and novels might compare favorably with you and your own work. Strongly consider analyzing story progression, character introduction, and scene development in three to five of the best in your genre. Take notes. Compare what you've learned to what you read here at NWOE.

Avoid Writer Groups

Do not join a local or online writer group, however socially alluring it may be, and regardless of what its apostles tell you. Don't fall for it. We know, it feels like the right thing because so many recommend it, but it's the wrong thing by a mile. You *might* consider it a year or two from now once you've developed enough novel writing savvy to actually know the difference between an amateur group that *might* be somewhat productive and one that could be potentially ruinous or time wasting at a minimum. Review carefully our notes on this crucial and controversial subject.  

Begin the Reader Hunt

Following on above, attempt to engage upwards of five good readers, if humanly possible. It will take time to ID the right ones, so begin the hunt early. Take note, they will not be in a group. They will not meet to discuss your work. If possible, best they do not interact or know each other. This condition will disallow the inevitable evolution of group politics, groupthink, imagined slights, false flattery, etc. Yes, it can happen. Regardless, can your picks be reasonably trusted to provide generally intelligent reaction to your narrative? You might have to jettison a few. Be prepared. Additionally, serving as a reader for them will provide you with a form of editorial experience that might prove invaluable.

IMPORTANT: utilize "beta readers" for narrative purposes only (prose style, clarity, imagery, dynamic motion, dialogue quality--that sort of thing), NEVER for novel development, i.e., premise, plot, character roles, important setting details, etc. Engaging in the latter imperiling act will only threaten your progress with those insidious major flaws inherent in 98% of writer groups.

Study Self-editing Technique

Do it carefully, it's an art form, even if you're not onto your second draft yet. No reason to delay. It takes experimentation and practice. Relying exclusively on your readers or future freelance editors is a mistake. Ultimately, you are responsible for the final product. Faith should not be necessary. Also, keep in mind, the more refined your fiction narrative waxes, the more productive the future editorial professionals engaged to review your work can be, i.e., if you've already ascended to level 8, they can bump you to level 10. Now, what about that contract?

Craft Until Your Head Hurts

While researching your genre, immerse simultaneously into your core novel development strategy. Don't rush it or fret over it. You will inevitably revise. Meanwhile, utilize NWOE as a staging platform for the illuminating pursuit of obligatory craft technique. This is NOT an option. Devour every single article or essay on development, drama, plotting, prose, and viewpoints. Set aside a space for experimentation. Practice writing scenes, dialogue, complex descriptions for starters. Additionally, consume only the best books on novel writing. 

You will ALWAYS be an apprentice to your craft. Let Truman Capote be an inspiration.

Conceive Primary Premise

Given that you've chosen your genre and you're well on your way to possessing a true literary skill set (it's not easy, so don't be impatient), and given you've taken careful note of the quality of new novels coming to life at Publisher's Marketplace (have you?), you may now begin to formulate your own novel premise, the "high concept" story that will form the development, writing, and marketing basis of your genre novel from title to last sentence.

Uncertain on how to go about it? One way to initiate a bit of productive pondering is to visit the High Concept page first, followed by the Loglines and Core Wounds page. Read carefully. Note the three "hook line" examples. Consider WHAT WILL BE YOUR CORE CONFLICT, AND WHAT WILL BE THE CORE WOUND? (all caps for emphasis). Play with it. Write down options. Choose wisely. Seek discreet professional advice if necessary.

Begin the Planning Process

Engage in a careful examination of the Six Act Two-Goal Novel. With your embryonic story concept nearing the birth canal, use the SATG Novel outline to assist with beginning to conceive smaller parts of the bigger picture. At each separate stage, from Act to Act, take a deep breath and sketch ideas, circumstances, characters into your electronic notebook. Be free and easy with the process. Jot down everything that comes to mind. Keep in mind it's all in dynamic flux. It can change. Just as importantly, attempt to finalize insofar as possible your novel's major setting. Extremely important. Organize your thoughts, questions, commentary, and scenarios as needed. Have fun with it.

Imagination is truly your best friend (even if you don't like the original Willy Wonka).

Sketch a Draft Outline

No need to engage in overmuch detail. Make certain your story premise is commercially viable and your chosen setting is simmering. Have on hand sketches of your major and secondary characters. Use the SATG to locate and ruminate over your major plot points.

Sketch your inciting incident and first major plot point. Go from there to your first major reversal, pinch point, etc., all the way to climax. Keep in mind this is all a draft, yes, however it should reflect your efforts to date at fleshing out your genre story. Consider also, not just your basic plot but those special points, twists, and turns demanded by your chosen genre, e.g., if writing a cozy mystery you best get that body on the first page (or pretty close). Refer to steps 1 and 2 above.

Draft Your Hook Scenes

Don't think of the novel in units of chapter. Think of it as units of scene, each scene dedicated to a particular task, and each driving the plot forward (a must) in one way or another. I use the term "hook scenes" to refer to that combination of opening scenes that will lead us through the initial set-up to the inciting incident and from there to the first major plot point that begins the next Act of the novel--30 to 50 pages into the novel, roughly. There are always exceptions. 

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There seems to be a law of nature that the quality of a manuscript declines in inverse proportion to the elaborateness of its package. When I receive a manuscript bound by brass screws with a plastic embossed cover, lovingly wrapped in chamois cloth, set in a velvet-lined cedar box, shrink-wrapped, packed in turn in a fireproof strongbox secured with iron bands, I am prepared to stake my career on the likelihood that this book is one colossal dud. 

 

From time to time an author will do something that causes me to scratch my head. I've compiled a list of these foibles and offer it here with a light heart. If you have perpetrated any of these transgressions I'll let you off this time without a fine, but don't let me see you in this courtroom again. I must say right off the bat that among the things authors do that irk me, delivering manuscripts late is not one of them.

 

Lateness is the medium in which agents live. 

 

We breathe late manuscripts and eat late checks and drink late contracts. And lateness in a creative person is certainly more understandable and forgivable than it is in a business organization. I have never known an author to be deliberately late with a book, but I have known many a publisher to be deliberately late with a check. What kills me, however, is authors who don't tell me they're going to be late. Publishers schedule books many months in advance, and in most cases are able to pull one out of the schedule if given sufficient notice. In most cases, too, a publisher will grant the author a reasonable extension of delivery date. If, however, out of embarrassment or some other reason (such as a moonlighting gig the agent doesn't know about), an author doesn't level with his agent, he will not only get himself into trouble, but his agent as well. 

 

An agent who knows the truth can go to bat for his client, make excuses, concoct a fib. But if an agent sincerely assures an editor that a book will be turned in in June because that's what his client told him, when the client knew all the time that there wasn't a chance in hell that he could make the deadline, the agent's credibility will be damaged. 

 

 I make very few inflexible rules for my clients, but this is one of them: no matter how embarrassing your reasons may be (one author's dog actually did eat his manuscript), I insist that you tell me the truth so that I can make proper excuses for you. (I, of course, have never lied on behalf of a client. What kind of agent would I be if I lied on behalf of a client?) Lying to your agent is a mortal sin, but authors commit many venial ones as well, and oddly enough, it is the latter variety that drives me absolutely up the wall. Take authors who misspell "Foreword," for instance. I strongly feel that anybody who turns in a manuscript containing a "Forward" deserves automatic shredding of his manuscript plus the first three fingers of his right hand. 

 

You would think I would not have to explain to professionals who make their livings with words that a foreword is a fore-word, a word that comes before the main text. But as the Forward-to-Foreword ratio on manuscripts submitted to my agency is about one out of three, I can see that the correct spelling cannot be stressed enough. It should be enough to remind you that "Foreword" is usually the very first word one's eyes fall upon when opening a manuscript. (I hesitate, however, to criticize writers for not knowing the difference between a foreword, a preface, and an introduction, since I don't understand it either.) 

 

Like many publishing people I am a fanatical believer in the importance of titles: a good or bad one can significantly affect the fate of a book.

 

The Forward-Foreword offense is part of a larger conspiracy to send agents to early graves. I am referring to authors who don't review their manuscripts before submitting them. An occasional, random typo is one thing, but when I realize that the author never bothered to reread his manuscript, have it vetted by a good speller, or run it through the spell-checker on his computer, a murderous rage comes over me and I am compelled to steal into the night to overturn garbage cans and scratch automobile fenders with my ring. 

 

Don't authors understand (I growl at alley cats as I kick them) that today's literary marketplace is so intensely competitive that a poorly spelled manuscript can lose somebody a sale? A subspecies of the above-mentioned type misspells critical words and names, and misspells them consistently, focusing a glaring light on his or her own carelessness. I remember a Biblical novel in which the word "Pharaoh'' was misspelled "Pharoah" throughout, and in a book that long, that's a lot of Pharoahs. I have often wondered why, if the word is pronounced fayro, lexicographers have chosen to place the a before the o. In fact, what is an a doing in the second syllable at all? 

 

Such speculations do not mitigate one's intense annoyance at having to correct such errors over and over again in saga-length manuscripts. Speaking of repetitious errors, I'm reminded of those authors who print the title of their book as a header on every page of manuscript. I don't know where this quaint custom arose. I suppose it has its origins in the paranoiac fantasy that part of a manuscript will inadvertently be separated from the rest in a publisher's office. Against this remote possibility must be weighed the not-so-remote one that the title you print on every page of your manuscript will be a lousy one. 

 

Like many publishing people I am a fanatical believer in the importance of titles: a good or bad one can significantly affect the fate of a book. All too often I'll get a good book with a bad title, and after kicking alternate titles around the author and I will agree on a new one. I'll then prepare a new title page only to discover that the discarded title appears on every page of the manuscript. Now what? I must now either go out with a badly titled book or have the entire manuscript reprinted just to knock the offending title off every page. Luckily, the advent of word processing makes it easier to run off modified manuscripts. 

 

Authors who submit their only copy of a manuscript are, to say the least, an intense source of curiosity to me. They brazenly challenge the immutable law guaranteeing that that manuscript will get lost in the mails.

 

Still, do us both a favor and leave the title off the header of every page. Nowadays manuscripts are submitted as email attachments. But many agents still prefer to read submissions in printed form. The peeve potential here is very high. On occasion an author will send me a manuscript ring-bound like a scientist's notebook. I ask myself what terrible thing I did to this person that he should avenge himself on me so cruelly. Am I supposed to read his manuscript standing up at a lectern, or remove the pages from the binding rings knowing that I will have to reassemble it when I am finished? I think it's time that writers understood something about literary agents: their standard reading posture is supine, head elevated sufficiently to glance at a baseball game or sitcom on television. 

 

Now that I've revealed this tightly guarded secret, perhaps you'll be more considerate and submit your manuscript unbound. And is it too much to ask while I'm at it that it be double spaced in 12-point font and printed on one side of the page only? And when you do post it, may I ask you not to have it bound or specially boxed or wrapped? Just a loose manuscript in a typing paper box wrapped and taped securely enough to get safely through the postal system. There seems to be a law of nature that the quality of a manuscript declines in inverse proportion to the elaborateness of its package. When I receive a manuscript bound by brass screws with a plastic embossed cover, lovingly wrapped in chamois cloth, set in a velvet-lined cedar box, shrink-wrapped, packed in turn in a fireproof strongbox secured with iron bands, I am prepared to stake my career on the likelihood that this book is one colossal dud. And in all likelihood it will be sent via Fedex or courier with the expectation of an overnight response. 

 

There is a particularly lukewarm place in my heart for foreign authors who are obliged to use typing paper of different dimensions - approximately ½ inch too long and ¼ inch too narrow - from the standard American 8½ by 11 inches. I realize how chauvinistic it must sound to deplore the paper that was probably good enough for Thomas Mann, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Graham Greene, but because agents usually place manuscripts in submission boxes to protect them and present them attractively, it drives us crazy to get a misshapen manuscript from the Continent requiring Procrustean measures to package the submission. 

 

 Authors who submit their only copy of a manuscript are, to say the least, an intense source of curiosity to me. They brazenly challenge the immutable law guaranteeing that that manuscript will get lost in the mails. The advent of computer document management and cheap photocopy services has stimulated a rise in lost manuscripts, for authors who used to type an original and carbon now type an original only and bring it to a photocopy shop, where another immutable law causes it to get mixed up with somebody's master's thesis. Again, computers make the question of lost manuscripts academic, but computers can crash. So keeping a hard copy is definitely a good idea. Then there are the authors who administer tests to their agents. Some try a cute trick of turning one page in their manuscript upside down. If the agent returns the manuscript with that one page still upside down, it proves he didn't read the manuscript page for page. 

 

Plainly, the evil that authors do may be categorized as Class B Misdemeanors, punishable by groans, rolling eyes, sighs of frustration, and indulgent smiles.

 

There are authors who quiz their agents about specific scenes and characters. A typical dialogue might sound like this: AUTHOR: Did you like my book? AGENT: Oh, yes, loved it, loved it. AUTHOR: Great. What did you think of my character Pflonk? AGENT: Pflonk? Terrific character. Nicely developed. AUTHOR: Hah! Gotcha! There was no such character in my book! 

 

I assure you that when it comes to an important book your agent reads your manuscript carefully. With so much riding on it, he has to. But most agents I know don't have time to read their clients' work page for page, nor do they need to in order to get a sense of its quality, organization, and pace. In fact, they don't even need to in order to sell it. With certain kinds of material, such as books in a series, a light once-over is enough to satisfy your agent that all is in order and the work follows the original outline.

 

Plainly, the evil that authors do may be categorized as Class B Misdemeanors, punishable by groans, rolling eyes, sighs of frustration, and indulgent smiles. I would like to think that you are as tolerant of your agent's foibles. Agents do have them. (I know this only from talking to authors). There is one extremely successful agent who likes to boast he's never read anything he's sold. And there's another who, every time he makes a big deal for a client, gloats, "That will pay for a new set of radials for my sports car," or, "Now I can put that new wing on my house." 

 

I consider myself truly fortunate in not being possessed of any personality traits that irritate others. Well, maybe one or two. All right, maybe a few more than that. Okay, okay, so I'm riddled with them. But at least I know how to spell "Foreword." 

 

Copyright © by Richard Curtis. All Rights Reserved.

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Nearly everyone has the potential to write a breakout novel and go on to become a successful commercial author, but precious few finally accomplish the task. Do we know why this is the rule?

Writer conferences, author workshops, books, ms editors, and even the most pointless of MFA programs play a part in a writer's evolution, but none of these provide the overall pragmatic means and method to finish the job (and quite often, not even to start it). If this were not the case, an imaginative and ambitious writer would only have to attend an MFA program at Iowa, for example, and become a published author in due course. But this rarely if ever happens, despite expenditures in the range of $30,000 to $80,000 (Iowa Grad Program for two full years).

Aside from this lack of comprehensive and realistic training, many other factors come into play that hamper the aspiring commercial author, everything from prickly skin to incompetent writer groups to misunderstandings of market dynamics.

Consider. Would you try to build a livable and quite stylish home on your own without an architect and a professional home builder simply because you had the ability to hammer a few boards together with nails? Of course not. You would acquire the expertise and skills before you began. And yet, new writers approach the creation of a thing equally or more complex, such as the writing of a competitive commercial novel, in the belief they can do so because they have a story idea, can type words on a page, and have read a few magazines about writing. They consult with other new writers as ignorant as themselves and proceed to build a house called a novel, but one that will not risk their lives because fortunately for them, it is all on paper.

So what to do?

Ditch your writer's group, utilize the forums found here in every way possible, move on to a good novel development workshop, draft the novel at least three times, then have the first 100 pages (at least) read by a professional with editorial experience. Once done, you might well be prepared to write a publishable novel.