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Writing Log #2: The Process After

Hello Everyone!


Firstly, excuse me for being gone for so long. With midterms and a never-ending pile of assignments, you could say I've been stuck. Now that I'm back, I've been meaning to share a couple of achievements from the past month.


Let's backtrack to June 2020. I started querying again after having my manuscript sit around for the longest time. My manuscript--what can I say about it? Well, it's not the first ever story I've decided to write from start to finish. However, it is the first story I put a lot of effort into, considering all the different timings, plots and characters I would include. But I always thought there was something missing. Something never felt right and every time I admitted it out loud, I turned away from my manuscript. You could even say some days I hated it. Yet, I returned to it each time because it was hard to leave it. Once Ayishah and I were talking about this and she said my manuscript and I sound like a married couple. I've held onto that ever since, not only because it made me laugh, but because it's true. It's like no longer loving the person you're married to, but still being with them because you're at this level of intimacy you're afraid you won't find with anyone else.


That's exactly how I felt with my manuscript. For the longest time, I thought I could never put in the same amount of time or dedication which I had for this story. Nothing would compare to the hours I spent retracing each plot line to make sure all ends tied up and each date made sense. That's why, I started querying again, hoping that it would catch an agent's eye, and eventually someone would offer representation. In all the time I queried, I only received one request for my manuscript, which turned out to be a silent no, I'm assuming (no response via nudge). Anyway, you could say I was ecstatic when an agent finally decided to read my full manuscript and asked for it so quickly after sending in a query only a day before. I was so excited, possibly even more than I was the first time.


But when the rejection came through, I was disappointed. More than that, I knew it hadn't been good enough. That there were some scenes in the manuscript that I could have changed and made better so readers weren't skimming. I actually hoped that when the agent read my book, they wouldn't mind those boring scenes. However, wishful thinking can only get us so far. It was then that I decided it was enough. I had to sit down with my manuscript and have a tough talk. Before I had this talk, I needed to be clear on what I wanted to discuss. Perhaps, start with the fact that I really wasn't liking my main character enough and that my plot was slow for the most part even though I was really in love with the ending.


It wasn't as tough as I thought it would be. I talked to some people about it, asked them if this edit was necessary. I got mixed results. Some said they loved it the way it was. Some agreed it could use an edit. Some said nothing at all. In the end I decided it was my call. In the first year I spent querying (though I didn't query all twelve months) I received almost a hundred rejections and I knew that this was a sign. I would decide what needed to be done and in my eyes, this was a good start. A step away from holding on and expecting my story to be good enough for others when I couldn't like it myself.


So, I sat down and I planned. Then I wrote. Then I planned. Then I wrote. I planned. I wrote. (Can you guess which recent TV show I stole this from?) I wrote it in parts. First I worked on the past, giving my main character a story I would care about. I humanized her thoughts, her feelings and her motivations. In the end, when I wrote the last scene for the past portion, I thought, I really feel bad for her, why couldn't she have a better life? I knew then that this was a good start. Now I had to care about her in the present too. So I repeated the same process, though this was much longer because the story was unclear with all the changes I had made. But I have to say, I feel good about what I wrote.


I queried the new draft to a couple of agents, and now I've moved onto my next thriller. In the first week I queried it, I received a full request. Then it was followed by a couple of rejections, before receiving a partial request. That was followed by more rejections and then two full requests. Though every agent hasn't liked what I wrote, I already feel good about how this turned out.


One of the agents who requested the full, I wasn't going to query them because of their guidelines on the synopsis. They wanted a synopsis that was 200-300 words! My original synopsis was 800 words. How was I supposed to condense all the information into only a couple of hundred words? That's when I had my friend help me out. Thanks to her, I can usually hand in work with concise writing even for class assignments. After she cut down on the word count, I read over the synopsis and decided I no longer liked it. So, I left it. I told my friend I would no longer query the agent. And then the email sat in my drafts for a few days, before I don't know what happened, but I had an overwhelming urge to press send. So, I did. I really had nothing to lose. Either it would be a yes, no, or silence (which I hate and I avoid agents who say they will only respond if interested). And then I received an email asking for the full. And even though it's no longer my first request, I still get very excited.


Now there are a couple of other things that have occurred on the side and should be worth mentioning, but I'll save that for the next post or the one after (I need to catch up on all the drafts). We can talk how to query, who to query and why an offer of representation doesn't always result in a yes. This is all for today. Please do share your experience with us in the comments below, message us on our Instagram account @dreaming.in.ink or send an email. We'd love to hear from you, whether it's about your writing, querying, or anything else you'd like to share!


Also, a special thank you to my friend for editing my synopsis. If you hadn't cut down on the word count, I would've never queried the agent. If that hadn't happened, then I would've never received a full request. So, thank you.


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