Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Why I won't read your book if you ask me to

So there I was looking at Loretta Chase's blog (I love, love, love her books and had the honor of meeting her at RT. There is a picture of me and her on my facebook page. I'm the one who was so overwhelmed I started to cry. Yes to the patheticness.) Anyway, so I was clicking through her links which led me to a post about what to do when asked to read someone's manuscript. I'm going to post Tess Gerritson and Orson Scott Card's responses to this question because...it's reached that point.

It's sort of surreal to be successful enough that I have to turn people away when they ask me to read their manuscript but I do. Whoda thunk. So please don't ask me.

This is from Tess Gerritsen's blog:



“HOW DARE YOU NOT READ MY MANUSCRIPT?”

Wednesday, Feb 15th, 2006 @ 09:36 pm
On Valentine’s day, I guest-blogged over at that great website MurderSheWrites.com, about my experience with an unpublished writer who’d just finished his first manuscript. My blog wasn’t actually about manuscript critiquing, but about how writers have to pay attention to their emotions when they write. My blog received a number of comments from readers. Among them was this one:
“How nice. I wonder if you remember when YOU had just finished writing your very first novel. Who helped you along on the journey? Or did all of your published (and not) friends avoid meeting with you, assuming you’d written nothing “marginally publishable”?
I’m sorry new novelists offend you, Tess. I’m glad you weren’t on my “must call” list when I finally completed the monumental task of finishing my first book. I may never have completed the second.”
My response to that? Thank GOD I’m not on your “must call list.” Because not only will you EXPECT me to be thrilled to read your work, you’ll also probably be truly pissed off if I tell you I don’t like it.
When I was a first-time novelist, with my first manuscript, did I expect a published friend to to spend eight hours (or more) reading it and critiquing it?
Absolutely not. I wrote my book and I landed my own agent. By myself. That’s how I thought writers were supposed to do it.
I think it’s perfectly legitimate for unpublished authors to ask published authors for agent recommendations or about trends in the marketplace. And these questions should be asked in a way that minimizes the published author’s time commitment. If she’s a good friend, then you can do it over coffee. If you barely know her, then by email. But I would never have dreamed of asking a busy novelist to read my entire manuscript.
And now that I’m a published novelist, I avoid reading them. Here’s why:
First, there’s the time factor. I get several requests a week from unpublished, unsold writers wondering if I’ll read their manuscripts. (I am NOT talking about novelists who’ve already landed a publisher and are seeking blurbs for book covers. Those are legitimate requests. I can’t honor most of them due to time constraints, but I do try.) If I were to say yes to every unpublished author’s request, I wouldn’t have time to write my own books. And truly, I’m astounded that people whom I don’t know, or hardly know, would come up to me and essentially ask, “Say, will you spend eight hours reading my incredible literary work?” Because that’s what it works out to. Eight hours of work.
And if you don’t see my point, think about this. What if someone you barely know says to you: “Hey, wouldn’t you love to come over and spend eight hours cleaning my house?”
You’d tell them thanks, but no thanks.
Which will then earn you the resentful comment: “But you OWE it to me because your house is so clean! Your clean house makes you OBLIGATED to help me!”
If the person asking me to clean their house is my mother or an elderly friend, you betcha I’ll go over and help clean the house.
Same with reading manuscripts. Mothers and close friends get special dispensation.
But when I hear unpublished authors whine that published authors are OBLIGATED to help them get published, that’s when my blood goes from simmer to boil.
Then, there’s the other reason I don’t read unsold manuscripts: It can lead to legal nightmares.
This is not just an excuse that we authors give to avoid reading unpubbed manuscripts — this is a real and serious concern for us. My literary agent has a bestselling client who, to be nice, once agreed to read an acquaintance’s unpublished manuscript. Then she got sued. By this very acquaintance. “You stole my story idea!” was the charge.
Needless to say, my literary agent now warns all her clients not to read unpublished manuscripts written by people they don’t know well.
I myself had a similar experience. I teach a writing course once a year down in Cape Cod, for doctors who want to become writers. Soon after my book BODY DOUBLE came out, I got a threatening email from one of the course attendees who said she was taking action to sue me for “stealing her idea.” The idea that I supposedly stole was about pregnant women getting murdered for their unborn babies.
I didn’t remember this woman. I never read her manuscript (it was read by someone else on the course faculty). And the idea I “stole” is hardly steal-able, as the murder of pregnant women for their babies is a crime that pops up in the news just about every year. But what if I HAD read this woman’s manuscript? What if (as often happens in literature) there WERE similarities in our plots? I could have ended up in court. I could have suffered through months of stress and attorney’s fees.
All because I read an unpublished manuscript.
Maybe I’m coming across as a hard ass about this. Yes, I know there are heart-warming stories out there, about New Author John Smith who got published because Bestselling Author Jane Doe read his manuscript, loved it, and sent it to her agent. But I can guarantee that John Smith didn’t just send it to Jane Doe out of the blue, and tell her that she was OBLIGATED to help him out. Maybe Jane was teaching a writing course, and he was her student. Maybe they were already friends. Maybe Jane judged a writers’ contest, and his story stood out. (While teaching writing courses, I myself have discovered terrific unsold manuscripts, and have always been happy to help shepherd them to a literary agent, because I LOVE it when a new author lands her first book sale.)
But approach an author you hardly know and ask her to read your unsold manuscript?
No.
Think of it as a reverse Nike ad.
Just Don’t Do It.


From Orson Scott Card: 
Question: Will you read my book/story/manuscript?
Answer:
Dear Fellow Writers:
Why I Will Not Read Your Manuscript.
If you're hoping I'll write you a glowing letter of recommendation:
You don't need it. What you need is a "wise reader," as I describe in my booksCharacter and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. What do you think a professional writer will do for you that your own "wise reader" can't do? Are you hoping I'll write a glowing letter of recommendation? Even if I did, it won't do any good. The editor will still make up his own mind. In fact, for all you know the editor might hate my fiction and think I'm an idiot, in which case my praise will be a negative. All that matters is the manuscript you wrote. Editors are hungry for good writing. If that's what you give them, they'll say so. If they don't recognize good writing when they see it, my letter won't help.
If you're hoping I'll give you wise advice that will make your manuscript publishable:
It's a waste of time. When I do read manuscripts in detail, critiquing them, generally the problems are serious enough that a complete rewrite is required. Few writers have the heart for it. My experience is that only one out of a hundred writers actually follows a single suggestion I make. And even if you try, there's no guarantee that you'll understand the suggestion, or that you'll be ready as a writer to do the thing I'm suggesting you do. Since I know from the start that in all likelihood you're not going to do a thing I say, why should I waste my time?
If you are a friend or acquaintance and/or you swear you'll do everything I say:
I'm not going to read it anyway. Even on those rare occasions when I agree to read a manuscript, it just goes on a pile of manuscripts that I really, really, really intend to read Real Soon Now. Only there has never yet been a morning when I woke up and thought, "I don't have a thing to do today! I think I'll read some of those manuscripts I've got piled up!" At the end of the day, I don't ever, ever say to my wife, "I'm done for the day and I don't need to go to bed for another hour. Where are those manuscripts so I can read one?" The result is that a year or two later, you feel bitter and unhappy about the fact that I never responded, and I feel guilty about not having read what you sent me, and so both of us are miserable, and the manuscript isn't read anyway -- so why not skip all the misery and just not send it to me in the first place?
I'm not proud of this -- but I've lived with me long enough to know this is what always happens, so I might as well be honest about it.
If you're thinking of offering me money to read your manuscript:
Give it to a good charity. I don't need your money. You don't have enough to tempt me. And even if you did, what I gave you in return would not be worth it.
If you're annoyed or angry that I won't help a struggling young writer:
My job is writing fiction. The only thing I owe to other writers is what I owe to other readers: To do the best I can with my own storytelling. When I teach writing, it's a hobby. I do it for love. Nobody has a right to demand that I teach them how to write or help them get published. So take a few deep breaths, return to the rational world, and then send your manuscript to agents and editors -- that is their job.
Is there ever a time when I'll read a manuscript?
Yes, if you're a former student of mine and you're in the room with me while I read. That's it. That's the only way I ever read manuscripts. If you have taken a class or workshop with me, then you have the lifetime right to consultation. But only on the first few dozen pages of an unfinished manuscript, and only in person, with you sitting there to receive my comments as I read.
Oh, yeah. There's one other exception. If your mother and my mother have the same yearbook picture, and we used to play Risk or Pit or Nurtz together as children. And even then I'm not very reliable.
If you're thinking to yourself that you're the exception, that if you just think of a clever enough way to ask me, I'll read your manuscript and it will make all the difference in your career:
It wouldn't, so I won't, so you can't, so you're not.
Regretfully yours,
Orson Scott Card