Good morning, friends and fans!
A fellow writer recently asked me for my opinion about a story they’re working on and sent me the first five chapters. Is it “worth carrying on with?” they asked.
So here’s my opinion of the matter in its entirety – and I feel it applies to any writer who may be looking at their manuscript and asking the same question:
You are the writer and it’s your story – that’s tantamount to you being the god and creator of that world and all the characters within it – the story will go where you direct it.
Only you will know the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it, and if it doesn’t do that yet, or if your storyline deviates from where you want it to go, it’s up to you to make the changes you see fit to put it back on that path.
In writing a story that’s fighting to get out of you, the only person you need to satisfy in the telling of it is yourself! Yes, others need to be happy afterwards with the overall thing, the story, the flow, the grammar, the plot – the “other stuff” – because people would rarely spend money on something full of spelling errors and grammatical battlefields and plot holes one could hide a star destroyer in! That aside, you are the one who will truly know what goes into it, the blood, the sweat and tears, the pride, the worry and the joy and the sorrow. When it comes to the publishing and release of it, you are the one who needs to be happy with its final form.
Therefore, only you will know what will be required to deliver the final, desired result – and whether or not it will be worth the effort of getting it there!
Writer, please yourself!
Read more:
- A Brief Introduction To Self-Publishing: A 5 part series of articles introducing the reader to the concept of self-publishing.
- Forewords, Prologues, Prefaces & Introductions Explained: this explains the differences and similarities and when it is appropriate to use them and for what.
- The Interrobang – What Is It?!:What is the interrobang, where and when should it be used? Should it be used at all?
- Asterism Or Dinkus – What’s In A Name?: Do you still write in actual chapters? For god’s sake – why?
- Afterwords & Epilogs Explained: this explains what afterwords and epilogs are for and when it is appropriate to use them.
- Word Length – When Is A Novel, A Novel?: This explains the word lengths for different categories of book or story.
- Which Self-Publishing Platform – Or All Of Them?:An article about experimenting with which self-publishing distribution platforms to use concurrently. Also read the follow-up article: More Isn’t Always Better – My Self-publishing Platform Strategy Revisited.
- A Guide To Self-Publishing In South Africa – a guide to being an indie author in spite of being stuck in South Africa by Christina Engela.
- Some Great Resources For Writers: A collection of useful tools and articles giving advice to new writers trying to make their way in a minefield of obstacles.
