Bruised Egos and Thick Skin: The Line Edit

When I enrolled at Humber School for Writers I was excited and nervous to be mentored by a published author The seven month program would give me a post-graduate certificate in Creative Writing and was designed to produce a completed manuscript with a mentor's help. I already had the manuscript finished, so I anticipated no problems submitting my 20 pages every two weeks. I would get some suggestions to improve descriptions here and there, beef up this scene a bit, cut this paragraph here, place some more internal dialogue there. I might learn something along the way, but mainly, this would be a glorified line edit with a published author. When I finished my story would be tighter, more engaging, and perhaps just need a final polish before I started querying agents. You can guess where this is going, can't you.

My mentor, Richard Scrimger, Canadian author of YA fiction, has a knack for coming up with compelling premises and characters a reader is always rooting for. He's quick-witted and laid back, but quite serious when it comes to good storytelling-or in my case, bad storytelling. After much frustration, soul searching, and ego-checking, I rewrote the entire thing from scratch during those seven months. Line by line, section by section, I was forced to consider every bit of text and ask myself why it was there, and if it needed to be there, how to make it do more for the story.

My pride, my ego, and my stubbornness eroded away like a dirt pile with every downpour. I wanted to give up. I could have told myself that these people don't understand my writing or my story, or that I simply wasn't good enough, so why bother. But I began to understand that I was learning how to deal with criticism, and the only way to build my self-confidence back up was to learn every lesson I could and push myself to finish the manuscript the right way, with no shortcuts.

Criticism can be hard to take in great volumes. It can feel personal because your creation feels like it's being torn apart. But if it's always in the spirit of making your story better, I have learned there are no downsides to heeding it. I also learned that every writer needs someone to challenge them and to point out things they missed, whether it be a missed opportunity, an important detail, or a gaping plot hole. A line edit usually means more work, but we are in your corner urging you to get back on your feet when it feels like all you want to do is pull a blanket over your head and take a nap.