How To Take Advice Without Taking It

In last week’s comments, Niki (nct2) asked about some feedback she got from an editorial service. I’m going to summarize a bit and then respond, because I had kind of a lot to say; if you want a more complete picture, check the comments on the previous post.

First, editorial services. They CAN be a good idea in some circumstances – for instance, when the writer has serious, specific problems with writing basics – but if you just want  how-to-make-this-sell advice, they’re less helpful. I say this because “editors” are not a monolithic, identical group. They are individuals, with personal tastes and varying experience. What one editor loves, another will hate, and vice versa. What’s a good fit for one editor’s line/publication will not be a good fit for another. You cannot judge a manuscript by the reaction of one editor.

This is especially true when the editor is not actually buying stories for a line, because all they have to go on is a lowest-common-denominator idea of what the book should be. I have known a fair number of writers who rejected one editor’s advice, only to sell their story to a different editor who cited the (unchanged) point as the whole reason they bought the story. Which brings me to the main issue.

In Niki’s novella, the reluctant hero and his mentor team up to defeat the villain. The editorial advice was to make the hero more heroic and have him defeat the villain. Picture an analog clock face. Niki, in essence, was aiming for the 12, at the top of the clock face, but she hit at the 3, a quarter of the way around. The editor can tell that 3 is Not Right, but doesn’t have enough clues to figure out which direction Niki wanted – back to 12 or onward to 6. Since most of the stories the editor gets are shooting for 6, that’s what they recommend…but it is the exact opposite of what Niki is trying to do.

When this kind of thing happens, it’s usually for one of two reasons: Either the editor has, as Wolf pointed out, their own idea of what the story “should” be about and won’t be satisfied with any alternative, OR the editor badly missed the point of what the author was trying to do.

In the first case, there is little to be done. The editor’s taste (or the line they’re editing) is a bad match for the story the author wants to tell. The author thanks them politely, examines the story carefully to see if the advice is the second sort (missing the point), and if not, moves on to the next market.

The second possibility, however, is trickier, and that seems to be the case here. The editor has identified a problem, but suggested an unacceptable/wrongheaded fix (he thinks Niki was shooting for 6, when she was aiming at 12).

Judging from Niki’s comments, this is meant to be a character-centered story. The advice she got is plot-centric. This means the character part of the story needs to be brought forward, probably in a way that makes “defeating the villain” look and feel secondary to the “become a team/work together” part of the story. The point of the story isn’t that the characters defeat the villain; theoretically, they could just as well be facing a flood or a forest fire or a tricky political situation. The point is that it takes both of them to succeed … and they have to learn to work together. From what she said, both the Reluctant Hero and the Wise Mentor also undergo changes/develop during the course of the story, but the editor didn’t pick up on it.

Part of the problem may be that these two main characters slot too easily and completely into their roles. Character tropes exert enormous gravitational pull on readers’ expectations … and on the way writers write the characters. I’m guessing that “Reluctant Hero” (let’s call him RalpH) is the viewpoint character, which would add to the “he is the hero, therefore he should be the one who wins” expectation, further reinforced by the other main character’s role as “Wise Mentor” (let’s call him WilliaM), since the mentor is generally the coach, not the player making the touchdown.

In this kind of situation, one begins by look carefully at the action/characterization balance in the story. If the action problem (defeating the villain) is the only throughline, or the only thing that looks and feels like a real problem, then readers are most likely going to see it as THE problem that the main/viewpoint character has to solve. Which means that they’ll likely be disappointed if the protagonist isn’t the one who solves things.

To fix this, one begins by looking at the character-related problems that each of the two main good guys have to solve, and make sure that these problems+ remain the focus for the entirety of the story until they are solved at the end. If the writer wants to focus on their relationship, they shouldn’t hit it off at their first meeting, because then the “developing a relationship” part of the story is over. All that’s left is the action-adventure. If the writer wants to focus on their dual character development, then each of them should probably develop in a different-but-complementary way. Perhaps Ralph is unsure of his abilities outside his familiar, comfortable environment and William is overconfident.

In other words, what is the story? The editor clearly thinks it should be “How Ralph defeated the villain, with help from William.” But is the writer trying to write “How Ralph finally found a mentor he could trust” story, or a “How William realized he couldn’t actually do it all himself” story, or a joint “How Ralph learned confidence and William learned some humility” story, or “How Ralph quit being a stick-in-the-mud and William quit being overconfident”? What are the aspects of each character’s personality and situation that complement’s the other, making them a good team? What are the things that make each of them unable to succeed alone, but allow them to succeed together?

It can help to mentally reassign the character’s roles. If the writer perceives Ralph as “Sidekick” or “prospective apprentice,” and William as the hero, it may be easier to make them read as a team, rather than as a typical coming-of-age-hero’s-journey. Or turn the relationship on its head – if Ralph is not reluctant, but is looking for a hero/mentor to apprentice to, and William turns him down, then Ralph can earn his place by rescuing William at the end (rather than by defeating the villain).

Whatever these characters need to develop – lessons to be learned, personality/character flaws to be overcome, abilities to be developed – has to be a clear problem at the start of the story, which is clearly solved by their cooperative defeat of the villain at the end. The “success” at the climax of a character-centered story is the solution of the character-problem; the action problem is secondary. Or the action problem is someone else’s to deal with (William, in this case); the protagonist/viewpoint character (Ralph) has a different-but-related problem that, to him, is more important and his to solve.

Next week, I’m starting my annual Christmas-New Year break; the week after that is the regular Open Mic.