Someone recently remarked that a manuscript assessment is a professional assessment and it is not the assessor’s job to elevate you.
This provided grist for the mill, food for thought, and a whole bunch of other clichés and idioms. Suffice to say, I decided to contemplate what a manuscript assessment entails, what it means to be professional, and what’s wrong with encouraging writers.
According to Writers Victoria, a manuscript assessment gives “objective, professional feedback from an industry expert who is unconnected with your work.” I have a large bone to pick (the idioms and clichés are coming thick and fast today) with the word “objective”. This might have something to do with the fact that I have one toe dipped in the waters of the academy.
Objectivity does not exist. Donna Haraway sheds light (yep, another one) on that. Folks, without getting too existential: we are embodied, we occupy a place in this world, we are the sum of our past and present subjective experiences. We cannot be objective, despite what we may think.
The Australian Society of Authors provides an overview of what a manuscript assessment entails, as does Writing WA. In short, a manuscript assessment assesses the strengths and weaknesses of your manuscript, ranging from plot, structure and pace to description, setting, character, dialogue, point of view, and voice. Interestingly, in the Writing WA article, Harman mentions that a “manuscript assessor is entirely objective”. I’d like to meet that entirely objective assessor.
The manuscript assessment report I received this week was the subjective opinion of the professional assessor. She’s professional in the sense that she is involved in the writing industry (as an author and an academic) and is connected to an industry body (Writers Victoria). I thought that her manuscript assessment report was thoughtfully written with the right balance of praise and constructive feedback. She seemed to appreciate my quirky novel.
The assessor said my debut novel is “complex and interesting”. She also said, “There are moments of acute insight into human nature in the novel and some lovely writing too.”
She made many other positive comments which I really appreciate. Her praise did elevate me, even if it’s not ostensibly the assessor’s job to do so. The assessor’s praise was followed by suggestions as to how she thought I could improve the novel.
I believe that encouragement is important. If one only points out the perceived weaknesses in a story, and one doesn’t offer any praise, then the writer might feel completely disheartened and give up. At the same time, one shouldn’t praise someone if the praise isn’t warranted.
The assessor’s manuscript review report didn’t follow a compliment sandwich approach which, as Adam Grant argues, can come across as insincere when the recipient knows that is the approach being implemented. Grant’s article about how to provide constructive feedback is insightful. The assessor’s approach aligned with the explanatory way of providing constructive feedback, which Grant advocates. Incidentally, there is another approach used at Pixar called ‘plussing’ which sounds effective.
Encouraging someone’s writing endeavours can make a world of difference to a writer. Pulitzer Prize winning author Elizabeth Strout found this out on her long journey to publication. It took Strout ten years to publish her debut novel, Amy & Isabelle. Fortunately, she received encouragement from Daniel Menaker along the way. In his then role as a fiction editor at the New Yorker, Menaker called Strout to encourage her to continue writing, despite the fact he had rejected one of her short stories. Menaker also later helped Strout find an agent and acquired her debut novel, as he’d become a senior editor at Random House by that point. Millions of readers are grateful that Strout persevered with her writing craft and that Menaker encouraged her to keep going. Our lives are enriched by Strout’s novels.
To all the writers out there, keep writing, and keep trying to get better. One day, like Strout, you too may have your work published, read, and appreciated. That’s what I’m working towards. Bolstered by my manuscript assessor’s encouragement, I’m now going to work through the feedback she provided.
Written by: Gemma Franks. Image: Pixabay.
