When a book ‘fails’

The ones that got away

The other week I posted a note about how many drafts it took me to write a 630-word picture book (around 50).

This is me writing Little Fairy Godmother

Creative projects can take a lot of time and attempts to get right. Luckily, all that effort ended happily in that I got a book published but … what about when a book ‘fails’?

New writers are often surprised to hear that many authors have a low hit-rate; that we write multiple drafts only to find that:

1. The book never quite works or

2. The book works for you but your agent doesn’t like it/can’t sell it or

3. The book works for you and for your agent but it doesn’t get offers from publishers

I’m going to go through all the categories…

Books that don’t work

I have soooooo many scrappy drafts of books that I haven’t managed to get right. I keep them all in a file called ‘unused ideas’ because there’s often a core concept or feeling at the heart of the story that I like; I just haven’t yet found the other elements.

My ‘unused ideas’ folder

I arrange my unused ideas into types of book, but I also have one giant ‘table of ideas’, which is an excel table with columns labelled Setting/Character/Emotion/Theme/Plot. If a story isn’t working, I extract the bits I like most - maybe it’s only the setting, or a side character or a theme - and add them to the table in hope of using them in another project. When I need an idea for a story I can look at the table and mix and match them. I see it as building an ‘ideas library’ that I can dip into.

For me this is an ordinary part of my creative process. I don’t get too frustrated. I hold on to the thought that one day something will click and I’ll suddenly see how to make a new version of the story that works.

Books your agent doesn’t like

I have (many times!) loved a story idea only to find that my agent isn’t keen, or doesn’t think it has enough of a hook or doesn’t quite get it. This is much harder to cope with. If I’ve poured my heart into something, it’s really horrible to hear that it’s not working. It requires a level of trust on my end that my agent is right to tell me to put it aside. (see more on trusting your agent here).

You might think ‘er why doesn’t she just write what she wants and tell her agent to send it out’. I see my agent as an important gatekeeper for me. I tend to love what I write (otherwise, why would I write it?) and that makes it hard for me to be objective. But in the end, the thing I made with my heart has to become a commercial product that publishers, and the readers, buy. In this, my agent is on my side. I need my book to sell; my agent needs my book to sell; so I tend to take her advice.

I try to send my agent synopses instead of whole books. That way, if it’s not going to work, at least I haven’t spent months on it. But I find it quite hard to know from a synopsis whether a book is going to work. I need to write my way in, so I often write a good quarter of the book before I know whether my synopsis works.

That’s why it hurts when my agent doesn’t like it. But not as much as category three …

Books that don’t get offers from publishers

This is horrible.

I have had books go out on submission and not get offers. Fortunately, not tooooo many but I can’t describe how painful it is when it happens. It triggers a mix of feelings in me. Some of it is grief for the loss of what could have been. Some of it is shame, like I’ve let myself down or let my agent down. There’s a ridiculous negative refrain that goes ‘I’ve lost it. Or maybe I never had it? And now everyone knows that I can’t write’.

This is nonsense, of course. Nobody is actually thinking that. Publishing is a business and if an editor doesn’t take a book, it’s usually because it doesn’t fit with a list they are building or it’s too similar to something else they have or they don’t think it’s right for the market. But it’s hard reminding myself of that.

You’d think that by now I’d be able to spot which ideas won’t work or which concepts my agent won’t like or which books will die on sub … but omg no. I’m hopeless at that. I get so caught up in my idea and I fall in love with my characters or my world and I don’t find it easy to pull back and get any distance (which is why I need an agent). Sometimes I open my documents and look at all those files of books that have never worked and I do go through a little ‘WTF am I doing? What is the POINT in writing another one?’ moment.

But there IS a point. I don’t believe publishers (or agents!) always get it right about what the market is looking for. They might turn down a book now but, in a few years, if trends change, they might want it. I heard the other day that YA cosy colour books are having a MOMENT. They are selling like crazy. (If you can draw those, hop on that trend).

And I do know that no work is wasted. Every word helps me learn my craft. Every idea along the way forms part of my creative process.

I’ve got two new shiny ideas now. One picture book and one chapter book.

So, I’ll just keep plodding on, adding to my ideas library, doing drafts, sending stuff to my agent, going on sub. Who knows what will happen? That’s the joy and frustration of creative work, and it’s a huge part of the job of being an author.

The book that FINALLY worked. Little Fairy Godmother, illustrated by Leire Martin