He Said, She Said

He may not have been a he, and she may not have been a she; but the title seemed appropriate for my next segment on contradictory advice.

If you are a seasoned writer you already know what I'm talking about. If you are a novice, I hope this article will give you a little helpful advice, when other helpful advice seems confusing. If that sentence didn't confuse you, you may not have a problem trudging through the well-meaning suggestions you receive when you submit your story.

I wrote a novel once about an up and coming model who returned home and runs into the man she once loved. She was attracted to him, but when he makes advances she puts the kibbutz to it. And why might that be? Because she had less experience at lust than I had writing scenes with lustful behavior.

But it was not my lack of writing experience one agent took exception with. What he found unrealistic was the fact that a model could be acting that way. In his view models were not examples of women with high morals. In fact, though he said he liked my story, he felt the only place my novel might get published was a Christian romance market.

At that time those markets were limited, and I was never one to shy away from taking a challenge. So I queried an editor of a Christian market (note I was a good girl and queried first). That editor was intrigued enough to ask to see the novel.

In her return rejection she noted that like the agent, she liked my story. Drum roll please. . . However, my story's love scenes were too explicit for their market.

Thus, he said, she said.

One might wonder in a case like this what they should do. Neither agent or editor had asked to see a revised version of my novel, so that told me something. In my case, I looked at the situation with an unbiased eyes – something I might add the agent did not do.

I realized the agent had stereotyped the model into a roll that said professional models could not be virgins, much less want to hang onto their virginity until the right man came alone. In fact, even though in my story the woman had found the right man, she still was dealing with first time jitters and a serious case of doubts.

On the other hand, even if the editor had asked to see my novel rewritten, I wasn't certain I wanted to remove the scenes I had taken such care to write. As far as I was concerned the scenes were hot and anticlimactic. I looked at each love scene as a cliff-hanger followed with the dreaded, "To be continued."

I wanted my readers hearts to be pounding as they awaited – or in this case hurriedly read to – the next love scene. I was careful not to use this tactic too often lest I anger my readers, which was more difficult to do when writing a novel. Would my readers be saying, "Oh here we got again," every time they read another lustful scene? Or would they eventually begin feel like a jury who found the hero of my story not guilty of date rape because he got impatient with the virtuous model.

Undecided what to do, I did what all writers must do from time to time, table a project. I stuck the manuscript in a drawer and forgot about it for a little while. Giving myself that distance also gave me objectivity.

When I pulled the story from the drawer again, I was already well versed in writing short love stories for women's magazines. With new eyes I saw that this novel plot was good, but it lacked what it would take to keep a reader reading from beginning to end. More than the characters would be frustrated, the readers would be too.

I cut the story down into a shorter form. That meant removing some love scenes, but keeping my main character's morals in tact. That, after all, was a large part of what motivated her, made her who she was.

The new version was snatched up by the first editor who read it. My model was still a virgin when she finally married the love her life, and the semi-explicit scenes were left in tact. I had the best of both words. I had what I felt was a true-to-life story. My character's story.

Sometimes you need to step back to gain objectivity when the first version of your story is rejected. Sometimes you need to take advice from professionals. But, because professionals are human's too, sometimes you need to take what they suggest with a grain of salt. If you feel strongly about something, don't change it.

Realistically your story may never be published, but you will not have compromised your beliefs in the process. And although you may at some point do as I did and change the structure of the story, you will still maintain the foundation of your plot and your integrity as a writer.