#4: Fighting 'First Manuscript Syndrome'
Last year, University of Queensland Professor Kim Wilkins warned a class about a condition plaguing young writers. She called it ‘first manuscript syndrome’.
Afflicted writers finish a draft of their first-ever manuscript and receive modest praise for it – whether that’s a commendation from assessors if submitting it for a PhD, or a mentorship, or a fellowship, or a longlisting or shortlisting on a literary competition. A manuscript might receive every encouragement without ever actually being published, she said.
This is the infection.
The primary symptom is obsession. Surely this means the manuscript is good, right? Let’s have a look at the feedback. It just needs a few tweaks to the characterisation, the plot, the themes, the prose. It just needs a rewrite or five. Whatever it takes to push it over the line for them, whether or not it’s good enough for
me.
The illness can last for years, she said, preventing young writers from moving on to the next story. She told the class it’s easy to dismiss a rejection letter with vague reasoning like ‘We’re just not looking for this story at this time.’ But that’s often actually the case. It can be a good book, a finished book, and not hit the topics or genre specifications or themes that publishers are predicting the market will enjoy for the next few years. The problem can be
you need to write a different story.
When writing on deadline – whether for school or university, work, a commissioned project or to submit to a market before their reading period closes – the old adages make more sense. Perfect is the enemy of the good. Done is better than perfect. Don’t be scared, just press the button.
But creative work often happens individually, then goes elsewhere. Theoretically, the only deadline is death. I
could
keep tinkering with that song or that personal essay until I rot away in front of my laptop. And I’m resistant to the idea that a piece should be sent off as soon as I punch in the last full stop. Some tinkering is necessary. So where is the line, and how do I resist the temptation to ignore it?
To answer this question, I turn to my poem
Make me a woman from ancient Rome.
A version of it was published in the Wingless Dreamer
Wicked Young Writers Poetry Collection in 2020, before I reworked it for my zine
I’ll Never Get Over Any Of Them
last year.
The original version is by no means up to the standard that I write to today. But I still follow the process I’d developed at the time for
finishing
it:
- Clarify the idea
- Jot down the lines in your head
- Bring them together in a beautiful poem
- Edit until you can’t find a specific issue
- Send to at least two trusted friends for feedback
- Address the feedback and edit it again until you can’t find a specific issue
- Leave it for a few days
- Edit it again until you can’t find a specific issue
- Repeat the last two steps until you open the document and immediately can’t find a specific issue
- (If you suddenly have an epiphany within these few days, go ahead and act on it)
When I submitted the original version of this poem, I pressed the button with uncertainty in my chest. I still didn’t feel like it was ‘done’, but with my current experience writing poetry I didn’t have anything constructive to say about it. In the days that I left it, I could focus on other writing (Kim Wilkins didn’t mention that you might not be completely stumped before ‘moving on’). And in the years that I left it after submitting it and seeing it published by Wingless Dreamer, I finished my bachelor’s and started my master’s.
Three years later, I checked to see if it was appropriate for re-publishing in my zine. It wasn’t. But I had three more years of writing experience under my belt and could quickly see the problem. I essentially followed steps four through 10 again, deleting lines, re-tooling lines and adding stanzas. The result: I took a piece borne from insecurity over unrealistic beauty standards and added a secondary theme, that the body keeps the score.
It’s finished. For now.
Word Count: 710