Guest Post: Martha Hunt Handler, Author of Winter of the Wolf

Being a novice when it came to writing fiction, I wasn’t sure how or where to begin, I only knew that I wanted to give it a try. However, fearing failure, I was reluctant to share my work or even tell anyone what I was attempting. After a few months, I finally managed to write a beginning and ending chapter, but I wasn’t sure what should happen in the middle. Finally, after many months of procrastination, two friends who were, surprisingly, having similar issues, suggested we start a writing group. I greatly valued our time together and found the weekly critiques very helpful. But alas, after about a year, they both moved, and I was back to my solitary writing.

Without the structure of our group, my writing began to meander all over the place. I started adding superfluous characters and plotlines. It was the opposite of writer’s block; I couldn’t turn off the spigot! In desperation, I joined a more structured writing group. But I quit after a year because it cut my writing time by a day and a half each week because I had to read and provide critique on other member’s pages in addition to attending the weekly six-hour meeting.

What helped the most during the years I was writing on my own was attending two writing conferences (Wesleyan and Manhattanville College). The atmosphere is such that you feel comfortable sharing your work, and I thrived being around other writers. My proudest moment came when a well-known author critiqued the first six pages of my novel. Though she’d extensively marked my work, when I asked if I should get an MFA, she replied, “Not unless you want to teach. You have what it takes; you just need to keep showing up and doing the work.” This was exactly what I needed to hear.

A few years later, I had a completed manuscript, however, it was an unwieldly 130,000 words! I knew it needed editing, but I didn’t know where to begin. Hoping I’d find an agent that would help me pare it down, I sent it off to ten agents who represented writers whose novels were similar in style to mine. I received ten swift rejections, but two had personalized the letter suggesting I tell my story in real-time (as opposed to having an older woman looking back on her life) and make it a YA novel. I knew it was a big deal that these agents had taken the time to read my manuscript, let alone comment on it, but they were essentially asking me to scrap it and start over.

I let this idea percolate for a few months but finally agreed that this would be a smart move. I then spent the next nine months reading a ton of YA novels as I searched for my new voice. Thankfully, I found this research thrilling because YA books today bear no resemblance to the vanilla tomes I’d read as a kid.

After finding my protagonist’s voice, I began to re-write my novel. But it was a very different novel to write. Since it was no longer a flashback, I had to incorporate things like cell phones, texting, etc. It was also more challenging to write because the pain my protagonist was experiencing in the aftermath of her brother’s death, was much more acute. Often, as I wrote, I had tears streaming down my cheeks.

It took another couple of years to complete my YA manuscript. Once again, it was too long, but I was reluctant to make the necessary cuts as it felt like choosing a favorite child. When I shared my dilemma with a friend, she asked if I’d thought about using a book coach. I’d never even heard the term. But to make a long story short, I hired one, and it was the best decision I could have ever made. The first thing my coach had me do was to write one sentence explaining why I was writing the book. This was harder than I thought to accomplish. Next, I had to prepare a chapter-by-chapter outline. For each, I had to write 1) an event, 2) how the characters react to the event, and 3) what happens that motivates the reader to go to the next chapter. Finally, I had to go back and fit what I’d written into my chapter outline. If it didn’t fit, it had to go. It was a painful process, but it made perfect sense, and in just a few short months, my manuscript was finished and down to a reasonable 30,000 words.