Film Courage: E.K. should a writer share their first, second, even third of their manuscript
with family and friends?
E.K.
Prescott, Ph.D.: That is a really interesting question.
Yes and no.
I shared mine with family, but not all family are writers and can give you the kind of feedback
you want.
But what I did was, I share it after it was done because I found telling the story wasn’t
that effective, they had to see it done.
Or reading a chapter here and there wasn’t effective.
They really didn’t know what I was trying to do.
Unless you want somebody to edit it, now that’s different.
But if you want feedback on the story, they couldn’t get it into their…they are not
educators (educators tend to…especially English teachers can look at it and kind of
give you some feedback).
So when it was done, yes I got some feedback.
And everybody liked it but…”Yeah, it’s good?
But will it sell?
Will it get a publisher?”
And things like that.
But not much more than that, I just did a little.
So to recommend it, you’re not going to get what you want but you’re going to get
enough to give you some hope or ideas of what you need to do.
Film Courage: So were the publishers that you submitted it to the first ones to actually
see the finished product?
Or did you get it to any person who was sort of a confidante that you trusted?
E.K.
Prescott: No, I didn’t have anybody look at it except my husband.
But that was about it.
But my publisher read the whole book.
She said “When it’s ready, send it to me.”
And she called and said “I can’t put it down!
I had to change what I was doing over the weekend.
It’s really good.”
I said “I told you it was good.”
She said “No, no, no…everybody says there book is good.This is good!
How did you write such as good book?”
And I said “Well, I don’t know?
I just wrote it.”
So she believed in me and she met me and she knew I’m serious.
I’m a serious writer.
I’m not just writing one book, I’m writing six.
And so we went from there and I like her.
We had a good chemistry and went from there.
And I liked her, too because she was a one-stop-shop.
She’s at Five Star Publishing and her name is Linda and she’s one-stop-shop and nothing
goes without my approval.
But they have quality work…I mean…quality work.
Film Courage: How would you give advice to a first time writer on getting feedback on
a first, second or third draft of something?
What would you say, listen to your gut?
Because there is that perception sometimes when you are showing something to someone
you know.
Like my grandmother used to say “No man is a prophet in his own land.”
So sometimes people look at things differently when they know you?
E.K.
Prescott: Or they are afraid to say too much or be critical.
And they tend to think they need to tell you about editing instead of revisions.
And see the common person might think I need to look at the periods, and the dots and the
sentences are wrong and that’s not what you want.
You want “Did you like the characters?”
Did you like this?
Did you like that?
Because you can hire an editor to fix all that stuff.
So I think that answer (from my perspective) came to me as an after fact (after the book
was out).
We gave some advance copies out to some friends and we sent some friends some regular copies.
And it was really interesting and from an English teacher’s perspective of what they
said.
Not one person out of the ten people I targeted to send it to…I said “Tell me what you
liked.”
I didn’t know what they didn’t like at first.
And not one person said the same thing.
Now in answering your question, I wouldn’t get the same from every person and originally
I might think that was wrong.
But as an English teacher teaching literature in high school, a good piece of literature
has different perspectives.
And that is a mark of good literature.
So when I got something different from each person, then I (from my point of view) had
a good piece of writing.
Because one person said “I love Wiki!”
Or “I love Maisie.”
Or “I love the history” Or…I had an accountant say “I like the way you write.”
So you have a variety of things and if you’re getting that variety, you have a decent piece
of work.