Writers! Trust your instincts when it comes to your novel.

How much attention should writers pay to criticism, how much to their own instinct.  Too much attention and the baby may get thrown out with the bath water, not enough and they risk remaining unpublished. On looking back I remember certain comments made by publisher's readers. On my first novel one took exception to the heroine wearing fluffy pink mules but it was the 'Sixties and I'm sure many reading this would smile and own to a similar  frivilous taste in slippers when young and flighty.. The reader said she knew very early on which man in the story the heroine would  end up with. Valid point I suppose if it were a detective novel and the heroine was the murderer. Still I made a note of it but decided to leave the fluffy mules alone and make the man in question a trifle obnoxious and seemingly unappreciative of the heroine's undoubted attractions. I must admit I learned a lot from Jane Austen's 'Emma' and Mr Knightley's annoying, sometimes prissy, attitude towards that beautiful capricious lady..

On my second book another publisher's reader was scathing  about the heroine (sexually abused by her best friend's father when she was 13 year old) because now grown up she had the nerve to disapprove of  her rival's promiscuous behaviour and her pretense at pregnancy seeking to entrap the guy into marrying her. 'Who does she think she is?' protested the reader. 'She's no one to speak after all her carry-on.' As if  any of it had been her fault. And when the hero (aged twelve at the time) had drowned kittens in the canal at his mother's request, she asked in outrage. 'Surely the author doesn't expect us to accept him as a hero.'  Well,  I did but only by the time he had matured a bit and proved himself to be a decent guy and more worthy of the heroine's love.  So I removed the drowned kittens incident and showed how time and the years in between  had made him a better person. In truth, that was only a very small part of a big novel, hardly enough to rule it out. But, alas, on so small a thing can hang the fate of your otherwise good sound book.

So much for publisher's readers. I used sometimes tell myself in the early novel writing days to be more tolerant - these readers were having a bad hair day or something and so kept faith with myself and my writing ability.  Moving on to agents. My first agent was very encouraging about my first novel and his comment, 'They could love it' meaning the reading public, went a long way to keeping me hopeful while it was being considered by different publishers. Then bingo! It was on the shelves. My second novel was very long and the agent advised me to take off 30,000 words, telling me to achieve this I could either cut whole scenes or merely enough words to reduce the length. When I did as he said and he submitted it to an English publisher the verdict was - it was a bit too melodramatic to their taste. The agent did not agree telling me to keep the drama, that it was very well written and very commercial. But before giving it out again he wanted me to take more words off it. Going by my instincts,  I  refused saying I had no guarantee that if I took any more off the length it would be any more pleasing to a publisher, and bearing in mind my mentor's advice some years before, 'Always give them enough so they will have something to cut.'. Sound advice and interesting to note when this novel was accepted the publisher had no problem with the length and on publication  ended up Original paperback 455 pages!

My maxim now is to regard any feedback as the treasure it is, read criticisms and suggestions carefully and whatever your gut feeling tells you is not constructive or appropriate, disregard, and whatever strikes you as containing en element of truth, however unpalatable, go back and work on those areas in the interests of making it a better book.Just don't be in too much of a rush, the main thing is not to slavishly accept it all as gospel and end up throwing out the very stuff that makes your book unique, exceptional, and maybe even great.  Remember it is a matter of taste and not everyone is going to like your style or your handling of the subject.  As one agent told me, 'It's all very subjective. You could very well get another agent who is wholly enthusiastic and get you a super deal?' And when you look at the history of publishing and the amount of writers whose work was rejected before becoming an acclaimed best seller, there really is is a lot of truth in what he is saying. .