How to Read Your Novel: Realizing It's Okay To Suck

3:36 PM Gemma Fitz 10 Comments

I suck at writing.

No, it's true. I suck. The words come out stilted and stupid or trip over each other and land in an illogical chaos. Kinda like that last sentence there. Only sometimes worse.

My novel is a complete rubbish heap of words. There are useless dialogue tags gushing happily everywhere, disturbing imagery at every painful, bleeding scene change, plot holes swallowing entire chapters of hard won text, and annoying characters whining through every step of the way. In short, it sucks.

And I've realized I'm okay with that.

This is the last post in my three part series on how to read your novel. You can find the first post here and the second here.

If we're honest, writing is one of those things you'll never do perfectly. Ever. If your works are ever published and on book store shelves and you deign to skim through the pages of your best-selling tome, constant face-palming is basically inevitable. You'll probably want to disappear off the face of the earth for awhile. (And, by the way, this is reason #463 why I should never pursue publication. I will anyway.)

This is super depressing to realize. Until you accept that it's okay to suck. (Okay, even after you accept that, it's still depressing. But not as depressing.)

You're going to suck. Your novel's got problems and you may think that a few more tweaks, drafts, years even, and it will be perfect. Right?

No.

No it won't.

You could always make it better. You could always find another typo or replace another word or cut another character. Your book is set in Japan? Guess what, for the entire rest of your life you are going to be learning more and more about Japan (maybe from some enraged reviews of your someday published book). It's impossible to know it all now. You're going to get something wrong. And all the rewrites and revisions and edits and beta readers and line edits in the world aren't going to change that.

When you're reading your novel, give yourself permission to suck. Don't be a perfectionist about something that will never can never be perfect. Polish that story up as much as you can, but don't beat yourself up when it's not how you want it. Keep writing and getting better at it, but don't beat yourself up when you're not as good as you want to be. Try to get every word perfect, but don't be disappointed when you come back and the words aren't so perfect after all.

You're always going to suck-- a little bit.

And that's okay.