What Does it Mean to Hire a Writing Coach?
After hours of plotting, writing, and revising my debut novel, I thought I was done. I thought I was ready to submit and create this thing called a “query.” I figured I’d watch a few YouTube videos and that would be it. Piece of cake, right? WRONG!
Once I started learning what it takes to get traditionally published, I got scared. How would I get this manuscript in tip-top shape so agents would represent it? How would I get it down 30,000 words so that it would be in submission range? The more I learned, the more fearful I became about the whole process.
But I’d spent so much time working on it that I couldn’t just walk away this time. No, this time I was going to finish. The story mattered to me and mattered to my family, so I knew I had to get the manuscript in the best shape. But how would I do that?
Well, it turns out I had a friend who’d been published. She and I had been friends for years and spent many Saturday mornings rooting for our boys at good ole’ Pal Stadium in San Jose. (Team moms are the bomb by the way!)
So, one night I picked up the phone and made the call. After a catch-up session about our boys, she referred me to a woman she’d worked with named L.A. Mitchell. She told me that her writing was much better with her help and she highly recommended her. After I hung up the phone, my first thought was: I have a degree in creative writing, so why do I need a writing coach? OH MAN, WAS I NAIVE…
I’m almost embarrassed now about the draft I’d originally sent her. Boy, did it need some work! In college, I was book smart. I’d received good grades, made the dean’s list several times, and even wrote a few short stories, but nothing prepared me to write an entire novel.
It was sometime in August 2020 that I humbled myself and reached out to Laura to discuss my book. She posed many questions and showed a genuine interest in the story. She asked me about my writing goals, and we made a plan.
Here’s what I learned in my time with L.A Mitchell:
The student/ teacher relationship. Think of Karate Kid. I was Daniel-San, and she was Mr. Miyagi except “wax on wax off” was more like “visceral goes here.” But you get the idea.
When it came time for her developmental edits, she asked me the hard questions. Pages and pages of edits came back with loads of notation, all positioned to flesh out my characters even more. She tracked the character development from start to finish, making sure everything aligned with the plot.
I learned about visceral hits and the importance of sensory information. It is the author’s job to give the reader the full, sensory experience. Television is great for this because you can see everything, but for an author to bring a story to life, we must insert the emotions for the reader to really feel it.
Concepts like echo words, S.E.D. (Scene Ending Disasters), show not tell, and the overuse of direct address became a part of my new vocabulary. (Yes, she still catches me on this sometimes.) It is much harder than you might think! YOU NAME IT—I LEARNED IT AND APPLIED IT.
As the process continued, she’d say my writing had improved, praising me for my efforts, and told me that I’d done my job effectively making her cry in one scene. As strange as it sounds—yes, authors want you to cry. We want you to laugh. We want you to feel every emotion the character feels; and if we do it effectively, we have done our jobs. Over time, I grew as a writer because I stayed resilient and open to the process, with her expert guidance.
Laura helped me in every step of this process, from beginning to end. Fast forward eight months. I now have a polished, developmentally-edited manuscript, and we even got it down 30,000 words! I am happy to say I’m now submitting to agents! Fingers crossed!
Three really great things came out of my time with Laura:
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- I learned that I could do it. I can now say I wrote a book!
- Laura and I have formed a great professional relationship. I will continue to use her for future projects. (In fact, she has proofread this blog once, ha!) Trust me when I say editors are invaluable.
- I can say that I have a new friend.
Thank you, Laura, for everything!
If any of you are interested in really putting in the hard work it takes to be a published author, please contact Laura at https://la-mitchell.com/home-freelance/