Manuscript Input: Who to Trust?

When you’re tangled up in revising a poetry manuscript, who should you trust?

Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash

Every time I lead a poetry manuscript development class, I’m asked at least one version of this question.

I’m not sure about my book’s _______ [themes, structure, poems included, etc.]. Should I ask peers for input? What about friends? Writers in other genres? Mentors? Professional manuscript readers?

How do I choose the right person to give me feedback? 

Should I pay someone to critique my manuscript? What if that critique doesn’t help?

Who can I trust?

My answer is simple (and not simple): Trust yourself. The right feedback at the right time can help, but as often as advice can help it can harm the work. Be wary of your desire to solicit feedback. Be in community but do not un-center yourself. Trust yourself, your process, your vision for the book. 

Why is trusting ourselves so difficult?

Challenge #1: We’re uncertain what makes a poetry book a poetry book. There are so many possibilities. Lacking guiding principles, we’re overwhelmed by possibilities. We’re looking for clues about a process that hasn’t been well described by published poets or their editors or publishers. We hear things like “Oh, I just did it. I spread the poems out on the floor and, after a few days, it all clicked.” We think it should be that easy. But it isn’t. Of course it isn’t.

One remedy for this is to study what makes the poetry books you love the poetry books you love. How are they put together? See if you can’t tease out the principles at work. Although your manuscript may be quite different, when you hone your ability to see patterns in others’ work, you’ll see them in your work better, too.

Challenge #2: Most of us don’t start out with a clear vision for our book. We lack a sense of our territory, our book’s guiding principles, our interior map. We might mistakenly think we can “download” that map, our vision, from elsewhere, i.e. ask peers for feedback or pay for a professional critique that will tell us how to proceed. That almost never works.

If you want to remain in the driver’s seat of developing your book—I mean, it’s a book! it’s a major work! and it’s your book!—it’s vitally important that we do not to skip the first stage of manuscript development, clarifying the vision. That takes a lot of reflection, returning to the work over and over again. It takes patience. Trusting yourself means trusting the sometimes slow pace of developing your vision for the book.

Challenge #3: We skip ahead to organizing. To avoid the uncomfortable process of exploring our work until we have that vision—which involves a lot of mucking through, scrambling around, not-knowing, nosing the earth of our manuscript like truffle pigs seeking clues buried under poems’ surfaces—we may have skipped ahead to structuring and organizing the manuscript. We start ordering poems without a clear vision, so we get confused and stuck. We think, “I need help.”

Challenge #4: Book by committee. I’ve said it before: We live in a culture that has trained most of us to overvalue the mentor, the crowd—the workshop, the MFA program. I’m not suggesting that these don’t play a vital role in our process of developing as writers—they absolutely do—but they also may train us to take others’ opinions over our own. So consider: Is a default setting (“others know better”) getting in the way of your having a vision for your book and building self trust?

Challenge #5: All of the above while wrestling demons of self doubt.

The role of others in poetry manuscript development 

Having a community and general guidance in the process, such as a class or program—building an ecosystem of support—can make all the difference when we’re in danger of stalling out. Rather than critiquing your work and telling you what to do, though, peers and mentors can play a more valuable role—one of providing encouragement and accountability, mirroring back your insights and vision for the book. 

So, consider: Who understands and brings out the best in your work? Who is a good mirror? Who applauds your insights rather than imposing their own ideas about your work? Whose experience and knowledge augments, rather than eclipses, yours? Who celebrates your efforts? Who amplifies trust in yourself?

Be choosy! When the process gets difficult, by all means reach out for support. But remain centered in your vision. You are the visionary for your book and, ultimately, no one else has that map, can find the way, but you. 

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Upcoming Events / Poet to Poet Community

The Poets Circle: Drop-in Conversations

MARCH: The Problem of Themes

March 1, 6-7pm MT & March 15, 12-1pm MT

Is a thematic approach to writing poetry helpful or harmful for your process? Should you consider themes prior to putting a book together? How do themes emerge and play out in your work? How do themes manifest in the works of others?

APRIL: Weaving the Thread—On Coherence

Apr 5, 6-7pm MT & Apr 19, 12-1pm MT

How do you cultivate coherence in your work? How do authors you admire create coherence in their work, across poems?