Years ago, I went to a writers conference and paid to have my work critiqued by a literary agent. Honestly, it was the best $40 I’d spent toward my career at that point. Why? Because he told me right to my face why the work would be rejected.

If there’s a better way to be humbled, I don’t know what it is.

Anyhow, it was a middle grade novel featuring two eleven-year-old girls and right away he let me know that these girls sounded exactly the same…and not only that, they didn’t sound like children.

My jaw thudded to my lap. Didn’t sound like children? Didn’t have unique voices? Yikes!

It forever changed the way I wrote my books. Could I have learned this a different way, maybe by reading how-to-write-4-kids books or maybe in critique groups with my peers? Maybe. But coming from  a respected agent with his thumb on the pulse of publishing, his words carried heavy weight.

I admit it depressed me at first. Not because I began to question my skills as a writer…I was well aware of being a work in progress. But because I’d spent so long perfecting the manuscript, and now I had to revise the Whole. Entire. Thing.

Blah.

After the critique, the agent asked if I had any other novels I was working on. I admitted I’d written five, but hadn’t tried to get them published. It was his turn to drop his jaw. “Why not?” he asked.

Now, I might have been naive, but I wasn’t clueless. I knew each of those novels needed work. A lot of work. “They’re just practice,” I admitted. And it was true. I enjoyed writing each one of them. Spent many anti-social hours editing them. But I knew they weren’t “there” yet, and I wasn’t going to waste my time and an agent’s time sharing them.

And that is why I highly recommend attending a writer’s conference and forking over the extra $30-$50 to have an editor, author, or agent give feedback on your writing. You can ask him or her questions in the allotted time you’re given (generally 10-20 minutes). You can discuss your other projects. You can address problems your having with your work. Take advantage of this time with a knowledgeable professional. It is worth every dime, I assure you.

If you come out of the meeting feeling frustrated or upset, consider what you have learned at the meeting. Did you not agree with the feedback? Sleep on it for a few nights. Research the advice the agent/editor/author gave you. If they felt your voice was weak, start googling “voice.” (And take a look at what I’ve had to say about it here on this blog.) If they said there wasn’t enough conflict, start sifting through similar books in the same genre to find how the author handled their story’s conflict.  In other words: be proactive. Doing something productive will make you feel better. And you just may find your mentor was correct…at least a smidgeon.

If you come out of the meeting feeling motivated, as I did, pat yourself on the back and then start working on finding how to fix the problems in your novel.

I put that novel away and started working on others that day, but I have taken the agent’s advice to heart, and my work since then has been much stronger. The money I spent? Worth it. You may wish to take a chance and do the same. You may want to bring some tape to hold your jaw in place, though.