For some unknown reason, I kept putting down Neil Gaiman’s OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE after 10 pages.
And then I brought it with me on a flight to San Francisco and couldn’t put it down.
It’s AMAZING.
As the New York Times said, “His mind is a dark fathomless ocean, and every time I sink into it, this world fades, replaced by one far more terrible and beautiful in which I will happily drown.”
But I also took something else from it, a “secret” I’ve shared with most of my creative clients.
What I was most surprised by was the number of people that Neil Gaiman thanked in his acknowledgements who were advanced readers of his book.
What he says is “When I finished this book, I sent it to many of my friends to read, and they read it with wise eyes and they told me what worked for them and what needed work.” He appreciates all of them but singles out 24 people in that paragraph alone. (How many more were there I wonder…?)
In subsequent 12 paragraphs, he names another 14 readers, including three editors, two agents, his children, and his wife Amanda.
So…for a novel of 178 pages, he got feedback from over 38 readers before it was published!
I suppose I’m surprised by this because a) Neil Gaiman is a genius and b) he’s sold about 7 zillion books already this morning.
IE, you might assume he’d just finish the last keystroke, send the manuscript off to a proofreader somewhere to catch the errors spellcheck always misses, and sit back and wait for his book to climb up to the top of the bestseller lists.
Instead, he’s busy dialoguing with forty first-readers to fine-tune his work on this, his 19th publication.
I’m not in any way implying any of this as a criticism. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I thoroughly respect Gaiman’s absolute dedication to craft and literary excellence. (And to state the obvious…it shows.)
I just find it interesting that I still have traces of the romantic illusion that the Artist suffers away alone, then unveils the Masterpiece with a theatrical “Voila!” rather the idea that a major talent with a massive followin taking notes from more than 3 dozen friends and critics.
I’ve shared these observations often with clients because so many people I work with (in all aspects of my life) are reluctant to ask for the support they need on any level.
There’s the nagging Inner Critic always badgering us that “You should be able to do this all by yourself.”
And yet…Literary Superstar Neil Gaiman shows his work to that many people before he releases it into the world.
Of course, there are definite dangers from asking either too many people their opinion…or worse, the WRONG people.
In the first round of sending DOWNWARD DOG out, there was some initial feedback that the narrator might be perceived as unsympathetic since he was a Bad Boy. I invited several friends and friends of friends who were in the perceived demographic to read and comment on the first 25 pages.
By far the most vitriolic critique came from one very intelligent woman that might have caused me to hang up by laptop and become a blacksmith. That is, until another friend asked her what kind of novels she preferred. The answer: “Oh, I never, ever read fiction.”
It immediately became obvious that since no writer of fiction in the history of language has written anything good enough to please her, I could take her feedback with a mountain of salt.
Another kind of critic also comes to mind: the overly helpful one.
My favorite example of this is when an absolutely lovely, intelligent, generous aspiring screenwriter offered to give me feedback on my work when I mentioned I was having a script reading in a week. I told her that it was an adaptation of my novel (which had been optioned by Oscar-winning filmmakers) and that really my focus was really only to cut the unwieldy, 190 page, more or less cut-and-paste-directly-from-the-novel draft down to a manageable 110 pages.
She nodded. And then called me up 2 days later with suggestions for a completely revised narrative, one that would have been a few steps away from simply starting from scratch.
I started to explain that the filmmakers actually wanted a script with the same plot and characters as the novel they’d optioned…but then gave up. She was trying so awfully hard to be helpful that it felt mean-spirited to do more than thank her and keep cutting scenes on my own.
Comic moments aside, however, I’m now much more willing to tap into the resources I have around me for truly helpful feedback.
I’m determined to be less hesitant about asking for support and I’m definitely less worried if I’m asking too many people.
After all, if Neil Gaiman is willing to get feedback from 38 people on his 19th book, how foolish can it be?
