When I Came West (Part Twelve)
I wrote Matt a long letter in which I expressed my concerns and told him outright that I needed reassurance that he felt the book could reach a higher level of excellence, that he felt the story was still worthy and valuable. He replied that he would like to "dig in" to the manuscript and help ferret out the problem places in order for me to revise accordingly.
He suggested that he schedule the manuscript for an edit in December with a hope to complete his comments in January. So, what kinds of things needed to be addressed? According to notes that I took during an earlier phone call with Matt, the ten board members who voted six to four to reject the manuscript commented on the roughness of the writing. They wanted more careful craft. They wanted the writing to be more discreet.
While the descriptions were powerful they objected to too many compound sentences and triplicate adjectives. They felt my naturally poetic style was overwritten. The development of themes needed to be more consistent. The grounds for dismissal centered on the mechanics of writing, of whether or not the writing was good.
Little consideration was given to the positive reader reports. How did Matt plan to help me with these perceived problems with my writing style? He said that a developmental edit meant that he would expect the main theme of the work to be more present and we would need to bring each chapter around enough to sense what was to come.
We needed to consistently develop the theme so there would be "an ascension" to the story. Matt did not feel that the changes needed were major, rather minor changes that would showcase that the writing was indeed strong. He reiterated that it was a good book, an important western chronicle, a true reflection of a generation, an illustration of breaking rules and breaking away from conventions, and that it captured the experience of the New West.
With all of that in mind, I waited for Matt's edit on When I Came West and the end of 2006.
