Thursday, May 2, 2013

Sending a Manuscript



Sending a Manuscript

     One day you came to a realization that… “I want to be a writer”. Then, you get to read a love story or a romance novel and say to yourself, “Hey, I can write one of these.” I know, I know how you feel because it happened to me. I realized way back then that I want to write a romance novel. 

     To those who have been reading PHR novels, on the first few pages of the book you can see there that Precious Pages Corp. is inviting all aspiring Tagalog Romance Writers to prepare a manuscript with 23,000 to 24,000 words divided in 10 chapters. Once you’re done writing your manuscript, the first thing that comes to your mind is to send it right away. I’ve been there, the moment I finished writing, I composed an email, attached my work and hit “send.”

     NO. That’s wrong. After completing the required word count, what we’re supposed to do is to give our MS a “vacation.” It is advised not to read our work for a few weeks or months. The objective is to make it “new” in our own eyes as if we are to read somebody else’s book. This activity will help us be more critical of our work as a writer and will make us less “attached” to our book. In this case, editing will be easier. Editing your own work will mean removing unnecessary scenes and dialogues. Even, removing chapters and worse starting all over again.

     You see, before we send our work and expect an editor to read it, we must be happy reading our own work first. We must believe in the beauty of the story we made. To all of aspiring writers, who are sending me queries on how to send their manuscript…Give your MS a break. Later on, revisit your work and edit it.

     When you think you’re ready to send it, compose an email with the subject: Manuscript for Evaluation. Here’s the email address of PHR: ed2rialstaff@yahoo.com. You’ll receive an email reply that an editor has received your MS. You may also text your name, title of manuscript and subject of your email to: 09109854715.

     Thank you for visiting. Happy writing!

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