In an earlier blog post, I brought up the topic of whether it’s worth dusting off an old rejected novel. After all, the reasons for rejection might relate more to submitting against dominant publishing trends rather than writing a bad book. In this post, I explore revisiting a rejected novel. Because often the advice is to leave them. But this is not always the best advice. It really depends on a number of things.
Some first novels are also overly ambitious and beyond the writer’s abilities at the time. But after more experience, it’s possible to revisit a rejected novel, polish it up, and bring it to publication.
Case study: Hilary Mantel
The case study I’m going to use is that of the late Hilary Mantel, the author of Wolf Hall. The first novel she ever wrote was the French Revolution novel, A Place of Greater Safety. She was twenty two when she started writing it and she was interested in writing from the perspective of the leading revolutionaries. Because she was moving abroad to Botswana, she had to do a lot of her research at the start, taking advantage of still being in England.
In an interview with the Paris Review she said that she only became a novelist because she thought she’d missed her chance to become a historian.
How fitting then that she started with historical fiction.
A Place of Greater Safety
She wanted to tell the story of the revolution from the viewpoint of the idealists who drove it, not the aristocracy they targeted. She felt the story she wanted to read wasn’t there, so she wrote it. She started off intending it to have a documentary element to the writing (which in some ways is still present in some places), and when she could she quoted directly from history. But she ran out of known facts at times, leading her to have to make things up, but never in a way that went against historical truth.
It was simply a case of not enough being known about some revolutionaries or some events. She never changed the truth to ramp up the drama:
I aim to make the fiction flexible so that it bends itself around the facts as we have them. Otherwise I don’t see the point. Nobody seems to understand that. Nobody seems to share my approach to historical fiction.
Hilary Mantel in the Paris Review
At the time of the original writing, she did not focus on the women around these men. She lived part-time as an eighteenth century man in 1790s France and part-time as a woman in the real world of Botswana.
When she finished her novel, she grieved for the characters. Like her, they’d been young.
Facing rejection
But now that she’d finished the French Revolution novel, she had to try and get a publisher or agent. Unfortunately, there was no interest. The market had turned against historical novels, and at least one person rejected outright on the basis they didn’t take historical romance. Yet that wasn’t the book’s genre.
Mantel also had health issues and spent time in hospital during this period. She came to realise then that the novel would not be published for now, though she had not lost faith in it.
And so Mantel turned to contemporary fiction. It was her ‘cunning plan’ to get a publisher and a foot in the door. After she had some success there, she was contacted by Clare Boylan who was writing an article on unpublished first novels. Did Mantel have one? The answer of course was yes. But of all the authors Boylan contacted, Mantel was the only one who wanted to see her first novel published. It had sat on a shelf for many years.
Finally submitting the novel
I thought, What if it’s no good? Because if it is no good, then that’s my twenties written off. And it also means that I commenced my career with a gigantic mistake. But inside me there was still a belief that it would be published one day.
Hilary Mantel in the Paris Review
The day Mantel took her manuscript to her agent, she met another writer for lunch first, and they warned her not to submit it. But she ignored this advice and did it anyway.
Many years had passed since she’d written the novel. Mantel was a lot older, and more academic work had been done on the French Revolution, including feminist historians researching the women involved.
With her novel finally accepted, Mantel plunged into a furious summer of reworking. This included building up her female characters more. But the size of the book meant that she was not able to polish everything to her satisfaction. She’d written the novel in present tense and someone at the publishing house objected to this. Yet the novel still has present tense at times.
Indeed, the novel’s style is somewhat erratic at times – it even resorts to simple dialogue scenes written like a script in parts. The novel was published without Mantel sorting out all the issues. The summer of rewriting took its toll on her. But the book finally emerged, going on to win the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award.
Written in her twenties, in the 1970s, it was finally published in 1992. She had not started her career with a gigantic mistake. She had not wasted her twenties. She fully captured the youthful idealism of the revolutionaries at a time in her life when she could identify with them. Then once she’d established her name enough, she was able to get the novel accepted.
Her cunning plan worked out.
Later she would realise, when writing about Thomas Cromwell, that she couldn’t have written A Place of Greater Safety in middle age. She was more cynical by then. But she would go on to make her name as a writer of historical fiction with the Thomas Cromwell novels.
References
Interview with Hilary Mantel in the Paris Review (open to read).
The Dead are Real: Hilary Mantel’s Imagination by Larissa MacFarquhar (paywalled, but possibly available as your one free read of the month).
Related blog posts
Feel free to check out my long review on A Place of Greater Safety, and my post about dusting off an old rejected novel. If you have a long-abandoned manuscript you’re thinking of reworking, you can check out my manuscript critique service. While there are different tiers, depending on the depth of the feedback, the lowest tier or a special package can be arranged for a shorter assessment of your draft. Feel free to contact me at karen@indiecateditorial.com to discuss your options.
It should be recognised though that sometimes authors cannot bear to go back to an earlier rejected book. Sometimes the enthusiasm is no longer there. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t learn from the writing.
Sign up for emails on writing and editing
Once a week I send out emails on writing, editing, and writing competition news. These emails usually go out on a Monday or Tuesday. If you want to receive these posts and newsletters, you can sign up below.