Craft Tip: Assembling a Manuscript (part 2)

More on putting a book together

Hi, Friend.

A few weeks ago, I posted a craft tip on assembling a manuscript. That post focused on seeing the threads that bind a manuscript together, thinking about transitions, and making decisions about sequence.

There’s so much more to say on this topic. The one question I hear more than any other, when I’m working on a book for another plot or advising an MFA student who is working on the thesis, is this: Do these poems feel like a book? They want to know if their manuscript feels like a cohesive whole, if the poems are related enough, and if so, if there’s enough variety.

So, let’s start with the issue of cohesiveness. In a blog post years ago, poet Erika Meitner wrote something I’ve been sharing with students ever since:

“While having a project can certainly make a manuscript easier to grasp and remember from the start (“Oh, the villanelles about the life of Joe Namath—I remember that one!”), as a screener, I had a much harder time figuring out whether or not a connected poetic sequence was working, or if I could trust it.  Many, many manuscripts suffered from the Emerson, Lake & Palmer problem—the author felt like they had to plow on with the concept, even when it had clearly outlived its artistic life-span by the 10^th poem.… More varied books can withstand a few weaker poems without the entire concept of the book being called into question. With more loosely structured books, there was always the possibility that I might turn the page, and find something totally different, shocking, or compelling.”

This is a great discussion of pros vs. cons in having very tightly connected manuscript. Yes, if all of the poems are similar—all sonnets, or all about one city in the world, or all about a specific historical figure—they will “feel” like a book, and that’s a good thing. On the other hand, what if there isn’t enough surprise or texture? What if the screener or judge loses patience with the concept?

In my last post on this subject, I wrote: “The same 40 poems can be gathered into very different manuscripts based on the sequence of the poems; the poems you choose for the opening and closing; the use of sections, titles, and epigraphs; and the overall balance of material. I actually think it would be an interesting assignment: give students 40 poems by any poet, perhaps a published book, and have them arrange the poems into a manuscript. You would get completely different collections.”

Think about those 40 poems you could hand various students in the same workshop: What they’d choose as first and last would make a huge difference. Sections, too. I like sections in books because they create more moments of opening and closing, and more places to pause. So the first and last poems in a section, like the first and last poems in a book, are important poems. They have prime real estate. They are cushioned in white space, so they’re emphasized. So, how do you decide whether to divide a manuscript into sections?

I agree with what the poet A.E. Stallings has written about using sections to organize a manuscript: “it’s a way of making little arcs while suggesting a bigger one.” Sections can provide opportunities for smaller movements within the larger movement, like acts in a play. But think about the length of the manuscript when you think about sections: A chapbook may need no sections, or perhaps just two. Four sections for a 24-page manuscript may feel like overkill! A chapbook may well be a one-act. Some full-length books may also benefit from not being broken into sections, the way some poems benefit from not being broken into stanzas. Sometimes having no break, no relief, is powerful. There’s momentum.

I tend to prefer books that aren’t too compartmentalized—one section of X poems, another section of Y poems—so I like to blend and integrate thematic strands. My poetry collections all have series of poems spread throughout them. I like the idea of having a series as support beams, a sort of scaffolding, and then you can leaf other things around them. I’m always thinking, How can I pattern these throughout the book to make it feel like a book and not like just the forty or fifty best poems I’ve written since my last book came out? Both within sections and overall, I spend time looking at the openings and closings of the poems and considering what transitions would be the most natural and the most impactful. Often the transitions are either tonal or imagistic.

I do think we’re wise to be careful about sameness even within sections, and especially in the opening section of a book. Book contest screeners and judges are completely overwhelmed with manuscripts. If the whole first twenty pages are—to use Erika Meitner’s example—"villanelles about the life of Joe Namath” you’d better hope that the screener or editor loves villanelles and Joe Namath. You risk turning them off by offering them something so specific without giving a sense of your range in the opening especially. I usually advise trying to hit some of the major notes in the book—tonally, formally, thematically—in those first 15 or so pages so that a reader gets to see what’s in store, and is curious to read more.

Now, about those outlier poems, the ones that don’t seem to want to play nicely with the others. If you have an outlier or two, maybe they wait for the next book. Or maybe you find a way to include them by writing to bridge the gaps, sectioning the book in a way that makes the variety feel more intentional, or retitling poems to highlight similarities. Yes, you can revise poems further when you include them in a manuscript, even if they’ve been published in journals.

There is still so much more to say about putting a manuscript together. What about titles? What about epigraphs? What about opening and closing pieces? Yes, I do talk about all of these things and more in Dear Writer. (And y’all, one of the writers and humans I admire most, Elizabeth Gilbert, to my surprise and delight, has written the most enthusiastic and generous endorsement for Dear Writer, which I can’t wait to share with you. Talk about a day-maker. Her book Big Magic is a favorite of mine.)

I hope this post gives you some food for thought if you’re gathering pieces for a book or chapbook right now. It is fall contest season, after all!

Sending you all my best from very chilly Ohio.

Happy writing (& assembling)—
Maggie