What’s the most insulting thing a friend ever said to you?

Jeffrey's answer

I have been writing novels for fifty years, and I have been told a great many things by friends about my books. Most of them have been kind. Some have been honest. A few have been useful.

The most insulting thing, however, was none of those.

A friend of mine — who shall remain anonymous, partly out of the residual offence and partly because he is no longer with us — was reading a novel of mine. It was, by the publisher’s lights, going rather well. He saw me and said, “Oh, by the way, I read your new one. It was very good. I put it down with six chapters to go.”

He put it down with six chapters to go.

I cannot, even now, think of anything more insulting than putting a book down with six chapters to go. That is precisely the moment, in any book worth writing, when the reader cannot breathe. That is the place where the entire arrangement of the previous three hundred pages has been bringing them. Six chapters to go is where the train is hurtling toward the cliff. Six chapters to go is where the gulp lives.

If you have put my book down with six chapters to go, I have failed.

This is one of the central tests I now apply to my own work. The first reader of any draft of mine — Mary, my wife, who has read every novel I have written and is a more honest critic than any reviewer — does not finish a book of mine in the polite middle of the day. She finishes it in the small hours, with a torch on the kitchen table, when she should be asleep.

Adam and Eve, the novel I have just completed, was given to a first reader outside of the publisher last month. She finished at ten past three in the morning. She telephoned me at ten past three in the morning to curse me. Two weeks later, she wrote to say: “Adam and Eve are still with me.” That is the test. Not the polite drawing-room compliments. Not the graceful putting-it-down with six chapters to go. The frantic three a.m. phone call from a furious reader who has been kept up by the book.

If you are writing your first novel, this is the standard you should be aiming for. Not “I enjoyed it.” Not “It was very good.” Not “I put it down with six chapters to go.” You are aiming for: “I read it in one sitting and I am furious with you.” That is what unputdownable means. That is what we are all trying to do.

If your friend, on finishing your manuscript, looks at you and says politely that they enjoyed it — your friend has not been gripped, and your manuscript needs more work.

If your friend, on finishing your manuscript, telephones you at three in the morning and curses you — congratulations. You have written a novel.

A few practical notes

• Aim for the 3 a.m. phone call. The reader who finishes your book at three in the morning, exhausted, and has to call you immediately is the reader you have written for. The polite drawing-room compliment is the sign that you have not yet written that book.
• Track when your beta readers stop reading. Where did the energy drop? That is the chapter that needs work.
• The “six chapters to go” test. If a reader can put your book down with six chapters to go, the final third does not have enough force. Suspense should be highest there, not lowest.
• Use beta readers who tell the truth, not who flatter. Family will lie to spare your feelings. Find readers who don’t owe you that kindness.
• The unputdownability test. Hand the manuscript to a reader on a Friday. Did they finish it by Sunday? If not, why not?
• Read your own ending the way a stranger would. After finishing the book, take three weeks off, then read the last hundred pages cold. Did they grip you? If not, the book is not done.
• Resource for honest feedback. Reedsy, Writers’ & Artists’ Editing Service, and the Society of Authors all offer paid manuscript assessments from professional readers who are not your friends. Money well spent before submission.