How Sincere Is Your Writer's Face?

Happy Monday, everyone!

Today, I wanted to talk about how we present ourselves as writers. I think we've all programmed ourselves, at least to some extent, to be humble about our writing and our writing experience. I know I always think twice before I announce how proud I am about a current project I'm working on. Not only that, but I often make jokes about my writing, making my work seem silly when really I've worked hard to make it something special.

My cannibal story comes to mind. Thinking back on the last several months when I've talked about the project, I realize that almost always I've made jokes about it. In reality, though, Bread is a very personal and serious story for me, one that I did a lot of research on, one that caused a lot of nightmares for me, and one that depicts a lot of very personal intimate experiences.

Somehow, I convinced myself that no one wanted to hear about the serious side of my work. I felt the need to joke about it because I wanted to talk about it, and making jokes was my idea of harnessing my enthusiasm into something acceptable.

When I was in high school, my English teacher talked a lot about false humility. It was a recurring theme in her class. She didn't exactly say that it was good or bad to be falsely humble, but she asked us simply why we felt the need to do it.

Why do we feel the need to do it?

My answer? For one thing, I think most people feel like it's polite to be humble. We don't want to seem too into ourselves. I think maybe we also don't want people to think we're stupid. We're worried that if we suddenly say we're proud of something we do, then people will assume we think we're better than Mark Twain or someone. (Maybe we are, and maybe we're not. That's beside the point.) There's a protective aspect to being falsely humble as well. We risk less because, if anyone else puts down our work, we can claim that we already knew it was bad.

This makes me sad. I'm sad that more people don't come out to say how good their work is. I'm also sad that many writers are so frightened that they feel the need to be falsely humble. And, I wonder: does putting your work down eventually convince other people that your work should be put down? Lately, I suspect this to be the case.

I do think a lot of us sincerely suffer from lack of confidence. That's a different issue, that I also wish would go away. But, for today, I just hope that we as writers feel like it's okay to take pride in our work and to announce that pride to each other. Honestly, one of the things that makes me happiest is when I see people in the blog-o-sphere, not talking about their awards or publishing news, but talking about how happy and proud they are of their work. Those are the announcements that make me want to learn more about a writer and what they've done. If they are proud of their work, then I feel like I can see a true reflection of what they want to produce, their artist's vision, rather than something "in training".

So, are you proud of your work? Are you proud enough to announce it to the world?

(As a semi-related aside, last week on Twitter, I saw a post by an agent that went something like "Be aware than anything you say and do at a writer's conference has the potential to permanently damage your career." That really made me angry. I hope we as writers aren't so scared that we worry about every single move we make. I am happy to know that there are better agents out there, people who aren't trying to train us to be cowering wimps as this man was trying to do.)

Friday Filligree!

First, an announcement: Erin Anderson has signed with Joanna Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary and Media! Which means that HOUND IN BLOOD AND BLACK is just that much closer to being published and taking over the world. About damned time, Guppy.

That reminds me that my agent's birthday is next week. More about that next week. Remind me, someone, to send her a card.

Which reminds me to ask if anyone else has any good news. So do ya, punk?

Also: I don't need to be told that my most recent posts have been less than brilliant, and I haven't really been saying much of late that could be construed as, say, useful to someone wanting to read about writing. So I'll work on that.

Which reminds me that next Friday, I will not be around for Friday Filler/Filler Friday because I'll be in glorious California, at a resort on the beach, working very hard for my employers. Work, work, work: that's all it will be. Though one of today's work-related emails read, in part: "Fran mentioned that the hotel lobby has a great bar..." Work, work, work.

One of the things I've been meaning to do lately but haven't actually done (aside from conquer the universe and all that) is to write up a list of books I intend to read this year. So here's something of a list:

James Joyce Finnegans Wake
(I started this back in November but shelved it; it's going to be my 2011 Summer Book)
Sam Beckett The Malloy Trilogy
Something by Nabokov TBD
Something by Virginia Woolf TBD
Beowulf again
Something by Salman Rushdie TBD
Something by David Mitchell TBD
Haruki Murikami The Wind Up Bird Chronicles
Apuleus The Golden Ass
Something by Agatha Christie TBD
More of the Paddington Bear books by Michael Bond because Pads rocks.
More Chekhov stories
More Alice Munroe
Z.Z. Packer Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Frans Bengtsson The Long Ships
Laurence Sterne Sentimental Journey
Stendahl The Red and the Black or The Charterhouse of Parma
Kristen Hersh Rat Girl (because the Rejectionist recommended it to me)
and, hopefully, a lot of other cool books.

You?

Pinpoint Your Goals!

The new year is fast approaching, and with it many of us make resolutions. As writers, the new year shouldn't be our only time to make resolutions pertaining to our craft, but I thought it would be fun to talk a little bit about what you might want to accomplish or improve in 2011.

Sometimes I think we go about things the wrong way, though. So a bit of advice. If one of your goals is to get an agent, you might want to rethink your focus.

(1) Why do you want an agent? Are you really ready for that step, or do you want an agent because that's what everyone else wants?

(2) Have you tried to get an agent in the past? If so, were there a lot of rejections? Only a few? Some specific feedback? Maybe your goal should be more specific, like master the art of your first chapter, write a better query letter, write a better book, query at least one agent a month, learn the rules and how to better break them, etc.

Sometimes I think goals skirt around the issue, and that's the reason they are never completed. For example, many people say they want to lose X amount of pounds within the year, when it would probably be wiser to look at it from a different angle and make the goal to exercise at least once a day, or maybe cut out half the meat in your diet, or eat more vegetables and drink more water. Because, after all, the idea of losing weight is to be healthier, right? Feel healthier. Look healthier.

After all, the idea of getting an agent is to publish a book, right? There is a lot that surrounds publishing a book, and a lot of different ways to go about it. Make sure you're attacking the right goals.

One of my writing-related resolutions for 2011 is to deepen my prose. I'm really interested in creating more beneath the surface than I have in the past. I want every sentence to charge the story forward, but also contain layers beneath it that move at different speeds. This goal comes from my desire to write more literary work, even if it doesn't appeal to a wide audience. I have some short stories in mind, one more novella to write, and possibly another novel to revise. I have a lot on my plate, but the goal I will focus on is my prose. I think it will help move all my goals forward in the end.

What is one of your resolutions? Don't be afraid to say get an agent, haha. I only made that point above to illustrate how we can look at things differently and pinpoint the goals we're sure we want.

Friday Filler! Mule Rides!

So anyway, it's been a long week and I, for one, am glad it's about over. I live in Seattle and winter is the rainy season, which means perpetual overcast when you can see the sky, which for me is rare because it's dark when I wake up and dark again when I leave the office, so I tend to think of winter in Seattle as the Land Of Perpetual Night. But! This winter (or very late fall, yes, to be more precise) brings some sunshiny moments to Mr. Bailey's life! If you look here, you'll see that I have a sunshiny new agent! And after working on my novel Killing Hamlet for several years, it looks pretty certain that it will finally be going out on submission to publishers in early January. Which is teh roxor, and don't let anyone tell you differently.

There aren't enough exclamation points to emphasize how cool it's been working with Weronika, but I must warn you: there has been a flurry of activity and I'm feeling a bit out of breath. Author photo? Author bio? A synopsis of the next novel (Cocke &; Bull) just on the off chance that an editor wants to offer us a 2-book deal? A fresh new pitch for Killing Hamlet because my original query letter writ two years ago no longer fits the book as it stands today? Yes, I say yes, and likely more to come. So busy busy busy and I haven't even begun my Christmas shopping yet. Anyway, this is all just my subtle way of saying that things are cool in my life.

Other cool things that don't have anything to do with me:

Tonight in downtown Seattle, the 24th Annual Great Figgy Pudding Street Corner Caroling Competition, which closes some major streets and fills block after block with singing folks. It's way cool, and Mighty Reader and I have made this one of our traditions.

Tomorrow in my neighborhood, it's the annual tree lighting, which is a cool community event with prizes, music and snacks. Sunday there will be mule rides. Mule rides! We also have a fabulous outdoor farmer's market on Sundays, so the pleasure is doubled, at least. Mule rides!

Seattle can't be the only cool city on Earth, so what's going on in your fair town this weekend?

The Only Way To Know...

I was talking with a good writer friend of mine last evening, and we discussed my current novel that I'm getting ready to query soon. In all honesty, I've been delaying the whole "query trenches" thing as long as possible. I don't want to go there, I really don't. All that rejection piling up, vague feedback, maybe some detailed feedback, more incentive to do more revisions.

Okay, so I'm just scared. I've never queried before. My friend barely went on submission for her novel yesterday, and she's not exactly in the best of spirits, either. More anxiety than anything, I think. Funny how I've watched some of my friends get agents and go on submission and sell books and their stress level hits the roof - to the point that it seems to overshadow most of the joy altogether. It all evens out in the end. Maybe?

So I told my friend, "You know, I'm not sure I want to do this, anyway. Maybe I'll shelve the book and work on two more projects for the next four years. Maybe I'll query then."

She laughed and said that wouldn't change anything. Publishing is slow. Might as well get the ball rolling now. Make connections, network, get agent interest, get my work out there, all that jazz. Besides, if I really do want to publish traditionally, I need to see if my work is good enough for that, and the only way to know that is to send it out there to the professionals in the field.

There is another way, though. Last week I blogged about hiring a professional editor for your work. That, of course, costs money. So what would be better? My stress or my money? I'd stress sending my work to an editor, too. I guess I've reached the point where I need to choose. Shelve it, edit it professionally, query it, or self-publish it. The only way to know the answer?

There is no right answer.

And as the brilliant Mr. Bailey has said here before, no novel is ever perfect. Messy things, those.

If you were in my position, what would the answer be for you?

I Am The Work In Progress

This is a personal one. Thanks to everyone, especially F. P. Adriani, Tess Hilmo, and Scott G. F. Bailey, for helping me clarify the role of writing in my life.

I've been writing for nine years, but somewhere, I made a wrong turn. Because, I've been learning two different things. First, I've been learning how to become a better writer. Second, I've been learning some ways to publish a book through a major publishing house.

The wrong turn that I made was that I muddled these things together. I told myself that I'm not a good writer until I'm published through a major house. I told myself that following publishing advice would automatically make me a better writer. This has been bad for me. And, to make matters worse, I've been blaming the wrong people.

It's not the literary agents' fault.

Some literary agents have been very public about telling us what we should be doing to be successful. But, I think a lot of us have misinterpreted their message or have not read their message thoroughly.

1. The agents with an online presence are not EVERY agent.

Blogging agents often tell us that their preferences are no more than their own personal preferences. They can't represent all agents because they aren't all agents. In fact, I've been finding plenty of blogless agents to admire. People like Eric Simonoff, Ann Rittenberg, Laurie Liss, and Sandra Dijkstra approach literature in a way that better matches my views. As an example, here are some of their mission statements:

"To find and sell well books that make a difference. To be our clients' best advocates in a mutually supportive and rewarding environment. To make things happen."

-Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

"We represent authors first, and books second. We're interested in building careers, in nurturing growth--artistic and commercial--with each book our clients write."

-Ann Rittenbery Literary Agency.

Reading that just makes me want to cry with relief. I've sent my compliments to these two agents, and they've even written back with similar nice words. What great women!

2. Writers don't necessarily get the complete picture.

When we take time out of our jobs, our love lives, our parenting, our writing, our critiquing, we sometimes research publishing. But, chances are, we haven't been thorough enough. And, I think we are putting some undue stress on ourselves by trying to interpret the inadequate bits of information we get. We can't know everything there is to know about the publishing world. Agents and editors can't either! So, maybe we shouldn't worry about doing something the wrong way, when, quite possibly, the way we're doing it is just fine.

3. A business person's definition of success is not my definition of success.

Agents and publishers need to eat. To eat they must sell books and take a share of the profit. Because of that, they are approaching writing, at least in part, based on business. There's nothing wrong with that. But, I think each of us has to realize for ourselves what will make us personally happy, and it may not be money.

I've published several short stories in print and online. Some of those stories have been personal. Others have been exercises. I've learned that publishing is not what makes me happy. The satisfaction I get comes from me publishing something personal. Even if I self-publish a personal book and only end up selling 200 copies, I honestly think that would be more satisfying than selling 2000 copies of a book that I have no attachment to. (Yes, these numbers are small. I'm a literary writer, after all.)

Don't get me wrong. I think it's true that writers can do both. I think some writers, given marketing restrictions, can still produce something that was fun for them to make, at least partially. But, for me, the attempt to be business savvy inhibits my own creativity. I don't yet have enough skill to make this type of compromise.

So, here's what I believe will make me happy: 1. I want to write books that I am deeply and personally connected to. 2. I want to share those books with as many readers as I can.

That's it.

That means that I may or may not need an agent. I may or may not need to publish through a major publishing house. I may or may not need a hook or a platform. I may or may not need to network. All of these things are possible tools that I can use to reach my goal, but they are not the only tools. And, lately, my attempts to acquire them have been hurting my art and my happiness.

So, I guess this is my declaration of independence. This is my renewed vow to write with myself and my readers in mind, not the mainstream market. I am going to try to make my writing as emotional and moving as I can, with the hopes that the revelation of the human spirit will be as powerful a marketing tool as my torrid affair with Miley Cyrus.

The Finish Line

I'm happy that most of our posts have to do with writing rather than with publishing. Publishing is important to me, but in the end the writing is the first obstacle and the subject that we writers are most qualified to discuss intelligently.

Occasionally, we do talk about publishing. We talk about agents and genres and query letters and platforms and hooks and literary magazines and contests. Most of this has been centered on acquiring a literary agent. Step 1: write the good book. Step 2: get the literary agent.

But, what happens after that? We're getting a glimpse of Step 3 thanks to Scott and other bloggers. But, what's the last step? And, I don't mean in our lives (that, for me, involves being trapped in an elevator with a bullet wound in my chest so that I have exactly three minutes to tell one person one thing that will change their world view forever), but I mean for each particular project. When will we know that we have reached the finish line?

Book?

Agent?

Snazzy cover?

Publishing?

Awards?

Wide readership?

Movie deals?

Oprah?

Most of the time, I'm working to GET AS MANY READERS AND AS MUCH FAME AND FORTUNE AS POSSIBLE. The problem is, that's a completely unrecognizable goal--I'll never ever know if I've reached it.

Now, I try to be more specific, and this is what I've come up with: I'd love to get a $10,000 advance. I'd love to know that a few thousand people have read my book. I'd love to be on Charlie Rose. I'd love to get a good review by Harold Bloom. For my first book, I think I will be quite happy if I attain all or even one of these goals, which currently seem unreachable and a little embarrassing to admit. But, as impossible as they seem, I feel like they're at least recognizable. I'll know if I've been on Charlie Rose--I'll remember the color of his tie. I'll know if I get $10,000 because I'll own that new fire-resistant lab coat I've always wanted. (Okay, more likely I'll use 70% of it for self-promotion and put the rest in my Roth IRA.)

Perhaps, if I do attain these goals, I'll realize that they don't actually reflect what I wanted in the first place. But, at least I'll know if they've happened. I don't want to chase something that is impossible to catch in publishing terms. (I'm all for chasing the dream of writing that perfect novel.)

You? How specific are your goals, and will you know when you've reached them? What do you need to accomplish before you've made it to the finish line?

Query Letters

Since the three of us are in different stages of submitting our novels to agents, we thought we'd offer some general comments about query letters. As always, these are just our opinions.

Davin: At first, I thought my query letter had to be perfect, which was a very intimidating thought. Now, I think of letters as just the door opener: the objective is to get an agent to request a partial or a full manuscript. After that, it's the actual book that they will pay attention to. To that end, present your project clearly and display some proficiency in your writing. Include a brief biography that explains why you are the best writer for this job. Then, let the agents decide if they are interested or not. If you have done your homework and found people who are representing the type of writing you do, they will be interested, even if you have a typo or two in your letter.

Below, Robyn offered up her query letter for a individual critique. Thanks, Robyn! It's almost always a good idea to get some feedback on how your query letter is working, and The Public Query Slushpile is a great place to post your own letter.

It’s summer, and Anna and Claire head out on their first-ever endurance horseback ride alone on the trails of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Anna is excited that she and Claire will be able to share the beauty that lies in the trails that she and her family have ridden her whole life. But a few hours into their ride, disaster strikes: they become lost. With night fast approaching, the insulin in Anna’s pump is almost gone. How will they survive the next seventy-two hours in the wilderness, fighting wild animals, and Anna’s diabetes?

Horse stories are always popular with girls obsessed with horses, but there are few survival stories with girl protagonists. I have combined those ideas and hope you will enjoy reading Seventy-Two Hours, an adventure story for older middle grade girls. It is complete at 34,000 words.

I have written for our state SCBWI newsletter, The Pen and Palette, and I am a member of SCBWI.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope to hear from you soon.

Warmly,

Robyn Campbell

Robyn, overall, I think this is a strong letter. It's simply written and presents the premise of the story clearly. We know the characters, the setting, the conflict and the tone of the piece in just one paragraph. We also get some good information about you. I'm missing the characters' personalities. We get a little bit of Anna's background, but I think a phrase or two about each of them could make the book feel more multidimensional. The sentence: "With night fast approaching, the insulin in Anna’s pump is almost gone" is a bit awkward to me. It implies some sort of causal relationship that isn't supposed to be there. The phrase, "Horse stories are always popular with girls obsessed with horses" also isn't working for me yet. It's a reflexive thought that doesn't feel persuasive.


Michelle: My advice is aimed at Robyn, but most of the things I say here can apply to queries in general.

The important thing to remember is, as Davin says, query letters do not have to be perfect. In fact, the more you revise a query, the more I've seen the author's voice and style simply slip away, leaving nothing more than a formal-sounding business letter that doesn't show the agent or publisher what kind of a writer you really are. The sparkle fizzles out. I can feel the sparkle in this letter, but I think you can give it more. More revision, you say? Well, I don't think it'll take much. This letter is strong already. It is concise and tells us almost everything we need to know. It does lack some focus, I think. Here's what I would do:

In my experience (which is limited, mind you), I've found that the section in a query that focuses on the characters should focus on two things: the main protagonist and the main character or force that is stopping that protagonist from reaching his/her intended goals. This focus is essential. Unfortunately, I've seen query after query slip out of this focus. Too may plot points. Too many characters. A query usually doesn't need all that.*

I think your letter is pretty focused, but I want a little more. It could be a matter of a few words. First, I'm almost certain your main protagonist is Claire - but, as Davin says, I think a phrase or two about Anna and Claire would help establish this. (Although you'll probably want less of Claire). Second, emphasize the main force going against them - the wilderness, the wild animals, Anna's diabetes? See, I'm not sure which one it is. . . . Probably a combination of all three, but usually one trumps the others. Too many villains creates confusion.

Remember, this is all my opinion. I've had a problem of too many villains in my current novel, and I'm sure I'll have trouble with that in the query letter. But if you feel that equally emphasizing all three is essential, you may want to leave it close to what you already have.

Nathan Bransford has a great post about the "sweet spot" in query letter word count. He's found that the sweet spot, for him at least, is between 250 -350 words. Yours is 172, so "adding a few phrases about Anna and Claire" shouldn't be a problem. You have lots of room to play around. Although please don't go adding words just to hit the sweet spot. Bad idea, haha. Also, agent Alexander Field over at The Mystery and The Magic recently did a post on 10 things not to do in your query, for anybody who's interested.

Thank you for submitting this! I hope we've helped a little.

*(Lynn, in the Just Ask section, gave you some good advice, but I think the questions she's asking don't have to be addressed in the query. Those are questions you want the agent to ask, in my opinion. All a query letter should do is hook that agent. If they ask for a full synopsis in the query, that's where you might answer those questions)

Scott: I'll repeat what Davin and Michelle have already said about queries not having to be perfect. The query letter I used to get an agent had a typo in it, but my agent never noticed it (or, if he did, he didn't care because he liked what I'd gotten right).

I think that main thing to bear in mind is that a query is a hook, an advertisement for your story. You need to find one or two (but one is better) sentences to "grab" the agent (like he's any other reader) and make him want to read the story. Which usually means showing your protagonist in some sort of crisis. In Robyn's example above, "How will they survive the next seventy-two hours in the wilderness, fighting wild animals, and Anna’s diabetes?" is very nearly a hook, but not quite. I think this would be stronger if it were recast from a question into a statement, something like "Anna and Claire must survive the next seventy-two hours in the wilderness, fighting [really? fighting?] wild animals under the threat of Anna slipping into diabetic shock." Don't make the heart of your story a question, because the reader (that is, the agent) might just shrug and say, "I don't know" and move on to something else. Declare boldly that there is a conflict that demands the reader's attention.

Other things to think about: 1. Your query should be in the same "voice" as your book. If you have written a spare, lean novel, you should write a spare, lean query. If you've written a novel with flowing, beautiful language, your query should reflect that. 2. Don't worry about pub credits and "platform." Just write a good book and be excited about your story when you write your query; let your excitement come through. 3. Be businesslike. This is a business letter. Don't be cute or overly familiar. 4. Don't write a query that doesn't reflect your actual story. 5. Do include the first five pages (at least) of your novel unless the agent tells you not to. 6. Don't query at random; research agents and target them. I only sent out a handful of queries before getting an offer of representation.

Gourmet Gummies

Yesterday we had an agent visit this blog. She left an excellent comment concerning the difference between commercial and literary fiction. Thank you, Eva! Her explanation of literary fiction blew me away because it is, perhaps, the first time someone has explained literary fiction in terms that make complete sense to me.

Literary fiction . . . happens between the lines. The plotting may be as tricky as any thriller novel and the pace may be fast or slow, but what distinguishes literary fiction is what is left unsaid. Narrators may be self-absorbed or unreliable, things are pointed to without being explained. These are the novels that make you re-read every third paragraph because of they way it makes you think -- then you re-read the entire book and discover new things therein.

It seems like literary should be easier to write, huh? Just leave a lot of stuff unsaid! Not so. What is left unsaid is obviously the key. The gourmet gummies, I like to say.

I was riding in the car with my dad one morning. He had a package of gummy candy between our seats. On the back it said something along the lines of: "Gourmet Gummies! We choose the finest ingredients and craft our candy for the ultimate gummy experience." Sounds great! And they were good. Really good. Like discovering a treasure.

The ironic thing about this ride with my dad was that we talked about literature that day. My dad made it absolutely clear that he'd rather not read something if he feels like he has to go back and reread things, or even worse, read the book again just to understand everything about it! I made it absolutely clear that I thought a good literary piece of fiction could entertain and offer more to chew on in a second read.

I used to think the gourmet gummies I loved in literary fiction were: symbols, deep and meaningful subjects/characters, and layers of meaning. These are parts of literary fiction - and any fiction - that get me excited. But what it seems I really love is what is not there. The interpretive part of the genre. What is not spelled out. What is built into the story without being built into the story. Tricky. Tasty. Like fine ingredients crafted for the ultimate reading experience.

Questions For The Day: Do you try and craft gourmet gummies into your fiction, or do you avoid the whole "literary" aspect of writing? Do you feel like this "going unsaid" theory needs to be done consciously in literary fiction, or do you think I'm high on sugar?


~MDA (aka Glam)

Literary, Commercial, Mainstream: Are they all the same?

Ashley asked: "What's the difference between literary, commercial, and mainstream fiction? Mainstream isn't touched upon very often (and that's what I consider my WIP), so I wonder, is it not as prominent as the other two? And how is it very much different from commercial?"

Ashley, I don’t think anyone will say that the lines between literary, commercial, and mainstream fiction are at all clear. To answer your question, I decided to consult the sources that actually rely on this sort of categorization, and those sources aren’t the writers.

The two main reasons why you will need to fit your book into a category at all is because 1. you want to find an agent to represent your work and 2. you want to place your book in the corner of the store where interested readers will find it. So, let’s see how those two groups are breaking it down.

Agents

I checked out the preferences of a few literary agents to find out how they are using the terms. The website QueryTracker.net, which serves as an agent database, has two of the three genres in question, commercial and literary fiction, among a host of other genres. Emma Sweeney from the Emma Sweeney Agency uses only the term literary fiction. Paige Wheeler from Folio Literary Management prefers both commercial and “upscale” fiction. Laney Katz Becker, also from Folio, prefers literary, commercial, and mainstream. Blogging agent Nathan Bransford considers commercial fiction to be a blanket term for all genre fiction. So, he would say that literary fiction is the un-genre, un-commercial stuff, which has nothing to do with the actual commercial value of the book. Sandra Dijkstra, from what I can interpret, also seems to go by this definition. She prefers both commercial and literary fiction, which I’m assuming covers everything—maybe I’m wrong. Interestingly, another agent from the Dijkstra agency, Elise Capron, says she prefers “character driven fiction,” “offbeat fiction,” and “debut fiction.”

So, my take home message from this short look into the agent side of things is that different agents interpret the terms differently, and you should do your homework for each specific agent before you query them. Decide if your book falls into the categories they prefer, and decide what you should call your book based on those categories. Don’t feel committed to any one category. You might end up calling your book mainstream fiction for one agency and literary fiction for another. For a third you could end up calling it offbeat debut fiction.

Book Stores

Genre categories are probably most important in that they help your readers find you. When going into a bookstore or shopping online, genres help to orient the customers so that they don’t look for Russian Classics next to Romance novels. This is especially important if they’ve never heard of you as a writer. I’ve discovered new writers in the literary fiction shelves of stores, but never in the sci-fi shelves, simply because I rarely go there. It would take forever to find anything if all of the books were just alphabetized.

Looking at the big books stores, Borders has only the literary fiction category, as does Barnes & Noble. Amazon, on the other hand, has both literary fiction and general fiction. None of these places have mainstream fiction or commercial fiction. In general, I would guess that the stores (and libraries) lump all three of these categories together.

So, Ashley, for you, I’d say to call it whatever the agent calls it when you are querying each of them. You probably won’t need to choose once it’s ready for publication, but I’m guessing—based on what little I know about your writing—that it will fall into the literary fiction shelves.

You Will Be Edited

As some of you already know, I have an agent with whom I'm working to get my book (current working title, "Horatio") published. My agent first read the ms in early March, and he came back to me with a suggested major change to the way I was telling the story. It was a good suggestion, and even though I thought I was finished writing the book, I revised for three months and at the end of May sent the much-longer ms back to my agent for his opinion.

Naturally, I assumed that the next time I heard from him, it would be a message saying something like, "This is amazing, and I've just sold it at auction in a significant deal and where should I mail the check?" Naturally, when I heard back from him on Sunday evening, that's not the message I got.

Mr. Agent, who has a well-earned reputation as a "hands-on" sort of guy, asks that I make further changes to the book. These will be pretty major structural changes and will take me about two months, I estimate, to complete. Darn, I say. I was hoping to get a decent start on my next book. But no.

The point is, even after I revise the novel again, I know I won't have seen the last of the revisions. Once it gets picked up by a publisher, an editor will go through it and make a list of suggested changes I'll be expected to do. Every published author gets this "revision letter" from their editor. Yes, even your favorite author, although they may claim otherwise.

So the moral of this little tale is that you should get used to revising. I don't mean the kind of revisions Davin was talking about in yesterday's post. What you'll likely see from agents and publishers are bigger, story-level things that will make you annoyed and wonder at what point your beloved novel became someone else's artistic property. The upside is that my agent is not telling me what story to tell, but is trying his best to help me tell that story in the best way possible. Still, it irks because I am a Creative Genius and blah blah blah. But that's part of this business, and you should be prepared for it.

When are you ready to query an agent? -or- 254

Litgirl01 asked: How many edits does one usually go through before querying an agent? When do/did you know that your book was ready to send to an agent? I can't imagine ever feeling like I am finished and ready to submit. :-)

Frustratingly, I think the answer to this question is as impossible to know as is the answer to “How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” Some people submit before the manuscript is ready, and for those who wait successfully, describing the right moment requires complex calculations that take into consideration tongue surface area and wetness.

But, I wanted to discuss this topic anyway, since I’m currently on the brink of making such a decision. Back in January I initially thought my book was ready to go. I submitted it to three agents, got turned down by three agents, and after discussing it with a new friend, I decided to revise it one more time. Now, once again, I’m preparing to submit soon, and my emotional state is different from what it was back in the beginning of the year.

Put simply, I think I’ve outgrown my novel.

When you’re a beginning writer, as I consider myself to be, the slope of your learning curve is steep. Your brain is picking up new tips and tricks by the minute. Somehow, though, that knowledge doesn’t properly transmit down your neck and arms to the tips of your fingers. Try as you might, you probably have much more trouble creating your own masterpiece than recognizing quality or lack of quality in other people’s writing. So, you revise. You manage to make your manuscript far better than it was. Meanwhile, that clever brain of yours has dared to learn even more. While your book may reflect your best ability from two months ago, it again feels mediocre compared to what your brain actually thinks it can do. So, you revise again, but you’re starting to sense a pattern. If you’re like me, you might even sketch out a graph, and sure enough, it doesn’t seem like the improvement rate of the manuscript will EVER catch up to that brilliant bowl of noodles balanced on the tip of your spine.

While I believe that revision is immensely powerful*, I also believe that some unfixable problems can be introduced to your book early on. By unfixable, I don’t actually mean unfixable, but perhaps the fixing of the problem would make the book so unrecognizable that it is basically a different book. This sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, you came up with the idea back when your brain was just a fledgling, and now your advanced brain is having to deal with the mess. Ever try to fix a cake that a five-year-old started to make?

At some point, you have fixed your book A LOT, but it’s probably not as good as your brain could make it if it could start from scratch. This point probably coincides with the time when you are making changes in your manuscript and then changing it right back again. You know your book could be better, but at the same time, you can’t fix it without making it into a different book. I think that’s when you stop. Your project reflects who you were, and your next book will reflect who you are.

If you want actual numbers, you may have to start licking the Tootsie Pop, because everyone works differently. I think Scott was on draft 4 or 5 when he landed his agent. Michelle caught an agent’s attention in a contest after just a few months of working on her novel. As for me, my book is over five years old and is on draft 43. But, what I call a draft, Scott might call a sneeze. And, while Michelle’s current book is coming into focus in less than a year, her first book is at least a few years older than mine.

*Scott and Michelle both have great strategies for doing so—myself, I prefer the cat-in-a-rain-barrell approach.

Hooks and Platforms

No, this post is not about fishing (though I have been fishing in my youth; my father taught me to bait a hook and we fished for sunfish and catfish in the shade of some trees along a still river in Georgia during the summers sometimes. I also went fishing for bluegills with a friend in high school once.) but is instead about the terms "hook" and "platform" as used primarily by agents. I'm not an agent, nor do I play one on TV, but I have an agent and I can at least pass on what he's told me about hooks and platforms.

Hooks

There are two different ways this term is used. In queries, the hook is the part of your pitch that catches the agent's attention, that makes him sit up and say, "Oh, that's supercool!" It is the premise, the idea in your story that makes someone want to read it. "Zombie president" is a hook. "Father and son fighting to survive in a post-apocalyptic world" is a hook, if you like that sort of thing. "Innocents venture into hell to save the world" is a hook. "Sleuthing monk tries to solve a series of murders in a monastery" is a hook. Whether or not something is a hook depends a great deal on the agent's taste.

To sum up: a hook in a query is the idea/premise/sentence that grabs the agent's attention. The hook in my own query was "A sideways retelling of 'Hamlet' as told by Hamlet's best friend, Horatio." There was more to it, but essentially that's my premise and my hook. You're either intrigued or you're not. There are no universal hooks.

Hooks in queries are important because they say what's cool and different about your book. They should spark interest and excitement, because you want an agent who is interested and excited about your book. Agents will take their interest and excitement to publishers and hopefully pass along that interest and excitement, resulting in a book deal for you. Which means that you should be interested and excited in your book when you write your query. If your hook doesn't hook you, it won't hook anyone else.

In the book itself, a hook is something in the writing that gets you to keep reading past the first page. This is a very vague area, because there are no universal hooks here, either. Genre, style, reader's taste and more all figure into this. Essentially, though, the hook on the first page of the book is something that gets the reader to follow the writer into the story. It doesn't have to be an event; it could simply be the way the story is told. Though most commonly, and in the broadest sense, the author gets the reader to ask questions about the story, and to demand the answers to those questions. "This is interesting," the reader says. "I have to see what happens next!" Sometimes beautiful, confident prose is enough to hook the reader. Sometimes it takes sparkly vampires. As I say, there are no universal hooks.

Platform

Think of platform in its literal sense: something to stand on that raises you above the crowd and draws attention to you. If you are an expert in a field and write a non-fiction book about your area of expertise, you have name recognition and the authority to write on that subject. Your expertise, your credentials, are your platform.

Are you a celebrity? Your celebrity is your platform and you can get $3.5 million like Tina Fey for your memoir.

If you are a fiction writer, though, platform is a bit more amorphous and hard to come by. Mostly, it still means name recognition. Has anyone heard of you? If they have, that's your platform.

People ask a lot these days if a website or blog is a good way to establish a platform, as it's certainly an easy enough way to thrust yourself into the public eye. The only thing is, everyone else out there has a website and/or a blog, so you've got to have a lot of traffic to have your site/blog considered a real platform. How much is a lot of traffic? Try a minimum of 25,000 regular visitors/followers/readers. Why so many? Because most of your blog readers won't buy your book. Maybe 1 in 10 will if you're lucky, so if you have 4,000 followers, that translates into maybe 400 book sales, which is not an impressive number.

Platform is also recognized authority as a writer, which is a fancy way of saying publishing credits. Have you been published anywhere that has a wide readership? And by "wide readership," we're talking numbers in the range of thousands rather than hundreds. Firebox 5000 or Granta or GlimmerTrain or Paris Review or Asimov's Science Fiction and Fantasy sorts of numbers. However, it's always a good idea in a query to list any pub credits you have, especially if you were paid for it. The fact that someone paid money to print your work is significant, which is also why print media have more weight than web-only publications. No matter what the media, you should try to get something published, as often as you can.

"You're a good writer," my agent told me. "I can't believe you haven't been more widely published."

"Thanks," I said, smug as can be.

"That's not a compliment," he said. "You've been lazy."

"Oh. Well...oh."

I realize that what I've said about platform seems disheartening, but remember what every agent says, and I know it to be true: platform is nowhere as important as simply writing a good book. You should build your platform as you can, but you should focus most of your energies on writing the best book you can.

Take It All Off

Taking your clothes off might be a daily occurrence. But how often do you do it in front of other people with whom you are not intimate?

I do it all the time.

Yep. I stand in front of groups of people and strip it all off. It's embarrassing, let me tell you. In fact, I blush. I cry. I start with the outer layers and move on to the ones closest to my skin - closer to revealing what I try to hide so often. Each article of clothing drops to the floor. I shiver under the lights that should feel warm, but they don't. Denim. Cotton. Silk. I'm revealing more and more skin. Layer after layer . . .

Until I'm standing with nothing to hide behind.

And that's it. Now how long I decide to stand there letting people gawk and admire and laugh and criticize is up to me. But at least I do it. At least I'm brave. Right?

Oh, come on! You know I'm talking about letting other people read your work. Sometimes it feels just like you're naked, doesn't it? Haven't you sent your work (querying might be a similar experience to some) out to some readers and a few days later you regret it? You think, "I shouldn't have done that. It could be so much better. Maybe I should ask for it back? Tweak here and there and send it out again? Maybe?"

Don't.

I've been getting feedback on my novel, Monarch. It's a second draft. I know that in many respects, it sucks. It needs help. I took off my clothes to show the few extra pounds I'd rather were not there. I'm still standing naked, letting it all show. And it's great. I'm getting used to it, bit by bit.

(I would never really strip in public, I promise. I'd be labeled all sorts of things I'd rather not say here. . . . And I'd be arrested, but that's beside the point.)


Here's a few pointers for those of you who can't "bare" to strip down yet:

(1) If you don't let others read your work you're doing yourself a disservice. Few people can write in a vacuum. Let others who are willing read and critique your work. Often.

(2) Read Scott's excellent post from yesterday and take all that criticism in stride.

(3) Take that criticism and be honest with yourself. Rework. Write. Edit. Layer. Grow!

(4) Then send it out again. And again. Until you feel like it's solid and the critiques you get focus more on nitpicks than huge issues like plot holes and character inconsistencies.


Here's a few pointers for those of you who strip down all the time with no fear:

(1) Make sure you let your viewers - I mean readers - know where your work stands. Let them know if it's polished, a first draft, almost-there-draft, etc. This makes a difference in the kind of feedback you'll receive.

(2) Please tell your readers what kind of feedback you're looking for! You don't want a line edit when you're only looking for overall advice. That's a waste of your time and theirs.

(3) Don't overburden your readers. Seriously rework your piece before you send it to them again. They don't want to read a draft with just a few sentences changed here and there. If all you have done is changed grammar or minor things - and you think it's as polished as possible - your work might not need critiquing anymore. Save the line edits for a close beta reader who doesn't mind reading your work fifty billion times (I'm lucky to have a few of these readers. They're gold and I love them).


If you need help or have questions about where or how to find Beta and Alpha readers, see my post over on my blog, here.

On an ending note, I loved Jessica's advice over on BookEnds a few days ago about knowing when it's time to start/stop querying. She said:

I made the suggestion that authors should never even start querying until they finish their first book and have started on the second. At that point, continue querying until the second book is done and ready to go, if you still have no bites, put the first book under the bed and start querying the second while writing the third.

That's tough advice, she says. I agree. But patience is key in this business. Apparently, it helps to work naked, too. I come up with strange analogies.

Now, if only we could perfect our bodies just sitting in our chairs in front of the computer . . .


~MDA (aka Glam)

SmokeLong and the Merits of Online Publishing

Some of you may know that I'm a staff editor for an online magazine called SmokeLong Quarterly. The weird name comes from an old Chinese term used to describe short short stories (under 1000 words) that can be finished during a cigarette break. A couple of my stories had been requested by them a few years ago, and last year, as a result, they asked if I would join the team and help them sort through the hundreds of submissions they get every week.

Our latest version just came out yesterday, so I wanted to give a little plug. But, I also wanted to talk about the merits of online publishing. Agents and grants will often give less value to stories that have been published online. For one thing, online magazines have more space for less money, so technically they don't have to be as selective. Online magazines are also newer, so they have not had the chance to build a reputation yet.

But, online publication has its advantages. I was skeptical at first. As soon as my story came out, though, I was really surprised by how valuable this publication was. Agents may only be looking at big print names like Ploughshares, Manoa, or Zoetrope: All-Story, but the average person is more likely to learn more about you from the internet. When my story was published, within weeks it was the top hit you got when you Googled my name, swamping out the records from my previous five years of scientific research. As a result, two blogs ended up liking the story and posted links to it on their blogs. These were people I didn't know, so they were helping to get my name out into the world without my having to ask them. In 2008, SmokeLong got over one million hits on the internet, with nearly 90,000 unique viewers. That's a lot of readers.

Nowadays, I think online publishing is getting more respect as some publications have been around for a few years. SmokeLong is going on six, and there are other publications that I really admire like FriGG and Noo Journal. These places have editors that usually volunteer their time (like me) and who write themselves. They tend to take care in their readings and, because they make no money, they are doing it to help promote writers. SmokeLong reviews everything anonymously and several editors read through the story before almost all decisions are made. We also interview every writer who gets published in each issue. It's some nice exposure.

Of course, it's important--if you are trying to publish through mainstream publishers--to also get the agent. For me, I work on having stories that will help my query letter look good and stories that will be read by as many people as possible. That means publishing both online and in print.

My Publishing Journey

This weekly update on my own publishing attempt is seeming a little too quiet, so I'll start with someone else's GREAT news. One of our fellow blogging buddies just got a great agent yesterday! I don't want to give away anyone's name in case she or he prefers to keep it private, but keep your eyes open for an official announcement of the good news!

In my own world, I've been back to concentrating on the writing. Writing. One of my goals is to try and get into some better-known literary journals like McSweeney's or Zoetrope: All Story or Glimmer Train or that one magazine whose name I'm almost too scared to mention for fear that people will think I'm an idiot for even trying...The New Yorker. The fact is, yes, maybe I'm an idiot, but I'll never know unless I try and I shouldn't be ashamed of trying.

So, this last week I worked hard to finish the first draft of a personal short story I've had hanging around for two or three years. It's just an early draft, but I decided to let two of my friends read it. The results were lukewarm. But, I'm planning to revise it and flesh out one of the characters, and then I'll have to see if it stirs up some more excitement. I also finished the first draft of another short story based on a Mormon father who abandons his family but still wants to have a relationship with only his youngest son. I'm excited about this one because it feels new, it feels quirky, and I love the exploration of this strange behavior -- it's based on a true story.

Regarding my novel, I'm revising the first two chapters. I've been told that they are the weakest in the book, and I realize in my own mind that I'm not completely in love with them either. I kind of took a break in February, thinking that the novel was done. But, I have some renewed energy, so I saved the old draft and am playing around to see if I like the new one.

I'm writing and I'm blogging and critiquing and reading. Nothing on the query front for me so far. I'm realizing how much time everything is taking. After getting home from my job, I only have a few hours to critique or read or write or get out on cyberspace and find other writers. How does everyone handle it? What component of writing do you spend the most time on? What component of writing do you think you SHOULD spend the most time on?

I loved our discussion this week on description. Next week, I'm going to start a few talks on the action of stories to see what ideas we can come up with!

Three Ways To Get A Literary Agent

Every Friday I'm trying to post an update of my trying to find an agent.

As I see it, there are three "standard" ways to get an agent in the literary world.

First, there's the traditional way of going through the slush pile. Based on agent information we can find online, we submit a query letter and maybe a few pages if the agent asks for it and see what happens. Several weeks ago, I did my first round of querying. Out of three agents, one wasn't interested based on the query and 5 pages, one asked for a partial and then said no, and one told me that she was no longer accepting new clients at this time.

Upon discussing this with some other writers, I was basically told that 2 of the 3 agents that I had tried -- even though they said they represent literary fiction -- don't actually represent that much literary fiction. I had been going by their guidelines, but I've been convinced now that it's better to actually look at the books they currently represent. The one agent that does represent quite a bit of lit. fic. was the one that told me she no longer accepts new clients. So, on this front, I'm actually holding back and doing more research so that I can be more systematic in my approach. I also may revise my first chapter since multiple reviewers have said it's the weakest chapter in the book. I hate beginnings!

A second way to get an agent's attention is to publish short stories in prominent literary magazines. I've had a few short stories that I was working on, but I neglected them as I was finishing my book. So, this week, I focused my energy on wrapping up some stories. I had one that was a finalist for a contest held by Glimmer Train. Glimmer Train is one of the biggest journals you can get into as a literary writer. They usually have several of their stories longlisted in Best American Short Stories. So, I have faith in this story and I finished getting it polished so that I can send it out again. I've also been working on a second short story that I'm hoping will be publishable.

The third way to get an agent is, of course, through connections. I don't have many connections right now, but I realize that I do have a few distant ones. In other words, I'm about three degrees removed from two of my favorite agents. Whether or not that will open any doors, is up in the air. But, I do think this is something to keep in mind as we all try to publish. The world is smaller than you think.

Does anyone have other ideas or tips for publishing? What are you all trying to do besides submitting queries? (Let's assume that you have already focused on the WRITING part of the journey, which admittedly, is a never ending process.)