Posts Tagged ‘ writing ’

Questions Answered this Week, by Lit Agents

Authors are overflowing with two things: stories and questions for literary agents.  This week’s publishing links are dedicated to the latter.  Our cupth runneth over!

Got a question?  Read on… one of my favorite literary agents may have the answer.

Lit agent Jessica at BookEnds responds to a question about the submission process with both good advice for authors, and some pointed commentary on agents who insist on a “no simultaneous submissions” rule.  Hint: they don’t come off well in her analysis.

Chasya at Dystel & Goderich also poses a question from a blog reader — “What are the biggest mistakes writers make when pitching their work at a conference?” —and publishes responses from several agents at the firm.  Bonanza!

The Editorial Anonymous blog takes on the mysterious rejection “Not for me, thanks” and what it really means in all of its possible permutations. (Warning: may induce chuckling.) Thanks to Janet Reid for pointing me toward this one.

Agent Kristin Nelson answers two series of questions this week (count ‘em: one! two!), tackling issues like revisions, the struggling economy, and angels vs. vampires.  (My initial thought: both groups are immortal but only one is sparkly and vaguely pedophilic?)

If I were going to ask a literary agent a question, it would probably be about the use of pen names.  Lo, and Behold!  Nathan Bransford has answered that very question in a recent blog.

Author and Knight Agency lit agent Lucienne Diver tackles the publishing buzz question of the year: “Can any device save publishing?”  She answers the question by questioning it.

HIGHLIGHT LINK DU JOUR DE LA SEMAINE: At the Book Deal blog, publisher Alan Rinzler answers some fascinating questions about writing in light of discoveries in neuroscience.  You don’t have to write cyberpunk to appreciate these methods for hacking your readers’ brains.

Oh, The Publishing Links I've Seen

OMG… have I been lax with the publishing updates!   (I wanted to italicize the first person pronoun in that sentence, because that’s how I heard it in my head, but the italicized I just doesn’t read right for some reason… any thoughts?)

Firstly, agent Janet Reid promotes author Brad Parks, to whom she is connected by acquaintance and Twitter followee Sophia Littlefield, who is an acquaintance of Dave White, a writer for a blog where Brad was a guest writer.  The point of this convoluted series of connections? “I’d never heard of Brad Parks before 10:30am today and now I both know who he is, and have bought his book.”

That’s how it works.  Or, at least, how it can work.  (And see how italics works so much better with more than one letter?)

Keeping with the theme of advice for authors, editor Alan Rinzler offers up 9 tips for successful author readings, but his best tip is probably this: well done author readings can boost a publishing career, which can then enable the author to charge readers to attend author readings.

As usual, Nathan Bransford’s recent publishing update is so chock full of goodies that I hesitate to attempt a summary, except to mention that he includes (in order to mitigate anxiety over e-books) a link to Amazon’s Best Book Covers of 2009.

And, I mention that because my next publishing find is this New York Times piece by Joe Queenan on how a book’s cover can affect one’s enjoyment of the book.  See?  There’s a free lesson on the power of selecting and arranging information to enable segues.  You’re welcome.

To finish off my list of publishing-related stuff, here are links to two other bloggers’ lists of publishing related stuff: Amy at Kimberley Cameron & Associates posted a short, but informative, glossary of publishing speak; and John Fox put up alist of various Top Books of 2009 lists … making this a triple whammy of lists!

Thanks From Me To You

I just want to post a message to thank the readers for making the public release of Part I to “The Crow and the Kinnebeck” the single most successful event in the history of my online fiction writing.

I am floored.

Actually, I remain securely chaired, but … in a single day, the blog received more traffic than any other previous day, and is already one-fourth of the way to matching the traffic for the entire month of November! And, November was the second busiest month in the history of the blog.

Again, my deepest appreciation goes out to the readers, their enthusiasm, their missionary efforts in bringing the Observer and his world to the attention of others, and all of the wonderful feedback provided behind the scenes.  (You know who you are!)

- John

Two Links About Me, Myself, and I

At the Sharp Angle blog, guest blogger Juliette Wade offers up some useful insight into the use of 1st Person in fiction.  Although not a favorite of mine, 1st Person did end up being the approach I took in my first novel, so I found Juliette’s observations interesting… and on-the-mark.

Jesse Kornbluth at Publisher’s Weekly surprised me by repeating three of my opinions about how publishers could face the technological and economic minefields facing them, opinions that I considered outside the pale: publish fewer books, publish better books, stop publishing everything in hardback first.  He also advises writers to do what I would do more of … if I actually had more time: spend more time online with one’s own website and social networking sites.  (And, thanks to Dystel & Goderich for the surf assist.)

Some Publishing Notes

Today, as I pound out some more pages for “The Crow and the Kinnebeck,”* I just want to throw out a blog entry chock full of agent and author advice. 

For example:

Read more »

Best. Query. Letter. Advice. Ever.

publishing2Nathan Bransford makes it simple: the format of your query letter should be boring and straightforward, and the description of your work is the part you need to “sweat.”  (By the way, I stole copied borrowed the blog title emphasis style from Nathan.)

He also links to two other very good recent blogs on query letters.  Holly Root at the Waxman Agency also emphasizes the importance of good writing over all else, while Michael at Dystel & Goderich downplays the formatting details while playing up the importance of reflecting your work in the query.

For my own part, I was never too obsessed with formatting issues like font or paragraph style.  Considering that I work as an editor in an organization with very strict formatting standards, and regularly kick writers in the face for daring to give me something in Courier New rather than Arial, I can’t decide whether it’s ironic that I’m more relaxed about format than the typical writer (as described by agents) or it’s expected that familiarity with ferocious format issues makes me less skittish in their presence.

But, I have to confess that I aaggoonniizzeed over how to accurately and adequately describe The Ligan of the Disomus in my queries.  Asking for suggestions from the handful of first-readers didn’t help much (thanks, tho, guys!) and neither did digging through photocopies of the original short story version that had been marked up by workshop partners.   “Melville + film noir + X-Files” was the best I got from them, and that just makes you think of an alien sea beast being hunted by Sam Spade.

Actually, come to think of it … symbolically that’s not as far off the mark as I, in my moment of self-deprecatory sarcasm, would have liked it to be.*  It’s … an unusual book.

Given the advice from Nathan, Holly, and Michael, I’m glad that the description is the part of the query I decided to obsess over, even if I’m still apprehensive about how well I captured the story and setting.

_

*Confession: the train of thought presented here in regard to the workshop’s description of Ligan actually happened months ago, at the beginning of the query process.  Like a good writer, after rolling my eyes at myself, I tucked it away for later.

Lit Agent Synchronicity – Comparing Your Novel

publishing2Today, both Nathan Bransford and Ask Daphne address the perennial query letter dilemma: to invoke the master/bestseller comparison or no?

Daphne points out that this “kind of shorthand” is how a lot of agents pitch books to editors … but you run the risk of alienating an agent who despises the author whose work you compare yours to.

Nathan, on the other hand, advises the querying author to seek the middle ground between trying to coat-tail on a bestseller and comparing your book to something so obscure that you might stump the agent.

Both are good blog posts, from people who know.  Check ‘em out.

November is my PerShoStoWriMo

LiganStoneRather than merely jumping on the NaNoWrimo IntNoWaMo bandwagon, or impotently griping about its drag on the business and art of writing, I decided to conduct a more useful and effective exercise during November: composing a carefully written short story in the same world as The Ligan of the Disomus.

This stream of activity had several inspirational tributaries.

First: considering how Ligan ends (sorry, no spoiler for those who weren’t among the first-readers) I wanted to create a venue for “un-mysteries” preceding the Reider Case, fantasy-suspense stories that are also set in Lemaigne with the Observer as narrator.

The working title of this short story is The Crow and the Kinnebeck, but if I do end up writing more short stories of this type I will probably title the entire anthology The Lemaigne Tales : An Observer’s Casebook from the Years 285 – 295 of the Republics.

Second: a character who isn’t outlined to show up until the third novel in the series — a 6’8″ Arborstone backwoodsman named Wm. Ochsard whom the Api Men call “Welkos” the Boar — kept throwing attitude (and dialogue) in my direction, refusing to be patient for his introduction. Once I decided to write a short story, he planted a giant deerskin boot in the middle of it and refused to budge.

And, once the story comes out, you’ll see that he is not a man to take “wait a bit” for an answer.

Third: my attempts to write an essay about my writerly vision in creating the Observer’s world were coming off clumsy and biographical.  And, no I do not mean auto-biographical.  The scraps were beginning to sound like someone else writing about my writing years after my death.  There was a “this is what Bob Dole stands for” sense of weird self-reference that was throwing off my game.

So, unhappy with the exposition, I found myself slipping the vision underneath Ochsard’s story of murder and revenge, embedding the clues, hints, nudges, and winks in the language itself so that primarily other writers, bookish types, and critics would notice.

So, November is my Personal Short Story Writing Month.  Current wordcount?  Only two thousand; pretty meager by NaNoWriMo standards.

Current progress?  Plot outlined, psychological and philosophical conflicts identified, eight sections defined by imagery and event, major character interactions popping like corn in a hoose kettle, action sequences choreographed in draft, organizing theme and symbolism nearly complete, and the Observer grumpily plodding through the ramblings and rowdiness of Lemaigne’s corrupted denizens.

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Philip Roth is Philip WRONG

publishingFirst, check out the Guardian’s piece on Philip Roth’s prediction that novel-reading will become a “cult” phenomenon within a quarter century.

Go ahead.  Read it.  I’ll wait.

Now, let me tell you why I disagree.  And, I’ll try to avoid resorting to wishful thinking, personal anecdotes, and ad hominem references to Roth’s literary pattern of heroically gilding the past (specifically the 30s and 40s) even as he cynically (and ironically/hypocritically?) critiques optimistic American principles as mere camouflage for socio-political evils.

First, here is Roth’s basic premise:

To read a novel requires a certain amount of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading. If you read a novel in more than two weeks you don’t read the novel really.

I’ll grant him that reading certain novels which — at 160+ thousand words and lots of text that advance* neither plot nor symbolic theme — drag out to the length of what could be two or three more concise and coherent books, might prove a test of optical-mental discipline.

But, to claim that taking a long time to finish a novel somehow demonstrates a lack of discipline seems absurd.  Reading a novel during a week off is easy.   Reading a novel over three or more weeks implies that something is going on that threatens the reading process, and the reader is fighting to read.

That’s dedication.

It may not bode well for the publishing industry, given the implied rate of purchase, but to maintain connection to a book over a longer period of time indicates that the reader is returning to the novel in spite of other activities in his or her life (9-to-5 job, kids, relationship drama, sick friends, car trouble, political activity, etc.) that distract from reading.

It also implies that Roth hasn’t really thought his theory through, in light of the way that the lives of real people work.  His theory wraps up thusly:

The book can’t compete with the screen. It couldn’t compete [in the] beginning with the movie screen. It couldn’t compete with the television screen, and it can’t compete with the computer screen …  Now we have all those screens, so against all those screens a book couldn’t measure up.

This indicates that Roth (who, as I promised not to mention, idolizes the past) doesn’t really grasp modern technology.  Firstly, books actually did compete with the movie screen; publishing didn’t die after the introduction of movin’ pitchers.  Secondly, books also competed well with the television screen.

In fact, books exploited and benefited from those two screens.  If you don’t believe me, stack up a DVD collection of every season of every version of Star Trek, plus every Star Trek movie.  Next to it, stack up every Star Trek novel ever sold that made returns on investment.

Now, lease some storage space in which to store that mountain of paperbacks.

Does that count as a Thirdly?  If not: Thirdly, Roth is creating a false sense of written fiction being outnumbered by film and television and the web, by drawing too bright a line between these “screens.”  Particularly in the Internet Age, the idea that television, cinema, and computers are separate “screens” is tragically lacking in vision and rational insight.

Just ask Hulu.com.

I first watched Planet of the Apes (the original, without Heston’s ironic gun-control message) on the small screen.  I preferred the Fugitive movie to the TV show.  Some readers have commented that my scenes are paced more like scenes in a movie than in a conventional novel, and I have to admit that I think a lot about visual framing when I describe imagery: panning, zooms, cuts…

A more apt image than Roth’s multiple warring screens, I think, would be multiple facets of the same gem reflecting and refracting into each other, the gem being creative fiction.  The new e-readers will certainly change the shape of that gem, forcing new business models, but the idea that people will simply abandon novel-reading is as short-sighted as the perennial hand-wringing about films that run too long.

Movies that keep the viewers’ interest for over 90 minutes will outdo shorter stinkers at the box office every time.  Likewise, the survival of the novel has less to do with how long they are and more to do with how interesting they are.

_

* Lots [of text] advance.  Beat you to it.