 |
Sylvia posted her enormous To Do List recently, and I was thinking how similar it seems to mine:
TO DO:
1) Finish judging six GH entries, due March.
2) Judge 11 Marlene entries, due February 23.
3) Read book for blurb.
4) Ready workshop for Saturday.
5) Finish outline for SSG2, due Feb. 28.
6) Write proposal for SSG2.
7) Write Judy Blume Essay, due Feb. 10.
 Write newsletter.
9) Work on website content (must be live March 27).
10) Work on marketing plan for debut.
11) Blog daily.
Plus I would really like to write a new proposal. Everyone has been sell sell selling new projects all over the place, adn every time I read about them, I get that itch. I wanna sell something else! Of course, I gotta *write* something else, first. ;=) But look at that schedule! Who has the time?
Anyway, congrats to Novelique, aka Gena Showalter, who has once again proved that she is Not Like Other Writers (I think she’s sold nine or ten projects in as many months), and to Rachel, who made her first sale, at auction, in the form of a trilogy to Luna! (And, ahem, also to someone else who sold another book but can’t announce it yet. You know who you are.)
Addendum: Reading comprehension, people. I said “someone else who sold another book.” So not me, and not a first sale. But seriously, keep that good energy coming for the guesses you’ve already made. Everyone wants a sale. 
Horrific little bug making its way around the litblogosphere called “Nyah nyah, bitch” Syndrome. NNBS is characterized by the unprompted sharing by the infected party of details of their methodology that directly contradict the advice being given and still resulted in a book deal/offer of agent representation, etc.
What differentiates NNBS from your average disagreement in methodology, of which I wholeheartedly approve and often take part in myself, is the fact that actually FOLLOWING the advice given is never a bad idea, though on occasion, not following it might be (hence the advice).
For instance: Agent blogs about the wisdom of not sending in submission under cutesy/offensive/inappropriate email handle, because it looks unprofessional and makes said agent reluctant to enter into business relationship with you. NNBS-positive poster shoots back that they got an agent despite the fact that their screenname is “cockmaster69″ or somesuch. Know what? Good for you. Do you think they wouldn’t have read your email if you’d been “jane_smith?” I don’t either.
Another instance: Agent reminds writers to always include an SASE. Another writer says he got a ton of agent offers only when he *didn’t*. Nyah, nyah, bitch. Please. As if it was the lack of SASE that earned you the response? Way to teach aspiring writers to concentrate on the secret handshakes and codes and turning-page-37-upside-down tricks rather than writing a good book and presenting it in a professional manner. You know why your magazine subscriptions provide you with an SASE? Because they are more likely to get a response if they make it free, that’s why.
I often see advice bandied about that says to finish your book before querying, because editors cannot buy and agents cannot sell a partial manuscript from a debut author. I never dive in and say, “Oh, yes they can, because I sold mine on a partial, nyah, nyah, bitch.” Why? Because it’s a fluke. It’s a fluke that’s so unusual and unlikely that there’s no point in talking about it, or encouraging people to try it. If they do, they do, if not, then no big deal.
Yet not a month has gone by since I sold my book that I don’t get an email asking me how to sell a book on partial. I do not know the answer to that. Write a really strong partial, pray for a partial-friendly market, I guess. I also hear from a lot of people who are upset that their partial hasn’t resulted in an offer, and that editors or agents have asked to see the whole thing when it’s done. The common reaction to this news seems to be: “This won’t ever sell, since it didn’t sell on partial.” Come on, now. Finish the book.
Writer’s Digest recently published an article: “How I Broke All the Rules and Got Published Anyway.” Talk about damaging! Such articles are meant I’m sure, to demystify the process for writers. Writers, neurotic little souls that we are, often get so caught up in the vagaries of formatting, paper brightness, font size, spacing, SASEs, paperclips, binder clips, rubber bands, how far down the page to start the first chapter, how to format chapter headings, what to do with widows and orphans, etc., that we lose site of the big picture. Which is: write a good book and present it professionally. But what these articles actually do is encourage people to do bizarre things with their submissions, because they make it seem as if breaking the rules is actually what got their manuscript noticed, rather than the actual manuscript.
Most people I know who got their manuscript noticed did it the old fashioned way. They queried an agent or editor, and got a request. They sent in the requested manuscript, and got an offer. That’s it, that’s all, there’s no big secret. Any variation is a minor ripple in the usual process. Maybe they didn’t get their request from a query, but from a contest win or a conference pitch. One out of a thousand sells their first book in a REALLY unusual manner, say Janice Lynn and her American Title win that resulted in a book contract. But that story is newsworthy because it’s so unusual. You hear about debut authors selling on partials, you hear about contest wins or meeting editors in bathrooms or POD self-published projects that get book deals because they are so, so, so unusual. Most people send in queries, get requests, send in requests, and get offers. Period. And you’d be surprised how often that chain of events breaks down on the author’s side. I have heard so many agents and editors tell me that they never get requested manuscripts.
The number two question I get when people hear I have a novel coming out (number one is, “What is it about?”) is “How did you sell your book?” And then they are surprised when I tell them. I queried an agent, she requested the book. I sent it to her. She offered, I accepted, she sent it to publishing houses, and we got an offer. Wow, that can’t be! No one ever sells a book if they try to do it the NORMAL way! But that’s exactly what happened. The other stuff: the partial, the buzz, the auction, the speed — they are accessories. A black dress is still a black dress, no matter what the neckline looks like, or the bows or the ruffle along the hem.
Just because you’ve done it or you’ve heard of someone doing it another way doesn’t make the usual way any less valid. The NNBS-positive folks might think that they are demystifying the process for the poor writers who translate “get thee a proper email address and make sure not to salute the prospective editor with ‘yo yo yo beeyatch’ if you want your submission to look as professional as possible” to mean “follow all of these rules to a tee or you shall never, ever get past the gatekeepers of the Eeeeevil Publishing Empire,” but that’s not how it’s coming across. Instead, it’s sounding like, “do it *my* way or you’ll be stuck on the publishing carousel with all the peons. If you really want to get published, you can’t do what they tell you to. Guidelines are for dummies. Rules are for losers. They don’t apply to real people.”
It’s sounding like “Nyah, nyah, bitch.”
Post below if you got an agent or book deal “the usual way” or if you didn’t, but still believe that the usual way is perfectly valid. If you don’t believe that, post here anyway and we’ll chat. You’re immune from NNBS because I want you to come in and tell me if i’m totally off-base.
LitteBrother2 is a senior at an Ivy League University, and he and his girlfriend, whom I will call Diez, were monumentally helpful when it came to reading my proposal and making sure that it still fell in line with how college students in the latter half of the 00’s would behave. (I was a college student in the late nineties/turn of the millenium, and now, from what I can tell, we’ve got more internet, different movies, and cell phones). Anyway, I sent them an ARC, and today I received the following feedback:
Hey,
I got the ARC and it looks great. Started to read it but the threat at the end of the introduction (1) kind of scared me so I opted to not "turn the
page". When Diez is around to protect me I'll read further =). I'm joking of course. I'm 100+ pages in and it is a pretty fast read (big font....a huge fan).(2) My only complaint is you used the word "rigamarole" like 4 times already (3) and for those people out there that bombed the verbal side of the SAT's...well, your basically just rubbing it in our face. Anyway I was very excited to get the book and so far i think its great. I'll give it to Diez as soon as I'm done.
In conclusion, big font, good writing, interesting plot and those nice little lists that break up the pages and go over possible options (actuaries love lists) (4)are all good. Added trips to www.dictionary.com, bad.
LB2
P.S. Seriously, you couldn't use the word "complicated" or "confusing" in one those cases!
(1) Nothing like starting out a book with a threat to people who try to read it!
(2) Perfectly normal 12 point font. I’m afraid of his text books.
(3) Three times in the whole text, twice in the first hundred pages.
(4) LB2 is an actuary, Lord love him.
Seriously, though, LB2 is not the biggest novel-reader in the world, and he not only read my book, but he thinks it’s good! How exciting is that?
Oh, that reminds me. Must get LB1’s new address from Mom and get him a copy. There are no spaceships in it, but I hope he’ll forgive me for that.
I was thinking of getting my hair lightened, but I’ve recently realized I’m already teetering on a dangerous edge where gray matter is concerned, and I probably can’t afford to poison any brain cells with peroxide. Note the following:
I’m now a columnist for Romancing the Blog. Do I remember signing up? No. Am I thrilled about it anyway? Hell yeah. First posting is February 27th. Let’s pray that I remember that part. (Do I have a sneaking suspicion that The Kates might be gaslighting me? Well yeah, but there’s that pesky paranoia thing going on, too.) And, seeing as how this posting date is exactly one day before my proposal for SOCIETY2 is due, I think I already have a topic in mind.
Second ditzy move:
The whole point of yesterday’s post was to introduce a new industry blog. However, you’ll note, that I got sidetracked into a little Ranty McRantrant about SASEs and forgot to introduce it. So, without further ado, the blog of literary agent Kristin Nelson: http://pubrants.blogspot.com/
I love Kristin. Not only is she the agent of several of my drinking buddies (seriously, I think I’ve partied with half of her client list), which proves that she has positively exquisite taste, but she also negotiated the deal for Jennifer O’Connell’s (Jen, I swear, every time I type your name I have to keep myself from typing Jennifer Connelly. Do you get that a lot?) Everything I Need To Know About Being A Girl I Learned From Judy Blume, to which I am a contributor. So glasses up to Kristin. And go check out her blog.
Moving from Diana being a space cadet to Diana being observant, we’ve got:
A lot of people are getting their covers this week. Check out Golden Heart and Stiletto Winner Gemma Halliday’s Spying in High Heels (Dorchester). (The blog belongs to Janice Lynn, but I can’t access Gemma’s website). Isn’t it gorgeous? That brick color? That font? Go, Gemma! Also, the fabulous Gena Showalter’s cover for Oh My Goth (MTV Books). As per usual, Gena has finagled some fine ass covers out of those cover gods. Makes a girl wonder how she swings it…
I’ve now seen several of these MTV teen chick lit book covers. Plan B (which I LOVE, Miss Connelly), The Pursuit of Happiness, Life as a Poser and Everything She Wants (scroll down), and I’m kind of into the look of the imprint. You can definitely tell it’s an MTV book just by looking at it. Now, when I try to imagine the cover of Cara Lockwood’s Wuthering High or Caridad Ferrer’s Adios to My Old Life, I can see what sort of look the publisher will be going for. By the way, I am SOOOO excited about WH, and if a certain agent wanted to send me an ARC of it, it would get a fine, fine reception here. Just saying…
Today I will discuss my addiction (and yes, it’s totally true!): industry blogs. Oh, lordie, do I read ‘em. Making Light, POD-y Mouth, Bookseller Chick, Writer Beware, Booksquare, Miss Snark, Buzz, Balls, & Hype, Jennifer Jackson, Nephele Tempest, Agent Obscura, my own, dear Knight Agency Blog… the list goes on and on. (And if I didn’t mention it here, it’s in the interest of space, not because I don’t slavishly follow it anyway) I miss the old dead ones as well. R.I.P. Mad Max (who is now unmasked… who knew?), and whatever happened to Agent 007? I even read Book Covers from The New York Times Book Review, which is a really brilliant blog if you’re as art-deficient as me. I learn so much (even if I think the rather eccentric taste of the guy who runs it is particularly transparent). I’d love to get his take on my cover — then again, he has nothing but hatred for symmetry, and I’ve always rather like it.
Sailor Boy wants to know why, since I already have an agent and a publisher, I read all this stuff from other agents, editors, publicity people, book designers, etc. Well, it’s not because I’m more interested in Miss Snark’s opinion than my own agent’s opinion on some industry point, as I’m afraid some readers of her blog are — they ask Miss Snark before they ask their own agent, who is the one who knows all the details of the issue and is paid to answer the question besides. Idiots. However, thus it always is with anonymous advice columnists. People will ask all manner of things to Dear Abby that they’d never tell a trusted friend. Still, that’s usually personal advice, rather than business advice, and since you are basically paying an agent to be your business consultant, it’s rather odd that you are running things past some anonymous individual that you know nothing about. Me? I think she’s an agent, and I think she’s mostly right. But I don’t ask her about my career. That kind of stuff I save for Agent Negotiateur and Sailor Boy. But I digress.
Anyway, the reason I still read these things is because there’s always something new to learn. For instance, on Miss Snark’s blog today, there was a fabulous lesson on the difference between correlation and causation. It was one of the old “You say to follow the rules when you query, but I broke all the rules and I got an agent anyway, so nyah!” conversations that become so tiresome. A brilliant commentator named jarsto followed up with:
I once got a good grade on a paper I wrote mainly in the night before it was due. This doesn’t mean that waiting until the night before something is due and skipping sleep to write the paper is a strategy for getting good grades.
All the arguments I’ve seen against breaking the rules just because it worked for someone else, perfectly encapsulated in that simple analogy. (I don’t think J.A. Konrath sold his book *because* he didn’t give them the SASE with which to reject it. I think he sold it because it was good. The real reason John Grisham (or whatever example he used) doesn’t include SASEs with his submissions is because they are already under contract. He’s already been paid for them, and if they need to be sent back for revisions or whatever, well, that’s what we call OVERHEAD. I never include an SASE with the contracted and paid for manuscripts I send to my editor either. Sheesh! That guy, who can often be so intelligent about this business ( seriously, check out his “why PODs are a bad idea” post, which is brilliant!) can also sometimes have his head in the sand.)
The phrase you are looking for is “Correlation, not causation.”
In college, I took a seminar on current issues in the environment. My classmates and I began calling it “Scare the Shit Out of You Twice A Week” because that’s what it did. Seriously, don’t talk to me about soil erosion. Sometimes, I think that reading industry blogs has a similar effect on me as that class did.
I learned today on the Bookseller Chick blog why it’s important to have a marketing plan in place, even if you’re one of the most famous novelists in the world. And your name rhymes with Even Swing. I found this to be a logical extreme of the old maxim “the best way to market your book is through word of mouth.” Even if you’re Stephen King, each release should have a certain amount of buzz. (Of course, I heard plenty of buzz about the King book, mainly that the marketing tactic was to spam people’s cell phones with a recorded message of him reading the blurb or something. In other words, buzz like a mosquito.) I hear a lot of campfire talk about how bizarre it is that publishers pour money into promoting books that are sure hits. The Harry Potter machine was particularly annoying. But this post made me look at it from another perspective.
All the parties and the decorations and the people flying around on broomsticks — yeah, the book was automatically going to be a bestseller, sure. But if there was anyone considering not taking part in the madness, or perhaps quitting after the miserable fifth installment (hold your tomatoes, folks, a girl’s got a right to her opinion), maybe the fact that you got a goblet of pumpkin juice, your kids’ face painted with a lightning bolt, and a free pointy hat with your purchase of Half-Blood (in other words, you didn’t get a book, but a whole kiddie-carnival) meant that you’d bury the hatchet, fork over the $40 bucks, and contribute to Rowling’s empire at the earliest time possible. Maybe, knowing that this was supposed to be a huge release, an utter lack of hype would resonate like those weekend movie guide announcements that state, “this film was not screened for critics.”
Think about it. The hype for four was huge. the hype for five, tremendous. The hype for six could probably be seen from space. If Harry Potter 7 came out, and the party wasn’t even bigger than the rest of them, wouldn’t you get a little bit nervous? If it wasn’t there at all, would you start wondering if something, somewhere, had gone horribly, horribly wrong? Would you be afraid to pick up the book, or let your children read something that no one wanted to talk about? Would you wonder what the hell Rowling had done to Harry in that book to scare off the pumpkin juice vendors and the juggling house-elves that had been parading around your local Books-a-Million the last time? I sure would.
Anyhoo, thought-provoking post… I still think that there should be something left in the bag for the midlisters, but now I’m not so sure that the biggies don’t need publicity too. (Though I’ve yet to see a good TV spot for a book. Nora Roberts’ “Give me a little time and I’ll tell you a *great* story” commercial was pretty cringe-inducing. Laurel K. Hamilton’s last one looked about as snazzy as the ad for your local car air conditioning repair shop.)
I think it maye be an accident that Bookseller Chick heard nothing about the book pre-release. She might have been a target that somehow slipped through the cracks. I know I read about the cell phone campaign in the Washington Post (to be fair, the people being called apparently “agreed” to it). But the *effect* that the lack of pre-publicity in her store had on the shoppers is a fact. They didn’t buy it. Moreover, they were less likely to buy something they hadn’t heard about from an author they knew, than they were to buy something completely random. Word of mouth never stops. It just keeps getting more important.
Now that’s scary. I don’t even need Stephen King to scare me with that one sitting around, cackling at me like a deranged clown.
Or maybe this is just an anecdote, and it means nothing. I do like to tell myself scary stories. Sometimes, I roast marshmallows and imagine what my worst Amazon reviews will look like. It’s morbid, I know, but what do you expect from a girl who has been thinking about Stephen King?
Look what came! What beauteous abundance! What splendiferous bounty! What magnificent magnificence! My book, my book, my book!
Okay, my ARCs. But still. Aren’t they purty! They have my cover on the front, and the catalog copy on the back, and a big red strip along the top saying that you aren’t supposed to sell them for $1.50 on Amazon after I give them to you as a gift, you schmucks. (And really, you shouldn’t buy those ARCs off Amazon either, because they’re not the final version of the book. They may have dropped a paragraph, or mixed up a character’s name for a scene or two. It could totally happen. I’m just saying.
Here’s what the catalog copy says:
In a fabulous blend of the bestselling traditions of Prep and The Devil Wears Prada, Secret Society Girl takes us into the heart of the Ivy League’s ultraexclusive secret societies when a young woman is invited to join as one of their first female members…
Elite Eli University junior Amy Haskel never expected to be tapped into Rose & Grave, the countrcountry’s most powerful — and notorious — secret society. She isn’t rich, politically connected, or… well, male. Between attending druidic initiation rituals, battling disgruntled alumni, and keeping a certain friend-with-benefits at arm’s length, pulling off that A in Russian Lit is going to prove a bit trickier than usual. And then there’s the little matter of George Harrison Prescott — a handsome fellow pledge who seems to offer everything Amy never thought she was looking for.
A witty, fast-paced introduction to the life and times of a young woman in way over her head, Secret Society Girl paves the way for the groundbreaking, genre-bending new series forthcoming from one of the hottest young authors writing today.
I love it, though oddly enough, the actual flap copy on the book is very different. I don’t even think that poor George here gets a mention on the flap copy, though Demetria and Malcolm are much talked about there, and don’t even enter the picture here. I actually love both decriptions of my novel, however. (I’ll see if I can get the flap copy up soon.) They focus on slightly different aspects of the book, I think.
Anyhow, last night I had the totally novel experience of sitting in a room with someone (Sailor Boy’s mom) who hadn’t been involved in the creation of this book while she read it. And laughed. And pointed out her favorite lines (a few of which, I was forced to report, were her son’s idea. But not many. I can totally be funny on my own).
This month, I’m giving away a copy of my ARC in a contest for my newsletter subscribers. (I might do a blog contest, too, I haven’t decided.) Anyway, sign up here!
Click to join SecretSocietyGirl
Hey, remember when I was having all of those mixed feelings about my book during page proofs? Totally gone. I love my book. It rocks so much. I’m drowning in love. I’m bathing in a sea of love. I’m a Nereid in a lagoon of love, I’m a piece of kelp waving in an ocean of love, I’m a benthic worm wriggling in the sediment of the ocean of love love love.
Check it out!
There’s a lot of good blogtalk going on right now. First of all, the conversation is hopping in the storywriter’s post. Genre conventions are being debated in front of a student audience (I think I need to be brushing up on my lit theory!) over at Jennifer Echols’s blog. The validity of my anecdotal statistic of “I sold in three years. Hear that’s about average” from my FAQ post is being questioned at Shalanna’s blog (and for several posts after). And, finally, Julie Ramsey cuddled with Sting.
And now we’re going to talk about what I learned from my path to publication. As I was typing it out yesterday, I realized that it’s pretty easy to see the origins of all of my biggest writing mantras.
1. “Join a writer’s organization.” Everything i needed to knwo abotu being a novelist, I learned from TARA.
2. “Contests are a crapshoot.” Yeah, I won the Maggie and the Molly and stuff. But I never finalled in the Golden Heart. My Golden Heart scores were pretty much always abysmal.
3. The always-present “Get an agent.” I waited 10 months for a form rejection from a editor on a requested partial, while well-agented friends of mine sold to her left and right. I wasted several months in a futile back and forth with an editor when a good agent would probably have a) realized that this was never going to turn into a marriage and b) there are other fish in the sea for me to be submitting to. Finally, once I got an agent, I sold in a matter of days.
4. “Find a good critique partner.” One of my critique partners let me live in her house. Another pitched my book, sight unseen, to a pile of industry folk and started the buzz. Its corollary, “Good isn’t necessarily the same set as published”: neither of mine are published (yet!!!!)
Someone else might have a whole different group of experiences that have colored their opinions about the industry and how a writer should operate within it. These have been my experiences, and so these are my views. I’m interested to hear Jaci’s.
My friend Jennifer Echols (Major Crush, Simon Pulse, ‘06) is answering questions for a college creative writing class on her blog. The first question is about how she got into writing fiction. She’s looking for other people’s stories, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to share mine:
Fall 2001: Having graduated from college, I decide that if I’m ever going to do this novelist thing, I’d better put my keyboard where my mouth is and give it a whirl. In a bout of serendipity, I pick up a romance novel for my plane ride to New York City on September 11, 2001. To get me through my hellish, hellish day, I read that book over and over again about three times. (It’s a great book. Exposed!) Afterwards, holed up in my boyfriend’s dorm room, I decide to write to the author to thank her for writing that book, and keeping me sane. Turns out she’s from my hometown, Turns out she’s super awesome. At the time, I think it’s very bizarre that a romance novelist would set a romance in my hometown, rather than Dallas or New York City or Paris or a Greek Island somewhere. I decide to write an article about her and her hometown-flavored books for my local newspaper, and since I’m doing all this research into category romance for the article, I start writing one. It sucks!
Summer 2002: Having moved back to Florida, the super awesome romance novelist (Julie Leto) suggests I come to her RWA chapter meeting. I do, then I finish my book, then I cough up the $100 bucks to join RWA because I think the chapter members are the most supportive and helpful group of writers I have ever met. I’m now in three chapters, and I still think that about TARA. I realize that the book sucks and I start on another one (#2) that I like more. I also submit a query for manuscript #1 to Harlequin editor.
Winter 2002: Having attended RWA meetings religiously for several months, I finish manuscript #2. I also get a request for the partial of manuscript #1. I enter both in the Golden Heart contest.
Spring 2003: Continue to study craft and industry religiously. I’m a writing fiend. Have written a partial (book #3) for this upcoming female action-adventure line Harlequin is launching called Bombshell, the first chapter of a single title romance (book #4), half of another category romance, and a very sexy romance novella. recieve a score of ONE (lowest possible) for #2. Send out partial of #2 to editor. Receive rejection for partial of book #1. Receive rejection for novella. Final in local chapter contest three times, with #2, #3, and #4. Begin working with both of my critique partners. Am also working full time at the newspaper.
Summer 2003: Receive full request for #3 from editor after she learned it finaled in the contest. Attend my first RWA National Conference, in New York City. Get a request for a partial for #4 (from Berkley). Think this means something. Sure I’m about to sell, and having learned that it’s a good idea to have an agent for single title, I query an agent who is a friend of a friend. She requests the partial of #4 in a day, the full in another, I tell her I don’t have the full, and could I send her #3 instead (which I have high hopes of finishing soon). She agrees.
Fall/Winter 2003/2004: Move to Australia. Receive full/revision request for #2. Finish #3. Enter #3 in Golden Heart (and have high hopes of it winning, as think it is best work I’ve ever written). Send out #3 to agent and editor.
Spring 2004: Move back from Australia. Start working at newspaper again. Begin a few projects that don’t go anywhere. Receive rejection for #3 from agent (who still wants to see #4) and from editor. Begin sending editor proposals for other stories, none of which fly. Decide that either editor and I don’t click, or I’m not really getting the idea for the line (when it debuts that summer, I realize it’s the latter foremost).
Summer 2004: I begin to feel the weight of all the rejections and my productivity drops tremendously. I receive a rejection from Berkley for #4. I final in the Jasmine and Molly Contests with #4, and the Maggie Contest with #2. I attend the RWA National conference, where I receive a blind request for a partial of #4 from and editor and from an agent. I get home and, having decided that a good agent is the best way to get anywhere in this industry, I query 18 agents with #4. I get 17 rejections, and one partial request, and a rejection from the editor who requested it at Nationals.
Fall 2004: I live through four hurricanes, coordinate a contest, work in hurricane relief, and win a Maggie Award with #2 and a Molly Award with #4 (I come in second in the Jasmine, owing to the fact that the final judge is also the one who just rejected it, though the Molly judge had rejected it, too). The two partial agent requests turn into full agent requests. I enter #2, #3, and #4 in the Golden Heart, sure I will final this time (after all, I won all those other contests!).
Winter 2004/2005: I get the idea for book #5 and move to Washington D.C. I finally get off my butt and finish the revisions to #2 and #4, and send them out to the editor (#2) and three agents (#4) who wanted it. As a reward for finishing, and in a fit of pique and frustration after finally finishing the coordination of the contest, I begin #5 with an eye towards breaking all the contest rules.
Spring 2005: I receive a rejection for #4 from two agents. A month later, one of these agents calls to say she’s considering it (???) and will give me an answer in a week. (She doesn’t contact me for another month and a half, leading me to wonder which was in error, the rejection letter or the phone call?) That week, I finish a partial of #5 and tell my critique partner about it. She pitches it that weekend to a bunch of editors and agents, who all clamor for it, even though it’s unfinished. I send it out to them, and also to the third agent still considering #4 (who was the agent who turned down #3) and also to another agent I met at a conference. In half an hour, the third agent offers on the basis of #5. Two more offer within days. An editor looking at #5 writes to express interest. I sign with my agent, and we sell the book a week and a half later based on the first five chapters, in a two book deal, in a heated six-way auction.
So that’s what happened. Three and a half years, five manuscripts, a few dozen rejections, and finally a deal.
So the old “writer vs. storyteller” argument is popping up again at Rachel’s blog. Every time this topic comes up, I’m inspired to write something, and then every time, I decide that I don’t think I really agree with what I’ve written.
I like stories. I like them in movies, in books, in ballads, in art, in little kids playing pretend in their backyards. I have always liked stories. I think that even if there was no such thing as writing, I would be a storyteller. I’d tote my lute from town to town and sing stories about great battles or something. I’m wrired to make stories out of things. Even my journalism is storytelling-based. When I was working as a food critic, I would tell the story of what it was like for me to go to dinner at a particular restaurant. I got the job because my editor liked my narrative style.
Rachel says:
There’s a difference, at least in most cases. Occasionally I run across a book that has a wonderful, compelling, well-written story. But I categorize most of the authors whose books I read as either one or the other. Either as writers or storytellers.
and
A storyteller cares about (and concentrates on) the story. The plot. The whos, whats, wheres, whens, and whys. The twists and turns, the passion, angst, and ecstasy. A good storyteller will grab you so hard and so fast that most readers (though not typically most writers) won’t notice the flaws (anywhere from slight-and-forgivable to glaring-and-unconscionable) in the writing.
Alison Kent says:
Telling the story is who [the storyteller] is. Writing a story is who *I* am. I *hear* my writing. The rhythm of the words as I put them on the page.
I think it’s the dichotomy of the way this argument is set up that disturbs me most. “Storytellers write badly. Writer’s write boring stuff.” Blah blah blah. (To be fair, Rachel does say, “one is no good without the other. Every writer is at least part storyteller, and every storyteller at least part writer.”) But of course that’s not true. Just those that are novelists.
The thing is, I think that all the storytellers who write novels must also be writers. If not, they’d be making movies, or painting pictures, or something else. Conversely, all the writers who write novels must also be storytellers, otherwise, they’d be writing cookbooks, or non-ballad song lyrics, or presidential inauguration speeches. There are just better writers and worse writers, just as there are better storytellers and worse storytellers, better plastic surgeons and worse plastic surgeons, better and worse racehorse jockeys. And when a novelist is a better storyteller than she is a writer, or vice versa, people start up on this dichotmy thing, as if they are more interested in one than the other. I said above that if there was no writing, I’d still be a storyteller, but I don’t live in a world like that. I live in a world where I always knew that writing was a very viable way to get a story out, but where I can tell stories in a variety of ways. I can write novels, or direct films, or make tapestries. But I write novels, because I am as interested in writing as I am in stories. And it’s not from lack of exposure to movies!
But these arguments always digress into bizarre definitions, because if we are going to set up false groups, we much further make a list of what things each group cares about. Like rhythm, which according to both Alison and Rachel, falls within the “writer’s” domain. I think that a good storyteller is as obsessed, if not more obsessed, with rhythm than a writer is. Rhythm is of utmost importance in a story. The rhythm of a scene, of a beat, of a plotline, of a character arc. Comedic timing, suspense, everything is about rhythm. But I digress.
Last spring, I met a woman who’d been working as an editor in the publishing industry for decades, and she called me “a natural storyteller.” That was a great moment. But then, as Holly Lisle says:
Generally when editors and agents refer to you as as storyteller, they mean you aren’t literary.
Which of course brings us to another false dichotomy that gets bandied about a lot: that of genre vs. literary. And I think it’s just about as worthless as the other.;-)
|
|
|
|
 |
