First of all, due to the popularity of Monday’s blog post, I’ve decided to give away two books! The winner of the Sophia Nash giveaways are: Vicki and Terri W.
(Only one copy is signed, so whoever emails me with their address first gets the signed copy.)
Speaking of emails, a little bit of annoyance. I regularly get spammed by a certain book publicity company. I call it spam because they have sent me the same (form) email about half a dozen times. Wait, did I say email? I meant, they have filled in the comment form on my website about half a dozen times with the same pat information. If they can’t find my email address, which is listed in black and blue, at right, what am I to think about their ability to contact actual media outlets? If all they can do is send me multiple copies of the same form letter, then what am I to think about their ability to devise a personal publicity strategy tailored to the strength of my book?
I haven’t even heard about their work with any clients yet (oh yeah, this is NOT information they provide in their form letter, and it is of course, the only information I’m really interested in), and already, I’m skeptical of their ability to handle the basic requirements of a publicity person: having contacts, and personalized pitching. Confidential to said spamming book publicity company: your strategy is backfiring. If I’d found your website myself, I’d be more impressed with you than I am now.
Moving on to another semi-rant: Two agents are discussing their efforts at on-the-spot critiques at writer’s conferences. Both feel very frustrated with the endeavor. Kristin Nelson, in her usual polite, Midwestern way, wants to know if people expect her to be honest with them and reveal that she wouldn’t read the submission after the first paragraph. Jessica Faust of Bookends, who freely admits to not being “soft and cuddly” reports that she was shocked by the openly hostile nature of the writers she critiqued.
Raise your hand if you’re surprised. I’m not. I’m pretty sure by now that this whole “on the spot critique” is rarely more than an exercise in public humiliation. I’ve been at workshops like this where the agents seem to take great joy in making fun of the submissions, going as far as to read paragraphs aloud in ridiculous voices to the cruel delight of the audience. (Neither of the agents mentioned above, by the way.) You couldn’t get me to submit to one of those things for less than the price of enough martinis to get me drunk before and passed out afterwards.
I’ve no doubt that there are people (such as the commenters on each agent’s blog) who do want an honest review by an industry pro, but I doubt that’s the position of most folks in that audience. A lot of the people just want the editor to say, “My God, this is brilliant. Please, let me give you a contract right away!” Anything else to them is an unacceptable outcome, a “waste of their time.”
They don’t want feedback, because they’ve convinced themselves of a great myth of publishing: that the only thing keeping them from getting published is that they can’t get their book read by an editor. These are the folks who call agents the “gatekeepers” and say that they are keeping their work from reaching people who would truly enjoy it. The same folks who are so insistent that their book get read that they bring it with them to conferences and force it upon editors on sight, slipping it into their bags or under bathroom stall doors. They’ll throw hissy fits over pitch appointment sign up sheets or pay hundreds of dollars for charity critiques the quality of which they’ll loudly lambast on their blogs (though their only true complaint seems to be that the person didn’t fawn over their brilliance and offer them a contract on the spot). “If they just read it…”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work this way. Most of the time, they read it, and they still don’t like it. Does it mean that it’s not publishable? Sometimes. Sometimes not. We’ve all heard the stories of the books that got rejected everywhere, until one plucky editor took and chance and the rest was history. Whole publishing houses have been founded on the idea that the established NYC joints weren’t publishing something that the public wanted to read. Even books that sell get rejections. I’ve gotten plenty on the books I’ve sold. That’s why most rejection letters include that magic disclaimer: “This business is subjective.” The writers who get these critiques should keep this in mind.
But more than that, the agents who offer them should remember that there’s a percentage of attendees out there don’t ACTUALLY want a critique. They want an offer of representation. It’s the same logic that leads to agents only writing form rejection letters: any kind of constructive criticism is going to come with a backlash.
Which is too bad for the writers who actually are hoping for feedback. Still, I’m a bit skeptical of the whole process. I think it’s another myth: that all you need is someone in the industry to tell you the magic words and you’ll get it right. In the majority of cases, is feedback in a rejection letter really going to be valuable to the writer?
I got a rejection once that said, basically, that the editor would have bought the book if the heroine who didn’t have a military background had a military background, if instead of being unhappy and an orphan she was happy and had a full family life with none of the baggage that formed the main plotline of the book, if it was set in South America instead of Europe, if it was about a different topic than the topic it was about, if the hero, who worked for the heroine, was actually the heroine’s boss instead, and if the villain didn’t exist, and if the ending was different.
Which, fine, good to know, but how helpful is that? Clearly, she just wanted a completely different book than the one I’d written. Good to know. Good luck with that. I didn’t come away with any more information from all that than I would have from a “not right for me.” It didn’t teach me anything about what I’d done wrong in my book, just that I hadn’t pulled it off well enough for her to like it. In other words, Europe was not the problem. The fact that she was thinking about South America while I was writing about Europe was the problem.
There seems to be a rising body of opinion that editors and agents are somehow responsible for teaching writers what they are doing wrong, that they OWE writers an explanation. I often hear writers say, “if they would just tell me, I could fix it.” Do you think this is true? Is the problem not knowing, or not doing? I’m inclined to think it’s the latter. When I was a beginner, I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong, but I learned to see what I was doing wrong AND do it right as part of a slow and ongoing process. It wasn’t like “your dialogue sucks –>lightning bolt —>magically good dialogue.” I’m pretty sure that if I had rewritten that book about South America, she would have started to have visions of Africa in her head. Nothing she could tell me would make a difference. I had to figure out how to write Europe so that no one would think of South America.
Anyone here gotten feedback that was an instant turnaround? I’d really like to hear about it.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
I’ve had a lightening bolt moment — when someone read a scene I’d written and said she could hear my voice loud and clear.
I’d been struggling with finding my voice for a long time, even started to think I didn’t have a voice. But after that lightening bolt moment, I haven’t looked back.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Instant turnaround? No. However, I was lucky enough to work with an editor who wanted the first half of my book so badly, she was willing to work with me on rewriting the second half until I got it right. But then, I did the first half right all on my own, didn’t I?
But this wasn’t something she could see in the query or the proposal. We’d gotten all the way to complete manuscript stage before the problem cropped up that had to be wrestled to the ground and it took both of us to do it. But I should say that even though she kept telling me “the tone isn’t right” I could not fix it until I truly understood what she meant. I rewrote twice. Then she sent me a copy of another author’s work who had the tone she wanted working throughout. Lightbulb. I was now smart enough to fix it. I sold…and never had this particular problem ever again.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Heather, out of curiosity, did YOU recognize what made your voice your voice when she said that? Did it actually help your writing to be able to recognize your voice? I found that recognizing my voice was, to me a huge hindrance at first, because I’d spend a lot of time poring over sentences and going, “is this my voice? Have I lost my voice?”
Yes, Julie. I never said that working with editors doesn’t help your work. It totally does. But that’s WORKING with, not getting a ten second critique.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Diana: I did recognize what made my voice my voice, actually — but I’d been running away from those little quirks because I didn’t think I sounded literary enough, or polished enough. It’s like when I hear a recording of myself speaking. I always, always cringe. Is that really me? Ew! How can anyone stand to listen to me talk?
But when the reader said she recognized my voice, something inside me relaxed. I know that voice, and no matter how it stacks up against anyone else’s or how I wish it was different sometimes, it’s mine.
And, finally, I’m cool with that.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I’ve had that kind of lightening bolt moment in my professional life – does that count?
I think for me, the true lightening bolt moment in writing was the first rejection I ever got from a partial or full (i.e. based on the writing and not they query).
I sent the ms out without having anyone else read it. I was sure I was the next big thing. I was brialliant. And got a form rejection. That’s when I realized that I was going to have to work harder, it wasn’t going to be that easy, and my writing wasn’t the most brilliant out there.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 3:09 pm
well, that’s cool, Heather! I think it’s GREAT that you have been put at ease about your voice. I definitely have lightning bolt moments about my own writing, where the way someone puts something makes me realize what I have been doing, but, like you, it’s ME, not them. This reader of yours didn’t create your voice — YOU created it.
I got rejection letters telling me the problem was my plot, the problem was my voice, the problem was my characters, the problem was my premise, the problem was everything under the sun. Were they right? Were they wrong? Was them telling me that going to make it magically change?
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June 22nd, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Ah, Carrie In Praise of Form Letters!
Now THERE’s a lightning bolt moment I can get behind…
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June 22nd, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I wouldn’t be willing to offer my work for an OTS crit. Even if I were confident in the work, I wouldn’t want to risk having a professional remember me as the equivalent of an American Idol first episode.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Oh…of course. I think those ten second bits are a big waste. Now when we did it at TARA, it was more like 5-10 minutes per entry that the editor/agent got to look at well in advance. I think that could be very helpful not only to the writer, but to the audience. Also, we vetted who submitted…they had to have a finished manuscript ready to submit, if I remember correctly.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Specific rejection letters are not helpful unless they say one of the following.
1) I love this, but I just bought something else like it.
2) I love this, but I cannot buy this because the numbers in relation to this particular subgenre are not strong enough to warrant a buy
3) I love this, but…
Well, you get the picture.
Seriously, what rejection letters teach me is not so much what is wrong with my manuscript, but what are the likes and dislikes at that moment by that particular editor…maybe. I only like it to be specific if its going to make me feel better.
I did have a rejection letter (several, actually) that said the same thing over and over–the heroines were too immature. What they all saw as immature, I saw as fun-loving and exciting. Of course, I was 22 at the time and the editors, um, weren’t. But in retrospect, they were right. I got the picture soon enough. I think that’s the only time when rejections can be helpful…when you hear the same thing from more than one source.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I’ve had a few eureka moments, but none of them were from critiques, so far. I’d hear something on some writer’s blog (yours was one of them) or read an article somewhere and I’d be like “OH. That’s what’s wrong.” But just b/c I knew what was wrong didn’t mean I knew how to fix it. It still took (is taking) time. So no, I’d say no instant turnarounds for me.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I think that’s a good point, Julie — that maybe these critiques, be they ten seconds or ten minutes, aren’t as helpful to the writers as they are to everyone else in the audience.
Still, I’m like heather. I so wouldn’t be putting my stuff up like that…
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June 23rd, 2007 at 10:28 am
An agent once addressed me as “Edward” in a rejection, spent a paragraph discussing why a couple of minor characters in my novel and a naming a couple other characters from what must have been someone else’s novel (perhaps Edward’s?) did not work for her. Some parts of the plot she delineated I must confess I did not recognize (perhaps they happened in Edward’s book), but the location was correct.
I don’t know how my characters started hanging out in other people’s books, but from now on I’m keeping a sharp eye on them.
I prefer form rejections.
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June 23rd, 2007 at 11:12 am
I attended a meeting where a well published author had agreed to read the first page/ two pages of several attendees and give feedback. It was interesting. I wouldn’t submit my work to that form of feedback, though I have grown to believe in trusted readers.
Watching the session was interesting for a few things – A. Most of the submissions had poor formatting and the poor author, who was attempting to read many of these aloud, ended up reading over 1000 words for some of these.
Now, some of these were bordering horrendous, IMHO, and it was the first time the author had seen any of these. He didn’t pre-read.
It was fascinating in that he was able to start every commentary with a strength of what was written. In general, I think he did a phenomenal job and still mananged not to ridicule anyone.
I hope that one day I could be as fluid and positive when reading/critiquing beginning writers in public. After all, that was the way I was taught to critique anyway.
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June 23rd, 2007 at 11:24 am
Interesting. Almost everyone who said they got something out of these session said they got something out of listening to OTHER people’s work being read. I can understand the benefits of seeing someone’s pros and cons stretched out over a dozen or so submissions…
Patrick, you said you were taught to critique in public. Care to elaborate?
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June 23rd, 2007 at 11:46 am
I participated in one of the 2 pages/2 minutes sessions at the conference Kristin attended. I found it very helpful, not only because of the feedback they gave me but also because of what they said to others.
Many people at the conference were unhappy with the sessions, but I believe in many cases it’s because of their unrealistic expectations.
I went to listen and learn, hoping it would help me decide if my manuscript was ready to submit. I learned it clearly wasn’t ready and I’m grateful for the feedback.
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June 23rd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Sorry, just critiquing in general. My first experience with any form of feedback was from Award winning shortfiction editors, Kris Rusch and Gardner Dozois. It was a semi public, in that there were twelve other writers there.
The way they critiqued was very positive while still efficiently explaining problems. And with two of them, they did a good job of showing different editors have different tastes.
Basically, it is based on the Milford workshop model of Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm.
And yeah, I got more out of hearing the problems with others stories rather than my own. Mostly because I don’t think my ego was capable of hearing whatever they were going to say.
Well, except for the story that they both said was really good and that I was capable of writing. That, I heard.
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June 23rd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Ah, Milford… SFF again.
That is definitely something I have noticed. That the people who are all into doing readings of their works in progress etc. are from the SFF tradition. Hardly anyone in romance READS at all — from finished books or otherwise. I’ve heard various explanations for this — often that romance, being a far more intimate genre, often doesn’t translate as well to being read aloud.
The day before my first booksigning, when I discovered I was expected to read a passage aloud, I had a bit of a panic attack.
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June 23rd, 2007 at 6:49 pm
I don’t know why they do readings, either. I avoid that. Now, when there is a workshop like the two agents are describing, that is the only way to get the whole room of random people on the same page.
It’s weird. I always think of SFF as deficient in training the next generation when compared to Romance, but it isn’t that. It’s the promoting of SFF that they fall down on. But that is a whole different topic.
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June 24th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Last year, I went to a cold-read workshop run by Miriam Kriss, and I loved it.
But yeah, if you can’t handle people hating your work, don’t have it read in public. I found it useful mainly from an industry standpoint. What does it take to get past an agent like that? What do they mean when they say “You have to hook me”?
The funny thing was, it *was* really obvious what worked and what didn’t, at least to me. Which probably means that she would be a good fit for me, since we like the same things. It’s a subjective business, no doubt about it.
So whenever someone gives me feedback, I note down what I call the “personal” scale. What did they like about my work? Is it something I consider my strong point? Did they get what the book is about? Did they hate something I want to fix?
You have to know what you want to do, then be reckless in your pursuit. If you can’t filter criticism, you can’t go to a public forum and expect to come out unhurt.
But hey, it’s a tough industry. People need to get a thick skin to make it.
Or maybe I’m just sick of people saying “They haaaaaaaaate me!”
I certainly don’t envy the agents their job.
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