Eithers/Ors of Writing

Shitty first drafts, or edit-as-you-go?

Anne Lamott famously touted the importance of writing what she calls the Shitty First Draft, which is a fantastic tool for a writer to use when they feel self-conscious about their writing. Get it all down and out, she says, just get the words and story on the page. Editing can come later. You can always rewrite. Loosen up and let the child inside you scribble your story without any worry about the quality of the work.

But for a perfectionist it's hard to move on from a paragraph that stinks. You want to turn around and immediately polish, because it's seems easier to clean up your mess as you go, rather than have a big pile of hundreds of thousands of words to reconfigure. It means you work slower, but the end result is a cleaner mess.

My preference? Oh, I'm a sloppy first drafter. It's disheartening once the draft is finished and I actually sit down to read through the mess I've created, but it makes for quite the writer's high when the first draft is finished.

Plotter, or pantser?

To write more effectively, some people suggest, you must know what you're going to write before you write it. Know how it ends. Know your character's fears. Know when the antagonist appears to be winning, and when the tables turn. Have lists ready made, have your research completed.

For other people, outlining takes away all spontaneity. For other people, writing is about discovery. What a character does on page 50 isn't known until the writer gets to page 50. The ending might not be a surprise, but how the characters get there might be. It's called "pantsing," since you write by the seat of your pants. Sometimes you're sick of your story before you even write a single word, so this helps.

My preference? I'm a chronic plotter. I know every scene, every beat before I begin actually writing. Although--I've just started a new project, a (gasp!) book for grown-ups, and all I know is my first scene. That's it. I don't know anything else. And so far, I love writing this without knowing what will happen next. Who knows? Maybe I'm a secret pantser.

Architect, or gardener? 

This is a phrase coined by my friend and brilliant writer, Bree. Architects, she says, are writers whose main concern is STORY. Story. Just the word makes me tingle. I'm clearly an architect. The words don't matter. The poetry of the words doesn't matter. Just tell the story. What's the story? What happens to the character?  Where do they go? Why? Architects probably love to outline. They love the arcs. They would paraphrase their stories, if they could, but people read books, not summaries.

Gardeners, on the other hand, could be given an outline to fill out and be happy. They probably line edit like crazy, searching for the perfect description, perfect dialogue, perfect word. The language is important. Beautiful. Flowery.

My preference? I'm an architect, as stated. I could outline story after story, never actually writing anything, just thinking about made-up people doing made-up things that are probably only interesting to me.

What about you?

On Query Letters: Part 3 of 3

Since weekly I am dipping into the slush pile of my BOSS, this will not be the last time I mention query letters. Sometimes I read things in the inbox that are absolute gems--and I mean this both as absolutely sincere and also as comedic hyperbole.

But I'd like to conclude this three part series with query letter DO's. Again, there are times to break the rules--however, I believe you first need to know and understand the rules, then break them in ways that work to your advantage.

DO finish your manuscript before querying. Agents can't sell ideas, or half-finished books, or inklings of concepts or character sketches. Write the damn thing. Then revise it. Then revise it again. Then have someone else read it, so you aren't sending a manuscript blindly into the publishing world. Make it your best.

DO work on a one to two sentence pitch that effectively sums up the INCITING INCIDENT of your manuscript. I see a lot of queries where someone tries to explain their entire book in one sentence, and it gets confusing and overwhelming for the person reading the query.

When you are explaining your story, all you want to focus on is the inciting incident of your plot. Your characters have an ordinary life, then something disrupts this. Tell me what this is and what sends the plot spiraling into glorious tumult after that.

DO include the basics about your manuscript: title, written in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Word count. Genre. Comp titles, if you want to--but don't use any bestsellers as comp titles. Everyone thinks (actually, hopes) that their books are Harry Potter meets The Da Vinci Code, but those are big titles to live up to.

Research the Internet to make sure your manuscript fits into the right guidelines. 7500 words is too short for a middle grade novel; 175,000 is most likely too long for a YA. Know your genre. Know your comp titles. (Make your comp titles recent--C.S. Lewis probably wouldn't be able to sell The Chronicles of Narnia in this publishing climate if it was written today.)

DO send individual queries to individual agents that you have carefully researched and believe to be fitting for your manuscript. Send one query at a time, and please be sober. This is, if not your writing career, then at least a hobby that you have devoted mass amounts of time to. Clear your head and send one query to one agent, then pause. Repeat three or four times, then stop until you hear back.

DO relax, though! If you see that you spelled the agent's name wrong (Doh!), or made a severe grammar error (Doh!), or forgot to include sample pages (Doh!), take a deep breath... correct the mistake, if you can (i.e., send the sample pages with an apology--don't resend the query letter with the name spelled correctly this time). If you can't correct the mistake, know that people like me are reading the slush pile. If you have a killer pitch and a great query, I won't really care that you spelled anything wrong. Triple points if your sample pages rock.

I'll post more about query letters in the future, but these are my basic DO's and DON'Ts of query letter writing! The query letter itself is an art form--few do it well.

Take your time and make it your best!

On Query Letters: Part 2 of 3

So. As promised, some major and eternal DON'Ts of writing query letters.

DON'T send a query letter without first Googling "How to write a query letter." In other words, WHY are you flying blindly when the Internet provides you a basic (wonderful) education on how to stand out?

DON'T send a long query. I say long, because the proper length of a query letter is up for interpretation. A rule of thumb is a one-page query, but my personal preference (and my preference comes after reading hundreds of query letters) is--the SHORTER, the BETTER. If you say it with seven words, see if you can cut it down to five. The most powerful query letters that I've read have been concise.

DON'T send a run-on sentence. This seems obvious, but you'd be surprised! If your query is a big block of text, break it up with some white space. Try to learn the art of writing feng shui--making the query letter visually look pleasing and underwhelming.

DON'T write movie-trailer tags and think you are summarizing your plot. "Jo-Jo meets an untold danger." "Her life changes in drastic ways." "Mark uncovered a deadly secret..." These... mean nothing. These are filler words, attempting to sound dramatic. But they don't. The reason these work in a movie trailer is the movie trailer is a visual medium. With a query letter, when you summarize your plot, you have only those words. Be specific.

DON'T be insulting, whether it's outright and intentional or accidental. Examples:
Outright insulting: "I hate all your client's books, but my book is gonna be a big seller, so let's make money."
Accidentally insulting: "There's no good YA books out there! My book will fix that!"

(Sentence A is an obvious no-no. DON'T come across cocky. DON'T talk about money, or bestsellers, or anything that implies you know nothing about the publishing industry or how publishing really works.

Sentence B is a little sneakier, but I see it a lot... and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. See, the agent you are querying... WORKS IN PUBLISHING. If you insult the genre he or she represents, you are basically saying the work he or she has done so far is shoddy. DON'T say anything negative about the industry in your query, because you will come across as ignorant.)

I'm not even going to write DON'T include typos, grammar errors, or poorly written sentences, because that seems a given (even though those still somehow slip in.

The truth is, for every query letter that follows the rules to a T, there's another one that breaks all the rules... and is amazing. But I'm a firm believer that you must first know the rules, then know why you're breaking them.

Part 3 tomorrow, about query letter DO's!

Really Deep Thoughts

If you still read the pitch of a new bestselling book and think, "Damn, I had that same idea!"... you're doing it wrong.

An appropriate response is: "Cool! Now I have a comp title for when I finish my book. Now I know that something similar sold well. Now I know that it CAN work; I just have to figure out how to make my own version of it work."

On Query Letters: Part 1 of 3

Part of my job as a literary agent's intern is to go through the Slush Pile. The slush pile is another term for Literary Agent's E-mail Inbox, which contains Query Letters.

Industry term: a query letter is a short message you send in lieu of your entire manuscript that should contain a pitch/hook (something that briefly describes what happens in your book while somehow piquing the agent's interest), the vital information about your book (word count, genre, title, anything else regarding the book's actual structure), and your publishing credits.

In the BOSS's e-mail inbox, I find daily any and all of the following:

--Query letters from good writers who wrote good manuscripts
--Query letters from decent writers who wrote... manuscripts
--Query letters from insane people, who have clearly been released from their commitments early
--E-mails somewhat resembling query letters that also somewhat resemble many RPGs and/or therapy sessions
--At the very least, some serious fodder for laughter, and/or fear that such people are out living among us, disguised as real humans

You may think I'm exaggerating... until you actually have the chance to dip into an agent's e-mail yourself.

The more query letters I read, the more I want to tear my hair out, because it seems like 99% of the people sending queries are Doing It Wrong... And their queries could so easily be fixed up!

I'll post On Query Letters: Part 2 of 3 on Friday, and explain the basic horrifying DON'TS of query letter writing.

In Part 3 of 3, coming to an Internet near you on Sunday, I'll rejoice and share the glorifying DOS of query letter writing.

In essence, I think all the rules can be summed up in one Big Momma Rule: don't rush. Don't hurry. Why are you hurrying? Do you have a publishing deadline to catch? Because if you are impatient, or unwilling to wait until your work is its very polished, then this is SO not the industry for you.

Part 2 on Friday!

Review: Plain Kate

Title: Plain Kate
Author: Erin Bow
Pub Date: September 2010
Genre: Upper MG Fantasy

When Kate's father dies, she takes to the streets with her cat, Taggle, hoping to use her woodworking talent to support herself. Linay, a mysterious stranger, offers her an odd bargain: in exchange for her shadow, Linay will give her food and survival supplies and grant her a single wish. Kate takes the deal, and is soon entangled in a complex web of magic, revenge, and death.

The story draws on Russian folklore, and is written in the style of a fairy tale. Even if I point-blank told you a bullet-point list of the plot points, it wouldn't have that element of darkness and bleakness that Erin Bow's prose gives it. I don't enjoy horror, but this story did give me the chills--it's not scary, but eerie. Gypsies, witch-burning, plagues, river-ghosts, talking cats... It would be easy to have the main character lost in such a rich world, but the author gives Kate honor and fight all throughout.

My rating? 9 out of 10.

Internship: A History

In the last year, I finally understood a few things.

1) In order to become a writer, you have to actually write. Not research, not outline, not revise, not daydream or brainstorm... but make new sentences and paragraphs, and then re-write them until they are better.

2) In order to become a published writer, you have to do some research. The internet makes this easy.

I maniacally followed (and still follow, actually) about a hundred different websites, all of them created with the sole purpose of providing information to prospective authors, like myself. Some of them are authors' blogs, and they detail their journeys from first draft to first book signing. Some of the websites are about the industry, which I am certain you have to know about in order to be a successful published author.

One of the most helpful websites, however, is a website of a literary agent who works exclusively with children's books. (Hint: industry term: children's books = picture books, like Go, Dog, Go, early chapter books like Junie B. Jones, middle grade fiction, like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, and YA, or young adult, like The Hunger Games.)

Now, to be on the way, way, way safe side, I will not reveal the moniker of said agent. He/she will hereby be  referred to as BOSS.

At the end of May, BOSS put out a plea for a team of interns. Slightly deluged and naively hopeful, I applied... and I was chosen, along with six other brilliant children's book adorers, to be on BOSS's team!


I could do another year of Internet research and not receive the education I have gained in the six weeks, working for BOSS. My jobs are varied, but all so valuable:

-I review potential clients' manuscripts. I send BOSS a reader's report. I put the manuscript down if it isn't good, even if I'm only on page six. I tell BOSS what I thought. I give suggestions for revisions. I find authors to root for and reinforce my opinion that this industry is equal parts hard work and subjectivity.

-I read manuscripts from BOSS's current clients. Again, always insightful, since I can see the work done by someone who "made it" already.

-Reviewing the publishing deals made in the last few years, searching for trends. I have a soft spot for middle grade fiction. It's what I write, and it's what I am usually drawn to for reading material.

-I go through the infamous Slush Pile, and yes, it really is as polarizing as it seems. There are HORRIBLE queries, and decent queries, and some that I can't stop thinking about. Just one dive into the slush pile was enough to send me scurrying to my own two-sentence pitch to edit, edit, edit.

So far, BOSS has advertised this as a six month summer internship, but I am crossing my fingers that BOSS extends the work for me, because it is THAT insightful.

One of the greatest moments was reading through BOSS's initial instructions, kind of an overview of the job... and realizing, yes, absolutely, this is the industry and the focus for me. Books? Yes. Publishing? Yes. Writing? Always. But also, editing? Yes. Agenting? Maybe. Reading for publishers? Sign me up. I love it all. This is so the world for me.