What makes a great page 1? – Author! Author!:: Anne Mini's Blog

December 24, 2012January 19, 2017 - No Comments

“Thanks for the cookies Millicent,” “What’s that I hear on the roof, reindeer?” and other easily-averted holiday faux pas

This time of year, the Furtive Non-Denominational Gift-Giver sees it all the time: a reason to move otherwise good girls and boys from the Nice to the Naughty list. Yet often, as both he and our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, know only too well, the difference between a properly-punctuated sentence and one that is, well, not, lies in a simple slip of the writer’s finger — or lack of one. Take a gander at the type of hastily-scrawled note that often greets our St. Nick.

Hello Santa. Thanks for any presents you might see fit to leave old boy. Wow do I ever appreciate it.

– Janie

No wonder the otherwise jolly elf weeps at the sight: clearly, the Punctuation Vacuum has beaten him to this household. Either that, or Janie has really, really lazy fingers. The note he had expected to see nestled next to a plate of cookies would have read like this:

Hello, Santa. Thanks for any presents you might see fit to leave, old boy. Wow, do I ever appreciate it.

– Janie

Let me guess: to many, if not most of you, these two notes are essentially identical: the words are the same, right, so the meaning must be? That’s an understandable interpretation, given how often we all now see direct address and exclamation commas omitted all the time. Indeed, some modes of electronic expression, such as news program bottom-of-the-screen crawls and Twitter, seem actively to discourage proper punctuation.

But that doesn’t make it right. Santa’s a stickler for rules.

As it happens, so are Millicent and those of us who edit for a living. Punctuation matters to us — and, frankly, folks in publishing tend to laugh when aspiring writers express the astonishingly pervasive opinion that it doesn’t.

Why the ho, ho, ho? Well, leaving aside the perfectly reasonable proposition that one of the basic requirements of a professional writer is the consistent production of clearly expressed, grammatically correct prose, in some cases, improper punctuation can alter a sentence’s meaning.

And that, boys and girls, can only harm self-expression. Take, for instance, the two faux pas in the title of this post.

Thanks for the cookies Millicent.

What’s that I hear on the roof, reindeer?

Most readers would assume, as those of you who didn’t notice that commas had been purloined from Janie’s original note probably did, that what she actually meant to say was this:

Thanks for the cookies, Millicent.

What’s that I hear on the roof? Reindeer?

That’s not what the first versions actually said, though, was it? Basically, Janie operated on a presumption evidently shared by an amazingly high percentage of queriers, literary contest entrants, and manuscript submitters: that it’s the reader’s job to figure out what the author probably meant, not the writer’s job to express it so clearly that there would be no question.

In practice, most of us are perfectly willing to translate casual communications into more comprehensible prose, at least mentally. People often tap out or scrawl notes in a hurry, or, since the advent of mobile electronic devices, under less-than-ideal conditions. It’s relatively safe, then, to presume that your third-best friend will understand if that text message you sent while hanging upside down from the monkey bars omitted a comma or two.

Writing intended for publication is expected to adhere to a higher standard, however: even an editor wowed by the sentiments expressed in that last set of examples would not seriously consider publishing them without revision. Although the rise of on-screen editing has increased the number of punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors that slip through editorial fingers and onto the printed page — nit-picks are significantly harder to catch on a backlit screen than in hard copy — no one who reads for a living would believe for a second that clarity and proper punctuation don’t matter. A manuscript that seems to imply that the writer believes they are unimportant not only is unlikely to impress a pro — to an experienced agent or editor, it simply screams that this is a writer who will require extra time, effort, and, yes, proofreading.

Why might that harm your submission’s chances? Think about it: if the agent of your dreams already has 127 clients, who is his Millicent more likely to regard as a viable candidate for #128, the writer who expects her to guess whether What’s that I hear on the roof, reindeer? means what it literally says, or the writer whose prose is so clear that she’s not left in any doubt?

Remember, too, that your garden-variety agency screener or contest judge has very little of a writer’s prose upon which to judge talent and facility with language. How on earth could Millicent possibly know for certain whether the speaker of that first sentence was simply sliding back up the chimney while he was writing, and thus was too busy to devote the necessary thought to the beauty and rigors of proper punctuation, or simply was not aware of the relevant rules? She’s not allowed to base her reading upon what she guesses a writer meant, after all; she can only evaluate what’s actually on the page.

All of which is a nice way of saying: don’t expect her to cut you any slack. A writer familiar with the rules of punctuation and conscientious about applying them is simply less time-consuming for an agent to represent than one who believes that the fine points of how a sentence looks on the page doesn’t really matter. Someone at the manuscript’s future publishing house will take care of the copyediting, right?

Well, no. Not if Millicent or her boss, the agent of your dreams, stops reading after the second missing direct address comma on page 1.

Yes, really. Since this particular rule is pretty straightforward, it’s fairly common for screeners and contest judges to regard non-adherence — or, equally pervasive in submissions, uneven adherence — as an indicator of, if not necessarily poor grammar in the manuscript as a whole, then at least an authorial lack of attention to detail. Any guesses as to why detail-orientation would be a desirable trait in an agency’s client?

Slap a great, big gold star on your tree if you leapt to your feet, shouting, “By gum, a detail-oriented writer could be trusted to produce clean manuscripts!” You’re quite right, shouters: since few agencies employ in-house editors (although some agents do like to edit their clients’ pages), signing a writer who had already demonstrated that he regards the world as his proofreader would inevitably be a more time-consuming choice than snapping up one that could be relied upon to spell- and grammar-check his own manuscripts. On a revise-and-resubmit deadline too short for anyone at the agency to proof pages, that could be the difference between selling a book to a publisher and rejection.

Comma placement is starting to seem a trifle more relevant to your life, isn’t it? Fortunately, the rules governing direct address and exclamations are quite easy.

Hey, wake up. Were you aware that you were snoring, Janie?

There — that wasn’t so difficult, was it? Hey is an exclamation, so it is separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma. And because that second sentence was directly addressed to Janie, a comma appears between the rest of the sentence and her name.

Armed with those valuable precepts, let’s revisit the punctuation choices that made the Furtive Non-Denominational Gift-Giver choke on his milk and cookies — or cognac and truffles, as he always insisted on being left for him in the Mini household throughout my childhood. (My parents said that he deserved the upgrade for shinnying down our unusually small flue.) How do they look to you now?

Hello Santa.

Thanks for any presents you might see fit to leave old boy.

Wow do I ever appreciate it.

Thanks for the cookies Millicent.

What’s that I hear on the roof, reindeer?

Now that you’re looking for those commas, the paucity of them — and, I hope, the extra one in that last sentence — is distracting, is it not? Let’s talk about why. Sentences 1 and 4 are aimed at Santa and Millicent, respectively, right? The names are a tip-off that each requires a direct address comma.

Hello, Santa.

Thanks for the cookies, Millicent.

Sentence #2 is a bit trickier, since what Janie is calling the reader (old boy) is not a proper noun. If we don’t apply the direct address rule here, though, the most logical interpretation is actually this:

Thanks for any presents you might see fit to leave for the old boy.

Yet Janie’s household does not contain any old boy, or indeed any boys at all — and if Santa knows when they are sleeping and knows when they are awake, he must logically be aware of where said boys are sleeping, must he not? He might be forgiven, then, for finding this sentence perplexing. Fortunately, all it would take is a single stroke of the pen to render Janie’s intended meaning crystal clear.

Thanks for any presents you might see fit to leave, old boy.

No question that the reader — Santa, presumably, if Janie’s been a good girl this year — is the old boy being addressed, right? Now that we’ve cleared up that cosmic mystery, what should we note-proofers do with this?

Wow do I ever appreciate it.

Wow is an exclamation — and we have a rule for that, do we not? Let’s try applying it. While we’re at it, why not allow Janie’s punctuation to reflect the intensity of her gratitude?

Wow, do I ever appreciate it!

If you’re ever in doubt about whether an expression is sufficiently exclamatory to require separation from the rest of the sentence, here’s a nifty test: vehement exclamations can stand alone. As in:

Wow! Do I ever appreciate it!

Oh, my! What a beautifully-wrapped present!

Heavens! What an enormous cake! You shouldn’t have gone to all of that trouble, Madge!

What a difference a punctuation choice can make to a sentence’s meaning, eh? (See what I just did there? Eh is an exclamation, albeit not a particularly intense one.) A detail-oriented punctuator could become even more creative, depending upon context. Let’s have some fun.

Wow — do I ever appreciate it? I would have thought my reaction to your having given me a rabid wolverine last Christmas and the Christmas before would have told you that.

Oh, my, what a beautifully-wrapped present…if you happen to believe that bacon is an appropriate wrapping medium for a desk lamp.

Heavens, what an enormous cake. You shouldn’t have gone to all of that trouble, Madge: as much as we all enjoyed seeing your immediate family leap out of that enormous pie at Thanksgiving, that’s really the kind of surprise entrance that works only once, don’t you think?

Speaking of how punctuation can alter meaning, our remaining example presents some difficulties, doesn’t it? Let’s take another peek at it.

What’s that I hear on the roof, reindeer?

At first glance, this may appear to be a proper use of direct address: the narrator was simply speaking to a reindeer that happened to be lingering nearby. In today’s incredibly rich fantasy novel market, it’s not at all difficult to imagine a context in which that comma use would make sense.

“What’s that I hear on the roof, reindeer?” Janie shouted. “Your ears are better than mine.”

Blitzen shook his antlers in annoyance. “Ceilings are opaque, you know. I can only fly; I don’t have X-ray vision.”

However, being an intimate friend of the writer’s — we could hardly be closer — I know that the original sentence was tucked within a thriller. I ask you: does a direct address interpretation make sense here?

“What’s that I hear on the roof, reindeer?” Janie whispered.

The Easter Bunny did not bother to stop stuffing presents into his basket. “Oh, stop jumping at every sound. Santa’s not due for an hour.”

“I still say that we should have hidden in a closet,” the Tooth Fairy hissed, “and waited until after ol’ Kris dropped off the swag.”

“And let Fat Boy snag all the cookies?” The rabbit snapped off a small branch from the tree to use as a toothpick. “I’m in it for the sugar, baby.”

“Then we should have gone to the Minis,” the fairy grumbled. “They have truffles.”

Blitzen’s hoof poked into the small of Janie’s back. “Move, sister, and you’ll find yourself with a face full of tinsel.”

Since the reindeer doesn’t enter the scene until five paragraphs after Janie’s speech, it seems unlikely that she’s addressing him. What the writer intended to convey by that comma was not direct address, but something closer to my original suggestion:

“What’s that I hear on the roof?” Janie whispered. “Reindeer?”

In fairness, though, you can see why even a meticulous self-proofreader might not have caught this one. If Janie had speculated that the sounds were caused by an inanimate object, that comma might have passed muster.

“What’s that I hear on the roof, falling shingles?” Janie whispered.

Unless this is a book about a madwoman or a psychic whose ability to cajole roofing substances into telling her Santa’s whereabouts, direct address doesn’t make sense here, does it? Even a skimmer is unlikely to fall into that interpretive trap. Several alternate constructions would obviate the possibility entirely, though. The first option should look slightly familiar.

“What’s that I hear on the roof?” Janie whispered. “Falling shingles?”

“What’s that I hear on the roof — falling shingles?” Janie whispered.

Am I sensing some growing excitement about the possibilities? “Hey, Anne,” some of you exclaim, beautifully demonstrating your grasp of how a comma should offset an exclamation, “something has just occurred to me, you sneaky person.” (Direct address!) “Since the natural habitat of both direct address and exclamations is conversation, wouldn’t it make sense to zero in on dialogue while proofreading for these particular faux pas? If I were in a hurry, I mean, and didn’t have time to read my submission or contest entry IN ITS ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD?”

Not a bad timesaving strategy, exclaimers — they do tend to congregate in text written in the second person. (Hey, I’m talking to you, buddy!) You might be surprised, though, at how often direct address and exclamations show up in first-person narratives, or even chattier-voiced third-person narratives. For instance:

Oh, God, I was afraid she would say that. My brain spun wildly, searching for an answer that would not make me look like the schmuck I actually was. By Jove, I was in a pickle.

Before anyone suggests otherwise, may I hastily add that the rookie strategy of attempting to make first-person narration sound more like common speech (as opposed to what it’s intended to represent, thought) by eliminating necessary punctuation and grammar has become awfully hard to pull off in a submission, at least for adult fiction or memoir. You wouldn’t believe how often Millicent sees text like our last example submitted like this:

Oh God I was afraid she would say that. My brain spun wildly searching for an answer that would not make me look like the schmuck I actually was. By Jove I was in a pickle.

Or even — sacre bleu! — like this:

OhmyGodIwasafraidshewouldsaythat. My brain spun wildly searching for an answer that would not make me look like the schmuck I actually was. By Jove I was in a pickle.

Yes, yes, we all understand that both versions could arguably be regarded as conveying breathlessness. So could this:

Oh, God, I was afraid she would say that. I felt every last oxygen molecule being sucked out of my lungs.

While style choices vary, naturally, from book category to book category — there honestly is no adequate substitute for reading recent releases of books similar to yours, particularly those written by first-time authors, to gain a sense of what is considered stylish these days — generally speaking, relating what’s going on via actual words tends to be considered better writing than offbeat presentation choices. All the more so if those words show what’s going on, as we saw in that last version, instead of telling it — or requiring Millicent to perform a dramatic reading of the text in order to grasp the fully intended meaning.

Oh, you thought that OhmyGodIwasafraidshewouldsaythat didn’t convey an expectation that the reader would try saying it out loud? Isn’t the sound of this sentence spoken as a single word the point here?

Style is not the only reason that you might want to give careful thought to whether non-standard presentation choices would be more effective than other means of narration, however. While they may seem like a shortcut, they can actually mean more work for you. Not only must any such punctuation and grammar voice choices be implemented with absolute consistency throughout an entire first-person narrative– quite a bit harder than it sounds, if one happens to know the rules or wants to be able to use Word’s grammar-checking function — but honestly, it’s really only clever the first few times a reader sees it done.

Trust me, any experienced Millicent or contest judge will have seen this tactic crop up too often to find it original at this late date in literary history. And how could either of them tell on page 1 whether the omissions were the result of a manuscript-wide authorial choice or the writer’s not being conversant with proper comma use? Heck, are they even sure that the writer of that last version even knows where the comma key is located?

Judgmental? You bet. If Millicent, a literary contest judge, and Santa’s job descriptions have anything in common, it’s that they are tasked with separating those who make an effort to follow their respective spheres’ recognized standards of niceness from those who do not. Rejection is the literary world’s lump of coal, available year-round.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that, unlike so much of the manuscript submission process, proper comma use lies entirely within the writer’s control. Personally, I find that rather empowering — unlike style judgment calls, which must necessarily rely in part upon Millicent’s personal reading tastes, punctuation is governed by rules. And rules can be learned.

Does that huge thunk of jaws hitting the floor reverberating throughout the ether indicate that some of you had been thinking about acceptance vs. rejection purely in terms of writing style? If so, you’re hardly alone: why do you think so many submissions and even queries turn up on Millicent’s desk apparently unproofread? Or spell-checked? Obviously, there are a heck of a lot of aspiring writers out there who think punctuation, spelling, and grammar just don’t matter — or that it’s an agent’s job to see past rule violations to story and talent.

Had I mentioned that to the pros, these things matter very much? Or that in publishing circles, providing error-free manuscript pages containing only sentences whose meanings are clear on a first reading is considered the minimum requirement of professional writing, not an optional extra?

Frankly, every writer who has taken the time to learn her craft should be rejoicing at this. Imagine how hard would it be to get on Santa’s Nice list if you had no idea what he considered nice.

While I’ve got you pondering the hard questions, here’s another: is resting your book’s future on a manuscript draft that does not consistently apply the rules you already know people in publishing expect to see respected really any less of a stab in the dark? Wouldn’t it be a better long-term strategy, as well as a better use of your scant writing time, to invest in making sure that the factors you can control are tweaked in a manner more likely to land you on Millicent’s Nice Job list?

Ah, that suggestion got under some skins, didn’t it? “But Anne!” bellow those who find thinking about rules a barrier to the creative process — and you are legion. “I understand that it’s the writer’s job to make a story come to life on the page, not the reader’s job to decipher convoluted text, but to be absolutely truthful, I don’t feel completely comfortable wielding all of the various rules of grammar and punctuation. I had kinda hoped that once I landed an agent and sold a book, the kind folks who handle books for a living would walk me through all of that.”

I’m glad you brought this up, wobbly rule-appliers — this is one of the greatest divides between how the publishing world thinks of what constitutes a well-written manuscript and how most aspiring writers tend to envision it. To a pro, the technical side of writing is not separable from the overall writing quality; to a new writer, though, punctuation, grammar, spelling, and even clarity are primarily sentence-level issues, easily fixed down the line.

No wonder, then, that it comes as such a shock to most first-time queriers and submitters to learn that the overwhelming majority of manuscripts get rejected on page 1. While the pros see a book’s opening as a representative writing sample, writers regard it as a minuscule fraction of a larger work, each page of which is entitled to its own assessment.

“What do you mean, a couple of punctuation, spelling, or clarity problems on page 1 could have triggered rejection?” they wail, and who could blame them? “Shouldn’t a book be judged by — wait for it — the writing in the whole thing?”

Perhaps, in principle, but very, very few readers wait until the end to come to conclusions about a book, even outside the publishing industry. A Millicent at a well-established agency will read literally thousands of submissions every year. If she read each in its entirety, she would have time to make it through only hundreds.

Believe it or not, this way actually provides a writer with a fresh idea and original voice with a better shot of impressing her. It means fewer book concepts are weeded out at the querying stage than would be necessary if agencies routinely assigned Millicents to read every single syllable of every single submission.

And, lest we forget, to a professional reader, a hallmark of a fabulous new literary voice is its consistency. The Great American Novel should read as lyrically on page 1 as on page 147, right? And shouldn’t it all sound like the same author’s voice?

See why I always encourage writers to read their manuscripts IN THEIR ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD before submitting them? All too often, aspiring writers new to the game will start sending out their work practically the moment after they type THE END on a first draft, without double-checking that the voice, style, and — as an editor, I must ethically add this — story are 100% consistent throughout the manuscript. It’s completely normal, however, for a first-time novelist’s voice and sense of the story to develop throughout the writing process; going through, figuring out what you like best about your own writing, and revising the whole so it sounds like that (to use the technical term) before you submit can increase your story’s chance of winning friends at an agency by leaps and bounds.

Or, to put it another way, are you the same writer you were the first day you sat down to work on your book? Aren’t you better at conveying your intended meaning now? And, if you take a long, hard look at your objection to Millie’s rejecting manuscripts on page 1, isn’t part of your chagrin that she might not read long enough to get to your best writing?

Heavy thoughts for a holiday, perhaps, but the Literature Fairy’s annual gift to those of us who work with writers is an awareness of just how many of you lovely people spend the last few weeks of December kicking yourselves for not having landed an agent or gotten published in the previous year. If the past is prologue, a phenomenally high percentage of you will translate those feelings into a New Year’s resolution to be a more active aspiring writer next year — to send out a barrage of queries, for instance, or to come up with a really solid list of agents to query. Perhaps you’re going to finish that manuscript, or get the one an agent requested eight months ago out the door. Or maybe, finally, you are going to rearrange your schedule so you can write a specified number of hours per week, rather than the more popular method of trying to squeeze it in whenever you can find the time.

All of these are laudable goals — don’t get me wrong. I would like to suggest, though, that while you are shuffling through the resolution possibilities, you consider adding one more: promising yourself that this will be the year that you spend January sitting down and reading your manuscript from beginning to end, in hard copy, as a reader would, to gain a sense of what is best about your own writing.

Because, really, wouldn’t you have an easier time presenting your work professionally if you didn’t just know that it’s good, but also why? And wouldn’t you be happier if Millicent judged your page 1 if it actually did represent a consistent voice and style throughout the book?

Just a thought. While you’re reading, of course, you could always humor me by keeping an eye out for omitted commas.

Hey, nobody ever said that making it onto Millicent’s Nice Job list was going to be easy. Who did you think she was, Santa?

Enjoy the holiday, everybody; try not to run afoul of any reindeer. I hear that you wouldn’t want to run into Blitzen in a dark alley. Keep up the good work!

June 14, 2012January 19, 2017 - No Comments

Speaking of self-editing advice that applies equally well to literary contest entries and submissions to agencies: har de har har har?

Okay, I’ll admit it: the first part of that title is a tad cumbersome. I got tired of typing COUNTDOWN TO A CONTEST, PART {fill in Roman numeral here}. The contest deadline to which I was counting down has passed (how do people feel their entry process went, by the way?), and besides, much of what I’m discussing in this part of the series would apply — stop me if you have heard this before — equally well to refining contest entries and submissions to agencies.

I know, I know. Some day, I’m going to have to come up with more descriptive titles for my posts.

Let’s get back to courting the comic muse. Or, more accurately, to our discussion of how aspiring writers often think they are courting her, without actually winning her favor. Or so we must surmise, from the fact that such a high proportion of attempted humor leaves both Mehitabel, everybody’s favorite fictional veteran contest judge, and her niece Millicent, intrepid screener of manuscripts at a theoretical agency, with distinctly untickled funny bones. Further evidence might be gleaned from the startling frequency with which entries and submissions elicit spontaneous, uninhibited laughter with lines the writer did not think would pass anywhere near those aforementioned funny bones.

Ooh, nicely executed spit take, everybody. “Wha–?” would-be humorists across the English-speaking world cry, their eyes bugging out of their heads like cartoon characters (oh, you thought you were the first writer to use that simile?). “How can something intended to be unfunny provoke that response? I can understand a joke’s falling flat, but I hate the idea that Mehitabel and/or Millicent might be chuckling over my Great American Tragedy.”

Good question, eye-buggers. But didn’t the previous question answer it?

If the previous paragraph did not make you giggle, well, you are either delightfully innocent (and thus might want to avert your eyes from the next paragraph, in order to remain so), not a very detail-oriented reader (as Mehitabel and Millicent invariably are), or, perish the thought, the joke I just made was not very funny. Given the exceptionally high probability that all three are true, allow me to compound the mistake of having cracked not particularly wise by explaining why it should have been funny, as well as illustrative of my ongoing point. To render the narrative error even more representative of what M & M tend to see on the page, allow me to explain my failed joke as pedantically as possible.

You see, the would-be humorists asked how a piece of writing could provoke laughter if its author did think it was funny. I then said it was a good question — something I’m pointing out because I don’t have sufficient faith in the reader to believe s/he can remember what s/he has just read — but then turned that compliment on its head by addressing the imaginary questioners with a double entendre. That, for those of you new to the term, is when the comic value of a phrase arises from its meaning one thing literally, but also being subject to a sexualized interpretation. In this instance, eye-buggers could refer to those whose eyes protrude unusually far between their lashes, but it also — and herein lies the yuck factor — could imply that those same imaginary questioners are in the habit of performing a physically improbable sex act upon eyeballs in general. Get it? Get it? Compounding the humor: the sentence that followed raised the possibility that the phrasing in the previous sentence might have been unintentional — and thus likely to spark unintended laughter at the entry or submission stage. Har de har har har!

Hands up, those of you who thought my bad joke was funnier before I explained it. Keep those hands up if you found yourself wishing by a couple of lines into the subsequent explanation that I’d just accept that the joke hadn’t worked and move on.

Welcome to Mehitabel and Millicent’s world. They’re constantly treated to unfunny, marginally funny, and might-have-been-funny-after-a-couple-of-rewrites humor attempts. They are also, for their sins, frequently forced to read painful attempts to render an unamusing quip funny in retrospect. Over-explanation is one popular means — and, as we have just seen, it seldom works. Equally common:

Or having a character laugh in order to alert the reader that what’s just appeared on the page was intended to be humorous:

As the head bagger stomped away, Herman pictured a large brown bag descending upon him, scooping him up. Now trapped at the bottom, Ambrose would be helpless as a giant hand flung boxes of cereal and canned goods upon him, perhaps topped by a carton of eggs. He laughed at the mental image.

This, I am sorry to tell you, would cause Mehitabel to roll her bloodshot eyes. “Thanks prompting me to laugh,” she snorts, “because I couldn’t possibly have told that you meant this to be funny otherwise. I see you have also helpfully let me in on the secret that pictured referred to a mental image. Otherwise, I might have thought that the narrative had suddenly shifted from gritty slice-of-life fiction into magical realism.”

Let that be a lesson, would-be humorists: if a bit isn’t funny on the page, having a character find it amusing won’t make it more so. Also, as Mehitabel has just so kindly demonstrated for us, since readers cannot hear tone, sarcasm often does not come across well on the page. From which we may derive a subsidiary lesson: just because something generates a laugh when you say it out loud does not mean it will necessarily be similarly guffaw-inducing on the page.

Why did I put that in bold, you ask? Millicent and Mehitabel requested it; they’re tired of reading manuscripts out loud to try to figure out what on earth Herman thought was so darned funny.

Then, too, professional readers as a group tend not to like being told how to react to writing, period. Mehitabel has every right to feel irritated at being told that she should find what she has just read humorous. Self-review tends not to play well on the page, even if it is very subtle.

Oh, you don’t think what Herman’s creator did was self-review? M & M would regard it that way. They would also see the following fruitless authorial effort as reaction-solicitation. Any guesses why?

“The bookstore is closed for the night,” Gemma snapped, gesturing to the CLOSED sign on the door. “What are you two still doing here?”

“Oh, we’re just browsing,” Angelina said airily.

Bonnie laughed. “Yeah, we’re looking for a first edition of Martin Chuzzlewit.”

Gemma looked puzzled. “Why would you need to be wearing ski masks for that?”

If you leapt to your feet, crying, “Bonnie’s laughter is intended to order Mehitabel to laugh, too,” you deserve a gold start for the day. It doesn’t render Angelina’s joke any funnier, does it? Since M & M do not, as a rule, enjoy being told how to evaluate the writing in front of them, they would have been more likely to find the quip amusing if it had appeared like so. While we’re at it, let’s excise those other professional reader-irkers, concept redundancy and having a character vaguely point to something in order to let the reader know it’s there.

Gemma fixed the closer one with her flashlight. “The bookstore is closed for the night. What are you two still doing here?”

“Oh, we’re just browsing,” Angelina said airily, smiling through her ski mask.

Bonnie aimed her rifle just to the right of Gemma’s head. “Yeah, we’re looking for a first edition of Martin Chuzzlewit.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so right away?” Gemma felt under the cash register for her favorite throwing knife. “We’re always happy to move some Dickens.”

Better, isn’t it? It’s funnier because the narrative trusts the reader’s intelligence more. As opposed to, say, the ubiquitous practice of just telling the reader point-blank that something is funny:

Barbara flung her banana peel on the ground. Her snarky coworker did not see it, trod upon it, and slipped. It was hilarious.

In case I’m being too subtle here: very, very few contest entries are genuinely funny. Oh, many of them try to be, and some attempts at amusing actually would be chuckle-worthy if spoken out loud, but humor is a capricious mistress. In order to work on the page, how a writer chooses to frame the funny is every bit as important as the joke itself.

Yes, really. You may have written the best one-liner since Richard Pryor accidentally set himself on fire, but if it’s not set up correctly, it’s going to fall flat. And that, my friends, is going to come as a huge disappointment to a humor-loving Mehitabel or Millicent.

Why, you ask? A funny entry, or even a funny joke in an otherwise serious entry, feels like a gift to your garden-variety professional reader. A deliberately-provoked laugh from a judge can result in the reward of many presentation points, and often additional points in the voice category as well.

Notice that I specified a deliberately-provoked laugh. An unintentional laugh, what moviemakers call a bad laugh because it springs forth from the audience when the filmmakers do not want it to occur, will cost a contest entry points. And it should: a bad laugh can knock the reader right out of the scene.

We’ve all burst into bad laughter at movies, right? My personal favorite cropped up in the most recent remake of LITTLE WOMEN. It’s quite a good trick, too: provoking a bad laugh in a scene that’s not only arguably one of the best-known in children’s literature, as well as one in which the filmmakers remained very faithful to the original text, can’t have been easy.

I’m about to show you the moment in question, but first, let’s take a gander at how Louisa May Alcott presented it to her readers. The March girls have just learned that their father, a chaplain in a Civil War regiment, is dangerously ill. Their mother, not unnaturally, wishes to travel across many states to nurse him back to health, but the trip will be very expensive. Everybody’s favorite little woman, Jo the tomboy, is frantic to help. After having disappeared for most of the day, she returns home with a wad of cash, and her family, equally unnaturally, wants to know whence it came.

…she came walking in with a very queer expression of countenance, for there was a mixture of fun and fear, satisfaction and regret, in it, which puzzled the family as much as did the roll of bills she laid before her mother, saying, with a choke in her voice, “That’s my contribution toward making father comfortable and bringing him home!”

“My dear, where did you get it? Twenty-five dollars! Jo, I hope you haven’t done anything rash?”

“No, it’s mine honestly; I didn’t beg, borrow, or steal it. I earned it, and I don’t think you’ll blame me, for I only sold what was my own.”

As she spoke, Jo took off her bonnet, and a general outcry arose, for all her abundant hair was cut short.

“Your hair! Your beautiful hair!” “Oh, Jo, how could you? Your one beauty.” “My dear girl, there was no need of this.” “She doesn’t look like my Jo any more, but I love her dearly for it!”

As everyone exclaimed, and Beth hugged the cropped head tenderly, Jo assumed an indifferent air, which did not deceive anyone a particle, and said, rumpling up the brown bush, and trying to look as if she liked it, “It doesn’t affect the fate of the nation, so don’t wail, Beth.”

Now, Mehitabel and Millicent might well quibble over whether expression of countenance is redundant (technically, it is) or the unidentified speakers, or the unfortunate choice to demonstrate simultaneous speech by tossing aside the one speaker per dialogue paragraph rule. I also cherish the hope that you are all shaking your heads over Aunt Louisa’s regrettable affection for run-on sentences.

But there’s nothing to provoke a bad laugh here, right? It’s a sweet, evocative YA moment: the teenage heroine can’t stand to feel helpless, so she chooses to make a personal sacrifice in order to help her family. That’s a good plot twist. And if Amy (we assume) telling her that she’s now ugly hurt her feelings — “Your one beauty!” is a remarkably nasty thing to say, but she has a point: Jo’s effectively rendered herself unmarriageable for the next year or two — that’s good relationship development. And if she cries about it later that night, that’s good character development.

Here’s that moment again, as it appeared in the film. Note how the focus of the scene has shifted, doubtless as a reflection of the fact that cutting one’s hair was not nearly as shocking to moviegoers in 1994 as it would have been to readers in 1868. My apologies about the commercial at the beginning; it was the only version I could find.

See the problem? As in most filmed versions of LITTLE WOMEN, the young lady playing Jo — here, the inestimable Winona Ryder — is physically the most attractive of the bunch. Not to fault her portrayal of Jo, but Ms. Ryder arguably possessed at that point in her career the kind of face that artists over the centuries have willingly mortgaged their souls in order to depict with anything that approached tolerable accuracy. So, predictably enough, at “Your one beauty!” the theatre positively rocked with mirth — and so much so that the next few exchanges were completely inaudible. Thus what was one of the dramatic high points of the book was transformed into an occasion for bad laughter. And yet, amazingly, the script chose to feature that particular bad laugh TWICE: once as live action, and once as a voice-over flashback. When I saw the film, the second time engendered widespread chuckling, as moviegoers had their own little flashbacks about how completely ridiculous that particular moment had been. Good times were had by all. Just once, I would like to see a version of LITTLE WOMEN where the casting reflected <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Little-Signet-Classics-Louisa-Alcott/dp/0451529308/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203750027&sr=1-1">the book</a>. Jo March was plain (in the novel, Meg was the pretty one); her hair actually was her only point of physical beauty. Her sacrifice in cutting it off in order to sell it, therefore, was significantly greater than if she had been otherwise gorgeous. It also, in my opinion, made it substantially easier to identify with her. Jo’s not a fantasy: she’s a real girl, with real problems. Which were not merely a reflection of Louisa May Alcott’s real problems, incidentally, as readers (and reviewers) have historically assumed. It’s a surprising misconception, given that she wrote about her own wartime experiences so extensively: Louisa was the one that went off to war, not her father; she served a nurse in a Union hospital. Oh, and those fantastic stories all of the filmed versions of LITTLE WOMEN (and, to a lesser extent, the text) lead us to believe the author considered bad, harmful writing? Alcott apparently actually preferred them to her children’s writing. She wrote many pretty good romantic thrillers — and, like Jo, she supported her family with them. She even sent her sister May (the prototype for Amy) to art school with the proceeds. Why, yes, that is a digression, now that you mention it. I just get so sick of the automatic presumption that anything a woman writes must necessarily be autobiographical. In Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s later life, people apparently asked her all the time who she knew that had managed to bring a corpse back to life. Because it’s not as though a woman who had lost all but one of her children before the age of 5 could have imagined FRANKENSTEIN, right? It’s not as though she were the daughter of two famous novelists or anything. But I digress. We were talking about comedy, not tragedy. The question of how real life translates to the page is not irrelevant to humor, however. It can be genuinely difficult for a writer to tell what does and does not come across as funny on his own printed page, especially if the scene in question bears some relation to the author’s life. So if you write comedy, or even want to ascertain that a single quip in a manuscript you are planning to submit is funny, it’s a serious strategic mistake to have Mehitabel or Millicent be the first human being besides yourself to read it. I heard that gasp — the Jo March fantasy of writing in secret, then triumphantly announcing to incredulous kith and kin that one is published, is almost as common as semi-autobiographical first novels. (With apologies to Madame Shelley.) But if you are trying to be funny, good feedback — especially the kind of impartial feedback you might get from someone who does not happen to love you — is crucial. Why especially? Well, what is funny in real life is often not amusing on the page, at least not to someone who was not privy to the actual event. There’s a reason, after all, that “You had to be there, I guess,” is so commonly uttered by anecdotalists the world over: real-life funny often arises from mishaps, actions out of character, or events whose comic juxtapositions would be entirely lost upon a bystander who is not already intimately familiar with the players and their respective situations. Thus the desirability of soliciting first readers who have not, say, given birth to you, held your hand why you were crying over a break-up, walked down the aisle of any sacred edifice with you while either of you was wearing white…or actually was present for any occasion you depict in a manuscript. Or heard you talk about those events second-hand. They harbor preconceived notions that color their reading. That makes it awfully hard for them to judge either the event or the writing by what’s on the page alone. By definition, a contest judge (or, for that matter, any professional reader to whom you might hand an excerpt from a larger work) is a bystander with no prior associations with the situation described. That tends to render them both less likely to find writing funny and more likely to succumb to bad laughter. Which is why, I suspect, so many aspiring writers try to make up for that impartiality by over-selling the humor — or by trying to justify it afterward. But let’s face it, nothing kills a joke faster on paper than the narrative’s scurrying to provide an explanation of why it’s funny after the action or bon mot has already passed under the reader’s eyes. To cite a fairly popular species of this particular misguided effort: <blockquote> “Why, Monique, you’ve grown so thin!” Antonia exclaimed. “Have you found a monumentally successful new diet, or have you merely been deathly ill?” It was both an attempt at humor and a sincere question. Yes, people often do lose weight when they suffer from a major illness. But in this time period — although, obviously, not today — people often spoke about weight loss as though it were a magic trick, a secret the successful dieter was sworn never to reveal. Monique steadied herself on the banister. “Ill, you’ll be delighted to hear.” </blockquote> Pretty clunky, isn’t it? The subsequent explanation sucks the life out of what could have been a mildly funny speech, had it been left alone. It also brings the energy of the scene — and the tone of the exchange — to a screeching halt for lines on end. Besides, if it were actually crucial to the quip that the reader know the information conveyed in that second paragraph (and I don’t think it is here), wouldn’t the text be far more likely to elicit a spontaneous laugh if the reader knew about it before Antonia said it? Many, many writers combat this problem by including guffawing onlookers as the sort of laugh track we saw in action at the top of this post: whenever a joke appears in the dialogue, the reader is told that someone nearby laughs in response. Yes, one sees this tactic used in movies and on TV all the time — sitcoms film before live audiences or use laugh tracks for a reason — but it seldom translates well to the page. I sense some of you still don’t believe me. Take a gander, please, at another ubiquitous type of attempt to engender hilarity. <blockquote> “Hi, Mac,” the bartender said. “We haven’t seen you for a while.” Mac flashed a brilliant smile, twirling one of his guns. “I’ve been busy. You know, with the ladies.” Everyone within earshot burst into delighted laughter, slapping their thighs and jostling one another. One patron even fell off his barstool. “Oh, Mac,” the can-can girl with the heart of gold purred, sidling up to him, “you’re so funny.” </blockquote> No, lady, he isn’t — or at least, the writer hasn’t shown him being so. The humor may well lie in his tone, or Mac may have funny teeth, but the reader is left to fill in that blank for herself. Rather than investing the creativity and elbow grease in coming up with something funny for Mac to say, the writer here has indulged in a lazy narrative trick. To an experienced professional reader, this shortcut detracts from the humor of the scene, rather than adds to it; the bigger the onlookers’ reaction, the less funny it seems. and not merely because the Greek chorus of laughter typically does not make the joke seem funnier. To a judge, agent, or editor who has been around the literary block a few times, the onlooker’s guffaw is a flag that the author has some significant doubts about whether the joke is actually funny. Yes, really. It’s frequently a marker of discomfort, a peek behind the scenes into the writer’s mind, distracting from the story at hand. And once the reader suspects that the writer isn’t amused, it’s only a small step to the reader’s not being amused, either. Before anyone asks: no, you cannot construct a joke so funny that it obviates all chance of this reaction. People who laugh at their own jokes — which is how this tactic comes across on the page, right? — are seldom as amusing as people who allow their audience to decide whether what they are saying is funny or not. You can lead a judge to funny, but you can’t make her laugh. Humor is highly subjective. That last bit may seem self-evident, but think about it with respect to contest judging: the things that make you (and/or your nearest and dearest) chortle with glee may not be a contest judge’s proverbial cup of tea. Just as it’s never wise to assume that those passing judgment on your writing share your sex, sexual preference, political beliefs, etc., it’s not a good idea to proceed on the assumption that they will share your sense of humor. Attempting humor is riskier than writers tend to believe. Yes, pulling off a good joke is likely to win you disproportionate points for voice — as I said, a truly amusing narrative voice, or even a stellar one-liner, is awfully welcome toward the end of a long day’s reading ultra-serious prose — but just like Olympic gymnasts or high divers who attempt a super-difficult maneuver, the chances of failure are high. Those of you that just clutched your stomachs know where I’m going with this, I take it: attempting to be funny and missing the mark will typically cost a manuscript more than being devoid of humor. It’s not an uncommon instant-rejection reason, if Millicent stumbles across it within the first couple of pages of a submission. And if a contest entry tries to be funny and fails — especially if the dead-on-arrival joke is in the exposition, rather than the dialogue — most Mehitabels will fault the voice, dismissing it (sometimes unfairly) as not being fully developed enough to have a sense of its impact upon the reader. Please take that risk with caution — and run the results past an impartial reader or two to ascertain every single one of those jokes will fly. It usually doesn’t take more than a couple of defunct ducks in a manuscript to move it into the not-for-us pile. If you’re not absolutely positive that it’s funny, it should go, pronto. While I’m on the subject of purely subjective criteria, I’d like to talk about a little something that I like to call the Ta da! factor. It’s hard to define precisely, it’s when a manuscript exudes the sort of mercurial charisma that Elinor Glyn (author of that Edwardian scandal, the romance <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Three-Weeks-Elinor-Glyn/dp/1435354184/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203750098&sr=1-2">THREE WEEKS</a>) dubbed It when it occurs in human beings. (Thus Clara Bow, the It Girl, an Elinor Glyn discovery. She also dug up a minor charmer named Rudolf Valentino.) As Madame Glyn argued, we may not be able to define what It is, but many of us seem to drool over those who have It, when we encounter them in real life. But just telling a reader that is not going to make anyone drool. Like It, the Ta da! factor makes a manuscript shine, practically demanding that the judge give the entry high marks. In fact — although you are not hearing this from me — a healthy dose of the Ta da! factor might even prompt a judge to fudge a little in the other categories, so as to assure the entry a point total that will launch it into the finalist round. To achieve the Ta da! factor — well, if I could tell you that, I would chuck the blogging business entirely and establish myself as the world’s most expensive writing guru, wouldn’t I? I do know that mere professionalism is not enough. Yes, all of the technical aspects of the work need to be right, as well as the execution. The writing style needs to be strong and distinct, and it helps a lot if the story is compelling. Beyond that, it’s a little hard to say how precisely the Ta da! factor gives a manuscript its sheen, just as it’s difficult to pin down just what makes a great first line of a book so great. Perhaps it’s rhythm, and a certain facility for telling detail. But most of us who love literature know it when we see it, don’t we? Here’s a definite example of the Ta da! factor in action: <blockquote> I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods. For instance, there is a brownstone in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment. It was one room crowded with attic furniture, a sofa and four chairs upholstered in that itchy, particular red velvet that one associates with hot days on a train. </blockquote> That’s the opening of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Breakfast-Tiffanys-Stories-Modern-Library/dp/067960085X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203749776&sr=1-1">BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S</a>, Truman Capote’s masterpiece — which, speaking of odd casting, somebody really ought to make into a movie someday; the Audrey Hepburn version bears only a passing resemblance to it. (The original novella concerns a friendship between a straight woman and gay man in their late teens; the movie is about a love story between a straight man and a woman in, if you look at George Peppard charitably, their late thirties. Oh, and the endings are quite different.) But just look at the use of language here. You could sing this opening; it’s positively bursting with the Ta da! factor. Perhaps, too, a certain sense of showmanship is required. Bask in this one: <blockquote> He was a very good-looking young man indeed, shaped to be annoyed. His voice was intimate as the rustle of sheets, and he kissed easily. There was no tallying the gifts of Charvet handkerchiefs, art moderne ash-trays, monogrammed dressing-gowns, gold key-chains, and cigarette-cases of thin wood, inlaid with views of Parisian comfort stations, that were sent him by ladies too quickly confident, and were paid for with the money of unwitting husbands, which is acceptable any place in the world. </blockquote> That, my friends, is the opening to Dorothy Parker’s short story <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Stories-Dorothy-Parker/dp/0142437212/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203749696&sr=1-3">DUSK BEFORE FIREWORKS</a> — and let me tell you, if a short story like that fell onto my desk as a contest judge, I would not only shower it with the highest possible marks (yes, even though I do not agree with all of Ms. Parker’s punctuation choices in this excerpt); I would nag the category chair unmercifully about pushing it into the finalist round. Not only that: I would go to the awards ceremony, cheer if it won, and make a point of meeting the author. I might even introduce the author to my agent. Because, my friends, it exudes the aura of the Ta da! factor as distinctly as a bowl of excellent clam chowder exudes aroma. I mention this, not to cow you with examples of writing by extremely talented writers, but to fill you with hope, in the midst of this long discourse on all the technical ways you can gain or lose points in the contest judging process. Ultimately, talent does supersede almost every other consideration, as long as the work is professionally presented. This is not to say that you should not go to great lengths to avoid making the point-costing mistakes I have pointed out over the course of this series — you should, because genuinely talented writers’ work is knocked out of competition (and into agents’ rejection piles) all the time for technical reasons. When talent is properly presented, though, the results are magical. “One of the miracles of talent,” Mme. de Sta?l tells us, “is the ability to knock your readers out of their own egoism.” (Another favorite writer of mine; every woman who writes should read her brilliant novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Corinne-Italy-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0192825054/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203750244&sr=1-1">CORINNE</a> at some point. She wrote it in 1807, but apart from the travelogue sections, it’s still fresh as piping-hot cinnamon rolls today.) The Ta da! factor does just that, grabs the reader’s attention and simply insists upon this book’s being read, right now. Under the sway of all of the publishing fads continually buffeting us, it’s all too easy for writers to forget what power really good writing has. Publishing fads, like fashions in beauty, come and go. Talent doesn’t. Just as so many of the actors held up as exemplars of beauty now would not have been considered especially attractive in, say, the Italian Renaissance, or even a hundred years ago, I believe that many of the books published today will not be considered essential reading a hundred years from now. But the work of some authors — Truman Capote, Dorothy Parker, Mme. de Sta?l, to name just a few — has something about it that elevates it above the passing fad, just as there are some actors who, it is perfectly obvious to us all, would have been considered absolutely lovely in any period of human history. “Oh, Jo! Your one beauty!” notwithstanding. See how right I was earlier in this post? If I hadn’t set that up, it would have fallen completely flat. Indeed, to a reader who had not read the first half of this post, the last paragraph would merely have been confusing. The lengths to which I will go to make a point, eh? I was serious about the Ta da! factor, though. Keep your chins up, my friends, through all the hard work of perfecting your manuscripts and contest entries; you’re toiling in a noble vineyard. Real talent is not, after all, necessarily measured in the short term. Just ask Aunt Louisa; she’d been writing — yes, and publishing across a broad array of genres — for years before she hit the big time. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4265" class="post-4265 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-art-of-revision category-character-and-conflict-development-in-memoir category-character-development-in-memoir category-character-development-tips category-clarifying-your-voice category-cliche-avoidance category-common-agents-pet-peeves category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-editing-for-freshness category-editing-for-length category-editing-for-pacing category-editing-for-style category-editing-for-voice category-editing-memoir category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-agents-tend-to-dislike category-first-pages-that-grab category-first-person-narration category-frankenstein-voice-and-punctuation-issues category-freshness-in-manuscripts category-freshness-in-phrasing category-freshness-in-queries category-freshness-on-page-1 category-genre-fiction category-genres-and-their-conventions category-how-does-good-memoir-style-differ-from-good-writing-in-other-types-of-manuscript category-how-to-write-that-pesky-description-of-your-book-for-a-query category-industry-terminology category-is-my-manuscript-dated category-memoir-contest-entries category-memoir-craft-and-marketing category-memoir-querying category-memoir-voice category-nonfiction-voice category-pacing-a-scene category-picking-up-the-pace category-plugs-for-readers-work category-querying category-querying-faux-pas category-querying-memoir category-realistic-expectations-for-queriers category-realistic-expectations-for-submitters category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-rejection-on-page-1 category-relationship-development category-revision-tips category-show-dont-tell category-showing-not-telling-character category-story-arc-in-memoir category-submission-troubleshooting category-vivid-details category-voice category-what-does-and-doesnt-make-a-voice-book-category-appropriate category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-writing-cliches category-writing-memoir"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/12/27/details-that-tell-it-all-a-post-boxing-day-story-about-excess-baggage-31/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2011-12-27T00:00:00+00:00">December 27, 2011</time><time class="updated" datetime="2017-01-19T06:35:53+00:00">January 19, 2017</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/12/27/details-that-tell-it-all-a-post-boxing-day-story-about-excess-baggage-31/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/#respond">No Comments on Details that tell it all: a post-Boxing Day story about excess baggage</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/12/27/details-that-tell-it-all-a-post-boxing-day-story-about-excess-baggage-31/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/" rel="bookmark">Details that tell it all: a post-Boxing Day story about excess baggage</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Britannia-between-Scylla-Charybdis.-or-The-vessel-of-the...-painting-artwork-print.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Britannia-between-Scylla-Charybdis.-or-The-vessel-of-the...-painting-artwork-print.jpg" alt="" title="Britannia-between-Scylla-&-Charybdis.-or---The-vessel-of-the...-painting-artwork-print" width="512" height="406" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-16530"/></a> Before I launch into today’s post, I am delighted to bring you some fabulous news about a member of the Author! Author! community, long-time reader and incisive commenter <a href="http://www.kateevangelista.com/">Kate Evangelista</a>. Kate’s first novel, TASTE, will be published by <a href="http://crescentmoonpress.com/">Crescent Moon Press</a>! Please join me in congratulating her on this wonderful leap forward in her writing career — and in looking forward eagerly to the day when I can let all of you know that the book is available for sale. It sounds like a great read, too. Take a gander at the blurb: <blockquote> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Kate-Evangelista-author-photo.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Kate-Evangelista-author-photo-229x300.jpg" alt="" title="Kate Evangelista author photo" width="229" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-16522"/></a>At Barinkoff Academy, there’s only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why after she finds herself on school grounds at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threatens to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Yuri has other plans. He pulls Phoenix into the dangerous world of flesh eaters. When her life is turned upside down, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of the ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. She doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Yuri, the more she is plunging them all into a centuries-old coup d’état. </blockquote> Sounds exciting, eh? It also, if you’ll forgive my lapsing into the practical in mid-kudo, an awfully darned good role model for anyone on currently in the process of trying to write a descriptive paragraph for a query or a synopsis, by the way should anyone be interested. Kate’s charming author photo, too, is instructive: she comes across as friendly, interesting, and certainly literate, with all of those shelves in the background. Not to mention the playful gleam in her eye that promises adventure to come. So well done on several fronts, Kate. It’s a genuine pleasure to see a writer who has worked as hard as you have receive recognition, and I, for one, want to read that book. It just goes to show you, campers: it can be done. Keep persevering, everybody — and keep that good news rolling in! Back to the business at hand — or rather, back to the hiatus between the last theory-minded Queryfest posts and the rest of this week’s reader-generated practical examples. (Look for the latter to begin on Wednesday and continue through the end of the year!) After having devoted Sunday’s post to a Christmas-themed parable about the importance of vivid, original details to impressing every querier’s beloved nemesis, Millicent the agency screener, I fully intended to run this companion piece, another anecdote-based lecture on specifics, on Boxing Day. Then the lights went out (again!) but the oven remained operational (post-Christmas cookies!), and I never managed to post this yesterday. I suppose I could just have skipped it and moved on to pragmatic query consideration today, but in case I was too subtle in my last post: just as the threshold between an opening page of a manuscript or book proposal that leaps off the page at a weary-eyed Millicent and one that doesn’t is frequently a turn of phrase, image, or specific that surprises her, the difference between a query that makes a weary-eyed Millicent jerk bolt upright, exclaiming, “Wow! This story/argument/memoir story arc has potential!” and one that leaves her unmoved is sometimes as little as a single, creative detail that she’s never seen before. That’s harder than it sounds to pull off: as I pointed out on Sunday, Millicent — like her boss the agent, the editors to whom the agent pitches clients’ books, the members of the editorial committees to which those editors suggest manuscripts they would like to acquire, and any experienced contest judge — reads a heck of a lot. Not only in general, but in the book category that her boss represents. And aspiring writers, unfortunately for their queries and submissions, often do not have the time, inclination, or the access to what others are writing to be anywhere near that familiar with what Millicent would and would not consider a cliché. Even writers who, bless their warm and literature-loving hearts, routinely improve their professional knowledge by not only keeping up with the new releases in their categories, but also seeking out works by first-time authors of books like theirs in order to see what has pleased the agents and editors who handle them recently, will often remain blissfully unaware that a pet plot twist, character trait, or turn of phrase is not original. To them, it just sounds good. How could they know, poor benighted souls, those particular plot twists, character traits, and turn of phrase have turned up in a good quarter of what crossed Millicent’s desk within the last six months? Admittedly, if any of those things appeared in a recent bestseller in that book category, it’s a safe bet that our Millie will be inundated with them for the next two years — more if a movie version appears. And because so many writers define good writing in a particular category by what sells well — not the only criterion, I think, nor the best — a submitter is often genuinely unaware that his nifty description on page 14 echoes the same nifty description on page 247 of a bestseller, a fact that almost certainly will not be lost upon a well-read Millicent. At least, not after she’s cast her eyes over the 53rd similar submission. Of the week. Of course, not all popular elements are derived from established authors’ works. By some mysterious means known only to the Muses alone, the zeitgeist seems to whisper the same suggestions in thousands of writerly ears simultaneously. So often does this occur, and so lengthy is the lag time between submission to an agency and eventual publication for most first books, that even an extremely conscientious trawler of the latest releases would have a hard time predicting what types of details or story arcs to avoid this year, as opposed to next. What does all of that mean in practice? Well, it’s pretty easy to bore Millicent, for one thing: see the same plot, plot twist, memoir story arc, or descriptive detail 1,700 times in any given year, and you might become a trifle inured to its charms, too. In order for a detail, image, or argument to impress her as original, she genuinely has never to have seen it before — or, more realistically, never have seen it done in that particular way before. Or anywhere near as well. And even then, she has to like it. That doesn’t mean, though, that going completely wacky or waxing surrealistic is necessarily the way to win her literary heart, either. As we have discussed before, publishing pros make a pretty strong distinction between the fresh, an original concept, twist, or voice that’s likely to appeal to an already-established book-buying audience, and the weird, an original concept, twist, or voice that doesn’t really fit comfortably into either the expectations of the book category for which the author is ostensibly writing or the current literary market. A fresh plot, story arc, or phrasing is the polar opposite of one that’s been done (see earlier point about the fate of original twists from bestsellers), or, even worse, is dated. Confused? You’re certainly not alone: due to the market-orientated slant of freshness, a book idea that’s fresh today might well have been done by tomorrow — and will be downright dated a year from now. Complicating things still further, agents and editors will sometimes talk about a fresh take on a well-worn topic. “Okay, Anne,” originality-lovers everywhere cry, scratching their heads. “I’ll bite: is that good, or is that bad? Well, it’s a good question, for starters — but yes, a fresh take is a positive thing. Consider, for the sake of example, the story of the Ugly Duckling. That’s certainly been done a million times, right? Since most YA readers and virtually all literate adults currently buying books on U.S. soil may already be presumed to be familiar with the basic story, it would be hard to surprise any reader, much less one as genre-savvy as Millicent, with the essential plot twist there. But if, for instance, a writer felt that the UD’s turning out to be something completely different and pretty watered down the message of the early part of the tale — what, it would have been perfectly okay for the other poultry to have made fun of an ugly duck who actually was a duck? — and presented essentially the same premise, but had UD possess the ability to foresee that the duck pond was shrinking and lead her waddling brethren and sistern to swampy safety elsewhere, thus winning their respect, that would be a fresh take on a well-worn topic. Oh, you may laugh, but a clever author did in fact create a similar variation on this story that was very successful, both artistically and commercially: it was a little number called THE COLOR PURPLE. Very fresh — in 1982. But do I even need to tell you how many Ugly Duckling variations the Millicents of the mid-eighties saw tumble into their inboxes? As anyone who perused women’s fiction bookshelves regularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s could no down tell you to her sorrow, it was done. Over and over again. And since that essential plotline has been done so many times since, can you imagine how dated the same manuscript would appear if it showed up on Millicent’s desk today? So get your thinking caps on, campers. We’re going to devote the rest of today’s post to learning to walk the fine line between the Scylla of what’s been done and the Charybdis of the weird. But before I launch into the how-to part of our program, allow me to tell you a little story. To set it up for those of you who have not boarded a commercial airliner lately, since the airlines have started charging to check bags, many passengers have simply begun wheeling their bulky suitcases down the center aisle, fighting with one another to find space for them in the overhead bins. During the holidays, this battle royale necessarily entails jostling some passengers’ shopping bags full of presents too delicate or valuable to pack in checked luggage. In the midst of this ongoing conflict between the crammers and the fearful, we join our intrepid memoirist. <blockquote> After my companion and I were seated — he in 18B, your humble narrator in 18C — I felt my chest tighten: the gentleman behind me had evidently bathed that morning in some pepper-based cologne. That, or he was a secret agent for the airline transit authority, testing the viability of toxic scents in knocking nearby passengers senseless. A sympathetic flight attendant told me I could move if I could find an empty seat away from the source of the nerve agent. Having first gobbled down some precautionary antihistamines to ward off an asthma attack, I wiggled my way into the center aisle to begin scouting. Up by row six, a tall woman in cashmere with faux fur cuffs knocked me sideways — right into in the lap of the man in 6C. I repeatedly apologized for treating him like Santa Claus (he didn’t seem to mind much), but I could not budge: the imperious woman was blocking the aisle too thoroughly while searching for a place to stow her immense roll-on luggage in the already crammed overhead bins. A time-conscious flight attendant murmured in her wake, tactfully replacing the shopping bags the passenger was blithely flinging to the floor. “Could you please hurry, ma’am? We can’t close the cabin doors until everyone is seated, and we’re already behind schedule.” Clearly, though, that baggage had to be placed just so. As my assailant made her noisy way down the aisle, I was able to free myself of my human seat cushion and follow, clambering over the flotsam and jetsam the flight attendant could not manage to scoop up. I felt like the caboose in a slow-moving train. By the time I could smell where I was supposed to be parked, the picky passenger had managed to free enough space in the bin above row nineteen to shove her suitcase inside. The flight attendant and I pushed from behind. As I slipped, choking, into my assigned seat, the woman turned to the flight attendant. “Well, that’s a relief. Now you need to switch my seat assignment.” The exhausted flight attendant looked at her blankly. “You’re in 6E.” “Yes,” the woman said testily, “but my bag is back here. I’ll have to wait until everyone else gets off the plane before I can grab it. I need to sit next to it.” Feeling both revolutionary levels of resentment rising off the rest of the passengers and my throat constricting from the cologne fumes, I knew my time had come. I leapt to my feet. “She can have my seat! I don’t mind coming back for my carry-on.” The woman had plopped herself into my seat before the flight attendant could even nod. She thanked no one. The flight attendant propelled me forward to row six before the irritating passenger could change her mind. I gave the five extra bags of pretzels she slipped me to the man who had let me share his lap. </blockquote> Amusing, I hope? Good, but as those of you who have been hanging around Author! Author! for a while had probably already begun suspecting by the end of the first paragraph, I didn’t share that anecdote with you purely for entertainment value, or even to vent. (I thought the other passengers were going to attack the rude lady. She must have delayed our departure by 15 minutes.) No, I’ve included this story here because it has an editing problem — several, actually. Any guesses? Hands up if you think it is too long. Is the action/narrative ratio off? Do you think a swifter telling would have allowed the comedy inherent in the situation to come out more clearly, or would you have liked to see more internal reaction from the narrator? Which is right? Well, it depends upon what kind of narrative the author is creating — and where the scene is going. In a memoir, the reader expects the narrator’s character to be revealed through her reactions to the events around her, so I might well want to ramp that up. Getting out of the narrator’s head and into her body might be a good place to start: I felt my chest tighten is a strong detail in that respect; it makes the same point as I began to worry, but does so by showing how the emotion manifested, rather than just naming it. Oh, hadn’t I mentioned lately that most of the memoir Millicent has been seeing lately seldom mentions a reaction occurring below the narrator’s neck? I guess one has to read an awful lot of memoir manuscripts to know about that. While showing, rather than the dreaded telling, is good strategy in many kinds of writing, there honestly isn’t a one-size-fits-all revision strategy for fiction. How a savvy writer might go about showing what’s going on in the scene above and what kind of details might make the piece sing would vary. In a romance, for instance, the reader would probably want a slightly different focus, perhaps showing my companion’s dismay at being first left alone, then saddled with another seatmate, or more complex interactions with the gentleman with the lap. So the smart specifics to add here would illustrate the relationship between the narrator and her companion: he could make an ineffectual grab after her as she flees the cologne, for instance, or try to convince Santa to switch seats with him, so the pair could travel together. If, by contrast, this is a scene intended for a thriller, and the reader has some reason to suspect that one of the passengers on the plane is carrying something lethal, this semi-amusing bit of business might merely be a means of prolonging the suspense, right? In that instance, I would want to edit to speed up this scene, so Millicent would not become impatient at a too-lengthy digression. Or I would have the protagonist spy another character doing something odd out of a corner of her eye, allowing the reader the fun of speculating whether the obnoxious woman was some sort of decoy, creating an intentional distraction from the real threat. If I really wanted to ratchet up the danger, our heroine could feel something cold and hard beneath her after she tumbled into Santa’s lap: a gun? Or, to surprise Millicent more, how about a titanium leg that can receive radio signals? The possibilities are legion, right? Many self-editors, though, as well as a hefty percentage of writers’ group critiquers, would not take intended book category into account when making decisions crucial to revising this scene. All too often, short and terse is deemed appropriate for any type of book. But it doesn’t always work, because — wait, I’m going to let you see why for yourself. Here’s that scene again, winnowed down to a just-the-facts-ma’am telling. This, too, is a style Millie sees quite often in memoir submissions. <blockquote> After my companion and I reached our seats, I felt my chest tighten: the guy behind me reeked of cologne. I waved down a flight attendant to ask if I could change seats, and she said yes, but she was too busy to find one for me. I gobbled down some precautionary antihistamines to ward off an asthma attack and began scouting. A woman shoved me into some guy’s lap in row six. She was trying to find an overhead bin to stow her luggage, but the ones near her seat were already crammed. The flight attendant kept urging her to hurry, since the plane couldn’t start taxiing until everyone was seated. I remained trapped in the guy’s lap until the woman had exhausted all of the possibilities near her seat and moved up the aisle, with the flight attendant replacing the items she had displaced. The woman finally found enough space for her bag above row nineteen, just behind me. But before I could buckle myself in, the woman demanded to sit near her bag, rather than in her assigned seat. The passenger and flight attendant had a small argument about it, causing the other fliers to express resentment. I offered to switch seats with her, in order to solve both of our problems. The flight attendant gave me extra pretzels; I shared them with the guy whose lap I had previously occupied. </blockquote> Not a very effective editing job, is it? It’s precisely the same story, true, but most of its charm has evaporated. Any guesses why? If you immediately shot your hand into the air, exclaiming, “The humorous voice is gone!” lower that hand 18 inches and pat yourself on the back with it. Very, very frequently, insecure self-editors will sacrifice narrative voice to pace, resulting in the kind of tale you see above. But one of the main selling points a writer has for an agent or editor is freshness of voice! If it’s largely edited out, how is Millicent to know that this is a writer with an interesting and unique worldview? If, on the other hand, you cried out, “In this version, the reader doesn’t really learn much about who these characters are or why this incident is important. It’s just a flat description of events,” you also deserve a pat on the back, because that’s also true. Characterization is a very frequent casualty of the revision process, because, well, it takes up room on the page. I’m reserving today’s gold star, though, for those of you who noticed both of these problems, yet pointed out, “Hey, Anne, both of these examples share a flaw I’d like to see fixed: what are any of these people like? Admittedly, the second example exhibits much weaker characterization than the first, but most of these characters are one-note: the pushy passenger is rude, the flight attendant harried, and the guy with the lap — well, let’s just say that I couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup, based upon this account. I’d find this story both more enjoyable and more plausible if the narrative showed them more. In fact, isn’t this a show, don’t tell problem?” Wow, that’s one well-earned gold star. Both versions are indeed light in the characterization department. Some lovers of terseness out there find that diagnosis a bit dismaying, I sense. “But Anne,” they protest, struggling manfully to keep their commentary brief, “isn’t the usual goal of editing to cut out what doesn’t work? You admitted above that the original anecdote was a little long — won’t adding characterization just make it longer?” Not necessarily — if the characterization is achieved not through analysis or lengthy descriptions, but through the inclusion of vivid, unexpected details and interesting phrasing. Such as: <blockquote> The lanky woman seemed barely muscular enough to drag her leopard-print suitcase behind her, yet she surged up the aisle, flinging open every single overhead compartment on both sides as she passed. A small child bashed in the head by a pink umbrella moaned in her wake. The flight attendant leapt to keep the morass of holiday gifts, rolled-up winter coats, and overpacked suitcases from tumbling onto the passengers who had arranged their carry-ons so carefully just minutes before, but to no avail. Within moments, rows seven through twelve resembled a picked-over bargain bin at a thrift store. “Could you please hurry, ma’am?” she kept murmuring after every slam and between bites on her regulation pink-frosted lips. The first-class flight attendant was wearing the same color. “We can’t close the cabin doors until everyone is seated, and we’re already behind schedule.” Thirteen sets of hanging doors later, the woman shoved aside a red shopping bag to make room for her carry-on. I helped the flight attendant wrestle the last three compartments shut before both of us provided the necessary muscle to inter the leopard. She did not thank us. </blockquote> Obviously, these three paragraphs are not an adequate substitute for the entire story, but see what I have done here? The details provide characterization that neither the first version’s narrative reactions nor the second’s series of events showed the reader. In this third version, however, the reader is neither left to fill in the specifics — something a time-strapped Millicent is unlikely to do — nor expected to guess what conclusions the author wants her to draw from these actions. The details make it perfectly plain that the lanky woman could not care less about anybody else’s comfort, feelings, or even rights: leaving those bin doors open behind her for the flight attendant and another passenger to close shows the reader what kind of person she is, just as the specifics about the volume of the luggage and the uniform lipstick, contrasted with the flight attendant’s consistent politeness, illustrate her dilemma, and the narrator’s automatically pitching in to help demonstrates her approach to the world. Vivid details are the gem-like tiny touches so beloved of editors everywhere, the telling little tidbits that illuminate character and moment in an indirect manner. The frequency with which such details appear in a manuscript is often one of the primary factors professional readers use in determining whether to keep reading — and if such unusual specifics are incorporated skillfully into a query’s book description, they often prompt a request for pages. Why? Well, more than almost any other device, they give the reader insight into the author’s worldview. Sound like too amorphous a concept to be useful at revision time — or query-writing time, for that matter? It isn’t. A good writer sees the world around her with unique eyes, and — ideally, at least — powers of observation heightened to an extent that many non-writers would actually find painful. This requires pretty sensitive nervous tissue, as H.G. Wells pointed out. He liked to call writers Aeolian harps (that’s a fancy way of saying wind chime, in case you were wondering), responding to our perceptions of the world through our art and, he hoped, making it better in the process. Wells is now best-known for his science fiction, of course, but in his lifetime, many of his most popular novels were about social interactions. As I mentioned back on Veterans’ Day, his <a href="â€http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Britling-Sees-Through-Well/dp/B000K7HJ0W/ref=sr_1_2/002-2619432-3551227?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175997771&sr=8-2â€">Mr. Britling Sees It Through</a> was considered at the time THE definitive work on the British home front during the First World War. My favorite of his social novels is <a href="â€http://www.amazon.com/Wife-Sir-Isaac-Harman/dp/1417911697/ref=sr_1_2/002-2619432-3551227?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175997850&sr=1-2â€">The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman</a>, a comedy about marriage and the establishment of decent, affordable apartment buildings for young working women. Okay, so his political beliefs were not particularly well-hidden in his social novels. Neither was his evident belief that the primary purpose of female intellectual development was for those pesky women with brains to make themselves more attractive to men with brains. But his eye for social nuance — and social comedy — was exceptionally good. The tiny little details that our sensitive nervous tissue lead us to notice — the way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea, as the song says — are a large part of what makes great writing seem almost miraculous to readers. Not everyone notices the worn-down heel of the left shoe of the man in his interview suit, after all, or the way the eyes of the president of the local charitable organization occasionally glaze with hatred while her mouth is loading the members with drippingly complimentary gushings. Feeling special yet? You should: being aware of these details is a gift, after all, a sharpness of eye with which not very many human beings are endowed. Yet most writers don’t rely upon it nearly heavily enough in constructing their narratives — and still less in their queries. And to someone whose job it is to read manuscripts all day, every day, seeing that gift wasted can start to get pretty annoying. “Where are those delightfully unexpected little insights?” the Millicents of the world think, running their fingertips impatiently down page 1. “Where is the evidence that this writer sees the world in a way that will change the way I see it myself?” A tall order, yes, but — wait, do I hear some cries of distress out there? “Did you just say,” a strangled voice asks, “page ONE? As in my manuscript should produce evidence of my unique worldview and uncanny eye for telling little details that early in my book? Can’t I, you know, warm up a little?” Great question, strangled voice. The answer is yes, if you want to make absolutely certain that an agency screener will read PAST the first page. (If you doubt this, please take a gander at the HOW NOT TO WRITE A FIRST PAGE category on the archive list at right. It’s a series on reasons that agents report for not reading past page 1, a pretty sobering group of posts.) And to anticipate your next cri de coeur, yes, you should make an effort to provide such evidence in the book description section of your query, for the exceedingly simple reason that at most agencies, that’s all the page space you have to convince Millicent that her boss needs to read your manuscript. Some of you submitters may find the necessity for cajoling reading more than a few paragraphs from people who, after all, asked you to send a chapter or 50 pages or your entire book. If you’re a novelist, it can be especially galling: presumably, if your forté as a writer were brilliant single-page stories, you would be entering short-short competitions, not writing 400-page books, right? Believe me, I’m sympathetic to this view. If I ran the universe, agents and editors would be granted an entire extra day or two per week over and above the seven allocated to ordinary mortals, so they could read at least 10 pages into every submission they request. Writers would get an extra day, too, and lots of paid vacation time, so we could polish our work to our entire satisfaction before we sent it out. And Santa Claus would tumble down my chimney to shower me with presents every day of the year, instead of just one. Unfortunately, I believe I have mentioned before, I do not run the universe. If we writers want to be successful, it behooves us to recognize that queries and submissions are often read very, very quickly, and adapt our first few pages — and our queries — to that reality. Sorry to be the one to break that to you. But before you condemn the rigors of the industry too vigorously, take a moment to consider the conditions that might lead to someone at an agency or publishing house to conclude that it would be desirable, or even necessary, to give a requested manuscript only a page — in a manuscript or in a query — to establish the author’s brilliance. Lest we forget, Millicent can sometimes be the world’s most impatient reader. While some screeners and agents are looking to be wowed, Millie is in a rush to get out the door; she’s put off her lunch date three times already this week, because she had to work through lunch, and she’s not going to miss it again. It is now 12:10, she’s just noticed a run in her tights, and your manuscript is the next in the pile. How easy do you think it is going to be for it to impress her into reading past page 1? I bring up Millicent’s foul mood not to scare you — but since a writer has absolutely no control over the mood of the person deciding whether to accept or reject his manuscript, it is worth preparing your submission so that it would impress EVEN Millicent at her most frustrated. That’s just good submission strategy. It’s also good querying strategy. Assume a bored Millicent longing to be startled out of her malaise by an exciting detail, and you’re halfway to perking up your query. I hear some of you huffing, but pause to spare some sympathy for the Millicents of the agenting world, as well as Maury, the editorial assistant who is her equivalent in publishing houses. They are expected to read reams and reams of paper very, very fast — and for this Herculean effort, they are not necessarily always paid. Often, in this harsh economy, this work is assigned to interns. If it’s the summertime, Millicent is probably on break from a good Northeastern college, someplace like Barnard, and since her parents can afford to support her while she takes an unpaid but résumé-building job, she’s probably from an upper-middle class background. If it’s the rest of the year, or she has already graduated, she is probably paid — poorly — and lives in an apartment the size of a postage stamp with four other young people with similar jobs. Millie would not have gone into this line of work had she not liked reading — in fact, she may have writing aspirations herself, or she may want to become an agent or editor, so taking a job screening queries and submissions seemed like dandy on-the-job training at the time. But now, after weeks on end of seeing hundreds upon hundreds of rather similar storylines, her capacity for appreciating literature has markedly dimmed. Sometimes, when she is especially cranky, a single line of awkward dialogue or two lines free of conflict can make her feel downright oppressed. And your manuscript will have to get past Millie, and often also a senior assistant who has been screening manuscripts for even longer and has an even shorter boredom fuse, before it lands on the agent’s desk. Still think it’s a good idea bore her, as long as your writing is strong enough? What if, as occasionally happens, your manuscript is the next on her list to read immediately after she has broken up with her loutish boyfriend, she twisted her ankle clambering up from the subway, or she’s wondering how she’s going to pay the rent? And if poor Millie has just burned her lip on her non-fat double-shot tall latté — well, let’s just say that the first few pages of your manuscript had best be tight. And your query had better be fascinating. And either should feature at least a few delightful little details that will make Millicent sit up, forgetting her bright magenta lip, and cry, “Eureka! This writer showed me something I’ve never seen before, presented in magnificent, clear prose! Forget my lunch date — I have something to READ!” The miracle of talent, as Mme. de Staël tells us, is the ability to knock the reader out of his own egoism. Let the first example an agent sees of your writing be living proof of that. I think you have it in you; that gift of insight is what made you want to write in the first place, isn’t it? Don’t let the difficulties of the querying and submission processed dim that mission. Millicent, and readers everywhere, will be the better for the originality of your insight. Oh, and do make an effort to share those overhead bins; you never know when the guy upon whom cast-off luggage tumbles will turn out to be Millicent’s brother. Although that’s an ending to an Ugly Duckling story she’ll never see coming. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-3653" class="post-3653 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-annes-favorite-posts category-art-of-revision category-autobiographical-fiction category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-building-suspense category-but-it-really-happened-that-way category-character-and-conflict-development-in-memoir category-character-development-in-memoir category-character-development-tips category-character-revealing-dialogue category-clarifying-your-voice category-cliche-avoidance category-common-rejection-triggers category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-creating-sufficiently-odious-antagonists category-dialogue-that-adds-to-the-scene category-dialogue-that-rings-true category-editing-dialogue category-editing-for-freshness category-editing-for-style category-editing-for-voice category-editing-memoir category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-lines-famous-and-otherwise category-first-pages-that-grab category-frankenstein-manuscripts category-frankenstein-voice-and-punctuation-issues category-freshness-in-manuscripts category-freshness-on-page-1 category-genre-fiction category-genres-and-their-conventions category-good-writing-habits-to-form category-helpful-habits-for-writers category-how-not-to-write-a-first-line-of-a-manuscript category-humor-in-memoir category-is-my-manuscript-dated category-literary-fiction-craft category-literary-fiction-voice category-memoir-contest-entries category-memoir-craft-and-marketing category-memoir-openings-and-structure category-narrative-consistency category-nonfiction-technique category-originality-in-manuscripts category-present-tense-narratives category-proofreading category-real-stories-told-as-fiction category-realistic-dialogue category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-rejection-on-page-1 category-rejection-when-they-dont-tell-you-why category-revision-tips category-show-dont-tell category-showing-not-telling-character category-suspense-building category-tense-switching category-the-little-things-that-drive-the-pros-nuts category-vivid-details category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-why-sounding-like-your-favorite-author-from-a-decade-ago-might-not-work-well-now category-why-what-worked-in-the-19th-century-might-not-work-on-the-page-today category-writing-cliches category-writing-memoir category-writing-the-real"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/12/25/bringing-those-unbelievable-stories-to-life-on-the-page-or-well-mannered-camel-seeks-wiser-man-32/realistic-expectations-for-writers/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2011-12-25T00:00:00+00:00">December 25, 2011</time><time class="updated" datetime="2017-01-19T06:35:54+00:00">January 19, 2017</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/12/25/bringing-those-unbelievable-stories-to-life-on-the-page-or-well-mannered-camel-seeks-wiser-man-32/realistic-expectations-for-writers/#respond">No Comments on Bringing those unbelievable stories to life on the page, or, well-mannered camel seeks wiser man</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/12/25/bringing-those-unbelievable-stories-to-life-on-the-page-or-well-mannered-camel-seeks-wiser-man-32/realistic-expectations-for-writers/" rel="bookmark">Bringing those unbelievable stories to life on the page, or, well-mannered camel seeks wiser man</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Xmas-tree-close-up.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Xmas-tree-close-up-768x1024.jpg" alt="" title="Xmas tree close-up" width="512" height="683" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-16514"/></a> It’s Christmas Day, campers, but my tree has gone dark: the electricity has been out for the last two hours. The local authorities claim that gigantic boom we all heard around noon resulted from a frantic windstorm’s having taken out a transformer. A less literary-minded analyst might take this story at face value. You can’t fool me, though. This is obviously Phase I of the Grinch’s most recent plan to steal Christmas. Either that, or the Great Celestial Plotmaster(s) have been reading a lot of classic mystery lately. The day has all the hallmarks of the genre: while stoplight at the top of the hill’s being on the blink (or, rather, uncharacteristically not being on the blink) is admittedly the kind of thoughtfully-selected, pragmatic detail that makes a fictional world spring to life on the page, my brunch guests’ finding themselves plunged into darkness — or as close to darkness as a deep gray Seattle afternoon will permit — must hardly have come as a surprise to those familiar with the genre. I’ll bet you saw it coming the proverbial mile away. What’s next, a cat leaping out of nowhere to startle us at a suspenseful moment? I mean, really: all of the characters are gathered in one place, and the lights go out? Even the Agatha Christie-impaired around the table immediately began making nervous jokes about which one of us was about to meet a grisly fate. That’s why, in case any of you have been wondering since last spring’s foray into editorial pet peeves and how to avoid them, I tend to urge savvy revisers not only to scan their manuscripts for places where summary statements (such as All the lights went out could be productively replaced with character- or situation-revealing details (In the middle of the soup course, the chandelier suddenly gave up on emitting light. Even the stoplight at the corner had ceased blinking annoyingly in Montel’s peripheral vision. The butler fumbled in the sideboard for matches.), but for opportunities to surprise and delight the reader with unexpected specifics (In the middle of the soup course — a clear, sherry-laced leek broth with a jaunty dollop of crème fraîche floating gaily on top — the dusty chandelier suddenly gave up on its losing battle to shed light on the table. Even the stoplight at the corner had ceased blinking annoyingly in Montel’s peripheral vision. Startled, he knocked his shrimp fork onto a passing cat.). My, but that was a long sentence. Somewhere in the literary stratosphere, the late Henry James must be chortling over his holiday goose, muttering to Edith Wharton, “They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore.” “Too few semicolons for my taste,” Edith replies. “And watch your elbow: if you knock the figgy pudding over, you are sure to set the tablecloth on fire.” My point, should any of you by some remote chance have lost sight of it in the midst of all that frenetic activity, is that while every type of book — and certainly every genre of fiction — has its own conventions, tropes, and characterization expectations, word for word, a writer is going to get substantially more expressive mileage out of a creative telling deal than one that any inveterate reader of that book category could guess. Or even, if it’s a common enough element, add subconsciously to the scene if it does not appear on the page. Oh, when you read that second description of the lights going out, you didn’t murmur, “I bet the butler did it,” before your eyes passed the parenthesis at the end of the example? Yes, Millicent the agency screener is encouraged — indeed, is often explicitly trained — to be on the look-out for manuscripts that read like, well, books in their chosen categories, and yes, each book category, particularly each genre fiction category, has its own recognized and recognizable plot twists, plot lines, stock characters, and, yes, types of details. Because agents specialize in particular types of book, as well as certain types of voices — a fact well worth bearing in mind when selecting which agents to query — it does tend to be to a writer’s advantage at submission time if the manuscript fulfills category-specific expectations. (That’s as true in a query’s descriptive paragraph as in a submission’s first few pages, by the way: if the text doesn’t sound as though it would fit comfortably within the manuscript’s chosen book category, it will usually be rejected.) Let’s face it, though, the line between making your text read like it belongs shelved with others like it and like a cliché fest can sometimes be pretty thin. Many an aspiring writer believes, mistakenly, that producing a pale replica of a famous author’s writing is a better way to win friends and influence people at an agency than to come up with something more original. Or, even more mistakenly, does not become familiar enough with what’s currently being published in that book category to be aware what conventions would now strike someone who deals with those manuscripts for a living as passé. To put it another way: when was the last time you read a mystery in which the butler actually did it? The result, unfortunately, is that our poor Millicent tends to see the same types of specific — as well as the same plot twists, character types, and even phrasing — over and over and over again. When you consider the sheer volume of stories within the same category any agent successful in selling such books receives in any given year, that’s hardly astonishing. The trouble is, most submitters remain woefully in the dark (and not because the lights went out) about how such elements are likely to be received at an agency. Good writing in a particular book category is good writing, right? Sheer repetition has made Millicent believe otherwise, alas — but honestly, it’s hard to blame her for feeling that way. What might strike Writer A as requisite for that genre is frequently precisely what Writer B considers an homage to a classic and what Writer C will decide to drop in as a humorous riff on a cliché. And that’s not even counting what Writers D-F will honestly believe is original, but is actually a subconscious lifting of material or phrasing from an admired book. “Oh, come on,” Millicent mutters, scalding her lip on that too-hot latte she forgot in her annoyance she had set aside to cool. “Does this writer honestly think that someone who reads as much as I do can possibly read an opening line like Yesterday, I fantasized that I returned to Ottawa without Daphne du Maurier’s REBECCA springing to mind? Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again is arguably the most famous first line in the genre!” Wondering why I am bringing all of this up in the midst of a series on querying? Well, several reasons. First, I wasn’t going to post today at all, but as my guests went home when the soup got cold, I had a bit of extra time on my hands. I also had a charged-up laptop, as it happens, so clearly, this is kismet. Especially as I had a holiday-themed anecdote I had been itching to recycle, anyway. I could have worked it into a series of queries, but hey, it’s a holiday — I thought everyone might enjoy a little break from our two solid months of query consideration. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing that those of you devoted enough to your writing to be checking in at Author! Author! today might be more seriously interested in a discussion of craft than your garden-variety casual Internet browser. Either that, or you might be trying to avoid your nearest and dearest. I’m happy to help you do that, too. So gather close to the Yule log, campers, and let me spin my tale. As you read, try to think like Millicent: does the narrative contain enough specifics to provide all of the characterization needed? Does it occasionally stumble into the realm of cliché? While you’re at it, why not embrace the chance to embrace the Author! Author! tradition of trying to figure out what editorial tweaks could improve the story? <blockquote> Curly the camel, Moe the donkey, and, to mix Christmas traditions as thoroughly as possible, Donner the reindeer have been on tour together, strip mall manger scene after strip mall manger scene, since they were just small, furry refugees from the petting zoo where they were born. Despite their years of entertainment experience, my local nursery — plants, not animals — plasters the six-foot wire fence around their enclosure with warnings to wreath-buying patrons about keeping their fingers, gloves, hat pom-poms, scarf tassels, and bundled-up infants away from Curly’s long reach, Moe’s strong teeth, and Donner’s oddly-shaped antlers. They also, somewhat less emphatically, erect a sign informing dog-owners that crèche livestock are not, to put it mildly, best friends with man’s best friend. Since dogs cannot, unfortunately, read and many leash-tugging owners apparently do not, poor Curly frequently thrusts himself between some yapping visitor and his hoofed friends. Nearby, nursery personnel visibly restrain themselves from shouting, “Hey, can’t you read?” On the whole, though, human behavior seemed to leave the trio unfazed. Scores of children flung hay at them, bellowing, “Hey, Reindeer!” — or “Hey, Dog,” from those who had never seen a miniature donkey before or were confused by the ambient barking. The trio just stood there, blinking slowly, eyes glazed. Most of the time, the parents would intervene before the children grew too frustrated with their passivity and rushed the pens. One small pink-clad screamer simply would not leave the animals alone, however. She kicked at the metal fencing, screaming words I was a surprised a kindergartener would be able to use correctly in a sentence, or, indeed, incorporate into her everyday vocabulary without getting expelled. When she picked up a rock, I wandered over to the fence to distract her with a hastily-constructed fairy tale about our barnyard friends. And camels. Almost immediately, a bulbous man in shorts and a t-shirt materialized by my side. Despite ambient cold that left our breath visible, his exposed arms and legs were not even goose-bumped. “Come over here,” he barked at the little girl, dragging her along the fence until they were directly in front of Curly. Was he going to make her apologize to the camel? Curly did not seem to be expecting it, but perhaps his furry friends would appreciate the gesture. Releasing the quivering child, the man — whose clothing, I noticed, was emblazoned with advertisements for a local band and Nike, respectively, not the nursery — reached up and over the chain-link fence, snapping his fingers. Placidly, Curly dipped his head, extending his hyper-mobile lips toward the hand. </blockquote> Curious to hear what happened next, aren’t you? That’s a good indicator that a scene is paced well. See how selecting those details carefully, as well as not over-burdening the text with explanations, can increase suspense while simultaneously moving the plot along? So why, I ask you, would our old pal Millicent, have stopped reading part-way through paragraph #3? Because, I assure you, most would have: one of her most notorious pet peeves has reared its ugly head here. If you pointed out that the narration switched tenses between the second and third paragraphs, congratulations! Paragraphs Nos. 1 and 2 are in the present tense; paragraph #3 is in the past. Submissions and contest entries do that all the time; so do, believe it or not, descriptive paragraphs in query letters. Sometimes, they even switch back to the original tense later in the text, or vacillate from sentence to sentence. Already, I can spot some raised hands out there. “But Anne,” adherents of variable tenses point out, and with some reason, “Paragraphs #1 and #2 describe ongoing conditions, while paragraph #3 on focuses upon one-time events. Doesn’t that mean that the tense choices here are appropriate, or at least defensible?” Good question, lovers of the present tense. Professional readers — agents, editors, contest judges, writing teachers, etc. — are trained to spot redundancies in a manuscript. They’re also taught to leap upon inconsistencies. In other words, Millicent is likely to assume that the change of tense is not the result of well thought-out authorial choice, but simply a mistake that did not get caught in the proofreading process — or, if this were a descriptive paragraph in a query, the after-effects of an incomplete merger of two different versions, one in the present tense and one in the past. Why might that make her stop reading altogether? Like other commonly-made errors, the tense inconsistency may well jar her out of the flow of the story. Next! You habitual tense-switchers are not particularly happy with that answer, are you? “Okay, so she’s detail-oriented, but this isn’t a writing mistake; this is a stylistic choice. So why would Millicent be annoyed by it?” On its face, your logic is pretty sound, tense-switchers: it would indeed be possible, within the context of a civil conversation between author and reader, to justify the tense choices in the example above. A writer might ostensibly win an argument with, say, a writing teacher, critique group, or even an editor about keeping the switch in the text. But that doesn’t mean it would be a good idea to submit pages with tense inconsistencies to Millicent — or to her aunt Mehitabel the contest judge, for that matter. Why, you ask? Long-time readers of this blog, chant it with me now: because the writer is seldom present when an agency screener, editorial assistant, or contest judge encounters his manuscript for the first time. Successful manuscripts, queries, synopses, and contest entries are thus those that do not require additional verbal explanation. So even if the writer is technically correct, if a tense switch seems unjustified to Millicent — if it appears to be, say, an incomplete revision between a manuscript originally in the present tense and a subsequent draft in the past, or vice-versa — that’s usually the ball game. So why risk it? Especially when, as in this case, making the tense consistent does not detract at all from either the meaning or the voice of the section. Lookee: <blockquote> Curly the camel, Moe the donkey, and, to mix Christmas traditions as thoroughly as possible, Donner the reindeer had been on tour together, strip mall manger scene after strip mall manger scene, since they were just small, furry refugees from the petting zoo where they were born. Despite their years of entertainment experience, my local nursery — plants, not animals — plastered the six-foot wire fence around their enclosure with warnings to wreath-buying patrons about keeping their fingers, gloves, hat pom-poms, scarf tassels, and bundled-up infants away from Curly’s long reach, Moe’s strong teeth, and Donner’s oddly-shaped antlers. They also, somewhat less emphatically, erected a sign informing dog-owners that crèche livestock are not, to put it mildly, best friends with man’s best friend. Since dogs cannot, unfortunately, read and many leash-tugging owners apparently would not, poor Curly frequently thrust himself between some yapping visitor and his hoofed friends. Nearby, nursery personnel visibly restrained themselves from shouting, “Hey, can’t you read?” On the whole, though, human behavior seemed to leave the trio unfazed. Scores of children flung hay at them, bellowing, “Hey, Reindeer!” — or “Hey, Dog,” from those who had never seen a miniature donkey before or were confused by the ambient barking. The trio just stood there, blinking slowly, eyes glazed. Most of the time, the parents would intervene before the children grew too frustrated with their passivity and rushed the pens. </blockquote> That’s as painless a revision as you’re ever likely to encounter, folks, by see how big a difference it makes to the text? All it requires is a good proofreading eye and a willingness to view the story from Millicent’s perspective, not the writer’s. (The latter, after all, is already familiar with the storyline.) And need I even add that this variety of inconsistency is easiest to catch if one reads one’s submission or contest entry IN HARD COPY, IN ITS ENTIRETY, and OUT LOUD? I thought not. Let’s move on with the story, to see if we can catch any other Millicent-displeasers. <blockquote> Delicately, politely, as if he were extracting an egg from beneath a mother hen, Curly took the man’s fingers into his gargantuan mouth. The hand did not budge. The camel paused meditatively for a few seconds, tasting, then sucked the hand into his mouth up to the elbow, dragging the man up to his tiptoes. Instinctively, I took a step toward the child. If the object lesson about the dangers of violating animals’ personal space was about to go horribly awry, the least I could do was shield her from seeing the bloody denouement. The man waved me back with his free hand. “See, Tanya?” he told the saucer-eyed girl. “They like people. If you treat them nicely, they’ll treat you nicely.” “That’s right, sweetie,” a stringy-haired woman called from the nearby wreath display. “Be nice to the animals, and they’ll never hurt you.” “You just have to learn what they like.” A helpful bystander kicked a tall crate toward the man’s feet, so he could follow his arm skyward. “Camels love sucking on things.” Mentally, I began taking notes, in preparation for my inevitable testimony in a court of law. “I think she’s got the point. Maybe it’s time to back off now?” </blockquote> Okay, what’s the problem this time? Hint: it’s even harder to catch than the last. No? What about all of that redundancy in the dialogue? That made some of you do a double-take, didn’t it? “But Anne,” several exclaim, “that’s how people talk in real life! You’re not gearing up to tell us that Millicent finds realistic dialogue annoying, are you?” Um, sort of. At least the parts of real-life speech that are redundant. Or not germane to what’s going on. Or just plain boring. Which is to say, as any close listener to everyday speech would happily tell you, most of it. Oh, how often writers forget that real-life dialogue generally does not reproduce well on the page! If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard a writer say, “But s/he really said that!” or “But that’s what people really sound like!” I would buy my own Caribbean island and send my entire readers on free writing retreats. “But Anne,” I hear some of you protest, “isn’t that pretty self-evident? Just as absolutely faithful recreations of real-life events often don’t translate well into fiction, neither does most dialogue. Am I missing an additional nuance here?” Perhaps one: aspiring writers are also apt to forget that real-life dialogue is seldom character-revealing — and thus reproducing it in a manuscript will often not convey as much about a character as we sometimes expect. Take, for instance, the oh-so-common writerly habit of placing the speeches of an annoying co-worker, relative, ex-lover, nasty dental receptionist, etc. into fictional mouth of a minor novel character as a passive-aggressive form of revenge. Come on, every writer’s at least thought about it. To a professional reader, the very plausibility of this type dialogue often labels it as lifted from real life: <blockquote> “Oh, wait a minute, Sarah.” Pausing in mid-gossip, Theresa picked up the overturned plastic cup before anyone else could step on it, placing it neatly on the dining hall checker’s desk. Dina the checker glared at it as if it was covered in baboon’s spit. “Don’t you dare leave your trash on my desk. Do you think I have nothing to do but clean up your messes?” “It was on the floor,” Theresa stammered awkwardly. “Don’t you give me your excuses.” Dina grew large in her seat, like a bullfrog about to emit a great big ribbet. “You walk that right over to the trash can. Now, missy.” “I thought you had dropped it.” “Go!” “I’ll save you a seat,” Sarah offered, embarrassed. Inwardly seething and repenting of her Good Samaritanism, Theresa obediently gave up her place in the block-long lunch line in order to take the walk of shame to the garbage receptacles on the far end of the dining hall. How quickly a good mood could evaporate! </blockquote> Tell me: what about this scene would tip off Millicent that this really happened, and that Dina is a character, if not from Christmas Past, at least ripped from the writer’s actual experience? And why would her being able to tell this be a liability? Why, in fact, would Millicent be surprised if Dina never showed later in the book any side other than the touchy one displayed here — or, indeed, if she never appeared again? Actually, that was a set of trick questions. The answer to each part is the same: because the narrative doesn’t provide enough motivation for the intensity of Dina’s response. Fairly clearly, the writer doesn’t think that any such explanation is necessary. That’s usually an indication that the writer has a fully-formed mental image (negative, in this case) of the villain in question — something that Millicent, by definition, would not walk into the scene possessing. Nor would any other reader who was neither there when the incident occurred nor had heard the author complain vociferously about it. In other words, what we have here is a rather subtle manifestation of the telling, rather than showing phenomenon. Because the writer experienced this exchange as nasty because Dina was nasty, she has assumed that the reader will perceive it that way as well. But without more character development for Dina — or indeed, some indication of whether this kind of insistence was typical for her — the reader isn’t really getting enough information to draw that conclusion. Or any other, for that matter. It’s just an anecdote. Yet most self-editing writers, especially those who happen to be writing memoir, wouldn’t notice this narrative lack. Any guesses why? If you immediately shouted that it was due to the fact that his memory of Dina the real person is so strong, help yourself to four peppermint cookies from the holiday table. In the writer’s mind, her character is so well established that he can just write about her, rather than helping the reader get to know her. The other tip-off that this was a real exchange is that Theresa is presented as a completely innocent victim of an unprovoked attack. The pure villain vs. completely blameless protagonist is a dead giveaway that dear self is concerned. And yes, I WAS darned annoyed when Dina — in real life, a very nice woman named Ellen who happened to be having a spectacularly bad day — misinterpreted my act of good citizenship. If I crave well-deserved vindication from the total strangers who might conceivably read this story, however, it’s incumbent upon me to do quite a bit more character development. Not to mention integrating the incident into the storyline well enough that it’s actually interesting to read. Of course, we want to be true-to-life in our dialogue: as Virginia Woolf tells us, “fiction must stick to the facts, and the truer the facts, the better the fiction.” But let’s not forget that in order to maintain a reader’s interest, a book has to have entertainment value, too — and that however amusing a verbal tic might be in person, repetition is often annoying in on the page. This is especially true when a character is tired, angry, or in pain, I notice: all of a sudden, the dialogue sounds as though all of the characters are trapped in one of those interminable Samuel Beckett plays where the people are doomed to move immense piles of sand from one end of the stage to the other with teaspoons. See if this dialogue sounds familiar, theatre-goers: <blockquote>A: “Oh. You’re home.”</blockquote> B: (nursing the thumb the elephant trod upon in the last scene) “Yeah.” A: “Have a nice day?” B: “Um-hm.” A: “I was cleaning out the attic today, and I came across that picnic blanket we used when we went out to Goat’s Rock Beach to scatter Father’s ashes. How it rained that day, and then the sun broke out as if Father and God had joined forces to drag the clouds aside to smile upon our picnic.” B: “Yeah. “ A: “Ham sound good for dinner?” B: “Yeah.” A good third of the dialogue Millicent sees runs approximately like this, I tremble to report. Understand now why she might become just a tad touchy at the sight of dialogue that provides neither character development nor moves the plot along? As a general rule of thumb — sore or otherwise — I like to flag any piece of dialogue that contains more than one use of yeah, really, yes, no, uh-huh, or, often, um. Almost invariably, these are an indication that the dialogue could either be tightened considerably or needs to be pepped up. Similarly, anyway and however in dialogue are pretty reliable flares, indicating that the speaker has gotten off-topic and is trying to regain his point — thus warning the manuscript reviser that perhaps this dialogue could be tightened so that it stays ON point. My fictional characters tend to be chatty (dialogue is action, right?), and I was once taken to task for it by a fairly well-known author of short stories. She had just managed to crank out her first novella — 48 pages typeset, so possibly 70 in standard manuscript format — so perhaps unsurprisingly, she found my style a trifle generous with words. “Only show the dialogue that is absolutely necessary,” she advised me, “and is character-revealing.” Hard to argue with that, eh? Yet, like most writers receiving critical feedback, I fought it at first. Since the dialogue in my advisor’s published works has seldom, if ever, strayed beyond three lines, regardless of situation or character, I was not particularly inclined to heed this advice — have you noticed how often it’s true that established writers with little or no teaching background spout aphorisms that all boil down to write as I do? — but I have to say, it has been useful in editing, both for others’ work and my own. I can even derive an axiom of my own from it: if a person said it in real life, think twice before including it. If it isn’t either inherently interesting, plot-advancing, or character-revealing, does it really need to be there? One more insight, then I’ll let you get back to your relatives: you’ve been having just a little trouble paying attention to my arguments, haven’t you? I’m betting that some substantial part of your mind has been distracted, wondering what happened to the arm in the camel’s mouth. That, my friends, is how Millicent — and most other readers, professional and non-pro alike — feels when an interesting one- or two-paragraph teaser, <a href="/index_p_7694.html">the kind that aspiring writers so love placing within italics at the beginning of their manuscripts</a>, gives way to an apparently or only tangentially unrelated second scene. Yes, we see it in published books all the time, but in a submission, it’s a risky strategy. “Hey!” Millicent cries, spitting out her mouthful of scalding latte, “what happened to that darn interesting plot I’d gotten absorbed in? What’s this writer trying to do, hook me with something exciting, then drop me into a comparatively mundane storyline?” Let’s be honest, folks: that’s precisely what most writers who use this trick are trying to do. Professional readers are wise to it by now. Remember, part of being a good storyteller involves knowing when to relieve the suspense — and frankly, in the case of my camel story, Alfred Hitchcock himself would have chosen to do so by now. Ahem: <blockquote>“Give me a boost,” the man asked calmly, but his eyes were beaming panic over his daughter’s head. Curly’s lips were exploring the first few inches of his t-shirt sleeve. </blockquote> Since his arm appeared to be on the verge of being ripped off at the shoulder, the crate-kicker and I hastily complied. With his uneaten hand, he began tickling the camel’s lips, rubbing the gums as if he were a mammalian dentist. Curly face elongated, as though he were going to sneeze. A loud pop, a slurp, and the man’s arm returned to the land of the living. He strutted his way down from the crate. “See?” he told the girl. “If you know what you’re doing, they won’t hurt you.” “Yes, Daddy,” she whispered, staring aghast at his friction-reddened arm, manifestly resolving never to have anything whatsoever to do with an animal larger than herself again. The moral, if I may venture one: just because something seems like a good idea at first blush doesn’t mean that it’s worth stubbornly adhering to it. One of the keys to successful self-editing is flexibility. That, and keeping any parts of your body involved in typing out of animals’ mouths. Happy holidays, everybody, and keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4247" class="post-4247 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-annes-book-picks category-annes-editorial-pet-peeves category-art-of-revision category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-changing-nature-of-publishing category-clarifying-your-voice category-common-agents-pet-peeves category-common-rejection-triggers category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-editing-dialogue category-editing-for-complexity category-editing-for-freshness category-editing-for-humor category-editing-for-pacing category-editing-for-style category-editing-for-voice category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-agents-tend-to-dislike category-first-pages-that-grab category-first-person-narration category-frankenstein-manuscripts category-frankenstein-voice-and-punctuation-issues category-hasnt-the-narrative-used-that-phrasing-already category-how-and-why-politeness-can-make-a-scene-drag category-literary-fiction-craft category-literary-fiction-voice category-minimizing-structural-repetition-and-conceptual-redundancy category-nonfiction-voice category-passive-voice-and-why-you-should-eschew-it category-pet-peeves-on-parade category-realistic-dialogue category-realistic-expectations-for-submitters category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-revision-tips category-semicolons-and-why-only-writers-like-them-much category-tag-lines-and-how-to-minimize-them category-the-little-things-that-drive-the-pros-nuts category-voice category-what-does-and-doesnt-make-a-voice-unique category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-why-sounding-like-your-favorite-author-from-a-decade-ago-might-not-work-well-now category-why-what-worked-in-the-19th-century-might-not-work-on-the-page-today category-writing-comedy"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/06/29/pet-peeves-on-parade-part-xxviii-and-structural-repetition-part-v-wait-theres-a-forest-out-there-how-can-i-possibly-be-expected-to-see-it-through-all-of-these-trees-10/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2011-06-29T00:00:00+00:00">June 29, 2011</time><time class="updated" datetime="2021-04-13T01:17:52+00:00">April 13, 2021</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/06/29/pet-peeves-on-parade-part-xxviii-and-structural-repetition-part-v-wait-theres-a-forest-out-there-how-can-i-possibly-be-expected-to-see-it-through-all-of-these-trees-10/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/#comments">3 Comments on Pet Peeves on Parade, part XXVIII and Structural Repetition, part V: wait — there’s a forest out there? How can I possibly be expected to see it through all of these trees?</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/06/29/pet-peeves-on-parade-part-xxviii-and-structural-repetition-part-v-wait-theres-a-forest-out-there-how-can-i-possibly-be-expected-to-see-it-through-all-of-these-trees-10/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/" rel="bookmark">Pet Peeves on Parade, part XXVIII and Structural Repetition, part V: wait — there’s a forest out there? How can I possibly be expected to see it through all of these trees?</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/forest-in-passing.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-15332" title="forest in passing" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/forest-in-passing-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="512" height="384" /></a> The other day, an author who had established her literary credentials some decades ago — let’s call her Martha, because it’s nothing like her name — came over to my house for tea and a vigorous discussion of the ever-changing literary market. I love chatting with well-read, highly opinionated people on this particular subject, and Martha did not disappoint. She is, to put it mildly, no fan of what she calls “the recent vampire/werewolf/zombie craze,” nor does she entirely improve of this golden age of YA. “I keep meeting wonderful writers,” she says, “who have just given up on writing for adults. Or about anyone with a pulse.” I do, too, but actually, I find this view a trifle outdated: when I walk into, say, a Barnes & Noble today, what strikes me is not the size of the YA section (I think the expansion of this particular book category has yielded some great things) or how few novel protagonists boast pulses (for me, a little contact with the undead goes a long way), but what a high percentage of the books currently available for sale were written by those who no longer have pulses at all. I’m as fond of Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley as the next person, but do they really need to take up half the summer reading table AND an entire shelf of the sale books? Might an enterprising publisher not shell out for some display space for a few more living authors? And while we’re at it, is there a particular reason that so many bookstores stock only FRANKENSTEIN, but not any of Shelley’s other novels? Again, I’m as fond of, etc., etc., but the lady was prolific. For my money, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Valperga-adventures-Castruccio-prince-Lucca/dp/1177175991/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309384062&sr=1-1">VALPURGA</a>, her fictional account of the Inquisition, dances circles around FRANKENSTEIN. But perhaps that’s merely another manifestation of my preference for living protagonists, rather than revivified ones. As so often happens, I ended up defending publishing trends I do not necessarily applaud, simply because Martha seemed so very determined to ring the death knell for the industry — because, she said, “All publishers think about now is cash.” That’s a very popular complaint amongst those who landed their agents back when it was considered a trifle gauche for writers to admit that they wanted to make a living at it. My kith and kin has been involved in producing books since the 1920s, and I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of a time when publishing was purely a charitable enterprise. It is true, however, that both agents and publishers routinely used to nurse promising authors through half a dozen books, despite anemic sales, in the hope that someday, he (and it was almost always he) would gain a larger audience. Now, if a new author’s book does not sell well, she (and it often is she these days) and her agent may well have trouble convincing even an editor absolutely besotted with her prose stylings to take a chance with her next. Hey, the bookstore needs that shelf space for its fifth copy of FRANKENSTEIN. To be fair, though, readers also have quite different expectations than they did when Shelley’s debut novel hit the shelves — or, for that matter, when Martha’s did. Pacing is considerably faster these days; the passive voice so popular prior to World War II is considered stylistically rather weak, and in deference to that type of browser who habitually grabs books off the shelves and reads page 1 before purchasing, action tends to appear much earlier in plots than in years past. Yes, even in literary fiction — do some comparative reading. Martha didn’t want to believe it, either. Because I am, as you may have noticed, a big fan of concrete examples, I reached over to my fiction bookshelves for an example of good, solid literary writing that might have trouble getting published, or even landing an agent, today. I didn’t have to run my fingertips past more than half a dozen spines before I found a great page 1: William Styron’s breakthrough 1951 novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lie-Down-Darkness-William-Styron/dp/0679735976/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309385291&sr=1-1">LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS</a>. I would urge all of you to read this lyrical, moving book in its entirety (after you polish off VALPURGA, perhaps). For our purposes, though, I’m going to show you only what I read to Martha. Try to absorb it on two levels: for the quality of the writing, and as our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, might respond to it if it landed on her desk as a submission from an unknown writer today. To aid in that imaginative feat, I’ll even show it to you as she would see it. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Styron-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15335" title="Styron 1" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Styron-1.jpg" alt="" width="466" height="362" /></a> “Wow, he was a wonderful writer,” Martha said. “Why did you stop there?” “Because,” I said, bracing myself for the inevitable outcry of the literary-minded, “an agency screener wouldn’t have read any farther.” Any guesses why? How about that paragraph-long, 118-word opening sentence? Or the two subordinate clauses beginning with which and the one with where? Or the piling-up of prepositions? Or the abrupt shift from the third person to the second on line 6? None of this, of course, mars the inherent loveliness of the writing; hearing it read out loud, Martha was quite right to be impressed. As seen on the submission page, though, how likely to you think Millicent is to exclaim, as my guest did, “Wow, this is a wonderful writer,” rather than “Wow, that’s quite a run-on sentence?” And having emitted the second, how likely is she not to follow it with, “Next!” Darned right, that would be a pity; this is a beautifully-written, incisive novel. But Millicent is in fact justified in believing that a browser picking up this page 1 is likely to set the book back on the shelf again halfway through that gargantuan opening sentence. What would make her so sure of that? Because the difference between the literary market of 1951 and the literary market of 2011 lies not merely in how quickly professional readers make up their minds about submissions, but also in non-professional readers’ expectations for what constitutes good writing. I know, I know. After I made that argument to Martha, she kept feeling my head to see if I had developed a fever. Why might a browser not be able to see past the length of that opening sentence? Memory, partially: the browser’s high school English teacher would have marked her down for producing a run-on of this magnitude. Besides, subordinate clauses are simply not as highly regarded as they used to be. Back in the day, literature was rife with these; now, most Millicents are trained to consider them, well, a bit awkward. In fact, chances are very good that she was specifically trained to zero in on relative pronouns like which and subordinate conjunctions like where with the intent of ferreting out run-ons. That, I suspect, is going to come as surprise to those of you who love 19th-century novels. We could quibble for hours about whether literary tastes have changed for better or worse. Since they have undoubtedly changed, though, it’s vital for aspiring writers who prefer more old-fashioned structures to realize that what was hailed by critics in 1951 might well give Millicent pause on page 1 today. Or even give her an excuse to stop reading. But that does not necessarily mean that if the late lamented Mssr. Styron were trying to break into the literary fiction market today, I would advise him to lose all of the subordinate clauses. Oh, I would certainly recommend some tinkering; that semicolon, for instance, could be replaced by a period at no great loss to the passage. Because the writing is so pretty here, however, I’m reluctant to impose the necessary cuts and changes on this passage, even for the purposes of an instructive example. As an editor, all I can justifiably do is point out the problems; it’s the writer’s job to rewrite. That, too, often comes as a surprise to those harboring old-fashioned views of publishing. I meet aspiring writers all the time who greet any and all revision suggestions with an airy and dismissive, “Oh, I’m sure the acquiring editor/the agent of my dreams/some luckless proofreader will take care of that. All that matters at the submission stage is the quality of the writing.” To a professional reader, sentence-level difficulties are not external to the writing; they’re integral parts of it. How a writer revises — or doesn’t — is as important to the ultimate quality of the book as the initial composition. Contrary to popular belief, though, there is no such thing as a single best way to revise a narrative, any more than there is a single best way to tell a story. That being the case, how could an editor justifiably perform all necessary revisions to a manuscript? Or an agent, for that matter? And why wouldn’t a savvy writer prefer to make those changes herself, so she can control the voice? Part of the charm of individual authorial voice is that it is, in fact, individual — but you’d never glean that from how writers (and writing teachers) tend to talk about revision. All too often, we speak amongst ourselves as though the revision process involved no more than either (a) identifying and removing all of the objectively-observable mistakes in a manuscript, or (b) changing our minds about some specific plot point or matter of characterization, then implementing it throughout the manuscript. These are two perfectly reasonable self-editing goals, of course, but they are not the only conceivable ones. When dealing with what I call, with apologies to Madame Shelley, a Frankenstein manuscript — a text that, while perhaps prettily written, has not yet been revised to the level of professional polish — a conscientious self-editor might well perform a read-through for voice consistency, another for grammatical problems, a third for logic leaps, a fourth because the protagonist’s husband is no longer a plumber but the member of Congress representing Washington’s 7th District… And so forth. Revision can come in many, many flavors, variable by specificity, level of focus, the type of feedback to which the writer is responding, and even the point in publication history at which the manuscript is being revised. Does that all sound dandy in theory, but perplexing in practice? Don’t worry; I am queen of the concrete example, remember? To help you gain a solid sense of how diverse different of levels of revision can be, I’m going to treat you to a page from one of my favorite fluffy novels of yore, Noël Coward’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pomp-Circumstance-Coward-Collection-No%C3%ABl/dp/0413563707/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276915696&sr=1-1">POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE</a>, a lighthearted romp set in a tropical British colony on the eve of a royal visit. I chose this piece not merely because it retains a surprisingly high level of Frankenstein manuscript characteristics for a work by a well-established writer (possibly because it was Coward’s only published novel), or even because it deserves another generation of readers. (As it does; his comic timing is unparalleled.) I think it’s an interesting study in how literary conventions change: even at the time of its release in 1960, some critics considered it a bit outdated. Coward’s heyday had been several decades before, they argued, so the type of sex comedy that used to shock in the 1920s was a bit passé, and wasn’t it a bit late in the literary day to steer so firmly away from sociopolitical commentary? Now, sociopolitical commentary has largely fallen out of style, at least in first novels, and sex, as Coward himself was fond of observing, seems to be here to stay. Here is a page from the end of the book, where our narrator, a harried British matron living on a South Sea island, finds herself entertaining Droopy, the husband of her best friend Bunny’s would-be mistress. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10609" title="P&C sample" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PC-sample.jpg" alt="P&C sample" width="466" height="603" /> Amusing, certainly, but a bit Frankensteinish on the page is it not? At first glance, how would you suggest Noël revise it? Would your revision goals be different if this were page 5, rather than page 272? Before you give your final answers, here’s that page again, after it has been subjected to just the kind of repetition-spotting mark-up I’ve been asking you to perform of late. (Sorry about the dark image; I honestly didn’t take the photograph in a particularly gloomy room. If you’re having trouble reading the specifics, try pressing command +.) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-10608" title="P&C edit 1" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PC-edit-1-768x1024.jpg" alt="P&C edit 1" width="466" height="603" /> Replete with structural redundancy, is it not? By today’s book publication standards, as Millicent would no doubt be overjoyed to tell you, it would deserve instant rejection on that basis alone. But would you agree? Or is the very repetition an inherent part of this comic voice? Arguments could be made in both directions, you know. After all, this narrative voice is not all too far from the kind of writing we all see every day online, or even in the chattier varieties of journalism. We can all see why some writers would favor this kind of voice, right? Read out loud, this kind of first-person narration can sound very natural, akin to actual speech. That’s not to say, though, that Millicent would not cringe at the very sight of it in a novel submission. And why? Feel free to chant it with me: the level of repetition that works in everyday speech is often hard to take on the printed page. As you can see for yourself in the example above, I suspect. Now that you see all of those ands and other word repetition marked on the page, you must admit that they are mighty distracting to the eye. By repeating the same sentence structures over and over, our buddy Noël is practically begging Millicent to skip lines while skimming. Nor is all of the redundancy here literal; there’s a certain amount of conceptual repetition as well. Take note of all of those visually-based verbs: not only do people look a great deal, but our heroine envisages AND tries to imagine how she might appear in his eyes. And did you catch the over-use of subordinate clauses, all of those whiches in yellow? While a tolerant Millie might be inclined to glide past one every ten or fifteen pages, even a screener noted for her restraint would begin to get restless with a quarter as many as appear on that single page above. That almost certainly would not have been a major objection raised by Millicent’s forebears in 1960, though, right? The literary gatekeepers would have concentrated on quite different parts of this page — the grammatically-necessary missing commas, for instance, and the back-to-back prepositions. Longing to see how Millicent’s grandmother would have commented on this page? Well, you’re in luck; I just happen to have her feedback handy. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10617" title="P&Eedit2" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PEedit2.jpg" alt="P&Eedit2" width="466" height="603" /> Let’s linger a moment in order to consider Grandma M’s primary quibbles. First, as she points out so politely in red at the top of the page, it takes at least two sentences to form a narrative paragraph. In dialogue, a single-line paragraph is acceptable, but in standard narrative prose, it is technically incorrect. Was that gigantic clunk I just heard the sound of jaws belonging to anyone who has picked up a newspaper or magazine within the last decade hitting the floor? In theory, Grandma M is quite right on this point — and more of her present-day descendants would side with her than you might suppose. Millie’s grandmother did not bring her up to regard setting grammar at naught lightly, after all. But does that necessarily mean it would be a good idea for you to sit down today and excise every single-sentence narrative paragraph in your manuscript? Perhaps not: the convention of occasionally inserting a single-line paragraph for emphasis has become quite accepted in nonfiction. The practice has crept deeply enough into most stripes of genre fiction that it probably would not raise Millicent’s eyebrows much. How can you tell if the convention is safe to use in your submission? As always, the best way of assessing the acceptability of a non-standard sentence structure in a particular book category is to become conversant with what’s been published in that category within the last few years. Not just what the leading lights of the field have been writing lately, mind you; what an established author can get away with doing to a sentence is not always acceptable in a submission by someone trying to break into the field. Pay attention to what kinds of sentences first-time authors of your kind of book are writing these days, and you needn’t fear going too far afield. As a general rule of thumb, even first-time novelists can usually get the occasional use of the single-sentence paragraph device past Millicent — provided that the content of the sentence in question is sufficiently startling to justify standing alone. As in: <blockquote>The sky was perfectly clear as I walked home from school that day, the kind of vivid blue first-graders choose from the crayon box as a background for a smiling yellow sun. The philosopher Hegel would have loved it: the external world mirroring the clean, happy order of my well-regulated mind. That is, until I tripped over the werewolf lying prone across my doorstep.</blockquote> Didn’t see that last bit coming, did you? The paragraph break emphasizes the jaggedness of the narrative leap — and, perhaps equally important from a submission perspective, renders the plot twist easier for a skimming eye to catch. Grandma M would growl at this construction (“My, Granny, what big teeth you have!”), and rightly so. Why? Well, it violates the two-sentences-or-more rule, for starters. In the second place, this problem could have been avoided entirely by eschewing the RETURN key. In a slower world, one where readers lived sufficiently leisurely lives that they might be safely relied upon to glance at every sentence on a page, all of this information could have fit perfectly happily into a single paragraph. Like so: <blockquote>The sky was perfectly clear as I walked home from school that day, the kind of vivid blue first-graders choose from the crayon box as a background for a smiling yellow sun. The philosopher Hegel would have loved it: the external world mirroring the clean, happy order of my well-regulated mind. That is, until I tripped over the werewolf lying prone across my doorstep.</blockquote> I bring this up not only to appease Grandma M’s restless spirit, currently haunting an agency or publishing house somewhere in Manhattan, but so that those of you addicted to single-line paragraphs will know what to do with hanging sentences: tuck ‘em back into the paragraph from whence they came. Ruthlessly. At least a few of them. Please? Really, it’s in your submission’s best interest to use the single-line paragraph trick infrequently, reserving it for those times when it will have the most effect. That will at least give your narrative the advantage of novelty. How so? Well, amongst aspiring writers who favor this structure, moderation is practically unheard-of. Many, if not most, novelists and memoirists who favor this device do not use the convention sparingly, nor do they reserve its use for divulging information that might legitimately come as a surprise to a reasonably intelligent reader. As a result, Millie tends to tense up a bit at the very sight of a single-sentence paragraph — yes, even ones that are dramatically justifiable. Hard to blame her, really, considering how mundane some of the revelations she sees in submissions turn out to be. A fairly typical example: <blockquote>The sky was perfectly clear as I walked home from school that day, the kind of vivid blue first-graders choose from the crayon box as a background for a smiling yellow sun. The philosopher Hegel would have loved it: the external world mirroring the clean, happy order of my well-regulated mind. Beside the sidewalk, a daffodil bloomed.</blockquote> Not exactly a stop-the-presses moment, is it? Often, too, aspiring writers will use a single-line paragraph to highlight a punch line. This can work rather well, if it doesn’t occur very often in the text — any literary trick will lose its efficacy if it’s over-used — AND if the joke is genuinely funny. Much of the time in manuscripts, alas, it isn’t. At least not hilarious enough to risk enraging Grandma M’s spirit by stopping the narrative short to highlight the quip. See for yourself: <blockquote>The sky was perfectly clear as I walked home from school that day, the kind of vivid blue first-graders choose from the crayon box as a background for a smiling yellow sun. The philosopher Hegel would have loved it: the external world mirroring the clean, happy order of my well-regulated mind. My Algebra II teacher would have fallen over dead with astonishment.</blockquote> Gentle irony does not often a guffaw make, after all. And think about it: if the reader must be notified by a grammatically-questionable paragraph break that a particular line is meant to be funny, doesn’t that very choice indicate a certain authorial doubt that the reader will catch the joke? Or that it’s funny in the first place? Grandma M’s other big objection to Noël’s page 272 — and this pet peeve, too, she is likely to have passed down the generations — would be to, you guessed it, the many, many run-on sentences. The run-ons here, however, are not the result of the driving rhythmic pattern or descriptive complexity that made ol’ William go overboard on his opening; clearly, Noël was just trying to sound chatty. That should sound familiar by this point in the series, right? Like so many aspiring novelists, our Noël favors an anecdotal-style narrative voice, one that echoes the consecutiveness of everyday speech. That can work beautifully in dialogue, where part of the point is for the words captured within the quotation marks to sound like something an actual human being might really say, but in narration, this type of sentence structure gets old fast. Why might that be, dear readers? Sing along with me now: structural repetition reads as redundant. Varying the narrative’s sentence structure will render it easier, not to mention more pleasant, to read. Are some of you former jaw-droppers waving your arms frantically, trying to get my attention? “Okay, Anne,” these sore-jawed folk point out, “I get it: Millicents have disliked textual repetition for decades now. No need to exhume Grandma M’s grandmother to hammer home that point. But I’d had the distinct impression that Millie is a greater stickler for bigger-picture problems than her forebears. Don’t I have more important things to worry about than grammatical perfection when I’m getting ready to slide my manuscript under her nose?” Well, grammatical perfection is always an asset in a manuscript, ex-jaw-droppers, so a completely clean manuscript is not at all an unreasonable goal for your pre-submission text scan. You are right, however, that present-day Millicents do tend to be weighing a great many more factors than their grandmothers did when deciding whether the manuscript in front of them has publication potential. But not all of those factors involve large-scale questions of marketability and audience-appropriateness; Millicent is also charged with going over the writing with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. Using, of course, today’s standards as a guide. What kinds of manuscript problems might catch on her comb that Grandma M’s would have missed, you ask with fear and trembling? See for yourself — here’s Millie’s response on the page we’ve been examining: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-10628" title="P&E edit 3" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PE-edit-3-768x1024.jpg" alt="P&E edit 3" width="466" height="603" /> I sincerely hope that your first thought upon seeing her much, much higher expectations was not to wish that you’d had the foresight to try to land an agent back in 1960, rather than now. (Although I would not blame you at all if you kicked yourself for not launching your work back in the 1980s, when the home computer was available but not yet ubiquitous, astronomically increasing the number of both queries and submissions Millicent would see in a given week.) True, the competition to land an agent is substantially fiercer now, but it’s also true that a much, much broader range of voices are getting published than in Grandma M’s time. Back then, if you weren’t a straight, white man from a solid upper-middle class home, Granny expected you at least to have the courtesy to write like one. (Styron’s father worked in a shipyard, so he had to fudge it a little; so did his contemporary Gore Vidal, for other reasons.) If you did happen to be a SWMFaSUMCH, you were, of course, perfectly welcome to try to imagine what it was like not to be one, although on the whole, your work would probably be more happily received if you stuck to writing what you knew. And if there was a typo in your manuscript, well, next time, don’t have your wife type it for you. You think I’m making that up, don’t you? That’s a quote, something an agent told a rather well-known writer of my acquaintance in the mid-1960s. The latter kept quiet about the fact that he was unmarried at the time and composed his books on a typewriter. Let’s return from that rather interesting flashback, though, and concentrate upon the now. It’s not enough to recognize that literary standards — and thus professional expectations for self-editing — have changed radically over time. It’s not even sufficient to accept, although I hope it’s occurred to you, that what constituted good writing in your favorite book from 1937 — or 1951, or 1960 — might not be able to make it past Millicent today. If you’re going to use authors from the past as your role models — a practice both Grandma M and I would encourage — you owe it to your career as a writer also to familiarize yourself with the current writing in your book category. Just for today, what I would like you to take away from these examples is that each of the editorial viewpoints would prompt quite different revisions — and in some instances, mutually contradictory ones. This is one reason the pros tend not to consider the revision process definitively ended until a book is published and sitting on a shelf: since reading can take place on many levels, so can revision. Don’t believe me? Okay, clap on your reading glasses and peruse the three widely disparate results conscientious reviser Noël might have produced in response to each of the marked-up pages above. For the first, the one that merely noted the structural, word, and concept repetition, the changes might be as simple as this: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10633" title="P&C basic edit" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PC-basic-edit.jpg" alt="P&C basic edit" width="466" height="603" /> “Hey, Anne!” the sharper-eyed among you burble excitedly. “Despite the fact that Noël has added a couple of paragraph breaks, presumably to make it easier for the reader to differentiate between speech and thought, the text ends up being shorter. He snuck another line of text at the bottom of the page!” Well-caught, eagle-eyed burblers. A thoughtfully-executed revision to minimize structural redundancy can often both clarify meaning and lop off extraneous text. I hope you also noticed that while that very specifically-focused revision was quite helpful to the manuscript, it didn’t take care of some of the grammatical gaffes — or, indeed, most of the other problems that would have troubled Grandma M. Let’s take a peek at what our Noël might have done to page 272 after that august lady had applied her red pen to it. (Hint: you might want to take a magnifying glass to the punctuation.) <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10635" title="P&C revision 2" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PC-revision-2.jpg" alt="P&C revision 2" width="466" height="603" /> Quite different from the first revision, is it not? This time around, the punctuation’s impeccable, but the narration retains some of the redundancy that a modern-day Millicent might deplore. Millie might also roll her eyes at her grandmother’s winking at instances of the passive voice and the retention of unnecessary tag lines. Indeed, for Noël to revise this page to her specifications, he’s going to have to invest quite a bit more time. Shall we see how he fared? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10637" title="P&C final edit" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PC-final-edit.jpg" alt="P&C final edit" width="466" height="603" /> Remember, not every close-up examination of a single tree will result in a pruning plan that will yield the same forest. A savvy self-editor will bear that in mind, rather than expecting that any single pass at revision, however sensible, will result in a manuscript that will please every reader. By apprising yourself of the current norms in your chosen book category, you can maximize the probability that your self-editing eye will coincide with Millicent’s expectations. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-1445" class="post-1445 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-annes-editorial-pet-peeves category-art-of-revision category-avoiding-killing-your-darlings category-backstory-and-how-to-work-it-into-a-plot category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-cliche-avoidance category-common-agents-pet-peeves category-common-rejection-triggers category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-dialogue-that-adds-to-the-scene category-editing-dialogue category-editing-for-freshness category-editing-for-style category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-agents-tend-to-dislike category-first-pages-that-grab category-format-troubleshooting category-frankenstein-manuscripts category-freshness-in-manuscripts category-hooks category-italics-and-when-they-are-correct-to-use category-literary-fiction-craft category-must-reads category-originality-in-manuscripts category-page-1-and-what-it-should-look-like category-pet-peeves-on-parade category-proofreading category-realistic-expectations-for-submitters category-revision-tips category-storytelling-structure category-the-little-things-that-drive-the-pros-nuts category-what-an-agent-will-expect-your-manuscript-to-look-like category-what-book-manuscripts-look-like category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-writing-cliches"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/29/pet-peeves-on-parade-part-x-and-the-screen-goes-wavy-or-is-it-the-type-5/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2011-03-29T00:00:00+00:00">March 29, 2011</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/29/pet-peeves-on-parade-part-x-and-the-screen-goes-wavy-or-is-it-the-type-5/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/#respond">No Comments on Pet peeves on parade, part X: and the screen goes wavy — or is it the type?</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/29/pet-peeves-on-parade-part-x-and-the-screen-goes-wavy-or-is-it-the-type-5/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/" rel="bookmark">Pet peeves on parade, part X: and the screen goes wavy — or is it the type?</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/waves-on-beach.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/waves-on-beach-768x1024.jpg" alt="" title="waves on beach" width="512" height="683" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-14722"/></a> My, the metaphorical halls of Author! Author! grew quiet while we were considering the winning entries in the <a href="/index_p_13946.html">Author! Author! Rings True literary competition</a>. Was that because everyone was so impressed by the high quality of the writing — or so astonished to see what I looked like on film? Or did those of you who stop by regularly for self-editing and marketing tips merely take a pass on checking out posts about other readers’ work? I hope not, because actually, quite a bit of my commentary on the winning entries concerned precisely the sort of professional readers’ pet peeve that we have been discussing throughout this series. No matter how creative my examples are (and I do try to make them a tad unexpected, as a door prize for those of you dedicated enough to read through my page shots), there’s no better way to see what kinds of gaffes make our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, sigh over submissions than to take a gander at good writing that’s not perfectly presented. I think we can glean three overarching lessons from this. First, no matter how beautifully-written or genre-appropriate a text may be, professional readers will respond to it better if it adheres to <a href="/index_p_13667.html">the rules of standard format for book manuscripts</a>. There’s a reason I go over standard format a couple of times per year on the blog, people: to Millicent, anything else simply looks wrong. Formatting is not a matter of style, at least at the submission stage; any effort a creative-minded aspiring writer puts into making his manuscript resemble a published book is not only wasted, but a signpost to Millie that he hasn’t done his homework about how the publishing industry works. Harsh? Perhaps? True? Undoubtedly. So if you are not familiar with the rigors of standard format, please invest an hour or two in going over the posts in the aptly-named HOW TO FORMAT A BOOK MANUSCRIPT category on the archive list at right. Even if you think you know the rules, but have never actually beheld a professionally-formatted manuscript, please consider a quick review. And if you still have questions about what your work should look like on the page, please ask. Yes, it honestly is that important. As we saw in the winning entries, even a small formatting problem can prove very distracting from good writing. I would much, much rather that you post a question in the comments than for you to risk annoying Millicent in a submission. Second, and closely associated to the first lesson, no matter how lovely the turn of phrase, typos, punctuation problems, and the missing words that so often result from multiple revisions will render prose less effective. It’s significantly harder to catch such faux pas on a computer screen than on the page. There’s just no substitute for proofreading before submission, preferably — feel free to shout it along with me, long-term readers — IN THE TEXT’S ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD. Third, since formatting and proofreading oversights are the norm, not the exception, in even very good submissions, producing a clean manuscript will give an aspiring writer the advantage of novelty at submission or contest entry time. Believe me, after seeing the same gaffes over and over again, in page 1 after page 1, a properly-formatted manuscript devoid of typos is a genuine relief. The old screeners’ adage that most manuscripts reject themselves honestly is true — and the sad part is that most of those mistakes are 100% avoidable. Hey, there’s a reason that the pros don’t have qualms about rejecting a manuscript that’s only a quick polish away from being marketable. They assume that aspiring writers capable of creating such pages will be serious enough about their craft to revise, reformat, and try again. Seriously, it often comes as a surprise to them to hear that a talented writer they’ve rejected has given up — or even moved on to working on her next book. To a professional reader, a rejected project is not dead; it may merely be not ready for the big time yet. A surprisingly common indicator that a submitter still has a bit to learn: a manuscript that’s formatted like a published book. I’m not just talking about deviations from the norms of standard format or selecting a funky typeface, either — I’m talking about a style choice so common in published fiction that it never occurs to most of the aspiring writers who copy it that it might be problematic in a submission. I’m talking, in short, of opening a manuscript with a short section in italics. Was that giant “Huh?” that just shook the trees outside my studio window an indication of surprise or disbelief? “But Anne,” italics-lovers all over the English-speaking world protest, “I see this done in published books all the time.” Precisely: you also see published books that are single-spaced, printed in wacky typefaces, and have bindings. None of these things are true of properly-formatted manuscripts, for the exceedingly simple reason that professionally-formatted book manuscripts do not resemble published books in many important respects. That’s why, in case you had been wondering, people who deal with manuscripts for a living tend to start yawning when aspiring writers try to drag them into the pseudo-debate about whether it’s obsolete to hit the space bar twice after a period or colon when typing a manuscript. Invariably, the primary piece of evidence offered is that many published books now omit the second space. At the risk of being overly prolix in my response, so what? I can sense that some of you still cling to the belief that what appears in print will necessarily fly in a submission. Okay, let’s take a gander at a representative sample of the kind of italicized opening that lands on Millicent’s desk two or three times per day: italics intended to alert the reader to the fact that the paragraphs in the funny type aren’t in the time, place, and/or mindset of the actual opening scene that follows immediately thereafter. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/italics-opening.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/italics-opening.jpg" alt="" title="italics opening" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14731"/></a> I didn’t fool you that time, did I? “Okay, Anne,” those of you who followed both this series and the recent prize posts chortle, “I know how this game is played. You’ve been trying to train us to catch Millicent’s pet peeves, so I kept my eye peeled not only for how italics are used here, but for other presentation problems that might have irked her.” Well reasoned, chortlers. How many of them did you catch? For those of you who did not notice all 10 gaffes, here is the same page with all of the purely formatting problems corrected. (For your comparing-and-contrasting pleasure, I’ve touched nothing else.) <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/italics-opening-correct.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/italics-opening-correct.jpg" alt="" title="italics opening correct" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14730"/></a> Seeing more of them now? If some of these differences jumped out at you, considering that Millicent stares at manuscript pages all day, every day, how many of them do you think she would spot within the first couple of seconds? Just to make sure that we’re all on the same page with her, so to speak, let’s go over the purely cosmetic problems FIRST. In the order they appear on the page: <blockquote> 1. The slug line is in different typeface than the text. The slug line is in Arial, the body in Times New Roman. 2. The incorrectly formatted slug line includes author’s first name and middle initial, instead of just the last. 3. The incorrectly formatted slug line has a space between the forward slash and the title. The spacing in a slug line should be continuous: Name/Title/# 4. The incorrectly formatted slug line does not include the page number. 5. The page number is in wrong place on the page. It belongs in the slug line, not on the other side of the page. 6. The page number includes the word page. Although many aspiring writers think this looks nifty, a professionally-formatted manuscript would never include the word. 7. There’s an extra space before first word of paragraph 2. Yes, Virginia, most Millicents would catch that in either a hard or soft copy submission. 8. There’s only a single space between each period and beginning of the next sentence, while there are two after every other period. This kind of inconsistency is a common result of confusion over the great one space/two space debate. There is no single right answer here: some agents prefer a single space, although the industry standard is still two; check each agency’s submission guidelines before you submit. If they do not mention preferring the single space, use two. Whichever you pick, however, be 100% consistent about spacing throughout the manuscript. 9. At the beginning of the last paragraph, a number under 100 is expressed as a numeral, rather than being written out as a word. 10. In the final line of the page, there are two spaces between thrown and herself. To a professional reader, this is a dead giveaway that the submitter did not proofread in hard copy. </blockquote> Quite a lot of eyebrow-raisers for such an innocent-looking page of text, isn’t it? That’s how closely agency screeners read — and we haven’t even begun to talk about the writing itself, you will notice. Take heart, though: unless Millicent is having a spectacularly bad day, none of these problems by itself, or even all of them together, will necessarily result in an on-the-spot cry of “Next!” Why not? Well, believe it or not, the first version might be one of the more professional-looking first pages Millicent sees today. Most of the elements of standard format are in fact done correctly here, and it’s relatively free of misspellings and grammatical problems. So an optimistic aspiring writer often can — and does — get away with submitting a first page like the former. Most professional readers, including agents, contest judges, and Millicents, are willing to overlook a small cosmetic error or two, just as they tend to discount the occasional typo, provided that it is not repeated in the manuscript. (The prevailing logic: the first misspelling of a word might legitimately be a slip of a finger; the second indicates that the writer just doesn’t know how to spell the word in question.) It doesn’t take too many tiny problems, however, to render a pro much less sympathetic than she might otherwise have been to a larger problem like an awkward sentence or the appearance of a cliché. And that’s on a good day — do you really want to take the chance that Millicent won’t just have burned her lip on a too-hot latte just before turning to your first page? I see a forest of hands waving in my general direction. “But Anne,” some of you point out, and rightly, “I’m finding this rather depressing. Taken individually, the deviations from standard format we’re talking about are all quite small; I just don’t want to believe that good writing could ever fall prey to what, frankly, looks at first glance like a pretty respectable formatting job. I’m not discounting Millicent’s ability to reject the submission that happens to be in front of her when she scalds herself, but surely nobody concerned really wants aspiring writers to believe that their work could be rejected based on anything but the writing.” It depends upon whom you ask, actually. I’ve met plenty of screeners — as well as agents, editors, and contest judges, come to think of it — who regard writers that, as they tend to put it, “haven’t taken the time to learn the business,” just aren’t as ready to be published as those who have. (Hmm, haven’t I heard that someplace?) Part of working with an agent involves learning how to follow certain rules. It’s not as though any agent worth his salt would submit the first version above to an editor at a publishing house, after all; that would just be self-defeating. Besides, these days, most good agents see so many cosmetically perfect submissions that they don’t lose too much sleep over rejecting those that are not. Or over Millicent’s having been more critical in the hour after she scalded her lip than on a normal day. They just figure that if a writer has real talent, s/he’ll go away, get better at presentation, and get picked up somewhere else. That’s why, in case you’d been wondering, there’s no appeal for Millicent’s decisions: it’s not as though most agencies will run submissions past a second screener if the first did not like it, after all. Good writers are expected to be tenacious — and to take the time to learn how the publishing industry expects manuscripts to be presented. So instead of regarding presentation as a secondary issue, try to think of paying attention to the cosmetic details as being polite to the person conducting the interview for a job you really, really want. Even if you have good reason to believe that some of the other interviewees are getting away with taking a few liberties, it honestly is in your best interest to be polite enough to show her your writing in the manner that Millicent is accustomed to seeing the best work in your chosen book category presented. All that being said, did you spot the non-superficial reason this page might engender a knee-jerk rejection, even after just a superficial first glance? If you flung your hand into the air and cried, “The second line of dialogue merely repeats the first, and thus adds nothing new to the scene,” good guess. This would indeed annoy most Millicents, particularly if this oh-so-common piece of redundancy appeared on page 1. Yes, people repeat what’s just been said to them all the time, usually as a means to indicate that they don’t understand the previous speaker’s last statement, but that doesn’t mean the repetition isn’t dull on the page. But that’s a style issue. Any other guesses? I can see the smoke rising from your thinking caps. “Well, what about the fact that the first line of dialogue is spoken by an unidentified speaker? There’s no legitimate reason to withhold that information from the reader, either at the outset or in this scene in general.” Another excellent suggestion — the unidentified opening speech is indeed a very common professional readers’ pet peeve. However, the red flag I have in mind is a marketing issue. Hint: those of you who followed the contest winners’ posts carefully should already know what it is. Need another hint? Okay, let me ask you the deceptively simple question that’s never far from Millicent’s thoughts while she is screening: based on this first page alone, in what book category does this manuscript belong? It’s not readily apparent, is it? Depending upon the intended category, that could or could not be a problem. If this manuscript were, say, women’s fiction, this first page might not raise Millicent’s overactive eyebrows, but were it a mystery, the lack of species markings might well make her wonder when the mystery’s going to start. If it’s a paranormal, where are the supernatural creepy-crawlies? And don’t even get me started on what is missing if this were Action/Adventure, Western, any stripe of romance… Well, you get the picture. Millicent needs to be able to tell if a submission falls into a category that her boss represents — and she likes to be able to tell by the bottom of page 1. Seem strange that she would want to make up her mind on the subject so quickly? Her reason is very practical, I assure you: since every book category has its own particular style — language choices, conventions, stock characters, etc. — and no agent represents every book category, it can save Millie’s boss a heck of a lot of time in the long run if her loyal assistant weeds out manuscripts that don’t fit comfortably into the category. While many writers legitimately find this professional desire to place their work in a box a trifle maddening, it must be admitted that it’s usually far, far easier for an agent to sell a book if he knows which shelf it might occupy at Barnes & Noble. If any. Why not wait until, say, page 50 before making that determination? Do you have any idea how many submissions Millicent has to get through this month? This week? Today? It’s her job to narrow the field as quickly as possible. With that in mind, which Millicent do you think is most likely to reject the example above: one whose boss represents mainstream fiction, or one who represents primarily science fiction? Or, to put it another way, would you or would you not be surprised to learn that the page above is the opening to a fantasy novel? Oh, you thought that Carla was going to be operating on humans, rather than refugees from the civil war on Planet Targ? Millicent would have leapt to the same conclusion. So wouldn’t Fledgling A. Writer have been better off, if not flinging the reader directly into an operating room stuffed to the gills with alien body parts, at least including a few recognizably fantastic elements on page 1? Let’s go ahead and state the answer to that question as a general rule for revision: if a reader who knows nothing about your book cannot tell by the bottom of page 1 what type of manuscript it is, it’s very much in your interest to revise with an eye toward making the category more obvious from the get-go. Don’t those of you who write exciting stories that begin in the everyday, mundane world, then leap into fast-paced action, wish you had heard that salient little piece of advice before you submitted for the first time? Yet I’m not sure how you would have known it — while it’s something that any agented writer could probably have told you, it’s one of those things that it’s just assumed every serious writer already knows. “But Anne,” those of you not depressed into a stupor by that last statement point out, and rightly, “since we began this little foray into the joys of intensive nit-picking with a brief reference to italicized text, am I correct in assuming that even if ol’ Fledgling corrected every single problem we have discussed so far, and made it apparent from the first paragraph that this is a fantasy, the italicized part would still raise most Millicents’ eyebrows, if not red flags over the manuscript?” In a word, yes — but perhaps not for the reasons you might expect. Let’s face it: many aspiring writers radically overuse italics in their texts: emphasizing every word in dialogue that might conceivably deserve vocal stress, for instance, or using it to indicate irony, foreign words, and song titles. Each of these uses is fine on its own, but cumulatively, it can add up to quite a lot of squiggly text. And chant it with me now, campers: like any other writing device, the more italics are used for emphasis in a manuscript, the less effective each use will be. So unless it’s absolutely necessary, a big block of italicized text tends to look out of place in a manuscript — and that’s potentially a problem. Why? Well, as I may have mentioned at some point in the dim, unrecorded past, manuscripts are not supposed to look like published books; they differ in many significant respects. Unfortunately, many, if not most, aspiring writers are not aware of those differences when they submit. Because of the sheer volume of incorrectly-formatted submissions, instead of treating deviations from expected formatting as an intriguing authorial choice, Millicent usually just regards it as (a) a mistake, (b) an indicator of the submitter’s lack of familiarity with the publication process, (c) carte blanche to take the submission less seriously, or (d) all of the above. So when Millie spots an italicized opening paragraph or two, she tends not to exclaim, “Oh, here is a suggestion to the editor about what the formatting of the published book should look like,” as italics-loving submitters expect. Instead, she says, “Oh, here’s another one who doesn’t know that italicization choices are the province of a book’s editor, not the author.” Besides, in many instances — as in, not entirely coincidentally, today’s example — the italics don’t actually change the meaning, or even the implication, of the opening. Italicized or not, this opening simply a fragment of a scene that is not directly connected to the section that follows — a differentiation made abundantly clear by the section break. The italics are not actually necessary. So why not just take them out, since they might irritate Millicent? Here’s that same page again, with the squiggly type gone. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/no-italics.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/no-italics.jpg" alt="" title="no italics" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14728"/></a> Come on, admit it — it doesn’t make much of a difference in meaning. It simply looks more like a normal manuscript page. That’s not a very high price to pay for removing the implication that Fledgling has not done his homework well enough to be aware that the decision to italicize an opening would ultimately be the acquiring editor’s call, not the author’s. But did you notice that in fleeing from one pet peeve, poor Fledgling stumbled right into another? Technically, <blockquote> But she thought: this can’t be happening, not today. </blockquote> is redundant. Why? Well, while indicating thought by either using italics or saying she thought is acceptable in many book categories (but not all; taking the time to learn the conventions of your chosen book type will serve you well at submission time), it’s never considered right to use both simultaneously. In other words, while Millicent would never consider the version above correct, depending upon the book category, she would be perfectly happy with either: <blockquote> “She’s in the hospital?” she repeated. But she thought: this can’t be happening, not today. </blockquote> or: <blockquote> “She’s in the hospital?” she repeated. This can’t be happening, not today. </blockquote> As we saw above with spaces after periods and colons, the trick is to pick one method of indicating thought and stick to it consistently throughout the manuscript — ideally, the method utilized in the current bestsellers in your chosen book category. If a conscientious flip through recent releases of your type of book does not reveal a category convention, don’t stress out about it; just use the method that appeals most to you. When in doubt, I would lean toward losing the italics. There are quite a few professional readers out there — including a hefty minority of Millicents — who simply don’t like italicized thought on general principle. “Humph!” they say, wrinkling their noses over type dancing across the page. “Is this honestly necessary? Shouldn’t a good writer be able to make it clear that a character is thinking something, or indicate inflection, without resorting to funny type?” I have to admit, as a reader, I’m seldom inclined to argue with them on this point, particularly if the manuscript in question also uses italics (correctly) for emphasis (“I’m talking to you, Bertrand!”), to indicate foreign words (“You left off the requisite accent grave, Marie.”), or includes a lot of song or book titles (“I know — let’s play Rubber Band Man while reading My Life as a Contortionist by I.M. Bendy!”). Used rarely, there’s nothing inherently wrong with italics, but in a manuscript with a lot of italicized words, the skimming eye can easily become confused, even to the point of skipping lines. I just heard you italics-huggers gulping. “Um, Anne,” lovers of italicized openings whisper fearfully. “You’re not about to tell me that a Millicent in a hurry — and when is she not, given how much she has to read in a day? — might simply skip that nice italicized opening, are you? Please tell me that I’ve simply grown paranoid from too much close textual analysis in a single sitting.” Oh, dear. Are you sitting down? If Millicent happens to work for an agent who has a pet peeve against this type of opening — as many, many agents do, I tremble to report — she will simply glide over it, treating the first normal line after it as the opening sentence of the manuscript. So she would see Fledgling’s page 1 like this: <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Page-minus-italics.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Page-minus-italics.jpg" alt="" title="Page minus italics" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14727"/></a> “Why on earth,” italics-lovers the world over croak in aghast unison, “would any literature-loving human do such a thing? At the risk of getting redundant with my outrage, published books open all the time with italicized bits!” A fair question — but actually, there’s a pretty fair answer. Most Millicents just assume, often not entirely without justification, that if it’s in italics, it doesn’t really have much to do with the story at hand, which, they conclude (and not always wrongly), begins with the first line of plain text. In their experience, that’s where the action usually begins. In other words, they’re apt to skip the italicized bits to save themselves some time. Which is, as some of you may have noticed, the justification for many, many of the instant rejection norms that plague the nightmares of submitters. Millicent’s workday moves along at quite a clip, after all. To distract you from any well-justified artistic seething you might be tempted to do over that last observation, take another look at that formerly-italicized section. Can you spot any other problems our pal Millie might have with it? <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Carla-has-a-bad-day.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Carla-has-a-bad-day.jpg" alt="" title="Carla has a bad day" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14729"/></a> Any luck? Would it help if I mentioned that the remaining red flag has historically been a deus ex machina favored by everyone from Victorian novelists to middle school short story writers? That’s right: and then she woke up. The problem here isn’t merely because in narrative prose, if Sentence B follows Sentence A in the text, the action in Sentence B is assumed to have come after the action in Sentence A; therefore, and then is actually redundant in this instance. No, it’s that so darned many exciting openings have tricked Millicent into being drawn into what she thought was the story — but later turns out to be just another dream. Do literally thousands of interesting novels open this way? You bet. Does it mean that Millicent won’t feel duped when it happens in Novel #10,001? Do you really want to take that chance? If you’d had your heart set on a bait-and-switch opening that ended with your hero/ine waking up, do not despair. It’s possible to pull off this device well — as long as you are aware that (a) it’s a very, very time-worn device, (b) Millicent sees hundreds of such openings every year, so (c) you’d better do something with it that she’s never seen before. And if that’s not a creative challenge, I should like to know what is. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4235" class="post-4235 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-author-author-interview-videos category-1-page-synopses category-art-of-revision category-author-bio category-author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-being-an-agents-dream-client category-chapter-headings-and-openings category-contest-judging-criteria category-contest-synopsis-writing category-date-and-time-announcements category-e-mailed-submissions category-editing-for-clarity category-editing-for-length category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-that-grab category-format-troubleshooting category-frankenstein-voice-and-punctuation-issues category-hooks category-keeping-the-faith category-literary-fiction-craft category-literary-fiction-marketing category-literary-fiction-synopses category-page-1-and-what-it-should-look-like category-passive-voice-and-why-you-should-eschew-it category-proofreading category-realistic-expectations-for-submitters category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-setting-time-and-place category-standard-format-illustrated category-submission-packets category-submission-troubleshooting category-the-little-things-that-drive-the-pros-nuts category-voice category-what-an-agent-will-expect-your-manuscript-to-look-like category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-why-its-worth-your-time-to-proofread"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/27/crowing-for-good-reason-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-bruce-alfords-rooster-13/realistic-expectations-for-writers/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2011-03-27T00:00:00+00:00">March 27, 2011</time><time class="updated" datetime="2021-04-05T00:51:06+00:00">April 5, 2021</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/27/crowing-for-good-reason-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-bruce-alfords-rooster-13/realistic-expectations-for-writers/#respond">No Comments on Crowing for good reason: Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence winner Bruce Alford’s ROOSTER</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/27/crowing-for-good-reason-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-bruce-alfords-rooster-13/realistic-expectations-for-writers/" rel="bookmark">Crowing for good reason: Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence winner Bruce Alford’s ROOSTER</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/bruce-picture-021.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-14673" title="Bruce Alford author photo" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/bruce-picture-021-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="512" height="384" /></a> Today, I am delighted to bring you the winning entry in the recent <a href="/index_p_13946.html">Author! Author! Rings True literary competition</a>, Bruce Alford of Mobile, Alabama. In addition to carrying off top honors in Category I: literary fiction, Bruce’s breathtakingly delicate first page and well-constructed 1-page synopsis for ROOSTER also garnered the coveted Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence. Well done, Bruce! As has been the case for all of the winners in this contest, I sat down to discuss this exciting opening and premise with the ever-fabulous <a href="http://heidiwdurrow.com/">Heidi Durrow</a>, author of the intriguing recent literary fiction debut, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565126807?ie=UTF8&tag=heiwdur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1565126807">The Girl Who Fell from the Sky</a>. (The contest was timed to celebrate the <a href="<a href=">paperback release</a> of her novel.) She writes literary fiction, and I edit it, so our appetites were very much whetted. Especially for this entry. When the judges first clapped eyes upon it, the opening seemed almost eerily apt for this contest: the primary protagonist of Heidi’s marvelous literary fiction debut, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565126807?ie=UTF8&tag=heiwdur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1565126807">The Girl Who Fell from the Sky</a>, is half Danish, half African-American. It just goes to show you, campers — no matter how carefully a writer prepares a submission or contest entry, there’s no way that he can control what happens to be on Millicent the agency screener or Mehitabel the contest judge’s mind at the moment she happens to start reading it. What’s that I hear you muttering, campers? You feel that’s a trifle unjust, that the imperatives of literature require that all manuscript assessments be made from a completely clear mind, as if Millicent and Mehitabel had not read 27 first pages earlier in that sitting? Or perhaps as if they had not previously screened any literary fiction at all, and had not become jaded toward common mistakes? Fine — you try it. Here are Bruce’s materials as they might appear in a submission packet: page 1, synopsis, author bio. (As always, if you are having trouble seeing the details, try holding down the COMMAND key and hitting + to enlarge the image.) To make this an even fairer test, I shall not comment on the technical aspects at all until after Heidi and I discuss the content. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Alford-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14679" title="Alford page 1" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Alford-page-1.jpg" alt="" width="466" height="603" /></a> I’m going to stop you right here: quick, what’s your assessment of this book? Approaching a new writer’s work with completely fresh eyes is more difficult than it might seem at first blush, isn’t it? Everything you have ever read, from your all-time favorite novel to your high school English literature textbook, contributes to your sense of what is and is not good writing. So let me simplify the central issue for you: based on that first page alone, would you turn to page 2? I would certainly read further. On the strength of that, let’s take a peek at the other materials in this packet. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Alford-synopsis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14680" title="Alford synopsis" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Alford-synopsis.jpg" alt="" width="466" height="603" /></a> <blockquote><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bruce-Alford-author-photo-2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-14695" title="Bruce Alford author photo 2" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bruce-Alford-author-photo-2-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /></a>Bruce Alford, a personal trainer, aerobics instructor and a former journalist, has published creative nonfiction and poetry in various literary journals. Alford’s “How to Write a Real Poem” was selected for Special Merit in the 2010 <a href="http://www.comstockreview.org/annualcontest.html">Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Competition</a>. His book of poems, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Terminal-Switching-Poems-Bruce-Alford/dp/0965975177/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301287180&sr=1-2">Terminal Switching</a> (Elk River Review Press), was published in 2007. For a decade, he worked on drafts of Rooster. The book draws on tragedy in his family. His wife’s brother was missing for a week. Then migrant workers stumbled on his brother-in-law’s body near a tomato field in Louisiana. Over the years, as Alford wrote and re-wrote, he noticed that his relative’s short life and death said much about what being an American meant. As an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of South Alabama, he teaches a full schedule of classes, including British and American Literature, Poetry Writing and Creative Non-Fiction. He is a reviewer for <a href="http://www.writersforum.org/firstdraft/">First Draft</a>, a publication of <a href="http://www.writersforum.org/">the Alabama Writers’ Forum</a>.</blockquote> Does ROOSTER’s plot sound vaguely familiar? It should: it’s Hamlet, cleverly updated and set in an unexpected setting. Many highly successful novels have taken time-honored stories we all know and transformed them. Alice Walker’s THE COLOR PURPLE, for instance, is a retelling of the Ugly Duckling; there have been so many versions of Cinderella that I cannot even begin to enumerate them. While some writers might have chosen to conceal the eternal nature of the tale, Bruce has done something very interesting here: from the first line of the book, he evokes a fairy tale resonance. There was a girl in Denmark might be the opening of half of the stories in a Hans Christian Andersen storybook. That’s a definite marketing risk — chant it with me now, campers: most professional readers have been trained to regard the passive voice as stylistically weak writing, regardless of how and why it is used — but here, it may well pay off. Did it? Heidi and I discussed that very question. <iframe loading="lazy" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HS1SLBttrDY?feature=oembed" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">I’d like to elaborate a bit on the need for the first page to be able to stand alone as a story. Many aspiring writers make the completely understandable mistake of assuming that any professional reader who has asked to see a synopsis will have read it prior to starting on the manuscript itself. In practice, this is very rarely the case, even if the writer has placed the synopsis on top of the stack of papers in the submission packet. Why? Well, as the pros like to say, it all depends on the writing — but what gets read is also a function of time management. With both manuscript pages and a synopsis in hand, it just doesn’t make sense to read the latter first. No matter how much Millicent is taken by the story set out in the synopsis, if the writing on page 1 doesn’t grab her or strike her as book category-appropriate, she’s not going to keep reading, right? If she decides to reject the text, then, any time she has already invested in perusing the synopsis or any other marketing materials is lost. If she concentrates on the manuscript itself first, however, she can always turn to the synopsis for a sneak peek at the rest of the story. Or to know what comes after the first 50 pages that the agency has not yet requested. (Quick history lesson: requesting the first 50 or 100 pages used to be the norm for agencies. In the age of electronic media, however, when less paper is involved, requesting full manuscripts is far more common.) Those of you who have partials out with agents have had your hands in the air for several paragraphs now, haven’t you? “But Anne,” you point out, and with good reason, “you don’t seriously mean that an agency or publishing house would request a synopsis and not read it, do you?” That’s precisely what I mean, unfortunately. Just because an agent asks to see certain materials doesn’t imply a commitment to read every requested syllable. Agency guidelines, small publishers’ submission guidelines, and contest rules habitually ask for more than their screeners actually read. Why? Time, my friends, time. Think about it: since most manuscripts are rejected on page 1 (I’m just full of good news today, amn’t I?), why would Millicent invest another couple of minutes in perusing a synopsis for a book she has already decided to reject? And if the text of a contest entry does not adhere to the rules (as most don’t; contest entrants tend not to read guidelines very carefully), why would Mehitabel continue to read an entry that she already knows does not stand a chance of making the finalist round? See why I’m always harping on the importance of polishing your first page? If a professional isn’t impressed with it, chances are that s/he won’t see any other part of your submission packet. Still, some of you are not convinced. “But Anne, isn’t it safe to assume that Millicent will have read my query letter, at least, before screening my manuscript? You can’t possibly be telling me that I should polish my page 1 as if it is the first — or perhaps only — piece of my writing she will ever see.” It’s more than possible, campers — unless an agency is very small indeed, it’s unlikely that it will employ only one Millicent. It is therefore very probable that the person who read and approved your query (or query packet with pages) will not be the same human being who ends up screening subsequently requested materials. Even if your work does end up with the same screener twice, she will not necessarily have your query at her elbow when she turns her attention to your manuscript. And please, whatever you do, don’t fall into the exceedingly pervasive trap of assuming that your premise was so inherently memorable that any Millicent would be a fool not to remember it in detail 6 weeks after she read it, when the pages she requested from you finally land on her desk. Given the thousands of queries she reads in any given month, the best you can hope for is a, “Oh, this sounds familiar.” Really, though, should it matter? In a well-written manuscript, shouldn’t its appeal be obvious from page 1? Or should a reader have to read the back jacket — or, sacre bleu! a book review — to know why it’s worth reading past page 1? Those question were not rhetorical, by the way: every Millicent and Mehitabel has to confront these issues in every single submission or contest entry. If the answer is not apparent on your page 1, you might want to think about engaging in a spot of revision. Are you firmly in the page-1-or-bust mindset now? Excellent: you’re tapping into part of Millicent’s habitual mindset. To help you gain access to the other, more technical side, let’s take another gander at Bruce’s first page. Do you notice any formatting or punctuation problems that might distract her from his good writing? <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Alford-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Alford-page-1.jpg" alt="" title="Alford page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14679" /></a> Did you spot many, or were you concentrating too hard on the story? That’s what 99% of submitters assume will happen: professional readers will become so swept up in the beauty of their sentences and the lure of their stories that little matters like presentation just won’t matter. Besides, isn’t it going to be the future editor’s job to correct any punctuation gaffes? They believe, in short, that talent is the universal solvent of submission standards. Despite the wealth of tangible evidence to the contrary. This is, I’m afraid, a fantasy unique to aspiring writers. Not even professional writers share it: we all know from hard experience that appearances count. At the submission stage, there’s even more at stake. As we have been discussing throughout this prize series, to Millicent, an incorrectly-formatted page 1 just looks unprofessional, no matter how well-written it may be. Not sure how much of a difference it would make? Here’s that same page with the technical problems corrected, so you may see what Millicent was expecting. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bruce-corrected-3.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bruce-corrected-3.jpg" alt="" title="Bruce corrected 3" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14684" /></a> None of them particularly earth-shattering changes, you see, yet enough to prompt most Millicents and Mehitabels to take this page a shade less seriously as literature. Why worry about that, since as the more eagle-eyed among you have no doubt already observed, none of the top three entries in this category were correctly formatted? Because it’s just a fact that literary fiction is judged by a higher standard than other categories of fiction. Why? Well, the writing is supposed to be its primary selling point, isn’t it? So why wouldn’t Millicent and Mehitabel concentrate more on its details? All of the minor gaffes here are quite common in submissions and contest entries. Let’s start at the top and work our way down. First, the slug line was in a different typeface than the rest of the page — Calibri, instead of Times New Roman. There is literally no benefit to doing it this way, and it’s distracting to the eye. Yet within the last couple of years, I see this particular mistake in roughly a third of the manuscripts I see written by previously unpublished writers, so there must be some reason for it. Editors all over the world scratch their heads over this one. Is there some online writing guru who abruptly began insisting a couple of years back that the typeface should never match? Is there a macro lurking in the shadows that prompts writers to format their headers incorrectly? Or — and this strikes me as the most likely culprit — do people just start writing their books in a font other than Times New Roman or Courier, hear that these are the standards of the industry, and forget to alter the header when they change their texts? Just in case it’s the latter: in Word, a universal style change to a manuscript will not necessarily affect the header. Double-check, and if necessary, alter it separately. Moving down the page, the chapter heading was left-justified, with dashes at either end. The second set of dashes actually touched the word before them, always improper in standard format. While an editor might well elect to set the time and place designation at the left margin, that kind of decision about what the book will look like in its published form is the publisher’s, not the author’s. Since the time and place are evidently acting as the chapter title here, I placed them where a chapter title should be: centered on the first line of the page, with no dashes. That’s not the only way this could be formatted, though. If Bruce felt strongly about emphasizing the time and place, he could set up the page like so: <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/page-1-corrected-2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/page-1-corrected-2.jpg" alt="" title="page 1 corrected 2" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14683" /></a> But do you see the visual problem that might cause Millicent’s eye to twitch? I’ll highlight it, to render it easier to catch. <blockquote>Denmark, Mississippi, 1976 There was a girl in Denmark — so like the red witch in the old tales his people told that Victor Hugoâ€™s father and the other adults from Guatemala called her Ajitz Co’xol, the Red Witch of the Hill. They said that deep in the past, when people could turn themselves into animals, they had tried to kill her with teeth and claws, but could not.</blockquote> That’s a lot of word and phrase repetition for just a few lines of text, is it not? Focusing Millicent’s eye like a laser on the repetition of Denmark not only makes the redundant use of red witch jump off the page, but it also would underscore some of the territorial questions this opening paragraph leaves unanswered. If the girl is in Mississippi commenting upon her, why are people from Guatemala commenting upon her at all? Are they, too, in Denmark? Is she one of them? Is the Victor Hugo mentioned here the same one who wrote Les MisÃ¨rables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and if so, what is the father of a Frenchman who died in 1885 doing in either Guatemala or Mississippi in 1976? Does the they who spoke about the deep past refer to Victor Hugo’s geographically misplaced father et alia, or people in general? Lastly, does the second they refer to these folks, to the separate set of shape-shifters, or to a third set of people? Intriguing questions, admittedly. But since neither the rest of the page nor the synopsis address them, perhaps a few too many render drawing Millicent’s eye to that opening paragraph so directly with word and phrase repetition. So Bruce made a good call in using the time and place as a chapter heading. The mid-sentence capitalization of So, however, was probably not a deliberate authorial choice; it looks like the remnant of an incomplete revision. And what do we call that kind of archeological evidence of multiple revisions here at Author! Author!, campers? That’s right: a Frankenstein manuscript. While slips like this are perfectly understandable when writers edit on a computer screen — it’s so easy to cut and move text — to a professional reader, they signal that the revision process is not yet complete. While that conclusion might not equal instant rejection, it will generally cause Millicent to keep an even sharper eye out for subsequent Frankenstein symptoms. Any suggestions for the best way to avoid her drawing this conclusion in the first place? Feel free to pull out your hymnals and sing along: by reading every syllable of every page of a submission or contest entry IN ITS ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and preferably OUT LOUD. It’s simply too easy to overlook this type of gaffe on a computer screen. Because this is literary fiction, and thus may reasonably be expected to face more stringent scrutiny than other types of fiction, I also consolidated the last two paragraphs into a single one. Care to hazard a guess why? If your hand instantly shot into the air and you shouted, “Because in narrative prose, it takes at least two sentences to form a paragraph,” I hereby call upon Victor Hugo pÃ¨re et fils to kiss you on both cheeks. Technically, only dialogue paragraphs may be a single sentence long; all others require two sentences, at minimum. While journalistic trends have led most readers to be accepting of the occasional use of a single-sentence paragraph when the subject matter contained within it is genuinely startling, utilizing this device in two back-to-back paragraphs is likely to raise Millicent’s eyebrows, if not her ire. “But Anne,” those of you whose cheeks are still glowing from the Hugos’ salutes point out, “you left the first single-sentence paragraph. May I inquire why?” Of course you may, rosy cheeks: that sentence was surprising enough to justify being set apart as its own line. The very fact that it breaks the narrative rules calls attention to something the reader should find shocking. Take a gander at how much less jarring this information is if it is tucked within a longer paragraph. <blockquote>Victor shrunk from the girl but was also drawn to her, as a magnet sometimes fascinates another, pulling and repelling. He feared being so close but was eager to see her face because, as young as he was, he had known tragedy, and the whole story of this girl was a tragedy. They said sheâ€™d murdered her brother. He looked into her eyes, staring from shadows cast from the shed, and sensed {that} some giant, slow-footed god sat behind them, a thing that had passed through many calendars. He believed in evil spirits, and here was one, the shadow of a person. He could tell from her eyes. The circles inside the whites were pure black.</blockquote> Compare that to Bruce’s more daring structural choice: <blockquote>Victor shrunk from the girl but was also drawn to her, as a magnet sometimes fascinates another, pulling and repelling. He feared being so close but was eager to see her face because, as young as he was, he had known tragedy, and the whole story of this girl was a tragedy. They said sheâ€™d murdered her brother. He looked into her eyes, staring from shadows cast from the shed, and sensed {that} some giant, slow-footed god sat behind them, a thing that had passed through many calendars. He believed in evil spirits, and here was one, the shadow of a person. He could tell from her eyes. The circles inside the whites were pure black.</blockquote> Hard for even the most swiftly-skimming eye to miss the most important piece of information here, isn’t it? In essence, a single-line paragraph is the stylistic equivalent of a shout: it works beautifully for emphasis, but if it’s used too much, it simply becomes annoying for bystanders. It also, like any other overused writing device, becomes less and less effective the more it is used. Especially, as in this case, if it’s used in two consecutive sentences. <blockquote>Victor shrunk from the girl but was also drawn to her, as a magnet sometimes fascinates another, pulling and repelling. He feared being so close but was eager to see her face because, as young as he was, he had known tragedy, and the whole story of this girl was a tragedy. They said sheâ€™d murdered her brother. He looked into her eyes, staring from shadows cast from the shed, and sensed {that} some giant, slow-footed god sat behind them, a thing that had passed through many calendars.</blockquote> Notice anything else about all of these changes? How about the fact that all of them are so minor that the text itself reads more or less identically before and after they are implemented? That’s a pretty good test of whether there is sufficient narrative reason to bend, or even break, a rule, be it of standard formatting or of style. Writers often become defensive about requested revisions, as though any change whatsoever would compromise their artistic visions. As we may see here, however, sometimes polishing the presentation doesn’t alter the intended meaning at all. Let’s apply that same level of scrutiny and open-minded attitude to Bruce’s synopsis. I love it as an example: there’s absolutely no doubt about the story’s being compelling; all of the issues here are matters of presentation and clarity. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Alford-synopsis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Alford-synopsis.jpg" alt="" title="Alford synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14680" /></a> How did you do? This is a classic minimal 1-page synopsis: it starts out leaning heavily upon interesting details, but by the end, it’s a just-the-facts-ma’am account told in simple declarative sentences. Even in a story as inherently exciting as this one, that’s a problem, because — out come those hymnals again — every word in a submission packet or contest entry is a writing sample. There’s also a very basic omission here, one that is exceedingly common in submission packets. Did you catch it? If you are jumping up and down right now, screaming, “This synopsis doesn’t include a slug line — in fact, it does not identify the author at all,” run right back to those smooch-happy Hugos for a few more salutes. Aspiring writers are notorious for overestimating the probability of their entire query or submission packets remaining together once those pages land inside an agency or publishing house. Unless that packet was submitted via e-mail (rendering accidental deletion possible), it’s quite possible that one or more pages might go wandering. Why might that present a problem to a Millicent juggling 15 packets on her desk? Picture this if you will: Millicent’s coworker, Margie, is happily traipsing down the hallway, returning from a Starbucks run. She bends to pick up the lone piece of paper decorating the carpet. She pokes her head into Millicent’s cubicle, enticing her with the warm, comforting aroma of coffee. “Did you lose this, Mil?” “I have no idea.” Millicent examines it. “It doesn’t have a slug line, so it could be from any of these submissions. It would take me fifteen minutes to figure out which.” “Oh, well.” Margie makes a paper airplane out of the paper and aims it toward the recycling bin. “Have a nice afternoon.” The moral: label your pages. All of them. There are other formatting and clarity issues in this synopsis — the title does not appear on the first line of the page, for instance, and all of those commas occasionally render some sentences confusing. Rather than go through them one by one, however, I’m going to correct all but the gaffe most likely to make our Millie choke on her latte. (Oh, hadn’t I mentioned that Marge was nice enough to pick one up for her?) See if you can spot the remaining — and rather puzzling — formatting choice. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bruces-synopsis-revised-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bruces-synopsis-revised-1.jpg" alt="" title="Bruce's synopsis revised 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14690" /></a> Did it jump out at you that time? No? Okay, try comparing this page to the formatting Millicent and Mehitabel would be expecting to see. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bruce.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bruce.jpg" alt="" title="Bruce Alford's Rooster synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14700" /></a> See it now? The character names are apparently in a different typeface than the rest of the synopsis, in a form that Word calls small caps. You can see why they might appeal to some writers, can’t you? They make those names pop right off the page at the reader. The only problem: to a professional reader, this format will simply look wrong. So after having gone to all of that trouble to make the names look cool, all this presentation choice really achieves is to irritate the very people it was supposed to impress. That’s true of almost all of the bells and whistles aspiring writers work into their submissions, by the way: they not only represent wasted effort — a very real concern for a writer trying to wedge time-consuming querying and submission into an already packed schedule — but they also tend to make a manuscript look less professional to people who read them for a living. That’s never in an aspiring writer’s interest, because (do I hear those hymnals flying open again?) a writer unfamiliar with the rules of standard format is going to require more effort to represent. At minimum, her future agent is going to need to invest time in explaining those rules to her. So how can an aspiring writer avoid being labeled as a potential time-drainer? Simple: learn <a href="/index_p_13667.html">the rules of standard format</a>, apply them consistently, and resist the temptation to gussy up your pages with unnecessary and distracting extra flourishes. Remember, the little things do count. You don’t want anything to distract Millicent or Mehitabel from your good writing, do you? Still not convinced that presentation counts? All right, I ask you: the writing on Bruce’s page 1 is very evocative, right? Despite that fact, what percentage of this post has been devoted to the excellence of his prose? That, my friends, is how closely professional readers scan pages — and, incidentally, why the pros very seldom waste much time on praising manuscripts they like. This often comes as a gigantic surprise to writers new to the industry, but if an agent or editor decides to take on a project, it’s simply assumed that it is well-written. Why harp on it? Instead, the pros tend to do precisely what Heidi and I have done here: express their respect for a talented new writer by advising him, often quite directly and minutely, how his manuscript could be improved. After all, Bruce’s first page of writing speaks for itself, does it not? So while I could go on and on about what’s pleasing, intriguing, and thought-provoking in this first page and synopsis, I’m going to pay Bruce the professional compliment of assuming that we all know that he can write. And pay all of you the compliment of treating you as if you know good writing when you see it. Well-deserved kudos to our winner, and once again, deep gratitude to Heidi Durrow for taking the time to share her powerful insights. Remember to keep polishing those details, everybody, and keep up the good work!

March 24, 2011 - No Comments

It’s all about the writing: Author! Author! Rings True literary fiction winners Daniel Light and Austin Gary

Daniel, author of Wider Than the Sea

Austin, author of Genius

I’m most excited about today’s group of winners in theAuthor! Author! Rings True literary competition — and not just because they write in a category near to my heart, literary fiction. Daniel Light and Austin Gary’s entries are a far cry from the literary fiction stereotype of being about nothing but the writing: their pages and synopses present strong storylines, interesting premises, and interesting writing, told in unique authorial voices. Well done, both!

Adding to the excitement: I shall be discussing these intriguing entries with the ever-fabulous Heidi Durrow, author of the blockbuster literary fiction debut, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. (Now available in paperback!) Since Heidi writes literary fiction and I edit it, we both waxed poetic in discussing it.

I’m also rather tickled by how many of this contest’s array of winners (and entrants in general) come from far-flung corners of the earth. Daniel wins the long-distance entrant prize — he lives in Jerusalem — while Austin inhabits lovely British Columbia. John Turley and Fiona Maddock, of Rings True freestyle category fame hail from Colorado and the United Kingdom, respectively; memoir winners Kathryn Cureton and Margie Borchers are from Missouri and Washington state. For a blog that started out five and a half years ago as the voice of a regional writers’ association, the diversity of entries is most gratifying.

This contest’s winners are really interesting people, too; I’m so glad that I asked for author bios this time around. Fair warning: I’m going to make this a regular feature for Author! Author! contests, so now would be a great time to start thinking about your own bio, as well as what you would use as an author photo if the agent of your dreams asked for either or both tomorrow. (For tips on pulling your own together, take a peek at the aptly-named HOW TO WRITE AN AUTHOR BIO category on the archive list at right.)

A moral that I hope everybody will take from these winners’ posts: an author bio need not be crammed to the gills with publication credentials in order to make the writer sound interesting. Austin and Daniel’s bios are very different, but they both would make Millicent the agency screener want to chat with these writers over a steaming-hot latte. First, check out Austin’s more traditional bio:

Austin Gary is a BMI award-winning songwriter (as Gary Heyde), with recordings by artists such as Tammy Wynette, John Berry & Jeff Carson. He’s been an editor of a weekly newspaper; an actor/director; copywriter; director of radio and TV broadcast; a jingle writer; owner of a music production company; and a teacher of English, speech, drama and film. Austin’s been seriously writing since 2007. In 2008, he was a fiction finalist in the PNWA lit contest (“Ask Me No Secrets:); 2009 semi-finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom fiction competition (“Miss Madeira”); and 2010 a finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom novel-in-progress (“Genius”). He recently moved from Des Moines, WA to Port Moody, B.C., where he’s writing full-time.

Makes him sound pretty formidable, does it not? Now take a gander at Daniel’s less standard, but equally interesting bio:

Daniel Light is an ordained rabbi who has taught Talmud and Bible part-time in several schools in Israel and has run a listserv dedicated to essays that harmonize between Judaism and popular culture. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University and a Bachelor of Law from Hebrew University and, following a year-long internship in corporate law, is currently living in Jerusalem and studying for the Israeli Bar exam. WIDER THAN THE SEA is his first novel and the fruit of his experiences in, and knowledge of, law, medicine, religion, psychology, morality, and life.

Not as many publishing credentials, admittedly — but if you were inviting luminaries to a literary luncheon, you would want both Austin and Daniel on your guest list, wouldn’t you? So would Millicent. Except as someone who habitually thinks in terms of book marketing, she would also make a mental note that either of these writers would probably give a great interview and be genuinely interesting public speakers.

If you think those are not a selling points for a writer, I can only assume that you do not attend many book readings. Unfortunately, new authors (and even established ones) who spend entire hours-long promotional events with their noses three inches from their own books, assiduously avoiding eye contact, are the norm, not the exception. It’s not even all that uncommon to see authors who evidently experience difficulty reading out loud.

Yet another reason to get into the habit of reading your manuscripts IN THEIR ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD, should you need another. If your critique group doesn’t set aside time for members to read to one another, you have my permission to tell yours that I said it was excellent training for future author readings. (And while we’re on the subject, would any of you regular readers be interested in my running a series of public reading dos and don’ts?)

As interesting as the bios are, however, for literary fiction, what matters most is on the manuscript page: more than in any other book category, literary fiction readers pay attention to sentence structure, vocabulary, and imagery. As folks in the industry like to say, it all depends on the writing.

Specifically, how literary the writing is. Lest we forget, in publishing terms, there is no such thing as universally good writing: what constitutes good writing on the literary fiction page is quite different from stylistic excellence in a mystery and vice-versa. And while agents have been known to say, “It’s a {fill in book category here}, but in a literary voice,” they don’t mean that the author of the book in question has jettisoned the conventions and expected vocabulary of the category; they merely mean that the narrative contains unusually pretty writing.

Do I spot some raised hands out there? “But Anne,” the many, many aspiring writers who have been assuming that their work was literary fiction protest, “isn’t pretty writing half the definition of literary fiction? And isn’t the other half a story driven by character, rather than by the needs of the plot?”

Well, yes and no on both counts, literary assumers. Yes, nice writing and a character-driven story are standard elements of literary fiction. No, that doesn’t mean a book without a plot that features impeccably-crafted sentences. Nor — and this may come as more of a surprise to some of you — does it mean that any well-written character development is literary fiction.

Don’t feel bad if you thought this — if that giant gulping sound we just heard out there in the ether is any indication, you were certainly not alone in conflating good writing with literary writing. Aspiring writers presume that literary fiction is merely a euphemism for good writing; if their writing is stylistically strong, they reason, and if it is fiction, it must therefore be literary fiction.

Which renders it rather confusing when the pros state categorically that there is good writing in every book category, doesn’t it?

But book categories are not subjective judgments about authorial voice and style; they are marketing containers for books that share certain expectations about plot, character development, subject matter, and audience. Literary fiction is its own distinct book category — consisting of narratives more prone to dwell on character, true, but also written in a vocabulary and sentence style aimed to please a college-educated readership. In the U.S. market, that readership is between 90-95% female, depending upon whom you ask and whether the respondent considers John Irving’s work literary or mainstream fiction.

Oh, you may laugh, but for many years, debate raged over how to categorize THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP. (If you don’t believe me, check out The New York Times’ extremely uncomfortable original review.) Until fairly recently, one of the best ways to find out how a literarily-aware person felt about the desirability of high literature’s being accessible to a mainstream readership was to bring up the inimitable Mssr. Irving and ask whether the aforementioned reader regarded him as a writer of literary fiction or not.

Bearing this ongoing debate in mind, let’s step gingerly into Millicent’s moccasins and peruse Daniel’s page 1. (As always, if you are having trouble making out the details, try holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + to enlarge the image.) Is it literary fiction, or is it just good writing?

Have you made up your mind? Good. Now take a gander at Daniel’s synopsis, and see if your opinion about the book category changes.

Have you come to a conclusion? Or, after our discussion last time about the differences between fiction and nonfiction synopses, did the analytical statement the novel reaches a climax distract you too much to be able to form a firm opinion? If it’s the latter, you’re thinking like Millicent: in a synopsis for a novel, regardless of book category, she expects to see the story told directly, not to see the plot talked about indirectly, in academic terms.

That’s another common misconception amongst aspiring writers: the notion that using technical terms like climax, protagonist, antagonist, central conflict, etc. will make their queries and synopses sound professional. In practice, however, while people in the publishing industry do occasionally use these terms, an agent pitching fiction to an editor or an editor pitching it to an editorial committee would rarely describe it this way.

Instead, they would tell the story — as should the writer. As beautifully as possible. After all, part of what’s being sold here is the writing style, and (feel free to chant it with me now, long-term readers) every sentence a writer submits to an agency, publishing house, or contest is a writing sample.

Again, those assessments are not going to be based solely upon whether the writing is strong in a general sense; every book category has slightly different standards for what constitutes good writing. As you may see for yourself, even two habitual readers of literary fiction may disagree on whether an opening page is or not. (Please forgive the giant BOOM! in the background; we know not whence it came.)

The question of where to begin this exciting-sounding plot is crucial to fitting this first page into a book category. Daniel does a marvelous job of tossing the reader directly into the midst of Simon’s personal angst; the speculation about what would have happened if a very minor accident had been a major one is a clever means of demonstrating how stressed-out Simon is. However, what the character actually says (“Huh”) is not all that character- or situation-revealing — which alone might raise some doubt in Millicent’s mind over whether this is literary fiction. Yes, a person in this situation might actually say it, but the point of dialogue in a novel is not merely to provide a transcript of how people speak: it’s to use that speech selectively to develop character and move a plot around. Here’s an excellent test for whether a line adds to a scene: try taking it out. If the scene reads as well without it, it probably did not add much. Let’s apply that test here. While I’m at it, I’m going to change two small things that would have bugged Millicent, but an ordinary reader probably would not have noticed. See if you can catch them. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Light-revised-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Light-revised-page-1.jpg" alt="" title="Light revised page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14651"/></a> The cut text doesn’t detract from either the scene or the reader’s sense of who Simon is, does it? All taking it out does is speed up the pacing — which, in a scene as breathless as this, is a plus whether the book is literary fiction, mainstream fiction, or a thriller. Did you catch the other changes? The most noteworthy: breaking the paragraph between lines 9 and 10, in order to make more palpable the mental change between Simon’s worry and the onset of his feeling of claustrophobia. It also helps offset the line of dialogue, a trifle odd to find in the middle of a narrative paragraph. An argument could be made against inserting the paragraph break here, of course: beginning a new paragraph with a description as vague as something in the air might not be the best way to capture Millicent’s attention in a literary fiction submission. It would work for a thriller — undefined unease is part of the genre’s stock in trade — but in literary or mainstream fiction, I would advise against forcing the reader to guess what internal or external force (as Heidi mentioned, it’s not entirely clear which) is pressing upon our hero. The reader simply doesn’t know him well enough yet to know what might generate this response. Then, too, aspiring writers as a group just love statements like something made him turn, somehow, she just knew, and somewhere in the distance, a sound emerged. To a professional reader, such descriptions come across not as mysterious so much as undescriptive. “What made him turn?” Millicent wonders. “How did she know? From whence did that sound emerge, and while we’re at it, what did it sound like? And why is it my job to fill in the specifics here, rather than the writer’s?” Good questions, all, if a trifle on the literal side. And while we are discussing literal trifles, did you catch the alteration I made to the header? I’d be rather surprised if you did: I changed the font from 11 to 12 point, because the slug line should be in the same font as the rest of the manuscript. I also made it black instead of gray. Hey, I haven’t been kidding about how even the smallest details might affect how Millicent perceives a submission. There’s a bigger issue, however, that might lead her to conclude that Daniel’s first page was not literary fiction. <iframe loading="lazy" width="500" height="281" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mvpNfm66VMc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> I can sense some of you literary fiction writers muttering under your breath. “So how I tell my story should be dictated by marketing concerns? That seems horrifyingly anti-artistic. My muse is liable to throw a hissy fit if I devote so much as an instant of my writing time to such prosaic concerns.” You need not risk offending your muse at the composition stage, oh mutterers, but it would behoove you to invest a bit of thought into what part of your vision of the story is first going to greet Millicent’s eyes. Agents and editors are used to being able to tell by the bottom of page 1 what kind of manuscript is in front of them — and since any reader is likely to project the opening scene or image onto the rest of the book, that’s a legitimate artistic concern. How so? Well, the art of writing isn’t merely about reproducing the author’s vision on the page: it’s also concerned with conveying that vision to the reader. Let’s apply that principle to this page 1. It’s vital that the reader’s first impression of Simon matches Daniel’s mental image of him, right? So even the most artistically-minded reviser might want to interrogate the text: is there an external stimulus causing Simon’s claustrophobia, or is all of this pressure internal? A fringe benefit: the answer to that question is going to tell Millicent quite a lot about the book category. If the sense of being persecuted is entirely the result of clashing pressures in his mind, it’s probably literary fiction. If it’s a combination of internal and external stimuli, it’s probably mainstream fiction — and our Millie will want to have some indication of what the outside force is by the bottom of page 1. If supernatural forces caused his oppression, it’s a paranormal. And so forth. Since the single easiest excuse Millicent can have for rejecting a submission is if the manuscript appears not to fit into a book category her boss represents, it honestly is in the writer’s best interest to make the opening pages read like opening pages tend to read in his chosen book category. While you are turning that rather far-ranging self-editing advice around in your mind, let’s move on to Austin’s page 1 and synopsis. As you may see, his approach to literary fiction is quite different from Daniel’s, but Millicent would approach it with the same question in mind: is this literary fiction, or is it another type of book? Or are there other issues here that might distract Millie from that central issue? <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gary-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gary-page-1.jpg" alt="" title="Gary page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14655"/></a> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gary-Genius-synopsis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gary-Genius-synopsis.jpg" alt="" title="Gary Genius synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14656"/></a> Let’s consider these pages at the micro level, then move up to the macro. Unless a manuscript includes footnotes — unusual in fiction, but not unheard-of — every word in it should be in the same font. So if you found the gigantic chapter designation distracting on page 1, you’re certainly not alone — many Millicents would simply reject this page without reading beyond, believing (in this case, wrongly) that a writer who had not learned the requirements of standard format for manuscripts is unlikely to produce polished prose. Even if Millie was broad-minded enough to overlook the non-standard heading, she would have her opinion confirmed by the use of emdashes, also improper in manuscript submissions. (For those of you new to standard format, dashes should be doubled, with a space between the dashes and the words that come just before and just after it.) And if she makes it to the bottom of the page, there’s the rather odd repetition of the book’s title in the footer. While it’s fairly apparent in soft copy that this was a matter of a misplaced page break, Millicent can only respond to what’s actually on the page. In short, the formatting here is likely to prevent the writing on this page from getting an impartial reading. That’s a genuine pity, but it’s quite understandable, right? As we have been discussing in recent weeks, a manuscript that’s not in line with professional standards tends to set off warning bells in agencies, because a client who needs to be shown the ropes is inherently more time-consuming to represent than one already familiar with the rules. Hey, there’s a reason I keep devoting weeks of every year to going over <a href="/index_p_13667.html">the strictures of standard format</a>. A properly-formatted submission is much more likely to get taken seriously at an agency, publishing house, or contest. Indeed, many literary contests simply disqualify improperly-formatted entries. There’s also a style-related formatting issue here: the italicized sentence opening the last paragraph is likely to give her pause. On its face — that is, without reading the rest of the paragraph on the next page — this statement doesn’t seem nearly important enough to justify the emphasis. Again, there’s a very simple test for this: remove the italics. If the text does not lose any meaning by the change, the emphasis did not add to the reader’s understanding of the argument. Fortunately, all of these formatting problems are quite easy to fix. Take a gander at what a mere 45 seconds of revision achieved — and that included the time to remove the quotation marks around the phrase that isn’t quoting anyone specific and the equivocation about time: <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gary-revised-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gary-revised-page-1.jpg" alt="" title="Gary revised page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14660"/></a> Makes a surprisingly great difference, doesn’t it? To a screener or contest judge in a hurry, it might make all the difference. There’s another potential red flag here, a style choice that would be more difficult to get past literary fiction-reading Millicent than habitual screeners of other types of writing: all of the this is… statements. While they definitely work dramatically, the use of the passive voice is always a risk in a submission, for the exceedingly simple reason that the overwhelming majority of US-based Millicents have been trained to regard it as a stylistically weak fiction writing. (The passive voice is considered more acceptable outside the United States and in nonfiction.) How widespread is this opinion? Let me put it this way: the overwhelming majority of freelance editors and most writing teachers routinely advise writers to avoid using the passive voice altogether in narration. As in throughout an entire manuscript. Personally, I believe that sometimes the passive voice is the best way to convey certain facts (“That’s he, officer!”). However, because this is such a common Millicents’ pet peeve, I would strenuously advise against using the passive voice within the first chapter of a manuscript — or, in this case, the prologue. (A brave choice to submit the prologue in a contest, though, Austin — I would have sent page 1 of Chapter 1.) I would jump up and down shouting to prevent an aspiring writer with talent from indulging in it on page 1 of a submission. Since — chant it with me now, campers — every sentence in a submission packet is a writing sample, I would also recommend eschewing the passive voice in a synopsis. That’s harder, of course, especially in a story like this, where forces larger than the actors are at play. Think of it as a writing challenge. And do bear in mind that synopses, like manuscripts, should be in standard format. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gary-revised-synopsis1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gary-revised-synopsis1.jpg" alt="" title="Gary revised synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14661"/></a> More Millicent-friendly, is it not? Because I’m very taken with Austin’s story — that’s not getting lost in all of this detailed critique, is it? — I’d also like to see a few other changes in the synopsis. In fact, I’ve made a couple of them above. For starters, I attributed the long quote right away: a Millicent in a hurry might not be willing to wait until the following paragraph to find out who is speaking. Generally speaking, however, quoting other writers in one’s marketing materials is not the best strategy for impressing a professional reader: our Millie is trying to find out what kind of writer Austin is, not whether Mark Twain has an engaging style. Instead, I would have preferred to see the synopsis devote that page space to a description of what the Paige Compositor actually was. Did you notice the other major revision? Actually, there were two: I edited out the commanding tone of the last paragraph (Millicent doesn’t like to be ordered to encounter anyone or anything; she’s an independent soul) and removed the reference to point of view. As we discussed with respect to Daniel’s synopsis, a novel synopsis should concern itself the story of the book, not talk about it in analytical terms. Or, to put it as Millicent might: the manuscript itself will show her the point of view. In the synopsis, tell the story. And to put it as I invariably do: this is a great opportunity to demonstrate to a professional reader that not only that you can plot an entire book, but that you are a fantastic storyteller. Does that mean dancing around the passive voice? For literary fiction, definitely. And it’s not a bad idea for synopses for any other type of fiction, either. All that being said, let me ask you: you still want to read this book, don’t you? That’s the alchemy of a strong, assured narrative voice and a genuinely intriguing premise. That, my friends, is why making sure the small details are correct is so very important. While it is possible to see that this is potentially a great book in these two pages, the reader needs to concentrate in order not to be distracted by the technical problems we’ve been discussing. That’s the point of standard format: to remove as many distractions as possible, so professional readers may concentrate upon the writing. And, of course, the nifty premise, which Heidi and I both loved. Being me, I also wanted to talk about tinkering with the book category. <iframe loading="lazy" width="500" height="281" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nWPAYrs7wb0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> There’s a reason that revision is also known as polishing: as we have seen demonstrated so delightfully in Austin and Daniel’s first pages, even a manuscript that’s awfully darned good can often be improved by a bit of buffing. Twenty or thirty years ago, most agents were willing to take on pre-buffed manuscripts from first-time authors, under the assumption that the acquiring editor was not only going to be willing to help in the burnishing process, but would be eager to help a promising writer develop his voice. Today, unfortunately, editors seldom have that luxury. It is most assuredly in a talented writer’s best interest, then, to put in the extra hours to put a high shine on his prose — or, in these extremely promising writers’ cases, to put an even higher shine on them. Isn’t your good writing worth it? I have confidence that it is. Best of luck with these intriguing books, Austin and Daniel, and once again, many thanks to the wonderful Heidi Durrow for lending us her expertise. And, as always, everybody, keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4234" class="post-4234 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-author-author-interview-videos category-1-page-synopses category-action-scenes category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence category-autobiographical-fiction category-common-rejection-triggers category-eye-catching-query-letter-candy category-fiction-vs-nonfiction-synopses category-figuring-out-which-agents-to-query category-first-pages-that-grab category-format-troubleshooting category-freshness-in-synopses category-generating-a-querying-list category-industry-terminology category-keeping-the-faith category-literary-fiction-marketing category-narrative-nonfiction category-pacing-a-scene category-pet-peeves-on-parade category-platform-demonstration-in-a-synopsis category-punctuation-and-grammar-of-the-non-standard-variety category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-quotation-marks-around-non-quotes category-real-stories-told-as-fiction category-realistic-expectations-for-queriers category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-rejection-when-they-dont-tell-you-why category-setting-time-and-place category-submission-troubleshooting category-synopses-and-everything-you-need-to-know-about-them category-synopses-illustrated category-synopsis-troubleshooting category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-why-its-worth-your-time-to-proofread category-writing-on-dark-topics"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/21/bursting-the-boundaries-author-author-rings-true-freestyle-category-winners-john-turley-and-fiona-maddock-14/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/realistic-expectations-for-queriers/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2011-03-21T00:00:00+00:00">March 21, 2011</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/21/bursting-the-boundaries-author-author-rings-true-freestyle-category-winners-john-turley-and-fiona-maddock-14/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/realistic-expectations-for-queriers/#respond">No Comments on Bursting the boundaries: Author! Author! Rings True freestyle category winners John Turley and Fiona Maddock</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/21/bursting-the-boundaries-author-author-rings-true-freestyle-category-winners-john-turley-and-fiona-maddock-14/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/realistic-expectations-for-queriers/" rel="bookmark">Bursting the boundaries: Author! Author! Rings True freestyle category winners John Turley and Fiona Maddock</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/JAT-Photo-for-BIO.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/JAT-Photo-for-BIO-300x225.jpg" alt="" title="John Turley author photo" width="300" height="225" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14593"/></a> John, author of Macondo 20/20 <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/fionamaddockportrait2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/fionamaddockportrait2-272x300.jpg" alt="" title="Fiona Maddock author photo" width="272" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14591"/></a> Fiona, author of Infinite Loop Welcome to the second group of winning entries in the <a href="/index_p_13946.html">Author! Author! Rings True literary competition</a>. Today, I am delighted to be bringing you the extremely interesting top entries Category III: fiction that could legitimately fit into several book categories, John Turley and Fiona Maddock. Well done, both! As shall be the case with those who carried off top honors in each of the Rings True categories, I shall be discussing page 1 and a synopsis with <a href="http://heidiwdurrow.com/">Heidi Durrow</a>, author of the recent literary fiction debut, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565126807?ie=UTF8&tag=heiwdur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1565126807">The Girl Who Fell from the Sky</a>, now available <a href="<a href=">in paperback</a>. Heidi was generous enough to help me critique these intriguing pages. We shall be approaching today’s winners slightly differently than our last set, however. Because the author’s personality (or, more accurately, public persona plus platform) is part of what is being pitched in memoir, we began <a href="/index_p_14553.html">the previous prize post</a> with each winner’s bio, then moved on to her first page and synopsis. With fiction, however, the writer’s platform is significantly less important at the querying and submission stages — or, to put it as bluntly as our old pal Millicent the agency screener might, all the charm in the world won’t make up for a story that doesn’t grab her on page 1. As they say in the biz, what matters is the writing. Oh, and the query’s being aimed at an agent or editor with a solid track record of handling books in that manuscript’s book category. Why? Chant it with me now, long-time readers of this blog: since no agent represents every kind of book, it’s a waste of time to query those who do not habitually handle books like yours. Queries addressed to agents who do not represent the book category in question get rejected automatically; pervasive writerly fantasy to the contrary, Millicent will not make an exception for a submission that happens to be well-written. Therefore, selecting the appropriate category for your manuscript is vital. As the gargantuan wail of writerly angst can attest, many, if not most, aspiring writers find this imperative a tad stressful. “What if I get it wrong?” they fret, and who can blame them? “I hate the idea of my work being pigeonholed.” While this attitude is completely understandable, it also represents a fairly complete lack of comprehension for how books are marketed. All books currently published in the United States have been pigeonholed — that’s how the hardworking employees of Barnes & Noble and other brick-and-mortar bookstores know where to shelve them. It’s also how book buyers for those stores look for what to stock, how book distributors describe their current offerings, how publishers think of their lists, and how editors’ job descriptions limit what they can acquire. It thus follows as night the day that if agents want to pitch books, they must also adhere to the prevailing practice of assigning each client’s projects to already-established book categories. Which is to say: a book category is nothing but a conceptual container, intended to help a manuscript end up on the desk of someone who can actually bring it to publication. Basically, these categories exist to save everyone time and effort, including the writer. Still don’t believe me? All right, let’s take a gander at today’s category-defying entries. Image that you are sitting in Millicent’s desk chair: if you want to recommend these manuscripts to your boss, the agent, you will need to be able to tell her in a sentence or two what each book is about. You will also have to assign it to a category. Everyone clear on the brief? Excellent. First, here is the first page of John Turley’s MACONDO 20-20. Ready, set, screen! <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Turley-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Turley-page-1.jpg" alt="" title="John Turley page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14602"/></a> How did you do? Were you able to categorize it? Or — and I hope this is the case, given how much attention we’ve devoted in recent weeks to learning to spot small problems on manuscript pages — were you too distracted by these details to focus on book category? On the off chance that some of you were not as distracted by them as Millicent would have been, here’s that first page again with the formatting, punctuation, and word use problems corrected. Notice how much correcting these minuscule matters changes how it reads. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Turley-revised-p-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Turley-revised-p-1.jpg" alt="" title="John Turley revised p 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14605"/></a> Amazing what a difference those small revisions make, is it not? Now, we may return to our initial question: how would Millicent categorize this book? If you’re having some trouble, step back and ask yourself an even more basic question: based on this page alone, is this book fiction or nonfiction? Oh, you may laugh, but you would be surprised at how often it’s not possible to tell from an opening page — or how frequently queriers leave this pertinent fact out of their queries. But since there is no such thing in the publishing world as a book that’s sort of fiction, sort of nonfiction, it’s honestly not in a writer’s interest to make Millicent guess which a manuscript is. Of course, I already know which, because I have John’s synopsis sitting in front of me. Before we get to it, however, let’s keep our nit-picking hats on and peruse Fiona Maddock’s entry. Much to Millicent’s relief, it’s substantially simpler to categorize — or is it? <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Fiona-p-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Fiona-p-1.jpg" alt="" title="Fiona Maddock page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14608"/></a> If you found your focus shifting from questions of category, spelling, and even writing almost immediately, congratulations: you’re starting to read like a pro. (And if you instantly noted the missing slug line, you’re reading like Millicent.) If not — which would be quite understandable in this case; it’s one heck of an opening — here’s that page again as a professional reader would have preferred to see it, so you may compare formatting and punctuation directly. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Fionas-revised-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Fionas-revised-page-1.jpg" alt="" title="Fiona Maddock's revised page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14609"/></a> If you did not catch the problems the first time around, do not despair — you’re not only like the overwhelming majority of submitters, but very much like the general reading public. These days, we’re also used to the pervasive typos brought on by the rise in on-screen editing that small things like using dashes correctly or adding commas where they are necessary may well seem like piddling details, unworthy of contemplation. To those who love literature and have devoted their lives to its publications, however, these seemingly small gaffes are far from irrelevant. In these days of dwindling staffs, prose-polishing is the writer’s responsibility, an essential part of the job description. These manuscript faux pas are also important because to a professional’s eye, they indicate that the author is either too busy to proofread her own work between revisions or just isn’t very attentive to detail. Either way, the Millicent can predict pretty confidently from page 1 that the rest of the manuscript will contain similar problems — and thus that this writer would be more time-consuming (and therefore expensive) to represent than others with similarly compelling stories and talent. They know from long experience that if a writer does not consistently produce clean manuscripts, some luckless soul at the agency and/or publishing house will have to invest valuable hours in polishing the prose. They also tend to suspect that a submitter who has not invested the time in learning the rules of standard format — which, lest we forget, people in the publishing world believe to be so pervasive that a writer would have to be deliberately avoiding in order not to apprehend them — is going to have difficulty following directions from an agent or editor. So while forgetting (or, more commonly, not being aware) that standard format requires a space at either end of a dash, or that dashes in manuscripts should be doubled, or that each page needs a slug line may be easy for an aspiring writer to overlook, to Millicent, it’s all part of the diagnosis of the submission. I’m bringing this up not to chide today’s winners, but because I couldn’t resist the object lesson: even when the writing and the premise is this good, presentation matters. Please, for your book’s sake, don’t ever assume that a professional reader is going to cut your manuscript slack because s/he likes the writing or considers the subject matter intriguing. Speaking of diagnosis and subject matter, how have you been coming with your categorization projects? Let’s turn to our winners’ 1-page synopses and bios to see if they offer any clues. Ah, a forest of hands just shot into the air out there. “But Anne,” those who were paying close attention at the beginning of this post protest, and rightly so. “You said that for fiction, the writer’s platform does not matter nearly so much as for nonfiction. I don’t expect that every police procedural to be written by a police officer, any more than I would expect a middle-grade novel about an undersea soccer league to be penned by a mermaid. So why would a fiction-screening Millicent glance at a bio at all until her agency had already decided to pick up a client, much less after reading only the first page of a submission?” You’re probably right, oh attentive ones — generally speaking, even a professional reader who really loves a fiction manuscript will not read the bio until fairly late in the game. After Millie has finished the submission, she might well scan the bio for additional selling points to mention to her boss. (“This safari novel is great — and the writer once had three toes bitten off by a lion!”) In the case of John’s manuscript, any expertise he might have in offshore drilling or marine biology might well render his take on a certain recent oil spill more credible for readers. That’s going to be especially true if the book is nonfiction, but because any major event in the news is likely to generate a few novels, an extensive background in the subject matter would help set his book apart from the rest. Then, too, our goal here is to establish these books’ respective categories, right? Although most of you have probably made an educated guess that Fiona’s book category would fall into the fiction range, from her first page alone, it’s also possible that she’s written a memoir about being a plastic surgery survivor. The suspense is killing me. Let’s take a gander at her synopsis and bio. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Fiona-synopsis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Fiona-synopsis.jpg" alt="" title="Infinite Loop synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14610"/></a> <blockquote> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/fionamaddockportrait2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/fionamaddockportrait2-150x150.jpg" alt="" title="Fiona Maddock author photo" width="75" height="75" class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-14591"/></a>Fiona Maddock is a self-taught artist and writer. She’s a secret scribbler and a closet geek. She’s travelled across Europe, India and round the world. She’s tinkered around with web sites and built on-line art galleries for her work. In 2010, she graduated from the University of Reading with a BSc in Information Technology and this experience inspired her to write science fiction. She lives in Reading, United Kingdom and spends her time on her fiction writing, blogging and supporting disabled students at uni. Contact her through her blog, <a href="http://fiona-maddock.blogspot.com/">Novel Thinking</a>. </blockquote> Eureka! Although she’s just come out and told us what her chosen book category is in her bio — an unusual choice, and one that I think is an inefficient use of page space in what is already a rather information-light bio by U.S. standards — actually, the synopsis renders it perfectly clear. There’s no reason to hesitate for even a moment in assigning this book permanently to the science fiction category. I have to confess, it always strikes me as a trifle apologetic when writers insist upon including the information that they are self-taught in their bios — or queries, where that fact pops up with astonishing frequency. It’s a statement guaranteed to perplex Millicent: the vast majority of published writers were self-taught; while an M.F.A. in writing makes for some nice ECQLC (Eye-Catching Query Letter Candy), and thus might render Millicent a trifle more likely to ask to see pages, it won’t help necessarily help a submission’s chances. The knowledge that a writer taught herself the ropes, however, isn’t unusual enough to strike Millicent one way or the other. Besides, to a pro, the mere fact that the bio mentions no writing credentials implies that the writer has not had any formal training. That’s mere quibbling, however, over a quite exciting first page and synopsis — and a sultry authorial voice that draws the reader into the story, pronto. Here’s what Heidi and I had to say about them. <iframe loading="lazy" width="500" height="281" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/z8JUHyekW6s?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> While Fiona’s synopsis is still fresh in our collective mind, I’d like to flag a very, very common Millicents’ pet peeve: placing words and phrases within quotation marks that are not actually quotes. Remember, professional readers are paid to be hyper-literal: if words are presented within quotation marks, they will expect that either (a) those words are dialogue, (b) the words within the quotes are intended ironically, in a manner that casts doubt on the aptness of the moniker, or (c) the words within quotes are the title of a short story. Thus, while “Hi, Stan,” or she was wearing a “Chanel” suit would not cause our Millie’s eyebrows to elevate, the fact that one of the characters’ names is consistently presented within quotation marks would send them rocketing into her hairline. That’s especially likely to happen with this synopsis, as Fiona has used UK-proper single quotation marks, rather than US-proper doubled ones. (Also, when quoted words end a sentence, the period belongs within the quotation marks, not outside.) As we have been discussing in the comments lately, while UK and Canadian formatting and spelling are perfectly correct for manuscripts being submitted in those countries, a US-based Millicent will expect every manuscript she sees to be in American English. (Unless, of course, what she’s seeing is about to be reprinted domestically after successful publication elsewhere in the English-speaking world.) Why? Chant it with me now, those of you who paid close attention above: in the current literary market, the writer, not agent, is generally held to be responsible for proofreading the manuscript. If Millicent approves a submission, but the pages of a story not set in the UK and intended for publication in the US do not adhere consistently to prevailing US standards, some luckless individual will have to make all of those tiny changes individually. I’m bringing this up not merely because many, many UK-based science fiction and fantasy writers query New York-based agents every year — it’s a significantly stronger market here, one that supports quite a few more agents — but also because I’d rather like to be able to buy Fiona’s book over here someday. And here, the little things often do make the vital difference in a submission. Let’s move on to John’s synopsis and bio. Intriguingly, they render the question of book category even more complex than what we were facing on page 1. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Turley-synopsis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Turley-synopsis.jpg" alt="" title="John Turley Macondo synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14616"/></a> <blockquote> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/JAT-Photo-for-BIO.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/JAT-Photo-for-BIO-150x150.jpg" alt="" title="John Turley author photo" width="75" height="75" class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-14593"/></a>John Turley grew up in San Diego, California, loving rocks and the sea. Advanced degrees in petroleum engineering and ocean engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Miami preceded a three-year professorship and propelled him into the world of offshore drilling. His drilling-management responsibilities with a major oil-and-gas company began with the Gulf of Mexico, evolved to the North Sea, were bolstered by Harvard Business School, and culminated with management of worldwide drilling. He elected to retire early as an officer of the company to focus on writing. In his second career, Turley writes novel-length fiction and short stories. In 2008, he won Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ prestigious Colorado Gold award for his mystery Body Shots (think of Carl Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip, but the sharks win). He describes his recently completed novel, Macondo 20-20, as a facts-based, on-the-rig, character-driven story about the Gulf of Mexico well that became the infamous BP blowout. The Turleys live in Littleton, Colorado. On a lake. By a lot of rocks. </blockquote> Eureka again! John does in fact have precisely the credentials to induce either a nonfiction- or fiction-representing agency’s Millicent to leap squealing from her desk chair and go running into her boss’ office, exclaiming, “This guy is going to be a GREAT interview! He’s got a wonderful platform for writing about the platform!” But have these additional tidbits cleared up the question of book category? Here’s what Heidi and I had to say on the subject. <iframe loading="lazy" width="500" height="281" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UyXthmAkY-o?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> So have we resolved the question of book category? I’m afraid not, at least not without reading more of the manuscript: as the last line of the synopsis states point-blank, MACONDO 20-20 is a mixture of fiction and narrative nonfiction; unfortunately, in the current literary market, there is no book category for such a mix. Fiction is fiction, nonfiction nonfiction, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Now, of course, we’ve all seen books that are in fact made up of both fiction and nonfiction; during the height of the narrative nonfiction craze, such hybrids were rather common, often labeled as based on a true story to save the author a few legal headaches. Part of the definitional problem with hybrids lies outside the publishing world. To the average person, nonfiction is true and fiction is false, period: thus the huge scandal when James Frey’s A MILLION LITTLE PIECES turned out to contain a few fictionalized episodes. To those who write, represent, and edit books, however, the line between fiction and nonfiction can be far less clear: we all know novelists who import real-life incidents virtually wholesale into works of fiction, as well as nonfiction writers who tweak reality in order to make it a slightly better story. Heck, I know an exceedingly well-established short story author/essayist who says she never knows for sure whether her latest work is fiction or nonfiction until her agent sells it to an editor. Who promptly labels it as either fiction or nonfiction. The prevailing logic is that the public simply doesn’t like ambiguity. I wonder about that, since creative nonfiction remains so popular. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, creative nonfiction is the practice of using fiction-writing techniques to write a true story. The usual examples are Truman Capote’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Blood-Truman-Capote/dp/0375507906/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300777134&sr=1-1">IN COLD BLOOD</a> (or the lesser-known but to my mind more interesting short piece “Hand-Carved Coffins” in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Music-Chameleons-Truman-Capote/dp/0679745661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300777286&sr=1-1">MUSIC FOR CHAMELEONS</a>, John Berendt’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Garden-Good-Evil-Savannah/dp/0679763317/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300777176&sr=1-3">MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL</a>, and most of the opus of Tom Wolfe. The writer essentially sticks to the truth, typically backing it up with massive research, but rather than maintaining a journalistic narrative distance from the subject matter, the narrative places the reader in the moment, as in a novel. Depending upon the current mix of fiction and nonfiction in John’s manuscript, narrative nonfiction might therefore be an excellent choice — especially if the manuscript is not yet completed. Narrative nonfiction, like other nonfiction, is typically sold not on a full manuscript, but via book proposal. (If you’re curious about how much work that would be, John, you might want to skim through the HOW TO WRITE A BOOK PROPOSAL category on the archive list located on the lower right-hand side of this page.) However, the synopsis makes it pretty clear that the book as it stands is fiction. That’s potentially great news, too: this is a fantastic premise for a thriller, and he’s already got the pacing down cold. Thriller expectations would dictate keeping any political message pretty subtle, however. John could still pull upon his experience to lend insight and credibility to the narrative, but he would not be speaking as an expert per se. It all depends upon what he wants this intriguing book to achieve — and how he wants to make his mark as a writer. Heidi and I could not resist speculating a little. While I was at it, I introduced her to Millicent. <iframe loading="lazy" width="500" height="281" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aCYjepAmfpg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> The scope of the story, then, is the decisive factor here. Which side of the fiction/nonfiction fence John ultimately chooses — whether to label it narrative nonfiction and follow real-life characters (which would make the best use of his credentials, and thus probably be easier to sell) or a thriller set within real events (which I suspect is closer to the manuscript he currently has in hand — will determine how the synopsis would need to be revised. As compelling as the story told in the synopsis is, its jumble of fiction and nonfiction is just too likely to leave Millicent wondering, “So where would this book sit in a bookstore?” How are fiction and nonfiction synopses different, you ask? Well, a synopsis for a novel tells its story directly, as a story. It introduces the protagonist(s), their environment, and the challenges they face. In a nonfiction synopsis, on the other hand, sets up the central premise or argument of the book, makes it clear to the reader what is at stake, and establishes the writer’s platform. In a novel synopsis, it’s usually not very effective to review the book or talk about it in analytical terms — or, to borrow Millicent’s term for a synopsis that professes to analyze the book in question, high school term paper. Phrases like the reader follows… or review-like qualitative statements about the book merely distance the reader from the story being told. Why is distance a problem in a fiction synopsis? Part of its point of a fiction synopsis is to show not just the plot’s many twists, but to demonstrate that the writer is a good storyteller. That’s a lot harder to pull off if the reader is told about the characters in summary terms (Antigone is brave, resilient, and doomed.) than if the characters are revealed — yes, even in a synopsis as short as a page — through their actions (Torn between conflicting family loyalties, Antigone defies her uncle and secretly buries her slaughtered brothers.) Nor is it considered proper to discuss the writer’s platform in a novel’s synopsis, for the same reason that a novelist’s author bio is not typically read until late in the game: for fiction, expert credentials matter less. By presenting a novel in the terms Millicent would expect to see used to describe nonfiction, both professional readers eager to read fiction and those seeking nonfiction on this topic are likely to be confused. Again, a copse of raised hands has arisen in the ether. “Um, Anne? Am I alone in finding it rather ironic that you should be devoting so much of the prize post for Category III: fiction that could legitimately fit into several book categories to trying to nailing down book categories for John and Fiona? Couldn’t we just, you know, revel in their books’ not fitting into pre-defined molds?” Well, we could, irony-lovers, but frankly, I would rather see these two talented writers sailing over the many hurdles between finished manuscript and publication as quickly and easily as possible. Not committing to a book category generally stretches out the agent-seeking process, for the exceedingly simple reason that it’s far, far harder to track down agents who represent your kind of book if you don’t know what agents would call your kind of book. It also tends to drag out the process if you do know, but are unwilling to narrow your agent search to the one or two categories that best fit your book. Embracing many categories may render it easier to compile a long list of agents to query, but sadly, there’s no submission less painful to reject than one that does not fit comfortably into an agent’s category preferences. Yes, no matter how wonderful the book in question may be. Remember, Millicent is under orders. Even if a miscategorized submission causes her to exclaim, “Oh, the writing here is nice, and the premise intriguing,” she has been trained to add regretfully, “but my boss doesn’t represent this kind of book. Next!” Fiona and John’s first pages are too good to deserve such a fate. Choosing an apt book category is the first step toward successful querying and submission, enabling the writer to focus upon both the norms of that part of the literary market and why the book will appeal to those readers. Best of luck in the search, John and Fiona, and again, many thanks to Heidi Durrow for her trenchant analysis. Keep your eyes peeled for those vital small details, everybody, and keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4233" class="post-4233 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-author-author-interview-videos category-action-scenes category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-annes-editorial-pet-peeves category-annes-favorite-posts category-art-of-revision category-author-bio category-author-photo category-author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence category-autobiographical-fiction category-autobiography-and-memoir-defined category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-but-it-really-happened-that-way category-common-agents-pet-peeves category-constructing-a-narrative category-contest-entry-bugbears category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-dealing-with-readers-reactions-to-ones-books category-editing-for-freshness category-editing-memoir category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-that-grab category-first-person-narration category-freshness-in-book-proposals category-freshness-in-manuscripts category-freshness-in-synopses category-hooks category-humor-in-memoir category-introducing-physical-descriptions category-is-my-manuscript-dated category-making-physical-contact-come-to-life-on-the-page category-manuscript-megaproblems category-memoir-book-proposals category-memoir-contest-entries category-memoir-craft-and-marketing category-memoir-synopsis-writing category-nonfiction-voice category-originality-in-manuscripts category-platform-demonstration-in-a-synopsis category-real-stories-told-as-fiction category-realistic-expectations-for-submitters category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-revision-tips category-setting-time-and-place category-the-little-things-that-drive-the-pros-nuts category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-writing-comedy category-writing-love-scenes category-writing-memoir category-writing-on-dark-topics"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/18/telling-it-like-it-was-author-author-rings-true-memoir-winners-kathryn-cureton-and-margie-borchers-8/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2011-03-18T00:00:00+00:00">March 18, 2011</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/18/telling-it-like-it-was-author-author-rings-true-memoir-winners-kathryn-cureton-and-margie-borchers-8/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/#respond">No Comments on Telling it like it was: Author! Author! Rings True memoir winners Kathryn Cureton and Margie Borchers</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/03/18/telling-it-like-it-was-author-author-rings-true-memoir-winners-kathryn-cureton-and-margie-borchers-8/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/common-agents-pet-peeves/" rel="bookmark">Telling it like it was: Author! Author! Rings True memoir winners Kathryn Cureton and Margie Borchers</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <div id="attachment_14554" style="width: 285px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Cureton-Photo.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Cureton-Photo-275x300.jpg" alt="" title="Kathryn Cureton author photo" width="275" height="300" class="size-medium wp-image-14554"/></a> Kathryn, author of One Great Big Not-Listening Party </div> <div id="attachment_14555" style="width: 412px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Margie-Borchers.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Margie-Borchers.jpg" alt="" title="Margie Borchers author photo" width="402" height="281" class="size-full wp-image-14555"/></a> Margie, author of The Betrayal Chain </div> I’ve a treat for you, campers, a reward for spending the last couple of weeks sharpening your self-editing eyes: the first set of winners from the recent <a href="/index_p_13946.html">Author! Author! Rings True literary competition</a>. Today, we’re going to be taking a nice, intense gander at the page 1, 1-page synopsis, and author bios entered by memoirists Kathryn Cureton and Margie Borchers. Well done, ladies! To render the festivities even more interesting, I’m also going to be chatting about these winning entries with <a href="http://heidiwdurrow.com/">Heidi Durrow</a>, author of the recent literary fiction debut, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565126807?ie=UTF8&tag=heiwdur-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1565126807">The Girl Who Fell from the Sky</a>, now available <a href="<a href=">in paperback</a>. In fact, as of this week, Heidi’s book is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2011-03-13/trade-fiction-paperback/list.html">#15 on the New York Times’ paperback bestseller list</a>, so kudos, Heidi! In answer to what half of you just thought: yes, that distinction is exceptional for a literary novel, especially a first one. It’s an achievement that makes me cheer even more, because as we discussed <a href="/index_p_14193.html">my recent interview with Heidi on the joys of writing and marketing literary fiction</a>, this novel circulated for quite some time before being picked up. So take heart, everybody. It can be done. The video feedback is an experiment — and an exciting one, I think — so please do chime in and let me know what you think of it. I shall also be doing my trademarked nit-picking, of course, but as those of you who have been hanging out around Author! Author! for a while already know, I’m a huge fan of writers getting as much feedback on their work as humanly possible. And since Heidi was kind enough to provide her trenchant insights, all of us benefit. This methodology also will allow us to approach these first pages from a variety of different angles. That’s not entirely coincidental. Throughout our ongoing Pet Peeves on Parade series, I’ve been encouraging you to read and reread your manuscripts (preferably IN YOUR BOOK’S ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD, just in case you hadn’t added that mentally) not just at the story or proofreading levels, but also to spot repetition, favorite phrases, and other patterns in the text. So as you read today’s memoir pages, try to apply that multi-level reading sense. And remember, please, that the Author! Author! community is about mutual support: while commenting on these entries is great, do try to keep the feedback constructive. Constructive feedback is especially important for memoir-writers because, after all, the story on the page is a reflection of one’s life. It’s not as though a memoirist can hop into a time machine, revisit past choices, and change her past paths because a reader would prefer her story to work out that way. The art of memoir lies in how one chooses to write about life as it actually happened. While we’re on the subject, is everyone familiar with the difference between an autobiography and a memoir? An autobiography is the story of an entire life, told by the person who actually lived it (or at least his ghostwriter). Like a diary, it actually purports to tell as close to everything that happened as is feasible in print. Because autobiography embraces such a wide scope, one’s own technically cannot be completed within one’s lifetime. A memoir, on the other hand, is an examination of a specific aspect of the author’s life, often focusing upon a single choice, incident, or situation and showing its long-term results. I like to think of it as a portrait of a pebble thrown into a lake: the initial splash is a recordable event, but so are the concentric circles rippling out from it. Bearing that distinction in mind, I’d like to start our discussion with each winners’ author bio. Both Kathryn and Margie were kind enough to submit their author bios as they would have included them in a query or submission packet, for the benefit of all of you out there who have not yet written and formatted yours. (At the risk of repeating myself: bios are hard to write, and the request often comes at the last minute. Trust me, you will be a much, much happier human being when the request does come if you have prepared your bio — and selected your author photo, also a daunting task for many — well in advance.) Let’s start with Margie, our second-place winner. As always, if you are having trouble reading individual words, try holding down the COMMAND key and typing + to enlarge the image. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Margie-Borchers-author-bio.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Margie-Borchers-author-bio.jpg" alt="" title="Margie Borchers author bio" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14566"/></a> Makes you want to rush out and buy her memoir, doesn’t it? That’s the magic of a well put-together author bio: unlike an autobiography-style bio, it doesn’t just list everything that the writer thinks a reader might want to know about her. Instead, it’s a micro-memoir, concentrating upon the most surprising elements in the author’s life. Now that we know who our second-place winner is, let’s take a gander at her first page and 1-page synopsis, presented as our old pal Millicent might first encounter them in a query packet. Try to read them not just as writing, but with an eye to the questions that will be uppermost in Millicent’s mind: is this a life story that grabs me, and is it told in a manner that draws me into it as a reader? Fair warning: the page that follows deals far more explicitly with a physical relationship than may be comfortable for all readers. This is a memoir aimed specifically at an adult audience. Although I am habitually very careful about my younger readers’ sensibilities, agents and editors sees this kind of opening enough in memoirs and fiction that I think there is value to introducing you to the manuscript this way. So lace up Millicent’s moccasins and pretend you’ve just opened the submission envelope. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Margie-Borchers-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Margie-Borchers-page-1.jpg" alt="" title="Margie Borchers page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14568"/></a> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Margie-Borchers-synopsis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Margie-Borchers-synopsis.jpg" alt="" title="Margie Borchers synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14569"/></a> These pages have a few formatting problems — extra space between paragraphs, instead of every line being evenly spaced, an off-center title, inconsistent tabbing — but your mind is not on what I’m saying right now, is it? It’s either on that opening — ahem — activity or on the astonishing array of events in the synopsis, right? So let’s jump straight to the story level — and, because memoirs are generally marketed on book proposals in the US, rather than a completed manuscript, consider marketing as well. Here’s what Heidi and I had to say on those weighty subjects. <iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" width="512" height="312" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kHdCTyEzNG0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> All of which is to say: this sounds like one heck of a story. Best of luck with it, Margie! What’s that I hear out there in the ether? A marketing question? Or is it craft? “It’s a little of both, Anne,” writers intent on opening their manuscripts with a hook pipe up. “The commentary made it sound as though opening a book with a — searching for family-friendly euphemism — love scene that focuses upon the bodies of its participants might not be the best way to grab Millicent’s attention. But what’s more of a grabber than the beast with two backs?” From a professional reader’s perspective, quite a few things: we may have been founded as Puritan nation, but these days, even fairly explicit lovemaking on the page rarely raises many eyebrows. Heck, it doesn’t even necessarily raise eyebrows in YA anymore. So relying upon that subject matter alone to draw the reader into a story isn’t necessarily going to work. Partially, that’s because, like eating and drinking, intimate relations are inherently far more interesting to those participating in it than those reading about people participating in it. It’s possible to write about all of these activities in a compelling manner, but all too often, the point of the scene seems to be the act itself. Unless the reader who the couple writhing around together are and the narrative uses their flailings to reveal character or advance the plot, it’s a trifle difficult to care about what’s going on. Especially for a professional reader: as I mentioned above, Millicent just sees so darned many of the things. Literary contest entries abound in such opening pages. And what have we learned about narrative devices that turn up in submissions all the time, campers? That’s right: the more often a device is used, the less effective it will be. That’s as true at the submission stage as at the individual manuscript level. Surprising Millicent, providing that she finds the surprise pleasant, is usually to a manuscript’s advantage. Happily, as Margie’s synopsis so abundantly demonstrates, her memoir is likely to do just that. Now that our multi-level thinking caps are all warmed up — and if you’re not too distracted by your efforts to picture what kind of Dr. Seuss-ish contraption a multi-level thinking cap would be — let’s move on to our first-place winner in the memoir category, Kathryn Cureton’s ONE BIG NOT-LISTENING PARTY. As with our last winner, let’s kick off with the author bio. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Kathryn-Curetons-author-bio.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Kathryn-Curetons-author-bio.jpg" alt="" title="Kathryn Cureton's author bio" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14573"/></a> Talk about messing with Millicent’s expectations, eh? Kathryn’s taken a risk here, especially in that last line, but it pays off charmingly — and, more important for a writer of a humorous memoir, humorously. Far too many genuinely funny aspiring writers submit dead-serious bios, but why not use it demonstrate to Millicent how funny you are? Chant it with me, survivors of last autumn’s series on presenting your work in queries, synopses, and bios: every piece of paper and line of text you submit to an agency, publishing house, or writing contest is a writing sample. Treating your author bio — or, indeed, any other part of the query or submission packet — as anything but a storytelling opportunity turns it into precisely what aspiring writers so often think it is: a rather dull little list of achievements. Heartened by Kathryn’s light-hearted bio, let’s move on to her page 1 and synopsis. This time, there’s no need for the young and the vulnerable to avert their eyes. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Kathryn-Cureton-page-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Kathryn-Cureton-page-1.jpg" alt="" title="Kathryn Cureton page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14574"/></a> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Kathryn-Cureton-synopsis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Kathryn-Cureton-synopsis.jpg" alt="" title="Kathryn Cureton synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14575"/></a> An engaging voice, isn’t it? As any memoirist can tell you, that’s not easy to pull off on the page. Particularly if, as Kathryn has pulled off so well here, a memoir-writer attempts the high dive of not only presenting funny facts, but embracing a humorous narrative voice. I just sensed a few thousand pairs of eyebrows slamming into a few thousand hairlines. “What do you mean, Anne?” would-be humorists the world over ask. “If you write about funny things, a book is automatic going to be funny, right? Those gales of laughter you hear rolling around in the ether are the collective howls of Millicent, her cousin Maury the editorial assistant, and their long-suffering aunt, Mehitabel the veteran contest judge. As anyone who has ever read professionally would be only too happy to tell you, the overwhelming majority of manuscripts intended to be funny are not. Sometimes, especially in memoir, that’s a matter of the events depicted not being particularly amusing to a third party. If a joke or situation is dependent upon the reader’s knowing the people involved, or being able to picture the physical environment, even a very funny writer might not be able to render the scene funny on the page. Or, as we editors like to say when we get together to grumble, “If the writer has ever said, ‘Well, you had to be there,’ he shouldn’t assume that the reader was.” Think carefully about that, oh memoirists and other writers of the real, before you insert real-life hilarity into your texts. Often, would-be humorists assume — wrongly — that anything that’s funny in real life will be funny on the page. Like any other real-life event, however, how the reader responds depends very largely upon how the writer chooses to present it. Reading about an event is quite different from seeing it first-hand, after all: it’s up to the writer to make it come alive on the page. Then, too, many people who are funny in real life find when they sit down to put precisely the same anecdotes that have had ‘em rolling in the aisles for a decade onto the memoir page, the result falls a bit flat. There’s a reason for that: a spoken anecdote is very seldom detailed enough to read well verbatim. Verbal humor and written humor do not operate in the same manner. Don’t believe me? Trot on over to the nearest well-stocked bookstore and start pulling books by stand-up comics and/or comic actors off the shelves. The same words that caused the walls of comedy clubs to sway under the force of gales of laughter will frequently not even elicit a chuckle in a reader. Unless, of course, that reader happens to be exceptionally gifted at imagining authors reading their own books out loud. But as we may all see, Kathryn has a genuinely funny narrative voice, one that comes across beautifully on the page. It works best when she’s describing something inherently humorous, but frankly, I suspect she could make a recipe for tomato soup funny, if she really put her mind to it. Heidi and I talked about that very engaging voice for quite some time. Because we both truly wanted to see Kathryn’s voice and story exposed to a wider audience, however, we also concentrated on some marketing issues. <iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" width="512" height="312" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NbNksMYHw8c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> Why worry so much about what’s in the first few lines of a submission, as opposed to, say, halfway down the page? Chant it with me now, long-time readers: the majority of manuscripts are rejected on page 1. So no matter how hilarious or trenchant what happens later on might be, if the opening paragraphs don’t impress Millicent as compelling, she’s probably not going to read on. Opening with your best material, then, is good strategy. Particularly if you are trying, as any humorous memoirist must be, to elicit a chuckle from Millicent. At the end of a long, hard, eye-straining day or week of screening, that’s likely to be difficult, even if your work happens to land in front of a Millicent who habitually lets a smile be her umbrella. I also want to revisit that discussion about dated references. In memoir, some are unavoidable: the past is, I’m afraid, noted for being stuffed to the gills with pop culture that faded quickly. As long as the writer doesn’t assume that Millicent — who is likely to be quite young — will know what a Desoto was, or how punk rockers got their mohawks to stand up straight prior to the evolution of today’s plethora of styling products, that’s not necessarily problematic: clear descriptions will prevent her from being distracted by the unfamiliar. Descriptions of times past are not, surprisingly, the primary producers of references that date a book. Far more common, from Millicent’s perspective: writers embracing cultural references that, while perhaps wildly popular (or infamous) at the time, are no longer current by the time the manuscript or book proposal shows up at an agency. Or — and most aspiring writers don’t take this into account — will no longer be lingering in the mainstream consciousness two or three years hence, when a book picked up by an agent today is likely to hit the shelves. Did the collective thunk of all of those jaws on the floor indicate that the time lag comes as a surprise to some of you? It does to most aspiring writers. But think about it: the process of finding the right agent for a book (as opposed to just any agent) can take anywhere from weeks (unusual) to years (the norm) — and she’s probably going to ask for revisions (more weeks/months/years). Once she has the completed manuscript in hand, she’s not necessarily going to be able to sell it right away; since publishing houses have been trimming their staffs extensively over the last couple of years, even an excellent manuscript can be waiting in the reading stack for months on end. After an editor acquires the book, even if he doesn’t want additional changes (but he will — or the editor who takes over after the acquiring editor is laid off might), the project still has to wait until its assigned place in the print queue comes up. That last part alone usually takes nine months or a year, at minimum. So — are you sitting down? — it’s prudent to assume that any reference you pen today will need to resonate with readers two or three years from now. When, if a generous power rules the universe, the general public will have only a dim recollection of what a Snooki was. “Did people drive it?” our grandchildren will ask breathlessly. “Wear it? Or did it sit on a shelf next to a Pet Rock?” Since writing a book generally takes quite some time, a savvy writer keeps her eye out for cultural references that won’t stand the test of time. Movie lines tend not to mature well, TV catchphrases even less so. And as for odd fads, well, let me put it this way: can you tell me in which year Al Gore made a joke about doing the Macarena in a speech at his party’s national convention? Hands up, readers too young to remember the Macarena. (Don’t worry; you didn’t miss much.) Keep those hands up if you cannot without the aid of Google conjure up a mental image of Al Gore. By all means lower your hands if you happen to be sitting next to an American reader over 50. S/he may need your assistance in getting up after falling over in a dead faint. Before I leave you to ponder the pop culture of days gone by — I, for one, shall be reliving the dubious days when my elementary school teachers decided the best use of P.E. time was teaching my small classmates and yours truly the Hustle; P.E. stood for Physical Education, Millicent, back in the days when schools had larger budgets — I should like to call one more thing to your attention. Margie and Kathryn have taken quite different approaches to introducing readers to their respectively quite interesting life stories, but the fact that their stories are true is not the only trait rendering them compelling. Voice makes a significant difference; so does selectivity. By focusing upon significant trends and events in their lives, rather than simply flinging the kitchen sink at the reader, they beckon us to follow them as they reexamine their pasts. Good memoir is good storytelling, my friends, as well as strategic pebble-tossing. Well done, Kathryn and Margie, and many thanks to Heidi Durrow. And everybody, keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4053" class="post-4053 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-1-page-synopses category-after-you-land-a-publisher category-art-of-revision category-author-photo category-author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-conflict-building category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-editing-for-pacing category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-that-grab category-hooks category-originality-in-manuscripts category-revision-tips category-setting-time-and-place category-suspense-building category-synopses-and-everything-you-need-to-know-about-them category-synopses-illustrated category-tension-building category-tight-third-person-narration category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-ya-voice"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/12/19/first-pages-that-grab-gayton-gomez-book-worms-6/art-of-revision/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-12-19T00:00:00+00:00">December 19, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/12/19/first-pages-that-grab-gayton-gomez-book-worms-6/art-of-revision/#comments">8 Comments on First Pages that Grab: Gayton Gomez’ Book Worms</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/12/19/first-pages-that-grab-gayton-gomez-book-worms-6/art-of-revision/" rel="bookmark">First Pages that Grab: Gayton Gomez’ Book Worms</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/DSC_2844-199x300.jpg" alt="Gayton Gomez author photo 2" title="Gayton Gomez author photo 2" width="199" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-13834"/><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/DSC_2933-300x286.jpg" alt="Gayton Gomez author photo 1" title="Gayton Gomez author photo 1" width="270" height="257" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-13835"/> Sorry that your promised reward for virtue is coming a couple of days late, campers — I was following the inviolate rule chez Mini that migraines and blogging do not mix. A wacky standard, true, but mine own. Fortunately, the treat is, in my humble opinion, well worth the wait: the final winner in the YA category of the <a href="/index_p_11293.html">Author! Author! Great First Pages Made Even Better Contest</a>, Gayton Gomez’ delightful BOOK WORMS. That’s the lady herself, depicted twice above. Is she her own identical twin? No, merely kind enough to afford me an opportunity to discourse on the always-burning subject of author photos. Remember back in the heady days of <a href="/index_p_13202.html">Authorbiopalooza</a>, when I mentioned that it’s an excellent idea for an aspiring writer to start early to try to come up with a great author photo, because for most of us, finding one we like is a rather protracted process? At the time, you probably muttered, “Oh, yeah, Anne, it might take me months — nay, years — to find a photo that is both flattering and appropriate to my book’s subject matter. Because, alas, I do not have a professional photographer following me around on a daily basis, and I have never so far in the long and fascinating course of my life stumbled upon a non-professional shot of myself that I like, I am inclined to believe you when you say it is going to be a struggle.” Well, yes, both of those are pretty common reasons that authors have a hard time coming up with an author photo on that happy day when the editor of their dreams says, “Oh, and we’ll need a photo for the jacket by Tuesday. You already have one, right?” And the author, trooper that she is, does violence to her initial impulse to blurt out that she had been laboring under the widely-held misconception that publishing houses maintained in-house battalions of shutterbugs for this very purpose. Instead, she replies brightly, “Tuesday? No problem. Would you like a hard copy, or should I mail you a jpeg version?” Then she hands up the phone — and dissolves into a little pool of deadline panic. At the risk of repeating myself: start asking either your friends or a pro to get snapping now. You will be infinitely happier once you have a book contract in hand — or once the agent of your dreams wants to start submitting your work to editors accompanied by a bio graced with your smiling mug. Gayton has been savvy enough start grinning early at those shutters, and has ended up with the other species of author photo dilemma: how does one choose between two awfully good pictures? I know, I know: we should all be lucky (and photogenic) enough to have this problem, but actually, it’s a serious one. Looking good is not the only criterion for judging an author photo, after all: one also wants to look smart, interesting, approachable, and, well, authorial, right? Yet from a professional perspective, what authorial looks like would necessarily vary depending upon the book itself. And that often comes as a great big surprise to first-time authors, used to those 1970s-80s glamour shots that made every inside back dust flap seem more or less identical. The photo on the right falls very firmly into this category: it is more or less precisely what most of us have in mind when we think author photo, isn’t it? It’s attractive, polished, filmy of background, and conveys seriousness of purpose. This, it says, is an intellect to take seriously. But does this photo also say that this is someone who writes genuinely funny YA? Or does the one on the left convey that spirit better? A forest of hands has sprouted up all across the English-writing world. “But Anne,” the visually-oriented cry, “how can I know which of these is a better photo of today’s winner? And surely, that eye-catching red would not be appropriate for every book jacket. Isn’t this an instance where playing safe is the better bet?” Not necessarily, hand-raisers, but you are quite right that Gayton’s future (and lucky) publisher’s marketing department might well want to weigh in on the bright red issue. (Although generally speaking, book covers with red on them sell better than those sporting other colors, probably because the eye is attracted to red faster than any other color in the spectrum. Rumor has it that when Cary Grant first started making color pictures, he used to wander around the set, grabbing every red object and carting it out of shot. Too distracting from his handsome mug, he believed.) Let’s assume for the sake of argument, however, that this photo is intended not for a book jacket — at least not right away — but for the top of an author bio to be tucked into a submission packet. Yes, credibility is important in a bio photo, but so is personality and book-appropriateness. After all, this rather intense shot of Elinor Glyn was perfect for her classic of romantic introspection, IT: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/elinor-glyn-author-photo-209x300.jpg" alt="elinor-glyn-author-photo" title="elinor-glyn-author-photo" width="209" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1602"/> Not to be confused, of course, with Stephen King’s horror classic, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hardcover-Stephen-King-Author/dp/B003CGOXR0/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292787147&sr=1-3">IT</a>. Here’s what his author photo looks like these days: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/ed11810ae7a0b310f71ee110.L._V192636056_SL290_.jpg" alt="Stephen King" title="Stephen King" width="193" height="290" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13847"/> Not exactly a 1980s glamour shot, is it? But you cannot deny that it is appropriately menacing for his chosen genre — that’s horror lighting if I have ever seen it. By the same token, Marcel Proust’s author photo just screams ravishing sensibilities. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Marcel-Proust-300x244.jpg" alt="Marcel Proust" title="Marcel Proust" width="300" height="244" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-13216"/> What constitutes an appropriate visual clue to ravishing sensibilities changes over time, naturally. When Truman Capote’s first novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Other-Voices-Rooms-Truman-Capote/dp/0679745645/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292787871&sr=1-1">OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS</a>, was released, its publishers shocked the literary world with this author photo: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/capote-300x199.jpg" alt="Truman Capote's first author photo" title="Truman Capote's first author photo" width="300" height="199" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-13850"/> Quick, those of you who have never read this lovely debut: based upon the photo alone, what was the novel about? (Hint: this photo was an impeccable choice.) What does all of this mean for Gayton’s photo choice? Well, you tell me. Let’s take a gander at some of her writing and see which you think would be a more appropriate match. Here is the winning first page of BOOK WORMS — and, as always, if you are having trouble catching the details, try enlarging the image by holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + until it is big enough to read. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Book-Worms-p-1.jpg" alt="Book Worms p 1" title="Book Worms p 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13854"/> Quite the grabber, eh? Actually, Gayton piqued the judges’ interest with her answer to what her book would add to her chosen book category: <blockquote> Cassandra Wainwright is the first teenage protagonist in the Young Adult genre to use a magical bookpass to jump into the plots of classic novels. She’s the first heroine of any genre to foil a Ponzi scheme run by Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights, who is dating Cassandra’s unsuspecting older sister. </blockquote> While there was a fair amount of debate about whether that first sentence is empirically true — several of us had dim recollections of having read something like this as children, but none could recall an actual book title — the second is almost certainly true. (Which just goes to show you, campers: book descriptions are not the best places for superlatives or claims to be the first writer to do anything. You can never be absolutely certain that (a) some Victorian spinster didn’t write a book with a similar premise that’s been out of print since Henry Ford invented the assembly line and (b) some agent, editor, or contest judge won’t have read the last extant copy as a preadolescent. Literary types find their way into all kinds of archives.) All that is quibbling, however. Just look how charming the fleshed-out premise is: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Book-Worms-synopsis.jpg" alt="Book Worms synopsis" title="Book Worms synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13857"/> Before we move on, I would just like to applaud Gayton for writing a really solid 1-page synopsis — which, as those of you brave souls who worked your way through <a href="/index_p_12652.html">Synopsispalooza</a> can attest, is no mean feat. As a quick review, what makes this such a good example? If you immediately cried out, “I was blown away by the fact that Gayton managed to present not just the premise, main characters, and central conflict, but some indication of how that conflict is resolved,” give yourself an A for the day. That’s a lot to pull off in a single page of text without making it real like a laundry list — well done, Gayton! If you also shouted, “There are unique, telling details here!” go ahead and move to the top of the class for the entire weekend. Gayton has made the very smart move of including specifics in her synopsis, rather than the more common generalities — and done so in a light-hearted manner. I defy Millicent not to smile at the very sight of the phrase catches Cassandra and Eugene red-handed in Romeo and Juliet. But all of you are getting impatient for the close textual analysis for which these prize posts are famous, are you not? Okay, here is that first page again, decorated with Millicent the agency screener’s patented scrawl. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Gayton-edit.jpg" alt="Gayton edit" title="Gayton edit" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13859"/> Surprised that such a grabber of an opening — and one that so perfectly captures the ambient mood of Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic thriller, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-Udolpho-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140437592/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292790187&sr=1-1">THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO</a>, too — would attract this much editorial ink? Actually, there’s a red flag in that first sentence that would, unfortunately, prevent quite a few Millicents from reading beyond it. Can anyone tell me what it is? If you are jumping up and down, shrieking, “It’s in the passive voice! It’s in the passive voice!” take yourself out for ice cream. It was constructions, while both traditional in fairy tales and more accepted in YA than in adult fiction, tend to be eschewed in professional writing, for the very simply reason that most Millicents (and their bosses, as well as the editors to whom they sell manuscripts) have been specifically trained to regard it as low-quality writing. While generally speaking, it’s a good idea to avoid the passive voice anywhere in a submission, the first line of the first page is a particularly fine place to excise it. And why is that, ‘Palooza followers? Chant it with me now: professional readers do not read like other people. Instead of scanning an entire scene, page, or even paragraph before deciding whether they find the writing engaging, they read a single sentence at a time. If they like it, they move on; if they do not, they will usually just stop reading. Or, as Millicent likes to put it: “Next!” Gayton’s first page is a textbook example of a submission that might well charm a reader who picked it up in a bookstore, yet get rejected without comment by many pros. And that’s a real pity, for if Millicent would just keep reading, she would find a great premise here. The tension is also very well established by the end of the page (speaking of sentences in the passive voice), but I have a couple of suggestions to heighten it even more. First — and I don’t know why writing teachers don’t bring this one up more — having the sentences get shorter and choppier as soon as Cassandra gets scared would automatically crank up the suspense. Why? Well, think about it: a switch to shorter, pithier sentences conveys the impression of panting. Subconsciously, that seems scarier: a frightened person would tend to speak in shorter, breathier bursts than one relaxing on a couch like Uncle Truman above; her heart would pound, and she would look around quickly. While it would certainly be possible to describe all of that in long, luxurious sentences (as, indeed, I just did), why not allow the narrative structure to help draw the reader into the mood of the piece? Another means of keeping that tension high, at least from Millicent’s point of view, is not to have the yes/no question in paragraph 4 answered with a no. This is not a bad general rule for any first page — or indeed, any dialogue: answering a yes/no question with yes or no is almost invariably the least interesting response, and most of the time not even necessary. Frequently, as here, the very next sentence or phrase will answer the question more fully than the binary choice. There’s also a more conceptual reason that no tends to be a pet peeve for professional readers: it cuts off possibilities in a way that a less categorical response will not. While this tends to be more true in dialogue than in narration, we can see quite plainly in paragraph 4 how completely no prevents our heroine from exploring one of her previously viable options. A third way that this page cuts tension is through describing the unfamiliar room in mostly negative terms, rendering it harder for the reader to picture than a more fleshed-out description would allow. Since the reader has not yet seen Cassandra’s normal bedroom, it’s simply not as startling to see it disappear than if we had seen it before. Even a couple of familiar details in the first paragraph would help establish a firm image of her reading in her cozy bed, all set to be shattered in the next paragraph. The judges and I would also have liked to see the room in which she finds herself in more detail, particularly in terms of sensual specifics. Was the new room the same temperature as her bedroom, for instance? Did it smell the same? Was she alerted to the change by an abrupt shift from electric light to candlelight? And so forth. YA is known for its lush and detailed physical descriptions, so it would be hard to go overboard here. The goal would be to immerse the reader in a completely unfamiliar space, to make her feel as though she, too, has been suddenly transported into another realm. Which just goes to show you: even a grabber of an opening can often be improved. With just a little bit more polishing, Gayton’s hook could provide more alluring bait for Millicent. I’m genuinely pleased that this protracted series on winning first pages has illustrated that point so beautifully. Often, aspiring writers think of their opening hooks purely in terms of premise (Godzilla meets the Nazis — who will win?), opening with conflict (His medals melted from the Godzilla’s breath, the Nazi drew his pistol…), or just plain pretty writing (Flames spurted lazily across the tar macadam, a modern-day Wotan surrounding his wayward daughter Brünnhilde with protective fire…). In practice, a true grabber incorporates all three, and does so in a manner so appropriate for the book’s chosen category that Millicent knows immediately precisely where it would sit on a shelf in Barnes & Noble. A tall order? You bet. Doable for a good writer? Absolutely. Have you reached a decision about which author photo fits the voice and story best? Personally, I would go for the more adventurous one — it comes across as both more dynamic and a trifle younger. The blurred traffic in the background gives the impression that she’s going places, just as Cassandra is in the book. That being said, were this author to be writing across several book categories (am I remembering correctly that you do some travel writing, Gayton?), I would opt for the other photo for a general author bio. It’s a lovely example of a particular type of professional photo: as we discussed above, it does just scream this is an author. That’s something I suspect no one who reads your manuscript will ever doubt, Gayton. Great job, and I’m sure all of us here at Author! Author! are looking forward to reading the rest of the book! Refreshed from our little foray into close textual analysis? Excellent. Next time, we’ll be diving right back into the mysteries of standard format. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4215" class="post-4215 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-action-scenes category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-art-of-revision category-author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-chapter-headings-and-openings category-character-development-tips category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-creating-sufficiently-odious-antagonists category-dialogue-that-adds-to-the-scene category-editing-dialogue category-editing-for-clarity category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-that-grab category-formatting-manuscripts category-originality-in-manuscripts category-passive-voice-and-why-you-should-eschew-it category-punctuation-and-grammar-of-the-non-standard-variety category-realistic-expectations-for-queriers category-revision-tips category-secondary-characters category-tag-lines-and-how-to-minimize-them category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-writing-advice-truisms category-ya-voice"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/11/30/first-pages-that-grab-janine-southards-which-star-my-destination-4/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/realistic-expectations-for-queriers/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-11-30T00:00:00+00:00">November 30, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/11/30/first-pages-that-grab-janine-southards-which-star-my-destination-4/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/realistic-expectations-for-queriers/#comments">6 Comments on First Pages That Grab: Janine Southard’s Which Star My Destination</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/11/30/first-pages-that-grab-janine-southards-which-star-my-destination-4/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/realistic-expectations-for-queriers/" rel="bookmark">First Pages That Grab: Janine Southard’s Which Star My Destination</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Me-Christmas2007-stripeysweater.jpg" alt="Janine Southard author photo" title="Janine Southard author photo" width="235" height="200" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13552"/> Have you been enjoying these last few winning entries in the <a href="/index_p_11293.html">Author! Author! Great First Pages Made Even Better Contest</a>, campers? I have — they’ve been providing us with a great deal of material for discussion, especially about the joys and challenges of writing YA. I’m toying with running a similar contest in January specifically for literary fiction and memoir, so we could have a nice, jolly time delving into the peculiarities of those highly specialized book categories. Hands up, readers who would be interested in that. While you’re giving that some thought, let’s turn to another winner in the YA category, Janine Southard’s WHICH STAR MY DESTINATION. I’ve got to say, by the time I finished reading Janine’s book description, I had already thought of four YA readers for whom I would buy this book for Christmas were it already out. It’s a real grabber of a premise. Take a gander: <blockquote> When high school is over, Zheng still doesn’t know what to do with his life. Worse, his friends are all moving on, following their dreams, and getting off the planet Hartwell. As one last adventure together, Zheng packs up his interstellar automobile — which he modified in his parents’ garage — for a road trip, taking his university-bound friend to college. When he and his best friends reach Luna City, Zheng stumbles across what looks like a scholarship scam, but his investigative mind uncovers the truth…revealing an alien organization quietly preparing the human race for galactic culture. Now Zheng knows what he wants to do: he intends to culturally prepare the aliens for humanity. </blockquote> Yet from the first page of text, it is not entirely clear whether this is a YA book. Why not? See for yourself — and, as always, if you are having trouble reading it, try holding down the COMMAND key and pressing the + key to enlarge the image. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Southard-page-1.jpg" alt="Southard page 1" title="Southard page 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13570"/> Actually, let’s pause a moment before we consider the content in order to examine this page cosmetically. While this page is very close, it isn’t entirely in standard format for manuscripts: there’s a double-spaced line of empty space missing between the chapter heading and the first line of text, and while the dashes are properly doubled, there should be spaces between each end and the words immediately preceding and following them. Let’s look it again without those distractions, shall we? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Southard-revision1.jpg" alt="Southard revision1" title="Southard revision1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13579"/> And already, hands have sprouted up all across the galaxy. “But Anne,” the sharper-eyed residents of the universe point out, “you added more space at the top. How on earth did you manage to cram all of the sentences in the original onto the revised page?” Oh, that was easy, galactic nitpickers: I merely eliminated one of the two single-sentence paragraphs. As we have discussed before, in English prose — at least of the non-journalistic variety — it takes at least two sentences to make up a narrative paragraph. So while single-sentence paragraphs are fine in dialogue, Millicent tends to frown at them anywhere else, at least in fiction submissions. (Due to the phenomenon’s ever-increasing prevalence in journalism, she’s less likely to react negatively to them in nonfiction submissions.) The higher the education level of the intended audience, the more negative her reaction will be. So if you like how a single-sentence narrative paragraphs look on the page, and you happen to be writing mainstream, literary, or high-end women’s fiction, you might want to reserve the convention for only those moments when what is revealed in that single sentence is genuinely startling enough to be able to carry its own paragraph. That way, the very rarity of its occurrence will add to its impact. Behind you — aliens! See? Standing all by itself, that statement is much more startling than if it were merely tacked onto the end of the preceding paragraph — or, sacre bleu! buried in the middle of it. A skimming eye (like, say, a weary Millicent’s when screening her 57th page 1 of the day) may well skip lines mid-paragraph, so if an action is important, a piece of characterization essential, or a sentence particularly lovely, you might want to make sure it appears in either the first or the last line of the paragraph. Or, if the information is once-in-a-manuscript important, in its own one-line paragraph. There’s a reason that journalists tend to present the most important planks of their arguments in single-sentence paragraphs: the eye jumps right to ‘em. Speaking of things to which the reader’s eye jumps, did you find all of the capitalization distracting? Most Millicents would have. Obviously, some of it is unavoidable — place and people names do need to sport capital first letters, after all — but some is by choice. Compounding the problem: many of these choices appear quite close to each other in the text. Not sure why that might be distracting for our Millie? Okay, let’s look at the page again, a capitalization-sensitive reader might see it. While I’m at it, I’m going to highlight the word and phrase repetition as well. See if anything in particular jumps out at you: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Janine-repetition-sheet.jpg" alt="Janine repetition sheet" title="Janine repetition sheet" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13582"/> There’s a fair amount of word and phrase repetition here — more acceptable in YA than in adult fiction, of course, but still a pet peeve for many Millicents — but I’d like you to focus on the underlined bits in particular. Do you notice anything about them? If you squinted at those little lines and immediately cried, “Wow, that’s quite a few instances of the verb to be,” you get a gold star for the day. That particular verb appears in various forms no fewer than 14 times on this page. 4 of those times are in the first paragraph — and in a type of sentence structure that is an even more common submission red flag. Any guesses? If you pointed to the first few sentences of the story and said, “Hey, those are in the passive voice,” pat yourself on the back sixty-seven times. All of those it was constructions are indeed in the passive voice: instead of actors doing things, the sentences presents things as occurring all by themselves. Again, this is rather more accepted in YA than in adult fiction, and the younger the target reader, the more acceptable the passive voice is deemed to be. (And yes, both of those last two sentences were in the passive voice. Take another gold star out of petty cash.) Unfortunately for lovers of to be and it was, most Millicents — indeed, most professional fiction readers — are explicitly taught that the passive voice is the least creative way of saying, well, almost anything. So opening a book with several instances of it in a row might well raise some professional eyebrows. It is worth noting, however, that the only judges who were not bothered by this were the YA authors. But then, they didn’t mind the single-sentence paragraphs, either. Again: norms vary by book category. If you want to find out what is and is not considered good writing in yours at the moment, there’s just no substitute for going to a well-stocked bookstore on a regular basis, seeking out the shelves devoted to the type of book you write, and plopping yourself down to read the opening pages of some recent releases. Even better, you could buy new releases in your chosen category. Or ask Santa to do it for you, because what’s a better gift than professional development in the career you want most in your heart of hearts to pursue? Did you spot any other potential distractions from the story here? Let’s take a gander at what Millicent might have scrawled in the margins. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Janines-edit1.jpg" alt="Janine's edit1" title="Janine's edit1" width="512" height="665" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13560"/> Ah, at last we are starting to talk about plot and characterization. The story definitely drops the reader into an exciting conflict right away — good move, Janine! — but by YA standards, the description of the environment is rather scanty. YA is known for its vivid, sensual descriptions, but other than that very vivid purple imagery in the first paragraph — again, nice choice, Janine — the reader doesn’t gain a very strong sense of what it feels like to be on Luna. Including just a few more physical details would make all the difference here — and for YA, a great way to do that is through the protagonist’s bodily sensations. Is the gravity heavier on Luna than on Hartwell, for instance, or lighter? Is Does the sunshade affect how plants grow? Are there any plants — and if so, could Zheng be allergic to one of them, because he’s not used to it? Another prime target for descriptive expansion is the crowd. Are the people in the room all humanoid? Are any of them humanoid? Who is the group, and how can Zheng tell that they are the ones in authority — over and above the death threats, that is? Are the con artists restrained in any way? Is he? Are they close enough together to create a distinctive smell, or to increase the heat in the room? And so forth. The possibilities here are practically endless; just remember that unless the narrative gives the reader hints of what the environment and characters looks, sound, smell, taste, etc., the author cannot be certain that every reader will envision the same thing. For some details, it’s fine to let the reader’s imagination run free; for others, it can throw off understanding of the plot. Not sure what the latter might look like in practice? Well, if Zheng’s captors had three arms, when would you want to learn about it, when they first appear in the book, or just after one of them grabs our hero and two other captives as they try to escape? I want to talk about two more pieces of marginalia, then I shall move to the punch line. In the next-to-last paragraph, the narrative between the dialogue indulges in a few devices quite common for a submission, but rare in published books. Here’s the relevant piece of dialogue, ripped out of context for your tag line-considering pleasure: <blockquote> “You know far more than you should, and we must keep you from speaking,” the group’s Speaker proclaimed stiltedly to fidgeting from other swindlers around the room. “We should simply kill you, but we’re peaceful people. I’m not going to start killing now.” She paused, then qualified, “Unless you give me no choice.” </blockquote> Did you spot all three? No? Okay, let’s take them in the order they appear. First, the adverb in the initial tag line, stiltedly, is a trifle awkward — and all the more likely to be noticed as such, because there was an entire generation of English students taught to avoid using adverbs in tag lines at all. Some of you must remember that old writing truism, right? The dialogue itself should demonstrate to the reader just how things were said; lose the -ly words, already. This writing advice is far less common now, and its adherents certainly less vitriolic, than way back in the day, but it was so influential that millions of Baby Boomers ran terrified out of their English classes, absolutely convinced that they should never use adverbs, ever. Why should a writer of today worry about that misconception? Millicent may be the child of one of those students. Or the grandchild. Or — brace yourself — the employee. Just use adverbs with discrimination, okay? Let’s move on to the second issue: what’s going on just after that adverb isn’t completely clear, is it? The causative to construction is fairly common in submissions, used to indicate that what happens after the to was in response to what came before it. Unfortunately, a skimming eye often misses the implication. In a manuscript, then, it’s usually safer to spell out causation. Heck, we can even toss in one of those much-maligned adjectives: <blockquote> “You know far more than you should, and we must keep you from speaking,” the group’s Speaker proclaimed. The swindlers around the room fidgeted uncomfortably. </blockquote> The third issue is a subtle one, but a surprisingly pervasive professional readers’ pet peeve. “Why, in heaven’s name,” Millicent mutters under her breath, “do aspiring writers insist upon telling me every time a speaker hesitates for so much as an instant? In and of itself, it’s seldom either character- or situation-revealing.” It’s pretty clear why Janine chose to insert a pause here — to increase the menace of the threat — but you must admit, Millie has a point. The mere fact of pausing doesn’t add all that much to the speech. If the speaker did something more specifically threatening, the menace in could be heightened considerably. Perhaps even by employing an adverb! <blockquote> “We should simply kill you, but we’re peaceful people. I’m not going to start killing now.” Her ice-gray eyes swept the room contemptuously. “Unless you give me no choice.” </blockquote> Now that your eyes are sharpened to the particulars, I’m going to ask you to step back, consider the overall picture again — and revisit that burning issue from the beginning of the post. Re-read that first page: does this voice and worldview strike you as inherently and necessarily YA? If you’re unsure, ask yourself this question: based upon this page alone, just how old do you think the protagonist is? To the judges’ collective eye, there was no indication here that Zheng was not a full-fledged adult — not the usual choice for the protagonist of a YA book. (Adults drop students off at college all the time, right?) Admittedly, there’s also nothing here that indicates he couldn’t be a teenager, but that might not be enough to stop an impatient Millicent looking to screen out the overwhelming majority of the submissions on her desk that day from huffing, “Oh, this isn’t YA. Next!” Since we liked the voice, the premise, and the leap right into conflict — well done, Janine! — we wanted to flag this problem. It’s one that dogs many a YA submission, particularly now that so many writers of adult fiction have been tempted by the category’s popularity into switching teams, as it were. Out comes the broken record player again: <blockquote> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/broken-record8-150x150.jpg" alt="broken-record8" title="broken-record8" width="150" height="150" class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-10494"/>YA has its own distinctive conventions, particularly with respect to voice and subject matter. If it is not apparent from the first paragraph of page 1 that a manuscript is YA, even the best-written YA manuscript runs the risk of rejection on that ground alone. </blockquote> Not sure in this case? Take another peek at that first page, then ask yourself: is the central conflict of this scene one to which a teenager could relate? The judges felt — and I concur heartily — that being lectured by an authority figure because one has found out a truth one shouldn’t have might strike teen readers as somewhat familiar. Particularly the part about not speaking up about it. The black-and-white nature of the authority figures’ logic (I’m not going to start killing now… Unless you give me no choice.) would also be more likely to appeal to teenage sensibilities than those of adult readers; in adult fiction, superlatives and extremes tend not to play as well. A different definitional ambiguity troubled the judges in the book category description. In answer to the question how will this manuscript add something new and exciting to its book category? Janine provided the judges with a rather interesting response: <blockquote> Which Star My Destination takes the themes of exploration and road trips to grand scale by involving the entire universe. It also reminds us that, different personalities aside, teenagers are faced with the same situations and feelings, even in the far-flung future. Plus, spaceships! </blockquote> Plus, spaceships! saved this description at judging time, frankly; blanket assertions often raise more questions than they answer in book descriptions. While the notion of a universe-wide road trip was amusing (if rather reminiscent of Douglas Adams’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Hitchhikers-Guide-Galaxy/dp/0345453743/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291188172&sr=1-1">The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</a>), the fantasy writer on the panel was nonplused by the assertion that an exploration story was unusual simply because its extent was intergalactic — that has been a staple of science fiction since its inception, has it not? Other, more historically-minded judges wondered how we could be certain that teenagers in the far future would face the same situations as those today, as it would be difficult to argue that the teenagers of two hundred years ago did, or even the teens of thirty years ago, when feelings-based YA really hit its stride as a book category. Unsure if that’s true? Try reading Paul Zindel’s classic, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pardon-Me-Youre-Stepping-Eyeball/dp/055326690X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291188609&sr=1-1">Pardon Me, You’re Stepping on My Eyeball</a>; the protagonist’s frequent emotional and even physical abuse of his love interest barely raised eyebrows in 1978, but it would have to be handled as the central problem of the story today. Or E.L. Konigburg’s 1967 Newberry Award-winning <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mixed-up-Files-Mrs-Basil-Frankweiler/dp/1416949755/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291188748&sr=1-1">From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</a>, where two children run away from an apparently perfect home to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; if it were written now, there would be some serious problems in that household, and at least one responsible adult would experience some qualms about sending those kids back. Fortunately, the first page was enough of a grabber to cause even the skeptical judges to want to read more — and the book description’s nod to Jerome Beatty, Jr.’s much-loved <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Looney-Pirates-Jerome-Beatty/dp/0380008483/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291189215&sr=1-1">Matthew Looney</a> series brought a smile to many a child of the 1970s’ face. All agreed that the combination was a potentially powerful one. There’s a moral to all of this library-oriented reminiscence, should you care to know it. Any given manuscript will not be the first book in an agent’s chosen book category that she or her staff will have read; if they like those kinds of books enough to devote their lives to representing them, it’s a good bet that everyone concerned has read a wide array of them. Why is that important for a submitter to know? Because in order to wow Millicent the agency screener, a manuscript is not merely competing with the other submissions of recent months; it’s also competing with all the similar books she has ever read. It had better compare favorably. While competing with the classics in one’s genre is a tall order, the writers of today enjoy a considerable advantage: you are aware of today’s cultural expectations (“Wait — the female protagonist is supposed to DO something, not just wait around to be rescued? “YA writers of the 60s and 70s marvel), demographic trends (“Hey, when did living with one’s still-married birth parents stop being the norm?”), and, yes, recent bestsellers. (“Tell me why precisely we’re supposed to find vampirism sexy?”) Current YA writers also reap the benefits of writing during an exciting burgeoning of the category. Boundaries are being pushed; experiments are being wrought, and a diverse array of individual voices of unprecedented complexity is being welcomed. (And yes, all of that was in the passive voice; good eye.) Janine is poised to take advantage of this expansion with a story that seems interesting, exciting — and a whole lot of fun. Just what a road trip should be. Keep pressing those boundaries, everyone — and, as always, keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-2703" class="post-2703 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-after-you-receive-a-request-for-pages category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-art-of-revision category-author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-editing-dialogue category-editing-for-clarity category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-that-grab category-first-person-narration category-genre-fiction category-italics-and-when-they-are-correct-to-use category-originality-in-manuscripts category-protagonist-likability category-punctuation-and-grammar-of-the-non-standard-variety category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-rejection-when-they-dont-tell-you-why category-requested-material-wrangling category-revision-tips category-storytelling-structure category-submission-troubleshooting category-tag-lines-and-how-to-minimize-them category-voice category-what-is-a-book-category category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-why-should-i-indent-my-paragraphs category-writing-comedy"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/23/first-pages-that-grab-author-author-great-first-page-made-even-better-second-place-winners-in-adult-fiction-david-a-mcchesneys-sailing-dangerous-waters-and-ellen-bradfords-pith-4/realistic-expectations-for-writers/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-09-23T00:00:00+00:00">September 23, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/23/first-pages-that-grab-author-author-great-first-page-made-even-better-second-place-winners-in-adult-fiction-david-a-mcchesneys-sailing-dangerous-waters-and-ellen-bradfords-pith-4/realistic-expectations-for-writers/#comments">17 Comments on First pages that grab: Author! Author! Great First Page Made Even Better second-place winners in adult fiction, David A. McChesney’s SAILING DANGEROUS WATERS and Ellen Bradford’s PITH AND VINEGAR</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/23/first-pages-that-grab-author-author-great-first-page-made-even-better-second-place-winners-in-adult-fiction-david-a-mcchesneys-sailing-dangerous-waters-and-ellen-bradfords-pith-4/realistic-expectations-for-writers/" rel="bookmark">First pages that grab: Author! Author! Great First Page Made Even Better second-place winners in adult fiction, David A. McChesney’s SAILING DANGEROUS WATERS and Ellen Bradford’s PITH AND VINEGAR</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Dave-McChesney-author-photo-300x228.jpg" alt="Dave McChesney author photo" title="Dave McChesney author photo" width="300" height="228" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12613"/><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Ellen-Bradford-author-photo-272x300.jpg" alt="Ellen Bradford author photo" title="Ellen Bradford author photo" width="272" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12614"/> My apologies for the must-have-been-agonizing delay between the prize posts for the first-place winners of the <a href="/index_p_11293.html">Author! Author! Great First Page Made Even Better Contest</a> and the second-place winners. Believe me, the lapse was not intended to be editorial: I’m excited about both of today’s winners, but I had a bit of a car-crash recovery setback earlier in the week. I didn’t want to risk sounding grumpy about two writers whose narrative voices I like quite a bit. So a drum roll, please, for the joint winners of second prize in Category II: Adult Fiction: David A. McChesney’s SAILING DANGEROUS WATERS and Ellen Bradford’s PITH AND VINEGAR. While all of that portentous rumbling is still hanging in the air, let me take a moment to air one of my pet peeves: gratuitous quotation marks. The other day, a staffer at my physical therapist’s office handed me a special-ordered piece of medical equipment in this bag: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/misused-quotes-768x1024.jpg" alt="misused quotes" title="misused quotes" width="384" height="512" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-12603"/> What, one wonders, was the writer’s intent in placing quotation marks around my name? Was he in some doubt about whether it was my real name — as in, This belongs to the so-called Anne Mini? Did he mistakenly believe that he was shipping this not particularly personal piece of equipment not to my PT, but to a monogrammer, and he wanted to make sure the right spelling stitched into it? Or had someone immediately behind him just shouted my name, and he was quoting her? Was this merely a case of forgotten attribution? Is this an obscure quote from a book I do not know — a minor work of Charles Dickens, perhaps? Or, still more disturbingly, is this kind soul trying to let me know, albeit in code, that somebody out there is talking about me? None of the above, probably: my guess would be that the guy with the marking pen thought, along with a surprisingly high percentage of the marking-things population, that quotation marks mean the same thing as underlining. He is mistaken. Don’t ever follow his example. To a professional reader, the common practice of placing things in quotation marks to indicate either emphasis in speech (“Marvin K. Mooney, will you ‘please go’ now?”), a stock phrase (everybody laughed, because “all the world loves a lover”), or just to call attention to individual words on a sign (Fresh “on the vine” tomatoes, 3 for $2) simply looks illiterate. Sorry to be the one to break the harsh news, but it’s true. So how should one use quotation marks? How about reserving them for framing things that characters actually say? I know; radical. The next thing you know, I’ll be calling for aspiring writers to use semicolons correctly. I do not bring any of this up lightly — or, indeed, purely to rid the world of a few more sets of perplexingly-applied quotation marks. Both of today’s entries grabbed the judges with their strong, distinct authorial voices, but each left us murmuring amongst themselves, speculating about what the writer’s motivations might have been. Although these two first pages don’t actually have a great deal else in common — other than both beginning the text 1/4 of the way down the page, rather than 1/3; the addition of a single additional double-spaced line would have made a positive cosmetic difference in both — the judges agreed that they shared a certain kinship: the unanswered question might well lead even an agency screener who admired the writing to hesitate about reading on. Why? Well, Millicent isn’t all that fond of unanswered questions on page 1, and with good reason: in order to be able to recommend a novel manuscript to her boss, she is going to have to be able to tell him (a) who the protagonist is, (b) what the book is about, (c) the book category, (d) to what specific target audience within that book category’s already-established readership it should be marketed, and (e) how this book is different/better than what is already on the market for the folks mentioned in (e). If Millicent can’t answer any of these questions. she’s going to have a hard time convincing the agent even to read the submission. (Actually, she prefers to be able to answer all of them by the bottom of p. 1, but she’s prepared to change her mind between then and p. 50.) And no, “But the writing is so good!” is no substitute for being able to come up with answers: books are pitched to editors within well-established categories. So when a fresh, new narrative voice that does not appear to fit comfortably within an existing book category, our Millie is left in something of a quandary. How, she wonders, is she going to make the case for this book? That’s a good exercise to apply to any manuscript, incidentally: reading a first page or book description and trying to figure out the book’s category is excellent practice for narrowing down your own. In that spirit, take a gander at Dave McChesney’s first page and book description; tell me, what do you think the category is? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Dave-McChesneys-p-1.jpg" alt="Dave McChesney's p 1" title="Dave McChesney's p 1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12619"/> If you found yourself murmuring, “Hmm, this reads like Naval Adventure,” you agree with most of the judges. Even more so if you additionally told yourself, “I’d bet a doubloon that there’s adventure awaiting those characters within the next page or two.” Although some of the judges felt that it might have been more of a Millicent-grabber to toss the characters straight into that imminent action, none denied that page 1 set up the expectation for excitement. Cast your eyes over the book’s description, though, and see if you think the proverbial shoe still fits the assumed book category: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/McChesney-synopsis1.jpg" alt="McChesney synopsis" title="McChesney synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12624"/> Still sounds like a rollicking Naval Adventure, doesn’t it? Or do I sense some puzzled head-scratching out there? “Wait just a doggone minute, Anne,” head-scratchers across the English-speaking world protest. “He hopes to quickly set out for his world, England, and Evangeline, but finds obstacles continually placed in his path? In the known world? Does this take place in a different world, or this one? And if it’s the former, shouldn’t that be made clear to Millicent on page 1?” Well caught, head-scratchers — and in answer to that last question, a resounding yes. Let’s take a gander at how Dave himself categorizes his book: <blockquote> SAILING DANGEROUS WATERS, the second Stone Island Sea Story, combines Naval Adventure and Fantasy. An additional yet similar world gives these voyagers of the early nineteenth century more seas to sail and challenges to meet. Uniquely, they are aware of and able to control their journeys between the two worlds. </blockquote> An interesting notion, right? But you can already hear Millicent slapping her forehead and muttering, “How on earth am I going to define this book for my boss?” Universally, the judges felt that in fairness to Millicent, some fantasy elements should appear on page 1. Otherwise, they argued, it was simply too likely that when she came upon fantastic happenings later in the manuscript, she might conclude — wrongly in this case — that Dave did not know that he was genre-jumping, or that the authorial choice to present a fantasy premise in a completely dedicated naval fantasy voice was in fact a choice, not a misunderstanding of how book categories work. That’s why Dave’s taking the quite large risk of telling Millicent in his brief book description (and presumably in his query) that this is a category-crosser is quite smart. True, there is not a great deal of demonstrable overlap between the readership of these two categories. (Which is why I am bound to mention marketing advice agreed-upon by a full half of the judges: since this is such a strong Naval Adventure voice, why not write a straight Naval Adventure first, land an agent that way, and then segue into fantasy with the NEXT book?) Also, if an agency is not open to the possibility of combining these two disparate categories in a single book — or, in this case, a series — its Millicent may well reject the query on that basis alone. So why is it smart to give her the opportunity up front? Because for a truly genre-expanding novel to make it into print, it’s going to need an agent willing — nay, eager — to take on the challenge. Trust me, it’s far, far easier on a writer emotionally to find out a particular agent is not up for it at the querying stage, rather than several years into an unhappy writer-agent relationship. Let’s assume for the moment that Dave’s query has already passed muster with the Millicent guarding an agency very much up for this challenge. How might Millie respond to this first page? <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Daves-edit.jpg" alt="Dave's edit" title="Dave's edit" width="521" height="657" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12607"/> As you may see (and we have continually seen throughout this series), how a professional reader responds to a page of text can be extraordinarily different from how an ordinary reader might. I would be surprised, for instance, if many of you had caught the verb repetition in lines 1 and 2, or the lack of a necessary paragraph break on line 8. (It’s a bit confusing to have one person speak and another — or in this case, several others — act within the same paragraph.) Or, really, to be actively annoyed by the almost universal Baby Boomer tendency to compress the phrase all right into alright. I blame album cover lyrics for the ubiquity of that last one. (If you don’t know what album covers are, children, ask your grandparents.) Nor would the average reader be likely to gnash her teeth over the preponderance of tag lines, those pesky he said, he mentioned, he groaned speaker-identifiers, but Millicent’s choppers are unlikely to remain ungnashed. Why? Well, one of the standard measures of the reading level of the target audience is the frequency with which tag lines appear: in books for early readers, for instance, who may well be reading aloud or having the book read to them, tag lines are virtually universal. <blockquote> “See Spot run, Dick,” Jane said. “I see Spot run,” Dick replied. “Run, Spot, run.” </blockquote> In most adult fiction, on the other hand, tag lines are deliberately minimized. Although the frequency with which they are expected to appear does vary from book category to book category (chant it with me, campers: there is no substitute for reading widely in your chosen book category, to learn its norms), most of the time, it’s simply assumed that the reader will be able to figure out that the words within quotation marks are in fact being spoken aloud by a character without the narrative’s having to stop short to tell us so. After all, quotation marks around words can only mean that either those words were spoken out loud or the narrative is trying to cast doubt upon the authenticity of something (as in “I see you’re wearing your ‘designer’ dress’ again, Alice.”), right? Typically, tag line minimization is achieved by incorporating other action or thought into a dialogue paragraph — or simply to alternate between already-established speakers. Like so: <blockquote> “Oh, there’s Spot at last.” Jane blew on her freshly-filed nails to free them from dust before she applied screaming red polish. “And there he goes. See Spot run, Dick.” Dick backed against the wood-paneled wall, eyes wide. “I see Spot run. Run, Spot, run!” Jane lowered one heavily-lashed lid, the better to aim her gun. “How would you feel about following Spot’s example, Dick?” “Pretty darned good.” “Then run, Dick, run, before I change my mind and turn you into Swiss cheese.” </blockquote> These are all easily-fixed matters of style, however. There was one obviously deliberate authorial choice, however, that left the judges scratching their heads as if they had wandered into a dandruff convention. Millicent almost certainly would have the same reaction. Any guesses as to what on this page might engender that response? If you flung your hand into the air, shouting, “Oh, I’ve been scratching my head raw over this one, too! Why are Original Vespican, Original, Baltican all in italics? They aren’t foreign words, are they, or the names of ships, which could legitimately be italicized?” Apparently not — from how they are used here, they may be the names of nationalities or tribes. If that’s the case, however, it’s hard to guess what the authorial point of italicizing them could possibly be: one does not, after all, routinely employ italics when talking about Swedish fjords or Navaho rugs. Presumably, there is a perfectly sound rationale behind this authorial choice — Dave’s been an active member of the Author! Author! community for years, and never have I known him to set at naught the rules of standard format for frivolous reasons. I said as much to the other judges, in fact. But they felt — and I must say I concur — that however valid it might be to include those italics in the published version of the book, at the submission stage, the manuscript should omit them. Why? Well, as we all know (at least I hope we do), manuscripts do not resemble published books in many important respects. Double-spacing, for instance, and doubling dashes. While it might conceivably be possible for a writer to justify an occasional deviation from standard format, remember, the submitter is literally never there when Millicent screens his manuscript; it is going to need to stand on its own merits. And Millicent is not all that keen on formatting originality: she knows all too well that any fancy formatting in the published book would be the editor’s call, not the author’s. In Dave’s case, then, it could certainly be argued that no one but his future editor is genuinely qualified to determine whether those italics should remain or not. However, that perfectly legitimate point is not likely to help him much at submission time, if Millicent gets tired of scratching her head over it. So I offer up this question for your pondering pleasure: since Millicent’s delicate eyebrows are so very likely to be lifted beyond the point of comfort by those page 1 italics, wouldn’t it be more prudent for Dave to hold off on those italics-by-choice until he can discuss it with his future editor? That way, the risk of the italics triggering rejection drops to zero, and he can still make a case for including those italics in the eventual book. Isn’t it amazing how much issues ostensibly unrelated to either the quality of the writing, the strength and consistency of the narrative voice, or even the inherent excitement of the story can affect its submission chances? With that capacious question ringing in our ears, let’s turn to Ellen Bradford’s extremely likable page 1: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Ellen-Bradford-p1.jpg" alt="Ellen Bradford p1" title="Ellen Bradford p1" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12620"/> Engaging, isn’t it? I must say, this one won me over in spite of myself: as a professional reader, I tend to be a trifle suspicious of self-deprecating narrators; it’s hard to keep it up for the entire length of a book. It’s even harder to do if the narrative is genuinely funny, as this page is — self-deprecating humor often lends itself to one-note storytelling, and even when it doesn’t, those who do not get the jokes are wont to write off the narrator as whiny. Hey, I don’t control readers’ reactions. I just tell you about ‘em. This is a voice that a lot of readers would quite happily follow for chapters on end — but is it compelling enough to carry Millicent on to page 2? That’s not at all a frivolous question, or even a reflection upon the writing here: let’s face it, Millicent doesn’t make it to page 2 in most submissions. And contrary to popular opinion amongst aspiring writers, the quality of the writing is not always the determinant of whether she flips the page. Remember, our Millie likes to be able to answer the basic questions about a submission in at least a cursory way by the bottom of page 1. To recap: (a) who the protagonist is, (b) what the book is about, (c) the book category, (d) to what specific target audience within that book category’s already-established readership it should be marketed, and (e) how this book is different/better than what is already on the market for the folks mentioned in (e). Take another gander at Ellen’s page 1. How many of those questions would you be comfortable answering? Oh, it establishes the protagonist and the tone of the book beautifully; one could even make a pretty good guess that the target market is women insecure about their appearance — which is to say pretty much all of us. But what is this book about? Where would it sit on a shelf in Barnes & Noble? Because the judges were all about book category-appropriateness, the contest’s rules asked entrants to provide a brief paragraph dealing with questions (b) – (e). Here’s Ellen’s response: <blockquote> Pith and Vinegar will turn the world of adult fiction on its ear. Or its kidney. Take your pick. But what remains non-negotiable and absolutely, undeniably 100 percent pure fact is that adult fiction will be resting on an unfamiliar body part. As will the story’s heroine. </blockquote> Again: funny, even charming. But did it answer those professional questions, beyond alerting us that it is fiction aimed at adults? Is it Mainstream Fiction? Women’s Fiction? Chick lit? The judges were inclined toward the latter, but let’s take a peek at the longer book description, to see if we can find out more. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Pith-and-Vinegar-synopsis.jpg" alt="Pith and Vinegar synopsis" title="Pith and Vinegar synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12631"/> Okay, so the book sounds like a hoot; I give you that. And now we know that it is Women’s Fiction — which is fabulous, as this is a voice that would appeal to many, many readers in that target market. There is surprisingly little funny fiction out there right now featuring larger female protagonists, so you go, Ellen! But this description would be at a very serious competitive disadvantage at most US-based agencies. Care to guess why? If you already had your hand in the air, crying out, “But Anne, those paragraphs are not indented, and she skipped a line between paragraphs!” give yourself a hearty pat on the back. You are quite right: in dealing with the publishing industry, every paragraph should be indented. Block-formatting just looks illiterate to Millicent. You wouldn’t want her to think you were the kind of person who would shove quotation marks around perfectly innocent words and phrases for no apparent reason, would you? No, but seriously, folks, this is a trap into which well-meaning aspiring writers inadvertently stumble all the time. An agency’s submission guidelines ask for an unusual addition to the query packet, or the form-letter positive response to a query requests a much shorter synopsis than the writer has on hand. So he tosses something off — only to realize with horror a few days after he sent it that those additional requested materials were not in standard manuscript format. If that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, think of it this way: which would you prefer, Millicent’s starting to read your synopsis with an open mind, or her harrumphing at the first sight of it, “Oh, no — I wonder if the manuscript is improperly formatted, too,” and beginning to peruse your word with a pre-jaundiced mind? There’s another common generator of Millicent’s knee jerks back on page 1. Let’s take a gander: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Ellens-edit.jpg" alt="Ellen's edit" title="Ellen's edit" width="504" height="633" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12610"/> A couple of those points caught you by surprise, didn’t they? Almost universally, Millicents are a mite touchy about having jokes explained to them, at least on the page. After the tenth time it happens in a single day of screening, it can start to feel like a minor insult to one’s intelligence. And there’s some justification to that: the writerly impulse to over-explain has does typically have its roots in a fear that the average reader won’t get it. Much of the time, those fears are unfounded; inveterate readers are a pretty savvy bunch, and professional readers even more so. Here, those fears are definitely unjustified — it would be perfectly easy to follow the metaphor without, say, the narrative’s informing us three times that it is indeed a metaphor, or repeating the word potato every few lines. With an image that strong, it’s a safe bet that the reader is going to remember it. Yet our amusing narrator seems far more afraid that the reader’s mind will stray off the relevant spud than to let us know where the story is set, how the narrator fits into the world she is depicting (perhaps she works at the Bloodworthy News?), or even the time frame — because, let’s face it, a lot of women have felt potato-shaped across a broad array of contexts for at least the last century. (They might well have felt that way before, but bathroom scales were not widely available until the 1920s, so they didn’t have numbers to back up the general impression.) Are you seeing a running theme here, though? Both of these winning entries left Millicent guessing about a few significant matters at the bottom of page 1 — and in both cases, one of those significant somethings was the book category. But that’s actually not the primary reason that a well-trained Millicent might not turn the page. Any guesses? Hint: the problem I have in mind is noted twice on the marked-up example above. Yes, that’s right: the single-sentence paragraphs. Aspiring writers just love these, and as we’ve discussed, they can work well in moderation — to introduce a bit of genuinely startling information or a plot twist that might get lost to the skimming eye if the sentence were attached to the paragraph above or below. The vast majority of the time, that’s not how such one-line paragraphs turn up in manuscript submissions, however. A surprisingly high percentage of writers who aspire to be funny seem to believe that a single-line paragraph is the only way to designate a punch line, a tactic about as subtle as following Millicent around with a drum kit and executing a rim shot each and every time she reads a joke. Think about it: if the reader can see from across the room that a joke is coming, because every joke that preceded it in the text was also in a single-sentence paragraph, hasn’t the narration lost the element of surprise so crucial to maintaining a humorous tone all the way through the book? That doesn’t appear to have been Ellen’s motivation in creating the single-sentence paragraphs here, though; my guess is that they are intended to reflect the greater-than-full-stop pause these statements might carry in verbal speech. Regardless, breaking the it takes at least two sentences to form a narrative paragraph rule doesn’t actually provide any benefit to the narrative — certainly not a large enough bang to outweigh the risk of a very well-read Millicent’s knee jerking over it. Don’t believe me? Okay, here are the opening three sentences as submitted: <blockquote> If eyes were the windows to the soul, I was a potato. Well, metaphorically speaking, I was a potato. Physically, I didn’t look like a root vegetable unless I turned sideways in one of those nasty change-room mirrors that sadistic shops selling Barbie-sized clothing always mounted on their flimsy doors. </blockquote> Got those firmly in mind? Now cast your eyes over them with the single-sentence paragraph problem removed in the most obvious manner imaginable — although while I’m at it, I’ll do a spot of trimming. <blockquote> If eyes were the windows to the soul, I was a potato. Well, metaphorically speaking. Physically, I didn’t look like a root vegetable unless I turned sideways in one of those nasty change-room mirrors that sadistic shops selling Barbie-sized clothing always mounted on their flimsy doors. </blockquote> Was any meaning lost in that transition? Any nuance, even? Is there anything to prevent someone reading it out loud from emphasizing that first sentence? Of course not. The same holds true for the other single-sentence paragraph. Let’s review it in context: <blockquote> A few stray hairs perhaps, under harsh fluorescent lighting, but everyone knew how cruel those lights could be. All right. I may in some tiny and insignificant way, have resembled a potato. But some potatoes on eBay looked like the Virgin Mary or Albert Einstein, so there was a lot of genetic variance. And metaphorically speaking, I was covered with many eyes, like a potato. </blockquote> And here it is again, cleaned up a trifle: <blockquote> A few stray hairs, perhaps, under harsh fluorescent lighting, but everyone knew how cruel those lights could be. All right, I may, in some tiny and insignificant way, resemble a potato. But some potatoes on eBay looked like the Virgin Mary or Albert Einstein, so there was a lot of genetic variance. And metaphorically speaking, I was covered with many eyes. </blockquote> Okay, so that was more than a trifle, but you know how I (and Millicent) feel about word repetition and comma use. My point is — and you probably saw this coming, right? — that stand-alone paragraph wasn’t actually adding anything significant to the text. The next paragraph was able to absorb it into its first sentence with no loss of meaning at all. What lesson are we to derive from all of this? Several, actually. First, I clearly was eager to jump back into the swim of commenting on these entries — this is a long post, even by my standards. Second, while it may require a bit of plot massage, the more you can show Millicent of the book’s tone, what it’s about, who the protagonist is, and so forth by the bottom of page 1, the happier she will be. Finally, as we’ve been seeing throughout this series, even a very well-honed narrative can often benefit from a bit of judicious revision. Just to stick that bug in the ear of all of you who are going to receive requests for pages in the months to come: fight the urge to send off those pages instantly; it’s well worth your time to re-read those pages IN THEIR ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD before popping ‘em in the mail or hitting SEND. Do I need to remind you about Millicent’s jumpy knee? Don’t make me pull out another quotation mark example to get her going. A few more contest entries to come, then it’s on to Synopsispalooza, beginning on Saturday. Well done, Ellen and Dave, and keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4199" class="post-4199 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-being-an-agents-dream-client category-character-development-tips category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-creating-sufficiently-odious-antagonists category-dialogue-that-adds-to-the-scene category-dialogue-that-rings-true category-editing-the-opening-pages category-first-pages-that-grab category-first-person-narration category-frankenstein-manuscripts category-hooks category-industry-terminology category-naming-characters category-originality-in-manuscripts category-proofreading category-protagonist-memorability category-slug-line category-strategizing-a-writing-career category-target-audience category-voice category-what-is-a-book-category category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-writing-cliches category-ya-voice"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/18/first-pages-that-grab-trouble-comes-by-2010-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-juniper-ekman-5/proofreading/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2010-09-18T00:00:00+00:00">September 18, 2010</time><time class="updated" datetime="2021-02-27T20:52:22+00:00">February 27, 2021</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/18/first-pages-that-grab-trouble-comes-by-2010-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-juniper-ekman-5/proofreading/#comments">8 Comments on First pages that grab: Trouble Comes, by 2010 Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence winner Juniper Ekman</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/18/first-pages-that-grab-trouble-comes-by-2010-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-juniper-ekman-5/proofreading/" rel="bookmark">First pages that grab: Trouble Comes, by 2010 Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence winner Juniper Ekman</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12476" title="Juniper Ekman" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Juniper-Ekman-300x225.jpg" alt="Juniper Ekman" width="300" height="225" /> After our in-depth discussion of <a href="/index_p_12421.html">the differences between adult fiction and YA narrative voices</a> last time, I’m delighted to be able to bring you today a marvelous example of a fresh YA voice: 2010 Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence in YA winner Juniper Ekman. Like the three other A!A!AEE winners whose work you have already seen, Juniper took top honors in her category. Thus, she is also the Grand Prize winner in the <a href="/index_p_11293.html">Author! Author! Great First Page Made Even Better Contest</a> in Category I. (And what an evocative author photo, eh?) If Juniper’s name seems familiar to those of you who have been hanging around here at Author! Author! for a while, pat yourselves on the back for your retentive memories: she also won November’s <a href="/index_p_7343.html">Words to Write By</a> contest. If you recall (hey, I know you’re up for it), that contest asked entrants to submit the quotes that most inspired them as writers, along with a brief explanation why. Here is <a href="/index_p_7992.html">what Juniper sent in</a>: <blockquote> <blockquote> <blockquote>“I am a writer. I have books to write. What am I doing building a museum?” ~ Orhan Pamuk, possibly from a New York Times interview on the creation of his new museum</blockquote> </blockquote>   This is a quote I post to each page of my calendar, the quote I have taped to my phone. This is the quote I write in permanent marker on my palm so I can hold it up every time I answer yes to the wrong question: <blockquote>“Do you have a few hours to make fifteen puppets for the holiday puppet show?” “I know you’re already working five jobs, but would you mind coming in for an extra shift on Thursday? We forgot to hire somebody to replace the last employee we fired.”</blockquote> Or when I find myself distracted by my hobbies, my friends, my feller, my life. All the things that make life worth living but prevent me from living on. What am I doing? No. I am a writer. I have books to write.</blockquote> You tell ‘em, Juniper. I, for one, am quite in favor of your taking the time to write — and I suspect that in the years to come, many, many young readers are going to be pretty psyched that you did it, too. What makes me (and the current contest’s judges) think so, you ask? Well, for starters, look how many young readers will identify with her book’s core issue: <blockquote>Trouble Comes is a contemporary YA novel about finding home wherever your heart lets you, making peace with a life you didn’t ask for, and troubling yourself to care about the world’s troubles. It concerns itself with bowling tournaments, small town secrets, unexpected heroes, and unpleasant people who nevertheless matter.</blockquote> That first sentence actually isn’t a bad definition for YA aimed at the older part of its market, is it? What teenager has not muttered at least once recently, I SO didn’t ask for this life! The longer book description, thank goodness, delivers on this rather hefty promise — which a great many don’t, by the way. It’s far from uncommon for an agency screener to be taken with the descriptive paragraph in a query, only to turn to the synopsis tucked into the submission packet to discover a plot or argument that doesn’t seem to match the query. Juniper’s, however, does fit well with both her brief description and the narrative voice of the book. So you may judge for yourself, here is the longer description. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12500" title="Trouble Comes description" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Trouble-Comes-description.jpg" alt="Trouble Comes description" width="466" height="603" /> While I’m praising this page, I should mention the not insignificant achievement that the characters, situation, and narrative voice were engaging enough to make me discount one of my personal pet peeves as a professional reader: character and place names that are a trifle too on the nose. They don’t but every pro, but they’re a bit 18th-century for my taste. Back when defining characters by a ruling passion was fashionable, you could get away with a schoolmaster character named Mr. Thwackum in adult fiction, but now, it’s considered more stylish not to give the whole candy store away up front. Besides, who wants literally-minded readers to mutter over one’s book, “Oh, come on — Mr. and Mrs. Struggle realized prior to their daughter’s christening that her future life would be trying enough that they should name her Constance?” Admittedly, names that are direct reflections of the personalities of people and places have enjoyed a long history in YA, as any Roald Dahl fan could testify. Villains are especially likely to be called something like Dastard Lee. These days, however they’re usually confined to works intended for younger readers, rather than the devourers of the kind of meaty, complex characters and situations that appear on page 1 of TROUBLE COMES. I find too-apt naming especially trying if several characters in a single story are tacitly waving signs declaring This is what I am like! No need to read closely for character development! I might, for instance, have overlooked a town called Last Chance (a remarkable coincidence to which, you will note, the book description specifically calls attention) if the character we’re told is constantly — ahem — sharing her no doubt considerable charms with a variety of Mr. Right Nows to refresh herself as she proceeds along the road to Mr. Goodbar had not been called Mona. If that didn’t elicit a chuckle, try reading that last sentence out loud. A 13-year-old reader might not catch the implication (although most of the 13-year-old writers I know would), but Millicent definitely will. So might some young readers’ parents — and that could conceivably be a marketing problem, especially for public school libraries. And while I’m quibbling, I would also like to point out that Journey Jones scans a bit too like actor January Jones’ name — not an insignificant consideration, since that similarity may well cause some readers to picture the protagonist looking like the actor. Hey, it’s my job to worry about things like this. I only jump all over manuscripts I genuinely like, recall. Besides, the narrative voice and genuine grabber of an opening don’t need the adrenaline boost of names that let the reader in on the joke. Juniper’s narrative voice captivated the judges, not merely because the writing was so good, but because it was so nicely attuned to her target audience. This is how YA writing is done, folks. See for yourself — and, as usual, my apologies if the individual letters a trifle blurry on your browser; try holding down COMMAND and pressing + to enlarge the image. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12462" title="Juniper Ekman's entry" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Juniper-Ekmans-entry.jpg" alt="Juniper Ekman's entry" width="466" height="603" /> Pretty impressive, eh? In fact, like <a href="/index_p_11634.html">Jennifer Sinclair Johnson’s Grand Prize-winning entry in Category II: Adult Fiction</a> this page displayed such a strong, assured authorial voice so well suited to its target audience that it actually presented me with a blogging problem: other than the accolade itself, the primary benefit for winning this contest was supposed to be a heaping helping of my patented extensive feedback. But how much feedback could I possibly give on pages as clean as Juniper and Jennifer’s? You’re all familiar with what the term clean means in a publishing context, right? A clean manuscript is one clean (or relatively so) of typos, grammatical errors, logical holes, missing words, formatting problems, and all of the other hard-to-catch but annoying-to-professional-readers minute points that separate polished prose from, well, the other kind. Juniper’s first page is so much cleaner than 95% what our old pal Millicent the agency screener sees in an average day that she might be tempted to overlook the few minute details that should be corrected here. (Seriously, your future agent is going to be jumping up and down about your revision eye, Juniper: it’s rarer in talented writers than one might perhaps hope.) Half of you did a double-take midway through that last paragraph, didn’t you? (Is that the mathematical equivalent to every one of you doing a single-take?) “A few minute details? But this page looks cosmetically perfect to me!” Ah, but you don’t stare at professionally-formatted manuscripts all day, as an agent or editor routinely does — or the motley collection of nearly-correctly and flatly incorrectly-formatted submissions that find their way to Millicent’s desk. Try to look at a page from the perspective of someone who sees nothing else for hours, days, weeks on end. Trust me, those tiny gaffes actually would start to jump off the page at you. In fact, you might well begin to find them a trifle annoying. Perhaps — dare I say it? — disproportionately so. Don’t believe me? Okay, take a long, hard look at Juniper’s first page above. Really concentrate on burning that image into your mind. Got it firmly imprinted upon your brainpan? Good. Now take a gander at the same page with some minutiae cleaned up: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12466" title="Juniper's entry formatted" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Junipers-entry-formatted1.jpg" alt="Juniper's entry formatted" width="466" height="603" /> It’s more visually pleasing this way, isn’t it? Pop quiz: what did I change? Would you believe that it was as many four different things? I moved the slug line to the left margin (it was indented), standardized the spacing after periods (one was off in line 1, and yes, Millicent would have noticed it), added a comma in line 3 (that Millie would have corrected automatically while reading), and removed an instance incorrect capitalization in line -2. That’s it. And yet the second version looks significantly more polished, does it not? Even just shifting the slug line makes it seem better put-together. As I have been known to tell the many, many aspiring writers who like to argue with me at conferences about whether minute formatting details actually make a difference at submission time (they do, invariably) and/or if it is Millicent’s job to look past presentation problems in trying to evaluate a manuscript (it is, explicitly), once a professional reader has been at it a while, she develops an almost visceral sense of whether the page in front of her is put together correctly or not. Translation: don’t expect the little stuff to escape her notice. Or not to affect her evaluation of your work. True, the miniscule alterations I made above didn’t actually change the writing in this fine opening page, but yes, Millicent — and her boss the agent, as well as the editor to whom the manuscript will eventually be pitched — would prefer the second version. Universally. So it’s well worth the effort to scrub one’s submissions to this incredibly high presentation standard. Minor gaffes actually are distracting to professional readers — you want your writing to shine without any smudges on it. Before you blow me away with your collective sigh of resignation, permit me to add: this level of nit-pickery is excellent practice for later in your writing career. Remember, once you have landed an agent, perfectly clean manuscripts will be the minimum expectation, not the icing on the writing cake. But yes, I’ll admit it: I was a trifle relieved when I noticed the first of those itsy-bitsy flaws on this otherwise spic-and-span page. It’s genuinely a pleasure for an editor to be able to suggest the changes that would elevate a great first page to a perfectly-presented one. Okay, enough about possible fixes. Let’s talk about what makes this first page so very good from a submission perspective: the narrative voice. Specifically, that it comes across as both original and as distinctively YA. That last bit prompted a chuckle or two out there, didn’t it? “But Anne,” doubting Thomases and Thomasinas everywhere point out, and who could blame them? “In what conceivable context would a reader not already know before beginning to read this that it’s from a YA book? Presumably, Juniper would be sending this to a YA-representing agency, where it would be read by a YA-trained Millicent working for a YA-representing agent, who would then in turn be offering it to YA-handling editors. YA-reviewing critics would pass judgment upon it, and readers would find it in the YA section of a bookstore. Even here, you presented it as YA. Am I missing something here?” Perhaps one thing, oh doubters, but it’s a significant one: if Millicent — or her boss, or the acquiring editor — murmurs over even a single sentence of page 1, “Oh, this doesn’t read like YA,” the rest of that pretty series of events you mentioned will not happen. Voice and vocabulary-appropriateness for the target audience is always important, but never more so than in a YA submission. Even if Millicent likes the writing qua writing, if the vocabulary is pitched even slightly too high or the tone is too adult, it may well end up in the reject pile. And don’t even get me started on how much more difficult it is for manuscripts with substantial amounts of profanity or — ahem — too-specific discussion of the protagonist’s anatomy and the various ways might be co-mingling with other characters’ corporeal beings. If you doubt that, you might want to hie yourself down to your local junior high school or public library with a YA section. Buy the librarian a nice cup of tea and get her to tell you about the last 17 times a parent came storming into the stacks, demanding to know how a book like this made it into her child’s hands. You’d be astonished how often the objection is to a single sentence. Or even a word, particularly if it is of the Anglo-Saxon variety. Juniper’s first page is, I am pleased to report, happily free of triggers for this sort of parent — which is a good trick, given Mona’s apparent — ahem — frequency of physical generosity. A lot of aspiring writers would have taken a cue from films and TV shows aimed at teenagers and peppered the dialogue with profanity. This opening scene doesn’t need it for authenticity, though. And don’t you just love the tension inherent in the exchange at the bottom of the page? Remember how I mentioned last time that <a href="/index_p_12421.html">one of the species characteristics, as is were, of YA was the preponderance of ands, especially in first-person narratives</a>? Juniper embraces that norm here. She does it so well, in fact, and in such a likable, believable YA voice that I suspect that when you first scanned her page 1, the ands did not strike you as especially abundant. Yet they were, at least by adult fiction standards: as we discussed some months back, since professional readers are trained to spot repetitions and inconsistencies, Millicent’s eye tends to be drawn to them. Take a peek, for instance, at where Millicent charged with screening adult fiction manuscripts would find herself focusing: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12469" title="Juniper's entry ands" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Junipers-entry-ands.jpg" alt="Juniper's entry ands" width="466" height="603" /> Notice how the percussive and use is almost as distracting to the adult-oriented reader’s eye as the formatting and grammatical anomalies. There’s a reason for that: young readers are used to instructional texts, where sentence structures and vocabulary choices are deliberately repetitive, but adult readers are not. So younger readers’ eyes will tolerate quite a bit more word repetition than older readers’ will. But with YA-reading glasses firmly in place, this is not only an engaging voice, but an unusually clean page of manuscript. Let Millicent do her darnedest, there’s not a lot to critique here — a trifle unfortunate for illustrative purposes here, but a tremendous plus in a submission. Remember how I mentioned during Querypalooza that Millicent and her ilk are looking to fall in love with a submission? Take a peek at her reaction when she does. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12483" title="Juniper's edit" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Junipers-edit2.jpg" alt="Juniper's edit" width="512" height="649" /> Okay, so it was really my reaction — and a composite of the judges’ — but still, it’s rather startling to see that much praise on a professionally commented-upon manuscript page, isn’t it? I could, of course, dwell upon a couple of content revisions I would like to see Juniper make — what did that corpse look like when Journey first spotted it, for instance, and how was her second glimpse different? How did the sight of it make her feel, not just in her head, but in her body? — but I think I’ll leave that discussion to Juniper, the agent lucky enough to sign her, and the editor destined to fall in love with this narrative voice. For now, I shall limit myself to saying well done, Juniper! To you and all of you conscientious, talented writers out there, keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-3401" class="post-3401 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-1-page-synopses category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-art-of-revision category-author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence category-back-jacket-blurbs category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-but-it-really-happened-that-way category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-editing-for-freshness category-editing-for-style category-editing-the-opening-pages category-feedback-thats-actually-helpful category-first-pages-that-grab category-formatting-manuscripts category-hooks category-italics-and-when-they-are-correct-to-use category-manuscript-formatting-like-a-pro category-naming-characters category-pitch-examples category-plausibility category-point-of-view-choices category-proofreading category-punctuation-and-grammar-of-the-non-standard-variety category-real-stories-told-as-fiction category-revision-tips category-secondary-characters category-submission-troubleshooting category-vivid-details category-voice category-what-is-a-book-category category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-ya-voice"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/16/first-pages-that-grab-indomitvs-by-2010-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-cole-casperson-7/revision-to-improve-your-books-chances/agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-09-16T00:00:00+00:00">September 16, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/16/first-pages-that-grab-indomitvs-by-2010-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-cole-casperson-7/revision-to-improve-your-books-chances/agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety/#comments">7 Comments on First pages that grab: INDOMITVS, by 2010 Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence winner Cole Casperson</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/16/first-pages-that-grab-indomitvs-by-2010-author-author-award-for-expressive-excellence-winner-cole-casperson-7/revision-to-improve-your-books-chances/agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety/" rel="bookmark">First pages that grab: INDOMITVS, by 2010 Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence winner Cole Casperson</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Cole-Casperson-author-photo-227x300.jpg" alt="Cole Casperson author photo" title="Cole Casperson author photo" width="227" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12423"/> Have everyone’s brains unscrambled after the intensive query-and-submission fest that was Querypalooza? Please enjoy the down time, because next week (Saturday, September 25, to be precise) we shall be hurling ourselves head-first (literally) into Synopsispalooza, a celebration of all things…well, I’m sure you can extrapolate. In the meantime, I have a real treat in store for you: close Millicent-the-agency-screener-eye-views of some genuinely wonderful reader first pages. That’s right, gang: it’s time once again for yours truly to whip out her multicolored editing pens. I’m genuinely excited to introduce you to today’s writer, 2010 Author! Author! Award for Expressive Excellence winner Cole Casperson, pictured above. Like the three other A!A!AEE winners this year, Cole also won the Grand Prize in the <a href="/index_p_11293.html">Author! Author! Great First Page Made Even Better Contest</a> last June. To render that dual win even more impressive, the first page of INDOMITVS garnered a distinction that no other entry did: the judges agreed that it was a contender for top honors in two categories: Adult Fiction (the category in which it was actually entered) and YA. How is that possible? Well, for the reason that the judges were unanimous in their eagerness to see me evaluate this entry in a blog post: the voice and plot would have worked for either. Don’t keep parroting, “How is that possible?” I’m about to let you see for yourself — and please, if the type is too small or too fuzzy on your screen, do yourself a favor and enlarge the image by holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + a couple of times. You’re going to want to say in future that you were among the first to read this promising new voice. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Coles-entry.jpg" alt="Cole's entry" title="Cole's entry" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12428"/> Compelling, isn’t it? By the bottom of the page, it’s easy to care about these characters; we already are inhabiting their lifeworld. That’s not easy to do in that few lines, obviously. So what’s the secret? All of those gorgeous specific details, combined with that lovely narrative rhythm: when farmers could step away from their crops and line up in angry rows of bronze…surveying the noisy rotting tree-stump…the drone of the fat midsummer bees reached out and enveloped him in a sphere of frenzied harmony. That’s some nice writing, eh? Especially coming hard on the heels of a genuinely terrific first line that both flings the reader directly into our hero’s mindset and sets the time period: Marcus Furius would kill a man in six days. Cole’s brief description in his contest entry also makes the book sound like a heck of a lot of fun: <blockquote> No novel has focused on a nascent Rome’s most exciting period: the Early Republic. Rome had to start somewhere, and I write about the man responsible, Camillus. In a market where Anakin Skywalker is a kid and Batman Begins, why not explore the prequel to Caesar, Spartacus, Cleopatra, etc? </blockquote> About half of the judges drew in their breath sharply at that surely exaggerated first sentence: there have most assuredly been novels set in that time period before, a few of them recent releases. And that could be very problematic at query time, because if Millicent happened to work at an agency that had represented such a novel within the last decade (or even if she had read one during that period), she would be likely to mutter under her breath, “Well, this one didn’t do his market research,” and reject the query. So why, given how negatively Millicents as a group tend to respond to all-or-nothing statements in descriptive paragraphs, did I, alone amongst the judges, cry, “Hooray!” when I spotted this description amongst the winning contest entries? Quite simply, I knew it would make a terrific example. Those of you who followed my recent Querypalooza series might already have guessed why: queriers and pitchers make this sort of black-and-white claim all the time. In fact, nearly every entrant in this particular contest included one or more overstatement in her book description — not all that astonishing, given how often such statements turn up in queries. Mistakenly, many queriers seem to believe that the use of superlatives will make their claims to originality, writing quality, and/or marketability stronger and more convincing. But like any other claim made in a query letter, Millicent is unlikely to believe it unless the querier provides some evidence. It is always better to show her that your book is original, well-written, and/or marketable than just to assert it. To be fair, this description may not have been written for inclusion in a query letter: the contest rules did specify that the descriptive paragraph should explain what is original about the manuscript in question. What, we asked, will this book add to its chosen book category? Cole’s description satisfies that brief rather well. But I ask you: based on this first page alone, what is the book category, and who is the target audience? Not immediately obvious, is it? That’s why, in case you’d been wondering, the judges were split about placing this in the Adult Fiction or YA category: the voice, the vocabulary, and the story so far could in fact place it in either, right? Yet being judges, they were in a position to do what a perplexed Millicent scanning a writing sample in a query packet might not necessarily do — ask the writer to produce, as all of the winners and placers were asked to do, a page-length book description. Take a gander at INDOMITVS’ longer description. Fair warning: I shall be asking you to consider the question of book category again afterward. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/INDOMITVS-blurb.jpg" alt="INDOMITVS blurb" title="INDOMITVS blurb" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12436"/> If you said, “Why, this sounds like historical fiction,” give yourself a gold star for the day. Cole did indeed enter this first page and the description above as historical fiction. If I know the quick eyes of my hardcore readership, however, a forest of hands was already in the air by the end of the first sentence. “But Anne,” those of you who have followed past discussions of both standard format and Millicent’s pet peeves point out, “wouldn’t some Millicents — or, indeed, many contest judges — not have read this description in its entirety? It’s not in standard format, as I understood that everything that went into a query packet should be, and I thought that it was fairly normal for professional readers simply to skip over openings in italics. So wouldn’t today’s winner be much more likely to make friends and influence people in agencies if he made these relatively small cosmetic changes?” Why, yes, clever and incisive long-time readers, he almost certainly would. However, it’s a pretty good back jacket blurb, isn’t it? For the purposes of this contest, that’s perfectly okay, italics and all. (It would also make quite a good verbal pitch as is, come to think of it.) Which is not to say that it couldn’t be improved — or would fly as a 1-page synopsis in a query or submission packet. One of the things I love about this particular contest: in awarding the prizes, I have a genuine opportunity not only to give my readers fine examples of how to do a first page right, but also to help our winners make — wait for it — their great first pages even better. In that spirit, I’m going to go ahead and give some tips on improving this description, just in case our winner should ever like to tuck it into a query envelope. I also suspect that this feedback might be helpful to anyone out there querying an agency that expects a 1-page synopsis to be tucked into the query packet. Okay: let’s start with expectations: everything, but everything, that an aspiring writer sends to an agency is a writing sample, and should be treated accordingly. Proofread closely, under the assumption that Millicent will probably turn green at even a single typo; adhere to the strictest standards of grammar and style, on the same principle; use standard format in promotional materials (as opposed to the query letter itself), assuming that Millicent is used to seeing writing samples formatted that way. (And if you weren’t aware that manuscripts and books are not supposed to look alike, run, don’t walk, to the HOW TO FORMAT A MANUSCRIPT category on the archive list at right before you even consider mailing any pages at all to an agency.) Would something as simple as a typo or a non-doubled dash in a synopsis be enough to trigger rejection? Not always, but remember, a querier or submitter can have absolutely no idea what has just happened immediately before Millicent opens his packet. For all you know, Millie’s boss might just have finished a tirade on how e-mail and social media have caused the general standards of spelling and grammar to decline, or just yelled at a client for a formatting gaffe. Yes, both happen. Make sure your materials — all of them — are impeccable. Then, too, as we saw throughout the summer and in <a href="/index_p_11661.html">the post on our last winning entry</a>, professional readers are HARSH. Even more so on writing they like than writing they don’t, typically: close scrutiny is the compliment the pros pay writing that they consider publishable; no writer in her right mind would actually want her book to go to press with lingering typos or logic problems, right? So in not pulling their punches, they honestly believe they are being helpful. Spotting a manuscript’s weaknesses is often a matter of experience, pure and simple. Agents and editors don’t read like everyone else, and neither do good freelance editors. Our eyes are trained to jump on problems like…well, insert any predator-prey analogy you like here. The point is, we’re fast, and our aim is deadly. And when Millicent grows up, she wants to be just like us. I am reminded of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dubious-Honors-M-F-Fisher/dp/0865474141">M.F.K. Fisher’s wonderful anecdote</a> about being solicited by her neighbors to write a preface for a charity cookbook — you know, one of those collections of recipes that were so popular as fundraisers in the 1970s, in which well-to-do local matron share the secrets behind their potluck-famous pineapple upside-down cakes and tuna surprise. The cookbook’s editors, both volunteers, came knocking on Fisher’s door in the hope that having a big-name food writer attached to their compilation of local recipes would make the book sell better. It was, they told her, for a good cause, so she donated her expertise. Well (the story goes), Fisher genuinely wanted to help them, so she very kindly took the draft book from them and had a good, hard, professional look through the patched-together manuscript. Without missing a beat, she instantly began barking out everything that was wrong with the book: poor editing, meandering writing, abundant redundancies. All of the things, in short, that professional readers would automatically flag in a manuscript. When she paused for breath, she noticed that the amateur editors were not gratefully taking notes. Instead, they were dissolved in tears. From their non-professional standpoint, Fisher had been hugely, gratuitously, deliberately mean, whereas from a professional point of view, she had been paying them the huge (and possibly undeserved) compliment of taking their project seriously. Yes, yes, I know: by this logic, the person eaten by a lion should be flattered by the lion’s impression that he tastes good. But as I have mentioned before, I don’t make the rules; I just tell you about ‘em. The fact is, from a professional perspective, whitewashing an editorial opinion about a manuscript is a waste of everyone’s time. In a freelance editor’s feedback, it would border on unethical. For those of you who think that this mindset sounds like a pretty fine reason to steer clear of anyone who might be tempted or empowered to pay this particular stripe of compliment, let me hasten to add: the ability to take criticism well is a highly valuable professional skill for writers; in the long run, you will be much, much happier if you start developing it as part of your tool kit before you start working with an agent or editor. Your dream agent, I assure you, will just assume that you have already have it up your sleeve. This is precisely why your dream agent should not be the first human being other than your spouse, best friend, or mother to set eyes on your manuscript. All of which is to say: I am cruel here only to be kind. Here is how Millicent would see the book description above. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/blurb-edit.jpg" alt="blurb edit" title="blurb edit" width="470" height="610" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12437"/> Startling, isn’t it? At the risk of repeating myself: every syllable an aspiring writer allows to pass under Millicent’s scrutiny is a writing sample. It’s in your best interest to assume an uncharitable reader, rather than — as most queriers and submitters assume — one that will be predisposed to overlook small faux pass in a manuscript that shows real promise. As this one most assuredly does, by the way. But that doesn’t mean that even a Millicent who fell in love with the strong narrative voice, the interesting and unexpected protagonist, and/or the unusual story would not respond to that first page we all admired so much like this: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Cole-edit-768x1024.jpg" alt="Cole edit" title="Cole edit" width="470" height="610" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-12446"/> And yes, in response to what a good two-thirds of you just thought: this is how a professional reader reacts to a first page she likes. I didn’t spend all summer yammering about first page troubleshooting just because I happen to like book openings, after all. The good news is that not only are all of the problems here easily fixable; they are easily fixable in under an hour. Certainly a worthwhile investment in improving an opening as compelling as this one’s agent-seeking chances, eh? Let’s begin with the formatting problems, starting at the very top of the page. Those of us who read manuscripts for a living have been complaining for the last year and a half or so that all of a sudden, we’ve been seeing slug lines — that author-identifying bit at the top of each and every page of a professionally-formatted manuscript — with extra spaces in them, a relative rarity before. Abruptly, aspiring writers were showing up with this: <blockquote> CASPERSON / INDOMITVS / 1 </blockquote> Rather than this: <blockquote> CASPERSON/INDOMITVS/1 </blockquote> Or, even more properly — and effectively, given this particular title — this: <blockquote> Casperson/INDOMITVS/1 </blockquote> The extra spaces on either side of the dashes may look cool to aspiring writers, but to anyone who stares at professionally-formatted manuscripts day in and day out, they will just look wrong. Ditto with the all-caps chapter title seen here: <blockquote> CHAPTER 1 </blockquote> To writer, this capitalization choice may seem like purely a matter of personal style, but to Millicent, it’s a matter of formatting. In a manuscript, chapter designations are in title case: <blockquote> Chapter 1 </blockquote> Or, if you prefer: <blockquote> Chapter One </blockquote> Several other issues might have been less obvious to the eye unaccustomed to the rigors of standard format, but to a professional reader, they would leap off the page. First, the page is not consistent about having two spaces or one after a period. As we’ve discussed in the past, there is actually some debate amongst agents on this subject, so ALWAYS check agency guidelines before you submit: two spaces is the standard format default, but if an agent has a strong preference for one, for heaven’s sake, give it to her. Whichever you choose, though, be consistent. Professional readers are specifically trained to catch inconsistencies. Another problem that would have caught Millicent’s eye is the run-on sentence in line -6: <blockquote> “Gods, Marcus, hurry up, even the horse is bored.” </blockquote> There is no real narrative benefit to running two sentences together here, which renders this rule-break a risk without a clear pay-off. While run-on sentences have become much more acceptable in dialogue in recent years than in the Thou Shalt Not decades of the 20th century, they are still grammatically incorrect. It should read: <blockquote> “Gods, Marcus, hurry up. Even the horse is bored.” </blockquote> Another often-overlooked rule — or, indeed, one of which many aspiring writers do not seem even to be aware — is the single-sentence narrative paragraph. Here, we see it in line -7: <blockquote> A thrown acorn clattered off a branch near his head. </blockquote> Now, there is nothing wrong with that sentence per se. (Although a Point-of-View Nazi might be tempted to ask how precisely, given that the narrative appears to be in the tight third person for the rest of the page, the protagonist could possibly have told the difference between an acorn that was thrown and one that simply fell on him. One suspects that the trajectory might have provided the necessary clue, but the narrative does not discuss it.) Standing alone in its own paragraph, however, it would jar a professional fiction reader: outside of dialogue, a proper narrative paragraph consists of at least TWO sentences. I specified a fiction-reading pro, because these days, pretty much all U.S. newspaper and magazine writing abounds in single-sentence paragraphs. And, of course, the entire opus of Joan Didion, who popularized the single-line paragraph. Yet more evidence that aspiring writers are held to a significantly higher literary standard than famous ones — and that the AP style embraced by newspapers is not identical to the expectations for book manuscripts. As Cole is obviously aware, there’s quite a bit of fiction out there right now that breaks this rule. However, the generally-accepted rule of thumb is that the rule should be broken ONLY for emphasis. Like, for instance, when the information divulged in that single line is in some way a surprise. For example, while this would be technically correct: <blockquote> Jean-Paul scratched his head, perplexed. Now that he had removed the hinges, the door should have been possible to open, but it would not budge. Had it been barricaded from the other side? Before he had even finished formulating the question, the wood splintered, and a hefty green hand reached through the aperture to grasp him by the throat. </blockquote> A writer might conceivably want to underscore the twist by setting the final sentence off by itself: <blockquote> Jean-Paul scratched his head, perplexed. Now that he had removed the hinges, the door should have been possible to open, but it would not budge. Had it been barricaded from the other side? Before he had even finished formulating the question, the wood splintered, and a hefty green hand reached through the aperture to grasp him by the throat. </blockquote> Reads surprisingly differently, doesn’t it? Yet like any narrative device, the single-sentence paragraph loses its power if used too often. Reserve the single-sentence sentence for when the information is genuinely startling, to set it off from the rest of the text. As I said, though, all of these problems are easily and practically instantly fixable, the type of things that could have been caught right away by a talented proofreader. There is one danger, however, that a non-professional reader would have been extremely unlikely to catch. Unfortunately, it is also something that could result in instant (and, I think, entirely undeserved) rejection at many agencies. Care to guess what might press Millicent’s buttons? No? Let me give you a hint: it is integrally related to the judges’ primary concern about this first page. If you have been jumping up and down for the last two paragraphs, waving your arms and screaming, “I know, Anne! Millicent is likely to cast her eyes over this page, say, ‘Wait, this is YA; my boss doesn’t represent that. Next!’” take 14 gold stars out of petty cash. This is, believe it or not, the single most likely reason that this first page might be rejected. Yes, really. If a story opens with a pre-voting age protagonist, many a Millicent at an adult fiction-representing agency has been known to leap to the conclusion that the writer has miscategorized a YA book or (and this is, alas, the more likely surmise if this page comes in a query packet) that the writer just didn’t bother to check whether the agency represents YA or not. Since no query or submission is easier to reject than one in a category Millicent’s boss does not sell, either of these situations would be no-brainer rejections. Oh, I can tell from here that a lot of you hate that. “But Anne,” writers of stories that begin in the protagonist’s youth and follow him through time protest, “that isn’t fair. If Millicent is confused about the book category, why wouldn’t she just go back and check the query letter or synopsis? Heck, in a submission, she could just check the title page; the book category would be in the upper right-hand corner.” Good question, linear time-lovers, but I suspect that you won’t like the answer much: because she has a lot of first pages to read today, and her job is to reject 98% of them. So how can a savvy writer protect her manuscript from this ugly fate? Well, I’m afraid my solution is pretty cynical: even if the book follows the protagonist throughout a lifetime, consider opening the submission version of the manuscript with a scene from her adult life, then jump backward in time. Hey, you can always cut that opening scene prior to publication, right? Your goal here is to get past Millicent. A less cynical approach, and one that might work better for Cole’s page, would be to rid the page of any elements other than the protagonist’s age that could be giving off a YA vibe. In this first page, there are several. The use of the historical future in the first sentence, for instance: while historians and other nonfiction writers are fond of this tense (so dramatic!), in fiction, it’s most closely associated with fairy tales (unbeknownst to Hansel and Gretel, that gingerbread house was to be their downfall). In most adult fiction, even if the overall plot is not told in chronological order, the action in an individual scene usually is. Or, to pony up an old favorite from last summer, the percussive use of and: <blockquote> Such a thing was not a rarity amongst the Italiots, particularly in the summer months, when farmers could step away from their crops AND line up in angry rows of bronze. This summer had proved to be no exception, AND a single killing would not normally raise eyebrows. But Marcus lived far from the Etruscan border, AND he was only ten years old. </blockquote> Or, still more YA-like, its repetitive use within a single sentence, to echo a common pattern in childish speech: <blockquote> Spurius was a year older AND much bigger AND quick with his fists. </blockquote> While a 10-year-old might legitimately think like this, here, in a narrative that otherwise has an adult tone –heck, it even sports a semicolon in line 6 — it seems to convey an expectation about the audience, as well as information about the protagonist. This structure — technically a run-on — is far more common in YA than in most adult fiction categories. It’s also much more frequently used in first-person narratives (particularly YA first-person narratives), in order to give a (false) impression of a chatty, conversational tone. The final element that might lead Millicent — and did lead half of the judges — to conclude that the story to follow was YA lies in the name choices. You must admit in any ahistorical novel, featuring a protagonist who apparently has the last name Furius would constitute a bit of a character development give-away: you’d hardly be surprised if this guy turned out to be a trifle on the impatient side, would you? True, we know from the blurb that this book is about someone who really lived, so his name would not be easy to change. What is completely under the writer’s control, however, is what the character is called in the narrative — and certainly what he is called in the first line of the book. Remember, readers’ first impressions are formed very quickly. But Marcus’ name isn’t really the part that screams YA here. His brother, a winning tyke apparently named Spurius Furius, does. Actually, in real life, the guy’s name was Spurius Camillus — our protagonist was, as we know from the book description, Marcus Furius Camillus — but that’s not the point. It would be hard to make a name like this to work on page 1, unless the voice was clearly comedic beginning in the first paragraph. And don’t suggest that a reader has an obligation to read the back jacket blurb before starting page 1. Even in a published novel, that would be a dangerous presumption; at the query and submission stages, an assumption that Millicent would already know historical characters’ actual names could be fatal. How so? Well, go back and re-read page 1: is there anything there to indicate that Furius isn’t the boys’ last name? And since a reader of adult fiction must be presumed to be familiar with the term spurious, why wouldn’t Millicent leap to the conclusion that the brother’s name was a joke intended to fly slightly over young readers’ heads, an inducement to beef up their vocabularies, especially in a manuscript where the protagonist is (at least at first) ten years old? So how should Cole rectify this problem, given that he can’t exactly rechristen people who lived over 2,000 years ago? At the risk of seeming cynical…well, you know what I was about to suggest. Or — and this was what a good half of the judges thought he should do — he could turn the book into YA. Those are calls that only he can make, of course. Everybody here at Author! Author! is awfully darned excited to see what he decides; the judges were unanimous that they want to be told well in advance when this book is going to be available for sale, so they may pre-order it. If the rest of you take nothing away from this post, let it be this: even a wonderful first page can almost always be improved. A grabber of a hook, nicely-written sentences, engaging characters, a sense of place — all of these Cole’s opener has in spades. But as a professional reader, that only renders me more excited to read the revised version to come. Congratulations, Cole — this really does sound like one heck of a book. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4025" class="post-4025 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-action-scenes category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-annes-favorite-posts category-art-of-revision category-avoiding-killing-your-darlings category-beginning-and-ending-a-book category-being-an-agents-dream-client category-building-suspense category-but-it-really-happened-that-way category-changing-nature-of-publishing category-conflict-building category-constructing-a-narrative category-craft-in-depth-analysis category-creating-sufficiently-odious-antagonists category-dialogue-that-adds-to-the-scene category-editing-dialogue category-editing-for-clarity category-editing-for-complexity category-editing-for-freshness category-editing-for-pacing category-editing-for-style category-editing-the-opening-pages category-false-suspense category-first-pages-agents-tend-to-dislike category-frankenstein-manuscripts category-freshness-in-manuscripts category-hooks category-keeping-the-faith category-literary-fiction-craft category-literary-fiction-marketing category-memoir-craft-and-marketing category-must-reads category-nonfiction-technique category-plot-development category-proofreading category-protagonist-likability category-protagonist-memorability category-punctuation-and-grammar-of-the-non-standard-variety category-real-stories-told-as-fiction category-revision-tips category-submission-troubleshooting category-suspense-building category-tag-lines-and-how-to-minimize-them category-vivid-details category-voice category-what-makes-a-great-page-1 category-writing-comedy category-writing-memoir"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/08/29/speaking-of-dialogue-revision-part-vi-and-then-theres-the-fine-art-of-doing-it-right-or-love-agent-style-4/revision-to-improve-your-books-chances/agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-08-29T00:00:00+00:00">August 29, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/08/29/speaking-of-dialogue-revision-part-vi-and-then-theres-the-fine-art-of-doing-it-right-or-love-agent-style-4/revision-to-improve-your-books-chances/agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety/#comments">10 Comments on Speaking of dialogue revision, part VI: and then there’s the fine art of doing it right, or, love, agent-style</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/08/29/speaking-of-dialogue-revision-part-vi-and-then-theres-the-fine-art-of-doing-it-right-or-love-agent-style-4/revision-to-improve-your-books-chances/agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety/" rel="bookmark">Speaking of dialogue revision, part VI: and then there’s the fine art of doing it right, or, love, agent-style</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/pre-butchered-fir-tree.jpg" alt="pre-butchered fir tree" title="pre-butchered fir tree" width="514" height="634" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11616"/> This, I am happy to say, used to be one of the views from my studio window, a sweet fir tree stuffed to the proverbial gills with cavorting crows, mischievous blue jays, and a small family of squirrels deeply devoted, for reasons best known to themselves, to digging up my crocus bulbs, saving them for a month or two, then replanting them in entirely different locations. I used to enjoy watching them before the strange men from the phone company showed up unannounced yesterday and slashed a ten-foot hole in the middle of the tree in order to make room for a half-inch cable scheduled to be installed three months from now. As one does. Actually, it would have been a twenty-foot hole — quoth the foreman: “But those other branches were, like, in our way! We would have had to work around them!” — had I not managed to hobble out front to stop them in mid-slice. (Never underestimate the moral force of a crutch-wielding Valkyrie with a rudimentary knowledge of property law.) The damage has been done, though: this morning, there are no birds in the defiled tree. Why does this seem like an apt time to wrap up this series on revising dialogue? I can tell you why: all too often, in the first glow of enthusiasm following a newly-acquired self-editing tip — or, if you’ve been following our intensive discussions of craft this summer, a whole mess of ‘em — writers will, to put it succinctly, over-cut. Fired up by the time-honored advice to kill their darlings, they hack and slash with gusto, assuming, sometimes incorrectly, that if a line or two of dialogue runs afoul of the freshly-learned rule, the entire speech should go. Or the entire scene. Or the entire chapter. But not all darlings are apt candidates for slaughter. Sometimes, too-vigorous cutting can do some serious harm to the tree. You don’t want to scare off the pretty birds, after all. (I know — isn’t it amazing how often my day-to-day life provides PRECISELY the metaphor for what we’ve been discussing? Somebody up there must have a great fondness for blogs. Either that, or a monumental antipathy toward trees.) Which is to say: not all of the results of revision are necessarily intentional. Over-enthusiastic cutting can, among other things, result in uneven tone, the loss of information the reader might need to know later in the plot, confusion of motivation, the omission of that foreshadowing sneer that alerts the attentive reader to the possibility that the protagonist’s mild-mannered coworker may turn out to be the super villain intent on destroying every ice cream stand in Gotham… It can lead, in short, to a Frankenstein manuscript. There is no such thing, then, as a revision that would not benefit from a follow-up re-reading of the ENTIRE manuscript (preferably IN HARD COPY and, especially if it is dialogue-heavy, OUT LOUD) to make absolutely certain that the post-cut scenes not only read well on the page, but still pull their weight in the plot. With that incentive for caution in mind, here is a final post in our revisit to 2009’s <a href="/index_p_2158.html">Seeing Submissions From the Other Side of the Desk</a> series. Actually, it’s a mash-up of two posts in that series, presented in composite form for your perusing pleasure. When I originally posted the second, John Updike had just died — providing, yet again, a nudge toward a blog-friendly example. Enjoy! But please, employ your pruning shears judiciously — and sparingly — after reading it. Are you surprised to see another post on first-page rejection reasons coming after I’ve already gone over the <a href="/index_p_2158.html">agent-generated list of submission red flags</a>? What can I possibly still have to say on the subject, after nearly three weeks of harping upon it? Plenty, as it turns out. As excellent and extensive as the agent-generated list was in its day, as full of classic submission problems as any such list could possibly be, the agents in question generated it several years ago. As I’ve been shouting from the rooftops practically since I began writing this blog, the standards for what agents are seeking in a manuscript change all the time, along with the literary market itself. Contrary to popular belief amongst aspiring writers, good writing, a solid premise, and catchy character names are not necessarily enough to catch an agent’s eye today. Yes, a novel or memoir submission typically needs all of those elements to be successful, but now as ever, it needs something else: to be a book that the agent can picture selling in within not an ideal market, but the one in which s/he is currently attempting to sell books. Yes, I do realize what I just said: a manuscript could conceivably be perfectly marvelous and still not be what an agent would consider marketable in the literary market right now. Why right now in particular? Well, agents have always made their living by selling their clients’ work to publishers — since reputable agents don’t charge fees over and above their contracted percentage of a book sale, they make money only when they hawk their clients’ books successfully — but even a cursory glance at <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/">PUBLISHERS WEEKLY</a> or <a href="http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/">PUBLISHERS MARKETPLACE</a> will tell you that these are exceptional times for the publishing industry. What does this mean for aspiring writers? Probably, that agents will be a bit warier about picking up new clients until the publishing houses decide what their new strategies will be. That, and that vampire books like the TWILIGHT series will continue to get snapped up at a prodigious rate until the next surprise bestseller comes along. {Present-day Anne here: amazingly, although I originally posted this a year and a half ago, this statement remains true. That’s how cautious agents have become.} So the best thing you could possibly do right now is rush right out and buy 50 books similar to yours — and convince 100,000 of your friends to do the same. Like it or not, that’s now new marketing trends are made. Since my readership is made up almost exclusively of writers, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that none of you like it. I don’t pretend to be able to predict the next big thing — other than the novel I’m about to finish writing, of course — but there are a few trends in what gets rejected and accepted that I’ve noticed cropping with increasing frequency over the last year or so. Since once a pet peeve is established, it tends to hang around for a while on Millicent the agency screener’s red flag list, it’s probably a good idea to avoid them for the foreseeable future. I know — kind of ironic, given how opaque the future of publishing is right now. Let’s plow ahead anyway. Some stuff that hasn’t been playing well lately {and, again, this list remains astonishingly current}: 1. Unprofessionally formatted manuscripts. I know that I harp on this one quite a bit — as evidence and for the benefit of readers new enough to this blog not to have lived through my extensive discussions of what publishing professionals expect manuscripts to look like, please see the HOW TO FORMAT A MANUSCRIPT and STANDARD FORMAT ILLUSTRATED categories on the archive list at right — but it honestly is true that if a submission does not look professional, Millicent is more likely to reject it, regardless of the quality of the writing. Since the volume of queries and submissions has been skyrocketing as the economy has worsened (writing a book is a LOT of people’s Plan B, apparently), she can afford to be even pickier than usual. Take the time to make it look right. 2. “I’ve seen that before.” This is a practically inevitable side effect of the aforementioned volume of queries and submissions rising, but standard storylines, stock characters, and literary clichés in general seem to be getting judged more harshly of late, probably because Millicent has been seeing the same things over and over again. Does this mean that this is a great time for writers who embrace radical originality. Not exactly, because… 3. Fiction that challenges the status quo very strongly. This is one of the truisms of the publishing industry for the last century — during uncertain economic times, comforting and escapist plot lines tend to sell better. Unfortunate, but true. It has to do with what’s known as the Peanut Butter and Jelly Index: when Americans are feeling insecure about the future, sales of inexpensive comfort foods tend to rise — as do books that make readers all warm and fuzzy. Historically, agents and editors have followed these trends, shying away from more challenging plot lines, unusual worldviews, and even experimental use of prose. Since I’m personally a big fan of challenging plot lines, unusual worldviews, and experimental use of prose, I’m not all too happy about this, but it might be worth holding off on submitting any of the above for a few months, until the industry has had time to get used to new economic realities. I know; it’s annoying. {Even more annoying: that this advice is still apt, to a very great extent.} 4. Vocabulary or tone inappropriate to book category. I’ve been hearing a LOT of complaints in that bar that’s never more than a 100 yards from any literary conference in North America about submissions from writers who don’t seem aware of either the target audience or the conventions of the categories in which they have written books. From coast to coast, Millicents and their bosses have been railing about YA with too-adult word choices, literary fiction with a fourth-grade vocabulary, cynical romances, paranormals where vampires cavort in the sun… I suspect that the increased pervasiveness of this one is actually an expression of the publishing industry’s smoldering resentment that book sales have dropped; if the writers of these books were actually buying the new releases in their genres, the logic goes, they would be more conversant with what’s selling right now. Having met scads of writers who say, “What do you mean, what do I read? I don’t have time; I’m too busy writing,” I have to say, I have some sympathy with this one. Remember, from the pros’ point of view, a writer’s being up on the current releases for her type of book is considered a minimum standard of professionalism, not an optional extra. At least take the time to go to a well-stocked bookstore and thumb through the recent releases, to make sure that your submission doesn’t fly too far out of the acceptable range. 5. Narrative voices that read as though the author has swallowed a dictionary. This is a perennial complaint that’s been getting more play recently, probably because of the convenience of the Thesaurus function in Word, but for Millicent, a submission crammed with what used to be called three-dollar words does not necessarily read as more literate than one that relies upon simpler ones. Especially if — and this problem turns up more often than anyone would like to admit — not all of those words are used correctly. Or, to put it as some aspiring writers might: without embroiling us in superfluous polysemousness, it must be averred that the aesthetic propensities of a vainglorious tome toward prolixity or indeed even the pseudo-pragmatic co-optation — as by droit du seigneur — of an antiquitarian lexis, whilst purportedly an amendment to the erudition of said opuscule and arguably consanguinean (metaphorically speaking) and perhaps even existentially bound up with its literary apprizal, can all too facilely directionize in the azimuth of fustian grandiloquence or unmanacle unpurposed (or even dystelelogical) consequences on a pith and/or douceur de vivre level vis-à-vis even the most pansophic reader. As Pliny was wont to quip in his cups… Come on, admit it: this is a BIT over-the-top for YA. Yes, yes, I know that English is a beautiful language crammed to the gills with fabulous words, but use that thesaurus sparingly: from a professional reader’s point of view, the line between erudite and pretentious can sometimes be pretty thin. Few readers, they argue, will actually stop reading in order to go and look up a word in a novel written in their native tongue. They speak from personal experience: it’s something Millicent would literally never do while scanning the first few pages of a submission. Here again, your best guideline is the current market for your type of book: generally speaking, a writer will always be safe sticking to the vocabulary level of recent releases in his book category. If you want to sneak in more obscure words here and there, make sure that their meaning is evident from context. Trust me on this one. 6. Humor that Millicent doesn’t find funny. Perhaps it’s due to the major presidential candidates’ having employed speechwriters last time around who wrote better jokes for them, but in the last few years, more aspiring writers seem to be trying to incorporate humor into their work. Since genuinely funny writing is a rare and wonderful thing, I can only applaud this trend. Just make sure that it’s actually funny before you submit it on the page — not just to you and your kith and kin, but to someone who has never met you and is from a completely different background. And no, having one character laugh at a joke another character has just made will not cause Millicent to find it humorous. Remember, too: nothing dates a manuscript faster than borrowing a joke from the zeitgeist. Particularly if the joke in question is lifted from a sitcom. (Have your parents explain why they ever thought “Whatchoo talkin’ about, Willis?” was funny, children.) If you choose to open with humor, run your first scene (at least) by a few good, unbiased first readers before submitting it. Even those of us who write comedy professionally are heavily reliant on reader reaction to determine what is and is not legitimately funny. 7. Unlikable protagonists. This is another golden oldie that’s been cropping up with increasing frequency of late: it’s long been an industry truism that if the reader doesn’t find the protagonist likable, she’s not going to want to follow him through an entire book. And I don’t just mean finding him kind of tolerable; Millicent’s going to want to find the guy actively engaging. Why might this perennial objection be flying out of Millicent’s mouth more often recently, you ask? Did you read that one above about the Peanut Butter and Jelly Index? And don’t tell me that your protagonist or narrator becomes more likable as the reader gets to know her. If the writing on page 1 doesn’t grab Millie, it doesn’t matter if the protagonist is marvelous on page 15. It’s not as though agents or editors open books at random to check out the writing, after all. Millicent honestly does expect to see your best writing on page 1 of your submission — and that since she is going to assume that the writing on page 1 IS your best writing, it’s worth taking exceptional pains over it. Begin at the beginning, as a reader would, when you revise. Your time investment will bear the greatest returns there. As agents have been known to tell one another when they’re in their Pliny-like cups (in that bar that’s never more than 100 yards from any writers’ conference, natch), they want to fall in love on page 1. All that being said, a moment of silence, please: <a href="http://userpages.prexar.com/joyerkes/">John Updike</a> is dead. When I heard the news — repeatedly; one of the mixed blessings of being widely known as a writer and descendent of a long line of writers is that people very considerately call to break the news to me whenever any well-established author kicks the bucket, as if everyone who has ever set pen to paper were a distant cousin of mine whose death I should not be forced to learn from the standard media sources — I naturally went straight to my bookshelf and glanced through some of his work. In light of our ongoing series on opening pages and the fact that his first novel, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1959/01/11/books/updike-poorhouse.html">THE POORHOUSE FAIR</a>, came out in 1959, I expected his initial pages would, to put it politely, have a tough time making in past today’s Millicents, thus underscoring Updike’s frequently-made point about how literary fiction has been all but brought to earth over the last 40 years. I was pleased to find that quite the opposite was true: his first pages were grabbers. Take that, eulogists of literary fiction! More to the point of the latter part of this series, his hooks largely operated not through garish action, but interesting character development. Take a gander, for instance, at the first two paragraphs of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Witches-Eastwick-John-Updike/dp/0449912108">THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK</a> (1984): <blockquote> “And oh yes,” Jane Smart said in her hasty yet purposeful way; each s seemed the black tip of a just-extinguished match held in playful hurt, as children do, against the skin. “Sukie said a man has bought the Lenox mansion.” “A man?” Alexandra Spofford asked, feeling off-center, her peaceful aura that morning splayed by the assertive word. </blockquote> Now, we could speculate all day about the probable insecurities of a male author who felt compelled not only to have a female character repeat the word man here, as though the very concept of the Y chromosome were inherently unsettling to heterosexual women (at least the frail kind discombobulated by assertive words) but also to employ splayed, a term commonly associated with the things models do in the centerfolds of men’s magazines, to describe a mental state. It might not be too much of a stretch to assume based upon this opening that Mr. Updike wasn’t picturing much of a female readership for this book when he wrote it — intriguing, since in 1984 as now, women were far and away the most common purchasers of literary fiction. But none of that concerns us at the moment. Look, I ask you, at how beautifully he has used visceral details to establish both a mood and character in the first lines of this book. It’s a heck of an opening in general. Let’s take a moment to ponder why: instead of easing the reader into the story by an extensive description of the physical space in which we discover these characters, or the even more common physical description of the characters themselves, Updike introduces these women by providing specific insight into their mental processes and motivations. Instead of just telling us that Jane is mean and Alexandra shy, he shows us through an analogy and word choices that we might not expect. Yes, what you just thought is absolutely right: this opening would grab Millicent because it’s not only well-written, but surprising. Seeing all the elements in action helps to clarify what we’ve been talking about, doesn’t it? But while we’re at it, let’s be thorough about this. Quick, without rushing back and checking our initial <a href="/index_p_2158.html">list of red flags that often lead Millicent to reject a submission on page 1</a>, what might strike her as problematic if she saw this opening in a submission by a brand-new writer today? If you pointed out the typo in the very first sentence, give yourself a great big gold star for the day. (Technically, there should be a comma between oh and yes; as Mr. Updike was a graduate of my alma mater, I’m relatively certain that he should have been aware of this.) While some Millicents might be kind enough to read past a first sentence grammatical or spelling error, it’s not a foregone conclusion. Proofread. While we’re giving out prizes for observation, take a red ribbon out of petty cash if you flagged the repetitive dialogue. As we discussed earlier in this series, repetitive dialogue tends to annoy agents and editors, since they’ve been trained since they were pups to excise redundancy. Besides, characters who simply echo what has already been said tend to come across as less intelligent than those who actually add something new to the conversations in which they participate — always a tad risky in a protagonist. Anything else? What about the unnecessary tag lines (Jane Smart said, Alexandra Spofford asked), now out of fashion? Since Mr. Updike had already been established in the first rank of North American authors by the time for decades by the time the use of tag lines fell out of fashion, this might seem like an unwarranted quibble, but remember, we’re judging this by the standards that would apply to a writer trying to break into the biz now. Long-time readers, pull out your hymnals and sing along with me now: an established author can often get away with things that someone new could not. Did any of you red-flag the semicolon? If Mr. Updike were submitting this to Millicent labeled as anything but literary fiction, you’d be right to consider cutting it. Generally speaking, in fiction that isn’t aimed at a college-educated audience — as literary fiction is, ostensibly, but most fiction is not — semicolons are considered a bit highbrow. Admittedly, the fact that Millicent regularly sees manuscripts whose vocabulary barely scrapes the 10th grade positively peppered with semicolons might have something to do with this. No one but writers really like semicolons, and not even all of us use them correctly (as the late John Harvard would no doubt be delighted to note, Mr. Updike has done properly above), but my, don’t we like to shoehorn them into a manuscript! Unless you’re submitting your work as literary fiction to an agent with a successful track record of representing a whole lot of it AND her client list fairly bristles with semicolon-wielding authors, you might want to minimize their use. All of which, as fate would have it, is a perfect lead-in to my wrap-up of the <a href="/index_p_2158.html">rejection reasons</a> because, really, it’s important to recognize that while, in the past, agents tended to be open to working with their clients in order to work out the technical kinks prior to submission to publishing houses, now most of them expect writers to submit manuscripts so clean and camera-ready that the agency screener could confidently walk them directly from the agency’s mail room to the desk of even the pickiest editor. Thus these last few weeks of weeding out the most common submission problems, at least on page 1: we’ve been going over these points exhaustively precisely so you can meet standards far higher than when the late, great Mr. Updike faced when he was first trying to break into the biz. Today, however, we get to see the reward: the kind of manuscript that makes agents weak in the knees. Surprisingly, agents and editors tend not to talk too much at conferences about what they love to see in manuscripts. They tend to stick to describing what is marketable, because that is, after all, their bread and butter. Remember, agents (most of them, anyway) don’t hold submissions to such high standards in order to be mean — they want to take on books that they know they can sell within today’s extremely tight market. Which is to say: it’s not enough for an agent to love your work; she needs to be able to place it at a publishing house for you. Contrary to popular opinion amongst aspiring writers, that’s in the writer’s interest as much as the agent’s. But as those of you who have been querying strong, marketable projects for a while already know, agencies often reject submissions for perfectly marketable books, a fact that is very confusing to those who believe that every agent is looking for the same thing, or that a single rejection from a single agent means that everyone in the industry will hate a book. Or that there exists writing so beautifully literary that every agent currently drawing breath will instantly exclaim, “Oh, of course — I’ll represent that!” Especially for first fiction or memoir, it’s not enough for an agent to recognize that a writer has talent and a book has market potential: they like to fall in love. If you’re a good pitcher, you already know the reaction I’m talking about: the eyes becoming moist with desire, the mouth appearing to go dry with lust. When an agent wants a project, the symptoms strongly resemble infatuation, and as this series has taught us, it’s often a case of love at first sight. As with any other type of love, every agent has his own particular type that is likely to make his heart beat harder, his own individual quirks and kinks. Just as an agent will train his screeners to rule out submissions containing his pet peeves, he will usually set some standards for the kind of project he would like to see forwarded to his desk. So, in a way, our old pal the underpaid, latte-quaffing, late-for-her-lunch-date screener is her boss’ dating service. Literarily, of course. With an eye toward getting your submission on the litero-romantic short list, here’s the list of what the Idol panelists said would light their fires sufficiently to ask for a second date. In other words, these are the traits they said would lead them to want to read beyond page 1 of a submission: <blockquote> 1. A non-average character in a situation you wouldn’t expect. 2. An action scene that felt like it was happening in real time. 3. The author made the point, then moved on. 4. The scene was emotionally engaging. 5. The narrative voice is strong and easy to relate to. 6. The suspense seemed inherent to the story, not just how it was told. 7. “Good opening line.” 8. ”There was something going on beyond just the surface action.” </blockquote> Notice anything about this list? Like, say, that the opening of THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK knocks every single one of these criteria out of the proverbial ballpark? Hey, I told you Updike’s work stood up well. Notice anything else? How about that all of these criteria could be applied equally well to a memoir and a novel? That’s something that memoirists often forget: just because a story is true does not mean that it will be judged by less stringent requirements than a fictional one. A good memoirist, like a good novelist, is first and foremost a storyteller. “Hey,” I hear some of you out there saying, “isn’t there something missing from this list? Shouldn’t ‘This is a marvelous writer,’ or ‘That’s the best metaphor I’ve ever seen for a love affair gone wrong,’ or ‘Wow, great hook’ have made the list? Shouldn’t, in fact, more of these have been about the craft of writing, rather than about the premise?” Excellent questions, both. Would you like the cynical answer, or the one designed to be encouraging to submitters? Let me get the cynicism out of the way first: they are looking for a book that can sell quickly, not necessarily a writer whose talent they want to develop over a lifetime, and that means paying closer attention to an exciting plot than pure beauty of voice. Yes, they are seeking good writing with a genre-appropriate voice, but at first glance, they are looking to fall in love with a premise. The less cynical, and probably more often true, reason is that this is not the JV team you are auditioning to join: this is the big league, where it is simply assumed that a writer is going to be talented AND technically proficient AND able to draw the reader immediately into a pulse-elevating plot. Unless an agent specifically represents literary fiction — not just good writing, mind you, which can be produced in any book category, but that specific 3-4% of the fiction market which is devoted to novels where the loveliness and/or experimental nature of the writing is the primary point of the book — the first question she is going to ask her screener is probably not going to be, “Is it well-written?” Why not? Well, presumably, if any submission weren’t fairly well-written and free of technical errors, it would not make it past the screener. Thus, her question is much, much more likely to be, “What is this book about?” Before you sniff at this, think about it for a minute: the last time you recommended a book to someone, did you just say, “Oh, this is a beautifully-written book,” or did you give some description of either the protagonist or the plot in your recommendation? Even the most literary of literary fiction is, after all, ABOUT SOMETHING. Ideally, any good novel will be about an interesting character in an interesting situation. Why does the protagonist need to be interesting? So the reader will want to follow her throughout the story to come, feeling emotionally engaged in the outcome. Why does the situation need to be interesting? So the reader will not figure out the entire book’s plotline on page 1. If you have included both of these elements in your premise, and you have presented them in a way that avoids <a href="/index_p_2158.html">the 74 rejection reasons I’ve been discussing throughout this series</a>, most of the rest of the criteria on this love-it list will follow naturally. Not necessarily, but usually. If the reader cares about the protagonist, the stakes are high enough, and the pacing is tight, the scene is much more likely to be emotionally engaging than if any of these things are not true. If you eschew heavy-handed description and move straight to (and through) the action, conflict is more likely to seem as though it is happening in real time, no one can complain that you are belaboring a point, and the suspense will develop naturally. So really, this avalanche of critique has been leading directly to the characteristics of an infatuation-worthy book. (You’re welcome.) Of course, all of this IS about the quality of the writing, inherently: in order to pull this off successfully, the writer has to use a well-rehearsed bag of tricks awfully well. Selecting the right narrative voice for a story, too, is indicative of writerly acumen, as is a stunning opening line. Each of these elements is only enhanced by a beautiful writing style. However, most agents will tell you that lovely writing is not enough in the current market: the other elements need to be there as well. As well as a certain je ne sais quoi that the pros call an individual voice. All of which is to say: submission is not the time to be bringing anything but your A game; there really is no such thing as just good enough for a first book in the current market. (Unless, of course, you’re already established, like John Updike, or a celebrity, or you happen to have written the story that the agent always wanted to write himself, or…) Playing in the big leagues requires more than merely telling a story well — that’s the absolute minimum for getting a serious read. Which brings me to #8, ”There was something going on beyond just the surface action.” Submission mail bags positively burgeon with clear accounts of straightforward stories, as well as with manuscripts where every nuance of the plot is instantly accessible to the reader as soon as it is mentioned. Books that work on a number of different levels simultaneously, that give the reader occasion to think about the world to which the book is introducing her, are rare. That the Idol agents would be looking actively for such a book might at first blush seem astonishing. How much subtlety could a screener possibly pick up in a 30-second read of the first page of a manuscript? Well, let me ask you: the last time you fell in love, how much did you feel you learned in the first thirty seconds of realizing it? On that note, I’m going to close this series. Pat yourselves on the back for making it all the way through this extremely sobering list, everybody: this was good, hard, professional work, the kind that adds tangible skills to your writer’s tool bag. 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href='https://www.annemini.com/2006/08/'>August 2006</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2006/07/'>July 2006</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2006/06/'>June 2006</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2006/05/'>May 2006</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2006/04/'>April 2006</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2006/03/'>March 2006</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2006/02/'>February 2006</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2006/01/'>January 2006</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2005/12/'>December 2005</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2005/11/'>November 2005</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2005/10/'>October 2005</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2005/09/'>September 2005</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2005/08/'>August 2005</a></li> <li><a href='https://www.annemini.com/2004/04/'>April 2004</a></li> </ul> </nav></section><section id="categories-2" class="widget widget_categories"><h2 class="widget-title">Categories</h2><nav aria-label="Categories"> <ul> <li class="cat-item cat-item-573"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-author-interview-videos/">*Author! Author! Interview videos</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1780"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pnwa-resident-writer-columns/">*PNWA Resident Writer columns</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-985"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/">*Start here if you are a beginner at trying to get published</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-873"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/the-rules-for-posting-comments-at-author-author/">— The rules for posting comments at Author! Author!</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1364"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/so-why-arent-you-published/">"So why aren't you published?"</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1362"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-january-isnt-necessarily-the-best-time-to-act-upon-your-new-years-resolution-to-query-or-submit/">*Why January isn't necessarily the best time to act upon your New Year's resolution to query or submit</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1251"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/a-one-post-guide-to-what-a-book-manuscript-should-look-like/">A one-post guide to what a book manuscript should look like</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-956"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/help-im-scared-to-send-out-the-pages-that-agent-requested/">Help! I'm scared to send out the pages that agent requested!</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-928"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/how-are-book-manuscripts-different-from-published-books/">How are book manuscripts different from published books?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1229"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/if-you-read-only-one-post-on-author-author-this-should-be-it/">If you read only one post on Author! Author — this should be it</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-484"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/if-you-read-only-one-post-on-querying-this-should-be-it/">If you read only one post on querying — this should be it</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-194"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/new-years-resolutions-on-writing/">New Year's resolutions on writing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-151"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/query-letters-for-beginners/">Query letters for beginners</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1113"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/the-manuscript-formatting-rules/">The manuscript formatting rules</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-879"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/what-is-conference-pitching-and-why-would-i-want-to-do-it/">What is conference pitching and why would I want to do it?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-979"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/what-should-my-submission-look-like/">What should my submission look like?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-562"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-are-author-author-posts-so-long/">Why are Author! 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Author! so extensive?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-372"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-are-there-so-many-different-sets-of-writing-rules-online/">Why are there so many different sets of writing rules online?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-488"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-is-there-so-much-conflicting-advice-about-queries/">Why is there so much conflicting advice about queries?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-201"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-shouldnt-i-just-query-every-agent-i-can-find/">Why shouldn't I just query every agent I can find?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1348"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-you-might-not-want-to-send-out-requested-pages-immediately-after-a-successful-pitch/">Why you might not want to send out requested pages immediately after a successful pitch</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1387"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-you-should-be-making-regular-backups-of-your-writing/">Why you should be making regular backups of your writing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1292"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-you-should-not-submit-your-manuscript-the-second-after-you-finish-drafting-it/">Why you should not submit your manuscript the second after you finish drafting it</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-940"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/academic-writing/">Academic writing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-594"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/adding-complexity-to-a-plot/">Adding complexity to a plot</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1724"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/">Advances and how they do (and don't) work</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-773"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/advances/">Advances</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1389"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/is-it-okay-to-ask-agents-at-conferences-how-much-of-an-advance-a-book-like-mine-might-garner/">Is it okay to ask agents at conferences how much of an advance a book like mine might garner?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1061"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/may-i-reasonably-expect-my-advance-to-permit-me-to-take-time-off-work-to-promote-my-book/">May I reasonably expect my advance to permit me to take time off work to promote my book?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-543"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/may-i-reasonably-expect-the-advance-on-my-first-book-to-be-large-enough-to-enable-me-to-quit-my-day-job-and-write-full-time/">May I reasonably expect the advance on my first book to be large enough to enable me to quit my day job and write full time?</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1375"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after-youve-received-a-request-for-pages-as-an-exclusive/">After you've received a request for pages as an exclusive</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1721"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/">After…</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-532"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-a-publisher-has-decided-to-publish-your-book/">After a publisher has decided to publish your book</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-261"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-an-agent-has-said-no/">After an agent has said no</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-770"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-an-agent-makes-an-offer/">After an agent makes an offer</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-959"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-an-agent-or-editor-has-asked-for-an-exclusive-look-at-your-work/">After an agent or editor has asked for an exclusive look at your work</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-358"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-an-editor-decides-to-acquire-a-book/">After an editor decides to acquire a book</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1052"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-have-published-the-first-book-in-a-series/">After you have published the first book in a series</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-848"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-have-published-your-first-book-what-then/">After you have published your first book — what then?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-204"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-have-queried-or-pitched/">After you have queried or pitched</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-688"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-land-a-publisher/">After you land a publisher</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-359"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-land-an-agent/">After you land an agent</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-205"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-receive-a-request-for-pages/">After you receive a request for pages</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-790"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-submit/">After you submit</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-206"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-youve-been-rejected/">After you've been rejected</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1152"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-youve-finishing-writing-your-first-draft/">After you've finishing writing your first draft</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-554"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-youve-made-a-successful-pitch/">After you've made a successful pitch</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1220"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-youve-made-an-unsuccessful-pitch/">After you've made an unsuccessful pitch</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-556"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/getting-that-submission-out-the-door/">Getting that submission out the door</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-961"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/help-ive-granted-an-agent-an-exclusive-and-another-agent-just-asked-to-see-pages/">Help! 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href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/what-not-to-say-to-an-agent-interested-in-your-work/">What NOT to say to an agent interested in your work</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1095"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/what-to-ask-an-agent-who-offers-to-represent-you/">What to ask an agent who offers to represent you</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-685"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/why-its-usually-prudent-to-wait-a-few-days-before-responding-to-revision-suggestions/">Why it's usually prudent to wait a few days before responding to revision suggestions</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1729"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agencies-and-how-to-work-with-them/">Agencies and how to work with them</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1098"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agencies-and-how-to-work-with-them/agency-contracts/">Agency contracts</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-240"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agencies-and-how-to-work-with-them/being-an-agents-dream-client/">Being an agent's dream client</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-882"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agencies-and-how-to-work-with-them/deal-memos/">Deal memos</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-680"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agencies-and-how-to-work-with-them/my-agent-has-asked-me-to-send-multiple-copies-of-my-manuscript-how-do-i-ship-it/">My agent has asked me to send multiple copies of my manuscript — how do I ship it?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-983"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agencies-and-how-to-work-with-them/what-an-agent-means-by-a-book-proposal/">What an agent means by a book proposal</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-567"><a 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author's agent</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1111"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/why-you-shouldnt-query-every-agent-in-the-country/">Why you shouldn't query every agent in the country</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1521"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agentseditors-who-used-to-attend-the-ctsrn/">Agents/Editors who used to attend the CTSRN</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-766"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/annes-book-picks/">Anne's Book Picks</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-160"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/annes-editorial-pet-peeves/">Anne's editorial pet peeves</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-191"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/annes-favorite-posts/">Anne's favorite posts</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-161"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/art-of-revision/">Art Of Revision</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-470"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-bio/">Author bio</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-502"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-photo/">Author photo</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1068"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-readings-and-why-you-should-attend-them/">Author readings and why you should attend them</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-388"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence/">Author! 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Author! housekeeping issues</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-509"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/autobiographical-fiction/">Autobiographical fiction</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-847"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/back-jacket-blurbs/">Back jacket blurbs</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1039"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/back-up-copies/">Back-up copies</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-427"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/bad-laughter/">Bad laughter</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1053"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/better-answers-than-umm-to-so-what-do-you-write/">Better answers than "Umm…" to "So what do you write?"</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-915"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/binding-your-work/">Binding your work</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1654"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/bits-of-site-related-business/">Bits of site-related business</a> 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cat-item-1331"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/book-categories/how-specific-should-i-be-about-my-books-category-in-my-query/">How specific should I be about my book's category in my query?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-404"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/book-categories/how-to-figure-out-your-books-category/">How to figure out your book's category</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-931"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/book-categories/should-i-indent-the-first-paragraph-of-a-chapter-if-published-books-in-my-chosen-genre-sometimes-do-not/">Should I indent the first paragraph of a chapter if published books in my chosen genre sometimes do not?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1120"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/book-categories/should-i-mention-the-book-category-on-my-title-page/">Should I mention the book category on my title page?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-422"><a 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Why shouldn't I use it as often as possible in the text?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1311"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/but-i-want-to-get-the-story-on-the-page-as-fast-as-humanly-possible/">But I want to get the story on the page as fast as humanly possible!</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-517"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/but-it-really-happened-that-way/">But it really happened that way!</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1009"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/but-why-shouldnt-i-use-my-favorite-word-as-often-as-i-can/">But why shouldn't I use my favorite word as often as I can?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-699"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/calls-for-submissions/">Calls for submissions</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-897"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/censorship-subtle-and-otherwise/">Censorship subtle and otherwise</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-360"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/changing-nature-of-publishing/">Changing nature of publishing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-375"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/chapter-headings-and-openings/">Chapter headings and openings</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-343"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-and-conflict-development-in-memoir/">Character and conflict development in memoir</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1657"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/">Character development</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-595"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/building-a-better-expert-character/">Building a better expert character</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-321"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/character-development-in-synopses-or-queries/">Character development in synopses or queries</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-390"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/character-development-tips/">Character development tips</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-596"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/character-revealing-dialogue/">Character-revealing dialogue</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1126"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/creating-a-protagonist-the-reader-will-want-to-follow-through-a-whole-book-or-a-series/">Creating a protagonist the reader will want to follow through a whole book — or a series</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-616"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/creating-sufficiently-odious-antagonists/">Creating sufficiently odious antagonists</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-173"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/introducing-physical-descriptions/">Introducing physical descriptions</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-606"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/relationship-development/">Relationship development</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-628"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/secondary-characters/">Secondary characters</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1283"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/selecting-distinctive-character-names/">Selecting distinctive character names</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-599"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/showing-not-telling-character/">Showing (not telling) character</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1021"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/subtle-ways-to-make-characters-seem-more-or-less-intelligent/">Subtle ways to make characters seem more or less intelligent</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-282"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/collaboration/">Collaboration</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-461"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-etiquette/">Conference etiquette</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-462"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-faux-pas/">Conference faux pas</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-276"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-lore/">Conference lore</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-361"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-pitching/">Conference pitching</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-898"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-selection/">Conference selection</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-875"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conferences-that-cater-to-writers/">Conferences that cater to writers</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1728"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/">Contests and how to enter them successfully</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-300"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-entry-bugbears/">Contest entry bugbears</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-761"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-entry-prep/">Contest entry prep</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-393"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-judging-criteria/">Contest judging criteria</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-301"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-rules-and-how-to-follow-them/">Contest rules and how to follow them</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-302"><a 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href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-to-construct-a-title-page-for-a-contest-entry/">How to construct a title page for a contest entry</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1144"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-to-read-a-writing-contest-entry-form/">How to read a writing contest entry form</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-722"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-to-write-a-1-page-synopsis-for-a-contest/">How to write a 1-page synopsis for a contest</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-764"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/im-a-finalist-what-now/">I'm a finalist — what now?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1148"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/is-it-okay-to-enter-writing-in-a-contest-and-submit-it-to-agents-simultaneously/">Is it okay to enter writing in a contest and submit it to agents simultaneously?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1176"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/is-the-humor-in-my-entry-likely-to-amuse-mehitabel/">Is the humor in my entry likely to amuse Mehitabel?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1074"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/must-i-submit-the-opening-pages-of-my-manuscript-to-a-contest-with-categories-for-book-length-works/">Must I submit the opening pages of my manuscript to a contest with categories for book-length works?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1142"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/poetry-contest-entries/">Poetry contest 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cat-item-1136"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/the-make-us-want-to-eat-it-literary-competition-a-step-by-step-guide-to-preparing-an-entry/">The Make Us Want to Eat It Literary Competition — a step-by-step guide to preparing an entry</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1016"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/the-make-us-want-to-eat-it-literary-competition-of-2012/">The Make Us Want to Eat It Literary Competition of 2012</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1139"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/the-sensual-surfeit-literary-competition-a-step-by-step-guide-to-formatting-your-entry/">The Sensual Surfeit Literary Competition — a step-by-step guide to formatting your entry</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1258"><a 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Read this post before you mail off that entry!</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1711"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-that-are-worth-your-time-to-enter/">Contests that are worth your time to enter</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-564"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/copyright-issues/">Copyright issues</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1658 current-cat-parent current-cat-ancestor"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/">Craft and plenty of it</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-425"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/action-scenes/">Action scenes</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-533"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/at-the-risk-of-repeating-myself/">At the risk of repeating myself…</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-808"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/avoiding-killing-your-darlings/">Avoiding killing your darlings</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-426"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/backstory-and-how-to-work-it-into-a-plot/">Backstory and how to work it into a plot</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-389"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/beginning-and-ending-a-book/">Beginning and ending a book</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-615"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/building-suspense/">Building suspense</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-534"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/but-i-like-that-phrase-why-shouldnt-i-use-it-twice/">But I like that phrase! 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cat-item-623"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/suspense-building/">Suspense-building</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-624"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/tense-switching/">Tense-switching</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-642"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/tension-building/">Tension-building</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-992"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/the-end/">The End</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-419"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/vivid-details/">Vivid details</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-420"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/voice/">Voice</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1342"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/what-are-the-proper-ways-to-format-thought-in-a-manuscript/">What are the proper ways to format thought in a manuscript?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-581 current-cat"><a aria-current="page" href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/what-makes-a-great-page-1/">What makes a great page 1?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-625"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/why-sounding-like-your-favorite-author-from-a-decade-ago-might-not-work-well-now/">Why sounding like your favorite author from a decade ago might not work well now</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1163"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/why-sounding-like-your-favorite-comedian-might-not-result-in-funny-writing/">Why sounding like your favorite comedian might not result in funny writing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-549"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/why-what-worked-in-the-19th-century-might-not-work-on-the-page-today/">Why what worked in the 19th century might not work on 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What's that?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-397"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-dialogue/">Editing dialogue</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1726"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/">Editing your own manuscript</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-651"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-fantasy/">Editing fantasy</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-164"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-clarity/">Editing for clarity</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-430"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-complexity/">Editing for complexity</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-398"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-freshness/">Editing for freshness</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-633"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-humor/">Editing for humor</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-431"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-length/">Editing for length</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1167"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-logical-flow/">Editing for logical flow</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-432"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-pacing/">Editing for pacing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-601"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-plausibility/">Editing for plausibility</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1056"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editing-your-own-manuscript/editing-for-self-publishing/">Editing for self-publishing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-165"><a 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href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editors-and-how-to-work-with-publishing-houses/editors/">Editors</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1058"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editors-and-how-to-work-with-publishing-houses/galleys-and-how-to-work-with-them/">Galleys and how to work with them</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1106"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editors-and-how-to-work-with-publishing-houses/hardcover-vs-trade-paper/">Hardcover vs trade paper</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1107"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editors-and-how-to-work-with-publishing-houses/how-authors-get-paid-for-their-books/">How authors get paid for their books</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1309"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/editors-and-how-to-work-with-publishing-houses/how-big-may-i-expect-my-initial-print-run-to-be/">How big may I expect my initial print run to be?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1060"><a 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