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Back to Basics: Elements of Story & the High-Concept Pitch
If you know what the elements of a saleable book are, then the pitch is your opportunity to showcase them. So, let’s get back to basics…
I’m not gonna lie, it’s bad out there. Agent friends of mine who are currently open to queries, are accumulating 900-1,000 in a month. That’s almost impossible to keep up with if you’re an established agent with a longer client list who is actively working. My unanswered queries have been the source of so much guilt for me as an agent, but I’ve also accepted I can only do so much and hope how I handle it is as gracious and fast as is humanly possible. Because of the sheer amount of time they take to answer and the massive number of queries agents are getting these days, going through queries has become an exercise in efficiency.
I used to read a small amount of your sample, first, no matter what to see if the writing was there. I’ve since changed my strategy. Why? Because of volume. I started with something like 2,500 queries left to answer when I closed last year that I’ve now whittled down to 1,600. Reading samples of each would take me 400 years, maybe 500, so I’ve learned to go off of “concept” first. I’ve come to realize after trial and agent error—if you have an unsaleable concept—it won’t matter if you can write circles around it. No one will buy it.
That’s why I’m in love with the “Pitch” Form Field on my Query Manager submissions page to help with efficiency. This “Pitch” field is my opportunity for authors to succinctly distill their query into a hooky, short (therefore much faster for me to respond to) elevator type pitch. If you know what the elements of a saleable book are, then the pitch is your opportunity to showcase them. You prove to me your story 1) has all the elements of a successful story. (You’d be surprised how many people write manuscripts with nothing at stake for their characters), and 2) you’re able to distill it down into something exciting that makes me want to read your full query to really immerse myself in concept and then of course, read some of the sample, so the REAL test can begin.
So what are the elements of a successful story I should see in your Pitch?
- There is a story problem / the source of tension for your characters. I think of this as the turning point in a character’s life where they are exposed to the story problem. (EXAMPLE: The turning point in Hunger Games is when Katniss’s sister is chosen for the games and Katniss volunteers to take her place).
- A plot that solves this story problem (what happens over the course of the book; a plot arc. EXAMPLE: Katniss goes to the city, trains for the games, enters and plays the games, beats the capital, and goes home with an alive Peeta.)
MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THE STORY PROBLEM AND PLOT ARC WILL BE COMBINED IN A SHORT PITCH. - Stakes (what’s at risk for your characters; something that can be gained or lost. There are personal stakes (their life is at risk), public stakes (their choices affect more than themselves, can be anything from a family unit to a nation), and ultimate stakes (when the character’s convictions are tested). (EXAMPLE: Hunger Games has all three, and the more you have, the more your reader will care because more will be at risk for your characters and their world. EXAMPLE: Katniss and Peeta’s lives are at stake, personal; what Katniss does against the Capital has far-reaching effects on her society rebelling against tyranny, public; and her convictions are tested, when the capital takes back that there can be two victors, is her life worth sacrificing for the greater good of standing against their lies/tyranny, ultimate states.
DO NOT LEAVE YOUR STAKES OUT OF YOUR PITCH. IF YOU DON’T HAVE THEM, YOU GET A PASS. - Characters / character arcs. You most likely won’t go into the character arc in a quick pitch, but we should at least understand who the main character is. (As to character arcs, static characters are boring. Good characters change over the course of a book because the plot squeezes them. They must change.)
Also important to a saleable story:
- knowing your genre and meeting genre conventions. You might mention this in your quick pitch, but in Query Manager, there’s a field for it, so not completely necessary.
- knowing the age group you are writing for and making sure there’s a place on the shelf for it. (There is currently no real shelf for NA).
- understanding there are publisher word count expectations for genre and age group and not being wildly outside those without risking an auto pass. (The book The Word Loss Diet is good for those who write too much for their genre/audience.)
- Being unique without writing so outside the norm no one will buy it because there’s no place on the shelf for it. That’s why we ask for comp titles, so we know if you know there’s a market for your book. Keep it simple silly.
So what about agents who don’t have a “Pitch” form field. If you want to give them a quick bite at the beginning of your query to hook them, you can always lead with this elevator pitch, but don’t forget to include title, genre, audience and word count. So it would be like, “Hi agent, I’m pitching a 55,000-world middle grade horror novel called BEWITCHED in which the 12-year-old descendant of the town founder must unravel the puzzle left behind in the family grimoire to stop an ancient evil from consuming the town.” Then you can go into the longer spiel, but hopefully you hooked them up front by proving you understand the elements of story.
If you’d like some examples of the kind of “Pitch” I’d like to see, you’ll get this WITH EXAMPLES when you visit my Query Manager to submit, with examples:
Hope this helps!
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The Form Rejection
I have an unhealthy habit of checking my QueryTracker comments.
For those of you who don’t know what QueryTracker is, it’s an online query tracking system that allows users to find agents and publishers, list those they are querying, and track responses. Each agent is listed separately, and you can go in and look at comments users have posted about that agent. I like reading these comments because it helps me know what querying authors are thinking about me and my process.
Back in the early days, I was able to give some feedback on my queries. Not always, but you were far more likely to get some sort of personalized feedback then. I didn’t realize at the time that that luxury was afforded to me because I was new, lots of authors hadn’t found me yet (thus I wasn’t overwhelmed with new queries daily), and my client list and obligations were tiny. Basically, I had the time.
These days not so much. Ya’ll have all found me, lol (kidding, kidding). I get an inordinate number of queries weekly, the most in our firm; this is because I am currently our only agent who does kidlit, so all those come to me. You can go back and look at my DataExplorer tab in query tracker to see just how overwhelmed I was. My response rate became glacier at some point. (For reference, the DE shows every time a user submitted a query to me, and dives deeper into the data showing the genre of the book, its length, how it was submitted, when it was submitted, what their response was, and how long it took to get it). The “how long it took to get it” number is important here, because I was taking FOREVER. Something needed to change. That something was, in part, the form rejection. The second was the addition of a submissions manager to Spencerhill.
A form rejection is not an indication of your value as an author, but a reflection of an agent’s judicious use of their time.
So anyways, back to my unhealthy obsession with reading my comments. This one kinda got me in the heart, because you might know that I quite love querying authors, and wish I could do more for you all.
“I’m so sorry you got form-rejected.”
Youch. But also editing to say someone who read this article mentioned this is also querying author to querying author speak for, “I’m sorry it didn’t go further.” (So that makes me feel a little better).
Also, don’t go back and erase that whoever posted it. The rest of your comment was so nice and encouraging to the user you were chatting with.
But literally I hate how cold form rejections are/seem and that anyone would surmise I’m form rejecting for mean reasons, or that I don’t think you can write, or have potential, or any number of other nasty things!
I’m sure some of you have heard this before, but agents don’t form reject while wearing a witches cap! The reason boils down to this, if you have 150 new queries each week and you take say 3 minutes with each one, that’s 7.5 hours to respond to all those. Sometimes its 100, sometimes it’s 300 queries! Now, add in that I run across a few with potential and take much longer with those so that length of time grows! It’s a ton of work, and realistically 7+ hours of that work results in NO new saleable work for me. If I gave feedback to everyone, I’d never have time to pitch client work, edit client work, read fulls, sign new clients, meet new editors, etc.
Agents don’t form reject while wearing a witches cap!
Fortunately for you all, I’m not the only one who reads your queries anymore.
I know! I know! You don’t love this. You wanted me to read. Well, let me tell you, lots of agencies have readers. Often, these are interns! Sometimes they are assistants or junior agents. Spencerhill has a dedicated Submissions Manager who answers the majority of our queries, and maybe you’ll be pleased to know they are a former agent with significant quality sales. They know good writing. They know what sells. They know what I’m looking for, the boundaries of my word counts, and again, what ready-to-sell writing looks like. And they happen to have VERY similar taste to my own. Yay team!
Yes, they form reject. They are handling all our agents inflow. It’s A LOT.
However, the savvy QT user above also noticed I signed one of my form rejections “Ali Herring” and left a PS on that form rejection to “query me with new work sometime,” or something to that effect. They followed up with this:
“Take heart, though–she saw something in your writing!“
So yes, I do try to sign “Ali Herring” at least if I personally answered your query. It’s also likely, but not certain, that if I signed a response, you made it past our submissions manager. That being said, if it’s a form rejection with no name on it, I might have *also* answered that query and was just too busy or tired to type it that night. You know I have three kids, a house to run, and work an ungodlily amount of hours each week. It happens. I do *try* to sign though, but it again, it does happen that I sometimes don’t.
Now, if I left you a note on top of that signature, yes, that’s a super positive sign about you and your writing or your ability to conceive a hook. You didn’t get a note? That means nothing too. I might have been too busy answering too many queries to write one. But yes, a PS note is a certainly a good thing on a form rejection, and it means you should query me again with new work – AND YOU SHOULD NOTE IN FUTURE QUERIES THAT I ASKED TO SEE NEW WORK RIGHT UP FRONT, FIRST SENTENCE OF YOUR NEXT QUERY. If I follow you on Twitter, that’s also positive. I have secret list of “authors to watch” too my friends. So, yes, fill in your twitter username on the QueryManager form!
If I left you a note on top of that signature, yes, that’s a super positive sign about you and your writing or your ability to conceive a hook. You didn’t get a note? That means nothing too.
Last note, sometimes our submissions manager requests full manuscripts on my or other agent’s behalf. We learned something about how we should go about this better from a QT comment too, and have revised our policy based on that.
So yes, I love/hate my QT comments, but I also learn a lot too.
I don’t like form rejecting. Please remember: A form rejection is not an indication of your value as an author, but a reflection of an agent’s judicious use of their time.
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The Art of the “Quick Pitch”
Also called the “high concept” pitch, or an elevator pitch when spoken aloud, the “quick pitch” is a way of encapsulating the heart, plot, and stakes of your novel as quickly as possible and as engagingly as possible. It is SUPER useful when you are pitching to agents, or when I–an agent–am pitching to editors too. After all, editors are just as busy as I am, and if I can boil it down quickly, succinctly and with heart, then maybe I’ll get them to dig into my longer “book blurb” which I always include below the high-concept pitch in my submission emails. Maybe they’ll read my submission sooner because of it?
Can I tell you a secret?
I don’t always read the whole query either. I’ve discussed this with other agents, and many others out there read the query and decide if they want to look at the written sample from that. Not so much for me. We’re not all the same, or have the same approach. I’m more/most interested in great writing, so I’ll often scan a query for the plot pitch and then read some of the sample before I make a decision. I’ve found there are some authors who can write THE HECK out of a book, but can’t pitch to save their life. It’s not usually the case, but I don’t plan on missing out on a Picasso because of this…
So, please don’t stress so much about your query with me. Your writing sample is what’s paramount, at first. The entirety of your query is going to matter only if your writing is so supremely amazing, your characters so immediately engaging, your voice so stand out, that I want to dig in more to see what’s up in your story and know about you too. So, my best advice when querying me is to give me a HIGH-CONCEPT pitch right at the top of your query letter where I can see it. Bold it, all-cap it, italicize it, designate it HIGH-CONCEPT PITCH: (followed by the pitch), whatever you want so I see it right away because that’s going to help your case most, the fastest during that initial pass.
Okay, so what prompted this blog post? Props to Emily Rodmell’s recent twitter post below. She’s an editor for Harlequin. I got excited when I saw Emily’s post because SHE GETS ME.
EXAMPLES!
High-Concept Pitches from my own clients!
This is the high-concept pitch I sent editors for Lora’s Senf’s debut THE CLACKITY (summer 2022) from Atheneum/Simon & Schuster:
A 55K-word creepy middle grade horror portal fantasy in which an abandoned abattoir acts as a gateway to a world of ghosts, witches and monsters playing a game with deadly consequences for an orphaned 12-year-old girl whose only remaining family is the prize at the end of the game.
This one is for Carrie Talick’s BEWARE THE MERMAIDS (coming out next week August 10, 2021) from Alcove Press! Order link here.
A cheating husband’s real estate deal threatens housewife Nancy’s beloved yacht harbor. So she makes a bet and teaches her friends to sail to save it—and herself—by winning the thrilling Border Dash race.
Next up is SNOWSTORM SABOTAGE from Kerry Johnson. This one is a little longer, but it works! Order link here.
When single-mom Everly Raven discovers a body inside a chalet on her family’s ski resort, blame falls on her. Racing to evade the target on her back, she’s forced to work with her ex and father of her child, FBI agent Cristian Ruiz, to clear her name. But with a blizzard closing in and the killer’s henchman hot on their trail, can they stay alive long enough to find the real killer before he finds Everly first?
Check this one out from my very first sale, Kurt Kirchmeier’s THE ABSENCE OF SPARROWS! It’s a bit longer too, but it sold to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in a pre-empt so it worked out fine! Order link here.
The Age of Miracles meets The Thing About Jellyfish with the vibe of Stranger Things. When the Glass Plague sweeps through his town and a voice on the radio calls for the simultaneous shattering of all the victims, 11-year-old bird watcher Ben Cameron must stand against his own brother to keep his dad in one piece, this while holding out hope that some missing sparrows will return with his father’s soul before it’s too late.
The Art of the Tagline:
Taglines can be fun and useful too AND might also get my attention as well in a query. Imagine the above pitches boiled down from sugar water to a dab of syrup. They are concentrated pitches! Quick bites to eat. A juicy worm on a hook if you were a hungry fish.
The following tag lines can be found online, usually in bold, at the top of whatever sales outlet is selling the books. Look up your favorite books. You’ll find them there:
Carrie’s BEWARE THE MERMAIDS: Romance, betrayal, and an epic yacht race make Carrie Talick’s debut novel perfect for fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Susan Mallery.
Kerry’s SNOWSTORM SABOTAGE: (order link here.) Can she survive a blizzard…and being framed?
Kellie VanHorn’s BURIED EVIDENCE (order link here): Can unearthed bones solve a ten-year-old cold case?
Kellie VanHorn’s FATAL FLASHBACK (order link here): This one seems to have two! An undercover investigation means deadly danger. Will an agent’s missing memories save her?
Kurt Kirchmeier’s THE ABSENCE OF SPARROWS (order link here): Stranger Things meets The Stand in this haunting coming-of-age novel about a plague that brings the world to a halt — and the boy who believes that his town’s missing sparrows can save his family.
Is anyone getting Twitter Pitch party vibes from these high-concept pitches? You totally should be because they are HIGH CONCEPT, which is why those parties rock. You probably have a few more words to work with in a query quick pitch, so get on it and get seen!
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I’m Doing a Giveaway: Query or 1st chapter critique. Here’s the details…
You guys! I have the loveliest funniest client ever. Her name is Sharon Mondragon, and she writes quirky stories and even quirkier characters. Characters I fall in love with. Characters you’ll fall in love with.
I want everyone to meet Sharon and for you to get to know her like I do, so she’s doing this really great, fun thing on her blog. She’s posting a chapter from one of her short stories every Wednesday as a sort of countdown to the holidays. It’s like an advent calendar, but instead of a piece of chocolate every day, you get a chapter every Wednesday! The story is called I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, and come Christmas, you’ll know how one her funny characters made it home in time for the holidays, and the bind he found himself in in the first place.
But, first things first. You need to know 1) who to follow, 2) where to sign up for reminders, and 3) where to read. So, what more fun way to encourage you than for me to do a … QUERY OR FIRST CHAPTER CRITIQUE (winner’s choice!)
There are three ways to enter, and each way earns you an extra entry:
1) Follow Sharon on Twitter @SJ_Mondragon.
2) Subscribe/Sign up on her website to receive blog notifications: http://sharonjmondragon.com/.
3) Or, write a Comment on her serialized story, I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. Sharon will post new chapters every Wednesday leading up to its conclusion this December. Please note: You must include your Twitter user name in the comment in order to receive an entry!
The contest winner will be announced October 8 on Twitter: @HerringAli and @SJ_Mondragon.
Best of luck!!!!
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Berry Viking Connection: Publishing Job Opportunities
Hi Berry Vikings! I am glad for the opportunity to meet with you all and other Atlanta employers to discuss job opportunities in the marketplace for graduating seniors and thinking-ahead juniors. The kinds of opportunities I can speak to exist within the publishing industry, particularly book publishing. Within that broad market, you’ll find a myriad of opportunities in many fields besides traditional literary agency and editorial roles. Below, you’ll find a listing of job titles and below that, current opportunities.
However, the most critical thing to consider in breaking into publishing, especially in agency and editorial roles, is that the absolute BEST WAY to break in is through (often unpaid or low-paid) internships. For instance, take a look at this entry-level editorial position available with HarperCollins. Look at the qualifications. Note the “prior internship experience” line. So, want to be an editor or agent? Get ready to be an intern!
The Financial Reality of Agenting
Also, it can’t go without saying that it takes time to build a list of clients as a literary agent (who are selling work regularly enough you get a paycheck), which means this is not a job where you make money immediately. It can take years to build a list big enough to support yourself, so this is often a job you do with passion and other financial support (parents, spouse, etc.) or you work a second job to support yourself while you get started. Books also take 1 to 2 years to be published, so an author may earn an advance (which an agent gets a 15% portion) and then when the book pubs in 1-2 years, and only after the author earns back their advance, will they and you get paid again). It’s not for the faint of heart.
Diversity (and the Lack thereof) in Publishing
I’d be remiss not to note that there is a critical conversation going on regarding the lack and the need for more diversity in publishing, which was the inspiration for the We Need Diverse Books and #ownvoices movements. Fostering career development for professionals of non-majority backgrounds is paramount in the industry. WNDB provides Internship Grants with the mission to award supplemental grants to students from diverse backgrounds to help further their goals of pursuing a career in children’s publishing.
Here are some roles you might find in publishing:
- Intern (Agency, Editorial, Marketing, etc.)
- Literary Agent
- Literary Scout
- Literary Foreign Rights
- Editor (From Assistant to Acquiring)
- Production Editor
- Copy Editor
- Publisher
- Publicist
- Marketing
- Digital Marketing
- Social Media
- Sales
- Copy Writer
- Graphic Designer (Cover Design, etc.)
- Printer / Binder
- Bookseller
- Book Blogger
- Trade Reviewer
- Administrative,
- Information Technology.
- And many more…
Job Opportunities:
The job board of all job boards in publishing (& the industry’s leading web site where deal announcements are made): https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/jobs/
The following are internship opportunities I am aware of. There are probably TONS more, so google them. Look up the big-5 publishers. Look up top literary agencies. Please note, interning for an agency could get you your first job with a publisher and vice versa, so be open to different opportunities!
Literary Agency
When applying to agencies, be sure to vet them. There are several, what we call “shmagency’s” in existence. You’ll want to work for an agency that has recorded multiple deals with well-known publishers. You can check agencies out online at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com or the Writer Beware site and Facebook page.
- BookEnds Literary Agency- Agency Intern
- Carol Mann Agency-Agency Intern
- The Corvisiero Literary Agency-Remote Agency Intern
- DeFiore and Company-Agency Intern
- Folio Literary Management-Agency Intern
- Holloway Literay Agency-REMOTE Literary Management, Social Media, PR & Royalties
- P.S. Literary Agency (PSLA)-Agency Intern
- Talcott Notch Literary Agency-Agency Intern (Shout Out: This is the agency where I interned!)
Editorial
- Hachette-Nashville- Summer 2019 Editorial Intern – PAID
(I believe this is with their Christian / Inspirational Imprints) - Hachette-New York – Summer 2019 Editorial Intern – PAID
- Hachette-New York-Summer 2019 Managing Editorial Intern -PAID
- HarperCollins-Spring Internship – Managing Editorial (Childrens)-PAID
Marketing
- Hachette Book Group-Nashville –Summer 2019 Marketing Intern-PAID
- Hachette Book Group– Philadelphia, PA-Summer 2019 Marketing/Publicity Intern – Running Press
- HarperCollins Nelson– Nashville-Summer 2019 Marketing Intern
- HarperCollins– Nashville-Summer 2019 International Marketing and Publicity Intern
- Penguin Group (USA)– New York-2019 Summer Internship: Marketing, Publicity, Sales and Subsidiary Rights
Editorial, Marketing, Publicity, Art & Design, Production, Children’s Books, and Business Development (designate interest in cover letter)
- Macmillan Publishers– New York-Spring Intern, Trade
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“First-Pages” Problems
If you’re consistently receiving feed back from literary agents saying something along the lines of, “Well, I really like the hook/idea but I’m not connecting to the writing, so I’m sorry but this is a pass,” then you have a “first-pages” problem. While the rejection could be a matter of taste from that agent, or a disconnect with the “voice” of your writing, it’s more than likely a common “first-pages” problem, and there are lots of those.
Here are the common problems of first pages I spot consistently:
- You started in the wrong place. You have to get to the inciting incident or the turning point in your character’s life that puts him/her on the main path of your plot fairly quickly, usually in the first chapter. Never say never, but if you have a problem with this, then definitely aim for the first chapter. Sometimes that inciting incident isn’t super obvious. Maybe it starts with someone getting a concussion, or receiving a letter, not a murder, or someone being sucked into a portal. When it’s something softer like this, then layer in a question(s) a reader needs an answer to in order to interest them in reading chapter two and build from there. If that turning point/inciting incident doesn’t happen until chapter 3, start your book in chapter 3 instead. Why? Because the first two chapters have nothing to do with the plot. It’s filler. A common first-page problem is that the first couple chapters are backstory instead of plot. THOUGH PLEASE HEAR ME: This also doesn’t mean dive in without context. Context and backstory are different. Context grounds us in the world. Listen to this analogy about context: You don’t want your reader to “feel” like they just woke up having been thrown in the middle of a freezing lake. They won’t know where they are or why they’re drowning and if they’re really out of it, who they are. That’s what a first chapter with no context feels like. Disorienting. So balance revealing the story problem with context, characterization even some setting.
Your first chapter mostly consists of backstory. Backstory is HUGELY important. You as a writer understand this, because it gives authenticity to your character’s motivations and actions. It helps you frame your story or construct your character’s world (that’s world building) and develop the qualities and peculiarities of your characters (that’s characterization), what motivates them to act and gives them their internal drive, but backstory is often mishandled by novice authors. They feel the need to reveal all this info in the first chapters and basically give readers this character’s whole history. Backstory can and should should be sprinkled throughout your entire book, never dumped on the reader. Yes, you should know your character’s backstory so that when they have to make the right decision they act based on their history and motivations that you know so deeply already. But BEWARE the dreaded info dump of backstory. Don’t feel like you need to reveal the minutia of your character’s lives to us that has NOTHING to do with advancing the plot. Never have your character in Chapter 1 just doing some mundane activity like riding a bike, washing dishes, etc., any activity where they are basically just sitting around thinking about stuff. Because the stuff they are usually thinking about is the backstory. Make sure you’re giving readers actual scenes and plot. Reveal backstory or motivations as you go when necessary.- Nothing happens. No conflict. Plot has to be happening. What is plot according to Oxford: “the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.” Plot is what your main character is proactively acting or doing to solve the story problem or conflict around which your story is built, after this turning point in their life is that literally shifts them from their ho-hum existence to the tension-filled new “path of plot” the reader wants to spend their Saturday night devouring. You find the external drivers of your main characters/villains in the plot too. (Internal drivers come from their backstory – who they are). Do not leave characters idle. Give them main events or think of them as mini-events that add up to the big event. Do not write a scene, especially in the first chapter, that does not introduce or advance the story problem/plot. LISTEN THOUGH, I’m not saying you have to start with a gun battle. Start with a bang doesn’t literally mean that. That may mean you’re starting with no context. Yes, action’s great, but I still like having a reason to care first. Ok, so lastly, how do you identify scenes that aren’t plot? They can be excised like a tumor and the story would advance the same? Why is this? Because that scene wasn’t “interrelated.” Nothing to come hinged on that scene that could be removed. If you can link scenes with an “and” then most likely they are not interrelated. “And this happened. And this happened. And this happened” is not good. “This happened because this happened” is good. That’s causality. It’s interrelated.
- You used a prologue. (#’s 1-4 are almost alike. See a theme here!) This is akin to backstory. A lot of agents and editors have very strong feelings about them so safer to skip them. Prologues tend to be giant excuses to dump backstory on us. Okay, so giant reveal here, I am NOT one of those agents who hates prologues when they are done well. The ones I like are usually short and really grabby. They are not backstory. They are setup or context. BEWARE THE MERMAIDS and THE ABSENCE OF SPARROWS are both client boos of mine with “prologues” and I love them. Check them out to see what I mean. Side note: Because I know editors have strong feelings about these, I myself never sub anything and call it a prologue. In my head I call it a fauxlogue, and I usually set it off with no subhead, just words in the middle of a page.
Beware purple prose. Basically this is trying to make everything sound elaborate and ornate. That means adjectives and adverbs everywhere instead of proper showing. So if your sentence is: The ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE girl ran ADVERB through the ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE forest, her ADJECTIVE heart hammering ADVERB as the band of ADJECTIVE men dreamed ADJECTIVE … just no…- You may lack a balance of dialog, narration and action.
Every book consists:- dialog: characters talking,
- action or beats: people doing things, and
- narration- commentary or what is told to us from a certain point of view. The POV is who is telling it, so 1st person vs 3rd person offer slightly different narrative perspectives.
- SO… If you say, have tons of dialog all in a row with no break to show us what your character is doing (action) or narration (to help us understand how they are feeling or their motivations), then it gets rather boring and feels unbalanced. You need to balance all three of these so there is a proper rhythm to the writing and you engender a proper feeling of engagement in the scene from the reader. We need all three to feel immersed. Try the “read aloud” test to see if you feel or hear this balance.
- You feature so much exposition to set the scene it’s too much. While you do have to create some atmosphere, don’t make that your focus. Balance again.
- You start with cliches,
- Waking up,
- Or worse you let us go through an entire chapter thinking something’s happening in reality and THEN they wake up. Proper fake out. YUCK.
- A weird, purple-y prose or confusing (meant-to-be mysterious or uber-cool) opening sentence that comes off sounding you know just … nope.
- Talking about the weather.
- Sexually explicit first sentences or worse add murder+sexually explicit
- A character checking themselves out in the mirror to describe themselves. (Yes, Divergent did this and it worked…. I know.)
- Characters just hanging out thinking.
- Character giving tours of their space/home/etc.
- There are lots, please feel free to Google them. Yes, sometimes there are exceptions if done well, ahem, Divergent… (it was emotional AND it mattered to the plot)
- Your characters seem boring. Fictional characters are larger than life. That’s why we want to read about them. I don’t want to spend an entire novel reading about your aunt who is 60 and likes to watch House Hunters figuring out who killed the red hat lady. (I wouldn’t want to read about me trying to figure out who killed the red hat lady!) Now if your aunt is a 60-year-old southern lady in Texas that used to chain smoke, then quit and now pops tic tacs all day, and is mildly grumpy in the cutest of ways because of her lack of nicotine, while throwing out southern colloquialisms and constant one-liners and has the ability to make the local sheriff sound like an idiot at key moments and run circles around him to solve the murder of the local red hat lady, then I’m all ears.
- Your first chapter does not have it’s own arc. You need rising and falling action in the first chapter. Each chapter should be a mini arc.
- You have a weird opening. No first line of overtly sexual dialog, No My name is …, Once upon a time…, No purple prose first line. Could be this is a pet peeve of mine but: No nauseous or main characters vomiting (you won’t believe how many people think that watching your main character feel sick or get sick in the first paragraph is somehow relatable).
- Make your main character relatable and make me care about them— or if you feel you must have a sucky protagonist (not the best idea for a debut writer), make them immediately seem redeemable, at the very least. People don’t generally want to read about people they don’t like for 300 pages. But they do want to read about RELATABLE, LIKEABLE characters. BUT, Not only do I want to like them, they have to give me a reason to make me care what happens to them or those around them affected by the story problem.
- You have to give me stakes to care about. Stakes are the reason your story matters and the reason your protagonist is willing to deal with the conflict around which your story is built. Stakes are what’s at risk for your character. Stakes are something that can be gained or lost. And stakes, maybe most importantly, give your reader something to care about.
- In romance, the hero and heroine don’t meet for a few chapters. They need to meet in Chapter 1.
- You opened with a rape scene in christian fiction.
- Too much telling vs. showing
- You mixed tenses and POV. You must remain consistent in your tense and only switch POV’s in different chapters or after section breaks if multiple POV. Keep tense the same though. Ex of mixed tenses) We wanted (past tense) to make it work, but she feels (present tense) like it’s not going to happen. So, she is moving (progressive present tense) out and I stayed (past tense) here. Doing this makes you look amateurish, and it warns of future problems later in the text.
- Be careful about trying to be mysterious in chapter 1, it can come off as confusing.
- Don’t tie things up so neatly at the end of chapter 1. You need to leave breadcrumbs at the end of every chapter to keep the reader engaged and ready to jump to the next page.
- Voice needs work.
- Spoiled Goods. You give something away that spoils the tension. Usually it’s revealing a mystery or secret or something too early.
Please share in the comments any additional first-pages problems you’ve identified! Thanks!
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You Ask, I answer. Publishing Q & A
If you have a question on the publishing process–everything from what my inbox looks like, to querying, to writing a synopsis, to submissions, etc.–please ask in the comments section. I’ll try to answer your questions as far as my experience allows. If I don’t answer that day, tweet at me that you asked a question because I don’t always notice I’ve got a comment!
So, ask away!
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Doc is In: Symptoms of Quality Writing
So, sickness has been running rampant through my house lately, which means I’ve been employing the benefits of Dr. Google. All I had to do was plug in the symptoms: coughing, chills, runny nose, sore throat, low-grade fever and I quickly learned that my family was either dying of tuberculosis or had some variation of the common cold. It was a toss-up really, which wasn’t the best of odds when tuberculosis is on the table, so off to the real doctor we went. One sinus infection and a bottle of amoxicillin later, life is returning to normal. Except for the horse pills, that is. Some unnamed person in my house must somehow manage to swallow them on a twice daily basis. Nothing normal about that. Honestly, it’s worse than giving my dogs a pill. At least then I can slather them in peanut butter.
But I digress.
This is all to say I’ve noticed everything in life — both good and bad — has symptoms. Life is symptomatic of whatever is going on. We cry when we’re hurt. It’s a symptom of pain. We laugh when we’re happy. It’s a symptom of joy. Our heart flutters when we’re in love. It’s a symptom of pleasure. Writing is no different. Quality writing has some basic markers of success.
The Symptoms of Quality Writing:
- Every quality house is built first on a strong foundation, and writing is no different. A quality book is founded on a great hook (wow, that rhymed, go me). A hook defined: the unique element of your story that makes it marketable; a strong premise. Querying authors take note: One thing I’m looking for in your queries is this hook. (And I always want to see the stakes of the novel included in the hook, because otherwise why would I care to read it?) Sadly, if you can’t lay out the hook for me in your query, then how can I hook an editor, and finally, how can your publishing house hook a bunch of readers for you? It’s just not gonna happen. So, please make sure you include a sentence or two somewhere in your query that is obviously the hook. You can’t imagine how many people leave this out or bury it. I personally don’t care if you give me this “sizzle” at the end of your synopsis or throw out an old-school “what if” sentence somewhere (though I hear some agents don’t care for them). As long as I can find it, I’m happy.
- There’s a central conflict that the reader cares about seeing resolved. It is the story problem that the protagonist must solve. This means there’s rising tension to the climax, and a satisfying resolution (unless maybe it’s a tragedy) at the end. Basically you as an author have a problem if your narrative doesn’t have a problem.
- There are stakes involved for your protagonist. Stakes are the reason your story matters and the reason your protagonist is willing to deal with the conflict around which your story is built. Stakes are what’s at risk for your character. Stakes are something that can be gained or lost. And stakes, maybe most importantly, give your reader something to care about. That’s why stakes are always part of the HOOK. There are three types: personal (directly affect the character), public (affect the world as a whole) and ultimate (when your protagonist’s convictions and motivations are tested). If you can manage to incorporate all three, then you’re awesome and I need to meet you. The higher the stakes, the better.
- With conflict comes tension. Tension impels people to keep reading. It is the rising action that tracks upward to the climax. Tension is created through a series of crises that get more and more intense as you build to said climax. Visually, rising action is not linear but a series of bumps as each crises should have its own rising and falling action.
- There’s character development. We fall in love with the hero and hate the antagonist, and they change over the course of the book, deepening our feelings for them, good or bad, as they react to or cause the conflict. Also, secondary characters aren’t just there to be pretty, but give meaning and add depth to the story and main characters.
- There’s a well-developed setting (which can almost be a character in itself) and world-building (especially for fantasy & science fiction pieces).
- There’s a healthy balance of action, narration and dialog in the writing.
- There’s structure to the work, which can take on various forms. The Hero’s Journey, Three-Act Structure, In Medias Res, Seven point story structure, etc. People like structure. They expect it.
- There’s rhythm to the writing, or sentence fluency, that makes us not want to rip our eyes out for having read 15 eight-word sentences in a row. (Kill me now.)
- Maybe basic, but it’s edited well. Grammar, punctuation spelling. (ha, did anyone notice I left out a comma?)
- The writer shows more than tells. (Telling: The blood moon was red and big in the night sky, and I felt scared when I went Trick or Treating with my friends. Showing: I imagined the blood moon dripping from the night sky, cascading down a red shower on all of the little ghosts and ghouls and even princesses running, scattered down the street. We hunted for candy in shadows, but something about that night made me feel like I was the one being hunted.) Feel the difference? I said basically the same thing, but one made you feel something. Also please note, it takes more words to show than tell.
- Quality writers (especially debut authors) follow publisher expectations for genre. In thrillers, someone dies. In romance, there’s a happily ever after. The protagonist is a sympathetic or likable character we’re willing to root for.
- There are publisher expectations for word count too — that incorporate age categories (children’s, middle grade, young adult, new adult, adult) with genre (romance, women’s fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc.). If you pitch me a 250,000 word sci-fi novel, it’s an automatic no. Yes, some writers write crazy big, but they’re established authors with built-in fan bases. See http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/word-count-for-novels-and-childrens-books-the-definitive-post.
- And then there’s voice. VOICE IS PARAMOUNT. You often hear agents say, “It’s all about the voice,” and really, it is. Voice is my main symptom of quality writing. What is it? Voice is the quality of an author’s writing that makes it unique. It is style expressed through words. It’s the difference between a Valentino evening dress (I’d image it written as lyrical, stylized, beautiful, elegant), Alexander McQueen (dark, brooding, edgy, loud, somewhat dangerous, sometimes clipped, sometimes flowing) and Betsey Johnson (colorful, snappy, humorous, fun). Voice is the attitude and personality of a work expressed through (according to Wikipedia) a “combination of idiotypical usage of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text.” That sounds rather clinical, but hear me, it’s more than that: Voice is a character in and of itself. Read what you write out loud. Does your writing have its own personality? Is it a character in and of itself? If yes, if you can feel it and it moves you, that’s quality voice. Quality voice grabs hold of you and won’t let go. I imagine that’s why agents and editors get all riled up over voice. It keeps us reading — and that’s the goal.
Well folks, the doctor was in today, and I hope you enjoyed the check up. I’m also quite sure I’ve missed something because a) I never really went to medical school and b) admittedly, I stayed up late bing-watching CW shows last night. (Ahem, don’t judge me. I rep YA. I must be a kid inside to some degree to do this and this requires me watching shows chock full of “chosen ones” and teenage angst.)
So, please my friends, comment away on your favorite symptoms of quality writing. Every reader has the right to determine their own markers of success!
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Have pen. Will fly. 