A look behind the veil at what literary agents are thinking and some tips and tricks for writing.
Notes From a Practical Agent
Once you solve the problem of the story, the anxieties of paying the bills seems to evaporate.
There’s a dark shroud that occasionally unfurls to cloak a subdued conversation an author shares with me when his worries weigh heavily on him: “My publisher won’t want another book from me,” the author moans. “I’m out of ideas. I’m going to have to become a substitute teacher. I won’t be able to pay my rent. I will never, ever make it.”
These worries are not limited to new authors or writers with modest advances. As a literary fiction agent I find it’s more often an author with several books published, with contracts “in the bank,” with an audience of long-time readers. Yes, it’s more often these authors – who have enjoyed success – who panic. About halfway through the conversation, I say, “You’re catastrophizing again.” And then I insist we examine each bit of evidence that has been presented to me: an editor who didn’t return their call, two negative Amazon book reviews, a (seemingly) curt e-mail from their publisher.
Time and again, what’s really happening is that a writer is stuck (but not in a writer’s block sort of way). Yes, a conversation is needed, but it’s not about readying his application for a job at Walmart. It’s about figuring out where the story begins…or what the book is really about…or changing the setting.
Writers catastrophize when they think they’re trapped. Stories aren’t “real,” but once you solve the problem of the story then the anxieties of paying the bills seems to evaporate, as well.
Notes from being a literary fiction agent: You can’t eliminate anxiety. Writers are narrative-driven folks, and writers feast on stories of failure. Such stories are dramatically satisfying but offer little more to the story writer. But bargain with yourself. Make an appointment with anxiety: between 3:00 and 4:00 PM is a good hour. After you’ve rolled around in the shroud, chop up an onion and make dinner.
Writing a Second Novel (or Third or Fourth) is Notoriously Difficult
Spend four days as your character.
Eat lunch as that character.
Second novel, third novel, fourth novel, the process is the same.
A client calls and says, “I have an idea, let me share it with you.”
Tell me first about the main character in your novel, I prompt.
“He’s a very ordinary man.” “She has no family, her parents are dead and she never married.” “He doesn’t have any interests, that’s the idea; by the end of the book, he’ll know what he’s interested in.” “She doesn’t have a career, that’s the point; she’s going to figure out what it is.” “I’m a serious writer, there is no plot structure.”
Tell me about the minor characters in this second novel, I suggest. It turns out there are a dozen of them. Each boasts a lengthy list of attributes of age and appearance and profession and the author tells me she can hear their accents and they’re funny.
“But they’re not really important,” the writer says. “It’s just that I can see them so clearly.”
Take a walk, I propose. Spend four days as your character. Really immerse yourself in the character profile. Pay your bills as that character. Eat lunch as that character. Exercise as that character. Write me a letter from that character. Tell me why and how that character knows all those minor characters.
It’s a miracle. Always. It turns out that those minor characters are very important to the story structure. It may turn out that one of them is actually the story’s chief character. We find that this protagonist has a rich and complex life and that the writer somehow has always known that. None of the material has been wasted. It’s just that this is how some writers work: that the main character has to remain in the shadows until the world around him solidifies.
Why Do Agents Go to Writers’ Conferences?
Adjectives are not your friends. They’re like too much salt.
A few weekends ago I attended New England Crime Bake, a jolly mystery conference filled with talented published writers, attentive newbies and convivial agents and editors.
If it turns out I found a new talent there, I’ll be thrilled. But that’s not why I went. Every year it makes sense to attend a gathering of writers and fans and colleagues; I always walk away with tidbits of new knowledge. I had breakfast with my old pal Brendan DuBois, for instance, who is having such a good experience with James Patterson’s Book Shorts line. His happy success in this fresh category of publishing was interesting intelligence to me.
And I refined my editorial skills as I listened to pitches and was read first-page manuscripts by six aspiring writers. Each writer had talent, but I found myself saying often, “Cut those adjectives. Every one of them. Eliminate them from your first three pages of text.”
Adjectives are not your friends. They’re like crabgrass. They’re like weeds. They’re like too much salt. I know this is advice you’ve heard before, but before submitting a manuscript to a publisher, please go through it one more time and clean it up. You probably don’t even notice them anymore, but to a professional editor they’ll jangle like an off-key voice in an otherwise competent choir.
Thinking of submitting a manuscript? Feel free to send it our way.
Take a Field Trip and Get To Know Your Types of Reader
Which titles would your book be snuggled up against?
Here’s something else that you should do: Take a field trip and get to know your types of reader.
One of the things of which I’m mindful is the process by which Barnes & Noble orders the books they then stock onto their shelves. Each book category is assigned to a “buyer.” So there’s a buyer for nonfiction, health, travel, mythology, literature, fantasy, mid-grade, YAs. You get the idea. B&N buyers fill the shelf space, and books need to fit into the bookseller’s already-established categories. If there is no place to shelf the books, the titles won’t be purchased.
Take a trip to Barnes & Noble or to any large independent bookstore. Which titles would your book be snuggled up against? What kind of cover would your publisher put on your book? Which authors give quotes for these titles? I find that walking through rows of books is always illuminating. But much the same impact can be had by pawing through Amazon’s “customers who bought this title also bought” carousel.
Don’t ignore this step! When you write your query, you need to tell the agent which types of reader your book is for. Your editor will want to know. So will the publicist. And the sub-rights department. Please note: The correct answer to the question of who your book targets is never, “Everyone!”
The Snowflake Method
How to get your plot rolling… The craft has rules, it can be learned, and it’s not about brilliance.
A few years ago, a friend used “the snowflake method” to plot out her first novel. Her book was admirably tight and her characters had a depth and complexity that is rare in a first novel.
Since then I’ve sent many writers to this site:
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/
And many have been inspired by it. I don’t know if they’re systematically following the program, but they’re getting something useful out of it.
I take on a lot of debut fiction. By the time it lands on my desktop, every chapter and page of these books has been long worked on to build a compelling tale with full-featured characters. If all goes right, the book gets sold and the publisher and readers want more…soon. So then comes the contract for the second novel. Or for the fifth. And the author must start anew. Maybe the writer has an idea, has settled on a few characters and so he starts to work. I can see trouble ahead. And that would be the vast middle of the story, the Sahara Desert called plot.
Eventually the writer will figure out how to make it all work — even without my help. But there will be so many drafts, so many restarts…and inevitably it turns out that a new character needs to be introduced. Or that the stakes aren’t high enough. And this is where the snowflake method shows its stuff.
It’s kind of the opposite of the Marie Kondo plan. In other words, the author isn’t confronting a messy house that needs to be cleaned out. The problem instead is the inherent scantiness of beginnings. And the author’s fear that her idea spigot has been turned off elicits panic, not inspiration. It’s always scary: Is there any guarantee that the urgent twists and turns and engaging characters will return?
The snowflake method is methodical; it ploddingly explains that building a potent story is not about inspiration. It’s about asking one question, listening to the answer and then offering up another idea. It alleviates many authors’ anxiety to think of plotting as a skill like any other. The craft has rules, it can be learned, and it’s not about brilliance. It’s about thinking characters and a story through and giving yourself enough time that an unexpected twist or turn can emerge.