Your favourite song lyrics
Can you choose a single song whose lyrics stand out from all the songs you’ve ever loved?
So many candidates. So many wonderful lyrics.
I think mine will have to be Joe Cocker’s interpretation of You Are So Beautiful for its pure, direct, uncluttered honesty.
I’m afraid this system won’t let you embed YouTube videos in comments, but you can link to a song and tell us why you love the lyrics. What’s your favourite?
The Hunting of the Agent
Caitlin Kittredge is the author of the Nocturne City series and the forthcoming Black London adventures (2009). She writes full time and lives in Olympia, Washington.
First of all, thanks to David for giving me his little corner of the web to ramble in for a day. I don’t think he quite knew what he was getting into, but now the blog is mine…all mine!
Er, yes. What I meant was, The topic today is literary agents.
There’s a plethora of agent-getting advice on the web, and I’m not going to re-hash it for you. What I would like to do is offer a practical A-Z thumb guide for querying, securing and maintaining a relationship with your agent, from initial contact to book deal. It’s an area that I often see defined in nebulous, general terms, but here are a few practical points to keep in mind that will greatly increase your chances.
1. First impressions matter
Be it a query letter or a face-to-face pitch at a conference, your first impression absolutely matters to an agent. Yes, good writing can overcome a sloppy pitch or dud query, but it makes it very tough for the agent if they don’t feel grabbed. They have finite time and only the most attention-getting pitches are going to pass to the next stage. Unfair? Maybe. Fact? Yes.
2. Constructing a query letter isn’t really that hard–really
Queries are your resume. Yours should contain–in order–the title of your work, the genre, the wordcount (between 80 and 120,000 words for fantasy, please) a one or two paragraph synopsis of the major characters, their problem, how their problem moves the plot, and the resolution or crux question of said plot. It should close with your publishing credits and/or any information relevant to the work, such as a career as a medical examiner if your protagonist is also a medical examiner. Don’t forget your contact info.
Now, no one is expecting you to synopsize your book perfectly on the first try. If you don’t have a second pair of eyes to go over the plot summary, try to mimick DVD box copy. That’s about the right number of words, summarizes major characters and events, and packs a punch. Avoid hyperbole.
A query letter is hard work–it should be at least as hard as the book, if a lot shorter. No one expects you to be a marketing wizard, but they do expect you to be punchy, coherent and convey the main thrust of your book without needless meandering or tangential plot and characters. Make it clean, simple and concise. Let your sample pages speak for themselves.
3. Always send a sample of the work if allowable
Remember when you made a crummy first impression by having a query letter that was five pages long or spilling yogurt on the agent during a pitch? This is your chance to redeem yourself. Send the FIRST five pages of the FIRST chapter of your work (not the prologue.) Make sure they are flawless, beautiful, perfect as you can make them. If your query letter is also good, this will be the finishing move that allows the agent to request your work and still respect themselves the next morning.
4. Handle requests professionally–even if it means saying no
So, if you’ve done it right up to this point, this is when you start getting requests for material. Unless an agent requests an exclusive, it’s protocol to send partials/fulls to all requesting agents. If they ask “Is this out with anyone else?”, be honest. If you have an exclusive with one agent, you’re going to have to prepare yourself to say no to all other comers for the term of the exclusive–even, perhaps, your Dream Agent. If this isn’t something you can handle without a meltdown, don’t agree to an exclusive. This, again, may mean turning down your Dream Agent.
5. Make sure your Dream Agent is really your Dream Agent
Why is your DA The One? Because you connect with their client list and their philosophy of publishing or because they’ve netted huge advances for other clients? Neither is the right answer, necessarily–if you’re looking for a one-off money deal, then Big Advance Agent is probably a fine choice. If you’re looking for a lasting professional relationship, you need to find an agent who at least meshes with the way you view your career and is willing to work with you to shape it rather than only considering the book in hand.
6. Accept your offer of representation professionally
First off, when you’re sure that the agent making the offer is the one, let everyone else considering the manuscript that it’s off the market in a timely and professional manner. This means no hate mail and no notifications that come in response to ANOTHER offer for representation. Let the other agents know within 24 hours.
Get an agency agreement in writing. Handshakes are how some agencies work, but they can come back to bite you if you and the agent get into litigation.
Read the agency agreement carefully. If something seems fishy or you don’t understand it, ask your shiny new agent. They should be eager and willing to clarify any point for you. If you get a bad feeling at this point, walk away. See step one. Needless to say, never give your agent money up front. Those aren’t agents. Those are scam artists. A standard agency commission is 15% domestic and 20% foreign and film rights.
7. Be patient and receptive during the initial phase of representation
Before your manuscript goes on submission, your agent will have edits. Don’t throw a fit–if there’s something you don’t agree with, discuss it with your agent. When your book goes on submission, there will be a waiting period. Set up a time to talk with your agent each week for updates on the process (and of course, make it clear that they are to call no matter what upon receipt of an offer.) Make sure your agent knows not to accept an offer without the okay from you first–this is important so that you know the pros and cons of the publisher who’s offering, what sort of support you’re getting, and whether the agent can leverage a better offer after the initial one.
If your book requires several rounds of edits or takes a few months to sell, this is not a danger sign. After six months, it’s common for an agent to re-evaluate and see if there’s another book of yours better suited to the market. If you feel like things are dragging on without end, talk to your agent about it frankly.
This brings me to my final point.
8. Communicate with your agent
If you have a problem that is industry-related, ALWAYS speak to your agent before your family, your friends or your clergy. The agent is the one who can solve it most effectively.
If you have a problem with your agent, you still need to speak to them about it first, directly and firmly. This may run contrary to your nature. It still needs to happen. Agents aren’t meant to be handholders or mind readers–they’re meant to be your advocates in the publishing world. If they’re not aware that you’re dissatisfied or they read you as hysterical or overreacting, you’re not going to get a resolution.
Communication is the key to a healthy, long-lasting agent relationship. All professional correspondence should go through your agent. You need to be open and honest with him or her. Above all, professionalism must rule the day.
Follow these points and you and your agent will be on the way to a lasting partnership. Best of luck to everyone currently on the hunt.
Book 2 in Caitlin’s Nocturne City series, PURE BLOOD, is released this week. 
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (4)
Rebecca, Rhonda, Claudia, Jane, and Evangeline, thank you for adding your work in the comments section of Part 3. You’ve written some powerful character studies. No one could ever accuse your Sheilas of being cardboard cut-outs!
Let’s wrap this up.
It’s easy for Charlie to say what Sheila is. She’s the bitch. But we’re not Charlie, or any other character. We’re the writers. So we need to know why Sheila is being such a bitch.
Our knowledge might not appear on the page. In fact, most of it probably won’t. But we need to know, so we can make Sheila’s behaviour consistent, because even irrational behaviour needs a rational basis somewhere back there in the writer’s plans.
I think most of us can remember occasions in our lifetimes when we’ve behaved irrationally, and I bet none of us considered ourselves irrational at the time. That’s how it is with our characters. No one thinks she’s the baddie.
This is how we make our unpleasant or difficult characters into three-dimensional people, rather than cartoon black hats.
Everyone is the Main Character of her own story!
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (3)
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (1)
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (2)
Sheila is being a real bitch!
- She glares at Charlie all the time and spreads hostile rumours about her around the supermarket;
- yesterday she stormed down a flight of stairs and shouldered past Charlie roughly, causing her to almost lose balance and jolting her delicately repairing spine;
- she stands in the corridor a few doors down from Charlie’s office and bitches about her to others, knowing Charlie can overhear snatches of these conversations;
- she swings doors shut in Charlie’s face as she walks through them; and
- she’s avoiding Charlie’s Mum and Dad, after fifteen years of neighbourly friendship.
Why is she being so horrible?
We’ll come to that in a minute.
But first, I want to ask you to step back from the story and look at it as just that: a story.
Obviously, Charlie is the main character. From the way the story started, it would be fair for you to assume it will be her story all the way to the end. And you’d be right. It is Charlie’s story.
But what about Sheila? What part does she play?
Well, clearly, she’s the baddie.
And we could leave it right there.
Or, we could look at why she’s behaving so badly.
- What’s her employment history?
- How does she see Charlie, the young woman she’s known since she was just starting high school?
- For that matter, how has she always felt about her?
- What’s going on in Sheila’s home life?
- Is her health okay?
The thing is: as far as Sheila is concerned, this is her story.
From Charlie’s point-of-view, Sheila is simply The Bitch. But in Sheila’s own story she is the main character, and main characters are never cardboard cut-outs. They have depth. They have history. They have motivations.
So, what’s Sheila’s story?
Why don’t you tell me?
Go on, find out all about Sheila. Give her a life under your typing fingertips. Let’s find out what makes her tick.
Tell us what you discover in the comments below, and we’ll wrap this up on Monday.
Every Character is the Main Character in her own story (4)
How do you get inside a character’s head?
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (2)
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (1)
The fear began.
All the medics agreed that non-invasive healing would be the best bet, although it would be a long and painful process with no guarantee that there wouldn’t be a dangerous surgery waiting for her in the end, anyway.
And the fear intensified as the financial struggle started. When Charlie’s partner got depression and spent several months at home with her, they discovered that the welfare state couldn’t care less. The expensive life they’d juggled on [good salaries X2] proved totally impossible to maintain on [statutory sick pay X2].
They sold both their lovely cars, but all the other bills kept coming and their plastics maxed out quickly. Time to give up their lovely little home and move back in with Charlie’s Mum, Dad, and two younger sisters.
Neither of them wanted to take a step backwards, but they couldn’t think of any alternative. It had come down to survival. They moved all their possessions, keeping everything they could fit into one bedroom and letting everything else go.
Members of both their famlies helped in their own ways, with financial and emotional support, and their old/new neighbour Sheila kept Charlie up-to-date with news and gossip from the supermarket.
Fast forward almost a year: to everyone’s great relief, Charlie has beaten the threat of dangerous surgery. Shop floor work and other bending-stretching-lifting activities will be out of the question forever but, so long as she sticks to the plan, the fear of paralysis is in the past.
Then the general manager offers her a position on the first rung of management; the one he had in mind for her right from the start; the one he’s been holding for her in the hope that she will be able to come back.
And everyone is happy.
Well, everyone except Sheila. Sheila isn’t happy at all. Sheila is bloody fuming.
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (3)
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (4)
How do you get inside a character’s head?
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (1)
At long last, Charlie feels her career is going forward again.
After university she plunged into the fast and dirty world of estate agency, relishing the excitement of cut-and-thrust corporate life and making good use of the competitive talents that had made her an outstanding athlete during her teens.
Five successful years later, fully qualified for promotion, and very eager to climb, she hit the glass ceiling and found herself in a long queue waiting to fill dead men’s shoes: with a strong emphasis on the word men’s.
Charlie looked long and hard at the housing industry. All her experience suggested that times were going to get very difficult for commission-based sales people over the next few years. Remembering how temporary blips in the local market tended to turn cut-and-thrust into dog-eat-dog, she decided it was time for a sideways career jump.
She chose retail management and wowed everyone in an interview at the same supermarket she’d worked in part-time while at uni. Accepted onto the organisation’s fast track program, she went to work on the shop floor and was made welcome by several old timers, including Sheila, a neighbour and long-time friend of her parents.
Six months later, just as Charlie’s bosses were preparing to move her on to gain experience elsewhere in the store, she hurt her back. Badly. It was an old car accident injury, complicated by heavy lifting on the shop floor. One day she woke up to a pride of neurosurgeons standing around her hospital bed talking percentage chances of permanent paralysis.
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (2)
Every character is the Main Character of her own story (3)
Every Character is the Main Character of her own story (4)
How do you get inside a character’s head?
Microblogging a novel!
In my post Brainstorming a modern Novel of Letters I asked
I’ve heard of authors having their characters use social media to promote a novel, but I can’t find any examples of an entire story told this way. Have you heard of anyone doing it?
and it turns out my Plurk friend Renegade was planning to do just that.
R. Alexander Spoerer is writing his SF novel Calling Home in 140-word bites of dialogue, live on Plurk and Twitter! Here’s how he introduces his project:
Dialogue is powerful. It’s one of the best tools a writer has in their arsenal to convey emotion and feeling. Think of the last novel or story you read. What were the parts which moved you the most? It was when the characters were speaking. The author manipulated the words coming from the character into a stream of emotional strength. You knew how the character was feeling because they told you so in their own voice.
With this in mind, the idea for Calling Home popped into my mind. A story entirely told within the confines of a damaged ship’s system status messaging and emails. Each character would have their own Twitter and Plurk account, and communicate with each other through those accounts only.
It’s a brave project and he is planning to run it over at least a couple of months. This is the information you will need to follow the story on Twitter and Plurk:
Hastag: #chh
http://twitter/ISSMontserrat
http://twitter/JFCAllen
http://twitter/JFCSandeepPlurk
http://www.plurk.com/user/CallingHome
Or you can follow the story on the Calling Home archive page on Tumblr. And please spread the word.
Good luck, Renegade. I wish you success and lots of fun!
10 items for a desert island marooning
A boat is waiting to maroon you on a desert island.
No, you can’t keep the boat. The cox’n will dump you on the beach and sail away wordlessly, chewing a wad of tobacco and swigging his breakfast rum like the blackhearted jobsworth he is.
There’s fresh water and wild food on the island. No electricity. This isn’t a hi-tech marooning. Tsk!
You’re allowed ten items in the boat. They can be people, animals, things, whatever you like. One of the ten items is you. *jab in the back with a rusty cutlass* Get in!
I’ll take my family. My wife and our three daughters, each daughter’s partner, and our dog Jacob with a companion for him.
When it comes down to it, people is all I need to get by. Preferably with at least one of them interested in having lots of sex on the beach with me.
That’ll be my wife. I love Jacob to bits, but… you know. He’s a dog for goodness sake!
There are many people I’d miss, and some I’d miss horribly, but my immediate family are the ones I’d maroon with me. I hope they’re grateful.
So, that’s me and mine sorted. How about you?
The Movie of The Book
I’ve been thinking about what it is that makes the movie versions of some novels wonderful, when other versions disappoint readers.
Obviously, the talent and skill of movie creators is one side of the equation. But is there something in certain genres or styles of novel that makes them good candidates for film treatment? What do you think?
My favourite gothic horror book of all time is Dracula, and the movie is up there with the best too. I love them both.
Same goes for Interview With The Vampire, a story I can enjoy reading or watching time and time again.
But the only recent film version of a novel I’ve seen is Night Watch, the movie they made of Sergei Lukyanenko’s The Night Watch. I love this book and was really looking forward to watching the film, but they changed the plot so much it was only vaguely recognisable as coming from the same material. A shame.
What is your favourite movie version of a novel? And why is that, do you think?
My Ideal Reader
My ideal reader for fugue is wise and warm, with a big heart and a questioning mind. She is intelligent and insightful. She works stuff out for herself. She doesn’t need to have everything explained for her in minute detail, and she doesn’t want me to lay it all out for her as if she did.
I admire you.
She loves mystery and romance, magic and adventure, honesty and genuine feelings. When one of us talks, the other listens actively. Our conversations are real. We are in a relationship. Our imaginations meet and our souls smile in recognition.
I care for you.
She reads naked, just as I write naked. However we might be clothed to outside eyes, we bring our naked hearts and minds into the story and we share them with one another. There are no secrets between us. We are intimate. Close. Private together. We touch each other inside.
I love you.
