The Evolution

Ah, the query letter.  That infamous piece of paper that is our own drafted ticket to success…or not.  It is what writers pin their hopes on, drafting and redrafting, visiting and revising until we believe it’s as perfect as we can make it.  Then we seek other opinions and begin the process all over until we’re so sick of those 250+/- words (yes, that’s all a query letter is/should be) that we want to weep, gnash our teeth, and rail at an institution we don’t understand but to which we desperately seek admittance.

Since most querying is done electronically now, we pin our publishing hopes on this piece of virtual paper.  We hit “send” and hold our breath each and every time our mailbox signals we’ve got a new message.  Could it be The One?  The contact from an agent?  The e-mail that changes everything and grants us an all-access pass to the publishing world?  Maybe it seems a little extreme, but that’s how authors generally feel, that if our query letter doesn’t gain the interest of the agent gatekeepers, our manuscript will die a slow, painful death and there won’t be anyone but us at the funeral.  But gaining that agent interest is often as difficult as finding a needle in the proverbial haystack.  Why?  Look at the numbers.

Rachele Gardener of WordServe Literary Agency released statistics for her 2010 year.  She received “around” 10,000 queries for the year and signed 0, yes zero, new clients.

Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency also released statistics for last year.  She received and responded to 7,835 queries and signed only one new client last year.

Granted, these are only two literary agents, but they are two highly respected, well-known agents.  I have to say that while it’s good to know what’s happening on the other side of the computer screen, it seems that these statistics are a way for agents to let authors know they’re looking for a needle in the haystack too.  How discouraging would it be to find one new client amidst 7,835 queries?  I’m not sure who to feel worse for: authors for the almost guaranteed rejection or agents for realizing such a minuscule return on the investment of their time.

The bottom line is that there is angst on each side.  I think the animosity from authors is due to the fact that we pour our hearts and souls into our manuscripts and all we’re asking for with our query letter is a chance, just one chance to see if we might have the thing that stands out and separates us from our brethren.  But agents are nearly obliged to reject.  Janet Reid of Fine Print Literary Management stated that a novel must be in the top 2% of submissions to be accepted.  While the 90th percentile is good, it’s “not good enough.”

So does this mean you stop writing, shove your manuscript in a desk drawer, and take up macrame?  Of course not!  What if you’re that single submission that prompted Jennifer Jackson to offer representation?  It would be a real shame to miss such a wonderful opportunity because you were afraid you weren’t what that agent, editor, or publisher was looking for.

I know this post is going to resonate with some and infuriate others, so I’m both pleased and sorry.  But I can’t bring myself to apologize for how I feel.  I love the digital revolution.  There.  I said it.  I was a traditional publishing purist until Christmas when I received my Kindle.  I read my first book and grumbled about the “page” turns and the way it felt and the screen and…and…and.  But the little digital reader grew on me so quickly that by the end of the book, I was in love.  The perks, as I see them, are: it weighs less than a traditional mass market paperback; having your entire library at your fingertips is gratifying; receiving a new book in less than 60 seconds when I order it via the 3G network is wonderful; the screen is actually incredibly easy on the eyes, resulting in less eye strain; it remembers where I left off so I can just pick it up and start reading again; I can categorize all of my authors by genre or name so finding a title is easy; and the battery life is phenomenal, as I’ve only charged it once since December 17.

Why, if I was such a traditional print purist, did I get an e-reader?  My husband was convinced I’d enjoy it.  He was also seriously concerned about the fact that our little house didn’t have room for any more physical books.  I caved to his insistence and agreed to try it, and I was fully prepared to dislike it.  See above for the results.

The other thing one has to take into consideration when discussing the digital book is that the publishing world is being revamped to incorporate e-books into their hallowed fold.  Publishers are now negotiating for print and digital rights in their contracts, and this includes the Big 6.  This cements for me the arrival of the digital book as the new reality of publishing.  When Nora Roberts was listed this week by Amazon as their third author (following Steig Larson and James Patterson) to have sole more than a million Kindle books, I realized the sales potential is unlimited.  Granted, there are three authors who have crossed that sales level, but it forces critics to reassess their positions.  And, I believe, it takes the e-book from “digital revolution” to “digital reality.”

(I’m not affiliated with Amazon in any way.  This is just my sincere position on my beloved little e-reader.  You may find another brand that does just as well for you.)

I was re-reading a manuscript I’ve been working on for a while and I hit a line that made me laugh out loud.  The main character is listening to two men argue and they’ve been at it for a while when she walks to a bookcase, lays her head on a shelf and says, “Everyone is born with one asshole and I’ve got mine.  How did I end up with these two extras?”  I laughed when I wrote it and I laughed when I re-read it.  If the line is never published, if it never makes it onto a printed page, and if no one ever sees it besides you, my faithful blog followers, I will still be thrilled that I wrote it.  It made me happy then and it makes me happy now.

That gave way to some internal pondering on why I actually write.  I don’t get paid for it.  I don’t get effusive praise from reviewers.  I don’t even get to share it with readers.  But what I do get is an immense sense of personal satisfaction.  It makes me feel good that I am creative.  I love it that my snark factor has not died a slow and quiet death now that I spend so much time at home by myself.  I thoroughly enjoy the fact that I now have a legitimate place for the voices in my head to go to live that (probably) won’t get me free lithium treatments and all the green Jell-O I can eat.

I wrote my first story when I was six years old.  It was about a kangaroo who looks at the world through a knothole in a tree.  Don’t ask me how the kangaroo got into the tree.  I was six.  Give me a break.  I continued to write throughout elementary school, winning some awards and fiction competitions.  As a surly teenager my fiction evolved to tortured poetry that eventually swung back to entertaining stuff and, finally, back to fiction.  My favorite classes in college were my English classes; I loved them all.  Then life descended on me and I lost my imagination.  Seriously.  I couldn’t find it with both hands in a well-lit room.  It was depressing.

Three years ago someone very close to me encouraged me to start writing.  I spent a long time arguing about why I couldn’t, but really I was just scared.  What if I’d forgotten how?  What if I tried and failed?  What if…  My husband stepped in and, in a very patient voice, said, “Denise, what if a frog had wings?”

To which I wittily replied with a blank stare, “Uh…”

He shook his head.  “It wouldn’t bump it’s ass ever time it jumped.  But the frog doesn’t worry about  it every time he leaps.  He just leaps.”  (Have I ever mentioned how wise my husband is?  Ranchers’ wisdom comes in handy in the strangest instances in suburban life.)  Anyway, I nodded at this sage advice but still didn’t do anything so he went out and bought me a laptop and said, “Write.  It used to make you happy.”

So I did.  My first novel was a practice run.  It’s too short and too flawed to sell, but it gives me something to revise in the future.  My second novel, though, that’s my gem.  It’s a dark, gritty urban fantasy with a couple of very smexy men and a bunch of mythology interwoven into modern day life in London.  I love it.  I’ve read it a couple of times just for the joy of reading it.  There are a couple of sex scenes that are smokin’ hot and a heroine who is only just beginning to figure out who she is as an adult.  I love it.  Wait.  Did I already mention that?  I hope that it will someday find its way to your bookshelf or your e-reader because if you like urban fantasy with a little murder and sex thrown in, you’d probably like this.  But even if it doesn’t, if it never does anything other than sit right here on my computer, it’s ok.  Because having it here, knowing that my imagination is not dead and that I can still rip a page when I need to, makes me happy.

Jump, little froggy.  Jump.

The new year has arrived and I thought it would be appropriate to address the infamous “luck factor” that many people believe is necessary in getting published.

Since becoming a writer I’ve heard a great deal of commentary from, well, everyone on how impossible it is to a) land an agent and b) score a publishing contract.  When I say “everyone” I mean people who brought me shoes to try on at a local department store, the lady that gave me a facial, my doctors, my local bookseller, total strangers who asked what I did in my free time, other writers, one delusional journalist, and even the mail lady who hates my guts.  They all had opinions.  There were such widely varying degrees of animosity toward The New York Establishment that I found it hard to know what to believe.  And, frankly, the negativity and supreme secrecy surrounding the whole process scared me more than the process itself.  I fretted more as I neared the completion of the first Niteclif novel, wondering if it would be remotely possible to get anyone in the publishing mecca that is New York to cast more than a scoffing glance at my beloved manuscript.  So when I edited the last sentence on the last page for the last time, I began to sweat.  It was time to dance like a monkey to the music grinder’s music box.  I was ready.  But was I lucky?  Because by all accounts, nothing mattered if Lady Luck took her smoke break as soon as an agent or editor decided to read my manuscript.

The first time I hit ‘send’ on a query letter e-mail to an agent I thought I was literally going to toss my cookies.  I was exhausted.  I’d stayed up too late trying to perfect the letter.  I hit the can’t-take-it-back button and sucked all the air out of the room.  It was done.  My manuscript was out in the world and I wasn’t sure what to expect.  By all accounts of the naysayers, catastrophe and rejections would rain down on me like plagues.  Then I got The Call.  My agent wanted to represent me and thought I had a viable product.

The most relevant thing to happen after signing with my agent was the clarity I gained on the mysterious process of securing representation.  I’m going to debunk the myth that says it’s all a roll of the dice as to whether or not you land an agent (as if they were a fish or something…).  The cursed fact that subjectivity comes into play is true.  But what really ticked me off about all the fear others instilled in me was this: they discounted my talent, and because they did, so did I.  Luck doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not an agent chooses to represent you.  Sure your style, topic, characters, setting, genre, whatever, may not resonate with them and they may choose to pass, but that’s not luck.  That’s life.

So the next time someone tells you that publishing is all about luck, stop them where they stand and correct them.  It’s not about luck, and to insist it is totally disregards your hard work, your dedication, your effort and your talent.  And if you’ve made it to the point you’ve scored representation, you know you’ve got these things in spades and you’re well within your rights to correct anyone who insists otherwise.  And if we’re somewhere together and you don’t say anything, rest assured I’ve got your back

There’s been a lot of discussion on the boards lately about the Alpha male.  Ok, let me clarify that statement.  There seems to always be a great deal of discussion about the Alpha male, the hero, the man slated to play opposite the heroine in every great story.  And the story isn’t required to be a love story.  It can be a story where there is merely sexual tension; an awareness that there is a man and woman involved in the plot, but not with each other.  Sometimes that’s the best kind of story!

But for me, and my stories, there has to be contact (often full frontal sans clothing).  I need the characters to be involved, to take the sexual tension to a new level where spontaneous combustion is a real threat, and combustion may be the characters’ or it may be the reader’s.  I want my Alpha male to be a strong man, sometimes arrogant, often a little controlling, with a need to fix the things the heroine needs fixed in the story whether she wants, or needs, him to fix it on her behalf.  I want him to have a hard side, a secretly soft heart, and a passion for the heroine that goes without saying.  The Alpha male must lust after the heroine but find himself falling in love.  That love must be true, though it doesn’t have to come without a struggle, a fight, a few curse words, and some remorse.  Because a true Alpha male will resent love a little bit for taking his choices away from him, even if he doesn’t recognize or understand the resentment.  It flavors the story.  But he never, ever resents the heroine.

The Alpha males that I create are generally composed of all these different layers.  Sometimes they come across immediately and other times you’ve got to get into the story beyond the first fifty pages to find the Alpha’s emotional depth.  I’m of the opinion a character shouldn’t lay all their cards out on a table for a reader to sort through.  Instead, he should play it close to the chest.  He should flirt with the reader a little, or a lot, and engage the reader in a little literary foreplay.  I want the reader to crave the Alpha both physically and emotionally, and that takes time.  On the page it can happen quickly between two characters, but for the reader, the emotional investment must be developed.  This is where I think some authors fail to engage me, by failing to give my Alpha a multi-dimensional personality.  I can get one-dimension satisfaction by staring at the clipart on this page.   But if I’m reading, I demand more than that.

As an author, I demand my characters provide that to the readers.  There are times I’ll read a scene and think, “Ha!  Got it in one!”  And there are other times I struggle with a scene, writing and rewriting it until it finally clicks and the dialogue (both stated and implied), the character movement, and the background noises all come together to make the scene happen.  I love it when I can go back and read a passage and really feel the emotions I wanted to pull out.  I like a sex scene that leaves me squirming, even if I was the one to write it.  I like a passionate embrace that makes me miss my husband.  And I like the camaraderie that not only pulls the characters together but that also pulls the reader in as a silent wraith amid the characters’ action, allowing the reader to move among these three-dimensional characters and hear their voices, smell their skin, feel the heat of their sun, and the silk of their sheets.

It may seem I slipped off topic, but stick with me.  I’m coming back to the Alpha male.  His role in all of this is to provoke the heroine, engage the reader, and pull the story together.  It’s a lot of weight to put on one fictional character, but I’m solidly of the opinion that a story is as strong as its Alpha male(s).  Weak men just don’t do it for me in any way; they never have.  So the next time you pick up a novel, give the Alpha male some thought and figure out how he makes or breaks the story for you.  Look at his layers and figure out if he’s a potato or an onion: single skin or infinite layers.  And finally, decide how the Alpha male makes you feel every time he walks on stage.  Hopefully, if it’s my story you’re reading, you’ve missed him a great deal.  And if you’re rooting for him to take his shirt off?  Well, I’ve done my job.

This post really should be entitle “Promises We Make But Don’t Intend to Keep.”  Maybe it’s a little bah-humbug-ish, but it seems like resolutions are forever failing, whether they are personal, or federal, in nature.  Because the things we promise ourselves tend to be extreme: “I will not ever again spend too much on a pair of shoes” or “I’ll give up smoking tomorrow” or (in my case) “I’m going cold-turkey on the Dr Pepper – period.”  Uh huh.  And Oprah’s going to call just dying to have me on her last show to discuss a literary genre she likely doesn’t even know exists.

I’ve learned over the years to ease back off the resolutions and the promises therein because they are typically too unrealistic.  It’s sort of like NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, where you take a vow to write 50,000 words in 30 days.  People get a little crazy about this innocent contest.  I thought I’d do NaNoWriMo because I normally write more than the minimum required words per day to be successful and “win” the competition.  (To win, you finish.  Let the confetti rain.)  I lost.  Why?  Because of the pressure.  It was ridiculous, really, because I had been doing more than the minimum every damn day.  But it didn’t matter.  I made this Samhain resolution that I’d win, and I just froze.  Had I been a deer, and the resolution the headlights of oncoming disappointment, I’d have been writing this blog post from the big deer field in the sky instead of from the comfort of my over-sized sofa.

So my point is this: resolutions may be the work of evil (or at the very least the same company that makes the fans that pump out the smell of frying donuts from Dunkin’ D’s on Sunday morning).  Don’t succumb to the pressure to put your dreams out there for public consumption because there are people who will lay waste to them.  Don’t fall victim to societal pressure to make your dreams public; there are those who will swipe at them just because they’re dreams.  Don’t gloat and advertise your imminent success because you’re begging for karma to do its thing.  Instead, ring in the new year however you choose and when the clock strikes twelve and everyone begins to toast and sing Auld Lang Syne and ask what resolutions their fellow revelers hold for 2011, smile and play it close to the chest.  And when you succeed because you’ve thought through the resources you have to commit, as well as what it’s reasonable to expect to accomplish, you can secretly gloat when the braggarts of the world come up with 1,000 plausible reasons for why they failed.  Of course, the masses may not know what you’ve accomplished, but let’s cut to the bottom line: does it change the level of accomplishment just because you don’t have the t-shirt that says “I Won NaNoWriMo”?  I can promise you it doesn’t change a single thing.

Hello my fellow bloggians.  I am sending each of you a special Christmas wish this year.  I’ll be starting the new year with some exciting news, so check back soon.

In the meantime, I hope you find unfiltered joy of your own this holiday season!  Catch you on the calendar’s next page!

Patience: the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

2. an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay.

This definition is taken directly from www.dictionary.com.  Patience is one of the virtues that yours truly struggles with in a lot of ways.  In my personal life, when dealing with other people, I think I do ok.  In fact, I’d venture to say I have plenty of patience.  But when it comes to the rest of my life, and the things that require action, I’m a decisive person.  I want to makes decisions and act on them and be productive.  I love to see an idea come to fruition and materialize.  If it needs tweaking?  Fine.  I’m easy to work with on that.  I take constructive criticism well.  But if it’s just hemming and hawing and never moving forward?  Grrrrr.  I’m not the girl for the project.

One thing writing has forced me to learn is more patience.  I have to slow down and think things through, particularly in writing mysteries.  I have to give the plot a great deal of time and attention, weighing and measuring actions and reactions of characters both primary and secondary.  I have to read as a critiquer and enthusiast, to make sure that both sides are satisfied when I’m editing.  And I have to make sure that my patience is nurtured.

I do have to admit that being on submission has forced me to develop an abundance of patience.  I started the process with an excess of nervous energy.  I’d check my e-mail repeatedly throughout the day, rejoicing and lamenting the twists and turns of the realities of trying to get published.  Then I landed an agent, and things evened out for me.  She has kept me sane and practical, even when I don’t want to be either.  She’s been such a positive force in my career and I’m grateful for her.  As we’ve begun fielding positive responses to my manuscript, she’s kept me level-headed and, yes, patient as we work through the potential options in front of us.  It’s exciting and nerve wracking, and I want to jump for joy.  She encourages me to celebrate then settle in for the long haul, and I worship her a bit for this practical patience she displays.

Where do you find your patience most tested in your life?  I’ll be interested in hearing what you have to contribute.

All the best,
Denise

I hate spam.  Even when it was  nothing  more than a canned lunch meat I hated it.  Spam makes my eye twitch.  I just realized that my blog is being spammed excessively.  Why?  Because it exists, I suppose.  If you’re having trouble with the website, please e-mail me and let me know.  I’ll remove all comments that are suspect, so if you have a weird address but want to be sure your comment is deleted, you might send me a quick e-mail to let me know you’re legit.  I check my e-mail regularly.

Ok, I’m going to work on another post for tomorrow morning.  It will have nothing to do with spam as either a lunch meat or a freaking annoying waste of inbox space.  I promise.

Sorry I failed to post over the last few days…turkey-induced coma and all that.  Ok, generally I try to keep the focus on writing and this is a fringe topic which makes me feel the need to justify it.  I won’t   I’ll present my case and let you make your own decisions.

Many online retailers (think the big box and online giants) allow, even encourage, readers to rate a book using a 5-star system and an open critique form.  Great, right?  I beg to differ.  This critique system doesn’t ask if the reader to consider whether the characters are three-dimensional, whether the world-building is done well enough to make it believable, etc.  Oh no.  The star system says “rate this book, with 1 star being the worst read and 5 stars the best.”  And if you feel compelled to write a little something about the story, great.  If not, you’re not required to justify your thoughts. Guess where we find ourselves folks?  Back to my most hated word: subjectivity.

Now normally I’d just be peeved about this and move on.  But not today.  Today I learned that readers/consumers can get online  and rate a book they’ve never even read.  They can score it one star because they didn’t like the author’s other works.  And they do this. I find it incredibly unjust that authors get slammed by non-reading consumers for something of which the consumer has no knowledge.   This is irresponsible and unfair, and it makes me want to scream.

The next step in the process is writing a critique of the book.  To be fair, at this point they do usually ask if  you have actually read the book before you write anything on it.  But does it really matter?  Because even if you haven’t, you’re still allowed a critique.  The point here is that I’ve regularly seen readers rake an author over the coals without reading the work.  Prime examples are Laurell K. Hamilton and Janet Evanovich.  Readers attempts to discredit the author based on clearly unvalidated personal opinion.  But what really happens, for those of us who read the critiques, is that we bookmark the reviewer and remember to discount anything s/he says.  So all that consumer accomplished was discrediting himself in my eyes.  Unfortunately, this person’s opinion drags down the ranking of the author.  And there are readers out there who might miss out on good books because people like this are allowed, even encouraged, to review books for which they hold no personal knowledge.  Grrrrrr.

Welcome to the world of an author.  We’re critiqued at every stage of our work: unpublished (search for an agent), pre-publication (search for an editor), during publishing (copy/content editing – and I’m pro editor), post-publication (professional reviews), and in the marketplace (consumer reviews).

So let’s here it.  Do any of you have any suggestions for a moderated review system?  I have my ideas on how it should work, but it may be too elementary.  (I propose a simple “Critique This Book” button that pops up seven days after you’ve purchased a book online.  Then at least the author gets royalties.)  Anyone else have a suggestion that might solve this pothole in the online book-buying and rating system?