No time for a lengthy missive today, I’m afraid, but I could not resist sharing a bit of tangible evidence in support of a theory long lurking in the minds of editors across the English-writing world: in recent years, many people’s eye-brain connections seem to have ceased working reliably. At least insofar as signage is concerned, citizens of this great land have evidently decided that if a piece of prose sounds vaguely like what its writer had in mind, well, that’s close enough to print.
To an editor, that logic represents the first step down the slippery slope that leads to, well, a heck of a lot of work. If nailing down a precise meaning in writing has ceased to have social value, what’s next? Widespread confusion of colons with semicolons? Ravening packs of the untutored roaming the streets, doubling or even tripling prepositions? Or even — avert your eyes, children — eschewing proofreading altogether?
Whom the gods would destroy, Euripides informed us, they first drive mad. Clearly, this was the kind of thing he had in mind.
I’m not merely talking about grocery store signage that adds an extraneous -e to potato or tomato, the misguided belief that pointless abbreviations such as tonite, thru, and alright have ever actually saved anybody any time, or even the bizarre gender blindness that struck otherwise perfectly reasonable people in the media to toss subject-object agreement to the winds in the mid-1980s, causing everyone and their monkey to crowd everyone and her monkey practically out of the language as she is spoke — although, naturally, the literate find such slips inexplicable. Many of my fellow editors insist that we should expect no better from people incapable of understanding why a female member of Congress might conceivably be known on paper as a Congresswoman, rather than a Congressman. Once it became necessary to begin explaining to even fairly well-educated people why paragraphs should be indented, handlers of manuscripts everywhere began hearing the resounding thumps of barbarian weaponry upon the gates of civilization.
I do not take such a dismal view of the matter, but I must confess, bungled logic in print drives me precisely as nuts as our pal Euripides predicted. Take, for instance, the undoubtedly generous offer that appeared in a local paper recently:
Did that second paragraph make you beard the heavens with your bootless cries? Or, like vast majority of the comparatively carefree denizens of the greater Seattle metropolitan area, did your eye simply gloss over it?
Unfortunately for editorial sanity, but fortunately for literature, those of us that read for a living do not enjoy the luxury of believing that close enough is fine for print. English is a language that permits, nay, positively encourages precision: just look at the stunning array of adjectives you have at your disposal. The benighted composer of the free pizza offer above had every bit as many tools at his disposal (nice subject-object agreement, eh?) as the next fella, yet fell down on the descriptive job.
To his credit, he does appear to have realized that his prose might be just a tad confusing to those who believe that words carry specific meanings. To an editorial eye, a phrase like to be clear can indicate only one of two authorial fears: either the writing immediately before it lacks communicative oomph, or the writer isn’t too sure of the comprehension capacities of the reader.
In this case, both terrors probably governed word choice. Let’s take a closer look. Because I love you people, I shall spare you the — sacre bleu! — all-caps presentation of the original.
After the costume parade, head up to Pagliacci for a free slice for your little monster! And to be clear, only kids in costume accompanied by a parent will be served.
Did you catch it, now that the eye-distracting formatting is gone? No? Would it help to know that what the writer almost certainly meant was this?
After the community-sponsored costume parade has run its course, we at this fine pizza emporium would be pleased to serve a free slice to any child in costume who shows up clutching the hand of either a biological or adoptive parent.
But that’s not what the original actually said, was it? Read literally, these were the preconditions for scarfing down some pie gratis:
(1) The potential scarfer must be a minor.
(2) The potential scarfer cannot show up before the parade has ended.
(3) The potential scarfer must be in costume.
(4) The potential scarfer’s costume must also be occupied by a parent — and, the use of the plural kids implies, possibly one or more other children.
Now, I can certainly picture a few charming two-wearer costumes — if the child in question were open to being strapped to a guardian’s chest at a 45-degree angle, the pair could form a wonderful spider. However, long practical experience with both advertising and careless writing leads me to conclude that the pizza-hawkers almost certainly did not intend to limit their offer to only literal readers with creative multi-party costumes on hand.
Oh, don’t roll your eyes at me. It’s my job to nit-pick. “But Anne,” eye-rollers everywhere protest, “I was not confused at all by the original version. It was clear enough what the pizza-mongers meant. I can see why prose imprecision might be unacceptable in a high literary manuscript, but why get so exorcised about a small slip?”
However did you manage to slip through that gate, barbarian? We in the editorial keep already have boiling pitch prepared to fling onto the noggins of all comers.
Seriously, those of us that read for a living are perpetually flabbergasted by how many writers seem to cling to a close-enough-is-good-enough philosophy. Clarity constitutes the minimum requirement for professional writing, not an optional extra. As a reader, I’m sure you would agree: on the printed page, you don’t believe it’s your responsibility to guess what the author probably meant, do you? It’s the author’s job to convey precisely what she had in mind.
Contrary to astonishingly pervasive belief amongst aspiring writers, it’s not an agent, editor, or contest judge’s job to speculate, either. No matter how often any of us are treated to the sight of unclear, poorly written, or logically convoluted prose, the trick to catching a sharp editorial eye in a positive way lies in choosing your words with care.
Oh, and not stubbornly retaining topical jokes after their expiration date just because you happen to like them. ( I had intended to use that last paragraph a couple of weeks ago, you see.)
Yet another reason to read your submissions and contest entries IN THEIR ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD, of course. Since the human eye, editorial or otherwise, tends to read about 70% faster on a backlit screen, even the most dedicated self-editor will be substantially more likely to catch subtle gaffes on a printed page. You wouldn’t want to leave Millicent the agency screener wondering just how many family members your text wanted her to envision stuffed into a single costume, would you?
Actually, the barbarians currently howling at the gate might actually prove helpful in this endeavor. Bless their unrepentant hearts, their lack of precision in wielding the language provides would-be self-editors with abundant opportunities to sharpen their editorial eyes. The photo at the top of this post, for instance: scroll up and give it your best nit-pick.
If you instantly leapt to your feet, shouting, “By Jove, that restaurant appears to be ordering lunch customers to bring their own egg roll and rice!” award yourself a gold star for the day. Come w(ith) egg roll in any other context would in fact mean that the speaker would expect the hearer either to show up with an egg roll — not the kind of thing most of us tote around habitually — or to accompany an egg roll on some unspecified journey. Neither, you must admit, seems like a particularly inviting prospect for restaurant patronage.
Snag a second gold star from petty cash if you also bellowed, “Nor is that the only labor the poor potential customer is evidently expected to perform. Why should the diner steam her own rice?” As steam is a verb, it must logically be a command to the reader; steamed, on the other hand, is an adjective that might conceivably be applied to rice.
Whom the gods would not see published, first they burden with an inability to spot the differences between parts of speech. While I’d like to think that they have also provided a special spot in Hades for sign-printers too callous to point out such problems, perhaps we should all be grateful for the proofreading practice advertising provides us all on a daily basis.
Excuse me — some charming visitors bearing pitchforks and torches appear to be banging on the gate, just in time for lunch. Perhaps they were courteous enough to bring their own egg rolls. Keep up the good work!
No pretty picture today, I’m afraid, in honor of all of the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Those are the proper images for the day. If you would like to help, here’s a link to the Red Cross’ fund drive for disaster relief.
My thoughts are with everyone in the affected areas, of course, but I’d like to extend special sympathies to all of the writers who, in addition to having to leave behind other cherished possessions, lost computers, backups, typewriters, manuscripts, and yes, manuscripts-in-progress. This is a frequent and unanticipated outcome of natural disasters, and it’s heartbreaking. Writers sometimes lose days, months, or even years of work. Sometimes, they don’t have the time or opportunity to rescue their computers; sometimes, they have been editing in hard copy, and paper is allergic to large amounts of water; sometimes, the place where they stored their backups gets caught in the flood, fire, earthquake…
Well, I shan’t depress you by continuing the list. All you have to do is turn on the news to see horrifying examples.
If a lifetime spent wandering around the literary world has taught me anything, it is to begin worrying about writers the instant such footage begins crossing my television screen; I’ve known far too many writers who have lost work, and non-writers don’t always understand completely how painful it can be. Please, any members of the Author! Author! community, feel free to share here: no one is going to understand the anguish of having that most recent revision vanish better than a fellow writer.
And please, writers living outside of the affected areas, think very hard about whether any of your writing friends has ever sent you any of their work with you. That manuscript waiting on a bookshelf for you to find time to finish reading it might now be the only remaining copy — imagine the writer’s relief when you announce that to her.
That scene your friend e-mailed to you just after he completed it because he was so proud of it — he might be overjoyed to learn that you never got around to deleting that e-mail. Critique group members have fallen into one another’s arms, sobbing with joy, because one of their number turned out to be habitually slow at recycling earlier drafts of shared work.
If I may be permitted another community-minded suggestion, if you were planning to query or submitting to NYC-area agencies anytime soon, please consider holding off. The people who work in agencies are just that, people; they are having a hard time right now.
I know, I know: you probably had already thought about this. It might seem self-evident that screening would not be Millicent’s first priority at the moment, but sometimes, queriers and submitters forget that regular mail and e-mail gets disrupted at times like this. Or that a nice, literature-loving agency denizen might get discouraged when, after days of not being able to get to her desk, a backlog of hundreds of queries stuffs her inbox. It would be kind to give these good people a breather.
But now, let’s talk about you, writer living outside the disaster zone. When is the last time you backed up your writing files? Was it since your most recent revision? If the answer to that last question was yes — and, if you’re like the overwhelming majority of writers, it won’t be — in a disaster, could you put your hand upon that backup in under a minute? If you were not in your home, would you have access to it?
Well might you turn pale. May I ask you to act upon that feeling before it fades, and, in honor of those poor souls currently wondering how on earth they are going to reconstruct Chapter 8 from memory, make a backup of your writing files right now?
This might also be a good time to consider carefully whether your current backup system is sufficient. Many writers opt for external hard drives equipped with programs like Time Machine that automatically back up everything on their hard disks, but by definition, such backups are attached to computers — and thus might not be accessible if the computer is not. I sincerely hope the day will never come when that’s problematic, but it’s sensible to take a few simple steps, just in case.
And yes, Virginia, I would advise this even if you are fortunate enough to have a copy of your most recent manuscript or book proposal currently resting comfortably at an agency or publishing house. That is an external storage site, but hard disks do occasionally fail. And if yours does (heaven forbid!), trust me, you’ll be much, much happier at revision-reconstruction time if the copy you have on hand is the version you polished off last week, rather than the hard copy you printed up six months ago.
What kind of steps, you ask? Keeping a backup somewhere outside your home is an excellent idea — and if it’s automatic, all the better. You might want to consider an Internet-based backup service: they generally provide the advantage of allowing access to your files from anywhere on earth, though. Their servers may also be located in another state, or even another part of the world, from where you live. (If that last point doesn’t seem like a significant plus, I would encourage you to turn on the news right now, and keep watching until a map of the storm-affect areas pops onto the screen.)
There are certainly lower-tech — and lower-cost — options, though. Regularly storing a CD backup of your home-based writing files in your desk at work would be a prudent precaution. So would tucking an inexpensive flash drive into that purse, backpack, or satchel you carry everywhere. Heck, handing a hard copy of your most recent chapter to your Aunt Wanda when you visit her every other Sunday could conceivably do the trick.
The trick depends, though, upon your remembering to update that traveling backup regularly. Believe me, it will be substantially easier to reconstruct the Great American Novel from last month’s backup than from last year’s.
Oh, you may laugh, but let me ask you: was your most recent backup made within the last month? How about the most recent version that’s currently residing somewhere other than your home?
Don’t roll your eyes at me. Use your words. “But Anne,” some of you complain, glancing at your watches, “I don’t have time to back up my writing files once per week! I barely have time to write as it is!”
Believe me, I sympathize. But honestly, turn on the news.
I say that knowing precisely how much time savvy backup maintenance takes. I never leave my house without a flash drive containing all of my current writing files in their most recent versions. My computer is also set up to make automatic backups. I never again want to be in the position in which I found myself in graduate school, when a mugger tried to wrench away the backpack containing the hard copy of the second draft of my master’s thesis, pages upon which I had been hand-writing additional material for a week and a half.
Call me zany, but I think one shouted argument about whether wielding a knife entitles one to snatch half a ream of paper is quite sufficient for a single lifetime. Even though I won the debate. (And, I suspect, convinced that mugger that he never wanted to go to graduate school.)
That enervating little exchange occurred, incidentally, after I had already gotten into the laudable habit of backing up my writing in soft copy on a regular basis — and storing the backups somewhere other than my apartment. I have my undergraduate thesis advisor to thank for that: he was so afraid of losing even a few days’ worth of his dissertation work that every time we met, he would hand me a floppy disk (remember those?) containing its most recent incarnation. He asked me to store it in my dorm refrigerator. Just in case some natural disaster hit both my university and his home, thirty miles apart.
Doesn’t seem like an unreasonable level of precaution, considering recent events, does it?
Even if you cannot find time to do anything else to protect your work, can I convince you to take a few moments to e-mail your writing files to yourself as Word attachment? As long as you do not delete them, you should be able to retrieve the files from a remote computer.
Repeat regularly. And if scary footage begins popping up on the news, do it again. But I would strongly encourage you not to wait to do it for the first time until a natural disaster is on its way. Give yourself one less thing to worry about then.
Please, those of you who are safe, dry, and have access to electricity, waft some good thoughts to the poor souls so deeply affected by the storm and its aftermath. Consider donating to the immense relief challenges at hand. And please, if you do find that you have copies of recent unpublished writing by writers living in the storm zone, let them know as soon as electricity is restored and the lines of communication are humming again.
If even one writer is spared the anguish of losing all or part of a manuscript, all of us should be delighted. Be safe, everybody, and of course, keep up the good work.
My apologies for not corresponding with you as extensively as usual over the last few months, campers: I could plead deadlines stacked up like cordwood; I could whine about health setbacks that would have made Asclepius turn pale; I could frighten you by references to a workload that would cause Heracles to glance up from his labors and say, “No kidding?” But I’m not going to get away with kidding a fellow writer, right? The fact is, I just kept finding that there weren’t enough hours in the day to write all I wanted to share with the world.
Since I’m relatively certain most of you fine people have some personal experience with that particular dilemma, I’m hoping you shall find it in your collective heart to forgive me. At least, that is, those of you in the market for what we here at Author! Author! like to call Eye-Catching Query Letter Candy.
Or ECQLC, for short. You know, the kind of literary credentials aspiring writers so often worry about not having handy to pop into their queries.
Why might ECQLC-seekers regard me with a kinder eye right about now? Because in recognition of the sad fact that I’m not the only writer in the English-speaking world to know what it is to scramble to find time to write, I’m shoving with all of my force against the imminent deadline for The Sensual Surfeit Literary Competition of 2012, this year’s edition of the Author! Author! Awards for Expressive Excellence from the now-imminent Tuesday, October 30, 2012 — and pushing it all the way to Monday, December 3, 2012, at midnight in your time zone.
No, but seriously, folks, I know that you’re busy people, and that many of you struggle as it is to find time to write your books and short stories, much less contest entries. That’s why, in case you’d been wondering, Author! Author!’s contests — the fruit of which look mighty decorative on query letters, incidentally — so seldom ask you hardworking folks to write anything new: as is our little community’s wont, what the judges want to do here is reward you for scenes you have already written.
Yes, really. This year, we’re going to be awarding prizes to writers who can write a darned good scene for adult readers of fiction, narrative nonfiction, and/or memoir. And since I’m a big fan of helping writers earn some nice, shiny ECQLC without having to spend a fortune on entry fees, this one is gratis — and provides the broadest array of entry categories in Author! Author! history.
I see those of you who entered by the original deadline frowning, and who could blame you? “But Anne!” you point out with some vim. “I’m every bit as busy as everyone else, yet I managed to scrabble my entry together before not only this coming Tuesday, but the original deadline over Labor Day weekend. I am, in short, outstandingly virtuous, and while I certainly have sympathy for my compatriots who might even as I type this be rending their garments, trying to polish an entry before Halloween, I wouldn’t like to think my non-procrastinating ways had gone unnoticed.”
Indeed they have not, Johnnies-on-the-spot: those of us on the entry-processing end have been placing metaphorical gold stars on your entries. I’m not saying that there will necessarily be a special prize awarded for the best early entry, but just between you and me, the judges have already been leaning so far in that direction that I suspect it would take only a slight breeze to topple ‘em right over. Also, they — and I — are quite open to judging the more recent of two entries by the same writer, should any of you desire to make a tweak or two and reenter.
I just mention. Writers who beat deadlines by comfortable margins are such a rarity in the literary world that I’m inclined to do all I can to cultivate their good behavior.
So let’s take another gander at the rules, shall we?
The Sensual Surfeit Literary Competition of 2012
Although the last time any of us here at Author! Author! checked, human beings experience the known world through their sensory organs, the overwhelming majority of manuscripts seem to rely mostly upon just two: sight and sound. That’s understandable, of course, since the world is stuffed to the gills with television, online, and movie storylines that must depend upon only those two senses to convey meaning.
On the printed page, however, there’s seldom a reason for a narrative to limit itself to only what could be observed on a screen — or heard on a radio. (Ask your grandparents about the latter, kids.) In order to encourage aspiring writers to incorporate more senses — and more specific sense-oriented detail — in their manuscripts, the Sensual Surfeit Literary Competition of 2012 is calling upon you to wow the judges with just how thoroughly you can make them feel that they are there with your character for one scene in your book.
The catch: we’re calling only for scenes that utilize a range of senses in interesting and unexpected ways. It cannot be a scene that contains overtly sexual activity.
Find other ways to engage the senses. In a scene of 8 pages or less.
So if your novel has a fabulous scene in which the heroine is slowly consumed by a not-particularly ravenous tiger, your memoir features a strong five pages during which you are floating on an inner tube down the Xingu whilst pursued by a school of piranha, and/or your history of Northern Californian gold panning presents the reader with the best description of dishpan hand acquisition ever seen by human eye, well, this is the time to pull it out. The Author! Author! Awards for Expressive Excellence have always rewarded entries featuring strong, sense-based detail and imagery, but this year, how well those specifics leap off the page will be the primary judging criterion. Please wow us with your close observation, descriptive detail, and one-of-a-kind worldview — and we’ll be overjoyed if you show us something we’ve never seen before. Just make sure that it’s all PG-rated enough to publish on this all-ages-of-writer-encouraged website.
On the remote chance that I’m being too subtle here: we will not be accepting sex scenes, period. Nor will we accept an entry containing profanity. Not that there isn’t some great sensual writing dealing with that arena of human experience, as well as some magnificent swearing, but this is a blog committed to making it possible for writers of all ages and varieties of Internet access to participate. Many library and home computers are protected by blocking programs, you see. And I would hate for any members of our community not to be able to view the winning entries in each category — which will be published here.
Winners will not only receive fabulous prizes (hold your horses; we’re getting to those), but may have their scenes and accompanying synopses both published and critiqued in a post here at Author! Author! for all the world to see and admire. To be specific:
The grand prize winner in each category will receive a half-hour Mini Consult on a query, synopsis, and first 10 pages of the manuscript from which the winning scene was excerpted, as well as having the winning entry, bio, and an author photo posted on Author! Author!
First and second place winners will have their entries posted and critiqued on this blog.
Because winners will also be awarded life-long bragging rights and coveted ECQLC, the judges reserve the right to award as many (or as few) prizes as the quality and quantity of the entry pool in any given category warrants. Awards are purely up to the discretion of the judging panel.
Entrants may enter more than one category. Please select your category by the type of book from which the scene is taken, rather than the content of the scene itself. The categories are as follows:
Category I: Literary fiction, women’s fiction, and mainstream fiction
Category II: Science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal
Category III: All other genre fiction, including romance and mystery
Category IV: Humor (either fiction or nonfiction, but please do tell the judges which)
Category V: Memoir
Category VI: Narrative nonfiction, cookbooks, and academic books
All entries must be submitted via e-mail to contest(at)annemini(dot)com by Monday, December 3, 2012, at midnight in your time zone. Late entries will not be considered. Please submit each entry in a separate e-mail, in accordance with the rules below.
Those are the general rules. Here are the specific steps required to win. Do read them all carefully. Please be aware that entries that do not follow the rules will be disqualified.
1. Select a scene of no more than eight pages in length from your manuscript or manuscript-in-progress that best demonstrates the use of sense-oriented description and/or imagery. Scenes may be excerpted from any point in the book, but do be aware that the judges will be assessing the writing by only this scene and your synopsis (see Step #5).
Pages must be in standard format for book manuscripts, in 12-point Times, Times New Roman, or Courier. Work that is not double-spaced, contains shrunken margins, or otherwise differs from standard format will be disqualified.
All entries must be in English. Whether you choose to write in American English, Canadian English, or U.K. English, however, is entirely up to you. Just make sure it’s spelled correctly.
2. Make sure that the scene in question does not include any overtly sexual act or profanity. The goal here is sensual description that is specifically non-sexual. Remember, too, that the judges will be looking for a variety of senses to be addressed in the scene.
3. Polish your scene to a high gloss and save it as a Word document, as a .doc file Only .doc entries in Word will be accepted — not TextEdit, PDF, or any other formats, please. Please title the Word file containing your synopsis as YOUR LAST NAME + SYNOPSIS.
Please name the Word file containing the scene with your name and the abbreviated title of your book (Austen Pride & Prejudice), not just as contest entry or the ever-popular Anne Mini contest. The last time I ran a contest like this, I received 42 entries with one or the other of these two titles.
4. In a separate Word document, list your name, address, e-mail address, and telephone number, as well as the category you are entering. On that same page, please include a 1-paragraph explanation of how the scene fits into the overall story of the book. This is the only chance you’re going to get to set up the scene for the judges, so make it count!
5. On the second page of the document described in #4, include a synopsis of no more than 1 page, giving the judges an overview of the book’s premise, its main characters, and its central conflict. Again, this synopsis must be in standard format. If you are unfamiliar with either standard format or how to write a 1-page synopsis, you will find explanations (along with examples) under the HOW TO FORMAT A BOOK MANUSCRIPT and HOW TO WRITE A 1-PAGE SYNOPSIS categories on the archive list located on the right-hand side of this page.
6. Make sure that both documents are properly formatted: precisely as they would appear in a manuscript submission. Please be aware that correct formatting is a prerequisite to entry in this contest, not merely a judging criterion. If it is not double-spaced, in 12-point type, and featuring a slug line (Author’s last name/book title/page #) in each page’s header, the judges will not consider the entry.
7. Attach both Word documents to an e-mail. Please include SSLC ENTRY and the category number in the subject line. Please also mention the category in the body of the e-mail. (It makes it easier to process the entries.) Again, the categories are:
Category I: Literary fiction, women’s fiction, and mainstream fiction
Category II: Science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal
Category III: All other genre fiction, including romance and mystery
Category IV: Humor
Category V: Memoir
Category VI: Narrative nonfiction, cookbooks, and academic books
Make sure to say who you are, too, so we don’t get entries mixed up. It’s also a nice touch to say something pleasant (like “Howdy, Anne!”) in the e-mail itself. I just mention.
8. Make sure to mention which category you are entering. Seriously, we need to know this.
9. E-mail the whole shebang to contest(at)annemini(dot)com by Tuesday, October 30, 2012 Monday, December 3, 2012, at midnight in your time zone. If you are entering more than one category, please submit each entry in a separate e-mail.
Those are the rules! Please follow them closely. If you would like to see a step-by-step guide to how to apply these rules to the entry page, click here.
If you should have any lingering questions about the rules — like, say, what constitutes a scene, something several potential entrants have already asked, feel free to post them in the comments here. Please do not, however, e-mail them; part of the point of a blog is public discussion. If you’ve been having trouble finding where to post comments, as many readers seem to have been experiencing lately, the link is at the end of the post, at the end of the paragraph of categories to which the post belongs. Click on the words # COMMENTS, and you’re home free!
Not seeing it? On today’s post, the relevant line looks like this:
The Sensual Surfeit Literary Competition of 2012 / Comments >>
Use your extra month wisely, campers; I’m looking forward to seeing the results. Keep up the good work!
The Author! Author! community is seldom far from my thoughts, but at moments when I pass a sign like this, I must confess, I find it difficult to think of anyone else. Especially of those of you brave souls that regularly put yourselves — and your manuscripts — through the literary contest-entry wringer.
Why contest entrants in particular? Because in recent years, contest judges have found themselves doing double-takes at the type of punctuation currently blaring at you from that otherwise rather straightforward piece of advertising above in ever-increasing numbers. So, too, has the frequency with which our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, found herself shaking her head over manuscript submissions, murmuring, “I wonder if this is what the writer here actually meant, or if this is yet another instance of the sad decline in punctuation plaguing our society in these decadent days.”
Millie’s mutter was a mighty big hint, by the way, to those of you who did not erupt in merriment the instant you first clapped eye on today’s guest image. See it now?
Chances are, if you were a contest entrant frantic to get your entry postmarked by a deadline, you would not see it; it’s the type of typo that writers in a rush often overlook. And that’s a real shame, if the entry’s well written: I’ve never encountered a writing contest that allowed its judges to assess an entry by what its writer probably wanted to say, rather than what’s actually on the page.
Nor does your garden-variety agency typically permit its screeners to correct punctuation, even mentally, while reading submissions. That, too, is a shame, for many a successful querier or pitcher aglow with the first burst of adrenaline that comes with hearing that a real, live agent or editor wants to see MY WORK has simply glossed over this kind of punctuation as well. Strategically, that’s a mistake: even if it ever were desirable to leave Millie guessing at your intended meaning — and it isn’t, ever — it’s fairly standard for screeners to be told to stop reading at the second or third typo.
And what’s the best preventative medicine for skirting that dreadful fate, campers? That’s right: taking the time to read every syllable of your contest entry, requested pages, and/or book proposal IN ITS ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD.
Does that chorus of groans mean I’ve poked some of you in a sore spot? Or merely that you wish the Submission Fairy would wave her magic wand and grant six extra hours to writers on deadlines, purely for proofreading purposes? “But Anne,” the time-strapped moan, “I see typos in published books all the time! Surely, that must mean that little punctuation gaffes, misspellings, misplaced quotation marks and the like are no longer taken as seriously as in days of yore, when mistake-free writing was considered the mark of the literate person?”
In some contexts, you’re quite right about this, proofreading-avoiders: thanks in part to a decline in hard-copy proofreading (it’s much, much harder to catch small gaffes on a backlit screen than on a printed page), we do all see more faux pas in print than even ten years ago. Spelling- and grammar-checkers have caused a general decline in proofreading, and not only amongst published writers. E-mails are notoriously typo-prone, as are texts, and Twitter practically demands leaving out otherwise essential words, letters, and punctuation. Given the choice between speed and graceful presentation, most opt for the former.
Then, too, most of us also scan a heck of a lot more unedited writing than would have been imaginable to those whose primary reading experience was before the rise of the Internet. And don’t even get a professional reader started on how much more frequently advertising copy — like, for instance, the sign depicted above — contains typos.
All of which means, in practice, that pretty much all of us have gotten almost as accustomed to seeing writing presented badly as we have to seeing it done well. So often do signs shout things like BOBS’ LIQUORS at us (spot it yet?) that even the most grammar-savvy writer might be forgiven for occasionally placing an apostrophe in the wrong place when she’s in a hurry.
Driving past ads like this all day, it might not even look problematic at first glance. So why, as our short-on-time discussants above asked, should a deadline-facing contest entrant or excited submitter lose any sleep over a questionable apostrophe or two? Won’t it be some copyeditor’s job to catch such problems before the book is published, anyway?
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that a typo like this won’t jump off your pages at Millicent, if she’s been properly trained — and if she works at an agency you would want to represent you, she has. It would also look odd to Mehitabel, the veteran contest judge. And, frankly, it would drive me nuts to spot on the page.
Or, as in this case, the sign. To any of us, and almost certainly to the agent of your dreams, the very sight of BOBS’ LIQUORS immediately begs the question: just how many Bobs are there in that liquid-filled emporium?
Shall I take the resounding splat of eyebrows against hairlines as an indicator that this particular question has not been dogging some or all of you since this post began? I’m not entirely astonished: although it would make Millicent, Mehitabel, and their confreres choke to hear it, a stunningly high proportion of talented aspiring writers seem never to have learned the rules about creating possessives — or plurals, for that matter. Or at least to have been schooled in them so long ago that misuse of one or the other no longer causes their eyebrows to twitch at all.
So let’s embark on a quick refresher course, not only to revivify those complacent eyebrows, but so you have some guidelines on hand during any future moments of doubt. And if that means alerting everyone within the range of my keyboard to the genuinely puzzling nature of that provocative sign, well, so be it.
To form a possessive for singular nouns that do not end in -s or -z — which is to say: most nouns — just add ‘s. If Ambrose happened to own a leopard, then, Millicent would expect the text to refer to Ambrose’s leopard; by the same token, the spots decorating Ambrose’s pet would be the leopard’s spots.
To form a possessive for singular nouns that do end in -s or -z — Gladys, a spaz, a passing ibis — the apostrophe goes after the s or z. So if Gladys’ pet ibis happened to become friends with Gladys’ brother Glenn, whose business partner happens to be a spaz, the ibis’ buddy’s business’ interests might be endangered by the spaz’ annoying ways.
I was expecting a certain amount of resistance to that one — and already, a forest of hands have sprouted out there in the ether. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that most of you hand-wavers are fond of the ways of journalism. Yes, newspaper-huggers? “I can go along with Rule #1, Anne, and I remember when Rule #2 used to be common, but I see #1 applied all the time to nouns ending in -s and -z. Doesn’t that mean that Rule #2 is obsolete, and I may simply form possessives by adding ‘s to any old singular noun?”
I take your point, journalism-lovers: rarely do I pick up a magazine these days without having some well-meaning reporter inform me that the ibis’s buddy’s business’s interests might be endangered by the spaz’s annoying ways, and quite firmly, too. There’s a reason for that: in recent years, A.P. style, the style favored by newspapers and magazines, has indeed reverted entirely to Rule #1 for singular possessives. So you may expect those sources, along with online media, to slap ‘s indiscriminately on any noun. It has also become quite common for publishers of books by journalists to throw literary tradition to the winds in this respect.
And, to be fair, Millicent probably would not stop reading if you did the same: she, like the rest of us, has seen the ibis’s and similarly ungraceful possessives running amok across newspaper pages for years now. That does not necessarily mean, however, that the language in its most polished form — American English as it might appear in literary fiction, for instance — must drop one of the nicest punctuation rules we have.
To quote your mother: if everyone else jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, would you? And if half the people you knew evidently thought — at least strongly enough to put the theory into practice — that it was correct to form a plural in English by adding ‘s, instead of just an s, would you throw the rules that say otherwise off the aforementioned bridge, simply because you’d seen plurals formed incorrectly so often?
Many, many aspiring writers would, as Mehitabel and Millicent could tell you to their sorrow; judging by what’s submitted, they either do not know the rules well enough to apply them consistently or have been rendered unsure enough by the sight of rule variation that they don’t notice when their texts lapse. Even if a contest entrant or submitter is made of stronger stuff and is familiar with the rules for constructing plurals and possessives, if she does not proofread closely, she might as well be unsure of the rules.
Why? Think about it: an agency screener or contest judge can only assess a writer’s talent and skill based upon what’s on the page, right? If none of the possessive usages on page 1 are correct, obviously, Millicent is likely to conclude that the writer needs a crash course in punctuation, which is not any agency’s job to provide its clients. Fair enough. That being the case, though, if two of the six possessive uses on page 1 are incorrect, in addition to the plural of fence being printed as fence’s instead of fences, could you really blame her for drawing the same conclusion?
While you’re still shuddering over the implications of that one, let me add hastily that the logic also tends to hold true in reverse. If your punctuation and grammar are impeccable, not only will the effort win your manuscript or entry Brownie points — always good in a competitive situation — but your pages will also enjoy the not inconsiderable advantage of novelty. To be blunt about it, so many contest entries and submissions contain incorrect possessives and plurals that those that don’t shine by comparison.
If, in addition to the virtues of solid grammar, the pages also manage to apply the elegant, old-fashioned rule of possessive formation in nouns ending in -s or -z, professional readers will usually like the writing even better. Seriously, literate old-schoolers just love seeing this old-fashioned punctuation used correctly. Indeed, amongst ourselves, we tend to complain that the only benefit of adding the extra s to words that do not logically require it is that those who have difficulty with complexity need memorize only one rule.
Hey, I didn’t say we were funny; I said we were literate. But seriously, folks, does it come as a great surprise that contest judges, especially in the early rounds, tend to be culled from the ranks of the conspicuously literate?
So your rhinoceros favors a particular pond, you might want to consider making Mehitabel happy by referring to the rhinoceros’ watering hole. (If there was more than one rhino, it would be the rhinoceri’s watering hole, but that’s a horn of a different color.) If Chaz were the rhinos’ keeper, they would be Chaz’ rhinos. If you preferred A.P. style, however, you could also render it as Chaz’s rhinos. They would sound the same spoken out loud.
Getting the picture? This one is legitimately up to you, as long as you don’t mind causing Mehitabel to sigh nostalgically. Just make sure that the text is 100% consistent about whether a -z noun takes an apostrophe in the possessive or not.
Even if you decide to get modern on the -z question, I would urge clinging to tradition on the -s front. If the creatures that frequented that pond were flamingos, you would say that it was the flamingos’ favorite place to drink. I feel a rule coming on:
To form a possessive for a plural noun, the apostrophe goes after the s. Thus, the spots belonging to more than one leopard would be the leopards’ spots. Contrary to popular belief, the Thus, if the entire Anderson family owned a leopard ranch, it would be the Andersons’ leopard ranch.
Let me state that another way, because Millicent and Mehitabel see family names and possessives mismatched all the time, for some reason. If the leopard in question belonged to just one person — let’s call him Ambrose Anderson — both Ambrose’s leopard and Anderson’s leopard would leave M & M’s eyebrows mercifully unraised. However, if the leopard were so lucky to belong to both Ambrose and Antoinette Anderson, it would be the Andersons’ leopard.
Is the BOBS’ LIQUORS conundrum starting to make more sense now? Let’s take a gander at why: if it belonged to just one guy named Bob, it should be BOB’S LIQUORS, right? While it would be gracious to give the sign-painter the benefit of the doubt, neither of the two remaining possibilities seems particularly likely. The place could belong to a person named not Bob, but Bobs, in which case BOBS’ LIQUORS would be perfectly correct. It’s also not entirely beyond the realm of possibility that the store’s owners may well have intended the literal meaning here; we may well be looking at a two-Bob situation.
But if either of these turns out to be the case, I feel the inhabitants of Lake City are entitled to a full explanation, don’t you? The vast majority of passersby would read this sign as it was probably meant to read: as BOB’S LIQUORS.
Good old Bob may well be counting upon that; he may well believe, and with some reason, that it doesn’t really matter whether his potential customers walk in expecting one Bob or several. It’s not wise, though, for an aspiring writer to play similarly fast and loose with Millicent or Mehitabel’s sense of what’s going on.
Oh, you don’t think Mehitabel will dock your entry points if your punctuation choices imply that there are more Bobs running around your short story than there actually are? Or that Millicent might stop reading if the text seems to indicate a lack of familiarity with the rules governing apostrophes — if, say, a manuscript falls into the pervasive habit of forming plurals by adding ‘s, instead of just s?
To calm the nerves of those of you currently clutching your hearts and hyperventilating: possessive misuse all by itself is not necessarily an instant-rejection offense all by itself (although it can be, if Millicent is in a bad mood). It’s not uncommon, though, for it to combine with one or two other small gaffes to add up to rejection. Heck, I’ve known Millicents to reject a manuscript after the first malformed plural, if it fell within the opening page or two. Contest judges seldom have that luxury, thank goodness, but you’d be astonished at how often an otherwise well-written entry will knock itself out of serious finalist consideration by a typo or two on the first page. Or even — sacre bleu! — the first paragraph.
Why? Well, are you sitting down? I hope so: professional readers are paid to presume that everything on the manuscript page is there because the writer intended it to be. If the text consistently misapplies a rule, then, or simply does not apply it consistently, they tend to assume that the writer simply does not know the rule at all.
Well might you turn pale, time-strapped submitters and contest entrants. What might have started life as a typo actually can transmogrify at entry time into a reason to consider a submission less than literate — and to send the message to an agency that this talented writer would be more work to represent than someone whose work did not include such gaffes.
Why? Well, tease out the reasoning: either the writer is not aware of the rule (and thus the agency would have to invest time in teaching him something any professional writer would be expected to know), the writer is not sure enough of the rule to apply it consistently (so the agency would have to waste time proofreading his work before submitting it to publishers), or the writer knows the rule, but was simply too lazy (or, more likely, too rushed) to reread his own writing before submitting it. Whichever turns out to be the case, it means that it would be inadvisable to trust him to submit clean manuscripts, especially on a short deadline — and short deadlines crop up in the publishing world all the time. The agent of his dreams wants his work to sell, after all: it’s really in no one’s interest for her to submit his work to a publishing house if it’s peppered with typos.
She wouldn’t want to run the risk of the acquiring editor’s assuming he just didn’t know the rules. Or that he wasn’t serious enough about his own writing to proofread.
With those imperatives in mind, let’s try applying the theory to one of the great American apparent exceptions to the possessive formation rules: why is the Oakland A’s correctly punctuated?
If you immediately leapt to your dainty feet, shouting, “Because that’s what the team calls itself — and proper names are spelled the way the people bearing them say they are,” give yourself partial credit. The team does in fact use the apostrophe in referring to itself. And grammar, I’m pleased to say, is on its side in that respect.
But not, I’m even more delighted to report, because the A is rendered plural by that ‘s. It couldn’t be, right? Adding an apostrophe is not how plurals are formed. That is, however, how contractions indicate that some letters are missing. In this instance, seven of ‘em: thletic. Thus, it’s perfectly acceptable to abbreviate the Oakland Athletics to the Oakland A’s.
Yet another cosmic mystery solved. Now if only we could crack the case of The Possibly Multiple Bobs. Keep up the good work!
An old friend presented me with a stumper yesterday, campers: although neither a teacher nor a writer himself, Nate had just been asked to teach a writing class at work. Specifically, he had been allotted six hours in which to transform the prose stylings of the fine folks in another department from argumentatively sound but hard to follow into…well, the company’s owner had not been all that clear about what better writing would mean in that context, but he certainly was adamant that he wanted it.
Oh, and would the day after tomorrow be too soon to offer the class? Under the circumstances, I would have called me in a panic, too.
Already, I see the logical conclusion-huggers out there scratching their heads. “But Anne,” the rational point out, as they are wont to do, “if this storyline popped up in a novel, readers would find it implausible. In the first place, if the owner doesn’t know what good writing is, how can he set writing standards for the department? If he does not know how his staff is falling short of those standards, how is the class — which, if my calculations are correct, should convene sometime tomorrow morning — to address the problems? And if the boss is so darned worried about his employees’ writing, wouldn’t it make more sense to bring in someone with experience diagnosing writing problems and helping writers iron them out?”
There you go, expecting the real world to be as plausible as fiction. I’ve said it before, and I shall no doubt say it again: reality is a lousy writer.
Case in point: Nate’s predicament is exceptional not in that he’s fallen victim to the astonishingly pervasive notion that anyone who can express himself well on paper must perforce be capable of teaching others how to do it — which, as anyone who has attended an authors’ panel on craft issues at a writers’ conference could tell you, does not always bear out in practice — but insofar as he happened to have gone to elementary school with an editor willing to help him come up with a last-minute lesson plan. Makeshift workplace writing seminars seem to have been on the rise in recent years; I hear constantly from aspiring writers who insist that their queries must be in business format (left-justified, non-indented paragraphs, a skipped line between paragraphs) because, they claim, “the guy who taught my writing class at work said standards have changed.”
Upon further inquiry, that guy virtually never turns out to have received the Nobel Prize in literature, if you catch my drift.
To be fair, though, Since my primary experience of Nate’s forays into the realm of the Muse has been a paragraph or two in his annual Christmas card, I’m not really in a position to assess his writing — and since neither of us work in the department he’s assigned to teach, I had to ask to peruse his potential students’ writing specimens before I could even begin to give him advice. Every profession has its own internal standards for communicative excellence, after all; for all I know, Nate might be the Edith Wharton of interoffice memoranda.
As a writing teacher, however, I did know that his terrified, broad-based question, “How do I teach these people to improve their writing?” was not one easily answered under any circumstances. Those of us who edit for a living hear this one fairly often, doubtless due to the widespread and erroneous belief in one-size-fits-all writing solutions — and universally-applicable writing advice, for that matter.
Which is why, one presumes, that the standard editorial answer is, “It depends. What kind of writing are you talking about?”
Did that resounding thunk of chins collectively hitting floors indicate that at least a few of you were unaware that what constitutes good writing varies not only by style and voice, but by context and intended audience as well? To those of us that read for a living, there’s no such thing as generic good writing, especially when one is discussing books. While clarity and voice consistency are desirable in any genre, specific standards vary by book category: what would be laudable in YA, after all, might bore a literary fiction readership to death, and vice versa. The conventions by which paranormals operate quite happily would seem absurd in a Western. And call me zany, but when I pick up a cookbook, I don’t expect it to read like a Sherman Alexie short story. (His new short story collection is terrific, by the way, even though it contains some old stories.)
So while a layperson might have responded to “How do I teach these people to improve their writing?” with a handful of soothing platitudes about the importance of showing vs. telling or some light wrist-slapping on the subject of run-on sentences, Nate could hardly have asked a pro like me more challenging question, or one more likely to produce a three-hour answer. Since neither he nor his prospective students seemed to be looking to break into the literary market, however, I spared him the nuanced lecture on the many gradations of stylistic merit, contenting myself instead with asking what kind of writing these fine folks habitually did and what about their efforts had disturbed his employer enough to be willing to stop the enterprise dead in its tracks for a day in order to improve it.
The questions seemed to surprise him, or so I surmise from a pause long enough for me to have set down the phone, have my hair permed, and returned without missing his response. “Well,” he said eventually, “they’re expected to describe real-world situations.”
Was it callous of me to laugh? “That, I’m afraid, is the challenge faced by every memoirist and other nonfiction writer who has ever trod the earth’s crust — and a hefty percentage of the novelists as well.”
“Yes,” he replied, “but my folks are not very good at it.”
As I love you people, I shall not reproduce the eighteen minutes of cross-examination required to elicit what might charitably be regarded as a reasonable description of what kind of writing these excellent people were not doing well, for whose eyes it was intended, and how their literary efforts were not pleasing that target audience. To my ear, the problem seemed not to be entirely writing-related: the budding Hemingways in question were routinely expected to walk into conflict-ridden situations, rapidly assess the various potential and/or current combatants’ needs, desires, and aggressive capabilities, and produce a terse summary in the few minutes they had at their disposal before diving into the next fracas.
I’m inclined to believe that even the actual Hemingway would have found that a writing challenge, especially on a short deadline. And the more Nate talked, the more the tight deadlines seemed to be exacerbating the writing problems. In a move that might not astonish anyone familiar with either rushed writing or professional jargon — but evidently did come as something of a surprise to Nate’s employer — those harried scribblers had fallen into the habit of using stock phrases to save time. If not actually using the copy and paste functions to recycle entire sentences.
Obviously, that practice would over time try the patience of anyone tasked with reading many of these reports back-to-back, but not only for reasons of style. Specific descriptions would not be particularly conducive to reuse, right? In order to be easily portable, the less descriptive those statements could be, the better.
Better for the rushed copy-and-paster, that is, not for descriptive clarity — or, importantly for the credibility of the reports Nate’s students are expected to write, the reader’s ability to picture what’s going on. Even if one of these writers is a terrific observer and an obsessively honest reporter of fact, repetitive wordsmithing will convey a less-then-meticulous impression.
Let’s examine why. If Report #1 reads like this:
Arnold, Beatrice, and Celeste work in adjacent cubicles in an office on the fifth floor, and they do not get along, because everyone has different opinions about the best way to get work done. Words are routinely exchanged when conflict arises. On October 2, fearing for their lives, coworkers called the police.
And Report #2 reads like this:
David, Evelina, Franz, and Gerard work in adjacent cubicles in a ground-floor office, and they do not get along, because some of them feel that the division of work is not fair. Words are routinely exchanged when conflict arises. On October 2, their boss got sick of it and called us in.
It’s pretty hard for the reader to tell these two battling groups apart, apart, isn’t it? That’s the nature of generic description: even if the writer’s has something specific in mind, stock phrasing represents generalities — and that’s what the reader is going to take away.
Lest those of you who write fiction be congratulating yourselves, thinking that this is one writing problem, thank goodness, that does not apply to your work, let me hasten to add that the same principle applies to any description. No matter how detailed the writer’s mental image of a person, place, thing, or situation might be, if the narrative uses generalizations to depict it, or holds back salient details, the reader’s going to end up with only a vague impression of the writer’s artistic vision.
Take, for example, the photograph at the top of this post. It would be factually accurate, as well as quite speedy, to describe it as a picture of a piece of wood. A writer in less of a hurry could tell a reader that the wood is dry, has a knot in it, and that a small portion of it had apparently been slightly burned at some point in the dim past.
All of that would be true; you can see that for yourself. But if you had never seen the photograph in question, would reading either of those descriptions enable you to picture it? Couldn’t those descriptions apply to a practically infinite variety of photos of pieces of wood?
If we cranked our observational skills up to high, however, and set our literary skills on stun, we could easily describe that image so thoroughly that the reader would not only be able to envision it, but would know precisely how that particular hunk of wood differed from every other piece of wood on the planet. If the reader ever encountered it in real life, she would recognize it. (“That’s it, officer — that’s the lumber I read about!“)
If the description on the page does not show the relevant specifics, though, how is the reader supposed to learn about them? Guesswork? Telepathy? Showing up on the author’s doorstep and demanding a fuller description?
Obviously, at least from a professional reader’s perspective, it’s not the reader’s job to do any of these things; it’s the writer’s job to provide those specifics. How a savvy writer would chose to go about that, though, might well depend upon the type of narrative that would contain the description, as well as the writer’s individual stylistic preferences and the needs of the scene. In a thriller, for instance, a just-the-facts description might be appropriate:
The glass in the window rattled in the wind. Not too surprising, really, considering the state of the wood holding it together: dry, cracked, and full of knots. Even its garish yellow paint job seemed to have given up on holding itself together.
In an emotional YA scene, however, this treatment might make more sense:
I ran my fingertips along the warped wood of the window frame, wondering if I could pry it open. Old yellow paint flaked onto my sleeve as I worked a pencil into the largest crack in the wood. The last inmate must have been too depressed to try to escape — all she seemed to have done was crush out a cigarette on the yielding wood.
For literary or mainstream fiction, though, it could read like this:
No wonder the window leaked heat like a warped sieve — the very wood holding it together had dried out to the point of shattering. An ancient knot spun near the confluence of sill and frame, sending angry concentric circles of resistance shivering toward the glass. Deep, murky cracks wrinkled decades-old yellow paint.
Quite a difference from the window frame was made of wood and painted yellow, eh? While all of these descriptions are factually true, the reader would take away radically varying mental images.
Bearing that in mind, let’s take another gander at our two original examples. Now that we know that the reader’s sense of what’s going on could be substantially improved by including more specifics, what other style changes would be helpful here?
Arnold, Beatrice, and Celeste work in adjacent cubicles in an office on the fifth floor, and they do not get along, because everyone has different opinions about the best way to get work done. Words are routinely exchanged when conflict arises. On October 2, fearing for their lives, coworkers called the police.
David, Evelina, Franz, and Gerard work in adjacent cubicles in a ground-floor office, and they do not get along, because some of them feel that the division of work is not fair. Words are routinely exchanged when conflict arises. On October 2, their boss got sick of it and called us in.
Did the word and phrase repetition catch your eye this time around? It would have maddened Millicent the agency screener, and for good reason. Even taking Report #1 and Report #2 individually, their repetitive phrasing is, let’s face it, not very interesting to read — and thus inherently less memorable, from the reader’s point of view, than more varied word choice.
Did that last contention make you do a double-take? Okay, here’s a test of whether it’s true: quick, without scrolling back up, explain the differences between what the writer observed in Situation #1 and Situation #2.
Did you come up with anything but a floor level, and perhaps a couple of the participants’ names? Neither would a reader. That’s a writing problem as much as a matter of content choice.
How so? Well, by definition, repeated phrases do not add new information to a description in the way that fresh wording can. Yet many writers deliberately repeat words and phrases, apparently in the mistaken belief that the reader will magically derive a more complex meaning from seeing the same writing a second, third, or fourth time than s/he did the first time around. Take a gander:
The sight made Zenobia sad, sad in a way that no sight had made her feel before. And that realization made her sad, too, because she realized that unless she could manage to change the course of history, she might well be the last human ever to see the sight at all.
Okay, okay, I get it: the lady’s sad, and she’s seeing something. But no matter how many times the narrative tells me Zenobia’s sad, I’m not going to understand her sadness better than I did the first time it used the word. And surely it’s not unreasonable for me as a reader to wonder what the heck she’s seeing — or to resent that the narrative keeps referring to a sight that it’s not showing me.
Seem like an extreme example? Perhaps this frequency of word repetition is on the high end, but you’d be amazed at how often manuscript submissions simply adapt few chosen words and phrases to many descriptive purposes. Verbs are particularly prone to this treatment.
The door was locked. That was unexpected, like the frustration downtown had been. He tried to break it down, but the door was too strong for him. Frustration made him grind his teeth.
He was down to his last idea. If he couldn’t get inside, or at least prove that he had tried, all of his plans would be down the drain. He would be broke. It was just like that time in Phoenix, when Ariadne had treated him like a dog.
If you don’t mind my asking, what does was convey to the reader the fourth time it appears that it didn’t in the first three iterations? Or, to stand the question on its head — a lot more interesting than any of the activity indicated by the verb choices here, I must say — what does this passage gain in either stylistic or in storytelling terms by recycling these words and phrases?
Come up with anything? I didn’t, either. But you’re starting to feel more sympathy for the conflict-describers’ supervisors, are you not, if not for Millicent, for having to read this kind of prose all the time?
I sense some furtive shifting in chairs out there. “But Anne,” those of you fond of word repetition protest, and well you should, “isn’t word choice a matter of style? Maybe the writer here reused things deliberately. The phrasing above might not be your cup of tea, or Millicent’s, but it is stylistically distinct. In fact, read out loud, it might even sound pretty cool.”
That, as you say, is a matter of opinion, but even if Millicent or I did think it sounded cool (and I don’t), the limited vocabulary and repetitive phrasing here carry distinct clarity costs. What, may I ask, happened downtown? Why was it frustrating, and what about it produced the same type of frustration as the current situation? For that matter, how is this situation like what occurred in Phoenix? While we’re asking, who is this trollop Ariadne, and in what way did her interactions with our hero resemble the manner in which she might hobnob with man’s best friend?
See the problem? Even if the manuscript prior to this point had simply throbbed with detail about that donnybrook downtown, conveyed a sterling sense of our hero’s door-battering capabilities, and devoted 70 pages to Ariadne’s emotionally questionable proclivities, the word choices here deprive the reader of a clear sense of what’s going on in this particular moment. Not all feelings of frustration are identical, so why present them as though they were? How does our hero attempt to breach the door, and how precisely did it resist him?
And don’t even get me started on how the inclusion of hackneyed phrases — down the drain, treated him like a dog — further obfuscate meaning. Yes, most of us will understand in general what these stock phrases mean, but it honestly isn’t the reader’s job to guess how these clich?d descriptions apply to this particular situation, is it?
Hadn’t thought of those phrases that way, had you? Most writers new to the game wouldn’t: if a phrase is in common use, they reason, it just sounds right. How else would someone put it?
That’s a dangerous question to tempt Millicent to consider, I’m afraid. “Well,” she is likely to snap, “a writer might want to phrase it in a more original fashion, just for the sake of style. While this one is at it, s/he might consider applying some thought to coming up with less expected ways to convey break it down and grind his teeth, too.”
You have a point there, Millie, and one that applies equally well to the workplace writing of our first examples and manuscripts intended for submission to agents and editors. Naturally, it’s important that writing sounds good to the writer, but that is not the only measure of whether a passage is well-written. It needs to sound good to the reader — and not just any reader, either. It must sound good to the reader in the writer’s chosen audience, the kind of reader who already reads books like the one the writer has produced.
Why? Because that’s the reader who will ultimately buy that writer’s work when it appears in print.
Millicent wants to help good writers reach that reader. So does her boss, the agent of your dreams, and the editor to whom he pitches manuscripts. Since agencies and publishing houses specialize in marketing to particular types of readers — thus book categories, right? — it’s a safe bet that all of these professional readers will be familiar with the kind of prose that’s currently selling well to your target audience.
That means, in practice, that they’re not just looking for generic good writing. They’re looking for what that audience will consider good writing.
Which, of course, will vary by book category. And if that doesn’t make you want to stop scrolling through this post, snatch up your hat, and race to the nearest well-stocked bookstore to check what kind of prose readers of books like yours are buying these days, well, you might want to reexamine your priorities.
I sense some purists gearing up to be huffy, do I not? “I’m appalled, Anne,” those who pride themselves on eschewing mere mercenary motives scold. “I thought we were talking about good writing here, not altering our artistic vision to conform to whatever bestseller happens to be dominating the literary market at the moment. I don’t want to sound identical the authors whose work happens to be selling well in my book category; my work is original.”
I applaud that — and it’s precisely my point. By definition, stock phrases, clich?s, and expected phrasing do not read on the page as the original phrasing of an exciting new voice; they’re generic. At submission time, that means that using them can never help a writer impress Millicent stylistically.
They’re a waste of page space, frankly. As your friend in the biz and sincere well-wisher, I would rather see you devote that space to what’s best about your writing: your individual vision, expressed as only you can describe it on the page, in a manner likely to appeal to your target readership.
No amount of one-size-fits-all writing advice is going to be able to tell you how to do that — and, frankly, that’s probably good news if you’re trying to develop your individual authorial voice. Generic style precepts that purport to be universally applicable presuppose a single notion of good writing. But you have too much respect for your intended reader than to buy into that oversimplified notion, don’t you?
Don’t squander your unique artistic vision by expressing it in vague terms or overused phrases. Trust me, your reader will want to gain a clearer sense of what you have in mind. Keep up the good work!
Yes, yes, I know — it’s been a while since I’ve posted, although I have been consistently answering the ever-burgeoning crop of readers’ questions that have been cropping up on archival posts. (Word to the wise: since writers habitually ask such good questions, reading the comments on those posts is often quite worthwhile.) It’s been an even longer while that we’ve been meandering toward the end of this series on the steps and missteps pitchers and queriers take immediately after having pulled off their ostensible goal: to provoke an agent or editor to request manuscript pages.
Yes, I did say ostensible, because you’d be astonished at how frequently successful pitching or querying induces not only the kind of oh-my-God-I-have-to-get-this-out-the-door-instantly! panic we have discussed so much throughout this series, but an actual feeling of letdown. All too often, after expending the intense effort and socially underestimated bravery of presenting one’s baby to someone actually in a position to get it published, the would-be submitter finds herself beginning to doubt whether that yes really did mean yes — or whether it was an enthusiastic enough yes to be regarded as a good sign.
Or even sufficient reason to comply with the request for pages. Over half of requested materials never arrive, after all.
I’m delighted to hear most of you guffawing merrily. “Oh, come on, Anne,” those of you who have yet to be in this seemingly enviable position scoff, “how insecure would a successful pitcher or querier have to be to experience qualms at that juncture? I can understand experiencing some icy tootsies at earlier points — while working up the immense guts required to pitch a book to a real, live agent, for instance, or in that awful pause between receiving a rejection and sending out the query again. But why in heaven’s name would a sensible, sensitive, intelligent writer feel let down by learning that his pitch or query worked? Or not act upon it when it did?”
Several reasons, in practice. First, pitchers and queriers sometimes harbor false hopes for what they can achieve with an initial approach. One of the most pernicious myths of publishing is that if a writer is really talented, her book will attract serious attention from the industry at first glance, rather than the result of years of persistence. So even if a writer knows intellectually that the best possible outcome at the pitching/querying stage is, in fact, for the pro to ask to see pages, she may still feel disappointed that the agent of her dream’s first response is, “Your premise seems interesting; I’d like to see how you handle it on the page,” rather than “By Jove, that’s the best book concept I’ve ever heard! No need to read any of your actual writing — I’m going to sign you here and now!”
Of course, the latter response had ever actually emerged from an agent or editor’s lips when speaking to a non-celebrity writer’s pitch or query, it would be a bit insulting, right? How could anyone tell whether a book is well-written without reading it — or judge a writer’s potential without bothering to clap eyes upon what he has written? Indeed, what agent or editor in her right mind would even consider signing a writer whose work she’s never read?
But ‘fess up, pitchers and queriers: at least at first, you walked into the process hoping that she would, didn’t you?
Another reason writers suddenly finding themselves on the receiving end of a request for pages sometimes feel low is that it can take a lot of nos to get to yes. Yes, no matter how talented one might happen to be: typically, it takes a writer new to the game a while to figure out which agents to approach, let alone how to approach them professionally. Yet due no doubt to that aforementioned pernicious myth that true talent always finds a home, and instantly, many, if not most, aspiring writers presume that any rejection means that they’re not talented enough to get published.
As a direct a simply staggering percentage of queriers, pitchers, and even submitters make the attempt only once. “I tried!” they protest. “But the publishing world didn’t want my work. So why should I try again?”
Um, because agents and editors are individuals, not merely cogs in a vast collective publishing mind? Logically, no single rejection could possibly equal rejection by the entire industry.
To be fair, though, that’s a heck of a lot easier to say than to believe. Rejection hurts; there’s just no way around that. And if one’s work gets rejected enough, the anticipation of further rejection can render even an awfully gosh darned enthusiastic request for pages seem like a spider’s coyly inviting a trusting fly over for a dinner and a movie.
And then there’s the most common reason that successful queriers and pitchers feel less than thrilled by the advent of a cordial request to send pages: they don’t know how to respond. It’s not that they don’t want to take advantage of the opportunity; they’re simply unsure how to do it. What if they inadvertently do something wrong?
Thus this series, in case you had been wondering. No matter how eager you are to get published, it can be genuinely stressful to be asked to submit your work. Especially if you happen to have bought into that pernicious myth, and believe that the process should be easy and quick.
I can tell you now that it won’t be — and that the length and curviness of a writer’s road to publication is a notoriously poor predictor of authorial success. What’s a better predictor, in my experience? A writer’s persistence — and her willingness to take the time to learn how publishing actually works, rather than stubbornly clinging to any myths on the subject that she might have picked up along the way.
Or, to put it another way: while the publishing world does not always reward writers serious enough to professionalize their outlooks, it has a long and glorious history of preferring those that do.
Which is one aspect of how the publishing industry treats writers that I really like, actually: collectively, it tends to assume not only that anyone who can write well enough to deserve to be published is an intelligent human being, but also that a good writer can and will learn the ropes of the business side of publishing prior to expecting to make a living within it. Just as no rational being would walk into an operating theatre and begin performing brain surgery with no previous training or basic knowledge of human anatomy, the logic runs, what smart aspiring writer would believe that successfully pulling off one of the most complex achievements of the human psyche, the writing of a truly good book, requires no advance practice? Or that the industry devoted to bringing those magnificent expressions of the human spirit to public attention has no internal rules or standards to which someone brand-new to the biz would be expected to adhere?
In this era where even news shows operate on the assumption that the average adult has the attention span of a three-year-old — and one who has been stuffing candy into his eager mouth for the last two hours at that — I find agents’ and editors’ presumption of authorial intelligence rather refreshing. If a trifle optimistic in practice.
How so? Well, many successful queriers and pitchers see only the negative fallout of this industry-wide assumption: since the pros expect writers to do their own research before trying to get their books published, rookie submitters are often stunned that nobody in the industry just tells them what to do. Wasn’t this supposed to be easy and straightforward, as the pernicious myth led us to believe? From a first-time querier’s perspective, it can seem downright counterproductive that agents just expect him to know what a query letter should look like, what information it should contain, and that it shouldn’t just read like a back jacket blurb for the book.
Heck, how is someone who has never met an agented author in person to know not just to pick up the phone and call the agent in question? Magic? Osmosis?
Similarly, agents, editors, and contest judges presume that anyone genuinely serious about her writing will have learned how professional writers format their manuscripts — an interesting presumption, given that many, if not most, aspiring writers are not aware that professional manuscripts are not supposed to resemble published books. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not information that the average writer is born knowing — which is a real shame, since professionally-formatted manuscripts tend to be taken far more seriously at submission time than those that are not.
Again: thus this series — and thus the HOW TO FORMAT A BOOK MANUSCRIPT category on the archive list at right. Chant it with me now, those of you who have been following this series closely: people who read manuscripts for a living assume that since good writers are intelligent people, the only reason that a manuscript would not be formatted properly is that the submitter did not bother to do his homework.
In other words, from their perspective, a query or submission that does not conform to their expectations of what is publishable (in terms of writing) or marketable (in terms of content or authorial authority) indicates that the writer just isn’t ready yet to play in the big leagues. He may not be waiting for the Manuscript Fairy to wave her wand over his just-completed first draft, causing an agent — any agent, for what does it matter? — to appear on his doorstep, clamoring to represent writing she hasn’t read, but he isn’t exactly investing the time in learning how professional writing looks, either.
That doesn’t necessarily mean, of course, that the writer question will never produce professional-level work; indeed, folks in the industry tend to assume (and even say at conferences) that they’re confident that if a truly talented writer gets rejected, she will take it as a sign that she needs to improve her presentation. Since the information on how to do that is available — on this website, as a matter of fact — why wouldn’t someone with a genuine gift invest the time and effort in learning to do it right?
In my experience, there’s a very straightforward answer to that: because the average querier or submitter, gifted or otherwise, doesn’t have a clear idea of what he’s doing wrong — or that there is a professional standard to which he should be adhering. And since most rejection letters these days contain absolutely no clue as to what caused the agent (or, more commonly, the agent’s screener) to shove the submission back into the SASE — heck, some agencies no longer respond at all if the answer is no — I don’t find it all that surprising that the aspiring writer’s learning curve is usually quite steep.
That’s why, should you have been speculating on the subject for the last few paragraphs, I am bringing up the expectation of intelligent research at the end of this series on how to respond to a submission request. Indeed, it’s a large part of the reason that I write this blog: from an outside perspective, it’s just too easy to interpret the sometimes esoteric and confusing rules of querying, pitching, and submission as essentially hostile to aspiring writers — and thus as justification for hesitating when faced with a request for pages.
Yes, the hoops through which a new writer needs to jump in order to get his work considered by the pros are many, varied, and sometimes flaming, but that’s not due to any antipathy toward rookies. Honestly, the hoops exist mostly for practical reasons. While many of the querying and submission restrictions have indeed been established in order to narrow the field of candidates for the very, very few new client slots available at most agencies, the intent behind that weeding-down effort is not to discourage talented-but-inexperienced writers from trying to get their work published. The underlying belief is that an intelligent person’s response to rejection will not be to give up, but to analyze what went wrong, do some research about what can go right, and try, try again.
That’s right: the fine folks who toil in agencies and publishing houses don’t expect the writers they reject to disappear permanently, at least not the ones with genuine talent. They believe that the gifted ones will return, this time better equipped for life as a professional writer.
To cite the old publishing industry truism, good writing will always find a home. What the agents and editors who spout this aphorism seldom think to add is: but not necessarily right away. Like learning any other set of job skills, becoming a professional writer can take some time. And one heck of a lot of effort.
Which means, from the business side of the industry’s perspective, writers who give up after just a few rejections — which, as I mentioned, is the norm, not the exception — are those who aren’t genuinely interested in making the rather broad leap between a talented person who likes to write and a professional writer in it for the long haul. Trust me, Millicent the agency screener doesn’t waste too many tears over the loss of the former.
I don’t see it that way, personally: I see the crushed dreams. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that most talented aspiring writers take individual rejections far, far too seriously.
As I said, this is a field of endeavor that not only rewards, but assumes persistence in a writer. Yet in recent years, it seems as though every third aspiring writer I meet has either:
(a) sent out a single query, got rejected, and never tried again,
(b) had a few queries rejected two years ago, and has been feverishly revising the manuscript ever since, despite the fact that no agent had yet seen it,
(c) pitched successfully at a conference, but convinced herself that the only reason four agents asked to see her first chapter was because those agents were too nice not to say yes to everybody,
(d) received a positive response to a query or pitch, then talked himself out of sending the requested materials at all, because his work isn’t good enough — how could it be, when he’s been rejected in that past?
(e) sent out the requested pages, but in order to save herself from disappointment, decided in advance that none of the replies will be positive,
(f) received the first manuscript rejection — and expanded it mentally into a resounding NO! from everyone in the industry, and/or
(g) concluded from conference chatter that no one in the industry is interested in any book that isn’t an obvious bestseller. Why bother to try to break into a biz that doesn’t want new voices?
In short, each of these writers had decided that his or her fears about what happened must have been true, rather than doing the research to find out whether the explanation hurt feelings dictated was in fact the most reasonable one, or even remotely plausible. To address some of the more common leapt-to assumptions, in the order they appeared above:
(a) a single query is not — and cannot, by definition — be indicative of how every agent on earth will react. A better response: why not try again?
(b) until agents have actually seen the manuscript, there’s no way a writer can know how they will respond to it. A better response: work on improving the query.
(c) no, the agents and editors weren’t asking everyone to send pages — pitching just doesn’t work that way. A better response: if your pitch or query garnered a submission request, assume that you did something right and send out the materials.
(d) how do you know for sure until you send it out? A better response: learn how to present your work professionally, then submit it.
(e) in my experience, foretelling doom does not soften future misfortune, if it comes — it only serves to stultify present hope. A better response: hedge your bets by continuing to query other agents while waiting to hear back from the first round.
(f) any agent or editor’s opinion of a book is just that, an opinion. A better response: see (a)
(g) contrary to pernicious myth, the publishing industry makes most of its money on books that are neither bestsellers nor small-run books. Most of the time, the mid-list titles are paying the agency’s mortgage. A better response: take the time to learn how the industry works, rather than killing your chances entirely by not continuing to try.
None of this is to say that bouncing back from rejection is easy, of course, or that landing an agent is a snap. The road from first idea to publication is long and bumpy, and seems to get bumpier all the time.
Honestly, though, is the pain of rejection worse than the strain of not pursing your dream? As Maya Angelou tells us, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”
Yes, it’s emotionally hard work to prep your pages to head out the door to agents and editors; yes, it is hard to wait for replies to your submissions. To give you a foretaste of what’s down the road, it’s also psychically difficult to watch the weeks tick by between when you sign with an agent and when that sterling soul decides that, in her professional opinion, the time is ripe for her to submit your book to editors. And then it’s rough to wait until those editors get around to reading it, just as it is agonizing to hang around, feigning patience, between the time a publisher acquires your book and it appears on the shelves.
I’m not going to lie to you: it’s all incredibly wearing on the nerves. That’s just a fact of authorial life.
That being said, if you are thinking about throwing in the towel on your book before you have given the querying and submission processes a thorough test, I’m just not the right person to look to for validation of that decision. Sorry. I’ll give you practical advice on how to query until we’re both blue the face; I’ll hand you tips on how to improve your submission’s chances until the proverbial cows come home; I’ll share pointers on the fine art of revision until Doomsday; I’ll answer your questions along the way until my fingertips lose their distinctive prints. I will cheer from the sidelines for your efforts as a writer until even the Norse gods decide to call it a day and burn down the world.
As long as you keep trying. A dream that’s fed only on hope without action will eventually starve.
And, frankly, a plan that’s not based upon a realistic understanding of the possible is harder to act upon. One of the few industry truisms that is actually true 100% of the time: the only book that has absolutely no chance of being published is the one that stays hidden in the bottom drawer of the author’s filing cabinet.
Keep pushing forward; keep sending your work out. Because while it’s time-consuming, expensive, and emotionally wearing, it’s also literally the only way that your book — or any book — comes to publication.
What makes me so sure of this? Long-time readers of this blog will groan with recognition, but once again, I feel compelled to remind you that five of the best-selling books of the 20th century were rejected by more than a dozen publishers before they were picked up — and that was back in the days when it was considerably easier to get published. Feel free to count down with me now:
Dr. Seuss, AND TO THINK THAT I SAW IT ON MULBERRY STREET (rejected by 23 publishers)
Richard Hooker, M*A*S*H (21)
Thor Heyerdahl, KON-TIKI (20)
Richard Bach, JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL (18)
Patrick Dennis, AUNTIE MAME (17)
The lesson to derive here: keep moving forward. Please don’t dismiss your book too soon, on the basis of some preconceived notion of what will and will not sell — even if that preconceived notion fell from the ostensibly learned lips of the agent of your dreams.
Concentrate on what you can control, not what you can’t. In order to do that effectively, you’re going to need to learn about how the process actually works. The good news is that the writer does have practically absolute control over the technical and cosmetic aspects of the submission.
Yes, I know — for most of us, getting our thoughts, stories, and worldviews out there is the primary goal of writing a book, so concentrating on the details seems comparatively boring. Most of us want to move directly to unfettered self-expression — and then are surprised and frustrated when the resulting book has difficulty finding an agent, getting published, or winning contests.
But this is a bad idea, both professionally and emotionally. Concentrating almost exclusively on the self-expressive capacity of the book, it’s too easy to read rejection as personal, rather than as what it is: an industry insider’s professional assessment of whether she can sell your work within her preexisting sales network. Ask anyone in the biz, and he will tell you: 99% of rejections are technically-based; the rejection usually isn’t of the submitter’s style or worldview, for the simple reason that those are not considerations unless the basic signs of good writing — in the sense of professional writing — are in the submission.
This can be a very empowering realization. As can coming to terms with the fact that while people may be born with writing talent, the ability to present writing professionally is a learned skill.
Once a writer grasps the difference between technically good writing and stylistic good writing and the distinction between a well-written manuscript and a professionally-formatted one, rejections become less a personal insult than a signal that there may be technical problems. Technical problems are much, much easier to fix than stylistic ones, after all. The question transforms from “Why do they hate me?” to “What can I do to make this submission/query read better?”?
Yes, yes, I know: emotionally speaking, that might not feel like much of an improvement, at least in the short term. But at least when the question is framed in the latter manner, there is something the writer can DO about it.
I’m a big fan of tackling the doable first, and getting to the impossible later. I come from a long line of writers.
Without a doubt, absolutely the best thing you can do to increase your chances is to make sure that your submission is crystal-clear and professionally formatted before you send it out. Pass it under other eyes, preferably those of other writers, people who both know basic good writing when they see it — and have some idea how to fix it.
Why not simply take the advice of anyone who utters the words that sustain so many aspiring writers, “Oh, you write? I’d like to read some of your work sometime.” Longtime readers of this blog, chant with me now: as marvelous as your kith and kin may be as human beings, they are unlikely to give you unbiased feedback — and unbiased, knowledgeable feedback is going to be a heck of a lot more helpful in hoisting your work up over the professional bar than even the most heartfelt friend’s cry of, “Oh, this is great.” Ask any professional writer.
What else can you control, even a little? Well, you can avoid sending your query or submission during the traditional industry dead times (between the second week of August and Labor Day; between Thanksgiving and New Year’s day), or predictable periods of heavy submission (immediately after New Year’s, right after school gets out for the summer). You don’t want to have your work end up in the read when we get around to it pile.
So for heaven’s sake, don’t forget to take a great big marker and write REQUESTED MATERIALS on the outside of your envelope, so your marvelous submission doesn’t get tossed into the unsolicited manuscript pile for a few months. It’s a good idea, too, to mention that these are requested materials in your hugely polite cover letter that you enclose with the manuscript: “Thank you for asking to see the first three chapters of my novel.”?
While I’m being governessy, I might as well add: always, always include a SASE — a stamped, self-addressed envelope — with enough postage (stamps, not metered) for your manuscript’s safe return. Mention the SASE in your cover letter. This marks you as a courteous writer who will be easy to work with and a joy to help. If you want to move your reputation up into the peachy range, include a business-size SASE as well, to render it a snap to ask you to see the rest of the manuscript. Make it as easy as possible for them to reach you to tell you that they love your book.
And remember, no matter how excited you are to get that manuscript out the door, don’t overnight it unless an agent or editor specifically asks you to do so; priority mail, or even regular mail, is fine. This is true, even if the agent who has had your first chapter for two months e-mails you and asks for the rest of the manuscript immediately. It’s neither appropriate nor necessary to waste your precious resources on overnight shipping.
Trust me on this one: your book may be the next PEYTON PLACE or JAWS, but honey, it is unlikely that the agent’s office is holding its collective breath, doing nothing until it receives your manuscript. Hurrying on your end will not speed their reaction time.
Another way to keep your momentum going while you wait: since turn-around times tend to be long (a safe bet is to double what the agent tells you; call or e-mail after that, for they may have genuinely lost your manuscript), do not stop sending out queries just because you have an agent looking at your manuscript or book proposal. If an agent turns you down — perish the thought! — you will be much, much happier if you have other options already in motion.
Not to mention the fact that you will have less time on your hands. No one is better at conjuring scenarios of doom than a creative person with some leisure time. Keep chugging forward.
Don’t let the hobgoblins of self-doubt carry you off, my friends. Have faith in your writing — and work hard to learn as much as you can to maximize your book’s chances of success. And, of course, keep up the good work!
I had to laugh yesterday, campers: as so often happens here at Author! Author!, everyday life rushed to provide a perfect metaphor for something we had been discussing here on this very forum. Or, more accurately in this case, something about which I had been blogging extensively, while scores of aspiring writers read silently — and a tiny minority buttonholed me privately to try to discuss offline. Take a gander at what popped into my inbox:
I have parts of your blog and am thankful for your July 25, 2012 post regarding proper ms format. I just have a couple other questions that I didn’t see addressed in your post. If you could help me on this I would be greatly appreciated.
1. I have a finished memoir, just doing editing now from my printed copy. I am not sure how to deal with dialogue. I know obviously it is in quotes, me talking to someone or someone telling me something, but what I am not sure about is the format this dialogue should be in the ms itself. ie: is each speaking part on a separate line? or just within the paragraphs and continued on with the rest of the story afterwards?
2. And I know you mention this a little in your post, but I have a lot of areas in my ms where I mention where I thought something, or one of my other “characters” used to say something, etc. How do I format? You mention when a character has a thought to either put it in single quotes OR say I thought. But not sure if this pertains to my situation with my memoir. Also, do I do a separate line for these instances as well?
3. for my chapters, they are a little different than a normal book, each one is going to note the year, age, etc that that particular part of the story is referring to, is it ok to have the chapter title be 2 lines, and does it need to be in all caps?
Thanks so much for any help you can provide.
Why, since I receive artless little missives like this about once per week, did this one strike me as such an apt exemplar for our ongoing series on common post-pitching and post-querying faux pas? Well, several reasons. First, I was supposed to cover every aspect of professional manuscript formatting in a single post? Admittedly, the post in question did provide a visual overview of what standard format looks like, but in it, I urged readers new to the rules to consult the HOW TO FORMAT A BOOK MANUSCRIPT category on the archive list at right for fuller explanations. In addition, the aptly-named MANUSCRIPTS AND HOW TO FORMAT THEM PROPERLY category contains a heading for DIALOGUE FORMATTING, and there was this particularly handy post on dialogue formatting? Because third, and most to the point of this series, obviously, the proper place to ask this set of questions would have been — wait for it — in the comments section of my July 25th post, would it not?
Yet this puzzled writer, like so many others, saw fit to contact me privately about it. And that, frankly, would have mystified not only most bloggers, but anyone with significant experience with the publishing industry.
Let’s take the blog-related perplexity first. Even a couple of years ago, virtually no regular blog reader would have dreamt of asking questions anyplace but the comments. Oh, some of you might have chosen to inquire in the comments section of my most recent post — also a good option, by the way — in order to engender comment amongst regular readers, rather than tying your comments to the post in question, but logically, most readers understood that if they had a beef with a publicly-displayed post, the blog format featured a comments section for a reason.
And that reason was ease of discussion. The difference between a blog and a column, after all, lies largely in formatting — in a blog, readers have ready access to a forum in which to express their opinions, gratitude, and/or criticism of a post. While in the past, readers who wanted to chime would have had to sit down and write a letter to the editor of a publication, wait to see if the editor thought that letter worthy of publication, and then wait again to see if any other reader decided to write a letter in response to that letter, all a blog reader has to do to share his thoughts publicly is to — again, wait for it — click on COMMENTS and share his thoughts publicly.
Emphasis upon publicly: before the rise of hand-held devices, few readers would have considered it either acceptable or desirable to shatter the well-established wall between public and private by e-mailing a blogger to discuss the subject matter of a post. Not only does it defeat the purpose of a blog — which is, correct me if I am wrong, to discuss issues of mutual interest in a public forum — but in a blog devoted to helping the literally millions of aspiring writers deal with the thorny and often perplexing issues of manuscript submission, it’s inefficient.
Why? Well, if a question is asked and answered in the comments, there’s a reasonable hope that someone else will benefit from the answer, right? If, by contrast, I invited (or even permitted) every single one of you to contact me offline to ask (forgive me for putting it this way, but it’s true) the same fifteen or twenty questions over and over again, I wouldn’t be a blogger — I would be a secret question-answering service.
That’s why, in case any of you had been wondering, my archive list (conveniently located on the lower right-hand side of this page) is so extensive and contains so many specific questions: since I have been at this for more than seven years, I have addressed a plethora of common concerns. Rather than reinventing the wheel, as the saying goes, for each curious reader, I have chosen in the spirit of public discussion to make those previous posts easy to find.
And just a few years ago, that would have been considered going above and beyond the obligations of a blogger. These days, however, the individual’s ability to whip out her iPhone, perform a 15-second search, and come up with at least a superficial answer to most common questions has, rather surprisingly to many of us that provide online content, has lead to a pervasive expectation that any question, regardless of complexity, should be answerable and should already have been directly answered somewhere online.
How else, after all, would one find it in a 15-second search?
Actually, I don’t have a problem with that: one of the advantages of living in the current age is ease of information access; I would not have made thousands of pages of professional insight available had I not wished to — are you tired yet of being told to wait for it? — make them available to millions of struggling writers.
That does not mean, however, that I don’t find it surprising when a reader who does not instantly find what he wants on my site — and, as in this instance, apparently does not check the archive list to see if I’ve ever dealt with the issue before — leaps to the twin conclusions that (a) I must have fallen down on the job by not having anticipated the specific question he had in mind and (b) I must therefore be willing to donate my time for a private tutorial on the subject.
Instead of, say, donating my time to the writing community at large by blogging about it in public, where not only one, but millions of aspiring writers had access to the answer.
I’m bringing this up not because I’m peevish — although you might be surprised at how often those of us that blog for aspiring writers talk among ourselves about the startling recent rise in offline demands like this. I’m aware that sometimes, readers may feel a bit awkward about posting questions on months-old posts. (To set your minds at ease on this point: my blogging program informs me whenever any reader comments on any post, no matter how old. People post questions on old posts all the time.)
Throughout this series, we have been discussing the sometimes broad, wide, and deep gap between what aspiring writers can consider acceptable in approaching agents and editors and what the pros do. And, frankly, agents and editors who blog are not the only ones who have been receiving missives like this lately. Which, to someone familiar with how the publishing industry works, is genuinely shocking.
It’s become astonishingly common for aspiring writers to send long, chatty questions to agents to whom they have pitched at conferences, for instance — or even those they have merely heard speak at one. You’d be amazed at how many queries read like demands to drop everything and pay attention to the sender. And just the other day, an aspiring writer e-mailed me triumphantly to announce that, contrary to what I have always strenuously recommended on this blog, he had picked up the phone, called the agent that represented TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, and not immediately been rejected.
In fact, the nice person on the other end of the phone line answered his question: yes, cold-calling an agent to pitch is completely unacceptable. Who knew?
If you’ll pardon my saying so, anyone who reads this blog regularly would have. So would anyone who had taken the time to check the aforementioned extensively indexed archive list at right. Yet, like the formatting enthusiast above, the cold-caller not only did not check what I have written publicly to see if I had addressed the issue — he went out of his way to e-mail me to tell me so.
Privately. Where no other aspiring writer could possibly learn anything from the communication.
I tremble to add this, but it’s also become amazingly common for successful queriers and pitchers — you know, the ones who did take the time to learn how agencies work, made a polite approach to an agent or editor, and garnered a request for the opening pages — to expect to hear back from the requesting pros within a week or two. Or even just a few days.
That’s an unreasonable set of expectations, from a professional perspective: it’s not as though these writers’ manuscripts are the only ones that the agent or editor has requested in the last few months, right? It’s only fair that the pros would read what’s already on their desks before they turned to a newly-arrived submission. And savvy submitters know that, because — feel free to chant it with me now, campers — an agent or editor’s request for manuscript pages does not constitute a promise to drop everything and read your work.
Aspiring writers often believe otherwise, of course, but until fairly recently, norms of social behavior and high long-distance telephone rates rendered follow-up calling blessedly uncommon. In years past, these justifiably anxious submitters might have been forced to stew in their own impatience until they received either a thin letter asking for the rest of the manuscript or the return of their pages in a postally-battered SASE.
Admit it: even those of you who know better have been tempted to nag, right? That’s natural, but it’s also problematic, given the current state of technology: today, the ease of e-mail permits, if not downright encourages, gun-jumping. Many an excitable submitter has been known to stand it as long as she can, then shoot off an ill-advised message in the wee hours, demanding to know what on earth could possibly be taking so long.
And because many agents are darned nice people, she might actually receive a soothing, I’ll-get-to-it-soon reply. But fair warning, gun-jumpers: this is a response that a submitter is likely to get only once, if at all. Which is unfortunate, as many aspiring writers apparently find the ability to generate those soothing replies rather addictive. Or so I surmise, for I hear all time about — and from; had I mentioned that boundaries regarding e-mailing online advice-givers have become rather porous? — submitters who just can’t stand to wait another month. Or week. Or day.
In case I’m being too subtle here: whatever you do during what can be an extended wait to hear back about your manuscript, repress the urge to demand constant status updates. Trust me, it will not get your submission read faster — in fact, it might get your manuscript rejected on the spot.
Being pushy is not — how shall I put this? — likely to make you any friends at the agency. It’s considered quite rude for a writer to try to rush a decision, in fact. (Interesting, considering that writers often have only a week or two to decide whether to accept a publishing offer, and most agents will expect a yes or no on a representation offer right away.) It’s also not a good way to convince an agent that you’ll be a dream client: why would anyone at an agency believe that a writer that e-mails four times in a two-month period to try to find out if the agent has decided whether to represent a manuscript won’t do precisely the same thing if and when that agent is circulating that manuscript to publishing houses — a process that often takes months, if not years?
Oh, should I have warned you that one was coming? Crunching a dry cracker should help with the nausea.
I bring this up advisedly, because the often vast differential between writers’ expectations and publishing realities can, and increasingly frequently does, lead inexperienced pitchers, queriers, and submitters to believe, wrongly, that directly and forcefully contacting an agent or editor is not only acceptable, but appropriate. And as those of you who attend writers’ conferences or read agents’ blogs are probably already aware, people who handle manuscripts for a living tend not to be all that fond of being hounded, nagged, or otherwise blamed for — were you already waiting for it — not dropping everything to pay attention to any particular aspiring writer.
Fortunately, the genuinely rude are relatively rare; as those of us that work with aspiring writers like to say, 99.99% of the pros’ perennial complaints about how pushy writers are actually refer not to the ten thousand who approach respectfully, but the one who does not.
And that one, in my experience, tends to be brand-new to the game — and harboring the astoundingly popular misconception that a really good manuscript from a first-time writer is uncommon enough that the pros will want to be disturbed at work to hear about it. Or, now that e-mail makes disturbing total strangers so darned convenient, rousted in the dead of night to read a pitch.
Or — you saw this coming, right? — to answer a question from a writer they’ve never met, one who evidently doesn’t realize that there are literally millions of aspiring writers who want to get published every bit as much as she does. From a professional perspective, then, this type of approach is simply queue-jumping: rather than doing what pretty much every successful author has had to do, learn how the publishing industry actually works and abide by its quite strict rules of conduct, the dead-of-night e-mailer or spur-of-the-moment caller believes, wrongly, that those rules don’t apply to him.
He has talent, so how could they? And had he mentioned how much he wants to get his manuscript published?
Which, admittedly, is not a new thing for first-time writers to think — I can’t think of a time in modern publishing history when agents and editors did not complain of constantly receiving pay attention to me now! missives — but the technology that enables them to act upon these beliefs is. What’s interesting about the rise of e-mailed pushiness, I think, is not that there are so many impatient aspiring writers, or that a hefty swathe of them should have come to believe that it’s the pros’ job to drop everything to hear pitches or answer questions but how often these attempts appear to be the sender’s first attempt to track down the information.
How can we tell? Well, let’s take another peek at the undoubtedly well-intentioned questions my dead-of-night e-mailer sent me.
1. I have a finished memoir, just doing editing now from my printed copy. I am not sure how to deal with dialogue. I know obviously it is in quotes, me talking to someone or someone telling me something, but what I am not sure about is the format this dialogue should be in the ms itself. ie: is each speaking part on a separate line? or just within the paragraphs and continued on with the rest of the story afterwards?
2. And I know you mention this a little in your post, but I have a lot of areas in my ms where I mention where I thought something, or one of my other “characters” used to say something, etc. How do I format? You mention when a character has a thought to either put it in single quotes OR say I thought. But not sure if this pertains to my situation with my memoir. Also, do I do a separate line for these instances as well?
3. for my chapters, they are a little different than a normal book, each one is going to note the year, age, etc that that particular part of the story is referring to, is it ok to have the chapter title be 2 lines, and does it need to be in all caps?
From a professional perspective, these are rather revealing questions. First, my nocturnal e-mailer must be brand-new to submitting memoir, at least to US-based agencies: not only does she refer to the characters in her memoir as “characters,” as if characters existed only in fiction, but in this country, the overwhelming majority of memoir is not sold on a finished manuscript, but upon a book proposal. While some agencies do ask first-time memoirists to see a full manuscript first, that’s because it’s often emotionally very difficult to complete a memoir; the human psyche, after all, does not make a huge distinction between reliving an experience vividly enough to write about it well and living through it directly. The pros want to make sure someone new to the game is already dealing with that.
Then, too, questions (1) and (2) might have been answered by opening not only virtually any published memoir, but most published books. My guess here, then, is that what the sender was actually asking here is not a question about dialogue formatting per se. I think she really wanted to know is whether there is a special dialogue format for memoirs, or perhaps for first-person narratives in general.
The answer to that one is short, sweet, and could easily have been answered in the comments on that post: no. Dialogue is dialogue, period.
The question about thought would also raise eyebrows for another couple of reasons: in a first-person narrative, the narrator’s thought is generally presented as just part of the narrative; if everything in the book is from the memoirist’s perspective, it’s hardly necessary to keep informing the reader of the fact. And in a first-person narrative, of course, it’s impossible to cite the thought of any character other than the narrator, right? If the narrative is quoting somebody else’s speech, that’s dialogue, not thought.
And, while we’re being technical, would I be too editorial-minded of me to point out that I have literally never advised any aspiring writer formatting a work for the U.S. market to use single quotation marks for thought? Or, indeed, for anything purpose other than designating a quote within a quote, for the exceedingly simple reason that it’s incorrect in American English?
Before we go into the horrifying possibility that my e-mailer contacted me about some other writing guru’s advice, let’s once again go over this often-misunderstood piece of punctuation. Contrary to popular belief amongst aspiring writers, single quotation marks (‘) do not carry a special meaning in American English, nor is using them instead of italics to emphasize a word or phrase proper. Nor is the decision to use single quotation marks (‘) or the American standard double (“) a stylistic one, ever. So how may a single quotation mark be used in American English? In only one manner: when a character quotes something someone else has said. In that instance, the overall quote falls within doubled quotation marks, and with the single quotes designating what the speaker is saying someone else has said. As in:
“Well, then Antonio saw me and yelled, ‘Hey, get out of here,’ and I ran away,” Ellen explained. “But not before I shouted over my shoulder, ‘Watch out for the rampaging tiger behind you!’”
My point about the two — and only two — means of correctly formatting thought in a text has absolutely nothing to do with this. As, indeed, one might surmise from the fact that in the post in question, I specifically said not to place thought within quotation marks, as Jane Austen did; it’s exceedingly old-fashioned, and it obviates the point of quotation marks, which is to indicate to the reader that something was uttered out loud.
Or, to put it another way, thought is not dialogue. Easy to remember, isn’t it?
What I did say, as it happens, is that it drives Millicent the agency screener — and, indeed, any classically-trained professional reader — completely nuts when she sees thought designated redundantly on the page. It’s always proper to designate thought with — five, six, seven, eight — the phrase I thought, of course. However, in some book categories (not all; check recent releases in yours), it is also considered acceptable to use italics to show what is being thought, as opposed to said. Thus, both of these would be correct in standard format:
I’ll never come here again, Hermione thought, slamming the door behind her.
I’ll never come here again. Hermione slammed the door behind her.
Makes sense, right? Since Hermione thought and the italics are intended to convey precisely the same thing to the reader, this formulation would be redundant:
I’ll never come here again, Hermione thought, slamming the door behind her.
Everybody clear on that? Excellent. Now let’s return to the question that’s probably been burning in my mind far more than in yours: did my e-mail correspondent mix my advice up with somebody else’s — and is that what she actually meant when she mentioned that I have parts of your blog? Did some well-meaning but organizationally challenged third party copy excerpts of my formatting run-downs without my permission (a copyright violation, by the way), throw them into a bowl with bits of other online advice, stir, and hand it to our question-asking friend?
Or — and this seems to happen quite often to writers who glean most of their writing guidelines online — has simply read so many different and probably mutually contradictory sources that she has concluded that I was advising something quite far removed from what I actually recommended?
Either way, no wonder she was confused. Again, I could simply refer her to the extensive explanations and many visual aids under the HOW TO FORMAT A BOOK MANUSCRIPT category, but I honestly would like to figure out what happened here. Here’s the example I used in the post she cites, a page in standard format, with all of its constituent parts labeled:
And here is her question:
3. for my chapters, they are a little different than a normal book, each one is going to note the year, age, etc that that particular part of the story is referring to, is it ok to have the chapter title be 2 lines, and does it need to be in all caps?
See the problem? The example shows a two-line chapter heading — and nothing on this page is in all-caps formatting. Nor do any of the other examples I include in that post feature all-caps formatting; conscientiously, I went back and checked, although to the best of my recollection, I have never advised its use for a title.
Why would I? It wouldn’t be proper in standard format. We must reluctantly conclude, then, that my late-night correspondent was in fact asking about somebody else’s advice.
Again, I’m bringing this up not to be peevish, or even to call her out for disturbing my night with a question she fairly clearly should have been aiming at someone else; mixing up online writing advice is much more common than any of us who habitually give such advice might hope. That’s to be expected, given how much self-described expert advice is floating around out there and how many aspiring writers engage in 15-second searches of it. What is surprising is that, being confused, she approached me offline with her questions about it.
Now, we could easily get all Freudian about motivation here — is it possible that she contacted me privately because she was aware that she wasn’t entirely sure of the source of her confusion, and if so, have I completely defeated that purpose by discussing it in public? — but this is a practical blog: I am far more concerned about writers’ actions than their intentions. This e-mail caused me to worry, then, not only about how my correspondent and all of the many, many aspiring writers like her are acquiring and processing formatting and submission information, but what they might do with it.
Specifically, about whether anything about this missive would be likely to get this obviously well-meaning writer in trouble if she sent something similar to an agent. And the answer is yes.
Half of you just rolled your eyes, didn’t you? “Please don’t tell me again to ‘wait for it,’ Anne,” the more experienced submitters among you scoff, “although, naturally, I relish the opportunity to demonstrate that I am adept at using quotes within quotes. You’ve already made the point — and quite forcefully, too — that as charming and addictive as those 15-second searches can be, they might not always be the best means of finding reliable information upon subjects as inherently complex as successful writing, manuscript formatting, querying, and/or submission. You’ve also already explained, albeit indirectly, that just because it’s possible to discover a publishing professional’s e-mail address online doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a good idea to use it in the dark of night. Or any other time, for that matter. But I can’t help but feel that few of us who have read through this post are likely to succumb to that temptation anytime soon — and that those of us who have been submitting for a good, long while already know better. So what may I, a reader that would never even consider snatching up a phone and calling an agent I have never met or sending repeated, nagging e-mails to one that has my submission, learn here?”
Well, a couple of things — but you’re right that most of this post has been aimed at those that are new to the biz. Frankly, the question of whether it’s okay to approach an agent or editor informally — or to cold-call them at all — is just not one that would occur to someone who has been hanging around publishing for long. Since agents and editors do not pick up new writers that way, to us, it’s a self-evidently self-defeating tactic.
Or, to put it a bit more bluntly, there’s a reason that e-mails like this are seldom answered at all. In a world with rapidly-dissolving boundaries, the sub-world of books remains a place where manners count. Thank goodness.
I do have an ulterior motive for devoting a post within this particular series to the all-too-common problem of writers assuming that any publishing pro that’s nice to them, or even seems from afar to be approachable, is going to be willing to give private advice. In the first place, one does not have to work in publishing very long to be aware that there are literally millions of aspiring writers out there — as queriers and submitters so often lament, sheer volume prevents most agencies from having the time to respond individually to each. Heck, it’s become downright common for agencies not to tell a submitter at all if they’ve rejected a manuscript.
Yes, even if they requested the whole thing. From the writer’s perspective, one of the side effects of the astronomical increase of submission spurred by the wide use of personal computers has been that her submission’s getting rejected and simply having gotten lost, either in the mail or at a paper-laden agency, looks remarkably similar. I’m afraid that there’s little that aspiring writers can do about that, other than to send a single, well-mannered e-mail a few months after the manuscript has arrived at the agency, politely double-checking that it did in fact arrive in one piece.
If that e-mail does not elicit a reply, the only sensible course is to assume that it’s been rejected and move on. Again, as tempting as it may be to presume that having been asked to send pages has given a writer some rights, repeated or nagging e-mails are unlikely to help your case.
Yes, yes, I know: it’s a bitter pill to swallow. Ready for one that might be even harder to choke down?
Brace yourself, please: greater experience submitting — or even attending writers’ conferences, which tends to accelerate a writer’s learning curve about how the industry works — will not necessarily help an aspiring writer avoid the problems of over-familiarity or less-than-reasonable expectations. And that’s unfortunate, because just as the pros assume that any writer serious about getting published will take the time to learn how professional book manuscripts are put together — a presumption so pervasive that few agencies even list the strictures of standard format on their websites, speaking of things that might not pop up in a 15-second search — agents and editors tend to believe that any new writer accomplished enough to write beautiful prose will have learned along the way how submission works.
Find that hard to believe? When’s the last time you heard an agent say at even a very good literary conference, “Look, we have mountains of requested materials to read. If we asked for it, we are interested, but the idea that we would be ready to make an offer of representation on a manuscript we received a week ago is pretty laughable. Unless, of course, the book was written by a celebrity, there’s a clear pop culture demand for a book on that particular subject AND the writer happens to be an expert, or the writer’s just done awfully well in a prestigious writing contest. Or if I happen to be stuck on an airplane with nothing else to read, and you’re my college roommate’s ne’er-do-well younger brother. Otherwise, be prepared to wait.”
That’s all likely to be true, but it would be an extremely unwise speech to give at a writer’s conference, wouldn’t it? The attendees might well rush the stage, perhaps after first snatching up any torches and pitchforks that happened to be handy.
Because good writers so often send off their manuscripts without any clear notion of how long it might be before they are likely to see them again — if, indeed, they will see those pages again at all — and because successful pitchers in particular are prone to tumbling into the trap of believing that a nice conversation with an agent or editor at a conference implies both the beginning of a friendship and an implicit promise to toss aside whether happens to be on the pro’s desk to read their submissions the instant they arrive, I’m going to share one more case study before I sign off for the day. To be candid, the writer in this situation is someone of whom you have probably heard; he’s now a pretty well-established author. He finally gave in to my two years of blandishments to allow me to use his story here on the blog only if I changed enough details to render him unrecognizable.
So don’t even try. Just keep his fame in the back of your mind as you read his tale of woe and uproar, to remind you that no matter how talented a writer might happen to be, it’s easy to get sucked into unreasonable expectations. Not to mention unreasonable hopes.
And his story, too, begins with an e-mail I received in the dead of night. I had known Teddy — not his real name, naturally; nice try, guessers — for years before he got his first break; it’s actually not all that uncommon for writers that end up getting published to have met on the writers’ conference circuit. (Yet another reason that it’s a good idea to attend them: no one, but no one, will understand your joy at finally landing an agent or selling your first book than a fellow writer who has been rooting for you since you shared the last bagel on a conference breakfast buffet.) Yet this was the first time he had ever e-mailed me in a panic.
Bear with me here, because I have something to confess. Remember those agents you suggested I query if my pitches didn’t work out? Well, I have not yet contacted them because Respected P. Editorvich from Arewe, Literate, & How had asked me to send my book directly to him. Dream agency, dream connection, right?
I sent him the manuscript last September. I gritted my teeth until May of this year, then I e-mailed him. He said that he loved what he had read thus far, but had misplaced the book during a move! Okay, it happens. I resubmitted, telling him that I wanted my book in his hands.
That was five weeks ago. Last week, I sent him an e-mail asking about the book, but I haven’t heard back from him. At this point, I don’t know how to handle the situation. I’m a newbie in the confusing world of publication.
Do you mind if I ask for your advice? When Respected initially asked to see the book, he had told me I didn’t need an agent at that point. In my shoes, would you wait to hear from him or would you seek representation? Let the agent make the next move?
Finally, do you still think those agents are the best for my book? You keep a much closer eye on acquisitions than I do.
Okay, what did Teddy do wrong here? Or are those of you new to submitting reeling too much from the notion of not hearing back from September to May of the following year — or, indeed, for five weeks?
Or do all of those huffing sounds mean that some of you have taken umbrage at the very question of wrongdoing? “But Teddy did nothing wrong here!” some of you cry, demonstrating admirable loyalty to a fellow writer whom you have probably never met. “All he did was do what Respected asked!”
True enough, but he also did something Respected didn’t ask him to do — and something that placed himself at a genuine disadvantage. Any guesses?
Award yourself a gold star for the day if you immediately leapt to your feet and shouted, “He gave the editor an unrequested exclusive!” Unless Respected had already offered to acquire the manuscript (extraordinarily unlikely, considering that he had not yet read it) or stated point-blank that he would not look at it unless Teddy promised not to seek representation (which would have been ethically questionable), Teddy was under no obligation not to seek out an agent while Arewe, Literate, & How was considering the manuscript. He would certainly have been in a better position when the manuscript got lost if he had: while it’s always a trifle dicey for a writer to prod an editor politely to try to speed up reading times, it’s an integral part of an agent’s job. Everyone expects it, and rightly so.
Oh, dear, more huffing? Has my site been invaded by the Big, Bad Wolf? “But Anne, Respected said that he didn’t need an agent, under the circumstances! And Teddy waited a whole eight months before contacting the editor — far, far longer than I could have stood the suspense. So now, not only do I not think he did anything wrong; I think he’s a saint.”
Actually, his saintliness in this situation harmed him, too: he would have been well within his rights to send that polite follow-up e-mail within 6 months, if not 4. And while I’m sure that every aspiring writer currently treading the earth’s surface can sympathize with Teddy’s not wanting to put in the energy, effort, and emotional strain of querying agents while his dream publisher was mulling over the book, is he really better off now because he waited? Or merely going into the querying process more frustrated?
I get the appeal, of course: if Respected had snapped up the book right away, he probably would have referred Teddy to a good agent. But there was no guarantee of that — or, indeed, of Arewe, Literate, & How’s picking up the book. So, again, what did Teddy gain by holding off on seeking out an agent he might eventually have to find, anyway?
By the dark night Teddy sent me this e-mail, however, all of this was water under the bridge, spilled milk, and in all other ways beyond his power to change, short of constructing a time machine and returning to the day before the conference at which he met Respected. As he asked me at the time, what should he do now?
The short answer is no, I would not advise waiting until he hear from the editor. I would advise him to do now what he should have done the previous September: queried widely. Then, as now, his position with Arewe, Literate, & How’s could only have been strengthened by landing an agent.
Why? Well, a couple of reasons. As is common for major American publishers, ALH does have a policy against considering work by unrepresented authors. However, like some others, they do occasionally set that rule aside if they believe that they can pick up a book at a conference cheaper than they would be able to if an agent was involved. So it might well have made a great deal of sense to Respected to try to get in on the ground floor of Teddy’s book, so to speak, by trying to nab him before he signed with someone that would try to drive up the price.
Which is, incidentally, a good agent’s job, too. It’s expected — and the fact that Respected knew that there was not an agent involved might well have affected the timeline here. If Teddy had submitted his work through an agent, that agent could legitimately have been calling or e-mailing Respected every couple of weeks, to follow up. But since the editor was dealing with Teddy directly, he could rely upon aspiring writers’ well-founded fear of being pushy.
Because Teddy was one of the conscientious ones that worries about treading on professional toes, he knew better than to ask for updates too early and too often. Indeed, he erred on the side of caution: following up in 4-6 months, and then very politely, is what’s considered acceptable for a writer dealing with an editor directly.
Given this set of ambient expectations, then, it was not all that surprising that Respected did not respond to Teddy’s second e-mail; he had jumped the gun. It’s not as though the submission clock doesn’t start afresh with a requested resubmission, and five weeks is not a particularly long time, in publishing circles.
Especially for an unagented manuscript. Let’s face it, Teddy had already made it fairly plain that he’s not planning to introduce an agent into this situation: when he sent the second submission, told Respected that he would already agree to any terms ALH might want to set for publication. (How an editor would hear “I want my book in your hands,” in all probability.) Respected could also surmise from it that Teddy had not submitted it to other editors, either, so he has no reason to fear that another publishing house will buy it out from under him. Why, then, should he hurry?
See why placing all of your eggs in this one basket might not have been in Teddy’s best interest? Even though he did legitimately misinterpret Respected statement about not needing an agent — elicited, I later found out, in response to Teddy’s asking in the pitch meeting whether he would need to find an agent before sending the pages Respected requested — there is no such thing as a tacit request for an exclusive read.
Chant it with me now, campers: if an agent or editor wants to be the only one reading something, she will make a writer promise that will be the case.
But aspiring writers often walk away from pitch meetings with the opposite impression, don’t they? They believe, and with some reason, that if an editor is enthusiastic about a manuscript, she has made a provisional commitment to publishing it. And, let’s face it, it would be a lot easier on the writer if that were the case.. But a nice conversation at a conference is just a nice conversation at a conference.
I know, I know: it doesn’t feel that way, but as Teddy’s case shows, what the writer feels a post-pitch conversation might have meant over and above what was actually said is not binding on anyone. He took a gamble that Respected would like the book enough that he could bypass the usual steps by which manuscripts get published. Even if everything had worked out perfectly, though, he would still have needed to get an agent eventually — it would have merely meant that he would have been doing so with a book contract in hand.
And then his agent would have spent the next two years telling Teddy that he should have brought to her before you signed it. Because that, too, is her job.
I can sense some cringing those of you terrified of offending the prose (bless your hearts), but honestly, Teddy would have not run any more risk of affronting Respected by pursuing representation five weeks into the second submission than if he’d floated fifty queries before he submitted at all. In fact, he needn’t even have told the editor he was doing it.
Why should he? The worst that could have happened if both Respected and an agent fell in love with it simultaneously is that Teddy would have told the agent that he wanted to go with ALH. His new agent would have been thrilled to be spared the work of pitching the manuscript to at least one likely prospect, and Respected would have had someone calling all the time to speed up him reading process — and to tell him if another editor was also reading it.
My advice to Teddy, then, was that he should query 5 or 10 agents right away (I cranked out a few more recommendations), and keep that many queries in circulation until he attracted a firm offer from somebody. I also cautioned him, though, not to contact Respected again until either he had some concrete news to report — that Teddy had landed an agent, that another editor was reading the book — or until Respected has had the new version for 4-6 months.
That’s not at all an unusual turn-around time these days, after all. And then, I would simply e-mail to ask if he is still interested.
Politely. Once. If Respected does not respond at that point, Teddy should move on.
Regardless of what happened next, however, under NO circumstances would it have ever been in Teddy’s best interest to contact Respected and say any version of, “Hey, what gives? You have not has not done as I expected!” Respected already knows how he has handled the manuscript; no good can come from reminding him.
So what, you may be wondering, was the overall moral here? Respect professional limits. Be polite. Resist the urge to hit SEND.
And no matter how many times you have queried or submitted, don’t assume that the pro asking to see your pages is saying anything more than that she wants to see your pages. If you’re in doubt whether you are being asked to submit exclusively, chances are that you’re not.
But, as always, if you’re not sure about what an agent or editor requesting your manuscript wants you to do, ask. Once. Politely. And in the proper forum. But do bear in mind that once you cry wolf, you can’t take it back.
Wow, this was a long one, even by my standards, wasn’t it? Well, when I disillusion people, I like to do it thoroughly. Keep posting those good questions in the comments, everyone, and keep up the good work!
I had promised you fine people a weekend of posts on craft, but once I consulted that subsection of my always-burgeoning to-blog-about-when-I-can-find-the-time list, I realized that I could conceivably treat you to a full season of it. Ever since, I’ve been paralyzed by indecision about where in the morass to start.
Why is the list so long, you ask? It’s a predictable side effect of living on an editor’s desk, I’m afraid: I hate to break it to those of you new to the biz, but to read manuscripts for a living is to develop an ever-burgeoning array of literary pet peeves, and violent ones at that.
I’m not merely talking about coming to feel a well-justified horror of typos, finding that one’s eye twitches at the sight of the fourth sentence in the passive voice within a single paragraph, or startling one’s neighbors by hoarse, strangled cries of “Why do you hate the English language?” at manuscripts displaying a blithe disregard of subject-object agreement, either. Most classically-trained professional readers enter the game with such attitudes and behaviors.
Those of us who have been at it for a while pick up much more sophisticated irritation-triggers, born of seeing the same types of plot device over and over again. A deep sense of futility at a story that opens with an unnamed woman, possibly clutching baby, fleeing equally unidentified pursuers at night through some sort of uninhabited landscape — forest, blasted heath, alligator-infested swamp, etc. — in a state of inarticulate terror. Sheer repetition may cause editorial malaise may escalate to free-floating anxiety if the lady in question happens to be sporting tattered garments, be toting some priceless yet surprisingly portable family heirloom, or possess (shudder) long, flowing hair that catches on the brambles/heather/passing reptiles as she runs breathlessly toward the uncertain future. If that hair happens to be — can I bring myself to type it? — the color of sunset or sunlight, all the pro can do is long for Death’s sweet embrace or the ability to shout “Next!”, whichever is more convenient.
Not all well-worn openings induce such extreme reactions, of course. An experienced agency screener might only sigh gustily over the eighteenth submission of the week in which the protagonist wakes up with no idea of where s/he is. Eyes might be rolled if that hapless soul is similarly in the dark over who s/he is. Those eyes will not begin searching the room for some handy stabbing implement unless that protagonist happens to glance into a nearby reflective surface — mirror, limpid pool, an unusually shiny gum wrapper — and note, possibly wonderingly, that s/he has blue eyes, long blonde or red hair, and pleasing facial features. (Why does no one ugly ever wake up an amnesiac?) If that self-assessment includes the sight of a leg, and that leg happens to be shapely, the implement may be used on ourselves.
And as fond as those of us pursue the life literary tend to be of caffeinated beverages, particularly of the warm variety (I’m looking at you, Millicent), we have been known to set them aside with unnecessary vim, resulting in splashing, when a narrative stops dead in its tracks in order to depict the protagonist (possibly one with long red, blonde, or raven tresses) having a heart-to-heart with a quite a bit less physically attractive best friend/confidante coworker/improbably non-judgmental parent about the ongoing conflict, to try to figure out what the heck s/he is going to do about it. We’ll take a God-give-me-strength-or-at-least-stamina sip if the protagonist and (usually her) friend conduct this plot-freezing confab whilst actually consuming coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or a cocktail that will no longer be trendy by the time the book comes out. Admittedly, we might choke on that judicious sip if the friend does not contribute more to the conversation than a series of semi-supportive wows and uh-huhs, but you’ll be delighted to hear that the spit-take doesn’t actually occur unless that conversation recaps, blow by predictable blow, the scene that fell immediately before the cozy chat.
By contrast, our blood pressure will rise only slightly if our hero/ine appears on the scene just in time to observe over a freshly-deceased body, “He’s dead.” Our molars will grind only a trifle if her/his superior subsequently orders her/him to — wait for it — find the killer, pronto, because that, obviously, would not have occurred to him/her. Tooth enamel may become damaged, however, if that superior is experiencing pressure for results from above/the mayor/the governor/the president, based upon a timeline so short that only a five-year-old with an unusually short attention span, a mosquito trying to live out the last few moments of its lifespan with gusto, or someone completely unfamiliar with the concept of an investigation would consider reasonable.
Should the deceased that s/he so helpfully declared defunct also in this moment be revealed to be a close personal friend never mentioned before in the story, relative (sisters seem to be particularly expendable, a trend troubling to those of us boasting a couple of X chromosomes and a full family tree), or that troubled kid who decided in the last scene to clean up his/her act/addict twelve hours off “the stuff”/terrified witness this close to agreeing to testify in that big trial about which the Aboveniks have been pressuring everyone in sight, apparently based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of how the criminal justice system works, we might end up clutching our right arms and visiting the emergency room. But you shouldn’t worry your pretty little head about it.
We’ll be fine. Tell my cop brother/D.A. sister/hard-boiled detective ex-husband that my last wish was that s/he would catch that killer/corrupt official/ill-mannered vampire. S/he knows I have always loved…gasp…whimper.
To be fair, all of us see these tropes on television and in movies all the time: to the many, many, many writers whose sense of drama was derived from flickering images, these plot devices often seem perfectly reasonable, if not downright mandatory. And in genre fiction, it often does make sense to honor book category conventions; a vampire’s gotta bite and a test pilot’s gotta fly, after all.
So what if Millicent the agency screener knows as soon as she realizes that the manuscript was written within the last ten years by an American that any vampire the reader is supposed to like will be — you’ll never see this coming — conflicted about killing any mammal larger than a stoat? Want me to tell you about the conflict s/he is going to have with a vampire with less rigid ethical boundaries?
It’s less reasonable, however, to expect any reader, much less one that does it for a living, to be surprised when the P.I.’s partner gets killed before we’ve really gotten to know him. Or when the grizzled (fill in job description here) two weeks from retirement either takes two in the chest or is assigned to train a rookie. (Is there any governmental institution in the world that embraces this as a standard practice?) Or if the only person in the book about whom another character says, “Oh, s/he had a tough childhood,” turns out to be the serial killer/arsonist/mysterious perpetrator of late-night office vandalism.
Just once, I’d like to see the axe murder turn out to have experienced an upbringing so normal that Sigmund Freud would have shouted, “You’re kidding — no one’s childhood is that perfect.” Good parents inadvertently produce sociopaths, too, do they not?
Oh, it hadn’t occurred to you that professional readers might enjoy being surprised every now and again? Believe me, one doesn’t have to cast one’s eyes over more than a thousand or two stories in which the (almost invariably male) protagonist’s wife/girlfriend and possibly small child is slaughtered within the first scene in order to provide him with motivation to perform the dangerous task that someone must manifestly do immediately before one begins being actively on the look-out for plots with a little more twist to them. By the same token, if one sees the same premises, plot twists, and even lines of dialogue in manuscript after manuscript, it does become a trifle difficult not to anticipate them.
“Oh, look,” Millicent mutters, unthinkingly taking a sip of her latté before it has had time to cool, “the only two vaguely attractive people in the book have just fallen in love. What’s next, a tale in which the Lady of Dubious Virtue turns out to have a heart of gold?”
Seriously, professional readers’ enjoyment can be quite impeded by this sense of déjà vu. No matter how many times one tells oneself, “Look, Mavis, I realize that cultural storytelling norms are pervasive, and that the mortality rate for mothers in the Star Wars series was virtually 100%, but you have no right to imagine that dear old white-headed lady on page 2 breathing her last on page 10. You’re just going to need to read the intervenes pages and see what happens,” it’s impossible not to feel a bit vindicated when the protagonist’s dear old white-headed mother does in fact breathe her last on the bottom of page 9.
But will Mavis find it entertaining? Well, it all depends on the writing, as agents and editors like to say. (Hey, every society has its tropes.) Even in a brilliantly lyrical manuscript, though, it’s substantially easier to entertain a reader who has not known since page 1 what was going to happen on page 158.
Just the nature of our old pal, the story arc, and of storytelling as an art form, I’m afraid. And, frankly, of an agent or editor’s job: reading thousands of manuscripts in the hope of finding the one that’s as pure gold as the ticker beating within the aforementioned Lady of Dubious Virtue.
That’s not the only source of pet peeves, of course; professional readers see the same movies and television shows as everyone else. We’re not immune to the influence of pop culture, however much some high literary types might imply otherwise. Your humble correspondent’s personal least-favorite — the narrative shortcut I like to call the it’s gotta be… phenomenon — crops up constantly, not only in manuscript submissions, but throughout the cultural firmament.
How much do I dislike seeing it on the page? Well, you know how much I enjoy defining things? This time, in order to expose you to it as a brand-new Millicent might experience the phenomenon, I’m going to bypass definition entirely, opting instead to show you a few examples. Try to spot it in the wild.
Tyrone brought his beloved motorcycle to a screeching halt beside the bevy of onlookers. He could tell before he fought his way to the front of the crowd that Sheila was dead. Living people can’t fold themselves in to rectangles that small, much less spread their arms the length of a city block and their long raven hair across the awnings of three separate businesses. That requires assistance from a psycho with a chopping implement, possibly one from a less-than-happy home.
And he knew just the psycho to do it. Gunning his motor, he raced off into the night in pursuit of Garland Hecht.
Did you notice it? Admittedly, it’s subtle here — and in our next example.
“You’re not going to send me away again,” Arlene shouted. “My daughter’s been missing for three days, and all you’ve done is tell me to be patient!”
The principal’s patience seemed to be waning. “I understand that this is stressful for you, Mrs. Belcher, but the marching band’s not back from its maneuvers yet. For all we know, she simply missed the bus.”
The phone rang. Arlene leapt to answer it. “Lana?”
A pause. “Mom?”
Sensing a pattern here? No? Let’s try again.
I couldn’t believe my ears. “A break-in? At ten o’clock on a Monday morning?”
Bob pointed to a couple of indistinct footprints. “Well, someone’s been here.”
The officer cleared his throat. How long had he been out of the academy, forty-five minutes? “Um, ma’am, could you tell us if there’s anything missing?”
I already knew that there wouldn’t be. It wasn’t Warren’s style. “Not that I can see. But this isn’t a thief.”
“Wait,” the officer said. “You know who did this?”
“Yes. My ex-business partner.”
“Yeah, right.” Bob guffawed. “He’s not only dead; he’s buried halfway across the country.”
Dear, naïve boy: was he unfamiliar with the ease with which a wax figure could be introduced into a coffin at a closed-casket funeral? I gave up on explaining and turned to the officer. “I appreciate your concern, but there’s really nothing for you to do here. I’ll handle this myself.”
Predictably, Bob exploded. “But Claudine, that’s crazy! Ghosts don’t shatter living room windows. For all you know, whoever broke it is coming back!”
Oh, I was sure of that. In fact, I was counting on it. Only this time, I’d be prepared.
If it didn’t strike you that time — and it might not; this one’s ubiquitous — I shall have to fling all subtlety to the winds. I present you now a blatant version. Hint: this is also the device’s most common form.
The chief dispensed with the civilities. “About time you got here, detectives. A fifth burglary, and downtown’s breathing down my neck to get results.”
Bonnie and Mac glanced at each other, then at the crime scene. It looked nothing like the other four, except for what was not there: a Persian carpet showed dents where the grand piano once stood. A single candle burned on the mantelpiece. The family photos on either side had not been disturbed.
She leaned toward her partner. “It’s got to be our guy.”
“His rage is clearly escalating,” Mac whispered.
She held her finger to her lips. “Chief,” she called across the room, “we’ve got to go track down a lead.”
It leapt off the screen at you that time, I hope. If not, let me ask you what I would scrawl in the margin of this manuscript: how did Bonnie and Mac know that even though the crime scene was different, the same perpetrator had stolen this piano as the previous ones? Is not the only common element here the theft of a piano, and is it not conceivable that more than one piano thief is currently occupying the planet?
While we’re at it, what makes Claudine so sure that Warren was the only conceivable window-smasher? Does he hold a national monopoly on the practice? Does she have any other reason to believe him to be above ground?
And how did Arlene Belcher know that her daughter was the caller? It wasn’t her phone, after all; plenty of people telephone high school principals. Was it just a lucky guess? If so, why didn’t the narrative present it that way — or at least show the principal acting surprised at her answering his phone?
Finally, is there any basis for Tyrone’s certitude that his favorite psychopath hacked up Sheila? Or does he simply know no other psychopaths?
The answers to all of these questions, I regret to say, ultimately boil down to the same thing in each case: the characters leapt to these conclusions because the plot required it. Not because it would be impossible for the writer to move these various stories forward unless a major character stated categorically that this, and only this, was the only plausible perpetrator, but because the narrative is using this device to avoid having to deal with any other logical possibilities.
Or even, in several of these cases, to describe what makes the concluder so darned sure. Yet in each instance, the reader is told point-blank that X must be true — and, since the narrative does not question that bottom-lining statement, the reader is left to assume that it must, indeed, be accurate.
Pardon my asking, but why must it be true? As these passages were written, none of the characters making these assertions seemed to have much logical basis for leaping to these conclusions. Admittedly, we’re also not shown any reason to doubt these sweeping assertions, but that’s not the same thing as showing enough on the page that we can draw these conclusions along with the character, is it?
To a professional reader’s eye, the it’s gotta be… phenomenon is primarily a narrative shortcut. It saves the narrative the trouble of presenting either plausible inductive or deductive reasoning by simply stating what the writer wants the reader to believe.
And that, my friends, is a show, don’t tell problem.
Oh, you didn’t see that coming? Millicent would have; so would most professional readers. Simply asserting that X is the case, Y is this kind of person, Z is feeling Q is classic telling, not showing. Instead of providing the reader with a dozen pieces of evidence that would lead the reader to realize that they all point to X, or demonstrating the kind of person Y is through action and dialogue, or illustrating Z’s Q feelings through same, the text just assumes that the reader needs to be told all of these things point-blank.
From an editorial perspective, this is not merely less effective storytelling — it implies that the writer does not trust the reader’s intelligence enough to draw the correct conclusions. But most fiction readers don’t require spoon-feeding; they tend to find it a bit obvious.
And if they find it obvious, how do you think a seasoned Millicent will feel about it? Plots low on complications tend to minimize conflict; a straight line from mystery to revelation is seldom the most interesting way to get there. So if the manuscript in question is well written, she might well feel disappointed at seeing potentially interesting — and perhaps less predictable — possibilities cut off by it’s gotta be….
“No,” she will long to lecture the manuscript, “it doesn’t have to be, as this is currently written. Please, either show me in detail why the path you’re choosing here is the logical one, or present me with enough plausible alternative explanations that I may have the pleasure of trying to solve a complex puzzle for myself.”
That raised some hackles out there, didn’t it? “But Anne,” writers fond of quick-deciding characters protest, “I read Tyrone, Arlene, Claudine, Bonnie, and/or Mac’s reactions in a completely different way — and, appropriately for this fine nation’s current trends in filmic storytelling, in the manner that I suspect screenwriters and directors intend me to interpret them. Where you and Millicent see narrative convenience, I see smart characters doing what smart people do all the time in real life: draw impressive conclusions from scant evidence.”
You have a point, speed lovers: intelligent people can often interpret subtle clues correctly and distill them into statements of fact. But if you’ll pardon my mentioning it, people of normal intelligence are also given to assessing situations and drawing conclusions therefrom. And I’m sure you’ve noticed that both in novels and in those TV shows and movies to which you allude, a fairly standard means of demonstrating a character’s lack of intelligence is to show him or her making untrue observations based on scant proof.
See the problem? By disregarding entire universes of alternate possibilities, Tyrone, Arlene, Claudine, Bonnie, and Mac could be exhibiting lightning-fast interpretive skills — or they could simply be too ill-informed or dim-witted to realize that there are other options.
I get what you mean, though, devotees of speed: television shows and movies have accustomed us all to equating intelligence with both the ability to blurt out relevant facts quickly and to make snap judgments about swiftly-changing situations, just as we’ve been trained to regard barking orders as indicative of authority, a belligerent insistence upon not accepting help as a token of toughness, and being able to assess a technically complex phenomenon at a glance as an infallible sign of expertise. I would just like to point out that it’s probably not entirely coincidental that all of these common traits also happen to be awfully convenient for someone trying to tell a story in a hurry.
Like, say, in an hour-long (minus commercials) cop show. Or in a 90-minute movie. A storytelling shortcut or two might be very helpful in wrapping things up quickly.
That doesn’t mean, though, that these common storytelling shortcuts constitute the only way to tell a story — or necessarily the best way for your story. And isn’t one of the reasons that you wanted to write in the first place to express your own sense of story and characterization? Wouldn’t you enjoy astonishing your reader with a plethora of possibilities — and having the satisfaction of seeing that reader become embroiled in trying to resolve the plot’s conflicts along with the protagonist?
Every writer must answer those questions for him or herself, of course. Only, please, when you’re tempted to cut to the chase, ask yourself: does it have to be this way? Or am I avoiding exploring interesting alternatives or complications in the interest of speed?
Give it some thought, please. And, at the risk of being predictable, let me encourage you to keep up the good work.
I had intended to devote Labor Day weekend entirely to posts on craft, campers, on the theory that since simply scads of you will be spending the next few days sending out flotillas of fresh queries and/or submissions, you might enjoy a creativity break. I find, however, that I have a few more things to say about submission that you might want to know before Tuesday rolls around.
How did I know you were gearing up to hit the SEND key? Well, the New York-based publishing world’s annual holiday has traditionally run from the end of the second week of August through, you guessed it, Labor Day. The presses no longer halt with quite the completeness with which they did in days of yore, but still, it’s a hard time to pull together an editorial committee.
Why should that affect the mailing and e-mailing habits of writers trying to break into the biz? Simple: when the editors are not in town, agents have an awfully hard time selling books to them, so agency denizens tend to take those same weeks off.
Again, that’s less true than it used to be, but if the Submission Fairy had whacked you with her magic red pencil last week, teleporting you into the average agency, you would have been chased out of the building by a smaller mob than would have caught up pitchforks and torches in, say, October.
In case I hadn’t mentioned it lately: don’t show up at an agency unless invited to do so, aspiring writers. And hold off on the calls until one of the member agents offers to represent you, please.
Admittedly, even in the bad old days, agencies were often not universally deserted in late August: the luckless soul left to guard the fort often got quite a lot of reading done. Still, it wasn’t then and isn’t now not the worst idea for a writer eager to hear back on a query or submission to hold off until after everyone returned to work with a suntan.
Thou shalt not query or submit between July and Labor Day has featured prominently in the annals of credible advice to writers for decades, and rightly so. Which may render what I am about to say next something of a surprise: if you are planning to query or submit to a US-based agency via e-mail, I would implore you to hold off until at least the middle of next week.
And the masses collapse onto the nearest chaises longues, overcome by astonishment. “But Anne,” they shout, and who could blame them? “I’ve been holding off! For the latter half of the summer, I have been twiddling my thumbs, biting my nails, and playing endless games of cat’s cradle, all to keep my itchy keying finger from hitting the SEND key while the agent of my dreams was likely to be vacating. Since I have every reason to expect that the AOMD will be flinging herself into her desk chair bright and early Tuesday morning, clutching that latté her eager assistant Millicent got her and scowling at the stacks of manuscripts awaiting her august attention — or, rather, her post-August attention — why shouldn’t I hammer on that SEND key like Hephaestus forging armor for the Olympian gods? I have a three-day weekend in which to ignore my kith and kin while I pursue my dream!”
You just answered your own question, itchy-fingered many: because any established agent — and thus any Millicent employed in an established agency — will be greeted upon her return to the office by the small mountain of submissions send over the last month. Her inbox overfloweth. And since millions of aspiring writers will also have been actively avoiding the warm embrace of kith and kin in order to crank out e-mailed queries and submissions this weekend, a hefty percentage of that overflow will be from writers just like you.
Why might that be a problem, if she and Millicent down those lattés, roll up their sleeves, and work through those queries and submissions in the order received? Well, let me ask you: if you had 1,572 messages from total strangers gracing your inbox Tuesday morning, how would you feel about it? Delighted to see that literature was alive and well in North America — or just a trifle grumpy at the prospect of working through them all?
Still not seeing the wisdom of not adding your query or submission to that queue? Okay, think of it this way: would you rather that Millicent first cast eyes upon your query as #1376 of Tuesday, or as #12 of Friday? Would you rather that she read your submission with fresh eyes — or with eyes bleary from the imperative of reading her way down to the point where her desk is visible from above?
Just something to think about. Naturally, a querier or submitter exercises very little control over the conditions under which Millicent reads his work, but if a savvy writer can minimize the chances that she will be assessing it at a point when she will predictably be swamped, why not rein in those itchy fingers for another few days?
Speaking of the trouble into which over-eager fingers can land their owners, as well as our ongoing focus on some of the unanticipated side effects of successful querying and submission, I’d like to devote today’s post to a couple of excellent questions from long-time members of the Author! Author! community. First, let’s learn of the travails faced by witty gun-jumper Robert:
I must have smoked something funny during Querypalooza, because I prematurely sent an agent my query. Only fifty pages in, with no end in sight, I was asked for my completed MS! How would one tiptoe out of this situation, keeping the agency interested?
I love the blog and appreciate every moment you put into it. There is nothing out there that comes close in style, entertainment, or value. Thanks for the tools to push my writing career forward.
Why, thank you, Robert; how kind of you to say so. Also: what on earth were you thinking?
Ah, how loyal you all are; I can feel half of you rushing to Robert’s defense. Lower those pitchforks a trifle, please, so I may hear you better. “Whoa there, lady — what’s with the indignant italics? It can take months to hear back from an agent these days; why couldn’t he have sent out that query the nanosecond he whipped it into shape?”
Well, obviously, he could, because he did, but I get what you’re saying: querying turn-around times can indeed be quite lengthy. One can also, as I know some of you can attest, hear back within an hour of hitting SEND, if someone at the agency of your dreams happens to be sitting in front of a computer at the time.
To quote the late, great Fats Waller, one never knows, does one?
What one does know — and what I suspect has sent our Robert into a belated fit of qualm — is that for fiction, agents expect that any manuscript a writer queries or pitches to them will be at the completed draft stage. Oh, they’re aware that occasionally, an overeager writer will begin setting up prospects a little early, but Robert is quite right to assume that if he ‘fessed up, the agent of his dreams would not be amused.
So how would a savvy writer, in Robert’s words, tiptoe out of this situation, keeping the agency interested? Simple: he wouldn’t.
Was that behemoth thunk a sign that half of you just introduced your lower jaws to the floor? I’m not entirely surprised: as we have been discussing throughout this series, the apparently immortal myth that an agent requesting pages will only accept them if the writer breaks all extant land speed records in getting the manuscript under her peepers has encouraged a whole lot of successful queriers and pitchers to do a whole lot of silly things. Or if not silly, than at least unstrategic — not bothering to spell- or grammar-check before hitting SEND, for instance. Neglecting to proofread, to make sure that the coworker called Monica in Chapter 1 is not Monique in Chapter 5. Fudging the typeface or the margins, so that a particularly strong scene or line will fall within the requested 50 pages, not thereafter. Sending 52 pages, when the agent asked for 50, for the sake of the aforementioned bit. Or simply printing the darned thing out the instant the request for materials arrives and dashing to the post office, only to realize halfway home that the packet did not include a SASE.
Oh, you may laugh, but I know good writers — gifted ones, intelligent ones, ones whose prose a literature lover could have sung out loud — that have made each and every one of these mistakes. Sometimes more than one at a time.
They, like Robert, have jumped the gun, and it did not pay off for them. It seldom does, because — feel free to chant it with me, those of you who have been following this series — since a submitter gets only one chance to place a particular manuscript under a particular agent’s eyes, it simply does not make sense to hit SEND until that manuscript is polished enough to represent her best work.
If you don’t mind my pointing it out, Robert, that level of polish is rarely a characteristic of a first draft. Even if you had hit SEND when you were only a chapter away from finishing the novel, you might have been better off taking the time to read and possibly revise it before querying. But in thinking otherwise, you certainly were not alone: the overwhelming majority of first novels are queried, pitched, and submitted while still in the first-draft stage.
“Okay, I get it,” jaw-rubbers everywhere say sullenly. “My pages should fairly shine before they wing their way to Millicent. But what is my buddy Robert to do? He meant no harm; he had merely assumed that the most he would be asked to send was 50 pages, tops. I hate to see him punished for that piece of misapprehension.”
And he needn’t be, if only he bears in mind the principle that his gun-jumping pretty clearly shows he did not embrace in the first place: when an agent requests a full or partial manuscript, she is not expecting to receive it right away.
So if Robert could conceivably complete that manuscript within the next year to year and a half, he may eschew tiptoeing altogether: he could simply apply his nose diligently to the proverbial grindstone until he finished — and spell-checked, resolved the burning Monica/Monique debate, etc. — and then send it off as requested. No need to apologize in his cover letter, either: since he had no reason to believe that the AOHD had cleared her schedule in anticipation of its arrival, he should simply thank her for asking to see it.
Some of you jaw-rubbers are eying me dubiously. “But Anne, isn’t that a trifle rude? I mean, doesn’t he owe it to the agent of his dreams — that’s what that acronym means, right? — to e-mail her right off the bat to tell her that as much as he would love to comply with her request for pages right away, he won’t be able to do it for months?”
The short answer to that is no. The long answer is NOOOOOOOOOOO.
Seriously, why would he have an obligation to send her an update? It’s not as though Robert’s was the only query her office received, or the only one to which the AOHD said yes. And while most successful queriers and pitchers do crank their submissions out the door rather quickly, there’s always a sizable contingent that never elects to send the requested pages at all. Perhaps because, like Robert, they queried in haste and repented at leisure.
The AOHD is unlikely, in short, to be sitting around four months hence, filing her nails over a desk completely devoid of manuscripts, idly wondering why that nice Robert never sent her that nifty book. But he doesn’t write…he doesn’t call…
Trust me, she has better things to do. Like reading through the pile of manuscripts that did make it to her desk.
Does that giant, gusty collective sigh that just blew my cat sideways indicate that more than a few of you wish you were aware of that before you hit the SEND key on at least one occasion. Again, I’m not surprised, but trust me, Roberts of the literary world, no one will even blink if you don’t get requested materials to them within six or even nine months, much less change their minds about wanting to see it. Plenty of writers, and good ones, take that long to revise existing manuscripts.)
Should Robert’s itchy fingers prove incapable of not tapping out an e-mail, however, he could legitimately drop the AOHD a note in five or six months, thanking her for her continued interest and saying that the manuscript will be on its way soon. Which may well be true: in current agency reading terms, another three months would be soon. I wouldn’t advise hitting SEND sooner, though, because there’s always a danger that the agency’s needs will have changed in the meantime — you definitely don’t want your polite update to be construed as a request for a second permission to send it, lest they say no, right, Robert?
No need to rap our Robert on the knuckles for his infraction, then, you’ll be glad to hear. I wouldn’t want to affect his ability to type the rest of his manuscript quickly.
I’m always astonished, though, at how often good, well-meaning writers rap themselves on the knuckles when they realize that like practically every first-time successful querier or pitcher, they have sent out their manuscripts before their precious pages were truly ready. Take, for instance, intrepid reader Anni:
I have a question that has nothing to do with this topic (sorry) but I just couldn’t keep worrying about it in silence any longer.
A couple months ago, I made it as far as sending out 5 queries with samples as requested for my manuscript and received 4 form rejections and 1 non-reply. I took this as a sign that something was amiss, and discussed it with my feedback readers. The conclusion: the first third of the manuscript wasn’t on par with the rest. It needed to be rewritten into something more fast-paced and exciting.
To pull me through the tedious rewriting, I compiled a list of agents for when the manuscript is once again ready, and I realized something: There aren’t that many agencies for that want YA fantasy novels.
As I understand it, agents do NOT like re-submissions, even if I’ve rewritten half the manuscript from scratch. I’ve already lost 5 agents from my potential agencies list! What happens if I run out of agents to query without signing with one of them? Is there an acceptable period of time after which I can query a second time?
I may be jumping the gun with these worries, but I’m afraid to send out my next batch of queries and possibly waste another 5 agents because the query/manuscript isn’t absolutely perfect. On the other hand, I don’t want to spend the next year striving for that impossible perfection. Instead of facing just the potential for rejection, I get to watch my list of potential agents dwindle to an eventual zero.
I don’t know what I should do! Do you have any suggestions for me? Thanks very much.
Nor should you have suffered in silence for even an instant, Anni — this is far too common a problem. As I like to remind my readers early and often, if you’ve been wondering about something, chances are that another 3,274 regular Author! Author! readers have as well. So for both your own sake and theirs: please ask.
I’m especially glad that Anni spoke up on this issue, as this is a problem under which masses of good writers suffer in silence, assuming (often wrongly) that if they talk about it, they will be labeling their work as unmarketable. Then, as she did, they wake up one morning and realize that they’ve exhausted their entire agent list.
And all too often, like Anni, they leap to the conclusion that if they’ve been rejected, it has been because of the scant few pages some agencies allow queriers to include in their query packets. Yet of a Millicent is turned off by a query, she’s unlikely to bother to read the samples.
Yes, even if her agency specifically requests them — and especially if the query was online. Online submissions typically get a bit less scrutiny than e-mailed queries, which in turn usually receive less of Millicent’s time than paper letters. (There’s not much a querier can do about that if the agency vastly prefers online submissions, of course, but the trend is worth knowing.) Since she’s scanning literally hundreds of the things per week — and thousands, if it’s immediately after Labor Day — it generally doesn’t take much to generate a knee-jerk negative reaction. The sad fact is that just as the vast majority of submissions get rejected on page 1, most queries are rejected within the first paragraph.
So while I must applaud Anni on being brave and savvy enough to check with her first readers to figure out what was going wrong at the submission stage — very few writers would have had that pragmatic a response — I think she is jumping the gun. If she hasn’t run her query letter under objective eyes, she might want to do that before she sends it out again. (And if she hadn’t already run through the HOW NOT TO WRITE A QUERY LETTER and HOW NOT TO WRITE A FIRST PAGE categories on the list at right, she and those like her might want to invest some time in it, just in case they’ve inadvertently run afoul of a common agents’ pet peeve. You wouldn’t believe how often queries get rejected simply because the writer inadvertently omitted a word, or misspelled something, and just didn’t notice.)
Truth compels me to say that I also think she’s jumping the gun in the fear department. In the first place, the TWILIGHT and HUNGER GAMES revolutions have assured that there are plenty of agents willing — nay, eager — to find the next great YA fantasy talent. With a sample as small as five queries (yes, yes, I know: it doesn’t feel small, but it’s not at all unusual these days for talented writers to send out a couple of hundred before landing an agent, alas), Anni might also want to consider the possibility that her specific subsection of her chosen book category isn’t selling particularly well right now — or that the agencies in question already have a number of similar books in circulation.
Neither of those things would be a reflection upon the quality of Anni’s writing, but either could easily result in rejection. And, let’s face it, in a book category as trendy as YA fantasy and in a literary market whose trends change with the rapidity that would make your garden-variety fruit fly say, “Really?” both are fairly probable.
That does not mean, however, that any Millicent that screened one of Anni’s five packets would have mentioned either reason in the rejection. Form-letter rejections leave no way for the writer to learn from the experience.
Anni is quite right, though, that agents dislike re-submissions — unless, of course, re-submitting was their idea. In fact, industry etiquette dictates that unless an agent specifically asks a submitter to revise and re-submit a particular manuscript, the writer must take the book and go someplace else.
What she probably has in mind here, though, is not re-submission, but re-querying. As I understand Anni’s story, she never submitted anything per se: she was querying agencies that asked to see the first few pages. Technically, that’s not submission; it’s querying with extras.
But again, Anni is correct in the larger sense: the norm is to query any given agency — not only any given agent — only once with any given book project. Almost any agency will balk at a writer who keeps querying over and over again with the same project, especially if those queries arrive very close together and nothing about the project seems to have changed. While Millicent tenure is often short, Anni could not legitimately assume that the same screener would not open her next query and huff, “Wait — I’ve seen this before, haven’t I? Next!”
That outcome is especially likely if the repeat querier, as some charmingly straightforward but misguided aspiring writers do, guilelessly tells Millicent in the query that she’s querying for a second time. Those attached sample pages are much better now, honest!
This delightful level of honestly is, alas, the equivalent of stamping the query with YOU’VE ALREADY REJECTED THIS. “Next!”
All that being said, if Anni simply punched up her query, ran through the rest of her querying list, and tried the first five a year or two later, it’s highly unlikely that anyone would take umbrage. At that juncture, in order for re-querying to generate hostility, someone at the agency would (a) have to recognize the query as a repeat, which would require both (b) the same Millicent having seen both versions (unlikely, given screener turnover) and (c) remembering a query which she’d spent a couple of minutes pondering a year before.
It’s just not all that likely, in short. Especially if Anni were strategic enough to re-query at a time of year at which millions of itchy fingers would predictably be simultaneously reaching for the SEND key, if you catch my drift.
You were expecting me to rap some knuckles here, weren’t you? I might have seven or eight years ago, but the well-known truism about agents disliking resubmissions is actually a rather old complaint, dating back to the days before e-mailed submissions were considered acceptable or online submissions even possible. Way back when agents started making this complaint at writers’ conferences and in interviews (which is how it became so pervasive on the writers’ rumor circuit, in case you had been wondering, Anni), many of them used to open each and every query themselves.
Now, due to the overwhelming volume of queries, an agent just wouldn’t have time to sell her current clients’ books if she opened all of the mail herself. (And that’s not even taking into account how radically the anthrax scare affected how mail was handled at agencies and publishing houses.) Even at relatively small agencies, that job is generally assigned to a Millicent or two.
Nowadays, an agent who complains about repetitive querying is usually talking about folks so persistent that they’ve become legendary at the agency, not your garden-variety aspiring writer who hits the SEND key twice within a year and a half. At my agency, everyone has stories about the writer who has not only queried every agent there individually five times, but recently launched into another round under a different name (but the same title).
Yet as so often happens when agents make conference complaints about specific instances, most of the aspiring writers who hear the story automatically assume that the agency obsessively maintains some kind of master list of every query it has ever received, so it may automatically reject any repeaters on sight. But practically, that would be prohibitively time-consuming: it would quadruple the amount of time its Millicents would have to spend on any individual query.
You were aware that the average query receives less than 30 seconds of agency attention, right?
That’s not a lot of time to have memorized Anni’s no doubt delightful premise, at least not well enough to recall it two years later based on the query’s descriptive paragraph alone. On the off chance that Anni might have been clever enough to change the title of the book the second time she queried that agency, the chances are even lower.
My, that jaw is coming in for quite a floor-battering this evening, isn’t it? I hate to break it to you, but only aspiring writers think of titles as set in stone. In practice, however, there’s no earthly reason that a manuscript has to be queried or submitted under the same title every time. Few first-time authors get to keep their original titles all the way to publication, anyway.
I guess I should stop before the bruise on anyone’s chin grows any bigger. For the nonce, suffice it to say that once again, we see an instance where a finger itching for contact with the SEND key has turned out not to be a reliable guide to its owner’s self-interest. In Anni’s case, I would far prefer to see that digit engaged in some serious online research in how many agents actually do regularly represent and sell YA fantasy.
And remember, folks, just because one has an itch doesn’t mean one has to scratch it. At least not immediately. Yes, the rise of e-querying and e-submission has increased the probability of swift turn-arounds — and the concomitant expectation of rapid acceptance — but it has also increased the volume of queries most agencies with websites receive exponentially.
Care to guess how many of those queriers also have itchy fingers? Or a three day weekend beginning tomorrow?
Not entirely coincidentally, tomorrow, we turn our attention to craft. In the meantime, keep up the good work!
I’m sorry about the uncharacteristically long silence, campers — and just before the deadline for The Sensual Surfeit Literary Competition of 2012, too. I’ve got to admit, in the welter of recent deadlines — you would be amazed at how many authors hold contracts specifying that they must deliver manuscripts or revisions immediately before or immediately after Labor Day — I had forgotten that the contest was ending so soon. And here I had planned to run a good dozen posts on incorporating strong, sense-based detail into narration, too.
So tell you what: I’m changing the deadline. Blogger’s prerogative. How does the beginning of December sound?
Seriously, I’m so swamped that I’m not sure I will be able to pull together a judging committee before that. And while I certainly plan to laud to the skies entries that have in fact made it in before the deadline, if I know writers — and I should, after seven years of blogging for and about them — I’ll bet that there are at least a few of you that honestly meant to pull together an entry by tomorrow, but just haven’t had the time.
Call me zany, but I’d like to hear from those folks. And I’d like to do it when I have time to read and enjoy their work. Which is a sentiment entirely appropriate to our topic du jour, how to handle multiple requests for submissions.
Last time — if you can remember back so far — we were discussing the sad tale of Hortense, a well-meaning, eager aspiring writer with a heart of gold and an itchy finger. Itchy, that is, to hit the SEND key or seal an envelope containing requested materials as soon as humanly possible after a real, live agent or editor has responded positively to a pitch or query.
Oh, it’s completely understandable: garnering a request for pages is darned exciting. What’s less understandable, from a professional reader’s point of view, is why a savvy writer would even consider responding to that request so rapidly that he does not have time to proofread the text first. Or to spell- and grammar-check it. Indeed, it’s not all that uncommon for aspiring writers to get so carried away that they simply send their entire writing file, rather than the number of pages the agent or editor requested.
I understand it: the writer believes that her big break is just around the corner; why hold off on leaping onto that charging locomotive? Especially when there’s so much chatter on the writers’ conference circuit to the effect that if a successful pitcher does not submit the requested manuscript before the agent or editor has a chance to forget that he made the request, she might as well not bother. Judging by the hefty percentage of successful pitchers that send out those pages before that agent or editor has time to pack, fly home from the conference, and stagger exhausted into his office, too tired to read, many pitchers evidently believe that the average pitch-hearer has a memory comparable to the lifespan of the common fruit fly.
Or so we must surmise, from the fact that so many submitters apparently believe that if the offer to read is not acted upon immediately, it will be dead in a week. Or two. Or, at maximum, six.
Successful queriers often succumb to the same urge, and not only because they, too, often conflate a request for pages with an imminent offer of representation. It’s not; it’s the first step toward that offer.
And a forest of raised hands crops up in the ether. “But Anne,” those of you who have felt the seductive pull of instant response, “I understand, at least intellectually, that any requested pages need to meet with the agent or editor’s approval before I’d receive an offer. I even get, because you harp on it so much here, that before the requester even sees my pages, they will probably have to make it past the sharp, ever-critical peepers of Millicent the agency screener. But isn’t it rude not to send out requested materials right away? I mean, if I don’t pop ‘em into the mail or hit SEND, won’t they suspect that I wasn’t prepared when I queried or pitched — and thus that my work is not ready to be published?”
In a word, no. Next question?
Just kidding: I know that there’s a lot of discussion to the contrary floating around out there. But think about it: in order for this to be the case, the requester would need to expect to see the requested materials right away — but hands up, anyone who has ever received such a request that said as much.
I spot a few hands out there. Would you still keep ‘em up if I modified the question to has an agent or editor ever asked you point-blank to send a manuscript within a specific, short window of time?
Wait, where did all of you go?
Such requests are exceedingly rare. It is exceedingly common, however, for aspiring writers new to receiving such requests to assume that I would like to see the first X pages could not possibly mean anything but I would like to see the first X pages, but only if you can get them to me within a day/week/month.
Tell me, rushers, under what conditions would it be reasonable for a pro to say the former, but mean the latter? I have actually received such a request for hyperspeed, and let me tell you, there was no ambiguity about it: I believe it took the form of, “Would you overnight your manuscript to me, as part of a two-week exclusive?”
Some of you rolling your eyes, am I not? “But Anne, I’ve read many places online that a manuscript must be 100% finished before it’s pitched or queried — and that if a writer wants to be taken seriously, he should be able to produce it on a second’s notice. If I waited, say, the two weeks it would take for me to read the requested pages IN THEIR ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and preferably OUT LOUD, because that’s the best way to catch problems that I might not want the agent or editor of my dreams to see, that would harm my submission’s chances, right??”
Again, the short answer is no. But the long answer is substantially more interesting.
First off, the expectation that a manuscript would be complete prior to querying or pitching applies only to fiction; since nonfiction, including memoir, is generally sold in the U.S. on a book proposal, not a manuscript, most nonfiction books are sold before the writer has completed a full draft. And even for novels, it’s very, very common for both the agent and the acquiring editor to request revisions, so really, few professional readers harbor the illusion that any submitted manuscript is the final version.
Which means, in practice, that since any manuscript remains a work-in-progress until it is actually published and sitting on a reader’s shelf — and sometimes not even then — it would not be at all surprising if a writer conceived a wish to tinker with it a little before sending it out. Indeed, if tinkering makes the difference between a submission riddled with typos or not completely gelled on a story level and one that is, well, neither of those things, why wouldn’t an agent prefer to see the latter?
Equally pertinent, why would a writer not prefer to be judged on her most polished work?
Ah, you will say, but what about the suspicion that my work wasn’t already polished enough to submit? Let’s pause to consider what would have to be true in order for agents apply this particular criterion to judging a submission. First, the agency would need to care about speed of submission — which would be an easy thing to convey in a request, right? Second, even if they did care, they would need to hire someone to keep track of when the request went out and when the submission came in, right? In an era when agencies are laying off staff, why would they spend the money to double-check that requested materials arrived within a week, rather than within a month?
Now we have reached the core: they would want this information is if (a) they were looking for excuses to reject the submission unread, which would render the exercise of requesting it a waste of everyone’s time, (b) they were not aware that the overwhelming majority of such requests do not result in a submission (yes, really; writers get nervous), or (c) as soon as the agent issued the request, the agency blocked off a specific amount of time to read it and that time is darned soon.
I’m not saying that any of those things are impossible, campers; human preferences are notoriously variable. I’m merely asking you to consult probability on the subject of whether an agent’s making such a request must necessarily mean that she has nothing else to do until the manuscript arrives. Or that she would immediately drop all of her other work when it does arrive.
Are some of you blushing? ‘Fess up: deep in your heart, you did hope this was what would happen, didn’t you? But honestly, what are the chances that your manuscript was the only one the agent had requested recently? Or that, given the huge volume of queries any good agency receives, that there wouldn’t already be a backlog of reading by the time yours arrived?
Starting to make more sense that turn-around times are measured in months, not hours?
Calm yourself, blushers: this particular presumption is almost universal amongst first-time submitters, and not, I think due to over-large authorial ego. In my experience, most aspiring writers just haven’t thought about the practicalities of submission all that much. Or, if they do, they simply don’t know enough about how agencies actually work to make an educated guess.
Why is that problematic? Okay, let me ask you: what does the photograph at the top of this page depict?
Hard to tell when the viewer is so close to it, no? That’s more or less the situation faced by the first-time submitter: she — let’s call her Hortense — knows that she’s been asked to send all or part of her manuscript, but she doesn’t have the information to assess what that means in practice, precisely. So, if she’s like most first-time submitters, her guesses are based more upon what she would like to be true than what is actually the case.
Again, that’s understandable, but likely to lead Hortense astray. But if we encourage her to pull back a little, we can gain a bit of perspective.
Now we can at least see that it’s vegetable matter, but it’s hard to tell what kind or where it is. It’s certainly a clearer picture than we had before, though, right?
In case I’m being too subtle here, this is where Hortense is likely to end up if she derives her impressions of what a request for materials means from asking around. Listening to the common wisdom passed around at conferences. Trolling the Internet indiscriminately. Getting so freaked out by why she learns from either that her mental image of what’s likely to happen to her submission is based upon not her hopes, but her fears.
Starting to make more sense that most requested materials are never sent? Given how arbitrary many of the so-called rules Hortense is likely to find floating around out there seem to be, could you really blame her for being scared to try her luck, lest she inadvertently do something wrong?
The fact is, though, that the overwhelming majority of submissions are rejected based upon what is on the manuscript page, not other criteria. Oh, Millicent might bounce a submission because it’s improperly formatted, is accompanied by a rude cover letter (more common than anyone might hope, especially in e-mailed submissions), or doesn’t contain the materials the agent requested (the aforementioned over-excited writer’s sending the entire book when asked for 50 pages), but honestly, most of the time, Millicent actually reads some text.
So Hortense, honey, what you should be picturing is this:
I know, I know, Hortense: the last thing you expected was a stalk of corn growing out of a storm drain. But the fact remains that both of the previous photos depicted it, too; you just didn’t have enough information to see it properly.
Speaking of not necessarily having access to full information, in our last post, we were discussing a couple of dilemmas that dog quick responders like Hortense: having already granted an exclusive to Agent A when Agent B asks to see pages, and already having sent out an ordinary submission to Agent A when Agent B requests an exclusive.
These are not the only possible permutations of this dilemma, however. Sometimes, Hortense just plain doesn’t noticing that Agent A works at an exclusive-only agency before sending out queries to A, B, and C simultaneously. Nothing wrong with that, of course — unless she doesn’t realize when A, B, and C all ask for pages that she cannot legitimately submit to all three at once.
Why? Chant it with me now, campers: by definition, an exclusive look may be granted to only one agent at a time. Therefore, if a writer already has that manuscript under submission at another agency, he cannot grant an exclusive to another agent, nor can he in good conscience send out subsequent submissions while that manuscript is under exclusive with an agent already.
That’s pretty self-evident to someone familiar enough with submission in general and exclusives in particular to anticipate this situation: that writer already knows that it’s a stalk of corn growing out of a storm drain. But to a Hortense that’s either too close to the sidewalk to see anything but the shadow or viewing it at an angle that renders making out the details difficult, all of these scenarios may well appear to be irresolvable disasters.
But they’re not: it’s just corn.
If Hortense didn’t realize that Agent A worked at an exclusive-only agency, or A just asks for an unanticipated exclusive, she is under no more obligation not to query other agents than if she did know. But if she grants A an exclusive, she has no business sending out requested materials to B. By the same token, if she has already sent pages to A when B asks for an exclusive, she cannot grant it until she has heard back from A.
Which isn’t necessarily a problem, right? It’s not as though Hortense must respond to either A or B’s request for materials right away. Indeed, if she had taken some time before responding to A in the first scenario, she might have been in the enviable position of fielding two requests simultaneously, allowing her to decide whether she would prefer to honor the exclusive request first or second.
The third situation — in which she was too close to the corn to realize that in her excitement to respond to submission requests from A, B, and C, she had granted A’s exclusivity request while B and C also had her manuscript — is quite a bit dicier. Ethically, she should inform A as soon as humanly possible that she had made an honest mistake.
No need to go into how or why. All A needs to know is that Hortense inadvertently granted a non-exclusive exclusive. A is unlikely to be happy about this, but at least she will have been honest.
Truth compels me to add hastily, however, that Hortenses that find themselves in this situation — or, indeed, Hortenses that are far enough away from the corn to see that they are about to enter this situation — are not always so honest. Figuring that the worst that can happen is that she might have to tell A that she’s already signed with B, she gleefully grants A the requested exclusive while simultaneously submitting to B and C.
Shame on you, Hortense. Wake up and smell the cornstalk.
From the perspective of someone with, well, perspective, simply remaining silent in the hope that you won’t get caught defeats the purpose of granting the exclusive in the first place. Yes, the odds are stacked against writers trying to break into the biz, but that’s no excuse for not submitting in good faith.
If you’re not comfortable limiting yourself to a single submission, don’t grant an exclusive. You’re under no obligation; just say no, politely, and move on.
What the writer should most emphatically not do is expect the agent to solve any of these dilemmas. Which, incidentally, is many a writer’s first impulse, if those who contact me on the sly to ask my advice are any indication. Bless their optimistic little hearts, the Hortenses of this world seem to believe that of only the agent in question understood how eagerly they want to find representation, the pro’s heart would melt.
“Of course, you may indulge in multiple submissions while I’m reading it,” the exclusive-requesting agent would say, tossing candy to the world’s children from Santa’s sleigh, assisted by the Easter Bunny, Bigfoot, and a miraculously still-alive Amelia Earhart. “My agency was just kidding about that whole exclusives-only thing.”
Call me a pessimist, but I simply don’t believe that’s going to happen; I’ve seen too much corn growing out of too many grates. Trying to negotiate one’s way out of this situation only tends to change the representation question from whether the agent likes the manuscript enough to represent it to whether he really wants to deal with someone who has this much difficulty following directions.
It’s much easier than most submitters think to create that impression, you know. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a gander at how it might have worked out had our exemplar already had a submission out to another agent when another asked for an exclusive. Okay, Hortense, try to negotiate a different outcome.
Dear Hortense:
Thank you for querying me with your novel, TERMINAL INDECISIVENESS. Please send the first fifty pages.
As you may already be aware, our agency will accept only exclusive submissions. Please enclose a SASE.
Regards,
Bradley McPicky
After our Hortense finishes dancing a jig on the nearest table, it hits her that she’s caught in a dilemma: last week, she mailed her first 75 pages to Chelsea Selectiveson, the first agent that asked – and when she heard from Bradley, she had already been can-canning because Minette Imanagenttoo had just requested the full manuscript. Thinking for some odd reason that honesty is always the best policy, she dashes to her computer to fill in Mssr. McPicky.
Dear Brad:
Thank you for your interest in my novel. I would be delighted to grant you an exclusive, but the fact is, two other agents already have partial manuscripts, and I don’t know when I shall be hearing back from them. I’m really impressed with your agency, though, and I certainly don’t want to knock it out of consideration.
Since it would obviously be impossible for me to give you an exclusive on material that’s already elsewhere, is it okay if I just go ahead and send you what I’ve sent the others?
Hortense Wideeyednewbie
Charming, perhaps, but misguided: Hortense can’t see beyond those vague shadows. Mssr. McPicky, however, has been growing corn in storm drains for years. He’s a kind farmer, however, so he lets her down gently.
Dear Hortense:
As I mentioned, my agency only accepts submissions on an exclusive basis. Best of luck placing your manuscript elsewhere.
Bradley
What happened here? Hortense tried to shift responsibility for solving her dilemma onto Bradley’s shoulders, that’s what. (Also, she addressed him by a familiar nickname, rather than the name with which he signed his letter; a small faux pas, but one he might well resent.) From her point of view, this strategy made perfect sense: his request had caused a problem, so she asked him to modify his it.
Hortense was just being honest, right?
Unfortunately, Hortense was also wasting his time. From Bradley’s point of view (only his mother calls him Brad), Hortense was asking him to change agency policy for the sake of a single writer who, for all he knows, simply did not bother to check what those policies were before querying.
So I ask you: what possible incentive could Bradley have for saying yes?
Got the impulse to quibble out of your system, Hortense? Good. Next time, may I suggest that you double-check every agency’s submission guidelines before you pop any requested materials in the mail? And perhaps read those requests for materials a trifle more closely in future?
So what should she have done instead? Waited either until she had heard back in the negative from the other agents (she wouldn’t need to worry about Bradley if one or both responded positively, right?), then sent her manuscript to him, along with a cover letter saying that she would be happy to grant him an exclusive for 3 months.
No need to bug him with explanatory e-mails in the interim. Hortense knows better to believe that he’s cleared his schedule in anticipating of reading her work. She knows corn when she sees it.
Once he has the manuscript, though, Hortense will have to abide by their agreement: allow Bradley an exclusive until the agreed-upon time has elapsed. If he has not gotten back to her by a couple of weeks after the appointed time, she could then inform him that unless he would like an extension upon his exclusive (which you are under no obligation to grant, H), she will be submitting it to the other agents who have requested it.
What’s that you say, Hortense? Isn’t Bradley likely to say no at that point? Perhaps, but not necessarily — and you will have done your level best to conduct your submission process honorably.
“Okay,” the formerly disgruntled agree reluctantly, “I guess that makes some sense. But what about the writer — say, Hortense’s brother Melvin — who has an open-ended exclusive arrangement with Jade, an agent whose agency does not insist upon solo submissions? She’s had it for months, and four other agents have asked to see his book! Given how many are interested, can’t he just move on without telling her, and hope that she will be the first to make an offer, so he doesn’t have to ‘fess up about sending his manuscript elsewhere?”
The short answer is no. The long answer is that this is what the situation would look like to Jade:
Weren’t expecting that corn-laden grate to be located on a busy street, were you? Neither, unfortunately, was Melvin.
So what should he do now? Well, it depends upon how long it’s been. Melvin should check the agency’s website, its agency guide listing, and the letter Jade sent him, requesting an exclusive: has it been at least as long as any mentioned turn-around time — or, to be on the safe side, a few weeks longer? If not, he cannot in good conscience send out requested materials to any other agent regardless of whether others requested exclusives in the meantime.
Don’t even consider it, Melvin. Jade’s street sees a lot of traffic; if you break your promise to her, she can always go looking for other corn.
And no, Hortense, contacting everyone concerned to explain the dilemma will not eliminate it; all that will do is tell all of the agents involved that Melvin is trying to change the rules. Either trying to renegotiate with Jade at this point or telling the others they will need to wait, will not win him points with anybody: it will merely look, and probably rightly so, as though he didn’t understand what an exclusive was when he granted it.
How may Melvin handle this dilemma with his integrity intact? Wait it out for the stated turn-around time (plus two weeks), then send the polite note I mentioned above: remind Jade that she asked for an exclusive, but inform her that he has had other requests for materials. Do not leave that last bit out: it’s imperative that Jade is aware before she makes a timing decision that others are indeed interested.
If Jade writes back and says she wants to represent him, he has only two options — saying yes without sending out further submissions or saying no and sending out to the other four. If Jade does make an offer he wishes to accept, it would be courteous of Melvin to send a polite note to the other four, saying precisely what happened: another agent made an offer before he could send out the materials they requested.
They’ll understand; this happens all the time. Corn’s tricky that way.
If Jade asks for more time, Melvin should consider carefully whether he is willing to grant it. If he does, he should set a date — say, a month hence — beyond which he will start sending out manuscripts to the other four.
If, however, Jade doesn’t respond to his polite follow-up e-mail within three weeks, he should not, as many writers in this situation are tempted to do, overload her inbox with increasingly panicked e-mails. On day 22 (three weeks + 1 day), Melvin should send the requested materials to the four agents, along with cover letters explaining that others are looking at it simultaneously. No need to specify who is doing the looking, just that they are.
To deal courteously with Jade at this point, he should send a letter, saying that while she is still his first choice (the implication of an exclusive, always), since the exclusive has now expired, he is now sending out requested materials to other agents. As, indeed, he had already given her notice that he might do if she didn’t get back to him. If she is still interested in continuing to review his manuscript, he would be delighted to hear from her.
Again, this happens all the time. As long as a writer does what he said he was going to do, he’s unlikely to run into much trouble with an exclusive — but remember, this is an industry where reputations count; in the long run, it’s in your interest every bit as much as the agent’s that you honor the exclusivity agreement, if you grant it in the first place.
A tip for figuring out how long to suggest a requested exclusive should be: take the amount of time you feel you could wait calmly if you had a second request for materials burning a hole in your pocket. Now double it.
Take a gander at that number: is it expressed in days or weeks, rather than months? If so, may I suggest gently that you may be too impatient to exist happily with any length of exclusive?
You can always say no, right? Right? Can you hear me, Melvin?
Frankly, I think most submitters faced with an exclusive request overreact to the prospect of a comparatively short wait — or did not have a realistic sense of how long it can take these days for an agent to make up his mind about a manuscript. 3- to 6-month turn-around times are the norm these days, at least for manuscripts that make it past Millicent’s hyper-intense scrutiny of page 1. And let’s face it, holding off for a few days or weeks before responding to subsequent requests for pages is not going to harm the writer’s chances with the agents requesting them.
After all, it’s not as though they requested the materials, then cleared their schedules for the foreseeable future in order to hold their respective breaths until the submission arrived. Since a startlingly high percentage of requested materials never show up at all, they’d get awfully blue.
It’s all part of that great cornfield known as the literary market. Keep reexamining those assumptions, campers, and as always, keep up the good work!
When we left off last time, we were in the throes of discussing the options open to the pitcher or querier so successful in presenting her book concept that an agent says, “By gum, I not only want to see this manuscript — because, contrary to surprisingly pervasive belief amongst writers’ conference attendees, no agent in his right mind would agree to represent a book project by a non-celebrity without first reading some of that writer’s prose — but I want to be the only agent considering representing it.” While the standard first response to this is, as one might imagine, to jump for joy, caper in the streets, and rush to send off the requested materials before the agent could possibly change his mind, the third of those initial impulses is not always in the writer’s best interest.
How so, you ask mid-caper? Well, most requests for exclusive peeks at manuscripts or book proposals do not come with a time limit. The agent simply specifies that he would like not to be competing with other agents to represent the project, and that’s it. And because this is, let’s face it, a flattering request, it doesn’t occur to most writers to say, “That’s fine — for six months,” rather than some stripe of “YES! Whatever you want! I want to kiss the hem of your garment for paying this much attention to my work! May I name my firstborn child/next beloved pet/a small tropical island after you, as an appropriate token of my gratitude?”
It always gives me joy to see a talented writer this happy, but having heard the latter response issuing from aspiring writers’ gullets hundreds, if not thousands, of times in recent years, I feel compelled to tell you that this is usually not the best strategic response to such a request. Oh, you can dance little jigs and alarm your neighbors with shrieks of joy with my blessing. Just be aware that granting an open-ended exclusive presents the submitter with the fewest follow-up options.
If all goes well, that might not be an issue, but remember, an agent in the habit of asking for exclusives may well do so habitually. It may be agency policy, in fact. Even if it isn’t, the request does not constitute a guarantee that the submission will be moved up to the front of the agency’s reading queue.
So I ask you to stop tap-dancing on that coffee table long enough to consider: how many weeks, months, or years would it take before you, cavorting submitter, would come to regard having granted that exclusive to be an actual liability? And what if — brace yourselves — you never heard back from the exclusive-requesting agent at all?
That immense, sky-shattering moan you just heard emitted from the mouths of those that found this post in the archives after a frantic search once they realized that the exclusive they granted some weeks/months/years ago did not in fact come with an expiration date. Those that looked up this post after having granted an open-ended exclusive, then received a materials request from another agent, probably contented themselves with punching the nearest wall.
To help those tortured souls feel better, as well as to edify of those of you that have not yet fallen into either of these categories, let me hasten to add that most of the time, writers find themselves in these predicaments through no fault of their own. They may not have thought through the implications of the exclusive before they granted it, or, more commonly, simply were not aware that there could be negative fall-out from something as inherently wonderful as professional interest in their writing.
In fact, under ordinary circumstances, giving multiple pitches at a conference or organizing query timing to maximize the probability that more than one agent will want to be reading all or part of one’s manuscript at any given time is quite sensible. Ideally, an agent-seeking writer should want to have several agents interested simultaneously; it’s always nice to be able to choose between competing offers.
It can happen, but it doesn’t happen all by itself. The writer has to plan for it.
I speak from personal experience here: I had three offers on the table and manuscripts out with four more agents when I decided to go with my agency. Admittedly, my memoir had just won a major contest at a writers’ conference that at the time habitually made a point of rounding up the winners in its top categories and herding them into a room stuffed to the gills with agents, but even so, I was the only winner that year who ended up garnering an offer of representation from one of those agents, much less several. (Word to the wise: it’s not all that uncommon for even agents who attend many conferences not to pick up new clients at any given conference. Before you plunk down the sometimes hefty conference registration fee, you might want to ask point-blank how many of last year’s attending agents actually signed a writer met that that conference.)
That wasn’t accidental: I had been fortunate enough to have friends who had won that contest in previous years, and mirabile dictu, I had even listened to their advice. I already knew not to grant an exclusive to anyone; that would have tied my hands and meant, effectively, that if the first agent who asked for an exclusive (and several did) made an offer, I wouldn’t be able to sound out the others before saying yes or no.
I’m sensing some bewilderment amongst those of you who walked in halfway through this discussion, am I not? “Wait just a jealousy-inducing minute, Anne!” some of you cry. “Why precisely would granting an exclusive to the first agent that tackled you after you accepted your award have been a bad thing? If that agent said yes, you’d have an agent!”
I see where you’re going with this: it would in fact have saved some effort on my part. Let’s tease out the logic: an exclusive is an arrangement whereby a writer allows an agent to read a particular manuscript while no other agent will be reviewing it. The agent requests an exclusive because she would prefer not to compete with other agents over the manuscript; the writer agrees, presumably, because if this agent says yes, he will neither need nor want to approach other agents.
That’s dandy — if the exclusive-requester happens to be the agent of one’s dreams. But, frankly, there were a lot of agents at that conference that had great track records for selling memoir. Because I pitched to all of them and had not hung all of my hopes on conference pitching, I woke up the following Monday with sixteen requests to read the book proposal.
Did responding to all of those requests simultaneously constitute a heck of a lot of work for me? Of course, but remember, the goal is just to get any agent to say yes; it’s to track down the best agent for the project. While it’s certainly possible to listen carefully to what the agents to whom you are planning to pitch say on the conference dais about how they handle book projects in general, a writer doesn’t usually have the opportunity to hear how a specific agent would handle her book until after an offer of representation is already on the table.
Half of you zoned out while reading that last paragraph, didn’t you? “Sixteen requests for pages? How on earth did that happen?”
Ah, but it didn’t just happen. Because I had seen past contest winners stand around and wait for agents to seek them out, a hopeful passivity that tended to leave them walking out of the awards ceremony with no requests for pages at all, I knew that if the win were to do me any good — and not all contest wins do, even major ones — I would need not only to speak with every agent at that conference, but follow up with a blizzard of submissions. I also knew that while I was making it show manuscript pages at some agencies, I should be continuing to query others. Just in case.
Once this multi-pronged strategy paid off in the form of offers, though, I realized I had a dilemma: each of the three agents professing eagerness to represent my work was equally qualified to do it. Oh, they had different styles, as well as different tastes, but their connections were more or less identical. So I had to ask myself: what do I want out of the writer-agent relationship other than the agent’s having the connection, energy, and will to sell my books?
Hadn’t thought about that, had you? Almost no aspiring writer does. Or about the logical follow-up questions: what factors would make an agent the right one for my writing, other than a desire to represent it? When you get right down to it, what makes one agent different from another?
The vast majority of pitchers and queriers do not give serious thought to this question, interestingly, until they find themselves faced with multiple submission requests. Oh, the ones who do their homework ponder what various agents represent, as well as their track record for selling the work of first-time authors (usually quite a bit more difficult than convincing an editor to acquire a book by someone who already has a demonstrable audience; that’s why many agents choose to represent only the previously-published). But let’s face it, these examinations are really geared to the question how likely is this agent to want to represent me? rather than is this the best conceivable agent to represent my writing?
Let that bee buzz around your bonnet for a while. The resulting synaptic activity will be useful in pondering the implications of the rest of this post — and, for those of you that will dig this post out of the archives because you’re frantic to find out how to handle conflicting requests from agents, help you figure out what your next step should be.
Typically, writers don’t give serious thought to the what do I want from an agent, other than willingness to represent me? conundrum unless they find themselves in one of three situations. First, our questioner from last week, unsure what to do because she had already agreed to let one agent sneak an exclusive peek at her manuscript, but another agent had asked afterward to see it non-exclusively. Second, someone like me, the aggressive multiple pitcher/querier/submitter who hears back positively from several agents. Third, an already-agented writer who finds herself in the unenviable position of having to find a new agent.
Oh, should I have warned you to sit down before I brought up that last one? “Oh, ye Muses!” pitchers and queriers everywhere shout, breathing skittishly into paper bags in an attempt to cease hyperventilating. “You mean that it’s possible that I might have to go through this hideous process more than once?”
Actually, if you are a career writer, it’s fairly probable. I don’t want to frighten you, but in the current extraordinarily tight literary market, agents have been known to change specialties. They occasionally decide to leave the biz. Agencies do go under, or merge. And as much as I would support any really good agent’s application to Olympus for immortality, they do occasionally shuffle off this mortal coil. Under any of these conditions, an agented writer might well need to seek out new representation.
If your breathing has returned to normal, though, may I add that sometimes representation relationships just don’t work out? It’s quite simply harder to sell books than it used to be; inevitably, that’s going to cause some writer-agent relationships to fray. Than, too, people’s interests change over time: what constituted a great fit five years ago might very well not be five years hence.
See why I want you to start thinking about qualities you want in an agent before you’re fielding offers?
Since an already-agented writer’s plunging back into the pitching and querying phrase is an extremely complicated kettle of worms, let’s stick for now with the dilemma facing the writer in one of the other two situations. What’s an (extremely fortunate, by any standard) writer — let’s call her Hortense — to do if other agents want to take a peek at a manuscript that Agent #1 has asked to see exclusively?
Well, the first thing Hortense should do is scour the actual wording of the request for exclusivity. What honoring it means vis-à-vis approaching other agents really depends upon the terms of the exclusivity agreement. Unless that exclusivity agreement was open-ended — as in the agent has until the end of time to make up her mind about whether to represent the book in question — the writer has every right to start sending out her work to other agents the instant the exclusive expires.
But let’s assume for the moment that Hortense was one of the tap-dancing many that acted upon an open-ended exclusive request, no questions asked. It has now been three months, and she has other requests for manuscript pages in hand. Should she
(a) Silently abide by her commitment to Agent #1 for the duration of the agreed-upon period of exclusivity, even if that means waiting forever, because ethically, she can do nothing else?
(b) Abide by her commitment to Agent #1, but since a reasonable period of time has passed, send a polite reminder after a reasonable period, saying that because other agents are clamoring to see the manuscript, she would really, really like to hear back soon?
(c) Abide by her commitment to Agent #1, but send a series of increasingly vehement protests over how long Agent #1 has had the manuscript?
(d) Follow tactic (c), but begin sending those protests three weeks after the exclusive began?
(e) Abide by her commitment to Agent #1 as long as nobody else expresses interest, but instantly e-mail him the moment she hears from Agent #2, asking #1 if it’s okay to disregard their exclusivity agreement, since the situation has changed?
(f) E-mail Agent #1 as soon as Agent #2′s request arrives, informing #1 that she’s sending the manuscript to somebody else, as if the exclusivity agreement did not exist?
(g) Follow the essential outlines of (f), but embrace this missive as an opportunity to inform Agent #1 that he’s a slowpoke, dream-assassin, or worse?
(h) Send out the requested materials to Agents #2, #3, #4, as they come in, without telling Agent #1, because unless one of them offers to represent her, she’d never have to confess what she has done?
(i) Wait another two or three months, then pursue tactic (h)?
(j) Wait as long as she can possibly stand it, then send a formal, dignified e-mail to Agent #1, thanking him for his interest, but saying that she’s terminating the exclusive?
Oh, you may laugh at some of those options, but I assure you, submitters facing this conundrum routinely engage in all of them. And you or someone you know may well have engaged in one or more of them. If Hortense chose
(a) and are still in the midst of waiting indefinitely, she has good manners. Her mother and I are proud — but it hasn’t really solved Hortense’s problem, has it?
(b) and informed Agent #1 that you would like to hear back, Hortense still has pretty good manners. Provided, of course, that she waited a few months before she pursued this option, and engaged in it only once.
(c) and kept her word not to send out her work, but sent out querulous complaints about it, well, Hortense is like most exclusive-granters. Ultimata almost never work, but it probably made her feel better.
But confidentially to those of you that followed Hortense down this ill-advised path: after the first one or two messages, you stopped hearing back, right? Is it a better use of your energy to pick a fight with someone you want to be on your side, or to move on?
(d) and began sending those protests three weeks after the exclusive began, Hortense’s submission was probably pulled out of consideration on that basis alone. She should consider the submission dead and move on with no further comment.
(e) and instantly e-mailed Agent #1 to ask if it was okay to disregard her exclusivity agreement, since the situation had changed, Hortense doesn’t have a clear understanding of how exclusives work. #1 would be within his rights not only to say no, but to be a trifle insulted.
Why? Chant it with me now, campers: what an exclusive means in practice is that the writer guarantees that nobody else will be in the running while the requesting agent is pondering the pages. Essentially, the pursuant of (e) is saying, “You didn’t REALLY mean that, did you? How could you have, when it’s not in my best interest that you did?”
Not going to fly, I’m afraid. By definition, once Hortense has granted an exclusive, she must abide by its terms. So she really has no excuse for
(f) e-mailing Agent #1 as soon as Agent #2′s request arrived, informing #1 that she’s sending the manuscript to somebody else. Again, Hortense would be displaying that she just doesn’t get the whole exclusivity thing. And if she compounded the problem by
(g) following the essential outlines of (f), but embrace this missive as an opportunity to inform Agent #1 that he’s a slowpoke, dream-assassin, or worse, was she raised by wolves? Apart from the inherent rudeness of such an approach — which, among other things, demonstrates an expectation that #1 would have dropped all of his other duties to pay attention to her submission — in what imaginable scenario would #1 respond positively to such an accusation?
If Hortense is the strong, silent type, she could pursue (h), and send out the requested materials to Agents #2, #3, #4, as they come in, without telling Agent #1, but that would be unethical. Even if she honestly didn’t understand what an exclusivity agreement meant when she said yes to it, it isn’t fair to any of the agents involved. However, if she
(i) waited another two or three months, then pursued tactic (h), it would at least be understandable. But she would have to write off Agent #1 at that point, anyway, so why not
(j) send a formal, dignified e-mail to Agent #1, thanking him for his interest, but saying that since it’s been six months, she’s terminating the exclusive.
I see some of you shaking your heads. “But Anne, I’m confused. It seems as though this is a no-win situation for Hortense. She can ask for an update, but if the agent’s too busy to respond or works at an agency that simply doesn’t tell submitters when they’ve been rejected, her hands are tied by his silent, aren’t they? So is her only winning move not to play the exclusive game at all?”
Not necessarily; if she would sign with Agent #1 with no hesitation if he offered representation and he prefers to read exclusively, saying yes might well make sense. But she cannot ethically retract that agreement after the fact, except to pull her submission out of consideration at #1′s agency. Until she does that — or enough silent time has passed that she has good reason to consider the submission dead — she cannot legitimately send that manuscript elsewhere.
That means — and this seems to come as a surprise to many submitters — that she also cannot ethically grant an exclusive request if any other agents have the manuscript. Because that point is so widely misunderstood, let me state it as an aphorism: by definition, a writer cannot grant an exclusive if any agent is currently reading any part of the manuscript in question; in order to comply with a request for an exclusive, the writer must wait until all of the agents reading it at the time the exclusivity request arrived have informed him of their decisions.
But let’s get back to Hortense’s underlying problem: what happens if an agent who asked for an exclusive doesn’t get back to the writer within a reasonable amount of time? Is the writer still bound by the exclusivity agreement? Or is there some point at which it’s safe to assume that silence equals thanks, but we’re not interested rather than hold your proverbial horses — we haven’t gotten around to reading it yet?
The short answers to each of those last three questions, in the order asked: it depends on the terms of the original agreement; it depends on the terms of the original agreement; it depends on the terms of the original agreement.
Why? Shout it along with me now, campers: how a writer can ethically respond to any of these situations rests entirely upon whether he had the foresight to set an end date for the exclusive when she first agreed to it. If an exclusive is open-ended, the writer cannot ethically send out requested materials to other agents until one of two things happens: the exclusive-requester informs the writer that she has rejected the manuscript, or so many months have passed without word from the agent that it’s safe to assume that the answer is no.
Even then — say, six months — I’d still advise Hortense to send an e-mail, asking if Agent #1is finished with the manuscript. It’s only polite.
Or she could have avoided this dilemma entirely by hedging her bets from the get-go. Hortense could have granted the exclusive, but send the manuscript along with a cover letter that mentions how delighted she was to agree to a three-month exclusive. Agent #1 could always have come back with a request for more time, but at least poor Hortense wouldn’t be left wondering six months hence whether she would offend #1 by moving on.
Being ethical is a tough row to hoe, in short. “But Anne!” exclaim aspiring writers who want there to be more options than there actually are. “Why should I borrow trouble? Surely, you don’t expect me to run the risk of offending an agent by implying that he’s not going to get back to me in a timely manner?”
Hey, I don’t expect anything; do as you think best. I’m just the person that aspiring writers keep asking — on average, about 23 times per month — how to get out of an exclusive that hasn’t panned out as they had hoped.
To help you weigh the relevant risks, let’s look at the phenomenon from the other side of the agreement. Generally speaking, agents will request exclusives for only one of three reasons: they fear that there will be significant competition over who will represent the project, they don’t like to be rushed while reading, or it is simply the agency’s policy not to compete with outside agencies, ever.
Do I feel some of you out there getting tense over that third possibility, doing the math on just how many years (if not decades) it could take to make it through your list of dream agents if you had to submit to them one at a time? Relax, campers: requests for exclusives are actually fairly rare.
Why rare? Well, the first kind of exclusive request I mentioned last time, the one Agent A might use to prevent Agents B-R from poaching your talents before A has had a chance to read your manuscript (hey, A’s desk is already chin-deep in paper), tends to be reserved for writers with more than just a good book to offer. Those that happen to be celebrities, for instance, or won a major contest fifteen minutes ago.
Basically, the agent is hoping to snap up the hot new writer before anybody else does. Or before the HNW realizes that s/he might potentially be in the enviable position of being able to choose amongst several offers of representation.
Which brings me back to those knotty questions I asked earlier in this post: what do you want from your future agent, over and above the ability and willingness to sell your books for you? Since pretty much every respectable agency offers the same service, such choices are often made on the basis of connections, how well-established the agency is, or even how well the writer and the agent happen to hit it off.
Agents, as it happens, are aware of all that. If an agent fears that the other contenders might be able to offer a rosier prospect (or, in a conference situation, just have more engaging personalities), it might well be worth his while to buttonhole the HNW and get her to commit to an exclusive before anyone else can get near enough to ask.
So if you suddenly find yourself the winner of a well-respected literary contest or on the cover of People, remember this: just because an agent asks for an exclusive does not mean you are under any obligation to grant it. Because the writer owns the manuscript, she, not the agent, is technically in control of an exclusivity agreement.
I know, I know: aspiring writers are seldom used to thinking of the submission process this way, but the agent is only allowed to read your manuscript because you say it is okay, right? While Hortense would not have been in a position to set conditions on a submission if there were no question of an exclusive peek (indeed, the average agency reviews far too many manuscripts for any given submitter to be in a position to bargain at that point), she was the person in the best position to determine whether granting an exclusive was in her manuscript’s best interest.
Which means, of course, that you are. Yes, even if the alternative is not allowing the exclusive-seeking agent to see it at all.
It doesn’t always make sense to say yes to a request for an exclusive. If several agents are already interested in your work, it might not be. The implicit understanding in an exclusive-read situation is that if the agent makes an offer, the writer will say yes immediately. The question, then, you should ask yourself before you grant an exclusive is not “Is this an agent?” but “Is this the best agent for my work?”
If you would like to be in a position to compare and contrast offers from different agents, you should be hesitant to grant exclusives. Or to say yes to them before you’ve heard back from another agent whom you feel would be a better fit for your manuscript.
Does that loud choking sound I just heard mean that some of you weren’t aware that a writer doesn’t need to drop everything and respond to a request for an exclusive immediately? It’s not as though the request is going to expire five days hence; unless an agent actually asked you to overnight your manuscript (rare), she’s probably not expecting it right away. In the first heat of excitement, it’s tempting to get pages out the door that very day, but again, it might not be in your book’s best interest.
Besides, if you attach your manuscript as a Word attachment to your same-hour reply to that nice e-mail from Millicent, when will you have time to review your submission IN ITS ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD, to catch any previously-missed typos or rejection triggers?
Like it or not, timing submissions is a matter of strategy. If you are already murmuring, “Yes, by Jove: I want to query and submit in a manner that maximizes the probability to be fielding several offers at once!”, then I suggest you consider two issues very carefully before you decide which agents to approach first. Fair warning — before you can answer either, you’re going to need to do a little research.
(1) If an agency has an exclusives-only policy, should it be near the top of my query list, potentially forcing me to stop my submission process cold until they get back to me? Or are there agents who permit simultaneous submissions that I could approach all at once before I queried the exclusive-only agency?
(2) Is there an agent on this list to whom I would be OVERJOYED to grant an exclusive, should she happen to request it after seeing my query or hearing my pitch, or would I be equally happy with any of these agents? If it’s the former, should I approach that agent right off the bat, before sending out queries to any exclusives-only agents on the list?
And the disgruntled murmur afresh: “Okay, Anne, I get it: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But where does this leave Hortense and the many, many other writers out there who have granted exclusives to the first agent who asked, only to find themselves chafing under the agreement down the line, when other agents asked to see the manuscript? Can’t you dole out just a few ounces of cure?”
Again, it depends: why did the agent asked for the exclusive in the first place, and how long it has been since the writer granted it?
I know, I know: I’m asking a lot of questions, but there’s a lot to consider here. That’s why I’m hoping that most of you are reading this before you find yourself in Hortense’s position. Resting uncomfortably within the horns of a dilemma is seldom conducive to thoughtful pondering. Keep up the good work!
Oh, what a week it has been, campers! Or, rather, what a six days. I’ll spare you the sordid details of the life editorial. Suffice it to say that last Saturday was my seventh anniversary as a blogger, and I was simply too exhausted to post anything even slightly celebratory. So, belatedly:
Woo hoo!
Enough frivolity; back to the question at hand. Last time, before life so rudely interrupted me, I was deep in the throes of discussing the thorny issue of whether or not it is ever to a conference pitcher or querier’s advantage to grant an exclusive — or, to be a trifle less jargon-y about it, whether a writer lucky enough to receive more than one request for manuscript pages should say yes to the one agent or editor that asks, usually quite nicely, if s/he may read the book before any other pro does.
While the overwhelming majority of aspiring writers will respond to such a request with an enthusiastic chorus of, “By all of the great heavenly muses, YES! If I overnight it to you, will that be soon enough to get started?”, what happens if the requester hasn’t gotten back to the writer by the time another request for pages arrives? Oh, it could happen, if the writer has been serious enough about landing an agent to send out more than one query at a time. That same writer might well have send out requested materials to Agents B and C before Agent A is delighted enough with the query to ask for an exclusive peek.
Then, too, sometimes requests for pages come in clumps. If a conference-attending writer really hustles, it’s entirely possible that she will walk away from those pitch sessions with more than one request. Or if an e-querier sends out a barrage of missives all at once, he might well receive several positive responses within a few days. If nobody asks for an exclusive, no problem: they can just send them all out simultaneously. But what if one of those agents wants to be the only one looking at it?
While we’re tossing around rhetorical questions, what is the writer to tell all of those other agents in the meantime? And, at the risk of terrifying you, may I also inquire what happens if the exclusive-requester doesn’t get back to the writer in a timely manner?
I wish we writers talked about these eventualities more amongst ourselves, because none of these are particularly uncommon dilemmas for submitters to face. Often, though, writers who find themselves in these awkward positions are too embarrassed to discuss them. Because I know from experience — seven years of it, to be precise — that this is one of the places those embarrassed writers tend to sneak in the dark of night, frantic for answers, let’s pause for a moment to define our terms.
An exclusive submission entails the writer’s agreeing to allow an agent or editor time to consider representing a particular manuscript before any other publishing professionals read it. Under an exclusivity agreement, both the pro and the writer agree to abide by certain rules:
(a) Only that agent or editor will have an opportunity to read the requested materials;
(b) no other agent or editor is currently considering it;
(c) the writer will not submit it anywhere else while the agent or editor is considering it;
(d) in return for these significant advantages (which, after all, prevent the writer from pursuing other opportunities), the agent or editor will make a legitimate effort to read and decide whether or not to offer representation within a specified time period, but
(e) if no time restriction is specified in advance, or if that agency or editor works someplace with an exclusives-only policy, the manuscript may simply be considered on precisely the same time scale as every other requested.
This serious business, folks, and therefore probably not the kind of thing to which a savvy writer would, upon mature consideration, grant lightly. Say, in the midst of an extended fit of excited giggling because a REAL, LIVE AGENT has asked to see one’s work. At that particular moment, the other seventeen queries one has out and about might slip one’s mind.
Especially if, as is often the case, the request for an exclusive is a trifle vague. (“I’d like an exclusive on this, Minette,” is often the extent of it.) In the throes of delight, the impulse to scream “YES!” has occasionally been known to overcome the completely rational urge to ask, “Excuse me, but what precisely would that mean for me?”
It’s also often the case that aspiring writers, especially first-time pitchers, will just assume that any request for pages must necessarily be a request for an exclusive. Or they act as if it was, in order to save themselves the trouble, stress, and, let’s face it, the emotional risk of sending out more than one submission. (Hey, this is tiring stuff.)
To minimize confusion, I want to make absolutely certain that each and every querier and submitter out there understands four things about exclusives — no, make that five:
(1) A request for an exclusive is always explicit. There is no such thing as an implied exclusivity request: the agent or editor will tell you point-blank that is what he wants.
(2) Some agencies will accept only exclusive submissions, so it’s worth your while to check an agent’s website or listing in one of the standard agency guides before querying or pitching.
(3) As flattering as a request for an exclusive is to an aspiring writer, granting it is optional.
(4) Since by definition, a writer cannot submit to other agents during the exclusive period — yes, even if the writer queried the others first — it’s ALWAYS a good idea to set a time limit.
(5) Since granting it limits the writer’s options, it’s best reserved for situations where one’s top-choice agents are interested in the book.
Why limit it to your favorite picks? Try to think of granting an exclusive as if you were applying for early admission to an Ivy League school: if the school of your dreams lets you in, you’re not going to want to apply to other universities, right? By applying early, you are saying that you will accept their offer of admission, and the school can add you to its roster of new students without having to worry that you’re going to go to another school instead.
It’s a win/win, in other words. And I should know, because once I got into Harvard early, I had a whale of a good time going to group interviews with my high school friends and saying, “Wow, that’s an interesting question, Mr. Alumnus. Allow me to turn that question into an opportunity to discuss the merits of Kathleen here.”
Oh, you thought I woke up one bright day seven years ago and suddenly became public-spirited? I regard a broad range of endeavor as team sports.
If the best agent in the known universe for your type of writing asks for an exclusive, you might be well advised to say yes. But if you have any doubt in your mind about whether Harvard really is a better school for your intended studies than Yale, Columbia, or Berkeley — to mix my metaphors again — you might want to apply to all of them at the same time, so you may decide between those that do admit you.
To put it another way, if you are asked for an exclusive because your work is sought-after, it is up to you whether you would prefer to go steady right off the bat or date around a little. Got it?
If not, I can keep coming up with parallels all day, I assure you. Don’t make me delve into my vast store of zoology metaphors.
Do all of those averted eyes mean that you have no intention of saying no to a REAL, LIVE AGENT that wants to SEE YOUR WORK? Or merely that you’re hoping desperately that the muses have abruptly decided to assign one of their number to make sure that of those 17 agents you have approached, the only one that prefers exclusive submissions contacts you first, swears to get back to you within 48 hours, and then offers to sign you in 36?
Well, I wish the best for you, so I hope it’s the latter, too, but let’s assume for the moment that at least one writer out there falls into the former category. If you say yes, lone intender, set a reasonable time limit on it, so you don’t keep your book off the market too long. This prudent step will save you from the unfortunately common dilemma of the writer who granted an exclusive a year ago and still hasn’t heard back.
Yes, in response to that gigantic collective gasp I just heard out there: one does hear rumors of agents who ask for exclusives, then hold onto the manuscript for months on end. Or even — brace yourself — a year or two. I can neither confirm nor deny this, of course.
All I can confirm is that since the economic downturn began, such rumors have escalated astronomically.
Set a time limit, politely. Three months is ample.
And no, turning it into three weeks will almost certainly not get your manuscript read any faster. This is no time to be unreasonable in your expectations.
No need to turn asking for the time limit into an experiment in negotiation, either: simply include a sentence in your submission’s cover letter along the lines of I am delighted to give you an exclusive look at my manuscript, as you requested, for the next three months.
Simple, direct — and trust me, if the agent or editor has a problem with the time you’ve specified, s/he will contact you to ask for more.
Of course, protecting your ability to market your work isn’t always that simple: negotiation is not possible with the other type of exclusive request, the kind that emerges from an agency that only reviews manuscripts exclusively. The writer is not offered a choice in the matter. Consequently, a request for an exclusive from these folks is not so much a compliment to one’s work (over and above the sheer desire to read some of it, that is) as a way of doing business.
In essence, exclusive-only agencies are saying to writers, “Look, since you chose to approach us, we assume that you have already done your homework about what we represent — and believe us, we would not ask to see your manuscript if we didn’t represent that kind of writing. So we expect you to say yes right away if we make you an offer. Now squeal with delight and hand over the pages.”
Noticing a homework theme in all of these unspoken assumptions? Good. Let me pull out the bullhorn to reiterate: because agents tend to assume that any serious writer would take the time to learn how the publishing industry does and doesn’t work, submitters that don’t do their homework are significantly more likely to get rejected than those who do.
Oh, did some of you want to ask a question? Here, allow me to lower my bullhorn. “But Anne,” the recently-deafened cry, “I don’t get it. Why might an exclusives-only submissions policy be advantageous for an agency to embrace?”
Well, for one thing, it prevents them from ever having to experience the fear associated with the first type of exclusive request. If you send them pages, they may safely assume that you won’t be e-mailing them a week later to say, “Um, Agent Q has just made me an offer, slowpoke. I still would like to consider you, so could you drop everything else you might have intended to do for the foreseeable future and finish reading my manuscript so you can give me an answer? As in by the end of the week?”
Okay, so you wouldn’t really be that rude. (PLEASE tell me you wouldn’t be that rude.) But agents who don’t require exclusive submissions do receive these types of e-mails fairly often: nervous writers often assume, mistakenly, that they should be sending agents who have their manuscripts constant status updates, if not pleading or outright ultimata. And agents hate the kind of missive mentioned in the last paragraph, because nobody, but nobody, reads faster than an agent who has just heard that the author of the manuscript that’s been propping up his wobbly coffee table is fielding multiple offers.
Agencies who demand exclusivity are, by definition, unlikely to find themselves in an Oh, my God, I have to read this 400-page novel by tomorrow! situation. After the third or fourth panicked all-nighter, exclusives might start to look like a pretty good policy.
Increased speed is the usual response to multiple offers, note. Since people who work in agencies are perfectly well aware that turn-around times have been expanding exponentially of late, the mere fact that other agents are considering a manuscript isn’t likely to affect its place in the reading queue at all.
What does the writer get in return for agreeing not to submit to others for the time being? Not a heck of a lot, typically, unless the agency in question is in fact the best place for her work and she would unquestionably sign with them if they offered representation. But if one wants to submit to such an agency, one needs to follow its rules.
Happily, agencies that maintain this requirement tend to be far from quiet about it. Their agents will trumpet the fact from the conference dais. Requires exclusive submissions or even the relatively rare will accept only exclusive queries will appear upon their websites, in their listings in standard agency guides, and on their form-letter replies requesting your first 50 pages.
(Yes, in response to that shocked wail your psyche just sent flying in my general direction: positive responses are often form letters, too, even when they arrive in e-mail form. I sympathize with your dismay.)
If exclusives-only agencies had company T-shirts, in short, there would probably be an asterisk after the company’s name and a footnote on the back about not accepting simultaneous submissions. If they’re serious about the policy, they’re serious about it, and trying to shimmy around such a policy will only get a writer into trouble.
Do I feel some of you tensing up again? Relax — agencies with this requirement are not very common.
Why? It limits their querying pool. Because they require their potential clients to bring their often protracted agent search to a screeching halt while the submission is under consideration, such agencies are, in the long run, more time-consuming for a writer to deal with than others. As a result, many ambitious aspiring writers, cautious about committing their time, will avoid querying agencies with this policy.
Which, again, is a matter of personal choice. Or it would be, if you happened to notice before you queried that the agency in question had this policy.
Do check their T-shirts in advance, though, because I assure you, no one concerned is going to have any sympathy for a writer complaining about feeling trapped in an exclusive. They’ll just assume that she didn’t do her homework.
Next time, I shall discuss other common manifestations of the exclusivity dilemma. For now, I’m simply going to blow out the candle that’s been burning in my seven-year celebration cake and call it a night. Keep up the good work!
The short answer, under ordinary circumstances, is no. The slightly longer answer, and certainly the most common response to any publishing-related question, is it depends.
Perhaps it’s wrong of me on a plotting level to have given away the punch line so soon, but honestly, we’re right in the thick of writers’ conference season. Why, this coming weekend will see one of the largest in my part of the country. So pardon me, please, if I structure today’s post so it immediately addresses the fears of would-be and just-succeeded conference pitchers.
How do I know that multiple submissions and exclusives will be on these pitchers’ minds, as well as troubling the thoughts of the multitudes of querying writers determined to send out queries by Labor Day? Experience, mostly: as of Saturday, I shall have been the go-to person for writers’ anxiety for seven long, eventful years. And for every single conference season throughout those years, successful pitchers and queriers have come creeping to me in the dark of night with a terrified question: what have I done, and how may I fix it?
Oh, you think that’s an exaggeration, do you? Let me put it this way: for the last few years, I have asked these panicked persons — after I have soothed their heated brows, of course — to give me suggestions for what category title, if any, would most easily have caught their eye on the archive list at the height of their chagrin. Without exception, every single respondent has suggested that I include the word Help!
Usually with several exclamation points. I have some reason to believe, then, that there’s some ambient confusion out there about when it is and is not okay to submit a manuscript to several agents or editor at a time. And, perhaps even more pertinent to the midnight terrors haunting many a pitcher, how should a writer lucky enough to walk away from a conference with more than one request for pages decide which agent or editor to submit to first?
This time, the short answer is it depends. And the long answer is a question: what about these particular requests make you believe you have to rank them?
If you’re like most writers gearing up to submit, the answer to the long answer probably runs a little something like this: well, obviously, I shouldn’t submit to more than one agent at a time — that would be rude. Or is that I’ve heard that agents consider it rude? Anyway, I wouldn’t want to run the risk of offending anyone. Besides, if I submit only to the one I liked better — which was that again? — I don’t have to come up with a graceful way to say no to the other one. And it’s less work for me: if the first one says yes, I don’t have to go to the trouble of making up another submission packet. But if I do that, must I wait for the first to say no before I send out pages to the second? What if the first never gets back to me? Or what if the first doesn’t get back to me until after I’ve already submitted to the second, and then yells at me because he didn’t want me to show the book to anyone else? And what if…
Does that logic loop sound familiar? If so, the first thing to do is CALM DOWN. No one can whip up a worst-case scenario better than a writer, but in the vast majority of multiple submissions, no problems arise whatsoever.
You’d never know that, however, from the welter of dire warnings and fourth-hand horror stories floating around out there, would you? That miasma of anxiety tends to compound the confusion for many writers, alas: surely, I don’t have to tell any of you reading that there’s an awful lot of querying and submission advice out there, much of it contradictory. And as some of may have noted with alarm, an awful lot of the common wisdom about querying and submission just isn’t true, or at any rate, just isn’t true anymore.
How, then, is someone brand-new to the process supposed to figure out what to do?
Frequently, aspiring writers attempt to resolve this dilemma by turning to someone like me — often, unfortunately, after they’ve inadvertently stumbled into an industry faux pas. (Which is, in case those of you searching frantically through the archives have been wondering, why I always provide such extensive explanations for everything I advise here: since so many of my readers are considering quite a bit of competing information — and frequently doing it in a moment when they are already feeling overwhelmed — I believe that it’s as important that you know why I’m suggesting something as to understand how to implement the suggestion. I never, ever want any of my readers to do what I say just because I say so. So there.)
Some of the most heart-rending perennial problems are the result of believing the common wisdom and applying it to every agent one might ever want to approach, rather than carefully reading each agency’s submission guidelines and treating each query/submission situation as unique. Sometimes, though, even that level of hedging doesn’t prevent a writer from falling into a ditch.
Witness, for instance, the situation into which Virginia, a long-time member of the Author! Author! community, innocently tumbled:
Help! I submitted only two queries to two agents. One got back to me quickly and did ask for exclusive right to review. A few days after I agreed to this, the second agent replied and asked for pages. I don’t want to violate my agreement, but how do I tell the second agent I’m really happy she wants to see more but she has to wait?
Successful queriers and pitchers end up in this kind of dilemma all the time, often without understanding how they ended up there or why they’re stressed out about what was presumably the outcome they were seeking when they approached multiple agents simultaneously: more than one agent interested in reading their work. An exclusive is always a good thing, they reason nervously, a sign that an agent was unusually eager to see a queried or pitched book, and thus decided to bypass her usual method of requesting manuscripts.
Not always, no. But it depends.
Sometimes, a request for an exclusive genuinely is the result of an agent’s being so excited by a query or pitch (especially if that book has just won a contest) that she’s afraid that another agent will snap it up first. Far more frequently, though, a surprise request for an exclusive is the natural and should-have-been-expected outcome when a writer approaches and agent working at an agency that has an exclusives-only policy.
I hear some uncharitable souls snicker, but most queriers don’t read each individual agency’s submission guidelines before sending out those letters. At least the first time around, aspiring writers generally assume that all agencies are the same. And very few pitchers do much research on the agents and editors they plan to approach at conferences, beyond reading the blurbs in the conference brochure.
So if you find yourself walking uncomfortably in Virginia’s shoes, don’t worry. You’re certainly not the only aspiring writer that’s ever slipped on those moccasins. Heck, you’re not the only one to try to trudge a mile in them today.
Especially likely to find themselves thrashing around in this dilemma: successful pitchers and queriers who do what virtually every aspiring writer asked to submit materials does — and what Virginia probably did here: sending out pages within hours of receiving the request. Which those of you who have been following this series know better than to do, right?
It’s a completely understandable faux pas, however, especially if the request arises from a query. Overjoyed at what they assume (in this case, wrongly) will be the only interest their queries will generate, many multiply-querying writers don’t pause to consider that multiple requests for manuscripts are always a possible outcome while sending out simultaneous queries.
Thus, it follows as night the day, so is a situation where one of those agents requests an exclusive. And it follows as day the night that an exclusive request is also a possibility when pitching at a conference.
This is why, in case any of you inveterate conference-goers have been curious, agents, editors, and those of us who teach classes on marketing writing invariably sigh when an aspiring writer raises his hand to ask some form of this particular question — and it’s not for the reason that other aspiring writers will sigh at it. (The latter usually sigh because wish they had this problem, and who could blame them?) The pros will sigh because they’re thinking, Okay, did this writer just not do his homework on the agents he approached? Or is he asking me to tell him that he can blithely break the commitment he’s made to Agent #1? Does this writer seriously believe all agents are in league together, that I would be able to grant permission to insult one of my competitors?
That’s why everyone else will sigh. I, however, sigh because my thought process runs like this: okay, I have to assume that the questioner is someone who hasn’t read any of my blog posts on querying or submission, as much as that possibility pains me to consider. But since I have a small army of explicitly-named categories on my archive list — conveniently located at the bottom right-hand side of my website’s main page, including such topics as EXCLUSIVES AND MULTIPLE SUBMISSION, EXCLUSIVES TO AGENTS, SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS, and WHAT IF MORE THAN ONE AGENT ASKS TO SEE MY MANUSCRIPT? — directly aimed at answering this question, and a battalion more that deal with it within the larger context of submission (under provocative headings like AFTER YOU RECEIVE A REQUEST FOR PAGES, AFTER YOU SUBMIT, HOW LONG BEFORE THE REQUEST FOR PAGES EXPIRES? HOW SOON MUST I SEND REQUESTED MATERIALS? INDUSTRY ETIQUETTE, IS IT OKAY TO SUBMIT TO SEVERAL AGENTS AT ONCE? and REQUESTED MATERIALS), as well as a dramatically-reenacted scenario directly related to this issue in the Industry Etiquette series. Yet I have to assume that the questioner is facing a situation that I have managed to overlook addressing in any of these posts. So I shall eschew the temptation just to send the questioner to any or all of those categories, try to understand how and why this situation is unique, and answer the darned question for the 1,477th time.”
Yes, I can think with that much specificity in mid-sigh, thank you very much. It’s just one of my many, many talents.
All that being said — or at any rate thought loudly — it is undoubtedly true that more writers than ever before seem to be finding themselves enmeshed in Virginia’s dilemma. Or simply unsure about whether it’s okay to submit to more than one agent at once. Quite a bit of the common wisdom out there, after all, dictates that writers should wait to hear back on one submission before sending out the next.
The short answer to that: poppycock! The long answer — and I sincerely hope that by now you saw this coming — is it depends.
On what? On the individual agency’s policies, of course, as well as how the agent in question phrased the request for pages.
In an environment where submission volumes are so high that even a requested full manuscript may well sit on a corner of an agent’s desk for a year or more — and that’s after Millicent has already decided she liked it — just presuming that any agent would prefer to be the only one considering a manuscript could add years to the submission process. If an agency has a no-reply-if-the-reply-will-be-no policy, stated or unstated, the hapless submitter can have no idea whether silence means (a) no, (b) the manuscript got lost in transit, (c) the manuscript got lost at the agency, or (d) the agent just hasn’t had time to read it yet.
Well might you turn pale. As agencies have been cutting their staffs over the last few years (and aspiring writers who wouldn’t have had time to query or submit before the economic downturn have been digging old manuscripts out of bottom desk drawers), turn-around times have gotten demonstrably longer. So has the practice of not informing a submitter if the answer is no — or even hanging on to a manuscript someone at the agency likes in the hope that market conditions will improve for that type of book.
The result: more and more submitters who just don’t know whether they are in a position to grant an exclusive to another agent or not. How could they, when they have heard that writers should never bug agents while they are considering manuscripts?
All of which is to say: it actually isn’t fair to leap to the conclusion that if aspiring writers read agents’ websites and agency guide listings more thoroughly, they would never end up in this situation. Sometimes, an exclusive request does come out of a genuinely blue sky, whacking a conscientious multiple querier or submitter right in the noggin.
How is that possible? Amazingly often, the writer simply does not know that exclusivity is a possibility until an agent asks for it. Unless an agency has an exclusives-only policy (and some do; check), the prospect generally will not be mentioned in its submission guidelines.
Then, too, the request for an exclusive is seldom formulated in a manner that informs a writer not already aware of the fact that she can say no. Or that she can grant it at a later date. Or put a time limit on the exclusive, if she agrees to it at all.
All of these things are perfectly legitimate responses to an exclusivity request, incidentally. But it depends on the actual content of that request; they vary more than one might think.
I can, however, rule out a couple of possibilities. First, as we discussed earlier in this series, there is no such thing as an implied request for an exclusive; such requests are always directly stated. So unless an agent or editor specifically asked for an exclusive peek at all or part of a manuscript or the agency has a clearly-posted exclusives-only policy on its website, a writer does not need to worry at all about offending Agent A by submitting simultaneously submitting the same manuscript to Agent B.
Yes, really. Just mention in your cover letters to each that another agent is looking at it, and you should be fine.
Would you fling the nearest portable object in my general direction, though, if I swiftly added that even this sometimes depends upon factors beyond the writer’s knowledge and control? Back in my querying days, I blithely sent off requested materials to a seventh agent, while six were already considering it. That was completely ethical: all seven’s agencies websites, communications with me, and listings in the standard agency guides failed to mention any exclusives-only policies. Nor did #7′s request for the manuscript specify that he wanted an exclusive. That being the case, I simply told him, as I had an ethical obligation to do, that he was not the only agent considering it.
You can see this coming, can’t you?
I must admit, I didn’t — his announcement that his agency never considered multiple submissions left me pretty gobsmacked. But once he had expressed that preference, I had to abide by his rules, even though they were late-breaking news: I had to choose whether to e-mail him back to say I accepted his terms, and would be telling Nos. 1-6 that my manuscript was no longer available, or to apologize for not being aware of what I could not possibly have known and withdraw my submission to him. I chose the latter, and lived to submit another day.
I sense some of you seething, do I not? “But Anne!” the hot-blooded among you cry, and I’m grateful for your ire on my behalf. “That wasn’t fair! Why didn’t you insist that he abide by what you thought were the original terms of the submission?”
Because, passionate ones, as Thomas Hobbes once so rightly observed, rights are the ability to enforce them. Arguing with an agent about his own submission policies is always a losing proposition for a writer.
Which leaves me to the second point a writer should consider before granting an exclusive: before you say yes, make sure you understand its terms, as well as what granting it would mean for you. Read that request very, very carefully, as well as the agency’s website. Is the exclusive open-ended, for instance, or is the agent asking for you to hold off on submitting elsewhere for a particular period of time? If it doesn’t specify an end date — and most exclusive requests don’t — would you feel comfortable setting the request aside for a few months while you responded to any other agents that had already expressed interest. Or if it took three months to get an answer from an agent that already had the manuscript?
And, while you’re at it, are you absolutely positive that the requester is asking for an exclusive? Sometimes, in the heat of excitement at hearing a yes, a successful querier — or, even more commonly, a successful pitcher — will slightly misinterpret what he’s being asked to do.
Third, be aware that a request for an exclusive is in fact a request, not a command. Even if a writer does receive one or more requests for an exclusive, she’s not under any obligation to grant it — nor does she need to agree to it right away. That’s vital to know going in, because as soon as the writer has agreed to an exclusive, she does in fact have to honor it. So it’s in the writer’s best interest to give the matter some thought.
Think about it: if Virginia had pondered Agent A’s request for a week or two, wouldn’t she have found herself in a much, much happier dilemma when Agent B’s epistle arrived? Then, she would merely have had to decide to which she wanted to submit first, the one that wanted the exclusive or the one that didn’t.
What would have been the right answer here, you ask with bated breath? Easy: it depends.
Upon what? Feel free to sing along: if Agent A’s agency’s had a posted exclusives-only submission policy, he had a right to expect Virginia to be aware of it before she queried, and thus to believe that by querying him, she was agreeing to that condition. If an agency will only accept solo submissions, that’s that: it’s not as though she could negotiate an exception in her case.
It would also depend upon whether the agent put a time limit on the request. It’s rare that an agent or editor puts a start date deadline in an exclusive request (they have other manuscripts waiting on their desks, after all), but they do occasionally specify how long they expect the exclusive to be.
Given Virginia’s surprise, though, my guess is that neither of these conditions applied. That means, ethically, she could go either way.
The only thing she could not legitimately do was submit to both A and B after A said he would read it only as an exclusive. That does not necessarily mean, however, that if she wanted to submit to A first, she could not suggest a time limit on the exclusive, so enable her to take advantage of B’s interest if A decided to pass.
And a thousand jaws hit the floor. Yes, yes, I know: the very idea of the writer’s saying, “Yes, Agent A, I would love to grant you a three-month exclusive — here’s the manuscript!” would seem to run counter to the idea that the requester gets to set the terms of the exclusive. But in Virginia’s case, I happen to know (my spies are everywhere) that Agent A is of the ilk that does not habitually specify an end date for an exclusive. So proposing one would not constitute arguing with him; it would merely be telling him how long she believes she is agreeing to hold off on sending it elsewhere.
He can always make a counterproposal, after all. Or ask for more time at the end of those three months. It’s a reasonable length of time, though, so he probably won’t say no — as he would, in all likelihood, if she set the time at something that would require him to rearrange his schedule to accommodate, like three weeks.
Why so glum? Was it something I said? “Three months?” the impatient groan. “To me, three weeks sounds like a long time to hear back! If the agent is interested enough to request an exclusive, why shouldn’t I expect a rapid reply?”
Ah, that’s a common misconception. 99.999% of the time, what an aspiring writer asked for an exclusive thinks the agent is saying is not, “Okay, this sounds interesting and marketable, but I don’t want to have to rush to beat competing agents in reading the manuscript. Please remove the necessity of my having to hurry by agreeing not to show it to anyone else until I’ve gotten back to you.”
Which is, by the way, what a request for exclusivity means, at base. Rather deflating to think of it that way, isn’t it? It is, however, realistic.
By contrast, what 99.999% of aspiring writers in this situation hear is “Oh, my God — this is the most exciting book premise/query/pitch I’ve ever heard. I’m almost positive that I want to represent it, even though I have not yet read a word of the manuscript or book proposal. Because my marrow is thrilled to an extent unprecedented in my professional experience, I shall toss all of my usual submission expectations and procedures out the nearest window. If you grant my request for an exclusive, I’m going to clear my schedule so I may delve into this submission the nanosecond it arrives in my office. May I have it today — or, at the very latest, tomorrow — so I can stop holding my breath until it arrives?”
And then the giddy submitter is astonished when weeks or months pass before the agent makes a decision, precisely as if there had been no exclusive involved. The only difference, from the writer’s point of view, is that he was honor-bound not to approach other agents until he heard back.
Pardon my asking, but what precisely did the writer gain by granting that exclusive? Or by not politely attempting to place a time limit upon it?
That’s not to say, of course, that I’m unsympathetic to the impulse not to look that gift horse in the mouth. Many, if not most, aspiring writers confuse initial interest with a commitment — why would an agent ask to see a manuscript exclusively, they reason, unless they already thought they might want to sign the author?
A fair enough question, but I’m not sure you’re going to like the answer: typically, an agent won’t ask for an exclusive (or to see the manuscript, for that matter) unless she thinks representing it as a possibility; it is a genuine compliment. However, since agents who ask for exclusives seldom make the request of only one writer at a time, it’s not very prudent for a writer to presume that his will be the only exclusive on the agent’s desk.
If that last bit made your stomach drop to somewhere around your knees, please don’t feel blue, or even slightly mauve. The vast majority of writers who have ever been asked for an exclusive peek at their work were under laboring under the same presumption. The temptation to believe the request means more than it actually does is incalculable. The result, unfortunately, is that all too often, aspiring writers agree to an exclusive without understanding what it actually will entail — and usually are either too excited or too shy to ask follow-up questions before they pack off those requested materials.
For the benefit of those overjoyed and/or excited souls, I’m going to invest some blog space into going over what granting that solo peek will and will not entail.
Within the context of submission, an exclusive involves a writer agreeing to allow an agent a specific amount of time to consider representing a particular manuscript, during which no other agent will be reviewing it. In practice, both the agent and the writer agree to abide by certain rules:
(a) Only that agent will have an opportunity to read the requested materials;
(b) no other agent is already looking at it;
(c) the writer will not submit it anywhere else;
(d) in return for these significant advantages (which, after all, pull the manuscript out of competition with other agents), the agent will make a legitimate effort to read and decide whether or not to offer representation within a specified time period, but
(e) if no time restriction is specified in advance, or if the agent always requests exclusives, the manuscript may simply be considered on precisely the same time scale as every other requested by the agency.
Is everyone clear on the rules? Be honest, now: they differ quite a bit from what you were expecting, don’t they?
Now that we know what Virginia agreed to do in granting an exclusive to Agent A, as well as what her options would have been had she received Agent B’s request before she had sent off the first submission, let’s take a gander what she should do about the situation she actually faced. (You knew I would get to it eventually, right?)
The answer is, as you have probably guessed, it depends. If she wants to play by the rules — and she should, always — her choices are three.
If she specified a time limit on the exclusive when she granted the exclusive to Agent A the answer is very simple: if less than that amount of time has passed, don’t send the manuscript to anyone else until it has. On the day after the exclusive has elapsed, she is free to submit to other agents.
What is she to tell Agent B in the interim? Nothing, if the agreed-upon length of the exclusive is reasonable — say, between three and six months.
Stop choking. Agencies often have monumental backlogs, and it’s not uncommon for agents and editors to read promising manuscripts at home, in their spare time.
And no, Virginia, waiting that long before submitting requested materials to B will not seem strange. Agents are perfectly used to writers taking some time to revise. B probably wouldn’t blink twice if she didn’t get back to him before then.
Remember, it’s not as though an agent who requests materials sits there, twiddling his thumbs, until he receives it. He’s got a lot of manuscripts already sitting on his desk — and piled on the floor, and threatening to tumble of his file cabinet, and waiting in Millicent’s cubicle…
Besides, what would Virginia gain by telling him she’d already promised an exclusive to another agent, other than implicitly informing him that she had already decided that if Agent A offered representation, she would take it? How exactly would that win her Brownie points with B? Or, indeed, help her at all?
In practice, all waiting on fulfilling the second request means is that Virginia will have an attractive alternative if A decides to pass on the manuscript. That’s bad because…?
Oh, wait: it isn’t. Actually, it’s an ideal situation for a just-rejected submitter to find herself occupying. Way to go, Virginia!
Worrying about what might happen to Virginia if Agent A doesn’t get back to her within the specified time frame? Relax; she still has several pretty good options: one completely above-board, one right on the board, and the last slightly under it.
First, the high road: a week or two after the agreed-upon exclusive expires, Virginia could send Agent A a courteous e-mail (not a call), reminding him that the exclusive has elapsed. Would A like more time to consider the manuscript solo, or should Virginia send the manuscript out to the other agents who have requested it?
Naturally, if he selects the latter, she would be delighted to have him continue to consider the manuscript also. That’s fortunate, because I can already tell you the answer will be the former, if A has not yet had a chance to read it.
It’s also quite possible, though, that the response to this charming little missive will be silence. That might mean that Agent A is no longer interested, but it might also mean that he intended to answer and forgot. Or that he honestly believes he can get to the manuscript before another agent has a chance to make an offer. For all of these reasons, she should not take A’s silence as an invitation to load him with recriminations about not getting back to her.
Which, unfortunately, is what submitters in this situation usually do. It’s wasted effort: if the answer was no, jumping up and down to try to regain the agent’s attention won’t change that; if the agent hasn’t had a chance to read it yet, reproaches will seldom move a manuscript up in a reading queue.
So what is Virginia to do? Well, ethically, she is no longer bound by that exclusive. She should presume the answer was no, elevate her noble chin — and send out that submission to Agent B without contacting A again.
That’s the high road. The writer doesn’t achieve much by taking it, usually, other than possibly an extension of the exclusive, but you must admit, it’s classy. The level road is cosmetically similar, but frees the writer more.
It runs something like this: a week or two after the exclusive has elapsed, Virginia could write an e-mail to Agent A, informing him courteously and without complaint (again, harder than it sounds) that since the agreed-upon period of exclusivity has passed, she’s going to start sending out requested materials to other agents. Then she should actually do it, informing Agent B in her cover letter that another agent is also considering the work.
That way, she gets what she wants — the ability to continue to market her work — while not violating her agreement with Agent A and being honest with Agent B. All she is doing is being up front about abiding by the terms of the exclusive.
Might she receive a hasty e-mail from A, asking for more time? Possibly. If so, she can always agree not to accept an offer from another agent until after some specified date. If she likes.
The slightly subterranean third option would be not to send an e-mail at all, but merely wait until the exclusive has lapsed to send out the manuscript to Agent B. She should, of course, inform B that there’s also another agent reading it. I don’t favor this option, personally, because despite the fact that Virginia would be perfectly within her rights to pursue it — A is the one who breached the agreement here — because if Agent A does eventually decide to make an offer, Virginia will be left in a rather awkward position.
Enviable, of course, but still a bit uncomfortable. I’d stick to one of the higher roads — unless, of course, after months of waiting, Virginia isn’t certain that she can resist complaining about the passage of time. It’s not in her interest to pick a fight, after all.
The shortness of the space between here and the bottom of this post is making some of you nervous, isn’t it? “But Anne,” you quaver, shifting in your desk chairs, “what happens if Virginia agreed to an unlimited exclusive, and she hasn’t heard back? That seems like the most complicated option of all, so I’m really, really hoping that you’re not planning to trot out that annoying it depends line again.”
Well, her options do depend, actually, on quite a number of things, but you’re quite right that discussing the perils and escape hatches of the unlimited exclusive is too complex to toss off in just a few paragraphs. I shall deal with it in depth next time.
For now, suffice it to say that as exciting as a request for an exclusive may be, it is not a gift horse to clamber upon without some pretty thorough examination of its dentistry. Before you saddle it — and yourself — take the time to consider the implications. And, of course, keep up the good work!
I had to laugh, campers: remember Tuesday’s lengthy post on cover letters for submissions, and, by extension, on the many, many benefits of tailoring one’s communications with agents, editors, and the rest of us that read for a living in such a way that (a) one demonstrates a laudable ability to communicate clearly in writing, (b) one displays an admirable willingness to follow the directions given in the request for pages, and (c) one practices a level of courtesy that indicates not only that one would be a pleasure to work with, but also that one does not expect the manuscript-requester either to have been holding her breath, awaiting your submission, or to drop all of her other work to pay attention to your pages the instant they arrive? You know, the post in which I explained with meticulous care that since so many aspiring writers are inconsiderate in their submissions, it would be very much in your interest to be the one submitter that day that greets Millicent the agency screener with professional politeness? To be, in fact, the one aspiring writer out of a thousand that puts in the effort and thought to render herself easy to help?
Once again, as so often occurs, the universe rushed to provide me with further examples to illustrate a discussion already in progress here at Author! Author! Yesterday, I found myself devoting hours to an author that expected me to abandon any work-related plans I might have had for my afternoon to pay attention to an essay he had written — as a potential guest post here, as it happens — without any prior warning. That in itself is too common to be irritating; it frequently takes writers years to accept that their deadlines are not the only ones with which the pros deal. The fact that he had pulled the same stunt on Monday, while less ordinary, had already confirmed him in my mind as someone that would not be especially easy to help.
Being an easy-going sort of person, however (or at least as easy-going as it is possible to be in a deadline-based business), my first response to his popping up again — and so soon, too — was not to dismiss him as inconsiderate or unprofessional. I intended merely to give him a gentle hint that the next time he wanted my advice, he should plan on asking, nicely, to book my time a week in advance.
That was my plan, anyway, until it became clear that he was outraged about Monday’s editorial feedback. You know, the stuff I’d spent an hour thoughtfully compiling for him on a moment’s notice.
Which, again, is not in itself unusual enough to raise my delicate eyebrows much. What did throw me a little — and make me think of our ongoing series — was that the tirade the author saw fit to e-mail me was clearly his immediate response to my editorial suggestions. That indeed surprised me: by the time most writers make their way into print, they have generally learned that their first responses to revision requests do not always match up with their subsequent thoughts on the subject. An experienced author might still compose that irate e-mail telling the editor that she must be out of her ever-loving mind, but he usually has the presence of mind not to hit SEND.
Why bring this up in the midst of a discussion on submission, you ask, other than to plant the seed in your mind that a prudent writer will wait a few days before taking issue with an agent or editor’s revision request? Two reasons: to illustrate my earlier point that how writers present themselves sometimes discourages the pros from trying to help them — and to remind everyone that the manuscript is not necessarily the only part of the submission that an agent, editor, or Millicent will weigh in deciding whether to represent a writer. The writing is the most important element, of course, but the professionalism of a submission packet and submission behavior that demonstrates both courtesy and a willingness to follow directions will also go a long way toward convincing a pro that yours is the project out of tens of thousands to select.
Perhaps equally important for first-time submitters to know, this is a business in which politeness counts, as do reputations. Although it may appear huge and monolithic to a writer trying to break in, U.S. publishing is actually a relatively small and diverse world. People talk.
Why might a writer want to be concerned about what they say? Well, let me put it this way: I already knew when the soon-to-be irate author approached me with a request to guest-blog that he tended to overreact to editorial feedback. I’d heard stories.
To be fair, such stories abound. One does not have to hang around publishing circles very long to learn that as a group, writers have a reputation for being hypersensitive to feedback, if not downright resistant to it. We also, I’m sorry to report, have gained the image of reacting with equally violent negativity to any suggested revision, be it a request to alter a single paragraph in Chapter 2 or to rework the entire last third of the book.
“What do you mean, I have to add a comma on line 3 of page 147?” the faceless author of professional anecdote rails. “That would utterly destroy my artistic vision! And you want me to stop using adverbs to modify every appearance of the word said? Madness!”
Like most stereotypes, the writer that flies into an insensate rage over the slightest criticism is largely mythical, of course, and his ubiquity is certainly exaggerated. In my experience, most writers serious about their craft do try pretty hard to be open to professional critique. And that can be genuinely challenging, as almost every aspiring writer thinks of her first manuscript, at least, as part of herself.
So when even the best-intentioned agent or editor says something as self-evidently helpful as, “You know, your target audience might respond better to this character if he didn’t swear in every sentence,” it’s not entirely surprising that a writer new to revision might hear not a practical suggestion to excise a few dozen specific words over the course of a manuscript with a hundred thousand of them, but a blanket condemnation of her writing style.
It’s even less astonishing than such a misinterpretation would have been fifty or sixty years ago. Most aspiring writers today are not aware of it, but the submission system used to be set up, at least in part, to inure them to the fact that one of the ways the pros help writers is by offering feedback. How so? Well, in the bad old days, a writer would send a manuscript (often, unwisely, his only copy) to a publishing house, and he would receive a response from some kind editorial assistant. Most often, that missive would be a form letter, thanking the writer for his submission but informing him that it did not meet the publisher’s needs at that time.
If the manuscript demonstrated even the slightest hint of what at the time was called promise, however, that editorial assistant — or even an editor — might well fill that letter with feedback and professional advice. And not only in the instances in which the editor felt the manuscript had sufficient publishing potential that the letter included a request to revise and resubmit: astonishingly often, the pros would take the time to say encouraging words to those only beginning to tread the path to writing professionally.
That meant, if a writer kept at it, she would see a definite progression in submission response. At first, she might receive only generic form letters, but if she worked on her craft and presentation, the next time around, the rejection might take the form of a nice note. After that, she might receive a few general editorial suggestions to improve her work. If she took those seriously, her next effort might spark a letter with detailed feedback, along with a request to resubmit the manuscript after those changes were made. And then, if she was hard-working, talented, and lucky enough to have written something that might appeal to the current market, an editor might well have acquired the book, even if it still needed some polishing.
The writer had, in short, time to get used to the idea that writing professionally meant being expected to make revisions. That wouldn’t necessarily mean that she liked it, of course, or that she would feel that all of the feedback would improve the book, but at least an aspiring writer could use the process in order to become accustomed to professional expectations.
Sounds nice, doesn’t it? “I’ll say it does, Anne,” feedback-starved writers everywhere sigh. “That system sounds as though it was not only much more pleasant for aspiring writers — once one became accustomed to receiving professional feedback, that is — but as though it would ultimately result in better books. Why on earth did they give it up?”
Well, not all of them did — there are still quite a few smaller publishing houses that at least try to adhere to this model. But even there, and certainly at the larger houses, the pressure not to give feedback or accept unsolicited submissions has been and continues to be immense: since the sheer number of writers actively seeking publication has risen astronomically since, say, 1952, it would be prohibitively time-consuming to respond to each manuscript individually.
Which is why, in case those of you that were shocked to learn the publishing industry doesn’t still operate like this had been wondering, most of the big houses had made the switch thirty years ago to requiring novelists to approach them through agencies. Before the mid-1970s, it was not at all uncommon for a fiction writer not to land an agent until after she sold her first book.
And it wasn’t always a minor book, either. According to editorial legend, Ordinary People was a direct acquisition, for instance. An editorial assistant discovered it in the slush pile, the immense stack of unsolicited submissions that used to build up to avalanche proportions in every major house.
Going through the slush pile took immense amounts of time, as you might imagine, so you can hardly blame publishers for being relieved when agencies took over initial manuscript-screening duties. And for years, the submission process in the latter echoed what used to happen at the publishing houses, at least in part: an aspiring writer’s progress followed a definite arc.
It was a longer arc, though, because agencies were not eager to generate slush piles; instead of accepting unsolicited submissions, they required prospective clients to query first. And although a great many of those queriers did receive form-letter rejections, it used to be unheard-of for a query not to elicit any response at all. As a writer’s understanding of the querying process improved, she might reasonably expect to begin to receive first encouraging rejections (“Although this is not for me, it’s an intriguing premise — keep trying!”), then requests for pages. Indeed, as recently as five years ago, agents could occasionally be heard opining at conferences that if a writer was receiving only form-letter replies, there must be something wrong with his query.
Seems so long ago, doesn’t it? Now, it’s downright common for agencies not to respond to queries at all if the answer is no.
Before ten or fifteen years ago, though, the submission process followed the earlier publishing house norms even more closely than querying did. Agencies would almost always ask for only the first few pages at first; if an agent requested the entire manuscript, it meant she was really excited about the book. If submitted pages received a form-letter reply, it meant that the agency did not consider the manuscript a serious contender for representation. If the manuscript showed promise, however, the rejection might still contain some form-letter elements (“I’m sorry, but I just didn’t fall in love with this book.”), but it might also contain a few sentences of praise and encouragement.
That way, the writer could learn something from the rejection. He could learn even more if he received what was known as a rave rejection, an apologetic letter explaining what the agent liked about the manuscript, as well as the reasons that she did not believe she could sell it. Although revise and resubmit requests became less common with the advent of the personal computer — which caused an increase in submissions beyond anything the publishing world had ever seen — agents would sometimes test a writer’s talent and flexibility by asking for specific revisions before signing him. More often, though, an agent would take a chance on a book that was nearly polished, reserving the revision requests for after the representation contract was signed.
So, again, while some aspiring writers did strike lucky with a first query or first submission, the norm was an ever-increasing level of feedback and much subsequent revision. Although having to land an agent typically added considerable time to the publication process, the savvy writer could learn a great deal about what it would be like to work with an editor.
Today, however, time constraints and constantly rising query numbers have resulted in both less feedback along the way and an expectation that a writer will already be producing perfectly-polished manuscript pages by the time of first submission. That’s a tall order, but not without justification: any reputable agency will receive too many clean, well-written, professionally-formatted manuscripts to worry much about the promising projects that don’t rise to that standard. A serious writer will pick herself up, dust herself off, and learn how to do better next time, right?
That’s Millicent’s belief, anyway. But since writers now are so seldom told why their submissions were rejected — indeed, it’s become common not to get back to the writer at all if the answer is no, even after a request for the full manuscript, something that stuns most aspiring writers to learn — it’s harder than fifty years ago to learn how to improve one’s submission. It’s harder than it was fifteen years ago. Heck, it’s harder than it was five years ago.
Which is why, as you might have guessed, I started this blog seven years ago — seven years ago next week, in fact, should anyone want to send flowers. And should any of you have thought, “My God, why would Anne put up with that guest blogger’s weird response to her feedback?” that’s also why I periodically ask established authors to share their experiences with you. It’s simply a whole lot harder than it used to be for aspiring writers to gain that experience on their own.
So let’s turn our focus to that most practical of matters, how to pull together a submission packet. And, while you’re at it, using that packet as a subtle means of demonstrating that not only are you a writer serious enough about your work to learn how to present it professionally — rather than, say, expecting an agent or editor to take the time to explain how you might improve your submission next time — but that you also would be a courteous, upbeat client careful about following directions, open to constructive criticism, and generally a joy to help.
Let’s start with the most obvious question: how do you get your manuscript to the agent?
Mailing your submission so it arrives looking good At the risk of making those of you in love with online querying and submission groan, I should preface the practical by saying that most of what follows is directly applicable to the hard-copy submission of requested materials via mail. It’s also, to head off any misunderstandings at the pass, intended to advise only writers submitting book manuscripts and book proposals; other branches of publishing have different rules.
And please don’t tell me that simply nobody accepts mailed submissions anymore. Even in these mercurial days of e-mailed queries, electronic submission, and Hubble telescope photographs of far-flung celestial bodies (I’m a sucker for a nice snapshot of Jupiter), most agencies still prefer paper submissions. Heck, many still insist on mailed queries as well.
Why? Well, fear of computer viruses, for one thing. Every single e-mailed submission Millicent opens is one more opportunity for something nasty to infest the agency’s computer system. But there’s another reason that both Millie and a submitter might, given the choice, prefer hard-copy submission: it’s so much easier for an electronic submission to get lost.
Why, you ask, your face a frozen mask of horror? Well, when Millicent gets on an online submission reading roll, she hits the DELETE key more than any other, right?. So it’s not too surprising that her finger would slip occasionally. Force of habit, really; the lady rejects a heck of a lot of manuscripts between lunch and checking out for the day.
For reasons both of tradition and prudence, then, a lot of writers are going to be in the market for shipping containers for their manuscripts. Yet as insightful long-time reader Jen wrote in to ask some time back, it’s far from self-evident what kind of container would look professional to Millie:
Sending off all those pages with nothing to protect them but the slim embrace of a USPS envelope seems to leave them too exposed. Where does one purchase a manuscript box?
An excellent question, Jen: many, many aspiring writers worry that a simple Manila envelope, or even the heavier-duty Priority Mail envelope favored by the US Postal Service, will not preserve their precious pages in pristine condition. Especially, as is all too common, if those pages are crammed into an envelope or container too small to hold them comfortably, or that smashes the SASE into them so hard that it leaves an indelible imprint in the paper.
Do I sense some of you scratching your heads? “But Anne,” head-scratchers everywhere ask, and bless their experience-seeking hearts for doing so, “once a submission is tucked into an envelope and mailed, it is completely out of the writer’s control. Surely, the Millicents that inhabit agencies, as well as the Maurys that screen submissions at publishing houses and their Aunt Mehitabels that judge contest entries, are fully aware that pages that arrive bent were probably mangled in transit, not by the writer who sent them. They can’t blame me for mashed mail, can they?”
Well, yes and no, itchy ones. Yes, pretty much everyone who has ever received a mauled letter is cognizant of the fact that envelopes do occasionally get caught in sorting machines, if not actually mauled by playful bands of orangutans with a penchant for playing volleyball with objects with pointy corners. Mail gets tossed around a fair amount in transit. So even a beautifully put-together submission packet may arrive a tad crumpled.
Do most professional readers cut the submitter slack for this? Sometimes, but if Millicent’s just burned her lip on that latt? she never seems to remember to let cool, it’s not going to take much for the next submission she opens to irritate her a little. Especially if the submission she happened to be perusing while reaching for her latt? was a revise-and-resubmit job that apparently did not take her boss’ thoughtful earlier editorial advice.
To coin a phrase, appearances count. You should make an effort to get your submission to its intended recipient in as neat a state as possible. How does one go about insuring that? The most straightforward way, as Jen suggests, is to ship it in a box designed for the purpose. Something, perhaps, along the lines of this:
Just kidding; no need for a medieval Bible box here. What most professional writers like to use looks a little something like this:
This is the modern manuscript box: sturdy white or brown cardboard with a lid that attached along one long side. Usually, a manuscript box will hold from 250 to 750 pages of text comfortably, without allowing the pages to slide from side to side.
While manuscript boxes are indeed very nice, they aren’t necessary for submission; the attached lid, while undoubtedly aesthetically pleasing, is not required, or even much appreciated at the agency end. Manuscripts are taken out of the boxes for perusal, anyway, so why fret about how the boxes that send them open?
In practice, any clean, previously-unused box large enough to hold all of the requested materials without crumpling them will work to mail a submission. Don’t waste your valuable energies badgering the manager of your local office supply emporium for an official manuscript box; you may only confuse him. Anything close to the right size will do, but err on the large side: it’s easier to pad a manuscript around the edges to fit in a big box than to bend it to squeeze into a small one.
My finely-tuned editorial senses are picking up some resistance, are they not? Some of you dislike the notion of using just any old box, rather than one specially constructed for the purpose, I’m guessing I’m not entirely surprised. I hear all the time from writers stressing out about what kind of box to use — over and above clean, sturdy, and appropriately-sized, that is — and not without good reason. In the old days — say, 30+ years ago — the author was expected to provide a box, and a rather nice one, then wrap it in plain brown paper for shipping.
These old boxes are beautiful, if you can still find one: dignified black cardboard, held together by shining brass brads. They were darned near immortal, too; I have several that members of my family routinely sent back and forth to their agents in the 1950s, back when sending a manuscript across the country entailed sending it on a multi-week trek. To this day, not a sheet of paper inside is wrinkled.
Ah, tradition. For sending a manuscript, though, there’s no need to pack it in anything so fancy — or indeed, anything extravagant. No reasonable agent is going to look down upon your submission because it arrives in an inexpensive box.
In fact, if you can get the requested materials there in one piece box-free — say, if it is an excerpt short enough to fit into a Manila folder or Priority Mail cardboard envelope without danger of wrinkling — go ahead. This almost always will work for a partial or the briefer stack of materials acceptable to send in a query packet.
Do bear in mind, though, that for either a query or submission packet, you want to have your pages arrive looking fresh and unbent. Double-check that your manuscript will fit comfortably in its container in such a way that the pages are unlikely to wrinkle, crease, or — perish the thought! — tear.
The chances of avoiding those dreadful fates are substantially higher if you print all of your submission packet materials on bright white 20 lb. paper or better. I favor 24-lb., myself. Yes, it costs a few dollars more, but it honestly is penny-wise and pound-foolish to use cheap paper for submissions. Not only does heavier paper ship better, but it’s less likely to wilt over the course of the multiple readings a successful submission will often see at an agency.
It’s also, let’s face it, more attractive. As we saw last time, if you can look at a stack of printed pages and see even a vague outline of page 2 while you’re examining page 1, your paper isn’t heavy enough.
Look for a box with the right footprint to ship a manuscript without too much internal shifting. To keep the manuscript from sliding around and getting crumpled, insert wads of bubble wrap or handfuls of peanuts around it, not wadded-up paper. Yes, the latter is more environmentally-friendly, but we’re talking about presentation here. Avoid the temptation to use newspaper, too; newsprint stains.
While I’m on the subject of large boxes, if you’ve been asked to send more than one copy of a manuscript — not all that uncommon after you’ve been picked up by an agent — don’t even try to find a box that opens like a book: just use a standard shipping box. Insert a piece of colored paper between each copy, to render the copies easy to separate. Just make sure to use colored printer paper, not construction paper, or the color will rub off on your lovely manuscripts.
I don’t have time to box-shop. I’m right on top of a submission deadline, possibly one that is self-imposed! Fair enough. If you’re pressed for time, your local post office is probably your best bet for one-stop shopping will probably stock manuscript-sized boxes, as does USPS online. Post offices often conceal some surprisingly inexpensive options behind those counters, so it is worth inquiring if you don’t see what you need on display.
Do be warned, though, that the USPS’ 8 ?” x 11″ boxes only LOOK as though they will fit a manuscript comfortably without bunching the pages. The actual footprint of the bottom of the box is the size of a piece of paper, so there is no wiggle room to insert a stack of paper without wrinkling it.
Trust me, that’s not something you want to find out after you’ve already printed out your submission — or when you are right on top of a deadline. If you’re in doubt about the internal size of a flattened-out box (as they tend to be at the post office), fold it into box shape and try placing a standard sheet of paper flat on the bottom. If it doesn’t lie completely flat, choose a larger box.
Yes, yes, I know: the USPS is purportedly the best postal service in the world, a boon to humanity, and one of the least expensive to boot. Their gallant carriers have been known to pursue their appointed rounds despite the proverbial sleet, hail, dark of night, and mean dogs. They have also been, as an institution, saddled with some of the nation’s most difficult budgeting requirements, so we may well be seeing postal services reduced. I, for one, find that deplorable.
But when faced with an only apparently manuscript-ready box on a last-minute deadline, the thought must occur to even the most sympathetic postal patron: what do they expect anyone to put in an 8 1/2” x 11” box other than a manuscript? A beach ball? A pony? A small automobile? Why not just design the box to hold a ream of paper?
I’m trying to submit on a budget. Is there any chance that I might pick up something appropriate for free? Actually, yes, but it does mean opting for slightly more expensive postage. It’s usually worth it, though: far and away the most economical box source for US-based writers are those free all-you-can-stuff-in-it Priority Mail boxes that the post office provides:
Quite the sexy photo, isn’t it? Downright ravishing, considering that it’s of an object made of cardboard? . If you don’t happen to mind all of the postal service propaganda printed all over it, these 12″ x 12″ x 5 1/2″ boxes work beautifully, with a little padding. (Stay away from those wadded-up newspapers, I tell you.)
Whatever difficulties you may have finding an appropriately-sized box, do not, under any circumstances, reuse a box clearly marked for some other purpose, such as holding dishwashing soap. As desirable as it might be for your pocketbook, your schedule, and the planet, never send your manuscript in a box that has already been used for another purpose. Millicent considers it tacky.
Don’t pretend you’ve never thought about doing this. We’ve all received (or sent) that box that began life as an mail-order shipping container, but is now covered with thick black marker, crossing out the original emporium’s name. My mother takes this process even farther, turning the lines intended to obfuscating that Amazon logo into little drawings of small creatures cavorting on a cardboard-and-ink landscape.
As dandy as this recycling effort is for birthday presents and the like, it’s not appropriate for shipping a submission. It’s unprofessional — and if there’s ever a time when you want your work to be presented as professionally as possible, it’s when you’re submitting it.
Think about it: do you really want your manuscript to prompt an allergy-prone Millicent to mutter between sneezes, “Why does this submission smell of fabric softener?” (One drawback of nicer paper: it soaks up ambient smells like a sponge. My memoir’s editor evidently smoked a couple of cartons over my manuscript, and even now, years later, the marked-up pages still smell like the employee handbook in a Marlboro factory. I knew better than to hit SEND on my reaction to that until weeks after my asthma attack had subsided. And even then, I edited out any references to coughing.)
“But wait!” I hear the box-savvy cry, “Those Amazon boxes are about 4 inches high, and my manuscript is about 3 inches high. It just cries out, ‘Stuff your manuscript into me and send me to an agent!’”?
A word to the wise: don’t take advice from cardboard boxes; they are not noted for their brilliance. Spring for something new, and recycle that nice Amazon box for another purpose.
How can I keep my manuscript from being mistaken for an unsolicited submission? Every time you send requested materials, without fail, you should write REQUESTED MATERIALS in great big letters in the lower left-hand corner of the submission envelope. If you have been asked to submit electronically, include the words REQUESTED MATERIALS in the subject line of the e-mail. This will help your submission to land on the right desk, instead of in the slush pile or recycling bin.
Why might an agency receive unsolicited materials to confuse with yours? The submission guidelines on their websites, usually, as well as confusion amongst writers that believe publishing still works as it did fifty years ago. To be absolutely clear, what agencies list on their websites’ general submission guidelines does not constitute a request for those materials; that’s just stuff they want to have handy while they’re considering a query. So a Millicent working in such an agency might routinely process first chapters, opening pages, or a synopsis with a query — all of these would, in the industry’s eyes, be unsolicited submissions.
The logic runs thus: guidelines that recommend submitting extra material with a query are generic, aimed at any aspiring writer who might conceivably be considering sending a query. By contrast, a solicited submission, a.k.a. requested materials, is one that an agent is waiting to see because she has asked a particular writer to send it following a successful pitch or query. Because the agent expressed positive interest in seeing those pages, the lucky requestee is fully justified in scrawling REQUESTED MATERIALS in letters two inches high in the lower right-hand corner of the envelope or shipping box, just to the left of the address, to assure that the submission lands on the right desk instead of the slush pile made up of, you guessed it, unsolicited manuscripts.
Everyone clear on the difference between solicited and unsolicited materials? Dandy.
Yes, readers who have been wishing I would drop all of this talk of cardboard and focus upon your concerns? “This is all very helpful, Anne, but a bit superficial, literally. I want to know what goes inside that manuscript box and in what order.”
Okay, let’s pretend for a moment that you have just been asked to submit materials to the agent of your dreams.
What goes in the box? The first thing you should do is take a very close look at both the missive in which the agent expressed the request and the agency’s guidelines. Why? Well, just as generic requests vary in what agents ask queriers to send, so do requests for solicited material. While every agency and small publishing house seems to have a slightly different idea of what constitutes a standard submission packet.
Remember, part of what you want to demonstrate here is your professionalism and courtesy. You’re also being given an opportunity to show you can follow directions. So send precisely what the agent has asked you to send, no more, no less.
What might you be asked to send, you ask? Good question. Here are the most commonly-requested constituent parts, in the order in which they are generally expected to appear in the box:
1. Cover letter We covered this one last time, right? Any questions?
2. Title page Always include a title page, if any manuscript pages have been requested — yes, even if you have already sent the first 50 pages, and are now sending the rest of the book.
Why? Long-time readers, chant it with me now: because the submission looks more professional that way.
Also, like the cover letter, a properly-constructed title page renders it easy for an agent to track you down. Believe me, if the agent of your dreams falls in love with your manuscript, you’re going to want to hear about it right away. As luck would have it, we discussed how to construct a proper title page earlier in this series.
3. The requested pages in standard format, unbound in any way. The operative word here is requested. If an agent or editor asked you for a partial, send PRECISELY the requested number of pages. Don’t fudge here — even if your novel features a tremendous cliffhanger on p. 51, if the agent of your dreams asked for the first 50 pages, send only the first 50 pages, period.
Actually, in this instance, you should send only the first 50 pages even if they do not end in a period. Even if the designated last page ends mid-sentence, stop there. When an agent or editor asks for a specific number of pages, send that number of pages — no more, no less.
They mean pages in standard manuscript format, by the way. It’s impossible to over-estimate the desirability of sending professionally-formatted submissions. If you’re brand-new to reading this blog or have somehow avoided my repeated and vehement posts on standard format for manuscripts over the last seven years, you’re in luck: earlier in this series, I provided a quick reference guide to proper formatting, for your double-checking convenience.
4. A synopsis, if one was requested, clearly labeled AS a synopsis. With fiction, when an outline is requested, they usually mean a synopsis, not the annotated table of contents appropriate for nonfiction. For nonfiction, an outline means an annotated table of contents. Most of the time, though, what an agent will ask to see for either is a synopsis.
5. Author bio, if one was requested. An author bio is a one-page (double-spaced) or half-page (single-spaced) plus photo account of the submitting writer’s professional credentials. Typically, when an agent submits a manuscript or book proposal to editors, the author bio is tucked immediately at the end of the manuscript or sample chapter.
6. A SASE big enough to fit the entire manuscript. For those of you new to the SASE, it’s an acronym for self-addressed, stamped envelope. For a submission, the SASE should be large enough to send back every scrap of paper you’re mailing to the agency.
Emphasis on the stamped part: always use stamps, not metered postage, for the SASE. That’s probably going to be a lot of stamps: due to the paper-consumptive rigors of standard format, one rarely, if ever, meets a full-length manuscript that weighs less than two pounds.
That means some luckless intern is going to have to tote it to the post office personally. Don’t make her life more difficult by sticking metered postage on the package.
If the requested pages fit in a Manila or Priority Mail envelope, it’s perfectly acceptable to fold a second one in half, stamp and address it, and tuck it in the submission package. But how does one handle this when using a box as a SASE?
Well, it would be impracticable to fold up another box inside. If you have been asked to send so many pages that you need to pack ‘em in a box, paper-clip a return mailing label and stamps to your cover letter, along with a polite request that the agent would affix both to the shipping box in the event of rejection. To be on the safe side, explain in your cover letter how you want them to reuse the box: peel the back off the mailing label, stick it over the old label, affix new postage, and seal.
You can also nab one of those tough little everything-you-can-cram-in-here-is-one-price Priority Mail envelopes, self-address it, add postage, and stick it into the box. If you don’t care if your manuscript comes back to you a little bent, this is a wonderfully cash-conscious way to go. Those envelopes are surprisingly tough, in my experience — what are they made out of, kryptonite? — and while the pages don’t look too pretty after a cross-country trip in them, they do tend to arrive safely.
And think about it: if you’re getting the manuscript back, it’s because Millicent’s rejected it. Who cares if the pages show up on your doorstep bent?
In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not a big fan of writers over-investing in impressive return postage — or of aspiring writers shelling out the dosh to overnight their submissions. Neither is necessary, and quick shipping most emphatically won’t get your work read faster.
Or taken more seriously. Don’t waste your money.
7. Optional extras. For a partial, if you want to send a second, business-size envelope SASE as well, to make it easy for Millicent to request the rest of the manuscript, place it at the bottom of the packet (and mention it in your cover letter.)
If you don’t want to spring for delivery confirmation, include a self-addressed, stamped postcard for the agency to mail to you to acknowledge receipt of the manuscript. They don’t always send it back, but usually, they do. To generate a chuckle in a hard-worked Millicent, I always liked to send a SASP that looked like this — although with a stamp attached, of course:
Don’t worry about this causing extra effort; it doesn’t, and you will have proof that they received it. This is important, because manuscripts do go astray from time to time. You can also have the post office track the box for a low fee.
8. Pack it all in a durable container that will keep your submission from getting damaged en route. Again, any questions?
And that, my friends, is the low-down on the submission packet. Don’t forget that every syllable you send to an agency is a writing sample: this is a time to use impeccable grammar, punctuation, and printing, please. No smudges or bent corners, either. Make it all pretty and hope for the best.
And don’t forget to keep sending out queries — and, if requested, other submissions — while you’re waiting to hear back. If there’s one thing that veteran submitters have learned from experience over the past five years, it’s that they don’t always hear back. Yes, even on a full manuscript. Keep moving forward.
Above all, comport yourself at every point throughout like a professional writer ready and willing to be helped to publication. Try to think of the submission stage as on-the-job training in how to keep your cool and deliver the goods.
Yes, it can be a very frustrating process, but believe me, the more successful you are, the more often you will be asked to revise your work, do promotion, and engage in other activities that, given their druthers, most writers would choose not to do. It’s going to be tempting at some point along your learning curve to beard the heavens with your bootless cries over the abject unreasonableness of anyone but the artist having a say over how to manifest her artistic vision.
But remember, writing is not just for the writer — it’s primarily for the reader. Is it really so unreasonable to believe that agents and editors with years of experience shepherding books from the writer’s desk to a particular target audience might conceivably be able to give you some good advice?
And if you doubt that — and I sense that some of you do — please, for my sake, consider two more things. First, do you recall that irate author I talked about at the beginning of the post, the one that glanced at my feedback, raced to his computer, and shot off an e-mail in the first throes of injured ego? He thought I was telling him to do the precise opposite of what I actually advised.
I suspect that he realized that as soon as he calmed down; he’s a reasonable guy. I also suspect that even as I write this, he is bitterly regretting that he hit SEND.
More importantly from a professional point of view, he wasted what must have been an hour of his time venting at me because he just hadn’t read very carefully. And caused me to waste a couple of hours of my time soothing him to the point where he could hear what I was actually saying. How much easier and less stressful it all would have been had he not acted on his initial impulse — and how much more likely, frankly, I would have been to help him out when his next book comes out.
Writers usually learn this from unpleasant experience, but I like to help speed up that learning curve. Which is why I would also like you to consider this: reactions like our friend’s are the reason that writers as a group have gained a reputation for over-sensitivity to feedback. Agents and editors do have a pretty good reason to choose writers, as well as manuscripts, with care.
Be a delight, if you possibly can — or at least save your most vehement responses for the moments when it counts most. Remember, it takes only a few isolated tantrum-throwers to give the whole lot of us a bad reputation. Keep up the good work!
I had intended to launch into the promised topic of cover letters for submissions over the weekend, campers, but I was inundated by quiet cries of distress. “But there’s so much to absorb!” post-pitch submitters have been moaning softly. “I had no idea that pulling my already-written manuscript together to submit to that nice agent/editor that requested it would be so complicated. How about giving us the weekend to catch up?”
Fair enough; I know that the strictures of standard format for book manuscripts is pretty hard to wrap one’s head around the first time one hears about it. That’s something those of us that read for a living are all to apt to forget, I’m afraid: until one has seen a few hundred professionally-formatted manuscripts up close and personal, there’s quite a lot about the process of putting one together that’s counterintuitive. If not downright insulting to a writer’s sense that if the writing is good enough, the presentation shouldn’t count.
If those of you planning to submit your work anytime soon have taken anything from this series, however, I sincerely hope it’s that to people in publishing, how a manuscript looks on the page is an indicator of a writer’s having done the necessary homework in order to work well with an agent or editor — and thus of that writer’s seriousness about becoming a professional author.
Speaking of counterintuitive, the vast majority of first-time submitters believe quite the opposite: that agents and editors will read a new writer’s manuscript with a kind eye, looking to like. Or so the pros surmise from the fact that so many submissions, even very good ones, contain non-standard formatting, misspelled words, grammatical mistakes, and other matters that would be hard for anyone that handled manuscripts for a living to overlook.
The result, I’m afraid, is all to often a failure to communicate. And that’s likely to be fatal, in a business devoted to communication.
I’m going to be talking later in the week about how to improve communication throughout the submission process. For today, however, we shall be concentrating upon a communication opportunity that submitters in general and post-pitch submitters in particular tend to skip entirely: the cover letter in the submission packet.
And already, the atmosphere is thick with huffs of derision. “Oh, please, Anne,” those of you on the cusp of submission murmur. “That agent to whom I pitched/queried asked to see my manuscript (or a portion thereof) knows it’s coming — thus the term requested materials. By definition, he knows who I am and what I write. So why on earth should I waste my time and his by writing a cover letter to explain something that requires no explanation ?”
Oh, I can think of plenty of reasons. Just off the top of my head: even if you send those page right after receiving the request, the agent or editor in question will not necessarily have you at the front of his mind; agents and editors at writers’ conferences frequently hear so many pitches that they begin to blur in retrospect; agents and editors often don’t open their own mail, and Millicent, their screener, has no reason to recognize your name; aspiring writers send unrequested submissions all the time, resulting in instant rejection.
Not including it is, in short, strategically unwise.
And at the risk of sounding like your mother, just slapping a manuscript into a box without any message of greeting is, let’s face it, rather rude. In an industry that actually does value manners to a charming, if old-fashioned, extent, I would strenuously advise anyone within the sound of my voice to avoid coming across as that.
Not sure why it might be considered rude? Well, think about it: even if you were expecting company, would you be comfortable opening your front door to someone that consistently refused to identify himself?
Unfortunately, a staggeringly high percentage of otherwise well-mannered submitters don’t think about that, apparently — and evidently do not give much thought to how much harder a submission sent sans cover letter would be to accept.
Frankly, the contents of the submission packet very often render it downright difficult for the agent to say yes if he likes the pages within. How so? Well, what’s the first thing he sees upon opening that box — or, more commonly, what his screener sees? Usually, something like this:
Or, should the submitter be somewhat better-versed in submission etiquette, something like this:
Not a lot to like there, eh? Just look at the poor paper quality: you can see page 1 vaguely outlined right through the title page.
Nor is that all. Not only does the sender evidently believe that the agent or editor that requested this asks to see so few manuscripts that hers would be instantly memorable — extremely unlikely — but she’s left Millicent to guess whether this is a requested or unsolicited submission.
Why is that not very wise? Unsolicited submissions almost always get rejected unread.
Still, the second example is better than the first. The sender of the first submission above has make herself almost impossible to sign as a client, at least without the recipient’s doing a good deal of record-searching that would not have been necessary if this writer had been more polite.
Not seeing why? Okay, let’s step into Millicent’s moccasins and take a closer look at the top page of the first submission box. You cut open what is probably your twentieth submission of the day to find this:
Did you study it carefully? If not with the scrutiny you wish the agent of your dreams would apply to your page 1, at least with respectful attention? (If you had too much trouble focusing on the details to do so, try holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + to enlarge the image.)
I hope you read it closely, because I have a couple of very serious questions to ask you, faux Millicent: who wrote this manuscript? And if your boss happens to like it, how will you get in touch with the writer in order to offer a representation contract?
The cover letter’s starting to seem like a better idea, isn’t it? If not, allow me to ask those of you still resisting the concept another serious question: if you were Millicent and had opened two submission boxes, one like our first example and one that contained a cover letter, which writer would you think would be less work for your boss to represent?
Shall I take the universal shudder that just went through my readership as an indication of understanding? “Okay, Anne,” those of you that sniffed at me a week ago when I urged you to include a title page with your submission, “I get it now: not placing my contact information at the top of my submission packet is a bad idea. But that’s not a problem if I include that title page you’ve been yammering about, is it? Since a good title page includes the writer’s contact information, why would the second submission example raise Millicent’s hackles at all?”
Good point, former title page-resisters. The short answer is that the overwhelming majority of title pages submitted do not include this information. They are merely decorative. Commonly, there’s a trade-off between what the writer perceives as beauty and Millicent is at all likely to consider either professional or informative. Like, for instance, this:
Colorful, yes; imaginative, certainly. But once again, it begs the question: how the heck would the requester of this manuscript get in touch with Cat in order to offer to represent her?
Trust me, the last response you want your submission to generate is a heart-felt, “Oh, it’s too bad we have no idea who sent us this or how to contact him or her; all we have is the author’s last name in the slug line. This saddens me, because I really liked this manuscript!”
As you say, though, a professionally-formatted title page would in fact provide any agent, editor, or Millicent with all the information necessary to contact the writer. The title page in our example, however, contains a red flag that might well convince any of the three just to ship the manuscript below it back unread. Take a closer look.
If you flung your hand into the air, leapt to your feet, and shouted, “Hey, that manuscript is well over the word count limit for its genre!” you get a gold star for the day. As we discussed last time, most agencies do have a target upper page limit in mind for first novels in a particular genre. That’s why, in case any of you had been wondering, agency submission guidelines often ask that a query letter should include a word count: so they can reject the over-long and the too-short without having to request the manuscript.
There’s another potential rejection reason here, however. Any guesses?
If you immediately screamed, “The book category listed does not exist,” help yourself to a second gold star out of petty cash. Aspiring writers do this all the time: believing that book category is primarily descriptive, rather than a quick reference to established marketing designations, they cram together mutually exclusive categories to form a hybrid.
Since that effort alone could have gotten this submission rejected, what should Cat have called this instead? Based on that first page, science fiction. And in her shoes, I would have either cut the manuscript in half and presented it as a series, or just left the word count off the title page.
Hey, agents do it all the time when submitting to editors; it honestly is extraordinarily difficult to sell a first-novel by a non-celebrity that’s much over 100,000 words. But you didn’t hear that from me.
Even if our friend Cat made both of these fundamental changes to her title page — after, perhaps, having checked to ascertain that using an estimated word count (250 words/page in Times New Roman x # of pages = a valid estimation) would not be less likely to engender instant rejection than the actual word count she seems to have used here — she would still be better off topping her submission with a nice, polite cover letter than merely relying upon the title page.
I hear some of you groaning. “Oh, come on. Haven’t I written enough for these people? The agent/editor has asked for my manuscript or a portion thereof; she’s also asked for a synopsis. And heaven knows I spent enough time writing my pitch and/or submission. Isn’t enough in fact enough?”
I sympathize with the submission fatigue, weary ones, but I think you’re overestimating the task at hand. In the first place, there’s no need for a long-winded missive — a simple thank-you to the agent for having asked to see the materials enclosed will do.
It’s hardly onerous. Seriously, for either a post-pitch or post-query submission, it could be as simple as the note penned by a colleague of Cat’s that’s done his homework, our old pal Literate McAuthorly.
Seriously, that’s all there is to it. Like any other thank-you letter, the courtesy lies more in the fact that the sender took the time to write it, rather than in what it actually says.
Still not convinced it’s worth your time to write? Okay, let’s move on to the second place: the submitter is the one who benefits from including a cover letter containing all of his contact information — all the more so because so few writers remember to tuck one into their packets, especially if they received the request for materials after a pitch. Suffice it to say that it’s in your best interest to assume that the person who heard your pitch or read your query won’t be the first person to screen your submission, for the exceedingly simple reason that it is, in practice, often a different human being.
Conveniently enough (and we’re up to the third place now, if you’re keeping track), the cover letter provides an excellent means of reminding the agent or editor that she did indeed request the pages enclosed. That minimizes the possibility that Millicent might slit open your submission packet and assume, wrongly, that it was just another unsolicited manuscript.
And we all know what happens to those, right? “Next!”
If the submission is the result of a conference pitch and Cat really wanted to be fancy about it — and believe me, you do — she could go ahead and say where you pitched the book to the agent. After a nice, long chat with her friend Literate, she might well come up with something like this:
See how easy it is for anyone who might open that box to contact Cat now? And see how little effort it took for her to establish herself from the get-go as a courteous, charming writer with whom it might be a pleasure to work?
It’s also apparent, I hope, just how close to effortless it would be to copy and paste this delightful little missive into an e-mail accompanying an electronic submission. The date and the agent’s address would be omitted, of course, but otherwise, it could go as is, with no further embellishment.
Do not, however, make the exceedingly common mistake of not including ALL of your contact information in an e-mailed submission. Writers do this all the time, assuming, with some justification, that all the agent would have to do is hit REPLY in order to get back to them. But electronic submissions sometimes get forwarded around agencies. Hitting REPLY, then, might well send a response to Millicent.
Besides, do you really want to limit the number of ways your future agent can contact you in order to offer you representation? Wouldn’t you be equally pleased with a positive phone call or letter as an e-mail?
Yes? You, with your hand in the air? “I can see that both Cat’s and Literate’s versions are polite, but I can’t help but notice that the formatting is different. And as someone who panics if I’m faced with more than one viable option, that distresses me!”
I’m afraid I can’t relieve your distress much, option-haters. Either format would be just fine: placing the sender’s contact information at the top or bottom of the page is equally permissible. Just don’t go over the top and do both.
What, your hand is still raised? Ask away, intrepid one. “But Anne, Cat’s met this agent face-to-face, right? Doesn’t that mean that she can call the agent by her unpronounceable first name?”
Well, she could, but it would be pushing the etiquette envelope a little. Unless a conference conversation extended beyond a pitch meeting to some social interaction, I would advise against becoming too familiar too soon. In an exchange with an agent or editor, it’s always safe to allow the pro to set the level of address intimacy.
What does that mean, in practice? Err on the side of formality in the cover letter; if the agent or editor addresses you as Dear Emile in a response, feel free to use first names from there on out.
Provided, of course, your name actually is Emile. If your name is Suzette, you might want to drop the agent a courteous, formal note, enclosing the missive to Emile and suggesting, gently, that your submission might have been confused with his.
Lordy, your hand is still up? “I’m still feeling a mite insecure, Anne. I would feel better if you gave me a list of what absolutely must be in my cover letter.”
A reasonable enough request. In fact, I’ll do even better: I’ll include some of the optional stuff, too. A cover letter with a submission should include:
(a) The writer’s full name
(b) All of the writer’s contact information Not just some of it: your street address, telephone number, e-mail address should all be there, to render yourself as easy to contact as humanly possible.
(c) The title of the book, just in case the letter and the manuscript end up on different desks. (Yes, it happens. Don’t ask; just prepare for the contingency.)
(d) What is actually enclosed Mention the number of pages enclosed, if the agent or editor asked for a partial. If the request included other materials — like, say, a synopsis or an author bio — go ahead and bring ‘em up in the cover letter.
Fringe benefit: if you are sending out more than one submission at a time (and you should, if you pitched successfully to more than one pro at a conference, unless one of them asked you for an exclusive), noting the contents of each packet in the cover letter will give you a record of what you sent to whom and when.
(e) The information that the manuscript enclosed was requested
(f) If you met the agent at a conference, mention that in the first paragraph of the letter, to help place your submission in context. As crushing as it may be for the writerly ego to contemplate, an agent who spent days on end listening to hundreds of pitches probably is not going to remember each one. No need to re-pitch, of course, but a gentle reminder never hurts.
While you’re at it, it’s not a bad idea to write the name of the conference on the outside of the envelope, along with REQUESTED MATERIALS. Heck, it’s a very good idea to write the conference’s name on the outside of a query to an agent one has heard speak at a conference, too, or to include the conference’s name in the subject line of a query e-mail. The point here is to render it pellucidly clear to the agent why you’re contacting her.
Do not, please, make the surprisingly common mistake of erring on the other side of caution, assuming that the requester didn’t really mean the request. You’d be astonished at how many successful pitchers send, instead of the pages the agent or editor asked to see, a query asking if the requester still wants to see the pages that — wait for it — the agent or editor asked to see.
Why would they double-check? Usually, because they don’t fully understand that a verbal pitch is a substitute for a query, not an additional hurdle. Sending a post-pitch query is totally unnecessary, a waste of everyone’s time, and sometimes even annoying enough that the request gets withdrawn. Just comply with the original request, okay?
(g) If another agent is already reading all or part of the manuscript you’re sending — or has asked to see it — mention this in your cover letter. No need to say who it is or how long s/he has had it; just tell the recipient that s/he’s not the only one considering representing this book. It’s only polite. Unless the agency has a policy forbidding simultaneous submissions, withholding this information will only generate resentment down the line if more than one agent wants to represent your book.
Yes, even if that agent to whom you submitted nine months ago has yet to respond. Actually, it’s in your strategic interest to contact that non-responder to let her know that another agent now has your manuscript.
One caveat: if you have heard with your very own personal ears the agent or editor say — at, for instance, the conference at which you pitched to him — that he doesn’t care whether anyone else is looking at a submission, go ahead and omit this information. Ditto if the requester has made this statement on his blog or the agency’s website.
You were intending to check these sources before you submitted, right, to make sure that the requester does not harbor any individual preferences? As always, if an agent or editor has been forthcoming enough to make a submission preference plain, honor it. It’s the polite thing to do.
It’s considerably less polite, though, to impose the non-standard preferences of another agent, editor, or some Yahoo given to spouting writing guidance online upon someone that has not expressed a desire to receive anything but a manuscript in standard format. This, too, is a small infraction of etiquette that well-meaning aspiring writers commit inadvertently all the time: since they’ve heard ONE agent say this or that — or, even more commonly, saw someone mention online that he heard that someone else heard an agent say this or that — they presume that this is the new rule, applicable to every other agent currently drawing breath.
Instead of trying to pretend that all agents share identical preferences — which a simple half-hour’s scroll through a random selection of agency websites would tell you was not true — a writer will always be better off treating those in a position to bring her book to publication as individuals. As, I suspect, you would like to be treated yourself: few aspiring writers, in my experience, relish feeling that Millicent will think of their work as generic.
Of course, you want your writing to stand out from the crowd. Another way to make your submission memorable: be the one submitter in fifty that includes a nice, polite, professional cover letter with your manuscript.
Your mother was right, you know: people really will like you better if you treat them with courtesy. Keep up the good work!
I have to admit, campers, that after my last post’s almost purely visual foray into the specifics of professional formatting for book manuscripts and proposals, a single-post summary for which many just-the-facts-ma’am-oriented writers have been clamoring for quite some time, I quite wilted. Not so much from exhaustion (although that was an immense amount of practical how-to to cram into such a short space) as from the sense that, having at long last accomplished something that will please the folks that want to believe that no human enterprise cannot be successfully explained to everyone’s satisfaction in a single post — the searchers, in other words, rather than the habitual blog readers — I may return in good conscience to what I believe this blog does best, demonstrating thoughtfully how to avoid the many complex pitfalls that await the talented writer on the notoriously curvy road to publication.
Why, yes, that it a rather long sentence, now that you mention it. The late Henry James would be so proud.
Given how detail-oriented he was — his characters can scarcely feel an emotion without the reader’s being treated to it from fourteen different levels of analysis — I’m sure he would also be proud that I am once again reverting to lengthy explanation mode about something as seemingly simple as a professionally-formatted title page. Since it’s the first thing an agent, editor, or our old pal and nemesis, Millicent the agency screener, will see in your manuscript, it’s important to get it right. As the clich?goes — and you’re keeping an eye out for those while you’re reading those pages the pro requested you send IN THEIR ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and preferably OUT LOUD, right? Almost everyone that reads for a living twitches at the sight of a clich?– you get only one chance to make a first impression.
Yet, surprisingly often, aspiring writers overlook odd formatting as a possible reason that an otherwise well-written manuscript might have been rejected. Oh, not all by itself, generally speaking, unless the violation was truly egregious by industry standards, something along the lines of submitting unnumbered pages or not indenting paragraphs, for instance, the kind of faux pas that might actually cause Millicent to cast the entire submission aside unread.
Yet surprisingly little conference time seems to be devoted to deviations from standard format for manuscripts. Why shouldn’t conference speakers take thirty seconds of their speaking gigs to pointing out, for instance, that the ways in which a professional manuscript does not resemble a published book — ways that are unfortunately quite obvious to an agent, editor, contest judge, etc., from practically the moment their bloodshot eyes light upon a submission?
Why is it so very apparent, you ask? Because much of the time, submitting writers will work overtime to make it apparent.
Seriously, many aspiring writers clearly go out of their way to format their submissions to resemble published books, in the mistaken belief that this will make their work seem more professional. As we’ve already discussed in this series, this effort generally causes Millicent readers to regard a submission as less professional — and often, it’s apparent in her first glance at the first page of a submission.
Yes, really, the vast majority of submissions are rejected not only on page 1, but within the first few lines of page 1. Heck, a harried Millicent may even derive a negative impression of a manuscript even prior to page 1.
Keep taking nice, deep breaths. That dizziness will pass shortly.
Ah, some of you have found your breaths again, haven’t you? “Oh, come on, Anne,” I hear some hard-boiled submission veterans scoff, “she makes up her mind that this isn’t a submission to take seriously before to page 1? How is that even possible?”
Well, the most common trigger is the absence of any title page whatsoever. Many submitters, for reasons best known to themselves, omit the title page altogether — often, I suspect, because they are unaware that a professional manuscript always features a title page.
Why? Long-time readers (or even those that simply paid attention to my last post), pull out your hymnals and sing along with me now: a properly-formatted title page tells an agent precisely how to contact the brilliant author who wrote it — and tells an editor precisely how to contact the agent who represents her.
Was that gargantuan gasp a signal that those of you who have title page-free submissions circulating at the moment are just the teensiest bit worried? If so, relax: forgetting to include a title page almost certainly won’t prevent Millicent from reading your submission at all. She generally reads even the most bizarrely-formatted submissions for at least a line or two (although frequently no more than that). But that initial impression of an author’s lack of professionalism — or, to call it by a kinder name, of a writer’s having a lot to learn about how the publishing industry does and doesn’t work — often translates into a rather jaundiced reading of what comes next.
Are you once again barking, “Ye gods, why?” Well, let’s take a peek through her reading glasses, The first thing Millicent’s work-wearied peepers fall upon when she opens the average requested materials packet is something like this:
As always, I apologize for the fuzziness with which my blogging program reproduces page shots. If you’re having trouble making out the details with Henry James-level specificity, try holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + to enlarge the image.
Have it in focus now? Good. Our Millie might also encounter a first page like this:
Or, heaven help us, like this:
Why might Millicent take one look at these and conclude that the respective submitters of these three first pages could use a good class on manuscript formatting — and thus would be time-consuming clients for her boss to sign? Because, dear friends, both of these examples have failed as both title pages and first page of text.
How? By not including the information that a pro would expect to see on either.
What makes me so sure she would find this discovery disappointing, at best? Because what she — or her boss, the agent to whom you successfully pitched — would have expected to see on top of that pile of paper was this:
This is a standard professional title page for the same book — strikingly different, is it not? Visibly different, in fact, from several paces away, even if Millicent isn’t wearing her reading glasses.
Again, though, submitting the earlier examples rather than that last would not necessarily be instantly and automatically fatal to a manuscript’s chances. However, human nature and agency denizens’ punishing reading schedule being what they are, if Millie has already decided that a submission is flawed, just how charitable an eye do you think she is likely to cast upon that typo in line 13?
To use every screener’s favorite word: next!
To be fair to Millicent, while it may well be uncharitable of her to leap to the conclusion that Faux Pas’ or Ridiculous’ manuscripts are likely to be unpolished because they did not include a proper title page, agencies do have a vested interest in signing writers who present themselves professionally. For one thing, they’re cheaper to represent, in practical terms: the agent doesn’t have to spend as much time working with them, getting their manuscripts ready to submit to editors.
Among other things, then, including a properly-formatted title page tells him right off the bat that — wait for it — he won’t have to teach the writer how to produce a title page. That’s important, as no agent in his right mind would send out a manuscript that didn’t include a standard title page. It serves a number of important — nay, vital — marketing functions.
To understand why, let’s take another look at the professional version. So you don’t have to keep scrolling up and down the page, here it is again:
Did you take a nice, long look? Good. While we’re at it, let’s also take a gander at a proper title page for a book with a subtitle:
Pop quiz: how precisely do Rightly and Collie’s first sheets of paper promote their respective books than Faux Pas or Ridiculous’ first pages?
Well, right off the bat, a good title page tells a prospective agent or editor what kind of book it is, as well as its approximate length. Both of these are pieces of information that will tell Millicent instantly whether the submission in her hand would meet the requirements of the editors to whom her agency tends to sell.
How so? Well, think about it: if Millicent’s boss had decided not to represent Action/Adventure anymore, or if editors at the major houses had started saying that they were only interested in seeing Action/Adventure books longer than 90,000 words, Rightly Stepped would be out of luck.
But then, being a savvy submitter, ol’ Rightly would also want his work to be represented by an agent who just adores very long Action/Adventure novels — and regularly goes to lunch with scads and scads of editors who feel precisely the same way, right?
I sense some raised hands out there. “Um, Anne? I notice you mentioned approximate length. Since my word processing program will tell me precisely how many words are in my manuscript, why should I pretend I’m guessing?”
Your logic would be quite sound, estimate-eschewers, if we were talking about a magazine article or a short story. There, you should use actual word count.
For a book manuscript, however, the convention is to estimate word count. Since manuscripts shrink around 2/3rds in the transition to published book, the number of pages is actually a better measure of how much it will cost to print and bind the thing. A page in standard format in 12-point Times New Roman is assumed to run about 250 words, a page in Courier 200. So the conversion formulae run like this:
# of pages in Times New Roman x 250 words/page = estimated word count
# of pages in Courier x 200 = word count
Fair warning: the result will bear virtually no resemblance to your actual word count; it will usually be far lower. But that’s okay, because when Millie spots a title page indicating that the manuscript it covers is 100,000 words, she’ll instantly think, “Oh, that’s 400 pages.” In other words, well under the 125,000-word threshold at which printing and binding the book abruptly becomes quite a bit more expensive.
So if you are one of the many, many literal-minded writers that believe being absolutely factual will win Brownie points with Millicent — and I constantly meet writers that insist that because Word will provide an exact word count, providing anything else on the title page is tantamount to lying — I invite you to consider this: given that she has experience making this conversion, what do you think her first reaction will be to encountering a title page that proclaims up front that it’s a cool 112,452 words?
That’s right: “Oh, that’s too long for our agency.” Which is a pity, really, as it’s not beyond the bounds of belief that a 400-page manuscript’s actual word count would be 112,452.
Did that just make those of you that grew up on the classic 19th-century novels do a double-take? “Whoa, there!” length-lovers everywhere cry. “I’ve heard all over the place that the maximum word count most agents will consider is between 100,000 and 125,000 words, depending upon the book category, far shorter than many of the great works of literature. This is the first time I’ve ever heard that the actual cost of producing the physical books played a role in coming up with those figures. I just thought that in recent years, agents and editors had just made a collective decision — due, perhaps, to the hugely increased volume of submissions since the advent of the personal computer — not to read as much.”
That’s an interesting theory, length-lovers, and one that might make abundant sense if requested manuscripts were invariably read from beginning to end before being accepted or rejected. As we have discussed, however, the average submission gets rejected on page 1.
The disinclination for the long has much more to do with fact that paper is far more expensive than it was a hundred years ago — and at 500 pages, the binding costs take a remarkable leap. Now, we’ve all seen books that long for sale, but in recent years, they’re usually by already-established authors — i.e., ones with a track record of selling books to readers that might be willing to cough up a slightly higher amount of money for a new book by a favorite author.
But if a manuscript by a first-time author begins to bump up against that limit, publishers know from experience that the extra cost will be a harder sell to readers. Which means, in turn, that a manuscript much over 400 pages will be more difficult for an agent to sell to an editor. And that’s why, in case any of you had been wondering, aspiring writers so often hear the pros say at conferences that they’re not looking for anything over 100,000 words.
“Wait just a nit-picking minute!” those of you clutching lengthy manuscripts cry. “A couple of paragraphs ago, we were talking about 125,000 words (500 pages in Times New Roman x 250 words/page) as the reject-on-sight limit. So where does the 100,000-word (400 pages in Times New Roman x 250 words/page) barrier come from?”
Theories vary on this one, actually. A rather pervasive explanation claims that a prudent agent will want to leave room for revision; a second, almost as common, holds that since writers new to the craft usually have minimal experience in editing their own work, accepting a longer manuscript effectively means signing on to edit extraneous text, redundancy, and the like.
A third theory — and I don’t think you’re going to like it much — is that aspiring writers’ reportage of word count is too often off by quite a bit. Possibly because they’ve heard that old saw about how any submission over 100,000 words is toast. You must admit, that kind of rumor does provide a certain amount of incentive for inaccuracy.
In my experience, though, most first-time submitters are simply unaware of the estimation rules — or that they should estimate. Even with the best intentions, it’s not hard to see how Millicent might have derived this impression: it’s not all that uncommon for submitters to take an actual word count, round it to the nearest big number, and hope for the best.
How might that work in practice? Let’s say for the sake of argument that Bunny McNewatit’s novel was actually 85,487 words the last time she checked, but she’s tinkered with it a bit since. Now, she’s just given a successful pitch, and she’s too eager to get those requested first 50 pages out the door to redo the word count. But it doesn’t matter, she figures: she’s planning on working on the rest of the book while the agent of her dreams is reading the opening.
So, completely innocently, she adds a bit of a cushion to the estimate on the title page: there, she reports that her baby is 86,250 words. Since professional readers expect the font on the title page to be the same as the font in the text, and the title page is in Times New Roman, Millicent just assumes that the manuscript that follow is 345 pages (345 x 250 = 86,250), rather than flipping to the bottom of the stack of papers to check.
That’s fine — but if the title page is in Courier, Bunny’s in a spot of trouble. Doing the mental math, Millie would conclude that the book is 431 pages — and that Bunny’s math skills are not particularly good. In fact, because 86,250 does not divide evenly by 200, she’s going to wonder how our friend Bun came up with that word count. She may even — brace yourself — speculate that Bunny has not yet finished writing the book.
Now, in actual fact, a 400-page manuscript in TNR is usually closer to 115,000 words than 100,000; as any writer who has compared the estimated word count for her book with the total her word processing program so kindly provides, they tend to differ wildly. But word count, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder: a novelist whose title page reported, accurately, that her 400-page novel was 115,000 words might well see it rejected out of hand on the grounds that it was too long.
Why? Well, math may not have been Millicent’s best subject, either (as one might expect, the inmates of agencies tend overwhelmingly to have been English majors), but she can do third-grade multiplication in her head: 115,000 words at 250 words/page would equal a 460-page manuscript. Next!
Boy, those hackles are getting a workout today, aren’t they? “But Anne, why is Millicent estimating at all? If she wants to know how long it is, why doesn’t she just flip to the last page and check the last page number, for heaven’s sake?”?
I could give you a long song and dance about how much her wrists hurt from opening all those query envelopes all day, or how her secret midnight e-mail orgies have rendered pinching a torture, but in practice, the answer is far less personal than practical: because the word count is right there on the title page.
Tell me, oh submitters: why on earth should she doubt its accuracy? Unless, say, the title page were in a non-standard typeface like Helvetica, she’s going to assume that an aspiring writer familiar enough with standard format to include the word count on the title page would also know how to estimate it accurately.
I know, I know: from a writerly perspective, that’s kind of a wacky assumption. But her chair boasts a different view than ours.
Besides, how exactly could she manage to turn to page 400 of a manuscript, when her boss requested that the writer send only the first 50, without resorting to some pretty impressive maneuvering through time and space?
Swiftly averting our eyes from the depressing fact that a number on the title page (or in a query) could potentially harm the manuscript that much, let’s consider how the other information on the page can boost that same manuscript’s chances of getting picked up. How about the undeniable fact that a standard title page also tells Millicent precisely how to contact the author to offer representation?
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: it’s always in an aspiring writer’s interest to make it easy for the fine folks that work at the agency of her dreams to help her. I might be wrong, of course, but I suspect that not forcing Millicent to forage through the mountain of paper on her desk to find a misplaced cover letter with your phone number on it might be a good start toward being easily helpable.
Which is yet another way in which Faux Pas’ first page falls short, professionally speaking. It doesn’t really do anything but announce the title of the book and leap right into the story. That’s one underachieving piece of paper.
But that’s not the only way a title page can fall down on the job. Let’s take a gander at another type of title page Millicent often sees — one that contains the right information, but is so unprofessionally formatted that the care with which the writer followed the content rules gets entirely lost:
Where should I even begin with this one? It’s pretty, undoubtedly, but would anyone care to start listing any of the five things wrong with it?
If you immediately zeroed in on the picture, give yourself a gold star for the day; since there is literally no chance that any image a writer chooses to place on a manuscript or proposal’s title page will end up on the published book’s cover (the usual rationale for including them at this stage), decorating your submission’s title page with photos or drawings will just seem bizarre to Millicent. And that goes double for Mehitabel, the veteran literary contest judge.
Award yourself two gold stars if you said Ms. White should nix the red lettering — or any lettering that isn’t black, for that matter — or that her contact information should not have been centered. Pin a great big blue ribbon on yourself, too, if you also pointed out that Ms. White used two different typefaces here, a classic standard format no-no. Not to mention the fact — although I do seem to be mentioning it, don’t I? — that the type size varies.
I feel a rule coming on: like everything else in the manuscript, the title page should be entirely in 12-point type. It should also be in the same font as the rest of the manuscript. With the usual caveat: unless an agent specifically requests otherwise, of course.
Otherwise, you may place the title in boldface if you like, but that’s it on the funkiness scale. No matter how cool your title page looks with 24-point type or the picture you would like to see on the book jacket, resist the urge, because Millicent will be able to tell from across the room if you didn’t.
Don’t believe me that size matters? See for yourself:
Quite a difference, isn’t it? Apart from Mssr. Smith’s tragic font choice and his not having countermanded Word’s annoying propensity to reproduce e-mail addresses in blue ink, did you notice any potentially eye-distracting problems with this title page?
If you said that it included both a slug line (the author’s name and title in the upper right margin of the page) and a page number in the bottom right corner, snag yourself yet another gold star from petty cash. Add whipped cream and walnut clusters if you mentally added the reason that those additions are incorrect: because the title page is not the first page of text, and thus should not be formatted as if it were. Nor should title pages be numbered.
This means, incidentally, that the title page should not be counted as one of the 50 pages in those 50 pages the agent of your dreams asked you to submit, either. Nor would it count toward the total number of pages for a contest entry.
That loud whoop you just heard was contest-entering writers everywhere realizing that they could squeeze another page of text into their entries. Perhaps seconded by the many, many pitchers asked to send the standard first 50 pages that just realized my insistence upon professional presentation was not going to cost them a page of text.
I’m hearing some discontented murmuring amongst aesthetes out there in the ether. “But Anne,” visually-oriented aspiring writers murmur under their breath, so as not to attract the wrath of Millicent, “I feel that the rules of standard format for books and book proposals– not to be confused with the formatting norms for short stories, magazine articles, screenplays, or any other kind of writing intended for professional submission — are stepping all over my right to creative expression. If I believe my writing looks best in a special font like Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold, why shouldn’t I run with it? It’s how I want my words to look in the published book, so why shouldn’t I present my manuscript that way?”
Because, murmuring aesthetes, Millicent will take your writing more seriously if you format it as she expects to see it. While two-inch margins and a cursive typeface may strike a writer as the perfect expressive extension of the spirit of his novel, to someone who reads manuscripts for a living, they’re just puzzling. And, frankly, distracting from the writing.
So yes, Virginia, a choice as small as a typeface honestly can make an astonishingly great difference to how professional your work looks to the pros, even on the title page. That comes as something of a surprise to most aspiring writers — who, it should astonish no one to learn, tend to regard that particular decision as a purely aesthetic one. “Why,” they ask, and not unreasonably, “should it matter? Good writing’s good writing, isn’t it?”
Well, yes and no. Yes, good writing is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. No, insofar as good writing tends to have less impact on the average Millicent when it’s presented in an unusual font.
Yes, really. To see why, let’s take a peek at the same title page in three different typefaces. Here it is in 12-point Times New Roman:
That’s what anyone sitting in Millicent’s seat would expect to see. Now let’s look at exactly the same information, assuming that Aunt Jane had favored 12-point Helvetica so strongly that she just couldn’t resist submitting in it:
The letters are quite a bit bigger, aren’t they? Not enough so to appear to be, say, 14-point font, but large enough to make Millicent wonder whether the word count is accurate. (Lest we forget, word count does vary by typeface: Times New Roman is estimated at 250 words/page, Courier at 200.) And do you really want her speculating about your credibility before she reaches the first page of your manuscript?
Now that we have seated ourselves firmly in Millicent’s office chair, we can see that Aunt Jane’s choice of Helvetica, while not a deal-breaker, does not necessarily present her manuscript to its best advantage. But does the increased volume of disgruntled ethereal muttering mean some of you want to see a typeface that might be a deal-breaker? Happy to oblige.
Can’t really blame Millicent for not wanting to turn the page on that one, can we? Despite containing all of the information that a title page should include, in the right places and in the right order, it’s unprofessional-looking. Not to mention hard to read.
Got Millicent’s perspective firmly imbedded in your mind? Excellent. If you want to switch back to the writer’s point of view, all you have to do is remember that the manuscript that follows even this last title page is SENSE AND SENSIBILITY.
The moral: even the best writing may be placed at a competitive disadvantage by unprofessional presentation. Yes, it’s a pain to implement at first, but in the long run, standard format is the good writer’s friend, not her enemy.
Adopting the norms of standard format and clinging to them like an unusually tenacious leech carries a fringe benefit, too: it will also help you preserve your sanity throughout the often-protracted submission process. Honestly, trying to apply every single one of the expressed (and not always well-informed) opinions floating around out there to your manuscript will drive you 100% nuts. The anecdotal agents’ pet peeves one hears bouncing around the Internet are too often mutually contradictory, for one thing.
But, naturally, if an agent to whom you are submitting asks for something different, for heaven’s sake, give it to her. If, as is almost always the case, you just don’t know, keep the presentation unprovocative and professional so that your writing may shine.
In other words, adhere to the strictures of standard format, rather than assuming, as so many aspiring writers do to their cost, that the writing is the only thing that matters.
Is that deafening clank the sound of a thousand writers’ hackles being raised? I can’t say I’m surprised; the very topic of presentation seems to be emotionally trying for a lot of writers — disproportionately so, from where Millicent is sitting. Tell an aspiring writer that his dialogue is turgid, or his pacing drags, or that he’s left a necessary section out of his book proposal, and most of the time, he’ll be at least curious about why you think so. (If a bit defensive.)
Yet suggest to the same writer that he might be better off reformatting his manuscript to include such niceties as paragraph indentation or moving his page number to the slug line, and a good quarter of the time, he’ll look at you as though you’d just kicked his grandmother. Thrice.
So pardon me if I duck behind a handy large piece of furniture while I reiterate: from the perspective of someone who reads manuscripts for a living, standard format is simply the least distracting way a book can possibly be presented.
Which is, of course, the primary reason to rely upon either Times, Times New Roman, or Courier typefaces, both on the title page and in the manuscript. These are the standards of the industry, and thus the least likely to raise Millicent’s ever-knitted eyebrows.
And that’s going to be true regardless of the quality of the writing. First impressions count.
To see how much of a difference font and typeface can make at first glance, here’s a correctly-formatted page 1 in Times New Roman. Just for giggles, I’m going to use that notorious editor’s nightmare, the opening paragraphs of A TALE OF TWO CITIES:
Pretty spiffy, eh? And definitely not how this opening would appear in a published book, right?
Now let’s take a peek at the same page, also correctly formatted, in Courier. Note how many fewer words per page it allows:
Got both of those firmly imbedded in your brainpan? Good. Now format your first pages that way for the rest of your natural life. My work here is obviously done.
Just kidding — you want to see why it’s a good idea, don’t you? Okay, take a gander at the same first page, not in standard manuscript format. See how many differences you can spot:
Fascinating how just a few small formatting changes can alter the presentation, isn’t it? It’s exactly the same writing, but it just doesn’t look as professional. To Millicent, who reads hundreds of pages per day, the differences between the last three examples could not be clearer.
And yet, if we’re going to be honest about it, there were really very few deviations from standard format in the last example. For those of you playing at home, the typeface is Georgia; the chapter title is in the wrong place, and there isn’t a slug line. Also, the page is numbered in the wrong place — the default setting, incidentally, in many word processing programs.
In all probability, none of these infractions against the rules of standard format are serious enough to cause Millicent to toss a submission aside as soon as she notices them. But when poor formatting is combined with literary experimentation — like, say, that paragraph-long opening sentence ol’ Charles managed to cough up — which do you think she is going to conclude, that Dickens is a writer who took the time to polish his craft, or that he just doesn’t know what he’s doing?
Don’t tempt a professional reader to draw the wrong conclusion about your devotion to your craft. Remember, where a manuscript stands depends upon where the reader sits.
Before any hackles start rocketing skyward again, I hasten to add: where the submitting writer sits often makes a difference to Millicent’s perception, too. Her reception of that last example is very likely to be different before Dickens became a household name or after, although once he was established.
Unless you happen to be famous, I wouldn’t advise taking the risk. And if you do happen to be famous, could I interest you in writing a back jacket blurb?
In fairness to Millicent, though, it’s highly unlikely that it would even occur to our Charles to deviate this markedly from standard format, if he already had experience working with an agent or editor. The longer you remain in the business, the more those little things will strike you as just, well, matters of right and wrong. As, fortunately or not, they do Millicent and her ilk.
Come to think of it, that sense of fitness may well be the reason that discussions of formatting tend to become so vitriol-stained: we all like to be right, and after all, propriety is in the eye of the beholder. After all, each of us is most familiar with the view from her own chair.
Which is why, I suspect, so many aspiring writers become enraged at the very notion that something — anything — but the style of the writing could possibly play a role in a professional assessment of a manuscript’s potential. As Millicent is only too painfully aware, there’s more to working well with an agent or editor than writing like a muse-inspired bard.
There’s being willing and able to take direction, for instance, because working authors often do need to make revisions on very short notice. There’s being willing and able to take criticism without flying into a passion — because, believe me, the pros don’t pull their punches; when everyone’s trying to meet a deadline, it’s a waste of valuable time. And there’s being willing and able to adhere to the standards of the industry one is lobbying so hard to join.
Make it easy to help you do that. And make it apparent that you will be easy to help from the very top of your manuscript.
I can sense some of you recent pitchers getting antsy about sending out those requested materials, so that’s it on the formatting front for the nonce. Next time, I shall be talking about how to construct a professional-sounding cover letter to accompany your submission — and over the weekend, we shall be discussing how to pack up your work and send it off with style.
I’m going to try something a little different today, campers. This post is for all of you strong, silent types: instead of explaining at my usual great length how to put together a manuscript for submission to the agent of your dreams, I’m going to show you.
What brought on this change in tactic? Well, last time, I gave those of you that had just pitched your work successfully to an agent — which, contrary to astoundingly pervasive opinion amongst conference-goers, means that the agent asked to see all or part of your manuscript or book proposal, not offered on the spot to represent you — a brief overview of what that agent would expect to see in a submission. I did that not only to aid writers in a whirl about how to get their work out the door, but also to provide advance knowledge to those of you planning upon pitching at a writers’ conference in the months to come and those of you planning to send out queries. In fact, I shall be devoting the rest of the week to this worthy endeavor.
Why devote so much energy to talking about something as seemingly simply straightforward as packing up a manuscript and sending it to someone that has asked to see it? Because knowing what’s expected can both streamline the submission process and render the preparation stage substantially less stressful. Because there’s more to it than meets the eye. And, frankly, because most submitters do some part of it wrong.
How? Oh, in a broad array of ways. Some manuscripts are formatted as if they were published books. Others are mostly correct, but do not apply the rules consistently or present the text in a wacky font. Still others cherry-pick which rules to follow, or combine the rules for short stories and those for book-length works into an unholy mish-mash of styles.
And those are just the manuscripts put together by writers that are aware that some standards for professional presentation exist. Agents see plenty of submissions from those that evidently believe that everything from margin width to typeface is purely an expression of individual style.
Back in the decadent days when being asked to submit a manuscript meant, if not an offer of representation, then at least an explanation of why the agent was passing on the project, rejected writers were often firmly but kindly told to learn the ropes before submitting again. And today, many agencies have been considerate enough to post some indication of their formatting requirements on their websites. But more often than not, submitters whose manuscripts deviated from expectations never find out that unprofessional presentation played any role at all in their rejection.
So how are they to learn how to improve their writing’s chances of pleasing the pros?
This evening, I’m going to be concentrating on the cosmetic expectations for a manuscript. But before my long-term readers roll their eyes — yes, yes, I know, I do talk about standard format quite a bit — let me hasten to add that in this post, I am going to present manuscript pages in a different manner than I ever have before.
You see, I’ve been talking about standard format for manuscripts for almost seven years now at Author! Author!, long enough to notice some trends. First trend: this is one of the few writer-oriented online sources for in-depth explanations of how and why professional manuscripts are formatted in a very specific manner — and are formatted differently than short stories, magazine articles, or published books. As the sharper-eyed among you may have gleaned from the fact that I devote several weeks of every year to discussing standard format and providing visual examples (the latest rendition begins here), I take that responsibility very seriously.
Which is why the second trend troubles me a little: whenever a sponsor a writing contest — and I am offering two this summer, one aimed at adult writers writing for the adult market and a second for writers under voting age and adult YA writers — a good two-thirds of the entries are improperly formatted. Not just in one or two minor respects, either. I’m talking about infractions serious enough that, even if they would not necessarily prompt our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, to reject those pages on the spot, they would at least encourage her to take the writing less seriously.
Why might someone that reads submissions for a living respond that drastically? Chant it with me now, long-time readers: because all professional book-length manuscripts handled by US-based agencies and publishing houses look essentially the same, writing presented in any other manner distracts Millicent. So if you want your work to claim her full attention, it’s very much to your advantage to present it as the pros do.
All of that would be helpful, I suspect, to the many, many aspiring writers who have never seen a professionally-formatted manuscript in person. Yet I must confess, I worry about writers that learn more easily from visual examples than extensive explanation. Not to mention those that are in just too much of a hurry to read through post after post of careful demonstration of the rules in practice.
Today, then, I am going to present standard format for book manuscripts in the quickest, visually clearest way that I can: I’m going to draw you a map.
Or, to be a trifle more precise about it, this post will provide a guide to the professional manuscript page that will allow those new to it to navigate around it with ease. Let’s start by taking a peek at the first three pages an agent would expect to see in a manuscript, as the agent would expect to see it: the title page, page 1, and page 2.
Pretty innocuous presentation, isn’t it? (If you’re experiencing difficulty seeing the details, try holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + repeatedly to enlarge the images.) As we may see, book manuscripts differ from published books in many important respects. Some respects that might not be obvious above:
Book manuscripts should be typed or printed in black ink on 20-lb or heavier white paper.
I encourage my clients to use bright white 24-lb paper; it doesn’t wilt.
Manuscripts are printed or typed on one side of the page and are unbound in any way.
The preferred typefaces for manuscripts are 12-point Times New Roman or Courier.
No matter how cool your desired typeface looks, or how great the title page looks with 14-point type, keep the entire manuscript in the same font and typeface.
Due to the limitations of blog format, you’re just going to have to take my word for it that all of these things were true of the manuscript pages I am about to show you. I printed them out and labeled their constituent parts, so we could talk about them more easily. Then I slapped the result onto the nearest table, and snapped some glamour shots. The lighting could have been better, but here they are, in all their glory.
I’ll go into the reasoning behind including a title page in a submission (it’s a good idea, even if you’ve been asked to send only the first few pages) in tomorrow’s post, so for now, let’s just note what information it contains and where it appears on the page. A professionally-formatted title page presents:
A professionally-formatted title page should include all of the following: the manuscript’s book category (c), word count (d), author’s intended publication name (e), author’s real name (f), and author’s contact information (b).
Don’t worry; I shall be defining all of these terms in my next post.
The title and author’s pen name should be centered on the page. (h)
The book category, word count, and contact information should all be lined up vertically on the page. (g)
The easiest way to pull this off is to set a tab at 4″ or 4.5″.
Do not use boldface anywhere in the manuscript but on the title page — and even there, it’s optional.
As you may see here, I have elected not to use it. If I did, the only place where it would be appropriate is at (aa), the title.
Contact information for the author belongs on the title page, not page 1. (b)
Which is, of course, a nicety that would escape the notice of a submitter that believed that short story format (in which the word count and contact information are presented on page 1) and book manuscript format were identical. By including a title page, you relieve yourself of the necessity to cram all of that information onto the first page of a chapter. As you may see, the result is visually much less cluttered.
Every page in the manuscript should be numbered except the title page. The first page of text is page 1. (5)
In other words, do not include the title page in a page count.
Everyone finding everything with relative ease so far? Excellent. In order to zoom in on (5), let’s take a closer look at the first page of Chapter 1.
Got that firmly in your mind? Now let’s connect the dots.
All manuscripts are double-spaced, with 1-inch margins on all four edges. (1)
Do not even consider trying to fudge either the line spacing or the margin width. Trust me, any Millicent that’s been at it a while will instantly spot any shrinkage or expansion in either. The same holds true of using any font size other than 12 point, by the way.
The text should be left-justified, not block-justified.
This one often confuses writers, because text in newspapers, magazines, and some published books is block-justified: the text is spaced so that every line in the same length. The result is a left margin and a right margin that visually form straight lines running down the page.
But that’s not proper in a book manuscript. As we see here, the left margin should be straight (2), while the right is uneven (3).
Every page of text should feature a standard slug line in the header (4), preferably left-justified.
That’s the bit in the top margin of each page containing the Author’s Last Name/Title/#. As you can see here, the slug line should be in the header — in other words, in the middle of the one-inch top margin — not on the first line of text.
The slug line should appear in the same plain 12-point type as the rest of the manuscript, by the way. No need to shrink it to 10 point or smaller; Millicent’s too used to seeing it to find it visually distracting.
The page number (5) should appear in the slug line and nowhere else on the page.
Another one that often confuses writers new to the biz: word processing programs are not, after all, set up with this format in mind. Remember, though, that the fine people at Microsoft do not work in the publishing industry, and every industry has the right to establish its own standards.
Every page in the manuscript should be numbered. The first page of text is page 1.
Do not scuttle your chances submitting an unpaginated manuscript; 99% of the time, it will be rejected unread. Yes, even if you are submitting it via e-mail. People who read for a living consider unnumbered pages rude.
The first page of a chapter should begin a third of the way down the page (6), with the chapter number (7) and/or title (8) centered at the top.
If the chapter does not have a title, just skip line (8).
Is everyone comfortable with what we have covered so far? If not, please ask. While I’m waiting for trenchant questions, I’m going to repost page 2, so we may contemplate its majesty.
Awesomely bland, is it not? Let’s check out the rest of the rules.
The beginning of each paragraph should be indented .5 inch. (9)
Yes, including the first paragraph of each chapter, no matter what you have seen in a published book. The decision not to indent the first paragraph of the chapter rests with the publisher, not the writer; if you have strong preferences on the subject, take it up with the editor after you have sold the book.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the manuscript is not the right place to express those preferences. No formatting choice in the manuscript will necessarily end up in the published book.
That includes, by the way, an authorial preference for business format. If you happen to prefer non-indented paragraphs that force a skipped line between paragraphs, too bad. Which leads us to…
Don’t skip an extra line between paragraphs (10), except to indicate a section break. (11)
As we see here, section breaks are formed by skipping one double-spaced line. Do not indicate a section break by # # # or any other marker UNLESS you are writing a short story, article, or entering a contest that requires the inclusion of a specific symbol. (Check the rules.)
Words in foreign languages should be italicized (12), as should emphasized words (13) and titles of copyrighted works like songs (14). Nothing in the text should be underlined.
This one’s pretty self-explanatory, I think, except for the always-burning question of whether to italicize thought (as I’ve done here at a) or not. There is no hard-and-fast rule on this one: some agents like it, some consider it a narrative cop-out. Because its acceptability varies wildly between book categories, your best bet is to check five or ten recent releases similar to yours to see if italicized thought appears there.
If you ultimately decide to embrace the italicized thought convention, you must be 100% consistent in applying it throughout the text. What you should never do, however, is make the common mistake of both saying that a character is thinking something and italicizing it. To an agent or editor, this
I’m so frightened! Irma thought.
is redundant. Pick one means of indicating thought and stick to it.
All numbers under 100 should be written out in full: twenty-five, not 25. (15)
This one is not quite as straightforward as it sounds. As we can see in the text, dates, times, and currency is sometimes expressed as numbers. When a time is specific (16), it is written in number form, but a general time (17) is written out in full. September 4, 1832 is fine, but without the year, the fourth of September is correct. By the same token, a specific amount of money (18) is in numeral form, but a round number (19) is conveyed in words.
Dashes should be doubled (20), with spaces at either end, but hyphens are single, with no spaces. (21)
Why? So a typesetter can tell them apart. (Okay, so that made more sense when manuscripts were produced on typewriters. Humor Millie on this one.)
#22 is not precisely a formatting matter, but manuscript submissions so often misuse them that I wanted to flag it here. In American English (and thus when submitting to a US-based agency), ellipses contain only three periods UNLESS they come at the end of a quote that ends in a period. When an ellipsis indicates a pause in speech, as it does here at (22), there should not be a space between it and the words around it.
And that’s it! Unless an agency’s submission guidelines specify some other formatting preferences, you will not go wrong with these.
I shall now tiptoe quietly away, so you may study them in peace. Tune in tomorrow for more discussion of title pages, and, as always, keep up the good work!
P.S.: there’s a good discussion in the Comments section about formatting quotes and citations in manuscripts and book proposals.
Okay, okay, so I didn’t manage to get our planned whew-I-survived-PNWA treat up yesterday, as I had hoped, as a quick breather between talking about how to handle conference pitching with aplomb and today’s plunge into how to handle a request for manuscript pages — which will still be happening later today, you will be delighted to hear. I have an excellent excuse, however: the other day, a truck burst into flames outside the salon where I was having my hair cut.
The first those of us inside the salon heard of it was the giant pop when the windshield exploded. Not the best time to have one’s head in a sink, as it turns out. Both my stylist and I jumped so much that I have a gigantic bump on the back of my noggin. It’s rendered it just a trifle difficult to focus on a computer screen.
And that, in case any of you had been wondering, is why fiction has to be so much more plausible than nonfiction — and why simply slapping real-life events on the novel page so often doesn’t ring quite true. Quite a lot of what happens in this zany world of ours would seem completely absurd if it popped up in a novel.
Case in point: would you believe it if Our Heroine not only rushed to her blog the instant she could see straight after that out-of-nowhere explosion, but posted twice in one day? Surely, that pushes the bounds of credulity; the fact that it is actually going to happen would be irrelevant.
Is my vision still a bit blurry, or are some of you sighing and shifting impatiently in your chairs? “Yes, yes, Anne,” those of you eager to get requested materials out the door mutter, “I’m sorry for your whacked head, but we’ve been talking about practical matters for the last week. I’ve appreciated that, as I have a manuscript request burning a hole in my metaphorical pocket from my recent successful conference pitch and/or a query that hit the right note. I’m begrudgingly honoring your advice to read my submission IN ITS ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and perhaps even OUT LOUD before I send it off to the agent of my dreams. But honestly, a cozy chat about plausibility in fiction? Or a discussion of craft with a respected historical fiction author, as the title of this post implies you’re about to have? How can I do that and remain monomaniacally focused upon popping my manuscript into the mail as soon as I have satisfied your insane demands?”
All part of my evil plan, impatient shifters (but please, don’t say popping to me right now; it makes my head throb). As it happens, evil plans, plausibility in fiction, craft, and the all-important issue of how to keep the faith throughout what can be a long, attenuated submission process — even if you hit SEND immediately after today’s late-night post on how to present your work professionally, it’s not at all uncommon for submitters not to hear back for months — are all part of this afternoon’s treat.
So is the question of how to render over-the-top realities plausible on the page. Or wasn’t plausibility something for which you had been scanning while you were re-reading the pages you intend to submit IN THEIR ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and, if you want to make me happy, OUT LOUD?
Okay, that’s why you might want to pay close attention to the content of this discussion, impatient shifters. Now, allow me to introduce my discussant, a highly-respected historical novelist deeply gifted at bringing even the most over-the-top events of years past into vivid, plangent, and utterly plausible life on the page: Nicole Galland.
Nicole Galland’s terrific new retelling of OTHELLO, I, Iago came out a few months back, and although you of all people know I am not prone to gushing, I think it’s one of the best historical novels of recent years. I also think it’s both a terrific read and a great example for those of you toiling away in the currently popular vineyard of reconceiving classic tales. From the publisher’s blurb:
From earliest childhood, the precocious boy called Iago had inconvenient tendencies toward honesty—a “failing” that made him an embarrassment to his family and an outcast in the corrupted culture of glittering, Renaissance Venice. Embracing military life as an antidote to the frippery of Venetian society, he won the glowing love of the beautiful Emilia, and the regard of Venice’s revered General Othello. After years of abuse and rejection, Iago was poised to win everything he ever fought for…
…until a cascade of unexpected betrayals propel him on a catastrophic quest for righteous vengeance, contorting his moral compass until he has betrayed his closest friends and family and sealed his own fate as one of the most notorious villains of all time.
Pretty exciting, eh? Actually, for once, a blurb has undersold the dramatic action — and the genuinely astonishing twists of the plot.
Yes, even if one happens to know Othello awfully darned well. I do, as it happens: I’ve acted in it. Heck, I’ve played more than one role in it. And more than one turn of events made me not only gasp out loud, but put that pen with which a prudent author interviewer always takes marginal notes right through the page.
Think about that. Usually, I don’t jump for anything less than a nearby explosion.
Seriously, one of the occupational hazards of being an editor is the deadening of one’s capacity for surprise. Editors are notorious for rolling their eyes over mild foreshadowing on page 14 and murmuring, “Oh, great, now I know how the book ends.” If you are the type of person that likes to receive a story arc in sequential chunks, I would strenuously advise against accompanying an editor to a movie.
That suggestion is brought to you, incidentally, by the unlucky soul that happened to be occupying the adjacent loge seat when I saw The Sixth Sense. The first time the mother appeared onscreen and did not ask how her child’s therapy session had gone, everyone within three rows heard my annoyed huff, if not my whispered, “Oh, so the mother can’t see the therapist; he must be a ghost. I’m bored now.”
As you might imagine for a reader with that kind of attitude problem, it’s rare that a plot catches me by surprise. So how is it possible that reading a story whose ending I know as well as Othello’s kept me up all night reading because I wanted to know how it was going to turn out?
Which is, of course, the central problem in retelling any well-known classic. It’s always a writing challenge to draw readers into a story, particularly one that takes place long ago, but it’s an especially high dive with Shakespeare — and not merely because of the intimidation value of tackling one of the theatrical world’s greatest tragedies. Even readers that routinely turn pale at the very thought of their high school English class’ discussion of Hamlet may reasonably be expected to be familiar with the outlines of the plot: General Othello and the lovely Desdemona are in love, Iago convinces Othello to become madly jealous, and the stage quickly becomes littered with corpses.
To make the dive even higher, the literary world has in recent years applauded — and even expected — new takes on culturally well-known tales not only to render them fresh and accessible for current readers, but to do so from the point of view of the villain. In reimagining Othello, that presents quite a difficulty: Iago does some pretty loathsome things to the people around him, rendering him hard to like — and, unusually for chatty Shakespeare, the play’s audience is actually not treated to much explanation of his motives.
How did Nicole conquer these twin challenge? By means of a writing choice that I think will delight and instruct those of us devoted to writing fiction: by delving so thoroughly into Iago’s past and personality development that as he takes each step toward infamy, the reader is cajoled into saying, “Oh, okay — I can go along with that.”
The result is hugely engaging. I, IAGO not only seduced me into liking the villain — something I would not have thought possible — but left me feeling by the tumultuous last quarter of the book that by having empathized with his increasingly warped sense of right and wrong, I had become enmeshed in his fate. Yet even though I could see it coming, even though I had picked up the book knowing that it had to come, the trip there kept catching me off guard, because I was experiencing it moment-to-moment with the protagonist-villain.
And that, my friends, is not something that happens all that often to those of us that murmur at the first mention of a character’s hard childhood, “Oh, so he’s the serial killer.”
An unexpected fringe benefit that friends of the Bard will love: this story is so steeped in the Shakespearean ethos that small hints of his other works seem to have been built into the very plaster of the ballrooms and steel of the swords. Here is an image plucked from a sonnet; there is descriptor reminiscent of Juliet. And could that possibly be a reference to Pericles, Prince of Tyre?
It is, in a word, fun — not word I generally associate with tragedy. If I have a critique (other than having lost sleep to this story), it’s that I would have liked to see both Desdemona’s very genuine wit and Othello’s descent into overwhelming paroxysms of jealousy in a bit more detail. Why was this great mind so easily overthrown?
But that’s a minor quibble. As an established fan of Nicole’s writing — and, in the interest of full disclosure, as someone who first met her during an audition for Measure for Measure at Harvard, back in the Reagan era — naturally, I expected to be charmed by the writing. I have to say, though, I think this is far and away her best book to date, and certainly one I have been frantically handing to every aspiring historical novelist I meet as a prime example of how it’s done.
So, equally naturally, when she made a flying visit to Seattle recently, I dragged her into my back yard, turned a camera on her, and implored her to share her writing secrets. Unfortunately, before we began, I took off the hat I had been wearing on that hat day first, so you’ll have to excuse my hair.
Seriously, its state requires excuse, so much so that had this not been such a meaty interview with such an old friend, I might have held off on posting it until I could find a gifted retoucher of videotape. But I promised you a treat, so I shall cast vanity to the winds.
How I suffer for your art, eh? Concentrate instead, please, on this year’s bumper crop of lilacs — and a great conversation about craft with one of the best. Enjoy!
I wasn’t kidding about the hair, was I? Those of us whose tint is, as Truman Capote put it so succinctly for all time, somewhat self-induced would do well to get into the habit of peeking at oneself in a mirror prior to doing any book promotion at all, much less a taped interview. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, present and future authors.
But let’s get back to the problem of constructing an inherently hard-to-like protagonist so that the reader will like him well enough to want to follow him throughout an entire book. First-time novelists — especially those writing in the first person for the first time, and that’s a lot of firsts — often don’t think about this crucial part of the author’s tacit agreement with the reader, but in either a first-person or tight third-person narrative, the protagonist is the reader’s guide to the story. We’re committed to seeing everything from his point of view.
So if that protagonist is too passive to ask relevant questions the reader wants to know, or not sufficiently nuanced in his worldview to be able to observe in useful detail, or too unpleasant to be good company for a few hundred pages, the reader may feel slightly cheated. Yes, even if the plot is very exciting: would you want to go on a tour of a haunted house with a guide that steered you away from the dark corners, did not seem to know much about the house’s history, or declared every fifteen seconds that anyone who believed in ghosts was an idiot?
Of course not. You want your guide to fit with the atmosphere. By the same token, in a historical novel, you want your protagonist to be both plausibly of his era and fascinating to follow.
Nicole’s protagonist and narrator is abundantly both, on both overt and subtle levels. At first, Iago seems merely sensitive and observant, a boy not born into a social class that would permit him the luxury of picking his own career. Increasingly determined to set his own course despite a demanding father’s demands (especially well-drawn) and a frivolous social order not given to recognizing real worth, he has to fight hard to remain honest, and it frequently costs him dearly.
So when he begins to feel just a bit resentful of others’ advancement, who can blame him? Why shouldn’t he gain the wife he wants, the promotion he craves, the spot at the exotic newly-minted general’s side? Shown through Iago’s eyes, his wants seem so reasonable, even moderate, and his opposition so privileged that we cannot help but cheer him on as he navigates the complex world of Venetian military and social politics.
By the time he starts to display enough sharp-edged jealousy to startle us, the reader is already implicated in what gradually emerges as a slow-acting, closely-observed madness from the point of view of the madman. Iago genuinely wants to believe he is doing the right thing as he continues to do more and more egregiously wrong ones.
The great characterization trick that keeps the reader following him: his justifications remain insidiously plausible, right up to the point when not even he can believe what he has done. But by then, as in all great tragedy, self-knowledge can no longer save him — or anybody else. The die is cast.
That’s not a characterization feat that could have been pulled off by just telling the reader all of these things. But how the heck does one show progressive madness from the increasingly mad character’s point of view?
So there’s another tip for those planning to give or conduct video interviews: don’t sit under a large, bug-attracting tree. Or add nice, juicy chunks of fruit to your iced tea.
Apparently, flying insects are real camera hogs. Stick with water, okay?
That practical tip out of the way — you know me; I’m always toiling to help make the life literary a bit easier for writers — I don’t want to set up the next clip too much. The discussion turned shortly thereafter from perspective and craft to more fundamental characterization issue of inhabiting one’s character thoroughly enough to be able to see his world through his eyes — and feel it with his skin.
But I promised you a solid discussion of plausibility, did I not? Here it is — and, as plausible fiction always is, it’s detail-oriented and down-to-earth. Those of you constructing fight scenes might want to pay particularly close attention to this segment; it’s full of practical tips.
Here’s the promised link to Nicole’s previous novel, Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade. Heck, while we’re at it, let’s take a gander at the publisher’s blurb for that, too:
In the year 1202, tens of thousands of crusaders gather in Venice, preparing to embark for Jerusalem to free the Holy City from Muslim rule. Among them is a lowly vagabond Briton, rescued from damnation by a pious knight who burns with zealous fire for their sacred undertaking. And so they set sail, along with dedicated companions—and with a beautiful, mysterious Arab “princess” whom the vagabond liberates from a brutish merchant. But the divine light guiding their “righteous” campaign soon darkens as the mission sinks ever deeper into catastrophe, disgrace, and moral turpitude—as Christians murder Christians in the Adriatic port city of Zara, tragic events are set in motion that will ultimately lead to the shocking and shameful fall of Constantinople.
Impeccably researched and beautifully told, Nicole Galland’s Crossed is a stunning tale of the disastrous Fourth Crusade—and of the hopeful, brave, and driven who were caught up in and irrevocably changed by a corrupted cause and a furious battle beyond their comprehension or control.
And now let’s move on to the my favorite clip, a discussion of how the opinions of others so often shape writers’ conceptions of their own talent. Those of you prone to late-night anxieties about your writing may want to bookmark this part.
Let me underscore one of those points: never give anybody else the power to tell you not to write. Because we live in a society that believes that if a book is any good, it will automatically get published — since, as we all know, the Book Fairy magically appears on every talented aspiring writer’s doorstep the instant after the writer has typed THE END, bearing the perfect agent and a publication contract — it’s incredibly easy for aspiring writers to come to believe that they are not real writers until they have a book out. Or until they land an agent, or win a literary contest.
Yes, talent is necessary to achieve these laudable goals, but it’s not the only requisite. Luck plays a role, too, as does perseverance. As literally everyone who has ever handled manuscripts for a living could tell you — yet surprisingly seldom do — plenty of brilliant books never make it into print. Plenty of marvelous writers never land an agent. And plenty of agents and editors shake their heads every day over promising queries and submissions, murmuring, “Gee, I would love to live in a world in which I could sell this book.”
One could regard that as depressing. One could also regard it as a fabulous reason to keep writing — and querying, and submitting. The literary world’s tastes change all the time. Perhaps today isn’t the day that agent or editor is living in the right world for your book, but tomorrow may well be.
You’ll never know unless you have your manuscript ready and waiting, will you?
Please join me in thanking Nicole Galland for sharing her wit, wisdom, and insight with us — and please, have faith in your writing. These two pros are here to tell you that ultimately, you need no one’s permission to write.
I could begin today’s post with my usual humorous take on the topic at hand, but if my inbox is any indication, quite a few local writers pitched their books at a conference near the airport, and did it well. And, if the past couple of posts are to be believed — and they are! They are! — I had suggested to the lucky folks that received requests for pages hold off on sending off any or all of a manuscript to an agent or editor that requested it. Why would I advise such a thing? To allow time to read it through IN ITS ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and preferably OUT LOUD. That way, I opined, my readers could avoid the sinking feeling so common amongst successful pitchers a month or two after the conference, stemming from the realization that they’ve mailed or e-mailed a manuscript with a big, glaring, and easily-fixable error on page 1. Or 2. Or 58.
Oh, it happens. More often than writers would like to admit, as a group, we tend to become hugely excited by positive reinforcement from agents or editors. Rushing a manuscript out the door before it’s completely polished is perhaps an inevitable result.
Or is it? I hope not. Let’s face it, though, it is stressful to have a pro say yes to a pitch or query.
Oh, stop rolling your eyes, writers who have yet to pitch or query. Okay, so it’s not as stressful as when an agent says, “No, thank you,” but you would be astonished at how many pitchers and queriers work tremendously hard to cajole a “Yes, I would like to read your work” — and then realize with a shock that they have very little idea how to comply with that delightful request.
To help last weekend’s successful pitcher over that particular hurdle, as well as to arm the rest of you with the practical know-how you will need when your turn comes, I am devoting this post to a bread-and-butter discussion of what a request for pages actually entails. We shall be discussing the niceties of submission later in the week, but for now, let’s just concentrate on the basic question: what does an agent or editor actually expect?
What a writer should do if an agent requests pages If a query or pitch operates as you hope it will, an agent will typically ask the writer to send either the entire manuscript (rare), a specified number of pages from the beginning of the book (substantially more common), or, for nonfiction, the book proposal. Unless the agent specifically tells you otherwise, this means that he is expecting to receive it as hard copy, sent by regular mail.
Yes, even if you queried the agent via e-mail or through the agency’s website. Publishing is still largely a paper-based enterprise, after all.
If an agent prefers e-mailed submissions, she will tell you point-blank, asking you to send it as an attachment to an e-mail. (Under no circumstances should you ever send a computer disk or CD-R with your book on it — it will be returned or tossed in the trash without being opened.) Occasionally, an agent will request a PDF, but again, unless the agent specifically tells you otherwise, send any requested electronic materials in Microsoft Word.
What’s that you say? You prefer another word processing program? Too bad. A US-based agent will be expecting to see a document in Word. Sending it in any other format will generally get a submission rejected unread.
Why? Word is what the major publishing houses use, so if the agent of your dreams is going to submit electronically to a publishing house, that’s how the editor would expect to receive it. It’s also the format a publishing contract will specify for the soft copy Author X must deliver to the publisher by Date Y.
I hear the Word-averse groaning, but submitting in another format — or sending a document the agent cannot open — is widely considered unprofessional. Try to think about the necessary conversion in terms of all the time it will save you in the long run. If the agent of your dreams likes to submit to editors electronically, you would have to present her with a Word file for your work, anyway. You’re just jumping the gun a little.
Speaking of the horrific possibility that the agent or editor will not be able to open your attachment, be sure to send it as a .doc file, not .docx, so even an agent operating on a very old computer will be able to read it. If you work on a Mac, make sure to send it as a Windows-friendly document — and do be aware that older versions of Windows prefer shorter document names than any version of Word for the Mac.
Make sure, too, to title the file with your last name and the title of the work (abbreviated, if necessary); you wouldn’t believe how many files agencies receive entitled first chapter for {agent’s name} or something similar. Mighty hard to tell ‘em apart.
Sometimes, an agent will ask for attachments as rtf (rich text format), a version without the formatting bells and whistles that render documents hard to translate across word processing systems; if you don’t habitually work in Word, but send your document in rtf, any Word user should be able to open it. As I mentioned above, some agents request submissions in PDF format — especially those who choose to read submissions on a Kindle, rather than on a computer screen, as is becoming increasingly common — but it’s seldom preferred, as it’s hard to edit.
Other than that, an electronically-submitted manuscript should be identical to one to be submitted in hard copy: in standard format for book manuscripts (don’t worry; I’ll be showing you what that looks like on the page later this week) and containing a title page, so the agent of your dreams may contact you to tell you how much she loved it. Include the title page as the first page of the manuscript document, not as a separate file. The title page should not be numbered; the first page of text is page 1.
If the prospect of figuring out how to make any page other than the first page 1 induced a swoon, never fear: it’s actually quite easy in Word. Under the FORMAT menu, select DOCUMENT, then LAYOUT. You will find an option for DIFFERENT FIRST PAGE. Once you click that, you can go into the header and remove the slug line for the first page of your document, and thus the page number.
I see some raised hands waving frantically out there in the ether. “But Anne,” disembodied voices everywhere cry, “that would only get rid of the page number as it appears on the first page. If I copy-and-paste my title page into my text document, wouldn’t the first page of text end up being labeled page 2?”
Why yes, it would, disembodied questioners — unless you were clever enough to have set the pagination to begin at zero. To accomplish that, while you are tinkering with the header, choose the FORMATTING PALETTE from under the VIEW menu, then select HEADER AND FOOTER. The FORMAT PAGE NUMBER option will offer you the opportunity to select what number the pagination will START AT… Type in 0, and you’re home free.
Sound like a lot of work? It can be. Yet another reason that, given the choice, a savvy writer might want to opt to submit in hard copy.
If the agency accepts submissions in both hard or soft copy, which should I choose? Given my druthers, I would always opt for hard copy. Why? Because the human eye reads much more quickly on a backlit screen than on a printed page. It’s more conducing to skimming than hard copy, even for professional readers. (Perhaps especially for professional readers, who have a lot of submissions to get through in a day.)
It’s also more work for an agent to reject a paper copy, as opposed to the single action of hitting the DELETE key required to remove an e-submission from her life forever. Don’t believe me? Okay, think about it: to reject a hard-copy manuscript, Millicent has to pull the SASE out of the submission packet, grab a form letter off the top of the stack on her desk, fold it, and stuff it into the SASE. Rejecting an electronic query, on the other hand, requires at most pasting form-letter rejection into a return e-mail — or, again, simply hitting the DELETE key. Much less work.
“But Anne,” some of you shout, and who could blame you? “I could understand just hitting the DELETE key for a query, but surely, if an agent or editor has requested a manuscript, she would take the time to inform the writer if she’s rejected it, right?”
Actually, not always. An increasing number of agencies get back to submitters, as well as queriers, only if the answer is yes. Checking submission guidelines carefully can save a writer months of nail-biting worry.
And yes, you might end up biting your nails endlessly even if you have had a face-to-face meeting with an agent or editor. While a successful pitch usually means being able to skip the query stage, it does not always mean that those requested materials will be handled any differently than any other submission. If the agency in question generally relies upon form-letter rejections or does not contact the submitter unless the answer is yes, chances are good that these policies will apply to a rejected post-pitch manuscript as well.
However an agent has asked you to submit, though, do as he asks. If there is one inviolable rule to bear in mind while preparing a submission packet, it is surely send the agent precisely what he has asked you to send.
Not following this basic precept can — and usually does — result in instant rejection. That deserves its own heading, does it not?
How do I know what to put in my submission packet? Chant along with me, campers: send precisely what the agent asked to see — no more, no less. Plus a SASE, if you’re submitting by mail.
Being hyper-literal often doesn’t serve an aspiring very well along the frequently perilous road to publication, but submission is one instance where it’s a positive boon. If the agent asked to see the first 50 pages, send the first 50 pages — not the first 49, if a chapter happens to end there, or 55 if there’s a really exciting scene after page 50.
And if page 50 ends mid-sentence, so be it. Trust the agent or editor that asked you to send 50 pages to be familiar enough with how manuscripts work to understand that very few of them feature scenes or chapters that end precisely at the bottom of page 50.
Why is it so very important to follow submission instructions exactly? Because the quality of the writing is not necessarily the only factor an agent weighs in deciding whether to represent a client. The ability to follow directions tends to be a quality that agents LOVE to see in writers, since it implies the writers in question possess two skills absolutely essential to working well with an editor — no, make that three: an ability to listen or read well, a capacity for setting goals and meeting them, and a professional attitude.
That’s right, those of you who did a double-take at that first one: the reading comprehension problems on the SAT actually did relate to something practical in adult life. A writer who has a hard time reading an e-mail from her agent and doing what she’s been asked to do is — wait for it — inherently more time-consuming to represent than a writer with good reading comprehension skills.
It’s just that simple. As your first opportunity for demonstrating your sterling reading comprehension skills to the agent of your dreams, getting the contents of the submission packet right is monumentally important.
Yes, even if you receive the request for materials verbally, at the end of your pitch meeting. No matter how you receive your instructions, however, here are a few tips for making sure you’ve got them all handy for the moment when you actually begin assembling your submission packet.
If an agent asks you for pages in the course of a pitch meeting, take the time to write down a list of what the he is asking you to send. Read it back to him, to make sure you caught everything. (Trust me, if you’re face-to-face with an agent who has just said yes to you, you won’t be thinking with your usual clarity.)
If an agent has already asked you for pages in the course of a pitch meeting, but you did not think to write down specifics in the moment, try doing it now. Then track down the agency’s website and compare your list with its submission guidelines, if any are listed.
If the agent makes the request in writing, read the missive through several times, then sit down and make a list of what he’s asked you to send. Wait at least 24 hours before re-reading the communication to double-check that every requested item made it onto the list. THEN assemble your submission packet, checking off each element as you place it into the envelope or box.
Clever longtime reader Tad came up with a brilliant extra level of fail-safe reading comprehension security: after you have assembled the submission packet, hand it, your list, and a copy of the letter from the agent to someone you trust — a parent, a significant other, a best friend, or any other friendly, detail-oriented person you’re relatively certain isn’t harboring a secret desire to see you miserable — and ask that person to check that (a) the letter and the list correspond exactly and (b) you’ve included every necessary element in the packet.
Yes, it’s that vital to get it right. (And yes, I’m aware that I’m using the yes device quite a lot in this post. Just trying to keep things positive.)
I’m sensing some confusion out there in the ether. “But Anne,” a few timid souls pipe up, “am I missing something here? How difficult could it possibly be to print up the number of pages the agent requests, place them in an envelope, and pop it in the mail? Are you saying that she might ask to see something other than the manuscript?”
Often, yes. There are also a couple of elements that virtually any US-based agent will expect to see in a submission packet, whether or not she asks you to include them. To understand why, let’s go through the possibilities of what you might be asked to send.
What might an agent ask to be sent — and what should you always send anyway? Since there is no industry-wide standardization of what precisely belongs in a submission packet, any given agent may ask for a different array — and you already know to send precisely what each asks you to send, right? However, the most commonly-requested elements are:
The requested pages in standard manuscript format, unbound. The most popular lengths to ask for are the first chapter, the first three chapters, the first 50 pages, the first 100 pages, and the entire manuscript. Every page should be in standard format for manuscripts. In other words, it should not resemble a published book, nor should it be identical to a short story submission. (Again, we’ll be talking about this at greater length later in the week.)
A few cautionary notes, for the benefit of those of you new to formatting books or book proposals: manuscripts absolutely must be double-spaced, in 12-point type (preferably Times, Times New Roman, or Courier), printed on only one side of the page with one-inch margins, and feature indented paragraphs. (No, business format is not proper here — for a full explanation, please see the BUSINESS FORMAT VS. INDENTED PARAGRAPHS category at right.)
A synopsis. For fiction, this is a description of the major twists and turns of the plot, told as vividly as possible. (And don’t kid yourself that the writing doesn’t count here: every syllable you submit to an agent being a writing sample,) For nonfiction, it’s a summary of the central question the book will address, why the question is important to answer, and a brief indication of what evidence you will use to bolster your arguments. (For tips on how to pull this off in what is often an intimidatingly small number of pages, please see the HOW TO WRITE A SYNOPSIS FROM SCRATCH and/or HOW TO WRITE A NONFICTION SYNOPSIS categories at right.)
An author bio. This is an extended version of the query letter’s 1-paragraph description of your life, with emphasis upon your writing credentials, your education, and any experience that would lead an observer to regard you as an expert on the subject matter of your book. For a crash course on how to write one, please see the HOW TO WRITE AN AUTHOR BIO category.
The book proposal. Book proposals are marketing packets used to sell nonfiction. For an explanation of what should go into it and how to put it together, please see the HOW TO WRITE A BOOK PROPOSAL category. (This is starting to read like the back of a greatest hits album, isn’t it?)
A marketing plan. This request was unheard-of for novels until just a couple of years ago, but beginning five years ago or so, the marketing plan enjoyed a vogue as a submission packet addendum for fiction. Essentially, it’s a toned-down version of the marketing plan in a nonfiction book proposal (and thus a description of how to write one may be found under the HOW TO WRITE A BOOK PROPOSAL category): a description the target audience for the book and how to reach them. Bear in mind that what anyone who asks to see a marketing plan has in mind is what the author will be doing to promote the book, not the publishing house’s efforts, so just saying, “I will make myself available to go on a book tour,” probably isn’t going to impress anybody.
Think creatively: who is your target reader, and where do folks like that congregate, physically or virtually?
Those are what an agent will probably ask to see. For tips on how to present these professionally, how to box them up, in what order they should be stacked, etc., please tune in later in the weeks. (Oh, you thought I would send you into that minefield without any guidance?)
Here is a list of what he will almost certainly not mention in his request, but your submission will appear substantially more professional if you also include:
A cover letter thanking the agent for asking to see the requested materials and repeating the writer’s contact information. I’m always astonished at how many aspiring writers just throw a manuscript into an envelope without even attempting any polite preliminaries. It’s rude — and, given how many queries an agency processes in any given week, it’s not a grand idea to assume that the person who opens your submission envelope — almost certainly Millicent, not the agent herself — will instantly recall who you are. We’ll be talking about how to construct this important missive later in the week.
A title page for your manuscript or partial. Again, most submitters omit this, but an already-established writer would never dream of submitting a manuscript anywhere without a title page, since a professional title page includes information absolutely vital to marketing the book: the book category, the word count, the title (of course), the author’s contact information. (For an explanation of all of these elements, how to put them together on a page, and illustrations of what a professionally-formatted title page looks like, see me later in the week.)
If you are submitting via mail, a stamped, self-addressed envelope (SASE) large enough to send the entire submission packet back to you. As with queries, not including a SASE is generally considered an instant-rejection offense. While it’s classy to include a letter-sized SASE in case the agent wants to respond in writing, the SASE in a submission is an envelope or box labeled with your address and enough postage (stamps, not metered) to get it back to you in one piece. (If that sounds complicated, don’t fret: we’ll be talking about how to handle the many permutations of SASE soon.)
Some indication on the outside of the envelope that the agent or editor asked to see what is within. Since agencies receive many, many submissions, both requested and not, with every single mail delivery, it’s an excellent idea to write REQUESTED MATERIALS in great, big letters on the top of the envelope or box containing your submission packet. This will help ensure that your package ends up in the right pile on the right desk. As unsolicited manuscripts are almost universally rejected unread, the last thing in the world you want is for your requested materials to be mistaken for them, right?
For the same reason, if an agent has asked you to submit pages via e-mail, it’s prudent to include the words REQUESTED MATERIALS in the subject line of the e-mail. Better safe than sorry, I always say.
Oh, and never, ever send an agent — or anybody else, for that matter — your only copy of anything. To that, allow me to add Anne’s Axiom of Submission: never spend the money to ship anything to an agent overnight unless they specifically ask you to do so.
Contrary to popular opinion amongst aspiring writers, overnight shipping will not get your packet read any quicker, so it’s just a waste of money. Within the US, the significantly less expensive USPS Priority Mail will get it there within 2-3 business days, and at a fraction of the cost. That is quite fast enough.
Assuming that at least some of you are still with me, I shall now move on to the single most-asked question amongst submitters everywhere:
Okay, now I’ve sent my submission packet. How soon will I hear back? Well, let me put it this way: I wouldn’t advise holding your breath. Even if you submit a partial and an agent decides that she’d like to see the rest of the book, you’re probably not going to hear about that exciting development right away.
Stop glaring at me like that. You’ll save yourself a lot of heartache if you understand this: as I explained over the weekend, no matter how enthusiastically an agent solicited a manuscript, trust me, she will neither have cleared her schedule in anticipation of receiving your materials nor will drop everything to read it the instant it arrives. Agents are extremely busy people, after all.
So expecting to hear back within a few days or weeks is not particularly realistic. As with query letters, the length of time an agency takes to make a decision on a manuscript varies wildly, but in these days of shrinking agency staffs — are you sitting down? — it’s typically measured in months.
And not necessarily one or two, either. It’s not unusual for a writer not to hear back for 3-6 months on a submission. Heck, I know writers who have been startled by representation offers after more than a year.
There is one grand exception to this general rule, however: if an agent knows that there are other agents actively competing to represent you, he — or, more likely, his assistant — will sometimes bump your manuscript up in the reading queue. If you can legitimately tell him that another agent has already made an offer, you will be astonished at how quick a turn-around time can be.
Otherwise, expect your packet to have to do some serious time in a pile, along with all of the other submissions awaiting review. Most agencies list their average turn-around times on their websites or in their agency guide listings, to alert aspiring writers to what can be an extended wait.
Why does it take so long, you wail? Well, as I said, there will probably be quite a few manuscripts that arrived before yours. If waiting in a queue seems unfair now, think about it again after an agent has had a manuscript for a month: how would you feel if one that arrived the next day were read before yours?
Another reason that turn-around times tend to be slow is — again, you might want to brace yourself against a large, supportive piece of furniture– the agent who requested the materials is not usually the only, or even the first, person to read a submission. Remember our pal Millicent the agency screener? Guess what her job entails after she finishes screening all of those query letters?
That’s right: she’s usually the one deciding whether a submission makes the first cut; at some agencies, two Millicents have to agree that a manuscript is of publishable quality and a good fit for the agency before the agent sees it.
Hey, I told you to brace yourself.
Unfortunately, as long-time readers of this blog are already glumly aware, Millicents are trained to find reasons to reject manuscripts first and foremost, rather than reasons to accept them: since her job is to thin the number of submissions her boss will have to read (often in the agent’s spare time, rather than at work, incidentally: yet another reason that turn-around times tend to be slow), a good Millicent may reject as many as 90% of submissions before they get anywhere near the agent. (For a truly frightening look at some of the most common criteria she uses to thin the herd, you might want to check out the FIRST PAGES AGENTS DISLIKE or AGENCY SCREENERS’ PET PEEVES OF THE NOTORIOUS VARIETY categories at right. I warn you, however, these posts are not for the faint of heart.)
Even more unfortunately, submitters are seldom given concrete reasons for rejection any more. (For a thoroughly depressing explanation why, please see the FORM-LETTER REJECTIONS category at right.) This means, in practice, that an aspiring writer may not gain any useable revision information from the submission process at all.
I know; it’s awful. If I ran the universe, or even just the publishing industry, it would not be this way. Queriers and submitters alike would receive meticulous kindly-worded explanations of why Millicent or her boss had decided to reject them, so it would be easier to learn something from the process. Public libraries would also be open 24 hours per day, staffed by magnificently well-read and well-paid staff more than willing to stock good self-published and print-on-demand books (as most US libraries currently will not, as a matter of policy), and hand out ice cream to every child departing with a checked-out book, in order to instill in wee ones the idea that the library is the best place ever.
Under my benevolent régime, schoolteachers would also be paid exceptionally well, every citizen could afford to buy a few books by promising new authors every week, and municipal fountains would flow freely with chocolate milk for all to enjoy. Oh, and Truman Capote, Dorothy Parker, and Madame de Staël’s birthdays would be international holidays.
In case you may not have noticed, none of these delightful things is yet true — I share a birthday with ol’ Truman, and I have yet to observe any significant public rejoicing. So I think it’s safe to assume that I don’t yet run the universe. Sorry about that.
Despite deviating sharply from what I personally would like to see happen, the submission process is far from impossible to navigate: every year, hundreds of first-time authors impress agents enough to land representation contracts. But there is a reason that acquiring an agent is so often described in fishing terms: she landed a great agent, his agent is a great catch.
Sometimes they’re biting; sometimes they aren’t.
Being aware of that going into the process can help a writer keep pushing forward. Which is precisely what you need to keep doing while that pro is pondering your manuscript: keep your chin up, keep writing on your next book — and keep querying and submitting to other agents.
That’s the sane and sensible way for a savvy writer to make her way through this often intimidating and mysterious process — don’t put all of your proverbial eggs into a single basket, especially not one being toted by someone as professionally touchy as Millicent. That way lies despair.
Feeling slightly overwhelmed? That’s understandable: there’s a great deal more to responding professionally to a request for pages than most aspiring writers realize. Don’t worry, though — by the end of the week, you’ll understand the process so well that you’ll be able to do it in your sleep.
Now may I suggest that all of us get some? Keep up the good work!
I hope that those of you attending the PNWA’s annual shindig this weekend will pardon my delaying the promised final post on writing conferences — after the tragic events of Thursday night and Friday morning, I felt that we could all use a bit of a breather from stark reality. Besides, I thought my online time would be better used responding to individual questions: I’ve heard from about a dozen conference attendees who have apparently been taking breaks between sessions to nip back to their respective hotel rooms, log onto the Internet, and shoot me a question about pitching. Or look up a how-to in the Author! Author! archives. Or just to remind themselves that, contrary to what eager aspiring writers often hear from the dais at writers’ conferences, the outlook for publishing is not all gloom and doom.
We try to be upbeat here at Author! Author! Which is why what I’m about to tell those of you who have just successfully pitched your work to an agent or editor may come as something of a surprise: no matter how excited you are about receiving a request for pages, do not even consider sending your manuscript to that agent or editor right away. Take the time to re-read it yourself first.
Half of you just turned pale with dread, right? “But Anne,” post-pitch writers everywhere exclaim, “that will take hours, or maybe even days! I want to get this out the door!”
Of course you do; it’s tremendously exciting when a real, live agent or editor wants to read your work. If you’re like most conference pitchers, you’re probably thinking that it would be a good idea to get it under his or her nose as soon as humanly possible, while s/he is still excited about it. Or, to put it more cynically, while s/he still remembers your pitch.
That’s an understandable impulse, but relax — pitch-hearers typically take good notes; they also often hear dozens of pitches at any given conference. That means, in practice, that you don’t need to rely upon that agent or editor’s memory of your pitch to guarantee a warm reception for the requested pages. All you have to do is include a cover letter thanking the agent or editor for asking for your manuscript.
And, realistically, yours is not going to be the only manuscript that agent or editor has requested over the last six months. That means, to get cynical again for a moment, that no matter how excited that agent or editor seemed to be about your book concept, it’s not standard practice for them to clear their schedules immediately after returning from a writers’ conference in order to read all of the requested materials super-eager writers will have e-mailed within hours of the pitch meeting. Nor do they tend to stand by the incoming mail chute, fretting about why that writer has not yet mailed that manuscript. Why, it’s been a whole week!
Trust me, that’s not going to happen. Contrary to what you may have heard on the conference rumor mill or read on the Internet, there’s no ambient expectation that a writer will send requested materials the day she receives the request, or even within a few weeks. Nor will cranking out pages instantly win a pitcher Brownie points at most agencies. Especially if, as is so often and so unfortunately the case with super-swift submissions, the manuscript is not either professionally formatted or what the pros call clean: free of typos, spelling gaffes, missing words, grammar problems, or any other writing faux pas that might detract — and distract — from the quality of the writing.
Translation: you not only have time to make sure that every word in those pages creates precisely the impression you want; it’s very much in your best interest to make the time to do it. You have time to spell-check; you have time to grammar-check; you have time to fine-tune characterization. That being the case, and knowing that any well-established agent receives enough well-written, book category-appropriate, perfectly clean manuscripts in any given year to fill the agency’s new client requirements many times over, why would a savvy writer not be willing to take the time to make sure that his work will make the best possible impression?
That question is not entirely rhetorical, by the way. Our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, mutters it above promising-but-flawed submissions pretty much every day of conference season.
See why I was a trifle reluctant to dump that much hard reality upon everyone when the national news was already depressing? Don’t worry; the rest of this post will be much more upbeat. It will, however, be stuffed to the gills with practical advice about handling yourself professionally in a pitching situation — and after the fact.
But first, let’s cheer ourselves up by contemplating the photo at the top of this post. That’s an actual stone in my yard, believe it or not, one that apparently went out of its way to anthropomorphize itself for my illustrative pleasure. If rocks can be that helpful and friendly, it gives me great hope for human beings.
It also reminds me of a friendly hillside that featured prominently in one of the UNCLE WIGGLY books, but that’s not why I like to run this photograph every year when I talk about pitching. I post it to remind all of you writers brave enough to sit down in front of an agent or editor and make an argument for your book that getting into print is often a long haul, even for the most beautifully-written manuscript or most trenchant book proposal.
You’re going to want to pace yourself.
Part of pacing your efforts involves — and you may well have seen this coming — not becoming so excited about a successful pitch or query that you submit your writing to professional scrutiny before it’s sufficiently polished. As we discussed last time, no matter how well you and the agent or editor to whom you pitched your book seemed to hit it off, no professional reader in his right mind would take on a manuscript simply because she liked the writer, or even because the pitch sounded good. Unless you happen to be a celebrity, a pro’s decision about whether to take on a manuscript is based primarily upon — wait for it — the manuscript.
Or, as agents and editors like to say, “It all depends on the writing.”
That often comes as a gigantic surprise to writers riding the heady adrenaline rush of having given a successful conference pitch. It also, unfortunately, also tends to come as a huge surprise to writers whose pitches were greeted with, “No, thanks,” as well as the many, many conference-attending writers that do not work up the nerve to pitch at all.
There’s a pretty good reason for that, actually: the overwhelming majority of writers’ conferences that feature pitching imply in their literature that if a pitch is good enough, the agent or editor hearing it will sign the writer on the spot. Since that simply does not happen — chant it with me now: no agent in her right mind would take on a manuscript or book proposal without reading it — it’s not altogether astonishing that writers that walk into conferences with this expectation often walk out of even the most successful pitch feeling somewhat let down.
Equally understandably, given such unrealistic expectations, they often walk into their pitch meetings believing that presentation is more important than substance. First-time pitchers often harbor fears of inadvertently making a poor impression upon an agent or editor in a social situation, thereby nullifying their chances of being able to wow ‘em with a pitch in a formal meeting.
I wish I could say that this is an unfounded fear, but actually, it’s pretty reasonable: one doesn’t have to spend much time hanging around that bar that’s never more than 100 yards from any writers’ conference in North America to hear a few horror stories about jaw-droppingly rude writers. And I don’t know about you, but one of my more dubious gifts as a human being is an uncanny ability to find the most institutionally powerful person in the room and catch him in a misstatement or crack a joke that skewers his ego, generally before I know who he is.
Hard to imagine how this particular trait would have provided my ancestors with enough of a survival advantage to justify its being passed down the evolutionary line, but I do seem to have been born with it. Many are the family stories about the toddler critiquing the pediatrician’s sartorial choices.
Honestly, does anybody look good in those tacky white polyester coats?
Before any of my fellow compulsive truth-tellers begin to panic, let me hasten to add that agents’ and editors’ anecdotes are almost invariably about genuinely outrageous approach attempts, not minor faux pas. And that’s not just because “You’re not going to believe this, but a pitcher just forgot to tell me whether is book is fiction or nonfiction” isn’t nearly as likely to garner sympathetic murmurs from fellow bar denizens as “This insane writer just grabbed my arm as I was rushing into the bathroom and refused to stop talking for 20 minutes.”
For one thing, the former is too common a phenomenon to excite much of a response from other agents. Unhappily, though, the latter happens often enough that some agents turn against hallway pitching for life. As, indeed, many a product of the post-conference rumor mill can attest.
However — and this is a big however — in my experience, the aspiring writers who sit around and fret about being the objects of such anecdotes are virtually never the folks that ought to be worrying about it. These are not the kind of gaffes that your garden-variety well-mannered person is likely to commit.
The result: polite people end up tiptoeing around conferences, terrified of doing the wrong thing, while the rude stomp around like Godzilla with P.M.S. And then, once an agent who has been smashed into by one Godzilla too many complains on a blog or in an interview about how impolite writers are, the naturally courteous cringe, while the rude remain unfazed. Thus are the polite rendered more and more fearful of running afoul of an unspoken rule or two.
Case in point: a technologically-savvy reader wrote in a couple of years back to ask if it was considered appropriate to take notes on a laptop, iPad, or phone during conference seminars. It’s still not very common (surprising, given how computer-bound most of us are these days) but yes, it is acceptable, under two conditions.
First, if you do not sit in a very prominent space in the audience — and not solely because of the tap-tap-tap sound you’ll be making. Believe it or not, it’s actually rather demoralizing for a lecturer to look out at a sea of faces that are all staring at their laps. Are these people bored out of their minds, the worried speaker wonders, or merely taking notes very intensely?
Don’t believe me? The next time you attend a lecture of any sort, keep your eyes on the speaker’s face, rather than on your notes, your Blackberry, or that Octavia Butler novel you’ve hidden in your lap because you can’t believe that your boss is making you sit through a talk on the importance of conserving paper clips for the third time this year.
I guarantee that within two minutes, the speaker will be addressing half of his comments directly to you; consistent, animated-faced attention is THAT unusual in a lecture environment. The bigger the audience, the more quickly she will focus upon the one member visibly interested in what he is saying.
Heck, at the university where I used to teach, active listening was so rare that occasionally, one or another of my colleagues would get so carried away with appreciation that he would marry a particularly attentive student. One trembles to think what these men would have done had they been gripping enough lecturers to animate an entire room.
Back to the iPad issue. It’s also considered, well, considerate to ask the speaker before the class if it is all right to use any electronic device during the seminar, be it computer, iPhone, or tape recorder.
Why? Think about it: if your head happens to be apparently focused upon your screen, how is the speaker to know that you’re not just checking your e-mail? If you grin suddenly, how can the speaker be sure that it was at the one-liner she just tossed off, and not at some friend’s quip on Facebook? Also, in these decadent days, when the antics of unwary pets and clumsy humans often go viral, how may a speaker be sure that you are not recording her with an eye to posting her speech beneath unflattering lighting on YouTube?
Enough about the presenters’ problems; let’s move on to yours. Do be aware that attending a conference, particularly your first, can be a bit overwhelming. You’re going to want to– and this should sound familiar by now — pace yourself.
“But Anne!” conference brochure-clutching writers everywhere pipe up. “The schedule is jam-packed with offerings, many of which overlap temporally! I don’t want to miss a thing!”?
Yes, it’s tempting to take every single class and listen to every speaker, but frankly, you’re going to be a better pitcher if you allow yourself to take occasional breaks. Cut yourself some slack; don’t book yourself for the entire time.
Why? Well, let me ask you this: would you rather be babbling incoherently during the last seminar of the weekend, or raising your hand to ask a coherent question?
Before you answer that, allow me to add: since most attendees’ brains are mush by the end of the conference, it’s generally easier to get close to an agent or editor who teaches a class on the final day. Fewer lines, less competition.
Do make a point of doing something other than lingering in the conference center for three or four days straight. Go walk around the block. Sit in the sun. Grab a cup of coffee with that fabulous literary fiction writer you just met. Hang out in the bar that’s never more than 100 yards from any writers’ conference; that tends to be where the already-agented and already-published hang out, anyway.
And don’t you dare feel guilty about doing any of these things. Skipping the occasional seminar does not constitute being lax about pursuing professional opportunities: it is smart strategy, to make sure you’re fresh for your pitches. If you can’t tear yourself away, take a few moments to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, to reset your internal pace from PANIC! to I’m-Doing-Fine.
I know that I sound like an over-eager Lamaze coach on this point, but I can’t overemphasize the importance of reminding yourself to keep breathing throughout the conference. A particularly good time for a nice lung-filling is immediately after you sit down in front of an agent or editor.
Trust me: your brain could use the oxygen right around then. It will help you calm down so you can make your most effective pitch.
And at the risk of sounding like the proverbial broken record, please, please, PLEASE don’t expect a conference miracle. Writing almost never sells on pitches alone, no matter how many times you have heard that apocryphal story about THE HORSE WHISPERER. You are not going to really know what an agent thinks about your work until she has read some of it.
Wait — haven’t I heard something like that before?
Seriously, it’s almost unheard-of for an agent to sign up a client during a conference — and it’s been practically unheard-of since roughly the advent of the personal computer. So I have no idea why so many conference-organizers blithely hand out feedback forms asking if you found an agent at the event. Even the most successful conference pitchers generally don’t receive an offer for weeks, if not months.
See how having realistic expectations can help improve the conference experience, even in retrospect? Remember, your goal here is not to be discovered on the spot, but to get the industry pro in front of you to ask to read your writing. Period.
Yes, I know: I’ve said this before. Repeatedly. And I’m going to keep saying it as long as there are aspiring writers out there who walk into pitch meetings expecting to hear the agent cry, “My God, that’s the best premise since OLIVER TWIST! Here’s a representation contract — and look, here’s my favorite editor now. Let’s see if he’s interested. I want this book sold by midnight!”?
Then, of course, the editor falls equally in love with it, offers an advance large enough to cover New Hampshire in $20 bills, and the book is out by Christmas. As an Oprah’s Book Club selection, naturally, even though neither the Oprah show nor her book club exist anymore.
Long-time readers, chant along with me now: this is not how the publishing industry works. This is not how the publishing industry works. This is not how the publishing industry works…
Did I say that you could stop repeating it?
The key to being a happy conference-goer — and, even more importantly, a happy post-conference writer — is not only to realize that the popular conception of how books move from manuscript to publication is dead wrong, but to believe it. Having to make a significant effort in order to get an agent to read your manuscript is normal.
Thus the appeal of conference pitching: done well, it will allow you to skip the querying stage and pass directly to the submission stage. So being asked to send pages is a terrific outcome for this situation, not a distant second place to an imaginary reality.
Admittedly, though, that is easy to forget in the throes of a pitch meeting. Almost as easy as forgetting that a request to submit is not a promise to represent or publish. Out comes the broken record again:
Whatever an agent or editor says to you in a conference situation is just a conversation at a conference, not the Sermon on the Mount or testimony in front of a Congressional committee. There is no such thing as an implied offer of representation or publication; there are only concrete offers and preliminary conversations. Everything is provisional until some paper has changed hands.
This is equally true, incidentally, whether your conference experience includes an agent who actually starts drooling visibly with greed while you were pitching or an editor in a terrible mood who raves for 15 minutes about how the public isn’t buying books anymore. (Not true, incidentally.) Until you sign a mutually-binding contract, no promises — or condemnation, for that matter — should be inferred or believed absolutely.
Try to maintain perspective. If you can’t, stop and take a few deep breaths.
Admittedly, perspective is genuinely hard to achieve when a real, live agent says, “Sure, send me the first chapter,” especially if you’ve been shopping the book around for eons. But it is vital to keep in the back of your mind that eliciting this request is not the end of your job as a marketer. To slap another golden oldie from the broken record collection on the turntable:
Regardless of how much any given agent or editor says she loves your pitch, she’s not going to make an actual decision until she’s read at least part of it. And she’s not going to clear her schedule for the rest of the month to read it, either.
So even if you are over the moon about positive response from the agent of your dreams, please, I beg you, do not stop pitching to any other agent that might conceivably be a good fit for your book. Try to generate as many requests to see your work as you can.
Why, yes, you’re right: that is going to be a heck of a lot of work. Your point?
No matter who says yes to you first, you will be much, much happier two months from now if you have a longer requested submissions list. Ultimately, going to a conference to pitch only twice, when there are 20 agents in the building, is just not efficient.
Far too many aspiring writers will just give up after one successful pitch, assuming, often wrongly, that a friendly pitch meeting means a predisposition to like a submission or an implied promise to read it quickly. It doesn’t, and it isn’t. So it is very much in your interest to send out submissions to several agents at once, rather than one at a time.
I heard that gasp, but no, there is absolutely nothing unethical about this, unless (a) one of the agencies has a policy precluding multiple submissions (rare) or (b) you actively promised one agent an exclusive. (I would emphatically discourage you from granting (b), by the way — and if you don’t know why, please see the EXCLUSIVES TO AGENTS category at right before you even consider pitching at a conference.)
Some of you look concerned, but trust me, this is what the agents will be expecting you to do. If an agent wants an exclusive peek, she will ask for one point-blank; there’s no such thing as a tacit request for a solo submission. By all means, tell each of the agents in the cover letter that others are looking at it, but don’t make the hugely pervasive mistake of granting an effective exclusive that the agent does not expect, simply because she was the one you liked best.
I see some of you blushing: you were thinking that, weren’t you, conference-goers? Or you have in the past, and then ended up waiting six months to hear back from that agent. Or did not hear back at all, right?
“Wow, Anne!” gasp those of you who have lived through this highly unpleasant experience. “What kind of a crystal ball are you wielding these days? That’s precisely what happened to me!”
No crystal ball needed on this one: it happens to pitchers all the time. They misunderstand the level of connection they made with agents at conferences, committing themselves in principle before the agents in question have even seen their work. “Well, we just clicked,” these writers say.
What they tend not to add is that let’s face it, it’s a heck of a lot less work — not to mention less wearing on the nerves — to send out one submission than, say, seven or eight. It’s also less stressful not to keep querying while that nice agent from the conference considers your submission.
And then one sad day, months after the conference, pitchers that think this way receive the rejection, often as a form letter. “What happened?” one-at-a-timers cry. “I thought we clicked! And now I feel like it’s too late to send out those requested materials to other agents.”
Actually, if less than a year has passed since the conference, it isn’t. But just think how much happier a writer who could say, “Well, I’m sad that the agent I liked best decided against representing my book, but at least those four other agents are still considering it,” would be in that moment. Or even one in a position to sigh with relief and murmur, “Wow, am I ever glad that I kept querying throughout these last six months. Now, I have other requests for materials.”
Besides, your time is valuable: sending out those post-conference submissions one at a time, waiting for a response from each before moving on to the next, could eat up months. Years, even, if you’re dealing with agencies that practice the increasingly common rejection tactic of simply never contacting the writer if the answer is no.
Yes, really. Even if the agent requested the entire manuscript. See now why a savvy writer never grants a tacit exclusive?
Just mention in your cover letter to each that other agents are also reading it, and keep moving forward. Trust me, hearing that it’s a multiple submission not going to annoy anyone that did not explicitly tell you that he does not expect an exclusive peek. That old saw about agents’ getting insulted if you don’t submit one at a time is absolutely untrue. Let’s toss another broken record onto the turntable:
Unless an agent asks for an exclusive look at your work, it’s neither expected nor in your interest to act as if s/he has. In fact, hearing that others are interested may even make your book seem more attractive.
Yet another reason you should keep on pitching in those hallways: it tends to be a trifle easier to get to yes than in a formal pitch. Counter-intuitive, isn’t it? Yet in many ways, casual pitches are more persuasive.
Why? For one simple reason: time. In a hallway pitch, agents will often automatically tell a writer to submit the first chapter, simply in order to be able to keep on walking down the hall, finish loading salad onto their plates, or be able to move on to the next person in line after the agents’ forum.
Seriously, it’s true. If the agent handles your type of work, the premise is interesting, and you are polite, he will usually hand you his business cards and say, “Send me the first 50 pages.”
Okay, pop quiz to see who has been paying attention over the past few days. After the agent says this, do you:
(a) regard it as an invitation to talk about your work at greater length?
(b) regard it as an invitation to a lifetime of friendship?
(c) regard it as a promise to make you the next bestselling author?
(d) say, “Gee, you’re a much nicer human being than {insert name of other agent here}. He turned me down flat,” and go on to give details about how mean he was?
(e) launch into a ten-minute diatribe about the two years you’ve spent querying this particular project?
(f) thank her profusely and vanish in a puff of smoke, so you may pitch to another agent? And before you send out the requested pages IN THEIR ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD?
If you said anything but (f), I can only advise you run, not walk, to read my Pitchingpalooza series — conveniently gathered for your perusing pleasure under the PITCHING heading on the archive list at right — and as well as the entirety of the INDUSTRY ETIQUETTE category. You need to learn what’s considered polite and reasonable in the industry, pronto.
It will also help you gain a more realistic sense of the immense importance agents and editors attach to their time. In a face-to-face pitch in a formal meeting, agents tend to be more selective than in a hallway pitch. The reason is, you guessed it, time: they’ve got more of it than in a hallway pitch. In a ten-minute meeting, there is actual leisure to consider what you are saying, to weigh the book’s merits.
In short, enough time to save themselves some down the line by rejecting your book now.
Why might this seem desirable to them? Well, think about it: if you send it to them at their request, someone in their office is ethically required to spend time reading it, right? By rejecting it on the pitch alone, they’ve just saved their Millicent 5 or 10 minutes.
In a perverse way, a formal pitch can be significantly harder to give successfully than a casual one. Sitting down in front of an agent or editor, looking her in the eye, and beginning to talk about your book can be quite a bit more intimidating than launching into a hallway pitch.
Think of it this way: every time you buttonhole an agent and say those words is one less query letter you’re going to need to send out.
Still breathing at least once an hour? Good; I’ll move on.
As a veteran of many, many writers’ conferences all over the country, I can tell you from experience that they can be very, very tiring. Especially if it’s your first conference. Just sitting under fluorescent lights in an air-conditioned room for that many hours would tend to leech the life force out of you all by itself, but here, you will be surrounded by a whole lot of very stressed people while you are trying to learn as much as you possibly can.
As you may have noticed, most of my advice on how to cope with all of this ambient stress gracefully is pretty much what your mother said to you before you went to your first party: be polite; be nice to yourself and others; watch your caffeine and alcohol intake, and make sure to drink enough water throughout the day. Eat occasionally.
And you’re not wearing that, are you?
Actually, on the only occasion when my mother actually made that comment upon something I was wearing, she had made the frock in question. For my senior prom, she cranked out a backless little number in midnight-blue Chinese silk that she liked to call my Carole Lombard dress for an occasion where practically every other girl was going to be wearing something demure and flouncy by Laura Ashley. It was, to put it mildly, not what anyone expected the valedictorian to wear.
She hastened to alter it. Even with the addition of quite a bit of additional fabric, most of the male teachers followed me around all night long. The last time I bumped into my old chorus teacher, he spontaneously recalled the dress. “A shame that you didn’t dress like that all the time,” he said wistfully.
Oh, what a great dress that was. Oh, how inappropriate it would have been for a writers’ conference — or really, for any occasion that did not involve going out for a big night on the town in 1939. But then, so would those prissy Laura Ashley frocks.
Which brings me back to my point (thank goodness).
I wrote on what you should and shouldn’t wear to a conference at some length in an earlier post, but if you find yourself in perplexity when you are standing in front of your closet, remember this solid rule that will help you wherever you go within the publishing industry: unless you will be attending a black-tie affair, you are almost always safe with what would be appropriate to wear to your first big public reading of your book.
And don’t those of you who have been hanging around the industry for a while wish someone had shared that little tidbit with you sooner?
To repeat a bit more motherly advice: do remember to eat something within an hour or two of your pitch meeting. I know that you may feel too nervous to feel hungry, but believe me, if you were going to pick an hour of your life for feeling light-headed, your first encounter with your future agent is not a wise choice. If you are giving a hallway pitch, or standing waiting to go into a meeting, make sure not to lock your knees, so you do not faint.
And practice, practice, practice before you go into your meetings. This is the single best thing you can do in advance to preserve yourself from being overwhelmed.
Fortunately, conferences are peculiarly rich in opportunities to practice talking about your book. As I pointed out last time, you will be surrounded by hundreds of other writers. Introduce yourself, and practice pitching to them. Better still, find people who share your interests and get to know them. Share a cookie; ask whether they know a good place to get lunch; talk about your work with someone who will understand.
Because, really, is your life, is any writer’s life, already filled with too many people who get what we do? You will be an infinitely happier camper in the long run if you have friends who can understand your successes and sympathize with your setbacks as only another writer can.
I was thinking about this the other day, when I snuck into the PNWA conference to videotape an interview with a recently-published author and longtime member of the Author! Author! community about his novel. Had the muses abruptly snatched me up, carried me through the air, and flung me down at any similar gathering in the world, I would have known within seconds that I was at a writers’ conference, and on the first day, too.
How did I know? Because the lobby, the bar, and the restaurant in the hotel where the conference was being held was filled with nervous-looking people sitting by themselves. Half of them were peering at pieces of paper, their mouths moving: clearly, they were practicing their pitches. While just a few feet away, a perfectly nice fellow writer was doing precisely the same thing.
As someone who has over the years met hundreds of fabulous people by the simple expedient of turning to the nearest pitch-practicer in a situation like this and saying, “So what do you write?”, I have to say, I find this dynamic sad. I hope that these isolated souls did eventually work up the nerve to say hello to one another, but astonishingly often, I see writers leaving conferences without seeming to say goodbye to anyone.
I cannot urge you strongly enough not to be one of those conference attendees. Make some friends. Because, honestly, a writer’s life cannot be too full of other writers.
Why not? Well, who else is going to be as thrilled to hear that you have landed an agent? Or sold a manuscript? Who else is going to rush out and buy your book the instant it appears in print, because it’s so empowering to see a fellow writer succeed?
Again, I speak from experience: the first people I told about my first book deal — after my SO and my mother, of course — were writers I had met at conferences. Why call them before, say, my college roommate? Because ordinary people, the kind who don’t spend their spare time creating new realities out of whole cloth, honestly, truly, sincerely, often have difficulty understanding the pressures and timelines that rule writers’ lives.
I was lucky: I already knew a lot of writers, including my college roommate — who recently sold her first novel to Algonquin, by the way. (Well done, Julie!) But the very first words my erstwhile SO’s mother uttered after hearing that my memoir had sold were, “What do you mean, it’s not coming out for another couple of years? Can’t you write any faster than that?”?
This kind of response is unfortunately common, and frankly, most people’s eyes glaze over about 42 seconds into an explanation of how a print queue works. I don’t think any writer ever gets used to seeing her non-writer friends’ faces fall upon being told that the book won’t be coming out for a year or two, at least, after the sale that’s just happened, or that upon learning that signing with an agent does not automatically equal a publication contract, or upon receiving the startling revelation that not every book is headed for the bestseller list.
Thought I got off track from the question of how to keep from getting stressed out, didn’t you? Actually, I didn’t: finding buddies to go through the conference process with you can help you feel grounded throughout both the conference and your writing life.
Not only are these new buddies great potential first readers for your manuscripts, future writing group members, and people to invite to book readings, they’re also folks to pass notes to during talks. (Minor disobedience is a terrific way to blow off steam, don’t you find?) You can hear about the high points of classes you don’t attend from them afterward.
And who wouldn’t rather walk into a room with 300 strangers and one keynote speaker with a newfound chum than alone?
Making friends within the hectic conference environment will help you retain a sense of being a valuable, interesting individual far better than keeping to yourself, and the long-term benefits are endless. To paraphrase Goethe, it is not the formal structures that make the world fell warm and friendly; friends make the earth feel like an inhabited garden.
So please, for your own sake: make some friends at the conference, so you will have someone to pick up the phone and call when the agent of your dreams falls in love with your first chapter and asks to see the entire book. And get to enjoy the vicarious thrill when your writing friends leap their hurdles, too.
Oh, you think it didn’t make my day when Julie’s book sold? It made my month. It showed that being serious, talented, and smart can indeed pay off in the long run.
Writing can be a very lonely business. Nothing brightens the long, slow slog like opening your e-mail when you’re really discouraged to find a message from a friend who’s just sold a book or landed an agent.
Well, okay, I’ll admit it: getting a call from your agent telling you that YOU have just sold a book is rather more of a day-brightener. As is the call saying, “I love your work, and I want to represent you.”
But the other is still awfully darned good. Start laying the groundwork for it now.
Something else that can help keep you from stressing out too much: while it’s always nice if you can be so comfortable with your pitch that you can give it from memory, it’s probably fair to assume that you’re going to be the teensiest bit nervous during your meetings. So do yourself a favor — write it all down; give yourself permission to read it when the time comes, if you feel that will help you.
Really, it’s considered perfectly acceptable, and it will keep you from forgetting key points. Please humor me by writing on the top of the paper, in great big letters: BREATHE!
I sense some of you shifting uncomfortably in your seats, stubbornly refusing to breathe. “But Anne,” you point out, “I keep seeing pitching advice online that says if I can’t recite my pitch from memory, I might as well not give it at all.”
Ah, I have seen that advice, too. Almost invariably, it’s talking about pitching a script, not a manuscript — snd a script pitch, my friends, is much, much shorter than the average book pitch. Isn’t it amazing how often terms cross industry lines, yet people assume that since the word is that same, it must mean the same thing in every context in which it is used?.
Besides, people who work with manuscripts for a living understand wanting to write things down. Don’t be ashamed to consult your notes if you get stuck; believe me, everyone involved will be much, much happier to see you read it than to sit there uncomfortably while you struggle to remember the next bullet point on your list.
Do remember to pat yourself on the back occasionally, by the way, for being brave enough to put your ego on the line for your work. As with querying and submitting, it requires genuine guts to submit your ideas to the pros; I don’t think writers get enough credit for that.
In that spirit, I’m going to confess: I have one other conference-going ritual, something I do just before I walk into any convention center, anywhere, anytime, either to teach or to pitch. It’s not as courteous or as public-spirited as the other techniques I have described, but I find it is terrific for the mental health. I go away by myself somewhere and play at top volume Joe Jackson’s song Hit Single and Jill Sobule’s (I Don’t Want to Get) Bitter. Here’s the first:
A charming story about dumbing down a song so it will stand a better chance of making it big on the pop charts, HIT SINGLE includes the perfect lyric to hum while walking into a pitch meeting:
And when I think of all the years of finding out What I already knew Now I spread myself around And you can have 3 minutes, too.
If that doesn’t summarize the difference between pitching your work verbally and being judged on the quality of the writing itself, I should like to know what does. (Sorry, Joe: I would have preferred to link above to your site, but your site mysteriously doesn’t include lyrics.) Here’s the second song:
For those of you reading this at work (hey, it happens) and thus not able to play the song, this ditty about complaining concludes with a pretty good mantra for any writing conference-goer:
So I’ll smile with the rest, wishing everyone the best. And know the one who made it made it because she was actually pretty good. ‘Cause I don’t want to get bitter. I don’t want to turn cruel. I don’t want to get old before I have to. I don’t want to get jaded. Petrified and weighted. I don’t want to get bitter like you.
I hum that one a lot during conferences, I’ll admit — and not because you can’t throw a piece of bread at a major writers’ conference without hitting someone just delighted to moan about how hard it is to get published these days. Cynicism often masquerades as knowledge. I tend to start humming when a bestselling author who landed his agent 25 years ago, when the task was significantly easier, but does not seem aware that ambient conditions for aspiring writers have changed radically. Or a more recent success whose agent is her cousin’s next-door neighbor’s husband tells a roomful of people who have been querying for the past five years that good writing will inevitably find a home.
Perhaps, but certainly not easily. The Agency Fairy just receives too many requests for help these days. Anyone who tells you that the only possible barrier to landing an agent is the quality of your writing simply isn’t familiar with the current reality of the representation market.
What you’re trying to do is not easy or fun, but you can do it. You are your book’s best advocate; act like it. And remember, all you’re trying to do is to get these nice people to take a look at your writing.
No more, no less. It’s a perfectly reasonable request for an aspiring writer to make to an agent, and you’re going to be terrific at making it. How do I know? Because you’ve been sensible and brave enough to face your fears and prepare like a professional.
Kudos to you for taking your writing that seriously. Beginning Monday, I shall be talking about how to go about doing something that will help that agent or editor that asked to see your manuscript take your writing seriously: presenting it professionally and packing it off sensibly.
Oh, you thought I had stopped harping on the whatever you do, don’t send requested materials right away. Far from it. But first, I shall be keeping my promise from earlier in the week: tomorrow, I have a treat in store for you.
Keep breathing, everyone, and keep up the good work!
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