Gearin' Up to Get an Agent BlogFest: Query Critique Contest

Okay Friends, Followers and Readers extraordinaire,

I am participating in week 3 of

Deana Barnhart’s

Gearin Up to Get an Agent Blogfest.

Query Critique Contest

In this week’s installment, participants will be putting their query up on their blog so that they may receive feedback from other participants and anyone else who might want to share their two cents.  I’m not sure that I’m ready yet, but here it goes.     

Dear Ms. Agent-of-my-Dreams:

I am seeking representation for THE MISTAKEN, a psychological thriller of 91,000 words. Told from alternating perspectives, it is the story of a vengeful man struggling to save an innocent woman from the ruthless men he’s mistakenly set upon her.   

Skylar Karras is no longer an honorable man.  Gone is the doting husband, the sibling who never failed to bail his brother, Nick, out of trouble.  In his place is a different man, one broken by grief, blinded by rage and consumed with vengeance.  His target is a stranger, the woman responsible for the death of his pregnant wife.  He doesn’t know her, but he’ll find her, and when he does, he will make her pay.  But to do so, Sky must get into bed with Nick’s thug associates in San Francisco’s Russian mafia.  They’re experts in human trafficking and Nick’s plan offers Sky the perfect solution: his fill of sweet revenge and the chance to free his brother from the Russian’s control.  But as he stumbles forward in a numbing haze of alcohol, Sky mistakes the wrong woman for his intended victim, sending all his plans straight to hell.

With his eyes made clear by the stark reality of his mistake, Sky is driven, compelled by remorse and a relentless sense of guilt to make amends and protect Hannah Maguire, the innocent woman whose life he has derailed.  He vows to keep her safe and out of the hands of the Russians, but they’re holding Nick as leverage to force Sky to complete their deal and turn over the girl.  It’s a race against the clock as Sky strives to be the man he used to be, risking all to defend Hannah’s life and secure Nick’s freedom.  But desperation leads him to a place darker than he ever imagined and he simply can’t do it all: save the girl, his brother, and his own soul.  One of them must make the ultimate sacrifice. 

Charged with the raw emotions of human loss and regret, I believe my novel would appeal to fans of Greg Iles’s Turning Angel, James Scott Bell’s Try Dying, Neil Cross’s Burial and even Alexandre Dumas’ classic, The Count of Monte Cristo.

I am an interior designer living in Sammamish, Washington with my husband, teenaged son and two singing sled dogs.  Though I no longer have ties with anyone in San Francisco’s Russian underworld, I have loosely based my novel on villains and events from my past.

My research has unveiled your interest in thrillers.  I have included the first five pages within the body of this email.  I would be happy to provide a full synopsis, additional chapters, or the complete manuscript.  Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best Regards,

Nancy S. Thompson

(Personal info redacted)

So what do you think?  (This is me biting my finger nails!)

Stories Don't Happen in a Vacuum

            I knew I would have to come up with something to post about today, but when I woke up, I still hadn’t thought of anything new, that is until I read today’s post at BookEnds Lit Agency.  Today is Workshop Wednesday at BookEnds, the day agent Jessica Faust posts one of the queries she’s received for critiquing, kind of like Janet Reid does at Query Shark.

I love query critiques.  I think it is the single most effective way to know what does and doesn’t work in a query.  Now, I don’t always agree with Ms. Faust’s opinion.  Case in point, a few weeks ago, she critiqued this query and loved it.  I thought the query was vague, at best, and had many of the qualities that agents advise writers not to include.  But she loved the “southern rhythm” of the voice.  Yeah, I didn’t get that at all and I lived in the south for awhile, but whatever, just like books, it’s subjective and if she liked it then kudos to the author.  Well done!

But this week’s critique struck a nerve with me because Ms. Faust alluded to something I hear over and over again when agents are critiquing queries.  After reading the first two paragraphs of the query, she more or less said, this is all backstory; the real story starts here.  In other words, cut all this crap out and get to the meat of the story.  While I agree the query needs a lot of work, I find issue with the fact that the agent automatically thinks the first two-thirds of the query, and therefore the book, is all backstory. 

In my opinion, this is the story, at least part of it.  It is how the author wrote it to give it structure and body, a reference point from which to contrast the conflict.  It bothers me that the agent thinks that everything that came before what she considers the core of the story is somehow irrelevant or that the story goes off track.  Yes, the author should have written the query differently to show the progression of the story and the importance of that progression. 

She implied subtly that the story might be about something else, or perhaps that was just the agent inferring that idea, but even still, that doesn’t mean all those points the writer thought important enough to include in her query are not crucial to the story.  Some of the commenters, in fact, seemed very interested in the writer’s story, calling out the fact that those first two paragraphs were simply acts one and two.

My point is that agents toss aside stories based on assumptions that the reader doesn’t want to know all that happened before, that they simply want to get to the meat of the story.  Well, okay, I don’t need to know everything that happened to the nineteen-year-old MC during her first seventeen or eighteen years unless it’s relevant to the story, but from age nineteen on, all the things that happen to her forge her into the woman she becomes and adds dimension to her reasoning, to how she handles the conflict.  Stories don’t happen in a vacuum.  We need to care about the protagonist and their journey and we do this through knowing and understanding their history. 

I often wonder why everyone is always in such a hurry to get to the end.  It’s all about instant gratification so we can move on to the next thing.  Why not savor the time spent with a story and let yourself get immersed in the simmering heat of the layers as they buildup?  I’m not saying that everything that the query writer put in her query is essential.  Personally, it comes off more like historical romance, not historical fiction, and so definitely not my thing, but I get that those details are important to understanding why there even is a conflict. 

Could you imagine if Winston Groom had to query Forrest Gump in today’s market?  Some agents would likely say to cut all that backstory about Forrest as a small child or in high school, but it is those details in the early chapters that show how Forrest changes later in life, how he manages to deal with all the drama that’s thrown his way.  How can we know if we weren’t privy to the backstory?

All this relates to me personally because last week I rewrote my query, for what must be the fifteenth time, based on advice from Stephanie DeVita in her post last week titled Slow Summer, where she says, “In most of the queries that I read, the writer isn’t giving me the most thrilling aspect of their book, the crucial element that should make me desperate to ask for more pages. In other cases, it’s unclear if that pivotal element is even there.” 

So I cut all the “backstory” out of my query and just alluded to it in the second line, then got right into the major point of the conflict.  But now I worry that any agent who requests pages will think the first third of my novel is all backstory when, in fact, it is the story, or part of it anyway.  Since the story is all about a man who changes, who becomes a different man due to some pretty terrible things that happen to him, that first third of the book is the setup.  It determines what he was like at first and how those events twisted him into a different man, made him act a certain way and do that one awful thing that drives the story.  The rest of the book is how he deals with the repercussions of those decisions.  Why would any reader care about how he changed and what he did if they didn’t know his “backstory?”

And by the way, I hate that word, backstory.  It makes it feel like all those early words are somehow illegitimate, a bastard to be cast aside.  Yes, it matters how that information is presented, that we feel it is part of the actual story and not simply dumped there in a lazy attempt to give context, but I like to think of it as the ice cream in my sundae.  It’s all those yummy bits on top that make it special, but you can’t just eat the yummy bits.  You have to savor it properly with the ice cream set below.  Otherwise, it’s not a sundae.         

Gearin' Up to Get an Agent BlogFest: Week 1

(Wow, two posts in one day!  Not usually my thing,

but I was on vacation and forgot to do this one item below.)

Oops, I’m a day late (and more than a dollar short) but I thought I’d throw my two cents in as an official participant in Deana Barnhart’s  Gearin’ Up To Get An Agent BlogFest.  The rule?  Take the greatest, dumbest, weirdest...just whatever kind of writing question you have, and post it on your blog Wednesday.  (See, I’m  late.)  So here it is:

When a writer receives a rejection from an agent, can we assume that the agent has actually read that query, or is more likely that the agent’s assistant just assumed her boss wouldn’t like it and replied on her behalf?

Querying for an Agent: Part Deux

            Well I’ve been gone for awhile.  I took the first of three summer vacations.  Just a quick visit with the parents; long enough to drive me nuts anyway.  Now that I’m back and have six weeks before I take my son on his two-week-long college tour through California, I thought I’d write a quick update on my querying.  This is a subject I’ve written about a lot.  I know many of you fellow writers are going through the same process and have similar thoughts and frustrations as I’ve complained about since last December when I first prepared to send out query letters.

            What a difference six months has made.  I was such a newbie back then.  So excited and full of optimism.  I only queried for about two months then suspended my search while I waited to hear back from the last few agents who had requested partials.  Those rejections hit me like a fifty-pound sack of flour right to the face.  I suppose it would have made me feel better to have some feedback, but I didn’t get enough concrete criticism to make a difference.

I did, however, keep working on revisions to my manuscript, as well as my query.  To date, I have fourteen different query drafts.  I think I have used maybe eight of those.  I just wrote another one this morning after reading Dystel & Goderich agent Stephanie DeVita’s post regarding the summer slump in good queries.  She said “In most of the queries that I read, the writer isn’t giving me the most thrilling aspect of their book, the crucial element that should make me desperate to ask for more pages.  In other cases, it’s unclear if that pivotal element is even there.”    

            This got me thinking that I should cut out all the backstory crap I put into the first paragraph of my query and just get into the nitty gritty angst of the story right up front.  So that’s what I did.  Just as I’ve done for the last two weeks, I sent out this revised query to five agents.  What’s funny and different about this round of querying is my attitude.  It’s not that I’m not excited to be querying again, it’s just that I don’t really think about it any more.  I’m not obsessed with it. 

            I used to be tethered to my email after sending out a round of queries.  This is because after sending out one of my very first queries, I received an immediate request for a full.  Yeah, to a superstar agent, no less, and within ninety minutes of sending it, too.  Pretty exciting, as you can imagine.  That was my second request for a full.  Two months later, the rejection nearly crippled me.  (That was the day I had my first-ever shot of tequila.  Boy, did I need it.)  After that, I received two more requests, both for partials, and both were rejected after a few weeks with little comment.  That kind of took the wind out of my sails. 

            Now, I’m all business about the whole thing.  I don’t send out large batches of queries, choosing instead to send out two to five once a week, at most.  I have researched and compiled a long list of agents who rep my genre of adult thrillers, and I am slowly nibbling away at the top of that list, but when I send the query, I just more or less forget about it.  I look ahead to the next small set I will send out the following week and while I will always remain optimistic, I am also a realist.  I can’t put all my hopes and dreams into this process.  I can’t get too excited about it any more because it’s just too painful when the inevitable happens, and it will happen. 

            I’m taking my good friend, Lisa Regan’s advice.  I will keep knocking on those doors.  There are hundreds of them lined up down a long hallway in front of me.  Somewhere in there is the one door with the one agent behind it who will be a match for me.  I just have to be patient enough to keep looking. 

So…this is me looking.  Any agents out there who like a good revenge thriller with a twist?  I’m here searching for you.  I hope you answer the door when I knock.  In the mean time, I jotted down something I heard from one the participants of this season’s So You Think You Can Dance.  He said push hard, stay focused and keep your eye on the prize.                  

Great Expectations? Yeah, Not So Much

            This morning I tuned into Jessica Faust’s BookEnds LLC blog, as is my usual routine when I first wake up.  Before my eyes are even clear, I grab my iPhone off the nightstand and open to her blog.  Her posts are usually quite brief and include some bit of advice, whether it be about writing a book, or querying, or the publishing business in general.  All the stuff I want to know more about. 

I love her blog, especially Critique Wednesdays where she puts up someone’s query for the benefit of others so that we may see what is good or bad, ineffective or inappropriate.  Fridays are for Author Speed Dates where we get to better know one of her clients. 

Today was similar to that, but the author who participated, Ellery Adams, answered questions regarding cold hard facts, especially about the numbers:  How many books she’s written, under what names, what genre, word count and whatnot.  I found the most interesting facts pertained to money, that is, the average advance she received from her publishers, how much they give her for promotion, and how much she makes in income off of her writing.

While I know writers, in general, do not make much off their writing, I was rather shocked by the dismal numbers from such a prolific writer.  I do realize that the Stephen Kings, J.K. Rowlings and Stephanie Meyers of this world are rare, but I found the actual statistics quite sobering.  Now, I certainly didn’t get into writing novels for the money, but I did think the financial payoff would, on average, be a little higher.  Perhaps it’s the author’s genre, God knows I don’t read cozy mysteries, but I think it is likely indicative of the industry overall, especially with the tremendous changes it’s undergoing in today’s market. 

Then I thought, does this really make a difference to me?  Will I stop writing because— even if I did manage to land an agent then a publishing contract—the money’s just not there?  Nah, I don’t think so.  I write because I enjoy it, because I love meeting new characters and delving into their world.  I’m not sure what my other motivations are other than I’ve found a hobby I really love and which brings me great joy, along with frustration.  But I do get a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of it.  So even if my story lives on only in my computer and I make nothing for all my efforts, I will still write.

What about you?       

   

Introducing Lisa!

            Just a brief note today.  I’ll get back to my regular post in a day or so.  First, I’d like to introduce you all to someone very special to me.  If you’ve read many of my older posts, you’d know I have a terrific critique partner and friend who has become indispensible to me.  Her name is Lisa Regan, and while I have often linked back to her main website here, I am pleased to announce that she has also joined our ranks right here on Blogger.

Lisa is an agented writer with two crime thrillers out on submission with various publishers.  Please run over to her blog at http://lisalregan.blogspot.com/ and take a peek at posts she’s pulled from her website.  And follow her, if you like what you see.    

Themes, Symbols and Motifs

            When I was in high school and college, I took courses in which I analyzed books, plays and poems for hidden meaning, themes, symbols and motifs.  The instructors wanted to teach me to write with meaning in mind and not necessarily for the purpose of the story.  It kind of ruined the experience for me.  I hated doing that and was never very good at it.  I just soaked in the obvious and went on my way or wrote about how the message of the story related to my personal experiences.  I found it difficult to pull out anything that wasn’t totally apparent.  Perhaps that’s because I’m a WYSIWYG, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of girl.  No smoke and mirrors here.  

When I started writing my novel, I never intended or even imagined there was any kind of theme or repetitive symbol or motif that held special meaning.  I wasn’t looking to leave behind a message or an impression of artistic rectitude or morality.   I just had a story to tell and I told it.  It started with a premise, a question I wanted to answer:  Could a genuinely good man be driven to do something truly evil and somehow find his way back to the man he used to be?   I even wrote a post about how I analyzed my own work for a theme.  (You can read it here, if you’d like.)

While this post has become one of my most popular and widely read, I think I might have been a little premature.  Yes, my book does deal with issues of forgiveness, or how the inability to do so turns the protagonist’s life upside down.  But because I’ve had to read through it so many times while editing and revising, I found themes and symbols I never really intended. 

Primarily, my novel deals with how the protagonist, Skylar Karras, deals with his inability to change.  He believes himself to be genuinely good, a moral man who follows every rule.  He doesn’t bend and his relationships with his brother and wife suffer when he won’t accept how they’ve changed even though they’ve done so because of decisions he’s made.  They are forced to work around the law instead of within it.  Then something earth shattering happens. 

When his wife’s life is disrupted by the crimes a stranger, she asks for Sky’s assistance, but he refuses to help and begs her to be patient while the authorities handle her case.  But she ignores his plea, takes matters into her own hands and winds up dead.  Sky can’t accept his role in her death and falls into a tailspin of depression, macerating his grief in alcohol instead of dealing with it.  His grief turns to rage and from there he follows a path of vengeance.  When Sky drunkenly mistakes the wrong woman for the stranger who’s responsible for his wife’s death, his eyes are finally made clear and he sees just how far he has fallen from the man he used to be.

The rest of the novel is the journey he takes to save his victim, to protect her and keep her out of the hands of those he’s negotiated a vindictive deal with.  In order to save his own soul, he must save the woman whose life he has derailed, as well as his brother, who’s used as leverage to force Skylar’s hand into completing their deal.  But he can’t save them all.  So how does he choose between the life of his brother, the woman he has condemned, and his own salvation?   That’s the crux of the story.  How does this man, who has always believed himself to be inherently good, make this decision?

Early on in my writing and later in my revisions, I inadvertently used two symbols or motifs: The San Francisco fog and a mirror.  Both represent Sky’s inability to see the man he was and the one he has become.  When he’s in jail near the end and looks into a mirror, he says he can no longer recognize the man he has become and that he can’t afford to lose one more part of who he used to be.  I also used the mirror in a very brief prologue, kind of bookending the story.  I had no idea I was playing with symbolism.  It just sort of happened.  And I think that’s how it should be.  Accidental.  Unintentional.

Don’t get me wrong.  Every writer writes a story to show how the main character has learned and evolved, but it shouldn’t be overt in its machinations.  One of my earliest critique partners was a college student, an English and creative writing major.  I remember her telling me how she tried to use flowers and the color yellow as symbols throughout her story.  I didn’t even remember either one so it didn’t make an impression on me at all.  Perhaps that’s because she was trying instead of just letting it happen of its own volition.  I think themes and symbols should attach themselves to a character in a tangible way, not to the story in a vague manner.  If you fully flesh out your characters and how their individual stories thread together into the plot, themes and symbols will organically appear, almost like magic. 

So have you ever written something and had a theme reveal itself instead of writing around one?  Or have motifs suddenly appeared where you never intended?                           

Pour Some Sugar On Me

            Imagine my surprise this morning when I logged onto Blogger and saw a new comment on my latest post, a comment from someone who had already commented, and very kindly I might add, a comment asking me to come on over to his blog because he’s “got something” for me.  Ooooh, how cryptic, how intriguing, how…odd!  Well, I ran on over to his place and saw something I’d been seeing around for the last couple of weeks on other blogs:

AN AWARD NOMINATION!

WOW, WHAT A SURPRISE!  YAY ME!

(Hey lookie, I actually figured out how to insert a photo!)

            Yes, folks, Bryce Daniels of the now quite famous Bryce Daniel’s Preservation Society has nominated me for The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award.  Imagine that!  (I think he might feel sorry for me.  Shhh…)  Now, Bryce and I haven’t known each other all that long and we have a bit of, ahem…history…together (nothing salacious, I assure you,) but he’s proven to be a stand-up guy, willing to let our difference of opinion strengthen rather than hamper our friendship and I have grown both as a human being and as a writer because of him.  He’s shown me that there are still honorable gentlemen in this world and I am honored to not only count him as a good writer-friend, but also to accept his favor and pay it forward.   Thank you, Grand Pseudonym, for teaching this old broad a thing or two about class.    

So here are the rules, as I understand them:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them. (Check)
2. Include 7 random tidbits about yourself.  (YIKES! - see below)
3. Pass award on to 5 others and link to their blogs.  (Where the fun really starts)
4. Let the people know you've given them the award.  (Will do)

Hmm, the hard part.  Okay, ready or not, seven random tidbits about me:

1.)    I’ve been wandering around this country all my life and have settled (for the moment) just outside of Seattle, WA, a lovely gem whose gloomy sky has finally gotten to me.  I aspire to return back to my beloved San Francisco Bay Area to once again enjoy the sun.

2.)    I’m brand new at this writing thing, but jumped full-force into tackling a novel without any knowledge of exactly how one is supposed to do that.

3.)    Though I am eternally optimistic, I love listening to hard, darkly introspective music (think Three Days Grace) and you simply cannot shut me up when singing along.

4.)    I love, love, love my car, a fine German convertible of remarkable engineering which I consider my “happy place” and where you’ll find me on the few sunny, warm days here in Seattle, cruising around with the top down and my music blaring.

5.)    I recently gave up a life long addiction to Pepsi.

6.)    I taught myself to play the piano by ear.  And I’m not too bad either. 

7.)    My son is my greatest achievement in life, but my most ardent desire is to someday reunite with the daughter I gave up nearly 27 years ago.

And now for really easy part, though I must admit, a few I would have nominated (the ever-witty Bryce, of course, Laila Knight at the Untroubled Kingdom of Laila Knight, Donna K.Weaver of Weaving a Tale or Two and L.G. Smith of Bards and Prophets) have already been awarded. 

So here are my nominations for The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award:

Lisa L. Regan at Lisa L. Regan.com is my best and closest friend.  We met last fall via Nathan Bransford’s Forums.  She is an outstanding agented novelist with two books, Findling Claire Fletcher and Aberration, currently under submission with several big league publishers.  Lisa is the best critique partner I could ever ask for and has helped me become a much better writer.  Her blog is filled with interesting bits of her long journey toward publication.  She is on the cusp of finally being discovered.

Kittie Howard at Kittie Howard has been very supportive of my blog.  Hers is rich and inspiring and shows the tremendous joy she receives from writing.  She is a great resource for new writers like me.

Julie Musil at Julie Musil blogs about the craft of writing, which I so adore and respect.  Her blog is filled with fantastic advise and amazing insight.  I tend to copy her posts and email them to myself to keep in my Great Writing Advice folder.  She is truly wonderful and you would be doing yourself a great favor in checking her out.

Lastly, there are two women I’d like to nominate because, as a fellow writer of the adult thriller, I aspire to be like them.  I don’t know if they will participate, but their blogs—chock full of valuable information, great links, guest posts, reviews and gritty flash fiction—are each worth a nomination, as well a long looky-over.  They are:    

            Joylene Nowell Butler at http://cluculzwriter.blogspot.com/  and

            Lindsay Mawson at Lindsay Mawson, Thriller Writer

 

Whew!  That was a bit of work I hadn’t planned on doing today, but it was worth it.

Ghost in the Machine

I usually have a difficult time coming up with a new blog topic.  Not so this week.  I’ve had one thing—writing related, of course—that’s been bothering me:  My blog.  Now, some of you may already know this, but I have a few new followers who may not:  I do not particularly like blogging.  It just seems to get in the way of what I really want to do and that is write, and by that, I mean my novel.  But blogging is part of that whole building a platform thing that agents seem to rag on about, and maintaining an Internet presence is one way in which to do so.  I also use Facebook and LinkedIn, and though I have a Twitter account, I’ve never used it and don’t even remember what my Twitter name is.  So blogging is just another method to build a platform on which writers can put their words out there for whomever to see.  And this is where the whole bothering thing comes in.

First off, the idea of building a platform means you have to try to gain readership and in the case of Blogger (or Blogspot,) those readers are tracked and presented to the blogger as stats.  I try hard not to pay too much attention to my stats.  I try even harder not to check them too often.  It tends to make me feel kind of high school-ish, like how popular am I today?  Or how many followers do I have this week?  And it never fails to disappoint because, just like in high school, I don’t seem to be all that popular.  I do hate that feeling, that there’s something lacking in me somehow, but I’ve never been one to dwell on that sort of thing.  I mean, I may not be popular, but I get all the attention I need and I’m happy with that.  Then something weird happened:    My stats took a flying leap skyward, at least by my standards.  (Most of you would probably laugh at my low standards.)

This started a week ago when I first heard of Alex J Cavanaugh’s It’s All Fun & Games Blogfest via fellow blogger and follower Bryce Daniels.  I chose not to participate because I’m not much of a game player, but through Alex I met Kittie Howard and my blogging life changed considerably.  I know this platform building thing takes time.  It requires effort and patience to garner an audience and even longer to gain followers, those interested enough in what you have to say to hit that little button and paste their face on your page.

I don’t post to my blog very often, only once a week, and I certainly don’t say anything that hasn’t already been said, so I knew I wouldn’t be a loud voice in the large crowd.  But every once in a while someone would come along and give me a tiny piece of advice and another follower would pop up.  Boy, how excited would I get when that happened?  It’s kind of like that whole Sally Fields "You Like Me, You Really Like Me" scene at the Oscars.  Not a pretty sight.  But it told me that my blog was becoming more important to me and that I really did like it when someone actually paid attention. 

I know I have a few non-writer friends who pop in and read my posts and even a few writer friends who do the same, but none of them are actual followers.  And that’s fine.  I never want to pressure anyone to follow me, after all, I mostly do this to connect with other writers.  Then I heard that following those blogs you like most and commenting on their posts can provide enough interest to possibly make someone tune in and maybe even follow you right back.  But how do you choose?  There are thousands among thousands of writer blogs out there.  How do you find the ones that appeal to you? 

Well, I’ve been sifting through the follower armies of those who have chosen to follow me, as well as the thirty or so I had been following for the last six months or so.  And I have found quite a few that appeal to me and I’ve chosen to follow them.  Sometimes those bloggers will just automatically follow you right back, kind of like a professional courtesy or something.  That’s so sweet!  I guess time will tell if they are really interested in what I have to say, but a couple of them went through the trouble of searching for me through my email account since, for reasons I can’t figure out, my blog was not linked to my Blogger profile.  That’s some kind of dedication, if you ask me.  All those extra steps just to find and follow someone.  (You know who you and I thank you profusely.) 

Anyway, my new follower, Kittie Howard, was kind enough to list my blog on her blog roll.  (Thanks, Kittie!)  And BAM!  All of a sudden, my stats went freakin’ crazy.  I thought it might just be a one time thing, but it hasn’t slowed down one bit in the last week.  Very strange.  At least half my hits were coming directly from her site.  I went from a measly average of 4 or 5 hits a day (please, I beg you, do NOT laugh) to 50 or more (okay, you can snicker.)  So…what the hell is going on here?  This can’t possibly be right. 

I had my first inkling of unease when I tuned into follower L.G. Smith’s Bards and Prophets blog last Saturday and found out that I was not the only one to suddenly enjoy an incredible surge in popularity.  I checked all the stats and while I am getting hits on many different posts and not just my last one, and I have had more comments than usual, I have not gained the number of followers  one might expect with such a high volume of readers.  Now, I have doubled my numbers in the last week (thanks Barb, Jennifer, Joylene, Norma, Lindsay, Julie, Magpie, Donna, Alex, L.G. and Kittie,) but I think this is more from my own cultivation, by connecting through their blogs and leaving comments on their wonderful posts. 

So what’s up, Blogger?  How am I supposed to know how effective (or ineffective, it would seem) I am if you are not providing the proper feedback?  I choose to gauge my success by the number of followers I have and it would seem that I’m not all that successful.  Some bloggers do not like to show who follows them.  I considered this, knowing it would keep secret how unpopular I truly am, but I decided against it, thinking it would somehow motivate me to cultivate more relationships with other writers.  I’m trying not to feel like that high school girl everyone knew and liked yet was still not considered, by definition, to be popular. 

Maybe this is Bloggers way of making everyone feel more popular, like we’re somehow making progress.  But all I want is the truth, good or bad.  Used to be I would cringe every time I checked my stats.  A few days ago I exalted.  But now I’m just deflated.  ‘Cause it’s likely just some ghost in the machine.  I don’t know what to believe.  Anyone else out there experiencing this?                            

To Prologue or Not

            Well, Monday was an interesting day in the blogosphere, what with everyone participating in writer Alex J. Cavanaugh’s It’s All Fun & Games Blogfest.  I thought about it and decided not to participate myself because, for one, I don’t like to post about anything that is not directly related to writing, and second, I really didn’t have a good answer.  I mean, I like Pictionary, Texas Hold ‘em and basketball, but besides Pictionary, they didn’t seem to fit into the genre everybody else was blogging about.  But I did find some really great blogs to follow and I even managed to snag a couple new followers myself, fellow writers Kittie Howard and M. Pax.  Thanks to both of you and welcome aboard!

Yeah, so I try to stick with only those topics related to writing, but I sometimes find it difficult to come up with new subject matter.  Such was the case this week.  Then I thought I’d write about what’s been consuming me lately in regards to my book.  For months now, I’ve been pretty content with my novel overall, except for the opening chapters.  First, I have a slight problem with the fact that agents and their assistants need immediate action within the first 250 words.  It seems to be a national thing that Americans need instant gratification.  No one seems to be able to wait in anticipation any more, even for just a page or two.  But that’s okay, I do have an opening chapter with tension, conflict and action. 

The thing is, I want to open up with something else.  Some might call it a prologue, and while it does read somewhat like a prologue, it’s actually a brief foreshadowing, only 261 words, where the protagonist ponders how he missed the moment he changed from the good man he once was into the villain he’s become.  I thought it appropriate since it bookends the overall theme running through my novel, complementing how he sees himself in the end.  But how do you query with submitted pages with this?  Agents don’t seem to want to see this sort of thing.

Well, I’ve waffled back and forth on this.  My heart tells me to keep it in, but something in my head is telling me to chuck it.  Nathan Bransford had a good post on this a couple of years ago which you can read here, but what he essentially says, or asks rather, is that if you were to take it out, could your book stand on its own?  My answer would be a resounding yes.  It’s not vital to the overall story, but it makes an impactful statement and I really like that. 

At first, I thought I could get around this by simply calling it chapter one, but it just doesn’t feel right.  And if I were to submit it as the first chapter with a query, the agent’s assistant would likely just toss it out, proclaiming it didn’t have enough action.  So last week, when writer Adam Heine wrote a post on When & When Not To Prologue, I commented, asking his advice.  He made a suggestion and I thought it a pretty good idea.  He said the chapter sounds like it's internal, as opposed to the protagonist being active, and while it totally might work, in general that's a red flag.  He suggested I remove the chapter heading, (which up to that point had been chapter one though it should have been a prologue,) because I probably wouldn’t want the first word the agent reads to be “prologue.”  He’s right.  I don’t.

So I have removed the chapter heading and I won’t be including it in pages submitted with my query.  I will start with the action, just like they want.  But now I’m worried about another item agents frequently complain about and want to know within the first 250 words:  What is the story about?  Well, you see, if I were to leave that darn prologue in, it would tell exactly what the story is about.  But I don’t seem to be able to have both. 

I kind of have a problem with the fact that agents want to know what the story is about in the first 250 words.  I mean, how do you even do that?  My friend, Lisa Regan, did this perfectly in her novel, Finding Claire Fletcher, a fantastic book being pitched to publishers as we speak, but then again, it was quite introspective, as well, yet it did not read as a prologue.  I still have a lot to learn from her.  She wants me to keep that foreshadowing chapter up front, but advises I do what makes me comfortable.  Having finally decided, I’m feeling more at peace. 

During the last week, I pumped up my new first chapter and, per Rachelle Gardner’s advice via her blog post What’s the Story on Backstory?, I’ve rewritten the backstory to be part of the action and dialogue.  I’m feeling pretty good about it all right now.  I think, after taking the last three months off, I am finally ready to start querying again. 

I’ve learned a lot since I first started querying and I won’t be going about it like I’ve done in the past.  I’ll be like the turtle, slow and steady.  I’m kind of used to the rejection by now, so I’m not too concerned with that.  I’m striving for more requests for partials and fulls.  And this time, with all the changes I’ve made, I hope someone sees something good in it, something worth offering representation. 

It’s been about ten months or so since I finished my first draft.  A lot of pain and heartache, joy and accomplishment, a lot of learning what the industry is all about and making of new friends within it.  I know I will never stop learning new things about writing and publishing, but I think I’ve finally reached that point where I’m comfortable with what I know, and even with what I don’t. 

            So, I’m curious, where do you stand on brief prologues or an opening chapter that doesn’t start out with a blockbuster explosion?  Is intrigue enough for you or do you want to be slapped in the face with action?  

Elements of a Good Book

           I’ve been reading a great deal lately, mostly books within my own genre, but also some that are not, including young adult, women’s fiction, historical fiction and even some non-fiction.  Reading all of these has truly grounded me, reminding me why I enjoy thrillers so much more than the others.  I’ve never been accused of being a subtle person and so my taste in many things—music, food, pets, physical activities, cars, you name it—runs along similar strains.  I tend to be a little out there, a bit on the extreme side.  It’s not that I’m flashy or anything, because I’m definitely not.  It’s more because I seem to need more stimulation to really “feel” something, to understand and be connected to it.  I suppose it’s my way of buying into the whole bigger is better mentality I griped about in April.

When I tear it all down and analyze it, it’s easy for me to understand why.  For example, I like raucous, angst-ridden music because I am often both.  Big dogs are so much more fun to wrestle and hug than their smaller counterparts, not mention the intimidation factor when strangers come to my front door.  If I’m going to partake in physical activity, I want it to rock me to my core, because at my age, why else would I risk injury for a little fun?  After spending three years studying food and its preparation, I need something with a good punch, something that will make my taste buds sing.  And I don’t just think of my car as a means of transportation, but rather a form of entertainment, after all, anyone who knows me knows my car is my happy place.  (Yeah, it’s a damn fine car!)

When it comes to books, I can and do enjoy those that don’t knock me over with action.  As long as they have impact on a gut or emotional level, I’m probably going to like it.  But reading outside my genre did get me thinking about those parts of a book that resonate with me most and why I keep going back to those heart-thumping, emotionally draining thrillers I love so much.  So I thought I would tear apart the structure of a novel and see which elements I like most.

First and foremost, the story or plot needs to be explosive with gut-wrenching emotional elements.  I can look past mediocre writing if the story is engaging and entertaining.  And it doesn’t even necessarily need to be an original idea either, just told through unique characters.  Mostly, I need to be able to relate to the story in a personal way.  If the lead character has lost someone important in his life, I remember those same emotions from having lost someone myself and I can therefore connect with the story on an intimate level.  While I think themes can be important in the end, they should never be obvious and a story should never be forced around one.  Subplots should be used to make the characters more complex and draw a common thread through the main story line.  And I want to be taken on a journey, not necessarily to exciting new places I’ve never been, but rather on an emotional adventure.  I think, at its core, that’s why I read in the first place, to have an experience that would otherwise be dangerous or unwise for me.  I love bad boys, but I don’t really want to tangle with them in person.   

I would say characters are next in line in importance.  I love my friends and family, especially my dear husband.  He’s incredibly handsome and fit with broad shoulders and well-muscled through the chest and arms.  Dreamy really.  But we’ve been together for twenty-eight years and while we’ve recently rediscovered our passion, I sometimes need a spark from an unfamiliar source to ignite a fire in me.  This is why I almost always read novels with a male lead.  I need to fall a little in love with him so I know and understand him enough to be willing to go on a rollicking adventure with him.  This doesn’t mean he needs to be dashing and handsome, although that is never a bad thing as long as he’s not cliché.  What I do need is an internal weakness, a flaw or fragility that makes me sympathize and feel instantly connected to him.  I want to feel bad for him and understand his sacrifice, to root for him and hold his hand during his perilous journey.  I need to identify with him, to know I would have a similar reaction if I were in his shoes.  I don’t always need to like him or agree with his choices, but I do need to feel his fear and doubt.  I want his friends and family to give him a hard time and throw rocks in his way.  And I want his adversary to be legitimate in his opposition and to know that there is something strong binding them together.  While the opposition may be evil, I need to understand his side of the story and know that if I were him, I would likely do the same thing.  Characters need to be dynamic, rich and well-developed.  They need to jump off the page and change throughout the story, good or bad. 

Next up, the pace.  Even when the characters are charismatic and the plot explosive, if the pace is slow, I will lose interest and just give up.  I mean, the plot and characters may keep me there for a while when I otherwise would have thrown that book against the wall, but if the pace is a snore fest, I can easily forget how much in love I fancy myself and search for a new romantic interest elsewhere.  Each chapter needs to have its own hook, a reason to be drawn in and continue reading.  I need constant disturbance and conflict, action and reaction.  I need the main character to have a clear objective and know that he’s working hard in each chapter to obtain it, that a new obstacle will be thrown in his path every time.  And that a portal exists at the end of each chapter, one that will leave me so breathless that I want to step through it no matter how late the hour or how tired I am. 

I think I would pick the good use of dialogue next because ultimately, it is what makes the story ring true to the reader.  So let’s say you have a gripping plot, you’ve bonded with compelling characters and the pace is wicked enough to keep drawing you through each doorway.  If the voice and speech of the characters—used to show the action and not merely tell us what’s going on—is not authentic and timely, it falls flat and diminishes the effect of the message.  It tears away the layers of complexity the author has applied to the characters.  And it severely disrupts the flow and ease of reading the words, jarring the reader out of the narrative.  When I write, I say all my dialogue out loud, putting myself in the character’s position and let the natural responses come forward.  Dialogue has to be something people would actually say, in a way they would actually say it.  Most important, it must serve to move the story forward in some way.  No idle chit-chat.  Every spoken word must have a purpose and add to the momentum and stratum of the plot.  Nothing stops a story cold in its tracks like bad or stilted dialogue.  Yet on the other end of the spectrum, great dialogue is core to an even rhythm and flow. 

Speaking briefly about rhythm, I have an obsession with it.  I even dream about it at night with the sounds of words strung together in the fashion of a sentence continuously running through my head.  Not necessarily real words, but just the sound of them, how they flow from one to another and construct a cadence that feels and sounds like music.  I think this is important in writing.  Each sentence needs to feel as good on the tongue as it does to the ears.  Clumsy sentences can be jarring whether it’s dialogue or exposition. 

Lastly, for me anyway, is the writing itself.  Now, I love good writing as much as the next person, but it’s not the “be all, end all” for me.  In fact, I often find overblown, overwritten novels to be boring and telling.  They often exist for the sole purpose of good writing, a testament to skill and study, neither of which I give a damn about.  Just give me a good story, well-paced with interesting and real characters.  Tell me their story in simple, easy to read text.  I don’t have to or need to be impressed with a beautiful selection of words, as long as they are strung together in a clear, concise, and rhythmic fashion, I’m good to go.  I don’t really even want to be aware of the writing, only the story and characters and conflict.  

Why I support My Local Library

            I’m finding it kind of ironic these days that I am trying to so hard to get published when I can no longer afford the small luxury of buying books.  I should say that’s primarily because I read probably forty books a year or so.  At twenty-four bucks a pop for a hard cover, that’s $1000 and since the decimation of my industry and business, that’s a lot of money that should be going to better uses, especially since there are alternatives.

One might say that buying a Kindle would allow me to purchase a wide volume of novels at a much lower cost, but then again if you knew me and how I feel about e-books versus the real thing, you’d know that I’m just not ready to go there yet.  Plus, if I won’t splurge twenty-four bucks on a book, I certainly won’t pay $115 on an ad-supported Kindle.  So what’s a reader to do then?  That’s easy.  I patronize my local King County Library.

            Actually, that’s a lie.  Sort of.  I do use the library, but from the convenience of my own desk chair.  I can access the entire library system’s stacks via the Internet.  I can search a favorite author’s name and see what titles pop up, then peruse the book flap copy and decide if it interests me or not.  Or if I’ve heard or read a book review and it interests me, I can search that title.  The library even offers me suggestions based on what I’m currently viewing or what I’ve already read.  I love that feature, by the way.

Once I’ve selected the titles I want, they are put on hold and when they become available, they are sent to my local branch just a couple of miles away from my home.  I receive an email notification as soon as the book has been placed on the hold shelf, complete with my name on a reservation slip which makes it easy to locate alphabetically.  And since everything is automated these days, I just scan my own library card then the bar code on the book and viola!  I have that book for at least four weeks though I can renew online, as well.

Now, like with most things, there are drawbacks.  For one, if a title is popular, as many of my selections are, I will likely have to wait a few weeks before that title becomes available.  But I know this up front as the info is supplied to me when placing the hold.  It will say something like my hold is the 25^th hold on 50 copies, which means it might take me a month to receive that title.  I currently have one hold that says 297^th of 195 copies and that’s after already waiting three months, so yeah, that one could take me awhile to get, but I’m patient.  I usually have about six titles on hold at any given time and a stack of at least that many books sitting on my desk, waiting to be read, so I can wait.  I’ve got lots to keep me busy. 

Of course, the biggest drawback to borrowing from the library is that the book is not actually mine.  I can’t keep it and display it on my bookshelf.  But then again, I have so many books and not nearly enough shelf space that I am already stacking two rows per shelf.  That means I can’t even see half the titles I do have as they are hidden behind the forward row.

Conceding that, I do find the fact that the book I’m reading is not mine to bother me a bit.  So if I really, really, REALLY love that book, I will go out and splurge on it.  In the case of Greg Iles’s titles, I loved so many of them—thirteen total—that I had my husband buy them for me off Ebay which meant they were second-hand and I was not supporting my favorite author.

I do feel kind of bad about that, but what can I do?  I don’t typically like paperbacks though they are much cheaper.  And as in the case of Iles’s titles, most of them are not kept on the brick and mortar’s shelves so I would have to back order them only to receive a paperback.  So, for now, my method works for me.  When I’m back to earning some good money, I will start buying books again.

One thing I do love about borrowing books from the library is that I will often read books that I would not ordinarily buy, something that is outside my typical genre of choice, thrillers.  The last book I read outside my genre was Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.  It is a book of historical fiction set in Seattle (near where I currently reside) during World War II.  It is the story of a Chinese-American boy who falls for a Japanese-American girl just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and right before she and her family are sent away to an internment camp.  It flashes back and forth between the war years and 1986, when that boy is in his fifties and hears of the discovery of many personal belongings of local interned Japanese-Americans at the Panama Hotel in Seattle.

Definitely not my normal reading choice, but the fact that one of my favorite literary agent bloggers, Jessica Faust of BookEnds, reps the author and the story is set in Seattle, I was very intrigued.  And as I was reading, I found myself constantly using the Google Maps app on my iPhone to locate the streets in the International District that the author described.  I enjoyed his setting so much that I want to spend time exploring the neighborhood, including the Panama Hotel which still exists to this day.

This love of setting harkens back to my last blog post.  I would never have otherwise read this book had I not had the library.  I never would have considered actually buying this book because I don’t think I would have liked it just by reading the flap cover.  But now that I have read it and know how much I love it, I will buy that book and most likely any other Jamie Ford writes.  The library allowed me to open my eyes a bit more and fall in love with another author and said author will now benefit from that, whereas before, he would not have. 

I actually read a lot more books now that I have rediscovered the library.  The ease of use permits me to at least try to explore titles I never would have otherwise.  Now, I will admit, sometimes I don’t always like the titles I’ve checked out.  The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber, while in my genre and beautifully written, was way too slow for me, The Dead Don’t Dance by Charles Martin was too sickly sweet and The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow, well, I found it so uninteresting I couldn’t even make it to page forty though it is an award-winning debut novel.  And though Karin Slaughter’s books are my friend, Lisa’s, favorites, I found, for the most part, that I just don’t care for crime fiction.  Then again, I did love Lisa Gardner’s Say Goodbye.  And I won’t even get into how I feel about Jonathan Franzen.  But the library did allow me to discover Michael Connelly and James Scott Bell, both of whom I love.  And I never would have found out that sometimes the very authors I love most don’t always write spectacular fiction.  Hey, they’re human, too.  Who knew?  

           So all in all, even when I do start raking in the cash again, I think I will most likely keep using my library card to discover new writers and new titles.  In the long run, I believe it will allow me to support those authors I truly love, whose books I really want on my over burdened bookshelf. 

Setting: Better Real or Imagined?

            Many aspiring writers today lament the fact that the publishing industry is so much more difficult to break into than it was say fifteen or twenty years ago, that the rules are far different.  We even see this in how books are written.  For one, prologues are way out of vogue, or so I hear.  When I find a new book I like written by an author who has been around for quite some time, I go out of my way to hunt down every novel they’ve ever written in that genre.  It doesn’t matter if it’s fifteen years old or more.  If it’s good, it will survive the test of time and the changes the world has undergone since first written, even if it has a prologue.  What difference does it make what the first section of text is called, whether it’s a prologue or chapter one, as long at it helps build the story?  I certainly don’t care. 

Sometimes it can be a little distracting when the author writes heavily about technology.  Take, for instance, Greg Iles’s Mortal Fear.  This was the author’s third published novel and his first away from the stage of World War II.  Iles’s characters utilized cutting edge computer technology for the time, that being 1997, but when you read it today, you’re likely to snicker knowing how outdated all that technology sounds.  So in that way, the written words are not timeless, though the story itself remains so.

            Earlier this month, author John Gilstrap wrote a post on The Kill Zone website called Terrors of Timelessness.  This came just days after the unexpected death of public enemy number one, Osama bin Laden.  Gilstrap speculated that there might be a few writers out there who were not as elated by the news as most of us were.  Why, you ask?  Well, because they were in the middle of writing a novel with you-know-who as the arch enemy.  So if OBL is dead, all their efforts are for nothing, or at the very least, they will have to do a major rewrite.  Gilstrap’s point was that writing fiction grounded in reality “ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

            He used setting as an example.  Gilstrap wrote that his stories needed to be timely and current and because he had to produce one novel every year, to remain timely and current required that he never place his characters in a real setting.  He theorized that while some readers would likely recognize the particular location of a certain scene, most would not and so the reality of the location was irrelevant.  While I understand his point, I disagree to a certain extent.

Sure, when you include details grounded in reality, you run the risk of being inaccurate and therefore drawing a few readers out of the story because they know something to be wrong.  But when you’re placing your characters in a real place, a place you know well, perhaps even intimately, you are able to convey the subtle details that make that place so unique and often so well-loved.  Two of my favorite writer’s, Michael Connelly and James Scott Bell, often place their stories in LA. 

Now, I spent most of my life in Northern California, the Bay Area actually, but I’ve been to LA quite a few times and while I don’t know the downtown city streets at all or the neighborhoods of Topanga Canyon or Mulholland Drive, I have an idea of what they look and feel like and this imagery works well for me as I read.  It presents details that the author never included.

Same goes for Greg Iles.  He writes almost exclusively about his home state of Mississippi, most notably Natchez, where he has lived most of his life.  I’ve never been to Natchez though I’ve heard of its history and seen pictures of the antebellum mansions.  A city ripe with actual historical accounts offers lush layers that can be woven into an author’s characters and stories and Iles does this to perfection.  In fact, I was so infatuated with his description of Natchez after reading so many of his novels that I took a virtual tour through the city using Google Maps.  When Iles wrote about a particular street, I found that street and “drove” up it, scanning the homes and business along the way.

It’s just not the same with an imaginary setting.  There is no history to extract from.  There are no monuments to give the reader direction or a true sense of place.  It’s just an ordinary place much like any other and even if it is richly drawn, the fact that it’s not grounded in reality makes it kind of murky in my mind.  Yeah, I will keep reading and enjoy the story for what it is, but the setting is not as strong of a character as it would have been if it had been an actual place with an actual past. 

This does not relate to other kinds of fiction such as sci-fi or fantasy where half the written word is about world building.  Those kinds of novels start from scratch, as they should.  But in my genre—thrillers—the setting is often nearly as important as the major characters and while you can make up any setting just like you make up your characters, so often our characters are assemblies of who we are and those who occupy the orbits around our lives, so why wouldn’t you want to ground them in a world you know well, a place others can relate to on a personal level? 

No, not all readers will recognize the nuances of your setting, but then again, if it is a made up place, nobody would.  Not really.  I mean, how could they, if it’s not a real place?  If the setting is real, many will pick up on those subtle distinctions so why not allow them the pleasure of something familiar?  And it’s not always important for the writer to have an intimate knowledge of their story’s setting either.  My friend, Lisa Regan, set her first novel, Finding Claire Fletcher, in Sacramento, California, a place she had never been.  But Lisa didn’t need to draw on concrete places to flesh out the setting and as abstract as she was in pointing out particular locations, having intimate knowledge of the place myself made the story so much richer for me, not to mention easier for me to visualize.  It didn't matter that she had never been there.  I had and I knew what it looked like.

The conceptual can be cool, don’t get me wrong, but the familiar is more comfortable and relatable and in the end, I want my readers to be able to relate to all my characters, including the setting, which is every bit as much of a character as the protagonist or antagonist.  So I would be very interested in hearing from some of my readers.  Do you prefer the stories you read to be set in a real location or a fictionalized one?