Week In Review March 27, 2016

Welcome to the week that was

A quick reminder you can sign up for my mailing list here. The newsletters will be mostly about client news not the blog.

I've been posting some pieces on my Facebook page that might interest you:
Don't be helpful

Don't get too full of yourself there Janet.

Mystery Writers of America has a call for middle grade submissions for their next anthology, edited by R.L. Stine. You MUST be an MWA member to submit work. Let me know if you want the announcement (email me)

Words I got wrong this week: loath/loathe

Words I did NOT get wrong this week: deserts/desserts. How you would know though, given my decline in spelling standards, I do not know.

Last week's review had mention of mailing pumpkins and watermelons.

Jenny C said

Now that Janet has posted on WIR that I'm willing to write my synopsis on a pumpkin and mail it off to agents I expect to get inundated with requests tomorrow morning! So I'm off to buy a package of Sharpies and a bunch of pie pumpkins, which my local grocery store sells year-round. If no one requests? Well, I can always make pie.

Does anyone else want to see the synopsis on the pumpkin? Yea, I thought so! Ok, Jenny, pics or it Did Not Happen!

Lennon Faris asked about the term "monkey knife fight"

And monkey knife fights! who are the monkeys? editors? agents? both? Is there screeching, or stuff thrown around the room? It's something I'd like to see.

This is a term I stole shamelessly from La Slitherina Herself Barbara Poelle. It's how she describes agents warring over good manuscripts. I've never been in one myself. I just swim up silently and grab the writer from below and swim off to Representation Island, leaving all those other agents splashing around in the Sea of Sorry.

Celia Reaves asked about the marathon editing project that sucked up a lot of time recently:

I hope your editing project has been put to bed and the demands on your time have ratcheted back down from astronomical to their normal level: superhuman.

I finished the last of the line edits on Friday night and the sense of relief to have finished was overwhelming. This has been on my to do list since last November!  Now all I need to do is write the actual letter and then Monday, off it goes in the mail.  It's been a while since I edited on paper and I'd rather forgotten how much more I like pen and paper than I do electrons.  Plus, my pen collection got a good workout!

The pens for this ms are the ones in the far right front mint julep cup.

And a tip of the sailor cap to John Frain's downright awful pun:

Amy, you can't blame your kids when they're naughty-cal, you're raising 'em that way.

(for those of you not aware: Amy lives on a boat)

luciakaku contributed to the unicycle theme from last week:

One of the most surprising things I discovered upon moving to Japan is that Japanese elementary schools keep racks of unicycles for the students' use. The kids ride unicycles during recess. Bigger kids help little kids learn. I've had a few schools do synchronized unicycle dances for big, sporty presentations. 

And Youtube brings you the world:

On Monday we talked about being careful not to burn bridges in this small world of publishing.

Adib Khorram asked:

I hope I haven't been operating under bad information, but it has been my understanding that at the query stage, there's no need to reply to a rejection at all, unless it was a personalized/helpful one (in which case you should say thank you). Otherwise, even short "thank you" notes to form rejections can quickly add up and clog an agent's inbox.

Now I hope I haven't been inadvertently rude.

The woodland creature brain is at it again.

You have not been rude. It is perfectly polite to not reply to rejection letters. I actually prefer it in that it helps me keep my email under control. I understand that some people simply can not help themselves and must reply, so "thank you for considering my query" is just about the only thing you want to say.

Jennifer R. Donohue's mouse story made me laugh

I've worked with people, frequently the general public, in every job I've had. While I'm not surprise, per se, to learn new wrinkles of bizarre/ridiculous/more or less unacceptable behavior, I still look askance.

Example: a couple of weeks ago, a patron for some reason pulled one of those business reply envelopes from a library trash can. There was a dead mouse in it. Then they could not conceive of any other scenario than "a person was going to mail this dead mouse to somebody and changed their mind". After about ten minutes of listening to this patron go back and forth with my coworker, I finally weighed in with "How about you just stop taking things out of the garbage and it won't bother you." And so the poor mousie returned to its erstwhile graveyard.

So there we have it. At least somebody didn't mail you a dead mouse in response to your rejection.

As someone who has disposed of dead rodents I can tell you exactly what happened: the mouse is dead and the person who found it didn't want to touch it. An envelope is a perfect mouse shroud.

Why anyone would think it was intended to be mailed defies logic. Amazing.

This from Bethany Elizabeth (after a discussion of how to spell asshat) cracked me up

DLM reminded me of a game my friends and I would play. Whenever adjective-ass noun was used (big-ass test, nice-ass car, kickass hat) we would switch the hyphen (big ass-test, nice ass-car, kick the asshat).

And in the end Brian Schwarz has exactly the right thing to remember:

I wanted to take a moment to admit a dangerous thing. On one particular occasion, on a very bad day when I was in a dark and desperate place, a personalized rejection rubbed me the wrong way and I got hooked.

I know, I know, a big no no on my part.

It wasn't a long exchange. I'm sure the agent was giving helpful advice by telling me my plot could really use some work. It just hit me at the wrong time, and I replied with something snide. The agent came back with something equally snide, and I'm sure I made the blacklist for that agent's spam folder.

At the end of the day, I bit when I shouldn't have. It didn't go well. I did know better. And I shouldn't have done it. But life goes on. So if you're sitting there thinking "Shit...I really wish I had read this post 4.23 minutes ago before I hit reply to that form rejection..." -- just take a deep breath and keep going. We get caught up in this stuff sometimes, the do's and don'ts, but even when you're well informed, you might still eff it up once in a while.

Life isn't over. Keep writing. Keep querying. Buy shark insurance. :)

On Tuesday the topic was agents ditching clients when they "changed focus"

AJ Blythe asked

    Two questions... How do you raise the question? Does the agent's answer mean all that much at that point?

    After all, if you've been offered representation than at that moment the agent believes they can sell your work. Some time later said agent changes agencies and now realises maybe it's too hard a sell. So for all the positive talk you might have got at sign-on-the-dotted-line time you're left on the sinking ship.

You'd ask '"what happens if you can't sell this" and "what happens if you change agencies?"  And yes, you're right none of us know what the future holds, but this way, you've asked, and you won't kick yourself later for NOT having asked.

Brigid asked:

Wait, but if those editors passed on it would this project then be dead in the water? The way that it would with an agent who only queried 10 editors and said sayonara?

Yes. I think what the Departing Agent intended here though was that if there was an offer, she'd let the author take it to a new agent so the author had something of immediate value to query with.

Jason Magnason asked:

If I query an agent, and I get a request for a full, and I get signed, then can I expect that they are prepared for the hard questions?

Will an agent be upset if I ask, "So if you move to a new agency, are you going to take me with you? Are you in this for the long haul? Are you going to shop this book till the heels on you shoes break?"

Yes. No.

All agents should be prepared to answer these questions. Any agent that gets huffy about this…well, now you know something about them.

Of course, you're not going to ask this like you're interrogating them about the disappearance of the last pint of Rocky Road from the freezer,  but you still should be able to expect answers to these and other "before you sign" questions.

I've blogged about the Next  Questions you ask an agent before signing before.

E.M. Goldsmith asked:

Is there a disadvantage to being the only author in a genre in an agent's wheel house? Or am I better off with someone who has dozens of hardcore fantasy writers?

I think a lot of this depends on the agent and the agency. I have several "one-offs" in my list. Laird Barron writes cosmic horror. He's the only guy I represent who does. When people write to me with horror novels I always say no. Laird's career is busy and multi-faceted and I want to focus on him. Horror is a limited market and I don't want to divide my efforts between two writers. That's MY approach though, certainly not some sort of standard to judge by.  ASK the prospective agent about his/her approach on this.

BunnyBear asked:

What is the standard contract language concerning who the Writer is signing with - the Agency or the Agent? I would think that would enter in when the Agent decides to dump the Writer for said reasons.

There is no standard contract language for author/agency representation. And this situation is less about the contract than the practice. For example, my clients at Fine Print are clients of the agency. Were I to leave, I would drag them with me, unless they wanted to stay. However, if I didn't want to, they are still repped by the agency as a whole. In practice however, you want an agent, not an agency. You want an advocate, not just someone who can process your royalty statements. 

One of the big values of hanging my shingle out here at FPLM is for what happens when the parting of ways is brought on not by a new job, but by a new plane of existence: if I get hit by the crosstown bus, my clients are not left wondering who has the keys to the office and where their contracts are.

And I really like what Craig said:

Seriously, agents are only human and have just as many quirks and foibles as us who fashion ourselves as writers. Sometimes the world gets too scary for everyone and some have to drop out or cut back.

It is a shame that when an agent stumbles it looks like they stomp the life out of some writer. If a manuscript or writing style is good enough for one agent you can find another that should work out better. Don't lose heart in either your writing or in humans you put your hopes in. Things do often get better in the long run.

Jason Magnason asked:

A friend of mine, who I have done some work for, from Colorado also said that I should not muddy the waters with a bad query. He said send it to about four agents, if you don't get a response you know its your query. If you get requests for pages and get no response, you know its the writing. Either way you know what needs fixing.

Janet, what's your take on that advice?

Bilgewater. You can't know anything from just four agents. Maybe MAYBE 20 agents, but even then, this is a subjective industry. If you're not getting requests from your query, get some face time with an agent (conference, consultation, etc) and get some feedback. It's amazing the number of ways authors can shoot themselves in the foot in a query.

On Wednesday the topic was writing in two very different categories

I urged the writer to focus

CarolynnWith2Ns said:

Isn't this like one man with a couple of sister-wives. Sounds great, actually sounds quite fulfilling, but oh how difficult it could be when one likes rap and the other is into opera.

I'm all in favor of plural marriage (no, really I am) and I like both opera AND rap but I'm not intending to write or perform either. One can appreciate many wonderful things, but when you turn your hand to creating art, I'm absolutely convinced that focusing on one thing is the way to go. You don't notice Yo-Yo Ma taking up the clarinet now, do you? In fact Mr. Ma may be able to play several instruments up to and including the kazoo and the cowbell (MORE cowbell!) but his performance instrument is only the cello.

RachelErin had a terrific idea, one I wish I'd thought of when I wrote the blog post:

The other thing for the OP to consider is genre mashings. If you decide MG is where your heart is, why not write an MG historical crime thriller? Which both myself and my 8-year-old would immediately put on our TBR lists.

Something like The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whittaker, but with a crime element instead of the medical mystery? (That book made me cry, by the way. The author did a brilliant job putting the reader in historically empathetic shoes).

MG is a category, not a genre, but this idea is terrific. (Category= fiction/non-fiction, adult, YA, MG, picture books. Genre: western, romance, crime)

Robert Ceres makes a good point here:

Writing good MG voice is really hard. Great MG voice, nearly impossible. I think that is one of the reasons the genre is tight. If you can write great MG you should go with it, even if you can't get Janet as your agent. Speaking as a parent, those kids are hungry to read, there is just a huge shortage of titles with really great writing. The ones that get it right have been huge sellers. Just my two cents.

I liked the point Her Grace, Heidi, the Duchess of Kneale makes here:

Sometimes it takes an author a while to figure out what they really, truly want to write.

I experimented with different genres, different ages, and pretty much wrote out all those stories that nagged at me until I got my Muse under control. Now my Muse aids me to write what satisfies my soul--Fantasy Romance novels.

Yes, I loved writing my contemporary thriller. I think it's clever. But it is the only contemporary thriller I will ever write. One book does not make a career.

I wrote a contemporary YA and half-way through, asked myself, "Why am I writing this? I don't love this." Turns out, it was a bad book, possibly one of the worst I'd ever written.

But I have written several fantasies and several romances. I am happiest writing Fantasy Romance. Give me love and magic any day.

(But not paranormal. Too close to contemporary. I write escapist fiction. I want to get as far away from real life as I can.)

Just today I read a guest post on an indie blog about an indie author who only wrote "when inspired", and whatever random idea that was. She was her Muses's b!tch. Her works (which apparently there were plenty) were eight ounces of milk without a glass. Her blog post was about how, after so many singletons, she was able to write a sequel (after how many years of her fans asking for sequels?) and that she didn't think she could write a sequel again.

Did she choose the indie life, or did it choose her? I wonder how well she sells with her scattershot career.

Being a successful career author means having a brand. And that means when readers see a book under your name, they expect a certain thing. Nobody expects to pick up a Stephen King book and find a frothy Regency Romance.

My advice to Opie is write your YA, write your historical crime, then write another book. Maybe two. Ask yourself, what do you want to write the most? What sings loudest to your soul?

It seems too many people write one book and think they must immediately go out and seek representation.

Must you?

It seems too many people try to build a career out of one book.

Is it the right book?

And this from CarolynnWith2Ns is spot on:

Kae, for years I wrote what I thought "might" sell better than what I "loved" to write because I believed my writer's passion-projects would languish. I don't do that anymore.
If you're going to commit to the huge amount of time writing projects require you might as well love what rattles around in you brain.

Mister Furkles asked:

You mean LGBT erotica and MG Christian historical don't mix? WTF? Now, what am I going to do? Maybe one of those double novels with LGBTE on one side; flip it over and MGCH on the other.

Which was hilarious until I saw this tweet from FPLM agent Penny Moore this morning:

I have a short list of projects that are just revolting (yes, dino porn is on that list) and this is one of them!

On Thursday we talked about requests for revision while on submission, and the consternation of what to do:

Michael Seese references  one of my favorite scenes in film:

Agent One's advice reminds me of the scene in "Amadeus" where the Emperor tells Mozart to fix his opera.

"Just take out a few notes."

"Which notes did His Majesty have in mind?"

I often think of this when I'm talking to writers about revisions. Particularly when I'm talking to them about paring down.

Christina Seine had a good suggestion:

Opie's question reminds me of a thing they used to do on one of those game shows. I think it was The Price Is Right. You had to guess the correct price of a car or something, and you'd get a certain number of tries. So you'd start with your best guess, and they'd tell you how many numbers you got correct. So the first guess you might have two numbers out of five correct, but then you change three numbers and lo and behold, now you've get only one right. So you are blindly changing things just to change things. I never did see anybody actually win the car that way.

I'm just going to throw out there that reading Larry Brooks' STORY FIX helped me IMMENSELY with my rewrites. I'd gotten a bunch of fulls and a couple R&Rs, all of course with conflicting advice. His book helped me see things from the macro level on in, and I finally had a huge epiphany. Now I think I know what the agents were trying to tell me. Time will tell, I guess, but in any case, at least I have a MUCH clearer vision as I finish up revising. Just can't recommend that book enough.

S.P. Bowers said:

I received an R&R from an agent saying only that it needed more world building. World building is an exhaustively huge area and I had no idea what aspect of it wasn't working. I'm still waiting to hear back since I resubmitted. Sometimes you just have to do what you think is best and hope it checks the box the agent wanted. Good luck opie.

Well, that could have been me. I've said "this needs more world-building" to more than a few querying writers.  By world building I generally mean you need to add the furniture to the room.

I copied the reading list and questions for a seminar on world-building offered by an author recently (and of course forgot to note which author, but somehow I think it was Alexander Chee)

Here's the list of questions;

What are its primary features: spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological

What is the world's ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)?

When analyzing world building in the reading list: what are the precise strategies that are used by its creator to convey the world to us and us to the world? How are our characters connected to the world? And how are we connected to the world?

The books on the reading list:

A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller)

Sunshine (Robin McKinley)

V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (NK Jemison)

Lilith's Brood (Octavia Butler)

Perdido Street Station (China Mieville)

Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)

On Friday the question was whether I'd offer unasked for feedback on a query to a writer who wasn't getting any better

No.

Whipchick had a good suggestion:

Friend of Alex: Have you considered asking Alex yourself, "Hey buddy, I know you've gotten a ton of rejections, have you considered hiring an editor or signing up for a workshop? Maybe someone in a class or with some experience would be able to identify some things you could work on to increase your chances of success?"

Or even, "You know, back when I was querying, someone suggested I sign up for a workshop and examine my writing a bit more, and boy did it help to hear from people whose job it was to help me! And I learned a lot about writing from hearing other writers' work, too!"

I like Lydia D's suggestion here too:

That's certainly a rough position to be in. Kudos to Opie for caring about Alex's success and feelings. Perhaps opie could try suggesting a specific craft book or writing blog to Alex? That takes less investment than a workshop, so maybe Alex would be more likely to try that. Ultimately, though, a workshop would probably do a world of good.

And what Dena Pawling said too:

I can only help another attorney who wants me to help. And I'm free to decline anything I don't want to do. I think this applies here. If Alex doesn't want your advice, there isn't much you can do. And who knows? Maybe he's on to the new, big thing. On the other hand, if you want to help him and/or steer him in the right direction, please do, but be prepared for responses similar to what an agent must hear when offering a personalized rejection – (1) silence, (2) much gratitude for the help, (3) constant requests for more help, (4) flaming response requiring purchase of new computer, (5) stalking, and/or (6) broken heart.

Sometimes it's sad to sit on the sidelines and watch. But Alex is an adult and responsible for his own mistakes, his own improvement, his own destiny. And who are we to say we know better about that destiny than he does?

Marie McKay said what a lot of you were thinking:

I'm a little freaked out by this, if I'm honest. The constant worry that I'm deluding myself is never far from my mind. I guess when there are enough signals that are telling you that you need to change, you have to take notice. I suppose the problem lies in not learning and therefore not improving.

If you're worried about this, you're ok. If you're worried about this it means you're not just blindly assuming you're ok and it's only a matter of time before someone recognizes you're a genius.

It's exactly akin to the people who think they're going crazy. They're not, because when you are crazy you think you're normal.

Which reminds me of a surreal experience I had with an acquaintance who was telling me how she got locked in the psych ward of a hospital by mistake. She was so calm and normal about it that it took a good five minutes of her (non-stop) recounting of the story before the light bulb went on and I realized it was NOT a mistake at all. She'd truly had a break with reality, and her friends who left her there "by mistake" had in fact, signed her in on doctor's orders.

On Saturday we discussed work for hire projects

Susan had a good point about the value of writing WFH novels:

I wrote five novels as a ghostwriter with my writing partner. It was her world and under a pen name, which I was happy about because they were very different from what I usually write (and the types of books I want to publish). But it was a lot of fun, great experience, helped me make some substantial money, and, most importantly to me, helped me get back into the writing game after a few years' hiatus. Along with that, it helped me really cement the types of books I personally want to write.

Dena Pawling made a very good point about "straight forward contracts"

All standard and/or boilerplate contracts favor the party who drafted the contract. That's not you.

Some of you read WFH as WTF which made me laugh at this from Theresa:

WTF, I'd be willing to give WFH a try.

On a general blog decorum note:

Lydia D said:

(I feel awkward joining in the conversation without justifying why I've popped out of nowhere, so allow me to add a quick note of explanation for myself: I've been a Reider for a pretty long time now, even delving into the archives a fair bit, but this is only my third comment.)

All blog readers are welcome to comment at any time. Often, not-often, on topic, or not. Succinctly and on-topic is generally good. At length and off topic is generally hilarious.  I'll let you know if you're going too far astray.





Sadly, we are retiring the classic subheader about the Shi Tzu this week.  Here are the choices for this week:

Burn that bridge when you come to it.--Bethany Elizabeth

Guerilla kindness really is contagious. Why not be the flashpoint of kindness in someone's day? --Julie M. Weathers

Y'all ain't right. --DLM

It's a universal truth writers are crazy, but they don't all start out that way.-Julie M. Weathers

You're in a beautiful mess.--John Frain

And the one I'd really love to choose, but can't cause it requires context, and truthfully might be offputting to some of my more secular readers, but I love love love this:

Apparently even God wants me to read this blog. --Lennon Faris