Dear O'Abby: Tell me about querying

 Dear O'Abby,

I'm a pretty new writer in terms of looking toward publishing a novel and so I've been thirstily sucking up all the information I can about the process.  I've been reading this blog for a few weeks and have been interested in the number of posts referencing querying.

I know what querying is in a pretty basic way - it's pitching your book to an agent or publisher - but I'm looking for a little more information about the process.

Is that something you can help me with?

All the best,

Uncertain

Dear Uncertain,

Querying is a pretty big topic, but I'll try to keep things fairly high level for now.  There are a lot of resources out there to help you, so I'll share some of the ones I find most useful.

You're right about what querying is - a pitch to agents or publishers.  It is important to decide which because you don't really want to be trying to get a publisher and an agent at the same time.  It's important to be clear in your own mind what you want from your book and what route is the best one to take to get that.

If you want to be traditionally published by one of the major publishing houses, you will need an agent.  When querying agents, it's important that you research each one to make sure your book fits with them.  A quick way to get a pile of rejections is to query agents who don't represent the genre or category your book fits into.  You want to find an agent who loves your book and will champion it to publishers on your behalf. I suggest spending time at MS Wish List, researching what different agents are looking for and compiling a list of the ones that would be a good fit for your story.

It's important that your book is ready before you start querying.  Yes, you will likely do revisions once you have signed with one, but your best chance of getting one in the first place is to have a well polished manuscript.  There are a lot of books being queried at any one time, and if yours looks like it needs more work than others that come across an agent's desk, it will have to be pretty darn spectacular to get picked up.  And most agents won't look at a book they've rejected again, even if you've done substantial revisions since the last time you queried it.  Make sure your book is as good as you can get it before you dive into the trenches.

If you're not sure traditional publishing is the right thing for you, you may want to look at small presses instead.  Some of these require an agent too, but there are a large number you can submit to directly.  Small presses generally don't pay advances and the amount of publicity and marketing you get can be limited, so be prepared to have to do a lot of that work yourself if you sign with a small press.  Their distribution channels can also be rather limited, so if your dream for your book is for it to be in bookstores and libraries worldwide, small press publishing might not be for you.  If this is the route you want to go, there is great information about small presses that accept un-agented submissions at Authors Publish.  You need to subscribe, but subscription is free.

If you like to be in control of everything, you might be better off self-publishing.  That way you can be in charge of when your book releases, what it looks like, and how it is marketed to readers.  Self publishing is a lot of work, but the stigma that used to be attached to self-pubbing is wearing off and numerous writers are building successful careers for themselves this way.  It's more work, but you also get more of the money from each book sold than you would get through traditional or small press publishing.  

Hopefully that helps you decide the best path for your work.  My only other advice is to always be courteous with the people you deal with along the way.  Publishing is a small world and one mis-step can derail your whole career.  You will get rejections along the way, and they will hurt.  You will get criticism you disagree with.  Restrain from lashing out at those who give you this.  It won't help you in the long run.

Good luck.  I'll probably see you out there in the trenches.  And join Operation Awesome's query support group so you don't feel so alone as your rejection emails start piling up.

X O'Abby

Why publish short fiction if I'm a novelist?

As promised last week, here's the second part of that longer article, this time looking at why publishing those short stories is a good idea, even if you're certain writing novels is what you really want to do.

The scary thing is that moment when you know you’ve done as much to your story as you can. Because where do you go from here? Publishing feels like a big step, but writers write so they can be read, and a story hanging out on your hard drive is only going to be read by one person – you.  I’d jumped the gun with publishing, and had sent out a couple of those early, awful novels only to have them rejected, probably (hopefully?) unread. 

Before submitting a story to a publication, it’s a good idea to take a look at some other issues of that publication to get a feel for what they like.  It’s also a good idea to look at things like how often they publish new work, especially when it comes to online publications.   A site that publishes a new story each day is going to need far more content than a publication that might only publish one piece of short fiction per month or quarter, so is probably an easier place to get accepted.

I’m not going to lie to you.  Your story is very likely going to be rejected.  But this isn’t a bad thing.  Publishing is full of rejection (I’ve logged over 300 rejections in my career), and if you’re serious about being a writer, it’s something you need to learn to deal with.  And it’s way better to have a short story that may have taken a few days to write rejected than a novel that may have taken a few years.  I’m not saying it won’t hurt, or that it won’t be disappointing, but after the first few times, it does get easier. Honestly.  I wouldn’t lie to you.

And while your story is out in the world, waiting for its chance to shine in that literary journal or anthology, you can get to work on your next story.  Or your novel.  Just remember, the more publications you submit to, the more chance you have of getting published.  Rejections are just one of the stepping stones along the way.

As well as toughening my hide against the pain of rejection, publishing short fiction helped me build some publishing credits.  When querying a novel, having a publication history shows agents you’re serious about writing, and if you’ve been published in a well-known magazine or journal, it speaks to the quality of your writing. It also helps to build an audience for your long-form work.  If readers have enjoyed a short story you’ve written, they may also like a novel.  After reading the story, they might do some research to find out if you’ve written something else.

I don’t actually know for sure if any of the readers of my short stories have read my novels, or vice versa, but it’s certainly possible, right?

Which is a reason why it might be a good idea to continue writing and publishing short fiction even after your first novel is published and available.  Writing a novel takes a long time, and readers may be impatient to hear from you again.  Publishing short fiction keeps your name and your voice in the minds of your readers so they don’t forget you between novels.

Some publishers regularly compile anthologies of short or novella length fiction partly for this very reason – to keep their authors in the spotlight between novels. But also to discover new writers who might have unique and interesting voices. I’m lucky enough that my publisher is one of these, and last year I got to stretch my writing muscles with a novella-length story (Run to You) in an anthology of stories each of which started and finished with a kiss.  It’s called Kissed if anyone’s interested…

So, there are any number of reasons why writing and publishing short stories is not a waste of time for novelists.  So get out there and write yourself some short fiction.  I'd love to read it.

On Rejection

Like a lot of us here, I want to make writing a career. But because I’m at home 24/7 with so many other things calling out to me, I get distracted. So…I spend a lot of time playing video games. For a while, I was in a pretty bad rut – lights off, shades pulled, drinking beer and eating Belgian Doritos while slumping in an Ikea chair and hunting down bandits in some cave in Skyrim. But then I had this great idea: I should try to become a writer for video games!

Yeah. Yikes. Like I said, it was a low point.

I applied to my favorite game studio on a whim with a simple open application – “hey, if a job comes up, I’d like to be considered,” that kind of thing – and, amazingly, after a couple months I got a follow-up email asking me to do a writing test! So I did it, sent it in, and then heard nothing for another few weeks. Right at the point where I thought they weren’t going to contact me again, I did get a response, and they wanted to interview me! I couldn’t believe it. I thought things were finally turning around.

Narrator: Things were not finally turning around.

I didn’t get the job. It was a really tough rejection, because it felt more personal than getting a rejection email from an agent. With agents, most of those rejections are after reading five or ten pages, hardly anything. I could get over those because…well, they didn’t really know me or my writing. But with this, I’d spent a lot of time and effort getting to that point with the tests and the interview, and it felt more like I was being rejected and not my work, if that makes sense. It felt so much more personal, and that was crushing.

Getting over that rejection took more than a month. This year hasn’t been particularly easy – I feel like things have been going downhill since April – so it was just one more thing that firmly cemented 2018 in its place in the pits. One evening when I was crying in the bath, I realized that maybe being at home all the time was the problem. It was giving me the time and space to wallow, encouraging me with its cupboards full of bread and beer. (Yes, I have fully embraced Belgian life.) So I planned a trip for myself, just to get away. I had no real plan other than “not here.”

Weirdly, it worked, but not for the reason I thought it would. I stayed in this really sketchy AirBnB in Vienna, which focused all my energy on “Jeez, am I going to get murdered in my sleep tonight?” instead of “Man I wish I’d gotten that job.” I went to coffee shops and museums, doing anything I could to get out of that AirBnB. And somewhere in there, I found other things to think about. It dulled hat knife and helped me realize that I’d gotten through hundreds of other rejections from jobs and agents and schools, I could get past this too.

I’m still not really over this – I mean, it was basically my dream job, and now that opportunity is gone – but I’ve also been rejected from my dream school, my dream agent, and so many other lesser things along the way. And I’m still here. I'll make it work.

Working Toward a Goal: 100 Rejections in 2018

Common, and good, writing advice often takes the form of setting a goal: a reasonable goal, that is. For example, I could set a goal that I'll get published in 2018, but since I'm currently unagented and still a few drafts away from querying, that goal is not just outlandish, it's also out of my control.

A more reasonable goal would have been: query the book by the end of 2018. That's something that I can manage, something that is within my power, and something that's necessary, because I'll need an agent in order to get traditionally published, which of course is the dream.

This year I'm aiming for a somewhat lofty goal: I'm aiming for 100 rejections. If you want to know the reasoning for that goal, I'd urge you to check out the piece by Kim Liao that, as far as my internet digging can discern, laid out the original goal.

Great, now that you've read her wonderful piece and know the background, I'll explain my process for this goal.

So far, I'm really not doing a great job of meeting it.

We're two full months into 2018, and I've only garnered three rejections! I've had personal essays rejected from Racked, Seventeen.com, and Electric Literature. So, as far as places that are rejecting me, I'm pretty comfortable with these three; they're all outlets where I would love to publish, and a rejection from them merely means that I'm aiming high enough.

It's the number of rejections that bothers me. Three, just three!

It's low because, to be honest, I haven't pitched that many things this year. Oh, in the beginning of January, I had the most lofty of ideas! I was going to go on a submitting rampage, sending out a barrage of poems, essays and queries that would overwhelm the literary world. Sure, most of them would be rejected. But you learn something with every rejection: you learn that maybe this piece isn't ready yet, or that maybe you should have sent it to someone who's more suited for it, or that whoops, that publication is closed to unsolicited pitches!

Each rejection adds to your knowledge of the field of publishing. More importantly, if you submit high quality material and it's rejected because it just doesn't fit, or the publication doesn't quite have the room for it, but the editors still like your work, they'll invite you to pitch again. They know your name by now. They remember you as that writer who does good stuff, yes, and maybe, if the stars all align and smile down upon you, there will come a day when they need to assign a specific piece and they reach out to you.

Honestly, I have a great excuse for having fallen so far behind on my rejection goal this year. I've not been well for much of the year, and that's made it hard to  make progress on my writing. But! I'm re-committing to my goal! To submit, to query, to pitch...to send out a flurry of words and hope for some to land, but to rejoice in the ones that don't because, hey, they're just adding to my goal!

I'm going to check in with y'all monthly, with an update on what I've submitted and how many new rejections I've garnered. Hopefully, my journey will inspire and encourage you to send your words out as well!

Didn't Make it Into Pitch Wars? Here's What To Do Next

The mentor/mentee pairings for this year's Pitch Wars will be announced tomorrow. Through the grapevine, I've heard that over 3000 writers entered this year, competing for between 200-250 slots. Those are tough odds, and it means a whole lot of talented writers with excellent books won't be getting in.

So if you're one of the 2500+ who don't make it into Pitch Wars, what do you do next? Here are some ideas:

1) Take a day or two to resign yourself to the rejection, if you need to. There's nothing wrong with feeling upset about not getting in. Take some time away from Twitter, if it hurts to see everyone celebrating. But don't unfollow mentors and mentees - you can mute them for a while if it's tough to see them pop up on your stream, but they're all good professional connections to keep. And don't forget to congratulate any of your critique partners, Twitter friends, or real-life friends who may have gotten in. You'd want them to do the same for you, right?

2) Once you feel up to it, collect the feedback you may have gotten from the mentors you submitted to. Figure out if/how to incorporate this feedback into your manuscript.

3) If you didn't get any feedback, or you feel you want more, find a few new critique partners. The Pitch Wars Hopefuls Facebook groups are great for this, and you'll be able to find a lot of writers in your shoes on these groups. Exchange first chapters with a few people to see who might be a good fit. Then, exchange manuscripts and get as much feedback as you can.

4) Once you have a good pool of feedback, go through your manuscript with a fine-tooth comb and figure out how to incorporate it. This might mean changing your beginning, changing your ending, adding or deleting characters, changing the plot, etc. Be open to really changing your book, if you feel it will make it better! But remember, you don't HAVE to take all the feedback you're given. If more than one person has the same comment, that's a good indication you need to change that aspect of the book. But it's your book, and you get the final say.

5) After you've got a revised manuscript based on feedback and your own revisions, consider sending it to another one or two beta readers. Make sure the revisions work.

6) Once you can't revise any more, you can start querying agents. Or, you can enter any of the other upcoming contests (Operation Awesome's very own Pass or Pages in September, Pitch Slam in the early fall (http://pitchslamcontest.com/), #pitmad in early September and early December (http://www.brenda-drake.com/pitmad/) and many others).

There are many, many avenues to becoming an agented author. Pitch Wars is a great one, but it's not the only one. You took a huge step just for applying, and whether or not you make it in, you've got a lot of options ahead of you!

One Thing I Want Every Writer to Have in 2017

I get the honor of being the first blogger of 2017. But what do I want to give all the writers reading this blog for the year to come?

I considered encouraging you to be fearless. But I realized that's not what I'm wanting to convey. Unless you're a robot, you're going to have fears--fear of rejection, fear of criticism, fear of never getting published, fear of bad reviews, fear of not finishing that novel, fear of running out of ideas, fear of failure, fear of not being able to accomplish edits or rewrites, fear of what others think. As writers, we have so much to be afraid of.

You are going to be afraid.

Nelson Mandela said, "I learned that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

• You are going to be afraid when you ask for critique of your writing.
• You are going to be afraid the first hundred time you query your manuscript.
• You are going to be afraid of never getting published.
• You are going to be afraid the first time real readers read your book.
• You are going to be afraid no one will buy your book.
• You are going to be afraid of one-star reviews.

And I could list a hundred more things that, as a writer, you are going to fear.

But have courage. Face your fears and never let them rule you. Stand up to them. Take the hits. Fall down and get back up. Fail and try again. Get rejected and keep sending out queries. Get writer's block and keep writing. Get bad reviews and keep moving forward.

Canadian writer, Emma Donaghue wrote, "Fear is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing."

So this is what I want to give you as you go forward into 2017:

Be courageous.

***********

Melinda Marshall Friesen writes speculative fiction for young people and adults from her home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She's the author of Enslavement, Subversion, and  The High-Maintenance Ladies of the Zombie Apocalypse. She works in marketing and acquisitions at Rebelight Publishing Inc.

Rejection Recovery Playlist

I love putting together playlists for projects, but also for inspiration and encouragement. I've shared a few on my personal blog, but I thought it was time I shared some here. This is my Get Back Up playlist for use after rejections, bad reviews, harsh critiques, and anything else you need encouragement for. This is a varied mix of mellow sounds and dance music, including David Bowie, Imagine Dragons, and PSY. There are a couple geeky fanvids in there too (such as Farscape and Doctor Who). I hope you like it!

What are your favorite feel good songs?

Guest Post: On Rejection, by Paul Genesse

Rejection.

How do I deal with my novels when they are rejected by agents and publishers? Overall, not very well. Every rejection takes the wind out of my sails for a while and I have to spend some time recovering to bounce back.

I find nothing redeeming about it, though sometimes I think I may have dodged a bullet when I didn’t sign with a certain agent who offered to represent me and has since left the business. Be careful what you wish for, as what you thought you wanted might turn out to be the worst decision you ever made.

Rejection might actually be the best alternative in most situations, as getting into a relationship with a publisher or agent might be a terrible venture that will only end in even worse misery than you think you’re in now.

I’ve gotten better at dealing with rejection of my novels over the years, but it still hurts a lot and leaves me frustrated.

I remember being crushed in my early years of writing, 2001 to 2006, when my first novel, The Golden Cord kept getting rejected by agents and publishers. It was almost always a form letter. For years all I ever heard was “No.”

Closer to 2006, which was the year I finally sold The Golden Cord to a publisher, Five Star Books, and editor John Helfers, I started getting personal rejections with notes about my novel. They were all very encouraging and some of them actually helped me become a better writer. I was still green, a work in progress, but I was close to that professional level.

I used to save my rejection letters, just to keep track of who and where I’d sent things, but I eventually recycled all of them. I found a couple of them recently, and immediately put them in the recycle bin. They just bum me out and make me feel bad. I need lots of positivity in my life. Now I do save the rejections in my “Agent” folder in my email. I never look at them. I’m glad things have moved to email, as they don’t seem as bad as the paper rejections I used to get in the early 2000’s.

The best rejection I ever received was from an older agent who had been in the business a long time. She took the time to make notes in the first 25 pages of The Golden Cord . She provided a lot of advice and sent me a pamphlet with lots of tips on how to improve writing in general. It had the famous joke I’ve used many times since then:

“There are three rules in writing. But no one knows what they are.”

She gave me very encouraging advice, writing it on the last page of the partial manuscript I sent: “Keep at it.”

Those words meant a lot. I’ve never forgotten them. We’re all a work in progress.

The Golden Cord came out in 2008 and became the bestselling fantasy novel my publisher had ever had and went through six printings. I was feeling great, and then the second book came out, The Dragon Hunters . This happened right during the economic downturn in 2009, and my publisher folded up their fantasy line leaving me orphaned. That was the worst “rejection” I ever had. The publisher wanted to keep me, but one author, even with good sales, could not keep an entire line open. Recovering from that took about two years, and found out that no major publisher will touch an orphaned series. I had to self-publish the third book myself.

During all this time of not knowing what would happen to my series, I kept writing short stories and novellas. I had a lot of success, and have sold 17 shorter works (as of June 2015) but not everything sold.   

A recent rejection I received was entirely my fault. I was invited to submit for a steampunk anthology, but I did not follow the guidelines. I wrote a story (a novelette actually) that was nearly 15,000 words. The word count limit was 7,000. The editor liked the story, though he wanted more steampunk elements in it, which I could have done, but the deciding factor was the length. That one hurt, but it was self-inflicted damage. The story, “The Lightning Men,” will come out someday, but it really needs to be a lot longer, and keeping it at 15K was not an ideal solution. I need to expand it to become a novella, way over 20K someday. I think it needs to be at least 35K to do the huge story justice. It’s a super bad idea to blow the word count like I did, especially when the anthology is going to be printed up and published. Trying to do too much in a short work is a terrible idea. Better to trim it down.

That rejection of my steampunk novella was the first rejection of one of my “short” stories. I’ve had novels rejected many times, but never short stories. I don’t intend to repeat that experience.

I thought recently that I was finally going to sell a novel in a new series I’m writing. Things were looking good, and the publisher was into me, but the editor chosen to work on it said “No.” That sucked. I got my hopes up and shouldn’t have. 

   

The novel I’m shopping now, and that has been getting rejected by agents and publishers over the past three years is, Medusa’s Daughter, a gritty and dark fantasy set in ancient Greece. It’s a love story with a supernatural element, and I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, but I can’t seem to sell it. The process has been very disheartening. The time it takes is also a killer. Waiting for six months to hear back from someone, and then another someone, really adds up.

I see that email in my inbox now and freak out a little. Could this be the one? Could this be the time when an agent says “yes”? Then I read a rejection, often with a few kind words, but in the end, it’s a “No.” Anger. Disappointment. Obligatory binge TV watching and feeling sorry for myself. I snap out of it, and get back to writing, but it’s never easy.

Being resilient and determined are probably the best qualities a writer can have. Oh, and writing well doesn’t hurt either, though it won’t get you through the tough moments.

Learning coping skills to deal with rejection is key. I think the best thing we can do as writers is support each other. Encouragement is priceless. Don’t forget to give your writer friends a kind word when you review their manuscript. Getting rejected by strangers (agents and editors you’ve never met) is hard enough, but getting rejected by your friends is often much worse.

Look for something good about the draft of their novel or story you just read, and let the writer know what they did well. Start with the good stuff, and provide advice that can be acted upon to make the work better. When/if it gets rejected by an agent or editor, be there for your friend and let them vent.

We are all going to have our work rejected, but that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is moving on. No matter how long it takes. 

***********   

Paul Genesse spends endless hours in his basement writing fantasy novels, adding to his list of published short stories available from DAW Books and various other publishers, and editing the demon themed Crimson Pact anthology series. His first novel, The Golden Cord, book one of his Iron Dragon Series became the bestselling fantasy his publisher has ever had. Book two, The Dragon Hunters, and book three, The Secret Empire, all set in the treacherous plateau world of Ae'leron, are out now and available as trade paperbacks and eBooks.

Connections:


Author of The Iron Dragon Series The Golden Cord: Book One The Dragon Hunters: Book Two The Secret Empire: Book Three
A Walk in the Abyss "Of the Earth, of the Sky, of the Sea" in Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters
Editor of: The Crimson Pact Volume 1 The Crimson Pact Volume 2 The Crimson Pact Volume 3 The Crimson Pact Volume 4 The Crimson Pact Volume 5
Author Website: http://www.paulgenesse.com/ Author Blog: http://paulgenesse.blogspot.com/ 
Join me on Facebook Follow me on Twitter @Paul_Genesse

GUEST POST: Learning from Rejection by Holly M. Campbell

About three years ago, I began the submissions process for my novel Foreshadowed. I had a feeling about this one. Sure, I’d had that feeling before, but this time it was real. This time, I was going to get published. It was “the one.”

I used a spreadsheet to keep track of my submissions. If an agent sent a rejection, I would highlight his or her name in red. If an agent requested pages, I would highlight in green. And if I was still waiting for a response, yellow.

Most of the names ended up highlighted in red, but there were a few in green…at least for a little while. Eventually, I had an entire spreadsheet dedicated to my failure.

Except I didn’t fail. Foreshadowed was released by 48fourteen Publishing on December 31st.

Despite all the rejection I faced, it was still “the one.” In fact, as I look back on my personal road to publication, I’ve decided that it wasn’t “the one” despite all the rejection, but because of it. I learned a lot from all those rejection letters. And I’m not just talking about lessons of perseverance and believing in myself. I learned to view rejection letters as invaluable feedback from experts. If an agent said she just “couldn’t connect with the characters,” I believed her…and I tried to fix it. If agents said the pacing was too slow, the novel too long, or the ending too flat, I believed them…and I tried to fix it. And if all I got back was a form letter or no response at all, I asked myself “Why?” and—you guessed it—tried to fix it.

I added layer after layer to each character, trying to flesh them out, trying to make them relatable. I cut scenes, added new ones, and rewrote others. I changed the ending. I rewrote, and rewrote, and rewrote until I finally got the answer I had been waiting for: an offer of publication.

Now, granted, writing is a subjective business. You can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t try.

But if you just keep getting, “Thanks, but no thanks,” over and over again, it may be time to take a hard look at, first, your query letter, and then your novel. Try to see rejection as a tool. Don’t look at it as failure, but as a free critique from a seasoned professional.

Keep writing. Keep rewriting. And eventually you’ll write “the one” too.

She can’t avoid the dark forever…

Hope Murdoch was born dead. She took a breath two minutes later , and now is an almost-normal sixteen-year-old. Normal: a hopeless crush on the boy next door, a negative body image, and a (mis)diagnosis of ADHD. Not-so-normal: an exhausting and distracting ability to read minds. And high school is hard enough without hearing what everyone really thinks of you.

Lance Hampton used to be normal until a car accident killed him and his parents. Paramedics brought him back to a life he doesn’t want: orphaned, uprooted, living with his uncle, and suddenly able to see how people die. At his new school, he tries to keep to himself. Seeing how complete strangers die is torture enough, let alone friends.

At first glance, Hope doesn’t think much of Lance (though a lot of the other girls do). He looks like the typical bad boy. No thank-you … but then she meets his eyes and everything goes dark. 

She hears labored breathing. Rapid footsteps. And then a thud as someone falls to the ground. 

Inside Lance’s head, Hope just witnessed a vision of murder … her own.

Together Hope and Lance try to catch a killer before he’s red-handed. A killer who could be anywhere. Anyone. Sure Hope can read minds and Lance can see death, but they still can’t see in the dark.

Foreshadowed can be purchased here:

Amazon (print & eBook): http://goo.gl/9dW6ok

B&N (print & ebook): http://goo.gl/PbX4ib

Kobo: http://goo.gl/lEQCFU

iTunes/iBooks: http://goo.gl/MVo7RC

48fourteen (print & ebook): http://goo.gl/Ta5fNy

----------------------

Holly M. Campbell started writing stories at an early age. In junior high, she completed her first“novel” and enjoyed sharing it with friends and family.

She earned a Bachelor’s degree in English, with an emphasis in Creative Writing, and a Minor in Modern Dance from Brigham Young University-Idaho. As a member of Contemporary Dance Theatre, she performed and toured with the school’s Dance Alliance. She graduated in 2006.

In 2007, Holly met her husband-to-be, but didn’t pay much attention to him until he asked her to help him teach swing dancing at their church. After he flipped her around and hoisted her above his head with relative ease, she fell (not literally) head-over-heels. They married a few months later.

Holly lives in Washington State with her husband and two daughters. She blogs at http://hollymcampbell.com.

A love letter to disappointments

One of these days, just for scientific purposes, I suggest you sit down and tally up some of those bumps in the road you've hit.

Not if it's just going to depress you, of course. But if you're having one of those days when you've seen a book deal perilously close to yours, or you see a former querying trench buddy in the bookstore, or you're staring at your perpetually empty inbox, hitting refresh every five seconds and thinking Please, just this once, let it be easy, this might be useful to you.

It might surprise you a little bit how many of those moments you'll find once you get going. Once you catalog all the crushing close-calls, the maybe-but-not-quites, and the sure things that you still can't believe didn't work out, you'll find other things. Smaller things. Form rejections that hit you at just the wrong moment. A promising start that fizzled out. All those little work-life balance misfires that made you think maybe you couldn't do this after all.

If you're feeling particularly tough, you can put yourself back there. Think about how you reacted in that moment: whether you sobbed into your pillow, dived for the takeout menus, laughed bitterly with your friends over drinks, or just sat in front of your computer and quietly scrubbed that particular happy ending from your mind.

But the most important thing to remember isn't that those moments didn't work out. It's that you kept going, even if you had to dig in with both hands. That passion, ambition, and drive is something that deserves to be recognized. The fire that's gotten me this far isn't always a pleasant thing to live with, but I'm a little in awe of it nonetheless.

There's a bit of a trap inherent in this exercise, though. It's tempting to think that, after all that hard work, the easy part has to be right around the corner. Even though logically we know there's no such thing as a guarantee in this business, we're writers. We love a good narrative.

But the point, at least for me, is to remind myself that if I didn't give up during any of that, I'm certainly not going to give up now. It might not be all the reassurance I was looking for. But it's a pretty powerful feeling all the same.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and happy writing!

Reasons for Rejection: Unlikable Main Character

When I say unlikable main character, I'm not talking about an anti-hero. I can always get behind an Elphaba going bad or an Ebeneezer Scrooge going good. I'm actually quite fond of an anti hero. But in their case, I know I'm supposed to have doubts about their morality. Since the book is trying to make them a little unlikable, I can role with it.

A character becomes unlikable when we're SUPPOSED to like them, and then we don't. When we are TOLD something about a character but not SHOWN, that character might start to annoy us. If you tell me that your character is 'really a good person' but all I see them doing for the first pages is being nasty, that turns me against them. And when I turn against the main character, its all over for the pages. Because how can I stay with this person for 50,000+ words if I hate them?

I think one of the best examples for me is of Tris from Divergent. I know a lot of people like this book, which is great. I'm glad you'll get a joy out of it that I never will. The problem with the test at the beginning is that we are told that Tris, in addition to being brave, is divergent for selflessness and intelligence. The book does not put its money where its mouth is because she is only selfless and smart when the plot calls for it and other times becomes borderline sociopathic and stupid. I also disliked the character because the books always wanted me to side with her and I often found myself going against her. Obviously a lot of people like Tris because they didn't see this contradiction so they were perfectly fine with liking her.

There's a simple solution to this: show don't tell. Show who your character is. That way there is no question of whether or not I'm supposed to like them. It will make for a smoother journey through your pages and, perhaps, even an exciting one.

But like with Tris, everyone reacts to characters differently. Though I dislike her, a lot of people love her. In the same way, your character may hit home with an agent but fall flat with another. That's the old subjectivity coming into play. You can't make a MC who appeals to everyone. But you can 'show' and not 'tell', to make it a little easier.

Reasons for Rejection: Stereotypes

One of the quickest ways for a submission to earn a rejection (from me at least) is stereotypes in the first pages. And not just of people either. Stereotypical situations, settings and plots can turn me off as well. This should come as no surprise and yet it can be very difficult for writers not to rely on stereotypes.

You have to establish a lot in your opening pages. Characters, setting, relationships, the inciting incident and, if you're writing fantasy, another world. So, sometimes, it feels necessary to take short cuts. You need people to feel sympathy for your outcast character? Boom! Stereotypical bullies donning football or cheerleader uniforms. You need your character to look like they have a life and friends outside of the plot? Boom! Stereotypical funny, out-there, but supportive best friend who is mostly there to be your character's best friend.

I think its hard not to fall into stereotypes like these, especially in YA. Parents that don't understand, bullies, cool best friends. These are tropes that have been done to death. So if I start reading a scene the features one or more of these, the story starts to feel tired. I feel like I've read it before. And you don't ever want an agent to feel like they've read your work a million times before.

There are a lot of ways to solve this problem. You can spend a lot of time developing your side characters. You can pull the reader through with a gripping voice. You can try starting your story in a different place to see if it cuts out the stereotypes. Experiment and you'll find a way.

Unique openings are difficult but they can start with unique, fully developed characters that don't take shortcuts and draw in your reader from page one.

Reasons for Rejection: "As you know, Bob" Dialogue

Happy Sunday everyone! And welcome to my first official non-intro post on Operation Awesome!

As mentioned in my introduction post two weeks ago, I am an intern at a literary agency and one of my responsibilities involves reading the slush pile. The agency asks for a query, synopsis and the first fifty pages with submissions, but usually, I can tell if something is for me in the first ten pages.

Within the first ten pages, I either fall in love with the voice or I don't. There a lot of different things that make me fall and love and a lot of things that make me reject but today we are going to talk about a reason for rejection I call "As you know, Bob" dialogue.

This is a way of exposition dumping that seems clever because it is done through dialogue but comes off sounding very unnatural because... well... the characters have no reason to bring it up. Consider this scene.

"I can't wait to visit the rain forest this summer." Bob said.

"Are you sure? As you know, Bob, your parents were killed by a vicious tiger in the rain forest leaving you an orphan when you were very young." John replied.

This is a slightly exaggerated example, but the issue should be obvious. John is telling Bob something he already knows. Why bring it up? Its not as if Bob spontaneously forgot this life scarring trauma. This dialogue is here solely for the benefit of the reader and it comes off as awkward.

Exposition is hard. We have to find lots of clever ways to hide it. Sometimes we stick it dialogue but if not executed right, it will stand out like a sore thumb and the agent will be quick to throw the pages in the rejection pile, as natural dialogue is one of the most important elements of any novel. So what's a simple way to fix 'As you know, Bob' dialogue?

Simple: Put someone in the conversation who DOESN'T know.

JK Rowling is a genius in many ways but the best thing she ever did for the Harry Potter books was to make the main character Harry Potter, a boy who knows nothing about the wizarding world. He has to learn as he goes along, just as the audience does. In this way, Harry is an effective narrator. If he was a wizard like Ron it would be much harder to explain the world to the audience without some exposition riddled dialogue.

Exposition in dialogue is fine. But make sure that it makes sense. Put a confused outsider in the mix and you are on your way to a much more natural conversation. And that's another reason for rejection you can cross off your list!

Staying Positive in a Negative World

Not a day goes by that I don't see an agent post something on Twitter about getting a nasty response to a rejection. Or an author bashing other authors over writing craft, word choices etc. It's disappointing, but I know it's the reality of life. People don't take rejection well. And don't vent their frustrations in perhaps the most appropriate ways.

From day one, I've decided that I'm not going to head down that negative path. When I put something out on social media, I want it to be positive, uplifting, and hopefully encouraging. It's too easy now a days to jump on the bashing bandwagon. Rip an author for killing a beloved character, or get angry at an agent for sending a form rejection on a full request. When I see people doing this I wonder, what are you getting out of that? Yes, you're venting a frustration, but is it furthering your career? It may feel good at the time, but are you going to look back at your feed and regret it? For most people, I'd say yes.




See here's the thing, this business is all about rejection. It first happens when you share your work with a CP who may not warm to your writing style. Then it will come when you query and you get rejection after rejection. If you're lucky enough to connect with an agent, it may appear during the submission process. And in turn from an editor who dislikes one of your favorite scenes. And just when you're at the golden point of publication, you may get negative reviews from readers.




Negativity is a part of  life, I get that. But how we choose to address that painful rejection of our work is totally in our hands. When I get a "no" from an agent, I turn the frustration into a driving energy to push my work harder. Make my craft better. When a CP rips into my manuscript, I step back from it and remind myself that they're not tearing me down as a person, rather challenging me to become a better wordsmith. 




The choice is in your hands on how you want to be portrayed in this business. You can decide to be that person who always shouts ugly things from the rooftops when they get a negative review or an agent turns them away. But, I have to ask, "Where is that going to get you? Who's going to want to work with you? Is that response going to get you published?" Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. But it will earn you a reputation that's for sure.




For me, I don't see the point in it. Put good out in the world and will come back. Now, let me clear: I'm not a total Pollyanna. I get pissed when I think my manuscript is there, and I don't get requests. Believe me, I can curse, and shout, and throw things with the best of them. But, I choose to do that in private. I've heard too many times how small the publishing world is, and I believe it.




So as a writer, I want to know how you handle your frustrations? Do you think it's okay to vent on social media when you have a valid complaint? Do you have good ways to deal with a rejection? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

Permission to Unplug

Let me start with something you all already know: publishing is hard.

This isn't going to be one of Those Posts, though! If you're following us here, chances are you've experienced how hard it is already, and you've kept going. You've committed to keeping up on publishing Twitter and blogs, and you might even have a Publishers Marketplace subscription. You're learning about the business you're trying to break into, and that's awesome.

But even though social media makes it possible for us to maintain this amazing community, it means we have endless opportunities to compare ourselves to one another. Even though things happen at different speeds for different people, it's easy to look at one of your friends and wonder if you're ever going to make it to where they are. You can look at how long it took them to get their agent, or sell their first (or second or seventh) book, or sell hundreds of copies of their self-pubbed book - and then start to feel discouraged about your own process.

If you feel like that sometimes, that is totally okay. No one is a tireless optimism machine 100% of the time, and it doesn't mean you're not happy for your friends. I struggled with this a lot during some of the rougher periods when I was querying, where some days I felt like I'd cry if I typed 'Congratulations' one more time. And it's no coincidence that, at that point, I also felt like I had to stay plugged into the publishing world 24/7, so I could feel like I was doing something.

So let me just state, for the record, that when you start feeling like this, it's okay to give yourself permission to unplug. It's more than okay, it's necessary. I can be a better writer when I can focus on my story instead of the new genre craze, and I can be a better friend to my fellow writers if I don't bring my own baggage into their good news party.

The literary landscape is frantic and quickly changing, and I know I wouldn't have it any other way - but a little quiet and distance is good for the soul. So next time you feel overwhelmed, remember that you don't have to force yourself. Take a step away for a little while. We'll be here when you get back.

Giving Up

The other day I had a writing setback. Not a huge one, but the timing of it made me add up all my rejections for the past few years, and... well, it was a big number.

Amid them, I've had a handful of acceptances, but so far, it's all come to ... well, nothing.

One thought brought me comfort: the thought of giving up.

I could just give up! I didn't have to do this any longer. I didn't have to work toward publishing my fiction. I didn't even have to write fiction.

Give up.

It was possible. I could stop for a little while, or forever.

I could give up.

Why was the comforting? Because it's a choice. As long as I can give up, I am free. The corollary is that as long as I pursue this path, it means that I am choosing it.

So I'm choosing it for now.

Here's a little theme song for those of us who need the option to quit so that we keep going. There's no glory in compulsion -- I choose this of my own free will.

Rejection Feedback

A few friends and I are in the middle of revisions (who isn't!), but in discussing our revision strategy, I've realized how much our views on rejection feedback has changed. We've gotten feedback in agent and editor rejections, but we are not jumping to implement it. This is quite a change from my previous views. My reaction to rejection feedback has actually gone through five different stages.


Stage One - Agonizing over rejection feedback without realizing it's a form

When I got my first few rejections, I parsed every word and I thought they revealed the truth about my manuscript. I tore my hair out because Agent A was intrigued by my premise, but not drawn into the opening chapters as much a she hoped. Agent B thought I had much to be proud of, but couldn't connect with the main narrative.

Argh!. I could make it to the next step if only I revise my opening chapters somehow, or make my main character more relatable.

Then I learned those were forms. The "feedback," positive and negative, meant nothing but no.

Stage Two - Wishing for feedback with rejection

Once I realized that general comments were forms, and I agonized because I WANTED feedback. If only the agents would tell me what was wrong, I could fix it. Why won't they tell me what is wrong? Don't I even deserve a REASON?

Stage Three - Revising to every comment

Finally! My rejections came with feedback. After every rejection, I would revise. But then the next revision had DIFFERENT feedback. How could I know what to do if everyone told me something different?

Stage Four - Wishing I didn't get feedback with rejection

And then I'd get a particularly stinging comment. Maybe it hit on a nagging problem I always suspected but didn't want to face, or is was way too blunt about something I never considered. Feedback like that got me thinking the opposite of Stage Two. Must rejections include feedback? Why isn't a simple no enough without sticking the knife in too?

Stage Five  - Just another opinion, and I appreciate all opinions.

This is where I am now. When I get feedback on a rejection, I'm grateful. I appreciate the thought and time that went into reading and commenting, and I consider the comments carefully.

That doesn't mean I revise based on them. The agent or editor did not want my work. The comment is not the real reason why -- they just didn't love it, or just didn't think they could sell it. Feedback is just extra, a little parting gift in an attempt to be helpful. Unless they say they'd like to see the manuscript again if I revise according to the comment, it's useless revising to please them. The horse has already left  the barn. I won't get another chance with that editor for this book.

So when I consider the comments carefully, I find that sometimes the reasons given by several editors contradict each other Sometimes it's clear that the book is not for them and no amount of revision is going to change that. I file those comments away.

But sometimes they are right. Some problems are fixable. But the final decision to revise or not comes from my own judgment. I'm looking for an editor who loves my work, and whatever makes that more likely is a good thing. I can't always see my own work clearly so I appreciate wise guidance wherever I get it, even if it has a big old NO attached in capital letters.

How do you use rejection feedback? Have your views on rejections changed and how?

And be sure to come back tomorrow for some big news and a contest from Operation Awesome!