Reasons for Requesting: Setting

As mentioned the last time I posted, I went to Alaska this summer on a cruise with my family. It was truly a beautiful, breathtaking landscape. The kind that gets you inspired to write epic fantasy with huge, sweeping landscapes. Mostly because it almost doesn't seem real. Below are some pictures from the trip, including some sleepy sea lions :)

The weather was amazing to match the scenery. A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. So it can be hard to make an image come to life with only a few paragraphs.

One of the great powers of writers is to make places that exist only in words come to life in the readers mind. Its a hard task and definitely one I struggle most with as a writer. Dialogue flows easily. Plot and characters? One of my strong suits. But imagery of any kind, particularly setting? I struggle big time with that.

So when a see a writer who can nail that setting? GIMME! The setting is as much a character as anyone else in your story. It should be a fully integrated element of the story. A most recent example I've come across of pitch perfect setting is  The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Spain is a huge part of the story and this book makes me want to visit.

In the end, that's really what your setting should do. Make us want to BE there. Make us want to hop onto the nearest train to Spain, Italy, Alaska or any number of fantastical locations. There are a lot of important elements that go into fleshing out a world, but setting is one of the most important.

Helpful tip for setting if you're bad at it like I am: Practice with describing places. It doesn't matter if its your local coffee shop or the glaciers of Alaska. Practice setting the scene to help it become more natural. And use all five senses when you do. Practice makes perfect right? And it might just land you an agent!

Reasons for Requesting: Queries

Let's go with another positive post today and talk about reasons why I request from the slush pile: the query letter itself.

Queries are really hard. Any writer who has ever been in the trenches knows this. Exactly how do you bottle up your wonderful story into just a 200-300 word summary? It takes a lot of practice to finally learn how. But I can tell you that all the practice is worth it.

I find a lot of the queries I read aren't very good. They're either too long or too confusing. They focus more on the author's life story than the actual book or they focus too much on the little details of the story rather than boiling it down to what's really important. But I never pass judgement just on a query. I'll always look at the pages no matter what the query says.

So then you might say, 'why does it matter? Can't I just let my awesome writing shine through?'

Well, having a query that makes your concept shine does something important. It makes me want to like your story. If I read a query that pops, it gets me excited. It makes me want to read the pages and I will over look a few flaws in the first pages for a good concept. Because, gosh darn it, I want this to be good. Now you need to have the writing to match it, but it helps to get me enthusiastic.

If a query is dull or confusing, I'm more likely to search for reasons to reject. Because I'm not excited, I'm looking for an excuse to stop reading. Flaws become more visible. Even worse, if your query is snarky or arrogant in tone, you might make me REALLY want to stop reading.

This isn't a constant rule. I have read first pages attached to lack luster queries that really grabbed my attention. But those are the exception and they only do so because they pop from page one. But usually, really good writers have the dedication to write stellar queries. (I have never requested more pages after a snarky query letter though. Humor is good. Snark and arrogance--NOPE!)

Make your query count. Because the query can affect an agents outlook on your story from the beginning. Its probably best to make that outlook positive rather than negative.

Reason for Requesting: Voice

My past two posts have been about reasons for rejection. But today, lets take a more positive approach and look at something else. Reasons why I request submissions, because I request a fair amount. I'd say that, on average, I request about 1/4 submissions I read. What makes that one submission stand out from the other three? What grabs hold of me and keeps me wanting more?

There are a lot of factors of course, but the number one reason is: Strong voice.

This is a hard answer to hear, I find. Mostly because 'voice' is so gosh darn hard to define. Every writer has a different voice and every character as well. Its hard to get voice just right. Try too hard and it sounds manufactured and contrived. Don't try hard enough and your pages will read as dull.

I define voice as this: when everything just reads 'right'. That's it. Voice is that magic element that helps all the others, including character, plot and setting, click into place. Its the super glue of writing. And yet its the hardest thing, in my opinion, to learn how to perfect.

So how do you improve your voice? In two steps:

1. Read books that you think have 'a good voice'. What do they do right? Why is the voice memorable? Is it because of the sense of humor? Is it the visceral imagery? What about the first page of your favorite novel sucks you in. Try to figure out what 'strong voice' means to you and that will help you to find your own writer's voice.

2. Practice. There's no better way to improve your writer's voice than practice, practice, practice. Write a few short stories and see what they have in common. What are some tropes that you like to use? What stuff sounds natural and what doesn't? Keep on writing until you hit your sweet spot.

These tips aren't exactly the end-all-be-all key to a good voice. But that's because no one else can find your writer's voice for you. Its something you have to find yourself. But once you hit it, trust me, the requests will start pouring in.

Owning My Insanity

They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same action expecting different results...or something along those lines.

It got me thinking. Are we, my dear writers, insane? Sending out query after query, revising over and over, plowing on despite the rejections and accidental deletions and manuscript fails and revision dead ends....

Or are we just persistent? Driven? Determined? Plain ol' stubborn? :D

I'm inclined to think it's a mixture of all of the above. I think it takes a certain amount of insanity to put yourself through the wringer that is the publishing industry. But at the same time, that wringer weeds out those who have a true passion for what they are doing from those who might have been trying out a passing fancy.

Because, let's face it, unless you absolutely love what you are doing, this game can really get to you.

The thought of revising, and editing, and rewriting, and querying both chills and excites me. It's daunting, to say the least. A seemingly never ending cycle of emails and snail mails and requests and rejections and critiques and bleeding manuscripts and hair-pulling-out sessions and late night IMs to ever-patient writer pals. Incredible highs followed by crushing lows....we seem to be our own special type of adrenaline junky.

Do I go jumping off cliffs?

Heck no!! I send a query letter, baby!!

Do I race a car around a track at 200 miles an hour?

No way! I go through my manuscript one more time and send that puppy off to the agent that I just know is impatiently waiting by their inbox.

I HIT SEND!!! WOOOOOO!!! What a rush!

Did I curl up in the fetal position and cry uncontrollably when that tree fell on my car a few years ago?

Pshaw! I save that sort of devastation for REAL tragedies...like when that agent who LOVED my manuscript decides they just don't love it as much as they should. Or when my perfectly polished and ready for the shelves manuscript comes back from a CP so shredded I can hardly recognize it

(just kidding....or am I?) ;-D

So, are we insane? Maybe. But you know what I love about writers? At least the ones I know, the ones who are so determined to make it they stick to their guns no matter what delightful particles of nastiness may be poised to smack them in the face -

They own their insanity.

They embrace, rejoice in it, and with a smile on their face and a song in their heart they put yet one more query letter in the mail, knowing that THIS time, the answer will be different. Despite the rejections that are literally wallpapering their office, they KNOW that eventually, someone is going to say yes. Despite the millions of times they know they are going to have to edit and re-edit their manuscripts, they keep opening those files and starting over from the beginning....just one more time.....again.


They are my heroes :D

And if that's insanity, well count me in. Sounds like a grand plan to me :)

How about you? Are you a proud, card-carrying member of the Insanity Club?