Today, as I pound out some more pages for “The Crow and the Kinnebeck,”* I just want to throw out a blog entry chock full of agent and author advice.
For example:
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Nathan Bransford makes it simple: the format of your query letter should be boring and straightforward, and the description of your work is the part you need to “sweat.” (By the way, I stole copied borrowed the blog title emphasis style from Nathan.)
He also links to two other very good recent blogs on query letters. Holly Root at the Waxman Agency also emphasizes the importance of good writing over all else, while Michael at Dystel & Goderich downplays the formatting details while playing up the importance of reflecting your work in the query.
For my own part, I was never too obsessed with formatting issues like font or paragraph style. Considering that I work as an editor in an organization with very strict formatting standards, and regularly kick writers in the face for daring to give me something in Courier New rather than Arial, I can’t decide whether it’s ironic that I’m more relaxed about format than the typical writer (as described by agents) or it’s expected that familiarity with ferocious format issues makes me less skittish in their presence.
But, I have to confess that I aaggoonniizzeed over how to accurately and adequately describe The Ligan of the Disomus in my queries. Asking for suggestions from the handful of first-readers didn’t help much (thanks, tho, guys!) and neither did digging through photocopies of the original short story version that had been marked up by workshop partners. “Melville + film noir + X-Files” was the best I got from them, and that just makes you think of an alien sea beast being hunted by Sam Spade.
Actually, come to think of it … symbolically that’s not as far off the mark as I, in my moment of self-deprecatory sarcasm, would have liked it to be.* It’s … an unusual book.
Given the advice from Nathan, Holly, and Michael, I’m glad that the description is the part of the query I decided to obsess over, even if I’m still apprehensive about how well I captured the story and setting.
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*Confession: the train of thought presented here in regard to the workshop’s description of Ligan actually happened months ago, at the beginning of the query process. Like a good writer, after rolling my eyes at myself, I tucked it away for later.
Today, both Nathan Bransford and Ask Daphne address the perennial query letter dilemma: to invoke the master/bestseller comparison or no?
Daphne points out that this “kind of shorthand” is how a lot of agents pitch books to editors … but you run the risk of alienating an agent who despises the author whose work you compare yours to.
Nathan, on the other hand, advises the querying author to seek the middle ground between trying to coat-tail on a bestseller and comparing your book to something so obscure that you might stump the agent.
Both are good blog posts, from people who know. Check ’em out.
How’s this for some publishing juxtaposition?
On Friday, Washington Post‘s sextegenarian, Pulitzer Prize-winning “Style” editor Henry Allen tackled a writer and started punching him in the face after the guy tried to deflate a conflict over a story by suggesting Allen “not be such a c—sucker.” Can’t imagine why that didn’t work.
But if pressroom combat isn’t your thing, perhaps you should relax by reserving a room at New York City’s Library Hotel, where each floor has six book-stuffed rooms organized according to the Dewey Decimal System.
If they give you a choice between room 800.001 and room 1100.005 for your romantic get-away, definitely pick the former.
David Mehegan spans the centuries at the Boston Globe with a great piece on the genesis of books in Christian codices, the prophesied end of books in electronic Kindle-kin, and the psychological relationship between booklessness and physical nudity.
(Given an either/or choice, take my clothes and leave me the books.)
Ok, so maybe “wrath” is a strong word to describe JK Evanczuk’s five-point refutation of Roth’s assertion that the novel would end up a cult item within a quarter century, but I was glad to see someone take on the positive arguments in favor of novel survival. (I satisfied myself with picking apart Roth’s logic.)
Thanks to Dystel & Goderich Literary Management for pointing me to Evanczuk’s blog.
I realize this is not going to be a popular sentiment on the eve of National Novel Writing Month, but I find the entire enterprise misguided and detrimental to both the art and business of fiction writing.
Having just dumped an impromptu mess into Nathan Bransford’s first paragraph contest, I was a bit humbled and very impressed to see this fantastic introduction by Mandy Morgan on her livejournal site. Her insertion of a mysterious phenomenon into an otherwise familiar setting is quite well-done.