A Wealth of Words
This is a long one, so you may want to wait until you are comfortably curled up with a cup of tea in one hand and your own version of a Willie Ford wrapped around you.
This weekend I had the opportunity to attend Killer Nashville, a mystery writer’s conference in my own backyard.
On Sunday afternoon I was scheduled to pitch to an editor of a publishing house. I had hemmed and hawed about this because my book is still not ready, and I just didn’t feel prepared. But after some gentle prodding by several people at the conference to get it over with for the experience of it, I decided to go for it. I had actually wanted to pitch to the agent that was there but drew the editor instead. That was not great because I already knew their house did not publish the kind of mystery I write (which I have always referred to as a “cozy,” but was informed it is now called a “traditional mystery”).
The problem, however, was that I had submitted the opening of my book to be critiqued at one session by authors Kris and Kelly, sisters who write under the P.J. Parrish pen name (who are New York Times best-selling authors). The end of this session coincided with my pitch time with the editor. So literally right before they got to my submission I had to leave. It was a very frustrating moment.
After the pitch, which was nerve-wracking but pretty much turned out as I expected, I went in search of Kris and Kelly, who happened to be sitting at a table in the lobby. They were very kind and one of them (and I couldn’t tell you which one), sat there and went over my opening with me and spent a considerable amount of time talking about the structure of my book and giving me some extremely valuable advice. She liked my opening, so that was a nice boost. That little talk alone was worth the $114 I paid to attend the conference.
They also did a session about showing vs. telling, which as a writer you know you aren’t supposed to do, but it creeps in anyway. Their talk was full of great examples – both right and wrong.
The guest of honor was Michael Connelly, whose book, Echo Park, happens to be on every bookshelf I see. I enjoyed his talk about the writing life and what happened before things really started taking off. It was also interesting to hear about mistakes he felt he has made, such as when he once wrote 300 pages in the wrong direction with a book he wrote before realizing he had to turn it around. It gave me hope.
And if you are still reading this far and ever hope to submit a manuscript some day, here is a list I compiled from a fabulous session with literary agent Donna Bagdasarian, editor Maryglenn McCombs, and author and reviewer Hallie Ephron. Although this was primarily a mystery writer’s conference, a lot of this information is helpful across genres.
Top Reasons Your Manuscript Will Be Rejected:
1. Profligate use of adverbs.
2. Not knowing grammar, syntax, context, style, etc. Just because you can read doesn’t mean you know how to write.
3. Not following the guidelines given by the editors/agents on their websites regarding submissions.
4. Predictability in the story is death.
5. Bad dialogue.
6. Overpopulation of characters – too many for the reader to keep track of.
7. Too many subplots.
8. The plot does not have a backbone.
9. Don’t know who the story belongs to – this character? Or is it that character? (Most often happens with multiple points of view.)
10. The protagonist does not affect the ending.
11. Lack of touch with reality in publishing. (Specifically they said, “Please don’t say this will be good for Oprah or you know it will be a bestseller.”)
12. Too many killers – not everyone is capable of murder. Make it credible.
13. Supplanting quality for gimmicks. Ex. Second-person novels, yuck factor…
14. Sex/violence scenes that are lurid and gratuitous.
15. A point of view that is out of control. Stay with your characters’ point of view until the scene ends – don’t switch and don’t make your character know or see things that he or she couldn’t possibly know.
16. Inconsistent tense.
17. A zig-zag timeline that makes no sense. Handling flashbacks is tricky.
18. Purple prose – excessive author voice full of tons of adjectives. Metaphor upon metaphor where it no longer sounds like the character is talking – the author breaks the third wall.
19. Too much back story upfront. Weave it in deftly.
They did note that for every point on the list you could find a book in the store that breaks that rule, but for a first time author trying to get noticed you aren’t the exception to the rule. Yet.
This weekend I had the opportunity to attend Killer Nashville, a mystery writer’s conference in my own backyard.
On Sunday afternoon I was scheduled to pitch to an editor of a publishing house. I had hemmed and hawed about this because my book is still not ready, and I just didn’t feel prepared. But after some gentle prodding by several people at the conference to get it over with for the experience of it, I decided to go for it. I had actually wanted to pitch to the agent that was there but drew the editor instead. That was not great because I already knew their house did not publish the kind of mystery I write (which I have always referred to as a “cozy,” but was informed it is now called a “traditional mystery”).
The problem, however, was that I had submitted the opening of my book to be critiqued at one session by authors Kris and Kelly, sisters who write under the P.J. Parrish pen name (who are New York Times best-selling authors). The end of this session coincided with my pitch time with the editor. So literally right before they got to my submission I had to leave. It was a very frustrating moment.
After the pitch, which was nerve-wracking but pretty much turned out as I expected, I went in search of Kris and Kelly, who happened to be sitting at a table in the lobby. They were very kind and one of them (and I couldn’t tell you which one), sat there and went over my opening with me and spent a considerable amount of time talking about the structure of my book and giving me some extremely valuable advice. She liked my opening, so that was a nice boost. That little talk alone was worth the $114 I paid to attend the conference.
They also did a session about showing vs. telling, which as a writer you know you aren’t supposed to do, but it creeps in anyway. Their talk was full of great examples – both right and wrong.
The guest of honor was Michael Connelly, whose book, Echo Park, happens to be on every bookshelf I see. I enjoyed his talk about the writing life and what happened before things really started taking off. It was also interesting to hear about mistakes he felt he has made, such as when he once wrote 300 pages in the wrong direction with a book he wrote before realizing he had to turn it around. It gave me hope.
And if you are still reading this far and ever hope to submit a manuscript some day, here is a list I compiled from a fabulous session with literary agent Donna Bagdasarian, editor Maryglenn McCombs, and author and reviewer Hallie Ephron. Although this was primarily a mystery writer’s conference, a lot of this information is helpful across genres.
Top Reasons Your Manuscript Will Be Rejected:
1. Profligate use of adverbs.
2. Not knowing grammar, syntax, context, style, etc. Just because you can read doesn’t mean you know how to write.
3. Not following the guidelines given by the editors/agents on their websites regarding submissions.
4. Predictability in the story is death.
5. Bad dialogue.
6. Overpopulation of characters – too many for the reader to keep track of.
7. Too many subplots.
8. The plot does not have a backbone.
9. Don’t know who the story belongs to – this character? Or is it that character? (Most often happens with multiple points of view.)
10. The protagonist does not affect the ending.
11. Lack of touch with reality in publishing. (Specifically they said, “Please don’t say this will be good for Oprah or you know it will be a bestseller.”)
12. Too many killers – not everyone is capable of murder. Make it credible.
13. Supplanting quality for gimmicks. Ex. Second-person novels, yuck factor…
14. Sex/violence scenes that are lurid and gratuitous.
15. A point of view that is out of control. Stay with your characters’ point of view until the scene ends – don’t switch and don’t make your character know or see things that he or she couldn’t possibly know.
16. Inconsistent tense.
17. A zig-zag timeline that makes no sense. Handling flashbacks is tricky.
18. Purple prose – excessive author voice full of tons of adjectives. Metaphor upon metaphor where it no longer sounds like the character is talking – the author breaks the third wall.
19. Too much back story upfront. Weave it in deftly.
They did note that for every point on the list you could find a book in the store that breaks that rule, but for a first time author trying to get noticed you aren’t the exception to the rule. Yet.
posted by Lisa | 7:06 AM
5 Comments:
How fascinating Lisa!! So did I miss what the editor said though??
Jules - the editor said it was an interesting premise, my pitch was fine, but they aren't accepting my type of genre. She was very nice and willing to answer all my questions and did encourage me to submit a synopsis because you never know when they will start to publish my kind of book.
A lot of these are what made me not enjoy reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. The premise is interesting: political intrigue and espionage in the time of Isaac Newton.
There were way too many subplots, far too many characters (it had to include family trees of European royalty), and a little bit of a zig-zag timeline. It started with the main character (well, the main character for 2/3 of the book) at the end of his life, and jumped back and forth for a while, then stayed in the past and never got back to the original timeline.
I slogged through Quicksilver but I decided not to read the next two books in the trilogy.
What a great experience; it sounds like you learned a lot and we so appreciate you sharing it with us.
Rule #1 pretty much shot down my hopes of publication, though. I am deeply, passionately, incessantly devoted to the adverb!
By the way, thanks for featuring Willy Ford--he loves seeing his picture anywhere, the vain thing!
Brad: Stepehenson can be discursive difficult to read at first, but in the end, I've always found him worth the effort.
Lisa: the list contains some excellent advice, especially the part about breaking the rules. OTOH, sometimes the "breakout" novel is one that breaks the rules.
Except the one about adverbs, Katrina :-). Lord knows, it's possible to be deeply, passionately, incessantly devoted to something that's bad for you.
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