Six more Steps Along the Road to Finding an Agent

1: Go over the OryCon critiques and rewrite the first three chapters of The Remaking of Molly Adair and Molly Adair, Beware.

Ron Root, a writer friend, gave me a valuable piece of advice about rewriting the first chapter of The Remaking. We were sitting in a bar at OryCon and I was whining to him about how I was having trouble figuring out how to fix the damn thing. “The reason the chapter is weak is because Tracy’s character is flat and no one understands who he’s supposed to be,” Ron said. “I’d go back and do an in-depth character profile on him before I even thought about rewriting.”

So I got out the trusty Character Template he’d sent me and filled it in for Tracy Bliss. It covers everything from physical description, to mannerisms, to fears, to desires, to religious philosophy, to strengths and weaknesses. By the time I was done, I knew just what I needed to change in the first chapter. Thanks, Ron.

I’m still working on the Molly Adair, Beware rewrite.

The ubiquitous “They” always say to start with a scene that will hook the reader, so I started with Molly waking up in the middle of the night to find that her best friend had been killed with Flick, her magic sword. I thought it was a smashing way to begin a novel.

M.K. Hobson, one of the pros who critiqued the manuscript, disagreed. She said, “I think you’re trying to do too much all at once—you’re trying to jumpstart the action (with Shandra’s death), introduce a mystery, and work all the background in at the same time. Unfortunately, all of these are conflicting with each other. Every moment Molly spends thinking about her past, I (as the reader) am wondering “why isn’t she thinking more about her poor dead friend?” But even if she DID spend all her time in this first scene thinking about her dead friend, I (as the reader) would be thinking, “who is this Molly character and why should I care about her dead friend?” See the problem here?” And “the technique (of starting in mid action) doesn’t quite work (here) because you start with her in a panic, and then she mostly sits around and thinks about stuff and then goes back to sleep. If you’re going to start in the middle of action, then the reader expects more action to follow that. You’ve got the reader all pumped up for action and then there isn’t any.”

The rewrite is coming along nicely. It’s easier to slip in back story and I can do a better job of character development when I begin a month earlier, on Molly’s first day of school.

2: Send the rewrite of the first chapter of The Remaking to my editor, Jessica Morrell.

Jessica replied: “I like a lot about this rewrite, but I think you should reconsider the use of shit, Jesus, and Christ in her dialogue/inner thoughts. Some publishers, like Scholastic, don’t use much of this sort of language.

It seems to me that you’re trying really hard to capture a pissed-off teen voice, but in doing so, you’re overdoing it. Now, the voice is much more believable than what you had in an earlier draft, but we don’t need quite so much and it feels a bit intrusive. If you look at a book like The Hunger Games, in the opening, the story launches into a lot of intimate world building right away, but the voice doesn’t feel so intrusive.

Also, on page 10 when you mention the theme from “The Twilight Zone” playing in her head, I’m wondering if it’s a reference point for this generation–I would guess that it’s not.”

After a few more rewrites, Jessica was satisfied.

3: Send The Remaking of Molly Adair off to the agents who requested it at the Willamette Writers Convention last August.

I’ve sent off seven and I have one more to send. This agent is on vacation and won’t be back until February. It takes some doing to get each package just right. All the agents want different things. Some want the first three chapters, some want the first two, some want the whole manuscript. Some want a detailed synopsis, some want a short one, and some want a chapter by chapter outline. The cover letter needs to be addressed to the agent and include something that jogs his or her memory about who you are and where you met them.

4: Whimper softly when the rejections come in.

One agent was kind enough to actually e-mail a rejection letter:

“Dear Ms. LaVielle,” she wrote. “Thanks for your query. As to your material I’m afraid I will be passing — I’m just not enthusiastic enough about the concept of your story to feel that I’d be the right agent for the project. I realize it is difficult to judge your potential from a query; nevertheless please know that I give serious attention to every letter, outline, and writing sample I receive……”

Many agents won’t even do this. They simply say that if I haven’t heard back from them in three weeks to a month, I should consider myself rejected. The time has expired on one of these and I’ve moved it to my rejected list as well.

So, two rejections so far.

5: Chin up. Start sending out cold queries.

These are less likely to succeed because the agents don’t know me from Adam and I’m back to starting with a query letter instead of the first few chapters or the whole manuscript.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve rewritten my query letter.

6: Enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest.

I’m excited about this contest. It’s for unpublished or self published novels and authors. They accept the first 5,000 entries they receive. To enter you upload a pitch, the first 3,000 to 5, 000 words of your novel, and the entire manuscript onto the contest website. The first cut is in March and is judged strictly on the pitch. They select the best 1,000. Then the panelists use the 3,000-5,000 word excerpts to select the best 250 out of the first cut. The panelists read the final 250 manuscripts and give comments. The winner gets his or her book published by Penguin Books and a $15,000 advance on royalties.

The site is easy to use and the entry process is fairly painless. Registration closes February 6, 2011—or when they have 5,000 entries.