The Final Touch

I just sub­scribed to Writer’s Digest’s YouTube chan­nel and hap­pened to dis­cover this very use­ful video. From a lit­er­ary agent’s expe­ri­enced point of view, it gives sev­eral great nuggets of infor­ma­tion about story-telling, plot, struc­ture, what works, and what doesn’t — all in just under 5 min­utes. Check it out:

Is any­one out there work­ing on writ­ing a novel? I’d love to hear about it!

I haven’t writ­ten a novel myself, but I love read­ing them. Some of my favorite authors are Jodi Picoult,

James Pat­ter­son,

John Grisham,

and Lynn Austin.

When you get fully engaged in a book, you’re not stop­ping every few min­utes to pon­der what makes the book so good. But you would notice if it weren’t so engaging.

That’s why the arti­cle, “How to Edit Your Dia­logue,” by a mem­ber of the Writer’s Digest com­mu­nity of blog­gers caught my eye. I thought I’d pass it along for the sake of any of you who might also be interested.

Even if you’re not a fic­tion writer, you might find it inter­est­ing to see just why you like to read the fic­tion you do, and what the author’s use of dia­logue has to do with that.

By the way, would you please share your favorite authors/books in a com­ment below? I’m always game for some new read­ing mate­r­ial!

photo © 2009 Cory Doc­torow | more info (via: Wylio)
Found this post through Writer’s Digest at a Guide to Lit­er­ary Agents blog. Go there for the full arti­cle by Guest Writer, Lit­er­ary Agent Mol­lie Glick:

7 THINGS AGENTS WANT TO SEE IN A QUERY

1. An enter­tain­ing but polite and pro­fes­sional tone
2. Mul­ti­ple forms of con­tact infor­ma­tion
3. Proof that you have researched and hand-picked an agent. (If you’ve got a con­nec­tion, were referred by a client or met the agent at a con­fer­ence, make sure to point that out early in your let­ter.)
4. Espe­cially for non­fic­tion: An author bio that demon­strates your plat­form and why you’re the right author for this project
5. A quick, catchy hook or “ele­va­tor pitch”
6. Mak­ing a case for the book’s built-in audi­ence
7. Espe­cially for non­fic­tion: Show­ing why your exper­tise and media con­tacts make you the best author for your project

9 THINGS AGENTS DON’T WANT TO SEE IN A QUERY

1. Ask­ing what the agent can do for you, rather than demon­strat­ing what you can do for him/her
2. Ask­ing for a phone call or in per­son meet­ing before the agent has requested one
3. Query­ing for mul­ti­ple projects at the same time
4. List­ing per­sonal infor­ma­tion unre­lated to your book
5. Giv­ing ref­er­ences from peo­ple out­side the pub­lish­ing indus­try (such as say­ing your writ­ers group, your con­gre­gants, or your mother’s next door neighbor’s cock­erspaniel loved your book)
6. Com­par­ing your book to a commonly-quoted best­seller
7. Mak­ing broad claims that you can’t back up
8. A pitch for an incom­plete nov­els. (It’s OK to query with an unfin­ished non­fic­tion project, as long as you’ve writ­ten a pro­posal, but nov­els should be fin­ished before you start con­tact­ing agents.)
9. Overly famil­iar, aggres­sive, or incor­rect salutations

…I know some of you are because you’ve talked with me about it. Per­haps oth­ers are, too. The online arti­cle “How to Get an Agent’s Atten­tion,” by Chuck Sam­buchino of the Writer’s Digest com­mu­nity, caught my atten­tion for just that rea­son. I hope you will find it a help­ful resource.

A cou­ple of points that I really appre­ci­ate from Chuck’s post and from the agents interviewed:

• A query let­ter is essen­tially a cover let­ter to apply for a job; the resume is your man­u­script. Be as pro­fes­sional as you would in writ­ing up a job appli­ca­tion.
  
• A use­ful for­mula for a query let­ter is “The Hook, the Book, and the Cook.” To find out pre­cisely what this means, read the arti­cle!
• If an agent rejects your man­u­script, it doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily mean it’s “bad”; it just means it’s “not his/her type” — just like when you’re dat­ing. Don’t take it per­son­ally if some­one isn’t totally, absolutely in love with your book; just move on and “date” some­one else until you find that per­fect “long-term rela­tion­ship.” After all, you don’t actu­ally want some­one rep­re­sent­ing your work who isn’t com­pletely head-over-heels in love with it, do you? Didn’t think so.

Many more insights where these came from! Check it out!

It’s just what it says it is: “Your Essen­tial Syn­op­sis Check­list.” If you are to the stage in a writ­ing project where you want to start send­ing it off to prospec­tive pub­lish­ers, this will be a help­ful resource for you. It comes via “Writer’s Digest,” a highly respected name in the writing-and-publishing arena. Enjoy!

I just dis­cov­ered the Writer’s Digest Com­mu­nity http://​ping​.fm/​Z​JpCT and am excited to link up in yet another way with fellow/sister writ­ers and editors!

It astounds me how much I’ve heard and read in just the past week regard­ing con­nect­ing with oth­ers via social-networking sites! I know all these arti­cles and ideas didn’t just come about this week, so I gather it’s because my mind has sud­denly been opened to the con­cept, thanks to a sis­ter busi­ness­woman who has quickly become some­one I count as a friend (shout-out to Tanya Mor­ri­son: www​.360de​gree​woman​.org !) and who led me, in turn, to link up with Sab­rina Gib­son (www​.Social​Net​work​ingRock​Star​.com) under whose tute­lage I will begin a Social Net­work Max­i­miza­tion men­tor­ing pro­gram in just a cou­ple of weeks.

Social-networking sites have grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, and they’re not just for swap­ping gos­sip or quips about one’s day any­more! Not that there’s any­thing wrong with that casual social­iz­ing, but I find myself intrigued and fas­ci­nated by the (still rel­a­tively) new oppor­tu­nity for broad­en­ing our com­mu­ni­ties, our busi­ness net­works, the knowl­edge base from which we may ben­e­fit, and — if we are will­ing — our world­views in such a rel­a­tively easy and inex­pen­sive way. Even those of us who are self-employed and fairly “solitarily-employed” are by no means “out here on our own” any­more! In the words of the beloved Mis­ter Rogers, “It’s such a good feel­ing…!” and “It’s a beau­ti­ful day in the [cyber-]neighborhood!… Won’t you be my neighbor?”