Hard Writing
Hard Writing
When I’m on a roll and I’m working on a story, I can usually write well over a thousand words a day. It just flows. I can see the scenes and the characters and how they interact and the words I need to express everything I see. It’s like watching a movie and writing down what I’m looking at.
That was how it went with my novel, Buck and Tangee: Things That Happened. When I got into the groove the words just seemed to appear on the screen. But that book is done and now comes the hardest writing, the submission cover letter and synopsis.
It should be so easy: “Dear Ms. Agent...” But it’s not. There are particular forms to follow and rites to observe. It’s a book of humor but the letter can’t be funny or clever. It has to be business like. So I write a business-like cover letter and I read it over and I realize that if I were an agent I’d be thinking, “Humor? This guy isn’t very funny.” Then I do a letter with a few neat turns of phrase and I just know that the agent would think, “Who the hell does this guy think he is? He doesn’t even know me and he’s trying to be cute.”
Almost worse is the synopsis. It’s just supposed to be a very straight forward, present tense description of the contents of the chapters. It comes off the same as trying to write a clinical analysis of a joke. “That’s supposed to be funny?”
It’s all like a blind date on paper. I can only hope that the agents in question will somehow get past this forced prose and start reading the first thirty pages of the manuscript that I’m allowed to send.
So let me ask...how do you handle this business of writing?
posted by Jon @ 4:39 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Oh Jon, I'm scareder than even now! I have piles of writings that could be incorporated into a story, complete or near pieces that need editing . . . blah, blah, blah - but I don't know what to do next and I'm too afraid to find out. So, they will yellow until they dry up and tear when held . . . and maybe someday a great-grandchild will find them and put them into a trunk of memorabilia.
Signed,
anonymous unpublished wannabe writer
I wish I could give better advise...but here is what I got. I have below three link to three blogs that I check in on occasion.
Two (I think) are agents and one is a published writer. They give good advise when it comes to submission. You will probably need to troll through the archives...but it is a place to start.
Most agree that the business side needs to be professional. It is what advances you past the the first gate.
You are kind of in the same boat as I am in...in a way. I have to take this @$!&ing spanish class to move on to the next level. You have to write your letter and synapsis.
You must now do what I am doing and that is to suck it up and plow through it. When you are done you can brush your teeth to get the taste out.
Here are the links.
Miss Snark
Nathan
JA Konrath
Good Luck!
When I was sending out query letters to agents about four or five years ago for a novel I wrote called "Shiver", I had done a lot of previous research on the subject of query letters. IF a book on writing had something about query letters, I bought it without thought. I slogged through the internet, and found nothing that really helped. So I just took all I've read in the books I bought and combined them.
The result worked! The best example is in Writer's Market. If you don't have this, I recomend it. This actually shows the structure and what to do's and what not to do's. Anyway, I follwed this example more closely, reminding myself of I've learned from teh other books. (THose are long gone now and I can't remember what they were called.)
Anyway, long story short. I got tree responses from three agents. Two wanted me to send them sample chapters and a synopsis. (Now, the synopisis was what took me off guard. I had no idea what a synopsis was suppsoed to be like.)
The third just wanted a synopsis. I sent what they requested, but the synopsises were probably my downfall. I found an exmaple and followed itm, but I had no idea what I was doing.
I think, it was the synopsis that did me in, because those who saw my chapters said they were great, I have talent, but I lack in edtiorial clean up. Which is true. I wish I could figure out how to edit my work. Any adivce about editting would be helpful. So, I was turned down by all three, but they wrote they'd be happy to see more work from me in the future.
I'm striving to show them I mean buisness. We'll see. I hope some of that had helped at least a little, Talk to ya later.
Oh, that's the rub, isn't it? I have no good answer to give, only sympathy. However, I can provide URLs to two good sites where the agents give samples of query letters that got their attention, and why(and included humor.
Congratulations on your book - I have no doubt you'll have success with your writing. You are too talented to do otherwise.
http://www.nelsonagency.com/faq.html#6
http://www.jennybent.com/letter/index.html
Jon,
I so feel your pain on this one -- it takes me LONGER (and I'm not kidding) to write an agent letter/synopsis than it does to write an actual story or essay. I hate it! There's a ton of books on it, none of them have helped me all that much. That said, I think you just struggle through and try to get the best hook you can and forget about the person you're writing to and hope it all works! Good luck!
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