In which I went to New York and visited my editor and agent

So. It finally happened. This past Friday I went to New York and, as the title of this post suggests, met my editor and agent. Let’s discuss that in detail, shall we? With pictures?

Because I am one of excellent foresight and planning abilities, I had to be up before 4 a.m. on Friday to make my flight, so that when I got off the plane at Laguardia at 1130, I was left with exactly one hour to get to my meeting with my editor, Wendy. This ensured that I was tired, red-eyed, unfresh, and basically looked like a stoner to meet everyone at Random House for the first time on top of being nervous as heck. 

Here’s a shot of me in the lobby, looking awkward. 

And another of the amazing bookshelf in the lobby, which has first prints of some of their books. The faded copy of Pipi Longstocking made my heart smile. 

So after I’d shown my I.D. and it was checked against an appointment book, and after the receptionist called up to Wendy's office to say I was there, I was admitted inside. I felt important.

Did I mention I was nervous? Well, I shouldn't have been. Wendy was completely warm, friendly, upbeat, chatty, and fun, and it didn't take long before I almost didn't feel like hyperventilating. Here's us! 

Wendy gave me a tour of the children’s floor, then when she went to the bathroom I took creepy stalkerish pictures inside her office. Here’s the view out of her window. 

And if you look closely, you can see HEXED sitting on her shelf!

So then we walked to this amazing Italian restaurant nearby, and I tried not to look like a girl from small town Ontario, in New York for the first time and amazed and overwhelmed at everything (OMG LOOK! PIGEONS! PEOPLE ARE HAILING TAXIS LIKE IN THE MOOOOVIES!).

After that we went back to RH and I got to meet with various heads of various departments, which made my palms all sweaty.  But everything went really well and everyone I met was so completely friendly and really excited about HEXED. Basically what happened was that my ego became inflated and now I can barely fit through doorways because my head is so huge.

In all, it was an amazing and completely unforgettable experience. I love Random House and everyone who works there like whoa.

Saturday night my sister and friend joined me to meet my agent, Adriann, for drinks. We met her at this amazing hotel bar and were the three of us dressed totally not right while Adriann was effortlessly cool NY, but whatevs. We had a great time and chatted about everything from my book, to my friend Barb’s weird elf fetish, to eating disorders, to gang activity in Phoenix. It was great! I left there feeling like I couldn’t have landed a more perfect agent (Also: I left there drunk). I can’t believe I didn’t think to take a picture with Adriann. I almost want to go back to NY just for that.

Other things that happened on the trip: went to see Wicked on Broadway, checked out the Brooklyn bridge, shopped, ate food, and went clubbing in Chelsea.

Things that did not happen on the trip: sleep. 

A Near Perfect Query Letter

Dear Agent,

Surviving on her own comes naturally to sixteen-year-old Evangeline comma whether it’s squatting in vacant apartments, crashing on Charlie’s couch, or sleeping in a nearby tree. It has to be. If she’s not careful comma Evy will end up back in foster care—or worse, the nearest padded cell. The voices she hears aren’t just in her head. This. Is. Awesome.

After the murder of her only friend<I’d say that is was Charlie. I’d missed that it was him who’d died on my first pass. Also, add a comma. Evy is kidnapped, and taken to a covert research facility where an unbelievable truth is revealed: she is a product of genetic engineering, a secret soldier designed to combat an endangered human race with superhuman abilities known as the Gifted. Once worshipped as gods, then hunted as witches, the Gifted have assimilated into society by keeping their existence hidden…until now. This is so good. Seriously.

Chace, Subject Number Seven and fellow telepath, oversees Evy’s training as she reluctantly learns the skills necessary to defend humanity. Despite her developing feelings for Chace, Evy struggles with the suspicion that he is responsible for the death of her friend. The other children of her experimental trial are far less charming comma and the more she learns about the Chimera Corporation and the scientist who created her, the more she questions their motives and her real purpose in this conflict. Like, like. Building the conflict. All good here.

While investigating Charlie's murder Evy must separate fact from fiction, friend from foe, and decide where she stands before war breaks out. <This falls a bit flat for me. What exactly does she have to do, and what does she risk if she fails? 

THE THIRTEENTH SUBJECT is a YA science fiction complete at 81,000 words. It is the first book in a proposed trilogy, THE CHIMERA CORP CHRONICLES. <I would mention that it stands alone so as not to frighten poor agents. I am a pre-med student by day and an avid writer at night. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

Sincerely,

(Name redacted)

You will get full requests from this. It’s awesome. That is all. 

But I'm not creative!!!

There are a few questions that, as a writer, I get asked all the time. One of the most common ones is this: where do I get my ideas? When I answer, "I made them up", almost 100% of the time the next response is something along the lines of  'I wish I could write a book but I'm not creative.'

So here's the truth: I didn't think I was either. Before I started writing, I thought authors were these people who just naturally had a brain full of awesome ideas that just popped into their heads without any effort at all. And maybe that is true for some lucky writers. But the truth is (for me at least), coming up with ideas is hard work. It involves constantly thinking of the world in a different way, asking myself questions, actively looking for inspiration and not just waiting for it to come to me.

Let's do a quote, shall we?

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."--Jack London.

It's brilliant because it's true.

So if you'd like to come up with book ideas, start paying attention to the world around you. Start asking yourself questions.

'What if' questions are helpful.

The inspiration for STARTERS by Lissa Price was born after she'd tried and failed to get a flu shot during a shortage--they were only giving it out to the very old, the very young, and the sickly. She asked herself 'what if this was a killer flu? Then all we'd have left is the very young, the very old and the sickly. What kind of a world would that be?'

Recently I did an interview with Lenore Appelhans, author of LEVEL 2. Lenore said her book was inspired by asking herself two questions: '1. What might currency look like in the afterlife--are certain memories more valuable than others? And 2. What might a dystopian afterlife look like.'

Another method: Think of a common idea, then think about how you could spin that idea in a way that's never been done before. Cinder by Marissa Meyer is a good example. Cinderella retellings had been done nearly to death, but Cinderella as a robot? Now that's interesting. Vampire novels existed way before Twilight. Sparkling, high-school vampire in love with a human? That's new. Author Ellen Oh says this about her inspiration to write PROPHECY: "The idea was about how everyone believes that the hero of legend is a young prince. But instead, it turns out that the hero is actually a girl. It came from that place in me that was so tired of being overlooked for being female. So tired of the sexism and misogyny in our world. I wanted a story where the girl didn’t need to wait for a prince to come and save her because she was the hero of her own story."

Pay attention to the world around you. Suzanne Collins was flipping channels between a reality TV show and news coverage on the war when the idea for THE HUNGER GAMES was born.

Stephanie Meyer was famously inspired to write Twilight after a dream.

You might find inspiration in your own life experience. Author Tracy Holczer was inspired by a decision she made in childhood that she regretted. She wrote a story where the main character chooses differently.

Sometimes a picture is inspiring. Sometimes a word or phrase. My sister, who is also an author, was going to write an adult historical and planned to call it THE WITCH HUNTER'S BIBLE. She changed her mind and never did write that book, but the title inspired me. I used that inspiration to write a book about a popular cheerleader whose perfect life is threatened when a stranger tells her that the family bible just stolen from the attic of her mom's occult shop could mean the end to witches everywhere.

Sometimes I brainstorm ideas with my sister. Sometimes, I brainstorn with my husband. His suggestions?
-My main character should contract a UTI. The climax of the book is a fraught journey to the clinic.
-My main character should have three nipples
-The secret to getting to an alternate dimension should be to fart three times in a row.
(In case you were wondering, those ideas are still up for grabs :D)

Anyway, the point of my rambling is this: just because an idea didn't pop into your head without effort, doesn't mean you're not creative. You just have to try.

"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice we're doing it." --Neil Gaiman.

Query Letter Critique

Original Query Letter

Urban Fantasy, Adult.

Kylie Rippons carries a unique skill the gods want to use in their wars - no matter the personal cost. She, however, prefers to keep soul and sanity in tact.

Kylie is among the rarest of mortals, born with the ability to see time as strings in her mind, the outcome of every action, and the power to thread those strings into braids with any outcome she wants. As with all things, it comes at a steep cost – a piece of her soul for every braid.

Refusing to answer the gods' demands, she tries to survive with only Tiamat, an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of chaos and creation, and Anahita, the Persian goddess of war, women and water. But life kills the idea with a few truths, a deep, gaping wound of betrayal and a heart rending threat against the one Kylie loves most. Instead it sends her an outcast Valkyrie and a rogue Beserker. The new cast of allies propels Kylie to hunt the gods for peace and an end to their constant bickering.

As Kylie tries her best to keep from braiding and changing the outcome of major events, she realizes a truth – she may have to sacrifice herself in order to save the one she loves most.

Query Letter After I Got My Grubby Paws On It

Urban Fantasy, Adult. The author indicated this query was for a work in progress so I’m going to assume this isn’t actually how she plans to lead the query :D

Kylie Rippons <To be honest, this name sounds a bit too made up/cartoony. carries a unique skill the gods want to use in their wars - no matter the personal cost. She, however, prefers to keep soul and sanity in tact. Pretty nice opener!

Kylie is among the rarest of mortals, born with the ability to see time as strings in her mind, the outcome of every action, and the power to thread those strings into braids with any outcome she wants. As with all things, it comes at a steep cost – a piece of her soul for every braid. While the opening para is nice, this one is infinitely more interesting. I would consider leading with this more fun and unique para. After all, you don’t get long to hook an agent!

Refusing to answer the gods' demands, she tries to survive with only Tiamat, an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of chaos and creation, and Anahita, the Persian goddess of war, women and water. <This sort of comes from left field. Also, the way you’ve worded this, it’s like she’d just be getting by with these two goddesses helping her, but I imagine gods and goddesses to be very powerful and strong…. But life kills the idea with a few truths, <I don’t know what that means. a deep, gaping wound of betrayal and a heart rending threat against the one Kylie loves most. Instead it sends her an outcast Valkyrie and a rogue Beserker. The first part about the wound of betrayal and threat against her loved one is too vague while the second part is confusing. Why specifically are these people sent to her? And who sent them? Life? Is that an actual person in the book, an agency, a power? And most importantly, what does this all have to do with braids of time and a war of the gods? The new cast of allies propels Kylie to hunt the gods for peace and an end to their constant bickering.

As Kylie tries her best to keep from braiding and changing the outcome of major events, she realizes a truth – she may have to sacrifice herself in order to save the one she loves most. Who is the one she loves most? We need an idea of that to care. What danger is her loved one in and from whom does he/she need to be saved?

There are some very interesting ideas here, and unique ones too. Definitely a lot of promise, but this query suffers from a common problem, which is that it’s too vague to be truly intriguing. It raises more questions than a query letter should. Some might argue that raising a lot of questions would then intrigue the agent to request to read more, but that’s not the case. The one question the agent should be left with is: how will the main character handle whatever high stakes problem they’ve gotten themselves into? Now I think that might be a reflection of the fact that this query is for a work in progress and not because of another issue, which is that some people worry about ‘giving away’ all their interesting plot details in the query…but just in case, let me harp on about that for a moment too.

It’s a fine balance in writing a query between saying too much and saying too little. While you don’t want to give away the ending and you definitely don’t want to start getting into every single interesting subplot and character role either, you also don’t want to be so vague that your book sounds generic, doesn’t stand out from the crowd, and worse yet, gives the agent no idea what the novel is really about.

Also, don’t worry that someone is going to steal your idea. As Nathan Bransford so eloquently said: “the success of your book will hinge on the quality of its execution, not on the originality of your idea.” Again quoting Nathan, ‘There were vampire books before Twilight, there were wizard books before Harry Potter, there were books that were like whatever Fifty Shades of Grey is like before Fifty Shades of Grey.’  

Anyway, now that I’ve rambled, thanks so much to the author for sharing this query with me. I hope the writing goes well and that you’re collecting full requests in no time J  

Writing tip of the day

Disclaimer #1: I've grown to dislike giving writing advice. Everyone's opinions differ and I don't believe there is one "right" way to do things. 

Disclaimer #2: I am not an expert. I only just dove head-first into the writing business three years ago, and my book has yet to hit shelves.

Having said that, I do think that I’ve learned a lot in the last three years. And one of the things that I consistently notice when critiquing work for others is overwriting. I did it myself (and probably sometimes still do), before someone wisely pointed out that I was way explaining things that the reader would and could easily surmise on their own, which often times made the writing clunky. When I put an end to that bad habit, I noticed much cleaner, more professional writing.

Some examples, yes?

I reached up and brushed the hair out of my eyes.

If I’d simply said: I brushed the hair out of my eyes, the reader would know that I had to reach up to do so. I didn’t need to tell them that.

Another:

I bent over and picked up the book.

I challenge you to pick up a book without bending. Okay, smartass, so you crouched. Still, who cares whether you bent or crouched? The point is that the book was picked up.

Another:

I put the key in the ignition and twisted, starting the car.

We all know that in order to start a car, a twisting motion is necessary. Why not then just say: I put the key in the ignition and started the car. Or even simply: I started the car.

Here are a few common ones:

I nodded my head.

I shrugged my shoulders.

Can you nod a body part besides a head? Shrug anything but a shoulder? If I’d just said: I nodded, or I shrugged, the reader would instantly know which body parts were used.

This is just one aspect of overwriting, obviously. There’s also the issue of over-explaining (Just in case the reader didn’t get that, I’m going to explain the exact same thing in another way!), going overboard on the adverbs to really drill home a point (“He dashed hurriedly across the parking lot”—adverb, totally unnecessary as dashed mean to run quickly), using multiple adjectives where one more could be more powerful, etc. But the point is: trust your reader to draw some of their own conclusions. They’re pretty smart. You needn’t hold their hand!