I haven't had this much rejection since trying to find a date for an SYR.
SYR, for those of you who didn't go to Notre Dame, or a college where the male-female interaction was designed, monitored and maintained by priests and nuns... SYR used to stand for Screw Your Roommate. It was a dance, like prom in college, and pretty much the only time boys and girls interacted outside of class. (The priests/nuns eventually discovered these lurid activities and promptly abolished them a la Footloose.)
The idea, hence the name, was that you were supposed to find your roommate a date for the dance, and vice versa, but it never actually worked out that way. You always had to find your own, or at least I did.
As you can imagine, if you've ever met anyone from Notre Dame, it was an extremely demoralizing process, particularly if you didn't wear a bow in your hair at all times. My friends would ask the skinny beanpole with the dirty ponytail and acne that they'd drunkenly tongued at some bar, or they'd ask the fat guy from their psychology class that they'd drunkenly tongued at some bar, and I would find myself genuinely envious, flipping through the dogbook, wondering how it was that I hadn't seen them first.
That was a lonely experience, and I'm starting to feel that same level of 'why doesn't anyone like me/I'm never going to have a boyfriend' from the rejections I'm getting from agents, and while I do know that that is par for the course, and only have SOME delusions of grandeur, what's frustrating is I just can't tell why I'm getting rejected.
Like Notre Dame, I don't know if it's them or me...and without knowing, I can't fix it. Is it the query letter or my fat thighs? Is the MSG they are sprinkling into the meatloaf to take away our sex drives and bulk up the girls and football team the problem? Or did they simply read an article today that said authors with names like Heather won't sell? Or does my writing just suck?
I spent four years trying to fix myself at Notre Dame, only to get out and realize it didn't have all that much to do with me.
So who the hell knows? It's a gigantic crap shoot. And, by the way, the slush pile? Sister, please. I haven't gotten whiff of slush or pile. No one has seen anything. Just my weak-ass query letter. And honestly? It could be the best letter ever and perfect, but clearly SOMETHING is not working and I don't know what it is. Maybe my query got a bad perm right before first semester, or maybe my book is a little too fat. Maybe if I knew what it was, and fixed the problem everyone would call me up and ask me out...I mean, you know, ask my book out.
And the whole process is confusing. If you read a book about this or go online, or read the agent blogs, they all say pretty much the same thing. You need to write a kick-ass query letter. And, they want you to write it in the same voice as your book. I have no idea if it's the same voice as my book. I think it's really more of a baritone.
And now I'm reading articles on how no one reads fiction. Hells no!
First of all, I read fiction. It's pretty much all I read because everything else I have to read for work and for life reads like the instruction manual for an air conditioner, except not as funny.
Second of all, some of the fiction I read is total and absolute crap, where I throw it in a can trying not to gag about two minutes into it. My question is, if someone can get away with writing a story where they refer to their main character as a "half-breed" (Not being funny here. Everyone in the book refers to the main character as a half-breed and it's set in 2007) how is it that they are not only getting published, but their novel is one of the four options at the Long Beach Airport? In other words, THEY wrote a better query than me? What the hell am I doing wrong?
So, I guess I have no idea how to write a query. If you would like to help me...here are a few of the guidelines...
They don't want you to say you're a first time author, because no one wants one of those. My question is, how many published authors who already have agents are writing letters trying to get an agent?
They don't want you to write a book over 80,000 words. Mine's 127,000 and while I can probably shave copy somewhere...I can't shave 40,000 words and have the story make sense. Is my market really people who can't get through a 220 page book? It's not War and Peace! It's an easy-to-read beach book that should be immediately sand-covered and coated in cocoa butter.
They also want you to tell them what genre you are in so they can pitch it to the right people. And, honestly, I don't know. I totally get why they need this...but I really can't figure out the genres.
Why? Why can't I figure it out? Because my book doesn't perfectly fit into one category. Here. Maybe you can help me figure that out, too.
Here's what I know about my book:
It happens in modern day (Modern day is defined as post WWII--and when it's way inappropriate to refer to people as half-breeds.)
There aren't any vampires in it.
Or werewolves.
Or sorcerers.
Or people who want to have sex with vampires, werewolves, or sorcerers.
There is a love story in it. (But, apparently disappointingly, it's between humans.)
A man and a woman. Gross.
(I really don't mean to pass judgement, but who the hell is getting off buying books about having sex with Werewolves?)
Back to genre picking:
Okay, so then there's literary fiction. Literary fiction is where you concentrate on the writing, and things cannot end well. Why? Because if they end well, you wouldn't have that rewarding feeling of depression for days afterward and the Book Review would have no use for phrases like "melancholy genius" and "redolent anguish."
Then there's commercial fiction. This is basically man fiction...Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Scott Turow...see the pattern? Mine has a woman in it who doesn't wear orange pantyhose or have a job at the pentagon...so there goes that.
Then there's women's fiction. That is where a woman has a conflict with other family members, or friends, or life, and though there can be a love story, this isn't the focus. Also, this can be the umbrella for chick-lit. But, sometimes, people say that isn't the same thing--I mean, why be clear about it? Half my book qualifies here probably, as it focuses on a relationship between mother and daughter after the older woman suffered a nervous breakdown and is trying to find her way back.
Chick-lit. Even though this may be the best category for my book, chick-lit is apparently dead, so saying it is the best category is like tying my query to a tiny block of cement and tossing it into the East River. If I had to make a guess at why it died, it's because after the success of Bridget Jones and really wonderful dimensional stories by writers like Jennifer Weiner, publishers wanted a piece of the pie and started churning out generic pastel tree-wasters that were all in the first person and had plots that required at least two of the following: getting a pedicure, eating ice cream out of the carton, and shopping for Jimmy Choos. So, now authors of those books that were still in the hopper are being asked to rewrite them in the third person.
My book is in the third person already, for the record.
Anyway...moving on. Finally, there is the romance category. Part of my story has to do with a man-woman trying to reconcile their past, and guess what...they like each other. Weird.
Now, all/most of my friends, family, colleagues wrinkle their nose at this genre. And truth be told, I do too. Why? Because I'm a big fat snob and that's what you do...and also because I picture Fabio in a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and a kilt.
But, you know what? The romance people are seriously organized and it's a $2.4 BILLION dollar business. That's a B. So, their subgenres are easier to figure out with clearer guidelines than the genres above. They know what they are doing. They are the only category that extensively researches and surveys their markets, and they monitor what is working and what sells. Unfortunately, this leads to some hard and fast (hee hee) rules. Like word count is super strict. And there are formulas, which I didn't follow. And, you can't have any storylines that really take focus off the love story. Oops.
Personally, I think that's silly. That's like saying that you can't be smart AND pretty.
My biggest aversion to going this route, though, besides the academic nose wrinkle at a cocktail party, is ultimately the marketing/cover art. I'm sorry, I just don't want my name over the picture of some oiled and waxed half-naked man/werewolf. Particularly since the whole book is kind of a sweet story and doesn't involve the hounds of hell.
So, yeah.
I just want to find an awesome literary agent who sees potential, who can become my super awesome best friend, knows how to use email, and wants to represent me and make us both very very wealthy so we can go to Paris and buy diamonds. Is that really too much to ask?
The idea, hence the name, was that you were supposed to find your roommate a date for the dance, and vice versa, but it never actually worked out that way. You always had to find your own, or at least I did.
As you can imagine, if you've ever met anyone from Notre Dame, it was an extremely demoralizing process, particularly if you didn't wear a bow in your hair at all times. My friends would ask the skinny beanpole with the dirty ponytail and acne that they'd drunkenly tongued at some bar, or they'd ask the fat guy from their psychology class that they'd drunkenly tongued at some bar, and I would find myself genuinely envious, flipping through the dogbook, wondering how it was that I hadn't seen them first.
That was a lonely experience, and I'm starting to feel that same level of 'why doesn't anyone like me/I'm never going to have a boyfriend' from the rejections I'm getting from agents, and while I do know that that is par for the course, and only have SOME delusions of grandeur, what's frustrating is I just can't tell why I'm getting rejected.
Like Notre Dame, I don't know if it's them or me...and without knowing, I can't fix it. Is it the query letter or my fat thighs? Is the MSG they are sprinkling into the meatloaf to take away our sex drives and bulk up the girls and football team the problem? Or did they simply read an article today that said authors with names like Heather won't sell? Or does my writing just suck?
I spent four years trying to fix myself at Notre Dame, only to get out and realize it didn't have all that much to do with me.
So who the hell knows? It's a gigantic crap shoot. And, by the way, the slush pile? Sister, please. I haven't gotten whiff of slush or pile. No one has seen anything. Just my weak-ass query letter. And honestly? It could be the best letter ever and perfect, but clearly SOMETHING is not working and I don't know what it is. Maybe my query got a bad perm right before first semester, or maybe my book is a little too fat. Maybe if I knew what it was, and fixed the problem everyone would call me up and ask me out...I mean, you know, ask my book out.
And the whole process is confusing. If you read a book about this or go online, or read the agent blogs, they all say pretty much the same thing. You need to write a kick-ass query letter. And, they want you to write it in the same voice as your book. I have no idea if it's the same voice as my book. I think it's really more of a baritone.
And now I'm reading articles on how no one reads fiction. Hells no!
First of all, I read fiction. It's pretty much all I read because everything else I have to read for work and for life reads like the instruction manual for an air conditioner, except not as funny.
Second of all, some of the fiction I read is total and absolute crap, where I throw it in a can trying not to gag about two minutes into it. My question is, if someone can get away with writing a story where they refer to their main character as a "half-breed" (Not being funny here. Everyone in the book refers to the main character as a half-breed and it's set in 2007) how is it that they are not only getting published, but their novel is one of the four options at the Long Beach Airport? In other words, THEY wrote a better query than me? What the hell am I doing wrong?
So, I guess I have no idea how to write a query. If you would like to help me...here are a few of the guidelines...
They don't want you to say you're a first time author, because no one wants one of those. My question is, how many published authors who already have agents are writing letters trying to get an agent?
They don't want you to write a book over 80,000 words. Mine's 127,000 and while I can probably shave copy somewhere...I can't shave 40,000 words and have the story make sense. Is my market really people who can't get through a 220 page book? It's not War and Peace! It's an easy-to-read beach book that should be immediately sand-covered and coated in cocoa butter.
They also want you to tell them what genre you are in so they can pitch it to the right people. And, honestly, I don't know. I totally get why they need this...but I really can't figure out the genres.
Why? Why can't I figure it out? Because my book doesn't perfectly fit into one category. Here. Maybe you can help me figure that out, too.
Here's what I know about my book:
It happens in modern day (Modern day is defined as post WWII--and when it's way inappropriate to refer to people as half-breeds.)
There aren't any vampires in it.
Or werewolves.
Or sorcerers.
Or people who want to have sex with vampires, werewolves, or sorcerers.
There is a love story in it. (But, apparently disappointingly, it's between humans.)
A man and a woman. Gross.
(I really don't mean to pass judgement, but who the hell is getting off buying books about having sex with Werewolves?)
Back to genre picking:
Okay, so then there's literary fiction. Literary fiction is where you concentrate on the writing, and things cannot end well. Why? Because if they end well, you wouldn't have that rewarding feeling of depression for days afterward and the Book Review would have no use for phrases like "melancholy genius" and "redolent anguish."
Then there's commercial fiction. This is basically man fiction...Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Scott Turow...see the pattern? Mine has a woman in it who doesn't wear orange pantyhose or have a job at the pentagon...so there goes that.
Then there's women's fiction. That is where a woman has a conflict with other family members, or friends, or life, and though there can be a love story, this isn't the focus. Also, this can be the umbrella for chick-lit. But, sometimes, people say that isn't the same thing--I mean, why be clear about it? Half my book qualifies here probably, as it focuses on a relationship between mother and daughter after the older woman suffered a nervous breakdown and is trying to find her way back.
Chick-lit. Even though this may be the best category for my book, chick-lit is apparently dead, so saying it is the best category is like tying my query to a tiny block of cement and tossing it into the East River. If I had to make a guess at why it died, it's because after the success of Bridget Jones and really wonderful dimensional stories by writers like Jennifer Weiner, publishers wanted a piece of the pie and started churning out generic pastel tree-wasters that were all in the first person and had plots that required at least two of the following: getting a pedicure, eating ice cream out of the carton, and shopping for Jimmy Choos. So, now authors of those books that were still in the hopper are being asked to rewrite them in the third person.
My book is in the third person already, for the record.
Anyway...moving on. Finally, there is the romance category. Part of my story has to do with a man-woman trying to reconcile their past, and guess what...they like each other. Weird.
Now, all/most of my friends, family, colleagues wrinkle their nose at this genre. And truth be told, I do too. Why? Because I'm a big fat snob and that's what you do...and also because I picture Fabio in a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and a kilt.
But, you know what? The romance people are seriously organized and it's a $2.4 BILLION dollar business. That's a B. So, their subgenres are easier to figure out with clearer guidelines than the genres above. They know what they are doing. They are the only category that extensively researches and surveys their markets, and they monitor what is working and what sells. Unfortunately, this leads to some hard and fast (hee hee) rules. Like word count is super strict. And there are formulas, which I didn't follow. And, you can't have any storylines that really take focus off the love story. Oops.
Personally, I think that's silly. That's like saying that you can't be smart AND pretty.
My biggest aversion to going this route, though, besides the academic nose wrinkle at a cocktail party, is ultimately the marketing/cover art. I'm sorry, I just don't want my name over the picture of some oiled and waxed half-naked man/werewolf. Particularly since the whole book is kind of a sweet story and doesn't involve the hounds of hell.
So, yeah.
I just want to find an awesome literary agent who sees potential, who can become my super awesome best friend, knows how to use email, and wants to represent me and make us both very very wealthy so we can go to Paris and buy diamonds. Is that really too much to ask?
posted by Heather Gately at 8:17 AM
1 comments
