I’ve been sadly remiss in writing last month, I’m afraid. Things have been busy, which is good – and even better, all of the Folio team has been selling, selling, selling. Several auctions, several preempts, and so forth – which is really a great way of starting out a new business. Our new digs should hopefully be up and running in another couple of weeks – our move-in date is “early May,” the landlords say; so I’m trying to be optimistic and ignore my gut, which says that the English translation of a landlord’s “early May” is “some time before Christmas, maybe.” Oh, well.
In the meantime I’ve been reading my butt off, hunting for a great novel to sell. Haven’t quite found anything. Fiction is so hard to sell, and it’s so often disheartening to even try to sell, but I’ve had some nice sales of late, and I’m eternally optimistic that I’ll find the Next One soon. I have a couple that are almost there, I hope – I’m trying not to bug the authors more than twice a week, asking how things are going – but keep waiting for another really wonderful novel to hit my inbox.
Every time I go to writers’ conferences I hear, “It’s so hard to get an agent” – but I think that most first-time novelists don’t quite realize is that it’s probably even harder for us agents to get a novel that’s really Ready To Go. People talk about how “selective” (what a word!) agents are; that they reject 99% of everything they see – but think, dear reader, about my side of the mailbox: plowing through several thousand letters and not finding anything that really makes me sit up and think, “Yes, I absolutely must work on this book!”. A friend of mine – an editor – used to go into her boss’s office when she’d find a novel she really loved, and tell him that, if he didn’t let her buy the book, she’d jump out the nearest window. That’s what I keep longing for – the next novel of defenestration, I guess you could call it. The next novel that makes me absolutely take the leap.
So what does it take, you ask? Who knows. If I knew I could duplicate it. But I have some suggestions:
- Great voice. A way of writing which sounds somehow familiar but somehow unique. Something that we haven’t quite seen before, but something that we can immediately identify with.
- Compelling characters. People that I want to spend several hours – or days – or weeks – with, brooding about, having conversations with. Not cardboard cutouts who are obediently going about, doing the author’s bidding to get the plot going – but characters whose own unique internal motivations move the story along because it has to move along that way. Not because the author wanted it to, or because some writing teacher wanted it to, but because the characters themselves – special, unique, richly envisioned – absolutely have to have things happen. I once went to a talk that that wonderful novelist and truly nice person Diane Chamberlain gave, called “How to Create Characters So Real You’ll Be Tempted To Claim Them As Dependents On Your Tax Return” – those are the kinds of characters I hunger for, and so rarely find.
- Compelling premise. That famous one- or two-sentence log-line which effectively, beautifully, and compellingly sums up the entire book. Having that kind of a sentence is wonderful – it helps the agent sell the book to the editor, helps the editor to sell the book to her colleagues, and helps the publishing house sell the book to the booksellers and eventually the public. We’re a 30-second sound-byte nation; if you don’t like it, move to Canada or some other civilized country. But more to the point, for me: I find that, if an author can really sum up the book in a great tag-line, the author has really succeeded in digesting the novel – in really working through all the issues and concerns, to create the best possible novel that she can. A great tag-line is an indication, for me, that the novel is Ready To Go.
- Solid writing. This is feels like the absolute basic building-block upon which all else is based, and it’s also the thing that I find is most lacking in about 80% of the stuff that hits my desk. Writers don’t spend enough time, methinks, memorizing their Strunk & White’s Elements of Style (a great and cheap and short book – and it’s free online now, so I don’t know what the excuse for not having memorized it could possibly be). All that basic stuff that they taught us in 9th Grade English – how to use sentences properly, how to punctuate effectively. Even how to address letters. Didn’t anybody else learn that it’s proper business etiquette to address the recipient by their title and last name, a la “Dear Mr. Kleinman”? I keep getting letters addressed to “Dear Mr. Jeff Kleinman,” or “Dear Jeff Kleinman” – neither of which is quite proper, or at least I was taught it wasn’t. I realize that I’m being particularly irritating and picky about this, and let’s face it – if the concept is great and the story compelling I couldn’t care less if I got a letter addressed “Dear Moron” (which is probably well-deserved, anyway). But still. Just having those basic writing skills – ability to write effective dialogue, describe events, and so forth – is just not there in almost everything I see these days. If only I could sic my 9th Grade English teacher on the entire planet. (Another pet peeve, since I’m feeling peevish – people who send me their “fictional novel”. As opposed to what?)(OK, one more pet peeve and I’m through, I promise – Foreword if you’re talking about introductory material; Forward if you’re talking about speed or momentum.)
So there you have it. Now I’ve given you the blueprint to go out and write the Next Great American Novel.
One final bit of info before I close for the month. Novels are incredibly subjective, there’s absolutely no question about it. I know for me, when I’m reading, I look for two things (thank you, Pat LoBrutto, for these marvelous criteria) for the novel of defenestration:
1. Do I miss my subway stop reading it? (translation: is there something so page-turning about the novel that it just keeps me reading? – it has nothing to do with being a thriller or a mystery; but the novel does have a certain urgency, a certain need to get things told, and quickly) and
2. Do I gush about it to any poor slob who will listen? (translation: books are still sold via word of mouth – “You’ve got to read the book I’ve been reading – it’s absolutely amazing!” is still the best recommendation of all, no matter what the book reviewers say about the book.)
It’s so very hard to find a book that does these things. But being the optimist, I just keep hunting – because they’re out there; of that I’m certain.
Til next month …
In the meantime I’ve been reading my butt off, hunting for a great novel to sell. Haven’t quite found anything. Fiction is so hard to sell, and it’s so often disheartening to even try to sell, but I’ve had some nice sales of late, and I’m eternally optimistic that I’ll find the Next One soon. I have a couple that are almost there, I hope – I’m trying not to bug the authors more than twice a week, asking how things are going – but keep waiting for another really wonderful novel to hit my inbox.
Every time I go to writers’ conferences I hear, “It’s so hard to get an agent” – but I think that most first-time novelists don’t quite realize is that it’s probably even harder for us agents to get a novel that’s really Ready To Go. People talk about how “selective” (what a word!) agents are; that they reject 99% of everything they see – but think, dear reader, about my side of the mailbox: plowing through several thousand letters and not finding anything that really makes me sit up and think, “Yes, I absolutely must work on this book!”. A friend of mine – an editor – used to go into her boss’s office when she’d find a novel she really loved, and tell him that, if he didn’t let her buy the book, she’d jump out the nearest window. That’s what I keep longing for – the next novel of defenestration, I guess you could call it. The next novel that makes me absolutely take the leap.
So what does it take, you ask? Who knows. If I knew I could duplicate it. But I have some suggestions:
- Great voice. A way of writing which sounds somehow familiar but somehow unique. Something that we haven’t quite seen before, but something that we can immediately identify with.
- Compelling characters. People that I want to spend several hours – or days – or weeks – with, brooding about, having conversations with. Not cardboard cutouts who are obediently going about, doing the author’s bidding to get the plot going – but characters whose own unique internal motivations move the story along because it has to move along that way. Not because the author wanted it to, or because some writing teacher wanted it to, but because the characters themselves – special, unique, richly envisioned – absolutely have to have things happen. I once went to a talk that that wonderful novelist and truly nice person Diane Chamberlain gave, called “How to Create Characters So Real You’ll Be Tempted To Claim Them As Dependents On Your Tax Return” – those are the kinds of characters I hunger for, and so rarely find.
- Compelling premise. That famous one- or two-sentence log-line which effectively, beautifully, and compellingly sums up the entire book. Having that kind of a sentence is wonderful – it helps the agent sell the book to the editor, helps the editor to sell the book to her colleagues, and helps the publishing house sell the book to the booksellers and eventually the public. We’re a 30-second sound-byte nation; if you don’t like it, move to Canada or some other civilized country. But more to the point, for me: I find that, if an author can really sum up the book in a great tag-line, the author has really succeeded in digesting the novel – in really working through all the issues and concerns, to create the best possible novel that she can. A great tag-line is an indication, for me, that the novel is Ready To Go.
- Solid writing. This is feels like the absolute basic building-block upon which all else is based, and it’s also the thing that I find is most lacking in about 80% of the stuff that hits my desk. Writers don’t spend enough time, methinks, memorizing their Strunk & White’s Elements of Style (a great and cheap and short book – and it’s free online now, so I don’t know what the excuse for not having memorized it could possibly be). All that basic stuff that they taught us in 9th Grade English – how to use sentences properly, how to punctuate effectively. Even how to address letters. Didn’t anybody else learn that it’s proper business etiquette to address the recipient by their title and last name, a la “Dear Mr. Kleinman”? I keep getting letters addressed to “Dear Mr. Jeff Kleinman,” or “Dear Jeff Kleinman” – neither of which is quite proper, or at least I was taught it wasn’t. I realize that I’m being particularly irritating and picky about this, and let’s face it – if the concept is great and the story compelling I couldn’t care less if I got a letter addressed “Dear Moron” (which is probably well-deserved, anyway). But still. Just having those basic writing skills – ability to write effective dialogue, describe events, and so forth – is just not there in almost everything I see these days. If only I could sic my 9th Grade English teacher on the entire planet. (Another pet peeve, since I’m feeling peevish – people who send me their “fictional novel”. As opposed to what?)(OK, one more pet peeve and I’m through, I promise – Foreword if you’re talking about introductory material; Forward if you’re talking about speed or momentum.)
So there you have it. Now I’ve given you the blueprint to go out and write the Next Great American Novel.
One final bit of info before I close for the month. Novels are incredibly subjective, there’s absolutely no question about it. I know for me, when I’m reading, I look for two things (thank you, Pat LoBrutto, for these marvelous criteria) for the novel of defenestration:
1. Do I miss my subway stop reading it? (translation: is there something so page-turning about the novel that it just keeps me reading? – it has nothing to do with being a thriller or a mystery; but the novel does have a certain urgency, a certain need to get things told, and quickly) and
2. Do I gush about it to any poor slob who will listen? (translation: books are still sold via word of mouth – “You’ve got to read the book I’ve been reading – it’s absolutely amazing!” is still the best recommendation of all, no matter what the book reviewers say about the book.)
It’s so very hard to find a book that does these things. But being the optimist, I just keep hunting – because they’re out there; of that I’m certain.
Til next month …
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