Over the weekend, I read a full manuscript for work regarding time travel. Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to divulge details, but it's an established author and the book was pretty funky, twisting classic folklore styles and tales. Really highbrow stuff, considering it's a Middle Grade. Somewhere in there, discussing the book with my colleagues, I reffered to people my age as the Time Travel Generation. This is because anyone born between 1980 and 1990 grew up with both Back to the Future and Bill and Ted. Which, let's face it, are awesome movies regardless of how old you are.
This in turn served to remind me of what I used to call the fear of writing (or of showing that writing to other people.) I called it the McFly syndrome after George McFly. Do you want to be George McFly? No? Then quit your whining and finish writing that novel you've been working on for a decade. You sissy.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Motivational Spouter
Let me tell you all one thing I tell my writing group when they express a sentiment along the lines of "I'll never be a writer. Books always strike me as so perfect and finished and it's hard to reconcile the end product with actually trying to make it." The difference between a published author and an unpublished one is experience, an editor and some confidence. I don't remind them about the talent and luck portions of the equation because they're my friends and don't want to imply they haven't got talent, nor do I wish to remind them that luck is out of our hands.
Regardless, you would be amazed by how many second rate manuscripts are submitted. You'd also be surprised how many of them get picked up for representation by one agency or another. It's an odd thing being an assistant at a literary agency. Some of these new writers make me feel like crap. Other times, a small press, an indie book store, an editor or another agent will send something to us with a reccomendation and it will be hewn from the greatest garbage, finest flotsam, the most terrific trash imaginable.
If reading it wasn't so exhausting it'd be super motivating to think that my (admittedly bad) writing is still better than many people who've gone a lot farther. I suppose it's as the lovely Script Girl used to say about movies. Can't sell it if you don't write it.
On a related note, script girl has come back to us, her adoring audience. Sort of. It's a new girl, and she speaks really slowly. What the hell? I'm a New Yorker lady. We speak in order that things might be said. Things like "One side, tourist!" and "What the hell are you looking at?" New York, man. It's a hell of a town. Or sprawling metropolis as the case may be. Or more widely, the third most populous state in the US.
Regardless, you would be amazed by how many second rate manuscripts are submitted. You'd also be surprised how many of them get picked up for representation by one agency or another. It's an odd thing being an assistant at a literary agency. Some of these new writers make me feel like crap. Other times, a small press, an indie book store, an editor or another agent will send something to us with a reccomendation and it will be hewn from the greatest garbage, finest flotsam, the most terrific trash imaginable.
If reading it wasn't so exhausting it'd be super motivating to think that my (admittedly bad) writing is still better than many people who've gone a lot farther. I suppose it's as the lovely Script Girl used to say about movies. Can't sell it if you don't write it.
On a related note, script girl has come back to us, her adoring audience. Sort of. It's a new girl, and she speaks really slowly. What the hell? I'm a New Yorker lady. We speak in order that things might be said. Things like "One side, tourist!" and "What the hell are you looking at?" New York, man. It's a hell of a town. Or sprawling metropolis as the case may be. Or more widely, the third most populous state in the US.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Accentual
You know something? I love British comedies. I do. Honestly. But I'm not a TV snob. Sure, Monty Python, Black Adder and Red Dwarf are vastly superior to virtually every American sitcom, despite their pitiful budgets and piss poor cinematography. And sure, the British version of Whose Line is it Anyway far outstripped the American one despite budget not being an issue and using a lot of the same people.
But it's not because the British are smarter than Americans. I don't know where people came up with that. Those shows I just mentioned? All clever, but all very, very low brow. Very.
So why is British TV so good? And why do we think they're so smart? Simple: British accents rock. And the ocassional inclusion of a Cockney accent rounds out the experience. Honestly, there's only one accent that's more hilarious.
Oi, could we get a Jewish sitcom here maybe? That'd be a mechaiyeh.
There's just something about Yiddish/Jewish American syntax and intonation that's inherently hilarious. Sorry, England. But you still have the best accent for polite, classy, super villains.
But it's not because the British are smarter than Americans. I don't know where people came up with that. Those shows I just mentioned? All clever, but all very, very low brow. Very.
So why is British TV so good? And why do we think they're so smart? Simple: British accents rock. And the ocassional inclusion of a Cockney accent rounds out the experience. Honestly, there's only one accent that's more hilarious.
Oi, could we get a Jewish sitcom here maybe? That'd be a mechaiyeh.
There's just something about Yiddish/Jewish American syntax and intonation that's inherently hilarious. Sorry, England. But you still have the best accent for polite, classy, super villains.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Fire
I wanted to keep the fire burning, but ohhhh, no. You lot just had to keep job hunting. Well now we're doomed.
Yeah, so, it's that time again. Time for yours truly to knuckle under, ignore the massive amount of other things he has to do, and start looking for another internship. The agency I'm a reader for is great, but part time. I'm a man. I have needs. I can't be satisfied with any less than two internships.
Because a writing group, a part time internship, graduate studies and writing a novel is apparently just not enough. It's official. I'm a masochist.
This is proven by the fact that I want to work in publishing. To some extent, applying for a job is applying for the job. Trolling career sites and trying to get through to specific people, or getting a call back. Arriving at an interview only to find that the whole thing is pro forma and they're not interested in you because they've already made their choice but corporate procedures dictate a minimum number of applicants be interviewed. The whole thing's a nightmare.
Publishing is just particularly bad. Not that publishers or those who work there are nasty or anything. In fact, it's probably the other way around. But it's a tight industry. Not a lot of open room, and less thanks to a recession and the fact that the digital revolution is finally, finally getting through to their business models. I love the industry, but if I told you I didn't think it was a bit reactionary, I'd be lying.
Anyway, we're looking at an inudstry where a major publisher might have 500 applicants to fill ten spaces in a three month unpaid internship program- and half of them have years of professional experience and/or their master's degree under their belt already. It's not easy for a 25 year old guy still finishing his MS to distinguish himself. Plus, many publishers are overwhelmingly female, which doesn't help my chances. And there's all the positions that have gone free lance. Fortunately (?) for me, I have no artistic talent and no desire to play copy editor, but for others in the industry, it can make finding a place to be difficult.
If any of you, my loyal readers, want to break into the business yourselves, remember the low salaries, the difficulty finding a job, the high turnover rate, and decide whether doing really interesting work is worth the sacrafice or if you should've listened to your mother and gotten that CPA certification.
Yeah, so, it's that time again. Time for yours truly to knuckle under, ignore the massive amount of other things he has to do, and start looking for another internship. The agency I'm a reader for is great, but part time. I'm a man. I have needs. I can't be satisfied with any less than two internships.
Because a writing group, a part time internship, graduate studies and writing a novel is apparently just not enough. It's official. I'm a masochist.
This is proven by the fact that I want to work in publishing. To some extent, applying for a job is applying for the job. Trolling career sites and trying to get through to specific people, or getting a call back. Arriving at an interview only to find that the whole thing is pro forma and they're not interested in you because they've already made their choice but corporate procedures dictate a minimum number of applicants be interviewed. The whole thing's a nightmare.
Publishing is just particularly bad. Not that publishers or those who work there are nasty or anything. In fact, it's probably the other way around. But it's a tight industry. Not a lot of open room, and less thanks to a recession and the fact that the digital revolution is finally, finally getting through to their business models. I love the industry, but if I told you I didn't think it was a bit reactionary, I'd be lying.
Anyway, we're looking at an inudstry where a major publisher might have 500 applicants to fill ten spaces in a three month unpaid internship program- and half of them have years of professional experience and/or their master's degree under their belt already. It's not easy for a 25 year old guy still finishing his MS to distinguish himself. Plus, many publishers are overwhelmingly female, which doesn't help my chances. And there's all the positions that have gone free lance. Fortunately (?) for me, I have no artistic talent and no desire to play copy editor, but for others in the industry, it can make finding a place to be difficult.
If any of you, my loyal readers, want to break into the business yourselves, remember the low salaries, the difficulty finding a job, the high turnover rate, and decide whether doing really interesting work is worth the sacrafice or if you should've listened to your mother and gotten that CPA certification.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Death Knell
Have you ever seen a show called "Dead Like Me?" Something of a cult classic of recent vintage about a disillusioned college dropout who becomes a grim reaper after being killed by a flaming toilet seat from outer space. I really enjoyed it myself. And it's not just because the perceptive, extraordinarily cynical but somewhat naive main character sounds an awful lot like me. It's also because the actress who plays that character is really cute.
Even so, the show has problems. Problems beyond my need to shout "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!" everytime Mandy Patinkin walks in. Which is a lot since he's a major character. No, its biggest problem is that it's over-narrated.
Now, we've all seen times when excessive narration actually seems to work. This is one in a thousand. Dead Like Me does not pull it off. Most products, regardless of medium do not pull it off. And yet, I see it all the time as a reader.
Perhaps the most infuriating to me is when people write about a three page prologue that basically spoils the entire book. They must have seen it work once upon a time. Maybe with a trick ending. They combined the knowledge that it can be done with the knowledge that I'll disembowel them with a melon baller if I see one more book opening with someone waking up.
The problem is that most authors tell us too much. This is called exposition. I wrote a song about it this morning while I was on the can to help you remember what it is, and how I feel about it.
"Exposition"
To the theme tune of Oklahoma
Exposition, where the text goes sweeping down the page
and the facts you list, so we get the gist,
and those facts come right before my raaaaaaaage.
I'll work on a second verse later. Or never, since I don't know how the rest of the song goes. Regardless most of those three page prologues are heavily exposition and they reveal an enormous amount of information in a very short period of time. It throws the pacing and honestly makes your book less interesting. Stories, like people, are best experienced a bit at a time and with a little mystery as it goes along. You think I care where your 64 year old ME protagnoist went to Elementary school? What brand of undies his wife wears? I know those aren't the details most authors will inundate readers with, but it might as well be. Stick to the facts at hand. Tell us what we need to know but work it into the story. Yes, a book which starts with the house burning down is doing better on page one than the book that starts with waking up. But when your second paragraph reads like
"If only I'd known at the start of the summer that my long lost identical twin would burn my house down, I probably wouldn't have invited them to live with me. Oh, there were all kinds of signs too. {insert list of story spoilers here}."
If you must do this, remeber not to give too much away. Remember To Kill a Mockingbird? Great book. And it starts that way too. Not with a house burning down, but hinting at the ending. Except it gives you only a few choice pieces of information about events that don't happen until several years after the narrative starts and occur only at the very end of the book. What did I say before about seeming non-sequitors that it takes most of the book to truly understand but grabs you immediately? I said they were good. Lo' and behold! One of the most celebrated and widely read novels in American history follows that formula.
I'm jus' sayin' is all.
Even so, the show has problems. Problems beyond my need to shout "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!" everytime Mandy Patinkin walks in. Which is a lot since he's a major character. No, its biggest problem is that it's over-narrated.
Now, we've all seen times when excessive narration actually seems to work. This is one in a thousand. Dead Like Me does not pull it off. Most products, regardless of medium do not pull it off. And yet, I see it all the time as a reader.
Perhaps the most infuriating to me is when people write about a three page prologue that basically spoils the entire book. They must have seen it work once upon a time. Maybe with a trick ending. They combined the knowledge that it can be done with the knowledge that I'll disembowel them with a melon baller if I see one more book opening with someone waking up.
The problem is that most authors tell us too much. This is called exposition. I wrote a song about it this morning while I was on the can to help you remember what it is, and how I feel about it.
"Exposition"
To the theme tune of Oklahoma
Exposition, where the text goes sweeping down the page
and the facts you list, so we get the gist,
and those facts come right before my raaaaaaaage.
I'll work on a second verse later. Or never, since I don't know how the rest of the song goes. Regardless most of those three page prologues are heavily exposition and they reveal an enormous amount of information in a very short period of time. It throws the pacing and honestly makes your book less interesting. Stories, like people, are best experienced a bit at a time and with a little mystery as it goes along. You think I care where your 64 year old ME protagnoist went to Elementary school? What brand of undies his wife wears? I know those aren't the details most authors will inundate readers with, but it might as well be. Stick to the facts at hand. Tell us what we need to know but work it into the story. Yes, a book which starts with the house burning down is doing better on page one than the book that starts with waking up. But when your second paragraph reads like
"If only I'd known at the start of the summer that my long lost identical twin would burn my house down, I probably wouldn't have invited them to live with me. Oh, there were all kinds of signs too. {insert list of story spoilers here}."
If you must do this, remeber not to give too much away. Remember To Kill a Mockingbird? Great book. And it starts that way too. Not with a house burning down, but hinting at the ending. Except it gives you only a few choice pieces of information about events that don't happen until several years after the narrative starts and occur only at the very end of the book. What did I say before about seeming non-sequitors that it takes most of the book to truly understand but grabs you immediately? I said they were good. Lo' and behold! One of the most celebrated and widely read novels in American history follows that formula.
I'm jus' sayin' is all.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Erin Go Home
Okay, before I go off on my crazy rant for the day, let me just point out that The Rejectionist is doing a week long feature on Science Fiction and its use in forwarding civil rights and what not. So, minority authors, strong women in SF, that kind of thing. Sci-Fi is certainly a great genre for it, it has a history of social commentary made by expanding societies' flaws to their ultimate, absurd conclusions. Even when written by white men who probably didn't give two hoots about one particular group or another. See, for instance, George Orwell. Or Anthony Burgess.
With that out of the way, I will now rage. One trend I see a lot at my agency is people sending me things that aren't at all unusual and thinking they must be the only ones who have ever thought of it. One that has been especially upsetting of late is books set in Ireland. That's right. I bet you didn't know there was a horrific dearth of books in or about Ireland, or following Irish characters.
I feel compelled to say that I couldn't care less one way or another about Ireland. I live in NY which has a lot of them. I went to a college which was heavily Irish Catholic. My sister in law is Irish. Erin Go Bragh! Let me tell you, there's only one country in the world that really loves Ireland. And that's the US. For God's sake, the Irish are poor, bitter, miserable, hated by their neighbors, constantly fighting for their rights and territory. The only reason they don't all just jump into the ocean is to spite the brits who've been waiting for that to happen since the middle ages, when they painted the Irish as having green skin. And the Irish in this country love the place. Oh sure, few of them have ever been. And they might've forgotten that their families left because everyone was starving to death since they had nothing but blighted taters to munch on for who knows how long. Still, they love the place to death. Consequently, America loves the place to death.
Me, I'm totally indifferent. Cute girls, terrible food. Drunken pissants, but beautiful scenery. But Ireland's got to be the second most common setting for novels submitted to my agency. And only if you count the entire US, throughout its history, including territories to be a single place. I see more books about Ireland than NY. We're the bloody empire state people. How about some respect? Also note, NYC is publishing capital USA. I'm just sayin' flattering my state might soothe my righteous anger. Did I mention I'm Italian? People tell me I remind them somewhat of a taller, fatter Joe Pesche.
So if you want to set your novel in Ireland, go right ahead. But please don't tell me it's "underepresented" "unexplored" "unutilized" "ignored" or any other such bullshit. How many books you think I get taking place in Zimbabwe? Or even China (a country which fascinates me and provides more than a sixth of the entire world's population)? Truth is, in four months I have not seen a single query that takes place in either. Best I got was a single memoir from South Africa and the ocassional book about a US Suburbanite who is half Korean and struggling with identity issues. I dealt with no fewer than five books about Ireland today alone. You want to tell me your setting is different or unique, you better be sure it really is, because my patience is wearing thin when it comes to overzealous, unorigial braggarts.
With that out of the way, I will now rage. One trend I see a lot at my agency is people sending me things that aren't at all unusual and thinking they must be the only ones who have ever thought of it. One that has been especially upsetting of late is books set in Ireland. That's right. I bet you didn't know there was a horrific dearth of books in or about Ireland, or following Irish characters.
I feel compelled to say that I couldn't care less one way or another about Ireland. I live in NY which has a lot of them. I went to a college which was heavily Irish Catholic. My sister in law is Irish. Erin Go Bragh! Let me tell you, there's only one country in the world that really loves Ireland. And that's the US. For God's sake, the Irish are poor, bitter, miserable, hated by their neighbors, constantly fighting for their rights and territory. The only reason they don't all just jump into the ocean is to spite the brits who've been waiting for that to happen since the middle ages, when they painted the Irish as having green skin. And the Irish in this country love the place. Oh sure, few of them have ever been. And they might've forgotten that their families left because everyone was starving to death since they had nothing but blighted taters to munch on for who knows how long. Still, they love the place to death. Consequently, America loves the place to death.
Me, I'm totally indifferent. Cute girls, terrible food. Drunken pissants, but beautiful scenery. But Ireland's got to be the second most common setting for novels submitted to my agency. And only if you count the entire US, throughout its history, including territories to be a single place. I see more books about Ireland than NY. We're the bloody empire state people. How about some respect? Also note, NYC is publishing capital USA. I'm just sayin' flattering my state might soothe my righteous anger. Did I mention I'm Italian? People tell me I remind them somewhat of a taller, fatter Joe Pesche.
So if you want to set your novel in Ireland, go right ahead. But please don't tell me it's "underepresented" "unexplored" "unutilized" "ignored" or any other such bullshit. How many books you think I get taking place in Zimbabwe? Or even China (a country which fascinates me and provides more than a sixth of the entire world's population)? Truth is, in four months I have not seen a single query that takes place in either. Best I got was a single memoir from South Africa and the ocassional book about a US Suburbanite who is half Korean and struggling with identity issues. I dealt with no fewer than five books about Ireland today alone. You want to tell me your setting is different or unique, you better be sure it really is, because my patience is wearing thin when it comes to overzealous, unorigial braggarts.
Monday, August 2, 2010
One Liners
Okay, as promised, I'm going to talk a little bit about one liners. Maybe some readers or submission managers or whatever would disagree with me, but the opening few lines or paragraphs is virtually all I need to see of most books submitted to my agency. A few paragraphs can tell you a lot about the voice, pacing, construction, copy editing, consistency, and originality of a work. I have so much to say on the subject that I can't say it all at once, so I'll start from the beggining, the opening line itself.
First thing I should point out- any book or short story that opens with a normal person waking up on a normal day is almost guaranteed to get a form rejection from yours truly. I must read fifteen manuscripts a day that start with sounds of snoring, an alarm going off, or some truly uninspired dialogue like "Wake up honey or you'll be late for work." Let me set the record straight. Waking up is not interesting. Waking up as a bug might be, but Fraz Kafka beat you to that particular opening a hundred years ago. And when books start with waking up, they're usually slow to get going. If I have to read several pages and don't see a distinct voice, unusual character, or interesting premise, consider yourself gone. And most manuscripts that start with waking up prove themselves to be, at best, very slow boils. At worst, as they often are, they're BBB. That's Crewd shorthand for "bland, banal bullshit." Keep in mind, waking up is just the most common extraordinarily boring way to start a story. If you need to write it that way for your own sense of progression, fine. If you start writing and need to get a feel for the character, go ahead. But take it out of the final product.
Second- how does one make a good opening line and does it make a difference? To answer the second part first, yes. It absolutely does. Even a terrible manuscript, I'll read about five pages if it has a great opening line, hoping to see a little bit more of the skill that crafted that initial hook. Compared to the two page maximum I read of most books that start with waking up, that gets you somewhere. The more you can convince me to read, the more sympathetic I become to you, and your manuscript, and the more I like it.
So how do you make a good opening line? My personal favorite is the absurd. Something seemingly surreal, but makes perfect sense. Usually, it will hit the theme or climax of the story and it'll take us half the book to figure out just what it meant. I don't want to quote any of the authors who have queried me (even though most were rejects) because I'm really hoping to see those words on a professinally printed and bound page one day down the line and wouldn't want to ruin their best stuff by making it availible to just anyone. Instead, I'll use a few of my own because, lazy, talentless shmuck that I am, I never had a chance anyway. So, a good one line opening might be
"Old Two-Nose Paul, despite his nickname still couldn't tell when we were shitting him."
"The phrase 'hey baby, wanna get wet?' can be traced back to Poseidon, Greek God of the Oceans, for whom it was particularly unsucessful."
Or, if we were to go for a full on opening paragraph, one of my personal favorites is "I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not proud of. I’ve lied. I’ve stolen. I’ve cheated. I’ve even killed a few people. But the worst thing I’ve done by far is to tell a strong willed woman there’s something she can’t do."
If you're not into non-sequitors, usually I find physical description is best. Indeed, I'm a satirist (if I may flatter myself) so non-sequitors are my method, but for serious works, literary or commercial, I often find a quick description of the scene best. Especially when placed in immediate contrast to the action of the story. For instance, a buoy floats gently in the bay in the cool, gray morning air. Beside it floats the bloated body of incumbent senator Mr. Blank. Something like that. That's not a cleaned up or streamlined version. Or be creative. I once had a middle aged lawyer staring at a clock he thought looked like a gravestone (a thought at odds with the work he was supposed to be doing). I can't give you endless lines, but starting with someone waking up or walking down the street is not a novel or even a short story. That's a Blues Song.
"I woke up this morning. Then I went back to bed...well I ain't got no money. I'm just walking down the road...I wish I could get me some money, but I forgot my automated telacode." - Weird Al Yankovich's Generic Blues.
First thing I should point out- any book or short story that opens with a normal person waking up on a normal day is almost guaranteed to get a form rejection from yours truly. I must read fifteen manuscripts a day that start with sounds of snoring, an alarm going off, or some truly uninspired dialogue like "Wake up honey or you'll be late for work." Let me set the record straight. Waking up is not interesting. Waking up as a bug might be, but Fraz Kafka beat you to that particular opening a hundred years ago. And when books start with waking up, they're usually slow to get going. If I have to read several pages and don't see a distinct voice, unusual character, or interesting premise, consider yourself gone. And most manuscripts that start with waking up prove themselves to be, at best, very slow boils. At worst, as they often are, they're BBB. That's Crewd shorthand for "bland, banal bullshit." Keep in mind, waking up is just the most common extraordinarily boring way to start a story. If you need to write it that way for your own sense of progression, fine. If you start writing and need to get a feel for the character, go ahead. But take it out of the final product.
Second- how does one make a good opening line and does it make a difference? To answer the second part first, yes. It absolutely does. Even a terrible manuscript, I'll read about five pages if it has a great opening line, hoping to see a little bit more of the skill that crafted that initial hook. Compared to the two page maximum I read of most books that start with waking up, that gets you somewhere. The more you can convince me to read, the more sympathetic I become to you, and your manuscript, and the more I like it.
So how do you make a good opening line? My personal favorite is the absurd. Something seemingly surreal, but makes perfect sense. Usually, it will hit the theme or climax of the story and it'll take us half the book to figure out just what it meant. I don't want to quote any of the authors who have queried me (even though most were rejects) because I'm really hoping to see those words on a professinally printed and bound page one day down the line and wouldn't want to ruin their best stuff by making it availible to just anyone. Instead, I'll use a few of my own because, lazy, talentless shmuck that I am, I never had a chance anyway. So, a good one line opening might be
"Old Two-Nose Paul, despite his nickname still couldn't tell when we were shitting him."
"The phrase 'hey baby, wanna get wet?' can be traced back to Poseidon, Greek God of the Oceans, for whom it was particularly unsucessful."
Or, if we were to go for a full on opening paragraph, one of my personal favorites is "I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not proud of. I’ve lied. I’ve stolen. I’ve cheated. I’ve even killed a few people. But the worst thing I’ve done by far is to tell a strong willed woman there’s something she can’t do."
If you're not into non-sequitors, usually I find physical description is best. Indeed, I'm a satirist (if I may flatter myself) so non-sequitors are my method, but for serious works, literary or commercial, I often find a quick description of the scene best. Especially when placed in immediate contrast to the action of the story. For instance, a buoy floats gently in the bay in the cool, gray morning air. Beside it floats the bloated body of incumbent senator Mr. Blank. Something like that. That's not a cleaned up or streamlined version. Or be creative. I once had a middle aged lawyer staring at a clock he thought looked like a gravestone (a thought at odds with the work he was supposed to be doing). I can't give you endless lines, but starting with someone waking up or walking down the street is not a novel or even a short story. That's a Blues Song.
"I woke up this morning. Then I went back to bed...well I ain't got no money. I'm just walking down the road...I wish I could get me some money, but I forgot my automated telacode." - Weird Al Yankovich's Generic Blues.
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