BUT WHAT DO WE LEAVE IN?

BUT WHAT DO WE LEAVE IN?

We all know what to leave out:

1.) It’s Open Season on anything ending in –ly.

2.) Clunky sentences and long paragraphs that dull the readers’ mind and attention-span.

3.) Any word that you wouldn’t pay a quarter to keep in your manuscript. Ernest Hemingway learned to write lean when a foreign correspondent. EVERY WORD cost his employers money.

Elmore Leonard suggests: “Leave out the boring stuff.”

In reverse logic: we leave in the riveting stuff:

1.) Primal is riveting.
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA is riveting. Why? Because the fish means more to the old man than just something to keep hunger at bay. Catching the fish would say to those who jeer at him that he is not old and useless, that he is still a man.

2.) Sex is riveting.
Without it, the species would end. But we don’t live for abstractions. We live for attractions. Flirting is only verbal fondling. The act doesn’t have to be literally on the page, blow by blow. Still, the sparks should be seen.

3.) Danger is riveting.
But only if we care for the characters at risk. And the danger must flow out of the natural development of the narrative – not just be thrown in for spice out of nowhere.

4.) Empathy is magnetic.
We care for characters to whom we can relate. So we leave in those prose strokes that resonate with the pains, the dreams, the struggles of our readers – the search for love, the endurance of loneliness, the tragedy of being misunderstood.

5.) Great dialogue sparkles.
No clichés – even for teenagers, for clichés or even modern slang has a very short shelf-life.
Think of your favorite movies.
Each one had snippets of dialogue that had you repeating them to your friends. Try to make your novel someone’s favorite in a like manner.

6.) Poetry in prose.
Ernest Hemingway said the secret to writing great novels was that they contained poetry in prose.

Make each first sentence on a page memorable by use of metaphor, dialogue, or simply tilting an image on its ear.

Each of us must do that in our way. Read a page of Hemingway or Zelazny at random to see how they did it.

“She gave him a look that should have left bruises.”
“The sea was harsher than granite.”

*) I hope this has helped in some small way. Roland

Here is the video of Adiemus which Victor hears within his mind as he struggles to make it through a mystic ordeal for the sake of innocents depending upon him in BEST OF ENEMIES:

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD

In the beginning was the Word.

Lucky for the universe God didn't need an agent to get his Word to see the Light.

But none of us is God. And if I'm wrong about this, would You please put in an appearance in my apartment? I've got some questions.

Not being Deity, you and I have to get an agent.

L. Diane Wolfe has an excellent post on why none of us should even consider a subsidy or vanity press.

http://circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com/

Bottom line : they're called vanity publishers for a reason. Basically, it's like paying for a kiss. It means very little. And less to major publishers if you refer to being published by them. The big boys all know you paid to get published.

And it only means something when they pay you for it. In a sad sidebar, that truth is why some hopeless women on the hard streets feel they have worth. Men pay for them.

Remember FIELD OF DREAMS?

"If you build it, he will come."

And the same is true for us as writers. An agent will not come because I'm a nice guy. She will not come because I'm a writer with a great idea. She will not come because I beg. {Although I have to admit, I've been tempted to do that.} She will not come because I have great promise.

No.

The agent will come when I build something real for her to appear for. A novel that is finished, that is riveting from the very first sentence, that grabs the reader and will not let her go, that finishes with a resolved crisis and growth for the main character, hinted at in the very first chapter.

But more : she will come when I have already built a platform from which she can stand, from which a publisher can view potential sales, from which they can compute the possible profit in it for them to buy my novel.

That is something she can use in the ways she knows best, taking a finished novel with existing interest. With that she can go to the editors, persuading them into a better financial deal than we could have dreamed.

Until that happens, there is no need for an agent. Lusting for one is even a distraction. A distraction from what, you say?

From crafting that polished," draw-you-in-with-the-first-sentence" novel. But the novel is not enough, you must also have a platform. Get your name out there.

Twitter. Learn how to use it. Listen to others. Learn how NOT to hawk yourself. Facebook has problems. But set up an account for later. Be prepared.

Do what you're doing now. Write an interesting, absorbing blog. Be the best you on that blog you can be. Go with your strengths. If you're funny, make 'em laugh. If you're wise {me, I'm otherwise}, then share what you have freely and compassionately.

Go to others' blogs. You see something there that is useful or fun or both, direct your readers to that blog. Have the back of your fellow blogger. Maybe they'll have your back in return. If not, you still have the good feeling inside that being decent and kind gives you.

Google on how to write queries. I've written a couple of decent posts on how to do that. Other bloggers have as well.

Now, go to http://www.agentquery.com/ and find agents for your genre. Go to Preditors and Editors http://pred-ed.com/ and see if there are any red flags to their names. Go to Absolute Write Water Cooler : http://absolutewrite.com/forums/ and see what fellow writers think of your targeted agent.

Write the shortest, most interest-grabbing query you can. I've just written a post on how to do that. Google will show you others. Now, write that query. Show it to a few fellow writers you trust.

Then, throw your note in a cyber bottle out into the sea. Throw ten notes. And if three request a partial or a full, send them. Also tell those requesting agents about the interest of the other two.

Is that honest? Yes. Is that wise? It's human nature wise.

Guys want a girl that other guys want. It's human nature. Finding out other agents are interested in you makes you seem more attractive to that agent reading your reply. Be professional, of course, in how you state it. State it as a courtesy to them.

Agents who read this may sputter. But I'm not writing this for them. I writing this for you to have the best shot at getting an agent.

Oh, and when you get your agent, and she sells your novel, her next question will be :

"What are you working on next?"

Be prepared for that with a polished proposal. Let her know that you are professional and not a one-shot wonder. Understand that there is a melody playing inside her head as she looks at you : "What do you have for me that will make me more money?"

Your goal is to write, sell, repeat. Enjoy the journey ... and the friends you make along the way.

Like Spenser says, "It is what it is."
****************
One of my favorite melodies is "Adiemus," and I have included it with a glimpse of 300, a movie stemming from brave men who would not admit "impossible" into their thinking.