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Atlanta Writing Workshop Wrapup
Finally got some time to sit down and talk about my thoughts on the Atlanta Writing Workshop.
A few of my WC friends and I attended the workshop with no real expectations. One of the major draws, for me, was a chance to pitch in front of some agents — more on that in a bit. Now, it did cost extra to pitch and extra per agent. I was apprehensive at first. But after looking over the attendees made it seem like a good deal, so I picked two that fit my genre.
I’ll be honest, having to pay to pitch some agents at a workshop felt a bit like being taken advantage of. But, looking at it now, I believe it’s a way to offset the cost of the one-day workshop. I imagine these agents had their flights taken care of as well as their rooms. With that being the case, I would imagine the cost for the single day event would be close to $500 a person.
There was a ton of information packed into a single day and all lead by Chuck Sambuchino, editor of Guide to Literary Agents. He’s a great presenter and knows how to keep the pace moving.
That said, I really felt like I knew most of what he talked about already. Not because I’m some big hotshot, but because I’ve been at this long enough. I’ve been to enough workshops and conventions to know the information. Of course that doesn’t mean it was bad for everyone. Take me from four years ago and this workshop would have been a wealth of knowledge.
Of the panels, one stuck out to me the most. Chuck read out loud the first page of anonymously submitted manuscripts. Six agents listened and read along. Whenever an agent reached a point that they’d stop reading they’d raise their hand. Once three agents had raised a hand Chuck would stop reading all together. Afterward the agents would say exactly why they would have stopped reading. It was fascinating to get to hear their thoughts. You could tell (and it was almost said this way) that they read A LOT. Because of this they don’t want any confusion on the first page and there has to be something there that makes them want to turn the page.
Overly wrought descriptions, out.
Lots of dialect in the dialogue, out.
Confusion as to who the main character is, out.
It’s kind of scary how even the littlest of things could cause them to stop reading. But what that means is you really need to make that first page shine.
Now the highlight for me were the two pitches I took a part in. I didn’t memorize my query, one-page synopsis, or anything like that. Instead I trusted in myself to know the material so that I could easily just talk about it and be excited about it. Honestly, I think that paid off. When I pitched informally at JordanCon in front of Brandon Sanderson and Harriet McDougal I had a little speech memorized. I basically sounded like a salesman.
This time I went in without pressure on myself and just had a good time.
Both agents gave me a lot of good information and feedback. They’ve also helped me identify some areas that I’ve been struggling with since I started pitching the book. Right now I’ve straddled YA and MG. With their help I’ve been able to pick a direction and focus.
Funny though is that one agent reps MG and the other YA. What does that mean for me? I now get to have two different MSS. This should be quite the challenge, but I’m up for it.
In my next blog update I plan on talking about a theory I have on pitching books. So far my informal thoughts seem to be holding up. And by that I mean any kind of rigorous scientific study is unnecessary, as my thoughts are full proof!
Trust me.
Guest Post: Meredith Brown, Sullivan Maxx Agent
This is a very exciting guest post I have for everyone. For those that have followed my blog for a while you’ll know that I have recently signed a contract with the Sullivan Maxx Literary Agency. My esteemed agent is Meredith Brown and she’s been great, helping me get my first book ready to shop around.
To celebrate all of this, Meredith has agreed — after much prodding and gnashing of teeth — to write a guest post for me. She touches on what she looks for in a manuscript, what she’s currently looking to represent, and of course her email if you have anything you’d like to submit.
Without making you all wait any longer, here is Meredith.
Hey y’all! My name’s Meredith Brown, and I’m your friendly neighborhood agent, here to talk about agent-ing and also give you guys a little bit of info about who I am and such. So, I suppose I’ll start with the basics. I graduated with a degree in Creative Writing and immediately knew I wanted to go into the publishing world. I spent my college career as a copy editor for my school paper and have been editing my mother’s stories and so it just seemed very natural for me to continue doing that, but for people I didn’t know personally.
Anyway, I lucked out in the way I got my job as literary agent; I’ve known Holly McClure since I was a toddler and she knew I would be great as her employee. I’m also the only person at her agency who reads fantasy and science fiction, so that’s an addition to her company (Sullivan Maxx Literary Agency) that I was able to bring. Also, now y’all know what sort of things I accept! I honestly don’t care if it’s aimed at the adult, YA, or children’s category. I only care if it’s well-written and hooks me in! I also definitely enjoy reading other genres, especially anything YA (I have a love affair with David Levithan and John Green, to name a few), so you can also feel free to just send me a pitch and I’ll look it over and let you know what I think.
On that note, you may be wondering what I look for in a manuscript. As I said, it definitely helps to be well-written and to have a great hook. Well-written, by the way, does not mean perfectly written. No one’s perfect, not even me, and I’m a grammar-obsessed copy editor-cum-writer-cum-lit agent. Basically, it’s totally fine if you have some typos and maybe muddle up some grammatical stuff. But! That doesn’t mean it should be sloppy. I’m not saying it can’t be your first draft, because I don’t know how y’all work. For me, my first draft is actually pretty edited, because I tend to over-analyse and go back and make sure everything flows as I’m writing. Some people don’t do that because they just need to get it out of them in one fell swoop and then go back in and edit. That’s totally fine! I hear the latter is actually how Neil Gaiman works, so you’re definitely in good company. Anwyay! Point being, just make sure that it’s fairly clean and is a good representation of your work. Honestly, as long as the story’s there and the beginning has a good hook, I’m willing to forgive a lot more.
Oh, and one last thing, please please please don’t have your main character waking up as the beginning. It’s clichéd and just kind of lazy. But, you already knew that, right? If you need a bit more guidance than that, here’s something I’ve learned. Write your beginning the way it first comes out of you. Now, most people will talk their way into a great beginning, but it won’t be the first thing you write. So, read it over and find that crazy-good first line. Usually it’s in the middle of when the action starts, not the actual beginning. I hope that made sense! It makes more sense once you do it, I promise. Oh, and do try not to start off with an expletive, either. You need to gain the reader’s trust before doing that, even if your character is a potty mouth (trust me, I made this mistake A LOT in my creative writing classes).
I’m definitely currently open to submissions. My work email is meredithlegare@gmail.com. It might take me a few days to respond, but I do read every submission I receive.
I’d like to thank Meredith for giving us some insight and — of course — picking my manuscript up and seeing in it the chance to go to the very top. Thanks, Meredith.
The First Draft Is Easy
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m starting in on my second draft of my novel. What I’m learning is that the first draft was the easy part. Which if you had told me that while writing my first draft I would have said you were crazy.
Surely, the first draft is the hardest. You’re trying to collect your thoughts and get something coherent down on paper without your inner critic getting in the way. After that it is just clean up. Right?
Almost. What I’m discovering is that there are plenty of helpful tips and blogs with numbered lists of how to get your first manuscript finished. There are a plethora of people ready to show you how to start your first novel and even how to finish it. But it seems like no one is really sure on how to EDIT your first novel.
Now I’m not talking about the easy stuff. Oh, cut out adverbs. Remove was/were, cut gerunds, and the word very.
What I’m talking about is how to keep the editing from snowballing into a complete rewrite. There are some issues I’d like to address but I keep finding that changing them starts to inflate and need more and more changes down the line which then affect the overall pacing in a negative way.
I then have to ask myself, are the changes necessary? I certainly feel like they are. But how can I really know?
One idea was to rewrite a brand new outline. Just outline the ideas for changes and include what has already been written in the outline. That way I can catch these snowballs before I get too deep into the editing process. Lord knows that I don’t want to be halfway through editing a full MS and realize that the changes in chapter one have screwed up everything.
I’m finding this next part to be challenging. More challenging than writing my first draft. But I know it will be as rewarding an experience and satisfying once I’m able to hand it off to my beta readers. My job now is to figure out the method that works best for me when it comes to editing a second draft.
I only wish that it was as easy as the first.
Jeffrey N. Baker 