The Cuckleburr Times » Evan Marshall

Agent Secrets: Want to Land an Agent? Follow These Guidelines

Evan Marshall — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:29:44 +0000

“If you want to get a novel published, you need an agent.” True enough, but it’s better to get the right agent. Here’s how.

Use the Internet to find agents who are right for you. Six helpful sites are:

1. Agent Query bills itself as “the internet’s largest and most current database of literary agents.” Click on Full Search, then specify details such as genre and whether the agent is seeking new clients. Search results include not only basic contact information but also specifics on what the agent is looking for and, often, examples of recent deals. The site also offers articles on working with agents and resources such as writing websites and conferences.

2. QueryTracker.net boasts a database of more than 1,300 agents and offers a detailed advanced search feature including specific genres.

3. The Association of Authors’ Representatives requires members to adhere to a strict Canon of Ethics, so you know any member is legitimate (some perfectly legitimate agents do not belong). Click on Find an Agent to see which agents accept email submissions and which accept submissions via regular mail. Keyword Search and Advanced Search features are also available.

4. A $20 month-to-month subscription to Publishers Marketplace gives you access to an extensive searchable database of agents and their deals. A feature called Top Dealmakers tells you which agents make the most sales in a given genre. Another feature, Who Represents, allows you to find out who represents writers of books like yours.

5. Check an agent’s reputation at Preditors & Editors, a website that keeps an updated list of agents according to whether they’re reputable or not. Click on Agents & Attorneys, then look up the name alphabetically.

6. Finally, stop off at the Agents page of Writer Beware, which has helpful articles on how to spot and avoid dishonest agents.

Google agents you’re interested in to see if they have their own websites. You’ll usually find submission guidelines.

Now it’s time to approach agents. Have these items ready before you begin:

Complete manuscript. If you haven’t published a novel, submit a complete manuscript rather than a “proposal” (synopsis and sample chapters). If you have had a novel published by a commercial publisher, it’s OK to send a proposal.

Synopsis. The synopsis is a condensed overview of your novel which helps agents, editors and other publishing personnel evaluate it. Use the present tense and write one page for every 25 pages of manuscript. Tell the entire story, including the ending.

Query letter. A query letter is a one-page business letter. It briefly describes your novel (one paragraph) and specifies genre, title and word length. Provide relevant information about yourself: publishing credits, writers’ organizations you belong to, writing awards or citations, and any pertinent background (for example, you’re a surgeon and your novel is a medical thriller). Be professional, never cutesy. Ask if the agent would like to read your manuscript.

Follow all the agent’s specifications and instructions exactly (query, self-addressed stamped envelope, etc.).

If an agent bites, include your original query letter with your manuscript, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply.

If the agent takes you on, yippee!

And if the agent rejects you?

Don’t take it personally. It may have nothing to do with your material. The agent may not be accepting unpublished writers or new clients unless they are exceptional, but may not have said so because if he did, submissions would drop off. Another possibility is that she may already represent a novel too similar to yours but does not want to divulge that.

The “no,” however, may have everything to do with your material. Here are five of the most common situations you must avoid:

1. Derivative story idea. You must come up with something fresh within the expectations of your chosen genre.

2. No recognizable genre. Your book must have a genre, an obvious place on a shelf in the bookstores, and a clear comparison to books in the genre.

3. Wrong word length. Picking the wrong word length is a novice’s mistake. A 50,000-word mainstream novel is an immediate reject. So is a 175,000-word romantic comedy. Do your homework. Find the appropriate word length for your novel.

4. Grammatical and other problems. These are sudden-death errors: spelling, grammar, punctuation, improper manuscript formatting.

5. Writing that tells rather than shows. Novels today are mostly “show.” If you’re not sure what “show” and “tell” mean, consult any novel-writing guide or take a fiction course.

Follow these guidelines and eventually you will find an agent who understands and appreciates your work — and who will be able to sell it.

All you need is one.

© 2010 Evan Marshall and Martha Jewett, creators of The Marshall Plan ® Novel Writing Software

Article by Evan Marshall and Martha Jewett, creators of The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software, an adaptation of the bestselling Marshall Plan® series of writing guides. Evan is an internationally recognized expert on fiction writing and author of the Hidden Manhattan and Jane Stuart and Winky mystery series. A former book editor, for 27 years he has been a leading literary agent specializing in fiction. He is the president of The Evan Marshall Agency, a leading literary management firm that represents a number of New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors. Martha is a former award-winning business book editor at McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons, and HarperBusiness. She is currently a literary agent and editorial consultant specializing in business books. An avid memoirist, she blogs at www.writeyourmemoir.com.

For more information, please visit writeanovelfast.com and follow the authors on Facebook and Twitter.

Get Your Novel Published – The Submission Campaign

Evan Marshall — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:27:20 +0000

Your novel is completed and all of your auxiliary materials-literary query letter, novel synopsis, short synopsis, cover letter-are ready. Now what do you do?

You don’t start sending things out helter-skelter, hoping something will hit the target. You take a thoughtful, intelligent, businesslike approach to submission. You plan a campaign.

A Multitiered Approach.

I always recommend a multitiered approach: querying literary agents, querying editors, meeting agents, and meeting editors. If you’ve ever submitted anything before, you know why I recommend this approach. Most agents and editors take a long time to reply to writers’ queries, not because they’re mean or don’t care, but because in the grand scheme of things, material from people you don’t already represent or publish is not as important as material from people you do. A wait of several months up to a year is not uncommon. If you queried one agent at a time, one editor at a time, you could be in your dotage by the time you got an answer. Agent know how slow editors can be. That’s why we often make simultaneous submissions.

To start your submission campaign, make a table with the following headings across the top:

NUMBER

AGENT/EDITOR ADDRESS & PHONE

MATERIAL SENT

DATE SENT

RESPONSE

DATE OF RESPONSE

FOLLOW-UP?

GO TO NUMBER

This is your submission log. Now, based on your research, write down the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and, if they’re listed, the email addresses of the agents and editors you think will have an interest in your novel.

Immediately query all of these agents and editors. On your submission log, keep a record of exactly what you send to whom and when you send it. In the leftmost column, number the entries. If positive responses come in, record those, too: Requested synopsis and first three chapters, or Requested complete manuscript, or whatever the case may be. Then, in the extreme right column, write the number of the next blank row of your log. There you’ll fill in the agent or editor’s address and contact information again, and record what you’re sending this time.

Negative responses, of course, end there, though you should make a note about the response: Not accepting new clients, or Not enthusiastic, or maybe just Printed rejection slip. Or you might simply want to write See letter. Keep all correspondence in a file or folder with your log.

As you’re querying and acting on positive responses, keep your eye you for new names. You might read about an interesting deal in Publishers Weekly or online in Publishers Lunch. You might read a novel like yours and see an acknowledgment to an agent or editor not on your list. If so, jot down this person’s name, google his or her contact information, and query! In other words, always keep your material moving. Most importantly, do not allow negative responses to immobilize you.

Don’t Take It Personally

You’ve got to develop a Teflon rhinoceros hide in his business. Never forget that an agent’s or editor’s opinion is that that-his or her opinion-and nothing more. Also keep in mind that agents and editors seldom give reasons for turning material down; they don’t have time, and even if they did, they don’t want to get into a dialogue or critique-unless they see promise and want to encourage you. Therefore, you’ll often get those blasted one-size-fits-all rejection slips or letters that tell you nothing at all.

Sometimes the reasons behind these maddening pieces of paper actually have nothing to do with your material. An agent or editor may not be accepting unpublished writers but does not want to say so. He may not be accepting new clients at all unless they are exceptional, but does not want to say so because then submissions would drop off-a bad situation for an agent. He may already have a novel signed up that is similar to yours. The point is, it doesn’t matter why someone rejects you; make a note of it and move on, knowing that rejection is an inevitable part of the process of getting published.

Keep It Moving

While you’re querying, following up on positive responses, and watching constantly for new agent and editor names, keep an eye on directories, newsletters, and websites such as Shaw Guides (www.shawguides.com) for conferences you feel are worth attending. You may not be able to cross the country to attend a national convention in your target genre, but there’s really no excuse for not showing up at a local conference-even a general writers conference-especially if agents who handle your kind of writing will be attending.

When you meet an agent or editor at a conference or convention, be sure to ask that all-important question: “May I send you my manuscript?” If the answer is yes, record that agent’s or editor’s contact information on your log as soon as you get home, then get that material into the mail, making certain to record the details-what you’re sending and when you’re sending it.

And so it goes. Never hold back from submitting to a new name you’ve discovered; there’s no limit to the number of queries you can have out at the same time. If an agent or editor requests exclusivity, be sure to find out for what period of time (it varies according to the agent), then decide whether waiting that long without submitting to other agents is worth it to you. Obviously, if material is already on submission with other agents, an exclusive look won’t be possible. If you agree to an exclusive submission, a polite letter or phone call is perfectly acceptable if you’ve had no response by the end of the agreed-upon time period.

The key is to keep your material on submission, and to always be on the lookout for new names. Things change over time. Editors change jobs, or new ones appear. The same goes for agents. Publishing is such a merry-go-round that sometimes it seems its entire personnel profile can change over the course of a single year.

Oh, there’s one more thing you need to do while you’re keeping all the submission balls in the air: keep writing. Why? First and foremost, because you’re a writer, and that’s what writers do. On a more practical level, an agent or editor might decline your current project but ask to see something else. You’ll want to have that “something else” ready as soon as possible.

HELPFUL HINT: Very often agents are open to new clients but must be extremely selective because they already have full client lists. Try targeting newer agents at large agencies. You may read (for example, in the People section of Publishers Weekly, that an editor has become an agent, or that an assistant at a literary agency has been promoted to full agent. If you have any reason to believe this person might be right for your novel, query him or her immediately. Another trick is simply to call the switchboards of large agencies and ask if there are any new agents. Very often the receptionist will tell you their names and specialties.

Follow these guidelines and eventually you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of a string of positive responses from an agent or editor who understand and appreciate what you’re doing. He’s out there somewhere, and wants to meet you as badly as you want to meet him. Don’t give up. That person could be the next one on your list.

Evan Marshall, president of The Evan Marshall Agency, is a former book editor and packager. Recently he and coauthor Martha Jewett released The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software, based on his bestselling The Marshall Plan writers’ guides. Evan is also the author a number of popular mystery novels; recently released are Death is Disposable and Evil Justice. Visit http://www.writeanovelfast.com and download Evan’s 77-page Fiction Makeover Guide with tips and ideas on writing a great novel.

How to Sell Your Novel Without a Literary Agent

Evan Marshall — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 06:33:07 +0000

In spite of what you hear about publishers accepting submissions only from agents, and about what an agent can do for a writer, there are still many instances in which you don’t necessarily need an agent. This is good news at a time when it seems fewer agents than ever are open to new talent.

Small or Specialized Publishers

The smaller publishers-and today there are more than ever, most of them outside New York City-are usually perfectly happy to accept submissions directly from writers. In fact, I have found that many of them are intimidated by literary agents, and prefer to work directly with writers.

You can find the names and addresses of smaller publishers, from regional presses to university presses, in Literary Market Place (LMP). This expensive volume can be found in almost any library’s reference department. It includes a listing of publishers by subject matter. If you believe that your novel has a niche audience that makes it right for one of these publishers, or has a regional appeal that makes it a good bet for a local publisher (an example would be a story based on a local historical incident), try submitting directly. Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise (for example, instructions from the publisher), begin with a query letter and follow up as appropriate.

Major Publishers Willing to Work Direct

There are still some major publishers that state openly that they are willing to receive material directly from writers. This does not mean they are happy to receive unsolicited manuscripts. It means they are willing to receive query letters from writers, and will ask to see manuscripts that sound promising. When you submit your manuscript in response to an editor’s invitation to do so, it becomes solicited.

In directories like Writer’s Market, you can learn whether a publisher is open to unagented submissions. You can also visit the website of a publisher you have in mind; often you will find submission guidelines. Submission policies differ greatly; a company’s preferences always supersede traditional practice.

One notable example of a publisher that not only is open to unagented material but even encourages it (by periodically holding writing contests and competitions) is Harlequin, the world’s largest romance publisher, whose divisions include Harlequin itself as well as Silhouette, Spice, Mira, HQN, Kimani Press, Steeple Hill, Red Dress Ink, Luna, and Worldwide Library. Within these lines are imprints that publish contemporary romance in all its variations, historical romance, romantic suspense, mainstream women’s fiction, “chick lit,” fantasy, inspirational fiction, African American fiction, and even erotica. The company does not accept unsolicited manuscripts, but requires a query letter containing specific components, as well as a brief synopsis of your novel. Visit their website at http://www.eHarlequin.com and read their author guidelines.

HELPFUL HINT: Most publishers of genre fiction (romance, mystery, horror, men’s adventure, etc.) are open to queries directly from writers.

Special Circumstances

There are other ways to get editors to consider your work without having an agent, even if the editors work for publishers whose official policy is not to accept unagented material.

You may know someone, or know someone who knows someone, whose books are published by one of the major publishing houses. If so, ask that someone for a referral. If that’s not possible, ask for permission to use this person’s name and send a query letter with SASE (a self-addressed, stamped envelope), mentioning that name right up front. Chances are good the editor will agree to look at your manuscript, if only out of politeness.

If you attend a writers conference or convention and meet an editor who publishes the kind of book you’ve written, ask him or her for permission to send your manuscript. If the editor agrees, mail your manuscript the minute you get home, being sure to mention where you met the editor and that he or she agreed to read your book. Put this information at the very beginning of your cover letter, so that an assistant screening submissions will be sure to see it and place it on the “Look” pile!

HELPFUL HINT: When you send material in response to an agent or editor’s invitation mark the outside of the envelope REQUESTED MATERIAL. That way your package won’t work itself into the dreaded slush pile-the stack of unsolicited manuscripts, which receive little or no attention.

Perhaps you happen to know an editor who publishes what you write. If so, simply ask if you can submit your manuscript. Few people put on the spot in this way have the guts to say no. You’ll get a reading, and if your novel is as good as I hope it is, your friend, relative, or acquaintance will be happy he or she said yes.

Oh, What the Heck!

Don’t tell, but despite their “official policies,” many major publishers that claim to be closed to unagented material do open query letters, and do ask to see manuscripts. If you’re certain a particular editor at a particular publishing company would be perfect for your novel, what have you got to lose by sending a query and SASE? The worst that can happen is that you will receive no response.

On the other hand, a few weeks ago I got a call from a woman whose first approach to an editor at one of New York City’s largest publishers was by means of a query letter, without any special recommendation or connection. She and this publisher have just signed a healthy, two-book contract. If you don’t have an agent but are eager to get your writing career going, try one or more of the above techniques. I see them work for a large number of writers.

Evan Marshall, president of The Evan Marshall Agency, is a former book editor and packager. Recently he and coauthor Martha Jewett released The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software, based on his bestselling The Marshall Plan® writers’ guides. Evan is also the author a number of popular mystery novels; recently released are Death is Disposable and Evil Justice. Visit http://www.writeanovelfast.com and download Evan’s 77-page Fiction Makeover Guide with tips and ideas on writing a great novel.

Enjoy that? You can read more from Evan right here at The Cuckleburr Times.

Writing Success – It’s Habit Forming

Evan Marshall — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:05:50 +0000

Psychologists say the best way to achieve success is to act like those who have already achieved it. The success soon follows.

As an editor and agent, I’ve noticed that the most successful authors are the ones who’ve always behaved like successful authors. They’ve developed habits that enable them to write their best and their most, and to live fulfilling, productive personal lives.

What are these habits for writing success? I’ve identified six of the biggies, and I’d like to share them with you.

Successful writers word hard, but they also play hard. They see writing as a job to be confined to more-or-less regular hours. In the remaining hours they concentrate on leading full personal lives and spending time with family, friends and, most important, themselves. They then return to their jobs refreshed and recharged. There’s no danger of burnout.

Successful writers take their commitments seriously. Whether it’s completing a novel by deadline, revising an article by a promised date, or getting an agent that first draft for discussion, the successful writer knows that honoring commitments demonstrates professionalism and thereby builds credibility. It is this credibility that wins respect-and priority treatment-from editors and agents every time.

Successful writers take their work-but not themselves-extremely seriously. They know that without humor they’re lost, especially in this chaos we call publishing. A sense of humor makes a writer a person as well, someone a colleague can connect with on an ultimately more important level. Life eventually seems too short for writers without that humanizing touch of humor.

Successful writers think constantly of their long-range goals. They know where they want to be in one, five, ten years, and they set up smaller “goal posts” along the way. Nothing is left to chance. Every project contributes in some way to completing the big picture. Editors, agents, publicists, and salespeople all become allies in making the writer’s dreams come true.

Successful writers are always writing. Sounds obvious, yet how many writers have we seen send a proposal or manuscript to an agent or editor and then sit back to wait and see what happens? Successful writers know how slowly the wheels of publishing turn, and that the answer they’re waiting for may be less than ideal. Better to have something new and exciting on the boards to soften the blow, not to mention to have used that waiting time productively. Other writers wait for inspiration, or for that joyous feeling, or for the house to be clean or the kids to be quiet or the bills to be paid-and they never write. Successful writers know that there will never be a perfect time, and so they just write. Always.

Successful writers hire the best professionals they can find, but they never take their eye off their business affairs. Though they’re careful to choose agents, lawyers, and accountants they can trust, they are also careful to educate themselves enough to be able to challenge that contract clause, that book jacket, that advertisement, that publicity campaign. They know the ultimate truth in “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”

If you want to be a successful writer, act like one. Keep the above advice in mind. Before you know it, true success will be yours.

Evan Marshall, president of The Evan Marshall Agency, is a former book editor and packager. Recently he and coauthor Martha Jewett released The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software, based on his bestselling The Marshall Plan® writers’ guides. Evan is also the author a number of popular mystery novels; recently released are Death is Disposable and Evil Justice. Visit http://www.writeanovelfast.com and download Evan’s 77-page Fiction Makeover Guide with tips and ideas on writing a great novel.

Seven Ways to Write a Book Faster

Evan Marshall — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:01:54 +0000

Once you sell your first novel, chances are good your editor will want you to deliver at least one book a year. Some writers have no problem with this schedule, while others scramble to keep up. I used to find it difficult to deliver novels at this rate, since I needed at least six months to develop my plot outline and at least another six months to write the novel.

My current publisher wants me to deliver my novels nine months apart. This was a problem I’d always dreamed of having, but it was a problem nevertheless. So I had to come up with ways to speed up the writing processes. I’ll share my tips with you below.

Set quotas

Novels are built a page at a time. The bottom line is that you’ve got to produce those pages. If you don’t write enough pages a day, you won’t have your novel finished on time; it’s as simple as that. Here’s what I do. After my outline is written and approved by my publisher, I take the number of pages I need (around 350) and divide that number by the number of days I have until my deadline-less two weeks for editing and polishing. For the novel I’m currently writing, the magic number is 13 pages a day. That’s carved in stone. I am not allowed to leave my office until those pages are done. Quotas take the stress off because you know that when you’ve produced that number, you don’t have to feel guilty when you attend to other matters.

Don’t print out.

When I’m writing a novel, I don’t allow myself to print out a hard copy until the first draft is completely finished. Printing out-for me, at least-leads to all kinds of distractions that slow writing down. For example, I’m tempted to reread everything I’ve written, which can lead to changing my mind about story elements, which can lead to taking my book completely apart and virtually starting all over again. If you’re starting a writing session and need to reread some of what you’ve written in order to get back into the flow, reread the previous few scenes or chapter; you don’t need to reread the whole book.

Follow your outline.

Your outline should be detailed enough that it’s a reliable roadmap for the novel. When you’re writing the first draft, keep to this outline; don’t veer off in new directions. It slows things down.

Don’t over-research while you’re writing.

There will of course be times when you need to do some research to decide something major about how your story will go. But if you come to a place and need some details for “color,” just type TK (the old journalist’s abbreviation for “to come”) and deal with it when the novel is finished.

Make notes.

Similarly, if as you’re writing you think of things you want to go back and put in, make notes (right in the manuscript is fine) and deal with all of these later. Don’t go back and put them in now.

Paste liberally!

Let’s say I’m writing a scene set at the Wollman Skating Rink in New York City’s Central Park, and I need some details for authenticity. I Google the rink, find some photos, and paste them right into my manuscript so that I can look at them as I’m writing. When I’ve finished, I simply delete them. You can do this with text from other sources, links to Web pages, audio-anything. Gather up everything you need and paste it in. Just remember to remove it all when you’re finished.

Write directly on your outline.

Why have your outline at your elbow as you write your book? Simply turn the outline itself into your novel, developing it paragraph by paragraph.

Implement any of these tips and you’ll see your writing going faster. You’ll produce more, which will help build your career. You may come up with more techniques that work for you. With solid speed-writing tricks, you can be both fast and good.

Evan Marshall, president of The Evan Marshall Agency, is a former book editor and packager. Recently he and coauthor Martha Jewett released The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software, based on his bestselling The Marshall Plan® writers’ guides. Evan is also the author a number of popular mystery novels; recently released are Death is Disposable and Evil Justice. Visit http://www.writeanovelfast.com and download Evan’s 77-page Fiction Makeover Guide with tips and ideas on writing a great novel.

Enjoy that? You can read more of Evan’s great writing right here at The Cuckleburr Times.

Six Classic Elements of a Best Selling Novel

Evan Marshall — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:11:52 +0000

Late in the nineteenth century, painters such as van Gogh, Cézanne and Seurat looked back to the Old Masters of the seventeenth century-geniuses like Rembrandt and Poussin-for techniques that would add richness to their work.

Why do today’s fiction writers so seldom do something similar to help in writing a novel: look back to the Old Masters of the best-seller list-to the Tom Clancy’s and Michael Crichton’s and Stephen King’s of our parents’ and grandparents’ day-to learn more about their craft?

Let’s examine the work of six writers who not only ruled yesterday’s best-seller lists, but whose consistent crowd-pleasing abilities also place them among the most successful authors of all time. In their books lie techniques of good storytelling that are timeless, of value to the commercial novelist of today-or any day. Extract these timeless elements and apply them to writing your novel:

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER

The creator of lawyer-detective Perry Mason and a lawyer himself (it is said he is the model for Mason), Gardner was easily the best-selling and most prolific of all mystery writers. From the early thirties until his death in 1970, he produced two or three of his The Case of … novels a year, enough to keep five secretaries busy transcribing his dictation full-time.

Technique #1: Put Your Story Front and Center. Story was literally everything to Gardner. Characterization and background were of secondary, if any, importance. To Gardner, the novel was simply the most effective means of presenting his detective puzzles. Like Agatha Christie, Gardner relied heavily on dialogue, so that his books often read like scripts.

Here’s the no-nonsense beginning of The Case of the Screaming Woman, an example of how Gardner hooks us immediately with the first bizarre aspect of his story:

Della Street, Perry Mason’s confidential secretary, entered Mason’s private office, walked over to the lawyer’s desk and said, “You always like something out of the ordinary, Chief. This time I have a lulu!”

“Unusual?” Mason asked, looking up from the papers on his desk.

“Unique,” she said.

“Give,” Mason told her.

“A Mrs. John Kirby telephoned,” Della Street said, “and wanted to retain you to cross-examine her husband.”

“A divorce case?” Mason asked.

“No, she and her husband are good friends.”

“Yet she wants me to cross-examine him?”

“That’s right.”

“About what?”

“About where he was last night.”

Mason frowned. “Della, I’m not a lie detector. I’m not a psychoanalyst. I don’t handle cases involving domestic relations.”

“That’s what I told Mrs. Kirby,” Della Street said. “She told me she only wanted her husband’s interests protected. She said she wanted you to listen to his story, puncture his self-assurance, and rip him to pieces.”

Though few would be tempted to call Gardner a stylist, there’s no arguing that he could arrest us with a wildly unlikely premise at the start of each of his books. It was this ability to build a novel on strength of story, rather than on how he told that story, that made him the favorite of millions.

Sometimes this kind of get-to-the-point storytelling is exactly what readers crave-for example, when what they really want is a challenging puzzle in novel form.

If you share Gardner’s gift for ingenious plotting, why embellish your book with unnecessary detail or description? You might be doing yourself, and your book, a disservice. Bare-bones, plot-oriented writing may be the perfect approach for your novel of mystery or suspense.

ERSKINE CALDWELL

“From the day of my birth until I reached the age of twenty years, I rarely lived longer than six years in the same place,” wrote this red-haired, Georgia-born son of a Presbyterian minister, who at eighteen was running guns for a revolt in Central America. He also worked as a plowboy, poolroom attendant, cotton picker, lumber mill hand, professional football player, taxi driver, stagehand in a burlesque theater, stonemason, soda jerk, cook and waiter, book reviewer and journalist.

Caldwell is best known, however, as the author of sometimes scandalous novels about the Southern poor, most notably 1933′s God’s Little Acre, among the most popular novels of all time. Not far behind is Tobacco Road, written the year before.

Technique #2: Paint Characters With Heart. Caldwell’s novels about “American primitives” have enjoyed their phenomenal success largely because Caldwell (like Mark Twain and Bret Harte, to whom he is frequently compared) truly loved the people he wrote about. This love for these people at their best and worst would not have existed if he had not known them so well, and it was this knowledge that allowed him to show them in all their humor, eccentricity and pathos-qualities that make these people irresistible to readers.

In this excerpt from Tobacco Road, Ellie May Lester shows her feelings for Lov Bensey. Lov is married to Ellie May’s younger sister Pearl, who refuses to sleep with Lov. Ellie May, though harelipped, is all too willing to give Lov what he wants.

[Lov] was looking at Ellie May now. She had at last got him to give her some attention.

Ellie May was edging closer and closer to Lov. She was moving across the yard by raising her weight on her hands and sliding herself over the hard white sand. She was smiling at Lov, and trying to make him take more notice of her. She could not wait any longer for him to come to her, so she was going to him. Her harelip was spread open across her upper teeth, making her mouth appear as though she had no upper lip at all. Men usually would have nothing to do with Ellie May; but she was eighteen now, and she was beginning to discover that it should be possible for her to get a man in spite of her appearance.

“Ellie May’s acting like your old hound used to do when he got the itch,” Dude said to Jeeter. “Look at her scrape her bottom on the sand. That old hound used to make the same kind of sound Ellie May’s making, too. It sounds just like a little pig squealing, don’t it?”

Chances are these are not like the people you encounter daily, but to Erskine Caldwell they might as well have been, and he painted them exactly as he saw them, with a brush full of color, and broad, lively strokes.

In most novels it is vital that the author give us characters we can know and like as much as we find ourselves knowing and liking those in Caldwell’s. To create such supersympathetic characters in your novels, look directly to the people you know and love better than any others. Only by knowing and loving your characters can you make us do the same.

IAN FLEMING

Drawing on his experience with British Naval Intelligence, Fleming created James Bond 007, and indeed Fleming and Bond often became confused in the public mind. Though Fleming called his work “trivial piffle,” his espionage adventures had been phenomenally successful around the world, with John F. Kennedy among his most avid fans.

Technique #3: Appeal to Our Wildest Fantasies. The success of Fleming’s books has been attributed to the way they appeal to our wildest dreams. James Bond, more than any other fictional hero, lived many people’s fantasy of a life of total self-sufficiency and self-indulgence.

At the climax of You Only Live Twice, Bond is a prisoner of his old nemesis, Ernst Blofeld, in the cliff-top Castle of Death. Bond manages to escape the deadly volcanic mud of the Question Room, save his neck from Blofeld’s massive samurai sword, and ultimately overpower and strangle Blofeld. He even sets the Castle to self-destruct-only to climb out a window and find himself trapped on a narrow balustrade.

. . . He looked over the side. A sheer hundred-foot drop to the gravel. A soft fluted whistle above him caught his ear. He looked up. Only a breath of a wind in the moorings of that bloody balloon! But then a lunatic idea came to him, a flashback to one of the old Douglas Fairbanks films when the hero had swung across the wide hall by taking a flying leap at the chandelier. This helium balloon was strong enough to hold taut fifty feet of framed cotton strip bearing the warning sign! Why shouldn’t it be powerful enough to bear the weight of a man?

Bond ran to the corner of the balustrade to which the mooring line was attached. He tested it. It was taut as a wire! From somewhere behind him there came a great clamour in the castle . . . Holding onto the straining rope, he climbed onto the railing, cut a foothold for himself in the cotton banner, and, grasping the mooring rope with his right hand, chopped downwards below him with Blofeld’s sword and threw himself into space.

It worked! There was a light night breeze, and he felt himself wafted gently away over the moonlit park, over the glittering, steaming lake, towards the sea. But he was rising, not falling! The helium sphere was not in the least worried by his weight! Then blue-and-yellow fire fluttered from the upper storey of the castle, and an occasional angry wasp zipped past him. . . . Now the whole black silhouette of the castle swayed in the moonlight and seemed to jig upwards and sideways and then slowly dissolve like an ice cream cone in the sunshine. The top storey crumbled first, then the next, and the next, and then, after a moment, a huge jet of orange fire shot up from hell towards the moon. A buffet of hot wind, followed by an echoing crack of thunder, hit Bond and made his balloon sway violently.

. . . Punctured by a bullet, the balloon was fast losing height. Below, the softly swelling sea offered a bed. . .

It seems clear that Fleming never forgot that most people who read for pleasure read to escape, and that these readers want as much escape as they can get for their time and money.

Are your own characters humdrum and mundane, doing humdrum and mundane things, when they would be so much for interesting being and doing things we’ve only dreamed of? Fleming knew-and every novelist should remember-that one of the greatest joys of writing is that the impossible can be made possible. Give your readers a run for their money. Let them find true, wonderful escape in the worlds you create for them.

MICKEY SPILLANE

His mystery-detective novels have been called nasty and sadistic, but they’ve won Spillane millions of fans just the same. The Brooklyn-born son of an Irish bartender began his writing career selling stories to the “slicks” and the “pulps,” then writing comic books. His novels, most of them starring rough, tough Mike Hammer (said to resemble his creator), landed Spillane on the all-time best-seller list again and again, from 1947′s I, The Jury to the fifties’ My Gun is Quick, The Big Kill, One Lonely Night, The Long Wait and Kiss Me, Deadly, to 1961′s The Deep.

Technique #4: Torture the Reader to the End. Of his method of creating suspense, Spillane said: “You don’t read a book to get to the middle. You read a book to get to the end. You deliberately torture yourself all the way through, hoping that after all the garbage the end will be worth all the time you spent in the reading thereof. True? It’s got to be totally satisfactory in the last line.

A superb example of how Spillane puts his words into action is the ending of I, The Jury (I’ve used a few dashes so as not to give anything away):

“No, —-, I’m the jury now, and the judge, and I have a promise to keep. Beautiful as you are, as much as I almost loved you, I sentence you to death.” . . .

The roar of the .45 shook the room. —- staggered back a step. Her eyes were a symphony of incredulity, an unbelieving witness to truth. Slowly, she looked down to the ugly swelling in her naked belly where the bullet went in. A thin trickle of blood welled out.

I stood up in front of her and shoved the gun into my pocket. I turned and looked at the rubber plant behind me. There on the table was the gun, with the safety catch off and the silencer still attached. Those loving arms would have reached it nicely. A face that was waiting to be kissed was really waiting to be splattered with blood when she blew my head off. My blood. When I heard her fall I turned around. Her eyes had pain in them now, the pain preceding death. Pain and unbelief.

“How c-could you?” she gasped.

I only had a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in.

“It was easy,” I said.

Remember how we all love being surprised, and hold some things back as you write your novel, whatever sort of novel it is. It’s a wonderful feeling to read a book and realize that a truly skillful novelist has gotten the best of us. Be careful to play fair with your surprises, however; make them believable and be sure to plant any necessary precedents or clues.

FRANK YERBY

Georgia-born Yerby is best known for his vivid and complex Southern tales, the most successful of which are 1946′s The Foxes of Harrow, 1947′s The Vixens, and 1949′s Pride’s Castle. A critic once wrote that “Mr. Yerby could be a pretty good novelist if he ever got his mind off the neckline and the cash register,” but the world always welcomed a new Yerby novel unconditionally.

Technique #5: Evoke the Magic of the Moment. Yerby is famous for his vivid language, for his multiplicity of characters and for writing, in the words of Arna Bontemps, with “a flair for color, an air of easy abandon, the ability to live in the moment and to create characters that live in the moment, a touch of very elementary magic.”

Devilseed is Yerby’s story of Mireille Duclos, who, like many women of her time, sails penniless into gold-crazed San Francisco in the 1850s and there climbs to riches and respectability. In this scene we see Mireille riding into town as the new wife of Judge Alain Curtwright.

Mireille’s imposing mahogany-and-rosewood-paneled landau swept eastward down Clay Street toward Portsmouth Square, drawn at a spanking trot behind her pair of night-black, imported Australian horses. Perched high on the driver’s seat before her, the Swithers brothers, James and John, her coachman and footman, sat, clad in livery every bit as imposing as the landau, their faces, under their tall silk hats, blacker than the hides of her splendid five-gaited pair, set in frowns of stern self-importance.

“Mammy” Pleasant had sent the Blacks to Mireille with a note suggesting that she hire them, which Mireille had been pleased to do, even knowing that Mary Ellen Pleasant had surely placed them in her employ to spy on her. Now, staring at their sturdy backs straining against the frock coats of their livery, she had the wickedly delighted feeling that she had “turned” them both: that they now were, if not wholly on her side, at last double agents. For, by awarding them a treatment involving so much kindness, real consideration, even, at times, an easy, affectionate familiarity that no Black menservants in the 1850s could dream of receiving from a young, stunningly beautiful white woman, she got as much information about Mary Ellen Pleasant’s weird, devious, and plain evil doings out of them as they carried back to the house on Washington Street about hers.

As she rolled along, with the rear calash top folded back and the breeze stirring her raven hair under her smart little bonnet, all the men on the sidewalks took off their hats and waved them in her direction. More than one of them grandly bowed. The women-what few there were-glared, and ostentatiously turned their backs. Mireille smiled with quiet satisfaction at that sight. Ever since the fabulous Lola Montez, mistress of the immortal pianist-composer Franz Liszt, mistress of the ex-King Ludwig of Bavaria, mistress of-the list was endless!-whose Spider Dance drove men of the cloth, not to mention mere miners and businessmen, out of their minds, had left San Francisco that preceding fall to settle-permanently, she swore-in the pleasant little California mountain town of Grass Valley, Mireille had inherited, by default, Lola’s crown as the most celebrated demimondaine in the city. . . .

Yerby uses details of place and time as tools to evoke character, making Mireille and Mary Ellen functions of where and when they live, and vice versa. The Swithers brothers, coachman and footman, very much a sign of affluence at this time, are the device by which Mary Ellen spies of Mireille, who in turn uses them for the same purpose. We see the people on Clay Street showing their feelings for Mireille through social customs of the place and time-grand bows and waves of the hat from the men, exaggerated turns of the back from the women. Note the use of a real and colorful figure, Lola Montez, to bring Mireille and her role in San Francisco into even sharper focus.

Use these techniques to make the characters in your novel virtually an extension of their place and time. Have them use, abuse and react to objects and customs distinctly of their world, so that we cannot recall these characters without recalling how they were dressed, how they spoke, what they ate and all the other ways they interacted with their world.

Not a person has been born who has not been shaped to some degree by where and when he or she lived. The magic of moment in reading fiction is learning how people live in, adapt to and make use of their where and when as we do with ours.

HAROLD ROBBINS

It was a tribute to Robbins’s staying power and adaptability that he was as much a titan in 1988 as he was forty years earlier, when he published 1948′s Never Love a Stranger.

Robbins’ publishers once announced that every minute someone bought a Robbins novel-another tribute to his never having let his public down. Not bad for a poor kid from New York who started his career as a grocery clerk, short-order cook, cashier, errand boy and bookies’ runner.

Robbins has been praised most for the authenticity of the world in which he sets his novels. Never Love a Stranger drew heavily from Robbin’s experience growing up in New York, and so vividly depicted that world of hustlers and racketeers that one critic called it “a Les Misérables of New York.”

Technique #6: Make Background a Character. In 79 Park Avenue, in which heroine Marja starts out a poor kid from Second Avenue and winds up a Park Avenue call girl, Robbins describes the seamy beachfront world of prostitution as he no doubt observed it growing up:

She walked into the hotel lobby and chose a seat in a discreet out-of-the-way corner. Opening a copy of Vogue that she had carried with her, she glanced through it idly. . . .

A few minutes passed. Then a bellboy stopped in front of her. “Room three-eleven,” he said in a low voice.

“Three-eleven,” she repeated, a smile on her lips.

He nodded. “Right. He’s waiting there now.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, holding out her hand.

“You’re welcome, miss,” the bellboy answered, taking the two bills from her. He walked away quickly.

Slowly she closed the magazine, glancing around the lobby as she stood up. It was normal. The house dick was looking the other way, the desk clerks were busy with check-ins, the other people in the lobby were all guests. Satisfied with her quick check, she sauntered toward the elevators. She had nothing to worry about. Everyone was taken care of. Mac, the landlord of the rooming house, had put her wise to that.

“Pick a place to operate from,” he had said knowingly. “Then before you do anything, make sure that everybody who might be interested is paid off. They’ll leave you alone then, even help you.”

Obviously, Robbins would not have undertaken a novel with a background of prostitution if the hadn’t felt he could do so convincingly. But his use of detail and ambiance is what sets this and his other novels apart, makes them as memorable for their depiction of world and place as for their characters.

When deciding on the world in which to place your novel, consider the worlds you know so well that you may be overlooking them entirely. Writers have found these worlds, literally right in front of their noses, to be the richest and to work most authentically. What, after all, does a writer-or anyone-know better than his or her own life and the lives of those he or she has observed firsthand?

MASTERPIECES TO UNCOVER

On the shelves of your library and your used bookstore are countless masterpieces of yesterday that excited and moved their readers because of certain techniques that could work in any age. Isn’t storytelling, after all, a timeless art, one we’ve been perfecting since we first appeared on earth? Why not take down some of these erstwhile blockbusters by the Old Masters? You may want to borrow a few strokes for a best-seller of your own.

Evan Marshall, president of The Evan Marshall Agency, is a former book editor and packager. Recently he and coauthor Martha Jewett released The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software, based on his bestselling The Marshall Plan® writers’ guides. Evan is also the author a number of popular mystery novels; recently released are Death is Disposable and Evil Justice. Visit http://www.writeanovelfast.com and download Evan’s 77-page Fiction Makeover Guide with tips and ideas on writing a great novel.

Hook Your Reader With the Very First Sentence

Evan Marshall — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:02:11 +0000

Recently, Lev Grossman, the book critic at Time magazine, made some predictions about publishing. Among his predictions about the novel was the following: “Novels will compete to hook you in the first paragraph and then hang on for dear life.”

I agree, except on one point: This isn’t coming. It’s already here.

A novel’s first paragraph, or “opening hook,” has always been important, but it has never been as important as it is now.

Agents and editors have always looked for the hook as a way of judging a manuscript’s grabbing power. Consumers in search of a solid entertainment value for their dollars most often turn to page 1 and start reading. If the beginning doesn’t hook them, back the book goes.

Some people maintain that a novelist has as many as five pages to grab a reader. That may have been true once, but not anymore. I believe that today you must engage a reader in your novel’s first sentence or risk losing her forever. Below are eight tips for accomplishing this feat, with examples.

Raise a question in your reader’s mind.

A desire to know more, to find out what the first sentence means, can pull readers onward. Make us want to know more. Raise a question. Create a mini-mystery.

Here’s the first paragraph of Joy Fielding’s suspense novel See Jane Run:

One afternoon in late spring, Jane Whittaker went to the store for some milk and some eggs and forgot who she was.

How can you not want to know what that means?

Signal that something is about to radically change.

Robin Cook’s medical thriller Critical begins this way:

Within the course of a week spanning March and April 2007, a serious, untoward event in the health of three strangers, two of whom lost their lives, was destined to impact the lives of hundreds, even thousands of people in a complicated web of causality.

Clearly a major change is about to take place. Readers want to know more.

Indicate a change from the routine.

Make it clear that the action of your first sentence is not the norm. Here’s the first sentence of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown:

Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.

If he’s the curator, we assume he belongs in the museum-but why is he staggering? Clearly whatever is happening is not routine.

Present an intriguing person.

This is the technique Margaret Mitchell used for the first sentence of Gone With the Wind:

Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

What kind of charm, we wonder, could captivate these two men? This woman is clearly special. Who is she?

Present an intriguing place.

In The Keys to the Street, Ruth Rendell describes the park that will play an important role in her story:

Iron spikes surmount each of the gates into the park, twenty-seven of them on some, eighteen or eleven on others.

What is this place that is protected in this way?

Present an intriguing object.

Here’s the first line of my mystery novel Hanging Hannah:

There were marigolds in her salad, bright spiky orange petals among the radicchio.

My lead character, literary agent Jane Stuart, is lunching with a client in a particularly pretentious Manhattan eatery, and to me the flowers in the salad say it all.

Present an intriguing situation.

Here’s the first sentence of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

What, we wonder, is this time of such contradictions? And we read on to find out.

Give your reader something unexpected.

Ken Follett began The Key to Rebecca like this:

The last camel collapsed at noon.

What is he talking about? What about the other camels? We read on to find out what’s going on.

Whatever method you choose, be sure to give your novel a real killer of a first sentence. These days, it’s the only way to make sure all those other sentences get read.

Evan Marshall, president of The Evan Marshall Agency, is a former book editor and packager. Recently he and coauthor Martha Jewett released The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software, based on his bestselling The Marshall Plan® writers’ guides. Evan is also the author a number of popular mystery novels; recently released are Death is Disposable and Evil Justice. Visit http://www.writeanovelfast.com and download Evan’s 77-page Fiction Makeover Guide with tips and ideas on writing a great novel.