Agents: Finding, Switching, and the Fine Art of Communications

You’ve finally finished that awesome YA or Middle-grade novel and your writing group has helped you polish it to a fine sheen. You are ready to shop for an agent! You pretty much know how to write a great query letter, but you’re not exactly sure what questions you'd ask, if and when you “got the call.”

Having been through the hugely exciting process of getting that call, and signing on, as well as the nervy experience of switching to an agent who is much better-suited to my work and communications style, along the way I’ve asked a few right… and wrong questions. I’ve also intuited the right questions, but was afraid to ask them. Which, dear writers, is a no-no. Ask away when you get that call! It’s your special time to figure out whether this person is someone you can really work with… or not. True, it’s business but don’t discount your gut feeling. Intuition counts for a lot. As a result of my experience, I’ve put together a list of crucial questions to ask your prospective agent:

*Do you edit and revise manuscripts? If so, how many passes? Will you be the person editing my material?

*What do you like best about my work? Do you have a few publishers in mind that you would send this manuscript to? How do you see my platform going forward?

*Do you work as an agent part time or fulltime? How soon after you create a submission list will you send out my manuscript? (In other words, do you send stuff out in a timely fashion? All agents are super-busy, but waiting months and months for something to be read or shopped is not cool).

*How do you prefer to communicate, and how often? By email? Phone? IM? Will I get periodic updates? Every month or so, or only when my work is sold? Is it okay to call with a question? (Or will you bite my face off?)

*Do you welcome suggestions of editors to send to? Will you show me your submission list? How many editors might you send to at one time?

*Are you open to talking strategy? What about discussing a manuscript that we have different ideas about? (A good agent is one who listens to your ideas regarding a project, and shares his or hers and then negotiates. But don't forget, you are choosing a person based on their expertise, so you should trust them. If your gut is telling you that this person is too inexperienced or busy or has tastes that do not match yours, do not sign a contract out of sheer excitement).

What about switching agents? The question list is basically the same. Plus, questions that inevitably came up with your agent, who, for whatever reason, didn’t work out. Best to part on amicable terms if possible, and move on. There are many great agents out there, and there is one well suited to your writing, your personality and your communications style. Be bold, and level-headed. Take the steps you need to insure a happy, smooth work relationship. You won’t regret it.

Happy hunting!

Thrllers in Print & Film--Inception and Salt

I’ve now seen both SALT and INCEPTION, and for the most part, they rocked. However, in both cases, I wanted more story and less shoot ‘em up action. Don’t get me wrong; I thrill to a good chase. Fast pacing is crucial in both literary and on-screen thrillers, thus the measure of chase to back-story (or real-time story moments) is always a fine balancing act.

Without a good understanding of the character, we don’t care why he or she is being chased, or what someone’s searching for. But without enough action, the story becomes a snoozefest. In a novel, one can often sandwich more story between the action that one can in films. However, I sense that moviegoers are eager for much more story than Hollywood assumes.

Case in point: In SALT, Anjelina Jolie excels in gritty stunt work, and in breaking the traditional mold of the female femme fatal spy. She even dresses as a man in one scene, and does a stand-up job of the walk, the talk. Even so, I found myself fidgeting in my seat, wanting more of the backstory about her childhood training on a remote Russian island to be part of a sleeper cell, than her masterful trouncing of every poor sod who got in her way.

Inception was better at lingering on the story between the action, and in blending the two. The concept of stealing dreams or implanting ideas is certainly nothing new. But it’s still such a potent concept, that I’ve stumbled on at least three writers’ blogs, lamenting that they might have to junk their novels or stories in-progress because their ideas are so similar to Inception. For that matter, Inception’s concepts are strangely similar to the 90s anime series Ghost in a Shell. Indeed, is there nothing completely new under the sun? Well, that’s the subject of another possible post. Despite the longer and richer sections of story in Inception, the shoot ‘em up scenes grew tiresome. Particularly the scenes in the arctic headquarters, where all the enemy combatants wore white military snowsuits. Too similar to a video game? I dunno. It seemed almost clownish.

Bottom line? Don’t underestimate an audience’s ability to digest story; the rich, connective tissue—sweet, bitter, or bittersweet—that supports the pursuit, the pursuer and the search.

The Pros and Cons of Book Trailers

Here's an interesting New York Times article by Pamela Paul on the pros and cons of book trailers. These days, it seems to be a necessary element of book publicity, but how effective is it, really? What do you all think?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/fashion/11AuthorVideos.html?_r=2&ref=books

Nowhere Else to Go--more thoughts on Retreats

I'm in the Internet coffee place by the beach where so many vacationers are checking their email that it's shuddering in and out. The luckier folks have iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, Droids and plain old PDFs so that they can check their email without slogging to the coffee joint. Or are they luckier?

The genius of this writing retreat is that there's nowhere to go when you want to dither, consternate, digress or just plain avoid your manuscript. And traveling to the avatar world of twitter, facebook, Huffpo, even this wonderful blogspot, is definitely going "somewhere else."

(Look, I've gotta post once week or so. Uh, yah!)

Come to think of it, I feel less obsessive, not being able to tweet every day. Even though the big black flies are biting my ankles and the seat of the rocking chair is hard, and the pacing and sighing and chuckling of my fellow writers is slightly distracting, the fact is, I've gotten a lot done. A 286 page revise finished and four pages of a new project.

I'm reminded of the artist whose wife used to lock up in a room, so he had nothing else to do but paint masterpieces (or rip his hair out in chunks).

We're not always producing masterpieces, but this retreat offers us the time to try!

Writing Retreats!

It’s that time again to pack up for the writing retreat I attend in New England. I look forward to this more and more every year, especially when my teaching schedule is reaching its stressful peak, with the reading and correcting of long student research papers.

So my two computers are packed, one for manuscripts, one for illustrations rendered in Photoshop. I’ve got my lightbox, my white gouache touchup paint and brushes. Then there are my beach towels, suits, sunblock and special sunhat from the Philly Flower show.

The schedule? Morning coffee on the terrace, while blabbing with my fellow scriveners, followed by three hours of writing on the wraparound porch. We lunch in the cool of the old, dark dining room, with more time to chat. Then I head back to my spot in the middle of the porch in the creaky rocking chair because rocking helps me conceptualize. Three more hours of intensive writing, while watching the occasional bunny rabbit hop across the yard to the woods. Then, ah! The group trek to the rocky beach for a dip. We take turns cooking dinner, reading our pieces, and we chat about writing, books, characters and plot concepts. When the cool breeze comes in off the nighttime woods, it’s off to bed in the camp style horsehair beds.

I highly recommend trying a retreat! You can choose one with cushy rooms, fabulous star authors and lots of clever writing exercises, or one that offers you hours of solitary writing time on a wraparound porch followed by a group beach swim like the one I attend. Even though it’s darn hard work, it’s essential community, and absolute play.

Fun Ways to Teach a Class-Write a Rap Song!

My son has been taking Arab class during these last two years of high school. The teacher, Anna Swank, is exceptionally creative and inspiring. She's taken them to a Lebanese restaurant in Queens, where they ordered food, and spoke to the staff in Arabic, on trips to the neighborhood deli, to chat with the owner, a Christian Egyptian, who makes wicked good sandwiches, and even to Syria and Tunisia.

For senior project, my son and his friends, many of whom are also musicians, http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/new-amsterdam-pt-1-2/id357356419?i=357356427&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

decided to write and perform an Arab rap, which underscored the importance of learning the language. Of course, they were determined to totally entertain themselves while doing it. And isn't that the part of the learning process that ultimately cements the subject in your mind? (My son is the tall one in the wheat-colored shirt, and then in the black soccer shirt). Their lip-synching is a bit off, but hey, this is video art 101. (They recorded the soundtrack and then tried to synch the video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMRQlxS61ao

In addition, here is a link to today's New York Times article on Anna Swank's class. Kudos to all. Teaching and learning should always be this fun!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/nyregion/12bigcity.html

Most of Anna's students will go on to study the language and culture in college. I know my son will take Arabic 3.

Which begs the question, what have your teachers, your kids' teachers, and you done to reach out to your brother and sisters across the globe? And how creative can your teaching really be? I know I'll be stretching as I ready myself for teaching Writing & Lit this fall to college freshmen. My students are mostly film and art majors, struggling to write and make sense of the literary cannon. I intend to bring in film, and art right along with the books. And I'll use Anna Swank as a true inspiration as I proceed.

The Fine Points Between YA Dystopia and Sci-fi

What distinguishes a YA dystopian novel from a YA sci-fi novel? And is there a difference between hard-core genre sci-fi, and creating a futuristic world, conceivable by scientific standards? What is the prevailing mood towards these genres?

Dystopias are almost always cautionary tales—utopias that have soured—and tropes for real life scary cultural trends such as fascism, climate change and technology run amok. Interestingly enough, the ancient translation of the word utopia is “no place”, which suggests that a utopia cannot actually exist.

A classic example of a dystopia that almost all high-school students read—and end up loving—is George Orwell’s 1984. Written in 1948, Orwell warned people of the dangers of totalitarian government a la Stalin’s Russia, and the loss of one’s personal independence in a repressive style of communism. Control in 1984 is obtained through mass brainwashing, and Big Brother’s ultimate desire is to have a person die loving the Party; this, so that there’s no danger of the “vaporized unperson” becoming a martyr and fomenting rebellion. Does Big Brother succeed? Ah! For the answer to that question, you must read Orwell’s very clever afterward.

Some current YA dystopias are THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins, set in an alternate USA, where teens fight to the death for the richest district’s entertainment, and BIRTHMARKED by Caragh O’Brien, a world where life is reduced to helping birth babies for the exclusive set inside the Enclave by “Unlake” Michigan.

So, what about YA sci-fi? I believe it’s slowly but confidently creeping into the YA canon, despite some editors fears that teens won’t “get” the science behind the stories, and therefore must be limited to YA fantasy where there is no steep learning curve. Quite the contrary, I think teens are itching for this kind of concrete, yet visionary material. After all, the classic authors such as Sir Arthur C. Clarke ended up inventing satellite technology. I mean, how cool is that?! In Clarke’s own inspiring words: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Who wouldn’t want to explore the magic of the real world?

There’s no need to fear that pages of details will overrun the genre on how to build a robot from scratch, or power a rocket. No current author wants to mimic the old-school adult genre. So, there’s no need for authors writing YA sci-fi to hide it under names like “futuristic thriller”.

Current examples of YA sci-fi run the gamut from Cory Doctorow’s LITTLE BROTHER, a sort of cyberfest for Internet geeks (And major nod to Orwell’s Big Brother), and THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX by Mary Pearson, which explores the ethics of using new science in medicine, and the nature of the soul.

And now, onto the difference between YA dystopia and Post-apocalyptic fiction… for this discussion, I will ferry you onto the excellent post by YA Highway:

http://www.yahighway.com/2010/06/dystopian-and-apocalypse-whats.html

But before running off, you may want to answer this challenging question: Is S.A. Bodeen’s THE COMPOUND post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, or simply a thriller?