Livia Washburn on Writing and Research

Murder by the Slice
Livia J. Washburn
Publisher: NAL/Obsidian
Pub date: October 2007
Agent: Kim Lionetti



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I have had the privilege of being a professional writer for over twenty years. I live in a small Texas town with my husband, James Reasoner, and two daughters.

Awards: American Mystery Award and Shamus Award, both for Wild Night

Author Web site: www.liviawashburn.com

Murder by the Slice is the second book in the Fresh-Baked Mystery series. Retired schoolteacher Phyllis Newsom and her friends once again enter a baking contest and encounter a murder, this time at an elementary school carnival.

One of the things I really enjoy about the writing process is the research involved. There’s a lot of truth to the old adage about writing what you know—or what you can find out. For example, the novels in my Fresh-Baked Mystery series are set in Weatherford, Texas. While I don’t live in Weatherford, it’s nearby and I’ve been there many times and know the town well. It’s close enough so that if there’s something I don’t know, I can drive over and investigate it. The first book in the series, A Peach of a Murder, centers around Weatherford’s annual Peach Festival. I was able to attend the Peach Festival before I wrote the book. While I took a few dramatic liberties (this is fiction, after all), my descriptions of the festival itself are fairly accurate.

For the second book in the series, the recently released Murder by the Slice, my research drew heavily on personal experience. For several years, my husband and I were very involved in the Parent-Teacher Organizations at our children’s schools. We helped out with the elementary school carnivals, and we served as members of the PTO board. When I had an elementary school carnival play a prominent part in Murder by the Slice, I knew how such things worked and I also knew about the inner workings of a PTO board. (Although I should hasten to point out that none of the characters in Murder by the Slice are based in any way on any of the wonderful ladies who served with me on various boards! Fiction, total fiction!)

In an upcoming book in the series, my characters will get out of Weatherford for a change and travel to the Gulf Coast of Texas, where they will take part in a dessert competition at the annual SeaFair in Rockport, Texas. The SeaFair is a real event and has been going on every autumn for years, but this is the first year for the Just Desserts competition. When I read about it I knew this would make a perfect background for a mystery novel. My husband and I not only attended the SeaFair and Just Desserts—and got to sample all the entries!—we also spent several weeks in the Rockport area, getting to know it better. We had been there before, but a place tends to look different when you’re researching it as the setting for a novel. You have to find just the perfect spot for your murder to happen, and once you’ve settled on that, it opens up all sorts of exciting questions that have to be worked out for the plot, such as “Who’s the victim?” “Why was he or she killed?” and the all-important “Who’s the killer?” The setting can be a vital part of the answers to all of these questions and more, so it helps to be as familiar as possible with it.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that all the expenses incurred in a research trip are tax-deductible, however. Day-to-day living expenses aren’t, even if you’re in a different place and there only to do research. Only expenses pertaining directly to the trip are deductible.

Of course, it’s possible to do a great deal of research in libraries and online, too, and I certainly do my share of that. It’s not unusual for me to have stacks of research books piled up around my desk as I write (and for the Fresh-Baked Mysteries, that includes recipe books to get ideas from, naturally!). But there’s something special in writing about places that you know, a freshness and authenticity that it’s hard to get any other way. So if you’re an aspiring mystery author, look around. There could be a good place for a murder right there under your nose. . . .

Pitch Critiques Round 9

Holy cow! I’m not even halfway there yet! What have I done?! My fingers are tired, but I’m still having fun. Here’s the original post, Perfecting Your Pitch, and you should be able to link back to all previous critiques if necessary.

49. mark terry
CHINA FIRE
CIA operative Monaco Grace flies to Beijing to investigate the disappearance of undercover agent Peter Lee. Soon after making contact with Lee’s American friend, college professor Alan Richter, they find themselves on the run from assassins intent on retrieving information Lee gave to Richter. Trying to keep herself and Richter alive, Monaco makes a devil’s deal with a Chinese crime organization while attempting to untangle a web of lies and deceit that reaches back to the heights of U.S. government and threatens to topple the balance of world power.

True confession first. I’ve been a little nervous about critiquing Mark’s pitch since I know he worked on it, blogged on it, and has an agent. For so many obvious reasons this might make me a little biased going in. It’s so much easier when you’re anonymous. Of course then I worry you’re a client and I totally didn’t recognize the book ;) So here goes . . .

I don’t love this. Of course, I don’t love this kind of book. I think you are still overcomplicating it. Do we need to even mention the name of Peter Lee or Alan Richter, for that matter? I find that in pitches things tend to get confusing the more people you mention. When you are trying to hook someone with just a few short sentences it’s best to keep the characters to a minimum and the suspense/conflict to a maximum. My major concern though is that this doesn’t jump out at me as something that’s really different from other similar books (of course, I also don’t read a lot of other similar books). How about something more like . . . ”In an attempt to untangle the web of lies that threaten to topple the balance of world power, CIA operative Monaco Grace (LOVE this name) has made a devil’s deal with a Chinese crime organization. Now it’s a race against time while she . . ."? (more specifics here on what exactly might be happening?). This was a hard one for even a pitchmaster like me. I find thrillers to be some of the hardest pitches to write since the plots are often very complicated.

50. phammonds
Maggie Allen, recently pregnant, is abandoned by her college boyfriend in small-town Durban, Alabama. Seven years later, Maggie finds herself back in college and back in love. This time it’s with young college professor, Wade Evans. Confined to a wheelchair, Wade became paralyzed in a motorcycle accident that claimed another man’s life. Perhaps Maggie can learn to trust again from a man who knows much about love and loss.

Snooze. This just doesn’t grab me and it really doesn’t sound any different from any other book. I also see too much information and a lot of disconnects. Does it matter that she was recently pregnant or is she recently pregnant? If the book takes place seven years after the pregnancy, it seems that’s really old news and simply a part of her past. My other question is who is this book about, Maggie or Wade? Is this romance or women’s fiction? It reads like romance, but the story doesn’t sound remarkable enough. I think what I’m getting at is that there must be more to your story than love and loss, because almost all romances and/or women’s fiction are about love and loss. What is the true conflict?

51. bernita
Urban fantasy: A Malignity of Ghosts.
Lillie St. Clair is a full-spectrum, mega-Talent, employed as one of the city's official Freaks to remove unwanted apparitions.
She doesn't do zombies, however; her specialty is ghosts.
But some believe that Lillie's exorcism of the disembodied is genocide, and someone re-animated her dead husband for revenge.
And Lillie isn't sure she can trust her black spectral hound, Dumbarton, or the chatty bean sidhe from the laundromat, or even big, ugly psi-crime detective Johnnie Thresher.
She isn't sure she can trust herself.

You’ve got potential, but you’re trying to be too clever. Your title is first. “Malignity?” This word is too uncommon for a title and immediately detracts. What are you really trying to say? Spitefulness of Ghosts? Then say that. You need to think about your common, everyday reader. If they have to look up a word in the title they will certainly never buy the book. What is the point of the zombie line? It’s obviously part of her shtick, but I don’t think it adds to the pitch. In fact, if anything, it confuses. I think you have a series of one-sentence pitches, but nothing connects. What’s Lillie’s true conflict? The reanimation of her husband or the belief that what she’s doing is genocide? Why does she need to trust her dog, the sidhe, or even herself?

52. heidi
Caroline Hayes installs gutters on a house that sees only two inches of rain a year, bubble-wraps her CDs so they won’t get scratched, and scotch-guards her car seats religiously every six months, but the one thing she values most she can’t protect. When a drunk driver careens around a curve on California’s coastal highway, Caroline’s life as she knew it is ripped apart. The secret she’s kept from her husband about that night tear at the seams of their relationship, and she finds herself turning to a stranger who is keeping secrets of his own. Little does she know how deeply her life is intertwined with the drunken woman who died beside her, who left her with scars that would not heal, and a gift beyond anything she could fathom. My novel Ocean Deep delves into the murky waters of secrets, lies, and the ties that bind people together.

LOVE this! Wow. What a great pitch. I see who Caroline is and I clearly see her conflict. This one gives me chills and I would definitely request based on this. In fact, this pitch is so strong it has the potential to get full requests right off the bat. This is the type of pitch that has editors and agents at conferences talking. It also has a great title. I even think the very vague last line works. Why? Because you had very specific opening sentences prior to that. Well done!

53. belinda (worderella)
Tagline for Trentwood's Orphan:
A grieving daughter encounters love and ghosts in Victorian England.
Paragraph: Eight years ago, Mary and her father, Lord Trentwood, were in a riding accident that left him paralyzed. Two years ago, Trentwood died, making Mary promise to go to London and make amends with her guilt. Two minutes ago, Mary broke her engagement to Mr Spencer, and Trentwood isn't going to let her just walk away without an argument.

I’m confused. I assume by the tagline that Trentwood is a ghost, but that isn’t made clear in your actual pitch. I also don’t get the guilt aspect. I think we need to see what is really happening. Don’t try to be too clever here, just get to the point. Does Trentwood’s paralysis have anything to do with the story or Mary’s conflict? If not, delete it. What happens to Mary in London and why can’t she walk away from her engagement? What is Mary’s real conflict, because we don’t see that at all.

54. picks by pat
A pair of FBI agents must hunt down an internet sex predator, not to arrest him, but to arrest his intended victim. A trail of murdered pedophiles leads the FBI to conclude that one young girl is seeking revenge for past abuse by allowing herself to be picked up and then icing her much older suitors.
It's hard to care about her victims, but the latest one just happened to be a close friend of the President, and the sooner this girl is caught (and silenced) the easier for the president's re-election campaign.

I like this concept a lot, until you get to the part about the president. That seems to be pushing the limits for me. If a young girl is killing off pedophiles she’s a serial killer. That alone would put the FBI on the case and it would have nothing to do with the president. Once you throw the president in there you add a level of disbelief for me that makes it sound a little sillier than I would like. However, what a great premise—FBI agents (we should have some sense of who they are if they are the protagonists) hunting a killer they don’t really care if they find. The real challenge for the writer here is that something has to be done so that the reader cares. Books that hunt killers mean that we have to somehow care for the victims or potential victim. It doesn’t sound like anyone here is likable.

55. elizabeth bemis
Holiday – Romantic Suspense WIP
MEGAN MILLER is on her honeymoon (sans groom) in an effort to get over the louse who dumped her days before her wedding. In the past two days, she’s met a guy who isn’t what he seems, been shot at, jumped overboard into (potentially) shark infested waters and stranded in the Mayan jungle with nothing but the clothes on her back and a copy of the Girls’ Guide to Hero-Hunting and an undercover FBI Agent named REY RODRIGUEZ. So far, she’s ignored the book’s every piece of advice, and yet, Rey is proving time and again to be her hero. The question is: will he still be her hero, after their holiday is over?

This is familiar. Must be a do-over. This is fine, but nothing special. Most important, though, the pitch reads like a chick lit/romantic comedy and yet you are calling it suspense. Where’s the suspense? What is she really up against and what is her conflict? It seems her biggest concern is the Girls’ Guide to Hero-Hunting and not that someone might be out to kill her.


Some good ones here. Some I really got excited about. Great work, everyone. And now to the readers and your feedback. . . .

Jessica

Pitch Critiques Round 8

Yes, it seems that I’ve decided to critique all of these. I’m insane, I know, but there were some good pitches in there, I’m enjoying myself, and I think you all deserve something. So I’ll keep going until I can go no more. Note that you can continue adding pitches in the original post, Perfecting Your Pitch, until I let you know you should stop (I’ll place a comment to tell you that as well as try to do a post). Pitches placed in the comments of critiques will not be critiqued.

43. heather b. moore
QUEEN (thriller)
An ancient legend reborn.
For centuries, historians have theorized the Queen of Sheba is only a seductive legend. When OMAR ZAGOURI, an undercover Israeli agent, stumbles onto a tomb in Northern Jerusalem, he unknowingly finds the final clue that could overthrow governments, pit wealthy collectors against one another, and send ruthless archaeologists scrambling to find the queen’s secret burial place. Can Omar prevent the greatest discovery of the century from becoming the most deadly, or will he himself be buried with the very mummies he unearthed?

Mmmm. Interesting. I like this. I think it sounds very interesting and I’m close to asking to see more. My only thought is why is this the greatest discovery and how will it become deadly? And why will Omar be buried? In other words, don’t leave us hanging quite like that. Give it to us! Keep the first up until, “that could overthrow governments.” Why not say something like, “he finds the final clue of the Queen’s life. A discovery that has the power to overthrow governments (why?). Now Omar’s greatest discovery might also be his last. With ruthless collectors tracking him down it’s up to Omar to put all of his work ethics aside and hide the one thing he has spent his life seeking...”? Okay, that’s still too vague. You know, it’s hard to rewrite your pitches without having you here to tell me more. What you need to do is be more specific.

44. anon 1:08
When Anne realizes the world’s emotions are reined by another, darker set of beings and that she is part of it, she has to do a lot more than overcome selfishness…or put up with children with a certain knack for mischief, to stay alive.

Trying to fit too much in without giving us anything. I’m intrigued by the fact that “the world’s emotions are reined (controlled a better word?) by another...,” but I need a better idea of what that means. I also suspect that your last line about putting up with children is a hint to the fact that Anne is probably a mom or teacher? That doesn’t seem important to your pitch. If it is, you’ll need to be more specific since it really threw me. What you need to focus on is the emotions aspect, the darker beings and why Anne is involved and why she needs to do something about it.

45. josephine damian
From my WIP A STUDY IN FEAR:
Everyone believes criminal profiler Caroline Armstrong is a European woman with the quintessential American name. She’s afraid that her ex-lover, forensic psychologist Rhys Garrison, will find out she’s really Nina Gorić, a Bosnian war crimes victim turned assassin who killed so her unborn child could survive. When the two profilers reunite to uncover a sadistic serial killer’s identity, old flames rekindle along with new fears when Rhys suspects Caroline’s violent past and secret identity.

Inside scoop here. Anything doing with a criminal profiler or other such things always gets my attention personally. LOVE THIS! Really, really love this. You tell me who she is and how she is haunted. You tell me what she’s up against now and you grab my attention with a very unique twist on an old but always successful story. I would definitely ask to see this (and of course hope you’d send it).

46. jduncan
Just a thought here. Why not pick a 'winner' here, when all is said and done, amongst the pitches that are within the purview of genres you rep, and let them get to send a partial? Just a thought of course.

Well, this seems like a silly pitch ;) Good question. I think instead of asking to see a winner I'm going to say that all of you are of course welcome to later query BookEnds if you think I'd be the right agent for your work. I chose not to do a contest because I really hate judging contests. Instead I want to give feedback to everyone, if possible, to help improve pitches. Those I remark on that I love and would ask for, I mean it. If you aren't already agented I'd love to see a partial based on your pitch. That doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see any of the other works, it just means you should work on your pitch first.

47. zany mom
Ethan Burke has it all--Adonis good looks, a promising career as a veterinary surgeon, a beautiful girlfriend, and a cocky arrogance that lands him a mistress--until a freak mountain biking accident shatters it all. Ethan must now come to terms with his physical limitations. His perspective on life gradually shifts when, in the hospital, he is befriended by an unlikely hero: a five-year-old boy with leukemia.

It sounds too internal to me, and not different enough. I like your first sentence a lot, but now we need to know more about the conflict besides his physical limitations. I also think we need to make sure we get a sense for Ethan. I would assume based on the first sentence that he’s a jerk, but what happens next? Does everything leave him (girlfriend included)? What is the real conflict in this story that makes it stand out from other similar tales (because there are other similar tales)? And what is the tone? Your opening makes it sound light and very genre or commercial, but the plot doesn’t seem to fit that. The plot sounds more serious. More like women’s fiction. I should get a sense of the tone through your pitch. Not easy, I know, but if your opening is great but doesn’t match the tone of the book, it’s not effective.

48. mrs. Revis
YA Fantasy, THE RED THREAD.
There is a perfect good reason for sixteen year old Chloe to be in the middle of the street, crying, and naked. You would be to if you (but not your clothes) were plopped into a world where monsters are real and indoor plumbing isn't.

The knight in shining armor Chloe thought would save her turns out to be a berserker who tends to go mad with bloodlust at the most inconvenient times. The knight, Heath, is on a quest to save a kidnapped princess and defeat an evil tyrant. After Chloe joins Heath, she learns that the enemy Heath is fighting is linked to her own brother. In THE RED THREAD, Chloe must figure out how she can save her brother, even if he doesn't want to be saved, and how far she is willing to go for the knight she's falling in love with...even if he doesn't love her back.

Too long and a little messy. It’s definitely a case of trying to be too clever and give too much information all at the same time. I’m not a big fan of pitches (or books) that talk to the reader. In other words, I don’t like the phrasing “there is a perfect(ly?) good reason . . .” I think I would like it better if it was something more along the lines of, "Sixteen-year-old Chloe felt no shame about standing in the middle of the street crying. Wouldn’t anyone who was plopped naked into a world where monsters are real and indoor plumbing isn’t? On the search to save a brother who doesn’t want to be saved, Chloe meets with a berserker who tends to go mad with bloodlust at the most inconvenient times and finds herself falling in love with a knight who is more focused on saving a kidnapped princess . . ." (you need one final closer here). And then I think you’ve got it. This one is close, very close, and I suspect any good YA agent would request at least a partial.

I feel like I’m winding down already and I hope it’s not showing in my critiques. Good work, as always. I’ll leave it here for the rest of the readers to give their two cents.

Jessica

Christie Craig on Finding Your Voice

Christie Craig
Divorced, Desperate and Delicious
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing
Pub date: November 2007
Agent: Kim Lionetti




(Click to Buy)

Christie Craig writes romance fiction that has both witty humor and a suspenseful, sexy tone. Published by Silhouette in the '90s, she recently broke back into fiction in a big way, acquiring a three-book deal with Dorchester. The Everything Guide to Writing a Romance Novel is her latest nonfiction book, coauthored with Faye Hughes and scheduled for release in September '08 through Adams Media.

Awards: A Golden Heart finalist, Christie has also finaled in over 50 RWA-sponsored contests.

Web site: www.christie-craig.com

Divorced, Desperate and Delicious is a humorous romantic suspense about a wounded cop on the run who is being framed by this partner, and a divorced animal-loving heroine who is finished with men forever . . . but has a weak spot for all strays, even wounded cops.

Because my book Divorced, Desperate and Delicious was released today, Kim, Jessica, and Jacky gave me the floor at the BookEnds blog. They even said I could choose my topic. Pretty fearless of them, isn’t it? I considered sharing about the night I saw Kim and Jessica in their pajamas running down the stairwell of a Dallas hotel. But then I’d have to explain that I, too, was there, donned in my PJs. So nope, that wouldn’t work.

Instead, I chose to blog about something I heard at one of my first writing conferences. This piece of advice sent me on a frantic search, too. A well-respected editor said, “The one thing a new writer can do to guarantee her/his success is to go home and find their writing voice.”

So I did just that. I went straight home, got into my comfy clothes, poured myself a glass of wine, went into my office and . . . looked under my desk. I found a few dust bunnies, some dirty socks, a surprise my cat had left for me, but no voice. Where and how did a new writer find her voice?

Over the years, I learned a few things. I’m not saying I’ve found the answer, but I have discovered more than just dirty socks and hair balls. I’ve found there are many debates concerning the elusive thing called a writer’s voice.

Some believe the writer’s voice is encoded in the author’s DNA, that it’s a mere reflection of his or her personality. They insist it lurks within, and if the writer is patient, it will simply come.

Others argue that voice is not something that comes from within, but writers must be willing to shop for it. (Like at Wal-Mart . . . or Neiman-Marcus.) Still others believe the writer’s voice must be tracked down, clubbed, and dragged back by the scruff of its neck, then be caged to avoid its escape.

What’s more, some think a writer gets one voice, while others believe you can have several, or you can train and retrain your voice to work in different types of genres and tones, like a singer who is famous for country and rock.

What do I believe? Well, I think there’s some truth is every one of those debates. I think voice is connected to personality, but I think some people don’t know who they are. I don’t think it hurts to shop around—to try to write in different genres—until you find something that clicks. I also don’t think your voice can run away—there are no cages in my office—but I admit I keep a close eye on mine at all times. I don’t think you can lose your voice, either, but I believe you can get writing laryngitis.

I think voice is a combination of how words are threaded together, how sentences are sewn into paragraphs. It’s also about mood, tone, pacing, and word choice; it’s that elusive something you recognize when you pick up a Jennifer Crusie, or a Lisa Jackson. I think most of us can train ourselves to sing/write in different genres, to use different tones, but perhaps not everyone can. Or perhaps, voice and how it works is as unique to each writer as is . . . well, the types of things found under our desks.

Anyway, I’m hoping that when Divorced, Desperate and Delicious hits the bookstores, people will connect with my voice. Mostly, I hope readers will discover my voice to be entertaining and they’ll be waiting with bated breath for my next release to come out in June of '08.

So what about you? What is your definition and thoughts on voice? Have you found yours, or are you still searching for it behind the dust bunnies?

A BookEnds Anniversary

Today is a very exciting anniversary for BookEnds. No, it’s not the official day we started the business; in fact, I would have to do some work to figure out when exactly that would be. No, today is a day that sticks in my head as well as my own wedding anniversary or my birthday. Today is the day that BookEnds sold its first book.

November 27, 1999, just months after opening our doors and proclaiming ourselves packagers (of course you all know by now that BookEnds started as packagers and not literary agents) we got an offer from Hyperion for two books. For My Daughter on Her Wedding Day and For My Daughter on the Birth of Her First Child were write-in journals that Jacky and I wrote ourselves. Boy, did we think we were so clever. The journals, like those you might have done as a child (The Book of Me) or those they sell now for grandparents to fill out for grandchildren, or the two I received from our soon-to-be Hyperion editor, The Book of Us and The Book of My Pet, were meant as a gift from mother to daughter on two of the most important days of her life. The mother’s job was to fill in the questions we asked—memories of her own wedding or the birth of her own children, advice, and of course memories and thoughts about her daughter. And if I do say so myself, they were damn good books and apparently Hyperion thought so too.

I remember getting the call and being stunned into silence. I was excited, sweating with nervousness, and trying to get off the phone as quickly as possible to call Jacky. Starting our own business was a thrilling and interesting experience. When asked what I was most surprised about by starting BookEnds, I always say it was how many contacts I didn’t have. After five years in publishing for me and more than ten for Jacky, we were convinced we knew a great number of editors and would have no problem networking more. Boy, were we shocked to realize that most of those editors were at the same one or two houses and that in the grand scheme of things we knew no one. That’s why selling these books was a very special surprise. Not only was the sale to a house we had never worked with, but it was to an editor we had never met before. In other words, after careful research and planning we had chosen editors we thought would like the book and we’d been lucky to hit the nail on the head. Selling these books was validation that we did in fact know what we were doing. We hadn’t been in business for more than six months (and certainly this hadn’t been out on submission for that long) when we made that first and very fruitful sale.

Although the books have since gone out of print I still look at them fondly (the cover for one hangs on my wall). It was an idea that I believe worked and it was the launching point for BookEnds in so many ways. Not only did it pay the bills, but it gave us the confidence and the reassurance that we knew what we were doing and yes, we would succeed. Now, eight years later, it’s so amazing to look back and see how far we’ve come. From gift books written by us to big business and health titles that we could never write ourselves, bestselling authors in romance, mystery, and women’s fiction, and fun every day on the job.

The best thing, though, is that with each new offer I get, no matter how small, I get the same feelings I did with that first book. The same thrill of excitement and rush of pride that yes, I do know what I’m doing.

Jessica

At What Point Is a Work No Longer Under Submission

I have an agent who I've been with for about 2 years. I am considering leaving this agency. I read the contract (and your posts on this subject) and noticed that she retains the right to receive her cut of any manuscripts I might sell that are still in "negotiation," even if we have parted ways. "In negotiation" in the contract is defined as "on submission."

There is one house which expressed strong interest in my work. Ultimately, the editor wasn't able to get the support of other editors—she's still somewhat junior—and the manuscript was rejected. However, the door was left open for me to revise and submit again.

The editor and I have plans to talk and discuss ways to revise the work.

Now for the question: in the event that I do revise and resubmit, is this still part of the original "negotiation" or is it a new submission? If I have a new agent, can the new agent handle this "negotiation," or will it legally be in the hands of the old agent?

The author goes on to explain her reasoning for leaving her agent, which was nice, but she didn’t need to do it. When making the decision to leave an agent you shouldn’t ever feel the need to justify your actions. If you no longer feel the agent you’re with is doing the job you need her to do, that’s enough reason to leave. Be that as it may, I don’t think she’s trying to pull something over on her agent. She doesn’t feel she’s the right person for the job anymore and wants to seek other representation.

This is a tricky question, since I assume there’s no end date to the amount of time the agent has to finalize any deals. For example, the BookEnds contract gives us four months to finalize any outstanding submissions, at which time everything reverts back to the author and we no longer have a right to those sales. I think it’s fair to both us and the author and gives a final end date at which we can all move on. It also gives us sufficient time to wrap anything up, without limiting the author.

My belief is if you don’t have anything physically sitting on an editor’s desk you don’t have anything under submission. When ending your relationship you should say as much in a letter. In other words, send that certified letter saying that you are ending the relationship and since you have no outstanding submissions together you will be moving forward effective immediately, etc., etc. Make sure you are very clear that the old agent has no more rights to your work.

Another thing to consider. Presumably when you resubmit this work, if the editor still wants to see it, it will be an entirely new work and not the same book your agent submitted.

I’m sure advice would be welcome from anyone else who has ever found him/herself in this situation.

Jessica

Happy Thanksgiving!

BookEnds will be closed today through Sunday for the holiday.

Have a happy Thanksgiving and we'll see you again on Monday.

—Jessica, Jacky, and Kim

Pitch Critiques Round 7

Here we go again . . . critiques as per Perfecting Your Pitch.

37. mary jelinek
One sentence:
Benny Sherman helps a wayward fairy win back his wings and, in the process, finds his own.

Paragraph:
In the wake of his parents’ separation, Benny and his mother move from their comfortable suburban home to his Grandma’s overcrowded bungalow. To make matters worse, the sixth grader is forced to attend Catholic school where he’s sure to feel as out of place as he does stumbling through prayers at Christmas Mass. The last thing he needs is, “...to follow some imaginary creatures on a quest to find a fictitious amulet. Not even cool creatures, either. I get sissy fairies.”

LOL! The last line is great. Who can beat that? I think your one-sentence pitch is really good. It definitely grabs my attention and leads me to want more. I also think your paragraph is very strong. Terrific in fact. My only comment might be to limit the quote to, “Not even cool creatures, either. I get sissy fairies.” And explain in a tad more detail (in your own voice) what he’s being asked to do and why. Why is key, I think, because that shows us motivation. Very, very good though! This should definitely get you requests from agents and editors.

38. precie
Urban YA entitled "Tin Man":
A Philadelphia latch-key kid raised on a steady diet of 1980s movies and his mother's urban paranoia, 15-year-old Quentin sees danger everywhere. When his teenage neighbor, Claire, is taken by "the police," his gallantly absurd quest to rescue her evolves into a battle against dangers more powerful and sinister than he ever could have imagined.

Another terrific pitch. I think you all are getting better. My only concern is that there’s a bit of a "show, don’t tell" alert going on here. Make sure your pitch represents the tone of your book. This feels like someone else telling me about your book. What about making it more active? Something like, “Raised on a steady diet of 1980s movies and his mother’s urban paranoia, 15-year-old Quentin sees danger everywhere. When next-door neighbor Claire is taken by 'the police,' Quentin’s gallantly absurd quest to rescue her evolves into a battle against dangers more powerful and sinister than he could ever have imagined”? I think my changes are minor and subtle, but should give you an idea of what I mean by making your pitch more active and more exciting.

39. Julie
....To escape the tyranny of an English King and to fulfill her dying father's wishes for her to seek a free and independent life, Maura McCoveny would have to keep many secrets at a cost almost too high for her to bear....

Snooze. This doesn’t sound any different from any other historical novel I frequently see. This is much too general—focusing on things like freedom, independence, and a high cost. Almost every book should contain conflict that is of a high cost to the protagonist. What is specific about Maura’s battle that will inspire readers to come to it?

40. jamr
Kit Anderson (14) thinks she’s entered hell when her father’s new job forces a family move from plumeria-scented Honolulu to frigid Seoul in the winter of 1974. She decides to channel her energy into escaping Korea, whatever the cost.
This means living by a new set of operating principles such as “Everyone and everything can be used.” Kit’s selfish code of conduct leads her into black-marketing, theft and a life of deceit. It takes a tragic accident and a temporary return to Hawaii to discover that she’s become a person she doesn’t like and to realize that Korea offers adventures that her friends in Hawaii could never imagine.

Granted I don’t know the YA market all that well, but my immediate concern is the date. If your book doesn’t need to be set in 1974, why set it there? It’s not a time period that’s considered historical and not one I’m sure would be of interest to that age group. That in itself might give agents reason to reject unless you can prove a need for it. Overall though I think this is a fairly strong pitch; I’m not sure if I would ask to see more though. It sounds through the pitch like Kit’s a pretty unlikeable character.

41. c.j.
Sitting beside her mother’s deathbed, Annika is awakened to the fact that the man grieving beside her is not her real father. She leaves her family in Kiev and, with the help of long withheld information from this stepfather, retraces the short life of the father she never knew. FLAKES BLOOM follows Annika on her old Voskhod motorcycle as she travels past the government guards and into Pripyat, the now abandoned town once populated by the workers of the Chernobyl Power Plant.

It sounds to me like this is a beautifully written story. How can I tell that? The voice definitely comes through as well as the pace of the book. I think this is a strong pitch, although we still need to know a little more about the conflict Annika faces. A line at the end about what she must come up against once she arrives in Pripyat would be helpful.

42. trina allen
Katharine Taylor has never transmutated into an animal, a dragon or a mountain lion. She has never traveled to the past through her magic quilt, nor faced armies of insects and the evil wizard Dr. Ziegawart. All Katharine knows is an unhappy life with an alcoholic mother, but all that is about to change when she learns that she is a wizard and travels to a turbulent time in Boston just before the Revolutionary War. Caught up in the dramatic events that pit the King’s soldiers against their own people, Katharine finds in her new friends the strength to face her destiny.

I like the beginning a lot. I think the first three sentences are terrific. What a great Harry Potter-like book without going straight to telling us that. However, this is another case where the ending lost its fire. I guess I’m not sure I want to read about a wizard who ends up in Boston. Where’s the magic? Where’s the army of insects? The fun of a wizard book, or of any fantasy, is the fantasy. In your description of what’s actually going to happen you neglect to tell us about the fantasy. Since it seems your target is probably a younger audience, my question to you is would a 12-year-old (for example) be interested in reading about the “strength to face her destiny”? or are they more interested in reading about evil wizards and magic quilts? That’s what we want to hear about in the last sentences.



Good work as always. I think the pitches are getting stronger as I go, or I’m getting softer. . . .

Jessica

Agent Recommendations

Regularly I receive a response from a query I rejected in which the author asks for agent recommendations. Who else do I think they could submit to? And typically I don’t reply. Why? Because if I knew someone I thought would be a much better match for your book, I would tell you.

There was a time, not too long ago, when another agent had somehow decided that rather than simply say no to an author she would pass them off to BookEnds. I’m not sure why she decided this, or if she thought she was doing us any favors, but suddenly we were getting tons of queries from authors saying this agent had referred them to us. And it was driving us nuts. Our initial, and primary, thought was that we were offended. This particular agent reps the same genres as we do, so why on earth would we want to take on projects that she had so obviously rejected? No one likes hand-me-down clothes and I certainly didn’t want hand-me-down rejections.

When will I recommend an agent? Only very rarely. I will happily recommend another agent when I know the project is outside of my range of expertise, but has merit. In that case I might give the name of a colleague who I feel would be a better fit. And there have definitely been times when I have accepted a referral from another agent. Often, though, that agent will call to talk to me about the project and let me know if it’s a good fit first.

Referrals should be special and given sparingly. I know that when I get a referral from a client, she truly feels strongly about that author’s abilities. The same holds true for agents. I’m not about to throw around the names of other agents simply because you ask. A referral is about my reputation as much as it’s about your work, and from my perspective one will only be given when I feel, honestly, that it’s something the other agent could get behind.

Jessica

Why I Reject

In a recent post on query statistics (which I will try to do more of), I mentioned that I would let you know some of the reasons I was rejecting books, and word count was something that came into play regularly. When does a book get rejected for word count? When it’s much, much too short or much, much too long.

Here is a rough guide of what agents and editors expect when it comes to word count. And yes, there are exceptions to every rule.

• Most novels are roughly 80,000 to 100,000 words. Anything I don’t mention here should be within that range, give or take 5,000 words. And by the way, when I think word count I think 250 words per double-spaced page with one-inch margins. That’s the way most publishers look at word count. Using Microsoft Word’s count could mess you up since three words of dialogue technically takes up a full line, and word count is about production costs.
• Cozy mysteries: 70,000 to 90,000 words. Usually on the short end of that.
• Category romance: Anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 (note this is Harlequin/Silhouette only)
• Fantasy: Can run longer, up to 120,000 words

Anything too far above or below these figures will often get an automatic rejection from people unless your query is unbelievably compelling.

While I do frequently reject based on word count, it’s not even the most common reason I reject something. I would suspect that the biggest reason something gets rejected from me is because it just doesn’t sound that different or interesting. Your writing might be great, but the story sounds ho-hum. Nothing really stands out or, even worse, you tell me about the issues your book addresses. Trust me. No one cares whether or not your book discusses love and forgiveness or is a social satire. In the end we all just want a really great book—great plot, great characters, great writing.

When going through rejections I often see queries that sound like good ideas. The concept was interesting, but the plot description was so horrible that I passed. If that’s the same writing that I can expect to see in the book, then I don’t want to read any further.

At other times the plot was too slight. The query was very well written and I didn’t doubt that the author could write, but the plot sounded so boring and linear that I had to pass. In other words, if you couldn’t make the book sound different or interesting it wouldn’t matter to me, to editors, or eventually to readers how well it was written. No one would get past the first few chapters.

Any time an author mentions that the book probably still needs an edit, I run. If you don’t feel your book is as near to perfect as you’re going to get it, then I don’t feel it’s ready for me to send around yet.

Essentially, though, your query has to have two things to make me ask to see more. It has to have an interesting and different concept and it has to be well written. It has to give me a sense that when I get the book I already know the writing is going to be solid.

Jessica