Purple Prose:
querying

It doesn’t matter where you are in your writing career, the doubt monster will strike.

You read books by your favorite authors and decide your writing will never measure up.

While you’re in queryland, a friend lands an agent and you start questioning if that will ever be you.

While your book is out on submission, someone you know dances around and screams that she’s signed a 3-book deal with a major publisher, and you wonder if you’ll even get a one-book deal with anyone. Period.

You self publish your book and look longing at the list of NYT and USA Today bestsellers, many who are self published in your genre (NA contemporary romance authors, I’m looking at you).
Heck, you do this if your book is traditionally published, too.

You start freaking out as doubts slither in as to whether or not you’ll meet your publisher’s deadline.

As you approach your book’s launch date, you go through emotional outbursts similar to those experienced during pregnancy.

You book does better than expected, but now you worry that you’ll be a one-hit wonder and your publisher and agent will dump you after the sequel turns out to be lame.

No matter where you are on your publishing career path, the doubt monster will strike. Don’t be afraid of him. Embrace him. Let him help you push your writing to a new level.

And while you’re at it, sign up for the monthly support group hosted by Alex Cavanaugh. The Insecure Writer’s Support Group meets the first Wednesday of each month (I’ll be joining it in the fall).

And in the meantime . . .

©Stina Lindenblatt

GIVEWAY NEWS: Adventures in YA and Children’s Publishing blog is doing a HUGE giveaway (well, several actually) for both readers and writers. The giveaways run this past Saturday and Sunday and next weekend. You’ll want to check it out!

Source for quote

©Stina Lindenblatt

Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise. Author Unknown

Nothing is more frustrating than being the recipient of empty promises. Especially when they come from the same person. Again and again and again. When you make a promise and you know at the time it’ll be impossible keep, it’s no longer a promise. It’s a lie. Make too many of them, and you lose credibility, and no one wants that, right?

Right.

In writing, broken promises can be both good and bad. When you write a query or synopsis, you’re making a promise to the agent or editor. If you’re promising a book filled with mystery and intrigue, your book better live up to that promise.

©Stina Lindenblatt

Thou ought to be nice, even to superstition, in keeping thy promises, and therefore equally cautious in making them. ~Thomas Fuller

The dreaded first chapter is the king of promises. If your first pages are filled with grammatical errors, awkward sentences, and typos, guess what you’re promising the rest of the book will be like? If your main character is flat, then the agent expects he won’t improve much beyond the first chapter. These are two promises you want to break. Unfortunately, agents won't stick around to find out if you do.

If the beginning is humorous, the reader expects this tone to continue throughout the story. If your first chapter is kickass great, you’ve promised the rest of the book is the same. Professional critiques from conferences and workshops are wonderful, but you need to make sure what was said in those pages carries through to the end of the book. These two promises are ones you don't want to break.

©Stina Lindenblatt

What do promises and hearts have in common? They're meant to be kept but always end up broken. Author Unknown

Broken promises in your story can add conflict, and this is when broken promises rock. If your character’s boyfriend keeps making promises he doesn’t keep, this will ultimately shape the story and affect her character arc. If a character’s dad always made promises he didn’t keep when she was a kid, that will shape who she is at the beginning of the story, and how she acts in given situations. Because of her dad’s empty promises, she doesn’t trust men. Think of all the story possibilities waiting for you given that scenario, especially if your book is a romance.

How do broken promises make you feel? Do you use them in your stories?

You’ve been querying agents and you landed a revision request. Now what?

First, celebrate. A revision request means the agent saw something in your writing (i.e. it doesn’t suck like you had originally feared), and she wants to see if you can make the story stronger. She also wants to see if the two of you will mesh well as a team.

Take the time to make sure you understand what she is looking for, and that you both share the same vision for your story. Once you’ve finished the edits, have beta readers go through it and edit it if need be. Don’t rush to send it out and skip this step in your haste to get it back to the agent. You don’t want to blow this one chance she’s given you.

If you land a revision request, consider pulling your material from agents who have requested it, and explain why. Let them know you would love to resent it to them once you’ve finished the revisions. I did that for two agents, and received emails saying they would love to see it when it’s ready. My friend did the same and got a similar response. The agents appreciated that we didn’t waste their time with a manuscript we felt could be stronger, thanks to the professional feedback we had received. Of course, having another agent interested enough to offer a revision request no doubt helped, too.

In my case, I knew it would take a while to do the edits, which is why I contacted the agents. If you don’t contact them first, you can try sending the revised manuscript to them when it’s ready, assuming they haven’t gotten back to you in the meantime. (For more info on that, check out this post.)

And remember, just because an agent sent you a revision request, it doesn’t mean she’ll end up loving your book. More often than not, writers put in all the extra work only to land a rejection. But on the bright side, you now have a stronger manuscript for when you start querying again.

Have you had a revision request before? Do you have any suggestions?

(I know the cartoon had nothing to do with the post, but I couldn’t resist it. *grins*)

If you’re a writer, rejection is a nasty word you can’t avoid. Well, I guess you can if you never query. But if you hoped to be published, it’s something you’ll eventually have to face.

A rejection isn’t bad or evil. It tells you something. Maybe your writing isn’t there yet. Maybe the story just didn’t excite that agent or editor. Maybe one of the agent’s clients recently wrote a book with a similar premise. Yes, the rejection might sting. But it won’t kill you.

As writers, we tend to get too caught up in the rejections. We easily forget there are bigger things in life that are more important. My first born son (who turns twelve next month) was three months premature. Do you know what it feels like to watch something so frail cling to life? On Monday afternoon, my youngest two kids were on their school bus when it was involved in an accident (above photo). All thirty kids were okay, although many were shaken. The driver suffered minor injuries. But the photos and my crying daughter affected me in a way no rejection ever will.

Before you start querying, make a list of ten or more things that have happened to you that are worse than a rejection (or things that would be worse than a rejection). Post it by your computer. Next time you get a rejection, put it into perspective by reflecting on your list. Only then will you see it for what it really is: a small blip in your writing career.