Slightly Off the Mark

Recently I spent two days sending queries to literary agents. Several hours of researching the agents and their agencies, composing query letters, enclosing requested materials, and sending out twenty-two e-mails. Most agents accept simultaneous submissions, but they also appreciate a personal touch, so researching whether we'd be right together was pretty time consuming.

By the end of the first day I'd already received two rejections.

Many authors do just fine without agents, these days. You don't need one if you self-publish, or if you submit to publishers that permit direct submissions, like most small and medium sized publishers. Harlequin, the Big Shot in the romance novel business, doesn't require agented submissions. In fact, one of the Harlequin lines is currently looking at my romantic comedy novel, Fire On Mist Creek.

They've had it for two years. I'm not confident.

Many authors get published without agents, after all. I should know.

Many publishers, especially the big ones, won't look at a submission unless it's received through an agent. Also, good agents act as full partners with the author, assisting in many areas besides the submission process, and also provide a shoulder to cry on. As slow as the publishing industry can be, that shoulder can be important.

But is an agent worth the process of finding one?

I tweak my submissions to make them more personal. In addition, each agent has different requirements: Some want a synopsis, some a separate author bio; some want the first five pages, or the first three chapters, or the first twenty-five or thirty or fifty pages.

So  I took the time to target each. Some gave me a quick rejection; some I might never hear back from; some might send an encouraging note that they liked my writing, but didn't get excited enough about it. (And an agent must like your work, because they're going to dive into it with both feet.)

Maybe they'll like the query and ask for a partial; maybe they'll like the partial and ask for the whole manuscript; maybe they'll like the whole manuscript but, as with one agent, have a meeting with their staff in which it's ultimately rejected. (They loved my young adult novel but thought it wasn't dark enough, and felt "dark" was the way the YA industry was headed. No wonder young people today are depressed.)

Even if you ultimately land one, it might not be a good fit. I did have an agent, years ago, but eventually he decided to get out of the publishing industry, and I started again from square one. It wasn't my fault. I think.

There's ultimately no guarantee that the agent can make the sale, but you can be sure they'll try ... because a legitimate agency won't make any money from your efforts unless they do.

So there's the process: similar to the process of submitting directly to a publisher, and with a similar rate of success. Many authors are successful and perfectly happy with independent publishing, and others do very well submitting directly to publishers. Is the extra step worth it? Well, so far it's only cost me time ... on the other hand, time is a precious commodity.

We'll see what happens.

Any way you go, you still have to put the after-sale work in.

 

Find all of our (unagented) books at:

I haven't really given a full report on how National Novel Writing Month went for me way back ... gee, was that a whole month ago?

My NaNoWriMo novel, Fire On Mist Creek, topped out at 58,735 words on around November 26. I even managed to write a few hundred more words on a short story before the thirty day period was up, so all in all it went pretty darned well. Of course, as I've mentioned before, I started November 1st with a full (if messy) outline, character sketches, and other research all done.

But things happen, and I now face major rewrites. One scene is going to be replaced, a character is going to make more appearances and be more antagonistic, and another character just popped into existence in the next to last chapter and now has to be back-written into the story. I also need to add more description. One can't just spend a single month writing a story and be done with it. Well, most of us can't.

December got crazy, as December tends to do. there's still some craziness to come in January, but just the same, it'll be time to start the whole process again. Editing, polishing, submitting, promoting, tracking down agents, editors, and cheerleaders (also knows as reviewers, bloggers, and word of mouth ... mouthers), planning the new books and pushing the old ones, stuff ... things.

It's either that or go outside. In January--no contest.

This is both stuff and things.

45,000 words! Way ahead of schedule.
 

Naming characters is one of the great joys of a fiction writer, when it's not one of their great nightmares.

We all want to come up with the next Sherlock Holmes, or Indiana Jones, or Stan Lee. (Isn't he a character?) It can be more complicated according to the genre: With science fiction you might need a Han Solo, with fantasy a Bilbo Baggins. Alliteration is your friend ... sometimes. After all, we have Clark Kent, or anyone invented by the previously mentioned Stan Lee.

Sometimes I go to great effort to give my character names meaning, while other times I just go with what sounds good. In my first published novel, my male protagonist was famous for taking extreme risks, even as he denied being a risk taker. His name? Chance, of course.

With its sequel, The Notorious Ian Grant, I was creating a character who already had a last name--he's the son of a minor character from Storm Chaser. I wanted something to fit his rakish, shall we say notorious personality, and settled on Ian. I also had to take into consideration what his father, an old school type, would have named him.

Often I painstakingly go through the meanings, sorting through my close to a dozen books about names (hey, I'm ready to name your baby!) And that's fine, but it might be more important to pick out a name that just doesn't conflict in other ways.

Do you have two characters whose names begin with an R? Or do all your characters have one syllable last names? Do the first and last names fit together? Say my name fast, without the middle initial ... I wouldn't give a character my name. Look at your cast list, and make sure two of the names aren't too like each other.

You might also consider whether to give your characters names that could apply to either sex, like Robin. I love the female name, Dani. But if Dani's best friend and her family all call her Dan, it could cause some confusion with the reader.

Then there's the question of ethnic names. In the Storm Chaser series is a character named Fran--her full name is Francesca. In my unpublished novel Beowulf: In Harm's Way is a character named Sachiko Endo, whose parents hail from Japan by way of another planet. Now, that story is set 500 years in the future, so there's no reason to think someone named Maria Nejem or Mohan Singh are from any particular place on Earth, or even from Earth at all. But there's also no reason to think my ship's crew will all have names like James and Leonard.

My current novel in progress is a romantic comedy. While the romance genre doesn't have the strict rules it once did, there are certain limitations on names, at least for American audiences. Colin and Wyatt are fine names for male protagonists, depending on the sub-genre; Larry Duckworth would probably not be your male lead.

I named my male protagonist Reed Carter. Why? Because I liked it; I had a backache at the time and didn't feel like looking up meanings. These things happened. Similarly, my female lead is Alice Delaney: I've always liked Alice, and Delaney had an extra syllable that seemed to work well with the first name, and Reed's name.

Now, with secondary names you can have a bit more fun, but be careful if your character might end up with a larger role in a sequel, or series. In Storm Chaser, I gave Chance Hamlin's little sister the name Beth, mostly as an afterthought. She was just a minor character, after all. But in the tradition of Urkels and Fonzies everywhere, she took on a life of her own and has so far shown up in three novels and a short story collection. If, in the new book, Alice's friend Rina Quade takes off, hopefully I'll be able to live with the name.

Finally there's naming characters after friends, family members, and enemies.

Don't.

Well, not without their approval, anyway. Never underestimate the power of people to be offended. Of course, if the character has a different last or first name, and their hair color is different, or even if they're of different gender, hey--just a coincidence, right? Before you do this, know who you're honoring. If you're dishonoring them, change the character around a lot.

My new book (working title Fire on Misty Creek) is set in northern Kentucky. It features a volunteer fire department, and to fill out its membership roles I chose popular last names from Knott County, where my relatives came from--even though its in southeast Kentucky. A little honoring of the roots, there.

The important part, when choosing names, is to have them fit the character, and to avoid confusion. If you end up with a Sherlock Holmes, that's just gravy.

He is Groot.

 Aaaaannnnddd ... away we go. 2,196 words done on the first day ... but because I didn't insert the word count into the NaNoWriMo website until just after midnight, it's assuming I did them on the second day--so I'm already behind.

 

National Novel Writing Month begins. 

 

I feel like I'm one of those guys who walks a marathon. I'm definitely going to finish, but I'm not all that worried about those young author pups who get there before me. 50,000 words in thirty days? My goal is 50,000 in six weeks, and since six is a smaller number than thirty, I win!

 

It's all about coming out of it with a finished novel. And that, I've learned in recent years, I can do.