Well, my part in judging the first round of GUTGAA entries is over. To say it was 'fun' seems to damn it with faint praise - though it was fun, it was also much more than that. It was illuminating. Here are three things I learned.
1) There may not be any new stories under the sun, but there are a million different ways of telling them.
First of all I was humbled by the sheer vastness of new, unique ideas. If you think it's all been done before, you need to read the entries in this contest (there were over 200, and I read at least 100 of them.) I can't tell you how many times I sat up and said 'whoa!' Even the entries that weren't what I usually read made me think that there is so much talent out there, so much creativity, it's staggering. I also discovered that I like Steampunk - who knew?
2) Your cup of tea is not my cup of tea, but we can respect our different blends.
When I first started voting I read all the entries and made a short list of what, off the bat, interested me. I had about 15 entries on it. I did this so I wouldn't be unduly influenced by other judges opinions and to give me time to develop my comments on the entries I eventually whittled down to 10. I shouldn't have worried. Although in the end we judges definitely came together on some of the entries, we still needed tie-breaker judges to come in and make final decisions. Why? Because it's SO SUBJECTIVE. There was one entry that I absolutely fell in love with. I mean, if I'd walked by it in a bookstore, I would have plunked down my wallet in a hot minute. And not one other judge agreed with me. I was like WHAT???
But it's not a popularity contest. If you entered and only received one vote or no votes, that does not mean your story isn't good. IT CATEGORICALLY DOES NOT MEAN THAT. I can't stress this enough because it only takes ONE agent to fall in love with your work, to believe in your story and your talent. It only takes one. Lots will go meh, not for me. But with one agent, your story will resonate like a bell.
A short story about what happened to me right before I got an agent. I entered a a contest on a blog where a published author would crit one lucky query. I got picked to be critiqued, that was the good news. The bad news was that the author did not like my query. Not A Little Bit. She thought the idea had promise but thought the query was pretty terrible. I was crushed because, though I'd gotten some full and partial requests, I also got a lot of rejections. I wanted to revise the query in case it was not doing the job. While I went to my crit friends and online community for help, while I worried about how to take apart the query I'd worked on for months and start again, (my soon-to-be-agent) Barbara emailed to say she wanted to talk. The rest is history. I'll say it again - SUBJECTIVE!
3) The Blogosphere is a place full of people who want to pay it forward.
Yes, there are trolls. Trolls are gonna troll. (Don't feed them.) 99% of the people involved in GUTGAA genuinely want to help each other make connections, succeed, and support one another. I can't imagine the amount of hours (and blood,sweat, tears) GUTGAA mastermind Deana Barnhart put into this project, but I'm thinking it turned into a full time job for months. The judges donated time and the entrants generously put their work up for scrutiny. The agents are about to donate their time reading the finalists to find a winner. I'm not Polly Anna (those of you who know me, know I snark too much for that) and I realize everyone has a stake in the project, whether it's to grow their community, get help polishing their pitches or find new talent. But the generosity is there and it's wondrous.
So, what do you think of GUTGAA? AND it's not over yet! There's the Agent Round of the Pitches and the Small Press contest still to come.
Showing posts with label pitching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pitching. Show all posts
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Here Comes the Judge
I'm judging the first round of the GUTGAA pitchfest next week and I'm nervous. I'm not the only judge, there are lots of other talented writers judging with me, and it's only the first round, so the next round is judged by actual licensed literary agents* but still, I'm nervous.
I think it's because I am painfully aware of how subjective this writing thing is. Who hasn't rushed out to the bookstore to buy a hot new book, a pocket full of friend and family recommendations and a glowing review in a big paper, only to get the wretched thing home and say, "REALLY?" I've got a short stack of these books at home that I need to gift to my library. Popular, handsome books that I should have loved, all the indications were there. But I just didn't.
Judging a contest (hell, judging your sister's boyfriends for that matter) is a fraught business. I keep thinking 'who am I to judge?' Of course, that never stopped me from judging my sister's boyfriends, or her haircuts or her choice in nail polish, and that is the point I'm slowly creeping up to. We do judge, every second of every day. We have discernment, whether consciously or not. We decide in favor of some things and not others. We judge. The key to judging fairly, I think, is to keep the personal (as much as possible) out of things.
So here's my game plan for next week's judging.
1) Read everything with an open mind, even if it's not my cup of tea. ESPECIALLY if it's not my cup of tea. I bet I'd like lots of different cups of tea if I let myself. Rooibos. Oolong. I digress.
2)Take note of dings. Dings are stops along the reading - when something sounds either off, or confusing, or just takes me out of the reading. When I read anything I want there to be as few dings as possible. Flow and Clarity be your watchwords.
3)What speaks to me? What pitch is something that makes me curious to hear more? What pitch is unexpected, not something I've read before? What pitch has legs? And by that I mean that you want to hear more, you can't imagine how it's going to turn out, but you can't wait to find out. What pitch makes me go AH!
4)The HOOK. Is it there, in the first 150? It should be. I've been there, in the bookstore, a fish swimming in the water waiting to be caught and no hook has found me as I scan the first two pages.
5) Finally, I think I'd look at the quality of writing in the first 150. Is there a consistent, compelling VOICE? Is the writing polished and clear? I'm a big fan of clarity because it's something I struggle with in my own writing (I always want to get fancypants when I don't have to.)
That's the plan. What do you think? Anything else I should be looking at? Whether with crit partners, your own writing or other arts - How do YOU judge?
*WHAT? THEY DON'T HAVE LICENSES? OUTRAGEOUS!
I think it's because I am painfully aware of how subjective this writing thing is. Who hasn't rushed out to the bookstore to buy a hot new book, a pocket full of friend and family recommendations and a glowing review in a big paper, only to get the wretched thing home and say, "REALLY?" I've got a short stack of these books at home that I need to gift to my library. Popular, handsome books that I should have loved, all the indications were there. But I just didn't.
Judging a contest (hell, judging your sister's boyfriends for that matter) is a fraught business. I keep thinking 'who am I to judge?' Of course, that never stopped me from judging my sister's boyfriends, or her haircuts or her choice in nail polish, and that is the point I'm slowly creeping up to. We do judge, every second of every day. We have discernment, whether consciously or not. We decide in favor of some things and not others. We judge. The key to judging fairly, I think, is to keep the personal (as much as possible) out of things.
So here's my game plan for next week's judging.
1) Read everything with an open mind, even if it's not my cup of tea. ESPECIALLY if it's not my cup of tea. I bet I'd like lots of different cups of tea if I let myself. Rooibos. Oolong. I digress.
2)Take note of dings. Dings are stops along the reading - when something sounds either off, or confusing, or just takes me out of the reading. When I read anything I want there to be as few dings as possible. Flow and Clarity be your watchwords.
3)What speaks to me? What pitch is something that makes me curious to hear more? What pitch is unexpected, not something I've read before? What pitch has legs? And by that I mean that you want to hear more, you can't imagine how it's going to turn out, but you can't wait to find out. What pitch makes me go AH!
4)The HOOK. Is it there, in the first 150? It should be. I've been there, in the bookstore, a fish swimming in the water waiting to be caught and no hook has found me as I scan the first two pages.
5) Finally, I think I'd look at the quality of writing in the first 150. Is there a consistent, compelling VOICE? Is the writing polished and clear? I'm a big fan of clarity because it's something I struggle with in my own writing (I always want to get fancypants when I don't have to.)
That's the plan. What do you think? Anything else I should be looking at? Whether with crit partners, your own writing or other arts - How do YOU judge?
*WHAT? THEY DON'T HAVE LICENSES? OUTRAGEOUS!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Writing Tip Thursday #10 - How to Write a Query Letter
Made you look. I don't actually know how to write a successful query letter. If I did, I'd have an agent and be one rung up from where I am. BUT I do need to figure out how to write a query letter - I have 10 days to write a good one - I figured we could learn together.
As to why I have 10 days to write one, that's because I'm a coward. Last year when I went to the Pennwriter's conference, I didn't do any agent pitches or anything where I was compelled to speak to humans. This year, I'm trying to do a little better. I signed up for networking lunches, cocktails, crits etc. But as for pitching to a flesh and blood agent, I quailed, dear reader. I chose the one agent who was doing a crit of a query letter and the first 10 pages of ms. instead of a pitch. I'm a slowly recovering coward.
At the bottom of this post are a bunch of links to resources for query letters. There's a ton out there, which is the good news. The bad news is that each query letter is so individual, so much a mix of a business letter and a personal plea that there's no formulaic way to write one* You have to craft the bugger.
First you have to figure out what the thing wot you wrote is about. Good luck with that. It's not always as easy as you think it is, and it's not always what you thought you were writing. To get myself to the nugget of what BookEnd is about, I snowflaked it. This is a method that you can use to outline your story before you write, or to get to the essentials of what your story is afterwards. I found it really useful after the fact, but not that useful before writing. Your results will vary, obviously.
Secondly, I've decided to leave the 'personalizing' part of the query letter last. Not that this isn't important. I understand that you need to have done research on the agent you are sending the query to, that you have to know why you are querying them and not every other agent on querytracker.com. Robo-querying is not the way to go. But I want to concentrate on the message of my query, since a query is essentially a pitch written down.
So, here's my first go - please please please throw me some suggestions, I need all the help I can get. I know that the letter should probably be longer. What more should I tell about the story?
The bold type is what I've changed, the rest is TK.
*Well, of course there is a formula. You can find one from Nathan Bransford here. But when you're done with it, it shouldn't feel formulaic.
Query Letter Writing Resources
Agent Query
Nathan Bransford
Query Shark - sometimes brutal but always effective advice by example - what works and what doesn't. check out her 'wins'
Writer's Digest
Pub Rants - Agent Kristin has a list of her client's queries that have (obviously) worked for her - and more importantly, how they worked.
Pimp My Novel also has an interesting (non agent) take on queries
As to why I have 10 days to write one, that's because I'm a coward. Last year when I went to the Pennwriter's conference, I didn't do any agent pitches or anything where I was compelled to speak to humans. This year, I'm trying to do a little better. I signed up for networking lunches, cocktails, crits etc. But as for pitching to a flesh and blood agent, I quailed, dear reader. I chose the one agent who was doing a crit of a query letter and the first 10 pages of ms. instead of a pitch. I'm a slowly recovering coward.
At the bottom of this post are a bunch of links to resources for query letters. There's a ton out there, which is the good news. The bad news is that each query letter is so individual, so much a mix of a business letter and a personal plea that there's no formulaic way to write one* You have to craft the bugger.
First you have to figure out what the thing wot you wrote is about. Good luck with that. It's not always as easy as you think it is, and it's not always what you thought you were writing. To get myself to the nugget of what BookEnd is about, I snowflaked it. This is a method that you can use to outline your story before you write, or to get to the essentials of what your story is afterwards. I found it really useful after the fact, but not that useful before writing. Your results will vary, obviously.
Secondly, I've decided to leave the 'personalizing' part of the query letter last. Not that this isn't important. I understand that you need to have done research on the agent you are sending the query to, that you have to know why you are querying them and not every other agent on querytracker.com. Robo-querying is not the way to go. But I want to concentrate on the message of my query, since a query is essentially a pitch written down.
So, here's my first go - please please please throw me some suggestions, I need all the help I can get. I know that the letter should probably be longer. What more should I tell about the story?
The bold type is what I've changed, the rest is TK.
Dear [Agent name],
I chose to submit to you because of your wonderful taste in [genre], and because you [personalized tidbit about agent].
Finial Smith is a teenager living in world where book characters, called QRs (Quasi-Reals), come to die or be recycled. But then Fin meets Anne, a QR who is more alive and real than anyone he's ever met. Now Fin has to decide to stand with his family and let Anne be destroyed, or to endanger everyone he loves to save her. Knowing Anne will forever change how Fin sees his world and teach him what it means to be Real.
BookEnd is a 70,000 word Young Adult novel. This is my first novel.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Best wishes,
*Well, of course there is a formula. You can find one from Nathan Bransford here. But when you're done with it, it shouldn't feel formulaic.
Query Letter Writing Resources
Agent Query
Nathan Bransford
Query Shark - sometimes brutal but always effective advice by example - what works and what doesn't. check out her 'wins'
Writer's Digest
Pub Rants - Agent Kristin has a list of her client's queries that have (obviously) worked for her - and more importantly, how they worked.
Pimp My Novel also has an interesting (non agent) take on queries
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wednesday! 3.30.11
Mixed bag of linkage today, friends:
Big Bad (and not so bad) Agents
I'm going to my first three day conference in a month so I'm trying to gather advice for conference season - here's a piece on the Philly Liar's Club site on how to pitch an agent at a conference.
And from agent Vickie Motter more tips on 'speed dating' an agent.
Continuing on the agent theme, GalleyCat has a listing of the best agents on twitter.
Contests!
Carolina Valdez-Miller has a cool contest to go along with the cool news that she got herself an agent - YEE-HA!
I know I mentioned this yesterday, but it's such a cool idea, looking at the first 101 words of your WIP closely. Hop over to Lesser Apricots and submit your first 101 for the chance to win a one page critique and lots of other goodies.
And under the topic of Authors Doing (sometimes strange) Things When Not Writing:
Laura Miller over at Salon ponders what would have become of reclusive authors of yore if they'd been compelled to do the kind of 'author platform building' and self-selling that is expected these days. As it is it's a miracle Edgar Allen Poe got published, but if he'd had to show up, sober and social, to a book signing? Nevermore.
As Nick the Stripper says, Flame ON! A tweet from Neil Gaiman shared a link to BigAl's Books and Pals and entreated all to NOT DO THIS. 'This' turned out to be a flaming war between reviewer, commenters and an author of several e-books. Salon rounds up and 'splains the shenanigans.
John Le Carre has turned down being nominated for the Man Booker International prize. Why? He doesn't compete for literary awards. Does he, perhaps, compete while playing darts or while Morris Dancing? Is this a fickle muse thing? What do you think about authors who take themselves out of the running for awards?
Lastly, but not leastly, there's an experiment on twitter. I call it an experiment because I can't figure out how it would work, but more power to them. It's a murder mystery on the Twitter. I will try to figure it out and follow. Starts tonight at 7pm EST and goes on for 3 hours.
Big Bad (and not so bad) Agents
I'm going to my first three day conference in a month so I'm trying to gather advice for conference season - here's a piece on the Philly Liar's Club site on how to pitch an agent at a conference.
And from agent Vickie Motter more tips on 'speed dating' an agent.
Continuing on the agent theme, GalleyCat has a listing of the best agents on twitter.
Contests!
Carolina Valdez-Miller has a cool contest to go along with the cool news that she got herself an agent - YEE-HA!
I know I mentioned this yesterday, but it's such a cool idea, looking at the first 101 words of your WIP closely. Hop over to Lesser Apricots and submit your first 101 for the chance to win a one page critique and lots of other goodies.
And under the topic of Authors Doing (sometimes strange) Things When Not Writing:
Laura Miller over at Salon ponders what would have become of reclusive authors of yore if they'd been compelled to do the kind of 'author platform building' and self-selling that is expected these days. As it is it's a miracle Edgar Allen Poe got published, but if he'd had to show up, sober and social, to a book signing? Nevermore.
As Nick the Stripper says, Flame ON! A tweet from Neil Gaiman shared a link to BigAl's Books and Pals and entreated all to NOT DO THIS. 'This' turned out to be a flaming war between reviewer, commenters and an author of several e-books. Salon rounds up and 'splains the shenanigans.
John Le Carre has turned down being nominated for the Man Booker International prize. Why? He doesn't compete for literary awards. Does he, perhaps, compete while playing darts or while Morris Dancing? Is this a fickle muse thing? What do you think about authors who take themselves out of the running for awards?
Lastly, but not leastly, there's an experiment on twitter. I call it an experiment because I can't figure out how it would work, but more power to them. It's a murder mystery on the Twitter. I will try to figure it out and follow. Starts tonight at 7pm EST and goes on for 3 hours.
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