Your First Novel Read online

  I also recommend two excellent and informative resources that are published yearly. Not just directories, each contains articles about what agents do, how to find them, and how to work with them. They are: Guide to Literary Agents, edited by Joanna Masterson, and Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, & Literary Agents, by Jeff Herman.

  Finally, although I am not going to dwell on trying to get published without an agent, I would like to recommend How to Be Your Own Literary Agent, by Richard Curtis. Richard, former president of the Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR), is one of the best agents ever and an excellent writer as well. My only two caveats about serving as your own agent are (1) it's probably easier to get a work of nonfiction published without an agent, and (2) doing it on your own is a full-time job.

  RECOMMENDED WEB SITES

  Association of Authors' Representatives (http://www.aar-online.org/). Here you'll find the names and addresses of every agent member of this trade

  organization. Because every agent accepted into the organization must prove that he has sold a certain number of books within a certain period of time and, when accepted, must sign a Canon of Ethics, I recommend you make every effort to sign with an agent who is a member. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must report that I'm not only a member, I'm the treasurer.)

  BookAngst 101 (http://bookangst.blogspot.com/). Written anonymously by a publishing professional who was recently unmasked as Editor Dan Conaway of Putnam, this by turns painful and hilarious blog is a must-read for any aspiring writer. Look particularly at these two posts: One tells about going through four agents before finding happiness with the fifth ("Misadventures in [Misrepresentation" by Lauren Baratz-Logsted), and the other talks about a successful career with five books published that didn't start out with big advances ("Anatomy of a Career").

  mediabistro.com (http://www.mediabistro.com/). While this Web site covers all forms of media, two regular columns are of particular interest: "Pitching an Agent," which profiles both established and emerging literary agencies, and "Lunch at Michael's," an amusing feature that tracks who's lunching with whom at the midtown New York City restaurant Michael's, a hotbed of media biz power lunchers. In addition to book people, television, newspaper, and magazine personalities are named with the restaurant's seating chart.

  CHAPTER TWELVE:

  before you submit your manuscript

  As any seasoned novelist will tell you, most first novels are not first novels. The real first novel is locked away in a drawer, never to see the light of day. (Until, of course, you're famous and dead, at which point someone will publish it.) The real first novel is the practice novel. It is the creative space where you, as a writer, learn your craft. How to write a novel, for starters. How to make characters that seem real. How to create drama and tension. How to write dialogue, move forward in time (the wonders of the four-line-space break!), how to give the reader enough without giving too much or too little. The real first novel might be the one you write after reading Laura's chapters on how to accomplish all these things, and more. It might not get published, but it won't be a wasted effort. It's an essential part of your learning process on the road to becoming a published writer.

  I'm not saying that every first novel is a practice novel. But a lot of them are. And you're only shooting yourself in the foot if you think you'd better rush this half-baked version off to agents and editors now, just because you've finished it and you spent a lot of time on it. Everyone knows you're writing your first novel, and wants to know not only when it will be published but who's going to make a movie of it. You can't disappoint everyone and embarrass yourself all at once by just putting it in a drawer, can you?

  You can. Don't look at it as a total loss, but please: Put it in a drawer. Put it away for at least six weeks, if not two months or a year. And start writing something else. While not every first novel is a practice novel and not every first novel gets put in a drawer, too many novice writers rush the practice version off to agents and editors the minute they've finished it. After spending a great deal of time on it, and telling everyone they're writing their first novel, they're motivated to take it to the next level. Finishing it and putting it in a drawer is like admitting they've failed.

  They haven't failed: They've begun their apprenticeship the way any craft-sperson must. In Literature and Revolution, Leon Trotsky, of all people, wrote of literature, "Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it." When I read the first draft of a manuscript by someone who has never written fiction before or who has, perhaps, only been writing fiction for a year or two, I'm uncomfortably aware of every rough passage, every clumsy transition, every wooden phrase or cardboard character.

  A majority of the submissions I receive each week describe first novels that are clearly not ready for publication. When someone writes (as a great many people do), "I quit my job a year ago to pursue my first love, writing fiction," I know that I'm being asked to read the first draft of a first-time writer's first novel. It doesn't matter to me whether the writer worked eight hours a day for a year on the manuscript or whether he calls this manuscript the third or fourth draft. I know that the writing will rarely display the level of craft required to make a really good book. But I also know that the writer wants to discover whether the book has any merits at all. He has been pretty alone with it for a year and, in spite of nice comments from his spouse and best friend, has finally hit a wall and hopes to get serious feedback from a publishing professional.

  What I want to tell him is that he needs to learn to be the judge of his own work before asking anyone in publishing to read it. I know it doesn't seem easy when you're midway through the first draft of your first novel. Some days you think what you've written is good, and some days you think what you've written is bad. Some days you might be, as best-selling author Dennis Lehane has confessed to being from time to time, "terrified to put it flown on paper." And it's after too many of those days that you start to feel you've entered the mirrored fun house at the circus and can't judge anything you've done in any objective fashion whatsoever.

  Dennis once said to someone who expressed those fears, "Welcome to writing." I think the first important thing you can do is realize you've joined a sort of secret society of people who walk through the fun house daily, yet somehow emerge in the sunlight at the other end. I can even say with certainty that if you never feel uncertain about what you've written, it's probably not very good.

  Kyoko Mori, the novelist and essayist discussed in chapter eleven, once said to me, "Any section that feels like a hot potato is the section the writer should concentrate on." Remember the tense fear and excitement with which you played the game of "hot potato" as a child? The main goal was to get rid of it the minute it touched your hands. And as adults, we know the sensation of trying to peel a just-boiled potato and dropping it repeatedly into the sink before it blisters our fingers. But on those dark days when you're actually afraid of your own work, it might be helpful to remember that the best and most flavorful potato salad is made with the hottest potatoes. Concentrate on those "hot potato" sections and see what you find there.

  IN THEIR OWN WORDS: KATHLEEN GEORGE

  Every published novelist has his share of false starts, unfinished manuscripts, and first novels that remain tucked away. Here's what Kathleen George, author of the suspense thrillers Taken and Fallen, has to say:

  I'd always heard a writer had to have five in the drawer before one got taken. I thought that was extreme, but I came to think maybe not. I had messed around without bringing to completion a couple of ideas. Then I got serious and wrote what I considered my first novel. And the thing is, I know I will go back to it some

  day. It almost made it to publication, but I just wasn't ready to do something that big yet. it required an authority I didn't have then.

  Next I tried to write to demand—usually a bad idea. But I'd had a comic story in Mademoiselle and everybody was asking me for a novel wi
th that character in it. So I wrote that damn novel twelve or thirteen times—I mean really wrote and rewrote it—until one summer I admitted to myself that it isn't always possible to turn a short story into a novel, even if lots of people want you to, and even if you know all the pitfalls ahead of time and think you're smart enough to outsmart them.

  Well, in that same summer, depressed and discouraged, I started a thriller—just a few notes, I told myself, just to entertain myself. That became Taken, my first novel. It took me for a ride. 1 had a good time writing. Something of my wish to entertain myself made its way to the page. When it was accepted, I was thrilled, of course, but a part of me thought, yes, I felt it, I felt that authority thing coming over me as I wrote. Part of my success with this manuscript was that 1 was practiced. Another part of the success probably came from the fact that I was detached, but playful. And another part of the reason I think—to be honest—that Taken sold was that I'd committed to a highly plotted story that operated on necessity and inevitability.

  JUMPING THE GUN_

  By seeking professional feedback after finishing the first draft of a novel, you significantly reduce your novel's chances of ever being published. Agents and editors should not be your first readers. They are looking for polished manuscripts, not rough drafts. By its nature, any novel that hasn't been read by several other people is a rough draft, no matter how often it's been rewritten.

  GOING BACK TO SQUARE ONE

  What you should do is print your novel out and read it straight through, then put it away for six weeks. Then start something else—go back to Part

  I of this book and follow some of Laura's suggested writing exercises, write a story, begin a new novel, write some essays. Many writers I know like to begin other projects in different genres when they're working on a novel. If you do this and refrain from rushing your first effort out, maybe the new project will be the published first novel while the one you finished first goes to live in a drawer somewhere.

  BE A LUDDITE WHEN YOU EDIT

  Before we get to a list of practical steps you can take to improve and evaluate your own work, I want you to promise that you will never, under any circumstances, rewrite your completed novel on the computer screen. I want you to promise that you will print out the manuscript, or print out what you have so far, and sit down with it and a pen or pencil to edit it. The computer is a wonderful thing for word processing. Although most writers I represent don't compose their work on computers, many people do, and they're grateful for the ease with which they can type, correct, and save their work.

  But like the practitioners of any craft, most writers savor the tools of writing and have a deep interest in paper, notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, typestyles or fonts, and ink. There is a famous photograph of John O'Hara at his writing desk, which prominently displays not only a manual typewriter but an enormous pot of rubber cement. In those typewriter days, writers had to physically wrestle with each page—feeding it into the typewriter, pounding on the keys, pulling the typed page out of the typewriter, adding a fresh sheet, and so on until they were ready to take the pages in hand and rework them. They attacked the raw material with pen or pencil, crossing out sentences and writing new ones, even cutting sentences or entire passages from one part and pasting them into another section. I've heard of writers who pinned the entire manuscript up on the wall as they worked and others who spread the whole thing out on the floor. Technology has helped writers enormously, but it hasn't figured out how to spread the pages of a novel out on the dining room table so you can see each of them whole. While you will of course edit, correct, and reword passages and move others around as you compose on the computer, the real work of rewriting requires something more.

  TEN WAYS TO GO FROM GOOD TO GREAT

  Here are ten exercises to prepare you for the day you will submit a novel to agents or publishers. You can do the following exercises whether you've already written a novel or are about to start writing one. The difference will be that if you haven't written the book yet, you'll spread these exercises out over the time it takes you to complete a novel. If you have written a book, you'll do these exercises in quicker succession—but they won't be any easier for being done faster.

  You can start the first three exercises before your novel's six-week hibernation period is up, or even before you've written the novel. But you shouldn't attempt the others until you've stayed away from the manuscript, and then gone back and overhauled it. All of the exercises are things you should do well in advance of contacting an agent or a publisher.

  1. If you haven't done so already, join or form a writers' group. It

  doesn't matter where you live—there are other writers there. Sometimes I think there's not a soul in America who isn't writing a book. There may be some truth to this impression: A recent article in the Economist reported that, while reading declined dramatically from 1982 to 2002, "the number of people in America claiming to do 'creative writing' increased by 30 percent" in the same time period. So don't skip this step because you think you don't know any writers. Chances are the person at the dryer next to yours in the Laundromat is a writer. There are groups of writers who gather just to write, to generate fresh material, and others who gather to read works in progress. Try to find a group that meets once a week, and remember to be conscientious about others' work—you're all in this together.

  2. Sign up for a writing workshop. This is a more formal gathering that's often led by a professional of some kind; there is frequently a fee charged for participation. You may be given assignments, and each week you'll be asked to read a few pieces of work and be prepared to discuss them in the group. I know of one well-run workshop in which each participant has to say one good thing and one critical thing about a piece of work, no one can repeat anything that's already been said, the writer can ask questions but not "defend" his choices, and the teacher leads a discussion after the comments. This is clearly a very well-organized workshop and bound to be helpful to anyone who enters it with serious intent, but these groups can be hit-or-miss. You'll have to shop around and talk to people who have been involved in some. Listen to their recommendations and warnings. Even in an extremely nurturing atmosphere, whether your work improves or not will depend on how well you can filter criticism and comment, discarding what's not helpful and using what is. If you find yourself in a workshop that's disorganized or that features an overly critical member, at the very least you'll get a tougher hide, which is essential for anyone who wants to get published. Ideally, you'll find one that makes you feel that lightbulbs are flicking on in your head at each session.

  3. Take a creative writing class. These are everywhere—at nearby universities, at local schools, in people's homes, on the Internet. You'll be given writing assignments, which is a good way to generate new work and develop discipline. It's important that you pay careful attention to discussions of technique. A good creative writing class encourages you to read good literature with the aim of evaluating the writer's technique. In creative writing classes and good workshops, you learn the common language of writing—its terms and major concerns—and that's an important part of your education as a writer.

  After your novel is complete and has had its hibernation, take some of these steps:

  4. Read your novel aloud. Yes, that's right, read the whole thing out loud. Stop and make a note whenever you hear anything that sounds awkward, pretentious, or dull. Notice the parts where you want to stop reading and ask yourself why. Do you think it's just because you're tired? Think again. Remember how difficult it is, even in a state of exhaustion, for you to put aside a gripping book? If you want to stop reading your own novel, and it's not three o'clock in the morning, what do you think your reader will want to do? After you've made notes throughout, revise.

  5. Now sit down with the manuscript and read it through with one thing in mind. For instance, during the first read-through, concentrate on the dialogue. On another, focus on the time frame. On a third, practice turning
every three sentences into one—or, as the Reverend Sydney Smith recommended in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith 1771-1845, by Lady Holland, "In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style." These exercises build objectivity and discipline. Doing them will also enhance your mastery of the craft.

  6. Stage a reading of the manuscript in your living room. In this scenario, you won't be doing any of the reading. Three or four or five friends, acquaintances, or family members will be doing it for you. You're going to sit in the corner and listen and make notes. Playwrights often give their work semi-public readings, in which actors sit at a table and read their parts and neither the director, playwright, nor audience make any comment at all unless (on the part of the audience) it is to express appreciation. In a private reading of your novel, you'll have to work out how you want the different readers to handle it, whether they rotate chapters or read the lines of different characters, with one person serving as narrator.

  You should also decide ahead of time whether you want feedback from the readers and whether you'll read the entire manuscript in a marathon session or just the first eighty pages or so. Finally, it would be a good idea to offer refreshments to these very good friends of yours.

  7. Sign up to read your work at local venues. Many towns have pubs or cafes that feature readings. Contact the manager and ask how to get on the list of readers. If your town or area doesn't have any readings, go to a local hangout—again, a pub or a cafe, a bookstore, or even a stationery store—and ask if you can create a reading series for them. At the reading, you'll read a chapter or part of a chapter from your book. In your brief introduction, don't go into great detail about what you're trying to accomplish with the book; just set up the scene so the listeners can follow it without wondering who the characters are. The purposes of giving a reading before trying to find a publisher for your work are (1) to practice reading in public, (2) to get used to the idea of readers hearing your work, and (3) to experience your work from a different angle so that afterward you're better able to look at it with fresh eyes when revising. I would even advise you to read the section you're most confused or worried about. Remember that all of these exercises are designed to give you feedback before approaching agents and editors and to help you develop some objectivity about your work. Without some kind of feedback, you might be tempted to dump the sections that worry or frighten you. But remember the hot potatoes.