Writing advice for writers who want to write children’s books. These articles are full of actionable and proactive advice for those who want to write and sell fiction in the children’s book marketplace. Topics range from picture books to young adult novels, and all of these articles are full of writing advice on how to craft and publish children’s fiction.
Writers, here’s another one of my query tips: you don’t need to state the obvious. It’s unnecessary.
Query tip: avoid the obvious when you’re submitting to agents. Instead, focus on making them care about your characters and story.
Query Tips
Don’t State the Obvious
For example, you don’t need to waste your time writing any of the following:
I am querying you for possible representation of my novel.
I am writing to you because I would like representation from a literary agent.
Publishing a novel is my goal.
Etc. I’m an agent with a submissions pile. If I get an email to that inbox, I know exactly what it is, exactly what it’s doing there, and the exact intentions of the email’s author: to publish something with the aid of a literary agent. You really don’t need to waste the time or words and state the obvious.
Don’t Give The Agent Instructions
For example:
Please read the following sample pages and reply if interested.
Contact me to discuss representation.
If interested, please reply and I will submit a partial or full manuscript.
This may be your first query (learn the elements of a query letter), but it’s not my first time getting one, by any stretch of the imagination. If I’m interested in your project, I know exactly what to do. Leave tips and pointers out of your query as well and let me do my job. Instead of these inane and obvious phrases, do your query job and make me care about the character and plot, instead. That’s really the heart of the letter. Check on my post on how to write a query letter for even more query tips.
Send The Right Message
None of these little phrases are an automatic rejection, per se, but they do indicate to me — perhaps unjustly, but they do indicate it nonetheless — a lack of higher order logic or thought put into the query. So follow these simple query tips to make sure you’re not sending that message. (Dealing with rejection? Don’t give up! Here are tips on learning and moving forward.)
Need more query tips? Hire me as your query letter editor. I’ve seen tens of thousands of queries, and I can help yours stand out in the slush pile.
I’m editing a manuscript right now where an interesting issue has come up: rendering emotion in writing that’s realistic, yet doesn’t alienate the reader. Without giving too much of this particular manuscript’s plot away, I’ll tell you that it includes a character going into shock after a traumatic event (an understatement).
When a little madness starts to creep into the character and/or plot, take great pains to craft evocative description that makes story and character sense.
The Reality Of An Experience
Now, I don’t know if I’ve ever gone into serious shock (this is not an invitation to the Universe to provide me with such an experience, by the way), but I’m familiar with the biological process of it. One loses the ability to think rationally. There’s anxiety, a lot of adrenaline, screaming, paleness, chills, etc. The things one says make no sense. (To those wise-crackers out there who are planning to imply that the last criteria means that I have been in shock, and quite often, while blogging, I’m one step ahead of you!)
All of this is valid and, from a fact standpoint, true. When I turn on the TV and watch Law and Order (fact vs. fiction time: I don’t have a TV and, even if I did, I wouldn’t watch Law and Order, but bear with me here), a show where lots of people go through a rough time, I expect to see actors and actresses portraying shock realistically. So one would imagine that a character going through shock on the page would exhibit these symptoms when describing emotion in writing, right?
Emotion in Writing: Does Reality Translate?
Not so much. Why? Fiction is very logical. Even in moments of madness, there has to be “method in’t” (Hamlet, FTW). If you transcribe the exact experience of shock, it will be very realistic, but it would read strangely on the page. Just like when we read ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, a novel about crazy people (or is it?!), you don’t just have a transcription of the nonsense that goes on in a mental ward the way you’d have it in a stereotypical movie. You know, people burbling their lips with their fingers and sprouting random nonsense. That’s fine for the screen, but it doesn’t translate as well when you’re rendering emotion in writing. Even if something “crazy” happens, it has to make fictional, motivational, character, and plot sense.
In other words, fiction is the art of taking something realistic to the next level. Even if you’re being true to life, you have to think of the craft and the character and story logic. This means that sometimes it’s better to go for evocative description rather than description that’s true to life.
Dialogue: Reality Versus Fiction
Another easy example to emphasize this point about emotion in writing is dialogue (check out How to Write Dialogue in a Story). Dialogue is for sure “the art of taking something realistic to the next level,” because when we write dialogue, we interpret and elevate instead of transcribing. If we “wrote” dialogue to exactly mimic real speech, our pages would be pitted with “uh”s and “um”s and other useless stuff that infests our conversations. Great dialogue writers keep the cadence and voice of real people but they distill the words and how they’re spoken to be like life, but better. (This is, of course, just one component of truly great realistic dialogue.)
Certain Realistic Experiences Alienate Your Reader
So in the case of a scene of trauma or madness when the character experiences it too realistically, I’m challenged as a reader by that and feel really removed from the character. Why? Because, again, shock is all about floating in and out of awareness, random screaming, etc. A character, who I’ve gotten to know over the course of a book, is no longer making sense to me if their shock experience is described completely true-to-life. I feel outside of their experience (whereas elsewhere, especially in first person, I feel very close to them, as the connection is excellent).
This is especially true if the moment of hyper-reality happens at the climax of the story, and that’s actually when I need to feel closest to the protagonist and as clued in to their interiority (what’s going on in their head/heart) as possible. To yank the reader away from the character at such a critical point in time with how you’re describing emotion in writing does the reader a disservice. Reach for that evocative description that’ll loop your reader in rather than alienate them.
Always Include Your Reader
Where’s the lesson for you? When you’re describing emotions realistically, especially when a little madness starts to creep into the character and/or plot, take great pains to make story and character sense so that you include your reader. And speaking of Hamlet, it couldn’t hurt to study your Shakespeare. He does “logical madness” very well, with characters from Ophelia to Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare did, also, invent teenagers, by the way, so he’s worth a reread for today’s YA writers.
Characters need to be believable and relatable in order to hook readers. Hire me as your book editor and we can hone in on your protagonist together.
Writers, I want to take a moment to talk about the importance of developing a regular creative writing practice. Sometimes “the muse” is feeling coy, other times, inspiration seems to flow. The push and pull of the creative life changes with our lives. Sometimes we have more hours in the day and more energy to devote to creativity. Other times life seems to explode around us, eating up and choking all of our creative oxygen (read for tips on finding time to write). Sometimes we write and get in the groove and keep writing. Other times we stop.
Creativity is our mode. That’s what we do. Life is also creative. That’s the point.
Take Responsibility For Your Creative Writing Practice
I firmly believe that people are creative beings. (Why, yes, I did grow up in California, with a painter for a mother and a dad who used to live on a Buddhist commune…why do you ask? That’s how come I can say “creative beings” and talk about the “Universe.”) Creativity is our mode. That’s what we do. Life is also creative. That’s the point.
For all of you out there who are still struggling to validate your own creative impulses or give yourself permission to create — both of which are really hard for some people to do — I say: Get cracking with developing a regular creative writing practice. That’s the first step in fulfilling the rest of your creative dreams. Everybody has them. Not many people get around to honoring them, and then that disappointment tends to fester. If you feel really damaged or self-conscious about your deepest desires to write or paint or do performance art on a street corner, for goodness’ sake, run out and get a copy of The Artist’s Way, buy a journal, meditate, go into therapy, shut your kids out of your office, and do whatever else you have to do to take some responsibility for your creativity. Once you do this, you’ll start building writing confidence (or whatever you chosen artistic pursuit is).
Life Is Full Of Excuses
What’s that? You have no time to devote to creative writing practice? Or work is too hard and leaves you too tired? Or you’re trying to go back to school? Or you’re sick and in pain? All perfectly valid. However, all are excuses. As I tell my clients: You are the only person on this planet who is going to care the most about your creative output and your career. Sure, you will get people in your corner, like your agent, your editor, your mentors, your friends and family, you cat, and your fans, who will care about your books or whatever else you do, but nobody will care about it half as much as you. (I do work hard to be a close second for my clients, though!)
Fear Is Good
Instead of this idea being empowering and liberating to a lot of people, it’s paralyzing and scary. It means you have to take responsibility for your creative ideas. It means you actually have to do something and make them happen. It means that you have to face (gasp!) obstacles and failure. Sure, there’s fear in every endeavor, but that’s good. That’s the way it works. I’d rather live a life where I’ve followed my dreams, been myself, created, lived big, failed a lot, succeeded more often, and experienced as many things as possible. Unfulfilled creative people really are the worst…they’re bitter and resentful, they blame everyone and everything else for how little they accomplish, they pull dark gray clouds along with them as they walk down the street.
Lots of people have really valid issues when it comes to devoting time to creative writing practice: parents who weren’t supportive or present, real economic hardship and family obligations, societal pressure to conform, lack of writing confidence. I don’t mean to mock or make light of these things. But they are all negative. Creativity is positive. (California, remember?) And creativity doesn’t have to mean something big: a million dollar book deal, a novel completed in a month, a sleeper hit music video (ahem, Rebecca Black), a poem published, an agent secured after the first round of queries.
Creativity Can Be Something Small
One page a day, one journal entry in the morning, one picture taken, one walk at sunset (read about five daily writing practice techniques). But the point is opening yourself up to it…and then being disciplined with your creative writing practice. The more you do, the easier it becomes, because you’re building confidence in writing or painting or performance art. Be creative regularly; every day is best. Do it for its own sake, not for the sake of the outcome (book, agent, publishing deal, etc.). Just create. Nobody will do it for you, you’re gonna regret it if you don’t, and time’s a-wastin’. What are you waiting for?
Developing your writing skills is a great way to shake off a creative slump. Hire me as your freelance editor and we’ll work on building your confidence in writing together.
It’s time to get back to business with a craft-related post about writing description and describing actions. I’ve been reading some manuscripts where the writers lapse into what I always call “play-by-play narration.” It’s the narrative equivalent of a chronological grocery list of events:
First we did this. Then we did that. He did this, and then he did that. After that, we did this. And then, that. A little bit later, we went and did such and such.
Lists are great for keeping your life organized — not so much for writing description.
Plot is More Than Transcription
When you’re writing descriptions, it’s not just your job to transcribe what you imagine happens in a character’s day and think that you have yourself a plot. That’s not how it works. A large part of narration and storytelling is acting as a curator of the story. You’re supposed to maximize what’s important and minimize what’s not and keep directing your reader’s attention from paragraph to paragraph and page to page. When you’re filling up your pages with play-by-play narration, you’re describing actions that aren’t essential to the plot:
Anna went into the kitchen. She opened up the refrigerator and got out some mayonnaise, some mustard, and a head of lettuce from the crisper. The tomatoes and white bread were already on the counter. She got out two slices of bread and put them on a dinner plate, then spread one slice with the mayonnaise, the other with the mustard. Halfway through making her sandwich, she realized she’s forgotten the cheese and sliced deli meat in the fridge. Huffing to herself and blowing her bangs out of her eyes, she turned on a heel and headed back to get the rest of her fixins.
Describing Actions: Compress and Move On
Or, you know, you could just say, “Anna made a sandwich” and then move on to describing actions that actually matter to your plot. If it’s not important, it doesn’t need to be described in such painstaking detail. You only have about 300 pages to work with in the average novel. Don’t waste any time writing actions that aren’t important. If you need your characters to do something inconsequential, just sum it up in compressed narration, as I did in the first sentence of this paragraph.
Mirroring the Patterns of Our Lives
How do writers get stuck in this pattern of writing description that’s unnecessary? When you don’t know better, there’s a tendency towards describing actions that take the reader through a character’s day from dawn (probably why so many manuscripts start with a character waking up– check out dreams in fiction) to dusk. Why? Because that’s the pattern we’ve followed every day of our lives. Our days go this familiar route, so we send our characters through the same paces. This is a trap, and it makes for deadly dull reading. Break your characters out of play-by-play narration and get them moving on to the next plot point in your story. (Show, don’t tell, anyone?) We don’t really care how Anna makes her sandwich. In fact, we don’t really need to read about her eating at all. The same goes with her bathroom routine, her shower, her picking out clothes, her driving to school, etc.
If you feel like you may be guilty of giving your readers the “play-by-play,” ask yourself about the actions you’re describing. Are they absolutely essential information for your reader? Do they factor into your plot? If not, maybe cut those passages and refocus on action that does move the story forward.
Are you striving for tighter, cleaner prose? When you invest in my manuscript editing services, I’ll point out instances of play-by-play narration that you can compress or trim from your work.
Here’s a question from a recent webinar about a publishing assistant reading a writer’s work rather than an “actual” literary agent:
What can we do to ensure that an actual agent sees my query? I’ve received rejection letters directly from publishing assistants, therefore I know that the agent hasn’t seen my query or sample work. Perhaps the agent would have liked it, but if he or she wasn’t able to see it, then both the agent and I miss out on what could have been a wonderful opportunity.
Ditch the toxic publishing assistant attitude. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to have a patient, well-trained, excited pair of eyes on your manuscript…and to get a very close ally within the agency you’ve queried.
This writer seems to have what I would call Assistant Attitude. It’s a belief that the literary agent assistant isn’t really important and that only the big names at an agency can make or break a writer’s chances at representation. A lot of (beginning) writers think very poorly of publishing assistants and are shocked — shocked! — to learn that these are the people reading their queries.
The Strengths of a Publishing Assistant
You’re More Likely to Get a Timely Response
I invite everyone currently suffering from a case of Assistant Attitude to consider, perhaps, the complete opposite viewpoint. The truth is, publishing are amazing. Especially when it comes to going through the slush. First off, they are often the hard-working, unappreciated souls who make sure your queries get a response. Would you rather you submission languish in obscurity while a big shot agent caters to clients, makes book deals, speaks at conferences — you know, agents — for a few months or years, or would you rather an eagle-eyed publishing assistant go through submissions and respond to you in a timely manner?
They’re More Likely to Give Your Work Careful Consideration
Here’s another thing to consider: Publishing assistants are hired directly by the agent and know the agent’s tastes intimately. They also tend to pay more attention while reading. Would you rather a literary agent assistant read the whole query and sample or the agent glance at it and reject after reading a sentence because they are overwhelmed with a deluge of other submissions?
Assistants are also on the hunt and spend more time and energy giving writers a chance. A really busy agent may not invest a lot of time on a promising-but-not-ready-yet writer. Their publishing assistant, though, could really spearhead a writer’s growth and give someone some editorial feedback, a shot to revise, an invitation to resubmit, a phone call, etc. Some assistants can even take on their own clients (see how to select a literary agent for more thoughts on this). Since this is a chance for a literary agent assistant to prove him or herself — and use the training they’ve received directly from the agent you’re targeting — most assistants and new agents are really hungry and eager to lavish prospective clients with attention.
They Have Access to the Agents
Finally, literary agent assistants are often the ones who champion things they find and recommend them to their bosses. “Stop what you’re doing and read this right now. It came in through the slush but it’s really good” is a very compelling argument when it comes from the right source. Who do you think an agent will listen to? A random query or a personal recommendation from their trusted colleague?
I don’t have a full-time publishing assistant because I work from home, but I do have a wonderful, savvy, genius intern-slash-reader. My intern sometimes cruises my slush and picks out which queries sound the most promising. Sometimes, she emails me to tell me that I need to request something ASAP OMG it is the single best thing she’s ever read. (My intern can get really enthusiastic and persuasive.) So what do I do? If I’m near a computer, I zoom immediately over to that query to see what’s getting her so excited, of course. My intern is a tough cookie and has very discriminating taste — like me — and so I trust her judgment completely. When she gets excited, I’m often not far behind.
Publishing Assistants Are People, Too
Assistant Attitude is toxic and it’s actually the writer missing out on the opportunity of a patient, well-trained, excited pair of eyes on their manuscript…and to get a very close ally within the agency they’ve queried. Assistants are people, too, and some of the smartest, brightest, and most dedicated I’ve ever met, to boot.
My manuscript editing services will help you improve your project so it has a better chance at rising to the top of the slush.
Wondering about writing tense in Young Adult fiction? This post is actually more question than answer, because Lynne did such a great job of summing up the issue and, to be fair, answered most of this question herself. But I wanted to post that process and contribute to it! What’s the issue? Present tense.
Present tense lends immediacy to your YA manuscript, letting the reader feel like everything is happening now now now. But is this desirable?
For my WD seminar, every writer got to ask me a question and I was guaranteed to answer it. Roughly a tenth of all the questions were about writing tense or POV. Someone even asked about the tense that should be used in a query letter. What?! I’d never thought about that for a second in my life. I have written about POV a few times before, like in this post about POV in writing. Tense? Not as much. So here we go.
Young Adult Present Tense Is So Hot Right Now
I’ll start with Lynne’s question about young adult present tense:
Lately when I’ve perused the YA section at Barnes & Noble, there seem to be awful lot of new releases written in the present tense. Several have been fabulous and very successful (e.g., Suzanne Collin’s HUNGER GAMES trilogy, Ally Condie’s MATCHED). Others are less well-known, but ten minutes in the YA section and you’ll have an armful. There’s been some buzz about the “trend” of present tense writing. Some authors don’t like the use of present tense and suggest its a fad (see Phillip Pullman’s take in The Guardian).
Others question whether it’s a trend at all, and conclude that in the end, it doesn’t matter because if the writing (in any tense, present included) doesn’t work for you, you can always just put the novel down. (see Laura Miller’s article in Salon). Another article or blog I read recently mentioned the appeal of present tense to young readers is its immediacy; that current teens are so used to a culture where everything happens at breakneck speed that younger readers today aren’t jarred by the use of present tense and may even gravitate toward it.
My question is two-fold: First, do you feel there a trend toward present tense writing (especially in a first person POV) in YA lit right now? Are you seeing more of it in your slush these days? And second, if so, what do you think about it? Do manuscripts written in the present tense intrigue you? Turn you off? Or are you neutral, and just wait to see if the writing lives up to the challenge? And are editors seeking books in present tense or are they wary of them?
In the end, I would think it all comes down to the story and more than anything, the quality of the writing. Present tense presents different challenges than past tense, and the immediately of the tense can be exhausting for the reader. Also, the stream of consciousness filter can be tough, so can the effort not to mix tenses. It’s still not the norm– but is it a trend?
Does The Tense Fit the Book? That’s The Only Consideration
To tell you the truth, I felt lazy with my short answer to such a long question, but so it goes. I think that tense really doesn’t matter as long as the book works. There is a trend of young adult present tense out there right now, for sure. But do I gravitate toward or away from a piece because of present tense writing? No.
Also, I haven’t really heard an editor talk to me about young adult present tense in particular. We talk about story and hook and character. Sometimes POV comes into the picture, but the most I usually hear from editors about POV is a thought on really polarizing POV, like second person direct address (YOU by Charles Benoit is an example of that, and comes up often in discussions). It seems like us literary types should spend more time discussing tense but it really does fade into the background for me when I’m reading, as long as the writing, story, character, and voice are there.
Long story short: I think young adult present tense writing is hot (for the immediacy reasons Lynne mentions, which I also always cite), but it’s not really a consideration for me. I’ve read present tense. I’ve written in present tense. I don’t know if I’ve represented present tense yet. (See? I can’t even remember if my clients’ books are in present tense…although I do know WILDEFIRE has sections of present tense second person direct address, because Karsten Knight is crafty like that…)
Writing tense is very low on my list, in other words, of things I care about when I’m reading/considering. Hope that takes some of the, ahem ahem, tension out of the issue for you all!
Voice is crucial to writing YA but a lot of writers take years to find it. Bring me on your team as a developmental editor for personal, intimate manuscript feedback geared toward the young adult market.
Writing character growth if the character is in denial is a tough proposition. This is a very nitpicky post that I’ve been meaning to write for a while.
So what if my paramour doesn’t like daylight and is suspiciously pale? He couldn’t possibly be a vampire…
Examples of Characters in Denial
One of my biggest pet peeves in fiction is characters in denial. What do I mean by that? Examples:
Something about the way Rolf looked at me chilled the back of my neck, but he was just so darn cute that I followed him down the darkened alley.
Morgan firmly believed that she would never, ever get her first kiss.
The new girl gave me a pained, significant look but I just turned away and rushed off to class. She was probably trying to cry out a contact or something.
These types of little moments of denial in a book are understandable. A fiction writer’s job is to create “the fictive dream,” and to entice a reader to suspend their disbelief and jump into a completely fabricated world and story.
Plant Seeds Without Being Too Obvious
Often, a writer needs to work in events and people that will be significant later, but they don’t want to seem too obvious about it (learn more about foreshadowing.) Since novels are all about weaving in details that should grow in significance over the course of the plot, you have to jam this stuff in there somewhere and somehow.
But characters in denial in the face of Something That We All Know Will Be Important Later is just not the way to go. My examples above are purposefully bad but I think we all know what’s going to happen. Rolf and his dimples probably aren’t leading our narrator down the dark alley to show her a box of puppies with big red bows around their necks. Morgan gets snogged breathless. And that new chick is giving Narrator #3 that look because she’s got bad news/is a demon/can read his aura/is his long lost sister/whatever.
Let the Character Be Perceptive
Readers want to follow a character who is smart and perceptive (check out this related post: active protagonist). But putting characters in denial so that you can layer in Something That We All Know Will Be Important Later is not the way you’ll earn sympathy, character growth, and respect for your fictional people. Readers see right through that. If anything, you’re damaging your protagonist’s credibility and creating an unreliable narrator. (The unreliable narrator isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you don’t want to unintentionally create this kind of character.)
So what do you do? Don’t have your characters say never. If someone says in chapter one that they’ll never fall in love, I know I’m most likely in for an “unlikely” love story. (One issue I had with the upcoming DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver is that there’s a lot of time spent reassuring the reader that the protagonist has bought society’s anti-love propaganda hook, line, and sinker…despite having a family predisposition for love sickness…and even after she meets Obvious-and-Rebellious Love Interest Dude. Riiiiiight.)
Don’t Be Obvious About Important Details
If you need to introduce significant details that will lead to further character growth and make sure that the reader, not the character, notices them and understands that they’re looking at Something That We All Know Will Be Important Later, here’s an idea: don’t call the character’s attention to it in such an obvious way. Describe the new girl, then leave it at that until she pops up again.
Don’t describe the new girl and then make a point of describing how the narrator doesn’t notice the new girl. Plus, that’s a lie. You have to notice something to be able to describe it.
If you need to make your character do something stupid or dangerous because it’s part of your plot, but what they have to do is out of character, like going down Rolf Alley, don’t try and justify character actions with denial, and don’t have them lie to themselves. Characters are always smarter, more interesting, and more believable when you give them layers. (Learn more about writing believable characters.) So to make these types of character growth moments read as authentic, don’t be afraid to put a little doubt in the character’s head.
How to Fix Stunted Character Growth
For example:
I didn’t want to follow Rolf down that alley but Meghan’s snarky comment from last week, calling me a prude in front of everyone, rang in my head and I set out to prove her wrong.
That’s realistic, flat-out denial isn’t.
The art of fiction is the act of making the implausible seem plausible and relatable to readers. Writing characters in denial is very often one of the cheapest and laziest ways to do that, and I never fall for it.
(Please feel free to point out that the agent who said “never say never” just said “never.” Looks like there’s going to be some pretty convincing denial in my future!)
If you’re working on characterization and wondering if your protagonist is coming across as an unreliable narrator when that’s not your intention, hire me as your developmental editor. We can dive into your manuscript together.
Here’s a rather entertaining question from Jeff, but one the deals with an all-too-common evergreen creative ailment: writing confidence.
I don’t have the magic words of encouragement for writers suffering from low confidence, but sometimes focusing on your inner creative assets helps get back to work on building your confidence in writing.
Recently I was infected with what I call “the demon of self-doubt” and I couldn’t work on my WIP for a month. A snarky comment in my crit group triggered an intense period of insecurity for me, and destructive thoughts like “I’m just not a good enough writer” and “my voice is too bland” kept buzzing around my brain. These thoughts kept looping back and getting stronger, like a bad song you can’t get out of your head (for example, “skyrockets in flight, whoosh, afternoon delight”).
I wrote in my journal, and I started some new material, but every time I went back to my WIP, I threw my hands up in air and wailed, “I’m not worthy!” I wouldn’t call this a writer’s block; it was instead a crisis of confidence.
Eventually I forced myself to forge ahead and I got over it. Now I’m writing my WIP again, but what can I do to avoid this if it happens in the future? Does this happen to other writers, or is it just me and my incredibly thin skin? What if the demon of self doubt is right, and in the end, I’m not a good writer and all my effort and hard work will be for nothing? Or is that the chance we all take?
Perseverance is Key
I like this question, and I’m pretty sure a lot of blog readers will recognize themselves in these sentences. Motivation and writing confidence come and go. The more motivated and confident you feel, the more you write. But if a seed is planted and you just can’t seem to get past a comment or a rejection (see my post on dealing with rejection), you tend to just cycle down and down and the doubt perpetuates even more doubt.
As Jeff says in his question, creativity is a chance we all take. So is any endeavor. You do it and then hope for the best. If the best doesn’t happen, you keep on doing it until you either reach your goal or you stop altogether. For some, rejection or creative block is cause enough to throw in the towel, but the urge to create and be creative will almost always remain.
I don’t have the magic words of encouragement for writers struggling through tough creative situation. Not only have I stopped writing because of time constraints, but I have my share of moments where I feel doubt and a lack of self-confidence. The thing I can say, though, is that those people who persevere through the “demon of self-doubt,” as Jeff calls it, are the only ones who will reach their creative goals. It’s a very obvious thought, but one that bears repeating.
Rigid Expectations Kill Writing Confidence
Also, sometimes the pressure of wanting to achieve a goal a certain way or having an unrealistic time frame is enough to kill any hope of building confidence in writing. A lot of writers get despondent because an agent or publication hasn’t happened yet. They write and they write and they write and yet the professional world doesn’t seem to be recognizing (or appreciating) their efforts.
Well, life rarely happens exactly as you plan. And publishing is unpredictable, not to mention slow (like, really slow). If you set your hopes on getting published or agented in a certain way, you will tend to give yourself not only a crisis of writing confidence, but an unrealistic goal, since most outsiders are not intimately familiar with the industry and how it works and what it really takes to succeed.
What Do You Do If Your Writing Confidence is Suffering?
So here are my words of encouragement for writers: if you’re feeling really frustrated, about to give up, or that your work is not good enough, turn down the heat on chasing publication. What you write when you’re blocked and angry and doubtful will most likely not be a joy for others to read, and you’ll just be getting yourself further away from your goals instead of closer when you are in that mindset.
Sometimes frustration is a good thing — it spurns you on when you might otherwise quit — but I find that the specific frustration of not being published yet has one common cure: stop submitting and start nursing the writing.
Maybe it’s not time to submit yet. Maybe your writing craft or a particular project isn’t ready to go out into the world yet. Maybe you’ve recently gone on submission with something and it’s better to stop and see what you learned from that round instead of jumping right back into the ring. (Check out how to deal with negative criticism.)
Whatever the case, self-doubt tends to grow under scrutiny. If this is what you’re experiencing, it’s totally okay to pull back, work on re-building confidence in writing, and try to get published down the line. Publishers and agents will always be there (even in the digital future). Your excitement, positivity, and motivation may not, especially if you force it to take too many blows when it’s still growing. So focus on your inner creative assets when you’re feeling down, and the rest will come in time.
Developing your writing skills is a great way to shake off a creative slump. Hire me as your freelance editor and we’ll work on strengthening your skills together.
Here’s a good question about how to query when you have multiple projects to submit. This one primarily applies to picture book writers, but is useful to novel writers who are wondering about requerying (if only a bit less relevant). Read on, everyone! Megan asks:
I’m wondering how to query an agent with different projects? For example, I’m in the process of sending queries for project A and writing project B. By the time I wait for agent responses to trickle in, I may be ready to query project B. Is it crazy to send another project to an agent who rejected me within 3 or 4 months? Am I just being annoying? Or, since picture book manuscripts can be written, revised, revised, revised, and polished faster than other genres, maybe this frequency for queries is expected?
When you’re requerying agents, how much time should you allow between submissions?
How to Query: Not Every Idea is Publishable
I tell my picture book writer clients — AND THESE ARE CLIENTS…people who’ve already cleared the “hurdle” — that one out of every ten of their picture book ideas/manuscripts is going to be saleable. Picture books are “easy” to write and generate and revise and get 700 or whatever words into shape, sure, but it’s infinitely harder to hit upon a winner idea. GOODNIGHT MOON was first published in 1947 and parents still read it to their kids every night, all over the world. Publishers are tightening their lists and, ideally, would love a book with that much power and longevity. In other words, everyone wants something that will backlist for eternity. It’s not easy. I would even argue that’s it just as hard to hit upon such a picture book idea as it is to write a publishable novel, especially in this current marketplace.
Personally, I balk a little when writers approach the “how to query” question with a little too much enthusiasm. It’s overwhelming when writers hit me up with picture book after picture book, even if some time lapses between attempts. The point is to evolve and go to the next level between picture book manuscripts. Every submission round to agents will bring you valuable feedback and insight. (If you get absolutely no personalized feedback, that’s feedback in and of itself. See my post on types of query rejection for more info.) Keep writing while you’re on submission, of course, but you should also, in my opinion, wait to see how a submission round goes before you jump back into requerying. You don’t want to give off the idea that you’re just churning projects out without stopping to learn and grow in between attempts.
Keep Your Currency With Agents High
Look at “how to query” from my angle. I have, oh, six picture book clients. They can all, in a good year, give me 10 manuscripts. That’s 60 manuscripts. Say I decide to just go out with them all (which I would never do). For each submission, I go out to about 8-10 editors at various houses. That would be between 480 and 600 picture book projects that I would send out. About 10 submissions a week. There are about 300 editors actively acquiring in children’s books these days (at the major, mid-size houses, and smaller houses), so even if I cast my net as wide as possible, I would still hit up every editor at least once, sometimes twice, regardless of whether they’re a good fit or even looking for picture books (if you want to know, that particular number of PB-hungry editors is at about 70-100). You also have to consider that, if an editor and I have a good relationship, existing projects together, or similar tastes, I will send to that group of particular editors more frequently over the course of the year. Those editors — the ones I really love and want to work with — would probably get more like five or ten projects each.
Do you think all those editors are going to see my email or get my phone call and think, “Wow, I haven’t heard from Mary in a while, and I know she only goes out with projects she thinks are really top notch, so I am really excited to hear all about this one!” Absolutely not. They will most likely think, “Yikes, another call/email from Mary. What does she have for me this month and how quickly can I get it off my desk?”
Develop High Standards and Only Submit Your Best Work
I don’t go out with everything my clients give me. I have to be selective and keep my currency with editors high, so that if they see something from me, they don’t roll their eyes. The worst position you can be in, I think, is if someone gets an email from you and groans. So I’m selective. And I have extremely high standards for the work that I pitch to publishers. (just ask some of my impatient clients…and we all know how I feel about patience. Check out my post on how long does it take to publish a book for the full scoop.) You should strive to be this way, too, when you’re approaching how to query. That way I don’t groan when you’re requerying me for the second or third or fourth time that year.
If you want to take your destiny into your own hands while you wait, hire me as your manuscript editor and revise your way to the strongest project possible.
Some writers are notoriously shy — or at least timid — when it comes to approaching how to pitch a book. I’ve heard lots of published authors say that they’re writers, not salespeople. They rely on their agents to vouch for their work and pitch it to editors, so they can focus on their craft and building their readership. Contracts, pitching, negotiation…that’s the domain of agents.
When you’re pitching your book — in person or in writing — you want to take a confident stance without being bombastic.
How To Pitch A Book: Be Mindful Of Your Tone
Well, what happens until you get an agent, or if you choose to go without one? You advocate for yourself. From your query to your networking at conferences to meeting librarians and booksellers and telling them about your book, you’ll have to consider how to pitch a book at least a few times in your career (ideally, you’ll have the opportunity to sell it to lots and lots of readers). So how much plugging is too much? Where’s the line between confident and bombastic?
Minimize Self-Praise
Bombastic: This is an amazing story of wonderful proportions, full of thrilling adventure and poignant emotion, lovable characters and a breathtaking plot… Confident: My thriller pits my main character against his biggest enemy in a high-voltage climax, with a surprising twist ending. The Difference: Don’t be lavish in your self-praise and, for goodness’ sake, cut down on the adjectives. Everyone knows you love your story…that’s why you wrote it. Nobody wants to hear you praise your own work in your query letter author bio. It means nothing coming from your mouth, so I’d avoid all the fluff.
Don’t Include Praise From People Who Aren’t Writing Professionals
Bombastic: My uncle, who is a (unpublished) writer, thinks this is the best book ever written. My children love this story and ask that I read it to them every night. My professor, who has a PhD (in, ahem, civil engineering), said I was an exceptional writing talent. Confident: Award-winning sci-fi writer, Writer McWriterpants, says of my book, “A rare debut full of heart and fantasy thrills. A great new voice on the scene!” The Difference: When you’re considering how to pitch a book, remember that praise doesn’t count as much when it comes from a relative or friend of yours — unless maybe your brother is Stephen King. I’d much rather hear what an unbiased third party has to say about the book, and ideally have it be someone who knows what they’re talking about (ie: a writer, not an engineering professor). If you can’t get any casual blurbs like this (and that’s totally fine), don’t include something just for the sake of including it.
Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse
Bombastic: This will sell like hotcakes and there are endless opportunities to leverage my idea. It lends itself easily to greeting cards, music videos, apps, video games, theme parks, movies, t-shirts and other merchandise, and, of course, sequels! Confident: The ending of this manuscript gives my story sequel opportunities and, as a trained screenwriter with a cinematic writing style, I can see potential for the screen as well. The Difference: We all want our work to go from book to screen to the toy store to the clothing rack. If you have experience and possible connections to another industry that can be a great cross-promotional avenue for your book idea, you can hint at it. Maybe bring up some marketing or subrights ideas if you talk to agents or editors on the phone after they express interest. But when you considering how to pitch a book initially, keep the pie out of the sky and don’t rattle off all your merchandising dreams in the query. (For more on this topic, see my query letter tips on not putting the cart before the horse.)
Use Adjectives Sparingly
Bombastic: My self-published/previously published book was a bestseller. Confident: I sold 200 copies of my self-published book in its first year and it is regularly reordered by two independent bookstores in my community. My previously published book enjoyed three printings in one year from a small press. The Difference: Words like “expert,” “bestseller,” “hit,” and others are a bit like adjectives. They sounds like fluff. If a book sells five copies at a local indie bookstore, sure, it can end up on their bestseller list, especially if your book has a regional tie-in to the region or if you recently did an event at the store. But that’s quite a different level of bestseller than what Stephenie Meyer gets to write on her resume. Use words like this sparingly in your query letter author bio, and be really specific as to what they mean in your case.
The Takeaways
Be specific. Instead of blowing your pitch full of hot air with adjectives or buzzwords like “bestseller,” be straight and direct with the reader. You want to project a healthy amount of confidence, but make sure everything you’re saying is grounded in fact and doesn’t go flying off into Hyperbole Land. All that stuff isn’t what I’m reading for when I read queries. In fact, I skim over most of it.
Caveat: I often tell people to look at the copy on the back of book jackets when they’re crafting their queries. That’s about the length and tone that you’re aiming for when you write the meat of your pitch. However, book jackets can get away with adjectives and buzz and blurbs and all that hype because they’re actually trying to make someone go to the cash register and buy the book.
Your Story Is The Most Important Part Of Your Pitch
When I look at queries, I care more about the story you’re pitching to me than how you’re pitching (check out my evergreen article on How to Write a Query Letter), but I would greatly prefer a writer who falls on the confident side of the fence rather than the bombastic. If you’re having the opposite issue, and you tend to undersell yourself in your query letter author bio, look at the confident examples again and see if you can’t take more of a stand for you and your writing. Either way, remember: we want to be sold. We just don’t want the sweaty-handshake-used-car-salesman hardball sell. Nor do we want the looking-at-your-feet-and-mumbling sell. We want the simple, compelling, concise, and thoughtful pitch that comes from your confidence in your work!
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