BETWEEN THE LINES

To further prove the point that you can't take take all feedback too seriously, I thought I'd share something interesting.

Between the time when I first started pitching my book BEYOND JUSTICE and now, I've gotten a wide range of feedback.  From writers, readers, editors and agents.  This book has always garnered polarized opinions.  Either they liked it a lot or they really didn't like it.  Well, some in the middle probably didn't say anything to me.

Here's something interesting though, that proves just how subjective people can be.

The first agent (from a reputable agency in NYC) I queried asked for a partial (sample chaters) and a synopsis.  She later sent me a rejection letter that said:
Though I really like your writing, I'm not in love with the story.  

Just yesterday, I got another rejection from  a different big name agent.  And he said:
The idea has merit, but the writing is still a ways away.


Two very different agents with opinions which seem to contradict eachother.  And that's just one example.  Recently someone tried to advise me to collect feedback from different agents and editors' rejections and make changes to my book accordingly.  I balked at that idea for this very reason.  Can you imagine how insane one would get if they tried to bend to every opinion?

In the end, you have to really believe in your product. Sure, consider feedback, but also remember how subjective it is.  In the end, it's YOUR book.  You have to decide what you want it to be.  Then you just have to find the right publisher who is as enthusiastic about your book as you are.

In some ways, I'm glad to have these rejection comments negate each other.  It makes me put less stock into the opionions of others and forces me to really know my own work.

A few hours after the nice rejection letter from one of the editors I queried, I get another email from an editor at a major publisher that said:

Your premise is intriguing.  Could you isend me a full manuscript?  Email would be fine.

Yay!

I gotta tell you all that I have been praying for this book to be pubished.  All my friends who pray are doing that as well.  On top of that, I've decided to query agressively with an attitude I didn't think I could muster:  That I have a great product to sell and any editor would benefit from making it their product as well.  And doing the research to find the right editors, emailing directly to them with confidence in my letter.  All this, I'm sure is helping. 

Not getting my hopes up too high, but I'm feeling good about all this.  I know it's in God's hands and He will provide the perfect publisher and agent, as I've dedicated this book and all books I'm writing to my mission of spreading the good news of hope and grace.

So far, I have:

2 Partials (100 pages) out to 2 agents
1 Partial (50 pages) out to one agent
1 Full MS out to one Editor

Before the long weekend, I emailed 8 editors and 1 agent for my book BEYOND JUSTICE. I found a way to describe a plot element in my book by comparing it to Stephen King's THE DEAD ZONE. Over the weekened, the 1 agent replied with a nice rejection (no biggie). But this morning an editor sent me this nice, personalized rejection:

Paul-

Thanks for thinking of me with this, The Dead Zone is actually a personal favorite and aspects of your pitch are certainly compelling. That said, per the sample chapter, you make a good start, but not exactly what I’m looking for in a thriller. Best of luck and feel free to query me again in the future.

Best,
John

Okay, call me weird to be excited by a rejection letter but two things that I liked about this. 

1. The editor replied almost immediately and told me things he liked about my query. I was wondering if comparing my work to Stephen King's was a good idea. Turns out it was in this case. 

2. He's invited me to query him again in the future. I will this week. But now I have a personal basis for contacting him again. And it's in email, so if I reply to his email, he will automatically be reminded about the legitimacy of my contacting him directly. 

Lesson learned: Had I sent him a snail mail query, as I have my first few queries back in February, I may never have heard back from him because: a) his assistant never gave it to him from the slush pile, b) my query got lost in his own slush pile.I might have just gotten a form letter from his assistant. 

But with email, it's so easy for him to read all my materials and click reply to send me a personalized response. This entire process is trial and error for me. I firmly believe that even if I make mistakes,unless they are particularly egregious, insulting or whatever, no editor is going to remember.  They might remember things they liked about my query, or that I stood out from the slush pile by daring to go straight to them.

I'm already preparing to send this agent another query for my 2nd novel HUMAN RESOURCES. I like the fact that I can remind him that he invited me to send him another query.

 

Only because of my limited amount of time have I queried 9 editors and one agent today.  All by email.
Got one quick rejection (wrong type of book for that publisher, oh well.  Keep going)

Next time you watch a movie, watch for the non-verbal actions the actors do.  A really good actor won't just say her lines and stand there.  And believe me, nothing a great actor does is without purpose.

Watch his facial queues, what's he doing with his hands, what's his posture, what tone of voice, is he fidgeting, is he stuttering?

All these things enhance and bring verisimilitude to the scene/dialogue.

A question actors will often ask of their directors is:  What's my motivation?

Let's say a character is talking to his dad.

Billy:  Hey Dad.  How are you?
Dad: Good, you look taller.
Billy: I'm sitting.  Besides, you say that every time you see  me.
Dad:  Maybe if I saw you more often I wouldn't notice as much.
Billy:  Yeah, well, we know who to thank for that.

Actor playing Billy says to Martin Scorcese, "what's my motivation?"

I'll do one.  Then write out in prose how it affects the scene and actions.  Feel free to send me another motivation and I'll try to create a different scene based on it.

Scorcese:  Okay, Billy.  You're Dad's in prison for murdering your mom.  You hated your mom.  She abused you.  You were only sorry Dad got caught.  Deep down you blame your mom for everything.

Action!

Billy sat at the plate glass marveling at how close he could actually sit to Dad, and not even touch his hand.  He shifted around in his chair.  What's taking him so long?  Did he forget?  Dad finally arrived.  Looked like Hell.  Did he get beaten by prison guards?
"Hey Dad, how are you?"
"Good.  You look taller."
Billy smirked.  "I'm sitting.  Besides, you say that every time you see me."
"Maybe if I saw you more often I wouldn't notice as much."  The trip from Owensville to the State Pen. took two hours.  If only Dad hadn't gotten caught.  That witch deserved to go.  After all she'd done.  it was her fault he was locked up.  Locked up for saving him.  Billy sighed and gave Dad poignant smile.  "Yeah, well, we know who to thank for that."

Now, let's say the motivation is different.
Scorcese:  OK,  Billy.  You have to visit your dad in order to find out why he murdered  your mom.  It's part of his closure process according to his shrink and he won't sign off on your probation until you've completed his treatment.  But you can't abide even looking at the bastard who killed your mother.

Action!

Billy paced around before the plate glass hating the fact that his shrink advised him to come here.  This was sick.  But getting Dr. Crane to sign off on his papers was the only way he'd finish his probation, so whatever.  Finally, Dad arrived and sat behind the protective barrier.
"Hey Dad, how are you?"  Billy barely made eye contact as he sat.
"Good.  You look taller." 
Billy flipped him the bird.   "I'm sitting.  Besides, you say that every time you see me."  He glared at the  clock.  Five minutes.  That's all he needed to do.  Then he was outta there.  Never coming back to see that bastard again, until the day they strapped him down and pumped him up full of lethal drugs.
"Maybe if I saw you more often I wouldn't notice as much,"  Dad said.
 Billy slammed the plate glass with his hands.  Snarling, he bolted up, his chair flew back and hit the wall.   No way he was going to allow the man who murdered his mother turn the tables of blame on him.  '"Yeah, well, we know who to thank for that!"

If you have any other motivations, send them along.  I'll try my best to create a different scene with the same dialogue.

So I decided to enter an Agent's Blog contest, best dialogue in 250 words here:
http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2008/05/preposterously-magnificent-dialogue.html

The question arose to what makes good dialogue.  For me, here are some thoughts:

BAD DIALOGUE:

As you know Bob-ism
"As you know, Phil, I was born in 1975 to a family of Menonites and in 1977 we all converted to Islam..."

Long drawn out speeches, arias
Think of the pages and pages of discourse in THE DAVINCI CODE

Talking heads
"Hi Bob."
"Hi Phil."
"Do you think contests are worth entering, Bob?" said Phil.
"I don't know, what do you think?"
"I don't know, maybe."
"That's cool."
"Yeah.  Later, dude."

A most unreliable method of talking head prevention.  AKA Dialogus Interuptus

"What are you doing here?" Doug exclaimed, passing his hand through his wavy, chestnut hair.
"I was about to ask you the same thing."  Jane pulled her sweater, which was a size too small down to cover her midrift.
"You here for the party?"  Doug always wondered if it was poor form to come too early.
"Well, no," Jane said, trying to look as if she had a better excuse to show up, other than to see Doug.

ARG!  I hate that kind of dialogue.  Now, sometimes you can't avoid the stage direction.  But my problem with it is when every single line of dialogue is followed by a stage direction in the same repetitive pattern.  Repetition should only be done deliberately and for a specific desired effect.

Good dialogue consists of conflict, tension.  A scene with people talking about things they both know, but say for the reader's sake, or all agreeing on the topic is boring and serves no purpose.  

Good dialogue 
Doesn't explain everything, but makes the reader want to know more.  
Makes the reader push to the next sentence, and the next, and so on.
Carries subtext
Doesn't happen in a vaccuum, unless it's on the phone, and even then, the characters should be doing something or dealing with something.
Even if its purpose is to convey information, there should be some conflict, or a distraction happening at the same time.

At the risk of extreme hubris, I am posting a scene from my current book ONCE WE WERE KINGS.  I'm quite proud of the dialogue here but I know I'm sticking my neck out for criticism.


ONCE WE WERE KINGS
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Gossamer veils draped down from the high vaulted ceiling enshrouding High King Corigan's bed in royal crimson. All torches had been long extinguished. All, save for the one above, which filled with a rose coloured hue the area around his immense bed.

There, Corigan sat up, cross-legged, back against the padded head board. The train of his abandoned robe dangled to the ground. Before him, rested a wooden table just tall enough to reach his lap. Atop the table sat his goblet, filled and drained more times than he bothered recalling with Fire Orchid Wine, an exotic gift from the Eastern Empire.

So I did  another agent blitz.  This time to seven different agents in the same house (Trident Media Group).  They have some A-list clients and big agents.  I also sent a query to an editor at Berkley.

So the stats are now:

37 queries out
3 requested partials from agents
11 rejections (I forgot last time to list the editor rejection for my full manuscript)

The research takes a lot of time and energy.  But as you can see, I'm only about 50% to the 75 query mark that Dean Koontz hit before selling his first novel.  I'll keep plugging along.  Next wave is an editor/publisher blitz!

Over the weekend I got two more rejections via email.  Both were very kind and intimated that my book was really good, but they have too many clients on their list now.  Might just be a nice excuse, but I have a feeling they were sincere, based on the words they chose in their response.

But the good news is that I got another request for sample chapters and proposal from another agent.  That brings me to a total of three agents who have requested partials for my novel BEYOND JUSTICE.  One of them, I really hope signs on to represent my book.

Must keep trying.  

stats to date:
30 queries out. 
10 rejected
3 requested (3 chapters-100 pages)

Every writer dreams of doing this.

So I am officially up to 30 queries out there for my novel BEYOND JUSTICE.

Today, in less than 2 hours since I queried one particular big name agent, I got a request for a 100 page partial and synopsis!  Wow.
She was concerned a bit that my book of 74,000 words seemed a bit short.  Funny because it started at 165,000 words and has since been cut down.  But she said it might not be a problem.

We'll see if this turns into anything.  Dean Koontz said he got 75 rejections before his first novel sold.  So I won't quit until:

1.  I get a sale
2.  I pass 75 rejections (even then, I won't quit, I'll just slow down a bit in the querying and focus more on my current projects.)

Things are a-movin'!  Thank God. 

 

 I think I'm getting the hang of it.  Or at least starting to actually have fun with it.  Scott Carter's blog Selling Your Book: Ten Tips on Creating a Sense of Urgency Among Agents and Editors"  said something about taking on a certain attitude with querying.  I devoted most of my day to researching and querying agents today and decided to take on the attitude of: Just go for it.  No fear, just query anyone who seemed a good fit.  And I decided to start querying via email, since I've never tried before.

So I snail mailed one query and emailed 8 others for my book BEYOND JUSTICE.

The more query letters I wrote, the more confident I became.  This sort of goes with the "dare to be bad" writing mentality.  A freedom that only comes when you aren't afraid (nothing to lose).  Finding that really good, personalized first paragraph is proving the biggest challenge, but when I get it right, it's kind of fun.  I think it was Noah Lukeman who said something to the affect of making the first paragraph all about the agent/editor you are querying.  This makes it immediately important.  I can see that.  If I get an unsolicited email and it's all about the person sending it or the product he/she is trying to sell, my finger hovers over the delete key.  But if this email points out something about me, or my work (in a positive light, of course) you can be sure I'll want to read on.  I guess this is pretty basic.

One agent replied within three hours from an email query and asked me to send her a proposal and 100 page partial!  That was the quickest turnaround I've ever gotten.

Anyway, it's almost 2:30 AM and I just sent off my last query for the day.

I'm not going to get too excited about that one request for a partial, but I am pleased that I did this query blitz.  Recently I've suffered from query block.


PS:  Thanks Scott, you're an inspiration. 

 

  
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31

I am not a great fan of adverbs in writing. Sometimes, when used judiciousLY, the can be quite effective. But often I find them used as a lazy person's way out of good characterization. This is especialLY true in dialogue tags.

eg.

"Your sister's back."
"Oh great," he said, sarcastically.

If the framing dialogue and writing in general were adequate, then it would be clear that when the character says, "Oh great," he is being sarcastic. Sure, it's quick and easy, and even in some cases, would be the right choice. But in general, I think it better to characterize the sarcasm by showing, not telling. Here's what I mean:

"Your sister's back."
He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Oh great."

Instead of lecturing the reader and telling what should be obvious, I'm showing the reader.

Stephen King said, "The road to hell is paved with adverbs." :)

So just to torment me

erdnase2000sent this to me:

 

  

My novel BEYOND JUSTICE  got a review by Publishers Weekly on Amazon.com.  Now, before you jump the gun, this book is not yet published.  I am a semi-finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award which means a publication by Penguin Books and in order to get to this point Publishers Weekly has reviewed my entire book.

Below are some of the things Publishers Weekly said in their review of my novel.

 BEYOND JUSTICE:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/B00124COP2/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Editorial Reviews

Part of the process to make it to the next round is to have as many people as possible read an excerpt from my book (free download linked below) and give it a favorable review.  (Please tell your friends about this too, you like and believe my is worthy of a good review)


Here's where I could use your help:

To get into the finals and eventually win grand prize, customer reviews are needed.  So, while I hate to burden people with extra reading, if anyone is already inclined to check out my book (excerpt) and lend a few lines of review (hopefully positive, if you feel it is warranted), I would greatly appreciate it.  It can be downloaded free and reviewed on amazon here.  (scroll down to the review and click on create your own review.)

I realize that semifinals are kind of premature to be excited about and they only narrowed it down from 5000 entrants to 1000, but it was nice to see kind words from PW.  Now I'm pushing for top 100 semifinalist status.

Here's how it works:



I think I have until the middle of February before they start picking the top semifinalists, so if any of y'all are interested in helping me with a review, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks everyone,
Paul

After weeks of outlining, fleshing out my characters and their arcs, and thickening a plot with more twists and turns than the Cyclone inConey Island, I have begun writing my fourth Novel: MISBEGOTTEN. It's a thriller. I will post a blurb here as soon as I construct a good one to tease you what it's about.

I'm aiming for 90,000 words, but considering that I cut 90,000 words out of my last book, that might be ambitiously low for me. Hopefully I've learned to be more concise.

6000 / 90,000 (0.2%)

I was inspired by an awesome presentation by Louie Giglio at a Chris Tomlin Concert.

I believe that all of creation, the universe, everything, was created by a supreme being.  Just try to imagine the great complexity of the galaxies, how things hold together, and their beauty and function.  I find it difficult to believe it all came to be by chance.  There must be an intelligent design.  But more than that, I believe there is an aesthetic design.  A design of an infinitely wise and artistic God, in whose image we as human beings have been created.  For those who disagree, I respectfuly ask that you indulge me and hear me out.

I am now begining Book One of the AXIOM trilogy.  It's difficult to place this genre, but the protagonist is a sixteen year old crown prince.  

It's really fun to write in this style, which I'd say has elements of fantasy, and even scifi, but really, it's not limited to those genres.  Hopefully it will prove a great story.

I've completed the first chapter (about 1600 words).

 

This time for sure. 
I'm done.  After a year of writing and redrafting. 
I've printed out the manuscript of 455 pages but it looks like 2 reams.  It's going to a professional writer's workshop end of this month and then out to the editors/agents.

For the records, this is my third completed full length novel (112k words) .  My first one BABEL REASCENDING was 120K words, my second, HR was 90k words.



 

Angry contradiction of the patriarch is not creativity; it's delinquency calling for attention.  Difference for the sake of difference is as empty an achievement as slavishly following the commercial imperative.  Write only what you believe.  
STORY - Robert McKee



How many times have you watched a movie, listened to a strange piece of "contemporary" music, or gawked at some bizarre painting and wondered, did the artist, writer, etc., do this purposely?  Sometimes it's my own limited understanding that prevents me from fully appreciating something abstract, or mimimalist.  But there are times, I suspect that the writer or artist is simply doing things different for the sake of being different.  And you can usually smell it.  There's something disingenous about it.

For my SNW10 story A DISH SERVED COLD

... Paul C. Tseng’s “A Dish Best Served Cold,” which was probably my favorite of the non-prize winners. Yes, it’s a Borg story, but with a wonderful twist that it’s about the two Pakleds (a race of relatively simple-minded people who want to prove that they are strong to the other races in the galaxy) who kidnapped Geordi LaForge in one of the TNG episodes, and whom Riker tricked into handing him over by taking advantage of their lack of intelligence. Captain Grebnedlog has never gotten over this humiliation, and he’s determined to get his revenge. When even the Borg won’t assimilate them because of their uselessness, they become determined to reverse that decision because they feel it’s the only way to become strong themselves. Anybody with a memory of the episode (“Samaritan Snare”) will love this story, as Tseng captures the Pakleds perfectly. Especially funny is their attempt to impersonate the Borg and Worf’s reaction to that. 
 
_____________________



Man, that's cool!