Excuse me, your black hole is showing
Today I wrote (again) to publisher B. Here’s what I wrote, for better or worse (you may observe that names have been changed):
Hi Bobette,
Another three months have passed, so it’s time for another email checking “Stormhunter” and “The Monster Apprentice” haven’t fallen into a slushpile void.
I enjoyed listening to and meeting [Bobette’s boss] at the “Reaching the World” con on July 3 in Sydney.
Since I’ll be attending the “CYA Later Alligator” con in September, I decided to pitch “The Monster Apprentice” to one of the publishers there. I’ve let her know about you guys, of course.
That gave me an excuse to edit the book (always exciting, since my writing ability has improved since I sent it).
Other than improving the synopsis and fixing minor flaws, I gave Dance a twin sister. The sister died some years ago, when Dance’s dad was angry with her and the empathic heest monsters rose up through the ice in concern. The ice melted and the girl drowned. She and Dance are identical twins – except for Dance’s lazy eye.
This piece of background gives Dance a phobia to overcome as well as a reason for her rebelliousness (because she thinks she can never match up to her sister – something everyone with a sibling can relate to). It also motivates her dad’s pacifism, and makes the danger of the monsters clear from the start. The shame of failing her Aging ceremony is much more painful, too.
Dance faces her own nightmares when she first approaches the heest. She and her dad finally understand one another after they face the pirates together at the end.
I don’t expect you to re-read “The Monster Apprentice” from the beginning all over again (although do let me know if a better synopsis is useful), but here’s the first two hundred words so you can see what I’m talking about if you want to.
Felicity
CHAPTER ONE
I awoke from a dead sleep – for once, a sleep without nightmares. My bedroom was pitch black and silent, but my heart was racing. Then the sound came again – a man shouting at the top of his voice. He pounded at my front door.
“Elder!” The man’s voice was sharp with terror. “Elder! Wake up!”
The night air was hot and still. My sheets lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. At the open window my curtains hung in unmoving black lines. No wind slid through to ease the stifling heat. My mane of black hair felt heavy around my head. I didn’t dare move.
Dad would check on me before he went to answer the yelling. Ever since my sister died, he was that type of dad. Whenever he felt worried about something I was told to go to my room – to sleep, if it was night time. No matter how many nightmares I had.
He was forever telling me to be careful – but I was definitely not going to miss out on the fun this time. So I remained curled on my side as if I hadn’t heard a thing. If he didn’t tell me to go back to sleep, sneaking out wasn’t disobeying him. Not exactly.
Problem solved – with horrible death
I had one of those days yesterday when I couldn’t look at the book I’m working on. Some would call it writers’ block. I’m lucky, because there was a simple reason: I didn’t want to make the dad bad. It messed up a lot of things (particularly since the whole island is so small they’d all notice Dance’s injuries and be culpable), and (since no-one’s ever physically abused me or anyone I love) didn’t resonate at all.
At 2am this morning, though, I found the solution. Dance is a twin – an identical twin, and her sister is dead. Naturally, being dead, Dance’s sister is perfect in every way, and gives Dance a foil she can never live up to.
I often think of my own sister as a little like who I would have been if I wasn’t so messed up – exaggerate that feeling (by making the sister the same age, and dead), and I have something I can use to drive Dance to feel and do everything she does in the book – AND resolve that feeling in the end, as her dad stands by her side against the pirates.
Voila! When in doubt, kill someone.
Monsters versus pirates
Monsters versus pirates is the plot hook for my book. It’s a good plot hook. But my main character, Dance (though smart, very physically coordinated, rebellious, and a little insecure) isn’t interesting enough to cut it. Even though she saves her island twice.
I’ve thought about it, and realised that one of the options I have is to change her dad into a baddie. I don’t like it – but he IS featured in the opening scene, and there’s already tension between them I can exploit. Plus he’s quite heroic towards the end, so I can make him turn good during the story.
I think I’ll make him a hitter. That ruins the mum’s character too (although they are stuck on a tiny island, so it’s not like there’s anywhere to run to). Urg. Hopefully I can think of something else – something better.
The first ten pages
Hello!
Soon I’ll be leaving on an epic voyage to two writing conferences – the Melbourne Writers’ Festival and the CYA Later, Alligator Conference in Brisbane (CYA stands for Children and Young Adult). I’ll be connecting directly with Publishers C and I in Melbourne, plus attending the launch party of Going Down Swinging magazine’s 30th issue – an issue which I’m in.
At the CYA con I’ve paid for a face-to-face pitch with Publisher J, who will be reading the first ten pages and synopsis before we meet.
Which means it’s editing time, hurrah!
It’s great when a lot rides on just ten pages, because it means I can totally obsess over every plot point, paragraph, and word.
I’ll be sending “The Monster Apprentice” even though it’s still at Publisher B (everyone will be informed, and I’ll probably put off submitting the full book until Publisher B replies).
I just wandered down to the “modern C/YA” section of our books and picked the best four in the right age group so I can pick apart exactly how true geniuses hook young readers.
Here’s the books and some little samples – these are all G-rated, and HIGHLY recommended for your ten-year old (or 8 or 12 or whatever).
In no particular order:
“Dragonkeeper” by Aussie Carole Wilkinson (who I’ll be listening to at Melbourne)
“A bamboo bowl flew threw the air, aimed at the slave girl’s head. She ducked out of the way. . .”
Action and sympathy, plus the bamboo detail adds to the setting.
“Samurai Kids: White Crane” by Aussie Sandy Fussell
“‘Aye-eee-yah!’
I scissor kick high as I can and land on my right foot. I haven’t got another one. My name is Niya Moto and I’m the only one-legged samurai kid in Japan. Usually I miss my foot and land on my backside. Or flat on my face in the dirt.
I’m not good at exercises, but I’m great at standing on one leg. . .”
Action and sympathy again, plus some slapstick humour/sympathy, and humour about his pain, which makes us like him.
“Larklight” by Philip Reeve
“Later, while I was facing the Potter Moth, or fleeing for my life from the First Ones, or helping man a cannon aboard Jack Havock’s brig Sophronia, I would often think back to the way my life used to be, and to that last afternoon at Larklight, before all our misfortunes began.”
Full of mysterious promises (and sympathy) to come.
“Artemis Fowl” by Eoin Colfer
“Ho Chi Minh City in the summer. Sweltering by anyone’s standards. Needless to say, Artemis Fowl would not have been willing to put up with such discomfort if something extremely important had not been at stake. Important to the plan.”
Sensory setting details, and mysterious promises. And characterisation (interestingly NOT sympathetic).
So the best things to find in the opening paragraph/s are: action, sympathy, humour, and a clear goal (even if it’s not explicitly stated).
Here’s mine at the moment:
I awoke from a dead sleep. My bedroom was pitch black and silent, but my heart was racing. Then the sound came again – the sound of a man shouting at the top of his voice. It came from my front door.
Just action so far – but there’s setting/sensory detail, sympathy, characterisation (with mild humour), and a goal (to find out what’s going on) within the page. I’ll make sure I don’t lose any of those things as I edit.
I’m going to pause and read the first ten pages of each, and give you a quick synopsis and analysis.
“Dragonkeeper”
The slave girl is mistreated by her master. She feeds farm animals and two very old, dirty dragons that she rather dislikes. She scrounges and steals her dinner, then sneaks into the deserted palace to explore.
There’s a lot of setting detail, and a lot of reasons to feel sympathy for the girl. The dragons’ pathetic state is unique (and thus interesting), as is the girl’s dislike of them.
“Samurai Kids: White Crane”
Niya continues to train while filling in details of his past and how he came to train at the Cockroach school (all the other kids are unusual too – blind, albino, etc). Their teacher announces they’ll be competing in the Samurai Games and the kids all react unenthusiastically since they lost badly on previous years, and were teased. The teacher tells them a story about how mighty cockroaches are.
There’s a lot of humour and really nicely done characterisation. It’s good to know already exactly what the main plot is so early on.
“Larklight”
Art and his trying-to-be-ladylike sister Myrtle live in a lonely and ramshackle space house with their absent-minded father (their mother died on a voyage). They receive a delivery of the mail via spaceship.
This is very, very funny in almost every line. It’s also a wonderfully detailed and fun setting. Plus there’s delicately-written sympathy.
“Artemis Fowl”
Artemis, an unpleasant but terrifyingly intelligent son of a criminal mastermind, and his deadly (and very respectful) bodyguard, use technology, intelligence and threats to find a fairy, with whom they make a deal to see her Book.
Artemis may be unpleasant, but he is SO cool (there’s sympathy later). As is the combination of high-tech modern stuff and the fairy plot. There’s a lot of setting detail, and very good characterisation – all done through their words and actions. The best part is the originality.
In my own first ten pages, Dance eavesdrops on a conversation between her father (the village Elder of their isolated and unprotected island) and the village watchman, who has seen pirates approaching. She is determined to get caught up in the action, and is nominated as a runner to wake the village. She takes a dangerous shortcut over a rooftop populated with sky cows.
I want excitement and emotional involvement, so I’ll focus on that.
The good, the bad and the fatty
My sister and her husband are coming to Canberra in four days. That’s also the length of time I’ll continue eating super-healthily. (I look forward SO much to not exercising fifteen minutes before breakfast every day, although some of the other healthy habits are keepers.)
CJ was given a promotion this week – the job he’s wanted for about a year. And yes, it means more money. (I’ve just done my tax return – and I earned $17, 323 this financial year, which is pretty good for me. Don’t do mental illness, kids.)
I thought I’d hear about the Publisher A edit-me competition this week, but it turns out (as far as I can tell from reading their email five times) that although they’ve decided on the long list, they’re not telling anyone what it is. So I won’t know if I’m on the long list until late August. But oh well, at least they’ll tell everyone in the end.
I have liquorice all sorts in my lolly drawer (which I bought on the basis that (a) aniseed is good for the digestion – not sure if that has any link to liquorice at all, and (b) they contain preservative 202 and no others, which means I can test if I’m intolerant of that particular preservative). But this morning, somehow, I weighed 76.8, which means if I can lose .3 of a kilo today I’ve actually made my weight goal for this current session – and genuinely reached the healthy weight range. If I’m super super good today, then maybe tomorrow will be the day. Maybe.
Must. . . not. . . eat. . . lollies.
Rejection Letter
Today is Tuesday. That means there’s a 50% chance Publisher B is having an acquisitions meeting today, hopefully including two books of mine. Cue angst.
Last Friday I received a rejection for my empath NaNo novel from Publisher H. Somewhat surprisingly, they gave me comments (just for the first thousand words, since they didn’t request more). My comments are in square brackets.
I’m sorry for the delay in my reply. Thank you for your submission Blind Sided. Unfortunately it is not suitable for our publishing list.
[This is the standard reply. Anything other than that is a huge deal.]
I felt thrown into the world you have created without sufficient explanation of the concept of being an empath. For example, the way empaths ‘see’ and are yet blind; their ability to sense feelings even from inanimate objects such as carpets and balconies; and the way some people can ‘cover’ their thoughts or feelings.
[I thought I’d fixed that issue, but CLEARLY I hadn’t. This is a first-draft type problem, so it’ll probably be six months before I send this book out again. Oh well. On the up side, I just had some ideas that are a MUCH better way of fixing it than my previous attempt.]
The extract from your first chapter had a nice tension to it [thanks. I thought so], but having little understanding of how this world worked, I found it hard to connect with the characters and their situation.
The idea of empaths is an interesting one, but ultimately I feel it needs further development and explanation so as not to confuse or overwhelm the reader.
[Fair enough.]
I wish you well if you look to place your manuscript elsewhere.
[And back to the standard template to end.]
So, the next thing I’ll do is a massive edit, bordering on a rewrite. I need to send “The Princess and the Pirate” to Publisher D before they forget me, so fixing that comes first.
And that’s what a writer’s life looks like. Except when it looks like this:
All but one of my books are off in the world, slicking down their hair and trying to look their best. The other one is promised to Publisher D (I acquired a publisher’s email address at the writing con last Saturday), but the beginning isn’t working right.
I may have ruined my healthy eating yesterday, since I ate five biscuits and a jam donut (plus a sugar-packed home-made lemonade). I hope I can still make my next weight target of 76.5 kilos, but it’s certainly not a sure thing. I’ll swim today and tomorrow, and hope for the best.
It’s VERY noticeable that my writing suffers when I eat less chocolate. That’s not good.
At least it’s not cocaine.
Publisher A will announce the long list of their edit-my-manuscript-with-me competition next week.
Ten grams
I’m letting myself have ten grams of chocolate today. Exciting stuff. (Nope, that wasn’t sarcasm.)
This morning I weighed 78.9, which is at least within range of where I should have started this weight-loss session from. Now there’s two and a half kilos left to reach my current goal of 76.5 by the new end date of 21 July (three weeks away).
But neither of those things are actually the topic of today’s blog.
Yesterday I heard about the NSW Writers’ Centre holding a conference about young adult and children’s fiction – this Saturday. In Sydney.
The thing is, there are representatives from two big Australian YA publishers there, and it may be worth my while being in the same room (sad but true). So I’ll get up three hours early, drive to Sydney, attend sessions, hope like crazy my submission/s are selected by the interactive panels at the end – and then I’ll drive home. And I’ll talk to people (ugh!) in between.
Scary stuff.
There are three ways this can go:
1. I get really tired. Nothing happens, except possibly some education.
2. I make a shiny new contact/s to send books to.
3. I annoy important people, and my slushpile submissions are listed for indiscriminate burning in publisher offices across Australia.
I’ll let you know. m
Yo
It’s now been over thirteen months since I sent “Stormhunter” to Publisher B. I wonder sometimes if they’ll ever reply. Oh well. I have other books at Publisher A, E and F anyway.
I’m eating WAY too much, but I am still confident that in a few days I’ll be back on the wagon, and I will reach my goal of 76.5 in the next three and a half weeks. I still exercise six days a week.
Today I’m going to start reading “The Gay Dolphin Adventure” and a Trixie Belden book (same era, as you may have guessed). How wonderful and terrifying.
Are you a writer? You could enter this free competition and help raise money for The Lupus Alliance.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/05/30/fanfic-contest/
This is the third time I’ve posted that picture on a blog. I also have it as my desktop. I’m in the process of editing my story, and everyone on my “Felicitations” list will read the result at the beginning of July (I send the list a free flash story each month – if you want in, email me on fellissimo[at]hotmail[dot]com).
Sunny Daze
The sun is out, the house is clean, and I’m going to do a mid-week weigh-in tomorrow (to find out if being good today and yesterday has made up for a birthday party on Friday). On Friday morning I weighed 78.6 kilos. Next Friday’s goal is to weigh 78, which should be easily possible.
On Wednesday Publisher A rejected “Farting My ABCs”. That was stunningly fast, so much so that I doubt they read more than the synopsis (which means they rejected farting, not my writing). This doesn’t bode super well for my relationship with that publisher, so I won’t send them anything until Publisher B responds to “Stormhunter” and “The Monster Apprentice”.
I was taken by surprise, so I decided to send “Farting My ABCs” out again immediately (I doubt my ability to edit has improved noticeably in the last fortnight), and by email (fast and easy). So I sent it to yet another publisher, who I’ll call Publisher F. Publisher F is extremely consistent in their three-month response time, so that’s a kind of treat. Thus I have five books “out” at the moment, with four publishers. That’s a good spread, particularly with a competition in the mix (which may also get me back into Publisher A’s good graces – if I’m truly out of them).
I was just given two new students, so my schedule is now stable (as stable as it gets) at just over eleven hours a week. My maximum regular workload is twelve hours, so I’m leaving it alone.
I went to church this morning, and didn’t have a panic attack. That was nice.
Today is a good day.
Felicity Banks 