Author: Chris Hagler
Date:   10-31-09 23:44

Gee I'm posting a lot lately.

I received a rejection letter today, and albeit cordial it's frustrating. I have a question for those of you in the know.

Any hints on how to grab attention to a new YA work so that it makes it to the "actually read" category of queries/samples/manuscripts ?

I REALIZE this is a vague question, and there's no way I'm giving up but it's getting so tiring. I'm sending a query similar to the one I posted on here last. I used all the suggestions given to try and spruce it up, and I'm getting requests for samples.........but that last hurdle is murder. I really feel that if I can get the entire MS to someone, they'd be on board.

I am curious if there's an overload in the YA sector right now. If so, perhaps I should shelve it for a while as much as I hate the idea. Beating my head against a brick wall is something I'm good at, so I really don't want to do that.

Author: Greg Kosson
Date:   11-01-09 01:37

Chris- You may have identified the problem. It's great if you're getting requests for samples - that in itself isn't easy to do. But your feeling that someone needs to read the whole manuscript to be sold on it suggests that whatever you're sending -- maybe the first couple of chapters -- don't move quickly enough to capture a reader's interest.

It isn't just a problem regarding agents -- your reading public wants to be engaged long before they have a sense of the whole book. The "It gets really interesting after page 126" doesn't work. It has to grab them and not let go from page 1.

This is hard when it's your own work, because you know it gets interesting later on. You have a sense of the work as a whole.

My suggestion is that you get some other people to read it and identify for you exactly where and why their interest falls off. Then work on something else for a couple of months - really put your heart into another project for a while. Then, when you come back, you'll be able to fix the problems that are causing you difficulty now.

This is not giving up or giving in, it's dealing with a writer's subjectivity in a constructive way. You are right that beating your head against the wall is no good. I have brane dammage from it myself. Take another path.

Author: Chris Hagler
Date:   11-01-09 08:03

You may be right Greg,
I keep trying to send a varied sample (i.e.: the first two chapters in addition to a later one), because the first 2 set the story.

I will have to look over it, but the beginning is crucial to the latter story....it really can't go away.

Author: Janice W-D
Date:   11-01-09 08:37

Chris,

You could be doing everything right and still not get a request for a full until you've sent 75 queries or more. Some things you can do to improve your chances:

*Stop sending random chapters. The agents that want to see any chapters want them in order, starting with chapter one, no cherry picking.

*Some agents will automatically reject you if you've sent several chapters. Ignoring the guidelines on their website that state they only want a query letter at first, no chapters, may cause them to think you'll be difficult to work with.

I've had good luck (a few requests for 50 pages, two requests for 100 pages and one request for the full mss.) with the dozen or so queries I've sent out by including the first five pages. It's long enough to give them a taste of my style and skills and short enough to not p*ss them off.

*Post your first 500 words (indents won't show up here so remember to make an extra line between paragraphs so we won't go blind reading them) in the Writing Craft forum.

Good luck!
Janice

Author: Cindy Kay
Date:   11-01-09 10:36

Chris,

You're probably thinking too narrowly about the begining being crucial to the story. The information may be crucial to the story, but its placement at the begining may not be. Stories don't have to be told in a linear fashion. In fact many stories are more exciting when told out of order.

It's fine for the first couple chapters to lack explosions and whatnot, but without cheap thrills you'll need to make up for it with an engaging voice. Look at how much forshadowing, suspense building you're doing in that first chapter. And character development. We should really care about at least one character, have a sense of what he/she longs for and fears in that first chapter.


Ask yourself if the opening image is one that gives a picture or sense of the main theme or struggle of the book. How does your MC make his/her entrance? Does it show off his/her weakness, what inner demons he/she'll battle in in the book?

Hope this helps.

Author: Chris Hagler
Date:   11-01-09 15:38

I gotcha Cindy.

The first chapter shows the MC being adopted and beginning to experience the things that shape her childhood and prepare her for the latter parts of the story. I'm not really sure if any of it would fit in somewhere later on, but it's something to think about.

I'm going to take an afternoon and see if there's an alternate placement. It's going to be tricky, moving it to a later spot without making it mundane or feel like an afterthought.

Chris

Author: Cindy Kay
Date:   11-01-09 16:23

Chris,

On the other hand perhaps you're not starting far enough back. Was yours the manuscript in which the adopted Chinese girl discovers she part of some ancient strange family or something like that?

Sometimes a prologue type of chapter, reguarless of whether you call it a prologue, can be cool to bring in action that occured before the main story timeline.

Also, if this is your story I'm thinking of, perhaps you can cover flashbacks of MC's adoption and idyll childhood as she starts gettting clues she'll need to follow east. Kind of the classic adoptive kid conundrum of deciding how much they're willing to risk with their happy adoptive family to uncover the bio family.

Author: Greg Kosson
Date:   11-01-09 20:35

I agree with Janice and Cindy, especially the idea of cheap thrills. I used to resist that but by and large, it's what readers want.

One of the most common mistakes I've seen writers including myself make is the information dump. The thought is that the reader needs a truckload of background information to understand the story. The writer then proceeds to unload a dump truck full of informational nuggets the reader has to dig through before getting to the plot.

It's more like Cindy says. The truck needs to be moving at all times. You can let nuggets fall off the truck into the roadway now and then, but they should never actually block the road.

Author: Chris Hagler
Date:   11-02-09 09:41

I looked over your suggestions and they're all pretty solid. I also received some awesome feedback from an agent taht suggested I shorten the MS a bit. So I'm doing a bit of both.

The entire first two chapters set the story, but I can see where describing the room in which she was adopted can seem pretty mundane as compared to getting the story moving. I ended up shortening the first two chapters to the point that they became one. I'm going to look over it a bit more and see if there's any more ways to "trim the fat" in places that don't contain action or events more crucial to the current part of the storyline.

Regrouping and getting ready to fire again. Thanks for the solid advice folks.

Chris

Author: Jeanne Gassman
Date:   11-02-09 10:50

Chris,

This may sound simplistic, but begin your story at the moment everything changes for your main character, not RIGHT BEFORE the change, but at that instant of change.

The tricky thing is to correctly identify the moment of change. Some common devices writers use to establish change:

1. A mysterious stranger appears, demanding the character set out on a quest (a favorite for fantasy).
2. The character is dissatisfied with the status quo and seeks something new that sets events into motion he doesn't anticipate. (Example: Dorothy runs away from home in the Wizard of Oz.)
3. The status quo is turned upside down by forces or events beyond the character's control. (This can range from a request for a divorce to invading armies.)
4. Similar to #3: Disaster occurs (Includes natural disasters, personal disasters such as bankruptcy or illness, even the murder or suicide of another character).

Hope that helps.

Jeanne