Comments on: Coco Chanel’s Guide to Sample Pages

By: sharon

sharon — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:26:32 +0000

Thanks for your thoughts! I wasn’t suggesting flashbacks (though I don’t feel as strongly against them as you do) and data dumps are never a good idea. I said to start the story just before the stakes appear and use that space to introduce your characters and their world.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 11:56:38 +0000

Two random comments:

1. “Figure out where the stakes of your story appear…and then back up just far enough to show me who the character is and what their world is like.”
I hate flashbacks. I hate “data dumps”. I hate paragraphs, on the second page of the story, that begin with “ten years before, they had…”.
I don’t read that, and I won’t write it.

2. The secret to a French woman’s appeal is: she always leaves one button unbuttoned or buttoned in the wrong hole, or wears a brooch at an odd angle, or pulls some strands of hair out of an otherwise neat chignon. I guess the theory is, most Frenchmen like the “just rolled out of bed” look. I think most Americans prefer to look neat.
Chacun a son gout.

By: Kevin A. Lewis

Kevin A. Lewis — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 18:01:08 +0000

By the way, Chanel #5 is still the best scent on the market, although Boulevardier #32 was generally what she sprayed her part-time help with before she pushed them out the door for the night. (Somebody on my end just HAD to know that)

By: sharon

sharon — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 18:54:17 +0000

Sorry you’ve had experiences with agencies not responding to your queries. It’s important to all of us here at DGLM to read and respond to 100% of our queries in a timely fashion – and writers, feel free to check in if it’s been a few months with no response in case your email somehow went astray!

Let me also take this opportunity to encourage all writers to take submission guidelines very seriously, whether ours or other agencies’. They are not arbitrary but are designed to make the process clear and efficient for everyone involved; queries that do not include sample pages will get a very quick no from anyone here.

Best wishes with your work!

By: Kevin A. Lewis

Kevin A. Lewis — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 18:44:09 +0000

After some experimentation over time, I no longer send samples; agent’s wish lists being too vague and unreliable to warrant the effort. I write the best queries in the known universe, and at most of the larger agencies 85% or so of all queries are deleted unread, (depending on the number of unpaid interns floating around) so a better working motto is “sell the sizzle, not the steak.” Pairing the material with the reader is a nice ideal if you’re lucky that way..A writer who had to be forcibly restrained from wearing a Yoda costume to his high school prom is unlikely to produce plausible legal thrillers, and an agent who was bullied to tears by Dungeons & Dragons geeks in middle school probably isn’t the best audience for your 8-volume Tolkienesque epic about the Magic Trumpet of Queen Moonsilver. Oh, for an opening sentence inspired by Madame Coco: “So, there I was-cold, thoroughly used up and discarded with a locked door staring me in the face and a 50-franc bill in my hand. I knocked, not hopefully. “Uh, excuse me…Could you at least throw me my shoes? It’s raining out here!” No answer. What the hell, I thought, My pensione’s only a kilometer the other side of the Left Bank and I smelled great…