Category Archives: Jim

April 05, 2010   DG&B   favorites, feedback, fun, Jim, reading  
9

Jim told you what to read: A recap

by Jim

I had a lot of fun/was totally overwhelmed last Monday when I offered to suggest the next book any commenter should read based on the last five titles they had completed.

Beyond the fact that I love telling people what to do, it was an interesting challenge trying to draw connections between titles individuals had read (often without having read those books myself). And coming up with fresh books to recommend each time was tricky. Happily, since 2007, I have kept a list of everything I read.

For me, reading is a great individual pleasure, and there’s something exceedingly exciting about finding a novel on your own that you just tumble head over heels for. But there is something equally invigorating about finding yourself in a community of readers. I thank everyone who took part for sharing what they’ve read and entering that community for a moment. It was also an exciting opportunity to mentally revisit my own reading habits, and I can say that I’ve been browsing my bookshelves quite a bit over the past week. I was surprised to find that I didn’t recommend anyone read Prague by Arthur Phillips, a novel I adore and have tried to convince many people to read over the years. For some reason no one ever takes me up on it. So I’ll offer it as a group suggestion. It has one of my favorite openings ever, and there’s a small scene on a funicular over the river between Buda and Pest that thrilled me so much I can still remember the first time I read it.

One of the most interesting comments (I thought) came from Michael who noted: “Too lazy to check for myself but of all the books mentioned in the last five read list, has any book been mentioned by more than one reader? So much for the idea we all are reading today’s ‘Bestsellers’.”

Good question! I went through all the lists and counted. Five books were read by three people. They were:
Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls
Kathryn Stockett’s The Help
James Dashner’s The Maze Runner (repped by our very own Michael Bourret)
Gail Carriger’s Soulless
Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth (repped by yours truly)

Soulless totally surprised me. Two books that agents here represent makes sense since our readers might share an interest in…you know, us. Wintergirls and The Help are great big books that have gotten tons of attention. Soulless doesn’t seem to have those characteristics, which makes it kind of exciting. Are we seeing a book in the process of really breaking out? Go Gail Carriger!

And then one series truly set itself apart: seven people had read either The Hunger Games or its sequel Catching Fire. Rock on, Suzanne Collins. I haven’t loved a YA series more since Harry Potter. I root for the success of these books as a reader and a fan.

But let’s get to the MOST exciting part of my suggestions: the ones people have already taken! Three people have been in touch so far to let me know that they read what I suggested. How’d it go? Well…two hits and a miss.

Kristi had this to say: “I don’t often read books involving male protagonists but I absolutely loved “Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You.” It was a quick read but has stayed with me for several days and I love it when books do that to me.” Yay! This makes me happy.

About We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Joan offered this: “I loved it from the first page: “Everyone else in my family is dead.” And the magic continued throughout the book where she’d drop in little bombs like that… To me it felt like a mix of two of my favorites, Diane Setterfield’s Thirteenth Tale and Sarah Waters’ Little Stranger. I’m sure you’ve read them, but if not, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.” Hurrah! Success AND other recommendations. I’ve read the Setterfield but not the Waters. Add it to the list!

Peggy was less thrilled with her suggestion. “It was… OK…I’m glad I read something by de Maupassant, though, since he’s one of those authors I was probably supposed to read in high school and never did. I have found, as I have read those sorts of books through the years that most of them are disappointing. I suppose the moralistic tales that can teach us what to be – or not to be – in high school don’t have much effect on us years later.” Drat! Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all!

To wrap it all up, I got a lot out of this exercise and hope others got a bit of fun out of it as well. And I hope that if any more people do read the books I recommended, they let me know what they think, good or bad!

March 29, 2010   DG&B   advice, favorites, fun, Jim, lists, reading, Tournament of Books  
109

Jim will tell you what to read

by Jim

A few days back, John Warner, one of the commentators for The Tournament of Books, offered up a service. If you listed the last five books you had read, he would tell you what you should read next.

It sprang from a discussion about how we decide to choose what we read when we each know darn well that we’ll never get through every book out there. So a lot of folks stick with what they expect to like and might miss out on some great reads.

Unable to turn down something like this, I listed the last five books I had read (that weren’t work related). Warner suggested I read Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon. I groaned a bit since I had read a collection of Chaon’s short stories a few years back and was underwhelmed. I wouldn’t have picked his new novel up on my own without the recommendation, but I grabbed it that night and finished it this weekend. It’s a literary whodunit that is enervating and upsetting, beautiful and bleak. I loved it.

All of this said, the Tournament of Books commentators and readers seem to have a distinct literary fiction bias. The proportion of readers who included Sam Lipsyte’s The Ask in their past five was very telling (which is not an insult—it was in mine!). Knowing that we have readers who write across genres and for very different target audiences, I’d love to try to recreate Warner’s experiment here and see what the results are. What I’ll try to do (and I have no idea how this will work in practice) is recommend a little outside the box. Maybe an adult novel to someone whose last five reads were YA. Or a thriller to someone who skews more romantic. Or maybe there’s another book just like the ones you list that I’ll think you absolutely have to read. I will try to recommend only books that I have read but may have to turn it over to colleagues or our readers if I feel stumped. So let’s see if this works: just promise that you’ll let me know if and when you actually read the book—y’all can find my email address!

Update: A little confusion–sorry for my lack of clarity! Post the titles in the comments, and I’ll give the recommendation there. You should email me if you read the book and/or want to chat about my choice!

March 22, 2010   DG&B   advice, dialogue, Jim, writing  
2

Dialogue tips

by Jim

It’s my opinion that one of the elements that trips writers up more than any other is dialogue. Understandably so. Creating independent voices for each of your characters is hard enough. Also making sure that the natural flow of conversation is always present while simultaneously using it to move the plot forward? That’s damn tricky.

I went looking for a handy set of guidelines for dealing with dialogue and found a really impressive one on About.com. Who knew?

As always when it comes to writing, the rules are made to be broken, and blah, blah, blah. But really…follow the rules. They’re pretty dead on.

March 15, 2010   DG&B   future of publishing, Jim, optimism, reading  
2

The future of the written word

by Jim

Peter Miller has been logging interesting reports from the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin. This one in particular amuses me.

We in publishing are obviously concerned with the future of epublishing and where the ebook will take us. But those folks who seem to think we’re all on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg are all a bit too panicky for my taste.

No matter how many twits are tweeting or how many people buy the unbelievably badly named iPad; whether books will develop interactivity in the electronic age or formats actually become open, this remains a business about the written word.

It’s so now to be convinced that the industry is outmoded and to cast about blame rather than looking for actual solutions. It’s nice to see someone at SXSWi with an open mind toward the potential developments of the future who also isn’t about to ignore the fact that publishing has already survived other potentially crushing developments like movies and television.

I’m excited to see whatever the future looks like, as long as I can keep reading.

March 08, 2010   DG&B   advice, Jim, queries, slush week  
34

Slush Week: The recap

by Jim

So kids, did we learn anything from Slush Week? We hope so! Obviously, the subject of query letters is one that makes some authors very tense. I noted a touch more hostility among our commenters than ever before! And I understand. It’s an enormously frustrating process. Even from this vantage point I can see that. Hopefully, though, the exercise helped to further demystify the procedure at least a touch. Here’s what I consider the takeaway:

–For those who weren’t sure, the final tally was 6 passes and 3 requests: Jane, Chasya, Miriam, Stacey, Michael, and I would have passed. Jessica, Rachel, and Lauren would have requested more.

–There’s a lot of okay happening: That was a solid representation of what our inboxes actually look like. One we sort out the queries that make terribly obvious mistakes like addressing us by the wrong names, we’re left with a lot of queries that are very…okay. I can’t remember who said it to me all those years ago when I first hit the slush pile, but: “If it isn’t a yes, then it’s a no.” There’s no “maybe” option with unsolicited queries. We request things, or we don’t. And with the volume that’s coming in and the number of clients we already have, there often isn’t the chance to consider material if you’re waffling after the query. So often you won’t be turned down because you’ve written a bad query but because you haven’t written one that’s great. It’s a fine line but a crucial one.

–Compare yourself to other authors, but not all of them: There was a touch of confusion about our recommendation to compare yourself to other authors, particularly when Miriam had just said not to compare your work to “canonical titles.” “Canonical” is the key word there. We want to know who of today’s authors you’ll be shelved with. The comparative titles should give us an idea of the type of work you have and who you see your audience as. Once you start getting into the classics, well…it’s dangerous territory. You can compare yourself to great writers working today—let’s say you’re writing a novel from multiple point of views that you say is reminiscent on Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin. That’s bold, but I’d be on board if the writing bore it out. But if you tell me you’ve written the next Anna Karenina, my response will be, “Oh, realllllllllly?” Keep it contemporary, and don’t be a braggart. Be careful about comparisons to massive bestsellers: comparing your book to successful authors who aren’t the most obvious choices (as in, not Dan Brown) gives us a stronger sense of what sort of book you’re writing and also shows that you really do know your category—not to mention that you’re less likely to be comparing yourself to the same author as everyone else in the slush pile.

–Be straightforward: you want to give us enough information to want to read more. As Jessica pointed out, it could take two single-spaced pages to do that. More often, it does not. Give us a snapshot of what your book is in the most concise way possible while still focusing on what makes it stand apart. It’s a taller order than it sounds, but it is the recipe to success.

–This is subjective: I was surprised when I saw that Michael suggested not to make your query sound too much like cover copy as I’ve given quite a few workshops at conferences where I told people to study just that copy and use it as a model for how to frame a query. That, in itself, is probably enormously frustrating to authors. But the truth is, there’s no such thing as a perfect query, and people respond to different things. It IS a subjective business. Remember that just because one person doesn’t have a positive reaction to your work doesn’t mean the next won’t.

–There are no right answers, only wrong ones. Bottom line: you can screw up a query by being too boastful, rude, silly, gimmicky, or underinformed. Once you’ve avoided all of those things, you have to rely a bit on kismet—whether your letter hits the right person at the right time, whether it sounds like something they think they can sell, if anything too similar has hit their slush pile on the same day, if they already have a project that would compete with it.

At the end of the week, what I can say is that we honestly are looking for those books that break out of the slush pile and grab our attention. The query itself is, as a commenter noted, simply a means to an end. You want to convince us that we want to read more, and we honestly do want to be convinced. So as frustrating and unnerving as the process is, do keep trying.

Any lingering questions still unanswered? Did you feel like you learned enough for us to do this again down the road?

March 01, 2010   DG&B   advice, Jim, queries, slush week  
11

Jim’s Slush Week entry

by Jim

(For details on Slush Week, see Chasya’s introduction.)

Let’s all take a look at the query on its own first, and then I’ll break it down with my comments inserted after the jump!

Dear SLUSH WEEK SUBMISSIONS,

Half-Angel, Half-Demon, Alexsi Marks must balance the war between Heaven and Hell, without losing her soul in the process…

For Alexsi, life is challenging, if routine, until the night a demon tries to kill her. Finding out about her parentage is a shock, but learning she has both demonic and angelic magic opens the door to truth and shadows. When her friends are attacked and her apartment cleaned out-the jerks even took her damn cat-Alexsi has no choice but to follow the mysterious, alluring James and flee to the Sanctuary, a haven for those with angel blood. It doesn’t keep her safe from her dreams, however, or the sexy demon Declan from trying to seduce her. Alexsi faces distrust and anger on all sides, leading to a challenge beyond the gates of Heaven, or Hell. She must overcome those trying to kill her, while walking a fine line between her good side and her wicked one.

WHERE ANGELS TREAD is an Urban Fantasy complete at 99k words. I am a finalist in the Houston RWA chapter’s 2010 Emily Award, Paranormal Romance category. My memberships include RWA, FFnP, Online Romance Writers and my local chapter Desert Rose, as well as East Valley Writers.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I have included XXX per your submission guidelines.

Sincerely,
(Author’s name)

Dear SLUSH WEEK SUBMISSIONS,

Half-Angel, Half-Demon, Alexsi Marks must balance the war between Heaven and Hell, without losing her soul in the process…

I have a few concerns about this opening. I question the capitalization of “Angel” and “Half-Demon,” and the ellipsis bothers me: it feels gimmicky. Just use the period. We know there’s more to come. My bigger concern is with “must balance the war between Heaven and Hell.” What’s she balancing the war with?

For Alexsi, life is challenging, if routine, until the night a demon tries to kill her. (This sentence feels a little clunky. First, starting with “life is challenging, if routine” doesn’t really tell us much. It feels a bit like filler. Try something like, “Alexsi lives a normal life until the night…” or “Alexsi’s life becomes challenging the night…”) Finding out about her parentage is a shock (finding out what about her parentage? We can guess she’s discovering that her parents are an angel and a demon, but that isn’t actually stated), but learning she has both demonic and angelic magic opens the door to truth and shadows (“the door to truth and shadows” could be a lovely metaphor, but it’s a little vague here. You’re working under such space constraints. Why not just tell us: “Alexsi learns that she is the offspring of an angel and a demon and possesses the magical abilities of both of her parents.”). When her friends are attacked and her apartment cleaned out-the jerks even took her damn cat-Alexsi has no choice but to follow the mysterious, alluring James and flee to the Sanctuary, a haven for those with angel blood. (Who is James? How did she find Sanctuary? Are her friends attacked because of who/what Alexsi is? The biggest challenge in queries is deciding which information to share. You’re parsing so much material into a paragraph. You really need to focus on clarity and making the story as understandable as possible. I feel like you’re trying to focus on the exciting elements here, which makes sense, but you’re letting that get in the way of comprehensibility). It doesn’t keep her safe from her dreams, however, or the sexy demon Declan from trying to seduce her. (Again: more questions than answers here. Is Declan IN her dreams? Is she concerned about her dreams on a metaphysical level, or are there actual physical threats to her IN her dreams? In urban fantasy, it’s so tough to know exactly what the rules are—it makes queries even more challenging, I know!) Alexsi faces distrust and anger on all sides, leading to a challenge beyond the gates of Heaven, or Hell. She must overcome those trying to kill her, while walking a fine line between her good side and her wicked one. (These last two sentences are great, but I don’t know at this point why she’s facing distrust and anger, who is trying to kill her and why, or what ways she is trying to walk this fine line. Sometimes you can tell us more by telling us less. I’d focus on reworking this paragraph with the goal of clarity in mind. In these last two sentences, I get a sense of the feel of the book, but because the description coming beforehand was confusing, I don’t have as much of a sense of the actual content. In my opinion, the best queries focus more on getting across very general details with extreme clarity than on getting as much information in as possible.)

WHERE ANGELS TREAD is an Urban Fantasy complete at 99k words. I am a finalist in the Houston RWA chapter’s 2010 Emily Award, Paranormal Romance category. My memberships include RWA, FFnP, Online Romance Writers and my local chapter Desert Rose, as well as East Valley Writers.

Perfect. Appreciate that it’s just the facts here and shows a seriousness and dedication to your writing.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I have included XXX per your submission guidelines.

We do love it when people follow the guidelines!

Sincerely,
(Author’s name)

February 23, 2010   DG&B   about us, advice, fun, Jim, our clients, queries, romance, what we're looking for, why I signed up  
6

Why I signed up….

by Jim

Story time! In January 2008, I received a query for a historical romance novel from an author who was friends with one of my clients and critique partners with another client of the agency. I do represent romance novels and have expressed that I’m open to historicals, but it’s not a subgenre I work in often. That aside, the author, Darcy Burke, had crafted an excellent query, and it didn’t hurt that she had references. So I requested and read her novel Glorious.

The novel was quite strong, but I decided to pass. For a real peek behind the curtain, here’s the letter I sent Darcy passing on the project:

Dear Darcy,

Thanks much for the opportunity to consider Glorious, which I read with great interest. Unfortunately, I’m going to be passing at this time.

This was a tough one for me. You’re obviously a talented writer, and this could very well be a marketable manuscript. That said, historical romance is a category that I really don’t know. When I venture into new genres for the first time, it has to be with a book that I’m completely blown away by. Without that driving passion, my inexperience in the category prevents me from being the best possible agent for the project. Though I did very much enjoy this read, I’m not ultimately convinced enough in my own ability to place this successfully in order to offer you representation.

Sorry not to have better news on this one. I do hope you’ll keep me in mind in the future.


All best,


Jim

Happily, Darcy did keep me in mind. Over the next year or two, she worked on a new novel, still historical romance, called The Earl’s Obsession, and she queried me anew on December 21 of last year. I requested it the day before we closed for the holidays and read it over Christmas in Colorado.

The Earl’s Obsession did exactly what it needed to do for me. It introduced me to two incredible lead characters—the arrogant Earl of Saxton, Jasper, and the orphaned seamstress Olivia—who registered so fully and naturally that I couldn’t help rooting for them, even as they often provided their own biggest obstacles. They were flawed, passionate, obstinate people, matched in the strength of their convictions, if not the convictions themselves.

But then Darcy did herself one better: rather than just give me characters that felt fresh and new, she conquered the greatest challenge of genre writing: making the outcome of the plot unpredictable while also managing to satisfy the reader. It might come as a surprise in a romance novel if the two romantic leads don’t end up together, but it wouldn’t be a happy surprise. On the flip side, if you’re slogging through 300 pages just waiting for the inevitable, you’ll be bored silly. Darcy kept me on my toes with enough flips, twists, and turns to keep me fully engaged all the way, while also knowing that I was in the most confident of hands.

I offered to represent Darcy the day we got back from the holidays. Happily, she said yes! Right now, she’s working on some light editorial feedback that I sent her way, and we’ll be taking the project out to editors shortly. Fingers will remain tightly crossed.

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that I only sign on people who were referred. Sure, Darcy knows one of my clients. Still, if I didn’t love her novel, it wouldn’t be to either of our advantage for me to offer to sign her on. Most of my clients did come straight from the slush pile. What I think this particular story illustrates, though, is that if an agent leaves a door open to resubmit in the future, they mean it. Trust me: I’m not asking everyone to send me more material. Just because the fit isn’t right yet doesn’t mean it won’t be.

I’m excited to share Darcy’s work with editors in the near future and hope to have that happiest of endings to report soon. In the meantime, you can get Darcy’s reaction to getting an agent and lots of insight into her writing process and background over at Romance Writers on the Journey.

February 22, 2010   DG&B   advice, Jim, Stacey, writing  
8

Elmore Leonard tells you how to write

by Jim

I’d never seen Elmore Leonard’s list of ten writing rules before today. If it so happens that you haven’t either, I direct you to the Gotham Writers’ Workshop’s website. I came across the list via Mark Sarvas’s blog The Elegant Variation where he derides Leonard’s advice as “unhinged dipshitery.” I disagree. Now, of course we all know that rules are made to be broken, but there’s an awful lot of good sense here. And beyond that, Leonard’s a far better writer than Sarvas (in my opinion!). And #1: “Never open a book with weather?” That’s just great advice.

Leonard’s real point is that anything that can be cut should be cut. No one wants to see writing just for writing’s sake. So cut out the flibber-flabber and send us a novel that’s tight!

And, of course, take these things with a grain of salt. And look again to the advice of the other authors that Stacey pointed out on Friday. No one knows how you work, so there are no perfect answers, but it’s always good to take a look at the advice of others, especially those you respect, and sort out the good from the bad for yourself. But do take EVERY piece of Margaret Atwood’s advice because she’s delightful and would never lead you astray.

February 16, 2010   DG&B   critiques, guest post, Jim, our clients, writing  
23

Beta reader basics, a guest post

by Jim

For something a little different today, we have a guest blog post from my wonderful and talented client Jennifer Schubert whose hugely exciting thriller, BROKEN, is out on submission right now!

Jenn contacted me last week about whether we wanted to post on our thoughts on authors critiquing each other’s work. But ours is such an outsider’s perspective on this. My take is that feedback is always wonderful if you can take it in constructively. I’ve never been in the position of taking it since I don’t write, and when I offer it, it’s from a sales perspective. So I thought it made more sense for the expert herself to offer up some bon mots. And happily, Jenn provided us with the below!

Why a beta reader?

Every writer needs feedback. We crave it, for one. That’s what writing is about, the exhibition of the soul, the desire to tell a story and to be judged by it. Every piece of work should be run through a filter, preferably an impartial one, to show where we’re going wrong. Because we are going wrong somewhere. No one is perfect. Everything can stand improvement.

One of the best learning tools is to switch sides and be a beta reader. I’ve learned as much about writing by critiquing others’ works as I have by writing myself. It’s much easier to see the flaws in other people’s work than our own.

How to give a crit without breaking a heart

I’ve been privileged to do a lot of beta reading in my writing journey. I’m a believer in the “sandwich” technique: single out a good thing first, then tackle some of the problem areas, and close with another good thing. Not everyone agrees with this approach, but I’ve found people respond better if criticism is softened with praise, and there’s always something to praise. (An English teacher of mine used to tell people, a bit desperately, “You have lovely handwriting.”)

How to take a crit without throwing a fit

The reaction to a critique ranges widely, but generally falls into two categories. The first group meets a critique, no matter how gentle, with defensiveness. Their reaction is to argue. You, the beta reader, just didn’t understand what the writer was trying to say. Sure, you say, but if you have to explain it to me, it wasn’t very well-written, was it?

The second group says “thank you” and buckles down to edits. A few hours, days, or weeks later, you get the material back and it’s better. You suggest more changes, more tweaks. They go back to work. Maybe the end result isn’t perfect, but they’re willing to work hard to make it as good as it can be.

Like many of us, I started out in the first, or thin-skinned, group. I was fortunate to have a mentor who talked me out of that. Because I wanted to be a writer so badly, I toughened up. Of course hearing that your work isn’t letter-perfect is hard, but the critiquer’s job is to help. Maybe they’re paying it forward. Maybe they believe in you, believe in your work, and want to help make it better.

My question for you is: which group are you in? Are you thin-skinned, or are you tough enough to take a critique designed to help make your writing better? And are you critiquing for others? If so, what are you learning from it?

February 08, 2010   DG&B   Jim, memoir, nonfiction, opinion, publishers, romance  
10

Real love

by Jim

In one of those ideas so simple that you can’t figure out why no one else thought of it sooner, publisher HCI is launching a real life romance series. Actual love stories will be turned into romance novels—it’s sort of the book version of reality TV.

There’s something kind of fantastic about the idea of reading romance novels where what happens between the covers not only CAN happen but already did.

Or am I wrong? Will the real life couple out there ruin the fantasy of it all? I personally think it could be a super idea.

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