The Next Circle of Hell

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ink wench

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Good luck, YA!

neener_frog.jpg
Love it!
 

soulcascade

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I'm a noob too so I don't even know if what I did was exactly the protocol (but thank GOD it worked because it spared me the grief of writing another of those wretched queries!) :D We simply had lunch and I ran the idea by her (we had just gone on sub with novel 1 at that time). She said she thought it was great and I asked her when I should start showing her stuff. She said every author she had was different. Some liked to show her stuff as they went along (every fifty pages or so) while others waited until the book was done to get her thoughts. She left it up to me decide what I was comfortable with (which I can tell you does NOT involve writing queries, outlines or any type of synopsis.). Have I told you I love my agent? I. LOVE. MY. AGENT. :)

Awesomeness! You're lucky to have been able to meet your agent. Mine's in the states so there's no chance of me meeting her anytime soon :(

I didn't even realize you could show your agent your work before it was finished *rubs chin* thanks for sharing this HC, I'll send my agent an e-mail soon and let her know what I'm working on :D
 

soulcascade

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Yikes! Good luck with the root canal!

As for that delicious little urge *sets up booth* - free t-shirts for all!

neener_frog.jpg

BWAHAHA!!

Today will be a wash. At work till noon then off to have a root canal done. The fun, it just never stops!

HC - I had that urge when I got R's about 8 months after I signed with agent man. I SO wanted to email back and say, nah nee boo boo! LOL I'm five.

Trixie - I find it harder and easier. Harder because I am putting more pressure on myself to write a REALLY great book. I'm a panster and when it stalls out, I panic. BUT, its also easier because agent man has the final say whether I write the story or not, so it takes the pressure off to come up with something fantastic and spend months getting it perfect only to have him say, nah. I find the more I write, the more I slow down and plan though. Its to the point where I have to have a general idea where I'm going to get there.

maddr - OMG If E hates this idea I am done! LOL It is so cool!! And funny as hell! (At least I hope so!)

I got an R just yesterday from an agent (I sent the query FIVE MONTHS AGO!) and it took a LOT not to reply with a *nya nya nya*!

YA, So you tell your agent your idea first and then write? You're right it'd save time/worry that agent wouldn't like it. YARK I'm about 2/3 done my current WIP but didn't run it by agent yet, *face palm* I did it a$$ backwards! Here's hoping she likes it...*goes to bang head on keyboard*
 

YAwriter72

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Actually I give him the first 50 or so pages with a rough outline. Then he tells me whether or not he thinks it will work. Of course he can still say no after its done. (Which he did with the last one, so I have to rewrite it again)

And once i told him about three ideas I had and he told me which one he thought would be the best to focus on. Don't get me wrong, he never says, "Don't write it" just, "I think this is a good one to work on"
 

kellion92

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Sorry about the root canal, YA.

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I am finding the writing experience ery different now that I have an agent. The book on sub is the only one that I have written, and like HC, I spent a long time (too long) researching before I finally was driven to get started. I had it pretty well plotted out, but I wrote alone, not knowing whether it was any good, really writing for myself at first as an escape during a difficult time. I didn't have anyone read it until it was "done," and that first and only reader was my husband, who doesn't count from a critical point of view (but of course he counts in every other way!)

Now with my WIP I'm trying something a bit more difficult structurally (two MC with equal importance) but I have to be sure that ONE SPECIFIC reader likes it -- my agent. If she doesn't, or I have two choices: trunk it, or get a new agent. So I think I'm a little trepidatious. I shared the idea with her, and she was only mildly encouraging, which I wasn't expecting. I've only worked with her since September. She only likes to read fulls, not outlines or partials. That's good, because I don't want to "write to order" and change an outline around at her direction, and since I'm not used to outside readers, I don't want her to see an unpolished partial until I'm really happy with the entire structure of the novel. But then again, I could finish it, and she could dislike it.

Having an agent means that in addition to my own writer's doubts, I have to worry about my agent's doubts too.
 

soulcascade

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Sorry about the root canal, YA.

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I am finding the writing experience ery different now that I have an agent. The book on sub is the only one that I have written, and like HC, I spent a long time (too long) researching before I finally was driven to get started. I had it pretty well plotted out, but I wrote alone, not knowing whether it was any good, really writing for myself at first as an escape during a difficult time. I didn't have anyone read it until it was "done," and that first and only reader was my husband, who doesn't count from a critical point of view (but of course he counts in every other way!)

Now with my WIP I'm trying something a bit more difficult structurally (two MC with equal importance) but I have to be sure that ONE SPECIFIC reader likes it -- my agent. If she doesn't, or I have two choices: trunk it, or get a new agent. So I think I'm a little trepidatious. I shared the idea with her, and she was only mildly encouraging, which I wasn't expecting. I've only worked with her since September. She only likes to read fulls, not outlines or partials. That's good, because I don't want to "write to order" and change an outline around at her direction, and since I'm not used to outside readers, I don't want her to see an unpolished partial until I'm really happy with the entire structure of the novel. But then again, I could finish it, and she could dislike it.

Having an agent means that in addition to my own writer's doubts, I have to worry about my agent's doubts too.


Humm...my amateur advice would be to write for yourself. I think it's impossible to write *for* someone else or write a story that you know someone else will like, so just try your best.

BTW you're first novel must've been hella good to get an agent when it was your very first (!) and you *only* had your husband read it (!)
 

kellion92

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Soul, after a failed stint as a creative writing major (switched to history), I am wary of critique groups. Plus I didn't find this site until after I had an offer from my agent! Next time I will try to find betas!

I don't why, but today the emptiness of my email box is really getting to me. I would love some kind of encouraging status report at some point, but I haven't heard a word.
 
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kellion92

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Ha ha! I just wish I didn't let my dislike of writing workshops stop me from writing so long. And it wasn't so much that the crits were difficult -- it was just that the major was so cliquish. I felt like I wasn't a "real" writer because I wasn't part of that. Very silly of me.
 

triceretops

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I'll usually throw up multiple ideas to agent to get their feel for which one stands the best chance. Sometimes I'll have agent follow every three chapters, so he/she can keep me on the right course. Other times I'll run through the whole manuscript, finish it, then edit/polish and turn it in. My agent, not me, has the deciding vote on what concept is going to draw the most attention.

After seven novels in four years, with no betas, I really try to write the first best pages/chapters with as much voice/style as I can. Whether it's an action opener or a dialogue or psyche opener, it doesn't matter. I know what works now to suck the reader in, and it's all in HOW I write it and purvey my thoughts. The overall concept/idea of the story is right up there in importance. I used to write whatever the hell I damn well pleased, not realizing that it might bore the reader silly. I now try to leave the reader hanging, wanting to find out where this thing is going. So, you could say I'm more bold or experimental. I don't need to explain everything away--it's okay to leave some plants, red herrings, or veer from the path.

I've learned not to give up on myself. If agent finds fault with four novels in a row, and offers NO guidance on how to fix ANY of it, I don't trunk four novels. I trunk agent. Then I sell those books he rejected, and even cop a new agent from one. Vindication. Anything can be fixed...except a really lackluster concept.

Tri

Tri
 

shinta

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Enjoyed reading the part about working on the wip but not the part about the root canal.
Hope it ends well, YAwriter72.

Yep, connected with agent( phew!). On submission. Officially a hellion. Please make room for me. Let the masochism begin.
 

kellion92

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Yay, Shinta! Congrat.

Tri, you give your agent a chance on four novels in a row? Tri, you have more patience, stamina, and confidence than I do. You impress me.
 

Juneluv12

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Enjoyed reading the part about working on the wip but not the part about the root canal.
Hope it ends well, YAwriter72.

Yep, connected with agent( phew!). On submission. Officially a hellion. Please make room for me. Let the masochism begin.


:snoopy:Whoo, hoo! That's awesome! Welcome to our Hell! LOL
 

triceretops

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What's worse is that we planned those books out--brainstormed everything. This was right about the time that his non-fiction celeb clients started making headlines and getting options and movie deals. His non-fiction sales sky-rocketed. I just think he didn't have his heart in fiction anymore--his sales were abysmal, I mean truly bad for a five-year period. The straw that broke this back was when he removed all of the fiction bios and excerpts from his website (27 of us). Whether this was out of shame or just economizing his bandwidth, I'll never know, but that was it for me. Writers can stubbornly refuse to wake up and smell the coffee, even when they know something isn't right in agentville. Notwithstanding, when he began to tell me to print up my own fulls and send them (with his name attached) to the major houses, I knew it was going to end very badly.

I'm glad I jumped ship, actually. He's a non-fiction agency, pure and simple. Even though fiction is a terribly hard gig today, you need someone who has that sparkle in their eyes for it. A positive attitude. You don't need to be told "No one is buying fiction today." They're still buying it all right, just less of it. And sure, it has to be dynamite. The proof is in this thread.

Tri
 

Wordwrestler

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Enjoyed reading the part about working on the wip but not the part about the root canal.
Hope it ends well, YAwriter72.

Yep, connected with agent( phew!). On submission. Officially a hellion. Please make room for me. Let the masochism begin.

Go, Shinta! I hope you've stocked up on chocolate!

Tri, good for you for believing in your work and making the difficult decision to do what you had to do!
 

OL

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My agent is the same, thankfully. I don't think I could write an outline before writing a novel to save my life. Well, maybe to save my life. But it's not how I work.

Let's see. How do I write differently now? Some of it is that I learn something every time I finish a book, so the writing goes differently because of that. Some of it is definitely this sense that, OMG, I have to live up to what I did before, I need to make Agent happy, can he sell this? Will the publisher want it? It's definitely a new and fabulous layer of stress that I had never encountered before.

I'm also more tightly focused on what it is I'm trying to do -- since my first book is in the realm of quirky suspense (kinda), when I started this one, I kept that firmly in mind from the first word of the book, so I knew what kind of a mood I was trying to create (rather than writing my way into it, as I frequently do) and that I wanted to move things along quickly (rather than taking thirty or so pages to do so or starting off with a slow build).

I'm finally seeing the end of the first draft (I am a slow writer) and feeling a a lot better about the whole thing, but there have been so many times where I've had that, OMG this whole thing is going to collapse in a steaming pile of, you know, it makes no sense, I can't make it make sense, where's the story? ARGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! and this is all amplified by that, "I have to produce a follow-up to the book that sold. I have to write something that will sell" obligation.

So I am super grateful that Agent hasn't pressured me to write an outline, show him stuff (unless/until I want to), because I definitely need time to sit with the whole thing and figure it out.

Oddly enough, I'll still take this kind of "job stress" over just about anything else I've ever done. So there you go.



I'm a noob too so I don't even know if what I did was exactly the protocol (but thank GOD it worked because it spared me the grief of writing another of those wretched queries!) :D We simply had lunch and I ran the idea by her (we had just gone on sub with novel 1 at that time). She said she thought it was great and I asked her when I should start showing her stuff. She said every author she had was different. Some liked to show her stuff as they went along (every fifty pages or so) while others waited until the book was done to get her thoughts. She left it up to me decide what I was comfortable with (which I can tell you does NOT involve writing queries, outlines or any type of synopsis.). Have I told you I love my agent? I. LOVE. MY. AGENT. :)
 

YAwriter72

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I'm done! Half my face is numb, but I got to watch Pirates of the Caribbean while he did it, so my mind was elsewhere. :tongue (The drooling was totally because of the Novocaine! LOL

Just waiting for it to wear off. This morning I wrote 5 more pages of notes on new story that has no name. Seriously, its writing itself! I am giddy! Numb but giddy! LOL
 
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