I disagree with a lot of what is being said here. I am also a published writer and, with all due respect, I would like to provide a different perspective.
I'd like to start by saying something that I think Angela forgot to mention. Just because something works for one writer/person, doesn't mean it's going to work for another writer/person. I say this because I disagree with this ten-step program, while other writers might love it, and others might disagree with it even more than I do. More than anything: when it comes to writing advice that is given with the intent to blanket over all other advice is dangerous. Look for guidelines and suggestions; there are very few strict rules.
The ten steps above state that you should edit your story at least six times, and that you'll probably repeat that process for another six. If you need to edit your novel twelve times then you are probably doing something drastically wrong. If your first draft is comprised of scattered notes on where scenes are going to fit in, and then your second draft is written out as fast as possible with no regard for mistakes ("just get it on the page!" type writing), then editing six times is something that has to happen.
If you are a diligent planner, however, then it's okay to edit fewer times. If you are writing commercially, with the intent to make money and tell a good story but not interested in the more artistic side of writing, then it's okay to edit fewer times. If you write your first draft slowly, and constantly read back every few thousand words before you begin writing again, then it's okay to edit fewer times.
I also feel that the ten-steps does not put enough emphasis on someone else reading your work. This is vital. This might be one of the strict rules of writing. When you read back your own work, even after letting it sit in a drawer for a month, you'll still remember a lot of it and intuitively know what you were trying to say in each scene. You might not notice what's difficult to understand, or what's confusing, or where you had too many words in a sentence. You know what you were trying to say already, so you will likely see that. Someone else will see through all of that.
The final time you edit should also be down out loud. Personally, I'm fortunate enough that my wife is also a writer so we can help each other. We read each other's work out loud to check for any final mistakes: missing words, missing/extra commas, the wrong word being used (peek/peak). Reading your novel out loud will also let you know when a sentence has gone on too long, or when something is really confusing. At the very least, you should speak all of the lines of dialogue in your story to make sure it sounds natural enough that someone would actually say it.
You find agents out there that represent you work. There are 100's (google is your friend). Make sure they are open to submissions.
Now, contacting an agent and writing a query letter is its own beast completely separate from writing your novel. This part sucks. There's no way around it. It really, really, REALLY sucks. This, in my humble opinion, is the most soul-draining, life-crushing, shitty part of being a writer. It doesn't suck because of all of the rejections--they help though, more on that below--but because of the sheer amount of work that has to go into this.
For a start, here's an article on how to write a good query letter:
Bransford blog is a good resource for other information too, although the articles are a few years old at this point.
Here's why finding an agent is one of the most tedious things you will ever do:
Agents have their contact details listed on websites such as those I linked above. Those contact details have their own websites listed, so that you can verify the information. Now, seeing as agents are really busy people and get sent thousands of queries a year, they don't always keep this information updated. So be prepared to find conflicting information between AgentQuery and the agency's website. Do they accept fantasy? Only urban fantasy? While AgentQuery says they accept all genre fiction, but the agency's website says they don't take any. There's also a different email address listed on both. Which one do I send it to? This person has spelled their last name differently in two different places!
Maybe some exaggeration there on the last point. You will also find: links to websites that don't exist, websites that have been under construction for since 2001, a rabbit hole of contact details that ends with the person not even being an agent anymore, email addresses that don't exist, email addresses that bounce back with a failed-to-receive error, highly sought after agents that have hotmail email addresses, agents that state any attachment will be seen as a virus and will be deleted, agents that state any pasted text in the email should be placed in attachment or otherwise deleted, agents that state they want the first three chapters and a synopsis but don't clarify whether they want an attachment or not, agents that only want pdfs, agents that only want word docs. This list goes on and on.
Add to that:
1) You should also take the time to find some way to personalize the email to show the agent you at least visited their website. You also need to spend a while on said website making sure they represent your genre and that they didn't recently publish a book that's exactly like yours.
2) You need to edit your query letter just as much as your novel, because the SLIGHTEST mistake will cause most agents to discard your email. It will show you can't even proofread a few hundred words in an email, so how is your novel going to be any better? Again, you should read this out loud.
3) Triple check the email address and names are correct. Triple check you attached the right files or you pasted the correct amount at the end of the email.
And after doing all this hundreds of times for each agent:
1) 10% of the emails you just wrote, that you just meticulously edited, personalized, triple-checked, and investigated websites to make sure they were accurate, will bounce back with a failed email address and will be dead-ends.
2) 20% won't answer at all.
3) 60% will reject you with a form letter. "The publishing industry is highly subjective, so do not feel that your work is the reason we are rejecting you. Finding an agent means finding someone that is the right match for your book." Also, most of these will be addressed DEAR AUTHOR--and I mean literally the word "AUTHOR" at the top of the email, after you spent so much time personalizing the email and getting their name right.
4) 5% will be rejections that have some sort of feedback. I have never received constructive feedback from these rejections. It has always been either passive-aggressive links to the agent's blog where they shit over self-published work and say they were never consider something that has been self-published, or a downright surreal comment like "we do not publish anything written in the first-person". Thanks for putting that on your website so I could find that out!
5) The final 5% will be requests for more materials. You will provide said materials and then not hear from them for months. These are the replies that will make you happy you put so much time into your queries, but they will also be a source of frustration because the publishing industry moves very slowly.
So, again, try to take advice like:
LISTEN TO THE REJECTIONS
with a grain of salt. Do not go back an edit your novel after being rejected unless they are giving specific reasons for rejecting you. Many agents won't even read the sample chapters you give them. If you're feeling lucky, email them back and ask for some constructive criticism--only one agent that has rejected me has ever obliged this request, and I have sent out hundreds of these things--and then consider what they've said.
HaloShy18 karma
I disagree with a lot of what is being said here. I am also a published writer and, with all due respect, I would like to provide a different perspective.
I'd like to start by saying something that I think Angela forgot to mention. Just because something works for one writer/person, doesn't mean it's going to work for another writer/person. I say this because I disagree with this ten-step program, while other writers might love it, and others might disagree with it even more than I do. More than anything: when it comes to writing advice that is given with the intent to blanket over all other advice is dangerous. Look for guidelines and suggestions; there are very few strict rules.
The ten steps above state that you should edit your story at least six times, and that you'll probably repeat that process for another six. If you need to edit your novel twelve times then you are probably doing something drastically wrong. If your first draft is comprised of scattered notes on where scenes are going to fit in, and then your second draft is written out as fast as possible with no regard for mistakes ("just get it on the page!" type writing), then editing six times is something that has to happen.
If you are a diligent planner, however, then it's okay to edit fewer times. If you are writing commercially, with the intent to make money and tell a good story but not interested in the more artistic side of writing, then it's okay to edit fewer times. If you write your first draft slowly, and constantly read back every few thousand words before you begin writing again, then it's okay to edit fewer times.
I also feel that the ten-steps does not put enough emphasis on someone else reading your work. This is vital. This might be one of the strict rules of writing. When you read back your own work, even after letting it sit in a drawer for a month, you'll still remember a lot of it and intuitively know what you were trying to say in each scene. You might not notice what's difficult to understand, or what's confusing, or where you had too many words in a sentence. You know what you were trying to say already, so you will likely see that. Someone else will see through all of that.
The final time you edit should also be down out loud. Personally, I'm fortunate enough that my wife is also a writer so we can help each other. We read each other's work out loud to check for any final mistakes: missing words, missing/extra commas, the wrong word being used (peek/peak). Reading your novel out loud will also let you know when a sentence has gone on too long, or when something is really confusing. At the very least, you should speak all of the lines of dialogue in your story to make sure it sounds natural enough that someone would actually say it.
Links that I've used recently:
http://aaronline.org/ http://www.agentquery.com/ http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/
You may want to google for more.
Now, contacting an agent and writing a query letter is its own beast completely separate from writing your novel. This part sucks. There's no way around it. It really, really, REALLY sucks. This, in my humble opinion, is the most soul-draining, life-crushing, shitty part of being a writer. It doesn't suck because of all of the rejections--they help though, more on that below--but because of the sheer amount of work that has to go into this.
For a start, here's an article on how to write a good query letter:
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/08/how-to-write-query-letter.html
Bransford blog is a good resource for other information too, although the articles are a few years old at this point.
Here's why finding an agent is one of the most tedious things you will ever do:
Agents have their contact details listed on websites such as those I linked above. Those contact details have their own websites listed, so that you can verify the information. Now, seeing as agents are really busy people and get sent thousands of queries a year, they don't always keep this information updated. So be prepared to find conflicting information between AgentQuery and the agency's website. Do they accept fantasy? Only urban fantasy? While AgentQuery says they accept all genre fiction, but the agency's website says they don't take any. There's also a different email address listed on both. Which one do I send it to? This person has spelled their last name differently in two different places!
Maybe some exaggeration there on the last point. You will also find: links to websites that don't exist, websites that have been under construction for since 2001, a rabbit hole of contact details that ends with the person not even being an agent anymore, email addresses that don't exist, email addresses that bounce back with a failed-to-receive error, highly sought after agents that have hotmail email addresses, agents that state any attachment will be seen as a virus and will be deleted, agents that state any pasted text in the email should be placed in attachment or otherwise deleted, agents that state they want the first three chapters and a synopsis but don't clarify whether they want an attachment or not, agents that only want pdfs, agents that only want word docs. This list goes on and on.
Add to that:
1) You should also take the time to find some way to personalize the email to show the agent you at least visited their website. You also need to spend a while on said website making sure they represent your genre and that they didn't recently publish a book that's exactly like yours.
2) You need to edit your query letter just as much as your novel, because the SLIGHTEST mistake will cause most agents to discard your email. It will show you can't even proofread a few hundred words in an email, so how is your novel going to be any better? Again, you should read this out loud.
3) Triple check the email address and names are correct. Triple check you attached the right files or you pasted the correct amount at the end of the email.
And after doing all this hundreds of times for each agent:
1) 10% of the emails you just wrote, that you just meticulously edited, personalized, triple-checked, and investigated websites to make sure they were accurate, will bounce back with a failed email address and will be dead-ends.
2) 20% won't answer at all.
3) 60% will reject you with a form letter. "The publishing industry is highly subjective, so do not feel that your work is the reason we are rejecting you. Finding an agent means finding someone that is the right match for your book." Also, most of these will be addressed DEAR AUTHOR--and I mean literally the word "AUTHOR" at the top of the email, after you spent so much time personalizing the email and getting their name right.
4) 5% will be rejections that have some sort of feedback. I have never received constructive feedback from these rejections. It has always been either passive-aggressive links to the agent's blog where they shit over self-published work and say they were never consider something that has been self-published, or a downright surreal comment like "we do not publish anything written in the first-person". Thanks for putting that on your website so I could find that out!
5) The final 5% will be requests for more materials. You will provide said materials and then not hear from them for months. These are the replies that will make you happy you put so much time into your queries, but they will also be a source of frustration because the publishing industry moves very slowly.
So, again, try to take advice like:
with a grain of salt. Do not go back an edit your novel after being rejected unless they are giving specific reasons for rejecting you. Many agents won't even read the sample chapters you give them. If you're feeling lucky, email them back and ask for some constructive criticism--only one agent that has rejected me has ever obliged this request, and I have sent out hundreds of these things--and then consider what they've said.
View HistoryShare Link