THE FIRST THIRTY PAGES

Based on my recent submissions and responses, I've learned that the first thirty pages are absolutely critical. I knew that in theory, of course, from three writers conferences, nearly ten years of Writer's Digest subscriptions, a bookcase full of writing books, and Noah Lukeman's book The First Five Pages (okay, so he undercuts me by twenty-five pages, but still. . .). But I underestimated their importance and, as much work as I put into my book and as seriously as I took revision (and I did), I never REALLY did the work necessary to make my first thirty pages as polished as they could be.

Because one of the things that I learned is that it's those first thirty pages that gets a reader hooked and, at least in the case of agents, that investment leads to requests for partials, which leads to requests for fulls, which leads to, among other things, the purchasing of palatial digs just down the street from James Patterson.

But perhaps I get ahead of myself.

In any event, this summer I took those first thirty pages (which, in many cases, will be roughly the length of the requested partial, anyway) and I studied them, disected them, rewrote them, passed them around, incorporated suggestions, rewrote them again, put commas in, took commas out, wrote new scenes, shortened other ones, rearranged still other ones, deepened the characters, broadened the setting, varied the sentence structure, and in every way possible made them sing.

Then I continued on with the rest of the novel.

Page by page.

Now that summer is on the wane, the ultimate goal is to have a brand new version of Godtalk to submit in the Fall when I return to my job as a high school English teacher. I do feel the newest version is markedly improved. But I sacredly refuse to send out any more queries until I have a brand new draft--start to finish--and can proudly say my YA novel is immediately available. My guess is that should be somewhere around October.

If they liked Godtalk before, maybe this time some agent will find it irresistable.

Anyone know James Patterson's zip code?

DETAILS, DETAILS

After the crazy submission weekend in May, and thanks to the insightful comments of two fellow YA writer friends, I decided that more revision was in order. People were responding to the query, people were responding to the story, people were responding to the writing style. But no one fell in love with any of it enough to make a commitment.

That left only one or two possible problems. Either the pace was off for some reason (too fast, too slow, too jerky, something)or the architecture was the problem (i.e., the overall structure). Thanks again to my YA writer pals, I was able to identify problems with the pacing and structure, as well as problems they identified with a pesky little thing known as detail. In other words, in some areas I wasn't painting a clear, precise, or specific enough picture of what these characters were thinking, doing, interacting with. . .or what the setting specifically looks, sounds, smells, feels like. Ah, but what details add depth and precision and what details are filler, padding, and, well, just plain crap?

That's the important distinction.

And as one of my critique partners pointed out, "Knowing which details to include and which to omit is the difference between writing a book and writing a book that sells."

Smart woman.

NO MUSE IS GOOD MUSE

In the interest of efficiency, and due to some issues I was dealing with in my personal life, there was a time recently where e-mail queries were working better for me. So one Thursday night in May, I sat on our bed with our laptop and sent out seven queries.

I sent out four e-queries the first night (Thursday) and by 9:00 a.m. the next morning, I already had a request from the Kirsten Manges Literary Agency for the full manuscript (she said she enjoyed my query and would be "delighted" to consider the manuscript) and from PMA Literary and Film Management (their agency seems HUGE!), a partial (my synopsis "intrigued" them)!! The only problem was that Kirsten Manges wanted an exclusive.

The next night I sent out three queries and by Monday (which was a holiday for me, so I was off work), David Austern at Liza Dawson Agency requested the full manuscript!! Two requests for a full and one partial from seven queries. And all from NYC heavy-hitters.

I was, like, so stoked!!

So on Tuesday when I returned to work, I e-mailed Kirsten Manges and told her that I would love to send her the manuscript, but that I couldn't grant her an exclusive because I already had several partials out and one agent was already looking at the full manuscript (Serendipity Literary Agency in Brooklyn). I told her that, depending on her preferences, I could send her the manuscript anyway, or wait until all the responses were in and then grant her an exclusive. She e-mailed back and said what if I e-mailed her the first three chapters on a non-exclusive and then if the manuscript became available at a later date, she would be glad to look at it then. In that message she said my original query was "wonderful."

I was walking on clouds, I tell you.

So I e-mailed her the first three chapters and my synopsis. I also e-mailed David Austern a copy of the full and several hours later, he e-mailed back and said that he "didn't fall enough in love with the characters to be (the book's) most ideal champion," but that I was "a good writer" and that he'd "be interested in looking at my future projects." 45 minutes later Kirsten Manges e-mails back and says that she read the pages over lunch and was sorry to say that she "wasn't the right person for this project."

A month or so later, PMA also passed with some nice words of encouragement. By the way, Jenny Bent and Rachel Vater also passed in the last few months in a very kind and encouraging way.

In true “writing life” submission style, all of the requests—both full and partial--were eventually rejected, but the key here is that each person had something extremely positive to say about what I had going on, whether it be about the query, the synopsis, or the writing style itself.

I'm not there yet, but some of the heavy hitters were telling me that I'm doing something right and, for now, that's enough to hang my hat on (not literally; I was speaking figuratively, whatever that means. . .)

More later. . .