Questions about agents

[J Riff]

Woop, sorry. I assume they read the rules. I should re-read the rules.( reads the Rules.) Starlights, sling nothing nowhere.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

At least not for a while.

 

[Anne Lyle]

This thread is very interesting. Ive wrote 2 novels but both are around 30,000 words and im still going through the editing stage, although currently im going through a bit of a "my work is crap" moment. Any advice people?

I think Susan (SJAB) said it all on page 1 - finish your book to a publishable length, get it critiqued by some other writers, and only then worry about getting an agent.

That said, it doesn't hurt to network a bit in advance, both online and off - there are lots of conventions where you can meet other writers (published and unpublished) and even a few agents and editors. It will help you get a better feel for the current state of the market and the publishing business in general, so you are ready to hit the ground running once your book is finished.

 

[Liz Bent]

I've been reading some "older" 1950s and 1960s books. What happened to the days of a short novel? It seems like everything in the bookstore is at least an inch thick, which is fine- if you like the author. I don't want to buy a new copy of anything that's that thick if the author is an unknown quantity (though I admit this leads me to annoying the shopkeepers by thumbing extensively through books, just to see if I have discovered something good).

But still, why is there so much demand for gigantic fat books? People used to be quite happy with skinny ones.

 

[Anne Lyle]

Blame the success of epic fantasy, and the subsequent page-count envy on the part of publishers

 

[J Riff]

Eliz B, couldn't agree more. I have 30-40,000 words written and it's pretty much done, the story is told. Now, I have to pad it to double size? Phooie.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Less than 40,000 words isn't a novel, even for the kind of older book that Elizabeth is talking about, J Riff. 40K is usually considered the line of demarcation ... except for those who would place it higher.

Of course you don't have to pad it to double the size. Double the size won't be nearly long enough for an SF or Fantasy novel these days.

And it's not a matter of padding. What you need to do is either cut away all of the deadwood so that it's a less unwieldy piece of short fiction, or go through and see how you can improve it and make it longer at the same time. You say the story is done, but are there no parts of it that someone with a more objective eye might find a little thin? If you looked at it very hard, are you certain you won't find any opportunities you have missed, any pathways you've left unexplored?

If you really can't make it longer without padding it, you've written a novella. There it is, and there you are. You might find a small press somewhere that will print it at that length. Or you could publish it yourself if you have such faith in it.

Or, you could put it aside, think of another story that is better suited to a much longer book, and write that. You should have more than one story in you that you would love to write. Of those, choose a longer one for your next project.

Think of this one as learning experience, and use what you have learned to write an even better book next time.

 

[Anne Lyle]

On the subject of novellas, they seem to be undergoing a revival thanks to e-publishing, where length is much less of a factor in the economics of producing a work. For example, fantasy author Holly Lisle is currently setting up an e-publishing venture called Rebel Tales that will take stories from 10k-90k in length and publish the longer ones episodically (they have to be written with break-points in suitable places).

To repeat the writing advice I got on one of Holly's courses, never, NEVER pad. Add a subplot or two that complements the main storyline, add new scenes that develop the main plot, but for the love of all that's holy, don't pad existing scenes with adjectives and other waffle just to add word count!

 

[J Riff]

It's a problem - I could, and would like to, run it up to 80-100,000 and no problem doing that by extending the story... but there is a screenplay-like quality to some stories that make them want to...end, before they go on too long and the joke wears thin.
A return to shorter novels... a story about how the authors of the world band together and demand lower word-counts. The evil publishers respond by paying less per word.... war is declared... hmmmm.

 

[Liz Bent]

To repeat the writing advice I got on one of Holly's courses, never, NEVER pad. Add a subplot or two that complements the main storyline, add new scenes that develop the main plot, but for the love of all that's holy, don't pad existing scenes with adjectives and other waffle just to add word count!

Didn't Dostoyevsky get paid to write by the word? I've been told (perhaps the more learned here can tell me if this is true) that he wrote the middle part of Crime and Punishment during the winter, when he needed more money for heating, and so that part drags on and on and on.

Do you think that the rise in gigantic books is partly due to the fact that there are so many other things to do than read nowadays, so only people who truly love reading for reading's sake are the ones to pick up an actual book? And one can argue that readers want big fat books because they're more fun to read, though I would dispute that.

 

[Boneman]

Do you think that the rise in gigantic books is partly due to the fact that there are so many other things to do than read nowadays, so only people who truly love reading for reading's sake are the ones to pick up an actual book? And one can argue that readers want big fat books because they're more fun to read, though I would dispute that.

Although I only ever buy books that I have picked up, read a few pages, decided if it's the sort of thing I'd like, I am also attracted to bigger books, because I feel I'm getting my money's worth... But outside of SciFi and Fantasy, I'm not bothered - Lee Child's books are great, but I can read them in 2 days, so it's a bit like a bar of chocolate - it never lasts, but it's great while it's there. But a big scifi tome would be akin to a tin of Quality Street...

 

[Peter Graham]

Didn't Dostoyevsky get paid to write by the word? I've been told (perhaps the more learned here can tell me if this is true) that he wrote the middle part of Crime and Punishment during the winter, when he needed more money for heating, and so that part drags on and on and on.

Don't know about that, but many of our "classic" novels were written to be serialised in magazines. Doesn't take a genius to work out that once you have a name, the longer you can rabbit on for, the more money you get and the less the editor has to fish around for alternative content.

Do you think that the rise in gigantic books is partly due to the fact that there are so many other things to do than read nowadays, so only people who truly love reading for reading's sake are the ones to pick up an actual book?

I suspect it's to do with the economies of production. Big books can be sold for bigger prices but (page for page) can be produced cheaper. And the person picking up a big book may feel that they are getting something which makes it worthwhile foregoing Ultimate Special Forces Turkeyshoot IV.

I suppose it comes down to your ambitions as a writer. If you harbour dreams of being published and the market wants books which are of a certain length, then make sure that's what you deliver. Once you are impossibly rich and famous and have no fewer than 10 identical corduroy jackets which reek of pipe smoke*, you can immediately become a highly strung "artiste" and pretty much demand whatever you want of your publisher and agent.

But if you are writing for you and the book only needs 30,000 words, then why write a single word more?

Regards,

Peter

* Female British authors may substitute the stinking jacket for several layers of thin and fading hippy dresses, a preponderance of wooden bangles and hair which looks like it hasn't seen a comb in months.

 

[J Riff]

Hmmm. I was under the impression....and I remember when books fattened dramatically, around the time of S. King...and I understood that it was because of demographic studies which showed that many more people, more mainstream people, were reading books, and thus more description, more basic info was required in order to make sense to this less-experienced group of readers.
Whatever it takes to sell to the largest number would be the first reason for anything the big companies do.... so enough already! Back to 250-page novels!

 

[Anne Lyle]

I think fantasy novels tend to be long because it takes a lot of words to explore and explain a complex secondary world - and because readers of those kind of books like to be immersed in that world for as long as possible.

SF books, being shelved alongside fantasy, may have ballooned in an attempt not to look skimpy in comparison, or to cater to the tastes of readers who, through the success of fantasy, have become accustomed to a longer, richer read...

 

[Liz Bent]

But if you are writing for you and the book only needs 30,000 words, then why write a single word more?

There lies my dilemma. I am writing for me, but I would like some kind of validation that the book I write is actually a "good" book - and I figure the only real criterion for that is whether someone will actually buy it when they don't know you.

*flexes fingers*

Back to work!

 

[R M Tobias]

I've always liked the idea of taking 3 or 4 30k novels and jamming them into one physical book. If they are genre or thematically similiar, why not. I'm surprised I don't see more of this, even if it does seem a little corny.

 

[Anne Lyle]

IIRC, some of the Lankhmar books by Fritz Leiber are in that format, consisting of a number of novellas about the same pair of heroes

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've always liked the idea of taking 3 or 4 30k novels and jamming them into one physical book. If they are genre or thematically similiar, why not. I'm surprised I don't see more of this, even if it does seem a little corny.

At 30K it is not a novel. It's a novella -- a type of short fiction. Not less than a novel, just different. But it isn't going to be published as though it were a novel, any more than a short story or a novelette would. A small publisher might take it on, but it would still be a novella and and it would not sell as well as a novel, because when most people go looking to buy a book they usually want something that is novel length. The best place for a novella is in an anthology (several authors) or a collection (one author) with other short fiction.

I've seen a fair number of anthologies made up of 4 or 5 novellas, but the stories have always included stories by famous authors with large followings and the rest have been writers who aren't exactly famous but whose books put up much better than average numbers. The names bring in the readers and with that many stories the publisher has something the length of a big fat novel, a book that people will buy.

So I think the best way to get a novella out there into the world at large is to network, network, network, make friends in the industry, get a good agent, network some more, get some short stories published or an actual novel, and maybe someone will ask you to contribute the 4th story in an anthology with 3 well-known authors.

 

[R M Tobias]

Sorry it was late and I was tired.