Memoir

The MEMOIR is the less constructed of the two genres. It does not need to span the life of the writer but can be about a single day, a special moment, a fragrance, a particular color (that leads you to recall a shirt of that color that you wore in high school, an event during which you wore the shirt, what your best friend thought about your clothing choices, etc.). These seemingly disparate thoughts are your memories and a memoir is like a memory book; that is, it can be a collection of your thoughts and feelings about any one particular time period, person, place or thing. It is mainly what you remember and not necessarily a detailed account of facts and events as you would find them in a piece of journalism. It is more like a diary entry than a newspaper article.

Let’s say you have decided to capture something from your life experience on paper. This can be a happy or sad event, a life-threatening or life-changing one, or you can simply be compelled to write about why you like to spend time at the beach. You begin to recall your subject and—in the way of all thinking minds—you begin to have many thoughts that seem to be off the topic. For example, the beach recalls a particular bathing suit you owned when you were sixteen, the smell of fried dough wafting across the boardwalk, the diets you were always trying, your envy of your friend’s svelte figure, her parents, parenting your own children, and so on. You seem to ramble on but you eventually bring yourself back to that beach and what pleasure it brings to you and why. That is memoir.

Note that this piece of writing did not necessarily include the day, time and place of your birth, your maternal or paternal grandparents, the story of how or why they came to this country or where they are living now, historical events that shaped you, your spouse, and other factual details of your lifespan. These elements would be some of the things you might include if you were writing an autobiography.

Autobiography

The AUTOBIOGRAPHY, then, is subject to a more structured approach and is considered to be an entire life’s history. Even if you are only sixteen years old, like Justin Bieber, your autobiography must cover the events that led up to the present time and place so the reader gets a sense of your personal history. The autobiography allows less room for mental rambling than the memoir. It should stick to topic, be concise, and take the reader down a particularly straight and narrow path. As a once-popular television detective used to say, “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Just the facts, however, does not mean that your autobiography needs to be dull and lifeless. In fact, it should not be, because the purpose in writing an autobiography at all is to make the seemingly mundane take on a new and vibrant meaning so the events of your life add a new dimension to who you are for the reader. You want to insert your personality into the telling of the events in such a way as to make the reader come away understanding you a bit more, feeling closer to you and empathizing with your choices in some way.

Above all, in both memoir and autobiography, readers must receive some benefit in the long run. Readers should be entertained, or amused, or horrified—if that’s the story you decide to tell. And, while the personal is often the universal, an autobiography that is too far removed from any reader’s experience will fall flat, as will a memoir. Keep your readers in mind at all times—your ideal readers, that is—and your story will become the vehicle by which you reach them and pull them in, whether that  is through a memoir or an autobiography.

Next: How to Identify Your Ideal Reader.

IRENE—Read more about this editor

Both in the Reference List and in the in-text citations, the principal purpose of all referencing in an academic paper is to enable the reader to easily locate source material and check not only its accuracy but also its context; in the best of all cases, this becomes the basis for further research as your readers build on the work you have done.

With the exponential growth of online sources in recent years, the ways of dealing with web-based resources have received a great deal of attention in the newest version of the APA Manual. In some cases, this has meant a reversal of earlier APA policies, as time and experience have shown that there are better ways to handle these resources than what had been prescribed in APA-5.

Such is the case with the policy on retrieval dates (called “access dates” in Chicago, Turabian, and MLA styles). This is the date on which a particular resource was consulted by the author, with the recognition that online resources can change over time. The 5^th edition of the APA Manual required that retrieval dates be provided for online sources, and it built this information into the format of all Reference List entries for online material. In stark contrast, APA-6 now eschews the provision of retrieval (access) dates, except in very specific circumstances:

For those who write in multiple styles, it may be worth noting that, in this regard, APA-5 was more like MLA style than like Chicago/Turabian style, and APA-6 is more like Chicago/Turabian style than like MLA style.

ALBERT—Read more about this editor

APA-6 boasts a more streamlined explanation of the formatting of headings, replacing the four separate sections provided in APA-5 (one for each scenario: articles with two levels of headings, articles with three levels of headings, articles with four levels of headings, and articles with five levels of headings). In APA-6, the same material is handled with a simple description:

Regardless of the number of levels of subheading within a section, the heading structure for all sections follows the same top-down progression. Each section starts with the highest level of heading, even if one section may have fewer levels of subheading than another section.

-APA-6, §3.03

As with the earlier edition, APA-6 directs that the label “Introduction” should not be used at the beginning of the manuscript, as it is presumed that the first part of the manuscript is an introduction.

While not as important to the substance of documents as some of the other new features of APA-6, the changes in heading format will likely produce the most readily apparent differences from documents written in APA-5 style. Get this part wrong, therefore, and it will be pretty clear that you didn’t follow the newest version of the APA Manual of Style. That alone makes it a change worth mastering!

ALBERT—Read more about this editor

If you’re old enough to have learned to type on an actual typewriter, as I did, then you undoubtedly learned to use two character spaces (i.e., two taps of the space bar) in between sentences. There was a reason for this: Typewriter type was not proportionally spaced. Since all letters occupied the same amount of space on the page (i.e., an “i” took just as much space as a “w”), placing an extra space after the final punctuation in sentences made the breaks between sentences more readily apparent.

Then came computers—and with them, proportionally spaced type. With the advent of proportional type, extra space between sentences is automatic, making the old double-character-space rule obsolete. And with fully justified texts, the old rule becomes completely irrelevant, since flexible spacing between sentences is one of the vehicles for achieving right justification. Most major style sheets—including APA, MLA, Chicago, and Turabian—took the position that one space (not two) should be used after final punctuation in sentences.

Until now.

THE NEW RULE IN APA-6 IS

TWO SPACES BETWEEN SENTENCES IN DRAFT MANUSCRIPTS.

Making it clear that this change of rules applies to “draft manuscripts,” the new edition of the APA Manual of Style does not intend to suggest rules for typesetters of journals and books. What about writers of dissertations, theses, and academic papers? Technically, such documents are in final form, not draft. Of course, the best advice is to seek direction from the institution, program, or individual instructor. If these specify APA as the style sheet of choice, though, you should return to the old practice of using two spaces between sentences.

Using the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (16) or the MLA Handbook (7)? Then you’ll likely be sticking with the practice of one space between sentences … But more on that in future posts.

ALBERT—Read more about this editor

APA-6 is the result of a thorough re-working of the widely used style manual. The entire structure of the book has been reorganized with the intention of more closely following the process writers actually follow in their writing. Since the last edition, online research has grown by leaps and bounds, and changes in both computer technology and the publication process have had profound effects on academic writing. With modifications of the guidelines in earlier versions, and with the addition of entirely new sections, APA-6 addresses these changes.

To help users navigate the modifications and new additions in APA-6, the American Psychological Association has prepared a helpful tutorial, available at http://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/whatsnew/index.htm. So that our clients will have a convenient listing of these changes, we have summarized them here, drawing them from the APA tutorial. What follows here is simply a summary of the changes as presented in the APA tutorial. In the weeks ahead, we will examine some of the more significant changes to the APA Manual of Style with new blog articles devoted to each of these topics.

In the meantime, if you have questions about APA-6 or want to share some of the insights you’ve garnered through your own use of the new edition, please feel free to post them as comments to this blog. We’d love to hear from you!

SUMMARY OF CHANGES

·         CHAPTER 1: Ethical Issues

o   NEW: Data retention and sharing (1.08)

o   NEW: Self-plagiarism (1.10)

o   NEW: Publication credit (1.13)

o   NEW: Protecting the rights of research participants (1.11)

o   EXPANDED: Duplicate and piecemeal publication (1.09)

o   EXPANDED: Confidentiality of research participants (1.11)

o   EXPANDED: Conflict of interest (1.12)

·         CHAPTER 2: Journal Article Reporting Standards

o   JARS in the Abstract (2.04)

o   JARS in the Method section (2.06)

o   JARS in the Results section (2.07)

o   JARS in the Discussion section (2.08)

o   NEW: Meta-analyses (2.10)

o   NEW: Using supplemental materials in online supplemental archives (2.13)

o   NEW: Sample papers using the revised rules of style

·         CHAPTER 3: Headings and Reducing Bias in Language

o   MODIFIED: Five levels of headings, simplified (3.02-3.03)

o   NEW: Using heading levels consecutively (3.02-3.03)

o   NEW: historical language that is no longer appropriate (3.17)

o   MODIFIED: Gender (3.12)

o   MODIFIED: Sexual orientation (3.13)

o   MODIFIED: Racial and ethnic identity (3.14)

o   MODIFIED: Disabilities (3.15)

o   MODIFIED: Age (3.16)

o   NEW: Table of recommended changes to language usage available at www.apastyle.org

o    

·         CHAPTER 4: Mechanics of Style

o   MODIFIED: Two spaces instead of one after periods in draft manuscripts (4.01)

o   NEW: Numbers expressing approximate lengths of time written as words (4.31-4.32)

o   NEW: When to use a zero before a decimal fraction (4.35)

o   NEW: Reporting p values to two or three decimal places (4.35)

o   NEW: Reporting effect sizes and confidence intervals with statistics (4.44)

o   NEW: Format for reporting confidence levels (4.44)

·         CHAPTER 5: Displaying Results

o   NEW: Determining the purpose of data displays and designing tables (5.01)

o   NEW: Guidelines on reporting statistical significance in tables (5.15)

o   NEW: New tables, structured according to the kinds of data being displayed

o   NEW: New table examples to illustrate hierarchical multiple regression and multilevel models

o   NEW: Principles of figure use and construction (5.20)

o   NEW:  Presenting electrophysiological, radiological, and biological data (5.26-5.29)

o   NEW: Ethical ramifications of manipulating data in photographic images (5.29)

·         CHAPTER 6: Crediting Sources

o   Definition of “plagiarism” (6.01)

o   Rules for direct quotation of material in text (6.03)

o   Guidance on getting permission to reprint or adapt (6.10)

o   How to construct in-text citations (6.11-6.21)

o   How to construct the reference list

o   NEW: What to cite and recommended level of citation (6.01)

o   NEW: Citing passages from electronic text with no page numbers (6.05)

o   NEW: Citing the archival version or version of record (6.24)

o   EXPANDED: Electronic sources and locator information, with expanded emphasis on DOI (6.31)

o   NEW: What to include as publication information, with focus on electronic sources (6.32)

·         CHAPTER 7: Reference Examples (NEW: Showing electronic and print formats side-by-side within each category of source material, and drawing examples from a wide range of fields)

o   NEW: Data sets and software (7.08)

o   NEW: Internet message boards (7.11)

o   NEW: Archival documents and collections (7.10)

o   NEW: Podcasts (7.07)

·         CHAPTER 8: Publication Process

o   NEW: Peer review (8.01)

o   NEW: Editorial decision-making (8.02)

o   NEW: Getting assistance with scientific writing in English (8.03)

o   CONDENSED: Complying with ethical, legal, and policy requirements (8.04)

This is a brief overview of what’s new in APA-6. Stay tuned in the weeks ahead for new posts offering detailed discussions of many of the key changes.

ALBERT—Read more about this editor

But for those of you who will not be able make it, I’ll share with you what I plan on covering in our panel, Love at First Query: Agents and Authors Share Strategies for Falling in Literary Love.

So, what are you looking for?

I say right on my website that I seek “to establish involved, long term working relationships with talented and dedicated authors of many genres.” Essentially, I’m in it for the long run. Although when I offer a contract it is only for that one project, I would like to then see your follow-up book as well. Though it is usually a contractual obligation to do so with your publisher, it is common courtesy to do so with your agent, and I’d like the opportunity to have a hand in helping a relatively new author establish and maintain a strong writing career.

But that’s not all of it, right?

Correct. I am specific in requesting “talented and dedicated” authors. You must have those two qualities, and here are a few tips on achieving and presenting them:

TALENTED:

It’s easy to say “Do your homework, hone your craft, revise, revise, revise,” but for the sake of this post, I will assume that you are already brilliant writers with equally brilliant manuscripts.

So, what else is there?

I turn down easily 95% of the books pitched to me without even reading a single page. And yes, I am sure that some of them are just as brilliant as yours. Plenty of talented authors slip through the cracks because they simply do not articulate their skill and the brilliance of their manuscript in a well-crafted query letter. Having a knockout query is essential to getting your book published. There are plenty of resources, such as Writer’s Market and various industry magazines that provide examples of proper query letters, but to further help you, I will be offering an in-depth series of blogs from an agent’s perspective on how to craft a query that will maximize your chances of getting a request. Look for that in the near future.

DEDICATED:

To me, just as important as knowing you can write is knowing I can work with you. I have had to let go clients with promising manuscripts simply because they are not a good personality match. And by this, I don’t mean we have to like the same kind of music. I am referring to the writer’s ability to communicate, provide me with the information that I require, and make the changes that I ask for. A few key points to keep in mind:

• I realize that we all have our own lives and associated demands, but when I contact you, you should try your best to contact me in a timely fashion. Out of necessity, agents and their clients communicate a LOT throughout the editing, preparation, pitching, and even after the manuscript is sold. I need to know that I can rely on your presence each step of the way.

• Please do not make me communicate solely with an intermediary. This is both for the reason of the previous point and also to ensure that we are both getting accurate information. Bringing in a third party, besides being completely unnecessary, also shows a lack of trust on your part. For this to work, we need to have complete trust in each other.

• If I ask you for something, it is for a good reason. For example: when I request a fiction manuscript, I will generally ask for 4 things: the manuscript, a synopsis, your author bio and your marketing plan. I have had potential clients blow up at me for asking for a marketing plan, and at that point, I know how they would treat our working relationship and I then turn them down without reading a page. I have also received responses that just include 3 of the 4 elements with the statement, “Here is everything you requested.” That shows me that either they aren’t paying complete attention or they are trying to pull one over on me, both of which are big red flags. If you try to manipulate or ignore a simple request, I know that making the necessary edits on your manuscript will be an absolute chore. One example comes to mind. As a first time author, we got her a deal at a house that, frankly, she should not have been able to get. When she then tried to pull a fast one on the publisher during the editing process, they dropped her, voided her contract, and ended up not publishing her book or paying her (and therefore us) a cent. Although requesting additional material sometimes acts as a gauge of character, my primary goal is to find out how well you know your manuscript, what your resources are and how educated you are on something that will ultimately fall largely on your shoulders. But we can talk about marketing at a later date.

• If you don’t know, ask questions. Many writers hesitate to do so out of a crippling fear of coming across as an idiot. Don’t worry. This business can be a bit confusing at times, and it is changing all of the time. I will appreciate your honesty and your desire for knowledge. It shows that you are active, responsible and not one to sweep potential problems under the rug in hopes that we won’t trip on the lump and break our necks.

• And finally, be yourself. Sure, you want to be respectful and appropriate, but you don’t want to get locked into a situation where you feel like you have to act like someone you aren’t. It bears repeating, you and your agent will be communicating a lot. Your perfect agent match should be someone you can talk to, someone who makes you feel comfortable and taken care of. That’s really why we’re here, to take care of you.

That’s it for now. I hope to see you in DC!

GORDON—Read more about this editor

I get this wherever I go, and I always joke with the writer about how their question just crushed my sense of self-worth. But then, I always continue with, “It depends upon what you are writing and what your goals are.”

There are certain types of writing that don’t require an agent, like short stories and poetry. Those you take yourself to the appropriate literary magazines. There are also types of writing that aren’t likely to get an agent, just because of how the market has evolved, like novellas for print outside of romance or sci-fi. But for most full-length pieces, your best bet is usually to seek out an agent. But even then, there are exceptions depending upon the nature of the work and where you want to see it.

For example: I represent memoir. If you have a truly unusual and gripping story and are trying to get it into the hands of Random House, yes, you need an agent. The “Six Sisters” in New York and many of the larger independent presses refuse to look at unagented work simply as a means of reducing the amount of submissions that are unfit for their particular house.

But if you prefer the close relationship of an independent press, or if you just want to pass your story on to your grandchildren, then no, you don’t need an agent. Instead, you would take it to the independent or custom publishers who would work with you directly to give you what you want. And if you then have commercial aspirations, some of them are equipped to guide you in your search for a place in the market. There are plenty of options out there, but I can testify to the strength and expertise of the good people at EME Press.

“What does an agent do?”

This could be its own post. Broadly speaking, an agent will help you edit and steer your manuscript and your presence as an author into the places where they will find the most success in the market. They will be your guide and your publishing guru. They will use their knowledge and connections to find the best possible publisher for your work, pitch it to them in the most effective manner and negotiate the best possible contract for you. They will handle payments and issues and remain by your side for as long as the book is in print.  

“How do I know I’m not getting ripped off?”

There are scams out there, and I advise everyone to stay away from any “agent” who asks for payment up front. Thoroughly read the contract that you are offered, and make sure that you won’t be charged for consulting or editing. The agent should either do this for free themselves or recommend a qualified editor with no financial ties to the agent. This is why I list that I will not offer representation to any of my EME editorial or consulting clients. I would not do so anyway, but to make sure my morals are known, I had it written into my contract and bio at EME.

To prevent even running into con artists, you should seek out agents through the regular methods I listed in my previous post, “How do I find an agent?” Make sure that you can confirm their sale of books to reputable publishers, either by looking in the Acknowledgements section of the books, Publisher’s Marketplace or the industry publications I have listed. If they are new, be sure that they or the agent they are working under can be found using these methods and that they are listed on the website of the agency they claim to be a part of. 

“Then how much should the agent charge?”

An agent should only charge you 15% of what you make on the book sale as well as any copying and shipping costs associated with pitching. The latter is an antiquated practice that is rarely necessary in today’s world of telecommunications and should only occur with your prior expressed consent.

“How will I know an agent is right for me?”

Being offered a contract is a good indicator. I sign far less than one percent of the manuscripts that I have been queried for. I will only work with what is the best possible fit for me in terms of my expertise, my tastes and the piece’s chance of success in the marketplace. Your agent should be able to thoroughly utilize all of those.

Remember that the working relationship between and agent and an author is a very close, very involved one. You will be corresponding with them via email and phone a lot. You will go back and forth with your manuscript and receive a lot of consultation. You need someone that you are able to work with to great extent on a professional level. If an agent doesn’t appear to know your type of work or just plain gives you the willies, it may be in your best interest to seek another agent. Realize that it is not difficult, but just very unlikely that you will find another agent for your manuscript. But don’t let that lead you into a working relationship that you are not able to feel good about.

Questions? Comments? I will be speaking on finding your perfect agent match at the big AWP Annual Conference & Bookfair in Washington, DC next month. If you’re in the area, it’s definitely one to attend.

GORDON—Read more about this editor

“How do I find an agent?”

Hello. If you’re reading this blog, then you’ve found one. But before you send me your children’s book or your romance novel, you should do a bit of research. It won’t take long to discover that I don’t represent either of those two genres.

“Is there an agent for me?”

Thankfully, there exists a plethora of agents, each with their own unique focus. It’s likely that among them lies a good potential match for your project. That is comforting, but it leads us back toward our initial question.

“Where do I look?”

If you wrote a memoir that shares a lot of similarities with Eat, Pray, Love, and you’re wondering who to send it to, you can start by going to your bookstore and picking up a copy. Seriously. Most works of nonfiction have within them an Acknowledgements section in which the author thanks their mother, their sister, their 8^th grade English teacher, their cat Fifi and their agent. The great thing about researching at a bookstore is that Eat, Pray, Love is usually shelved alongside other memoirs. You can then browse and find similar titles with agents who you know for a fact have signed a manuscript in your genre. 

“Do I really have to spend all day in a bookstore?”

Well, no. I highly recommend it for several reasons, but if it just isn’t feasible due to location or time constraints, you could go about it a different way. In fact, even if you are able to do so, you should augment that research with other existing resources. The information you glean from a bookstore is limited by shelf space and their concerns about moving product. For example: they tend to stock some of the newest and hottest political books, which may be of use if that’s what you are writing. But they will also stock books written by public figures long dead, whose agents, if still living, have retired or moved on to a different genre. And meanwhile, a current book which may be similar to yours is not stocked because the public is more apt to buy Richard Nixon’s book on Vietnam. But perhaps the biggest reason to seek additional resources is that even if you find all the names you need at the bookstore, you end up with just that: names.

“How do I contact these people?”

There also exist plenty of good printed resources that list reputable agents who are appropriate for your particular work, as well as their contact information and desired methods of submission. My favorite of the books is the Jeff Herman Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents. It thoroughly covers what an agent is looking for, even to the point of including interviews so you know their favorite books, what kinds of stories are important to them and other information to help you determine whether or not they are a good fit for your manuscript. Another excellent book is the Guide to Literary Agents. This is released by the same people who make the wildly popular Writer’s Market series. But take note: Writer’s Market itself has a lot of excellent general information regarding publishing in different venues, but it will not help you specifically search for an agent. In addition to books, there are also trade magazines that feature agent information. I was just featured in the October 2010 issue of Writer’s Digest, for example.

“Can’t I just Google it?”

You can, if you want to waste a lot of time navigating Google and not getting the best results. The Internet at large is not regulated in its content, so choosing to swim in that ocean leaves you vulnerable to sharks and scam artists. I’ll touch on tips for avoiding them in my next post.

“So, I’m to avoid the Internet?”

Actually, no. The Internet can be your most useful resource for obtaining the most up-to-date information. The books I listed come out once a year, and the appropriate trade magazines are released monthly or weekly. The Internet, on the other hand, brings you information in real time. The Guide to Literary Agents blog is an excellent resource that should find its way into your RSS reader. Its new agent alerts feature complete interviews and listings of what the agent is/isn’t looking for. Also online, you can sign up to receive Publisher’s Lunch via email. You can get a free version that will keep you up to date on happenings in the industry, or you can pay a small fee to receive notifications of recent publishing deals. You can also sign up for access to Publisher’s Marketplace, which is a paid service at around $20 per month. This provides a daily updated, searchable database that lists all reported publishing deals since the year 2000: the title, author, genre, a brief description of the manuscript, which agent represented it, which editor at which house bought it and roughly for how much. You can even search their database of agent and editor contact information.

“Cool. I’ll send my manuscript right away.”

Not so fast. There is one more step. After making your list of agents, take a moment and visit each of their websites. Submission requirements vary from agent to agent, even within an agency. People are different, and everyone has their own system that works best for them. Some prefer email attachments or pasted chapters, others just queries. Some even ask for hard copies. That’s ok. It’s their system, and it’s in place for a reason.

And while you’re on the agent’s website, check to make sure that they are still looking for your type of manuscript. For example: 5 years ago, everyone and their mother wanted to represent teenage vampire stories. And now, publishers have all but stopped buying them. As a result, a particular agent may now be looking for zombies. Often, they will post their latest wish list on their blog. As with seeking litmags for your short stories, paying close attention to the type of work an agent is looking for will save you a lot of time and unnecessary “Not right for me” rejections.

GORDON—Read more about this editor

I go to a lot of conferences and talk to a lot of writers, and one of the most common things that these aspiring novelists don’t take advantage of is writing in the short form.

“But I write novels. Why should I write short stories?”

It’s a fair question, and I wouldn’t recommend writing shorts unless it helps you find success with your novel. It does, both from a technical and a business standpoint. Read on, Grasshopper.

When you break down a novel, each chapter should push the story forward, contributing to the overall arc. Ideally, it does this in a similar fashion to how a short story operates. It introduces or delves deeper into a character or plot element that faces rising tension and requires action in order to resolve or alter the current situation. In short fiction, each chapter has its own little arc. Writing short stories is an excellent way to practice creating the types of structures that will end up becoming the foundation of your novel. 

Another way that short stories act to improve your writing is their calling more attention to the language itself. In a commercial adult novel, you generally have around 70,000 to 90,000 words to tell your story. In the short form, you have less than 20,000. And if you distil even further and enter the realm of flash fiction, the definition varies from under 5,000 words to the mere hundreds and below. For the story to maintain all of the necessary elements of plot, character development, tension, etc., you as an author rely on your ability to choose only the most powerful words in the most skillful of combinations. You can’t meander around and hope something grabs the reader’s attention. This is training to become a literary ninja. You must get in, strike swift, strike hard, strike with purpose, and get out. Leave your reader out of breath and wanting more. Harness that kind of power and then deliver it in your novel.

As an agent, I’m always looking out for authors that have a mastery of the language and can elicit a strong response with the right combination of a few words. But the fact of the matter is, I can’t always know for sure whether or not you have that magical combination. I can’t read everything people want me to. I get so many submissions that it sometimes takes weeks for me to respond to a query letter. And well over 90% of the works that I reject are rejected from the query without me having read any of the manuscript. Though the story itself is the most important deciding factor for me in a query, being able to provide an impressive list of short fiction publication credits increases your chances by showing me that figures of literary authority have found your writing to be exceptional. I can then feel better about investing the time into requesting and reading your manuscript.

“Oh, man. This is like homework.”

Don’t let the need to come up with new material stress you out. It can be an important part of your writing process for your novel. If you look at the short stories F. Scott Fitzgerald was publishing in the early ’20s, you can see him working out the characters and situations that would eventually find their way into The Great Gatsby. And we all know the result of that.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you’ve already written your novel, you undoubtedly have scenes and characters that you’ve cut for the good of the overall piece. They don’t have to sit unused in an old Word .doc in an obscure folder. Bring them out and let them play around. You’ve done a lot of the writing already.

“Ok. I’ve written a dynamite short. Now what?”

Revise (read my previous post). Once you’ve revised and your short is truly dynamite, now you must search for the appropriate venue. Not just any venue will do. You must know who you are pitching to, how they accept submissions and when to submit. There are countless literary magazines and journals available. They will be your primary targets. Newspapers and large publishers don’t publish shorts from unknown authors anymore, but litmags do. The best place to start is www.duotrope.com or Writer’s Market. These update fairly regularly with information regarding what type of writing they specialize in and various requirements. I highly suggest you check out these resources, the magazines’ websites and the actual, physical publications before you submit. It will save you from a lot of general, “Not right for us” responses.

“Are online litmags reputable? Will anyone read it if I go digital?”

If you would’ve asked me this several years ago, my answer may have been different. But today, many reputable publishers have entire online divisions, like McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. There are also plenty of quality digital-only litmags, like Smokelong Quarterly. And if you’re wondering whether or not people actually read the digital stuff, you should ask the current owners of 4.19 million iPads and over 3 million Kindles.

“Sweet. I’m going to be rich.”

Slow down. Don’t expect your short stories to make you any money. True, you may have heard stories like Fitzgerald writing shorts to pay the bills while he worked on his novels. But there are two main reasons why you shouldn’t compare your own situation with his:

1. He was already a well-known writer at the time. His breakout success with This Side of Paradise had established him as a prominent literary figure and created a commercial demand for his work. It’s like Stephen King or Neil Gaiman writing short stories. People will pay to read their work, regardless of the format.
2. These days, litmags don’t make money. Since they don’t sell as many copies as, say Twilight, they usually can’t afford to pay their authors much more than a free contributor copy (and the all-important prestige of publication). They keep their costs low in order to encourage sales and sell ad space to cover some of the necessary costs of printing and shipping. The staff generally works for free, donating countless hours for the sake of the written word.

 “But what if they turn me down? Will all of my work have been for naught?”

Of course not. It’s ninja training, remember? You will have improved as a writer and a novelist. And if you need to get your work out into the public, plenty of avenues are available for you to do so yourself. In fact, I recently finished editing a collection of shorts that the author is self publishing. They showed promise, and I hope he does well.

Questions? Comments? Have an opinion on DiCaprio being cast as Gatsby? Let’s talk.

GORDON—Read more about this editor

Though it might seem daunting at times, it’s ok. If you aren’t just a little scared when you’re writing, chances are you’re not doing it right. It’s that kind of concern that drives us writers to put so much of ourselves into what ends up on the page. If you don’t care about your text, it will show in the end. Embrace the emotions and let them run high.

However, you should never let the fear grow so great that it gets the best of you and stops your progress. And there are plenty of reasons why that shouldn’t happen with your NaNo novel. First of all, if you look over on your bookshelf and see Twilight (or Wuthering Heights, depending upon your taste), realize that you’re not expected to recreate that in a month. The word count alone is well over double what you’re being asked to produce. Depending upon how it is packaged, a book of around 50,000 words would end up about as thick as my index finger, not even the chunkiest of my thin, little bird fingers. It’s an attainable length.

But even more toxic of a misconception than the required end word count is the common belief that you are expected to churn out a market-ready novel in thirty days. Unless your name is Stephen King, that notion is absurd (and even with him, I kid). At this point, I must refer to one of the most useful books on writing in existence, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Within the first part of the book is a chapter that really sums up the NaNoWriMo experience: Shitty First Drafts. Lamott states that “All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” Sure, you’ll be working hard to get your 50,000 words out, but after that, you’ll be able to revise.

And this is where you breathe easily.

Just focus on getting the words out onto the page for now.

At the end of the month, you can go back and fix things. And you should. As an agent, I can always tell when something comes across my desk whether someone has spent a month on it or whether they’ve spent longer. And I highly recommend putting in the time. If you think about it, you’re putting forth way too much effort this month to ultimately try to rush your novel out into the publishing world when it’s just not ready.

There are several things you can do to get the most out of what you will create this month. I always recommend, when you’ve spent a good deal of time working intensely on one piece, to put it away for a month. Let it sit long enough for you to stop thinking about it. And then take it out and look at it again. Chances are, you will change so much once you look upon it with fresh eyes.

Even more important is the need to share your work. Share it with friends and family, yes. But you should be sure to share it with people who have no personal bias toward or against you. Honest feedback is key in moving your novel to the next level. And let’s face it, if your mother is anything like mine, you could fingerpaint something, call it a novel, and she would give you a glowing review.

You have to show it to someone who will give you honest, informed feedback. One way is to form a critique group. When the right writers get together to critique each others’ works in progress, the results can be phenomenal. When forming such a group, it is ideal to have talented writers who are familiar with your genre and gel with your personality.

If you want to go straight to the horse’s mouth, you can seek out coaching or a manuscript critique from a publishing professional. To really get your money’s worth there, make sure that you work with a qualified individual, such as an agent, a bestselling author or an acquisitions editor. You can generally find them at writers’ conferences. I have worked at a dozen of them this year, from DC to SF, and they are wonderful resources.

If you don’t want to pay several hundred dollars to attend a conference that will usually charge you an additional fee to meet with an agent or have your manuscript critiqued, you can find plenty of qualified professionals right here at EME. One thing I like about this group is that everyone utilizes their own specialty, rather than stretching into genres and formats that they aren’t really familiar with. If you write poetry, you will get a poetry editor. If you write memoir, you will get a memoir editor. And yes, if you’re writing a novel, you will get the assistance of someone who knows what it takes for a novel to succeed in today’s changing market. Our coaches and editors have worked in all facets of acquisitions and editing in Big Six publishers, top agencies and literary magazines. When the time comes, we can help you make sure your novel stands out from the 120,000+ NaNo novels currently being written.

Until then, keep your fingers flying and your word count growing. NaNoWriMo makes me giddy as an agent and editor because so many good stories are being created. I hope to soon have the pleasure of reading yours.  

GORDON—Read more about this editor