Writers in the Storm

I've judged a few contests for published and unpublished authors over the years. Because I entered several contests this year, I paid a lot more attention to the judging process. Reviewing my own scoresheets made me a better judge. At least, I hope so.

Things you may not know:

1. Your judge may have entered the same contest. Don't worry, you're not in competition. A judge cannot score entries in the same category she's entered. However, this means your judge may not be as familiar with the genre of your entry. I agreed to score entries only from genres that I have read a lot of books, but I could have judged "short contemporary" or "romantic suspense"--categories that I don't read. That means I enjoy the genre I'm judging and have a sense of the way those books are generally constructed. For instance, I read historicals, so I get the vocabulary, the dialogue and the importance of setting.

My experience as a contestant: Once I received a comment from a judge "just to let me know" that she didn't like science fiction. What? Why would she judge for a science fiction contest? Last month I posted Writing Contests: Hell or Heaven? I believe the judge who scored my entry so low is not a science fiction reader. Why? She commented that she googled a building material used in my spaceport and couldn't find it anywhere on the internet. She told me I needed to research proper building materials. Uhm, they are not made yet. We're talking two hundred years in the future. Guess what? That entry made the finals in the other two contests I entered. Yep, one of them is The Sheila.

2. Your judge may have agreed to score three entries and ended up with five or more. Yes, this happened to me this year. I contacted the contest coordinator, because two extra entries at thirty-five pages each wouldn't fit into my schedule. Well, they were short on judges. Luckily I had two months to return the scoresheets, so I was able to work all the entries into my schedule and I didn't feel pressured. But what if your judge doesn't have the luxury of time and is rushed, and therefore grumpy, about having to complete more than he signed up for?

My experience as a judge: I made sure I had a block of time for a single entry, and I only read and scored one entry per day. Not only did I make a lot of comments on the scoresheet, but the contests I judged for encouraged feedback directly on the manuscript. This can take as much–or little–time as you have to give it. Sometimes a lack of feedback may just be an over-committed judge.

My experience as a contestant: I'll take that perfect score with no comments any day!

3. Your judge isn't necessarily trained to give you feedback on your entry. As a judge, the directions I received ranged from a paragraph about how to fill out the form, the deadline and address for returning my scoresheets and who to contact if I had trouble to a three-page set of instructions on how to score each category, cautions on offering nurturing comments and not a scathing review and not line-editing the entry. A judge may write brilliant prose but not-so-compassionate writing advice.

My experience as a judge: I tried to gear my comments to my perception of the writing. This year, for one novice writer I suggested a couple of books on writing with the encouragement that by studying her craft and writing, she would be able to transform her story into something an editor couldn't put down. For those entries that made me wish for more pages to read, I offered editing suggestions to tighten the action and enhance the pace and  wished them luck selling their book, because from the synopsis and what I'd read it's just a matter of getting it into the right person's hands.

My experience as a contestant: If you read Writing Contests: Hell or Heaven? you know that you have to sift through all the comments and suggestions and take what resonates and forget the others. One of my judges liked my entry, but tried to rewrite parts of it to fit her idea of my story. She was trying to be helpful. Letting go of something that might be on that scoresheet isn't easy. But your judge is a human, and humans, by nature, are imperfect.

4. Your score might be affected by the other entries a judge is reading. Years ago I trained teachers around the country how to score to a rubric, a set of scoring criteria with strict guidelines. This prevents personal biases, usually related to grammar or certain types of construction, from overly influencing a score. When you read over a hundred essays in a day and you're scoring to a rubric, even if you've just read ten very poorly written pieces, you can't score the eleventh from that perspective. Similarly, none of the contests I judged had a first-second-third ranking system for scoring entries, though some judges, from comments I received, might use this method. If your judge had to read too many entries in a short timeframe, this can happen, and your entry gets muddled with others.

My experience as a contestant: One time my scoresheet justified a deduction of points for a scene that was not part of my entry. I guess you could say I took one for another contestant. Another time, the only two points I "lost" from one judge was explained, "You had one misplaced comma. I wish people would learn the comma rules." She took off two points out of 5 possible for grammar, editing, and typos because of the Oxford comma rule. Thank goodness I didn't go the modern route twice! (Not complaining, she loved everything else!)

Why did I agree to be a contest judge? Because I believe that the feedback from contests, for both novice writers and those on the cusp of selling a book, can help a writer hone her craft and make it possible to get the call.

What gives me the right to score another's submission? A lifetime of voracious reading. More than a decade of professional training, writing experience, craft classes, critique groups, and many of my own contest entries. As a teacher, I know that hammering about mistakes can kill a student's spirit. In last month's blog, I shared with you what one scoresheet did to me-and I'm not a novice. I hope I have learned to give feedback commensurate with the level of the writing. When I critique for my friends here at Writers in the Storm, I note things that made me smile. I think that's important to do for a contestant, too. I want my comments on scoresheets to encourage the contestants to improve their craft. Who knows, maybe someday a best-selling author will give a keynote address and say that she entered a contest once and got feedback that kept her writing. And that feedback was mine.

Have you judged a writing contest and have additional secrets to share? If you could share one thing with your contest judge before your entry is read, what would you say?

 Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak.   Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes that she can live anywhere but the present.  As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules then watch what happens.

Punished, oh-no, that’s published as a co-author of a math textbook, she yearns to hear personal stories about finding love from those who read her books, rather than horrors of arithmetic lessons gone wrong.  She is grateful for good friends who remind her to do the practical things in life like grocery shop, show up at the airport for a flight and pay bills.

A “hard” scientist who avoided writing classes like the plague, she now enjoys sharing her brain with characters who demand that their stories be told.

 

 Susan Spann

Mismanaged (or mismatched) expectations are a fundamental cause of problems in the author-agent relationship. Authors can  often avoid many problems—before and after signing with a literary agent—by establishing realistic expectations about the author-agent relationship.

Step 1: Know What Agents Do … and Do Not Do.

 A literary agent can wear many different “hats” and fill many roles in an author’s world. Some of the common ones include:

- Line editing client manuscripts (essentially, doing the job a private editor might do).

- Pitching manuscripts to publishers, and negotiating contract offers.

- Consulting with authors about new ideas, series development.

- Discussing short term and/or long-term plans for the author’s writing career.

- Marketing advice (but not usually helping with the marketing itself).

- Helping promote the author’s work on the agent’s social media feeds.

- Acting as an intermediary between the author and publisher, allowing the author to be the “good cop” in the relationship.

- Selling foreign, translation, and other subsidiary rights, either directly or through sub-agents.

Not all agents fill all of these roles. Some prefer to send clients to outside editors for manuscript help. Some agents don’t have active social media feeds. (For example, my agent monitors social media to ensure her clients are active there, but doesn’t engage social media on her own.)

All agents should review the client’s manuscript, pitch and negotiate deals with publishers, and act as an intermediary between the author and his or her editor on some level (some do more of this, and some do less). Beyond that, agents’ preferences vary. They may do some of these things, or all of them, or even additional things not listed here.

 Step 2: Know What You Want YOUR Agent To Do

Consider the list above, and other business-related tasks you want your agent to do for you. Do you want an editorial agent? A contract specialist? Someone who’s active on social media?

Beware the temptation to say “I want it all” without more thought. Think about how you want to run your publishing business (remember: a writing career is a business) and how an agent fits into that business plan.

 Step 3: Find an Agent Who Matches Your Expectations

 This is the part where “doing your research” matters. After you know what you want from your agent, you need to focus on finding an agent who matches your expectations.

Authors often can’t determine whether or not an agent matches the “expectation needs list” before an agent offers representation. That’s okay! “The call” is a perfect time to talk about expectations—the agent’s, as well as yours.

Obviously, authors are limited to selecting from the agents who actually offer representation. That’s why it’s so important to do as much up-front research as possible. If you don’t like the way an agent does business, or think it’s not a good match for you, it doesn’t matter how “famous” or talented the agent is…you have the right to pass. On the other hand, you should query every agent you think might match your expectations (again, regardless of status), in order to maximize your chances of finding the right one.

Step 4: There is No Magical Ring That Rules the Publishing World—Which Means Your Agent Doesn’t Have One, Either.

 No matter how well an agent matches the author’s list of expectations, it’s important for authors to remember that no one can guarantee a publishing contract or a place on the bestseller list. Sometimes agents try to sell a manuscript, but it doesn’t work. Sometimes books don’t sell as well as anyone hoped or expected.

It isn’t necessarily the agent’s fault if your book won’t sell. That’s an expectation authors need to manage, too.

On the other hand, if your agent isn’t living up to expectations, an author has a right to consider a change. Just make sure, when you make that decision, you make it on the basis of an objective, honest evaluation—what has the agent done and not done, in comparison to industry standards—and not on the basis of emotion or subjectively unreasonable expectations.

Ultimately, managing expectations in publishing works a little like herding cats or nailing Jell-o to a tree: you can (and should) try to keep them in check, but nobody does it perfectly, and no matter what you do it’s going to be messy sometimes. Still, it’s worth the effort. The more you know about publishing, and treat the business side as a business, the more likely you are to transform your writing dream into a successful publishing career.

What do you expect your agent to do for you? Was there anything on the “agent job” list that you hadn’t considered before?

 

 Susan Spann writes the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo. Her debut novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Minotaur Books, 2013), was named a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month. The second Shinobi Mystery, BLADE OF THE SAMURAI, releases on July 15, 2014. Susan is also a transactional attorney whose practice focuses on publishing law and business. When not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium. You can find her online at her website, http://www.SusanSpann.com, and on Twitter (@SusanSpann).

 

@OrlyKonigLopez

“Strong writing, great story, but I just didn’t love it.”

Any writer who’s had a manuscript on submission with an agent and received a similar reply, knows that banging-head-on-table feeling. And haven’t we all whined back at the computer at some point, “But you liked it. Come onnnnnn”?

How can an agent like your manuscript, compliment your writing and still turn you down?

Well …

Several months ago, an agent I follow posted a call for readers. I thought why not, right? Maybe I’ll finally get a glimpse behind the curtain and crack the code, right?

No codes cracked, but boy did I get a whole new appreciation for the submission process. A few of the things I learned:

1) Write a kick-ass query that fits your story. The query for one submission absolutely knocked my socks off. I knew exactly why the agent had requested that manuscript. The pages started well but the story never felt like it got out of the gate. The writing had great potential but the craft lacked maturity. After finishing, I tried marrying what I’d read with the promise from the query. They didn’t match. And sadly, the writing in the manuscript wasn’t as strong as the writing in the query.

2) Polish, polish, polish. Another manuscript was beautifully written and story kept me interested, but there were a lot of small mistakes—missed words, wrong words, etc. Some mistakes are inevitable (I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a published book without finding a couple of minor oopses), but at some point, it becomes obvious that the book didn’t get that final polishing read. And the moment it becomes obvious, it becomes distracting.

Personally, I’ve found that reading the manuscript in a different format is helpful—if you usually read it on the computer, print it out instead. Or read it on your e-reader. Change the font. Or ask a friend or critique partner with a sharp eye for a fresh read.

3) Like, love and marketability. During my time reading, there were a couple of manuscripts that, at one point or another, I honestly forgot I was reading a submission and not a published book. They were thoroughly enjoyable. One in particular I really, really liked.

Then I started writing the reader report. I was so excited about this really good book—did I mention I really liked it?—and flew through a few of the sections of the report. But the deeper into the report I got, the more I had to really think about the various elements the agent was looking for. And guess what? That really, really likeable book was missing a few key components for it to be marketable in a particular genre.

Yes, those were points that could be fixed with a re-write. Whether the agent sent a revise & resubmit, an offer with notes to revise, or a "like but didn’t love" rejection, I don’t know. But that fine line between really liking something and being able to see how it would be marketed became very clear.

4) The advantage of a reader report—on your own manuscript. So if doing a reader report on someone else’s manuscript helped shed a spotlight on what was missing, why not try it on my own work? Ummm, yeah, that was painful. It’s so much easier to be objective on someone else’s work.

But if you put those emotional months (years in some cases) aside and look at your manuscript from a business perspective, you might be surprised. I’m sure there are as many variations on reader reports as there are agents who rely on readers. Here are the items that I included in the reports I prepared and then in the report I prepared on my own manuscript:

Overview: What’s the story about. Who are the main characters, what do they want, what do they do.

Editorial assessment: How was the writing? Does it grab the reader’s attention? Was it an enjoyable read? Was the manuscript clean of mistakes?

Plot and Storyline: What’s the main plot? Do the storylines support the main theme of the book? Are all storylines plausible and realistically tied up at the end?

Conflict: Do the characters face both internal and external conflicts? Are the external conflicts realistic or contrived? Are the internal conflicts realistic or overdone?

Character development: Are the characters unique? Interesting? Do they have growth arcs?

Emotional connection: Is there an emotional connection with the characters? Do we care what happens?

Dialogue: Is it natural? Does it move the story forward? Do the characters have distinct voices?

Setting: Where does the story take place? Do the descriptions transport you there?

Recommendation: It’s hard to be objective about our own writing. Chances are, if you’re doing this for your own manuscript, your recommendation would be to take it on. :-)

But if you go through this exercise you might be surprised what you uncover.

And what you discover about your own manuscript, just might help you go from a nice “like but don’t love” to a “love it. I want to sign you.”

About Orly

After years of pushing the creativity boundary in corporate communications, Orly decided it was time for a new challenge. Three women’s fiction manuscripts later (plus a handful of picture books), it’s safe to say she’s found her creative outlet.  When she’s not talking to her imaginary friends, she’s reading or at least trying to ignore everyone around her long enough to finish “just one more paragraph.” Orly is the founding president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.

You can find her on Twitter at @OrlyKonigLopez or on her website, www.orlykoniglopez.com.