Wrap up to the Crap-o-Meter
For those of you just tuning in, Miss Snark, the literary agent, held a crap-o-meter. She offered a window of time for her snarklings to submit a 250 word hook of their story. She received some 700 entries. It took her quite a bit of time and quite a few blog entries.
What did I learn from the CoM?
1. Subjectivity is no joke. There were some hooks that I thought sounded interesting. Miss Snark said they were old. There were some I thought sounded dreadfully boring... and Miss Snark thought they were intriquing. I thought there were some that sounded, well... stupid and Miss Snark agreed!
2. There are a lot of creative people out there who love writing. As just a snapshot, the CoM shows how many people are thinking of a novel and developing plot and character. Some of them I am envious of their voice and talent... and some of them need to head over to 101 reasons to stop writing.
3. When the time comes to choose your literary agent, it's not just important to make sure the agent represents your genre... but that the agent represents work like yours within that genre. Or that they state they are looking for something that matches what you're offering. It was obvious by some of Miss Snarks comments that some of the hooks simply didn't appeal to her taste. Some genres have a fairly large variety and even though the agent may represent books within that genre, he or she may not like the kind that you are offering.
What did I learn from the CoM?
1. Subjectivity is no joke. There were some hooks that I thought sounded interesting. Miss Snark said they were old. There were some I thought sounded dreadfully boring... and Miss Snark thought they were intriquing. I thought there were some that sounded, well... stupid and Miss Snark agreed!
2. There are a lot of creative people out there who love writing. As just a snapshot, the CoM shows how many people are thinking of a novel and developing plot and character. Some of them I am envious of their voice and talent... and some of them need to head over to 101 reasons to stop writing.
3. When the time comes to choose your literary agent, it's not just important to make sure the agent represents your genre... but that the agent represents work like yours within that genre. Or that they state they are looking for something that matches what you're offering. It was obvious by some of Miss Snarks comments that some of the hooks simply didn't appeal to her taste. Some genres have a fairly large variety and even though the agent may represent books within that genre, he or she may not like the kind that you are offering.
Labels: Agents, General Writing, My Novel
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2 Comments:
i, too, found the crap-o-meter incredibly helpful! when the time comes i want to submit a book, i'll keep some of these concepts in mind. and i agree about getting the right agent being paramount. she dissed plenty of things i thought were great, but as she said, they weren't her area. know your audience, even when your audience is one person! =)
That's the nice thing about researching agents before submitting to them, I think. I've found agents via AgentQuery that deal with fantasy, but when I see their blog or website, find that it's not exactly the sort that I write. I may still visit the site because it's interesting, but I know better than to query that individual.
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