Our guest literary agent explains what he wants from a manuscript submission. It may surprise you...
Once I get through the hyperbole and overblown salesmanship of most covering letters, it is all about my relationship to the prose.
In the case of fiction (which it usually is) I am looking for a voice. Simple as that.
I am not so concerned about plot or setting to begin with – I just want to feel that I am setting off on a journey with a writer who just for one moment or two can grab me, make me forget I am reading a book and who might just might change my perception of the world around me.
A great writer can accomplish all that and more in a paragraph. Think of the opening of Catcher in the Rye or Great Expectations and you are totally drawn in as a reader. If a writer’s prose is bland, derivative or just plain clumsy, then I won’t read beyond the first page. If I get beyond that then I want narrative. Big time.
In a world where we are bombarded with micro-messages, greatest hits and tweet-sized chunks, I am convinced that all we yearn for is to be taken back to those bedtimes when we were nicely tucked up and having a wonderful story being read to us. ‘In the beginning there was a Princess who lived in a castle in the middle of an enchanted forest...’.
So basically if you want me to keep reading your work (and maybe even take it on) I want the simple conditions to be met:
- spell my name right
- check my website and see that I actually am looking for your kind of writing
- write me a letter that makes you sound great but not so arrogant that working with you will be a nightmare
- be the creator of sparkling life-changing prose, and
- take me on a wonderful journey somewhere with your narrative.
Get it? Got it? Good. Now back to the enchanted wood and the Princess...
Yours,
Grumpy Old Agent*
*Grumpy Old Agent is Simon Trewin, CEO of Simon Trewin Creative: Literary and Media Rights Agency. He tweets as @TrewinAgency and is currently open to submissions.
Dear michaeldakin - I haven't commented on Tom Clancy because I haven't read his books (not the genre I prefer) so it didn't seem okay to comment on something I know nothing about.
I didn't mean my name (and this is a pen name, not my real one), I meant names in general. How would you feel if all of the cards and official stuff you had printed for your firm came to you like a complete gibberish? Not a pleasant feeling.
A small remark though. If this blog made you consider suicide... well, I have to question your motivation to write at all. I have heard a lot of stuff here and most of it scared the bejeezus out of me. So much work to do!!! But it also motivated me, to be better and to do more!
As far as the common thing goes... everyone feels common couple of times in their lives. Oh, scratch that. I am sure that even Queen of England feels common sometimes. Then she goes out and buys an absurd hat! Well, the hat designer comes to her probably. (No offence intended)
When I said that agents are only human, I didn't mean that it's okay to mix personal and professional life. What I did mean was that it should be clear that a bit of professionalism that Simon Trewin asked is not so horrible and should be obliged out of common courtesy if not because of professionalism. Ms Downing makes my point perfectly clear in her last sentence.
Cressida as you finished your reply with a question mark I wll reply. Yes of course everything Simon Trewin put in his article made sense. Nobody would think I was being serious? I thought it was a well written and interesting article. I really enjoyed it and he came across as a genuine guy. I was just being contentious as I stated earlier. It was just a experiment.Can I return to obscurity now please? God I'll never get published now. I'll be the guy who mocked Simon Trewin. Next time just reject my comment please - thanks.
Dear Jessica - Why would you care if your name was misspelled on the cover of a book? It would be artistic and funny. I would prefer that more than anything I could think of. Let’s be fair - who could ever misspell a name like Simeon Truewin. It will never happen.
Yes Jessica you are spot on with your comments about JK. I have no right to make such silly trite comments and I agree she can write. I do sense that most are a little sacred about her though. You didn't defend Tom Clancy for example and the film version of his books are definitely more watchable and probably a lot cheaper to film. To be fair though his books are a little more fanciful than anything JK ever wrote. I did only say that I can skip pages in her books. I never skipped a page in a Lajos Nagy novel or if I did I had to go back and check what I missed because it is so tightly written.
What I would point out is that it should be obvious that I was being contentious. I was trying to point out that this site is a little on the NICE side. I came here to check how to get my book published and then after reading what other writers said I considered suicide and I realised that I cannot write and that I had wasted the last six months of my life and I should have continued with my little dull promotion of IT being the solution to all problems. Now I will try to get a proper job as a government advisor or a picture frame salesman at Ikea.
Of course it would not be wise to ask people why they write. It would become a bit tedious. Like discussing the interests section at the end of a CV. 'So you like walking, reading, tennis, cycling, badminton, jogging, conversation, dinner parties, gardening and writing. Does that leave any time for socialising?' When I reread my words from the earlier post I thought that I had been rude and I felt a little embarrassed by that. It reminded me of when I was a child and I was invited to middle class homes and the parents would ban their sons from mixing with me because I was a little common. I am rather common, but I never once missed that look of disgust in their mother’s eye. I just wrote that so that the middle classes would feel obliged to like me.
Isn’t this better than discussing the number of acceptable words in a book or how to accept rejection? Less depressing for a start. Now then Cressida - have you ever considered taking up social work? (No offence)
As for you Julie Sandilands. That Net book agreement was just wrong. You should relax and forget the past. I was once a Labour councillor, but I will forget it one day and be free of the guilt. I grew up in the past and it was grey and cold. And black and white. And then just grey and cold again, Then black and white and then ... well you get the idea.
One last thing. This thing I keep reading about agents only being human! So in that case they should put aside personal weakness. I employ a lot of people and if they told me that they had rejected a supplier because they were human and woke up that morning with an aversion to suppliers who wore toupees - I would give that employee an opportunity to experience the full human situation - which is unemployment and misery. It is a fair thing to do, because that supplier might be desperate for the business in order to keep his workers from destitution (and the immediate purchase of a more fetching toupee). Simple?
Everything else is just fluffy people being fluffy.