Lessons learned from a writer’s work day

Last Saturday, the writing group had one of its weekend work days. Unusually, our host brought in a couple of agents who live in our area. They gave a little presentation on what we look for and then gave feedback on the first pages of several books our group was working on. I got randomly picked as one of the contributors.

(Yep, I’m illustrating this post with random pet photos again)

As I’ve zero interest in putting in more work on Southern Discomfort I had them read the first page of Let No Man Put Asunder, even though it’s a rough draft. The response to Paul’s opening scene was that while his situation is interesting, it needed a little more detail (how old is Paul, for instance), and that it gave no hint this was a fantasy novel. Which is true: the magic doesn’t start until he and Mandy meet. Their suggestion: make it clearer up front where this falls in genre.

It then occurred to me the same is true of Southern Discomfort. Originally I opened with Aubric McAlister’s murder, which makes it clear what the fantasy element is: elves in Georgia in 1973. Some of the feedback I got said it didn’t have enough tension so I shifted to Maria’s point of view, then flashback to the murder. Maria’s got tension — she’s on the run from the law — and it also positions her as the central character, which is useful in an ensemble novel. However it also means there’s no overt magic in the first section, just her vague intuition something is wrong. She’s sensing magic but neither she nor we know that yet.

That may be one reason I’m self-publishing: the opening’s not genre enough to hook an editor/agent (yes, I tried). I think (and hope) it’s less of a problem for readers. Presumably if they read the first page they’ll have seen the cover, the description and the back-cover blurb, all of which will tell them it’s magic, even if it’s not immediately apparent. Possibly I’m wrong, but it’s a moot point: there’s no way to get the magic in sooner.

I’m not sure there is in Asunder, either, but I’ll think about it. And possibly Mandy’s intro, which has more conflict, would make a better first segment.

2)Aside from the agent presentation, there was a lot of time to write. Danged if it didn’t go well (rewriting the introduction to Jekyll and Hyde). Much better than I usually manage at home. Is it the lack of constant distractions? Sitting at a table instead of on a couch? Just that being in front of my peers, I felt an obligation to focus and produce, even though they couldn’t see what I was doing? I must think about this because that stretch of time felt really good.

3)As I’ve largely written off getting my books trad-published or agented, I didn’t take having an agent there seriously. I talked to them and I think the conversation went fine but if one of them had asked me for an elevator pitch I’d have been caught flat-footed. While I still figure self-publishing is the way to go, I will be better prepared next time. Just in case.

4)While they were discussing the importance of a good first page, I opened up Southern Discomfort on my computer to assess it — and discovered I didn’t have the finished draft I completed last year. Only the ones from before my last round of editing. I spent half an hour trying to figure out if I was wrong … nope.

Fortunately I back up to an external hard drive regularly. When I got home, I hooked up my computer and sure enough, there was the draft in the last backup. Lessons learned: always back up your shit, and if you have multiple drafts, identify the most recent so there’s no confusion which ones to delete.