Writing Excuses Transcripts

 

From https://writingexcuses.com/19-07-nanowrimo-revision-with-ali-fisher-intention 

 

Key points: Editing for intention, focusing to make the book more of the book that you want it to be. What effect do you want to have on the reader with the book? Figure out who you are, and then do it on purpose. You read your favorite author because of what they do well. So lean into what you do well, and what you enjoy. Don't kill your darlings. Why is this here? Do consider where and how you are planning to publish. Don't write to the market, but you can edit to the market. Having someone tell you what they think the book is about can help. Focus on the question the novel is asking. What is the tone of the book? The vibe? What is your lodestone, your guiding light?

 

[Season 19, Episode 07]

 

[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

 

[Season 19, Episode 07]

 

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] A mini-series on revision with Ali Fisher, editing for intention.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Ali] And I'm Ali.

 

[Mary Robinette] We are delighted to have Ali Fisher back with us for this episode, where we are going to be talking about intention. This is, like, how you're approaching the editing when you're not thinking about the length, but thinking about really focusing to make the book more of the book that you want it to be. There's a thing that Edgar Allan Poe said that I referenced in our last episode about writing and editing for unity of effect. That is, in his view, what is the emotion that you want to leave the reader with. That's a… Something that I share as well, and I think I've certainly heard both of you talk about that quite a bit. Like, thinking about what effect you want to have on the reader with the book. So, what are some of the questions that you ask your authors when you're trying to get them to focus their book?

[DongWon] Absolutely. When I'm approaching a manuscript, so much of what I'm doing in the initial pass is trying to make sure I understand very clearly what the author was intending to accomplish. Right? What was the unity of effect that they were going for? Since everyone else has a quote on this topic, I also have one…

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] Which is a Dolly Parton quote…

[Yes]

[DongWon] which is, "Figure out who you are, and then do it on purpose." So much, I think, of writing a book is a process of figuring out what is this book, who is this book, why did you write it? I think sometimes you'll have an idea going into it, and sometimes that idea isn't clear until you've finished it. Or, what you originally thought it was about turns out not to be what the book is about. Right? So, I think the process of writing it is often, no matter how much planning you do, discovery of what your intentions were, and are, and what you want them to be going forward. Right? So, that's so much of the thing that's going to be informing your editing process and your revision process as you dive back into it.

 

[Mary Robinette] I love that so much. That Dolly Parton quote makes me so happy. It also ties into something that... I just took a class with Tobias [Buckell?]. He was talking about finding your spark, but one of the things that he said just set off all sorts of fireworks and sparks in my head, was that you read your favorite author because of what they do well, not because of what they don't do well.

[Ali] Yes.

[Mary Robinette] So, like when you're reading Asimov, it's not because of his characterization.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Like, that's not why you read Asimov.

[Ali, DongWon chorus] Nope.

[DongWon] Truly not.

[Ali] She likes jewelry. End of character.

[Mary Robinette] Yep. That's all you need. Really. It goes with the diamonds. But, for me, it was like thinking about… Like, really leaning into what you do well, and the things that you enjoy as a representative audience member yourself, as a writer.

[Yeah]

[Mary Robinette] That's, for me, I think just an exciting way to think about it. It's, like, what do I love about this and how can I make it more of what I love.

[Ali] It's such a good reframe. Author Jo Walton had a series of posts. I don't know if they were critiques or love letters, but they got all published in a book by tour that was called What Makes This Book so Great. That was what the series was called. I just thought that was such a wonderful way to approach, like, the reading experience. But also a very helpful way to approach the revision period which is when you're expected and most likely will be extremely hard on yourself. We're not talking about the fallout trial process in this episode, but stay tuned until next week or 2 weeks from now…

[DongWon] Yes.

[Laughter]

[DongWon] Next week.

[Ali] Stay tuned. But I will say one of the things that, when talking about revision and intention, I always do my best to try to remember to flag the things that, like, what's so awesome here, like, this made me cry, don't touch it. I want it, I want to get hurt. Let's talk about how to hurt me more. Or, like, what… This is so great. So, what else is like that? Or, like, what else can we do to sort of… Putting those flags down I think is just really helpful. Because it can be… It's a really hard time, it's a really hard time to be with the story and just remembering what all these good things is really helpful.

[DongWon] Yeah. I think 2nd only to show, don't tell, which is something I complained about last episode, one of the most common repeated refrains of writing advice that just drives me bonkers is kill your darlings.

[Mary Robinette] Ugh. Yeah.

[DongWon] Right? There's this idea that… There are times when you do have to cut something you love. Right? We talked about this a little bit less time, about cutting a character or cutting a scene or an element that isn't tying… That is slowing your pacing down or isn't supporting the main action of the story or the main intention of the story. But that's different from this idea, that's like, oh, if you love this thing, then it shouldn't be in the book. You wrote this book, the reason we are here is because we like the things that you're doing well. I mean, this is exactly… Going back to Tobias's quote, I don't remember the exact wording, but it's this idea of, like, we're reading this for a reason, and that reason is probably the thing that you're most excited about. Because your energy and enthusiasm and interests are going to come through. Right? Now, don't overindulge in that. Right? Don't, like, luxuriate in that at the expense of all the other elements that a book has to have. But, don't kill your darlings. Love them. Find ways to support them and give them an environment that they can be best observed, appreciated, and so they can flourish for the reader.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. For me, it's that you have to be willing to kill them if they are pulling the book out of alignment. That's… Sometimes, if you've got a book that's got this really clean, spare, austere sense of language, and then you've got one sentence that has a lot of flourishes in it that you love, that sentence stands out, not because it's a bad sentence, not because you love it, but because it is in contrast to everything else that's happening in the book. It is not part of that unity of effect. There are times when you want to contrast, but you want to make sure that it's a contrast that is applied deliberately and for an effect itself.

[Ali] Right. Do you want that attention, because you're grabbing it. Is this the subject or the topic or the moment that needs that spotlight because it's got it.

 

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, for me, when I'm thinking about this editing for intention, the thing that I'm coming back to is always like why is this scene here, why is this moment here? If I'm trying to fix something, sometimes I'm looking at it like I can't get this sentence to work. Then realize it's because it does… It just… It doesn't fit. There's some part of me that knows that it doesn't belong there. If I query, like, what is my intention with this and what function is it serving in this scene, then I can usually either swap it out for something different that serves better or recognize that it doesn't have one and cut it. But it is always coming to the why is my starting point.

 

[Ali] Yeah. We've talked about sort of philosophical and essentially political, but, like the effect that the book is having and that intention. Do we also want to talk a little bit about the intention of like how to publish it and, like, whether or not you're planning on going to a major publisher or publishing yourself or making it into a zine, like printing your own booklet? I think knowing the expectation, or like excitement of the reader in different spaces, or, like, what is more exciting to people right now, like, they're [garbled]. We were talking about the [Oops La] battle novel in…

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] Right.

[Ali] In our last episode. I feel like there are certain areas that that could potentially hit stronger. I think maybe knowing where you're going with the story or where you're hoping to take the story out is a good thing to keep in mind, because there will be expectations based on whatever that publishing process looks like.

[Mary Robinette] That's a really great point. There is the reason that you write is not the same reason that you publish.

 

[DongWon] I always really strongly encourage writers not to think about the market when their drafting or coming up with a book. Right? Like, don't write to the market. But what you can do is edit to the market. A little bit. Right? You don't want to overdo it. But there's ways in which once you have a drafted thing, and now you're sitting there figuring out, like, okay, here's the book I wrote. I love it. How do I get this in front of as many readers as I can? That's the point at which you can now start to consider, okay, what categories does this fit in? Is this for adults? Is this for teens? Is this for a middle grade audience? Is it genre? Is it literary? These are so where you can start to edit and start tweaking things to push it in one direction or another. Sometimes, it can be hard to completely do a 180 in terms of your direction once you have the draft, but you can move it 10° this way, 10° that way, and I think start to hit a really specific audience and a specific reader that you're aiming for.

[Ali] I mean, even within like traditional publishing and within my work, I've had a situation where cover art comes in before the book is finished and, like, we realize, like, oh, there's… Like, there's an expectation here, like, an even cozier… Even, like, whatever expectation… Let's put in more food, more delicious like moments, like more textures. Then, the sequel, like, oh, what if it's snowing, and there's a little cozy fire. Like, there are things that can be really surprising that can have an effect. This is obviously very down the line. But you might be surprised at some of the things that affect the revision by the end of the process.

[DongWon] Yeah. I've had situations where we wrote up the copy to pitch it to publishers, and in writing the copy, we both went, like, wait a minute. There's something that's not working. There's a huge piece of this that needs changed, because it just wasn't hitting, it wasn't… That intention wasn't coming through, both in terms of what the author was trying to get across, but also how we were trying to publish it and who we were trying to publish it for. So we really, like, took it back, broke it down, and like added a whole other… We added like 20,000 words, added a whole new character arc, and a new POV, based on trying to write the pitch for the book. Like, we were ready to go out with it, and then suddenly, like, 6 months later, we're like, okay, now we're ready to go out with it. Sometimes it really is that much of a process of figuring out how do we target it for who we're trying to get it to.

[Ali] I've absolutely been in the same situation, where I've been like…

[Chuckles]

[Ali] But, wait, I'm like working on addressing some copy and been like, I actually don't know what the stakes are, but I don't care. So what does that mean? You know, like… During the read, it didn't bother me, but now, like, is there space for that? Is it needed? That kind of thing.

[DongWon] Yep

[Mary Robinette] So, when we come back from our break, we're going to talk a little bit more about intentions and how to figure out what your intention is when you've finished a book, but actually don't know what it's about.

 

[Ali] So, DongWon assures me that they've already pitched you Scavengers Reign, an animated show, I assume you're all now watching. It is gorgeous, vivid, kind of psychedelic dark science fiction. A while back, I got to work with the cocreator of that show, Joe Bennett, on illustrating 2 books with us. One that he also cowrote with Dera White called I Will Not Die Alone about learning the end is nigh and basically just playing D&D with your friends. He also illustrated a book by comedian Joe Pera called A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing, But Using the Bathroom to Escape. Both are now available from Tor books, and you should check them out.

 

[Mary Robinette] So, we've been talking about different types of intention, but one of the things that I will hear early career writers say, and indeed have experienced myself, is I don't know what this book is about.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Nancy Kress, who is a phenomenal writer, said this thing to me that just… Like, I shivered in my very bones. That she writes a draft, and that that is what tells her what the book is about. Then she throws that draft away completely, and start writing again from scratch now that she knows what the book is about. I'm like, I cannot. Uh-uh. But I've also heard other people and myself say this, and then someone will say, like, one chance thing, and I'm like, "Oh! That's what my book is about." So, how do you help your writers understand what their book is about? Like, what are some of the questions that you ask? I'm hoping for pearls of wisdom that will help me.

[Laughter]

[DongWon] Oh, great. How do we… No, I mean [garbled]

[Ali] One of the things that I do is I tell them what I think it's about. Then get to watch their face and find out if they're like, "Oh, no," or like, "Oh, yay," or "I hadn't seen that," or whatever. It's… I love to go in there with a very like, I'm often wrong, here's what I think attitude and just sort of see what that surfaces for somebody. But in terms of actually identifying it?

[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, this is… I think people ask a lot… I have an undergraduate degree in English literature, and I think people ask a lot, if, like that's useful in what I do, and in most ways, it isn't. Right? It's not like I learned grammar from that or how to compose prose from that. But one thing it did give me was critical reading skills. Right? And how to think critically about the stuff that I am reading. Thematically, what there is in it. It's not even so much the formal instruction that helped me do that, it's just reading a ton of books. Right? I think this is one of the reasons why I so strongly encourage, if you want to be a writer, if you want to work in publishing, you have to like books, first and foremost, and you have to read books, first and foremost, and try and stay current with what's happening out there. Because when you're consuming enough media, when you're consuming those things, you start to understand why you like something, what it is about it that… Even if you don't know how to articulate it. When we say that we want you to understand what your book is about, I don't need you to be able to sum it up in a sentence. I don't need you to be able to tell me. In part, you wrote the book because you don't have a simpler way of explaining whatever it is that you were trying to get to with writing the book. Right? That's okay. That's great, actually. That's my job to figure out how to frame it up in a pithy few sentences so they can go on the back of a book or go to an editor or whatever it is. So, I think, for me, it really is putting those critical skills into place as I'm reading to figure out, okay, what is this project? What are they trying to accomplish here? What are the thematics of it? What are the things that are really jumping out at me that seem to resonate with the person behind this book? Now, that's me as a third party coming in, and again, what Ali was saying, I think is so true of sometimes it's about presenting that idea and watching it bounce off the person you talk to, and hopefully you're close…

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] And sometimes it's like, oh, wow, I'm way off here. Then we can approach the edit with that sort of refocus on the intention.

 

[Mary Robinette] When you don't have access to an editor or an agent to do this for you, because I have absolutely had that happen… On the Spare Man, Claire looked at the book and said, "This is a story about a woman of privilege who wants to get her hands dirty." I was like, "Oh. Yeah." The… For me, the thing about that is that that is a declarative's statement. But when I go into the book, the thing that I have found most useful is to figure out what question I'm asking. This is a… I'm reframing something that Elizabeth Bear said, like, you know how you're having a casual dinner conversation and someone just says something brilliant? You're like, "Well, that is going to save everything I write from now on." She said that the difference between a story and a polemic is that a story asks questions and a polemic answers them. The thing for me about a novel, in particular, is that a novel can show so many different answers, so many different possible ways, and leave room for the reader to decide what their own answer to that question is. So, for me, one of the things that helps when I'm trying to focus a story is to think about what is the big question I'm asking. In… It's… It varies. Sometimes it's something like how do you handle it when your spouse is depressed. Sometimes it's a very straightforward one like that. Sometimes it's a big societal one, like how do you create community? Like, what does community mean to you? Like, what are the different ways that community expresses? Then, when I'm writing, I can evaluate against that question. It's like does this scene explore that question? If it doesn't, is there a way that I can add that? If there's not, what is this scene doing? Why is this scene in here? It's not that every scene has to be providing an exact answer to this. But it's… Even if it's just one moment in the scene where that is explored, it still helps me. It helped me with focusing and making decisions about what to include in that.

[DongWon] But if your book isn't feeling like it has a clear purpose, that it has a clear direction, then I think that's a great way to go about it, is asking these questions of is this particular scene supporting the central question that I'm asking? If the answer is no, then does this scene need to be here and does this scene need to shift in its purpose to better support whatever that central thing is. Right? So, I think being able to have some clarity about what that question is, and also what your personal connection to that question is… I see a lot of times someone will come into a book and they'll be asking a big question about society or about how a certain relationship would work, but I can't feel why that question is important to the person in particular. Sometimes digging until you get that personal connection, where you can feel the author in the story, is the thing that really makes a book pop for me. That's when I get very excited, when I can suddenly be like, oh, I see you. You're here. This matters to you because X, Y, or Z. Sometimes it's something as simple as a shared identity, and sometimes it's very nuanced and complex in a way that could not be explained without 30 hours of conversation about the author's like life. But whatever that is, you should feel a connection to the questions that are being asked by your book and find a way to really focus on that and make sure you're really highlighting that in all the major pieces of your story.

[Mary Robinette] Absolutely. One of the other things that I've found along these lines is, again, that personal connection is thinking about the tone that I want the book to have. Because I'm measuring against a bunch of different things. In an ideal world, I'm just writing it and I'm feeling it and it's there. But when I'm revising it, and I'm having to make decisions, like, my first series, Jane Austen with magic, it's like how does this feel like Jane Austen with magic right now? Spare Man, Thin Man in Space. Does this feel… Does it have that feel? No. Okay. Fine. There needs to be more cocktails, obviously. Like, who's… Where is the small dog right now? So, I think that that's another question that you can ask yourself, is, like, what is the tone that I want? What's my vibe? Is this supporting it or is it a deliberate juxtaposition?

[Ali] Yeah. That's so helpful because I do feel like purpose can start to feel sort of like academic. It can feel a little like intellectualized in a way that I think rightfully a lot of people would bristle against. But it can be really basic. It can be like I want to give people a laugh. Or, like, I want… I want to show how cool explosions are. Like [garbled] probably.

[DongWon] [garbled] by the fire. Right?

[Ali] Yes. There probably is more there, if you wrote a whole novel, like, there's more there. But, also, like that is a very legitimate and exciting and cool sort of jumpoff point that needs to be honored in a very similar way, I think. Especially…

[DongWon] Again, it's not something you need to necessarily be even able to articulate. You just need to have like a feeling of what the vibe is. If you lock into that vibe, that's all you need. You just need a tone, or like an image, a thought, a question, any of these things can be your guiding light. I just encourage you to try and figure out what that sort of lodestone is for you that is going to pull you through it, and keep you consistent when you're asking questions about should this stay, should this change, whatever it happens to be.

[Ali] Find your vibe.

[Mary Robinette] I think that's a great… Yeah. I think that's a great segue to take us to our homework for the week. Ali, I think you have that.

 

[Ali] I do. Thank you for asking. Or telling or saying. Okay. Yes, I do. Your homework this week. Write down what you like best about your book. Find a spot in your book where you can incorporate that element where it isn't now. Godspeed.

 

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

 

[Mary Robinette] Hey, writer. Have you sold a short story or finished your first novel? Let us know. We love hearing about how you've applied the stuff we've been talking about to craft your own success stories. Use the hashtag WXsuccess on social media or drop us a line at success@writingexcuses.com.

 

 

From https://writingexcuses.com/2019/06/23/14-25-choosing-your-agent/

 

Key points: Your agent works for you. You have a choice, make it a good one. Think about who you want to work with, who is going to be the right business partner in the long run. Someone who can help you run your business. Who do you want as part of your brand? Make sure they can do a good job. Look at online resources, talk to your network. Ask the agent to talk to their other authors. You may need to change agents as your career changes, or their career changes. Keep the lines of communication open, talk about goals, figure out what you both need. To find an agent, look for authors who have a similar communication style, and talk to them about their agents! Think about someone who can fill in your weak spots. Check which genres the agent works in, and what level of editorial involvement you want. What communications style, how frequent do you want contact? Remember, charisma is not a dump stat. Consider the Kowal relationship axes, mind, manners, money, morals… Murder! Or the Marx Brothers.

 

[Mary Robinette] Season 14, Episode 25.

[Howard] This is Writing Excuses, Choosing Your Agent.

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Dongwon] And we're not that smart.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.

 

[Howard] Dongwon is joining us again. This is his third episode with us. Dongwon, I understand that you have spent some time working as an agent.

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] I have. I actually started my career as an agent, and then wandered off for many years doing other tasks in the industry, and have come back to being an agent in the past 3 and a 1/2 years now.

[Howard] Well, this morning, we had the opportunity to hear you talk about the publishing business. One of the parts that was most interesting to me was that opening salvo of choosing your agent and what that relationship ends up looking like.

[Dongwon] One thing I like to talk about a lot is making it really clear to writers that your agent works for you. If you're in the query trenches right now, the power dynamic feels very weighted towards the agent's side. You're trying to get their attention, you're trying to get someone to pay attention to you and make an offer of representation. But one of the things I like to really drive home is once that offer of representation has been made, the power dynamic completely inverts. Now, what the agent wants is for you to choose them. One of the reasons that we chose this phrasing for the episode title is the idea that you have a choice in this relationship is a really important one. It's one that I think a lot of writers lose sight of, because they're just so focused on getting an agent, any agent. Instead, what I'd like people to do is start thinking very carefully about who they want to work with. Who's going to be the right business partner to them over the course of their career? Ideally, an author-agent relationship will go on for years, and hopefully decades. Optimally, it's the course of both of your careers. You need to think carefully about who you're going to be working with over that period of time, and who you want to be helping you run your business.

[Mary Robinette] This is… I want to say, something that I stumbled on, you've heard me talk about on previous episodes, where my first… My very first agent was not a good agent. We often people say, "A bad agent is worse than no agent." The concrete thing that I had happened was that my first agent… I was… I had warning flags that went off. But it was an agent, and they were excited about my work. I had heard so much about how difficult it was to get an agent. So, even though I had some warning flags that this person might be flaky, I went ahead and signed. What happened was they sat on my novel for a year without sending it out. That was a year in which it was ready. So this was a… actively holding me back. The other thing that can happen with a bad agent, or with an agent who's… This is… These are people who are just like not good at their job, is that if they try to sell your work incompetently to a publishing house, and then you leave them and you come back, it's going to be very difficult to sell that same title later.

[Howard] That's the… There's a principle here that… It's a broader business principle, harkening back to, Dongwon, what you said earlier about you're choosing a business partner. This business partner is carrying your authorial brand as the flag when they march into the office. If they misbehave, if they do a bad job with the pitch, if they happen to be somebody that's for whatever reason, that editorial team, publishing team, just really doesn't like having in the room…

[Mary Robinette] That one actually is less of an issue, because, as long as they've got good taste…

[Howard] As long as they've got good taste. But you just know that whoever you are picking, a portion of who they are ends up as part of your brand, at least to the editors and publishers.

[Dongwon] A lot of the industry's interaction with you will be filtered through your agent. So if your agent has a certain reputation, has a certain way of operating, that is going to influence how people see you. It's not entire. You will have your own brand, and, I know, many writers have the opposite reputation of their agents. But Howard is absolutely right, that in those initial contacts, those initial meetings, that would definitely color it. So, sort of… The first step in choosing an agent is don't choose someone who's bad at their job. This last year, there were… Have been a couple sort of highly publicized incidents of agents who turned out to be acting against their own writers' interests. That's been a very challenging moment. My heart goes out to all of those writers. It can be hard to spot that person. There's some online resources that you can use to check out, like query tracker or query shark, but really, your best defense is having a good network. Talking to your friends, making friends with other writers, and asking around about somebody's reputation before you make a decision to go forward with them.

[Dan] You're also well within your rights to ask that agent if you can talk to some of their other authors. I get a lot of requests from my agent, "Hey, could you talk to this person? I would like to acquire their book." I'm always happy to recommend my agent. If you get an agent whose authors are not happy to recommend her, maybe stay away.

[Howard] Are you still with the agent you were with a year ago?

[Dan] Yes. Sarah Crowe. She's amazing.

 

[Mary Robinette] So I just… I actually just changed agents in the last year. The reason I did that was not because I had a bad agent. My agent was very good. But my career trajectory was such that I needed a different type of agent than I did at the beginning of my career. So the thing that was happening with my career trajectory was… The reason that I felt like I needed someone who was a little more aggressive, was that I was in the downward spiral. This happens to a number of writers in the course of their career, that there's what they call the death… The series' death spiral. So I'd had that happen. Then I had a novel that came out, and my book tour began on election day in 2016, which was a fraud year regardless of where you were. Book sales generally were declining. But when people are looking at your numbers, they don't look at the current events that are going on around it. They just look at the numbers. So I needed someone who was more aggressive. It was a difficult choice, because it would have been easier if my agent was doing things that were actively wrong. That wasn't the case. It was just I needed a different style. This is one of the things that I think you have to… While it's ideal to have an agent that stays with you over the course of your career, it's also important to know kind of what you need going into it.

[Howard] That is… And again, coming back to the general principle of business partners, there is this point of diminishing returns between what I need out of a new agent, what I lose if I don't switch, and the cost of switching. It's easy for us… in crossing that chasm, it's easy for us to overestimate the size of the peril, and just, out of fear of changing, stay in the same place.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Howard] It's difficult.

[Dongwon] Many, many writers will have multiple agents over the course of their careers. There's nothing… There's no inherent problem to that. Like any long-term relationship, what you need out of it will change over time. It's also important to remember that your agent is also not a fixed point. They're evolving in their career as well, and how they operate, what circumstances they're in, what agency they're at, all those things can shift and change over time. Those changes will impact, and impact how the business operates. So it's very important to keep that line of communication open, and be talking about your goals, and are they being met in this relationship or not, and then figure out what you need out of that.

[Mary Robinette] That was very much the case with my agent, my previous agent, was that they had had a promotion at work, and were suddenly handling more things than they had been. So the attention that they were able to give to individual authors was shifting. Like, none of us were being neglected, it was just the communication style had changed. The aggression, I think, had shifted, or at least my perception of it. So that was one thing that was also going on there, was that a change in my agent's life as well.

 

[Howard] Let's take a quick break and talk about a book. Dongwon?

[Dongwon] Yeah. This week, I want to talk about Sarah Gailey's Magic for Liars. This is Sarah Gailey's debut novel, coming out from Tor Books. It should have just come out on June Fourth. It is a murderer-mystery set at a magical school for teenagers. It is not a young adult novel. It is a very adult novel about a woman who is called in to investigate a murder of a faculty member at this school. The protagonist's twin sister also is a teacher at this school. As you would have it, that sister is magic and she is not. She needs to figure out what happened and unpack this really gruesome murder and figure out why teenagers are so goddamned terrifying.

[Laughter]

[Dongwon] Especially when they have magic powers.

[Howard] Okay. As the father of two current teenagers, I would love to know the answer to that question.

[Laughter]

[Howard] Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey. I'm a big fan of Sarah's. Their cowboy hippopotamus books.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Loved those so much.

 

[Howard] Okay. I want to talk about your toolbox as an author. I'm big on the toolbox metaphor. What are the tools that authors have at their disposal to start searching for agents who meet their criteria?

[Mary Robinette] We've talked about a couple of them on previous podcasts. The advice that I'm often given… Had been given and often give is to pay attention to what authors are happy with their agents. Specifically, looking for authors… There's… We always are told to look at the authors whose work is similar. But I actually think you should also try to look at the author… Authors whose process is similar. Because that's going to be people with whom you have a similar communication style. I'm going to continue using myself as a useful representative example. When I left my previous agent and moved on, because of where I am in my career and I am… I do have multiple Hugos. I am marketable. I had the good fortune of having a couple of choices. I was doing due diligence, and I went into it expecting that at the end of having done due diligence that I would be signing with Dongwon. I was just like, "But I'm going to check with some other people just in case."

[Howard] Oh, she went there.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] I cleared it… I cleared this with him before, before we got into it. It was a really hard choice. Because, like the authors that he represents are people that I like, there people that I have a lot in common with. I think he's wicked smart, and there were all these different things. When it finally came down to, Dongwon and Seth Fishman, who is my agent now, was I realized that what I needed was someone who filled my weaknesses. The difference between their agenting styles, in a lot of ways, they're both very good with developmental stuff and things like that, but Dongwon is about building relationships, and Seth is a shark.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And…

[Dongwon] I'm a nice shar… No.

[Mary Robinette] I know. Well, that's the thing. It's like you're the nursemaid shark. He's… There is nothing…

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] But it was basically, I was, like I'm good at relationships. That's not the spot that I need bolstering. So both of them would have been a good choice, but it was really about learning what I needed. It's quite possible that that is what I needed early in my career as well, but I didn't know myself as well, as an author and what my process and how I was going to fit into the industry was. So when you're looking at the toolbox, it's important, yes, to be able to find the agent, but just knowing a list of agent's names is not as useful as knowing what it is you need out of the agents. So, Absolute Write is a good source for checking to make sure that the agent isn't shady. I also find that if you type in the agent's name and scam afterwards…

[Dan] And hope there's no hits.

[Mary Robinette] Hope there's no hits, yes. Harassment after that. These are… Scandal. These are good words to just kind of…

[Howard] Good things to not be attached to.

[Mary Robinette] Then, looking at Publisher's Weekly, Locus. Looking at who made sales, and…

 

[Howard] In 2006, I, we played with the idea of having Schlock Mercenary represented, agented, shipped out to a publisher, because self-pubbing actual paper books that weigh actual tons of actual mass is hard work. My friend Rodney had written a technical manual a few years earlier, and had an agent… His experience with the agent was funny. He said, "Yeah, I've already sold the book. I can't mess with… There's nothing you can do." She said, "I tell you what. Let me represent you. I know the contract's been signed, but let me represent you." She went in. She got him a 50% raise on the book. Her 15% came out of that, and Rodney was like, "Oh. Oh, I do need an agent." Rodney introduced me to that agency, which was the Barbara Bova agency, which does a lot of science fiction. So I came into this from outside the industry, through a contact to was just somebody I knew in the tech world. Part of the toolbox is talking to people and listening to their experiences. That experience of Rodney's… Like, I want that to happen to me. That agency… The results were the best possible results. Which were… Everybody we talked to said, "We love this, but it's not what we do." Or, "I mean, we already read it, but it's not what we do." And, "Wow, this sounds awesome, but it's not what we do." The agent went out and determined that the market I wanted at the time didn't exist. The relationship's over now, because the agent's not going to make any money. But that is… I consider that a success story.

[Dongwon] It really is.

[Howard] Because I found an agent who, in the space of six months, told me that the business plan that I already had was the right one.

 

[Dan] So, let's expand this toolbox a little bit more. When you're talking to people, when you're talking to other authors, what are some of the questions you can ask them to find out how they work with their agent? Two of the big ones for me. First of all, is what genres does your agent work in? Because I got the… I started with Sarah because I had written a horror novel, but I knew that I wanted to write more than that. One of the reasons that she and I work so well together is that she covers horror, but also science-fiction and also YA and middle grade, which kind of covers all of the playgrounds that I wanted to play in. Not every agent does. So finding someone who's willing to go with you when you start hopping genres is valuable, if that's what you want to do. One of the other ones is what level of editorial involvement do you want your agent to have. Because different agents do it differently, different authors want different things. So if you want an agent who will be very hands-on or very hands-off, ask their authors what that relationship is like.

[Dongwon] That's one that you should also ask the agent directly. Going back to Mary's example, we had a series of very long conversations. I mean, we probably spent upwards of seven or eight hours on the phone over the course of a few weeks talking a lot of this through. When… I get nervous when I'm signing a new client if they're not asking me questions, then I start to have a little bit of a hesitation in my mind, actually. Just because I'm worried that they're not putting the work in to make sure that this relationship is going to work out, and that I'm going to be right for them. Really, at the core of this, is communication style is really one of the most important things. Do you want someone who's very formal in their communications? Do you want a letter that's laid out? Do you want something that's very casual? Do you want to be… Talk to your agent once a week, once a month, once every six months? I have certain clients I talk to almost daily, and there certain clients I talk to about every three or four months. It depends on what it is. I am very informal in how I relate to a lot of my clients. I think, for certain people, that would drive them nuts, right? There's certain people who really appreciate that, and sort of need that ability to check in periodically and be like, "Hey, is everything okay? Am I on the right track? Is this going well? What's happening with this?"

[Howard] At risk of going over-general again, this is the… Your reminder that charisma is not a dump stat.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] The ability to have a conversation with someone in which the two of you connect and determine what you expect out of this kind of relationship… You can build that skill set without talking to agents. Learning that skill set when your feet are in the fire is frightening.

 

[Mary Robinette] So you remember in a previous episode, I talked about the Kowal relationship axes, which my mother-in-law came up with as a way to describe someone that you're dating. That you want to be roughly aligned on intelligence, you want to be roughly aligned on where you feel money is important, morals… Actually, you want your… You want a moral agent. Towards you!

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But manners, similar communications style. These apply to your agent as well as to a character. There's a really good agent that is someone that I could have gotten because they are… They're the agent of a friend, they're very successful. I would have run a fire poker through them within two minutes of conversation. Because our communication styles are wildly out of alignment. At the same time, you're not looking for a best friend. Right? It is a business partner. It's good if you can be friends. But that's not… You need someone who is good at their job first, and then someone you can communicate with second.

[Howard] Mind, manners, money, morals, murder…

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Marx Brothers. We try to be more positive about it.

[Howard] All right…

[Dongwon] I will say, I often try to avoid the romantic relationship analogy when talking about finding your agent, but it is inevitable that it comes up at some point, because I think there are a lot of similarities and parallels.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

 

[Howard] There definitely are. On those notes, Dongwon, do you have homework you can assign to our listeners?

[Dongwon] Yeah. So, your homework assignment is going to be a little bit of self-examination. I want you to think about your career and what's important to you and how you like to operate. Think about times you've been in a business setting, at a job, in a meeting, and think about the things that you found very frustrating, and what you would find your dating to work with over a long period of time with somebody who is working with some of the most important work to you. Make a list of those attributes. What are you looking for in an agent? What kind of communication style? Do you want someone who edits you, do you want someone who doesn't? How would you like them to pursue a deal? Do you want them to go all out all the time, or do you want them to build relationships and be very targeted? Those are questions you should ask yourself, and start making that list of the attributes that are important to you.

[Howard] Make the list. You gotta write this down, because this is Writing Excuses, and you're out of excuses. Now, go write.