Well, sort of. Actually, Julia and I are very hard at work, with record numbers of submissions, lots of interesting projects circling, and, as you know, some fine deals under our belts in the last few weeks. This is a business that never sleeps!

But just for fun, we thought we’d ask ourselves some of the questions you might ask us, if you could. We know that lots of you wonder, ‘Who are these agents? How do they think? Would I like them?’ Well, here are a few fun tasters into what makes us both tick.

As some of you will know, I’m also just back from vacation, so the photos are just a few of the characters I met on my travels this summer. Enjoy!

What sort of student were you at high school and how have you changed since then?

SARAH:  Shy, diffident and lacking in confidence – which made me appear very lazy. Then at 16 I started to bloom. I found one thing I could do well (English) and it was transformative. I was not expected to achieve anything, and I determined to prove everyone wrong. That has motivated me ever since.

JULIA: A bit naughty but solid. Nothing’s changed.

Think of one individual who has had the greatest impact on your career path. Who was it and why.

JULIA: My mother: a great businesswoman and entrepreneur. She left Holland when she was 16, came to London and set up a business that became one of the top PR firms in Europe. 99% of what she says is right.

SARAH: Mrs Cowley, my English teacher from ages 16-18. She was completely different to any teacher I’d had before – passionate about her subject and aiming very high. She showed me a vision of my future, which was literature.

What novel has had the greatest effect on you in your life and why (only allowed one, sorry we’re ruthless!)?

SARAH: Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS in my early teens. I was awestruck. How could it be possible to write something like this???

JULIA: THE RATS by James Herbert. I read it much too young and the effect wasn’t wholly positive. Nightmares for years. But it did give me a love of horror that has proved useful.

What job would you have done if you hadn’t become a literary agent and why?

JULIA: Chef. I love that the deadlines during service are twenty minutes at most. And a walk-in fridge is a great place to cool off.

SARAH: Singer or psychotherapist. I performed a lot as singer-songwriter in the early 90s (complete with leather pants and long red hair). I also studied psychotherapy to diploma level.

What do you love most and dislike most about your job?

SARAH:  I love telling a writer they have a deal – especially a debut author. I get as emotional as they do. I hate it when things don’t work out with a publisher but you come so, so close. You need nerves of steel in this business (or you need to pretend you have them).

JULIA: Giving the good news and giving the bad news. Also finding those books in my submissions box: The manuscripts that get you cancelling your dinner plans and keep you up till dawn.

If I had a debut author’s manuscript and a red pencil in my hand I’d be most likely to . . .

JULIA: Take out the ‘telling’. It’s amazing how red-penning all the telling can bring a scene to life.

SARAH: Cut out a lot of adjectives and adverbs. Writing more sparely can give your story greater impact because both your characters and world have some breathing room.

You’re sitting at your desk, banging your head on the wall with frustration. What is most likely to be the cause?

SARAH:  The server going down. Or editors not replying.

JULIA: Technology going wrong.

What would you most like to do if you had a day off work?

JULIA: Get my boots on and go for a hike. Or go to the cinema twice in the afternoon.

SARAH: Hiking in a wild place or going round an ancient castle or historic building. With my faithful Canon at the ready, of course.

Yum, yum. Favorite food and drink?

SARAH: Cake!  Apple cake. Blueberry muffins. Chocolate roulade. Carrot cake. Even scones, with fresh raspberry and walnuts.  Sadly, I also like wearing my jeans so I eat a lot of fantasy cake. (And by the way, Julia is weird. See below.)

JULIA: Raw herring, soft roll, chopped onions.

You’ve won a prize of a vacation in any place of your choice. Where would you pick and what sort of trip would it be?

JULIA: Up a mountain. Any mountain. Go Capricorn!

SARAH:  Somewhere with big views and wild scenery where I can think about the meaning of life.  I’d love to go out west and see the really big mountains.

If you could find three great new novels to represent right now, what genres and age groups would you pick?

SARAH: I’d love to find a thriller with a fantastic ‘what if’ concept that turns on a dime.  A great, spare, amazing love story that does something new. Stylish, quirky, brilliantly voiced younger fiction.

JULIA: I’d love some horror with a great premise. A thriller with a great premise. A love story with a great premise! Any age.

There are tons of agents and agencies in the world. Tell us why you think an author should choose Greenhouse to represent them? 

JULIA: We both work hard, and creatively, editorially. We share each other’s skills. We are the only transatlantic children’s book agency. If I was an author, I’d want to have an agent on both sides of the Atlantic – and Greenhouse offers that (with incredible results).

SARAH: We’ve made Greenhouse fly in just 2+ years, in an intensely competitive environment and from a standing start. I believe that underscores both our energy and our skill. Plus we have a passion for subsidiary rights (vital in today’s marketplace) and a wealth of transatlantic knowledge which can be highly advantageous to clients.

With which fictional character (adults as well as children’s books) do you most identify and why?

SARAH: Kay Scarpetta (Patricia Cornwell). I’d always been fascinated by her, and then some years ago one of my publishing staff said I reminded her of Kay (tough on the outside, gentle on the inside, apparently!).

JULIA: According to those facebook quizzes: Jack Bauer!

What is the one writing tip you would choose to share with a new writer?

JULIA: Keep at it.

SARAH: Be at peace. And listen.

Publishers – love ‘em or hate ‘em?

SARAH: Love ‘em, a lot. On a professional level we must hold them to the highest standards. But on a personal level I know the huge workload, the unrelenting meetings, the financial constraints they are under. It’s a tough job and it’s getting tougher, with fewer staff, higher targets for books, every decision under a microscope. We try hard to be collaborative rather than confrontational.

JULIA:Love ‘em. As an agent, I have the publishing teams that I love to work with, from editor right through to sales and marketing: The dream teams. And those dream teams come because everyone works together and there’s trust, respect and openness. We’re all on the same side after all.

Which novel(s) published in the last year would you have most liked to represent (but didn’t)?

JULIA: GONE by Michael Grant. Oh, and THE PASSAGE by Justin Cronin. That is an epic book.

SARAH:  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Obviously not YA, but somehow I’d have made a case! In YA, I’d have loved to land MATCHED (Allie Condie) which pubs this Fall.

Greenhouse is a relatively young agency (2+ years old).  Where would you like the agency to be in five years time?

SARAH: The top destination in both US and UK for authors seeking representation in children’s/teen, and a byword for author care and great results. Ambitious? Moi?

JULIA:Unchanged in terms of our values and strengths - but bigger.

Describe yourself in three words.

JULIA: I asked my best friend for these: Enthusiastic, supportive and creative.

SARAH:  Driven, energetic and contemplative.

Name one thing you do that really annoys your nearest and dearest.

SARAH: Looking at my Blackberry constantly. Chewing Orbit gum and leaving it in disgusting places when the phone rings. (I know, it’s repulsive.)

JULIA:  A taste for trashy magazines.

Describe your style of agenting in one sentence.

JULIA: Honest. I don’t like the feeling of being ‘handled’: I always want the truth. That’s what I seek out and expect from others so that’s what I give my authors. The job is a huge privilege: I’m on the front line of people’s careers, seeing and knowing things that they might not, so it’s only right that I say things as they are.

SARAH:  Energetic, straight, and caring.  I have worked with authors ever since I graduated from college (that’s a long time ago!) and I understand what this precarious industry feels like. Writers want my best efforts, they want to be able to trust what I say, but they also need kindness. Courtesy is a big word with me.

What are the hallmarks of the query email you’d most like to find in your inbox?

SARAH: It will follow our guidelines (see website) and be clear, straightforward and concise. It will also entice with a short outline of an irresistibly compelling plot.

JULIA: I think the strength of a query is all about the strength of the premise. So I’m looking for a great premise that has focus, clarity and freshness.

What is the biggest no-no you are likely to find in a query?

JULIA: Starting with an alarm-clock, waking up and then breakfast. In most cases, the decision the writer has made is to start their story on the morning the action starts, rather than to start in their story.

SARAH: I agree with Julia on alarm clocks. In terms of the query, I don’t like bragging. The best writers don’t, I think, boast constantly about their brilliance because they’re too busy thinking about how they might be even better.

Animals are important to both of you. What was your first pet and how did you feel about him/her?  If you could get any new pet now, what would you choose?

SARAH: First pet was a hamster called Hamlet. Now we have two dogs (standard Dachsunds) who are very loving, funny and unbelievably stubborn. My husband is dog crazy and we have to speak every pooch we meet in the street. We’d love another Golden Retriever one day – probably a boy called Nelson.

JULIA: Bertie (real name Alberta) was my first pet. She was an English Bull Terrier. Really tough looking and all muscle. I was a baby when she joined the family and I used to pull her tail, try to ride her and eat her food and she never got annoyed. And she once attacked a flasher at the playground. She was very cool.

I thought I’d pose some revision questions to help with any self-editing that some of you might be doing. I’m just back from holiday myself, so as a treat, I’ll cut my questions with some snaps from the Canaries.

Does your main story arc take off soon enough? In those first pages and chapters a reader is looking to see where the story is pointed. We’re looking for intent.

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME, which I’ve just reread, has a great first scene. Christopher finds a dead dog, speared with a pitchfork on his neighbour’s lawn. If the reader knows where the story is pointed, it’s much harder to get lost, lose interest and put the book down. Show your reader due North right from the start.

Do you start with backstory? If so, do it with caution. With backstory you might have trouble hooking your reader. Start in a scene, with a character and a challenge. Browsing first chapters in a bookshop, you’ll see a lot of books start with jeopardy: A chase, a crash, an argument, a dilemma – a mini-drama to hook the reader in.

What do you reveal about your main character in the first few pages? Make a list of what is shown about this character. They should be compelling. Why do they matter? Why are they unique? If there’s a baddy, what’s their USP? My all-time favourite baddy is Cruella De Vil: A woman who makes coats from Dalmatian puppies. What a motif! Give your baddy something extra.

Does every scene need to be there? Does everything develop story, character or theme? Don’t give your reader a chance to look away. John Grisham gives a great piece of writing advice. He says imagine that your reader is sitting opposite you as you write, and you can’t let them look away for a second. If a scene can come out without having an impact on the plot, then question its role. Keep the pedal to the metal!

Do you end your chapters at a good spot – a hook or a high point maybe? Are you entering scenes at the right moment? Take a look at each scene. What’s the latest point you could start? And the earliest point you could leave? Those could well be the cut points.

Have you read your dialogue aloud? Or even better, get someone else to read it aloud and listen to them. If they stumble over it, so will you reader. Does it sound like something your character would say? Maybe highlight and read one character’s dialogue to make sure you’ve pitched each voice just right. Dialogue is difficult. Master it.

Are there too many characters? Is there an overload early on that might bamboozle the reader? If you think there could be, maybe combine two people into one. Do your character names stand out or are they samey?

Is there enough conflict? Conflict holds pace. What is at stake in your story? If the main character doesn’t achieve that goal, what will happen? Does it matter? It must. Is there a cause and effect relationship in the storytelling, in the achievement of the goal? Do actions have consequences?

Have you trusted your reader? I bet the best books you’ve read have made you feel clever, and made you stretch and occupy some space in the reading. Show, don’t tell. That gives the reader a place in your story.

Is your character growing? Does he/she have an emotional arc as well as an outer journey? Do incidental characters have an arc? Kurt Vonnegut said “every character must want something, even if it’s only a glass of water”. What do your characters want?

Is there too much description? As Lombardi says, “There’s a fine line between lush description and the kind that chokes the reader”. Avoid clichés. Don’t overwrite.

Is your point of view consistent? Decide from the outset who is telling the story and stick to it. Be aware if you’re writing from multiple POVs, you’ve set yourself a big challenge. When it works it’s wonderful, but often a reader will favour one POV/ character/story and then come to resent the other(s). If you favour one storyline, your reader probably will to. So address that head on. And remember that each POV needs to feel and sound different.

At the key moments – the pivots, the shocks, the thrills, the bits with feeling – have you squeezed the juice from the fruit? You know where the buttons are in your story. Press them.

And a piece of computer advice. Back everything up! Twice!

People often ask me for advice on how to find an agent. My number one piece of advice is finish the book. Two reasons for that. First, agents operate at top speed when something great comes along. The last author I signed up was Jeyn Roberts who wrote the storming thriller THE DARK INSIDE. I signed her up at four o’clock in the morning after taking her manuscript home seven hours earlier. She was in Korea though, so it wasn’t her four o’clock. The point is we can be like truffle pigs on the scent (see picture), and once we’ve got that scent we charge.

The second reason I say wait before submitting work to an agent: If you’ve finished your book, taken a break from it, worked on it, looked at the whole and improved it as whole, those first pages and first chapters are going to be stronger. You will know clearly what your book is and where it needs to go – and you’re going to get there more effectively.

Hope this provides some help. It’s been a great month for Greenhouse so far: The transatlantic double for Jeyn Roberts, a picture book deal, GOGGLE-EYED GOATS, for Stephen Davies and a few great things in the cooker…

Happy holidays. And don’t work too hard!

Julia

Finding an agent for your work must be like the seventh ring of hell. Every knock, every well-placed kick makes it just a little harder to struggle up again, but somehow you know you must keep venturing back into that fiery torment.

What you may not realize is that everyone in this industry – author, agent, editor, publisher, scout – has experienced the pain of an arrow to the heart. Many. And probably more recently than you know. This is a business that is intensely competitive at every level. It is not a science, but a mixture of business and art. Opinions can be very subjective, and decisions can be influenced by very subliminal, often unconscious factors.

I have administered pain to a number of people this week – and I’m talking editors – as I resolved a very big deal (more on that soon). Not everyone could get this book and author, however hard they tried, however good they were. Some people had to lose in order for one to win.

It is hard to administer rejection – and it is hard to receive it (and I have).  Look, in the world of publishing, we all bleed some time. And you might not believe how involved, how committed, how emotional, we professionals can get when we want a particular book and author. We may tell you that it’s all business, but the truth is – we really, really feel it. We’ve just trained ourselves to kick the wall in private and sound philosophical in public!

But to every rejection there is an antithesis. The one who wins. And don’t we all want to be that winner! Courted and admired, the centre of everyone’s attention, success is a fabulous feeling – even if we know we can’t stay forever in that circle of light.

With ever more agents on the children’s/YA scene (I can count 10 new ones in the past year without even trying), the most standout new writers will increasingly experience the thrilling, bewildering fluster of The Agent Battle.  When a number of us – the biggest one I’ve been in so far has included NINE agents - turn our guided-missile charm on a debut author.  We all want her/him, we all know how well we could sell him/her, and even more importantly – we have fallen in love! This person has beguiled us, seduced us, thrilled us with their story – AND WE JUST HAVE TO HAVE IT!

For the author this can feel like a ‘be careful what you wish for ‘situation. Look,you wanted an agent – but how do you decide between five or TEN? And what happens when you realize you haven’t a clue how to make the decision and don’t even know what questions to ask?

And perhaps, horror of horrors, you realize these agents of ice-cold repute are actually REAL PEOPLE who FEEL THINGS. Perish the thought, but (let’s whisper this) they are actually quite nice! How will you say no to them?

Now, after all that dreaming, you finally have to put your eggs (or melons) in one basket.

So, here are my thoughts – as objective as possible – on what you should look for when choosing between agents:

1 Do you like this person and feel comfortable chatting with them? Is there some level of personal chemistry?  If the agent feels seriously intimidating to you, analyse it (don’t mistake intimidation for your natural shyness in this new milieu) and if you know in your heart that you’re always going to be scared of this individual, they’re not right for you.

2 Don’t go ga-ga just because of a Big Name (agent or agency). Small agencies can do a great job; start-ups can be powerhouses. You could be a big star on a boutique list, but a little overlooked on a list of huge clients.

3 Trawl online for interviews and information about the agent. Most of us are all over the web. Talk to the agent’s client(s) – BUT please remember we can’t be constantly putting people in touch with our clients, so be considerate. [I once asked a client to email a prospective author on my behalf – at the author’s request. My client’s message was never even acknowledged.  This is embarrassing and time-wasting. Please be respectful.]

4 If you know in your heart of hearts that you’ve had an offer from the agent you want, don’t put the rest of us through flaming hoops that can take several weeks of work and stress. Be thorough, analyse your own heart and mind, and then make the decision.

5 Make sure you go with an agent working in your area – but don’t think because your book is YA, you should go with someone who exclusively sells YA. At Greenhouse we like to represent a range of ages and genres within children’s/teen fiction – look, we all sell to the same editors. Just because an agent reps five major authors doing the same kind of thing as you, doesn’t mean they’re necessarily the best home for your book. I like to take on people who are contrasting and offer something a bit different within the agency.

6 VERY IMPORTANT - CONTRACTS: Prioritize asking about contracts. I have concerns over the lack of contracts knowledge around. At Greenhouse (and all other good agencies) contracts are hugely important. I work closely with a contracts colleague (Kevin – aka The Smiling Assassin) who has 20+ years of corporate transatlantic contract experience. And I myself have been negotiating contracts at least that time (big and small, with publishers and media lawyers). Every line is important to us. A deal is not just about up-front money; you need precision and detail throughout your agreement. It should optimize your success – and protect you if things go wrong.

7 VERY IMPORTANT – FOREIGN/SUBSIDIARY RIGHTS:  At Greenhouse we put great value on all foreign and subsidiary rights, including both halves of the English-language equation North America/ UK and Commonwealth (depending whether you are a Brit or American reading this). There are very, very few occasions when we will grant more than North America to a US house or UK/Comm to a British house. Why? Because reserving the other rights for you and selling them ourselves will make you considerably more money in the long run, particularly if your book is likely to be of international interest.

This is a complicated argument and I’m happy to return to it later in more detail, but I worry when I see agents giving away World rights every time. Again, a deal is not just about that up-front advance.  Will your agent approach your interests with care, patience and meticulousness – not just a mad rush to agree terms and post a deal?

8 Look for an agent interested in your long-term career, not just your first book.  Of course, we can’t guarantee you will follow up with a second (or third etc) as commercially viable as your first, but listen to whether the agent talks about ‘representing authors’ or just projects. You want to stick with this agent for a good, long time – they will become one of the most significant people in your life.

9 I forgot this first time around, so just doing an ‘edit’ to make sure it’s included. VERY IMPORTANT: Will the agent return your phone calls and emails?  I see an increasing number of ‘exiles’ from other agencies appearing in my submissions inbox. Why? The biggest reason cited is non-communication. Non-communication during submission process, and on ordinary follow-up stuff. The writing life can be anxious, isolated and stressful - you need someone who will be your ‘professional friend’, reassuring you and answering you in a timely way. Obviously that doesn’t mean you pester your agent constantly about nothing (balance, people!), but if your question/request is reasonable and necessary then your agent should reply fairly rapidly - if only to say, ‘Sorry, I can’t get to it now, but I should be able to get to it next week - or whenever.’ You are not the only star in the firmament, but your agent should make you feel like you are!

So, the Big Decision. Are you going to be in a safe pair of hands? Will your agency help you grow into a ripe and delectable fruit?  Nothing in life is guaranteed, but if you feel a strong confidence that they will, then banish paralysis and jump with bold excitement.

Finally, I’m off on vacation this coming week until later in August. As you’ll see on our submission guidelines, Julia will be taking over the North-American queries inbox while I’m away. You are very lucky because she has fantastic taste, loves a great story, and you can be sure we’ll be discussing submissions of special interest on my return.

Enjoy a fruity, tasty, and very successful summer!

PS:  Photos taken at Del Ray Farmers’ Market, Northern Virginia

We were staying at Betsy’s, a delightfully eccentric guest house down the road from Vermont College of the Fine Arts in Montpelier. A group of us were round the homespun table, laden with Vermont-style breakfast goodies. I’m kind of rough that time in the morning, but raised my bleary eyes from the maple syrup long enough to say to my neighbor, ‘Hi, I’m Sarah, who are you?’

She beamed her big smile, swished her glorious hair and told me she was Jandy.

Jandy?! Jandy as in Nelson? As in author of THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE which everyone was talking about and which had just sold to Dial and Walker UK? The very same. 

Caramba, it was the breakfast motherlode!

That book has been on my wishlist for months, and I finally bought it the other day, along with a mouth-watering stack of others: Kathi Appelt’s KEEPER, Patrick Ness’s THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO. And one illicit pleasure – THE LITTLE STRANGER by Sarah Waters. (Illicit because adult reading is sequestered to vacations only – pressure of the industry forces this.) Even more slip-smackingly good, these are REAL BOOKS, all glossy jackets and creamy, strokeable paper. Take that, boring old Kindle, you utilitarian and dreary text purveyor!

I opened SKY with reverence. Jandy Nelson has an MFA in poetry; an MFA in writing fiction for children and teens. She’s loaded with learning, she’s smart as a whippet, beautiful as a flag – oh, and in her spare time she’s a literary agent. (Do you ever feel a little . . . inadequate?)

This book is gorgeous.  Every word is to be savoured. Every word has intent. If character were a suitcase waiting to be filled with language, then Jandy’s travel items are packed to the brim with brightly coloured garments.  You can tell she’s a poet – she writes with miraculous concision, and personality and originality burst out of every line like a peony.  Good grief, even her Acknowledgements are sumptuous!

THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE is just one lesson among many in the art of writing.  Considering every word. Avoiding cliché as if it’s leprous. Not relying on overwriting – ie, barrages of adjectives and adverbs in an attempt to make the writing ‘powerful’. Deftly wielding your literary paintbrush to create character. Showing, showing, showing rather than just telling your reader.  Finding new ways to bring to life a subject (loss of a sibling) that has been fictionalized many times before, so the reader feels it’s brand new. Making us see the world in a different way.

If you’re a new writer, you won’t learn everything in this book, but you can learn a heck of a lot.

THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE has been retrospectively added to my list of ‘best books of 2009’.  And because I like supporting great new authors, here’s the Amazon link so you can flourish your credit cards: http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Everywhere-Jandy-Nelson/dp/0803734956/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279640688&sr=1-1

Reading excellent books is essential, I find. A kind of cleansing of the palate; a reminder of how a great claret really tastes. Why we are doing what we do, and how we can do it better.  And to that end I’m also starting to study the craft of writing myself, so that I can better help you guys who are toiling in the vineyards. I know lots of you enjoyed my HOW TO WRITE THE BREAKOUT NOVEL series (see back issues of blog) and have said how little access you have to this kind of advice. So let’s try to keep it going as and when we can.

I have just started on FROM WHERE YOU DREAM – The Process of Writing Fiction – by Robert Olen Butler. It comes highly recommended by many ‘serious’ writers, including Greenhouse clients, so I offer it up to you also as a learning tool.

I love this early quote: ‘Before I wrote my first published book , I wrote literally a million words of absolute dreck. Five god-awful novels, forty dreadful short stories, and a dozen truly terrible full-length plays. I made all those fatal errors of process I would bet my mortgage you’re making now.  I want to help you get around that. But you’ve got to open up and listen to me about this.’

OK, Mr Butler, Pulitzer-Prize winner. I am all ears – for the myriad aspiring writers who frequent this Greenhouse site. For the hundreds of manuscripts I read each year. For the thousands of submissions that arrive in the same timespan.  For the very, very few whom we can truly launch into a new career as a professional author.

Bring it on, Mr Butler. We’re ready to learn about craft while kneeling in the vicinity of your shoes.

And here’s to you, Jandy Nelson, whose sky is spacious, glowing, and indeed everywhere.

We are ready to learn.

P.S. For those of you who are interested: The big-sky shots on this post are 1) me on the cliff path in Dorset, England, looking across to Lyme Regis.  2) Somewhere off the California coast, near Monterey.

It’s time to drift off to sleep in a deck chair, straw hat clamped on head, frozen Marguerita in hand . . .

Or is it? Aha no, because the Greenhouse rarely sleeps, and the job of writing and revising, writing and revising, is never done for you writers looking to claim your spot in the publishing sun. In fact, what is clear is that since I was accepted as a member of AAR (the Association of Authors’ Representatives) a short while ago, even MORE of you are finding us and submitting to Greenhouse!  A big welcome to anyone reading my blog for the first time who discovered us via the AAR website – great to have you with us.

You join us as we’ve nearly finished my mini-series of posts on the huge issue of ‘writing the breakout novel’, covering the need for an inspired concept, larger-than-life characters, high-stakes plotting, a deeply felt theme and vivid settings. If you didn’t catch the earlier ones, just scroll back and you’ll find them.

In theory we’ve finished. But have we really, because in reality there needs to be something else. A magical extra. An X factor. A ‘je ne sais quoi’ that will lift your story into another dimension and pick it out from the pack. What I wonder, could that extra va-va-voom be?
Can you guess? It’s the word I mutter constantly. And the word the Greenhouse Husband is so weary of hearing that he’s actually promised to thump me with a frying pan if I say it again in his presence.

Yes, it is . . .

VOICE.

Doh, most of you guessed it, didn’t you.

VOICE. VOICE. VOICE. VOICE. That elusive individuality which makes a story sing. Which makes the text run musically through your head as you read. Which apparently effortlessly evokes a sense of time and place, underscoring what kind of story you are reading. Lyrical and strange? Staccato and breathless? Folksy and rural? Gritty, tense and urban? Almost subliminally you absorb voice as you read and it can give a whole other level of meaning to the words that run along a page.

And here things get tricky. Because you’re going to ask me to teach you how to create voice – and I wish I could, but am not sure I’m able. What I CAN tell you, from many years of observation, is that I believe it has something to do with ear, and with listening acutely. I believe that some people have a natural ear for language and its flavor - what language is DOING and the why and how of that.  And in some way I think this echoes musicality – some of us have great ears, naturally repeating any rhythm and melody - and some of us just find it much, much tougher.

But what I DO think is that we can all improve our ears as we practice listening! Try concentrating on a great sentence, how it rises and falls; its cadences.  Sit back and listen to it as if you’re listening to Chopin or Lady Gaga, The Doors or the Jonas Brothers (look, I am trying to be eclectic!) .

Language is not a lumpen clod-like thing (unless you want it to be for some particular literary reason). It is beautiful, persuasive, agitating, breathtaking, melodious, and subliminal in its messages. What is the subliminal sub-text contained within the writing of YOUR story?

And here’s some homework for you. What books stand out to you as having a particularly strong and significant voice?  Send a comment with any observations you have on voice and I’ll post it for the benefit of all.  And if any MFA or MA grads are reading this, please feel free to give us the benefit of your wisdom on the subject!

I’ll start things off with suggesting WAITING FOR NORMAL by Leslie Connor (Katherine Tegen Books, HarperCollins USA), which I just read and loved. For me the simplicity and naivete of the voice perfectly carried this wise, heartbreaking, courageous story of a girl’s struggle to cope with an errant mother and uncertain future.  What a gem of a book, perfectly told!

So, voice.

Ears. Music. Listening. Capturing. Subliminal.

Keep your ears waggling and your heart on full alert to receive from the world around you. Then breathe it out, on to your screen, on to your page.

And here endeth our series of The Breakout Novel.

Enjoy this glorious summer and stay cool!

They would say, ‘We see King Henry, still fit and dashing, ride up on his fine horse, all arrogance and certainty. We hear the crunch of the stones, the flash of an emerald ring, and the young Princess Elizabeth escaping her keepers as she runs towards her father.  We hear the tears of Mary, already sad and angry, as she watches everything from the balcony above. And we see the King look up, catch Mary’s eye and bow ironically before grabbing her red-haired little stepsister and throwing her, giggling, into the soft sky.

These walls felt the glory of the Tudor age, the fearfulness of Henry VIII, and the dreadful, life-long anguish of Mary who lost her mother, her father and her place in the world.  But best of all they knew Elizabeth who grew up here – a child of hope and destiny, who also lost her mother but who, in the gardens around these walls, received the message that she was to be queen.

There is a whole world contained within the bricks of the old palace at Hatfield House, in Hertfordshire, England. I have leaned against the ancient stone, seen the facsimiles of the letters Elizabeth wrote from this then country house, and even the pair of silk stockings she wore, still virtually intact. And when I turn a corner in the gardens I imagine her and the large-brimmed hat she wore as she strolled outside. How do I know about the hat? Because I’ve seen it.

At Hatfield, past and present merge in the most vivid of settings, and the dramas that played out here are replayed in one’s imagination with only the tiniest of nudges.

If the walls in YOUR story could speak, what would they say? How strongly and effectively does your setting carry and enhance the action that plays out against its backdrop?

In our series on Writing the Breakout Novel we have so far looked at four aspects of a great work of fiction: An inspired concept; larger-than-life characters; a high-stakes story and a deeply felt theme.  Today it’s Part 5 – A Vivid Setting.

Not every story can – or should - be set around a palace or some other location of supreme geographical or historical significance. But every story does need a setting that is imbued with emotion and such a strong sense of place that your setting really becomes a character in its own right.

Did you catch that?

A vivid setting is one that is IMBUED WITH EMOTION AND SUCH A STRONG SENSE OF PLACE THAT YOUR SETTING BECOMES A CHARACTER IN ITS OWN RIGHT.

Have you ever thought about Place like this?

Think about Harper Lee’s depiction of rural Alabama in TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD. Or the town of Naomi, Florida, where India Opal Buloni first meetsWinn-Dixie in Kate DiCamillo’s famous novel.  Then leap forward a little and consider how Philip Pullman uses the town of Oxford in THE GOLDEN COMPASS (NORTHERN LIGHTS in the UK), or how Carl Hiaasen brings the ecology of Florida to life in his children’s novels.  Can you imagine any of these with DIFFERENT settings? How could you possibly separate story from setting in any of these works?

This integral, captivating use of Place can be spotted in MANY Greenhouse novels too. Think how Sarwat Chadda’s London, its topography and history, are the catalyst for the action in DEVIL’S KISS, and how Sarwat’s first-hand knowledge of Russia transforms his second book, DARK GODDESS (publishing July in the UK and January in the US). Jon Mayhew’s MORTLOCK also brings London to life – albeit the grim, dark London of the Victorian period.

Or what about how the sumptuous beauty of the Dutch Antilles conceals a wholly unexpected ugliness in Val Patterson’s THE OTHER SIDE OF BLUE? And just wait till Tricia Springstubb’s WHAT HAPPENED ON FOX STREET is available (Sept 1, US only) – the sense of place in THAT beautiful novel is extraordinary, despite the fact that most of the action happens in just one street.

And this brings me to one of my favourite big quotes! Are you ready?

STORY IS CREATED BY THE REVELATION OF THE INTERNAL AND THE EXTERNAL.

Wow?

Wow!

STORY IS CREATED BY THE REVELATION OF THE INTERNAL AND THE EXTERNAL.

Sorry, but it’s so darn good I just had to say it again.

Hatfield House. A world of human dramas haunts those walls; I feel them, I live them as I draw close and enter its grip.

As I enter your novel what will its setting tell me? Can you imbue it with emotion? Can you make me feel like I am walking its streets and breathing its air? If you can, you are for sure one step closer to writing a great – a really great – novel.

Happy writing, everyone!

Our great news of the week, which you may already have spotted, was the fabulous deal for Megan Miranda’s debut YA novel FRACTURE, which sold during BEA in a joint transatlantic 2-book preempt to Emily Easton at Walker USA and Sarah Odedina at Bloomsbury UK (Walker US is owned by Bloomsbury, so this was a real corporate offer).  All very exciting because these kinds of deals – for both sides of the Pond simultaneously – don’t happen too often. Plus a lot of toing and froing was going on by Blackberry while I was in New York for the Expo.  And it was all sealed with a big hug between Emily and I in her office in Macmillan’s Flatiron Building at Broadway/23rd Street.  (In case you’re wondering, Macmillan distribute for Bloomsbury, thus the location.)

FRACTURE is about Delaney Maxwell, who falls through the ice into a Maine lake. Death should happen almost instantly in this kind of cold, but when Delaney is pulled out by her friend Decker – after eleven seconds – she is somehow still living. And when she surfaces from her coma, she is well enough to look at the scans of her own traumatic brain injury.  Something very strange is going on – just how did Delaney cheat death? And why does she feel a physical connection to the dying?

It’s a brilliant and chilling story – intelligent and crafted, supernatural yet very original, and we welcome Megan to the growing Greenhouse ranks of debut writers who are setting out on a whole new adventure. Sadly, you’ll have to wait till Winter 2012 for FRACTURE to publish, but no doubt we’ll have an ARC or two to give away much nearer the time.

So, continuing our series on the Breakout Novel. Sadly, a slighter shorter post this time (due to the whole imminent-and-not-ready flight thing), but nonetheless a very important topic for any new writer who wants to make their debut stand out.

A DEEPLY FELT THEME.

As someone once said (no idea whom – if you happen to know, please tell me!), ‘The best books teach us more about ourselves than about the characters.’

THE BEST BOOKS TEACH US MORE ABOUT OURSELVES THAN ABOUT THE CHARACTERS. 

This one is worth capitalizing because it’s a wonderful line, and oh so true. Just think of all the books you love most. Which ones stay in your head and won’t let you go? I’m betting it’s the ones that moved you, spoke to you – and made you understand something new about yourself or your world as you read.

Please note that I do not mean you should PREACH or MORALIZE or ‘TEACH LIFE LESSONS’ in your novel. This is fiction, not an outworking of your secret agenda to do good to children the world over. And I must confess to a strong aversion to moralizing by stealth.

I am also not suggesting that you over-write, piling up adjectives, adverbs and metaphors in an effort to create an overlay of emotion. (I see a lot of this in my submissions inbox among new writers who are understandably trying so very hard to be ‘powerful’.)
Rather, I’m saying that there needs to be something DEEPLY FELT in your story that will stay with your reader after the last page is turned. Something that gives us a newly perceived truth about what it means to be human.

A NEWLY PERCEIVED TRUTH ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN.

Wow.

Great, intelligent fiction, rooted in big ideas and strong themes, will also leave the reader with something to take away from the story that is implicit in its ideas and characters. And as always, I believe this is true in both ‘commercial’ and ‘literary’ work though in different ways and to different degrees perhaps.

This deeply felt theme needs to be built i to the story at planning stage at its deepest level and it should be something integral to your concept.  What is YOUR theme and how will you get it across?

In FRACTURE, Delaney realizes that yes, life IS good and that it is love that overcomes fear and death.

In 13 REASONS WHY, Clay knows at the end that we all affect each other in ways we can’t always predict – and that ultimately there was nothing he could have done to stop Hannah taking her own life.

In PRINCESS FOR HIRE, Desi discovers the importance of speaking the truth – of being true to oneself.

In DEVIL’S KISS, Billi knows she must sacrifice her innermost wishes and desires for the good of the many and a destiny from which she cannot turn away.

In THE OTHER SIDE OF BLUE, Cyan knows that there is hope – fragile but beautiful.

That’s a tiny snapshot of very different books – have a think about YOUR favourite works and see if you can sense that ‘deeply felt theme’ which illuminates the ending.

Do you see where I’m going with this?  Find the heart. Be beautiful. Be unique. Linger with us.

I know you can do it.

Cheers from flying-away Sarah. Back in the hotseat on the 16th.

Last weekend was NESCBWI up in Fitchburg, Mass – a great 24-hour visit (including nearly 3 hours of plane delay) incorporating a bunch of manuscript critiques, even more query critiques, and a really enjoyable panel with old friend Ammi-Joan Paquette of Erin Murphy and new friend Edward Necarsulmer IV of McIntosh & Otis.  I love doing these events – meeting writers (many of whom I’ve now met on several occasions around the country) and faculty, which this time included Alexandra Cooper of S&S;, Caroline Abbey of Bloomsbury, and Molly O’Neill of Katherine Tegen Books, HarperCollins (+ lots more). The keynote from Cynthia Leitich Smith was to die for – she is such a funny, wise, pertinent speaker, so if you ever get a chance to hear her in person do grab it and go. And if you are one of the few US or UK writers not tuned in to her invaluable blog, take a look and sign up – you’ll learn so much about this business:  http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/

Then straight on into an extraordinarily busy week in which, very weirdly, almost everything I’ve spent weeks/months awaiting arrived in the space of a few days.  Very exciting to have strong interest on a debut submission just 12 hours after it went out on Monday (now that’s what you dream of!) and Julia over in the UK is also awaiting a promised offer, so we may pull off the double.  But right now it’s back to pile-driving through the reading and editing – big, fat, challenging manuscripts lie around me and that’s when it all gets exciting!

So, let’s get on with Part 3 of my blogathon on HOW TO WRITE THE BREAKOUT NOVEL.  This week – A High Stakes Plot.  And oh, how dear this is to my heart. Because so often I see queries, partials and fulls where the writing is nice, but the story just doesn’t quite leap off the page because the plotting isn’t high-stakes enough.

In other words, what do your characters stand to win or lose?  Or let’s say that a little more emphatically because it is so important:

WHAT DO YOUR CHARACTERS STAND TO WIN OR LOSE??????

A novel isn’t always like real life. In real life things often meander along. Many of us don’t live hugely exciting lives. And yet – probably many of us DO know what it feels like to have something happen that is completely game-changing. A dilemma that leads to a forked path. A moral issue so tough to resolve that real anguish is involved. A question about who you love most and what that is going to mean. A choice between complacency and courage, hesitation and action, growth or stagnation.

There, I knew you would understand what I mean by high stakes!

I had one of my own brushes with high stakes a few years ago when confronted with a choice:  stay in London working my way up the corporate ladder in a place where I was secure, known and respected. Or take the leap to the USA and create a life, a business, a vision that would lead me to places I couldn’t even guess. Yes, I understand high stakes – and risk.

If you are a fiction writer your characters must also face high stakes – or I’d almost guarantee your story is going to be dull. As readers we – and children/teens even more so – want to be gripped. It is your job, dear author, to grip us!

So, think through the stakes of your story.  Work them out carefully, seed them into your subplots, and lay out those stakes in such a way that they escalate, building and building the tension, right through to your final denouement.

Writers take very different views on outlining. Personally, I think some kind of outline is invaluable. If you find a chapter breakdown useful, then do it – though I must confess that I hate reading them and can quite understand if you hate writing them. Look, it doesn’t have to be something that detailed.

What I’m talking about is some kind of structural route map, an A-Z in whatever form works for you, so you know just where you’re heading. And especially, so you have a fairly clear idea of what the climax and ending are going to be. A good outline will prevent your story from running out of steam or getting very confused.

Now, I can already hear some of you saying, ‘But Sarah, I am writing a LITERARY novel, it is LYRICAL and LUMINOUS, not some mass-market thriller – surely my characters don’t NEED all this drama in their lives?’

Aha, I am ready to answer you – because I believe there are different kinds of high stakes. Let’s take two Greenhouse novels (why would I not?  This may encourage you to buy and read them and I lose no opps to promote our authors):

Sarwat Chadda’s DEVIL’S KISS (Hyperion) is a big, blockbusting thriller so no surprise that its protagonist, 15-year-old Bill SanGreal, has a life completely littered with high stakes.  She’s fallen for a guy who turns out to be a lying, cheating fallen angel, after all.  It’s her job to save London from a reenactment of the tenth plague of Egypt.  To do that she must sacrifice the only boy she’s ever cared for – just as they’ve realized their love for each other.  For poor Billi, the stakes are whopping – love or the world? Evil or the good of humanity? Sheesh, Sarwat.

But then let’s take Val Patterson’s THE OTHER SIDE OF BLUE (Clarion) – jewel-like in language, acute in its perceptions. So much here is inward for Cyan, the book’s protagonist, as she struggles to find her way after her father’s mysterious death at sea.  There is a ‘gulf as wide as the Caribbean’ between her mother and herself, and unless she can bridge it she will never find emotional freedom, health, fulfillment and her path in life. The stakes are high and we can’t help but read on to the moment of breakthrough.  We know instinctively, in a quite different way to DEVIL’S KISS, that Cyan’s life is in great danger.

Wherever your work comes in the literary spectrum, I believe you need high stakes.  The high stakes of outward challenge and danger. Or the equally (but different) high stakes of emotional survival and growth.

Want to see your story grow in pace and tension? Start staking!

And next time:  HOW TO WRITE THE BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL: Part 4 – A Deeply Felt Theme.

Now I’ve got to dash – look, even literary agents need groceries!

Part 1, last week, was on AN INSPIRED CONCEPT. This second episode focuses on CHARACTER and is aptly portrayed by today’s image of a pile of Dachsunds. Dachsunds are wee beasties of immense character, and as I write the Wee Man is snoozing on my feet and Auntie Lucy (a fastidious and highly elegant former showdog) is snoring on the office couch.

Without great characters your fiction is going to be pretty much dead, so how do you create characters who will – as we editors like to put it – LEAP OFF THE PAGE?  Because your goal is to take your characters out of the black-and-white of two-dimensionality and into the vibrant 3D of your readers’ imaginations.  Simple, huh? Well, maybe not so much.

A major tip is to get to know your principle characters and their backstories so well BEFORE YOU START TO WRITE that you don’t need to explain them, or invent them, as you go along. Rather, you are so well acquainted with these people from the getgo that you can let them reveal themselves as you drip forth in measured and varied ways their personalities and their pasts.

What were the journeys your characters made up to the point where your story opens?  If you know them this well, you will be better able to ‘show and not tell’. And telling rather than showing is one of the major issues for new writers in particular.  What is the biggest problem we see in our submissions inbox?  Probably it is TELLING rather than SHOWING. 

What do I mean by TELLING?  I mean paragraphs, even pages, of exposition, in which your authorial voice (even if thinly disguised as your protagonist) gives an information dump about themselves, your other characters, and their world.  Telling may get the info down fast, but it sure is dull to read!

Logan Pearsall Smith said:  ‘What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.’ And there are lots of ways to whisper as you let your characters REVEAL themselves.

Take Greenhouse author Valerie Patterson’s debut, THE OTHER SIDE OF BLUE (Clarion, Fall 2009). A beautifully crafted, beautifully voiced story set on the island of Curacao in the Dutch Antilles, BLUE tells the story of Cyan who returns to the island one year after the mysterious death of her father at sea.  ‘Mother painted me blue,’ Cyan says. ‘But as I look out over the sea, I think about Dad and wonder what color I really am.  What is the color for lost?’

See how Valerie uses color (‘colour’ for British readers!) to whisper about her protagonist?

Throughout the story, we can’t help but compare the rich, colorful sensuality of island food with the frozen repression of Cyan’s heart.  We’re not TOLD to relate the two, we are just gently, subliminally invited to do so.  Sea glass provides another powerful conduit: ‘Hope.  I think that’s what we have left, Mother and me.  I give it to both of us, cupping it in my hands like a piece of tumbled sea glass, holding it up to the light.’

Valerie Patterson is very, very good at whispering!

The same techniques also work, in different ways, in other genres.  See how Sarwat Chadda builds the personality of Billi in his powerful, dark, debut novel DEVIL’S KISS (Hyperion – B & N Top 20 YA Novels of 2009).  He doesn’t have to TELL us constantly what Billi is like – he reveals her in multitudinous ways as she responds to danger, fear or anger.

The sole purpose of description is really to reveal character – it has little value in and of itself. British author Malorie Blackman doesn’t even like to tell you whether her characters are black or white – that’s left up to you, the reader, and in what ways does it matter? Worth thinking about perhaps.

What does it tell you that a character’s jeans are ripped or that they wear scarlet lipgloss or that they push back their hair in a certain way? It’s all about character. Have you explored using description in that way?

And now the big one:
Character is revealed pre-eminently by conflict and dilemma – all of which must move us towards your big moment of revelation as the story reaches its climax.

Every scene you include should have a purpose in the greater scheme of your novel. Every scene you include should reveal more about your characters – and conflict is the anvil on which your characters are beaten into shape.

And then there’s dialogue – crucial to building character.

A bestselling author I met at a conference last year told me that he used to receive many rejections, all saying that his dialogue was flat.  Being a determined sort of chap he took two weeks off work and secretly recorded conversations at bus stops, in stores, and typed them out.  Apart from nearly going mad, he said it was revelation. 

What he learned was that people don’t address each other in long, carefully constructed sentences.  Rather, 90% of human conversation is extremely self-interested. He learned that what was UNSAID was at least as important as what was SAID.

So, another big one:
The external of conversation needs absolutely to reflect the internal agenda of your character. 

Wow, interesting! Do you know the difference between your characters’ internal and external agendas?  What they are thinking/feeling inside versus the message they are wanting to convey and portray?

So, that’s it for tonight.  Not exhaustive, but hopefully some ideas to be pondering as you craft your story and take it to the next level.

Next time:  WRITING A BREAKOUT NOVEL: Part 3 – A HIGH-STAKES STORY!

Take care, enjoy your writing – and watch out for the Dachsunds . . . . .

These are based on a talk that I have given in various parts of the world, notably London, Los Angeles and Asilomar, California.  In each venue what I want to say develops and changes a little, but here I am going to distil what I think are the most useful points. This is what we’ll be covering, after a short introduction:  1) An inspired concept 2) Larger-than-life characters 3) A high-stakes story 4) A deeply felt theme and 5) A vivid setting . . . . Oh, and there will be a number 6) also – I wonder if you can guess what that might be?  At the end, you should have a set of notes that will enable you to heckle from the back of the room if you ever hear me give the talk in future – but also, I hope, notes that will be really useful.

Why do I want to talk about ‘writing the breakout novel’ and what do I mean by that?

Toni Morrison said: ‘If there’s a story you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.’

But HOW do you write it? Can there BE a recipe for writing a great novel or am I simply suggesting we manipulate a stupid marketplace?

Of course I am not. I am a lover of language and a lover of quality writing, whether that be what we might call ‘literary’ or ‘commercial’. So the last thing I’d propose is that you write something that isn’t authentic to you in the hopes of getting a deal.  That just won’t work!
However, I do believe there are certain common denominators to a great story, wherever it comes on the literary spectrum – and that that’s true whether you’re writing a plot-based novel full of action, or a quieter story where you’re primarily in the internal world of your protagonist. Does this apply to both young fiction and more sophisticated older fiction? I think so – test it out. But hopefully there will be some points at least that can be distilled even in a story aimed at younger kids.

What do I mean by ‘breakout novel’? Well, that’s my shorthand for saying – the story that gets you a deal, that creates a buzz in the marketplace, that enables you to go on writing for a career; the story that is passed from hand to hand.  And this is important because we are in a time of ongoing turbulence in the industry; editors are under pressure to cut lists, focus on the biggest brands (authors), and acquisition processes are even tougher and risk-averse.

Amid all this, the one great growth area is . . . the numbers of people wanting to write. And especially write for children/young adults, the sector of the market which has shown itself to be most recession-proof and such a dynamic force within the publishing world over the last 10+ years.  Record numbers attended the national SCBWI conferences in the past year; record numbers applied for the prestigious MFA in Children’s Writing program at Vermont College of the Fine Arts. Everyone wants to write! So how can YOU break through – get published and, just as importantly, STAY published?

Here is my recipe for success based on the books I acquired and published during my 25+ years as a senior London children’s publisher, and my 2+ years as a literary agent, reading hundreds of queries each month. 

The first ingredient of your breakout novel must be:

AN INSPIRED CONCEPT

I can’t tell you exactly how to unearth your concept, but I CAN tell you that it needs to be great!  And I know that keeping your eyes and ears open to the stories going on all around you, in real life, is one good way of tracking down a strong idea.

Once you have a theme, is there a way of portraying/developing that theme that is unexpected, unusual, different? Some of you will know that the book I like to mention at this point is THIRTEEN REASONS WHY, because I think Jay Asher was remarkably clever in taking a subject that has been written about before (a girl’s death by her own hand) and doing something completely different with it – structurally, conceptually, so that it is turned into a tense, compressed thriller.  This is just one example of a clever concept.  Other stories won’t be quite so ‘high-concept’ necessarily, but this idea of doing something fresh is one to work with.

OK, moving on - get to know your area of the market and what is working, the diversity within it, the parameters. In other words, educate yourself about the world you are trying to enter. But then set some of that aside, because you need to discover the story that fills YOU with passion and excitement. The story that you really can’t wait to tell.

Be aware of the risk of being derivative of current bestsellers.  Even if you get a deal today your book probably wouldn’t now be published until 2012, by which time the market will have moved on.  We see a lot of very similar stories, so be aware that we love to see something that’s fresh and different. Think big. Think bold. Think . . . . what if?  Always a great way to start plotting because it encourages you to think out of the box.

Try to be very clear about WHO you are writing for. There are stories that never find an audience because they’re not sufficiently clearly targeted for any particular section of the market. Is your story for boys or girls or both? What age group?

What is the Unique Selling Point of your story? Marketeers in any industry seek the USP of a product (ever watched Dragon’s Den on TV? If so you’ll know what I mean), and it’s great if your story has a USP that can be articulated. What sets it apart from other books? Look along your shelves and see if you can pinpoint a USP in your favourite titles. Publishers considering your manuscript will be looking for something that picks it out from all the others on their desks – a special way in which they can present your work to their sales team, to retailers, to the world. Why this manuscript rather than all the others?

Don’t start writing until you know you have a really, really great idea. Work out your pitch BEFORE you start writing. (Wow, radical for all you guys who like to start at the beginning and just WRITE according to where the wind blows you!) This can be a very good idea – it will help to start you off with focus, sure of the story you are really intending to tell, and more-or-less sure of where it is going to lead you.  Perhaps you don’t need this approach if you are an incredibly accomplished and experienced writer, but if you’re just setting out, formulating your pitch before you write the first page might be a real help. 

Then you could try condensing that pitch further – into a couple of lines. Like the shoutline on a movie poster. Can you do that? If not, it may mean your story doesn’t have quite enough focus.  Focus is a good word; I like it! What is the focus of your story? When you’re sure of it, keep your eye on it. It will help you to rein yourself in a bit if everything starts falling apart and losing momentum.

A final point?  This is all just suggestions.  If you find another way of working that gets the result you want, then stick with it. One size doesn’t necessarily fit all when it comes to writing, though these are hints that are pretty tried and tested.

So - an inspired concept. The first thing you really need when writing your very own Breakout Novel!

That’s it for now. The hour is late, the day was long, the words were many. Time to stop and rub the tired eyes.

Next time:  HOW TO WRITE THE BREAKOUT NOVEL:  Part 2 – Larger-than-life characters.

See you in a few days.  Oh, and do come and find us on Facebook - the Greenhouse Literary Agency has its very own fan page and we’d love to see you there.

Take care and happy writing!

You see, I have a bit of a problem with eye-rolling. Always have, and it’s got quite bad recently. The problem began at school.  Lacking the nerve to be honestly and openly BAD, I simply became an eye-roller – master of the swift, fleeting head swivel, the sardonic lip curl, the rebellious flaring of the nostril. And yes, that eye-roll, just out of sight of the teacher.

I blame others for my descent into eye-rolling virtuosity.  People like Miss Eyre, leader of the woodwind ensemble during my teenage years.  A lady of stout ankles and formidable shoes who would peer through her spectacles as a waggle of her flute led us into a honking decimation of Mozart.

‘No, girls, we DON’T tap our whole foot in time to the beat. We only tap our TOES inside our SHOES.’

Eyes start to swivel.

‘Modern music? No, girls, at St Helen’s School we are not interested in music composed after 1850.’

Eyes rolling so fast I can practically see my brain.

And really, eye-rolling has stood me in good stead ever since – during dreary speeches, endless meetings (at which publishers excel), pomposity and frustration of every kind. Try it and see.  If you can get really skilled, no one will even spot it!

Agenting has introduced me to a new kind of eye-roll. The submission-related kind that makes my eyeballs spin – not in response to the writing (on which you will hopefully find me quite kind), but to various other triggers.

Here is a handy guide to Sarah’s Eye-Rolling Hall of Fame, courtesy of her inbox – and with only a modicum of poetic licence in order to protect identities:

Roll 1:
‘Dear Ms Davies, I am an extraordinary and potentially very famous person. My writing is a cross between that of Charles Dickens, Philip Pullman and Tolkien. You’d better sign me up FAST while you still can.’

Roll 2:
‘Dear Ms Davies, You don’t want to represent me? Your loss.’

Roll 3:
‘Dear Ms Davies, I have written a series of 46 books and I’m sending you now 5 pages from the middle of Book 7.’

Roll 4:
‘Dear Ms Davies, My daughter is a star of stage and screen, and has her own show on MTV, though she is only 4 years old. She has written a fictional story book with a heroine looking remarkably like herself. It will change the world. I advise you to take up this opportunity soonest.’

Roll 5:
‘Dear Ms Davies, My book is an urban paranormal romance, which comes in at 365,000 words and 623 pages, single spaced. I am happy to send it over in a Humvee.’

Roll 6:
‘Dear Dan Lazar of Writers House . . . . .’

Roll 7:
‘Dear Ms Davies, I am resending my query because I sent it to you originally on Christmas Day, the day before yesterday, and you still have not got back to me.’

Roll 8:
‘Dear Ms Davies, This is the third query I have sent you today, in separate emails . . . ‘

Roll 9:
‘Dear Ms Davies, sorry I can’t be bothered to send you an actual query, but here are the pages anyway.’

Roll 10:
‘Dear Ms Davies, Can you please publish my book in your publishing house?’

Roll 11:
‘Dear Ms Sara Davis . . .’

Roll 12:
‘Dear Ms Davies, I am delighted to send you some pages of my novel, complete with endorsement from bestselling author Fred Snooks, whose book CHAINSAWS OF THE WESTERN WORLD has made him a sensation in Pig Hollow, South Dakota.’

Roll 13:
‘Dear Ms Davies, If you can help to get my book published, my cousin says he will promote it in his grocery store.’

Roll 14:
‘Dear Ms Davies, I have studied your website and acquainted myself with your tastes. I am therefore delighted to send you my novel, which is a thriller about rape and incest in Soviet Russia, aimed at readers of John Grisham.

Roll 15:
[Scroll down immense list of agent addressees. I don’t get as far as Ms Davies.]

Roll 16:
‘Dear Ms Davies, my story about a race of little people called Weeeeneez would make an excellent movie (probably by Disney) and I have already designed a range of merchandise. Please click through the 7 links below to read a sample of my screenplay. Then call me to set up a phone call on Thursday.’

Roll 17:
‘Dear Ms Davies, I think we are a match made in heaven; shall we make sweet music together?’

I could continue but my eyeballs seem to have pivoted so far they’ve got stuck, so I’m off to that nice eye doctor for a little R&R;.  Oh, and some drops.

See you soon (I hope!). 

Oh no! Seems that the wrong picture has somehow been inserted here.  This isn’t a shot of me at the fair – it’s the Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna from Florence’s Loggia de Lanzi. Ooops, sorry about that terrible slip of the mouse!

I’m clearly all awry. Because Italy has made me think, as it always does.

I am a lover of small things.  The exact word (where no other will do), the correctly placed comma, the minutely timed glance. The perfection of precision underpins any great work of art, and the best writers know it.

But I also love the immense.  The stupendous idea, the theme that stretches to infinity, the question to which there are a million answers; the vastness of time and history.  And I love stories that carry a whisper of that.

For me, Italy is about both the great and the small. The endless, and yet the angel dancing on the pinhead.

When you stand in the tiny church where Dante first saw his Beatrice, or in the chapel where Boccaccio set part of the Decameron, his masterwork, your feet are set on the dawn of western literature. When your face is two feet away from the still-vibrant colours of a fresco painted on stone in the first half of the fourteenth century, or when you look up at the graceful poise of Donatello’s statue of David, you find yourself breathless before such ancient beauty.

In our time we think we know everything, but the truth is we are in danger of forgetting so much.  Italy pulls me back to the heart of things.

The Bologna Book Fair nudges me to remember that behind the daily tasks there lies a huge and international industry. The wonderful friends I meet again in the halls, and the new ones I make at the fair, bring home to me that personal relationships underpin so much of what goes on between agents and editors, between publishers from very different cultures; that the sharing of ideas, the passing of information, the word on the street is as real and dynamic as it has always been.  Bologna is so much more than just ‘a bit of jolly’; it’s one of the engine rooms of business, and a microcosm of how trade has always been done, right back to those medieval merchants scurrying down cobbled streets, their dark cloaks swishing behind them. 

Art and money; the heavenly and the mercantile; the grand vision and the detail necessary to carry it off.  The polarities always exist together, and no place makes me more aware of that than Italy. I see it in the extraordinary engineering of Brunelleschi’s massive dome, constructed more than 600 years ago (http://www.brunelleschisdome.com). I see it in the brush strokes of Botticelli’s gorgeous ‘Primavera’ (http://www.mystudios.com/treasure/1/primavera-review.html). And I see it in the magnificence of Florence’s San Lorenzo Church, where the bones of Cosimo de Medici, the founder of one of history’s greatest and wealthiest dynasties, lie crumbled beneath inlaid marble. 

If we want to make and love art we move between times – the past, present and future.  The continuous line is awe-inspiring and humbling, but we all share this sense of beauty and value. And we walk in the footsteps of so many who knew what it means to strive to be great at their craft.

As the great Renaissance painters and architects understood, every detail is crucial in supporting great structures - every plank of wood, every touch of the brush; and every detail of a story. And the greatest art is generally underpinned by the necessity of business.

We may never end up painting the Sistine Chapel or chiselling a flawless Pieta, and we may never be remembered for writing the Divine Comedy. But we can still aspire to greatness in whatever we do. And that goes for agents as well as writers. 

I love Italy. It sets me straight.

My mojo is just around the corner!

Mojo – aka zest, energy, life force etc etc – and I parted company about a week ago in a storm of sneezing, tissues, DayQuil and thumping headache, mixed with all the dreariness of jetlag after my London visit. Here I sat this week, squinting at my monitor through red, running eyes, trying to deal with all the volumes of stuff needing urgent attention at this extremely busy time of the year.

Why so busy?  Because there’s something else that’s just around the corner, over the horizon, and that is . . . . .

BOLOGNA!

If you’re an old salt in this children’s books world you’ll know that the Bologna Book Fair is the annual trade event/selling opportunity/networking convocation/bonding extravaganza/gossip-fest/eating marathon/sleep-deprivation test/jamboree of the international children’s books industry. Held every year in the ancient and beautiful university city of Bologna in northern Italy, it is always an exciting few days – presenting and pitching your wares (if you’re a seller rather than buyer), reuniting with old friends and making new ones, spotting emerging trends, catching up with who’s arrived and who’s gone, who’s doing something new . . . . and generally reaping all the benefits of almost every publishing enterprise in the world being represented in one place at one time. Top international editors, audio publishers, movie scouts, artists, bestselling writers, apps experts, agents . . . they’re all at the fair, sipping tiny cups of espresso in the halls or laughing around enormous dining tables in the city’s fabulous restaurants and bars. You never know who you might bump into when you visit the restroom!

Best of all this year?  Both the Americans and the Brits seem to be back in strength, after a bleak fair last year when so many companies didn’t send people.  Why is this good? It means there’s a sense of buoyancy and optimism in the business. And that has to be positive news for us all. 

But before I touch down at the actual fair, I’ll be in Bologna a little early for the annual SCBWI Bologna symposium, along with other agents such as Rosemary Stimola, Kristin Nelson and Marcia Wernick.  Take a look at this link and you can see more about it – and also interviews with all of us: http://www.scbwibologna.org/presenters/agents.php. My contribution is simply a first-pages panel on Monday morning, but I’ll also be dining with the faculty on Sunday and the delegates on Monday night.

So it’s all go here. Our author/books list for the fair (ie, the rights we have on offer) is all prepared and printed out, and includes a number of new authors and titles, which is really exciting! We only talk about manuscripts which we’ll be able to send out within a couple of months of the fair, but we have some great new work to present, as well as rights to sell in different territories on our more backlist books. You learn a lot about how to pitch a work (and if it really has a hook) when you sit across the table from a different publisher every half-hour for two days without a break.  What catches their attention and what doesn’t? Does this story have legs – or not?  It’s all in their eyes as they listen to you, and you’d best beware because some publishers will make it abundantly clear if they’ve switched off!

Now it’s a countdown till I leave Saturday evening, flying all night via Paris. Now we’re on to the really vital things. The ritual pre-Bologna haircut tomorrow. Pulling copious garments out of the closet, trying them on (why the heck don’t these trousers fit like last year???), throwing them in a pile, searching for tangled leads to all manner of gadgets and adaptors, muttering as I realize I’ll NEVER get all this in that suitcase if I add all the ARCs I’ve promised Rights People I’d take . . . .  AND WHAT ABOUT EUROS???

Did I mention that I loathe packing? Way too much stuff or way too little – will I ever get it right?

Power-load the Sudafed.  Pack the Kleenex. Stuff the Kindle in the carry-on. We’re off to the fair. And Spring is here – the bulbs are sprouting, the temperature outside is gorgeous, and everything is bursting into life.

Of course, Spring is Bologna time! And after the fair I’m excited to say I’m taking few days’ vacation in gorgeous Italy. Bye-bye Blackberry.  So if you have a submission up your sleeve, either prepare for a bit of a wait to hear from me, or perhaps delay sending it until the very end of March. 

Oh, and by the way – the photo is of our stand at Bologna last year.  Alex Webb and Caroline Hill-Trevor of Rights People. And, of course, big signs saying GREENHOUSE!

Wish Julia and I luck! Go Greenhouse!

Julia blogging from London today. And sitting opposite me right now is Sarah, who’s spending a few days here catching up with all things UK. This is the view from my desk. I like it!

Sunday was the best kind of winter’s day: cold, dry and blue.  And I spent much of it sitting outside a café in South London with a cold nose, a big cup of tea and my good friend, Leah Thaxton.

Leah is Publisher at Egmont Books in the UK. She’s got great taste, having acquired Andy Stanton (MR GUM), Julia Golding (THE DIAMOND OF DRURY LANE), Michael Grant (GONE) and Emily Bearn (TUMTUM AND NUTMEG): all among my favourite new children’s book writers.

In Summer ’09 Leah and I spoke together at the Bournemouth Literary Festival. And on the train home, making our way through National Rail shortbread and yet more tea, we came up with the idea of a joint enterprise: BookCamp.

We wanted to create a masterclass on writing for children and the children’s book business, with a 360 degree perspective. At Bournemouth we’d realized there’s such a hunger for advice and information about the art of writing and the business of books. So toasting each other with a plastic cup, and looking out over the Dorset coastline, we decided that we would be the people to deliver it.

BookCamp has got two main aims: to help new authors grow in their craft, and to provide a behind-the-scenes insight into the children’s book industry. 

At BookCamp events I’ll be sharing my twenty top tips on writing for children, and asking attendees a few of the questions that I ask myself when reading a manuscript. Does your main character have an emotional arc as well as an outer journey? Does your story have a focus and are the stakes being raised chapter on chapter? Is there enough conflict in your story? Does your story start in-scene with dynamism and originality? What is ‘show, don’t tell’ and why does it matter? Who is your reader and what feeling will the book leave them with? And is there a secret to writing that submission letter? Maybe – almost every author I’ve taken on had an initial approach that made me sit up and press ‘print’. We’re looking for focus, clarity and intent – and I’ll be talking through exactly what that means.

At the Greenhouse we know that getting published is the dream – the first book on the shelf of your local bookshop, the first Amazon review, the first batch of fan mail. But what actually takes place once a book has been sold? Leah’s going to answer that question. She’s going to talk about how the publishing process works from acquisition through to publication, what drives her buying decisions and how she goes about building classics of the future.

And just in case we don’t cover all bases, we’ll be taking questions from the floor about everything you’ve ever wanted to ask an agent or publisher.

To all our US readers, I regret to say that BookCamp is UK based. Our first deployment will take place at the Oxford Literary Festival on March 27th. I think we’re almost sold out but more dates in the UK will follow so keep checking the website if you fancy coming along.

And from one exciting Greenhouse development to another. This week we started our Facebook fan site! So if you’re on Facebook, click here to become a fan. We’ve got a competition to win a US proof of THE REPLACEMENT by Greenhouse author, Brenna Yovanoff (published by Razorbill in the US this Fall and Simon and Schuster in the UK in early 2011).  To enter, click on the discussion tab and tell us what you think we should speak about at upcoming conferences and writer’s events. We’re also asking writers to share their top writing tips – be it on overcoming a block, self-editing or maybe just a quote or thought that inspires you. It would be great to hear your advice.

Delighted to be guest posting on Sarah’s blog this week. Thanks Sarah! And hope to see some of our UK blog readers at a BookCamp event soon!

Things have always moved fast in the agenting world, but after just two years in this business (as opposed to more than 25 years on the other side of the desk) I would say it’s speeded up even more in the past few months. It’s common now to receive a submission on a Friday, read it by the Monday – and hear that the writer has already received an offer of representation. There’s a lot of us out there looking for you, and of course you don’t necessarily submit to all your chosen agents at the same time.  So I’m getting down on bended knee here and asking – can you please send out all your submissions on one day? OR BETTER STILL, JUST SUBMIT EVERYTHING TO ME AND ONLY ME?

Doh, I didn’t think you’d go for that one, but worth a shot, eh? Oh yes, we love exclusives and referrals, and when we get either we move like Apolo Ohno!

At Greenhouse we generally respond quite quickly to all queries, but if we get as far as reading your full manuscript we do like to have a good think (and ideally read a manuscript more than once) before making the big commitment of representation.  And for me that means that reading once on Kindle and then printing the manuscript out, putting my feet up on the desk, grabbing my Post-It notes and pencil, and studying the work in the old-fashioned way. How would we work on this? How would I pitch it? Which editors would like it? I don’t always have this kind of leisure - if there are other agents in the picture – so I’m welded to Blackberry and Kindle at all times. Best example of this was a few weeks ago, coming home to DC from New York on the Acela train. The BB flashed to say I had a new message. I read it instantly and found it was from a writer I’d been in touch with nearly a year ago – she’d done a revision and it was attached.  Whoopee! I instantly sent it to my Kindle and had read most of the manuscript by the time I arrived at Union Station.

Several new clients have joined us recently, which is exciting – all very different, and a wide spectrum of writing, from the young and delightfully funny, to bleak and edgy young adult.  At this point I won’t mention any names because all are in different stages of revision, and I think it’s less pressured for new writers to work in peace without their name being ‘out there’ as they labour with edits. But it’s really exciting to see these debut authors coming on, enjoying their writing, and challenging themselves to develop their stories in bold new ways. They’re on their way to their first Olympics, they are medal contenders against a tough field, and it’s the work done day by day over the next weeks and months that’s going to count. Work those muscles, stretch and bend, push yourself to the limit!
The pace is hotting up in other ways too.  Just back from a great conference at lovely Asilomar, Monterey, where I made lots of new friends among both writers and faculty (see photo; I’m in yellow, pontificating as usual). Ari Lewin of Hyperion, Tracy Gates of Viking, AnneMarie Anderson of Scholastic among the publishers, and fellow agent Ken Wright of Writers House (not a bad double act!). Writers Gary Schmidt (who gave a fabulous talk), Liza Ketchum (www.lizaketchum.com) and Ellen Klages (www.ellenklages.com) added all kinds of great insights. And then, of course, there was funny Greg Pincus, social-networking expert. Oh, and lots more great people. If you were at Asilomar and are dropping into my blog, a big hello and thanks from me; do leave me a comment!

Sometimes there are big upsets at the Olympics, and the little guy can triumph unexpectedly.  Greenhouse came up from nowhere and has muscled its way into the running, so we believe in start-ups and small beginnings. In which spirit, do take a look at brand-new British indie children’s publisher Nosy Crow.  www.nosycrow.com.  Made up of four of my former London colleagues/friends, Nosy Crow has just opened its doors for business over in the UK and I wish them all the very best under their powerhouse leader, Kate Wilson.  I’m willing to bet we’ll be seeing a lot of their titles on sale in the US in the coming years, and it’s great to have a bold new independent player on the scene. Do drop in on their site; you can say I sent you!  I know they’d really appreciate your encouragement as they enter what is only their second week in business.

So now it’s full steam ahead through the spring.  Bologna is looming – both SCBWI conference and trade fair – and I’ve got a full conference schedule coming up after that: New England in May, Montana in September, then Miami, Atlanta and Seattle in the first quarter of 2011.  Do you live in any of those areas? If so, I hope to meet you.

The Olympics are tough stuff. If you want to be a medal-winning agent you need to work harder, respond faster and care one hundred per cent.  You know why? 

Because in the agenting Olympics, if you snooze, you luge*.

(*Which is, I know, exceedingly lame.)