I’ve been reading How Fiction Works by James Wood, and find it interesting that I’m a modern Flaubert, without realizing it. The idea being to set the literary stage by amassing detail as the eye or movie camera might see it, from the outside in or the inside out, and use what is needed to make the scene work best. Several times over the years I’ve stressed the point that God is in the details, and I pay particular attention to my details. I also sometimes gloss over detail to stress what is important about a particular paragraph, writing to the point. Try doing both at the same time, writing to the point with phenomenal detail. I admit I’m one of those writers who usually sits down at their desk and sweats blood. The book I’m working on now (my seventh novel) is two-thirds of the way done, 58,000 words in, and I’ve edited it from front to back, not once but twice. I wanted it tight and to the point, with detail aplenty to enjoy. Once the first draft is finished, I’ll stick in a drawer for a few months and let it ferment.

At the start of the book Mr. Wood seems to say we are basically stuck in First Person or Third Person narrative ruts, and Second Person has rarely been done outside of Bright Lights, Big City, which was powerful, but could have been better (and 10,000 needed words longer) with the right added detail. Not many people understand what the Second Person POV can really do. How it can handle the most powerful, visceral emotional narrative, and allow the reader to live it as that character. I published a successful short story (this one story was published several times) told in the Second Person, and could have worked the same tight concept into a full-blown novel. What I’m waiting for is a character concept, this outline of a person, who can do a Second Person POV justice.

Number four query was sent to my long list of agents, with very little to show for it except 10 more rejection slips, and more than that ignoring my submission. In other words, nothing was unexpected or surprising. I did, however, get rid of several agents on my list. What I did was sort through their various sites and look at their sales for the last year. Those that primarily handled chick lit (those whose average client list, lists one male client for every thirty female clients) got taken off my list. Sorry, I write like I have a penis. Those that were questionable as real agents (2) got scratched, and those whose lists come nowhere near what I’m doing, they’re gone too. Those that never returned a query with a rejection slip, gone. That left me with fifteen names I can work with, and new research to do. Maybe add a name or two to my list.

My fifth query will go out soon, and I already consider it DOA, because of the naughty nature of the material. Alice! XXX is 60,000 words of the nastiest, hellbent-without-leather version of Wonderland you could ever hope to read. A sexual satire, following the original chapter for chapter. However, I did (thank the literary gods) add a plot. The Queen has been possessed by her dead mother’s soul, and only Alice can free her, destroying the evil Sea Hag once and for all.

I’m taking a huge risk with that query, knowing it won’t go anywhere and might actually hurt me in the short term. But, I’m taking that risk because I have to. Alice! XXX, is a fine example of my ability to write well, exceptionally well, and none of that will matter because the material is pure sexual satire, and hard-core enough to be considered out-right porn. A lesbian sex romp. Why bother, you might ask? I have to be true to myself. I’m a very self-confident person. I know I’ve made mistakes, don’t know everything I probably should know, but I’m good. Besides, after two mainstream Fantasy novels, several Horror novels, and my crime novel, I had to do it just to give myself a break. I had fun.

Queryfail popped up on Twitter around the end of March, and I’ll have to admit my curiosity got the better of me. A query can be likened to the copy you might find on the back of a paperback book, or the teaser found on the inside cover of a hardback. It’s advertising copy designed to get the attention of the potential buyer. Writing our own queries we seek an agent and publisher, seeking them as our buyers. Queryfail highlighted the worst written queries participating agents had recently received. I considered it a chance to learn more about what agents consider is a good query, by the comments given on the bad queries. What actually happened was the level of (writer) disdain, weighed against the self-importance agents have—something writers have suspected for years, never proven until now—reared its ugly head in a nasty way.

The level of backlash was monumental, to say the least. Writers everywhere are now making an effort to read agent blogs. They want to know whom they’re wasting their precious time on, and which agent actually realizes the only way to make money from publishers is to respect the source of their income.

A week later Agentfail took the writing community by storm, listing how us writers feel about bad agents they have encountered, though no names were mentioned. Writers listed what they perceived were agent attitudes encountered. And you can trust me when I say they were spot-on. I actually counted seven specific no-no’s some agents ritually expect us writers to stomach, and four real (agent) attitudes that could use adjusting. A real verbal lynching.

Writers, like me, we take our craft seriously. I spend many days on the first paragraph of my query, and the second paragraph, keeping in mind a third paragraph is one paragraph too many. My credits paragraph? Every single short story I ever wrote was published, some stories more than once. But, take a moment to reflect upon what I just said. Every single short story I ever wrote was published. I’ll also admit I haven’t written a short story in years, simply because I wanted to concentrate on writing novels. I spent years learning how to craft marketable novels, and how to self-edit my well-crafted novels. I want to write novels. I’m a storyteller. I have earned the right to be taken seriously as a novelist.

My query letter is always two paragraphs on the book, one paragraph listing my credits, and then my contact information. One page. My query is one full page. If I was to print it out, same thing, one full page. After the query letter you will find my synopsis. What was once three to five printed pages, is now one page, to one-and-one-half printed pages long. I’m required to provide no more than this for a synopsis. I have to craft each synopsis, and sometimes spend two months (a couple hours each night) on this one item, trying to get it right. After that is the first five pages of my novel, or the first ten pages of my novel, or the first three chapters or fifty full pages of my novel, whichever comes first. That’s seven total pages, or twelve total pages, or up to fifty-two total pages. This is all I’m allowed to land an agent.