Dare Your Reader to Risk Reading Your Book

Janet here. I'm delighted to bring friend and fellow Hoosier, Crystal Laine Miller, to Seekerville today. She's a professional freelance reader for publishers and has great tips for getting your manuscript ready to submit. Be sure to check out her blog, When I Was Just a Kid . It's great fun! Crystal generously offered an evaluation of a proposal. Leave a comment and I'll enter you in the drawing to take place this Wednesday.

I write. I read. I evaluate other people’s writing. Sounds simple, hey? Yeah, simple as opening a vein. Sometimes when I read, I cut out a person's heart, I'm sorry to say. Sometimes a writer comes this close> to selling their manuscript or winning a publishing spot. As a book reviewer who has published over 800 book reviews, a contest judge, and also a first reader/freelance editor for various agents and editors, I’ve written words to criticize and evaluate, encourage and, yeah, sometimes improve. I respect writers. I want writers to succeed, because I really like reading, but I have been a gatekeeper and I stick to criteria.

I've heard my fellow writers complain how the gatekeepers don't understand what they are writing or give them a chance. Or if an agent or editor has read their work, they just don’t “get it.” (But your mother loved it.) Well, this is sometimes true. Maybe we don’t get what you tried to tell us. Writers are scared people. They sit there alone in their little made up world and when it’s time for the fog to lift and Brigadoon to appear, these really mean people come in and wreck the town, grabbing your baby and making him cry. And then, gasp, they throw your baby in the reject pile.

If you are a writer, you have to commit to a rigorous schedule, learn the rules, write when you’re scared, and think about it even when you can’t write. Even when a writer is "doing nothing," he is writing--picking up a bit of dialogue, working out a plot point, building a hero. Time is all good to a writer and even the bad day isn't wasted on him, but it does help if you are prepared before sending out.

When I was at my writers’ conference this past summer, we were reminded of how Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn wrote his story, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich published in 1962. He had lived the life of his character, Ivan in the Gulag which was a Soviet labor camp system. I read it in high school. It affected me the same way that Anne Frank's diary had. But it was Alesandr's own life that really touched me and that I didn’t discover until much later. He was born on December 11th, my birthday, too! (Different years.)

He was sent to hard labor in the Gulag because of something he wrote. He paid for that writing, but he never stopped "writing" even though he didn't have ideal conditions to write--it stayed in his head at this point. When he was finally released, he had to write in the dark of the night, and bury his writing each and every day in order to preserve it. His ordinary life marched on, while extraordinary thoughts were flourishing, written, but unread, yet.

He said, "During all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known." (From his speech when he accepted the Nobel Prize.)

It IS scary to write, but sometimes it is scary to let someone read your writing, too. Whether you will be sent to prison for your words, or will just collect your 42nd rejection. Writing requires you to reveal something about yourself. You are at risk somehow. In light of Aleksandr's road to being published, maybe the hardest thing to do of all is --show--that writing to a reader, but he reader risks something to read it, too.

When did Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn decide it’s time to publish his buried writing? How did he know? How did he know when it was okay to let a reader take the risk to read about Ivan?

I am a professional reader, and here is the list I use to decide if the reader should risk it.

1. Story is always first. Is it a good story? Has anyone else looked at it (a critique partner, a freelance editor, a friend who likes to read, not just your mother, unless your mother is published or an editor or agent…) and was she hooked into the story? Ask your reader to mark or highlight any portion of your work that was skimmed. Usually that means it is lagging. Another thing—make sure your reader actually likes your genre.

2. Find the theme. State what your theme is. If you can’t do it, don’t expect the first reader, editor or agent to figure it out. Is it a natural part of the story? Or are you riding your hobby horse? Theme usually involves your passion, but don’t let it become the hammer that knocks your reader in the head, either. (I am not risking being knocked out.) Love comes softly (I think that’s been used, but hey, I’m a reader and can borrow.)

3. Convincing, well-developed believable characters. Even if your story is set on the planet Blue Ray with Laser People and Elephantans, we have to suspend our disbelief and BELIEVE in your world you’ve staged. Pull us into your world. Real world disappears and Father Tim is a real guy now! We actually go looking for him in Mitford. (Which really isn’t there, by the way.)

4. Does it fit into a genre? I know, I know, you have come up with a book that fits into all genres!! All people will love this book if they can only read the English language or learn really quick to read Cyconese! Look, not only does the editor have to sell this book on the market, he has to sell it to the scary MARKETING people (who are real people and really do know what they’re doing.) They are funny that way wanting it to SELL—make it fit into one genre and on that ever important book shelf at the mall. It will help your cause to educate those in the language of the Cycons just where you fit in, so your readers can find your world and love it, too.

5. How’s your pacing? Go back to your reader (in #1) and wherever she highlighted areas of “skimming,” try rewriting to move the story along instead of stalling. Depending on your genre, you can lollygag only so long before your reader says, “Hey, how about that repeat of Scrubs, Hon?” and your book is put down without even a bookmark or a dog ear turn.

6. Grammar, spelling, & typos, oh, my ! While they won’t doom your book as a reject, they do matter to some point. I have read over some of these because the story stirred me, and was clipping along. But if I’m stopping to correct them more and more, and obsessed with them, the party is over. I can remember getting so obsessed with a misused word (a wrong word) that I couldn’t concentrate on the actual story and began to believe the writer was an idiot. And probably the writer was brilliant and nice and I would love her. But that word burned a hole in my brain…

7. Do you show? Or do you tell?? Show. Master the show. Find how to show. Quit telling me.

8. Spiritual theme/thread. If you are writing for the Christian market, it needs to be there and can’t be preachy or take over the story in a blatant way. Don’t write sermons or long passages of telling me what you think, intruding Billy Graham into the middle, or the eyeball rolls will come, even for the most spiritual among us. Be real, but be gentle. Still, we need to be able to discover this aspect. Don’t hide your light under the bushel, either! (Or the rocks will start shouting, “Reject!”)

9. Does the lead draw me into the book? If you lose me on the first page, chances are you are getting rejected. Pull me in. Woo me. Lead me down that primrose path.

10. Plot, subplots. James Scott Bell tells this so well! Listen to him. I often have to write a synopsis for my boss, one or two paragraphs, so anything lacking will show up here.

11. Something that is hard to describe is the author’s voice. I look for it and describe it to the agent or editor. I also say if it is strong, unique or just plain Jane. You can’t copy voice and get away with it, but you can be similar. But if you are too similar to another voice in a publishing house, they are not going to buy you, probably (who knows what they want???!) Finding your voice is when you are afraid, but write it, anyway. You open the curtain to show a piece of your heart and passion. It is there, so pull it from your diaphragm, don’t squeak it through your nose!

12. Point of view must be consistent. And are there any other inconsistencies?

13. I look for tension. And yes, it’s a feeling. Tension pulls your forehead taut! My eyeballs grow wide. My neck hurts. I ignore the pain to turn the page.

14. I look for the overarching question in the book (that is that one pitch line they always talk about—no one has to tell it to me—I find it.) Will Scarlett survive in the destruction of the South? Ask the question. How did you answer it?

15. I look at setting, varied scenes.

And get this—I can say whether I personally liked it--or not. Yeah, just like your readers do when they buy your book! Granted, I always consider your audience and genre, but I have to be specific in voicing my likes and dislikes. I say whether or not I’d buy the book or I think readers of this genre would buy it.

If you are a writer, you are brave, and I believe you have a story to tell. Go write. And then, dare readers to read it. And remember, the reader risks something to read your work, too.

TO GIVE AWAY!
If you leave a comment and wish to be entered, I will give away one evaluation of your proposal just as I would for an editor or agent (proposal, synopsis and three chapters.) Enter your comment, email address and genre and we’ll draw on Wednesday, Jan. 14.

Crystal's freelance work as a book doctor and first reader for agents and editors has resulted in many authors being published. In 2008 she served as President of the Indiana Chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers and is now Advisor to the Board. She has judged in contests, such as ACFW's Genesis and Book of the Year. A book reviewer with over 800 published reviews, as well as articles and columns, she is also working on a novel. Her own, this time! You can see her interviews with authors and her latest musings and nostalgia at her blog, Chat ‘n’ Chew Café. http://christianbookscout.blogspot.com/ And for a look into the humorous and sometimes poignant childhood memories of authors, agents and editors check out When I Was Just a Kid, http://wheniwasjustakid.blogspot.com/