It’s Tough Enough (pt. 3)

 
The Pages
 
As we discussed last time, the sole purpose of a query letter is to get the agent (or editor) to read your pages.
 
And once they’ve moved on to your sample, their decision on whether or not to move forward will depend solely on their perception of said pages*.
 
[*Assuming you’re a debut novelist—things change a little when you have a track record, and the process is different with nonfiction.]
 
And to that point, at a recent conference three agents on a panel were asked, “How long does it typically take you to determine if you’re going to pass on a manuscript?” The answers were, respectively, “around one paragraph,” “maybe two paragraphs,” and “usually one page.”
 
All of which might lead one to ask, “How can they even tell what the book’s about by reading the first page?” And the answer, of course, is that they can’t. They use this methodology because to them, the overall plot* is immaterial if the manuscript doesn’t also have (1) an interesting/engaging/compelling voice which makes a connection with the reader, and (2) sentence-level writing craft that makes the story feel like real, lived experience to the reader. (IOW, the top priority is emotional connection, requiring both voice and craft.)
 
[*Don’t misread me--plot is super important, and if the writing and voice are both up to snuff they will of course read the whole thing – multiple times - and gain a deeper understanding of the scaffold behind the story. But #1 and #2, above, have to be there before they consider #3.]
 
So… this gives us some good guidelines about what should and should not be in our opening pages (and in the rest of our pages, for the most part). Some thoughts on how to implement this…
 
 
*Stay in scene. (This is the overall thing to keep in mind, and the next five or six bullets will augment this concept.) Try to have your character doing something. It doesn’t need to be running from a monster. It could be having a conversation with her best friend about their weekend plans. But we need to see it, not be told about it in a summary way… which means it’s best if she isn’t sitting by herself ruminating for ten pages. Related to that…
 
*Voice and Pace are paramount. To that end…
 
*Avoid over-explaining. Many newer writers feel the reader needs to know all the backstory before moving forward, when the exact opposite is true*. Instead, plant “curiosity seeds”… those little things that make the reader think, “Now, what does that mean?” and compels them to keep reading.
 
[*Andrew Karre, executive editor at Dutton/Penguin, says: “Valuing information over intrigue, especially in first chapters, is a rookie mistake. Where the beginnings of novels are concerned, I value intrigue over information, feeling over knowing, magical confusion over mundane clarity.”]
 
*Avoid flashbacks in the early pages. We’ve discussed the nuances of flashbacks earlier, as well as mentioning their danger, especially in your early pages. (In brief, if the flashback is for explain-y reasons, probably better to let the info come about organically - in small bites - instead. Or put the flashback later, when the reader is more familiar with the character and setting.)
 
*Avoid head-hopping early on. We’ve talked before about what I call the ‘cost of transition.’ Much like with flashbacks, it costs in terms of reader engagement every time you ask them to transition to another time or place or into a different character’s point-of-view. Remember--you know your character and their entire story, but at this point in the book the reader is still trying to get to know them… so give them a chance to do that before you suddenly change things.
 
*Avoid excess exposition. I hate saying ‘Show, don’t tell’ because it’s too reductive, but a significant part of ‘staying in scene’ is that we feel like we’re there with the character, going through whatever she’s going through. And telling us all about the situation (i.e. excess exposition) is so much less immediate than experiencing it with the character. Most of what you want to tell us should be available through context, or you can feed it to us in small bites later.
 
*And especially, avoid expository dialog. Giving the reader info through dialog (often via having two characters talk about something they both know… or should know) throws the reader out of the story. (“As you know, Bob, our estranged father was a paleontologist who was trying to bring back pterodactyls for personal transportation…”)
 
*Avoid clunky clichés. Unless you’re writing a parody of a bad 80’s romance novel, avoid having your character look in the mirror and tell us what she sees as a way of describing herself. Avoid beginning with your character waking up after a questionable night with the sunlight “stabbing through her eyelids like the talons of a million flaming vultures.” (Avoid starting your novel with your character waking up, period, unless necessary.)
 
*Avoid purposely using fancy “writerly” writing to try and make an impression on the agent/editor. It’ll make an impression, but probably the wrong one. It’s generally less transparent and less immediate—making the reader feel further from the scene—than using declarative sentences. As Elmore Leonard said, If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
 
*Same with blocky conversations. Harlan Ellison once looked at a manuscript for all of two seconds and said, “The dialog’s off.” He pointed to a sample page—which had large, solid blocks of one person speaking and then another person replying—and said, “That’s not how people talk. They don’t make long speeches to each other, it’s a back-and-forth thing, with plenty of white space.” If you want the agent or editor to gobble up your early pages, I’d advise leaving the lengthy pontificating for the op/ed pieces.
 
*Transparency is your friend. Just as with overusing metaphors and similes, using a lot of adjectives and adverbs will generally weaken the sentence-level writing. The whole goal is to not throw the reader out of the scene, and anything that distances the reader from the character and the scene is contrary to that goal.
 
*Beware the wild attribution. Seriously. There are very few instances where the best/most transparent choice of attribution is something other than “said*.” There is nothing that will throw someone out of a story quicker than having a character “exclaim” or “utter” or—in a double sin—“utter angrily.” Yes, there are cases where we don’t want to use the same word twice in close proximity, but “said” is transparent to the reader, almost like a period at the end of a sentence.
 
[*Elmore Leonard again: Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue, and never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.]
 
*Don’t over attribute. There are some mechanics which will help with this:

• If you’re going to have dialog between two people, get them alone in the scene. (If you have more than two, you have to identify each speaker for virtually every line.)
• Stick with “said” as an attribution, but…
• Feel free to use a character action instead. [She took a sip of coffee. “He didn’t get home until midnight.”] Pretty clear the coffee drinker is making the statement. It’s clunky to add “she said” after the statement, and even worse to add “she said, agitatedly.”
• Speaking of the above, don’t use the name of the emotion to describe a character with that emotion. Instead of “she said, angrily,” you should show us her demeanor with actions/observations.
• When writing a back-and-forth dialog, you only need to attribute every three or four lines (so we don’t lose track of who’s who within the exchange) but this can be aided by action beats, or even better, by clues from the context of the dialog.

 
If you take care of these mechanics, your dialog will read better, the pace will feel brighter, and the exchange will (hopefully) feel real and not throw the reader out of the story. Speaking of mechanics…
 
*Pay attention to nuts and bolts. A typo on pg. 3 isn’t going to sink you, but three typos and a grammatical blunder on the first page very well may. You want them to feel like they’re in the confident hands of someone who understands the craft. This doesn’t mean you have to have perfect SPG (Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar), but you have to know when you’re solid and when you’re on shaky ground, and if you’re unsure you have to get it checked by someone who does know.
 
*Follow the submission rules. If they ask for the first five pages, don’t give them nine pages because “that’s where the scene ends.” If they ask for the first ten pages, don’t give them pages 50 through 60 because you think that’s the strongest chapter. But use common sense. If you think your epilog is too slow, start your sample with pg. 1 of chapter 1. (No worries—if she asks for a full, send her the whole thing. She won’t ding you for it. But maybe that’s a sign the epilog could be cut after all…?) I’d recommend having samples of common request lengths (5/10/20) all polished and edited for maximum value at their given length, lined up and ready to go.
 
Remember, the goal of the early pages isn’t to get them (agent/editor) to understand your entire book (or your character’s background or the details of your worldbuilding). It’s to get them hooked on your character, her voice, and her journey—all via the quality of your sentence-level writing—to the point where they’re dying to read further.
 
Just as the singular task of the query is to get them to turn to your pages, the job of your sample pages is to NOT give them a reason to put it down, but to compel them to want more.
 
Happy submitting!