Amanda McCrina

Author of Historical Fiction & Fantasy

Category: Queries

Thoughts on the new year

2011 has been a year full of big, scary, and exciting stuff. I transferred schools at the very beginning of the year, leaving Geneva College to start attending the University of West Georgia, in my hometown. I finished about four rounds of edits on my 2010 NaNo novel in June, and started querying said novel in July. I traveled to Sendai, Japan for two weeks in August (five months after the earthquake and tsunami) to help with cleanup efforts there. I moved in November, and started a new job in December. I’ll be starting serious revision work on this year’s NaNo in January.

It’s been a year of firsts: first-ever query letter (schnikes, was it awful; I never did hear back from that agent), first-ever rejection. But also: first-ever partial- and full-manuscript requests, and first-ever offer (details coming soon)! I’ve learned so much about writing, revising, submitting, and publishing this year-painful but important lessons. There have been a number of people who’ve helped me along the way-family, close friends, writing buddies. Angela over at Anonymous Legacy has been my comrade-in-arms these past few months. The QueryTracker community has been invaluable.

So now those big “first-ever” hurdles are out of the way. There are still lots of hurdles to go. The first novel is done; now it’s time to move on to the next. I’ve gotten so used to thinking short-term, moment by moment, query email by query email. Now I have to start thinking long-term-not only about my current WIP, but what should come after that, and after that. I want writing to be my career. I have to start thinking about it that way.

Gulp.

2011 was a big, scary, and exciting year. Here’s hoping 2012 will be just as big, scary, and exciting.

(And here’s a lovely New Year’s song for you to enjoy. Aren’t they adorable together?)

The first five pages

Venture even a little way into the world of querying and you figure out the first five pages of your manuscript had better be in tip-top shape. I’ve seen several agents comment that even if they’re unimpressed with the query itself, they’ll still give the sample pages a chance-after all, when it comes down to it, it’s about the manuscript, not the query letter. So your first five had better be polished and perfect, not only well-written but attention-grabbing. Those first pages are the “hook” that will draw your readers in.

A lot of writers seem to interpret “hook” as an in medias res opening-a heart-pounding action sequence in the first few paragraphs, maybe, or a death or two, or a high-stakes conflict. Some sort of tension the reader will be so desperate to see resolved that they won’t want to put the book back on the bookstore shelf.

And it makes me wonder if that’s all an opening should be. Over and over again I’ve heard it stressed that “capturing” a reader’s attention in the first five pages is vitally important. But that really has kind of a negative connotation when you think about it. All of those sorts of phrases, in fact, have kind of an unpleasant sound- “capture,” “hook”; something that “forces” a reader to keep reading. It all sounds cold and calculated and unpleasant, like it’s some scientific formula authors can plug in to ensure readers will keep turning pages.

It’s an indicator of our generally fast-paced, impatient, distracted culture, maybe-of our laziness, to be blunt. We want our entertainment delivered instantaneously, in palatable little bites we can consume without giving pause-and as long as authors give us that, we’re guaranteed to keep consuming.

I like a fast-paced thriller with an explosive opening as much as anybody. They’re marketable, that’s for sure. But what about slower openings-prose that makes you feel and think, rather than just giving you a rush? I’m afraid openings that rely on gimmicks to draw readers in are ultimately hampering their own impact. The gimmick is useless after the first read, and if there’s no real substance beneath it, there’s no reason for a reader ever to return to those pages.

There’s certainly a distinction to be made between a gimmicky opening and an opening that’s gripping and fast-paced yet well-crafted-I don’t mean to imply I think all fast-paced openings are cheap or disposable. After all, The Maltese Falcon starts pretty much with a bang, and it made the list of the 100 Greatest American Novels, 1891-1991. But I wonder sometimes what would happen if, say, Hemingway had shopped around the first five pages of A Farewell to Arms in the world of modern publishing. Because nothing much happens in the first five pages of A Farewell to Arms. In fact, nothing much happens in the first five chapters of A Farewell to Arms. Some description of the Italian countryside, the traffic on the dusty road. The main character goes with a friend to meet some English nurses. He drinks. He smokes. He reflects. He sits with his friends in the bar night after night and has conversations that do nothing to “advance the plot.” There’s no hook, no twist, no edge-of-your-seat nail-biting incitement to keep you turning the pages.

Your involvement with the story comes only gradually and with perseverance on your part. There’s not a single snappy action scene through the entirety of the book. But by the end you feel a deep connection with that Italian countryside, with the rain in Milan and the snow in Montreux, with the fatally flawed characters, with the utter bleakness of the war. You get the feeling there are layers and layers to be unpeeled-that you could read the book again and again and each time discover a whole new layer you didn’t even know existed the first time around.

We don’t like to think reading should take effort. Reading is entertainment, right? Entertainment shouldn’t require effort! But for something to have truly lasting impact on us-our reading material the same as anything else-it takes effort and involvement and patience. And sometimes it takes more than five pages.

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