A Special Report

All we hear nowadays is that publishers won’t look at unagented material anymore; the legendary slush pile is dead.

But it’s not true! Even if you don’t have an agent (and these days it’s harder than ever to get one), if your novel is completed you can start submitting right now. A number of publishers are not only willing to consider material submitted directly by authors; they’re actively looking and find many or all of the books they publish in this way. Why do some publishers perpetuate the myth that a novelist must submit through an agent? Perhaps because they know that if word gets out, they’ll be flooded. Perhaps that’s why their submission guidelines are often so well hidden on their Web sites.

Martha Jewett (my coauthor on The Marshall Plan® Novel Writing Software) and I have prepared a Special Report that lists these publishers, the categories in which they’re currently acquiring full-length fiction, and links to their author guidelines. We are constantly updating this list, so you may want to download it periodically to get the latest information. Just return to this blog and click on the link above.

Sure, publishing is feeling the crunch along with every other industry. But that doesn’t mean you should tell yourself there’s no point in working on your novel and put it aside until things get better.

In fact, there’s never been a better time than now to get that manuscript out of the bottom drawer and get back to work in earnest. Here’s why.

Writing is free entertainment. Movies cost you money. Netflix costs you money. Eating out costs you money. Books cost you money. But writing books? That’s free entertainment! And anything we can get for free these days is worth a lot.

You can escape the stresses of the real world into a world of your own making. Have you got headaches at work? Is your job secure? Do you have a job? Is your household feeling the pinch? What better way to escape all of these stressors than into a world of your own making? In your novel, the world is as you create it.

Talented newcomers have never been more appealing to publishers. In this economy, many authors’ book sales are poor. Publishers must entice booksellers with new authors who come without baggage— i.e., a bad sales track records. There’s nothing more appealing than a fresh talent with limitless possibilities.

It is often in a new author’s best interest to accept a lower advance to get that foot in the door. And low advances are another plus for struggling, risk-averse publishers.

So what are you waiting for? Get to work on that novel before too many other writers see this blog post!

As the author of thirteen murder mysteries and counting, and a literary agent who represents a number of mystery authors, I keep a list of “musts” for writing a compelling mystery that really holds together. Build all of these points into your mystery novel and your book will be stronger for it.

Make sure your sleuth has a compelling reason to want to solve the murder. Mysteries always work best when the sleuth has a strong, preferably personal reason, to want the murderer brought to justice. For instance, in my first mystery, Missing Marlene, Jane Stuart wants to find out who killed her son’s live-in nanny. In my mystery Evil Justice, sanitation supervisor Anna Winthrop wants to find out who killed a member of her crew because another worker, who she knows to be innocent, has been arrested for the crime. It’s not enough to say, “These are amateur-sleuth mysteries; that’s what she does.” There’s got to be good reason.

Make sure you have enough suspects. You can’t keep your readers guessing unless there is a large enough selection of suspects to choose from. Having too few suspects also makes it difficult to complicate your plot as you should. Remember that suspects can be either people your sleuth suspects, or people your sleuth isn’t considering but whom your readers will suspect because of clue’s you’ve dropped.

Make sure each of your suspects had motive, means, and opportunity. This sounds obvious, but be sure to give each of your suspects a compelling reason to have wanted the victim dead. Also make sure this person could have done it, physically; i.e., was he or she in the right place, and at the right time.

Place your sleuth in danger. Feedback from my readers has taught me that they most enjoy books in which the sleuth, as a result of her snooping, is put in danger, usually from the murderer who doesn’t want to be exposed. Many writers skip this element, but I think it adds a lot.

Teach the reader something new. Set your mystery in an industry or place readers may not know about. My Jane Stuart and Winky mysteries are set in the world of publishing and literary agents. My Hidden Manhattan mysteries feature little-known places in New York City, and also provide a lot of inside information about the sanitation industry.

Put in some really good twists. Readers love to be shocked. So at least three times in your story, spin your story in a new direction by inserting a shocking revelation or development. (Spoiler alert:) In Missing Marlene, I reveal that a murdered woman Jane thinks is Marlene isn’t Marlene at all, but her best friend with whom she traded places.

Keep the story moving. Mysteries aren’t overly long in terms of word length, so you really can’t afford to be leisurely with your writing. Keep the story moving by having a lot of actual plot action and not so much introspection and reacting to things. My trick is that I write nearly all of my novels in direct action rather than summary.

End with a bang. The classic Agatha Christie ending, in which Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple assembles everyone in the drawing room to explain exactly what happened and then unmask the murderer, won’t work nowadays. I always like to make the revelation of the killer a dramatic climax, sometimes putting my sleuth in jeopardy. At the end of my mystery Death is Disposable, the murderer chases Anna through the abandoned subway tunnels under Grand Central Station in order to ensure her silence.

Once the mystery is solved, wrap things up quickly. Once the murderer has been revealed, that’s pretty much the end of the story. Use the pages after the climax to do any leftover explaining, tie up any hanging threads and, if there’s a romance thread, bring your lovers together.

These aren’t absolute laws. They’re ways I make sure my books are page turners that keep readers wanting more from me. Try some or all of them and your amateur-sleuth mystery will be better for it.

Presenting background is one of those eternally difficult techniques for novelists. It’s inherently dull because it stops your story—something you want to avoid. Yet it’s absolutely necessary if the reader is to understand your characters’ actions and motivations. So often, beginning writers give far too much background, then compound the mistake by putting the background where it shouldn’t go. The trick is to know when and how to present background in your novel. Here are some pointers.Give Background as Explanation

Provide background only when something has come up that needs explaining. In other words, explain only what needs to be explained in order for the reader to be able to understand the story at this moment.

Here’s an example. Your lead character, a teacher, sees a particular parent enter her classroom at the end of the day and she tenses up. Unless you do some explaining, the reader will be at a loss as to why your lead has reacted this way. It’s necessary at this point to tell the reader what has happened between the parent and your lead to make your lead react this way.

You can present this background in dialogue between these two characters—if you can find a way to do it naturally. For example, your lead might force herself to approach the parent, smile, and say, “I’m sorry I blew up at you the other day, Mrs. Jensen, but I really don’t think you were listening to what I was trying to tell you about Andrew.”

You can present it in dialogue between your lead and a third character—again, if you can find a way to do it naturally, and if, of course, there’s another character present. For example, if there’s another teacher or an aide nearby, your lead might whisper, “There’s that Mrs. Jensen. She won’t hear anything negative about her precious Andrew.”

Or you can just tell us, as succinctly as possible, what happened: Yesterday, when Mary had tried to tell Mrs. Jensen that her son Andrew was failing in nearly all his subjects because he refused to make an effort, Mrs. Jensen had cut Mary off and said that Mary herself was the problem…

Minimize Background

Most likely you’ll have created what I call a character fact list about each of your novel’s major characters. You needn’t try to convey to the reader all the information on the character’s fact list. You created that background information to help YOU bring the character to life. Never give background just for the sake of giving it: always make sure there’s a reason, AT THE MOMENT YOU’RE GIVING THE INFORMATION, for giving it.

Even when you’ve decided it’s the right time to give the reader some background, think hard about whether it’s vital to deliver ALL of it. It’s probably not. Whittle the information down to the essentials—what’s necessary to understand what’s happening in the story now.

Don’t just present background briefly; present it ONCE. Give your readers credit for being able to remember what you’ve told them. (You can, of course, always allude, or have a character allude to or think about, a piece of information you’ve already presented.)

Withhold Information

Understand that readers don’t need to know every facet of a character’s background to follow that character’s present story or sympathize with that character. New writers deliver great unbroken gobs of background at the beginning of their novels in the mistaken belief that readers need it in order to go on. The reverse is true. The longer you can withhold the juiciest stuff about a character’s past, the better.

Break It Up

There’s no excuse for those unbroken gobs of background information, at the beginning or at any other point in your novel. Spoon-feed background to your readers so that they’re barely aware they’re getting it.

Convert Background to More Dynamic Material

Whenever you can, convert background into action, dialogue, thoughts, or a combination of these. In the first two examples above about Mary the teacher, background is presented in conversation. But often a character’s actions convey background more strongly than words or thoughts ever could. Eight-year-old Jamie is on his way to his friend’s house and stops to pick blueberries from the bushes that grow at the edge of Mrs. Pickett’s yard. Suddenly Mrs. Pickett appears on her porch and glares hard at Jamie. He sees her and takes off, heart pounding. It’s pretty clear that he’s done this before—and that Mrs. Pickett has taken him to task for it.

Use Flashbacks When They’re Necessary and Appropriate

Some editors of genre fiction won’t allow flashbacks because the fast pace of these stories can’t support the flashback’s story-halting action. But in most novels it’s perfectly appropriate to present information in the form of an actual scene IF THE READER MUST HAVE THE EXACT DETAILS OF THAT SCENE. Just keep the flashback as brief as possible, and present it at a time when the story action has slowed. What reader will have patience for a flashback in the middle of a car chase? If a flashback is long but necessary, don’t be afraid to break it up. Just leave it off at a cliff-hanging moment and return the reader to it later.

Keep Background Up Front

If at all possible, present all of your background within the first quarter of your novel—though I’d keep it out of chapter one. By page 100 of a 400-page manuscript, readers should know just about all they need to know about a character’s background. The rest of the book should be pretty much “real-time” story.

Keep these tips in mind and presenting background in your novel will soon become second-nature.

A common writer’s complaint in recent years is that editors no longer edit. That’s by no means true, but it is true that many editors are not able to devote the time to improving a manuscript that they once could. Today, many editors are more like marketers, concentrating first on acquiring books that will make money.

For this reason, editors often tell me they’re looking for manuscripts that are “ready to go.” And there are enough writers out there who know how to self-edit and polish their manuscripts that these editors are getting what they want.

Are you one of these writers who know how to be their own editors? You’d better be, or your chances of selling your novel are markedly decreased. In case you need some pointers, here are the most important points to watch for as you make your manuscript “ready to go.”

1. Does time track correctly in your story? Make a table showing when sections take place. Have you given characters enough time to get from one place to another? It’s a common problem.
2. Use adverbs sparingly. Delete unnecessary ones, and certainly delete strings of them.
3. Delete unnecessary details. Not: He opened the cupboard, took out a can of beans, opened the drawer, took out the can opener, and opened the can of beans. But: He opened a can of beans.
4. Use adjectives sparingly–one at a time, never a string of them, if you must use them at all. Often an adjective is strengthening a weak noun. Choose a more accurate noun.
5. Know that very is one of the weakest of adjectives.  In almost all cases you can strengthen a sentence by removing it.
6. Scrutinize every description. Is it too long? Do we need it at all?
7. Be specific. Not just a dog; a collie or a toy poodle or whatever it is.
8. Spare us the weather reports. If the weather matters, describe it quickly and move on.
9. Focus on details, which add realism like nothing else. Not: The subway station was shabby.  But: Near the edge of the platform, a man with knotted hair held out a Dixie cup to no one in particular.
10. Don’t describe what doesn’t need describing. We all know what certain things look like. Describe an object only if it differs from what we’d expect.
11. Use the five senses when you can, though not all at once.  Characters don’t just see and hear; they feel, smell, and taste, too.
12. Think of walk-on characters (the cab driver, the waiter, the bank teller) as furniture.  They almost never need describing.
13. Describe only what’s essential to what’s happening.  If a character walks down a hallway, we don’t need a description of the wallpaper.
14. Write in the positive. Not: There was no light in the hall. But: The hall was dark.
15. Delete redundancies. Past history. The sky above. Continued on. Hung down.
16. Often you can delete that.  Not: Emily knew that the clinic opened at eight.  But: Emily knew the clinic opened at eight.
17. Clean out qualifiers like a bit, a little, fairly, highly, just, kind of, mostly, pretty, quite, rather, really, slightly, so, somewhat, sort of. Like very, they’re all weakeners, almost always unnecessary.
18. Cut unnecessary articles (a/an, the) for stronger impact. Not: A sadness washed over her.  But: Sadness washed over her.
19. Often you can cut of.  Change students of the college to college students; members of the club to club members.
20. Don’t use the fact that. Not: The fact that Professor Jones was sick made it impossible for Emma to ask him her questions.  But: Because Professor Jones was sick, Emma couldn’t ask him her questions.
21. Cut unnecessary words.  Not: The smile on his face. (Where else would it be?) But: His smile.
22. When describing acts of looking, use gaze rather than eyes to avoid unintentional hilarity.  Not: His eyes traveled around the room. But: His gaze traveled around the room.
23. Cut began to or started to unless you’re describing a character truly starting a task or activity. Not: She began to laugh. But: She laughed.
24. To avoid confusion, refer to each of your characters the same way every time.
25. Have you overused characters’ names? If you’re writing a section containing only a male character and a female character, use the names once at the beginning and then switch to he and she, perhaps using their names occasionally. If your section contains more characters and you must differentiate them using their names, you can still use a character’s name at the beginning of a paragraph about him, then switch to either he or she.
26. Seek and destroy clichés: butter-soft leather, a mighty oak, a trusted servant.
27. To show habitual action, use the past tense rather than would.  Not:  Each morning he would walk to the Y and swim twenty laps.  But:  Each morning he walked to the Y and swam twenty laps.
28. Watch it, which should replace the noun that immediately precedes it. Not: He took an apple from the refrigerator and ate it. (Ouch.) But: He rummaged in the refrigerator, found an apple, and ate it.
29. Don’t use the weakeners appeared to or seemed to. Not: The road appeared to waver in the intense heat.  But:  The road wavered in the intense heat.
30. Watch for and remove inadvertent rhyme.
31. Watch for misplaced modifiers. Not: She lay on the bed beside him. But: She lay beside him on the bed.
32. Watch for introductory participles that don’t modify the subject of the sentence–an error that slips past most editors. Examples: Leaving the village, the mountains glowed red in the sun.  Opening the closet door, the cat sprang from the shadows.
33. Don’t use hopefully. Not: Hopefully we’ll win the lottery. But: I hope we win the lottery.
34. Watch for Morse Code:  too many dots and dashes in dialogue, favored by beginners. Do you really need so many unfinished sentences trailing off in ellipses? Complete as many of these sentences as you can.
35. Restrict your use of the intrusive exclamation point. Understatement is best. Not: The bull charged straight toward her! But: The bull charged straight toward her.
36. Avoid long, blocklike paragraphs. Break them up whenever possible.
37. Watch your pronouns, which must agree with their antecedents. Never use they or their when you want to refer to either a male or a female. Though many people use this construction, it’s wrong. Not:  Every student knows they can come to me for help.  But:  Every student knows he or she can come to me for help. But this is cumbersome. Often it’s easiest to rewrite the sentence in the plural: Students know they can come to me for help.

Read through your manuscript with these tips in mind. I guarantee you’ll make some improvements that will increase your chances of a sale.