Great authors write using the five senses. They are masters of drawing their readers deeper into the world, scene, or setting of a story by embracing the intricacies and subtleties of the five senses.
The senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and feel are available to almost all writers. Utilizing proper description of each of the five sense in your manuscript will greatly improve your story, and will drastically improve your chances of getting your manuscript published.
In the modern world sound is everywhere. You can’t get away from it. Popular studies have shown that spending just thirty-minutes in a room void of sound can drive a person crazy and cause them to hallucinate. It is near impossible to find an area with an absence of sound. You cannot avoid even the faintest whirr of air-conditioning fans blowing, the tick of a clock, or even your own heart, and neither can the characters in your manuscript.
Sound is everywhere, even in your made up reality contained within the pages of your story. The reality of this is a great benefit to your writing. Your readers know and experience those same sounds in their daily lives. It gives you common ground from which you can connect your scene or setting with the mind of your target audience.
As an exercise take sixty-seconds and write what you hear in the scene shown in this picture.
What did you hear?
Did you hear the metallic clash of the blacksmith’s hammer pounding against the red-hot metal? Most people do.
What about the laborious grunts emanating from the blacksmith as he exerts all of his effort into reshaping the metal? Not as many people hear that sound when they look at this picture. You have to look deeper. Put yourself into the scene to see it.
Can you hear the singing sounds of sparks blasting away from the impacts?
What about the sizzle of the blacksmith’s sweat as it drops from his forehead onto the molten metal?
Or the scrunching of thick leather in the blacksmith’s apron as he moves and twists?
Look again at the picture and picture yourself in the scene. Close your eyes and experience the blacksmith working. What do you hear?
Hopefully, your mind allowed you to embrace the setting in a unique way. Maybe you heard the roar of the fire just outside the picture, or the screeching of metal as the blacksmith readjusts his grip on the hot metal using the tongs.
Did you hear an assistant chattering in the background? Or music playing on an old radio?
If you didn’t hear any of these things, don’t worry. It takes practice. But the more you open your mind to the reality of the sound around you, the more you will be able to describe it in your manuscript and pull your reader further into your story.
Take one last look at the image and write in the comments something unique that you can “hear” in the setting, that you didn’t already hear the first two times.
As a literary agent, I routinely get asked which is more important platform or the quality of the writing?
For writers who are looking to get published, this is an important question to debate. It may be the most important question.
The correct answer is not as easy as it may seem. The winner of this important debate between platform and writing ability can change more frequently than the tide. For the purposes of this post, I will look at this great debate from a traditional publishing perspective as it pertains to unpublished authors. For self-publishers, a third-party candidate weighs into the equation—marketing/networking.
Unpublished Authors
I have looked at a great number of submissions from first-time/unpublished authors and wanted to scream because their work was sooo good, but they had zero platform. Zilch, nada, nothing.
No website. No Twitter. Not even Facebook.
Sure these are extreme examples, but I can’t sell books written by authors who have no platform. It’s very difficult to sell books by authors with a small platform—many times near impossible.
If you have an excellent book and no platform, some agent may be able to sell your book, but your success rate will be low and that path will be paved with a lot of rejection.
Writing is a Business
You have to remember, your book is your business. It’s a marketable and sellable product. To sell your book you need to have influence enough to convince potential buyers to purchase your product. And you have to understand that a real-world business with no influence doesn’t get sales, because it has no platform.
If you owned a small business with no buyer influence, would you risk going on the television show Shark Tank and attempting to get billionaire investors?
No, of course not.
Those billionaires would tell you that you had no proof of concept. No sales potential.
It’s the same way with most publishers. They want to see that the book has sales potential to an audience or fan base that you are already connected with. Maybe through speaking, YouTube, instructional classes, blogging, etc. and at the bare minimum they want to see that you understand platform and you are actively working on growing your writer’s platform.
As an unpublished writer, if you want to sell your manuscript to a traditional publisher, you need to spend 60%+ of your time and effort building your platform. If it’s not your passion, learn to love it. Learn to make platform-building part of your passion.
There is only one winner in the debate between platform and writing ability as it pertains to an unpublished author—platform.
What percentage of your writing time do you spend working on platform? How can you make platform your passion?
Every day as a new literary agent, I have wonderful, exhilarating, and often very humorous interactions with people, editors, manuscripts, and prospective clients.
These first few months at Hartline Literary Agency have provided me with an ever-growing wealth of insight that I hope will help aspiring authors on their journey to find publishing success.
I am fortunate to represent clients across three continents and to engage daily in equipping them to become successful authors. Much of my time is spent teaching and training my clients to help them avoid many of the trappings of novice writers. With the right tools, polished and edited manuscripts and proposals, and a lot of had work, these authors continue of their journeys a few steps ahead of their competition.
As always, I continue to be passionate about assisting writers who desire to become authors, and I hope these five takeaways will help you acquire an agent or get your manuscript accepted by a publisher.
Don’t tell an agent your husband/wife/friend edited it for you. Unless you are married to Stephen King or your best friend is J.K. Rowling it’s a good chance this describes a novice writer. I receive cover letters that mention this at least once every two weeks. If they are lucky, I will read the first page, but I can usually tell by the end of the first paragraph that indeed they are not married to Stephen King.
Don’t address an email to every agent in an agency as a group.Agents don’t have time to read manuscripts that are not specifically submitted to them. You may write a genre that I don’t even represent. When I am trying to find time in my day to read submissions, I always read the submissions that are specifically addressed to me first. Many times I don’t even look at “shotgun” submissions, because there’s just not enough time in the day some weeks.
Don’t send lots of emails to a prospective agent. This business is slow; I can easily receive 100+ emails/day. If you annoy or pester me as a perspective client, I know you will do the same of worse as a client. That’s not something I want from my clients, and I may reject you simply because I don’t want that kind of relationship with my clients.
Don’t tell an agent how great your book is.Your book should be able speak for itself. I read hundreds of manuscripts. I’m going to have a pretty good idea about the quality of your book in the first few pages. Typically, when writers tell me how great their book is in their cover letter, I find that it is less than impressive. But, on the flipside, do tell me if the book has won awards. If other organizations have said your manuscripts is good, that carries some weight.
Don’t submit to an agent unless the book is completed. Unless you are a successful published author. I can’t help you. If the book isn’t completed, I will typically ask you to resubmit when it is completed. I will not read your sample chapters or proposal until then. I want to sell your book, when it is ready. In the meantime, I am going to work hard to sell books for my other clients that are finished.
Before you submit, take some time and think like an agent. If you were an agent, how would you respond to what is said in your cover letter?
Those answers matter.
The goal is to get the agent to read your sample chapters and fall in love with your writing. Do your finest to avoid some of these missteps and ensure that your manuscript has the best possible opportunity to find representation.
Previously published under a different title at www.thewriteconversation.blogspot.com
A couple of months ago, I began the new and exciting adventure of becoming a literary agent with Hartline Literary Agency. The last few months have brought a whirlwind of information, learning, emails, reading manuscript submissions, and signing clients.
In just a matter of days, my inbox became flooded with submissions from authors seeking representation, and as I reviewed manuscript after manuscript and proposal after proposal, a few significant trends came to light. In an effort to help other authors on their writing journey, I will share a few of those insights with you.
I am passionate about assisting writers who desire to become authors, and I sincerely hope some of these takeaways will help you acquire an agent or get your manuscript accepted by a publisher.
If you don’t know what a book proposal is or what it should look like, then you are most likely a novice writer that still needs to learn more about the craft. Don’t get discouraged, every author started there too. My advice is simple, attend some writing conferences, get a writing coach, and/or take a writing class. Continue to learn more about the publishing industry and the submission process while you improve your writing ability. You will get published faster if you hone your craft first. If you try to get published before your writing ability is at an adequate level, you may find yourself rejected and discouraged.
If your manuscript is full of red and green highlights in a word processing software like Word—don’t submit it—it’s full of mistakes. Take time to properly edit your manuscript, and at the minimum, run a spelling and grammar check before you submit. I’ll be honest, when I see a document that’s all marked up, I know the writer isn’t serious about the manuscript. Unfortunately, if the writer isn’t serious about his book, then I won’t be either. Always put your best foot forward.
If you’ve never written a book before, make sure you follow writing rules and standards. Your book needs to be completed before submission. It should be written at an adequate and predictable word count for your genre. Make sure your manuscript has been edited and reviewed by someone other than you, preferably someone who has a good deal of industry experience or knowledge. I want to read your book, but I’ll be able to tell by the end of the first chapter whether or not someone else has edited it.
I hope these observations help you if you polish up your submissions. No one wants to have their manuscript rejected because of some simple mistakes or oversights. Take time to raise your industry awareness and hone your writing ability, it’ll pay off one day. The publishing industry moves at a snails pace, so take a little extra time and present your best work first.
Previously published under a different title at www.thewriteconversation.blogspot.com
I will never forget my childhood friend named DeDe. She was smart and had a great sense of humor. But that is not the main reason I remember DeDe. She is the one friend in elementary school who taught me about being a friend to the friendless.
There was a girl in our class—I’ll call her Jennifer—who was afflicted with a congenital problem that left her with difficulty speaking, an awkward gait, and an odd look to her face. Jennifer was shunned by most in the school, except for DeDe. She was totally unafraid of what others thought and she made every effort to be kind to Jennifer. Her bravery caused me to be kind to the shy classmate as well. I admit I was still a bit uncomfortable hanging out with Jennifer, and it took patience on my part to wait until Jennifer could painstakingly speak even just a few words. But DeDe always cheered Jennifer on in her attempts to communicate. It was such a lesson in kindness to me.
In Promise of Deer Run, the character of Sarah Thomsen befriends the social outcast of the village—Nathaniel Stearns. The young veteran is seven years her senior, but Sarah has memories of the kindness that Nathaniel had extended to her when she was a little girl. It was a kindness never forgotten. Sarah looked past the recluse who seemed so different awaiting the return of his father from war. Many in the town laughed behind Nathaniel’s back. Why would this veteran who frequented the local tavern on a regular basis and who still believed his father was alive, be of a sound mind? Even the churchgoers snickered and avoided him like the plague.
But not Sarah. She saw past the exterior to the heart and soul of Nathaniel Stearns. She dared to speak to him. She dared to befriend the friendless.
It reminds me of DeDe looking past the physical anomalies of Jennifer.
A few years ago a friend from high school told me they found out Jennifer had become a nurse, helping others in their need. I was amazed but pleased—and I remembered DeDe leaving her comfort zone of hanging out with the “cool” kids. I sometimes wonder if DeDe was the one who had given Jennifer hope for a future, years before on the playground at school.
I wonder how many other lives can be changed for the better by befriending the friendless. I pray that I will be the brave one.
