Write Good or Die (6 page)

The term “high-concept” is often bandied
around Hollywood, used to describe movies that have strong, central
hooks. Blockbuster novels have hooks as well. "Shark kills swimmers
on New York beach." "Little girl is possessed by the devil."
"Science learns to clone dinosaurs." "FBI trainee interviews a
captured serial killer." I wanted to write something like
that—something that could be described in a brief sentence, but
still perfectly conveyed the story idea.

Coming up with a catchy hook on which to base
ninety thousand words was easier said than done. I took a break
from writing to brainstorm. How could I put a new spin on an old
concept? What topic could capture the public’s imagination?

I decided on something with universal appeal.
The hook: Satan is being held and studied in a secret government
laboratory.

It would be a cross between Jurassic Park and
the Exorcist. A thriller that pits cutting-edge technology against
thousands of years of theology. Plus, it had the biggest monster of
them all—an eight-foot-tall, cloven-hoofed Beelzebub, complete with
bat wings, horns, and a predilection for eating live sheep.

To do the story justice, I knew I had to
research the hell out of it, so to speak. When I had a confident
grasp of the science and religion involved, I worked on developing
characters that would interact with the demon, and then a storyline
that would do the concept proud.

A year later, my techno
thriller
Origin
was
completed.

Now what was I supposed to do with it?

I went back to my Rejection Book to review my
previous queries, and was surprised to see how poor they were. The
letters fell into two distinct categories: egocentric and
desperate. Rather than succinctly pitch my novels, I had been
begging for them to be read, or stating how rich I’d make the
publisher once they bought me.

Plus, I was shocked to see typos and poor
grammar, not only in the queries, but in the sample chapters I’d
submitted.

For
Origin
, I needed a different approach.
I decided to do the same thing publishers do to sell books. Namely,
an ad campaign.

Rather than a standard query letter and
sample chapters, I put together a four-page package. The first page
was a two-paragraph excerpt from the novel, when the hero first
sees Satan sitting in a gigantic plexiglass cage. The second page
was styled like back-jacket copy, describing the story and the hook
in a few sentences. The third page was an author bio, with
black-and-white photo. The final page was a simple note stating
that the book was seeking representation, and my phone number.

No SASE. No return address. I didn’t even
personalize the note.

I made one hundred and
twenty submission packages and sent one to every agent in the
Writer’s Digest
Literary Agent
Guide
.

I sent these on a Thursday.

By Tuesday, I had five agent phone calls, all
demanding to see the book.

I was in shock. Usually, an agent response
took between three and ten weeks. Now I had them fighting over me.
What should I do?

Luckily, I had previous agent experience, so
I knew how to approach the situation.

When I finished my first novel, I sent it to
six NY agents, and one of them took me on. I sat back and waited
for the money to roll in.

Eighteen months later, and the agent isn’t
returning my calls. When I finally pin this person down, I find out
the agent submitted my book to a total of two editors in a year and
a half.

This time, I wanted to hire an agent who
would work for me. I wanted to be involved in every aspect of the
submission process. My next agent would keep me informed, be my
biggest advocate, and help me build a career.

After several phone interviews with
ultimately twelve agents, I decided on Todd Keithley from Jane
Dystel Literary Management. Todd was my age, had a specific plan to
market me, and most of all, loved the book.

There was rewriting. And more rewriting. And
more rewriting.

Todd generated a buzz in NY about the book
and went out to the top 15 publishers with an expiration date on
the manuscript.

It was very exciting and a thrill to be a
part of.

The rejections were the hardest of my
life.

On the plus side, many editors said wonderful
things about me and my book. I got many compliments, and finally
vindication from the publishing world that I indeed had talent.

But
Origin
was ultimately rejected because
it slipped through the genre cracks. Editors didn’t know how to
market it. Was it horror? Sci-fi? Techno-thriller? Comedy? Where
did this book fit on the shelves?

To compound the injury, Todd then left the
agency to pursue a law practice in Maryland.

I was devastated.

Luckily, his boss saw potential in me. Before
Todd bid his final adieu, I received a phone call from Jane Dystel
who succinctly asked, "What else have you got?"

I did have something else,
another high-concept idea that came to me while writing
Origin
. I pitched it over
the phone to Jane.

"Write it," she advised.

I did.

Another year passed,
research and writing. When I finished, I gave Jane the same kind of
ad campaign I’d designed for
Origin
.

Jane loved it. She generated a buzz and went
out to 17 publishing houses.

The rejections mirrored
those received by
Origin
. What kind of book was this? Was it a thriller, or a
comedy?

But one publisher liked it. There was a
problem, however. The book was a hundred and thirty thousand
words.

"Can you cut thirty thousand?"

I said I could. The effort was one of the
most frustrating, and at the same time rewarding, episodes in my
writing career. Because I didn’t want to affect the story, I
delegated myself to trimming the fat.

And there was fat. A lot of it.

When I finished, the editor read the revision
and said, "Cut another ten thousand words."

Now there was no choice; I had to cut story.
It was very difficult to do. I was forced to confront my novel and
determine what was essential to the plot and what could be left out
without disturbing the narrative flow.

But I did it. And it improved the book, a
lot.

The editor read this version and said, "You
know, I think I like your concept more than your execution of the
concept. Can you start over from the beginning?"

Jane stepped in before I popped a blood
vessel.

“
We’ll move on to the next
book, Joe.”

For my third book with the agency, I decided
to make sure I wrote in a specific, distinct, defined genre, the
medical thriller. Also, because editors seemed puzzled by the
amount of humor I was putting in my books, I completely cut out the
jokes.

After another year of writing and research, I
gave the results to Jane.

She HATED it, and refused to represent it.
Jane liked my sense of humor, and a novel without jokes had no
spark.

Back to square one.

Again, I took time away from writing to
brainstorm. I liked Jane a lot, as a person and as an agent, but I
didn’t think she’d keep me on as a client if I kept giving her
books she couldn’t sell.

My last three books were failures, but they
were important failures. They taught me how to rewrite. They taught
me that I needed to use humor. They taught me that techno thrillers
and medical thrillers weren’t working for me.

So what genre was left? What would be the
best vehicle for my sense of humor?

I went downstairs and began perusing my
library. A pattern emerged. Janet Evanovich. Robert B. Parker.
Lawrence Block. Robert Crais. Donald Westlake.

All my life I loved mysteries. My favorites
were series characters, especially ones that were funny.

Why hadn’t I thought of that before? This was
a genre I knew and loved, and something that would allow me to zing
the one-liners and have fun.

I created Violent Crimes Lieutenant Jack
Daniels of the Chicago PD. I used every convention popular in
successful mysteries—a flawed but funny hero, a recurring cast of
oddball characters, a catchy title that instantly identified the
series, a spring-loaded plot.

A few months later, I
gave
Whiskey Sour
to Jane, along with proposals for the second and third books
in the series,
Bloody Mary
and
Rusty Nail.

Jane loved it.

She helped me tweak the concept, and after
two requisite rewrites, she went out with the book.

In the meantime, I started
work on another high concept novel, so when
Whiskey Sour
got rejected, I’d have
something else to pitch to Jane.

But the damnedest thing happened. A few days
after Jane submitted the book, she gave me a call.

"We have an offer. It’s for six figures."

She named a number. I jumped around my house
like a wind-up toy.

"That’s great! We’re accepting it,
right?"

"No. Another editor is interested. I think I
can get more. In the meantime, Leslie Wells at Hyperion wants to
talk to you. Is tomorrow morning good for you?"

Leslie was a hero of mine, having edited two
of my favorite authors, Ridley Pearson and Robert Crais. The
thought of working with her awed me.

But what should I say? How should I act?

"Just be yourself," Jane advised. "I think
you’ll like each other."

Leslie and I instantly hit
it off. She loved my book, but more importantly, she had great
plans for the series, and great ideas on how to make
Whiskey Sour
even
better.

I got off the phone hoping Hyperion would
wind up with the book.

The call came two days later.

"Joe? Jane Dystel. Are you sitting down?
Hyperion made an offer..."

After 10 books, 12 years, and 460 rejections,
my dream had finally come true.

My wife took me out to celebrate. But we
didn’t go out to eat. We didn’t go to a concert, or a show, or to
France.

We went to a tattoo parlor.

Now, on my left shoulder, there’s a smiley
face.

To match the other smiley face I wear all the
time.

J.A. Konrath—http://www.jakonrath.com

###

27. WHAT HAPPENS IN THE PUBLICATION
PROCESS

By Gayle Lynds

http://www.GayleLynds.com

At last I can give you a
publication date for my new novel,
The Book
of Spies
—March 30, 2010. It seems a very
long way away, nine months, but for those in the business, it will
whip past at supersonic speed.

Why has it taken so long to settle on a
publication date? Ah, the fine art of publishing. I thought you
might enjoy an insider’s take on what's going to happen
next....

As many of you know, co-op is an important
part of the business. Book stores—both the chains and the
independents—make their own decisions about which books to feature
at the front of their shops. But the chains want financial
investment from publishers for that all-important first look by
customers who walk in the door. They won't take a publisher's
money—co-op money—if they don't want to feature a book.

There can be several reasons for this: they
think the book isn't strong or good enough, they have two almost
identical novels arriving at the same time from different
publishers and therefore want to highlight only one, or the
author's reader base has been declining and the chain is losing
confidence in its ability to sell the author's latest title.

At the same time, publishers face similar
decisions. They work to balance their lists so they don't have two
big novels coming out in the same week to compete for readers'
attentions—or to compete against other publishers' books.

I'm fortunate in that you,
my good readers, have been increasing, buying and enjoying my
novels in greater numbers with each title. As a result, my fine
publisher, St. Martin's Press, settled on March 30 as a date in
which
The Book of Spies
will have less competition in-house and in the marketplace and
therefore optimum chance at great co-op and attention from readers
and reviewers.

So what happens next? I have one more round
of editorial input from my terrific editor, Keith Kahla, and then
the manuscript goes to a copy editor, who checks my facts and looks
for misplaced commas. Each publisher has its own style, and commas
fall into that. I've given up. All the rules I learned seem to
change with the weather. Still, copy editors play an important
role, and I'm grateful for those who do excellent work. I've gotten
copy-edited manuscripts that were tattered, decorated with brown
coffee rings, and aromatic with pipe smoke. Those copy-editors were
beavering away.

Then the book is set into
type—yes, typesetters haven't completely vanished, thank God—and
I'll be sent the page proofs to read for errors. It's amazing how
long reading proof can take, and by then I'm ready to chuck the
whole thing out the window because I'm tired of reading my own book
and just want to be writing the next one uninterrupted.
Discipline
, Gayle. At the
same time, it's a thrill to see the story in type, and that keeps
me going.

All during this period the cover is being
designed and settled upon, marketing meetings are taking place,
publicity is being consulted, and a budget to support the novel is
put into place. Any of this can change, too, as the publisher keeps
its eye on what's selling and how it's selling. Some opportunities
vanish, while new ones arise. It sounds tricky, and it is. It makes
me tired just thinking about it and very glad my job is mostly to
write the book and chat with readers like you. Being with readers
is high on my list of favorite things to do.