Winding up to Pitch

Everywhere you look these days, you see American Christian Fiction Writers practicing their elevator pitches on their family, friends--and enemies, for that matter.

Okay. Not really. But if you happen to wander across my path, I will buttonhole you to hear my pitches for Up the Rutted Road and The Second Cellar. Practice may not make perfect, but it sure can't hurt. The more familiar one is with the pitch, the easier (theoretically) it will be to deliver with confidence to agents and editors.

In just over five weeks (EEK!), hundreds of us, representing myriad genres, will gather at the Hyatt Regency in Indianapolis for the biggest event of the ACFW year. Hugs, squeals, and jitters will abound, as will clusters of writers practicing those pitches right up until the last minute. We've been testing our one-sentences and one-paragraphs online for nearly a month now.

Finally, my elevator pitches are honed and toned to where I can live with them. (I'm not sure that a writer ever is totally satisfied with his or her work.) It's nice to know that the editors and agents understand our angst, since many of them also write.

A multi-pubbed writer friend told me that she read her pitches. "I knew I'd be too nervous to do them justice," she said. "I'd forget something important." Makes sense to me.

I've given up on the one-sentence pitches. My first manuscript is essentially an episodic-narrative hybrid (think Little House on the Prairie, Mary Poppins, The Wind in the Willows, Huckleberry Finn, and many other classics of children's lit). The second has a plot and sub-plot. A paragraph pitch consisting of three or four sentences that can be presented in 15 - 25 seconds works well for me.

Gotta run! I see someone who . . .

Excuse me! Excuse me! Could I have a moment of your time? Sure. Go ahead and order your grande bold. Sugar? Two percent? Two pitches?

Why the Tough Skin?

The safest thing for a writer to do would be to protect her manuscript from all of those prying eyes and "Track Changes" buttons. Keep it pressed tightly against her bosom, as she would a newborn baby, with her arms crossed over it. That action guarantees that the baby will never be examined, never be critiqued, never be published.

Undoubtedly, the writer already has edited, revised, and edited again, but when she sits in front of the computer screen with her finger poised on the mouse, ready to click "Attach," her breathing becomes shallow, her pulse races, and the palms of her hands drip sweat. Sending an MS to a critique group is risky business. The writer can stake her life savings that those heartless critiquers will delete this, change that, add a comma here, yank an exclamation point there, and scream, "Show! Don't tell!" [Delete those two exclamation points, Sharon. You've already said 'scream.'"] At the end, they'll add a soothing comment and tell you how much they really like your story and look forward to the next installment. Thing is, they mean it. Just as the writer does when she's in critiquer mode.

One must develop a skin as thick and tough as a rhino's--get used to critiques, embrace them, discern which comments will improve the work, and be grateful that someone cared enough to be honest.

Once the MS is as good as the writer can make it, she sends it out. That rhino skin will come in handy again because agents and editors will critique the work from their perspectives. If they accept the work, it will undergo more editing and revision. To read how three agents regard such, visit the following links:

BookEnds, LLC  A Literary Agency

Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent

Janet Reid, Literary Agent

First Manscript Finished!

How long can it take to write a first novel? Is 15 years too long? I think not, considering that the writer has to allow time spent honing her craft.

I've written most of my life. In fifth grade, I rewrote Longfellow's epic poem "Song of Hiawatha" into a play that my class presented on the radio. That was fun, and it got me out of math. Throughout my school career, I entered about every writing contest that came along and usually did fairly well. Then, after a nine-year stint as a newspaper journalist (winning a couple of awards there, too), college (English major), and ten years as a classroom teacher, I returned to my first love: writing fiction.

Originally, Up the Rutted Road was to be a picture book, but when an editor with Farrar, Straus & Giroux asked me to expand it into a middle-grade novel, I agreed. Now, I cannot imagine it as a picture book. FS&G didn't take the manuscript, but good rejection letters can be an education in themselves. I began to seriously study my craft to discover what URR needed. I also joined an excellent critique group through ACFW and continued to grow my writing. I interviewed people from the area of my setting (southeastern Kentucky), attended a major writers' conference and several smaller workshops, read books, studied on-line sources, and sought the wisdom of published writers.

Today I embark on another journey: a quest to find a publisher and/or an agent that would be a good fit. For some time now, I've been scoping out "possibles," noticing especially those who consider middle-grade novels, but now I'm looking for more.

Meanwhile, I'm also putting together a proposal. The chapter synopses are done. Now for the dreaded query letter. Fortunately, I have some excellent blog and website links right here to the left and down. Several of them address query and cover letters.

I am praying that God will lead me to the right agent and/or publisher early in my quest, since I have another manuscript waiting not so patiently in the wings.

What if I don't find either an agent or a publisher? Of course, that's a possibility. At least I have completed the manuscript and learned a lot along the way--about patience, about persistence, about writing fiction, and about how God works in our writing.

Oh, and by the way, in case you are a novice writer, Gentle Reader, please know from the beginning that the process of becoming does not end. A writer never fully arrives as long as she draws breath. We continue to read, to learn, to hone this precious gift that our Creator entrusted to us.

The Evolution of Rejection

Admit it. You've done the same thing--licked your finger and swiped it across a signature on a rejection letter to see if the the ink smeared, to see if the editor really did put pen to paper to sign. Or was it just another form letter that sounded more personal.

Through the years, I've noticed a steady progression in the quality of rejection. First came the post cards paper-clipped to the cover letter I had so painstakingly typed. Next was the form letter that bore an unsmearable signature. How thrilling to finally get a rejection that brandished a personal note scribbled at an angle across the bottom. . . one that passed the spit-finger test! The most recent rejection letter was all personal and encouraging, saying, "Our middle-grade list is full right now, but I have no doubt that you will find a market for this manuscript." That's progress.

Through the years, I've noticed a steady progression in the quality, determination, and intensity of my own efforts, seeking always to hone my skills. I recently joined a critique group through ACFW, and that has made a difference that even the members of my local writers' group, Southern Indiana Writers' Salon, have noticed. I will continue writing and honing, looking forward to the day when I receive that first acceptance.

I thought Up a Rutted Road was progressing just fine. One editor with a major publishing house had looked at it and liked it. "But our middle-grade list is already too full," she wrote in the rejection letter.

Another editor was excited about the proposal. "I want to see the full manuscript when it is finished," she said. Unfortunately, she went on an extended medical leave before she could see the completed project.

Then I sent it to an agent with whom I had chatted at a conference. "It lacks a sense of place," he said. How dare he attack my opus, my firstborn! (One tends to mix metaphors when one is upset.)

Initial reaction aside, I began to ponder what the agent had said. Could he be right? I read it through and realized that he was. And so began the laborious revision, still in process.

Up a Rutted Road tells the story of Camie, who spends her tenth summer in the southeastern mountains of Kentucky on the hardscrabble farm of her Uncle Glen and Aunt Charlene. Before summer's end, she must confront death and her own feelings of guilt.

"It lacks a sense of place," the agent had said. How could I correct that? I had to become more familiar with certain elements in the story so that I could accurately show them to the reader.

Elsie Blue, for example. I knew from the beginning that she was a blue-tick coon hound. I knew her by yowl, but where were her spots? What exactly was her coloring? I only needed to do a quick search of the web to find her! Now, I keep her picture before me whenever she's in a scene.

I also went in search of Uncle Glen and Aunt Charlene's "old-timey" house, its siding weathered to an ashen gray. Once I found it, I drew the interior layout. Finally, I had a house I could accurately describe.

The next step was to interview a close friend and fellow storyteller who grew up in southeastern Kentucky. He told me about the coming together of the highlanders in the gloaming, to meet on a neighbor's porch and sing or play various folk instruments-- fiddles, home-made banjos, Jew's harps, mountain dulcimers, etc.--sending the music bouncing around from one mountainside to another and down in the hollows. That luscious story will find its way into the pages of Up a Rutted Road.

Finally, I reached deep down into my own fear, returned to my childhood, and looked out of the window of my father's car to where a mountain road appeared to drop away, leaving nothing but air between the car and the fast-flowing creek far below. I gave my churning stomach and my dizzy head to Camie for a moment in Chapter One, as she looks over just such a cliff.

Writers love that first passionate awen that produces the initial draft of a manuscript. Beginning writers resent and reject the various revisions that are necessary to arrive at a polished work fit for submission. They have not yet learned the value of an agent, an editor, or a critiquer who dares to say, "You need..." or "It lacks..." I have come to the point where I invite such comments and actually enjoy the edits and revisions, because the story is worth it.