This is kind of one of those pointless stupid things that I should really share on Facebook instead here, because everything I post here is supposed to be intelligent and insightful and yadda yadda yadda. But…but, it sort of has to do with writing and this is the place where all of my thoughts on writing live, so I’ll just slap it here. Please, don’t be offended.
I really like words I can type with one hand. Like, fewer.
And mook.
Ass is OK, but teat is better.
I recently discovered the website Authonomy, a writer-focused site owned by publishing giant Harper Collins and supported by a vast community of writers desperately hoping to be noticed among all the other writers desperately hoping to be noticed. It’s really something.
For those who don’t know — in other words, people like the Adam Armour of two weeks ago — Authonomy allows writers to upload large portions of their manuscripts to the site, after which members of the community will, in theory, read and comment on said manuscripts. If these readers like it enough, they can give it a star rating. If they really, really like it enough, they can give the manuscript one of their precious spaces on a small virtual bookshelf, which gives people who like that person’s writing a chance to see your work, too. Manuscripts are given ratings based on how many people have rated, shelved or added them to watchlists. My ranking is currently 5,322 … I ain’t doing so hot.
Eventually, if enough people check out and like a given manuscript, its rating will reflect its popularity and the thing will end up in the slush pile at Harper Collins, giving its author a chance at the elusive fortune and glory that all traditionally-published authors have obtained. It’s a neat and somewhat fascinating concept. I’m also not fully convinced it works the way it’s intended.
I signed up for the site last week. Please allow me to describe what I’ve learned.
First thing’s first: When you sign up for the site, in addition to all the usual crap like name and address and that little box you have to click on so that the evil masters of the Internet don’t send you a billion emails a day, you must upload a fairly large chuck of writing. I’m talking, at least 10,000 words. Now, supposedly, the more you upload, the better. People who read your manuscript — and people WILL read it, sort of — will have a better idea of your story and writing ability if there’s more to see. You also have to upload it in chapters, which kind of throws off any novels with unusual structures. Something like Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, for instance, which doesn’t have any chapters, would be royally screwed.
You also have to give your manuscript a cover image. If you don’t have one, Authonomy has a bunch of generic ones from which to choose. I took ten minutes to toss one together using a Godzilla toy, two tiny pieces from The Game of Life board game and a piece of blank paper for the background. Here it is:
After you’re done admiring the hot piece of awesome that is your cover art, you create what’s called a “short pitch” — a twenty-five word slug meant to draw readers your way like candy in the hand of a van-driving pervert. Here’s mine:
A mountainous pile of living trash, a neurotic monster hound, several hundred golem-like creatures and one misanthropic sniper all walk into a small town…
You then follow that up with a “full pitch,” which is essentially the kind of thing you send to a literary agent: two-hundred words that should make your novel sound like less than the trash it is. If you scroll down this page, you’ll find my query letter; that’s’ essentially what I used.
After you’ve posted all that to the site, you’ll categorize your book and add a few tags so people can find it and then you’re essentially done with all the technical crap. Now, it’s time to sit back and let people find, read and hate your work. Oh boy!
OK, that last part is sort of untrue. If you really want your manuscript to be read from all the billions of other manuscripts available on the site, you need to promote. Hop over to the site’s forums and start plugging the crap out of the thing. Comment on other people’s books, they’ll visit yours and return the favor. Really, getting people to look at your writing is relatively easy; getting them to do anything beyond the perfunctory glance is the difficult part.
Which brings me to what I dislike about Authonomy, at least initially. While I like the idea of a cool writers-only community — after all, all writers like to talk about writing, but no one wants to hear about writing but other writers — Authonomy is more of a food-chain kind of deal. I uploaded about a third of “Strange Beasts…” because I wanted to get some feedback from other writers. I, quite honestly, don’t care much about moving up the ranks and having my manuscript wind up in the hands of a slush reader at Harper Collins. Sure, it would be neat, but I’m fairly convinced what I’ve written isn’t really marketable in the normal sense.
Sorry, you’re probably imagining that I typed that last statement while wearing my haughtiest expression, but I’m not. It’s good to be easily marketable. I totally understand why agents and publishers only want things that are easily marketable. I just didn’t want to write that kind of thing. I’m not saying what I’ve written is better than anything by a aspiring children’s book author, or youth fiction writer, or chick-lit author or anyone like that. It’s not. I just didn’t write that kind of stuff.
My goal, more or less, was honest feedback about what I’d written. I thought it would be neat to have some opinions from complete strangers while my beta readers suffered through the full manuscript. Authonomy seemed like the place to get that.
Almost immediately after signing up and uploading a manuscript, the Authonomy user is bombarded by spam messages. Apparently, the site has its own little messaging system and also apparently this is used for nothing but comments like, “Hey man, saw your name. It looks cool. Your book looks cool. Monsters are cool. If you like monsters, be sure to check out my top 200 ranking book, ‘For the Love of a Centurion. ‘ Thanks.”
According to the site’s “newbie thread,” these kinds of messages are acceptable because they solicit readers, and that’s the goal of the site. To be read…by any means necessary. The thread also encourages the Authonomy user to “trade reads,” i.e. agree to read someone’s book if they’ll read yours. It’s kind of like “playing doctor,” only more boring and without the awkwardness a few years later.
The thread also suggests commenting on the forums because that will generate reads. This is true, actually. Taking this advice, I popped into a thread for a book I genuinely thought had a cool title and posted my thoughts. Three hours later, the author had read my 46,000 uploaded words, commented on my book and asked that I read hers. Kind of neat.
This also highlights one of the fundamental problems I have with Authonomy: People aren’t reading your book because they’re genuinely interested in the subject matter; they just want you to read what they’ve written. It’s like engaging in a conversation just so you can hear yourself talking when the other person shuts up. Although this commenter was nice enough to say she thought my writing was good — a compliment I always enjoy — she also seemed to have read through the uploaded chapters so quickly that she mixed several distinct characters into one and thought any chapter that was used to set a scene rather than specifically move one aspect of the plot forward were wasteful. She didn’t understand who the main character was because each chapter switched perspectives (there’s a few main characters) and that a novel should be paced like a movie. I’m really not sure why. I like novels that take a little time to get going. A slow burn, if you will. Not everything needs to be a 200-page, high-octane thriller.
I’m not saying she’s entirely wrong about any of this, of course. My book is, admittedly, kind of slow in parts. But if she’s going to remove entire chapters full of setting and character development, question my pacing and use of multiple protagonists, she should at least have the courtesy to figure out that two distinct characters with entirely different names — Madam Reyes and Lily Hume —and personalities who, as far as I can tell, have nothing in common other than location and sex aren’t the same person.
She also thought the entire novel should be set in Japan, like the opening scene. Suggestion noted.
Another “reader” commented that he enjoyed my writing style (thank you again) and really liked the first chapter but didn’t think the whole novel should be formatted like a textbook unless it’s funny, which it isn’t. Only the first three pages of the book are formatted this way, by the way. It’s the introduction.
He then told me he would eventually read more, but he had a lot to read right now and would I please visit his book and read it thank you.
I wanted to be a part of a cool writers-only community. These aren’t the droids I’m looking for.
See, I think I can relate to the problem with Authonomy. Years ago, I…ahem…acquired a bunch of Super Nintendo roms from the Internet. Yes, yes…save your speeches. I know. Having access to so many fantastic games was so awesome, but also completely overwhelming, in a way. You see, because I could pretty much play anything, I didn’t spend any time getting to know any one particular game very well. If a game didn’t strike my fancy in the first few seconds of booting it up, then I’d move on. After all, I have umpteen billion other games I could be playing. Why settle?
Here’s why: Sometimes, things take a while to get going. For instance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer season one kind of sucks. After that, kind of rules. When I look at a book in a bookstore and consider buying it, I’ll read the back and the first page or two, I’ll flip to the middle and maybe read a little more. If anything in there strikes my fancy in the least bit, there’s a good chance I’ll either buy it, make a note of buying it or pick it up from the library. I’m willing to give that thing a chance.
But, like a bunch of illegal roms sitting on the hard drive of my Fujitsu laptop in the early 2000s, Authonomy presents its users with more options than they know what to do with. Commenter #2 read one chapter, liked what he read except the novel’s format that isn’t even really the novel’s format and then moved on. After all, there are thousands of other free books out there. And the more books he reads, the more people will read his book, which ties back to the first problem I have with Authonomy.
Nobody gives a shit what you’ve written — only what they’ve written. To me, that makes the whole community thing collapse in on itself. The site is supposed to be about writers helping other writers. Instead, it’s a self-promotion machine.
No sir, I don’t like it. Or, at least those aspects of it.
Anyway, I’m done talking. Thanks for reading all that, if you did. If you’d like to check out some of the sample chapters, here’s the link to Strange Beasts in a Small Town.
You don’t have to sign up for the site to read, but please drop back by here and give me some feedback. I’d genuinely love to hear it, good or bad.
That is, as long as it’s earnest.
Well, this is it. Two-thousand and twelve. The end of the world. I suppose it’s been a good run for humanity. There have been some good times and bad. We had the Great Depression and the Crusades, but also the invention of penicillin and Star Wars, so I’d say it all balances out.
Wait, what? You say you don’t know what I’m talking about. That’s right, I can hear you through the newspaper. No, don’t try to test it, just accept. Well, take a gander at your 2012 Meso-American Long Count calendar, the one I just know you have sitting on your desk, and notice that there are no dates after Dec. 21. Nope, not a misprint. That’s the end, according to the Mayans. And we all know how punctual the Mayans were.
No more days, folks. Finito. Nada. Zilch. A period at the end of a really long sentence.
With the end of the world looming just over the horizon, the idea of setting some resolutions this year may seem a little frivolous. I mean, why not just live it up? Eat that fourth donut; sleep in late instead of helping the kids get ready for school; go ahead and jab that finger skyward when that 90-year-old lady cuts you off; swear until your tongue starts bleeding. It’s the end of days, friends. Have at it.
This is, of course, a ridiculous suggestion. Do not actually “have at it,” because no matter how late in the day, a person always has time to improve. Yes, even when facing his or her impending doom.
Remember at the end of Return of the Jedi when series baddie Darth Vader decided to toss his helmet in for the “Father of the Year” award and saved son Luke by tossing his boss down that hole even though he knew he would be totally killed for doing so? Well, there you go. Self-improvement in the face of imminent destruction. That could be you, pasty-faced and coughing out your last words inside an exploding Death Star. Now’s the time to start.
Me? I have several personal renovations in the planning for 2012. If there’s one thing growing older provided me, it’s a bit of self-actualization. Over the years, I’ve become increasingly aware of my faults. Numerous and large, I’m pretty sure the only reason I didn’t notice the darn things before is because they were staring me in the face…and discerning the obvious is one of those aforementioned faults. Let’s just make that resolution No. 1.
RESOLUTION No. 1 – Pay attention
I’m about to tell you something horrible. Last summer, I accidentally killed my cat, Mr. Bradbury, by shutting him in my wife’s car. Days later, I discovered him, curled on the floor of the passenger’s side. The guilt of the incident still swings into my gut like a hammer. I miss him terribly.
Bradbury’s death served as a grim and potent reminder that I need to be more mindful of my surroundings. Disasters are everywhere, just itching to happen. Normally, I traipse on through them, oblivious as they swing backwards like thin branches into the faces of my companions. It’s a foolish, thoughtless way to go through life, and thinking of Mr. B. reminds me that I need to change.
Along those same lines, I really need to be less clumsy. So…
RESOLUTION NO. 2 – Be less clumsy
There’s a common saying around my house, though it solely belongs to Mandy: “If something’s going to get broken, it’s going to be mine; if someone’s going to be hurt, it’s going to be me.”
There’s a reason this phrase and all those like it belong to Amanda and not me. I’m all wildly flailing limbs — jabbing elbows and stabby knees. My fingers are made of rubber and are attached to hands that also appear to be made out of rubber. I drop stuff…usually breakable stuff…more usually Mandy’s breakable stuff…and bump into her. I accidentally knock her around when we’re walking close together. I step on her feet. I’ve kneed her in the side. I think I head-butted her once or twice.
I promise, Mandy, I will stop. Hopefully. For your sake.
Wait, you know what would make Mandy feel better when I’ve broken all of her teeth with a misplaced elbow? Ice cream!
RESOLUTION NO. 3 – Eat more ice cream
I mean, the world’s going down anyway, right? Might as well let my physique do the same.
RESOLUTION NO. 4 – Get into shape
Well, that puts a damper on my ice cream eating resolution, doesn’t it? I mean, it doesn’t really leave me a lot to look forward to — a bunch of exercise with no ice cream. What’s the point of working out if some fantastical idea of what I’m supposed to look like doesn’t allow me to justify splurging immediately afterwards? It’s kind of depressing.
RESOLUTION NO. 5 – Be more positive
If anyone were to ask, and I don’t think they ever have, I’d probably label myself a pessimist. I’m not really sure why because good stuff tends to happen to me all the time, so having a negative outlook is kind of selfish of me, but …
RESOLUTION NO. 6 – Be less selfish
… Well, I really wasn’t done with the previous resolution, but I suppose I can move forward …
RESOLUTION NO. 7 – Write more succinctly
… OK, yes, it’s true. I do tend to drag things on. But, writing is one of those things that I truly enjoy. Take, for instance, when I was writing my novel last year …
RESOLUTION NO. 8 – Stop being so full of yourself
Sorry. I didn’t realize …
RESOLUTION NO. 9 – Pay MORE attention
Well, that’s a lot like the first one, isn’t it? If I’m already working on paying attention, it doesn’t really seem like I can work on paying even MORE attention …
RESOLUTION NO. 10 – Quit back-sassin’
Really, this has gotten out of hand. Most people, when asked for a resolution, respond by saying, “I don’t know.” When pressed, they say they want to “eat healthier” or something vague like that. But 10 things? I mean, that’s a lot right? Do I really have that much stuff to work on?
Of course I do. We all do. There are always things that can be fixed or fiddled with — little or big ways in which we can be better people, if not for ourselves then for all of those other folks who have to deal with us. In the end … and I suppose I mean that in the literal sense, what with the Mayans and all … we should really be looking for ways to better ourselves all the time.
Yeah, I’m not really sure why we choose to wait until a new year to start these kinds of projects. But I suppose Jan. 1 seems like as good a time as any to break out the duct tape and begin making repairs.
Better move quickly, though; there’s only so many boxes on the calender left to X out.
[This article was originally published in the Jan. 11, 2012 edition of The Itawamba County Times]
There are times when I really, really need those elves to come visit me. Also, if they can repair my shoes while they’re at it.
- Originally published March 25, 2011, on “Flashshot.”
Cofton looked up and saw rows of jagged teeth approaching rapidly. They were off-white, kind of like the carpet in his mother’s house, only slightly bloodstained.
Well, shit, he thought. Of course, I’d get eaten. Why does this crap always happen to me? God, I just hope I miss all those damn teeth.
There was a whooshing of air and then total darkness. Luckily, the huge teeth — each taller than a car standing on end — missed entirely, but he was soaked in warm saliva that stunk of corpses.
“If it’s not one thing…” he said, irritated, as the massive tongue flicked him downward.
I’m sending my query letter for this thing to several different agents. Let’s see what happens. [SPOILER ALERT: It involves me weeping]
So, I’ve been working and reworking on my query letter — the one-page thing I’m supposed to submit to literary agents that
A.) Defines up my entire 143,000 word novel in 200 words or so.
B.) Introduces myself as somebody worthy of publishing.
C.) Gives some insight into my writing style.
and D.) Makes them maybe consider possibly asking for a portion of my novel so that they may reject it and laugh at me.
Turns out, this is the hardest thing in the world to do.
First up, a query letter is not really a summary; a query letter is more of a hook or blurb meant to entice. It’s kind of like the junk found on the back jacket of a novel, or the lies told to us innocent movie goers during the trailers to upcoming films. Second, it’s really, really, really difficult deciding what elements of the novel to include in such a short space. Strange Beasts features an asston of characters and several plot lines that all tie together in the end (hopefully well) and boiling the thing down to its barest elements is like trying to explain to a stranger what your spouse is like as a person using only a general description of his or her face.
I’ve done so much research on how to write a query letter that I think I’ve totally psyched myself out of writing a good one. Most of the time, the advice is super-conflicting, something like, “Follow these guidelines. Never deviate; agents hate that except when they love it. Sometimes the best queries are the ones that break all the rules. But don’t break all the rules. Or any of them.” Then they give some examples of successful query letters, none of which follow the rules. It’s very frustrating.
In the end, I just wrote some shit. Then, I rewrote that shit again. And again and again and again. I’ll probably write it three or four more times, too. It gives me something to do, I suppose.
All of this prefaces what I really wanted to say, which is that I’m posting the current form of my query letter below. I welcome any and all comments, good or bad, that are out there waiting to be offered. I’ve heard that the Internet is full of opinions; I’d like some please.
And here we go:
Set in a dying Alabama town in the years following a lengthy war between mankind and a race of giant monsters, Strange Beasts in a Small Town tells the story of Agnes Stegall, an ex-monster hunter who is asked by the residents of Verbena Fields to kill a giant garbage monster believed to be threatening the town. Basically, she says “no,” but with more profanity.
There are reasons for this, of course. It’s been ten years since Agnes helped destroy most of the giant monsters, so she’s kind of retired. Plus, being of a generally disagreeable nature and prone to bouts of sour stomach when confronted with social interaction, she is reluctant to get involved. But then the townspeople call on King Vislor — a neurotic monster hound with such an obsessive reverence for humankind he helped kill his fellow monsters in its defense — for aid instead. Because Agnes believes King Vislor’s presence will have disastrous consequences for everyone involved, she begrudgingly attempts to undo the chain of events her reluctance, and the people of Verbena Fields, have caused. She’s too late, though; King Vislor is coming, bringing along thousands of humanlike creatures he’s created — living representations of his infatuation with mankind. Soon, Agnes recognizes the destructive lengths King Vislor, his creations, and the townsfolk are willing to undertake to keep Verbena Fields safe and must fight against these forces while simultaneously battling the monsters looming in her past.
Complete at 143,000 words, Strange Beasts in a Small Town is a comic science fiction story that pays equal amounts homage to the anecdotal storytelling of the south and the giant monster films of the 1950s and 1960s. Author Adam Armour, a writer/photographer for two Mississippi newspapers, has earned 11 Mississippi Press Association awards for his work. His short fiction has been published in several popular online sites, including Everyday Fiction, Big Pulp Magazine and Flash Fiction Online.
Thank you for your time.
Adam Armour
Et tu, Hair for Charity? Rejection again? What is this, five times, now? I’m looking around at some of your published siblings and I can’t help but wonder why it is you aren’t pulling your weight around these parts. I mean, Baskins was published. And Given Hindsight. Heck, even Mike (My Second Roommate) made the cut, and I didn’t think anyone would like that thing. But you…you just can’t seem to get it together. I mean, I still love you, Hair for Charity; that’s why I’m so disappointed. I know you can do better than this…
…What do you mean you’re running away from home?
Well, A Fair Warning About the Dangers of Messin’ Around With Evil Things was rejected by The Dirty Napkin — possibly because the name was far too long and unwieldy. Or, possibly because it was no good. Take your pick. Aaaaaaargh.
Hey, I still have one floating around their website. Let’s see how she fares.
OK, here are a couple of short fiction-related items for you:
1.) Big Pulp Magazine rejected my wordily-titled piece, A Fair Warning About the Dangers of Messin’ Around With Evil Things, which isn’t all that surprising but kind of disappoints me regardless. Still, I can’t help but love that publication. First, it is awesome. Second, they’ve published one of my stories before, essentially reaffirming my first point.
2.) I submitted both A Fair Warning… and Hair for Charity to The Dirty Napkin. They’ve rejected me before. But, you’ve got to be persistent. Never take “no” for an answer….which, sounds kind of creepy now that I’m reading it. Yuck.
