I
love the gals who organized that RWNZ conference but boy, it was brutal
getting up early so I could do the 7 a.m. aptly named workshop called
Cereal Killers. I’m pretty positive I killed the appetite of anyone who
attended.
This is one of those tough workshops where attendees
can submit the first 2 pages of their manuscript and I treat all the
entries as if I were reading my slush pile. The point is to give the
attendees an inside look at how an agent thinks and reads.
It’s
voluntary and I give big kudos to all who participated but this type of
workshop can be brutal. I actually try and strike the balance between
being honest and being constructive with my comments. Sounds easy but
it’s not.
This time I was smart. I gave everyone the “this
workshop is not for the faint of heart” warning before it began. No one
ran screaming out the door—either before or after the workshop so I
might have succeeded.
Interestingly enough, today really
crystallized a couple of reasons why I might pass on asking for a full
manuscript. I haven’t really articulated these points before and
thought they might be worth sharing.
I’ll pass on sample pages if
1.
the author is intruding on the story by giving a recap of what the
characters are thinking and feeling when that info is already clear via
the scene and dialogue that proceeded it.
2. the author needs to significantly tighten the writing by combining sentences to better detail the action.
3. the author utilizes description that’s not natural to the scene unfolding.
(The
example today was that a character had to force her hand away from her
mouth. So think about it for a moment. Literally (in the physical
sense), someone else can force your hand away but you wouldn’t really
do so on your own.)
4. the author has a character whose thoughts and actions are incongruent to the scene unfolding.
(And
I don’t mean this in terms of satire where that construct is often
deliberate. I mean when it is unintentionally done and it simply
creates reader confusion on how to interpret the scene or the
character’s motive.)
