Literary Agent- A Writer's Ally

As part of an optional module in MA in Creative Writing at Durham University, the students are exposed to fortnightly seminars, where various practical applications of creative writing are explored through interactions with people from publishing industry and other related fields. This week there was a visit by two literary agents, from a reputed international literary agency based in UK.

An interesting and informative discussion on the writer-agent relation developed in the course of the seminar.

“There are as many rules to this relation as the number of agencies, writers and novels.” one of the agents professed.

A writer –agent relation can commence in two ways- when the writer approaches the agency/agent or when the agent approaches the writer.

A writer approaching an agency has to keep in mind some specific and some general rules.

A writer can approach as many agencies as she/he may choose. It is certainly not mandatory for a writer to reveal which other agencies/ agents they have contacted while making an online/ in-person/ postal/ email submission. In fact a writer can choose not to divulge any information about it at all when posed a direct question on this matter; and even ask the reason behind such a question.

A submission to an agency comprises of a covering letter, a plot summary and the entire manuscript. It is very rare for an agency/ agent to ask for only parts of the manuscript for submission these days. If that is the case then it is best to submit the first two chapters of the proposed novel.

A covering letter has to be very short and crisp. It should reflect one’s passion and professionalism as a writer. A writer can include only hints for a guided reading but not deep explanation of the novel. The work is expected to speak for itself. Many agents are put off by the severe mental steering in a covering letter. If a novel has a typical audience group like a fantasy-fiction for young adults, then it helps to mention so in the letter. The plot summary is the overview of the novel in 3 to 4 paragraphs. Since the writers are submitting complete manuscripts for submission, it is therefore advisable to research the agencies/ agents well before making a submission. The list of authors with the agency/ agent, the types of literature represented and the trend or inclination of the agency/ agent to select writers, are points that go a long way in finalising an agency/agent.

A writer should make a submission only if the work is ready and agents prefer to receive the entire manuscript in submissions. It helps them to decide more clearly whether they want to represent the author or not.  Besides, the agents do not want to raise hopes of a writer by asking for more of a piece of work, only to reject it later.

The time taken by agencies/ agents to respond is dependent on many factors like work-load, free time to read, prior commitments and so on. Hence, the response can be expected till the time it is received. A refusal is never the end of the story. The same book may be published in its original form after the passage of some time. It is really a matter of opportune timing and happy coincidences, besides good writing of course.

The literary agencies and agents are also on the look-out for fresh talent, hence a best–selling author is more often than not, spotted in a minor publication. It is always a good idea to try to get published in a journal or a magazine where one finds writer worthy of admiration or liking. The agents prefer to follow their tastes and instincts while approaching a writer. Their intuition of what might be a best-seller is trained by experience and sadly there is no secret formula to it! The agents also keep in mind the expertise of their firm or themselves while deciding to represent a writer. The presence of the writer in the literary world is also taken into account. This simply means the frequency and nature of the author’s response to and participation in other writers’ work. Agencies/ agents like to view the writer not as a one-time-wonder but a writer with a long-standing career with many books in her/his kitty. Agents almost always take a second or a third opinion even if they like the manuscript, therefore patience is the bedrock of this relation.

ETHOS OF THE WRITER-AGENT RELATION

The agent makes room for the writer to write. She/he takes care of the non-writerly aspects of becoming a published writer, and enables the writer to pursue her/his passion uninhibitedly. The agent is the only person who supports the writer in the entire journey of getting published and even after it. A good and resourceful agent is instrumental in securing not only a good publisher for the writer but also other platforms where the novel/story deserves a showcasing. So, a movie deal with a production house, wielding greater influence in conversion of the novel in to a script, approval of the script, choice of the script writer, the director, so on and so forth; can be brought about by an efficient agent.

If one is desirous of becoming an agent then a few points can be kept in mind. Graduation in literature or a related field is acceptable qualification. One has to be an avid reader with a knack to know what may resonate with the larger audience. One should be prepared to start at the entry-level as an assistant to an agent or an editor. It is a vocation that requires a high degree of self-motivation, so one should be prepared to walk the extra mile.

A few tips that can be helpful for writers while choosing an agency/ agent to represent them are:

1. A writer should take herself/himself seriously as a writer.
2. One should research the various agencies/ agents and make a careful and well-informed selection.
3. A covering letter should not be professional to the extent of being cold. It should reflect a writer’s passion.
4. Literary Agents work only on commission basis. One should not accept any other type of arrangement.
5. The concept of reading fees charged by an agency is also not a good idea and one should steer clear of it.
6. One can directly approach a publisher but then the nature of work that one invites into one’s purview because of such a step, is above and beyond plain writing. It may steal the bliss from writing.
7. Self-publishing for a new writer is still a stigma. One may consider self-publishing after having successfully published a few titles with a publishing house.
8. Micro-publishing or getting published at a smaller level with a smaller publisher, is a good way of entering the publishing world.
9. MA anthologies of universities are read by the agents but not as a priority. It is always better to be supported by a publication outside one’s university.
10.  Some agencies are better placed to provide more exposure to the book because they also represent actors, directors, technicians and other artists.
11. It is always a good idea to ask questions from one’s agency/ agent. They can be called upon to help at any stage of getting published or getting screened.
12. Writers' & Artists' Yearbook is an exhaustive source of information about all the literary agents in UK, with detailed information about their contact address, submission guidelines and specialisms.  The list also contains information about literary magazines, newspapers and related publications. One can access it at the following link:
     https://www.amazon.co.uk/Writers-Artists-Yearbook-2017/dp/1472927656

       

It is the aspiration of every writer to get published and literary agents make this aspiration more achievable, this dream more real.

Learning to Ride: A Bicycle and Life

I learnt riding a bicycle after trying for three long years. I was initially nudged into the practice by my elders who felt that it would be a great exercise for me to lose weight.  However, my practice lacked all the zeal and enthusiasm of an interested learner. I was rather guarded and restrained in my attempts to control the simple machinery.

The first phase of perfunctory effort fizzled out without much or any accomplishment on my part. My father the preferred guide out of the two parents, left no stone unturned to train me. I was taken to the air force runway to make the ride smooth for me. Strong pair of arms of the most trusted and patient orderly pushed my hefty weight on the bicycle many a times. Expert riders who were a little older than me accompanied me at the crack of the dawn, just to motivate me to push the paddle. The whole drama ended with numerous frustrated attempts with the entire bevy of trainers giving up on a disinterested learner that was me. 

The ordeal was re-visited the following year when again my elders decided that I should learn riding a bicycle because it simply had many benefits for a growing-up girl of 9-10 years who was actually growing out of proportion! There was a replay of events of the previous year which again ended in a fiasco for all those who had pinned their hopes on me.

The succeeding year something different happened. My only friend and constant companion had learnt to ride the bicycle and she was no longer available to play with me. Her vivid stories of early morning rides to explore the vast fields within the air force campus, evening races on the abandoned part of the runway or post-dinner night sorties to the hostile camp in search for a stolen ball or frisbee; made me feel deprived and left out of all the fun she was having with the other children.

It was time for me to get down to work. I decided out of my own volition to master the art of riding the bicycle. My earlier enthusiastic and encouraging trainers expressed lack of free time on their hands to guide me on this occasion. I turned to my mother and beseeched her, whose loving heart gave in to my teary-eyed pleas.

I began my practice not on the smooth tarmac of the runway but on the ordinary road outside my home, embellished with numerous pot-holes. My mother a strict and vociferous task-master did not spare me any abrupt turn of the handle while I tried to maintain my precarious balance on the bicycle. Ten-minutes into the first session, I experienced my worst fall of the entire episode of learning to ride a bicycle. The bleeding knee on that day and the stiff one on the following day, did not deter me from practicing. The results were extra-ordinary. I was riding the bicycle on my own within a week.

A mammoth sense of achievement engulfed me and I rode high on the surge of new-found confidence. Perched on my bicycle, I played with the wind. I even won a single-ride and a double-ride race with my former companions. The whole ordeal had also opened my heart to the experience of bliss in solitude. I had learnt some anticipated and some unanticipated but beneficial lessons during the process.

I always draw upon this episode whenever I am faced with a challenging and new task in my life. This is how facing a new challenge or crisis is simply learning to ride the bicycle for all of us:

• ·        Nobody can force me to face and overcome a challenge or crisis till I want out of my free will to do so.
• ·        I learn to overcome and defang the challenge after persistent efforts, paying no heed to small and big falls that I experience in the process.
• ·        Nobody and not even I ever assumed that riding a bicycle was beyond my reach. I mastered the skill and similarly I can master any task that I set my heart, mind, body and soul to.
• ·        I became a better or an expert rider not because I was able to practice on a better road, in better surroundings, with a better trainer or a better piece of equipment. It was all because of my will and determination. In fact the old bicycle became a better ride because of the cyclist riding it.
• ·        So in a challenging or crisis situation, it is for me to step up to the plate rather than pointing fingers at the factors outside me for causing such a situation. The situation is not a problem but just an opportunity for me to grow.
• ·        Till the time I do not accept the challenge and overcome it, the same or similar situation will keep confronting me, forcing me to take action.
• ·        The results of overcoming a challenge are multifarious and multidimensional. I not only garner the apparent benefits but also unravel some concealed advantages which may be exclusively available to me, because of who I am and how I deal with situations in my life.

I can only conclude by saying that every challenge or crisis in life is as easy as learning to ride the bicycle. Every time I am confronted with a challenge, I look for the lesson in it for me to learn, rather than the difficulties in the changed scenario. I simply have to move out of my comfort zone to pleasantly surprise myself and the others. 

It is all about me- always has been and always will be.

The Biggest Lie Told to All Mothers!

I am taking a break at my parents’ place these days and this comes after a long spell of incessant action marked by a book launch, revamping my academy, starting two new projects and working towards the accomplishment of a personal aspiration of years.

There! I think I have established my case well of needing and deserving a break. And there could not have been a more opportune time to go for one, which I am seriously questioning now, than the summer vacation of my two children.

Well, let me tell you this: it is the BIGGEST LIE being sold to every mother across the globe that she can go on a BREAK accompanied by her children! And innocent, blinded by love, gullible mothers readily pop this candy of a lie into their mouths and minds, all the while believing that they will actually get a break from the fist-clenching, hair-pulling and teeth-gritting job of motherhood.

The reality of this farce was rubbed into my being in a rather bizarre manner last night.

After having given up on spending quality time with my children at night when no go-to-bed curfews were imposed, I decided to sleep alone in peace. Everything was perfect as I retired to my solitary room to finish the novel that had reached its gripping climax. Let me inform you, I was able to do so with much relish and undisturbed engagement.

I decided to savour some old melodies on my play-list and allow them to gently serenade me to halcyon sleep. I was able to achieve this as well. The catastrophe struck after this.

As I was drifting into deep sleep, I felt through my closed eye-lids, a beam of blue light move around in my room. ‘I am seeing the Divine! Such peace…’, I thought. I settled further into my comforter and let out a deep sigh of relaxation. However, now the blue light was fixed at a spot and that was my face. I opened my eyes to find my nine-year old son standing tentatively in front of my bed.

“What is it?”, I snapped.

“There’s something ominous brown and green in colour with huge prickly legs flying around in our room!” Fear writ large on his charming face and popping out of his huge naughty eyes.

‘There goes a night of rest! Now which demons will I have to slay before I can rest my head peacefully on this welcoming pillow?’, I thought. I reluctantly climbed out of my bed and followed my son who was carrying his sister’s mobile to serve as a torch in the dimly-lit 20-step long passage from their room to mine. Let me mention here that he crossed his grandparents’ room on the way to mine.

My daughter 13 years of age, tried to salvage the situation as soon as I entered the room. “I told him, it is just a small insect. We could sleep just fine.” She said this to me while standing on the bed and her eyes following the exuberant cricket’s hops around the room.

Exasperated with the whole hullabaloo at the midnight-hour, I took a plastic tumbler from the kitchen, trapped the brown-green fiend and dragged it out of my children’s room. The whole drama ended without any casualties and desired and undesired violence.

“I can’t sleep here now! I’ll sleep with you mamma.” My son was marching out of the room ahead of me, with his pillow and comforter, sans the torch, as he said this.

I resigned to my destiny and went to bed with him. I was happy just to be asleep.

P.S.- Despite the travails and exasperating tests of motherhood, every mother basks in the UNCONDITIONAL LOVE of her children. And such episodes become fodder for the following day’s animated conversation, blog-posts and vibrant repository of bitter-sweet memories. Like my mother remarked to my sulking today, “Have you forgotten your own childhood, when a broom was always kept by my bed-side instead of my favourite book?” 

Helpful Tips for Budding Authors

As a budding writer in my childhood days, I was often riddled with questions and doubts as to what I should write. A few days ago I was yet again confronted with the same dilemma mirrored in the minds of young aspiring writers, with whom I had started the ‘Budding Authors’ Programme’. I was able to bring some clarity and order in the thought that we put in to shape our creative expression.

I share below a few practices that have helped me to hone my skill. I hope they will be of some use to the ‘Budding Authors’ as well.

• ·        Read to write- An aspiring writer should read books from a diversified bibliography. By reading I do not simply mean the uninvolved act of consuming the words. It should be a mindful activity engaging all our senses and faculties. If I can draw an analogy here, then I would say that conscious reading is like savouring a delicacy. The presentation, look, smell, touch, taste and feel of the dish overwhelm and arouse all our senses. We are so involved with the act of eating that we are able to break down the dish to its very minute ingredients. We are so inspired by the sumptuous feast that we intend to recreate it at the next available opportunity. Some of us are even able to accomplish the feat with a great amount of success.

And that is how we should read. We should read to write, contemplating continually the thoughts and feelings that the writer harboured while writing the piece. Revisit the writing to absorb it completely – appreciating the use of various tools of writing, figures of speech and the overt and covert expressions. This is how we become ‘creators’ as opposed to ‘consumers’.

• ·        Be a listener – A good writer is a keen listener, not only of the ear but also of the eye. We should observe patiently the elements in our atmosphere – living and non-living both, and their interactions with each other. For example, the way a door is slammed in anger or softly closed during an act of stealth. These observations are the fodder for our writing, and engaging our minds and that of the readers.

• ·        Get inspired easily – A writer should not wait for inspiration to pen down words. Even the mundane should be inspiring enough to write about. In fact the simpler the premise of writing, the better is the creative expression. Great writers have been able to describe with vivid imagery the banal stuff of life. However, I am not recommending that we write about only boring subjects; a writer should talk about beauty as well but not be limited by it.

• ·        Catch the thoughts- Thoughts are like balloons, if we do not catch them at the right moment, then we lose them forever. A certain expression may remain etched in meaning but not form, in our memory. So we should always keep handy a writing pad and pen to write down whatever unfolds in our mindscape. We should also write every day, giving no thought to the purpose of our writing. It is a skill that improves with practice. So we should develop a habit to write every day about everything and anything.

• ·        Details are captivating – We should take our time in weaving a beautiful web of words. A writer can prolong the gratification from a single moment by elongating it into a verbose composition. We do get entangled in our own web at times and lose the way. The way out in such a situation is to go through drafting and re-drafting our work. Write a piece and leave it at that. Return to it after some time, some days and rework it, but not too much.

• ·        Right to write – It is our right to write what we want. We should not let others and even readers decide for us what we want to write, how we want to write and when we want to write. Hundreds of writers from time immemorial are writing the same stories, yet the readers are enamoured by a good piece every time. It is the writer in us –the nature, character and attitude - that makes the difference to an old story.

• ·        Work in progress – No writer can claim that she/he has reached the pinnacle of her/his craft. In fact the day of such a claim is the beginning of the descent. Hence, we should all evolve like a continuous work in progress- improving, modifying and honing our craft and skill with every word we write. The focus for us should not be on having arrived, but on being in forward motion.

• ·        Review of work – it is essential to learn of our shortcomings as a writer. I advise writers to meticulously select a mentor who can objectively review their work. It is of vital importance that we absolutely relish the work of our mentor. She/ He can be an intelligent reader with deep thoughts and efforts invested in reading. We can try to sharpen our skills according to the broader perspective shared by our mentor but diligently retaining our identity and individuality in the bargain.

I would like to conclude by emphasising that like me, this piece is also a work in progress. You all are welcome to share and add to the views here.

It is not the idea of perfection that captivates a reader. It is the idea of uniqueness that elicits strong affinity bordering on unshakable attachment from our loyal fans.