Who Do You Think You Are?

by Matt Sinclair

Can a man accurately write a story from a woman’s perspective? Can a woman write in a man’s voice? Can a 20-something Asian American who’s lived in the Northeast all his life write about being a black blues musician from the south? Can a Christian academic write about the tenets of Islam? Can a Muslim write about the politics of Jesus?

In my opinion, the answer to all these questions is yes. Of course, those answers come with at least a couple caveats: Such writers must do their research thoroughly, and they not only need to be excellent writers but also confident that they’ve approached their goal with respect.

Writing about people we are not is one of the joys of writing fiction. In its purest form, it is imagination; to be publishable, it must be informed imagination.

I recall starting a novel too soon. I had a vision of the characters, but before I’d finished my first page, I could see that my understanding was superficial. What did I know about being in my 70s or 80s and looking back on life? About as much as I knew about living and working in Antarctica, which was where part of my story would take place. It was years of research before I felt confident to start telling the tale of those characters, and I still need to do more research.

Of course, most of that research won’t make it directly on the page. Instead it comes through between the lines—in the words chosen and the attitudes conveyed.

In my opinion, it’s not merely about showing respect to the subject matter, which is critical, but it’s also about respecting the readers. We need to always remember that readers are perceptive. Tell an entertaining tale and readers might say nice things about your book, but if you expect them to suspend disbelief, to leave their real world behind for your imagined one, you need to do your homework. Of course, this might explain why so many writers’ early novels seem to be autobiographical.

But you’re writing something original, right? How would your main character react if someone cut him off on the road, or tripped her at a restaurant? These things don’t happen in your manuscript? Doesn’t matter. What I’m getting at is how well do you know your characters and how they’d react to adversity. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a lapsed Catholic writing about a Sephardic Jewish family or a guy from suburban New Jersey writing about a girl living in rural Iowa. But the identity of the writer and the identity of the characters do matter to readers.

From the first time your manuscript crosses an agent’s desktop, it needs convey an answer to the question that will be on every reader’s mind: Who is this writer and why should I believe what is in front of me?

Who do you think you are? I hope you’re not only an author, you’re also a believable and authentic authority.

Matt Sinclair, a New York City-based journalist and fiction writer, is also president and chief elephant officer of Elephant's Bookshelf Press, which recently published Summer's Edge and Summer's Double Edge, which are available through Smashwords (SE) (SDE) and Amazon (SE) (SDE), and include stories from several FTWA writers. In 2012, EBP published its initial anthologies: The Fall: Tales from the Apocalypse, (available viaAmazon and Smashwords) and Spring Fevers (also available through Smashwords, andAmazon). Matt blogs at the Elephant's Bookshelf and is on Twitter @elephantguy68.

Research Like A Third Grader

by Mindy McGinnis

So, you've got an absolutely fantastic idea to write a romance set during the potato famine in Ireland. Maybe you just like the accent, or are drawn to rolling green hills, but the idea is stuck in your head and you can't get it out. So what's stopping you?

Maybe the fact that the accent and rolling green hills is the sum of what you know on the topic?

I don't think the first step is buying a plane ticket. I'm a thorough researcher and I like to exhibit that in my writing, but I don't start by traveling internationally or finding out the bacterial origination of the black rot that wiped out the potatoes in Ireland all those years ago.

Because that's not what I need to know in order to write this story.

I love non-fiction, but reading a dense book (or two) about the immigration statistics and cultural backlash that arose from the potato famine probably isn't going to fire a lot of creative synapses in the brain. It definitely can inform the story, but you're still on square one and drowning this little seed of an idea with 200 gallons of water isn't the best way to nurture it at the outset.

My advice? Go to the kids section of your library or bookstore. Find a very basic book about the topic you want to learn about in order to start this story. Right now your seed needs simple building blocks of life to get a good start - water, sunlight, soil. It's the Who? What? Where? When? of your story, and a non-fiction book written for children will point you in the right direction without the unnecessary equivalent of chemicals and growth additive type facts that are just going to burn the tender roots of your seedling idea and make your brain switch off.

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, a post-apocalyptic survival tale, Not a Drop to Drink, will be available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins in Fall 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners and The Lucky 13s. You can also find her on Twitter & Facebook.

Agent Research: QueryTracker

by Jemi Fraser

I'm getting closer to finishing up my WIP. I'm still in the polishing and shining stage, so I won't be querying for a while yet, but I've started researching agents. It's a fairly involved process, so I thought I'd take you through my procedure—which of course won't work for everyone—but it might give you some ideas of where to start.

There are a lot of fabulous agents out there. Many of them will be the perfect choice for you. How do you find them? In this post I talked a bit in general about AgentQuery, QueryTracker (QT) and Preditors and Editors. Today I'm going to focus a bit more specifically on QT and their searchable agent database today. Last time I checked, there were over 1000 agents listed. Obviously you need to narrow your search. QT allows you to narrow down the list by choosing the genre(s) of your story/stories. You can choose multiple categories to narrow down your search further.

I'll use my recent searches as an example. My story is a romance with a strong subplot of suspense/mystery. So, I chose fiction–romance, then fiction–mystery, fiction–suspense. I had 114 agents to search. When I searched romance only, I had 189 agents. Not a huge difference for me, but if you're planning on writing fantasy and thrillers for instance, it would be nice to know which agents rep both.

QT lists the agents in alphabetical order by last names. It shows if they accept email or snail mail queries or if there's an online form. Once you click on an agent's name, it gives you more information.

• The overview tab lists the agency's website and the agent's personal blog and twitter if applicable. It also links to their information on AgentQuery, Preditors & Editors, Publishers Marketplace, AAR and sometimes interviews as well. There are a few agencies without an online presence, but these are included in the listings as well.
• The comments tab shows comments by QT members who are willing to share who they queried and what the response was. It's easy to find out from this tab if the agent only responds if interested and what their form letters are like.
• One tab shows the clients of the agent. This is really handy. Even though the agent might rep a wide variety of genres, you'll see quickly what they have sold. Some of the agents in my search sold almost exclusively nonfiction books. I would assume that's where their best contacts in the publishing world are. By checking out the clients, I also find out if the agent already reps someone who sells stories similar to the one I'm querying. That all helps me decide where the agent fits on my wishlist.
• There is another tab for reports. This can show you how many queries the agent has received, in what genre, how they've responded ... Some of these features are exclusive to the premium membership.

Speaking of that premium membership, it's $25/year. The basic membership allows you to track your querying process for one project. Among other perks, the premium membership allows you to track 20 projects. When you're tracking project 2, it reminds you if you queried each agent with project 1 and how that turned out.

Now, as good as QT is, it's not enough. Once you've narrowed down the list of agents you're interested in querying, I'd suggest a few more steps.

Click through to the agency website and the agent's personal blog if she/he has one. You can find out a LOT of information this way. The lists of genres is sometimes a bit deceiving. As I said, I'm looking for agents who represent romance. By visiting the websites I eliminated at least a dozen agents who only want to see historical or paranormal romance and one who wants only multi-generational stories. Agents are busy people. I'd rather not waste their time querying for something they're not interested in. I'd rather focus on those agents who state they're looking for contemporary stories.

QT has a 'Notes' space where you can keep track of your thoughts about the agent. I use it to track those tidbits I might use to personalize my query when I do get to that stage.

There are a LOT more features on QT that I didn't mention. I'll do that in another post.

Any questions? Anything you'd like to see in that post? Have you used QT? What's your favourite part of it? Any other tips?

Jemi Fraser is an aspiring author of romantic mysteries. She blogs and tweets while searching for those HEAs.