Author: SarahLaPolla

Are You Writing a Dystopian?

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 18 Comments

This post has been a few months in the making and I haven’t got around to it for a few reasons. The topic started as a joke with me, HarperCollins editor Sara Sargent, and literary agent Hannah Bowman. Important note: we were not making fun of dystopian. Personally, I love it. But like with any genre, there are certain conventions you can’t avoid when writing it. The reason I didn’t write this post earlier is because I figured no one is even publishing or submitting dystopian anymore. Sure, there are still some stragglers – some established authors finishing up trilogies or the rare debut that manages to be the needle in our haystack of queries. For the most part, however, the dystopian trend has slowed to a stop to make way for whatever the next thing will be.

Like I said, I love dystopian, but writers often confuse “personal preference” and “what agents are able to sell.” My love of dystopian needs to take a backseat in the post-Hunger Games market. The stakes for what makes a stand-out, original novel have been raised and there just isn’t room for 95% of them right now. The market won’t be ready to take a chance on a more traditional dystopian – especially in YA – for a few more years. (“Traditional dystopian” means a story that stays within the genre and doesn’t try to reinvent it.) Hence, not feeling the need to write this blog post. Then I noticed a recent increase in dystopian submissions. It’s obvious writers who were told to shelve their dystopian manuscripts waited a month or two, and are now re-submitting under the guise of other genres. The general premise and genre elements of dystopian are still there, but writers are labeling it “sci-fi,” “futuristic fantasy,” and “dark contemporary with sci-fi elements.”

If you’re wondering if what you’ve written is a dystopian, here’s a quick checklist. More importantly, this is how agents and editors know what you’ve written, regardless of what you call it:

1. Everything Has Generic Name
Your character lives in District or Zone [number], New [name of old town], or, if they’re rich, “Capitol City.” The government that controls everything is called The Corporation, The Agency, or simply The Government. The people fighting against them are The Resistance or The Rebels.

2. Story Begins with The Government Entering the Main Character’s Life
This main character is often a girl who’s either super pissed or super scared. She might even sass one of the guards before she goes with them willingly to a place where her destiny awaits.

3. The World Totally Sucks Now – Doesn’t Matter Why
To be dystopian, the modern/contemporary world needs to be destroyed. Sometimes there are references to “the old world” and other times we’re just placed in the middle of What Happened After. Usually this thing is a natural disaster or a virus, both of which are probably government conspiracies. Whatever it is, we don’t get to see the transition into dystopian society. It just exists.

4. Teenagers Matter A Lot.
Props to Hannah Bowman for making this point. Obviously in YA (which is where most dystopian novels live), teenagers need to be the focus, but rarely is it explained why society focuses on them. (Presumably there are more children and adults than teenagers in any given world, right?) Teens are the ones chosen, left behind, arranged into marriage, or sold into slavery. If you’re between the ages of 14 and 18 in a dystopian world, you’re pretty much screwed.

5. No Matter How Bad Things Get, There is Never a Shortage of Pretty Dresses
OK, this last one is kind of a joke. But seriously – why are so many dystopian heroines given beautiful gowns and why do we spend so much time reading about what they look like?? (You’re not above this, Katniss!)

There you have it. Keep in mind this list is a bit tongue-in-cheek. If your novel has all of these elements, it doesn’t mean it’s unoriginal, poorly written, or won’t get published. It just means it’s a dystopian. You should put just as much effort into making it perfect as you would any other project. Just be prepared to hear a lot of “I’m not taking on dystopian right now” or “Dystopian is really hard to sell…” comments from agents and editors. We like you and we like your book and we like all those fun, now-expected dystopian elements. Most of us are just taking a break from it, so query with caution, but query correctly. (I’m looking at you, “dark futuristic fantasy with romantic and sci-fi elements” people!)

"Is This Meaningful Dialogue?" She Asked.

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 21 Comments

Last year I wrote a post on fixing minor writing problems called Band-Aids that should be employed during the revision process. I thought of that post recently because I’ve noticed that too many manuscripts I’ve requested in the past few months were rejected for very “Band-Aid-like” reasons, which unfortunately means the writing wasn’t quite good *enough*. (Never an easy rejection to write.)

One issue, however, stood out in particular and I realized it’s not one I covered in my original post: Dialogue.

Dialogue is a tough thing to write, and it’s even harder to write well. Like with the other Band-Aids, I can’t promise a quick fix will solve any larger problems an agent or editor may have with your work. What I can do is make you aware of the most common pitfalls I see when it comes to writing dialogue.

1. Too realistic.
I mean, we all use modifiers before we speak usually. And we don’t always use proper grammar and we begin sentences with conjunctions and we can run on and on and on because, um, we just do, OK? Sometimes we don’t know what to say next, so… we use ellipses to visualize our lack of certainty or add the words “um” and “like,” but um… this is, like, super annoying to read and usually the Very Important Thing your character is trying to say ends up getting buried in the very real way he or she is speaking. So, ya know, cut it out maybe?

As annoying as that was to read, it’s actually how most people – not just teenagers – speak. We all do it. Let’s not pretend otherwise. We all have our bad speaking habits that are hard to break. When writing dialogue, we’re given an opportunity most of us don’t get in real life – we can edit out those bad habits. Using slang, dialect, and other “realistic” speech patterns is all well and good, but be careful not to let it take over the narrative. Readers need to be able to hear what your characters are saying. If they’re well-drawn enough, you won’t need to rely as much on creating realistic dialogue to make them seem real. Don’t delete every “gonna” or “kinda,” but use them sparingly.

Remember that these characters aren’t speaking to us out loud. Our brain has a tendency to demand cleaner language when reading words on the page. We’re more forgiving in person because we can’t physically see the inaccuracies or “um”-like filler. Sometimes being “real” is the same as being “distracting.”

2. Too unrealistic.
This is what I’ll call the Wayne’s World Scenario (watch this clip to see why). For example, lines like:

“I don’t know, Dave, what do you think?”
“My maternal grandmother, Rose, lived in this house since 1927.”
“I haven’t spoken to Chris since he cheated on me with Lindsey. I hope it’s not awkward when we work together on that school project.”

Assuming the above sentences were spoken to someone the character knows, it feels strange that the other person would need so many irrelevant details. The problem with the first example is that most people don’t say the name of the person they’re speaking to unless they want to emphasize something or get their attention. The next two examples are victims of info-dumping. If we, as the reader, need to know specific dates, character relationships, or back-story between characters, it should come out throughout the narrative in a more organic way. Relying on dialogue to convey these types of details feels forced and misplaced.

Dialogue between characters should be fluid and natural, while slowly building the plot. It should not be full of back-story or excessive foreshadowing. Your characters are more than vessels to carry information. They need to be as three-dimensional as your reader is. As I said, dialogue does not need to be 100% realistic, but it does need to be about 90% realistic. Different types of people speak in different ways. Dialogue can be used to show individualism while still being used to advance the story. Let your readers know who your characters are on a level they can relate to so they will care about what they have to say.

3. Too tedious.
Too many times, for lack of a better phrase, characters are just boring when they talk. If I’m left wondering why two characters had a certain conversation, that usually means it can be cut. Dialogue needs to either help develop a character or help develop the plot, preferably both simultaneously. If it does neither, delete it. For example:

“How are you, Mary? What did you do today?”
“Hi Joe. I went to work and then took the kids to dance class.”
“Tell Bob I said hello. See you later.”
“OK. Bye!”

This scene shows that Mary and Joe are friends, possibly neighbors, but how necessary is that exchange to the story? If a piece of dialogue could be explained away with paraphrasing, always paraphrase to something like, They explained pleasantries and then [one of them said something very important to the plot!]. We don’t need to see everything that happens. Books are not real life. Some exchanges can be left to the imagination or simply assumed.

Weak dialogue could make or break an agent’s decision on your manuscript, even if the idea, execution of the plot, and character development is all there. Dialogue is part of the narrative. It’s a key factor in how the book is read and enjoyed. It’s also hard to teach, but hopefully these examples will help if you’re not sure about how to effectively use dialogue in your novel.

PS: To anyone who wants a quick master class in writing dialogue, I suggest doing a close-read of J.D. Salinger’s short story, A Perfect Day for Bananafish. There are many reasons to love this story, but one thing I always admired about it is that it’s told almost exclusively in dialogue. Too much dialogue in a row can get taxing to read, but Salinger finds a way to make it work. He’s not only writing chit-chat between a mother and daughter, nor is he creating a conversation full of back-story that diminishes the shocking ending. He makes it work for two reasons – and it’s the two things every writer needs to do no matter what they write: Choose your words carefully and trust your reader to see what’s left unsaid.

Your Rhetorical Questions, Answered

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 9 Comments

If you’re a writer who’s ever queried an agent, let me salute you. It’s not very fun, I’d imagine. As you’ve noticed, agents tend to have different submission guidelines and some of us are quite militant about them. I hope you all have spreadsheets to keep everybody straight.

However! I’m here to make your lives slightly easier. While I don’t have the power to create a universal submission guideline, there is one thing that 99.9% of agents agree on when it comes to your actual query:

We hate rhetorical questions.

Now, to be fair, some agents don’t mind when you begin your query with a rhetorical question. Some just skip it and move on. But no one likes them, which I think it a notable distinction. They’re awkward to read, wastes precious query-reading seconds, and can even get you a very quick rejection. Agents read hundreds of queries – sometimes hundreds of them a day (!) – and your rhetorical question is not going to hook us the way a direct, unique description of your book will.

Here’s why rhetorical questions fail:

Have you ever wondered… ? Nope.

What would you do if…. ? Whatever your character does.

What if you… ? I’d be living in the premise of your book, whatever that is.  

Remember when… ? Maybe, but you shouldn’t assume I come from the same background or generation as you.

Do you ever wish… ? Probably not, but hopefully my enjoyment of your novel doesn’t depend on my inner desires. 


In short, the answer is never a simple “yes.” Even if by a miracle you pick the one agent who has been waiting to hear that question all day, chances are he or she will prefer to have heard what your book is about instead. What’s worse is that if the answer is a very plain “no” (which it usually is), then all you’ve done is given us permission to stop reading your query. 


You will never be rejected based on a rhetorical question alone, so don’t worry if you’ve already sent out a bunch of queries littered with them. But, for me, if I’m on the fence about a query or I know my reading my pile is getting too large to add to, I may take that rhetorical question as a testament to your writing style. It may not always be fair to the writer in question, but it’s an easy way to filter out material when I just don’t have the time for new things. 


Queries are hard, but there is no magic formula to them either. The only thing agents want to know is what your book is about. Note: your book. Rhetorical questions say nothing specific about you, your story, or your characters. They’re like movie taglines, meant to entice a potential audience without giving anything away. Agents, however, are not your potential audience. We’re the ones who will help you find your audience. But first, we need to know what your book is about. 

When Bad Books Happen to Good Writers

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 11 Comments

I recently sat on an “Ask the Agent” panel in which a writer anonymously asked, “Why do so many bad books get published while so many good ones get rejected?”

My first thought after hearing this question was “whoa, someone is bitter.” Then I quickly realized it wasn’t an unreasonable question. In fact, it was a pretty good question. Being on the business side of things, I sometimes forget how certain book deals must look to the writers struggling to get their work noticed. The thing is, I roll my eyes as often as you do when I see celebrity book deals, bestsellers in dire need of editing, and mediocre work from popular authors who no longer worry about “building their audience” (not naming names, but we all know they exist).

What’s important for writers to remember is that the publishing industry, at least a large percentage of it, is full of book people. We studied English lit, think of authors as rock stars, and have a deep appreciation for the written word. So why do we (sometimes) allow mediocrity to take precedent over masterpieces? The answer I gave on the panel was that the terms “good” and “bad” are subjective – which they are – and that literary writing does often get overlooked for more commercial writing, but it doesn’t necessarily make commercial writing bad. 

All of that is true, but the longer version of that answer is…

Good and bad don’t mean the same on the business side as they do on the writer’s side, but more on that later. For the purpose of this blog post, I’m going to focus only on commercial and genre fiction because the success of literary fiction is always dependent on the quality of the writing. Commercial fiction isn’t. Not always. Which is why seeing what becomes a bestseller can be frustrating to writers trying to publish their first novel. 

In our insular world of publishing blogs, author Twitter feeds, and writer’s conferences, it’s easy to forget that we are a minority. Reading anything off the bestseller list has long-been considered “for nerds.” If we could only sell books to people like us – the book people – then I think writers wouldn’t have as many complaints about “bad” books.

But publishing is a business. Like any business, we need to look outside ourselves and find a product that will sell to a wider audience. Most people just want to be entertained. Sometimes that means sacrificing stylized prose. Other times it means you get to have high quality writing and the type of story that hooks a majority of consumers. When the latter happens, we do a happy dance.

Big blockbuster novels are like big blockbuster movies – high concept plot, not a whole lot of character development, and maybe some sexy times. It’s “entertainment for the masses,” but is it bad? Not even a little bit. It’s actually the opposite, and this is where writers – like the one from that panel – can get confused.

In the publishing world, “good” doesn’t always mean “well-written.” We want it to, and it’s what we always look for first, but it’s not the only thing. It can’t be the only thing. We’d all be out of jobs. Well-written books are well-written books, but “good” books have a broader definition. In publishing terms, “good” means that a book connected with its intended audience, and maybe even crossed over to reach a wider audience. Or, put more simply, good = successful.

A “bad” book can still be well-written. Bad is when a novel fails to find an audience, even if everyone involved in producing that book believed in it. Some books just don’t hook an audience, and to the publishing industry that can mean some pretty bad things, such as:

1) The publisher took a loss by not earning back the advance it gave the author.

2) The publisher may not invest money in the author’s next project to avoid the same results.
3) The book gets poor reviews, which hurts not only the author’s reputation, but also their agent’s, editor’s, and publisher’s.
4) Too many “bad” books in a row may lead to an editor not wanting to work with that agent anymore, or a publisher not wanting to take chances on that editor’s projects.

In other words, a lot is riding on your book finding an audience and being liked.

Don’t worry though. The pressure gets taken off of you because of what the outside world calls “bad” books. When we give Snooki a book deal instead of an up-and-coming debut author, do we sell out? Of course. Integrity can’t always pay the bills, unfortunately. Super Big Commercial Bestsellers are often, as their name suggests, publishing’s version of commercials. They bring in enough revenue to pay those bills and give us enough leftover to take on the smaller, beautifully written projects you bring us. We call these our passion projects because we love them and need to bring them into the world, but we know it’s unlikely that book will be discussed on Dr. Oz (you know, for example…).

The writer on that panel wasn’t asking about well-written commercial novels, but I want to take a minute to recognize that not all commercially successful novels are poorly written. Most of them are very well-written! Creating entertainment for the masses is still an art form, and being able to write commercially is a hard skill to acquire. Not all talented writers are able to hit all the right notes in their market the way a commercial writer can. A few of these Big Novels aren’t well-written though. I won’t pretend they are. Those are the ones that author was referring to, and I understand the frustration.

The publishing industry never looks for poorly written books, but for various reasons we do allow them to slip through. If your novel was rejected or didn’t sell well, don’t get angry at the bestseller list or blame the publishing industry. Instead, look at why those other books are selling. Books never sell because they are poorly written. There’s always something else that readers are connecting with. Find out how to bring those elements to your own writing, but stay true to your own writing style, and never think for a second that in order to be big you need to be bad.

Watching What You Read

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 17 Comments

Here’s a question.

Is your literary taste the same as your taste in other forms of entertainment?

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen I recently threw in the towel on steampunk. The thing is, steam-powered machines, Victorian settings, and time travel are all AWESOME. But visually, when I’m reading it on the page, I just can’t make sense of it. A steampunk movie or TV show though? Yes, please.

Film-making and novel writing are two different art forms, and both excel in different areas. For me, I almost always prefer to read literary fiction and magical realism than to see their film and television equivalents. Other genres, specifically urban fantasy, high fantasy, and noir/detective stories, are personal favorites, but only when I’m watching them on screen. It’s not a stretch to say that novelists are more cerebral and film-makers are more visual, so I prefer to let the experts offer me the best interpretation of a story based on what matters most in that story. *Note: There are always exceptions on both sides.

So what about you? Any gamers out there love the new [insert popular video game here], but hate the high-octane movies that cater to you? Romance fans who roll your eyes at chick flicks? Members of the Sylvester Stallone Fan Club who can’t stand reading thrillers?

Tell me in the comments what you yawn your way through in one medium, but get completely absorbed by in another.

Checking References

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 4 Comments

If you’re the good, professional writers I think you are, I bet you do research before you query agents. And I bet in doing that research a few of you have come across big letters on some agents’ websites saying they are CLOSED TO QUERIES. This happens. Sometimes agents get overwhelmed with submissions, decide they don’t need any new clients at the moment, or just need a break to focus on their current client list. You may have also noticed that of the agents who are closed to queries, there can be a loophole. Sometimes they will still read your manuscript if – and only if – they requested it at a conference OR are open to referrals.

No Means No is a hard rule to argue with, but I suppose if you meet an agent at a conference you can try to convince them they did, in fact, request your manuscript. The chances of that working are pretty slim. 
That leaves referrals.
I get a lot of queries from writers claiming they were referred to me. Sometimes they give a name of the person who referred me, and sometimes they do not. Of the “referrals” I receive, so far about five of them have been real. Because I’m an optimist and I love writers and I like giving people the benefit of the doubt, I choose to believe that the non-referrals were simply mistakes, and not a conscious attempt to trick me. After a few dozen non-referrals, I’m beginning to wonder whether some writers don’t know what a referral is. That maybe, like “upmarket” and “high concept,” it’s a word that’s been getting thrown around so much that people stopped trying to figure out what it means. Maybe.
A referral is a personal recommendation based on knowledge of an agent’s taste, and more importantly, a personal relationship with the agent. That’s the only time something can be called a referral. More often than not, the person who referred me to a writer will call or email me to say “Hey, I just sent someone your way.” That way I can be on lookout for a query that I know will be tailored to my interests. 
What’s not a referral?
1) The editor or friend who referred me is someone I don’t know.
Many of the non-referrals I get involve the name of an editor and the writer saying “________ is interested in my manuscript and suggested I contact you.” Having interest from an editor is a big deal, and I appreciate when writers let me know about it. But I have to pause when they claim the editor suggested they contact me. Did this editor really say my name, or did the editor simply tell the writer to find an agent? If I don’t know who the editor is or received confirmation from them, I have to assume it’s the latter. Similarly, I get queries from writers saying a friend gave them my name. This is probably true, but again, who is the friend? If your friend read that I represent your genre and gives you my name, then that’s good advice, but it’s not a referral.
2) The writer offers a vaguely phrased, “I was referred to you” or “You came highly recommended,” and doesn’t say who did the referring. 
In these cases, I fill in the blank and say “by the Internet.” Sites like Writer’s Digest, Agent Query, Query Tracker, and all the other curated lists of agents out there are great resources. Every writer should know them and use them. Just don’t pretend a general reference list is the same as a personal reference. If I can’t take your referral source out to lunch to discuss your manuscript, then you shouldn’t mention it in your query.
3) The writer is querying me with a genre or topic I don’t represent.
This one should be obvious. 
Sometimes I think the word “referral” sets off alarms in writers’ heads, like it’s a secret code word they think they need to say to get their query noticed. Writers, you don’t have to do this. We know you’re lying as soon as your “referral” isn’t backed up by facts, an actual human, or knowledge of what the agent represents. That reflects poorly on you as a professional, and could very well backfire even if your book is great. Agents want to work with writers we can trust and develop a good working relationship. It’s a waste of your time to query the wrong agent for your work, and the right agent wouldn’t need to be misled. We just need to love your book. No bells, whistles, or false claims attached. 

Writing What You Know

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 10 Comments

This post is not going to be about the new HBO show Girls because that’s the last thing this world needs. But I suppose I should it some credit for today’s post because it relates to what I’ve been thinking about, writing-wise, lately. “Write What You Know” is a maxim taken straight out of Writing 101, but I think it’s been getting abused.

I’ve long been an advocate of writing what you know, and I’ve written about it before (way back in 2009) when I discussed a young writer, Nick McDonell, who wrote his acclaimed novel Twelve when he was seventeen. Like Lena Dunham, the creator of Girls, McDonell is from a privileged New York upbringing and used his limited worldview to his advantage (he’s now 28 and has three published novels with protagonists that aged along with him). The similarities between McDonell and Dunham end there, and I actually feel guilty even putting them in the same sentence.

What Nick did that Lena doesn’t is that he drew from what he knew rather than recreated it. In Dunham’s 2010 movie Tiny Furniture, she writes about a college graduate who moves back in with her mother, an artist (like her real-life mother), and deals with being a post-Gen X twenty-something. Girls is not much different. The situations she and her friends get into are very specific to being an educated twenty-something in post-recession America who consciously ignore the huge safety net beneath them.

Some will relate to this, others won’t. For me, it was beside the point. What it came down to was “was I interested in this story?” and the answer was no. Then (always relating back to writing), I said to myself, “this is why I’m not excited about New Adult.”

I’ve spoken about New Adult before and why I don’t think it’s marketable yet. Even so, I still get queries for it, even if they don’t label it that. Many college and just-graduated writers send me “literary fiction” that seem remarkably similar to their bios. Write What You Know is what they were taught in all of their creative writing classes, so this is no surprise. What bothers me about what writing programs have been churning out is that they don’t seem to be showing the writers how to use what they know and still create an interesting story.

When you don’t have much life experience, writing what you know should be what you write. It’s a great starting off point. But the trend I’m seeing with young writers is a literal interpretation. If every aspect of your storytelling is a mirror of your personal experience, you risk alienating readers who don’t have your exact background.

I get a lot of submissions for literary fiction from young writers who compare their work to The Graduate, Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and Bright Lights Big City, and then when I request them I quickly realize that they are lacking in one major area: a standalone story arc that could be enjoyed by a larger audience. Writers should use what they know to enhance their stories, not diminish them.

Take The Graduate. An older woman seduces a younger man. What if that man was 33 instead of 23? We would have had a very different experience watching it. What makes The Graduate such a funny, poignant story is the fact that Ben is younger than “young.” He’s internally struggling with all of these New Adult things when – bam! – a plot line hits him.

I suppose it’s ironic that YA has had more time to mature than New Adult, and – after a rocky start – has found a way to make itself relevant in the marketplace. The reason why it was able to become relevant, I think, goes back to Write What You Know. No matter how authentic the voice, YA comes with an adult perspective. While there are exceptions, most YA is written by adults. They use what they know about growing up to capture the essence of being a teen without getting consumed by it, allowing for non-teen readers to appreciate the actual story.

New Adult, however, remains exclusive. Their stories tend to ask “doesn’t it suck being 22?” or “isn’t it great being 22?” and leaves outside readers saying, “yes, but what is your point?” There’s also a theme – not just in my submissions, but in various “Gen Y” pop culture I’m seeing – of the main character being self-aware of his or her role as a twenty-something. The writers usually seem pleased with themselves for being so astute. Gen X set the precedent for “the listless twenty-something,” and now Gen Y is using it to wink at their audience and roll their eyes at themselves. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. But – and this is important – 

Being self-aware is not the same as having perspective.

For the same reason the best memoirs aren’t about events that happened a month ago, knowing you’re in a certain situation and being able to objectively assess that situation are two different things. That’s why instead of getting the next Bret Easton Ellis, we’re getting people who reference the fact they’ve read Bret Easton Ellis and hope their audience reads between the lines. 

Self-awareness vs. perspective is a distinction that many young writers are failing to grasp, at least from what I’ve seen in my submission pile. It’s also, I believe, why many Gen Y writers take Write What You Know so literally. They don’t yet realize what they’re writing isn’t universal. This doesn’t make them wrong or shallow or bad writers (on the contrary, I’ve turned down far too many talented writers solely because their stories weren’t developed enough). It just means they need more distance from the thing they are writing about in order to get their point across.

(Note: I realize I am generalizing a bit, so let me reiterate that there are very talented young writers who do get it right. And trust me, when they do get it right, it is brilliant and often leaves me seething with jealousy.)

I know I’ve picked a little too much on young people in this post, but that’s only because of the types of submissions I’ve been getting lately (and, ya know, Girls didn’t exactly disprove my theory). But “real” adults – you are guilty of this too. When you draw on what you know about falling in love, getting divorced, burying a parent, or having your character “find themselves” on some journey, be careful that you don’t cast yourself in their role unless you’ve gained the necessary perspective about it. Understand that your audience might look and think and act differently than you, so don’t expect your personal story to translate the way you want it to without the appropriate context. Like all good writing, it’s not always about making your reader like, relate to, or even understand your character all the time. But you do need to make them care.

The Trend Games

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 18 Comments

This weekend, like so many of you, I went to see The Hunger Games. (It’s good; go see it if you haven’t already!)

The hype around this movie has been insane. It’s everywhere. Like with Twilight, as big as the book was, a movie adaptation makes it even bigger. Teens who don’t usually read suddenly pick up the book in anticipation of the movie. Adults who don’t read YA want to see what all the fuss is about. These types of readers are rarely changed for life. They likely won’t pick up another YA until the next HUGE THING gets optioned for a movie.

For writers, something similar happens. There are YA writers who suddenly decide to write in the movie’s genre or Adult writers who give YA a go because YA breeds the biggest hits right now. The problem with this mentality is that the book world and the film world are two different things.

There’s an episode of Scrubs in which, on a slow day at the hospital, the gang sees an announcement on the news for a Sars-like epidemic. Suddenly, the hospital is flooded with hypochondriacs who think they have symptoms of the disease. This is what movie adaptations of popular books is like.

It’s no surprise that I love Harry Potter. I love it not only because the books are well-written and the story is timeless, but also because of what this series meant to literature. Yes, Young Adult existed – just barely – before Harry Potter was published in 1998, and (as I’ve pointed out before) there were certainly popular YA titles in the late ’90s and early ’00s. But it wasn’t until the overwhelming, Beatle-mania-level popularity of Harry Potter that YA became a legitimate force in literature, complete with its own section in the bookstore and bestseller list in the New York Times. 
Unfortunately, there is one thing I can’t quite forgive J.K. Rowling for, and that’s her creation of “the trend.” More than in adult fiction – and perhaps because teens themselves latch onto trends more than adults – the YA market is often built around one huge concept. Before Harry, YA was full of stories about teens finding their voices. Some novels took more chances than others, some were darker, some were genre fiction gems, but for the most part they were contemporary stories that came of age with the term Young Adult itself.

Harry showed the world that YA could go beneath the surface of what being a teen is like. Taking us to a land of magic and showing us the powers of family and friendship, YA was able to become a more nuanced genre. The formerly quiet Young Adult market needed a while to get a hold of what Harry did to it, and once it recovered the timing was right for Twilight to take over. In the book world, The Boy Who Lived was so five minutes ago by 2005. While the rest of the world enjoyed our wizards, we book dwellers found vampires. Not the vampires adults were used to. YA needed their turn with them, so enter Twilight. For better or worse, YA was all about cute dead boys and the girls who loved them. As followers of the publishing industry, you don’t need to be told what happened next: Paranormal Romance Overload.

After a few adaptations of the books that started our obsession with vamps, werewolves, and all those paranormal dreamboats, the book industry was once again ready to move on. So in the midst of the later Twilight books and the early Twilight movies, readers moved on to the next next big thing – The Hunger Games – and it’s been all dystopia all the time ever since.

Which brings me back to the The Hunger Games movie. Despite claims of following agents on Twitter and reading industry blogs, it seems every querying writer who writes in a trend consciously ignores our insider knowledge that the market is too saturated for them to join the club. The justification that I most often see in queries is “because of the success of the movies…” What trend-hoppers don’t realize is that the popularity of a movie does not effect their likelihood of getting – or not getting – published. That’s not to say movies don’t help immensely with sales of already-published books within the genre. They also can help start trends within the movie industry. But, we don’t work in the movie industry.
When a book like Harry, Twilight, or The Hunger Games becomes so big that it single-handedly creates a trend, the next logical step is for that book to become a movie. Writers should think of film adaptations as the equivalent of your parents joining Facebook. Millions of people were already enjoying it, but anything exclusive or cool about it is over the second it crosses over to a different audience. Books start trends; films end them.

Twilight wasn’t fantasy and The Hunger Games wasn’t paranormal romance. The Next Big Thing won’t be in the same genre as the current trend, so jump off the train, start something new, and be what’s next.

That Guy You Love to Hate

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 20 Comments

This week, I learned something about myself: I am the only person on the face of the e-earth who doesn’t hate Jonathan Franzen. I’ve written about J-Franz before when Freedom was released in 2010, but after a year of a post-publication quiet, The Franzen is back with a vengeance in 2012.

After just coming off He-Called-Edith-Wharton-Ugly Gate, he had this to say about Twitter:

“Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose… it’s hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters… it’s like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring “The Metamorphosis.” Or it’s like writing a novel without the letter “P”… It’s the ultimate irresponsible medium.”

Now, I love Twitter. During the week, I use it to talk about publishing news, queries I receive, writing tips, and Doctor Who. I started using Twitter to fit my role of literary agent, so I never get too personal. (Likes, dislikes, and political leanings are about as deep as I go. Hopes and dreams are for offline friends.) Of course, there are those who use Twitter as an unfiltered stream of consciousness. Perhaps these are the people Jonathan Franzen finds irritating. Or maybe he hates me too. Who knows?

If you asked me three years ago what I thought about Twitter, my response would not have been too far from Franzen’s. I didn’t get it. It was glorified Facebook statuses at best, and a complete waste of brain cells at worst. Then I found my niche, gained some followers, and learned that if it’s used effectively, it’s more about communication than it is about self-promotion. I’ve even made real-life friends out of people who were once only avatars, and have made contacts in my industry that I wouldn’t have made otherwise. For an introvert who skips every networking event I can, this was a big deal.

As a converted fan of Twitter, I read Franzen’s comment with the same level of attention I give my grandmother when she complains about Madonna being a floozy. I shrugged it off, and reasoned that it’s no surprise that guy who said ebooks are “damaging society” doesn’t really care for social media. My only real problem with Franzen’s quote is how melodramatic it is. 
Apparently, a lot of people had deeper problems with it. Twitter (of course) exploded with anti-Franzen sentiment and started the (often hilarious) hashtag #JonathanFranzenHates, which included “your mom” and “pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.” There were also a lot of “get off my lawn” jokes. Yes, Franzen is behind the times and is perhaps yelling about things he doesn’t understand. But why do we care? We use Twitter; he doesn’t. Lots of people don’t. If Franzen wants to go all Andy Rooney about it, then why can’t we just let him? 

The thing about Jonathan Franzen is that he’s an extremely talented writer, and one of the last of his generation of white male literary novelists who still use typewriters. Whether you read literary fiction or not, it’s hard not to respect him as an author. If he wasn’t a Great American Novelist, then no one would pay attention when he speaks. But now it seems we’ve reached a point where we’re looking for reasons to pay attention, when in reality we can probably just ignore him until his next book is published.
I don’t understand the scrutiny of Franzen’s remarks or the notion that it’s actually people like Franzen who are destroying society. No, they’re not. He’s not telling us not to use social media. He’s stating his opinion on it. In his usual style, it comes off as judgmental and harsh, but it’s not meant to be divisive. We’re doing that. And the irony is, Franzen doesn’t even know we’re doing it because he doesn’t use the Internet.

At some point between The Corrections and now, there’s been a collective glee in taking Franzen down a notch, but no one will explain why it means so much to them to destroy this man. If he misspeaks in the media, his haters not only make sure the story doesn’t die, but will take things out of context so he seems like even more of a monster. The worse he looks, the better they feel. 

It’s hard to pinpoint when Franzenfreude first started. Was it when he dissed Oprah? Was it that Time cover? Or perhaps the “feud” he had with Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Piccoult, that was unbeknownst to him? I’m not defending Franzen’s personality. He seems exhausting, but he’s not unlike most other literary authors who have an inflated sense of self-importance. As I described him in my 2010 post, he’s pompous, sure, but he’s also socially awkward (which can lead to saying the wrong thing) and resistant to change (which often comes with choosing a field that’s mostly solitary). In simpler terms, he’s just kind of a dick. But is he a bad person? A purposely vindictive character in our literary world? No. 
Jonathan Franzen is the literary world’s Gwyneth Paltrow. (Until she decides to conquer our world too.) One wears a cloak; the other wears a cape. Gwyneth is not a bad person. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say she’s probably a very good person. The problem with Gwyneth is that she’s severely out of touch with reality, undeniably privileged, and doesn’t understand why everybody can’t buy the same $450 moisturizer she uses. She is very easy to roll your eyes at, and even more fun to flat out hate. She’s a symbol of privilege, a walking Monty Python sketch, but she isn’t someone who deliberately causes harm. 
Like the people who subscribe to Goop ironically, every time Franzen says something like his Twitter rant, I’m more amused than outraged. Oh Franzen, I’ll say to myself, You so crazy. Then I go on about my day. But when I see the indignation from people who seem to forget that he’s completely predictable, my inner monologue tends to sound more like this.

So, let’s all calm down and keep things in perspective. Maybe Franzen does think women are ugly subordinates (he doesn’t). There are real attacks on women going on in this country right now. As a feminist, I don’t want to waste my efforts on a man who may or may not think he’s a better writer than I am based solely on my gender. If there are men who think that, then that only speaks to a larger issue in our society that needs attention.

Similarly, there are real implications of resisting change. We do need to adapt and modernize and understand what’s necessary to survive. Using social media to complain about a guy who doesn’t use social media is not in our best interest. It only proves him right.

Social media is for connecting with others, giving ourselves a platform, and showing people like Franzen that it can be useful without attacking them for not joining in.

And sometimes, just sometimes, it’s for talking about Doctor Who.

Realistic Romance

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 21 Comments

This weekend I had the unfortunate pleasure of overhearing a first date. It was obvious they met online and decided afternoon coffee would be nice and safe. The guy looked in his early/mid-20s. Average looking, kind of wiry, and overly agreeable. The woman was older and better looking than he was, and had one of those unnaturally raspy voices that come with excessive smoking or yelling.

She did most of the talking – a brief monologue about marathons she ran transitioned into her love for the Kardashians because they reminded her of her family. The guy was less than impressed. I could practically see the words “shut up shut up shut up” repeating in his brain. I thought maybe we’d make eye contact so I could offer a sympathetic smile, the way I do to people on the subway who are being accosted by unmedicated schizophrenics. But he was too far gone, focusing all of his energy on keeping eye contact and counting the minutes until he could leave. Still, part of me knew that if she offered, he’d go back to her place.

What this poor, doomed couple didn’t know is that a writer was across from them observing everything they said and did (at least until said writer’s friend came and rescued her). If these people were in a novel, I wasn’t sure which would be our main character. Both had a story that independently led them to each other. Or at least to the same dating website. While our hero seemed to grow bored with our Kardashian-loving heroine, I wanted to know more about her. Why was this woman – blond, pretty, athletic – on a date with this younger man whose story about not crashing his bike disappointed her? Perhaps they weren’t in it to find love, but the pretense of going on a date at all seemed like a waste of time.

Neither of these characters – I mean, real human beings – interested me by themselves (she came off shallow, he too bland), but the fact they were committed to putting in an effort was intriguing. Of course, this made me think of how we write romances. Outside of the Romance genre, we write romances all the time in commercial fiction, literary fiction, YA, and even narrative nonfiction. We try to connect our love interests and convince our readers that they belong together, even if circumstances keep them apart.

I’m a fan of love. Reading it, watching it, experiencing it. It’s fascinating. Love is the scariest thing you can let yourself feel for another person. I think that’s the appeal. It’s a fear to be conquered, and not everyone is worth the risk. But when they are, it makes taking that risk all the more rewarding. So what does this have to do with writing? Everything.

Make your character take risks! It’s a phrase writers hear a lot, and it’s one every writer should follow. But risks are meaningless unless we know what the main character is fighting for. So while you’re writing, remember the second part of risk-taking: Give your character a worthy reward.

While I’m a fan of 1st person – the POV of choice in YA – I admit it comes with a price. We see everything through the main character’s eyes so that when it comes time to meet the love interest, we’re presented with only one view. Usually, what we see is the archetype – best friend who’s secretly hot and perfect, hot and perfect crush who’s secretly horrible, the stranger from nowhere who wins the main character’s heart (and therefore ours too). We root for the love interest based on those archetypes, but other than a few personality quirks, we hardly ever get to know who they are outside of their designated role.

The type of YA love I’ve been seeing in my submission pile is like fairytale love. When they aren’t consumed by hormones or in a literal fight for their lives, the characters rarely take the time to get to know each other. You never see Cinderella go on a date because if she did, she’ll realize the Prince is kind of lame (and probably has an awful story about riding a bicycle). If readers can see the love interest has nothing else going for him (or her), it’s less likely they will respect and connect with your main character.

For all the Gale vs. Peeta, Angel vs. Spike, Stefan vs. Damon, and Team Edward/Team Jacob debates, they can be boiled down to the same concept: “Good Guy vs. Bad Boy.” Sure, the bad boys end up caring for the girl and the good guys have some darkness in them, but essentially the same love triangles are happening over and over. Yet consider how different the main characters who’ve faced these choices have been. Katniss, Buffy, Elena, and Bella are all leaders of very different cliques (fighters, geeks with skills, popular/socially accepted, and, um, people who bump into things sometimes?); yet their choices in men are, more of less, interchangeable.

The lack of realistic romance doesn’t stop with YA. Teens who rarely consider who they’re risking heartache for grow up to be the adults I read about in too many commercial and literary submissions when the plot is independent from the state of their relationship. Couples seem to hate each other, or at best, are indifferent. How, then, can I like or trust them enough to care about their story? These characters aren’t real to me. Love exists over the age of twenty. If you’re writing these characters, give me a reason why they need to still be together; make me understand why they are still married. Then, perhaps, I’ll follow them to other parts of their lives.

When I say I’m a fan of love, I don’t mean either of these extremes. The type of love that lasts – whether in novels or in real life – is the kind that’s present and real and remains constant. Teen romances won’t have the emotional complexities of adult relationships, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know who our main character is falling in love with. Likewise, mature adults won’t even use the word “epic,” let alone think of their relationship as such. But passion and true affection doesn’t need to die after high school.

We all might be attracted to certain “types,” but no one falls in love with types. We fall in love with people. And it’s terrifying. Your job as a writer is to make your readers feel just as scared and just as willing to take those risks, and to let them know that it will be worth it long after the story ends.

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends.