Shannon Phillips

So, I recently completed one of my long-held goals—to finish a novel-length project. Actually as originally phrased the goal was “to use my time off work to write a novel,” but, surprise, it turns out that childcare, cooking, and housekeeping do not actually constitute “time off work.” Anyhoo! A couple years later than planned, I actually did manage to finish my first novel.

I pushed it on everybody I could reach, and when a few of them actually read the thing, I used their comments to do a second draft. Now I’ve fixed everything that’s easily fixable, and I’m left with structural weaknesses that I don’t know how to fix—the main one being that, okay, I had this idea where I wanted to show the heroine kind of gradually pulling aside the veil of mundane life to reveal this fantastic world lurking just beneath the surface. It sounds cool when I put it like that, but another way of putting it is “the action is slow to start.”

The first big fight scene is on page 61, which may well be too late for a story that ends up as a swashbuckling tale of adventure. I’ve tried to put in enough conflict, foreshadowing, and Intimations of Weirdness to keep the reader hooked through the early chapters, but I just don’t know if it’s enough. The problem is that what’s going on in place of the sword-fights during those first 61 pages is stuff that needs to happen anyway: important characters being introduced, my heroine’s personality being established, and a rhythm of mundane life getting set up so that it can be blown to bits on page 61. Also, during the rest of the book the heroine is forced to balance the requirements of her ordinary life (making the rent, getting along in the office) with her extracurricular duties as Magickal-Mystical Guardian of the City, and I think this provides a source of extra tension and humor. So I just don’t know how to compress the first 61 pages.

Maybe I should tell you what the book is about? Here’s the pitch:

Viveka Janssen isn’t a dragonslayer. She’s a practical Midwestern girl brought to San Francisco by the prospect of an entry-level PR job, and her greatest ambitions involve finding an apartment and making a good impression at work. But Viv’s sensible nature will be shaken when she comes into possession of the legendary sword Excalibur, and must suddenly learn a new role as the modern-day Lady of the Lake. As she peels back the layers that separate her ordinary life from the world of fairy tales, she finds herself thrust into a shadow war between human civilization and the forces of wild magic.

Soon, as Viv struggles to understand the powers of the sword, the plans of her enemies, and the intricacies of office politics, she also finds herself romantically involved with a crusading reporter…who may himself be more than he seems. And come Monday morning, Viv still has to make it to work on time.

If anybody who I haven’t already importuned to critique the thing would be willing to take a look at it and give me feedback, just let me know. (Also, anyone who has a first draft but would like the second, let me know that too.) I’m especially eager to get feedback about whether or not the opening chapters are boring, and any suggestions for ratcheting up the tension.

In the meantime, I’m doing exactly what I probably shouldn’t: throwing my hands in the air and calling it done because I just don’t know how to work on it any more. Instead, I’m tossing it at agents and seeing if any part of it will stick.

The agent search is a weird thing. It’s possible to submit to editors directly, without an agent, but editors prefer working with agents because they act as gatekeepers (weeding out most of the worst drek) and often as a first-pass editor. Also, agents do a lot for writers besides just submitting the work and handling the contract details, and they almost always pay for themselves. I’d like an agent if I could get one.

The funny thing about submitting to agents is that they almost never want to see what you’ve written—at least, not right away. What they want to see is a one-page query letter describing what you’ve written. (My query is built around the pitch I excerpted above.) I guess most would-be writers are just so bad that it’s obvious from a few paragraphs? Anyway, if the agents like a query, they’ll ask for what’s called a “partial”—the first 30 to 50 pages. If they like the partial, they’ll ask for the full. Then they may or may not offer to represent you.

So, my dithering over the first 61 pages really ought to be dithering over the first 30 to 50, because that’s the range of a “partial.” This is why so many contemporary fantasy novels open with a fight scene or a dead body; you have 30 pages to hook your agent. Which is, to be honest, perfectly fair, because frankly you only have one page to hook your reader.

I do have conflict in my opening pages. It’s just not sword-fighting conflict. It’s the conflict of a young woman navigating a new city, trying to find an apartment and not be late for her first day of work. Oh and meanwhile this crazy lady hands her a big sword and tells her she’s supposed to be the Lady of the Lake. I like that set-up, but I recognize that pulling it off is going to require some extremely engaging writing, and I just can’t tell whether or not mine is doing the job.

In the past couple weeks I’ve submitted queries to fifteen agents. Four of them have sent back form rejections (“Thank you for thinking of us, but we do not feel that this project is right for us at this time”). Three of them have asked for partials, and the rest I haven’t heard back from yet. These are actually pretty great statistics. I found a couple of agents that keep stats on the queries they receive: one got 327 queries in a week, and requested partials for 4; the other got 208 queries in a week, and requested partials for 1. So I’m definitely beating those odds.

What worries me is that, of the four who sent form rejections, three of them had asked to see the first 5-10 pages along with the query letter. The other one, and the three who requested partials, had asked to see the query only. So I’m afraid it’s entirely possible that my query letter is strong but my opening pages are weak.

Still, getting those requests for partials has been kind of thrilling. Getting a request for a full would be extremely thrilling, but I’m not holding my breath: most agents ask for 4 to 6 weeks to review submitted material. So, I have a lot of time to obsess over those first 61 pages.

And, oh god, the house deal: it’s still dragging on but I can’t bear to talk about it. So there’s that.