Tag: writing

Picking an Agent

Published on by aimeedavisauthor4 Comments

Author’s Note: This was originally part of my Pitch Wars reflection blog but it got WAY too unwieldly and off-topic, so I split it into a separate post that was more targeted. Hopefully.

Content warning: This post discusses offer calls and how to prepare for them, as well as some (non-confidential things) related to my offer.

Disclaimer: Any links or recommendations made by me are my opinion and are not paid endorsements.

There is so much about querying I wish I’d known before I was in the thick of it. Particularly about agents and how to choose one. You know, the whole point of querying. I mean, I queried for FIVE years, and I had no idea what I was doing until Pitch Wars. Maybe not even then, honestly. I thought I knew what I was doing. Until I watched a whole bunch of other people do it and realized nope, I did not have this right.

So, I wrote this post for anyone who, like me, thinks they know what they’re doing but perhaps could stand to learn a bit more. Or for anyone who has questions they’re too afraid to ask (also me, yeah). This isn’t intended to answer every question about publishing and agents that ever was, because wow, that would be even longer than I imagine this will end up being, but I will try to answer the questions I had in hopes they might help someone else. Also, there will be no querying advice AT ALL because as I’ve mentioned repeatedly my query stats are shit. Please head on over to literally anywhere besides here for tips on writing query letters, synopses, pitches, etc.

Step One: Building Your List

Okay, so you wrote a book! Congratulations! Take time to celebrate, it’s a big achievement! You edited it! Celebrate again! You wrote a query letter! Do a dance! You rewrote your query letter for the 982nd time? That is totally normal and fine, please point yourself in the direction of the nearest piece of cake. You earned it. Now, you’re ready to query. Meaning it’s time to build your list of potential agents.

Photo of a white woman in a black jacket, back to the camera, standing in front of a stone wall with a long list of names inscribed on it.
I once described finding agents as finding rare gems in a forest. Ooh, look, a shiny! Oh, look, another I missed! Because it can really feel like picking truffles at some point. Photo by Milena Trifonova on Unsplash

Assembling Agents

Man, when I did this the first time… well, we aren’t talking about that. First thing’s first. Sign up for Querytracker. It’s free. There’s a premium version too that’s $25 a year and offers some really cool features, but if you can’t swing it, that’s totally fine. The free version is also super helpful. You might also want to start an Excel spreadsheet that tracks information similar to what you’ll find on Querytracker (adding additional columns for more information that might be important to you). Because also, fun fact, there are agents who aren’t on Querytracker (not many, but they do exist).

Querytracker will help you narrow agents down by the genre you write in. That isn’t 100% accurate, but it’s a good start and does a huge lift for you, so it’s where I would start if you’re starting from zero. You’ll probably get a ton of results. Take a breath. Hydrate. Stretch. You’re going to be here awhile. Building a list is kind of a bitch.

Now, ONWARD! TO RESEARCH, MY FRIENDS!

Agent Research

Are you neurodiverse? Cool, me, too. This could swing probably one of two ways for you in particular. You’ll either find it super fun and fall down the rabbit hole forever, or you’re going to get super fucking frustrated really fast. It might switch with the day. Brains, right? Self-care. Medicate if you do that. Chunk out your time but also remember you do not have to attack this all at one time. Just one agent at a time.

Here’s the part where I got irritated as a neurodiverse author who does NOT like agent research. The next step of this process on a lot of blogs/writing advice platforms/Twitter feeds what have you skip right from Querytracker list to: What’s on their manuscript wishlist? What’s on their anti-manuscript wishlist? What do their sales look like? Do they sell to imprints/editors you want your book sold to? Are they from a reputable agency? How long have they been doing this? If not long, who is their mentor? Is there anything about them or their agency that’s a “red flag?”

At this point my brain started to look something like this:

Image of an open book on fire.
I mean, who needs to publish, anyway? I can just like… crawl back into my bed and make a blanket fort until someone brings me a snack, right? Because there’s absolutely no fucking way I am figuring all that out on my own. Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Where to Find Things About Agents

For my overwhelmed querying friends, neurodiverse or otherwise, I am here to tell you WHERE to find all this mystery information. Sort of. Sadly, the information is not uniform so there isn’t a real cut and dry answer, but I’m going to try:

  • Manuscript Wishlists (“MSWLs”) and Anti-Manuscript Wishlists (“Anti-MSWLs”) can be found most often on either (a) the agency’s website under the agent’s biography; (b) the agent’s personal website (often linked to on their agent page on their agency’s website); or (c) The Official Manuscript Wishlist SPECIAL NOTE: Sometimes, additional information about what the agent is currently accepting can be found on the agent’s Query Manager site if they use one, so it’s not a terrible idea to try checking that before you go down a rabbit hole of research. I have heard many a querying author bemoan doing loads of research only to go to Query Manager to upload their query and find a note at the top from the agent that says *NOT CURRENTLY ACCEPTING [YOUR GENRE]* despite everything else the agent’s MSWL’s elsewhere say. Also make sure to check the drop down menu to see if your genre and age group is listed! So, consider yourself duly forewarned.
  • Sales Information (Agent and Agency) can be found on Publisher’s Marketplace. This includes the agent’s sales and the agency’s sales, and it will show you who the agent/agency are selling to (editors and imprints). PROBLEM. This information, while really helpful, is self-reported, so not always up-to-date or entirely accurate, AND it can only be accessed with a paid subscription to Publisher’s Marketplace (PM) which is quite expensive (I believe it’s about $25 a month). The good news is you can pay monthly and cancel at any time.
  • Reputation and Red Flag Information is harder because this is usually accessed via the “Whisper Network” or by doing some serious sleuthing into the deep dark places on Twitter. You can, however, find some very good information on Writer Beware and its companion Writer Beware Blog (which can at least help you avoid vanity presses and scams). Unfortunately, these resources don’t usually have the latest industry “tea” regarding literary agencies. Comments on Querytracker can often lead you in the right direction on this front and many authors on Twitter are very willing to talk privately as long as you maintain that privacy (going back to my earlier post on community).

So, after all this, what you should end up with is a list of agents (or the start of one, it doesn’t have to be every single one you’re going to query, just some to get your feet wet maybe), that meet some basic criteria. The criteria will differ based on every author and their goals but in general, your group of shiny gem agents should all have some things in common:

  1. They accept submissions for your age group and genre
  2. Your book sounds like something sort of close to something on their manuscript wishlist
  3. It doesn’t sound like something on their anti-manuscript wishlist (if they have one)
  4. Their sales are in line with your goals as an author (i.e. they’re selling the kinds of books you write to the kinds of editors/imprints you’d like to publish your books)
  5. If they’re a new agent and don’t have sales yet, their agency is doing number 4
  6. SUBJECTIVE: Either the (a) agency has been around awhile with a good history of sales or (b) the agent has been around awhile with a good history of sales (this doesn’t HAVE to be the case for you, new agencies with new agents are a thing, they’re just a riskier than I’m willing to do thing, but that’s a personal preference)
  7. SUBJECTIVE: There’s nothing about them or their agency you’ve heard or learned that makes you uncomfy or makes you feel they wouldn’t be a good potential lifelong business partner FOR YOU (totally different for different people)

But what about my Dream Agent, i.e. the One Who Says Yes?

But Aimee, you haven’t addressed the most important criteria: will they say yes to me?

“My dream agent is the one who says yes.” I see this so frequently on Twitter these days it actually makes me wince a little to put it here. Because I get it. Truly. And I know, querying writers, you’re like no, Aimee, you don’t. You have an agent. You have your yes. You can fuck right off into the sunset with your I get it. And I get that, too. I was there for five years with like exactly five requests to my name in that entire time. At one point I told a friend of mine that I would make my main character a two-headed dolphin if it meant getting into Pitch Wars. But getting into Pitch Wars actually taught me how wrong I was. The yes isn’t the dream. Sharing a vision is.

So, sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but no. Your dream agent is absolutely not the one who says yes. I mean, listen, your dream agent COULD in fact be the one who says yes. But not BECAUSE they say yes. Because they share your vision and meet all your objective criteria which you laid out while building your list.

Photo of a mountain lion against a black backdrop bursting a bubble with its teeth.
Oh, look, it’s me. The asshole cat bursting your bubble. WITH MY TEETH. Sorry. Truly. It sucks in every way. But you know what would suck more? Having to do this shit multiple times because you just went with whatever yes. Image by Willgard Krause from Pixabay

While much of the old query advice can be thrown out, the adage that a bad agent is worse than no agent remains true. “Bad” agent is also an agent who is “bad” for you. There are tons of agents out there who hit all the right “boxes.” Who have great sales, come from a reputable agency that’s well known, who have impressive client lists, and great references, who represent your heroes, who might even give you a yes and can still be a bad fit for you.

Huh? But you just said… and the list… and… I KNOW! THIS IS WHY IT IS ANNOYING AND CONFUSING. Onward!

Step 2: Preparing for The Call™

You got an email to set up a call! Hooray! BUY YOURSELF A WHOLE DAMN CAKE! I’ll wait.

Photo of a blue cake with gold decorations on top of which is a glass slipper, all set upon a white cloth.
I did, in fact, buy myself a whole damn cake. Five years, I think I deserved it, thanks. Copyright mine. Cake made by these lovely people: https://clarascustomcakes.com/

It’s time to prepare for The Call™. Okay, first, a disclaimer. Hopefully, the purpose of the call was laid out for you in the email scheduling it, but if it wasn’t, I will forewarn you that not all calls with agents lead to offers. This is something I learned during Pitch Wars that SHOCKED me. So if you, like me, wandered around in the querying darkness for many years before now, please know that sometimes agents call to… reject you. Which is weird. They also sometimes call to explain to you a R&R. More rare still, they intend to offer then something goes sideways on the call and an offer doesn’t actually happen.

BUT, before too much panic happens, please know that most calls are in fact THOSE calls.

The Standard Lists

Now, there are loads of resources, blogs, lists, etc. circulating about what questions you should ask on The Call. The most popular one is probably Jim McCarthy’s which you can find here. From what I’ve heard from my friends’ calls, of which I’ve been fortunate enough to hear about many (and in my personal experience), most agents will answer like 95% of these questions without you having to ask, because they know these lists exist. That’s a green flag if they just start answering them, as an FYI.

To be clear, I am 100% supportive of having these lists prepared. I used one myself. That’s a great base, I just am not going to spend time recreating the wheel when others have done it better. What I want to talk about is the shit not on these lists. The things that might help you better suss out not what makes an agent a schmagent or a bad agent but a bad fit FOR YOU.

Photo of white hands backlit trying to put two puzzle pieces together.
Do we go together? The Call is basically your best chance to find out. Photo by Vardan Papikyan on Unsplash

The Nonstandard List

Okay, this is where it starts getting a little dicey, because all of this is immensely personal. So, take everything I’m about to say with like 1,000 grains of salt. I don’t want anyone to come back to me like, “Aimee, I gave up my yes because of something you wrote on your blog.” This is simply what worked for me when I really wanted to evaluate what mattered to me about my writing and my potential relationship with an agent.

Consider critically dissecting the most important elements of your story. Really think about genre and genre conventions. Where does your book fit on the shelf? Do you care if it lands elsewhere? Why? Would you be willing to change the point of view? Add another character? Change the gender of your character? Something critical to who they are or their identity? Rip the structure out and put a new one in? Age the characters up or down to put it into a different age group? List out what’s important to you and really think about what your hard lines are. Knowing this will be incredibly important because it’ll tell you more about your book, yourself, and your future agent.

Identify what’s most important to you about your writing and your career. This will be really different depending on the author, but to get to the bottom of the “will you be a good career partner for me” question, you need something particular to you.

Which means no one can design it for you, unfortunately. But what I can do is give you an example. Genre is really important to me, for the reasons I talked about in this post. For my call, I had several questions tailored around this concept, from revision visions, to submission strategy, to general thoughts about my conception of the market versus Keir’s. Was it awkward to get all hot and bothered over my opinions on the call I’d been waiting to have for the past two decades? Yes. Was I nervous as hell Keir would think I was a messy, scattered human word vomiting slightly disjointed thoughts in faer direction? Yes. Did I still need to say this to figure out if we were on the same page about something I’ll likely come up against for the entirety of my career as a woman writing adult SFF? Also yes.

In short, it’s not a bad idea to have a couple questions prepared to see if you and your agent are on the same page about your career, and where you want your books (and yourself) to land. This should be an honest conversation. Your agent is your future business partner. Transparency is important. And if you don’t share the same vision, there will for sure be problems. If you write MG and your agent wants you to age everything up to YA and that’s a hard no for you, but you say yes anyway, then your edit letter comes and you have to write in an age group you know jack shit about, you’re going to be pissed. And your agent might be less than thrilled with the result. Similarly, if you write fantasy you dream of seeing in hardback on the shelves at Barnes & Noble next to Neil Gaiman, and your agent wants you to turn everything into fantasy romance to be sold digital only, so you can churn out three books a year to compete in the romance space, you’ll run into a problem or two, I’m pretty sure. Trying to figure this out now instead of later is better. Even if the answer is less than ideal.

Photo of a rowboat next to a dock in front of which is a castle across a lake.
Everyone trying to get on that boat and paddle to that castle. It’s a mood. Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash

There should not be a power imbalance. Your relationship with your agent should really feel like it’s mutually respectful. I will caveat this by saying this is a really hard thing to vet on The Call or even in the early stages of the relationship for most new authors, especially those who’ve been querying a long time. I’ve discussed this at length with many of my newly agented friends, including many who already have book deals and they still struggle with fear. This isn’t the fault of most agents, it’s simply a side effect of querying for so long. We’re all afraid of doing something “wrong” and getting “sent back.” Sadly, we also have reason to be in some cases.

Always be ready to say no. I had only one request. One call. Some would say I had one shot. Maybe that’s true. I had at that point essentially given up writing. But the lessons I learned during Pitch Wars about what was important to me about my book combined with what I’d learned in “quitting” (i.e. there was a whole career for me I was very good at and other potential passions I could pursue and still find meaning in) gave me the courage to approach my call with Keir ready to walk away. Obviously, I desperately hoped I wouldn’t have to. But I had a couple questions on my list especially formulated to try and discern whether Keir and I would be a good match not only for this book but for future ones. And they were mostly designed around those things that had gone from “I’ll make Isabelle a two-headed dolphin if someone will just say yes” into “I won’t change this because it really matters to me from a career perspective.” If we couldn’t see eye to eye on what mattered to me, I wasn’t sure how we’d continue.

Of course, this all has to be approached reasonably. It kind of reminds me of when my partner and I were first shopping for our home. We picked out the area and set the budget and had a list of “must haves” and a list of “nice to haves.” The more and more we looked, the more things moved from the “must have” list to the “nice to have” list. However, there were a few things that never left: two toilets, a garage, a fenced in yard, a dishwasher. That was basically it. When you’re researching agents, you can find yourself doing a similar analysis, but it’s important to never end up in a position where your “must have” category becomes only “an agent.”

Step 3: Post Call

I’m going to skip the actual call because I think there’s a ton of information out there on that whirlwind. It’s basically an interview.

So you got an offer, for real! Hooray!!! Time to eat cake! And nudge.

Nudging

I actually didn’t have to do this because, well, whatever. Anyway, after you get the official verbal offer (industry standard is for the offering agent to give you two weeks to notify other agents), you can nudge any agent who has your query. The old advice used to be you nudge only agents who have your full or partial. Throw that advice AWAY. Immediately. Any agent who has your query who you’re still interested in potentially representing you, nudge. As a professional courtesy, do not nudge agents who you really don’t want to represent you now that you have this one on the line. You should withdraw your materials from them.

Now comes the part I really never understood.

How People End up with Multiple Offers

For four years I queried mostly alone, no community to speak of, no friends with agents, very much an outsider trying to find a way in. Authors on Twitter declared they had eight offers. It seemed impossible. The timing. Honestly, how did that work when it took agents 187 days to respond to my queries? How did they get eight all at once to read a whole book? Clearly, I was doing something very, very wrong.

Maybe I’m the only fool out there. There are pros and cons to that, I suppose. But in the event I’m not, the way people get eight offers is by getting ONE single offer then nudging everyone who has their query.

What happens after that is a two-week medley of agents requesting materials in a rush, passing quickly (called a “step aside”), and, if you’re lucky, more calls. When you’re in the trenches, this all sounds super exciting, but from what I’ve seen watching a bunch of people go through it, I think it sort of sucks, honestly. I might just be trying to cheer myself up about not having 37 agents clambering to represent me, but I’ve not seen this be particularly pleasant for anyone who’s done it. I think it’s probably pretty jarring to go from a stream of rejections to… frenzy. But because I haven’t done it myself I’m not really qualified to say much more other than that’s how it works! Oh, and at the end, you have to uh… decide. On one. Or none. Walking away is still always an option!

In Conclusion…

There are no guarantees. Not in publishing. Not in life. This isn’t a set of rules any more than anything else I ramble on about. There are exceptions and scenarios I haven’t covered. Anomalies and twists of fate. I am pretty sure I know of at least one story about someone who got an agent without having to query at all, for example (maybe rumors, who knows). But for the most part, we all have to do the same things, and at the end, we have to make decisions that aren’t always easy using the best information we have at the time. Here’s to making some of that a little less nebulous.

Xoxo,

Aimee

Not the Darling: Confronting the Publishing Paradox

Published on by aimeedavisauthorLeave a comment

Note from Aimee: First, I hope you love this post as much as I did. I read it in line waiting to get TSA Pre-check and couldn’t wait to get home to email Amara back to say how much I loved it so had to email twice, once with gibberish and once with a posting schedule. Second, if you are someone who likes query stats, Amara has kindly provided a Twitter thread I’ve linked to at the end for those (which you can also avoid by not clicking if you don’t want to do query stats). Now, without further ado, the post!

Confronting the Publishing Paradox

By: Amara Cavahlo (Follow Amara @nerdnothuman on Twitter)

There’s this maddening paradox at the core of the traditional publishing process: writers must invest so much time and effort into their work—work which will always have a place in society—and yet writers are rarely invested into in return.

That paradox manifests itself in many ways:

(i)

As a writer, you can spend thousands of hours on perfecting your craft, and yet never become a “professional” within the publishing industry—or, at the very least, one that can make a living off their work.

(ii)

Publishers claim to be making record profits, and yet they can’t pay the employees making them those profits a livable wage.

(iii)

On a more personal note, stories have always been everything to me: movies an addiction; books an obsession; the act of filling a page with words a necessity for my psychological wellbeing. I knew I wanted to be a full-time fiction writer as a small child and became invested in the idea of becoming an editor as a teenager. But when it came time to enroll in university, choosing between studying editing and creative writing or something else felt like choosing between uncertainty or stability. I worried about affording my basic needs if I chose publishing, because I’d already seen what it could do to its own.

I don’t deal well with uncertainty. So I chose not to study writing.

(iv)

During the three-year undergraduate design degree I did choose to do, I wrote three books outside of class—the word count equivalent to three PhD dissertations. While I can proudly present a diploma for my university work and get a job for it, all I’ll likely receive for my writing efforts is the assumption that I can’t be a very good writer, or else I’d have gotten those books published.

(etc.)

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not claiming that those who choose creative professions are always going to struggle (or that choosing something else guarantees success), or that my books are masterpieces that deserve to be published, or that writing a novel is perfectly equivalent to writing a PhD dissertation. None of those things are true. The point is that it’s incredibly disheartening to know that in some areas of my life, what I receive will be proportional to how much I invest, whilst in others—the ones I happen to care about most—I might as well be tossing keys into the ocean out of the hope that they’ll unlock Atlantis.

Accepting the paradox

Image of a green checkmark.
Image added by Aimee, not author. Image by Krzysztof Jaracz from Pixabay

There was a time when I noticed this paradox and felt so frustrated by it that I refused to accept it. Instead, I hoped I’d be the exception—the lucky one. That hope was enough to keep me going for a while: I would think, “My work will get published eventually, and that will make everything worth it. I’ll be content and happy then.”

Over time, though, I started seeing how dangerous that mindset and the writing advice that advocates for it can be. Common advice like “It only takes one yes,” “Just write the next book,” and “You’ll achieve success eventually” sound great on the surface, because they claim that anyone can succeed if only they work hard enough.

I haven’t been querying for that long—only since 2021—so I don’t claim to be a veteran of the process. But even within the short time I’ve been querying, this querying advice hasn’t had quite the positive effect it’s meant to have on me, and I’ve watched how it affects my friends. Now when the rejections keep rolling in, when your every project is unsuccessful, that advice starts sounding like an accusation: “Everyone is good enough to get that one yes, and write that next book, and be successful eventually… except for you.”

Then we can’t avoid the paradox anymore: we gave everything to publishing, and maybe in the past that would’ve been enough to succeed, but now there is a very real possibility that publishing will never give us anything back. In the current publishing climate, perfecting your craft is the bare minimum for getting noticed, but beyond that, luck is the main determinant of your success. Writers have basically no control over their publishing journeys, and there’s nothing we can do to change that.

At this point, it might seem like we should cut our losses and just stop. I’ve seen people stop writing completely, and I get it—if no one else will invest in our writing, why should we? If writing doesn’t spark joy for us anymore, why should we continue doing it? Sometimes choosing to stop writing is the best thing a person can do for themselves, especially if they no longer enjoy the process of writing itself. (Here’s a great article about stopping from this blog!)

But we don’t all want to stop. I don’t want to stop—the characters trapped in my head would drive me insane if I did!

So then the question for us who want to continue becomes: having accepted the rather hopeless paradox of traditional publishing, how can we keep going without hurting ourselves with it?

My proposal: punch the paradox in the face

Comic style graphic reading KAPOW in red letters against a blue and yellow background.
Image added by Aimee, not author. Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

Now, at the risk of sounding like an enormously inflated smart aleck, I’d like to share how I’ve so far gotten through querying mostly unscathed. It’s a bit of a strange mindset, and one that might not help you, but I share it in hopes that it will help someone (especially considering that everything I’ve said before this is high-key depressing).

Before continuing, though, I want to make one thing clear: while becoming a full-time writer is a dream of mine, writing is currently something I only do as a hobby, meaning I don’t depend on it financially. If I spent the rest of my life being unpublished, or publishing books that make very little money, materially I’d manage just fine. This is how I can (literally) afford to think like I do.

So. As I stated earlier, I made the decision to separate writing from my livelihood very consciously. I made that decision because I noticed that damn paradox and knew I didn’t have the temperament to stake my rent or my sense of success on an industry that runs on luck instead of merit. I also did it because, based on some of my experiences being a musician, I knew that in some ways choosing not to go all-in on writing would be very freeing in publishing’s current trash fire climate.

Let’s go back to that idea of ‘success’, shall we?

There’s this common view about art, which is that it has no worth if it has no financial worth. If someone likes baking, we tell them they should start a bakery. If someone likes knitting, we suggest they sell their creations on Etsy. And if someone likes writing, the assumption is that their writing isn’t very good unless it’s published.

Remember how my past self would say that getting published would make me content and happy? I wish I could go back in time and ask her: why do you need to base your entire sense of success and self-worth, of happiness, on the moving goalposts of an industry that doesn’t care about you?

Why should we wait for the publishing industry’s permission to feel successful?

Because the thing is, sure, getting published would be awesome—I would probably ascend into a celestial plane through sheer excitement if I became a bestselling author, and got fan art, and a movie deal, and… well, you get the idea. But a lot of us didn’t start writing because we wanted to get published (or become a bestseller, or get fan art, or…). We started writing because we had to. In my experience, it feels like the stories picked me to tell them, and they’re not going to leave me alone until I do.

And, while there are many aspects about the traditional publishing process that we can’t control—getting an agent being the first one we encounter—there are still lots we can control: we can choose what stories we want to write. We can choose when to write them. We can choose to take a break. We can choose to read books about craft, or ignore craft completely. We can choose who we share our books with, and what sort of feedback we’d like those people to give—as well as how much of that feedback we take to heart.

I used to worry about whether I could sell a project before I started writing it. But now, I choose to write things because I want to write them, and literally for no other reason. Book two in that weird sci-fi series I haven’t even sold the first book of yet about a girl getting mixed up with an extremist group that thinks demons are real? Epic. That five-season Voltron sequel TV series? That’s insane, I’ll never finish it, it’ll certainly never get made (like, ever), but I’m doing it anyway because it’s fun as hell.

After all, until my writing matters to the industry, why should the industry matter to me?

And here’s the best part of making my art for the sake of making it: I’m still very serious about getting my books published, but the rejections don’t sting as much because the books already fulfilled their purpose of making me happy by writing them. This isn’t to say that the rejections don’t sting, and that I don’t mind shelving projects (if you ever need a shoulder to cry on for those things, hit me up). But I love that if I ever do get an agent or make it even farther into the publishing process, each of those advancements will feel like the most fantastic bonus to an already-fulfilling journey, rather than the bare minimum.

The system of traditional publishing wants us to believe that all our dreams and chances for happiness are wrapped in its cold, money-greased machinery. It wants to control our creative output and, more distressingly for our wellbeing, to define what ‘success’ is for us. But I say screw that. We make our own.

Image of a chalkboard with graffiti style lettering reading SUCCESS - go get it -
Image added by Aimee, not author. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

Bio: Amara Cavahlo is a UX and graphic designer who, confusingly, is an Australian citizen with an American accent who also happens to be a native Spanish speaker (and subject of feline overlords). If you wish to summon her to your location, an offering of one (1) chaotic science fiction or fantasy book will do. You can follow her on Twitter @nerdnothuman or learn more about her on her website: https://amaracavahlo.wixsite.com/author/about

Querying Stats for the last book queried: Click on this link to learn more about that book pitched as:

Miska of Serifos presents:

THE “VIRGIN” PRIESTESS’S GUIDE TO RUNNING AWAY: DEMIGOD BOYFRIEND EDITION

✅ Pay the ship fare

❌ Make sure warriors don’t abduct bf

✅ Negotiate with gods for him back

✅ Get dragged into a centuries-long war instead

🔳 Survive

First Reflections on the Not the Darling Series

Published on by aimeedavisauthor2 Comments

Hi, this post is being written by me, Aimee, your host for the Not the Darling Series. If you’re new to the blog, you can read about the premise of the series here and can find the blogs by typing “Not the Darling” into the search bar to the right of this post. So, as we wrap up our first month (!) of submissions in this series, I wanted to take some time to reflect on some of the amazing things I’ve learned from the incredible authors who have let me get to know them and their journeys.

Authors at all stages of their career should be reading these.

Let me be clear. This space is and always will be for un-agented, querying (or quitting querying) authors. That is the premise and the purpose and remains my passion behind this project. Accordingly, I thought the main (majority) target audience for these stories would be other querying authors. I’ve since learned that not only do authors at all stages of their career want to read these stories, authors at all stages of their career should read these stories. They’re humbling. And raw. They’re full of passion and pain. They remind us that querying authors are our peers, a fact too often forgotten.

For those of us who queried forever, these stories are a bittersweet reminder of the parts of the journey colored rose when we finally got that yes. They remind us to stay humble and that we are no different than any of the authors writing these posts (which again, is why they’re our peers). For those who did not query long, they teach a lesson thankfully never learned via personal experience but which these authors have been kind enough to do the emotional labor to teach via THEIR personal experiences. To keep you humble.

Humble, I know. It’s a loaded word in an industry where we have so few wins. Where so many of us are crawling and bleeding, scraping our way tooth and nail to be seen, screaming into an empty void for recognition. Where marginalized authors fight every day against stereotypes saying we’re too loud, too angry, too aggressive, too whatever. And I ask for humility. I know. But I don’t ask for humility toward the titans of publishing or Barnes & Noble, toward Amazon or the C-Suites of Big Five imprints. Where they are concerned, I say lift your chin as high as you can and own the fucking room.

I ask for humility toward your peers, who are struggling. Who are just like you, in so many ways. I ask you to check in on them if you can and when you’re able. Because they’re screaming into the void. They’re fighting the industry, throwing ribbons of their hearts into the wheels of the machine that is publishing hoping one might trip over a piece so they might be fed a scrap. For them, yes, I ask you to be humble. We were there once. All of us. And we could be again at any moment, the tables turned. This industry is small, so very, very small. We are stronger together.

Image of a wooden door with intricate metal carvings surrounded by steampunk brass cogs, wheels, clocks, gears, etc.
I am a fantasy author so might be me, but if publishing had a door, I imagine this would be what it would look like. The gate that the gatekeepers keep, held shut by cogs and clocks that make absolutely no damn sense. Seems right, yeah. Image by Amy from Pixabay

It really is luck.

I will be Brutally Honest because that is my brand. When I opened this space and said the only editing I’d do would be to make sure (to the best of my ability) nothing was harmful to the author writing the post or anyone on the other side of the screen, plus minor grammar stuff, I fully expected some objectively bad writing. For those who don’t know my background, it’s a bit… stuffy. I have an undergraduate degree in creative writing from a school whose sole purpose was to groom its students for an MFA at Iowa which is The US’ Best Writing Program for Serious Writers. Everyone thought I was headed to Iowa. I thought I was headed to Iowa. Why I didn’t go to Iowa is a whole separate thing. However, that education never entirely left me. Combine that with a decade plus working in legal, writing Very Serious Legal Stuff, and you get someone who can be… snobbish. I know. I hate it and work hard to battle it every day.

Why am I admitting this ugly truth to all of you lovely people on the internet? Well, because I want you to believe me when I say not a single thing submitted me to thus far has been edited by me at all (except for minor grammar things), nor have I found any piece of writing published on this blog to be “objectively” bad writing. In fact, I’ve loved everything submitted for entirely different reasons. But objectively, it’s all been well-constructed, with a nice voice, good pacing, varied sentence structure, and excellent continuity. I’ll stop reading something I find objectively bad. Not only have I read everything here straight through (a few times), I’ve actually been late to a couple meetings just to finish reading several of these pieces.

So for me, a bona fide snob, who went into this project fully prepared to accept what I consider objectively bad writing (I’m literally wincing typing this, I’m sorry to be such an asshole, truly), to come to you and report zero bad writing is Saying Something. To take it one step further and say all the writing is in fact very good, is Saying Something Bigger. And the TL;DR something is this: When agents get up on Twitter and say there’s so much good stuff in their inbox it’s impossible to decide, or the quality of the writing has gone up so much recently, or mentors from mentorship programs say this is horribly stressful because they want to choose 20 things, I used to roll my eyes. Because I, a snob, didn’t believe it possible for that many people to be consistently submitting objectively good writing. Selfishly, I also didn’t want there to be that much competition. I have, however, learned through personal experience, this is not the case.

The writing is good. Objectively good. The agents aren’t lying. Neither are mentors. Those aren’t platitudes they’re feeding you. The inboxes are brimming with good stuff. This is all really coming down to subjectivity and luck. Which sucks because you can control neither. This is a shitty consolation. Sorry. I didn’t say this was a positivity post, just a reflection.

Cartoon figure of a white man with a bear and a top hat in a vest and coat holding a pipe, glaring with narrowed eyes.
Oh, hey, look! It’s one of my writing professors come to talk about Faulkner’s brilliance some more because you know… the decline of the southern aristocracy and uh… incest or something. The Next Great American Novel coming to my agent’s inbox T-minus… NEVER. Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

The Conversations are Important and are Happening.

Since the Not the Darling series started, five (5) posts have debuted on the blog. They have been viewed over 700 times in more than a dozen countries. They’ve been shared on Twitter, reblogged on other blogs, shared on Facebook, and appeared in at least one Discord of mine, but others I’ve been told about.

The conversations they’re spurring are as varied and important as the stories themselves. Conversations about mental health and the toll rejection can take, on the taboo topic of giving yourself the okay to quit if you need it. Questions about how to find community in this new era where mentorship programs aren’t as widespread as they used to be, and Twitter pitch contests which were once as much about building community as finding an agent, are fraught and oversaturated. Frustrations and confusion about marketability and publishing trends, about whether you should write to the market or write what you love. The evergreen and always relevant topic of “being too old to debut” by publishing standards. The list goes on and every day it grows, taking on a life of its own I’m so awed and inspired to watch.

When I first started this series, I was a little afraid of these conversations. I was unsure if facilitating them would make me a target if they got out of hand or if I would be held responsible if I couldn’t “control” them. Over the past month, I’ve been so humbled to find that was a shitty and cynical take (I’m really winning on this episode, I know). The dialogue so far has been respectful and nuanced, smart and kind. And for that, I’m so grateful to everyone contributing not only to the blog series, but to the conversations as well. It’s important we have them, and that we have them in this way.

Cartoon image of four people in shades of red, orange, green, blue, with text bubbles above their heads. One reads: "Aimee, did you really think people would be messy On Main?" Another answers "What? Me? No. Never. I was not worried at all. Once." The third says "Funny how that doesn't sound convincing." And the last contains only a question mark.
In case anyone ever wondered what it’s like to sit through a workplace training with me as your host – it involves loads of graphics like these. Edited to include the same kind of bad humor. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Thank You. Keep ’em Coming.

Finally, to the authors who have already contributed: Thank you. Each and every one of you is courageous and I’m honored to know you, to host your stories, to be a small part of your journey, wherever it brings you. Reading your words has been a joy and a privilege.

To those thinking of submitting: Please do! Submissions are still open, and there are still so many amazing conversations to be had! Submission criteria can be found here.

Can’t wait to see what the next month brings!

Xoxo,

Aimee

Not the Darling: Confessions of a Long-Time Querier

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Note from Aimee: Today’s author really hit me in the gut with the story of shelving a heart book, something near and dear to my own heart because shelving my heart book was the thing that made me quit writing not once but twice, and it’s something we don’t talk about nearly enough. All of these stories are so brave, and I continue to be so humbled with everyone who shares them whether it be here or on Twitter, in comments or emails, in Discords or elsewhere. You are all leading conversations that are bringing hard topics out of the dark and into the light. A beautiful, powerful thing for your beautiful, powerful words.

Content warning: There are some (very minor) query statistics interspersed throughout this post. Emphasis on the very.

Confessions of a Long-Time Querier

By: Anonymous

When I started writing in elementary school, like many of us do, I guess I thought that becoming an author was something that just happened after you wrote a book. I was one of those “gifted kids,” constantly lauded by teachers for my incredible performance in every subject, my above-average reading and writing abilities. I see you rolling your eyes, but the point is, perfectionism and achievement were values I internalized throughout my entire childhood, and I can’t shake the feeling of failure and inadequacy even now.

Flash-forward to ten years later. I gave up on writing for a long time, because I was too focused on pursuing a career in the sciences. By the time I finished undergrad, I decided to jump back into it – 15 minutes a day to start – because literature had always been something I was passionate about. I remember talking to a fellow lab-mate, who said something along the lines of “The dream you had when you were 12 is probably your truest dream.” And for me, that was becoming an author.

I spent the next year writing a book (“New Adult Romance” – it did not have a HEA), edited it to the best of my abilities, did my research, and started sending it off to agents in 2016. I somehow ended up with two requests after a year of obstinate determination, but I’m honestly glad that first book never saw the light of day. In hindsight, it was full of telling language, the query letters (I had multiple versions) read more like synopses than an actual pitch, and every time I open the document to reread it, I cringe. On the bright side, I can certainly see my growth as a writer since then.

The next few years, I started my first professional career, and I was unwell both mentally and physically. All the while, I was working on another book, a YA Contemporary retelling of something I loved that incorporated a lot of my professional knowledge. I thought it was amazing, and for the most part, I had great beta feedback, as well as a stellar query letter. There was a big time gap between querying books one and two. I jumped into the trenches with that second book in early 2020, certain that “this was the one.” It was technically my fifth book drafted, so I fell prey to the myth of “Oh, I hear your 5th novel is usually the one that makes it!” Reader, it bombed. One request, and the feedback I received on that full made me question everything I believed about my writing. They didn’t think my craft was where it needed to be, which really hurt.

Between books two and three is where my craft really levelled up. I queried book three in 2021, a YA Contemporary with light speculative elements. Written in third past, it got a few requests, but at one point I received an R&R which suggested “this might work better in first present.” So I set off to rewrite the entire thing, and the final product sparkled. I finally found my “voice,” and ever since then, writing in first present has been my preferred POV and tense.

Here is something nobody tells you about querying. You can get close. You can have requests and significant interest from publishing professionals. You can receive encouraging emails that tell you your writing is impressive, that you have a great voice for YA, that you did an excellent job on your R&R… and then a year and a half later you can be sitting at the same desk, still unagented and unpublished.

So you think, okay, great, that one didn’t work out. I can do this again. I’m almost there. Late 2020, I quit my professional job to go back to school. During that time, I rewrote my first queried book, one I considered “the book of my heart.” I sent out a couple of queries, but it didn’t garner any interest. After getting consistent beta feedback, I decided to do another full rewrite, and this time I was confident in the final product. This is the greatest book I’ve ever written. This one will definitely make it. I put so much of myself in that book that I already suspected querying it would be tough. I started querying book 4 (Adult Contemporary) in Summer 2022. I did not expect to have zero interest. Zero. Not a single agent request after pouring time and effort and emotion into a book I thought was the most beautiful piece of art I’d ever written. Even the agents who considered my previous book told me “it wasn’t the right fit.” When I decided to shelve this book after exhausting my query list, I cried for a week straight. I couldn’t write a single word. I’m sorry if it sounds dramatic, but it really felt like my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.

So this is where I’m at now. Four trunked manuscripts later, over 200 agent rejections (I don’t count small presses or short story submissions, but there are probably ~100 of those too), and no concrete proof that I’ve ever written a book. Oh, and I forgot to mention that all the above books apart from the first were submitted to mentorship contests and I never got chosen for a single one.

Frankly, I don’t know where I’m going from here. I don’t know what will happen for me and my writing career. I lost hope a long time ago. I am actively working on two other WIPs, I have several more ideas beyond that, but there are no guarantees whatsoever. There isn’t some magical crystal ball that can say “well if you keep doing this for ten more years, you will have a book deal.”

I don’t really have any advice. I just hope this resonates with others. You’re not the only one struggling, despite what the algorithms seem to suggest. I’ve become so bitter and jaded by this whole process that sometimes I forget that my love of writing is how this journey started. I struggle to connect with other writers because professional jealousy devours me whole. I’m twiddling my thumbs at the starting line while everyone else has lapped me several times over. I’ve stepped back from twitter, I can’t check reddit, and so I sit in my isolated bubble and write my next manuscript and try to ignore all the things I can’t control.

Image of a frozen soap bubble (yellow in the sun) on a frozen ground.
Image added by Aimee, not the author. Image by rihaij from Pixabay.

Not the Darling: Maybe the Real Publishing was the Friends We Made Along the Way

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Note from Aimee: This is a special edition of the Not the Darling series. Why, you ask? Because I am impatient and have so many great stories I want to get to you I can’t wait one whole week to bring them to you, obviously. Also because I think it ties in well with my post yesterday about Pitch Wars and the importance of the community ❤ Community comes in so many forms from so many places, as our next author is about to tell you.

Content Warning: This post does contain mention of full requests, but they are brief and not walls of stats but are integrated into the flow of the post itself.

Maybe the Real Publishing was the Friends We Made Along the Way

By: Ceilidh Newbury (Follow Ceilidh @ceilidh_newbury on Twitter)

Full disclosure: I have not been querying for as long as a lot of you. I have not been writing for as long as a lot of you. I started in 2017. I was 21. I always feel like a fraud because of that. I didn’t like writing when I was younger. I didn’t write my first novel at 7 years old or win a bunch of short story competitions in high school. I wrote one short story while studying culture studies, got some positive feedback on it, and decided it was pretty fun. 

So, at 21, I wrote the start of a self-insert contemporary novel and stopped really quickly because… it was boring. Then, I wrote (and finished!!) an adult horror novel despite having hardly ever interacting with the horror genre. And in 2018, I went to a writer’s festival where I pitched that book to agents. I have a really terrible memory and was also going through a huge life change at that time (long story short, it was the wrong gu-uy), so I don’t remember much about the experience, except that it gave me so much hope. The agents were mostly nice, the whole weekend was full of writers just like me, and it felt right. Even as I was moving countries, leaving my cat and best friend behind, I knew that writing was what I wanted to do. 

I didn’t send my first actual query until 2020. I was part way through my Masters of Creative Writing (still my favourite studying experience, especially the short story course!). I queried a YA contemporary fantasy that was four POVs, the first book of a quadrilogy, and had a not like other girls MC. It was… fun to write at the time. And surprisingly queer considering I still thought I was a cishet woman. I read blogs and threads on Twitter and listened to podcasts to get my query materials right. I submitted to mentorship programs and only had a small amount of feedback. I got nothing but form rejections from agents, but I felt sure that this was a stepping stone. I was improving my craft and practising querying for that future book that would be it. 

In 2021, I queried again, this time with a book that I poured maybe a little too much of myself into: a YA contemporary with speculative elements about an asexual girl grieving the sudden death of her dad and trying to stay in love with her dream of stage management at the same time. Poor Parker got all my trauma. I didn’t query a lot of agents with this book. It hurt too much getting rejected because, well, it was so much of me, my journey to figuring out my asexuality and my grief over the death of my stepfather and the love of theatre that I’d lost after studying it at an institute designed to break you. It was hard for Parker’s story to get rejected, because it was me rewriting a part of my life I wish I had handled differently. 

But, this book WAS the first one that anyone outside of beta readers had ever shown interest in. I received full requests from some awesome mentors from two different programs, who ultimately didn’t choose me, but gave me some nice feedback (and added me to a pretty cool group chat of other people who had submitted to them). And, spurred on by that, I hired one of the RevPit editors to do a developmental edit of the manuscript, which was an amazing experience (spoiler alert: this would not be the last time this editor read my work). 

After all of this, I got ONE partial request from an agent who ultimately passed on the book. But that was a step up from the last book. It was proof that I was improving. And while this book had felt like the one, the book of my heart like everyone always said in agent and deal announcements, it… wasn’t. Because I wrote a better more book of my heart (and I’m sure will continue to write more and more of them).

Image description: a meme of Kenny from We’re the Millers saying “You guys are getting paid?” but the text instead reads “You guys are getting full requests?”
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures/Rawson Marshall Thurber

Fast forward to last year, I’m skipping a bunch of trauma and failures outside of writing and going straight to the manuscript I’m currently querying. The YA ‘eat the rich’ fantasy that made me a runner up in RevPit 2022 and the lucky winner of a mentor from a mentorship program now defunct (my mentor isn’t though, she’s still here, and I love her). I still can’t really grasp the fact that someone read my 59k fantasy novel and thought: I can see how this could be better, and I want to help. 

Because OH MAN IS IT BETTER. It is now a respectable 80k, it has MORE PLOT, it has MORE WORLDBUILDING, it’s like a whole new book! Except, not quite. It’s still got the same heart. The same anger at the world and wish that by burning it all down we could start something better. I commissioned art of these characters for the first time, and I stare at them hanging on my wall every day just thinking: they’re worth it. And what has all of this help, this encouragement, this craft work gleaned me? A single full request in a sea of form rejections (so far, at least). Don’t get me wrong, that full request feels HUGE to me. It’s my first agent full request EVER. But it is one.

A lot of people talk about the difference between querying 5 years ago and now as a decline in requests and personalised feedback. Which is ABSOLUTELY TRUE. However, because my writing wasn’t actually at a level that warranted any of those things back then, that hasn’t been the case for me. People who had been writing for years before sending their first queries in the 2010s and are still querying now are seeing themselves trend downwards. They aren’t getting requests like they used to, they know their craft has improved, that their books are good enough, but they’re getting the opposite feedback (aka none) from agents. But for me, and maybe for other writers who started querying in that decline, with manuscripts that maybe weren’t up to that standard yet, our trajectories are different. For me, a single full request is a step up. It’s small, so small, so incredibly miniscule in the scheme of request rates from years ago, but it’s huge to me. Even if querying in general still just makes me feel like this song:

https://open.spotify.com/track/3o9kpgkIcffx0iSwxhuNI2?si=XQKLieHbSAuKrha8V9KsBg&utm_source=copy-link (Numb Little Bug by Em Beihold)

Well, that took longer than I thought to explain. I’ve always been a rambler (ask literally anyone I’ve ever beta read for), and I don’t know if my journey is interesting, but it is my context. And it’s important for what I actually want to say here, which is: my champions aren’t agents (yet?). The people who really get my work, the ones who understand it and love it like I do, have so far not been agents.

When I first started, I couldn’t imagine anything better than an agent and a book deal. I hadn’t even found myself or the stories I wanted to tell yet and I was only just starting to find my people (shout out to the MelbNano Discord for being a lot of those people). I hadn’t yet discovered that anyone could enjoy my chaotic screams on their work without the promise of actual Useful Feedback™. And I didn’t realise that sometimes all I needed was someone to love my work, not critique it. I was so focused on the idea of getting an agent that I didn’t realise how important other people could be to my journey.

Remember that group chat those lovely mentors added me to after passing on my manuscript? It’s been over a year, I’ve read a bunch of their stories, and they will never get rid of me (it’s not my fault their stories are so addicting, and they’re all so nice!!). One of them even gave me the motivation to actually finish the YA fantasy that got me my mentor (seriously, without her telling me how much she loved it, I don’t know if I would have fallen back in love with it). And I regularly scream at the mentor who added me as I read their books too! And through them and their fandom I got to meet a bunch of other cool self-published writers!

Remember that RevPit editor I hired? Well, she and her cowriter were kind enough to send me their book to read after I commented on a PitLight pitch they posted. AND IT SLAPPED! And I sent them a word doc back full of incoherent babbling (a lot like this post probably) and they LIKED IT. And now I’ve read two more of that editor’s books and she’s read mine and is patiently waiting for me to finish my next, cheering me on when it feels like it doesn’t matter. And I’m doing the same for her, I’m dying to read her next book (and the next and the next). And not just that! This editor (ace like me) made a Discord for other ace YA fantasy writers (who I LOVE) and there! I met! MY OWN COWRITER!! That’s right! I’m writing a book with a whole other human, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done (even though she’s evil and scares me)!

And remember that mentor who saw potential in my tiny little seedling of a book and nurtured it and me to being a whole query-able thing? Well she is still here, still supporting me, and graciously letting me read her wonderful words (she just announced her debut book deal, and I’m SO EXCITED). She answers my silly questions and yells nice things at me when I’m down on myself. I am so fortunate to have her in my corner.

I have never been as simultaneously happy and miserable as a querying writer. I am frustrated by the publishing industry and its lack of commitment to fair pay, accessibility, and diversity (looking at you especially HarperCollins), by the way querying writers, agents, and editors seem to be constantly pitted against each other in discourse (seriously we’re all fighting the same enemy! billionaires! (btw this is the plot of my querying book), by the fact that I have read so many amazing books by so many amazing writers that have yet to be signed with agents or publishers (including mine)!! 

BUT. Looking at this website I’m posting on. And looking at any PitLight event. And looking at the discussions in my DMs and Discord servers, I feel so full. I am a sappy, positivity-pass-giving simp first and foremost, and it makes me joyful beyond belief to have so many amazing friends. To have the privilege to read their work and have them read mine. To get to yell at everyone who comes near me about how talented they are and how they are going to change the world with their stories. I know they will, because they already changed my world with them. 

Image description: A screenshot from Mean Girls of an emotional young woman saying “I wish that I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles, and we’d all eat it and be happy.”
Credit: Paramount Pictures/Mark Waters

So, I know I haven’t been writing all that long, in the scheme of things. And I’ve been querying for even less of that. It sucks so much for me, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for long time queriers (although, I can try, because some of them are kind enough to tell me about it). I know that publishing is hard and it hurts. It hurts so damn much sometimes that we want to quit, go live in a cabin in the woods, and bury our manuscripts in the backyard under the lemon trees. And some of us will, and do, and come back, or don’t. 


But even through all the rage and the hurt and the injustice and unfairness of the whole system, and the burning desire to share my work with the world that I know may never be sated even though I do want it bad enough and I am working hard enough (and so are you), I would not change this path for the world. I would not give up my chance to meet the people I’ve met and love and be loved by them. I wouldn’t trade reading their stories, their struggles, their wins, for anything. Even when I’m jealous of them. Even when I want to tear the world down just to make someone see how talented they are. Even when they give me feedback I bristle at (and then later realise is good, actually). Even when they’re busy and can’t talk for a while. They are the best thing that has come out of this journey so far, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. Every story I’ve written and book I’ve queried somehow led me to the community I have today, and I am so so grateful to be here.

Bio: Ceilidh Newbury (they/she) is a queer, asexual, nonbinary writer living on Tommeginne land in Iutruwita (Tasmania). They hold a Bachelor of Dramatic Art (Production) and a Master of Creative of Creative Writing, and their short fiction has been published by Ezra Arndt, Cloaked Press, East Riverina Arts, and Sinister Soat Press. She is a fierce advocate for and creator of safe queer spaces, especially for young people. When they’re not writing or queering up the community, they can be found singing to their cats and drinking copious amounts of tea. You can also find her on Twitter (@ceilidh_newbury) or her website (www.ceilidhnewbury.com)

A bit about the book they’re querying: In this 80k standalone YA ‘eat the rich’ fantasy set in a queer normal world where magic is easily available (for the right price), an angry aroace girl and a cinnamon roll rich boy team up to destroy capitalism and become best friends. Also there’s a fat cat named Ned.

Reflections: One Year Post-Pitch Wars

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Author’s Note: For those who are not aware, Pitch Wars was a well-known, all volunteer-run mentorship program that paired unagented authors with published/agented authors, editors, or industry interns. One mentor (or mentor pair) to one mentee. Over the course of several months, the mentor(s) and mentee pair worked together to prepare the mentee’s manuscript, query letter, and synopsis for querying. At the end of the “revision period” was the infamous agent showcase, a one-week period where the mentee could post a short pitch plus the first page (about) of their book on the Pitch Wars website for agents to review and (hopefully) request. For the entirety of the revision period and the week of the showcase, no mentee was allowed to query the work. During the showcase, no one but Pitch Wars volunteers involved with running the website could see what agents requested whose work. Limited information about requests was conveyed to the mentors, who conveyed it to their mentees. At the end of the showcase, it all went live for everyone to see. Read more here.

One year ago today, me and about 114 other of my peers were officially thrown into the query trenches. The same day, the Pitch Wars Committee announced that after 10 years of mentorship, the program would be shuttering.

I think it goes without saying that was one hell of a day.

As I’ve mentioned, the agent showcase did not go well for me. Still, I grit my teeth and buckled down. Maybe my book was not a one-line pitch type book. Didn’t make a lot of sense considering the amount of people who told me how “high-concept” it was and oh so “hooky” but you know, who knows what those things are, anyway? I would win the agents with my query.

If you’ve read my How I Got My Agent post, you’ll know I didn’t really win the agentS with my query. I did, however, win one. Well, maybe. I’m not sure it was the query that did it. I never asked. Nor do I want to know.

Truly, I never thought I would be writing a one-year reflection blog. If anything, I thought I might be writing a one-year reflection thread on Twitter about how pissed I still am about the showcase and how SO MANY querying authors think the showcase is the real loss of Pitch Wars and how fucked that is because agent exposure is not the reason to seek mentorship, mentorship is the reason seek mentorship thus mentorship is the real loss. And those feelings are all true and real and still very, very raw even one year later.

But since Pitch Wars is gone railing about the showcase seems less applicable. What is applicable is how much I learned from one year of watching 115 separate writers start one place and 365 days later be in so many different places. The following observations are things I hope will help all writers but especially those still querying.

Community

I tried to get into Pitch Wars for 5 years. It wasn’t until 2021 I actually opened up and started engaging with the online community a bit more. Invaluable. I’ve said this before, I will say it again, some of my closest friends and CPs are the ones I met during the waiting period. The ones who didn’t get in and the ones who did. They’re the ones who will understand you best, who will get the highs and the lows, who will never accuse you of being too dramatic or too much to handle. They will be the ones who understand all the random and weird publishing things your family still can’t seem to grasp no matter how many times you’ve tried to explain it to them. And that you don’t have to explain it or yourself will ease some of the exhaustion. Of which there is so much.

Community you need to boost you, but also to check you, to be honest with you, to encourage and support you, to be there in your mopes and your hopes, to be your void to shout into when it’s not appropriate to do it on Twitter. You need them always and should start finding them as soon as you can.

Image of a rainbow bucket with yellow roses, a congrats balloon and a sweet smiles jar of cookies.
Signing day gift from some of the CPs in question. Do you know who didn’t send me a gift? Anyone else. Not family, friends, partner. No one except them. Because they get it.

Mentors

Contrary to popular belief, you do not need a mentor. In fact, some might say trying to achieve one is just adding another gatekeeper in an endless stream of them. Considering the odds of being chosen by my Pitch Wars mentor were something like less than 3% and I spent five years trying to get into Pitch Wars and a couple trying to get into RevPit and at least one trying to get into AMM, I can’t entirely disagree.

They’re cool to have IF you do end up with one, though.

I was really fortunate to end up with the world’s greatest mentor. Not everyone is so lucky. There are arguments about this topic for both sides I could go on about for days, but that isn’t the point of this post.

What was really interesting about Pitch Wars was seeing all the different mentees with their mentors and how they all communicated and what worked and what didn’t and how totally different that could be. And how hard it could be to summarize on a blog, too, which is what the mentors attempted to do, and which I think many of the mentees did not read, because they cared more about getting in with ANYONE than getting in with the RIGHT someone. Sound familiar? Yeah, it happens with agents, too. A thing I will talk about in a future blog already mostly written.

So for me, I really wanted a close relationship with my mentor. I had spent a LONG time being rejected not only in publishing but in, well, life. I desperately needed someone to believe in me. Not only in my stories, but in me, as a human. I needed someone to believe I was capable of doing this. Even if it meant rolling her eyes and smiling through my dramatics while I raged that I could not, in fact, do this. Then waiting until I was finished, asking politely if I was actually finished before telling me that I could do this for the following reasons.

I also really needed someone who understood my neurodiversity and my trauma. That I process things differently. Who understood I’m not going to do Save the Cat or beat sheets and that would have to be okay. Who knew I needed some semblance of rules in the chaos that is publishing, even if the rule was there are no rules. Who would be able to be flexible where I was not. Rochelle was all these things and more. I was very lucky. Did I mention that?

But not everyone needs all this hand holding and cheerleading and ya ya. Some of my peers did very well with a much more business-like, professional relationship with their mentors that did not involve frantic 1 a.m. text messages about doom spiraling. Some fit right in the middle somewhere. Others had communication breakdowns because they could not find a meeting of the minds at all.

This is when you refer back to your community.

Cartoon image of various characters working on cell phones, tablets, digital displays, etc.

Where You Are is Not Who You Are

Let me tell you about how Pitch Wars teaches this lesson to the Not Darlings really fucking fast. This exact time last year I was essentially equal in credentials to my Pitch Wars peers. Of course some of us had heftier resumes than others. Some had won other mentorship contests. Some had been published with indie presses or in short story anthologies. Some (like me) had creative writing degrees, or MFAs. Some (not like me) had a list with 50 requests on it ready to go. But we all had shiny manuscripts polished over a period of the most intense revision months of our lives, a submission packet to make any querying author drool, and we had “2021 Pitch Wars novel/mentee” to tag onto our books (and our names). Out of thousands, we were the 115.

We thought that meant something. And maybe it’s the weirdness of this querying climate, or maybe it’s that Pitch Wars shut down the same day we entered the trenches, or maybe it did mean something but not enough for some of us. But on February 15th that starting gun fired and some of us shot forward and others of us stumbled, fell, startled, pressing our hands to our ears, shell shocked. Some of us barreled forward but quickly ran out of steam. Our paths started to diverge. Fast.

Within hours, LITERAL HOURS, calls were getting announced. From there, the deluge of distancing became frantic. Full requests poured in, some phones seemed to be ringing off the hooks. Question lists were assembled. Drama. Subtweeting. Agents with teeth. Mentees in the spotlight. We rallied for our peers because that’s what you do for your community, even when your own heart is bleeding. Even when your own inbox is empty. It was a good distraction.

Agent announcements. Talks of auctions. Editors with teeth. And still for so many of us, empty inboxes. Full requests from the showcase gone untended while the shinier mentees glowed. It was hard not to wonder what was different. Not to blame ourselves. We were all the same except… we weren’t. Not anymore.

Despair came fast, too. And in that despair sat uncomfortable feelings about our friends. Our peers. Our community. People we’d bonded with so tightly during this experience so few could relate to. Guilt. Blame. Shame. Resentment. Toward ourselves more than anything, really. Many of us started to turn away. And this is where things get a little tricky.

Because this is not uncommon in the entirety of the writing community, not just the Pitch Wars community. You will see if you hang out here enough there is this concept that there exists a hierarchy between authors. A chart is needed. Hold.

Chart: Title "Weird Publishing Hierarchy" which depicts levels. From bottom to top: Aspiring Writers; Querying Authors; Agented Authors; Contracted Authors; Published Authors. Subtext: Let's burn this chart down.
If this chart makes you uncomfortable, good. Me too. Let’s do something about it.

If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll have had the weird experience of watching your friends level up through this chart. You’ll have also likely seen some drama around people leveling up through this chart and leaving their friends behind. There is nowhere this phenomenon happens faster than in Pitch Wars. And if you’re on the inside of it, you get to watch this weird hierarchy play out in rapid fire fashion as some folks level up and others do not. Right now, at this very moment, my Pitch Wars peers are basically at all levels of this chart. The first book from my class comes out soon. Many book deals have been announced. Even more agent announcements. Still more of my classmates are querying new books, still looking for their agents. Some have veered off the traditional path all together, choosing indie presses or self-publishing. Some, like me almost, stepped back from writing all together.

But the thing I noticed while watching this all happen was that it’s not always as simple as “level up, leave behind.” There is so much more nuance behind it. I, for one, in my grief, tried to leave my core group of Pitch Wars friends… a couple of times. I felt like I was dragging them down, holding them back, being too depressing, dampening their joy. I felt like I was too lame for them with their fancy Big Five book deals and big shot agents. They, thankfully, dragged me back.

Now that I have an agent myself (weird), I also notice there’s a bit of a dynamic put on authors at perceived “higher” levels from those “beneath” that makes this all the stranger. My opinion seems to automatically matter more because I have an agent, which honestly, y’all it shouldn’t. It’s luck. You will never see me giving away a query critique because my query stats are objectively terrible. I still can’t write a synopsis. Don’t misunderstand, I learned a lot from Pitch Wars, and I continue to learn about my craft every day from writers everywhere on this pyramid. I will speak on what I believe I know enough about to speak on, but my advice is no more valuable than anyone else’s and in many cases, my un-agented CPs know just as much if not more than I do about loads of craft things.

All this long winded thing to say: We’re all writers. We all have valuable advice to bring to the table, and none of that is earned by any milestone along the way. It’s earned the way all knowledge is earned: by study. So don’t let where you are on this pyramid thing define who you are as a writer, and don’t let it change the way YOU act around other writers (you can’t change how they act around you, obviously, but one side of this can be controlled at least). If you feel your friends leaving you behind, ask yourself, truly, are they? Or are you?

TL;DR Don’t push your friends away because you think you’re not worthy of them anymore because they got a Fancy Book Deal or a high profile agent. If they’re your real friends, they are not going to give a shit. They’re still going to crack jokes with you about opening pickle jars and ask you for cat pics. Because besides all being writers, you are first and foremost all friends.

Picture of a gray and white cat sitting in front of a bowl of pickles.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, I JUST SO HAPPEN to have a picture of my cat Hope with pickles.

So, to my Pitch Wars 2021 Class, happy one year post-showcase. I am so proud of each and every one of you. And I can’t wait to see what the next year brings.

Xoxo,

Aimee

Not the Darling: What if You Just Wrote the Wrong Book?

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Note from Aimee: Today’s post has query statistics at the end for those interested. They follow a picture (which picture and alt text was inserted by me, not the author of this post) so they can be more easily avoided for those who don’t like to see stats. The book referenced in this post is described by the author as an adult, second-world grimdark fantasy and is the first novel written by them. I have also included links to the resources listed by the author, but neither this post nor my inclusion of links is an official endorsement of either (and no one was paid to put them here) and you should always research any paid service carefully before pursuing it. Now, without further ado, today’s amazingly raw, amazingly written, amazingly brave story of realness ❤

What if You Just Wrote the Wrong Book?

By: Anonymous

I knew the book I spent 4 years writing was a no-hoper before I ever sent my first query. I knew it as soon as I looked at agent MSWLs in my genre, as soon as I followed agents on Twitter, as soon as I looked for comps. I also know the book I just shelved is the best book I will ever write. 

As a child, I had vague ambitions of becoming a published writer, for the simple reason that I wanted to achieve something in life and wasn’t good at anything else. But financial stability came first, and so I devoted my teens and 20s to academics and demanding jobs, writing only a few short stories over 10 years. It wasn’t until I managed to downshift to a 40-hour-a-week job that didn’t suck up all my mental energy that I had hope of actually finishing a novel. Even then, I struggled to find a work-in-progress I loved enough to stick with–until finally I did.

Finishing that monster of a 135k first draft (later whittled down to 121k) took me almost 4 years. Coming to the end and actually being proud of what I’d written was the most joyful moment of my life to date–until I got on the internet and realized I’d written the exact book nobody wanted.

My book might have been perfect for the SFF market in, say, 2010. But by 2022, my European military fantasy was exactly what agents in this hugely oversaturated market were begging not to see (which, if I’d been reading recent debuts instead of spending years frantically trying to finish my own book, I would already have known). Readers’ tastes had long since changed, but I was still writing for the teenager I’d been.

My book was second-world and epic when everyone wanted “grounded.” It had three POVs and a heaping of military strategy when everyone wanted intimate and character-driven. It was a bloody grimdark hitting every conceivable trigger warning when a lot of readers were hungry for lightness, romance, and hope. And worst of all, it had a female villain protagonist who sought power not to protect loved ones or to fight oppression but for power’s own sake–and thus was really, truly unlikeable to everyone but me. 

I decided to query my book anyway, because what did I have to lose? I left off anyone for whom my book was explicitly anti-MSWL (quite a few), but between US and UK agents, I still had a healthy list to burn.

I came prepared. I scoured r/pubtips, submitted my query to the wonderful Query Shark, and paid far too much for a manuscript assessment by a freelance editor, because I wanted an honest opinion and was worried seeking unpaid betas would take months and plunge me into social media drama. The verdict: the editor couldn’t understand why anyone would write this sort of thing, and also I needed therapy.  

But by far my most valuable investments were three, 10-minute query and sample chapter consultations with literary agents through Manuscript Academy (US) and Jericho Writers (UK). This is the best $49 you as a writer will ever spend, because it is the only time a professional in your target market will tell you exactly what you did wrong, as opposed to just hitting the reject button.

The agents I spoke to were lovely individuals who put real thought into explaining why, no matter how much I revised my query package or my manuscript as a whole, a book with this premise would never sell. Then, much more difficult, they tried to give me some guidance on what would.

Now, 10 months out, I’m at the end of the query journey for the book of my heart. I’m proud of the requests I received, and not at all surprised that they ended in silence or form rejections, given that the book only gets really controversial halfway through. I’m heartened by a few one-liners praising my prose, which I was afraid was too literary and historical for the current market. I’ve also done some thinking about what I need to do to improve my craft: tighten pacing, narrow my scope, and manage word count better as I go.

But as a thirtysomething woman (seemingly ancient for a debut), I can’t figure out for the life of me what to write next. It doesn’t help that I’m the sort of person who takes years to write one book, while most agented writers appear to have churned out a first draft every few months since age 14. Every time I come up with a new premise for a novel, I stumble over the same hurdles. Is this original? Is this “hooky?” Can I imagine one of the 15 acquiring editors in my target market actually acquiring this? Is this–above all–marketable?

I don’t want this post to sound like I feel somehow aggrieved. I’m in the same position as every other casualty of the query trenches, except that I’m privileged to have money and time and not to have to cope with the additional struggles marginalized writers face. Against reason, I still dream of getting an agent and a tradpub deal someday. But writing for the market has killed the joy of writing for me.

Image of a white woman standing in a body of water. She is wearing a white strapless dress and has auburn hair and is wielding a lightning bolt. Above is a red, angry sky, and she is about to bring it down upon the shadowed image of a small island.
Image and alt text added by Aimee, query stats redacted from the post and follow. Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay

Query Statistics as Provided by Author:

Adult second-world grimdark fantasy

Query start date: April 2022

Queries sent: 86

Partial Requests: 1 (rejected)

Full Requests: 7 (4 form rejections, 2 pending, 1 ghost)

Rejections: 58

Closed No Response (CNR): 20

How to Write (and not Write) Bi Characters

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Author’s Note: This blog might have some spicy takes in it but please note it is not a blog-sized subtweet of any particular book, genre, series, or author. I genuinely want to try and explain some things for my fellow writers so what I’m seeing so much of I can see less of, because it’s… not great. Also, remember this is not a be-all, end-all, that no marginalized person can speak for the whole, we are not a monolith, and every experience is different, especially where intersecting identities exist. Please don’t use this blog as anything more than a tool and one perspective. Please also don’t think to use it as a way to try to analyze anyone’s sexuality (i.e. you did one of the things so you must not be bi and are writing outside your lane). Don’t do this, because you don’t know. This is for writers to improve their own representations, not dissect others’ in a way to potentially hurt them. Many authors are not actively out for safety reasons, and they should not be forced out to “prove” anything.

Dear fellow authors,

Bisexual characters are not a quick and easy worldbuilding nod to the LGBTQ community at large. Please stop using them as such.

Yep. I just went there.

If you’re bisexual, you might be nodding. I hope you’re nodding. If you’re not, you might be wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Let me elaborate on this somewhat spicy take.

I have noticed recently what seems to be an uptick of what I assume are well-intentioned authors attempting to diversify their worlds by building in bisexual characters. It seems like they might think bisexual characters are easier to write than other LGBTQ characters, but they’re not. To be fair, I don’t actually know why they’re doing it. I can’t get in their heads anymore than they can get in mine, but the way I’ve seen these characters written that seems to be the most likely situation.

If you’re still lost, let me just dive in to what I’m seeing that makes my head swivel and my back tense and how to make it better, shall we?

Image of a blackboard with a chalk drawing of a boy in shorts and a tee-shirt carrying books at the bottom of a set of steps, each on reading a different word. Ascending order: Start, fair, good, very good, excellent success.
To offset some of the spicy I provide motivational images. Time to whip characters and your worldbuilding from surface level nods to allyship to an actual world that accepts bisexuals. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Bisexuals Don’t Forget They’re Bisexual

Example:

Character A (cis female presenting as hetero) says to Character B (cis male presenting as hetero and an obvious love interest) “If only I could find the prince I’m looking for.” Her eyes darted to the side, and after a beat she added, “Or princess.”

This kind of thing seems to find its way into a lot of books these days. And I think it’s well-intentioned. I think the authors writing this are intending to say to the LGBTQ community, “I am an ally and I recognize you’re here. May I present you with this character?” But the problem is that this character is not bisexual. How do I know?

Well, I wrote Character A! Ha! Jokes aside, this type of character is really just a hetero girl the author added some extra words for one time and then forgot. This kind of dialogue reads to a bisexual (or at least to this bisexual) as an insert character for the author who has forgotten the character is supposed to be bisexual and quickly adds it in. As a bisexual woman, let me tell you about how I never forget I’m bisexual despite many people in my family wishing I would. The other part of my sexuality is not really an afterthought to be casually tossed in then not mentioned for the next 400 pages.

Could it be written to imply the character is embarrassed or nervous to admit her sexuality? Absolutely, but it almost is never done in a way that suggests that because it’s like a drag and drop. Whoop, I’m bisexual in this sentence and that’s that. If your intent is to indicate some kind of embarrassment, that really should be explored more for the representation to be more than surface level. I really would recommend you get a second read from a beta or CP or sensitivity reader on any exploration of that, because as someone who has spent most of my life closeted, that embarrassment and shame is real but it is… there’s a lot going on that you can do wrong. I don’t even write it (yet).

If it’s the more common thing I think it is, and the author is trying to indicate the character is bisexual then never talk about it again, I have some news. Don’t do that. Bisexuals don’t stop being bisexual when they meet the love interest (regardless of gender). They also aren’t going to forget it. You don’t have to bang the reader over the head with a bisexual mallet or anything, references can be subtle, something as simple as the character taking notice of something attractive in the opposite gender, maybe. An off-handed comment here or there. But please spare us from the casual, “Hey, remember on page 10 when I hinted I was maybe into girls then never looked twice at another girl for the entire book except to view them as competition between me and the boy?” I just… am not going to buy that as a real bisexual character.

Cartoon image of a blue elephant holding a blue picket sign that says "Don't forget"
Don’t forget that we don’t forget. Unless we have ADHD and forget everything. KIDDING, those of us who have ADHD still don’t forget our sexuality but fun side note I’m going to briefly touch on intersectional identities later. Stay tuned. Is this blog long? Ask yourself, did I write it? Then you should know the answer already. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

We aren’t half hetero and half lesbian/gay. Bisexuality is a unique experience

Example:

Character A (cis girl explicitly stated to be bisexual and described as having a previous girlfriend) meets Character B (cis boy presenting as hetero who is the love interest). Character A, upon meeting Character B, never looks at another girl, or mentions, discusses, her bisexuality ever again.

This one is a little more spicy, I know. Especially framed this way, which is exactly why I put it this way. So let me first say that you as a human and your characters in fiction who are bisexual are always bisexual regardless of the relationship you and they are presently in. How you identify your sexuality is between you and whoever you want to know, and the same is true for your characters. In real life, I am a cisgender, bisexual woman in a monogamous relationship with a cishet man. This does not make me less bisexual.

However, if you are not a bisexual author and you are writing the narrative in the example above or something akin to it, you might not be digging deep enough. First of all, bisexuality is a spectrum. Second of all, as a bisexual woman, I am not part lesbian and part straight. When I’m with my male partner, I am not hetero, just like when I was with females I was not a lesbian. Being with one gender or the other doesn’t “turn off” some other switch in my brain. I am still attracted to women when I’m with a man, and I’m still attracted to men when I’m with a woman. I don’t ever stop noticing either.

Sometimes I think hetero authors might try to write bisexual characters as their “token” queer characters because they think “Well, I can empathize with half of this person, at least.” Which I appreciate the attempt at empathy, truly. But that isn’t how it works. It is pretty obvious to those who actually are bisexual that’s what you’re trying to do, though. Like you tried to reduce a person’s unique experience to a binary, sever it, cut out the portion you don’t understand (while paying cheap lip service to it), then focus on the portion you do.

Again, appreciate the effort to try and be inclusive, but… don’t do this. That’s not how this works. Bisexuality runs through the entirety of my life the same as everything else about me that makes me who I am. Loving my boyfriend and being devoted to him didn’t “cure” me of being attracted to women anymore than it “cured” me of my trauma or anxiety or anything else. And yes, I mean “cure” in a roll my eyes sort of way, not a real sort of way. Obviously I do not believe I or anyone else needs to be “cured” of their sexuality.

Cartoon images of many different faces on squares in the colors of the bisexual flag (Pink to purple to blue)
There are so many ways to be bisexual but none of them are by being gay or a lesbian. Image by wage212 from Pixabay

Bisexuality Isn’t Being “Open Minded”

Example:

Character A (cis male presenting as hetero) is forced into an arrangement whereby he must marry for political reasons. While there is no evidence in the text to indicate he is bisexual, he still welcomes male suitors into his court, but he never actually goes on dates with any of them, and they are hardly mentioned except to remind readers every once in awhile they’re there (and they’re men!)

This one. Oh man, this one. Okay, I know this might seem nice and logical in 2023 when we all want to be open-minded and inclusive and that’s great. And a political marriage has nothing to do with attraction or love anyway, right? So what does it matter? Well, it matters because this kind of worldbuilding implies that bisexuality is in some way a choice. Or that it can be. Which is really harmful because there are a lot of people (even in the queer community itself) who still don’t believe bisexuality is “real.” Who still are operating on the binary. One or the other. Anything else is a cry for attention or “edgy” or trying to be I dunno, “woke” or some shit. Like being bisexual is super cool and trendy, and we definitely never get persecuted by friends, family, coworkers for it. Like we definitely wanted to make a choice that makes people feel awkward around us sometimes and scares away potential partners and makes others think we’re into sexual shit we’re not. Like… oop, doing it again gonna stop.

So when we as writers world build what essentially constitutes a “choice” to be bisexual, it further solidifies the idea in people’s minds that this is some liberal nonsense that should be snuffed out and erased. And that’s… well, it’s hard.

Real talk, as someone who has experienced the shit end of this kind of harassment, who has repeatedly been told her sexuality isn’t real, or is a phase, or is “trauma-induced,” or that it’s some kind of attention-seeking behavior, I can tell you it really sucks. It makes you question yourself, your reality, your own experiences. I’ve spent a large chunk of my life closeted, feeling like I had no right to write bisexual characters, to call myself bisexual, to speak on subjects like this because of exactly this kind of thinking baked into books I love.

So here’s the thing, I can’t speak for the entirety of the queer community, but if you’re trying to world build inclusively, there are ways to do it without… this. I would rather have a hetero character courting exclusively women than a poorly crafted hetero man pretending to be open-minded enough to “choose” to be bi for political reasons. In my opinion, that’s just giving a weapon to some ignorant asshole to hurt the community you’re trying to be an ally to.

Photo of a red-painted sign against a large tree trunk. Sign reads "Eat, Drink and Be Married"
+ Be Authentically Queer (or not, no rep is better than bad rep, I said what I said). Photo by Ben Rosett on Unsplash

Avoid Common Bisexual Stereotypes

Final thing then I will stop, I swear. But, like all marginalizations, there are some common stereotypes that you should avoid if you’re trying to write an authentic bisexual character. This list isn’t exhaustive by any means, but it does contain the ones I personally see in fiction (and TV) most often:

  1. Bisexuals are cheaters. This is by far and away the most common stereotype about bisexuals you will hear bisexuals yell about. Rightfully so. The common thinking is something like because bisexual people are attracted to more genders they have more temptation. Or something. Do bisexual people cheat sometimes? Yes. Do they cheat because they’re bisexual? No. They cheat because people cheat and bisexual people are, in fact, people. Surprise! If you’re not bisexual, probably don’t write bisexual cheating, though. Like just leave that nuance to those who have had to deal with the bullshit. We got it.
  2. Bisexuals are promiscuous. Sort of related to the above, but there’s a stereotype that bisexuals will basically sleep with anyone or anything because I don’t know, they can? Which is wild, because if you’ve tried to date within the last 5-7 years you’ll know it is harder than it seems to find someone who will even swipe right on you. Subcategory, bisexuals don’t want to have auto-threesomes. Sorry. Many of us are just regular old homebody types who have enough trouble managing the one partner. There are definitely bisexual folks out there in healthy, loving polyamorous relationships, but I absolutely would not recommend tackling this unless that is your lived experience. There isn’t much in print, and it needs to be approached with nuance from several different angles that are not “sex sells.”
  3. The Evil Bisexual. For some reason I see a lot of bisexual villains. If you’re going to write a bisexual villain, please make sure you have some bisexual goodies to make up for the badies.
  4. The One Exception. Liking all women and one goofy dude who happens to be the love interest? Just… I mean does it happen? Sure. But it’s not the most common bisexual experience, and it seems overrepresented and sort of plays into that whole idea of bisexuality being a phase or a one-off weird thing on your way to hetero or lesbian. And that’s… not how it is.
  5. Not including intersectional experiences. This one is tricky, I know, but it’s absolutely crucial not to forget when crafting characters that there are intersections of identities at play everywhere. Not all bisexuals are white women. Trans and nonbinary people are not excluded from the bisexual experience. Know that there can be bisexual people who are ace or aro. I’m not going to speak to these experiences because they are not mine, but they exist and they should be recognized.
  6. Not using the word “Bisexual.” A lot of bisexuals like to see the word actually written and not used as some kind of dirty word or with shame or judgment. I… do not use the word bisexual in my fantasy writing; however, I do not use the word with intention. It’s part of my own worldbuilding which is queer normative and usually label free (and second world fantasy, not using the word bisexual would make absolutely no sense in a book set in Philadelphia in 2022).
  7. Bisexual Erasure. In case you’re thinking, “Wow, this all sounds like a lot, maybe I just won’t have bisexual characters in my book at all” I have news. Bisexual erasure is also really common (possibly because it IS difficult to accurately represent this sort of nuanced perspective), and is one of the things the bisexual community has really worked to bring awareness to in recent years. Good news is I think it’s working! People are starting to include bisexual characters in their works. Now, we just need a little more leveling up from the superficial to the fully rounded.

And here is perhaps my spiciest take of all. In my opinion, moderation is key. You don’t have to tackle it all at once. You don’t have to include in your novel a bisexual of every variation, or understand every nuanced identity intersection. That would be a lot for one book and your book should be about more than like… an encyclopedia of bis. Plus, there are other people and experiences to show and think of. The world is big and different and no one who is reasonable is expecting you to fit the entirety of the human experience into one novel. Pick and choose what you think you can write most authentically, and go for it. Don’t surface level that shit so you can check as many boxes as possible. There are a lot of us writing our own stories that deep dive into our identities. All we need from you is empathy when you write characters like us. Quality over quantity.

Questions?

I really need to work on wordcount on these blogs. But if after ALL THAT you’re still curious about writing an authentic bisexual character, please feel free to email me at aimee@aimee-davis.com and I will do my best to try and get back to you with what information I can!

Happy writing!

Xoxo,

Aimee

Not the Darling: The Querying to Quitting Pipeline

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Note from Aimee: This is the first post in a new series of blog posts I’m affectionately calling the Not the Darling series. You can read more about the concept of the series HERE. On a personal note, I am so in love with this particular post because it’s raw, real, brave, and completely encapsulates what I had envisioned when I opened this space up to querying writers. I am so proud to be able to host it here.

The Querying to Quitting Pipeline

By: Jean Levasseur (Follow Jean @jeanmlevasseur on Twitter)

I wrote my first novel when I was 19, a sophomore in college.

I’ve since apologized to those few who read it.  But I’m glad I wrote that cliché-filled vampire novel, because it taught me that I could write a whole book.  

Over the next twenty years, I’ve written six more, and actually queried the last three.  

The first novel I queried I was so excited about.  I’d written it as my graduate thesis project, and my professors and readers all loved it.  It was a science fiction novel set in a distant star system with all the things I love – religion behaving badly, people betraying one another, and cool fight scenes in zero gravity.  

I queried that one to about twenty agents over a year, and received mostly no response. After reading it to see what I could do to make it more appealing, I realized it was missing interesting characters and a coherent plot, so I shelved it.  I wasn’t that upset, because I knew I could do better.

I’d already gotten excited about another novel. 

This one was a fantasy novel about a supernatural assassin and master of disguise who could hear the literal voice of Justice and was empowered to act on that voice, serving as judge, jury, and executioner. This was a story about someone losing faith in the face of people using false Justice to grab power, even though Justice was literally a known variable.  

I queried that one to about 100 agents. Had a lot of compliments from critique partners and beta readers.  Even had 2 partial requests and a full.  And 100 rejections, plus the rejections from the various mentorship programs I applied to.  

So I shelved that one. I’d already gotten excited about another novel.  

This one was based on one of my wife’s favorite short stories that I’d ever written. It was about what happened when the Chosen One failed and died, and her father was asked to take up her mantle, but refused.  What would it be like to hate the person that your child had become by achieving every honor that your society had to offer, while being racked with guilt and grief at her death?  Plus, it had demons, so that’s always neat.  

137 agents this time.  One full request, one partial.  All rejections, plus the rejections from the various mentorship programs I applied to again.  

That one almost broke me.  I stopped writing anything but the occasional short story for nine months. But I missed writing. So I decided I was trying too hard to produce something great, and maybe I just needed to write something fun.  After all, this is supposed to be fun, right?  

I’d fallen in love with the idea of writing a western where cowboys ride dragons. I was going to fill it with all the best tropes from all the westerns that I love so much. Waterfalls and caves and single combat and chases through the wilderness and farmers on the frontier and the conflict between encroaching “progress and civilization” and the appeal of the wild.  It was supposed to be a self-gratifying exercise in pure fun for myself.  

I hated almost every moment of writing it.  

And when I finished and read it back a month later, I hated almost every moment of reading it, to the point that I shelved it without editing because I couldn’t find a worthwhile thread to even base my editing from.  

It’s been three months and I haven’t written any fiction since. When I took months off after my previous novel, I never really thought I’d quit, even though I debated it.  This time, I don’t really think I’ll start up again, even though I’m debating it.  

Hundreds of queries have said to me that I don’t write the kinds of books that the traditional industry is interested in.  

So self publish, I can hear you saying.  

I can.  I actually have a background in marketing and am married to a designer. Between the two of us, we have the skills required to do 80% of self publishing ourselves.  And we are lucky enough to have the savings to pay someone to do that other 20%, as well as support some small marketing and advertising efforts.  We have the resources and knowledge needed to succeed.  

What I don’t have is enough belief in any of these stories to be willing to invest that much time and money into them.  So I’m not going to.  

And if I’m not going to be traditionally published, or self published, then what’s the point? 

People say to write for yourself first, and I don’t necessarily disagree.  But I’ve always written with an aim of getting these stories in front of readers. Even when I was writing stories for school, I was always consciously writing them for my teacher. I can tell myself the stories in my head without writing them down, and without going through the effort and agony of editing over and over.  If I’m not going to ever have readers, why bother with all that?  

Michael Mammay wrote a great blog post about how it’s OK to give up, which is the opposite of most advice given in the writing community. But I found that permission so helpful. Anytime you say that you’re thinking about quitting, the number one thing you hear is to never give up, and how your agent could be just one query or one novel away.  But the math says otherwise. For the vast majority of us, there is no agent around the corner, no publishing deal on the horizon, and no standout self published novel just waiting for you to design a cover and press publish.  

And I’m pretty sure that I’m one of the majority of us, not the minority.  

I think it’s time to give up. And even though the idea of giving up makes me sad, and my brain keeps coming up with “but what if” scenarios, I haven’t missed writing over the past few months.  If another twenty years of failure and rejection is what’s coming if I keep pursuing the dream, then I’m not sure I want it anymore.

Bio: Jean is a stay-at-home dad, freelance writer, and woodworker. Follow him on Twitter @jeanmlevasseur

Seeking Stories: Not the Darlings

Published on by aimeedavisauthor4 Comments

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I have sort of created a Brand™ around being transparent about how writing failures have affected me, usually in long threads that should be blogs. They weren’t blogs because in 2019 I shut this website down due to, well, a perceived failure.

I have always written about failure, even before anyone knew me for being that writer who writes about failure. I just didn’t have a platform then. Weirdly, I didn’t have a platform to talk about failure until I succeeded. The four times I didn’t get into #PitchWars no one paid me any attention, then I got in and talked about all the times before when I hadn’t, and people started listening. All the posts I wrote on this very blog about how I was getting nowhere with querying went mostly unread until I finally got my agent when THAT post was shared dozens of times and read by thousands of people.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful that people are listening, and that I have this platform to talk about rejection and failure and how hard this whole publishing thing is, but I still feel the voices we need to hear most are ones who are not yet successful.

Why?

Because regardless how long you’ve been at this, when you DO finally get there, it’s nearly impossible not to see all the struggle through a rose-colored lens. It’s hard for me, even now, not to look back on the past two decades of pain and loss and fatigue and failure and not think well… but I’m here now. And I learned so much. And built so much character. And maybe it’s for the best because maybe then I wasn’t ready for all the different reasons one isn’t ready. And maybe the advice that the only way to TRULY fail is to quit isn’t wrong and everyone does get their happily ever after as long as they keep trying. Toxic positivity is a hell of a drug, y’all.

Some of this might be true, by the way. A lot of it, even. It can also be true that when you’re in the middle of querying despair this is about as helpful as “Just keep going, pal!!”

Yellow emoji smiling while brandishing a thumbs up.
Image by Christian Dorn from Pixabay

What might be more helpful is hearing real stories from real people in the thick of it just like you. People who don’t have Cinderella stories. People who are struggling. Who might need you to read their words as badly as you need to know you’re not alone. People you can connect with.

That’s what I needed for many, many years before I found success. Before I found my yes. But I had no platform. That’s the terrible cycle of this thing.

So, I’m here to loan people mine.

The Premise

You, querying author who wants a place to tell your very own querying journey story, will submit it to me via email. In the email, you’ll give me some basic information about you, the book you’re querying, how long you’ve been querying, and if you wish to remain anonymous, use a penname, want accreditation, whatever. I’ll read the post, make sure it follows the rules below, edit for anything minor grammatically or to shorten if necessary, let you review the edits, and if you’re okay with them, I’ll post your story on my blog and Twitter. This will give you a space to connect with other writers in your position (if you want) or at least have your story out there (if you don’t). It will also give other writers a place to read stories like theirs so THEY feel less alone in this hardest of querying things.

The Rules

  1. No bad behavior directed toward agents, editors, publishers, or other industry professionals of ANY kind. This is intended to be a place to talk about the journey, not to rage against industry professionals. Please keep it professional, or I won’t be able to accept your submission.
  2. This is a space for folks to talk about their struggles with traditional publishing only. Please no submissions related to self-publishing.
  3. No submissions that are racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist, xenophobic, ageist, or intolerant of any marginalized group will be tolerated. This is intended to be a safe space for all.
  4. This is for authors who ARE NOT AGENTED only. If you’ve self-published or published with a small press but are actively querying for an agent, you’re absolutely welcome!
  5. Please make sure to include all appropriate trigger and content warnings (and understand I might add some). Special note re: Query Statistics: Many of the submissions received have included query statistics for obvious reasons. Some folks reading are sensitive to query statistics. If you’re including query stats in your submission, that’s totally fine, but please include a CW regarding that or understand I’ll add one. Also optional but not mandatory consideration would be to put the query stats at the end (if possible) so they can be easily avoided or include in the email to me a link including the stats (such as a Twitter thread, a blog post on your own blog, etc.). Again, not mandatory but a consideration!
  6. No one-size-fits-all advice! As we all know by now, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to query, so if you have a tip to share, please make sure not to frame it as a universal. Tips (especially ones that are helping your mental health and might help others) are absolutely welcome, just not framed as This is the One True Path, please!
  7. If you’re providing images please make sure they’re freely sourced, public domain, or you’ve been given permission to use them, and you provide appropriate credit/links, etc. We’re all artists, let’s not infringe on one another’s intellectual property. Also, alt text for accessibility is highly encouraged.
  8. I try to publish 1 to 2 stories per week, usually on Mondays and Thursdays at 9:00 a.m. EST. If for whatever reason I get inundated, I’ll announce on my blog and Twitter that submissions are closing so everyone has a fair chance to have their story heard. That means this will be first come first serve (as long as you follow the rules).
  9. Please try to keep your posts under 2,500 words where possible.
  10. Be kind!!! To everyone but also me, heh. I work full time and am going to do my best to facilitate this in my small spare time so if I run behind, sorry!
  11. I reserve the right to modify and/or add to this list as situations pop up, so I can preserve the integrity of the premise.

The Format

Interested in submitting? Woot!

First thing’s first! CALL ME AIMEE! My pronouns are she/her! Yo what’s up Aimee or Hi or Aimee is fine! Please don’t worry about making this highly formal. What follows sounds a lot like querying because I don’t want things to go to spam and I like to categorize them and I want to make sure they don’t get missed in my inbox, etc. but THIS IS NOT A QUERY! Do not stress on the greeting or the format of the email. Tell me as much or as little about you, your book, your stats, your life, (your cats!), why you’re writing this, as you feel comfortable telling me. I’m super weird and awkward, I guarantee you I want to be your friend.

Now that’s out of the way…

Please send me an email to aimee@aimee-davis.com with the subject line SUBMISSION: [Name of your blog post]

In the body of the email, please include any biographical information you’d like to include with the blog (or, if you’d like the blog to be kept anonymous, please specifically so indicate). Please also include any basic information about the book you’re querying or general info about your age group and genre. Don’t include anything you wouldn’t want included on the internet! So if you’re cool with a logline that you’d put up in a Twitter pitch event and want me to preface the blog with that, send it my way. If you’re not, please don’t feel obligated to do so, this is all about YOUR comfort.

Also in the body of the email, NOT as an attachment, please include the text of the blog you’re submitting for consideration (bearing in mind the above rules).

And Then…

The last thing you want when you’re querying is more querying. Again, please do not think of this as querying. I am not gatekeeping, I’m content moderating only. I’m not judging your posts based on anything other than the above rules and possibly my time if I have to close submissions which I’ll be transparent about. So when I’ve received your post, I’ll email you back as soon as I can letting you know I have it, and I’ll review it and be back with you shortly. If you’ve followed the rules, I’ll send you whatever edits I might have for your consideration, then let you know when your submission will post based on how many others I’ve received ahead of you!

When it’s your day, please feel free to share wherever and however! I’ll categorize all of these posts under the blog as Not the Darling and on Twitter as #NottheDarling so your post will be called NOT THE DARLING: [Title of your blog].

If for whatever reason I can’t accept your submission because I feel it’s breaking one of the rules or it is hitting a note that I think might hurt someone on the other side of the screen (or YOU, remember publishing is small), then I’ll tell you why that is and give you an opportunity to revise and resubmit if you want. Or not. Totally up to you. But IF I send something back please know I really just want this space to be welcoming and kind to everyone, including you, and I don’t want anything to go up on the internet anyone regrets later.

Questions?

Still have questions? Concerns? Please feel free to email me, hit me up in the comments, or message me on Twitter!

Can’t wait to hear from you!

Xoxo,

Aimee