A memorable time of my life: On writing books

Saturday, June 4, 2011

On writing books

" I love books. My late father Donald, who taught Wordsworth and Melville to inner-city kids for decades, used to read Ulysses to me while he carried me on his shoulders. Perhaps it was inevitable that I grew up to be a writer. Now, after years of investigative reporting for Wired and other magazines, I’m finally writing a book of my own" (Steve Silberman).

Check out tips from 23 different authors

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Agent Pet Peeves

*Queries with lots of big paragraphs or tiny font

*An email asking about how to submit
a query

*Use a generic greeting (To Whom It May Concern or my favorite, Dear Sirs) or address it to the wrong name.

*A Lack of Professionalism,

*Saying "God told me to write this"

*Anything cliché such as ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ will turn me off. I hate when a narrator or author addresses the reader e.g., 'Gentle reader'

*Too casual, too colloquial, too cute and anything else that tries too hard to "stand out."

*Manuscripts that open with a line of dialogue (esp. one with an exclamation point) and those whose opening line “dumps” exposition.

*Clichés in plot summary—Argh. These are way more common than you’d think: "thought she had it all," "will stop at nothing," "must risk everything"— Beware.