Yes, this is a blog post of random agent thoughts.
A few weeks after my father’s heart stopped beating for the last time, we discovered among his office files a three-ring binder labeled “497 Random Thoughts.” Over the course of 35 years of teaching music, particularly to middle school students, he’d kept a journal of one- or two-sentence thoughts as they came to him. Most were related to educating young people, or notes for aspiring band directors, but many were simply life lessons. One of those thoughts we five siblings–also his students–recall is his oft-repeated, “Right or wrong, blow it strong!” In other words, “Commit. Let me hear it. I can’t correct it if the sound dies in your mouthpiece or reed.”
Dad’s random thoughts were brilliance. And they gave me new perspective on the value of random.
As a literary agent, I kept a list this week of some of the random thoughts and questions an agent might think or ask or hear in a day. Perhaps it will give you a peek into life on the other side of the queries or proposals you send. One random thought came from a reader.
Imagine what it meant to me as an agent (and author) to hear a medical professional look me in the eyes and say:
“I love reading so much, I regularly sell my plasma to get money to buy books.”
Who could argue with that wisdom? It was a day-maker statement. Now, that’s a devoted reader!
Interestingly, maybe only to me, my dad would have likely said the same thing. Another treasured family memory is watching Dad read dictionaries and encyclopedias (remember them?) for fun. Just to learn.
My own randomness this week? Other than “What can I make for dinner that takes no time but makes it look like I’ve been studying cookbooks?”
“I should listen to this author’s podcast to figure out how to pronounce her name.”
When an agent is interested in a potential client, she’ll dig deep. How long has it been since the author added something new to their list of blog posts? How are people responding to social media postings? Conversationally or with simple “like” politeness. Is the author engaging the audience in discussion and building relationships? How often are people sharing the post or reel with others because they see the value? We watch for how the author’s personality, mental and emotional health, and attitude show up in public. And more often than you’d imagine, we search for how to pronounce the name.
(When considering a proposal) “How far am I going to have to trace back to find out who wrote this?”
You’d be amazed at how many authors work hard to create a good proposal but don’t put their name on their work. Oh, it may be on the first page with the title. But not always. It’s not in the Word doc file label. It’s not (as is not only appropriate but welcomed) in a header at the top of each page, along with the title of the work and the page number. This is not to fault anyone, but to help authors have the best advantage when they query, send a proposal, or send a sample chapter: Please label your work clearly. If your document is labeled “Proposal for Cynthia draft 3,” it has left out all the information I really need. Get in the habit of saving the file with the day’s date, your name, the title of your proposal and perhaps even its category (historical romance/thriller/devotional…). Yes, even the category. Sometimes, it’s not obvious in the writing, or it’s a mismatch, which then offers us an opportunity to help the author fine-tune. (Notice how I worked in another reference to my beloved father?)
(When watching for believability in a manuscript) “Would characters really use a term like that in 1503?”
I have to know. So the random agent thought leads to a tangent of searching etymology and word usage, and digging farther than AI’s auto-answer. It’s not just FOMO, it’s related to lifelong learning (I highly recommend it as youthfulness tonic) and a desire to serve the author.
(When examining a proposal’s brief description) “Doesn’t that word mean something entirely different to a Gen Z-er that it would to a Boomer?”
Words matter. “It’ll be fine. No one will notice” is almost never the best approach in the publishing world. Choosing the right word might mean the difference between reaching your reader or offending your reader. It might reveal to an editor that the author isn’t as well informed about their target audience as they might think. Another random agent thought this week was, “I was so naive then.” We all start out there–not knowing what we don’t know. Savvy authors stay abreast of what’s happening beyond the walls of their writing cave.
Another Random Agent Thought: “I wonder what our Books & Such blog readers wish we would address. What would they like to know?”
We really do pay attention to comments on these blogs. But this is also your invitation to ask questions about topics you know other authors would appreciate knowing too. It may seem like a random question, but unless you have a two-inch thick three-ring binder of them, you have a ways to go before you bypass my dad’s collection of them.
Some of my Favorite Fiction Techniques
Oh, Cynthia. I’m so sorry you lost your Dad! He sounds like such a gift to you and your siblings. I lost my dad when I was 14 and sometimes pause to wonder what he would have thought of my husband, my 3 sons, my life at the Bible camp he loved, and my writing. There is no good time to lose a parent, though. Even if he knew all of those things about me, I know the loss would have still been devestating.
I adore his list of thoughts! What a special piece of him to hold close. I wrote down quotes my sons said as they grew up, in fact, I still do! They have started jotting down funny quotes on their phones when they hear something rediculous or fun.
I would love it if each of you did the occasional post where you went through your submissions for a day or week. Not in such a detailed way that we could recognize our own rejected manuscripts but detailed enough to be helpful. I had 10 manuscripts. One was written by a beginner, three were bland, four were so close but their small platform cooled my ardur, one was absolutely perfect but in a genre I don’t represent, and one sent me dancing. Something like that!
May you feel the Lord close as you grieve, Cynthia.
Kristen, he lived every day ready to meet Jesus. And even though rarely a day goes by that we his kids don’t think about him and his influence, it’s now been 32 years we’ve had to live without him. Now, that’s legacy! So our grief isn’t fresh. Yet it is still a very human loss. So thank you for your kind words.
I like your ideas. You have captured many of the things we agents experience each week. Keep following here on the blog and our Instagram to discover other reasons we didn’t want to but had to say no.
I can’t wait to read!
I hit my head a week ago,
and everything has changed.
Where once there was poetic flow,
now everything’s deranged.
Random thoughts and random words
now must be lassoed
and with effort pointed towards
a line that must be toed
to produce a thing that I
can look upon with pride,
but still the words on storm-winds fly,
and something may have died
within my life, within my heart,
the thought I may yet play this part.
Andrew, I personally marvel that after hitting your head, you could produce such coherent and rich words! We care about your pain, and are grateful for your STILL poetic voice.
I always look forward to Books and Such blog posts. Cynthia, your Dad’s words are inspiring me this morning. Now I want to read his other 496 thoughts. He must have been very wise. (I mean, even Luther only had like 95.)
Before the day’s over, I’m going on a hunt for where I put that binder of random thoughts!
Random thought: Now seems like a good time to stop and pray for my clients! (Random but then again…)
Thanks, I too have a file called Just a “Thought”. When I don’t want to put something out in the world, I put it there. It has saved me many mistakes of hurting someone over something minor. The file contains happy things, how the world has pushed me, the angry rants, life’s disappointments, and how much someone’s words words touched my heart.
Everyone’s anger coming across in social media is going to be regretful unless the person has no conscious.
Last week I put up “YOU ARE WHAT YOU POST”. It’s funny the two people I’d hoped would see it never liked it. That’s as far as I go on FB. I wonder if people ever think about how their brilliant posts effects maybe their closest friend? They’ll never see the hurt or disappointment in their friend’s eyes, but maybe that’s why they do it there. They get to say it there because they’d never have the spine to say it to their face. Who cares about other’s feelings.
After reading your article, maybe I won’t even put negative things in my file, maybe I’ll keep it positive just in case.
Sincerely,
Rolana Mierzwa
Oh, Rolana, thanks for being so vulnerable! We all need a place to “dump” our negative thoughts too. But here’s an idea, in light of your thoughts about someone else seeing your “Just a Thought” file someday in the future. Imagine how beneficial it might be to someone to see how you approach some things that once prompted a “thought” about fear that you’ve now conquered, or an angry moment that you now have a different perspective about, or a broken relationship or grave disappointment that you years later came to understand as important or a hurdle to be overcome rather than a cement wall. 🙂 And that was…just a thought. 🙂
I write in my journal almost every day — occasional words of wisdom bookended by reminders, confessions, to-do lists and thoughts I’d rather no one but God sees. A binder containing my better thoughts? What a great concept! Thank you, Cynthia (thank you, Cynthia’s dad).
Shirlee, you always offer a wonderful perspective.
Love the idea of collecting the random thoughts all in one place–for my own use, and also for readers / my children!
Then we could all make “Randomizers,” Tracie, and pick a thought of the day to revisit! Is there a random QUESTION of the day that you’d like to ask an agent?
How to brainstorm, select, and fine-tune / deepen a topic idea for a “signature talk”?
Four Random Questlings…
1. Your Dad and I share something sweet in common — we were both music teachers!
2. Aleisha Cate gulps nervously before daring to ask Questling Four.
3. Now, I really am starting a Random Thoughts file. (It’ll sort of be like my “Forty Before Forty”… but way more random and less organized.) If Pooh Bear can capitalize nouns, then surely I can too. If I dig in the bowels of my computer, I think there’s something similar waiting for me!
4. Wondering out loud here… when you follow a new author, what kind of numbers catch your eye on their social media? Follower count? Post engagement? Email list? Or honestly—what matters to you?
Aleisha, great questions. We’ll be answering all of these questions soon! Stay tuned!
Thank you!
Thought-provoking inspiration for a windy day in Iowa. As I marvel at why and how God moves air like He is touching our need to slow down and breathe, I imagine if I placed one more idea into such a notebook, that I might be able to pick up my journaling habit again. Question #143: How do you not tire of the mundane parts of publishing and writing such as SEO or keeping your accounting books tidy? Another question, (and now they are rolling in.) When do you say about your project, “this is good enough” to say “the end” and lay it in Jesus’ hands, or perhaps an agent’s hands? And the most important question today, unnumbered: How do you know when your work touches another’s heart, even though it might touch mine, I am forever questioning if something resonates with others. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful writer’s gift in a bottle to give a friend?
Great thoughts! Name an occupation or even a hobby that doesn’t have its mundane parts. 🙂 That’s not a challenge. It’s just truth. I was trying to imagine one. It’s either danger or mundane or repetitive or brain-wearying or body-wearying or emotionally-wearing… Some occupations and pursuits have longer spurts of joy and fewer stretches of the mundane or tedious. How do we cope? Sometimes there’s no other way than slogging through. But we can also invent coping mechanisms, like playing great music while I clean the bathroom or watching for photo moments while picking up deadfall branches after a storm. Your ideas? Oh, and keeping an eye open for teachable moments–our own learning. SEO video class? Guess what else I learned!
hi
Cynthia,
Sorry to hear about your father’s passing. You have my dearest sympathies.
After reading your tips, I have a question for you.
I’m discovering that even less than a hundred years ago, there were instances when people formed or structured their sentences slightly different than we do today. If a writer is aiming for accuracy and uses the old structures in a character’s dialog, it can sound or look odd. Does the publishing industry favor this type of accuracy over what would sound correct to a reader?
Thanks for your insight.
Thank you, Chuck. Dad’s Homegoing was many years ago now. But it’s lovely when someone expresses that they care he’s gone from our presence.
You’re right in saying that what we read on the page even in the mid-20th century is different than what we’re seeing today. Today’s readers, for a number of reasons, prefer shorter paragraphs rather than longer, generally speaking. But that’s not all bad. They eye gets very weary reading lengthy paragraphs. No place for the eye or mind to rest. And great material often gets buried in the middle of an extra-long paragraph. If there’s NOT a natural spot in a long paragraph to begin a NEW paragraph, there actually should be.
Even though some wrote with a poetic style that might have incorporated a single word or single phrase sentence in ages past, it’s much more prevalent now, for emphasis. Every. Word. Counts. (Too much of that, by the way, can be irritating and point to itself as a technique rather than the keep the story or premise flowing.)
We’ve ditched the concept of beginning sentences with a pensive “Well/Oh/Now/So/Lemme see…” If we write strong, the reader assumes a pensive moment, especially if we include an action beat that offers it. Stanley twisted his oil-stained hat in his equally oil-stained hands. “You’ll find it under the willow that looks like it’s been tryin’ too hard too long.” (That’s so much more powerful than a simple, “Well, you’ll find it under…”
Well/oh/now/so really were filler words, like the ever-popular “you know.”
Writing for publication is different from writing for a thesis paper, term paper, or even journalism. Distinct differences in style. (That wasn’t even a complete sentence, but the reader assumes the “They have” that was unspoken in that previous sentence.)
Punctuation has changed over the years too. Especially for writers who have been paying attention. Semi-colons are still useful, but far more infrequently than we learned in college and far less frequently than a hundred years ago. Shorter sentences are preferred. Semi-colons almost never show up in fiction these days. Colons are also losing their popularity. Still useful, but not often.
It has a lot to do with reader psychology. How are readers moving their eyes across the page? What do shortened attention spans mean for keeping a reader’s attention? Will a reader even start a book that looks text-heavy on the page? With all the information vying for reader attention, with readers used to grasping tidbits of thought as they scroll, how does that change what we writers do to communicate effectively with them.
Some would say, “Stick to our guns! If we learned sentence structure this way in high school and it was good enough for The Count of Monte Cristo, it’s good enough for today.” But what that misses is the reader. We CAN stick to now outdated methods of expression, but what then will the reader be tasked with wading through?
We’re not dumbing down writing, but making sure it stays accessible for the reader.
Dialogue in an historical novel will have a hint of the era’s way of speaking. But even it will be tempered.
Accuracy and old structures in a character’s dialogue may be just what’s needed depending on the era, but not an overload of it or the reader can get lost in the maze. (There’s a reason Beowolf was hard to read in high school, so hard that we needed a glossary of terms by our side.)
Great question, though. And one more tidbit. If your character lives in a small village in the 1500s, the commoner would not say, “It’s 4:55 now. Let’s meet at 5:30 at the stone well.” The commoner would not have owned a watch or likely even had access to a clock. They didn’t measure time like we do now. But if the character is living in 2025, they might not even refer to a watch, since some have abandoned wearing on in favor of checking the time on their phone.
This is the work of writing–wrestling through how to communicate in the best way possible (not necessarily the formulaic or textbook way) that is also true to the era and education level of both the characters and the reader.
Thanks so much for that incredible insight, I’ll be using it. Much appreciated.