Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Have you ever thought about using an intern? Yes, you. Interns can help you to accomplish tasks that have weighed you down every time you thought about them. And interns can attack those tasks with a vigor that only innate curiosity, youthful exuberance, and lack of knowledge of limitations can bring.
Take these examples from my experiences with interns:
The intern and the Sumo wrestler
A Scripps College junior, Olivia seems like a champion Sumo wrestler to me. You see, I hired her as an intern to help Wendy and me put together our book, The Inside Scoop: Two Agents Dish on Getting Published.
About three years ago, Wendy and I spent a week (which was supposed to be a vacation) constructing the outline for the book and deciding what topics should fit in which section. By the week’s end, we realized the task before us was daunting–so daunting that we set the project aside.
Intern #1 and the Sumo wrestler
Until that is, a Smith College student asked me if she could intern at our agency one summer. At first I couldn’t imagine which of our complicated tasks I could assign to an intern. Then, as I was talking to my client and dear friend, Robin Jones Gunn, she asked if we had some sort of big project we never seemed to get to. The Inside Scoop popped up as an obvious choice.
So I asked Ms. Smith College to take the writing Wendy and I had already done and place the material within the book’s sections. She set up a grid and set out with vim to accomplish the task. With strong interests in both English and math, she approached the thousands of pages of material–Wendy and I had accumulated a lot of verbiage to fit into the book over our years as literary agents–like a Sumo wrestler would maneuver around a competitor.
As summer waned, so did her belief that she could wrestle the overweight manuscript to the ground. She departed back to Smith having ordered about half of the material. While I was thankful for the heaving of the giant blob into some sort of shape, the heft of the manuscript loomed as large as the Oxford English Dictionary in my mind.
Intern #2 steps into the ring
Then, in 2016, Olivia, a sophomore at Scripps College, approached me about working as an intern to help me finish The Inside Scoop despite her taking a full-course load and interning for a pair of women bloggers who needed her to interview subjects for future blog posts. Olivia had recently completed a summer internship with Books & Such, helping Wendy and me to put together our Writing and Publishing Seminars for Scripps.
I knew she was undaunted by any task I gave her, but I warned Olivia that this Sumo wrestler could be more than she could handle,especially in light of her already packed schedule. I mentioned that it would probably take her three to four months of intense work to manhandle this wrestler.
She just looked puzzled. She couldn’t imagine the job being obese yet lithe enough to escape her grasp.
Two weeks after I sent her off with our jumbled material, Olivia mailed it back to me–in a sensible order and thinned down to 50,000 words.
It was like sending an overweight food junkie to a health spa, and then Ms. Loves to Eat returns in a few days fit and svelte.
From the fattest book to a sensible book
Having transformed The Inside Scoop from The World’s Fattest Book, I then asked Olivia to read through the manuscript and make comments on every part that didn’t make sense to her or that she thought we had assumed too much knowledge from our readers.
Soon the manuscript was back with plenty of questions: “Why would this solve the problem?” “But what makes this a negative part of a contract; it seems like a good thing.” “I don’t think a new writer would get why this is important.” “I don’t understand what you’re even talking about.”
So Wendy and I rolled up our sleeves, tightened our athletic shoelaces, and added more examples, updated examples, filled in holes we hadn’t even known existed, and generally remodeled the manuscript. Thus The Inside Scoop came into existence. Well, was ready to go through book production processes…
What an intern can do for you
Interns aren’t just of benefit to literary agencies, publishing houses, publicity firms, and other business entities. Authors can utilize interns as well. Ask yourself, What task do I wish I could turn over to someone else? (Besides writing your manuscript!)
Here are a few possibilities:
- Research specific topics. As students, interns are great at research and are excellent at citing sources. Trust me, they won’t let you get away with using Wikipedia.
- Help in obtaining permissions and releases.
- Reading material and giving feedback. College students have amazing insights.
- Filing. Ugh.
- Organizing some part of your work–or even your office.
- Writing material to use in social media and scheduling the material. Don’t forget to liberally add personal posts that only you can write.
- Creating memes from quotes in your books or from short excerpts from book reviews.
- Reading your fan mail and organizing it in a way that helps you to respond quickly. No, don’t ask them to answer your fan mail; stay in tune with your readers.
- Taking material you wrote long ago and repurposing it into something new.
Common questions about interns
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Do you have to pay an intern?
Some interns don’t ask to be paid; they just want the chance to glimpse what your professional life is like and to be able to add real-job experience to their newborn resumes. Note: Paid vs. unpaid has lots of controversy surrounding the issue since many businesses could afford to pay interns but choose not to. Let you conscience by your guide and make sure that, paid or un-, you are giving interns tasks that add to their knowledge base and that expand their understanding of how an author interfaces with the publishing and reading worlds.
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Where do I find an intern?
Contacting the Career Development Department of a local junior college, college, or university is a great place to start looking. Or you might be aware of a college student at your church who has expressed interest in what you do as a career option for him or her.
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How do I know if this student will work out well?
Be clear about what the job will entail. Don’t glamorize the job description. Speaking thereof, write out a job description to be sure communication is clear about the types of tasks the student will undertake. Have an interview with the student, and ask why the collegiate thinks he or she has the right attributes to undertake the job.
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Are you ready to be a boss and a mentor?
While you’re bringing the intern into your writing life to help you out, make sure you’re ready to take the time to provide the necessary direction, feedback, and encouragement for the experience to be of benefit to the student. And know that, if necessary, you will need to be prepared to fire your (free) intern. If the situation goes south, it’s for a limited time, and you might not need to let the person go because he or she is helping you–just not as much as you had hoped.
But be prepared, before you even sign up the intern, to release the person from the internship early if circumstances warrant it. Don’t allow both of you to continue to the expected end date if you’re both miserable, or if the student loses interest. (A possible firing is a good argument not to take on your cousin’s daughter, your pastor’s son, or the neighbor’s child–firing isn’t an option in these cases without potentially straining relationships important to everyone involved.)
Surprise benefits
You never know just where an internship will lead. Rachel Kent started working in our office as a summer intern while she was attending UC Davis and majoring in English. She came to the internship at Books & Such thinking she wanted to be an editor. But by the time she graduated from Davis, I couldn’t bear the thought of missing out on her valuable insights on manuscripts, proposals, and queries. So Rachel went from intern to university graduate to associate literary agent with nary a bump in her career path. And I’ve never been able to imagine not having her as part of Books & Such since.
What jobs would you like to give to an intern? What other questions do you have about internships?
Authors: Have you thought about using an intern? Here’s the scoop. Click to tweet.
Interns can help authors, not just businesses. Click to tweet.
Interesting post, Janet, and I’m sure you’ve got a lot of people thinking.
* I wouldn’t use an intern because ‘thinking for two’ in a mentoring role would just take too much energy, under the circumstances. Setting out a task list and giving the guidance as to how those tasks should be accomplished can take more time and thought than simply doing them oneself (and this doesn’t include reviewing and correcting, where needed).
* There are a couple of caveats that may be worth thinking about:
1) If the intern will be working on your premises (house or office), check your insurance to make sure he or she is properly covered in case of accident.
2) There are a number of companies that will run a background check; do this, in addition to checking references.
3) Don’t retain an opposite-sex intern. If the professional relationship goes south, you could be in for a nightmarish ride.
The advice on doing a background check comes from personal experience; when in graduate school I tried to mentor a chap who was beaucoup dien cai dau, and when he turned up at my house, armed and incoherent, I had to deal with him in a more forthright manner than I would have wished (yes, he lived).
A further suggestion – an intern working with your unpublished material, or any unpublished material you’ve borrowed for use in research (such as journals, diaries) should probably be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement In the first case, your material, it can help prevent your ideas finding another home, and in the second, careless handling of material you’ve been asked to hold close damages YOUR reputation. “The intern did it!” is not a generally respected excuse.
These are excellent suggestions, Andrew. Although some students have approached me about interning virtually. Depending on the tasks you plan to assign, this might work. It has down sides, but not having the intern onsite, when you’re working out of your house, as down sides as well.
Good points. I’d also make sure there was a formal contract.
Also, on paid vs. unpaid: depending on where you live, there may be legislation that means you can’t hire an unpaid intern.
My son served an unpaid internship evaluating movie scripts (they used an interesting numerical rating system). He was exposed to lots of “what not to do.” Unlike Olivia, who was deep into “how to do it right” (thank you, Olivia, for your part in getting this book into my hands).
* At this stage of my writing career, I’d rather have someone to do the dusting and laundry than an intern to help with the book. Maybe someday, I’ll have one of each!
Certainly there’s lots to be said for someone who helps you to maintain your house, freeing you up to be a productive writer.
Isn’t there a verse that says “Train up an intern in the way she should go”? Maybe I’ve go the wrong translation…anyway, how many dozen cinnamon buns, Fedexed right now, do you want to train mine?
My housecleaner earned a degree in English while working for me. She is well read and good at analysis, so in addition to her cleaning tasks, she served as an intern with writing jobs.
Leah did some of the analysis of My Utmost for His Highest for me, read the manuscript and discussed it with me as I wrote it, wrote some tweets, fixed photos and was an all around great assistant. I paid her more for the writing-related work (which was a business deduction) than for housecleaning and you can guess which job she preferred. 🙂
That’s a dual-purpose sort of intern!
One real advantage of having an intern is how much one can learn about the infrastructure of one’s own craft. The key is in defining the job.
* Consider research – if you give an intern a task list, he or she will be much happier than being handed a general portfolio.
* As an example, consider “The Shepherd’s Crook”, a putative 1930s thriller about a preacher who teams up with a notorious gangster to rob the Kansas City banks that foreclosed on his parishioners’ farms. But the haul is much different from what was expected; when in breaking the eighth and then the sixth commandments, both men find that they need one another’s faith and character to step onto the road of repentance. (Yes, this is part of the ‘Road To Repentance’ series, and the next title will be “The Jesus High”, about a missionary who drifts into the 1980s cocaine trade when he sees no other way to protect his people.)
* Some research question might include:
– What banks were active in KC during that time period? How much money could a robbery be expected to net?
– What kind of vault were in use? How would the doors be breached if they were not opened by coercion? Would the robbers have time to ‘clear out’ the vault, or would it have been not worth the risk?
– How many employees and customers could be expected to be in a typical target bank? What percentage of citizens in KC went armed, and might be expected to shoot back? What about guards? How many might be expected, and what experience might they have to enable them to take action?
– What would the police response time be? How would the alarm have been raised? Were silent alarms in use?
– How might urban traffic flow interfere with the getaway? Were streetcars in use, and what were their lines? Did they specifically cause traffic problems?
– How did local law enforcement coordinate with the FBI at the time? What sort of forensic techniques were in use, and what was the command structures of each agency? What kind of experience and seniority would be required to take charge of an investigation?
– What were the likely roots of a midwestern gangster? Would he have been likely to have any Christian background?
– How did pastors see their faith in those days? hat kind of casuistry might lead a man of the cloth to turn to crime in defending his flock?
* See? In defining the tasks for an intern I’ve really helped myself in defining the project. This would include a sub-plot that suggests itself:
– The lead FBI investigator (oh, was ‘lead investigator’ a term in use then?) is a Catholic working in a predominantly Protestant setting; he serves two hierarchical organizations, as it were.How will hunting down a Protestant pastor affect his faith walk?
Sorry for the typos. Hope that it scanned clear enough for those who read the above.
Oh, very well. other titles in the mythical Road To Repentance series are:
* “No Tears For Zion”, about an American arms dealer in 1948 who finds that while the Arabs will pay handsomely to destroy Israel, turning one’s back on God’s Chosen people is not without cost.
* God’s Poker Face”, about a professional gambler and ex-Marine in 1950s Las Vegas who, on a lark, bets a friend he can rescue a prostitute from a vicious gangster, and then finds that both the crime lord and the Lord Lord are coming to collect.
* “Road To Damascus” deals with a 1960s Army deserter who chooses to defect to the Viet Cong. When in participating in a missionary’s execution he realizes that he’s not the atheist he thought he was and has pledged himself to Godlessness, he faces a dangers path to atonement and the redemption of his own soul.
* “Stephen, Stoned” follows a 1970s ‘superband’ drummer into the death spiral of sex, drugs and rock and roll. He accidently kills his family in the process. the law finds him innocent, but when he realizes he’s accountable to Someone Else there’s nowhere on earth he can run to.
* Sorry for the tangential discourse, Janet. But just think of the research possibilities these open up for an intern! They don’t only include facts, but relevant Scripture to build the framework for the spiritual arc. (Anyone got a concordance handy?)
Thanks for the examples of how an intern can help with research, Andrew. That’s very helpful.
My husband used to hire summer students/interns every year. They had to have a working knowledge of field biology, possess the necessary attire to work in the woods, and know how to shoot a gun.
Most of the applicants balked at the gun shooting part, and then would say “For the bears?”
“Nope. For the pine cones.”
“Pine cones don’t…attack… do they?”
“Nope,” he smile and stare at them, “but unless you want to climb a 75 foot tree, up to where the branches are too thin to hold a fat bird, and then reach out grab those cones, you can learn to shoot them down.”
Cone hunting was always a fun day.
I’d personally love an intern from the Shirlee Abbot School of Interning.
But if I had one, I’d have her sort and print all my tax deduction paperwork.
Jennifer, I’m sending John my internship application RIGHT NOW! Finally I can come into my own!
I’ll even bring my own music, apologies to Glen Campbell…
“I’m a pine cone cowboy,
shootin’ cones off the tree
with my tricked out SVD…”
* (The SVD, colloquially known as the Dragunov, is a Russian sniper rifle with which I have more than a passing familiarity.)
I’m late to the party, but this is great information, Janet. I want to be your intern. 🙂 But what an amazing opportunity for a person … you blessed her and, she blessed you. Just wonderful. I’d love to be so good in a specialized area … 🙂 It would be nice to be needed. 🙂
Oh, Janet ~ thank you! In my previous field (social work) we had interns of many types, so I’m familiar and appreciative of them. But I wasn’t sure how to go about preparing and connecting with one in the writing field. Your post ~ and Andrew’s comments ~ inspire hope in this gal. 🙂
That’s so wonderful that those interns got your book down to size. We’d probably be still waiting for it otherwise. I never thought about interns for writers. We have them at summer camp and they are very helpful for getting those jobs that get shuffled off to the side because something more desperate always comes up. Like organizing the camp games and crafting equipment closet. It happens maybe twice a year and usually it is some poor intern who has to make sense of all those beads and golf balls and sasquatch masks.
Yup, that was our material–a bunch of beads, golf balls and sasquatch masks.