This one’s for the #amquerying crowd. Every once in a while I run across a tweet that pains me. The tweet says something like: “Why is it always a FORM rejection? How am I ever to learn if you won’t tell me what I’m doing?” For so many reasons I won’t go into here, agents don’t generally give feedback. Mostly it boils down to not investing massive amounts of time (in a lot of somethings) that the agent will never work on and that will never produce income for them. I get it though. I get the accumulated frustration of mounting silence.
You know what happens to silence with humans? We fill it. Humans love to fill silent vacuums with words or information, whether true or not. So you are left to fill that silence with … your imagination. Depending on your genre of choice this probably spans from tragedy to comedy.
There are of course ways to get information, and from people who know the industry, it’s just that you have to pay for these services. I know, know, it would just be easier and cheaper if agents would just tell you what’s up when they read your stuff. Unfortunately that’s the rub. Agents don’t work for free. Time spent giving feedback on manuscripts or queries that will never earn them money is just free labor.
The inverse of this also might make some people happy. On that rare occasion you actually do get feedback, or even if an agent just slightly modifies their form response or tags on a note at the end, that’s a super positive investment in time in the author. So take those that come as a whisper in the vacuum and encouragement.
In the meantime, I’ve put together a list of former or current agents and editors who know the market and who offer services from $100 query packages to more in-depth developmental edits. And I’ve also listed a FREE Critique resource that cultivates the power of authors using a point system. It’s pretty cool too so check it out.
To see that list, visit the “Writer Resources-The Feedback You Want” tab at the top of my page or click here: https://aliherringwrites.wordpress.com/writer-resources-the-feedback-you-want/.
Also, here’s some of my favorite craft books: Story Genius by Lisa Cron, Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass and the accompanying workbook of the same name, The Emotional Thesaurus by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman for those who need help understanding and conveying emotion, and for those who need help shortening their novels or getting rid of novice crutch words, The Word Loss Diet.
Some of you may also appreciate my “First Page Problems” post about common issues with first pages: https://aliherringwrites.wordpress.com/2018/03/05/first-pages-problems/.
Have pen. Will fly. 