Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Morning quickie
Check out Miss Snark. She’s a literary agent, and she’s currently analyzing opening pages (the first three hundred words of novels). Mine hasn’t come under her snarky knife yet, but I’m going to go on record before she savages me by saying this has been educational. Y’all are burying your leads (paraphrase?) was one of many gems. I hadn’t thought to look at my novel as a journalist would, which is foolish, since the damned thing is about a journalist.
D.
That looks fun, doug… both submitting to it and actually doing the snarking…
keith
She’s only working on snippets sent to her yesterday,and it looks like she was swamped with ‘submissions’!
Just shows you how many people really do read these blogs, I suppose.
Is she a big name agent?
keith
Hm. I’ve poked around a bit, but I can’t find her name. I don’t think she handles SF, but I’m basing that on her comments. If by the grace of God she loves my excerpt, I’m still going to ask if she’s interested in seeing more.
Of course, after reading all those other excerpts, I already want to change mine.
for newspapers its lede, not lead, dammit. I don’t know why and that’s always made me crazy but the word is lede.
Um. Beg to differ, Kate. My New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has no entry for lede. As one of the definitions of lead, it gives:
Uournalism. A summary or outline of a newspaper story; a guide to a story that needs further development or exploration; the first (often the most important) item in a newspaper etc. Cf. lead story below.
Oops. That word is journalism. Damn that lack of comment edit!
Doug – will you let us know when she gets to yours?
See post above this one, Maureen. You’ll notice that I’ve changed the opening. No more prologue. The prologue will become Chapter One. I’m also dropping the preamble with Cree, Chap Chap, and Boron. If folks can’t manage to figure out that Andie, Korno, and Messy are evil SOBs, toughsky shitsky.
ha, well I’m begging to differ too. . . whole lot of begging going on.
Thank god for the internet so I don’t have to mail you my AP Style Guide. http://www.uark.edu/~kshurlds/FOJ/HW2.html
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001128
Thanks for the links, Kate. That’s very interesting. Just shows you can’t rely on dictionaries for everything ;o)