Let's talk about The Gatekeepers...

We all know who they are. Agents. Editors for Ezizes. Editors at publishing companies.

For those who are interested in actually selling your work traditionally, these guys are the St. Peter at the holy gates. They are the ones who look over your stuff and decide if it is worthy.

And remember, you are in the big leagues now. These are the guys who represent the authors you see on the shelf at the checkout at the grocery store. They represent the authors you are taking out at the library and paying overdue fees to read the book again.

Is your book good enough? Are you at that level of quality?

You'd better not give them any reason to doubt it.

We talk a lot about these "15 things NOT to do" articles we find on the internet. For the most part they are pretty vague and pretty prescriptive... but let's really think about why they exist.

On the surface level, suggesting that your story should not start with a character looking in a mirror, or it shouldn't start with weather, seems really dumb.. Why does it matter? This book is a masterpiece. Reader's wont care.

But agents and editors are reading upwards of two hundred and fifty story openings a month. (As CagedMaiden pointed out in this article:

Becoming a Breakout Writer — Interview with Donald Maass

If an agent has opened his two hundredth manuscript that month, and it opens on the character looking in the mirror for the hundredth time that month, then it is a bit of an eye roll. It is like a photography competition getting it's thousandth Hawaiian sunset. It just screams "this is not original."

And guess what, despite what you might think about agents looking for "generic, paint by numbers fiction" it is NOT TRUE! Ha! Agents are looking for something new. Something fresh. Something unique. Something that says "This writer has his/her shit figured out." This writer is actually creative, and not rehashing the same old scenes we have seen a billion times before.

So they try to help. Yes, help! you by coming up with lists of things that drive them insane. They are basically begging you to please come up with something different. They are offering you a way to get past them. Head their advice and perhaps you can get past the gatekeepers.

If you are not interested in publishing your work traditionally, than the general reader will not care. Go about your merry way doing what you do.

Thoughts, Scribes? What do you think about the lists provided by the gatekeepers? Are they meant to help us? To stretch our visions to be truly creative and unique? Or are they meant to squash us down?

 

Yes. I agree with this 100%. These lists are not for new writers. They are not for people who are still trying to figure out craft. Do not try to write to these lists if you are still figuring out craft and who you are as a writer and what sort of stories you write.

The ONLY time you need to worry about these lists is if you want to submit to THESE SPECIFIC agents or publishers. That is all. That is the only time.

What these lists can also do is steer you in another direction. You may think "All my friends submit to Strange Horizons. I'm going to do that too." Then you read their "We've seen this story a hundred times List" and you thing "Ok. Well, obviously they don't publish stories like mine. Maybe I will look somewhere else." So you hunt out an ezine that DOES publish what you write.

 

And this is what happened with me. As an elementary teacher who focusses a lot on literacy I attended quite a few conferences by Canadian children's publishers who were trying to push their books to educators and school libraries. I approached many of these publishers afterwards and asked what, specifically, where they looking for in submitted manuscripts?

A lot of them said Harry Potter and Percy Jackson were great, but there had been not too many girl MC's in fantasy fiction as of late. Not a lot of Canadian content and Canadian history... There were many other informative things they were looking for... and thus, Andromeda Rackham and the Treasure of Sorrows was born in my head.

When you actually talk to them you find out so much. They are perfectly open about saying "Well, we already have a ton of X type of story, so we don't need more of those. We are really looking for more of..... Y and Z."

For some people it might be a turn off and they walk away because it is not what they write. For me it was more a thought process of "Ok, well, I can provide that."