At this time, I am not accepting manuscripts or proposals from writers or agents. God only knows when I will. It's a hard business. There are a lot of reasons for that, and not all of them have to do with good judgement as to the value of a writer's work.
Some advice. Selling a book, particularly for a new writer, is a bit easier than selling snow in the Arctic. If you want to have a good chance of doing it, make sure you meet the following requirements.
1. You must be able to spell English words correctly.
2. You must know what those words mean.
3. You must know how to construct a sentence.
4. You must know how to construct a paragraph.
5. You must know how to construct a chapter.
6. You must know how to tell where to begin writing.
7. You must know how to tell where to stop writing.
8. Once you have stopped writing, you must learn how to describe the story in one page of text.
9. That done, you must locate publishers who produce a book like yours.
10. Finally, you must send that letter to each of them, one at a time, with an S.A.S.E.
WHAT A STORY IS, AND HOW TO WRITE IT.
A story consists entirely of a problem. The story begins when the problem begins. If the problem ends, the story ends. The only way for the story to continue beyond the problem is if you introduce another problem. Even stories with ten problems, one after the other, are at an end when the last problem is solved. Some stories, like Gone With The Wind, end with the central character facing another problem.
The secret to problems in a story is that they get harder, not easier, as the book goes along.
There are two secrets to characters. First, if you can select four people you and somebody else know, then write a practice short story about them, changing their names, and your somebody else can read the story and identify all four, you have learned how to create a character out of words. (If they can identify the people just by their dialogue alone, you have a gift.) Second, if the characters you select for the book you wish to send out would prefer not to have the problems in that story, but feel compelled to get past them, anyway, then you have something good.
The theme of a book is the message the reader gets when he finishes reading the last word. The theme of Ernest Hemigway's Old Man and the Sea is as follows -- a man is not defeated until he accepts defeat. If you don't quit, and even if the great fish you catch is stripped to the bone by sharks by the time you reach port, you have not been defeated. This is what is meant by victory in defeat. Honor results from the spirit of the man in the fight, not the outcome.
The first sentence of that book is perfect. It physically identifies a sympathetic hero, establishes the dimensions of the playing field and presents the terrible problem he faces.
Hemingway wrote that book for you.
Writing is hell, editing is hell, rejections are hell and sometimes even success is hell. Hemingway once described the ordeal represented by that first blank piece of paper in the typewriter. Here's what he said. "It is facing the white bull which is paper with no words on it."
If you do decide to face that white bull, then here is how you should do it. Whether you carefully outline all the elements of the story in advance, or whether you sit down with a basic idea in mind and just start typing, do the following. Write in hot blood and edit in cold blood. It was Heinlein, perhaps, or maybe Bradbury or Asimov who said that. It is a good method for most authors.
For you to decide you want to write is foolish. It is as foolish as an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and who has gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. For you to try to write is to face as many difficulties as that old man, and will require the same blind faith and dogged determination. You must be prepared to thirst and hunger, and to hold the fishing line as it races across your hands, stripping the flesh from them. You must be prepared to go without sleep, without companionship, and even without hope. And, even when you catch the fish, you must be prepared to fight the sharks who come to eat it as you try to get it back to port. And, in the end, you must be prepared to finish your journey with nothing but bones tied to the side of your boat, for it may be that your book will never sell because it is no good, or because the editor who can recognize its worth doesn't exist.
If you can do all that, then you have met Ernest Hemingway's definition of an author. You will age prematurely, lose most of your friends and probably starve to death. Before you do, your marriage will dissolve, your children forget what you look like, your bank account will disappear and you will find yourself sitting at your desk looking at a fifty thousand word manuscript that you suddenly realize is a piece of crap. Most likely, you will begin to weep. I once knew a writer who had been a boxer. A light-heavyweight. He was undefeated in twenty professional fights. He took up writing. When he arrived at that point, at that table, and realized his manuscript, his years of work, was a piece of crap, he bawled like a baby.
Then, he picked up a blank piece of paper and put it in the typewriter and began a new story.
His name was Walt Morey. His most famous book was Gentle Ben, and it was made into a Hollywood movie and a television series. When he died he was worth seven million dollars, and didn't care a whit about that. The last time I saw him, just days before his death, he was trying to figure out a story.
------ Larry Leonard