5 Things To Put Into A Letter to An Agent

1. Demonstrate you've done some research, whether it's knowing a book the agent has represented, attending a lecture the agent has given, reading an article they've written, or reading an article about them. This kind of research makes it personal in a business-like way.

2. Demonstrate you know the market position for your book. That means being specific about the genre you are writing in, which might include authors who you feel are writing in the same area as yourself.

3. Relevant personal information about yourself. This falls into two areas.

a) External endorsement of your writing - eg anything published even if it's in a different area to your novel, competition short-listings, creative writing courses attended (especially if they are at a high level eg at MA level). This is the more important of the two, and if you don't have any publishing credits try to generate some asap.

b) Personal information where it is directly relevant to the subject of the book eg it's about a stock broker and you're a stock broker. The key word here is 'directly'.

4. A brief description of what you're selling. This may sound obvious, but I've seen several covering letters where it wasn't 100% clear if the book was fiction or non-fiction, or whether it was one book or a series, or even a book at all. "I am looking for representation for my 95,000 word contemporary women's fiction novel, ABC," then a quick description of the plot/contents.

5. Contact details that sound normal. If your email address is fluffybunnikins@hotmail.com then you need a new email address. This is a business letter, and you should sound as professional as you can. Even if you are a fluffy bunnikins sort of person, now is not the moment to tell them.

And don't forget to put in the return envelope and postage....

5 Things NOT To Put In A Letter To An Agent

1. Don't include praise from other agents or publishers if they've turned you down. No matter how nice the rejection letter was, it was still a rejection. I'm sure we've all been in the situation when the object of our affections says: I love you, but as a friend. And we all know what we thought about that then. Same thing now.

2. Don't include any information that you wouldn't include in a letter to a bank manager. In other words, nothing about your personal life, your cats, your dog, your diet, your beliefs. It's a business letter. Be business like.

3. Don't rubbish publishing. Don't say it's a clique run by idiots who wouldn't know a good book if they saw one, even if that's what you believe. You want to be part of that world, don't you?

4. Don't make any spelling or grammatical mistakes, or typos, or use incorrect names. Is it Sarah or Sara? If you don't know, play it safe and check. Ditto Mrs, Miss and Ms. Some people feel very strongly about their title, so either check or leave the title out. And while you're about it, don't present your letter and manuscript in any other way except the conventional one. This is not the time to get creative.

5. Don't say your mother/husband/wife/children/grandchildren/best friend loved it. It's not relevant. Unless they're the head book buyer for Tesco.

5 things to put in a letter to an agent tomorrow.

The Easiest Way to Self- Edit

That's a bit of a come-on title, because editing gets easier with practice and experience, but I think the most basic thing you can do by way of self editing is to read your work aloud. I'm amazed that people don't do this. I'm constantly talking to myself as I write, and then later when I edit. How else do you know what it's going to sound like?

Dialogue obviously should be read aloud, preferably with you doing the different voices to check that you're getting different rhythms of speech for each character. A common mistake is for all the characters in a story to speak with a single voice pattern, presumably that of the author. But you should read it all, dialogue and prose alike, with a pen in your hand. Does it read smoothly? Does it flow? Does it make sense?

It's the easiest way of checking for grammatical errors and repetitions because often what looks okay on the page, doesn't work when it's spoken. At the very least, reading aloud shows us where the punctuation should go. Listen, and you can also detect the rise of one's voice where there should be commas, and the fall when there's a full stop. If you don't believe me, try playing The Shopping Game with a friend.

For those who don't know it, you start "I went shopping and I bought - " and then you name something, for example, a chair. The next person begins, "I went shopping and I bought a chair and - and they name something, for example, a mouse. Then onto the next person. "I went shopping and I bought a chair, a mouse and a cat. " "I went shopping and I bought a chair, a mouse, a cat and a pencil, "and so on. The natural thing is to let the voice rise after each item on the list until the very last one when the voice falls. In other words, comma, comma, comma, full stop.

Perhaps because I used to be an actor, reading my work aloud has always seemed a natural part of writing, both as I go along and as I edit. I sit at my desk doing the voices and the fact my family often ask things like who I was on the phone to doesn't bother me at all. It's a habit, and a good one to get into.

Sex Sells - Or Does It?

We're always told that sex sells. Sex attracts attention. It's certainly easier to get media coverage if you have some sexy element in your writing, and media coverage helps to sell books. But, taking the erotica market out of the equation and thinking solely of mainstream titles aimed at a general audience...

I'm thinking of all the books that have been sold on the basis of their sexual content, from Memoirs of a Round Heeled Woman to One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed, and realising that although I know the titles and have a rough idea of the contents I haven't read them, and certainly haven't actually bought them.

In fact, the only book based on sex I have bought was written by a friend under a pseudonym, which was why I bought it. I may be wrong on this, but I think most people make their buying decisions based on good story telling - which may or may not include sex.

If anything, lots of sex scenes may put people off. I write fewer sex scenes in my books because I'm aware that quite a few people don't like to read sex scenes in novels. The number of people who have said they prefer my later books to my earlier ones because there's less sex in them has been one of the things about being a novelist that has surprised me.*

It's anecdotal but if you look at the best seller lists, there are an awful lot of characters who aren't having sex, or at least, not on the page. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a best selling author who does include a lot of sex in their books. Sexual tension, yes. Sex scenes, no.

So, I'm thinking that while sex attracts attention, it might not sell that well after all. Good news for those who don't want to write about sex despite all my blog posts this week.

* I told my friend Caroline I'd decided to cut back on the sex scenes in my novels when we were having a nice cup of tea at the very genteel Pump Rooms in Bath - where Jane Austen took tea - and just at the moment the trio stopped playing she said loudly, 'You can't give up sex, Sarah, you're far too good at it'. It took ages before I felt able to show my face there again.

Teasing the Reader

I was asked by a student recently if it was okay to have two characters be attracted to each other, to nearly have sex, but then decide not to at the last minute. Would the readers be disappointed?

The only answer to this was: Yes. No. Maybe.

If your novel is entirely about these two characters getting together and they don't, then the reader will be disappointed. I read a novel a few years back where the main character doesn't realise X is the man for her until near the end (despite lots of Unresolved Sexual Tension simmering between them), then finally at the end of Chapter 23 decides to tell him how she feels. I eagerly turned the page to Chapter 24 and read: The following year... What had happened in that following year was quickly summarised, and the book ended with every one happy except me, the reader. There had been all that emotional build up, and for nothing. The author had cheated me of the scene when the two characters got together.

On the other hand, if we'd had the scene and it had all gone wrong, X had revealed that he'd been interested but had got fed up with waiting and was now involved with Y I'd have been - not exactly happy (because I'm a sucker for a happy ending), but satisfied as a reader. In Adaptation Charlie Kauffman does much the same, and it sits naturally with the main character's story line. Joanna Trollope did something similar in The Men and the Girls and not only was it satisfying, it worked better than the more traditional ending.

So, in answer to the question, it's not compulsory to fulfill reader expectations; in fact, it can work just as well if we subvert their expectations and give them something different. What is compulsory is that we write the scene. It's not okay to cop out and write: The following year...

Why Write Sex Scenes?

The good news is, for those who don't like the idea of writing about sex, it's not compulsory. Lots of stories exist where sex never gets a mention. But...

Sex is one of the big human motivations along with love, money and power. It's an important part of human life and that's why people have been writing about it since we started writing fiction. We may feel more relaxed about the level of explicitness nowadays, but writing about sex has always been around.

I write about relationships, generally about people getting together or breaking up. Sex plays an important part in relationships, so I include sex scenes in my books. It's important for my characters and where they are in the story. If I were writing about bank robberies or space travel where the main character motivators were things like money, power and discovery, I would probably write no sex scenes at all.

Sex is part of being human, so we should write about it - if appropriate to that particular story. But if it isn't appropriate then it shouldn't be there. Take Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong. There are some fairly explicit sex scenes in that, and I've heard people say that they are inappropriate. But the scenes of WWI are equally explicit in their depiction of the horrors of war, so to me the sex scenes and battle scenes balance each other.

It's part of your judgement as a writer whether a sex scene is appropriate in your writing. And if not, that's fine. It really isn't compulsory.

And The Most Important Rule About Writing About Sex Is...

Like any other scene, a sex scene needs to have purpose - and that purpose should more than just to titillate the reader. The main character might discover something about themselves or another person. There might be an emotional change within characters such as liking turning to love, love turning to indifference, indifference turning to hatred or hatred turning to lust. Characters reach out emotionally and physically, and perhaps their needs are met and perhaps they aren't, but the story will move on because of the emotional change.

Sex scenes are useful as story turning points - as Isabel says to herself in Adultery for Beginners, she would never be Neil's faithful wife again. She can't go back, so the story has to go forwards. Becca, in Another Woman's Husband, has been dreaming about sex with Paul, but finds the reality inconclusive and unsatisfactory and as a result begins to move away from him emotionally.

Scenes have many purposes: to convey information, to develop character, to add humour, to move the story on etc. Sex scenes should have just as many purposes as any other scene, because that's the only reason for writing them. Sex may be going on in a scene, but the mechanics aren't the reason readers are reading. They're finding out what happens next in the story. If nothing is happening, if nothing is changing, if all that is going on is mechanics, then you need to add some purposes. And if you can't think of any, then don't write the scene.