Tag Archives: Rachel Vater

Here you go

Posted on by

Lit agent Rachel Vater has some questions you can ask to help you understand what your strengths are as a writer. Here’s one:

What feeling do you want when you read a book? (This is a more important question than it would seem — Not as obvious of an answer as you might expect.)

Great question, eh?

The feeling I want when I read a book is transported. I want to be lifted out of the here & now and taken to vantage point where reality is framed in archetypal or even small-d divine terms. The redemption may be through love, or joy, or coming to terms with one’s self, doesn’t matter really, as long as I’m lifted. This applies to non-fiction as well incidentally; for instance, Peter Ackroyd’s histories transport me by shifting my perspective via point-in-time.

Vater has also summarized the main strengths of a number of writers, wonderful way to put ourselves in an agent’s place as she experience our writing.

Another lit agent blogging: Rachel Vater

Posted on by

OK, this is so cool. Bernita at An Innocent A-Blog has posted about some blogs she reads regularly, including one kept by literary agent Rachel Vater of Lowenstein-Yost Associates.

Another agency to add to my blogroll :-)

But it gets better. I queried that agency in July (got a “no” back the next day) and it turns out, Rachel blogs about queries she reads and her response to them. So by scrolling back to July 10 I found her note about mine:

4. An adult novel about discovering little fairies. It’s really the tone of this novel that makes me think it’s not right for me. It seems sweet, light, and romantic. Maybe perfect for someone else, but I tend to like very funny, or else very kick ass, or darker, edgier paranormal novels. Sweet isn’t quite for me.

This really points out how fraught with peril is the querying process. My first version of my query read too dark (Kristin Nelson passed on it for that reason!) so I lightened it. Then maybe midway through the querying process, I decided I’d gotten it too sweet and modified it again.

I don’t know if the book is right for Vater (and since I’ve received multiple requests for fulls at this point I’m not going to lose any sleep over it) but I think I missed my chance with her because of my query, not because of the book itself.

Incidentally, the interface for submitting to this agency isn’t an email address — it’s an online form. As a result, I wasn’t able to include 5 sample pages, which I typically do as per the divine Miss Snark’s regularly repeated advice.

The sample pages would be plenty to show that the novel’s tone isn’t exactly “sweet and light,” although it has its comic and romantic moments.

Coincidentally, Miss Snark touched on the inherent inadequecy of query letters again this weekend:

You can write the world’s worst query letter and if you have good writing attached to it, I’m not going to pass. It’s not the query letter that keeps you from “yes”: it’s the writing. I’ve said it before, here it is again: most query letters suck. Good writing trumps all.

Two of my requests for fulls came from the query plus first five pages. It’s the five pages that dunnit. I so owe Miss Snark.