Here are the latest newsletters for my followers to peruse:
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Writing
an Effective Inciting Incident
NEW 'STORY ARC' SERIES ON THE BLOG
The
inciting incident is a key component of almost every novel, but
you may not be familiar with the term or even sure whether you’ve
written one! James Scott Bell writes, "The power of
your story is directly proportional to the readers’ experience of
it, and the readers’ experience is directly proportional to the
soundness of the structure." This is one of
the most important parts of your structure to get right, as the
inciting incident should get your readers invested in the story.
Also, it will usually be mentioned in your elevator pitch, so it’s key to
selling the book.
In this blog post, Tess shares how to find your inciting
incident, maximise its impact, and position it within your
opening chapters.
"An
inciting incident can be positive or negative. In a romance
novel, it might be the moment the protagonist meets their love
interest, whereas in a crime novel, it will very often be a
murder. Either way, there needs to be conflict."
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Get
to know author Carole Hailey
THE
SILENCE PROJECT is
out 2023 with Corvus
After impressing in the BPA First Novel Award 2020,
Carole Hailey was highly commended in the Bridport Prize and
signed with literary agent Marina de Pass. Her novel The Silence Project will
be released by Corvus as a lead title in
February 2023. We were delighted that Carole agreed to answer
some questions about the inspiration behind the book and her
journey to the deal.
"Although
a novel is a few hundred pages long, for competitions where
you’re only submitting a few thousand words, it’s really
important to grab a reader’s attention within a few pages. After
I wrote the first draft, I decided to change the beginning
of The Silence Project and begin the novel
with a scene that would stick in the mind of a reader, which I
hoped would maximise my chances in competitions.
"Obviously
not all novels lend themselves to dramatic first scenes, but you
can make your first pages memorable in other ways: a really
strong and engaging voice, an intriguing question that the reader
really wants to find out the answer to. However you do it, try
and aim to make sure the person reading your entry will remember
your first pages long after they’ve read them!"
– Carole
Hailey
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Spring
Away Day
MAY 21, 2022, 10am – 6pm
Our
next Away Day is coming up on May 21, and we can't wait to meet
for a day of workshopping, bookish chatter and food. Head to
a beautiful country house in Kintbury, Berkshire, with a pen
and paper, and leave the rest to us!
Full-day
workshop on Prose, Voice, and Dialogue with Emma
Darwin
Literary
Agent Q&A with Charlotte Seymour
Lunch
and
Afternoon
Tea included
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In the coming months, we're inviting best
selling authors to run specialist tutorials on their
respective genres. If you're writing crime/thrillers, or Young
Adult (YA), we'd love to see you there!
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CRIME
& THRILLERS
Genre Tutorial
| Caroline
Green |
6 – 8 pm
How do you write a book that pulls readers in and won’t let them
go? How do you handle the business of twists and red herrings in
crime and thrillers? And how do you do the right amount of
research so that your book feels authentic, without getting
bogged down? In this workshop we will look at the way
the crime market has grown and changed over the years and talk
about where your book might sit.
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YA
FICTION
Genre Tutorial | Tanya Byrne | 6 – 8 pm
In this workshop we will look at how the
YA market has moved on since Twilight and The Hunger Games were
published and changed everything. We’ll discuss what readers are
looking for now and how platforms like TikTok are putting books
into the hands of people who might never have found them.
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BPA
First Novel Award 2022
DEADLINE: MAY 29
Please
submit your entries to the BPA First Novel Award 2022.
Submissions should include the first 5,000 words of your novel,
with a cover letter and 300-word synopsis. Our top three winners
will secure an agent introduction, with a manuscript assessment
and £1,000 cash also up for grabs.
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"I
remember clearly wondering whether to send my manuscript to
the Blue Pencil Award, and if it was ready. I am so glad I did -
seeing my name on first the longlist, and then the short list was
an incredible feeling. It was encouragement and validation,
however subjective we all know it is, for something undertaken in
isolation and often uncertainty. Winning it was a game-changer
for me. The team at BPA seemed almost as excited as I was! Hellie
Ogden offered me representation and I am now working with her as
my wonderful agent on what I hope will become my debut novel. It
is quite literally a dream come true."
Julia
Kelly, 2021 Winner
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How to Create
Your Submission List
Tips for finding literary agents to query
In this blog
post from the archives, we share five different ways to find literary
agents you might submit to and advice for how you should go about it: book acknowledgements, social
media, agency websites, directories, and interviews.
Check out our top agent research tips below and read the full blog
post for more advice.
- Look for
agents who don’t have tons of clients on
their list
- See if
they’ve listed their favourite books and mention one in your cover letter
(only if you've actually read and enjoyed it!)
- Enter competitions – they are usually judged by a literary agent and a
great way to get noticed
- Make sure you have a clear sense of what your novel is before
doing agent research so you know what kind of wishlist you’re looking
for. Read articles on genre (or
maybe ours on how to describe
novels that don’t fit into a genre).
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Even when your work is polished enough for
publication, every stage of the writer’s career is filled with rejection
– so the only way through it is not to let it interfere with your
creative process. Most agents might not believe in your work even though
it’s great (case in point: I’ve turned down a few bestsellers).
– Ludo Cinelli,
Eve White Literary Agency
–––
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Writing
Advice from BPA's Editors
Avoid Common Mistakes in Your Novel
We
know that working with an editor is a big commitment, and we
believe it's beneficial for a writer to self-edit their
manuscript as much as possible before receiving feedback, so we decided to ask our editors what
advice they find themselves giving writers again and again – and
share it with you!
Here you'll find a small preview of their advice and you can
check out the
full Q&A on the BPA blog if you haven't already.
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"Most
editing is removing scaffolding. You need scaffolding when you
build a house, it’s there for support, for safety, for
convenience, but the house isn’t finished until all the
scaffolding has been packed away." – Iain Maloney
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"Imagine
the start of your novel as the opening of a film and write as if
you are tracking the live action on screen. This is instantly
more engaging than opening with internal thoughts or
feelings." – Frances
Merivale
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"Readers
don’t need to know exactly who, where, what, when or why. But
they need to have a theory. Otherwise they will lose interest. So
give them something to hold on to, either the wrong information,
or partial information." – Oliver James
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BPA
First Novel Award 2022
DEADLINE: MAY 29
The deadline for the
BPA First Novel Award 2022 is fast approaching and we can't wait
to start reading your entries! Last week, it
was great to see lots of you at our online Q&A with literary
agent judges Rowan Lawton and Marina de Pass. A recording of the
session is available at half price.
Rowan told the group that she's
always excited to read in a cover letter that a writer has placed
in a competition. "Particularly
if it's an award we're going to recognise, it hints at the quality
that's to come, but not only that – for me, it's also that it
shows me the intent of the author and that they are really
serious about writing and dedicated to their craft."
You'll find all the entry details on our website. If you would
like to apply for a free entry as a writer on a low income,
please pop us an email at info@bluepencilagency.com with
your proof of eligibility.
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Spring
Away Day
Saturday May 21 – Kintbury, Berkshire
The Spring Away Day for novel
writers is coming up on May 21 and we can't wait to see lots of
you in person. The event will take place in a private house just
an hour from London. Lunch and afternoon tea, plus plenty of tea
and coffee, are included in the price. Take a look at what we
have lined up below and book now to secure the earlybird
rate.
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Words on
the Page: Prose, Voice & Dialogue
In this practical, all-day workshop led by Emma Darwin,
we will dig deep into every aspect of how you choose which words
get onto your pages: not only the all-important narrative voice,
and characters’ voices and dialogue, but the underlying craft and
technical skill which will raise your writing to a new level. You
should leave feeling stretched and inspired, with a notebook full
of exciting experiments.
Literary
Agent Q&A
Over afternoon tea, Charlotte
Seymour, literary agent and Bookseller
Rising Star 2021, will talk about what she is looking for in
debuts and will go through the submission process, commenting
on cover letters and synopses with tips for what to
include and what to avoid. She will share her thoughts on
industry trends and the commercial side of the business.
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BPA will be continuing to run regular online events
to keep our programme as accessible as possible. Coming up, we
have a 'Pitch Perfect' tutorial with
Emma Darwin, for those of you looking to finesse your cover
letter and synopsis, and a tutorial on Women's Fiction with author
Julie Cohen.
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