Fast Pitch

The Bethesda Literary Festival was this week, and I competed in "Bethesda Idol," a kind of American Idol for writing samples. It was a disaster.

Writing samples consisted of:
1. Cover page with word count, genre, title, and a 1-3 sentence "log line"
2. Query letter
3. Manuscript's first three pages

Three agents were the "judges"-- but did they read the manuscript pages? No. Did they read the query letters? No. Did they even *look* at the samples? No.

A reader stood at a lecturn and read off each cover page. Sometimes, the reader wouldn't even get through the genre before the agents said, "next!" About fifty people entered-- the agents said they'd read seven of the samples past the cover page.

So of course, there were forty-five pissed people in that room-- though not for long. People were streaming out as the agents passed or panned based on reasoning like: the logline mentions Africa-- I love Africa! Yes!

One of the agents called people out as they left, begging them to stay. But honestly, why would they?

Even going through the cover pages took about an hour... during which the audience slowly dwindled and after which all but a quarter of the audience left. Then, the reader read a couple manuscript pages out loud and the audience voted on their favorite.

Everyone seemed disgruntled. The log-lines were all *remarkably* similar. Fully half were about vaguely dissatisfied married women during their mid-life crisis. If anything was the *least* bit unique, the audience responded-- with nervous laughter, gasping, whatever-- and the agents read that as derision and would through the sample in the "no" pile.

The manuscript pages were *remarkably* mediocre, and all had obvious flaws in their craftsmanship (ie, the story would open with a dialogue, but between every line the author would interject a paragraph of discription, so the conversation was impossible to follow). I guess it's to be expected that the writing samples were random and ordinary since they were picked so randomly-- without even the query letters giving a glimpse of the author's writing.

I was shocked, and left with a bad taste-- something the rest of the audience seemed to share. Jeez, even the agents looked bewildered and unhappy when it ended.

The way the agents approached their "judging" was disheartening, but I did learn some things: I'd discribed my story as a "medical thriller" but hearing peoples' responses, I think it's actually "action/adventure." My query letter/log-line language was dramatic and vivid-- but it came off as overblown to the agents. Ok, maybe I should try and turn it down... ironically, the writing in my manuscript is spare, so crisper writing in the query is a better match.

But I learned some things that were more disheartening: everytime I show up someplace, I think my stuff is going to be like everyone else's, that we're all responding to the same things, that our stuff will be comparable. But every freaking time, my stuff is *COMPLETELY* different from everyone else's.

Different as in: no one else even had an action story. No one else had any obvious fighting in their story at all! No one else had anything to do with infection. No one even had anything zombie-esque, which I'd worried was too *trendy*. The basic building blocks of my story weren't echoed in *anybody* else's, let alone the specifics.

I know who I am: in grade school, we watched this movie about an Indian (India- Indian) American girl celebrating Thanksgiving with her class. For homework, all the kids have to make little Pilgram and Indian dolls. But before she can finish hers, the little Indian girl falls asleep and lets her mother finish hers for her. When she gets to school, she sees all the other kids with their Native American and Pilgram assignments, and she pulls out hers-- which is dressed in a sari. I'm always that f*cking girl with the sari-dressed doll.

Which my friends assure me just means I'm creative. Great. So creative, I've creative-d myself out of the f*cking market. Not that anything has changed: what can I do? I have the taste and sensibility I've got, and my stories reflect that. But, I'll have to be very careful in the agents I chose to query. AND, I've officially lost my delusion that the writing is what counts-- that good writing will get you read.

Oh well. But i have decided to change a couple things in light of my new pessimism.

1. I've got to do some short pieces and get some readership, aka validation. One of my friends is helping with this, by publishing my essays on his (awesome) magazine/blog/website.

2. I've got to press further on my manuscript. I've been working on the same (begining) portion for *much* too long, and been much too complacent about how I structure it. I've been breaking "rules" in the order I present characters (less important characters are introduced early, much more important characters introduced late), etc. It's a tougher, rougher world than I thought, and I'm going to follow the rules that might serve the story.

3. I've *GOT* to buckle down with my television spec, which I've been avoiding like a fish avoiding prarie. The problem is: every time I watch the show, I'm so impressed by the writing I get psyched out! But I'm halfway through this spec, and I'm going to muscle through to the end. THEN, I'm going to write a whole new spec for the same show. That's what I did for my manuscripts, and the second (I think) is awesome-- especially compared to the first.

4. MAKE WRITING FUN AGAIN. It's supposed to be freeing, a pleasure, and since I've started editing, I've lost the joy.
(RELAX
-- Frankie)

So, for my self-esteem and maybe for yours:

ANYBODY ELSE WRITING ANYTHING THAT'S TOTALLY OUT THERE?