Submission Critique fictionalised story
Ben was having some problems with
submitting his crime novel to agents. He kept sending it out again and again,
but somehow no-one seemed interested. Was it his novel itself which was the
problem, or was it something to do with how his submission package presented his
work? Should he send more chapters? How long should the synopsis be? Was his
letter compelling enough? These were all worrying conundrums as he tried to work
out what to do next.
Ever since Ben had been a kid growing up
on his parents’ winery in the Hunter Valley, he’d been scribbling away. He went
off to university in Melbourne, came back to work on the local newspaper and
then was lucky enough to get a job on the Sydney Morning Herald. Although
he was a big sports fan – crazy about cricket in fact – he ended up covering the
crime beat and became fascinated by the human side of the stories he was
reporting on. A few years later his occasional attempts at writing fiction
turned into something more ambitious and he started writing a crime novel.
When it was finished, Ben showed it to his
friends, who said it was great. He had plenty of confidence and was pretty sure
that his novel was good. Even though authors always think that about their own
work, he really knew the setting and his story had an interesting twist. But how
could he make the breakthrough and find an agent? He’d worked his way through
most of the Australian agents, gathering rejections, and now needed to get his
submission package ready to send off to UK and American agents.
What Ben would get from a WritersServices Submission Critique is
a detailed report on the material in his submission package. His letter would be
critiqued, his synopsis commented on and he would have a view on his chapters
and how they presented his novel.
Ben decided to go ahead and was delighted
to get back a Submission critique which showed exactly what he was doing wrong.
He persevered with looking for an agent, sending out his reworked submission
package, until eventually he struck lucky with a new agent in London. Now all
his agent had to do was fix up a publishing deal!
Other fictionalised stories
Submission critique