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In May 2001, at a Writers' Retreat Workshop in Kentucky, Don Maass of the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York spoke about 'writing the 'breakout' novel' before an audience of 34 keen novelists.

In this article he shares this advice: valuable to both first-time novelists and mid-career writers.

It's as easy as it's ever been to get published. What is difficult is staying published. Publishing is not a small business--it's a $26 billion dollar industry and growing. The conglomerates have their eyes firmly fixed on the bottom line--making money. They publish about 55,000 new books each year, of which about 5,800 are novels. The room for a new writer in any one year is limited, and limited advertising and promotion is given to newcomers.

Publishing today is a computerised business. Sales are heavily tracked from the time they leave the publisher. There's a high attrition rate--at least half the people who publish the first time around this year won't make it past their second, third or fourth book. It's hard to keep moving up the ladder. However, it is possible to go on and become a full-time professional novelist. A typical break-in period would be ten years--medical school takes less time!

It takes, on the average, five books to establish oneself as a brand-name author. It's not a 'get rich quick' proposition--you'll advance in steps. Here are a few tips:

Building Your Career

Take it easy. This is the best attitude for people aiming at writing as a profession.

• Get help. Join writers' organizations. Go to conferences, workshops, retreats. Join a regular critique group--get weekly or bi-weekly feedback that tells you how you're doing. There are many ways to approach critique groups, including face to face, mail, and email. These groups help you to grow and to move on; they give you an audience for your fiction before you're published.
• Have a plan. You need some sense of where you want to go and what genre/category you're tackling (hardcover or original paperback? Series?) These are some of the first questions an editor will ask.
• Find an agent. In the USA, AAR (The Association of Authors' Representatives) is a good place to start. You need qualifications to join this association. Get recommendations from other writers. Send a query letter through the mail--query letters are the most common single means by which we acquire new writers. We get 250 query letters a week--of those, 86% receive a form rejection letter.
• Target a publisher. Who are some of the publishers with whom you'd like to work? You can gain a lot of valuable insights by looking at the books on your shelf. Look at the logos on the spine. You have a whole library of information there. You know a lot more about publishers than you think!

Getting Publicity for Your Book

The best publicity in the world lies between the covers of your book. Don't believe me? Here's a survey to try with your friends. Ask them to think back to their last book purchase. Ask them why they bought the novel:

• They were already familiar with that author
• Sampled the writing (read a page or two)
• Read a review
• It was nominated for or won an award
• You liked the cover
• The positioning in the store
• An ad in a magazine/newspaper/ or on radio/TV
• You heard the author on TV or on the radio
• You met the author at a book signing
• Because of who published the novel
• Because the author got a big advance.

Sample enough people, and you'll find that consumers are brand loyal (they buy books by a well-known author) or they buy because of personal recommendation (word of mouth). The size of the author's advance, the author's presence at book signings, cover art, reviews and so on have far less impact than the first two. So essentially, what gets you and your book the most publicity? The fact that you've written a good book!

Writing the Breakout Novel

At my offices on West Fifty-Seventh Street in New York City, each year we receive about 7,500 query letters, partial manuscripts and completed novels. This material disappoints 99.9 per cent of the time but not because its authors are incompetent (very few of them are). Rather, the material disappoints because its authors have failed to muster the techniques available to them in service of great stories. Their vision is small. Their themes are weak or overly familiar. Their characters run to stereotypes. Their plots mirror recent newspaper headlines, hit movies and established best-sellers.

Writing the breakout novel is as much about cultivating an outlook as anything. It is the habit of avoiding the obvious or of covering familiar ground, and instead reinforcing the conviction that one's views, experience, observation of character and passion for chosen story premises can be magnified and pushed so one's novels achieve new levels of impact and new degrees of originality.

To write a breakout novel is to run free of the pack. It is to delve deeper, think harder, revise more, and commit to creating characters and plots that surpass one's previous accomplishments. It is to say 'no' to merely being good enough to be published. It is a commitment to quality.

There is no single formula for the breakout novel. A truly big book is a perfect blend of inspired premise, larger-than-life characters, high-stakes story, deeply felt themes, vivid setting and much more. It requires that the author be true to his own 'voice'.

The First Novel

Over the years I have noticed that first novels tend to feel small. The scope of the action is often limited. The horizons of the author's world are limited to a couple of characters.

As an agent, I find it relatively easy to turn up novels that are competent, salable and safe. It is far more difficult to find the novel that takes me on an unexpected journey; one that is, if not long, at least deeply absorbing, always gripping, constantly surprising, and ultimately memorable. In reality there is one reason, and one reason only, that readers get excited about a novel: great storytelling. That is it. End of story.

Mid-Career Authors

When I get a 911 call from a novelist in crisis, the first things I hear are the novelist's bragging points. Then come tales of the negligence, errors and disappointments suffered at the hands of his agent and publisher. Through all that I murmur sympathetically. Finally, a new manuscript is offered. That is when I get interested. At last, I think, a chance to diagnose what really has gone wrong: the author's own writing. With that comes a chance to steer the author in the direction of new respect and rising sales.

I have seen it happen. I have been part of the story. That story begins with a return to the first fundamental of the fiction business: storytelling.

Storytelling matters above all other considerations, as becomes clear when the promised manuscripts arrive in my office. Ten times out of ten, what I read is moderately flawed. The lazy habits of some authors have gone uncorrected. Others have blind spots or a poor grasp of plot structure. These are published novelists in mid-career?

All have strong points too, I must add, but their weak points are killing them.

Won't An Editor Fix My Book?

It is a publishing myth that editors will catch and fix all of a novel's problems. The editors I know uniformly take pride in their books. On the other hand, they work a lot harder than they did twenty years ago. A typical editor at a hardcover imprint may be responsible for twenty-four titles a year. Paperback editors can be given much heavier loads; three a month is not uncommon. One editor I know is responsible for one hundred titles annually!

Soft editing results from more than the pressure to get books 'into production' at the end of every month. Today's workloads mean that editors tend to be oriented toward the completed manuscript. Few are heavily involved with the author at early stages of development. None that I know of critiques first drafts. (Not knowingly, anyway.) At late stages, fundamental problems with plot design, point of view or cast composition can be difficult to address. It is not that editors cannot see these flaws; they can.

Frequently, there is just not enough time available to pull a book from its 'slot', send the author back to work and subsequently critique several additional drafts. In particular, I notice that second novels suffer from inattention. So do third novels in trilogies and novels in a series that are on a once-a-year schedule.

Given all that, is it any wonder that some novelists crash and burn?

Any author who can write a salable novel can also improve, and virtually all writers can write a breakout novel. How do I know? Because it happens all the time. I have seen it happen. So have you.

Learn the techniques of the breakout novel and commit to them. Great novels--ones in which lightning seems to strike on every page--result from their authors' refusal to settle for being 'good'.

© Don Maass, New York Agent

Writing the Breakout Novel by Don Maass (© Don Maass 2001, Writer's Digest Books, ISBN 0-89879-995-3) offers strategies for both first-time writers and mid-career novelists to take their prose to the next level and write the breakout novel.

This article first appeared in Issue #2 of Writing For Success, July-Aug 2001. To find out how to subscribe to Writing For Success and the Private Membership Site, go to: http://www.writing4success-newsletter.com

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