Other...: www.carolinewilsonbooks.com
Okay. My editor and I had the meeting and it went very well. I've rewritten my query and started sending it out. I expected the first two to be rejects because that's just the nature of the beast. "Oh, me of little faith." Also, most agents say it takes them about two months to respond.
So three days later, an email comes in from one of my top agents. I was afraid to open it. It read, "Hi, Caroline -- we'd love to take a look. Please send us the first 30 pages." I blink hard, double-time.
Then another email from another agent. "Please send me the first 50 pages," she wrote.
I pinch myself because, the first time I sent the novel out in 2007, it was rejected at least a million + times.
Hiring an editor wasn't exactly a bad idea, I thought to myself.
On a cold Monday morning -- January 12, to be exact, I get an email from one of the agents.
Hi, Caroline,
Thank you so much for giving me
an opportunity to read the beginning of THE DECEPTION OF SADIE BURRELL.
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to pass. While there is much to admire in your
work (and you're a good writer) I'm afraid that I just didn't connect with the
narrative. It had too much “tell” for my taste. As I'm sure you know, opinions
vary considerably in this business and mine is just one. I'm sure you'll find
others who feel differently. I hope so! OMG! I'm floored. I eat four heavy meals, and drink a coke. I don't drink sodas so I really get sick. My insides are screaming "Why? Why? Why?" I wanted to go home and throw myself across my messy bed and just ask God to slaughter me. I look at my laptop and say goodbye to Sadie. Oh the drama! I'm about to delete the whole
manuscript then it dawned on me. I know exactly what the agent is
talking about. She didn't connect to my narrative because I didn't
show the scenes -- I was telling them. Example: Telling: Sadie stood. Angry. Defiant. Showing: Sadie stood, cupped her hands on her hips, and raised her voice. You get it right. You can actually show angry, defiant. Believe it or not, my editor warned me about the showing vs. telling thing, but I thought I knew better. So anyway, we're rewriting the scenes, but not the dialogue. Here is the query that's getting the request.
It’s 1938, and breaking her back in the cotton and
tobacco fields of Lee County, South Carolina isn’t Sadie Reynolds’ life goal.
Her plan is straightforward: complete her college education. Only then will she
be able to leave the oppression of Jim Crow’s South, and her inflexible Negro
culture for better opportunities up North. But Sadie's dreams end abruptly when her papa
loses his land, and she has to leave school.
Refusing to accept a
lifetime of sharecropping, Sadie lies her way into a marriage with landowner Roy
Burrell, and tries to convince him to sell his property. When the arrangement doesn’t move her toward
her dreams, Sadie engages in an affair with a white man -- the great-grandson of
one of Lee County's founders, Talbot Billingsley. The affair ends, but not with
Sadie's approval. Infatuated with
Talbot, she takes their daughter to Washington, D.C. to find him and the
promises of an improved life. Sadie is
captivated by glimpses of the city's black elite -- a sophisticated world she
never imagined possible for blacks. If
Sadie wants the better life she so badly desires, she'll have to cheat, steal,
and even marry more than one man at a time to get it.
The Deception of Sadie Burrell is a completed manuscript at 108,000 words, spanning from the 1938 to 1960. Additionally, I am working on the sequel. I am ready to send sample chapters or the full manuscript if you so desire.
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