I attended the Writer's Digest Writer Conference back in May and during the Pitch Slam an agent requested the first three chapters of my historical fiction novel. I have been fine-tuning it before I send it in (with critique sessions with the group I'm involved in). What is the standard practice when an agent requests a sample of the novel...is it okay that I haven't sent it immediately...since I want to make sure the three chapters are at the best they can be?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

—Donna M.

Dear Donna,

Dear Lauren,

My question is where do you begin?  I am 44 and am new to the computer age. I am not sure what to do. Do you attempt to get published in magazines, contests, newspapers? Thank-you for any advice or direction you can give me. 

Dear Charlene,

I honestly don’t think age or experience level matter. Writers are people who write. Period. So don’t feel lost or intimidated as you begin.

The first thing you need to determine is what you want to write—what you enjoy writing. This affects every other decision you make as far as research and submission is concerned. First, what’s your chosen form—short story, novel, essay, memoir, poem? And then, what's your genre: what stories and themes do you enjoy inventing—stories of romantic relationships or families, murder or espionage, inspiration or self-discovery, adventure or strange lands?

Once you’ve identified what kind of story you like to write, the next—and probably most important step—is to read everything in that area you can get your hands on. There’s no way a writer can perfect his or her craft and know when his or her work is ready for publication without being intimately aware of the competition. I’ve heard editors and agents say that before you start submitting your work for publication, you should read 50 novels or stories in your genre. (A note: I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but you should always write in the genres you yourself enjoy reading. If you hate romance, don’t try to write one just because they sell. If you’re not passionate about what you’re working on, it will show in your writing, which will be lackluster and false. So write what you want to write, not what you think other people want you to write.)

As you’re reading and absorbing the wisdom of those who’ve gone before you, you should also be writing and revising. And revising some more. And revising some more until you think your work can’t possibly be any better. Once you get to this point, it’s not a bad idea to join a local or online writing critique group or reward yourself with a writer’s conference or workshop where you can have a professional critique from an editor or agent.

Once you’re ready to submit, it’s time for market research. Every publication, publishing house, and agency has a specialty, meaning that they are looking for certain genres or subgenres of fiction. The game here is to find a publication (for a short story) or publisher (for a book) that is a match for the kind of novel or story you’ve written. There are several ways to find these publishers:
1. Remember those 50 books/stories you read in your genre? Go back to them and make a list of all the ones that were similar in some way to yours (plot, style, themes, characters). Look at the spine of the book or title page or the journal that published the story. See the publisher’s name? Put it on your list.
2. Use a market guide like Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market. In the back there is a category index. Look up your genre (like “science fiction” or “mystery”). See the list of magazines and book publishers there? Flip to their individual listings and read them. If the books/stories they describe in their “Needs” section sound like the book/story you’ve written, add them to your list.
3. Hit the Internet or visit your local library and ask to look at publisher’s catalogs. Look at the other books these publishers have produced lately. If they’re similar to yours, chances are they’ll like yours too. Put them on your list.

About contests: There are a lot of perfectly legitimate and wonderful opportunities for writers through contests, but there are a lot of complete scams, too, so just be careful. Only submit to contests sponsored by reputable agencies (like literary journals, universities, literary nonprofits, city newspapers, local or state arts councils, etc.). Only submit to a contest whose fee is proportional to the prize. If it costs $10 to enter your story and the prize is $20, that's not cool. If it costs $20 to enter your story collection and the prize is $1,000 and publication--that's very cool. And finally, pay attention to who's judging and who the past prize winners were. Are the judges famous writers or editors? Fabulous. Do they publish a list of their previous winners on their Web site? Also a great sign. But if you've never heard of the judge or the contest won't say who it is and you can't find out who won last year, that's probably a bad sign...

Now you have a list of places to submit. Next you need submission guidelines. Just as each publisher/publication/agency has specific tastes, they also have very specific ways they want to receive things. You can find these in Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market and on publisher’s Web sites. The key here is to send ONLY EXACTLY WHAT THEY TELL YOU. Do anything else and you’ve just given them the fastest and best reason to reject you.

Keep track of every place you submit and remember not to stop writing while you’re waiting to hear back from publishers.

And that’s pretty much the Cliff’s Notes version. There are lots of great Web sites for writers that give more detailed submissions information (I’ve given 6-hour lectures on the topic of “how do I get started,” but I’m not going to make you all suffer through any more here)—and I know this is in no way exhaustive—so let me know if this generates any more specific questions for you.

Good luck! And thanks for writing in, Charlene.

As an alternative to e-mailing me (which you're always welcome to do), feel free to post fiction- or publishing-related questions for me in the Comments thread of this post. I will address each question in a subsequent post.

Okay. So I'm working on this new short story, and it was going great. I wrote the opening scene, wrote the second backstory scene, skipped ahead to a really fun scene right before the climax ... and then stalled out.

Partially, I know I'm stalled because the missing pieces are the hard parts—the emotional parts—and I know I have to really focus and dig deep to write them. And, well, not to make excuses, but when your job is to make other people's words sound great, sometimes it's too noisy in your head for your own story.