Papillon: the horrors of submission

To be more precise, the horrors of the process of submitting your novel to literary agents. This has resulted in my inventing a new maxim: the more you want to get something right, the more likely you are to make silly mistakes.

I was foolish enough to believe that in this day of email submissions, life woul d be easier, as well as cheaper and less time consuming. Truly foolish. I have memories of spending hours on my knees, collating pages of chapters, synopses, covering pages, covering letters and - cringe - images which could grace the front cover of my published manuscript, thus turning it into a best seller overnight (until I was informed by someone in the know that agents/publishers consider this to be getting ahead of ourselves). Then slipping all this precious material into a tastefully coloured folder and inserting the f older into a jiffy bag. Followed by the visit to the post office, and while queuing, wondering for the hundredth time if I'd omitted anything.

This tedious process has, in the case of many agents, been superceded by email submissions. What a breeze. Or so I thought as I cheerfully created a new folder for storing all relevant documents for the submission, including a document containing a table of agents' names and email addresses, what they wish you to submit, date sent, reply (ever the optimist), and further action (ever the dreamer).

Perhaps it's always been the case, but relatively new to the submission process, it's a surprise to learn of the different requirements made by agents. Some want chapters (usually 2 or 3), some want words (5 -10,000 or 10,000 thereabouts), some want numbers of pages (no more than 50). As for synopses, a trawl of ten agents yielded the following requests: very brief synopsis, brief synopsis, short synopsis outlining plot and main characters, one page synopsis, brief synopsis of two pages max., a synopsis of between one to three pages, a synopsis of between one to six pages and a full plot synopsis.

As for the 'letter', there are variations here: a covering letter, a short covering letter, a query letter, a covering letter in the body of the email etc. etc.

Variations in what's wanted aren't just restricted to length, there's also format. Word documents, PDF, open documents.

Some agents request a CV, others ask for a pitch telling the agent why a prospective reader should read your book. As many people might, the tendency is to send off the 'easiest' packages of information first. By the time you are faced with the request for a pitch, the only way to answer such a question is: f----- if I know, f----- if I care. By now you are bored looking at your introductory chapters and can't imagine anyone else finding them well written, let alone remotely interesting.

But the killer, the ultimate killer, the thing that made me worry I might end up demented, is the tiny mistakes you find in your synopsis or covering letter minutes after pressing the 'send' button. The name with the last letter omitted, the forgotten preposition. And after that, the momentous decision: what to do. Hope that whoever is reading your initial contact won't notice or be sympathetic? Or resend your submission with an

opening sentence apologising for sending the wrong version of the synopsis (euphanism for the one with the spelling or grammar error)?

And linked to this, is which particular agent you select from the agency. As I write primarily for women, I tend to select a woman. I'm always keen to see a photo, though. I'm in search of a friendly, gentle face. Someone whose expression doesn't convey: I'm far too intelligent/intellectual/successful/deep, to want to read your drivel. Of course there are men who are interested in representing women writing for women. But my arguably out-of-date mindset means that, given a choice, I'll opt for the female agent.

Having chosen to resend, the limitations of the computer can come in to play, taking forever to load your emails, let you check (again) that the attachment you are sending is the correct one.

Is it all worth it? Of course. Nothing attempted, nothing gained, as the saying goes. The next task is to get myself into a place when the negative replies, or, as is more likely, the absence of a reply, doesn't affect me too much. The easiest way to do this is to start on another novel.