From: Anonymous
I'm enjoying 'Stay' very much. The only thing I disliked about 'The Blue Place' was Aud's complete self-confidence, pedantry almost, which made her somewhat unsympathetic (in both senses, both to me as a reader, and as a character to those around her). Anyway, I have one peeve about 'Stay' - is there a reason you use "swang" as the past tense of swing? That looks quite petty, written down, but the word must have occured half-a-dozen times in the first 175 pages, and it grates every time. I really love everything apart from that. Sorry!

Aaaargh!! I'm beginning to wish Aud had never learned the verb "to swing" when she learned English. (For a longer comment on the swing/swang/swung issue, please see the 15 June Ask Nicola.)

I know what you mean about Aud being unsympathetic to begin with in The Blue Place. At times the line between making her the kind of person you'd want to spend a lot of time with and making her believably unpleasant was a tough one to tread. One writer who does this very well is Dorothy Dunnett. In her first novel, A Game of Kings (first published in 1961 but still in print, from Vintage), the character of Francis Crawford of Lymond is limned stroke by deliciously ambivalent stroke, as we see him through the eyes of friends, family, enemies, allies, co-conspirators and victims. It's lovely stuff, and I would cheerfully have stolen her technique, except I'd already written the first book in first person--and Dunnett's work is, of course, in third person. Oh, well. (A recent interview I did for BookSense has a bit more detail about Aud and some of the complexities involved in writing her character.)

From: Liz (e_galewski@hotmail.com)

You're my favorite author. Who's yours?

This is a bit like being asked what my favourite food is. The answer is: it depends. Is it day or night? Am I hungry or just want to nibble? Am I in the mood for something new and interesting or do I want comfort food? And even then, it's not the writers so much as the writing. I love Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series (which begins with Master and Commander), but the first fifteen of those books are wonderful and the last five not that great. And his other fiction is either rather rocky in terms of voice (he was really feeling his way for a while in the sixties) or quite tedious in terms of tone (Testimonies is a grim little novel that's very difficult to like). But those first fifteen books (really just very long chapters of an extended novel, in my opinion) suit my mood for almost any occasion. They're like great wine that way: they can stand almost any temperature, hold up against virtually any food, enliven dull company and make irritating people easier to bear. Lovely stuff. I also admire the short fiction of Amy Bloom tremendously, and Mary Stewart's Dark Ages sequence (beginning with The Crystal Cave) is a great read (her other stuff is a bit, um, women's romance-y for my taste). I like fiction with sweep and heft and authority, that's precise but has depth, that is dense but leaves me room to imagine my own place in it, that is deadly serious but very funny. The best novels (and I do prefer novels to short fiction) leave me feeling enlarged, better (richer, finer, wiser) for having read them. Rather like life, I suppose.

From: Anonymous

Help! I need some advice about literary agents. I sent out a batch of about 20 query letters, and to my shock, four of the agents already have requested to see the manuscript. Just today, one asked for the material to be exclusive, but it's too late -I already sent samples out to the others.

Question is -- I know I have to confess that other agents have the material as well, but how much information should I give? Do you think it would impress them, to know that these other bigshots are also paying attention, or do you think it would just put them off?

Afraid of Miffing the Courtship Ritual Entirely

If what you've written is good enough, miffing an agent won't muff the relationship. Agents exist to sell manuscripts to editors. Any of those agents you're dealing with will know you're a beginner; one mistake won't screw anything up. And if it did, that agent isn't thick-skinned enough to stay in the business.

My opinion is that no agent deserves exclusivity until they're ready to sign a contract and do some work for you. Why should you agree to send something to them exclusively? "Because our time is valuable!" the agent would no doubt say, to which you'd be entitled to respond, "So is mine." If they agree to sign a contract that stipulates they won't consider any other new client but you during the time they're reading your ms. then, fine, you can agree to extend to them the same courtesy, otherwise forget it. Send stuff to everyone and see what happens. Any agents (or writers) out there who feel differently, feel free to chip in with your two cents' worth.