By Lucienne Diver
Lucienne Diver is a partner in the long–established Spectrum Literary Agency. Her advice to Claudia has been invaluable over the years.
I was pretty daunted when Claudia asked me to contribute here from time to time, because I have to admit that I’m all talked out on thosesubjects most people want to hear about—what an agent does, how we work, how rejection letters should be interpreted, etc. No one wants to hear me babble on about my newest addictions (jewelry making and scrapbooking) or the fact that Joss Whedon is my idol or the latest adorable thing my five-and-a-half year old writer/actor/director has done. So, what’s left to say?
Well, I could get on my soap box and talk about how I feel the term “literary” fiction strikes me as demeaning other types of fiction as “non-literary” by implication, but I’ve decided to go positive. I’m going to talk about something I feel passionate about–character, point of view, VOICE.
I once had an aspiring writer respond to a rejection with, “I don’t understand. You represent fantasy; I write fantasy.” If only it were that easy. I find more often than not what pushes me over the edge from liking to loving is the voice. It can be quirky or sassy, ironic or homespun, but is always that of a character I want to follow on adventures, whatever they may be. This would probably explain my eclectic list. I’ve taken on everything from Southern commercial literary suspense through rip-roaring romance to science fiction, fantasy and young adult fiction. Yes, I love the diversity, even try to make a rounded list one of my criteria, but each time I’ve been led to explore something new it’s been because of the wonderful, exceptional voice calling like a siren song. I want characters who turn convention on its ear, who express things in a way that only they could, who aren’t stock or studied but are just brashly, unrepentantly themselves. Or, hey, not brash and unrepentant at all, sardonic and self-deluding, or—well, that’s the point, I don’t know them until I see them because they’re so uniquely themselves. I want characters who live and breathe so that I find myself thinking I’d love to sit down with them and chat or there’s no way I’d let them near the good china.
At the same time, I want characters with whom I can identify. There are authors out there whose books I have to lay aside for a while to give my stomach a chance to settle after eating itself up out of concern for the characters. There are books I have to read in fifty-page increments because that’s as much as I can get through without the tears pouring down my face. I don’t like to cry. I’ll fight you on it, but if you can make me laugh or cry or emote in any way, you’ve hooked me. If you make a reader connect, you make us care, we’ll do your selling for you—rave about it to our friends, family, and, in an agent’s case, editors.
That’s what it’s all about.