Guest Blogger: Meredith Efken on Advice for Newbie Fiction Writers

1) Don’t be in a hurry to submit work or query editors/agents. Learn the craft. Love the craft. Obsess about the craft. Aim to make your work art, not just “sellable.”

2) Educate yourself about the publishing industry, especially the fiction industry. Pay attention to what’s going on and how things work, and who’s who. Be able to discuss this and listen to industry talk in an informed manner.

3) Read a lot of fiction. Try reading outside your preferred genre, too. (That’s hard for me, but I’ve discovered some gems that way.) At conferences, pay attention to what the editors and agents are raving about, and read them, even if they’re not fiction. This is part of the culture of the fiction industry—a culture you’re now part of. Be a connoisseur of good literature—be fanatic about it.

4) At conferences, don’t talk too much. I’m not trying to imply you have nothing worthwhile to say, because you DO. But as others have pointed out, you learn so much more by listening. I spent much of my first several conferences sitting at tables or with groups of people that included published authors and agents, hardly daring to move because I wanted them all to forget I was there so I could just be invisible and hear their candid thoughts and observations. I still do that sometimes. I learn a lot, and besides—it takes the pressure off you when you’re not trying to think up something to say…

For the rest of Meredith’s advice visit her Fix It Workshop Blog.

Meredith Efken is a freelance editor and published novelist. Her editing service, Fiction Fix-It Shop, provides substantive and developmental editing, coaching, book proposal evaluation, and critiques exclusively for writers of adult and YA fiction of all genres. Her goal is to make editing fun and encouraging, while also helping writers of all experience levels to improve in their art and craft. Her clients include published authors such as Randy Ingermanson and Deborah Raney and newer authors such as Maureen Lang, whose upcoming book OAK LEAVES was contracted partly as a result of an FFS edit. Read more about her services and rates, and how you can receive a free mini-critique, at her website. https://www.fictionfixitshop.com)