If you have a novel you feel ready to send to agents, you want ME as your PitchWars mentor!




Why?

I've been there.

I write a KILLER query letter. My letter got me in the door with almost everyone I sent it to (see 'How I got my Agent' post below.) I know how to pen an intelligent, interest-grabbing letter that WILL get you noticed.

My agent is a PitchWars agent!

Brianne Johnson of Writers House NYC is one of the Pitch Wars agents and as WELL as being an incredible agent and all-around lovely person, she is a fantastic editor. I know what she looks for. I know what can help distinguish your book.

I've done a BUNCH of stuff.

• As a diplomat's daughter I've spent half my life living overseas (Spain, Costa Rica, Colombia, India, England, South Africa... to name a few) and traveled even more (most of Europe, South and Central America and the United States)
  
• In my 20's I traveled overland the length of Africa from Cairo to Cape Town. I was in first group of people allowed into Sudan when the borders briefly opened in the mid 90's, hitchhiked the dangerous Tete Corridor in Mozambique, climbed Mt. Kenya and met Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
• I launched a record label and played in a rock band in LA, headlining the Viper Room, among others.
• I worked at the White House for President Bill Clinton.
• I made a documentaries for the History Channel about exorcism and cannibalism
  
• I modeled in NYC.
• I've birthed three children (two of them at the same time!)
• I currently live in Bath, England (home of Jane Austen)

So if you have any of these elements in your novel, or just a fearless, adventuring protagonist, I can help make sure the story rings true.

I've been a judge in an international novel competition:

As a long and shortlist judge of the Bath Novel Award in 2013 (and coming up again in 2014), I read hundreds of novel excerpts and a dozen full manuscripts. Early on in the competition, a book really hooked me. I championed it. Juliet Mushens of The Agency Group, London, was the final judge and chose the same book as the winner, and then went on to represent it. 

Everyone needs an editor.

I'm a great editor. I have a degree in broadcast journalism, worked at the White House editing speeches for Bill Clinton, worked in television for 7 years writing and editing scripts and producing documentaries, and have worked with an ACE editor on my own novel, who taught me both how to give criticism AND receive it. IMPORTANT.

But know this:

I will not be easy on you. If you are looking for someone to tell you that your book is perfect bar some minor punctuation fixes, look elsewhere. Unless you've been strenuously edited already, your book WILL need work.

I will give you a careful, global edit of your manuscript. I will work hard for you and expect the same in return.

Please send me:

• YA (only)
  
• Literary/Horror/Suspense/Thriller/Ghost/Real-Life/Romance/SciFi--dystopian and postapocalyptic only)
  
• Stories with a strong sense of place/doomed love/strong emotional stake for the protagonist
  
• Love/Heartbreak/Romance--that which pulls at the heart--I have a passion for writing about love, longing and loss and can turn your affairs of the heart to the power of ELEVEN!
• ADVENTURE!!!
• HUMOR!!!
  
• Male OR female OR other protagonist.

Please DON'T send:

• Erotica 
• Hardcore SciFi (i.e. space and technology when those are the main narrative drivers. does that make sense? i mean, if you have two characters who are stranded on a broken ship floating in space and are falling for each other but will be killed by a flesh-eating virus if they lay hand on each other--yeah. i'd read that!)
  
• Historical
• Non Fiction
• Elves, vampires or wizards. 

Last but not least:

Please tell me why you are querying me. Why do you think we'd work well together?

Do engage me on twitter: @DionneMcCulloch Tease me with your story!

Know that I'll want to see a synopsis, and possibly a few additional chapters before making a final decision. Most agents would want the same!

For more information on PitchWars 2014, agents, and how to submit your entry, go HERE.


Happy hunting, Mentees!

I want to share the story of how I got my agent because if I could do it, anyone can. I really mean that. All it takes is perseverance and the courage to knock on the door. Any door. And as my story will prove, you can even make mistakes--in my case, quite a few of them.

This is what happened (the long version.) Skip to the *** paragraph to read the short version.

I live in England and around the time that I had loosely plotted and written about a third of my first book, I made friends with a woman at my kids' school who was a published author. We got to chatting and she said if I ever wanted to send something to her agent, she'd introduce me. **Kind thing #1!

So not being a very PATIENT person, I took her up on it and not two days later sent a 12k word Plot Synopsis (yes, that's not a typo, 12k word SYNOPSIS), 14 SINGLE SPACED, FIRST DRAFT chapters and a letter. I mean... WHAT? Did I even look at this Ace Agent at a TOP London lit agency's submission guidelines? No, I did NOT. Did I even know that agents HAD submission guidelines? Ok, I'm not even going to answer that.

Unbelievably, Ace Agent replied. Asked if I had finished writing the book. Ahem... I hadn't. She said, get in touch when you do. **Kind thing #2!

So I finished the book. FIRST DRAFT.

Sent it.

She answered, asked me to come in for a meeting.

I did. On Bloomsbury Square in London, with her and her incredibly talented assistant.

They spent THREE HOURS with me talking through my book, characters that needed developing, things I could do to polish it. They said to get in touch any time I got stuck. No offer of rep, obviously they just wanted to see how I got on first. *Kind thing #3!

Here is what you need to know. This was over 3 years ago and I have learned A LOT in that time, and I can tell you, hand on heart, that draft was a MESS. The story as it is now was in there, but I had a lot of growing and learning as a writer ahead of me. Ace Agent and Genius Assistant took a massive punt on me, and went on to give me several detailed rounds of edits over the next two years before finally passing on the book. I am forever indebted to them, because if I had gone brazenly into the agent world with that first draft I would have been shot out of the sky like a fat goose and may never have got back up again. They gave me the confidence, and the understanding of the craft to become a real writer.

***So, next: I was in touch with a friend in NYC where I used to live, who went to school with 'someone I think works in books.' She gave me his name. Google.com Oh! He's the President of Penguin Books' edgy YA imprint, Razorbill. Now what's the first rule we learn as unagented writers? Repeat after me? PUBLISHERS DON'T ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS, Right? Wrong!! You never know when a publisher's assistant will pick up an ms and give it a thumb-through.

SEVEN months after sending my unagented ms to Razorbill, a Lovely Assistant to the President got back to me and said she and Mr. Prez had read my ms, loved it, wished me all the luck in the world, and here are the names of FIVE AGENTS we think you should contact. *KIND THING #4!!!

I screamed for a solid hour.

Then I sent an email to the first agent on the list, an agent at WRITERS HOUSE where I had long harbored secret hopes of being rep'd, and whose Publishers Marketplace page blew me away. I figured, I'll just see what she says before I contact any of the other agents. Brianne Johnson replied in hours asking for my full ms, and two days later she offered me representation.

This is probably not your typical 'route to agent' story, but then my hunch is that nobody's is. Knock on every door. Your father's golf buddy's son's new girlfriend works in publishing? Call her up! Maybe she can't help you because she's just an intern, but maybe she knows someone who knows someone who is looking for an NA Historical Romance that you just happen to be writing.

And certainly I'd advise to follow agents' submission guidelines to the LETTER. But even better, get involved in amazing things like PITCH WARS where you can get your foot in the door with agented authors who really do want to help you. Because there is one thing absolutely true about the world of books: It is FULL to BURSTING with Kind People happy to do Kind Things. Good Luck!

Well then. It turns out that staring at the blank whiteness of your box-fresh blog is just as intimidating as a blank Word doc. Page 01 of a new book. The top indexcard in the pack. A cellophane-wrapped cork board.

Except when you write a book, you get to fool yourself that no one will ever read THIS, because THIS is just a first draft and before anyone reads THIS I'll make it better.

Not so in blog world.

So instead I'll make it short.

My name is Dionne, and, like you, my first love is reading and that love of reading has become a love and passion for writing. My first novel, When Shadows Explode, is a YA thriller about Janey, a 16-year old girl with telekinetic powers she can't always control and the deranged black-ops officer desperate to possess her. I am currently at work on my second novel.