Thread by @NaomisLitPix

While we are talking about query trench frustration: I've been mulling over some thoughts about form v. personal response, how much feedback to give in a pass, and my own personal conflict with the idea of giving a lot of "helpful" feedback in a pass. 🧵
#amquerying #querytip

A disclaimer: just speaking my thoughts here, which do not reflect a challenge to any other conversation on the topic. I don't scroll here a lot lately because my own mental health has been a significant challenge since my Jan surgery. I'm not trying to speak with authority.

There was a time when I really felt obligated to give as much feedback as I could in every pass, be it on a query or a full. Over time, I watched the comments online, and was unnerved when my baby-agent naiveté turned up some sharp responses to my well-meaning feedback.

I sat with it and began to really think about how feedback, esp when not on a full, could feel to an author. Challenging, ofc. Downright insulting, even if well-intentioned. Who the hell is this agent to say my plot feels familiar when they didn't even read beyond the sample?

And then I worried further into it: what if the advice I gave an author was truly HARMFUL? What if I thought the plot was familiar but truly, I just didn't get lulled in by the writing style to see how unique the execution was? What if,based on my feedback,author made a change -

- that truly HARMED the book's chances in the hands of the next agent?
Who the hell was I, really, to be giving feedback if I wasn't going to commit to AT LEAST requesting the full?
So I stopped. I started using forms for queries.

Ofc some authors were unhappy, but *I* could sleep at night knowing I didn't ignorantly harm an author's book if they happened to take my feedback in a direction I couldn't predict.

(You have to understand: agents WANT YOU TO BE SUCCESSFUL. This is our highest goal.)

Then I considered (and maybe tried?) using forms with vague, but still well-meaning, feedback. Doesn't fit my MSWL. Is too similar to something on my list. Not sure how the market is for this story. And you know what I got in response?

Pure, frustrated confusion.

"What do you mean doesn't fit your MSWL? What do you mean too similar? Should I even be querying this? What metrics did you use to determine the market for this?"

...all valid questions.
None of which I can answer in a way that won't spark MORE confusion and discouragement.

And it occurred to me:
The biggest harm I was doing with all this was creating that confusion. Making authors feel like they needed to dissect every response and find the true WHY. The one key that would turn this all around for them. The thing they'd "missed."

But they hadn't missed anything. The story hadn't jived with me, and the reason I gave was the best reason I understood of my own response to the story. The time I have to spend on it IS a factor, but more importantly, sometimes we just don't like a story we do not know why.

The more info I gave, the more caverns I opened. I couldn't bridge them all, bc it takes an INTIMATE UNDERSTANDING of a story, an author, an intention, to really give thorough feedback on a whole novel without also punching holes in the foundation. My opinions are not objective.

Enter: social media. Query tracker. A place for authors to compare all this feedback w/o context,without an intimate knowledge of why each author gets the responses they do, which also has too many, impossible-to-generalize variables. A place for authors to watch, in real time:

"Why that book, not mine? It matches your wishlist(by my interpretation). We'd gotten similar comments(on totally different books). What am I doing WRONG?"

And again, I came to the conclusion: nothing. You're not doing anything wrong. And who the hell am I to tell you otherwise?

Each agent brings uniqueness to their consideration of each story. I got something diff out of THE BROKEN EARTH TRILOGY than Agent A over there. I feel something diff when I watch ARRIVAL than Agent B over there. I define personal stakes diff than anyone else w/diff experiences.

So if you think your book matches my MSWL, and I think it doesn't, that's because there is
No
Possible
Way
for me to convey the intricacies of my MSWL and all its Whys and backstory in their comprehensive entirety in a bio paragraph.
I only understand it so thoroughly myself.

Let me be clear: some agents are better at this than I am. And I truly do believe we are all doing our best: agents, editors, authors, publicists. All of us. I can always listen, grow, and improve, and I remain open to challenge and question at any time.

But YOU and your book are so precious and complex. YOU deserve to write the book of your heart. And there are only so many spaces on agents' lists, and on bookshelves. We can fight and try and do our best, but at the end of the day, if you have to completely decimate your book -

- so that it fits those shelves exactly and gets you published? That is a SHAME. An atrocity. Sure, edit it to suit most industry standards, and talk loudly about why your book is needed. Make us open our eyes. But it is absolutely not appropriate for me to try to make every book

...exactly the shape *I* think it needs to be to be saleable. And offering feedback when I didn't understand a book, was doing
Exactly
That
to the authors I love so much.

Again I asked myself: who the hell am I to think that bc a book didn't jive with me, *I* somehow know best?

You can boil it right down to this:
Agents can be wrong.
I often am.
We talk about it all the time.
The book we passed on that sold huge, the genre we didn't open to. The opportunities we missed because we are FALLIBLE, we are human, we are WRONG, every day.

I don't have really actionable advice here, nor any good solutions. All I can offer is this:
If you get feedback and it doesn't make sense, or it doesn't feel right: call it wrong.
If you get no feedback - much as you might want it - it may have been wrong. It may have harmed.

If you get feedback that feels like you were SO CLOSE&you're desperate to know what you could have done better: ask critique partners. But do not, under any circumstances, tear apart your work - or worse, give up - because of one agent's opinion that may simply be flat-out WRONG.

Idk if this helps anyone at all.

I still give feedback on fulls, because I have read enough to think - and to reiterate, I could be WRONG - that the feedback I'm giving might help, and won't harm. Sometimes I go vague, and I always feel regret about that.

Editor feedback to agents is still incredibly valuable, bc I've filtered a high enough volume of passes to be able to confidently interpret whether feedback should be actioned/not.

And I still could be wrong. But at least these are usually editors I know, markets I've studied.

All the comparing we can do on social media - across EVERY segment of the industry - has created a vortex of despair, of confusion. I am trying my very best to not add additional confusion/harm. I'm trying to stay open-minded, to really KNOW that I do not know best in all cases.

And I won't get it right every time.

To authors in the querying trenches: I see you. I know you. I've been you. It's hard, it's so FUCKING HARD. But please don't hang your whole emotional experience in this industry on the feedback you're getting - or aren't getting.

I'm cheering for you. And I'm grateful for social media and these conversations, the courage everyone has to speak abt all these things. I've learned & grown from it, and I will continue to. I hope I see you on the shelves one day - or maybe even help get you there myself.
End🧵