What Makes Your Story Special

I was fortunate enough to go to a writer's conference this last weekend. I had a talk with one of the writers about her project and I thought I would share what we discovered about her project, and I am sure it is something about your own project.

In her case, she was working as a ghost writer for another woman writing her memoir. As she was talking though her story, my mind kept drifting off. No, it wasn't because it was hot outside (which it was), or the fact it was the end of the day (which it was). It was all about the story. The author was doing a great job telling the story to me, but the story itself was simply not holding my attention.

So we talked about it. What she was facing is really what a lot of people face when it comes to writing their memoir. The story they are telling is very important to the author, and probably very important to their immediate family, but for the general public, there is simply no buy in for the reader. There is nothing unique about this.

For this author, she was writing about how this one woman was able to overcome some tough marital problems and what she was doing to cope in these later years. OK, sounds like there might be some

potential here, but for marketing purposes, I simply had to tell the author. "But what makes this unique? As unfortunate as this sounds, this is something that happens pretty much everyday around the world. More importantly, what this character in the book is doing is what pretty much every other woman is doing in the same situation."

I bring up this story, because it is something we look for in new projects of all genres. As agents and editors, we listen to pitches, and we read query letters and have to determine the uniqueness of the project and certainly what the author is bringing to the table that makes us want to stand up and take notice. The writing may be fantastic! The author may have this great sense of the business and would be a great person to work with. But if the story doesn't throw something unique into the mix, the story might not have a lot of chance of success.

We are living in a publishing world with ton of authors. I have noted here several times of the number of authors just "giving away" their books on Amazon. They are doing this to "promote" their books, but if there are that many, how the heck are we to find your book. If you think about it, we often learn about new authors and new books by word of mouth. But the books we pass on, are books that got us excited as readers. We tell our friends, "You have got to read this book. Let me tell you what this author was doing." The odds are we are not passing on books to friends because the author is doing what everyone else is doing. It was the uniqueness of the book that stood out.

Now, when I say your story needs to be unique, it doesn't mean that it should be weird. Again, too often, writers misinterpret this idea and create something so extreme, that that they are now faced with the same situation as our prior author had. There is no way to market this book. It is so different, readers will be stuck with knowing what to do with it.

Making your story unique is also not just about changing the location. I hear authors all of the time tell me their story is different because it is set in a location no one has written about. So? That does nothing. But, if they are writing about a location that no one has ever been able to get into due to political, ethnic or geographical reasons, then we have something that is unique.

So, let's get back to that author from the conference. She had sensed something was up with the project and the talk really helped to clarify what was going on. But then she came to the next realization. She simply couldn't go back and redraft her pitch to make the story unique. The story was what it was. As an author, you simply cannot make your story be something that it isn't. You have to find a way to make your story unique from the beginning. To think about what it is about that story that will be marketable to all of the other readers out there BEFORE you write it.

Uniqueness, pitches queries and submissions

I started thinking about his when I was talking with another editor about how I acquire manuscripts. In this case, the editor was wondering exactly what it was in the query that caused me to want to sign an author. I had to break it to this editor that the query simply doesn't sell me on the story. If anything, the query process tells me if I really don't want to sign that person.

I have talked about this before, but that query letter is your first chance to show me you are a professional. Write it poorly, show me you are unprofessional and your life is over.

But, let's get back to the original idea I want to talk about. The query letter does have something that I do look for. I want to see the uniqueness of your story. I want to see what makes your story stand out from all of the others that come across my desk. I want to see what would make the editors that I submit your story to stand up and take notice.

Too often, I read submissions where I simply yawn. The story may be excellent in terms of the writing style. There may be fantastic scenes between the hero and heroine, but if the story can not stand out as being unique, the process stops there.

I mentioned this to a writing group once and told them to take a look at their current stories that are being marketed. What makes the story unique? No, I am not talking about the theme of the story "it is a story of love and redemption", I want to know what makes this story different from anything else. What is it about your story that says WOW!

Now here is the kicker. There are many of you. No I would say the majority of writers that have started and finished stories that are not unique. Once the story is done, there is nothing you can do to make it unique. The damage is already done. Yes, this is one more chance to bring up the need to plot out your story ahead of time.

I am currently working with one of my authors, Ann Lethbridge, on a future project. We spent nearly 30 minutes on the phone creating some uniqueness to this story idea. We had to find a way to tap into her current strengths and take this story idea to a new level that would not only cross the generations, but would also extend to other potential books in the future. At the end of the 30 minutes, we had it, but she still has a lot more work ahead of her. Once we have that, she is off and running.

So, before you start writing today, figure out if your story really is unique. What would make me say WOW! and you can not simply say it is the writing. Hey, I haven't even gotten to the writing.

Scott