Hey, literary agent! Are you looking for a knockoff or something original?

 Years ago at Canyon House, a long forgotten marketing company, Norman had a sharp eye for products we could knock off, products that were already proven winners. Knockoffs were low risk and they made money, not as much as the originals, but enough to keep things profitable.

Marketing a new and truly original product is risky. Most don't make it. They're dropped before too much money is lost. The big money goes to push the winners. When you just go for knockoffs you eliminate losses from those hopeless products that would never make it. Because your product is a knockoff of a product that's already proven to be winner, you can be relatively certain the it too will make money.

Marketing knockoffs is boring.

In submitting queries to literary agents (I'm still looking!) a common request is to name "comparable books." I laughed when one agent's wish list mentioned that he/she/they/them wanted submissions that "defied categorizations altogether" -- and then asked for comparable titles.

It's understandable. There are hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of agents out there trying to make a living, and it isn't easy for them. Wouldn't it be easier for an agent to make a deal with a publisher by offering a book that is "like" a current best seller? Norman wouldn't hesitate.

So "original" is going to be harder to sell; riskier. "Original" is not for every agent out there. It takes someone special.

Original stories do get published. Out there among the agenting universe there are players who do recognize these special books and champion them and bring them to the market.

But it's risky.

How I selected my summer reading this year

My wife carefully curates her summer reading before we head for Canada and our house on Nova Scotia's South Shore. My summer reading is selected using a different method, one that is risky but, some summers, immensely rewarding. It goes like this:

From Walden, New York, we drive to Bangor, Maine. Then, from Bangor, we drive to St. John, New Brunswick, where we get the ferry across the Bay of Fundy to Digby, Nova Scotia. From the ferry terminal at Digby it's about a three hour drive to our house and you might think that, after so many hours on the road, we'd head right for it, right from the ferry terminal. But actually we make a stop in Digby before heading for the house. We stop at Frenchys. It's a must.

My wife goes through the ladies clothes for her summer wardrobe. I've mostly gotten my fill of clothes from Frenchys but I'm eager to see what books they might have.

This year (2025) when I first looked into the book bin I was disappointed. It was almost empty. There was probably a reason for this. Usually we make it to Canada at the end of June, in time for the local Canada Day celebrations. This year we had some delays and didn't arrive until the last week of July. Others had grabbed up all the good books and this book bin is only stocked at the beginning of the summer.

But I did want some summer reading so I picked seven books out of the bin, all authors and titles unfamiliar to me. I had low expectations for my selections.

That changed when I started reading.

My first book was Berji Kristen: Tales from The Garbage Hills, by Latife Tekin, translated from the original Turkish by Ruth Christie and Saliha Paker. It's about low -- very low -- income people whose community -- their houses -- are all built on a garbage dump and, for those who work for wages, their workplaces -- the factories they work in -- aren't far from the garbage dump. Their environment is full of toxic waste -- chemicals from these local factories which infuse the air these people breath and the water they drink, the effects of which is just taken for granted. They have no options.

Tekin's tale is low key. No preaching; no shouting. She just lays it out for you and how you look at it is up to you.

With the Garbage Hills behind me, I picked up The Watsons Go To Birmingham -- 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis. My wife noticed the Newberry Honor award on the cover and told me I probably wouldn't want to read a kid's book, but I thought I'd give it a try. I devoured it. Aside from the interest in the book, I was fascinated by the author's story of how the book got published and launched his literary career at a time when he was no longer a youngster.

It's a beautiful tale of a beautiful family and, through this book, I learned about the "conk" -- a hairstyle not favored by Mr. and Mrs. Watson (their oldest son gets one and, as a result, has his head shaved by his father!) but you may have seen prominent musicians who adapted this somewhat risky hair straightening style -- Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and others.

Then, from Mr. Curtis's tale, I learned that in 1963 a car could be fitted with a record player -- not an 8-track, not a tape player or CD player, but a real record player -- in the case of the Watsons, one that played 45s. (This so amazed me that I had to look it up on Wikipedia for verification!)

As the Watsons travel south from Flint, Michigan (where the author lived and grew up) to Birmingham, Alabama, we learn how America can be both beautiful and terrifying.

So the first two books were hits. Then I plunged into Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh, translated from Arabic by Trevor LeGrassick and Elizabeth Fernea. Originally published in 1976, the story is timely -- a tale of Palestinians in the West Bank and their interactions with Israel.

When I finish reading this book I still have four more to go -- all seven for just twenty seven dollars (Canadian). Even if the next four are bombs, hey, I've gotten my money's worth. More than my money's worth.

So this is how I pick my summer reading. Unplanned. Uncertain. But often the overlooked books in Frenchys book bin turn out to be gems that widen my horizons and expose me to worlds I would never otherwise have lived. These are books I would never have discovered in my local book store or by following a reviewer's "Ten 'must reads' for Summer 2025." Now back to the books.

Pirates and Mermaids

While I continue my search for an agent for my current story, I'm also struggling to find an entry point for my next story and, until yesterday, this was baffling me. Let me put it this way -- if I want to be a writer of stories -- fictions -- I have to have stories to tell, one after another. At this point I've told three stories in writing, all "unpublished," but, as noted, while waiting for the right agent to call, I've got to march onward and start story number four. That's where I've been stumped.

Yesterday evening, lying in bed, an idea struck me: an entry point. For me, an entry point is a theme that can begin a story. It's not necessarily the beginning of the story but it's an idea for a story. So, having found the entry point for as story which I may or may not pursue, I was excited, especially because this entry point would lead to a story that would be difficult -- very difficult -- to write, but the task would, for me, be exciting.

Then, while I was contemplating how I might write this difficult story, my dear wife chimes in -- "Oh, I have an idea for your next story: pirates and mermaids."

Now I have no interest in pirates and only a passing interest in mermaids but I know where this was coming from. We had just arrived at our summer house which is on a cove off the ocean. An hour's drive north is a seaport which boasts that it was once "the home of the privateers," privateers being nothing more than pirates licensed by a letter of marque from the government, in our local case the King of England. So pirates were on her mind and, where there are pirates, there are sure to be mermaids. Doesn't it follow?

But, logical as all this might be, I don't think I'll pursue "pirates and mermaids" as my next story. I really have no experience with either pirates or mermaids. But maybe, in a few years, in the distant future when I've finished the story I (might) want to work on now ... who knows?

Writing your author's bio for a literary agent can give you three rewards

 Writing your bio for a literary agent is a necessity but doing it can give you three rewards.

First, you'll have that essential personal biography for the literary agents you're querying.

Then there are two other "rewards," if you take the time to dig and go over your life with all its highs and lows, all its joys and sufferings, and all its happy and unhappy surprises.

Reward number one: you'll come up with some great material to share with your kids, grandkids, and friends -- who may or may not be interested.

Reward number two -- and this is the really big one: you're likely to uncover incidents, events, and impressions that can launch you on your next literary project. The kernel of something remembered can grow into a luscious literary fruit. Just water it with a bit of imagination and think about how you might have liked that faint memory to have developed. Bingo! Story time! All from doing a job you had to do anyway.

Writing a synopsis can be therapeutic

When you've finished writing your novel you may be asked for a synopsis. This is another writing project and you might cringe at the request. Some say writing a synopsis is so onerous that it causes your mind to go blank and your eyes go blind. But writing a synopsis can be therapeutic.

Writing a synopsis forces you to look at your novel and see what you've really done -- not what you thought you had done. Writing a synopsis forces your eyes to see the gaps -- the left out parts that the reader will spot but you have overlooked. These gaps need to be filled, even though they may force you to go back to your story and write more -- to plug those gaps and give your readers the satisfaction of a story well told.

Where did the thoughts for this article come from? Where else but my own experience, the wake up jolt received when ... writing a synopsis. But thanks to the "whoops" moment the synopsis uncovered, the final revision of the novel is much improved, as will be yours.

New pistols vs. old pistols: a writer's problem

Can you write a novel where a major scene involves something you know nothing about?

I've been contemplating a plot for a third novel. (First two as yet unpublished) and part of the plot involves handguns. This is not about good guns or bad guns, good guys or bad guys. It's about two guys who bond over target shooting -- still an innocent sport.

The problem I'm encountering is the timeline. As a kid I was into guns, for target shooting and curiosity and for all the gun allure kids love.

So the story at one point involves target shooting with what might be called "the guns of my youth": the .22, the 9 millimeter, the .45 auto. A cheap revolver, a couple of German Lugers, and a couple of 1911 Army .45s. Fine.

But, as the story progresses, guns make their appearance a second time. But time has passed. The guns of my youth are now obsolete. Time had marched on and I haven't owned a gun for close to sixty years. (Gave them all away when I went on active duty. I figured if the Army wanted me to have a gun, they'd give me one. (They did.)

So here's the problem. I want to write an incident involving guns but it's not at the beginning of the story and the guns of this period are no longer the guns of my youth.

How should I handle this?

How would you handle it?

I'm not going out and acquire a new gun collection. I can read gun magazine but this isn't going to make it very real. Can I just skip the DETAILS on the modern guns? Can I just say, "he had a gun"? I have a story I want to tell but I'm fussed if I'm personally going to get back into guns.

I was talking to a friend recently who was going big game hunting with a British .303, a gun from my youth. Maybe I can just recall enough of the smells and the spirit of shooting -- target shooting -- to wing it.

What do you think?

-- Philip Goutell

How does it end? Who wins?

 A novel needs a climax, a point at which the story comes to a critical point and then something happens to steer it toward a resolution. Here there are three possibilities: the "good" side prevails; the "bad" side prevails... or no one prevails. Look at the consequences of each path.

When the "good" sided prevails we feel good about the story as long as the good wins out in a logical way.

If the "bad" side prevails, we are either left upset or left telling ourselves, "yes, life is really like that."

While I like the feeling of the good side winning, when writing I find myself favoring the ending where everything is set right, no matter how badly this disappoints our desire for retribution. Really don't we want to see harmony in the universe? There can be no harmony in a world where there are only winners and losers. Writing a win-win ending that pleased the reader can be a challenge, but one well worth the effort.

 -- Philip Goutell