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The garden of Snarkly delights

Posted by Jan Freeman, keep until April  May 21, 2007 11:17 PM
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I've been meaning to post about the pleasures of reading Miss Snark, the literary agent, though her blog is less about the fine points of language than the gross points -- like how to query an agent without sounding like a nitwit.

MissSnark3.jpg


Nitwittery is in plentiful supply, though, so Miss Snark (with the aid of her poodle, Killer Yapp, and a pail of gin) has been dispensing a stream of straight talk (and sometimes a shot from the cluegun) to would-be novelists. When she turned on the crapometer, offering free advice on sample queries, those who braved it got responses like this:

You're absolutely awash in more words than you need. Pare! Pare! Take that dagger and cut off about half of what you have here. Get the action moving. Quit telling us how all fired moody and Heathcliffian all these "he's" are. Kill someone! Now!


Miss Snark, alas, has abruptly hung up her stilettos, effective yesterday, saying that she has answered all the questions she has answers for. But the website -- two years' worth of tough love, Clooney swoons, and haiku in honor of Thomas Pynchon's 70th birthday -- lives on.

(P.S.: Miss Snark's "book" cover is only a joke. For now.)


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