An actual proper reply from a literary agent

I have sent my second novel to probably only 10 literary agents so far. My first novel, however has been sent to around 70. Now for the first time out of all my submissions I have finally received a rejection that was not generic! Thanks Saba from Talcott Notch Literary :)

Maybe I shouldn't be that happy that I received a rejection, but I guess it's sort of like yelling out in a public place but no one actually looking like they can hear you. Then, suddenly someone turns around and notices me. Sure, that person said, shutup, but at least I know they saw me.

So here is the rejection as well as the actual email I sent.

I'll let you be the judge regarding Saba's reply.

Cheers
Mat Clarke
http://www.matclarke.wranga.com.au/

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Saba Sulaiman
To: Mat Clarke
Sent: Saturday, 2 August 2014 4:52 AM
Subject: Re: Query, Saba Sulaiman: Citylife, Fiction/Thriller

Dear Mat,

Hi there! Thanks for thinking of me. I'm going to be honest with you: You've got some interesting things going on here, but it's all too vague. What is the premise? What are the stakes? Can the plot of the novel be summarized in 1-2 sentences? In today's crowded market, thrillers will only sell if they have a clear focus that can be easily conveyed, so readers can connect to the story instantly. You're right, I do prefer character driven novels, but there has to be more of a hook for me to be invested in delving deep into any character's psychiatric neuroses. So while your writing has grit, I think you could benefit from thinking about how you want to shape your novel in order to make it more palatable to the current commercial thriller reader.

And -- for what it's worth -- I strongly advise against shifting POVs between the prologue and the rest of the novel. In fact, having the prologue at all is risky, because most editors shy away from acquiring projects with long-winded prologues that prevent them from getting into the narrative immediately.

You seem to have good resources at your disposal, so I have faith that with the advice and support of your peers and mentors, your novel will eventually place somewhere. Until then, continue to persevere, and do not lose hope!

Best,
Saba
 

Saba Sulaiman, Junior Agent
Talcott Notch Literary Services

2 Broad Street, Second Floor, Suite 10
Milford, Connecticut 06460
ph: 203-876-4959
fax: 203-876-9517
ssulaiman@talcottnotch.net
http://www.talcottnotch.net/agents/saba_sulaiman

---

From: Mat Clarke
To: "ssulaiman@talcottnotch.net"
Sent:
Subject: Query, Saba Sulaiman: Citylife, Fiction/Thriller

Dear Saba,

A snippet of my completed thriller manuscript:
    CNN showed a birds eye view of a shopping mall smoldering after being torn apart by an explosion on opening day. The news reporter now stands in front of the rescue crew, his hair whipping about his forehead in the ash laden wind.
    Tingrin knew this had something to do with him, his hungover mind just couldn’t break through the fog. He refocused his eyes from the TV to his hands, the blood was still there. He was sure he had dried them clean moments before...
He gulped down the glass, previously resting on his knee, then poured more and drank more. After some time he set the stained glass back next to the bottle of Jack Daniels on its side, both empty. Finally the blood on his hands was gone.

I chose, Citylife, to be my pursuit toward being published due to it being interesting and different, as well as having what I believe to be a commercial potential. I read through your preferences for reading material and what you represent, which includes psychological thrillers. You also seem to have some preference toward unique plots and narratives. For this reason I think Citylife may interest you.

The story will appeal to adults interested in thrillers with a gritty and sometimes violent setting (not gratuitous). It should interest male readers as well as female, as the main antagonist (female) and protagonist (male) are both strong minded characters.
    The main character is not well in the mind. He believes he is the cause of his team (a private agency hired by the government) being murdered in the field. The main antagonist is a strong female who wants to hurt/kill the main character. Revenge is the motive.

The first ten pages of the manuscript are included within the body of the email.
Full manuscript word count is approximately: 92,000.

Note: The first chapter has been created as a prologue for two essential reasons. First, the prologue is in first person, while the remainder is in third person. Second, the prologue follows the main character as he runs drunken events through his mind. These particular memories have been muddied by guilt, and are not accurate in the least. Instead he has made someone else’s guilt his own.

Similar titles
1) Stephen King - The Dark Half. Not in any way supernatural, instead that there is another side to the main character he himself is oblivious to.
2) Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club. The main character in Citylife also has issues with his life morphing into another and not knowing what exactly is real.

To assure you that you would be investing in a prolific writer who will persist in getting his best work out to readers, I would like to add that I have completed two other separate novels, one of which is also being sent out to agencies: AWAKEN: A man with amnesia must find answers to his attempted murder.
I have also written short stories as off-shoots surrounding Tingrin’s world.
I have also self published five ebooks.

I run a writing group in Melbourne where we meet and talk writing, as well as write and read out our work.
In my past I worked for pre-press and printing companies for over 15 years in a desktop publishing role, so I understand the print industry side of books and magazines quite well.

If you would like any further information on me, you need only ask. Otherwise, you may wish to search the name, Mat Clarke, online. There should be at least five hits in the top ten.

I am continually striving to market myself and my work using all internet based, paper based, large sign based mediums at my disposal. Websites, writing groups, business cards, social media, printed samples, etc.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my work for representation.

Kind regards,
Mat Clarke
m +61 403 193 785
e matticlarke@yahoo.com.au

-----------

Citylife

PROLOGUE

 

Nights are full of assholes, especially Sundays. They go hand in hand like bourbon in an unwashed cup.

     I wake with its sweet taste on my lips, my tongue numbs as I lick at it, then I get the warm shivers.

     Last night must have been rough.

     I remember a dark naked woman gesturing for more money, while I gawked at her flexing body. Her stilettos moved with all the uncoordinated rhythm of two stray dogs doing the dirty in the middle of the street.

     I did the touch and feel Latin dance on myself while I searched for my wallet but came up empty. All that drink pickled my brain and turned me into a bum.

     Then she wasn’t there anymore. Probably got bored and moved onto some other loser. She was nothing special, just another gyrating girl twirling around a pole, and guys and the odd gay sitting around staring up at the stage looking for a replica of their teeny sweetheart.

     Assholes and Sundays, they really do like each others company.

 

2am.

     Pretty quiet at the bar. It’s getting late and at the same time getting early. The girls jigglings barely make an impression on the twenty or so throughout the room. No college guys, they’ve all headed home to settle the score with a handful of tissues. Bucks parties had moved onto the part where the groom and best man hold each others hand while being sick in the gutter. Or wiping blood from their noses after a fight. Then there’s just guys like me: drunks who can’t sleep.

     I left the bar when the next stripper shrugged me off. She wasn’t so interested in me drooling all over her while she gave me my lap dance. Fair enough, I could hardly see anymore anyway. Sort of like staring through someone else’s eyes and they had already drunk more than I had.

     I mumbled a goodbye to the security out front—who looked dapper in their $50 suits, but they looked the other way, or maybe my imagination that they ignored me. My memory, still foggy, doesn’t feel right. One moment goes into the next.

     I don’t want to forget what happened. If I don’t run everything through my mind now then it’ll be gone for good. It’s almost time for lunch, I’m getting hungry. Also thirsty for my next drink.

     I can still taste bourbon around my mouth where my tongue trails the cracked skin of textured sandpaper. Bourbon sticks to your lips like old tape you’ve forgotten to peal off. Its gummy goo staying behind. I need to rinse my mouth. I get up from the makeshift bed—a brown lumpy couch with a shape of a six foot three thin guy—and balance my shaking legs on the rising and falling of the floor in the lounge.

     Just like all cheap housing the bathroom is the size of a closet and runs off the bedroom. I put my face in front of the mirror. Aged some ten years since last time I stared back. Keeping time was like plucking warm air from the heater and stuffing it into your pockets. Useless.

     For a moment I can’t remember what month or day it is, but I know now, it’s May, late May. The weather should get warmer soon.

     Back to last night; I have to keep running it through my head before I forget what happened. Something important. If I keep moving along from start to finish of what happened, I’ll remember.

     Yellow cars passed me by as I walked the street and tried to stay upright. I could see the security detail were still watching me, probably wondering if I was going to get hit by a taxi. Probably making bets. Would they give me mouth to mouth if I went down?

     One of them yelled out at me. Probably said to look out. Guess they have an aversion to giving me any sort of resuscitation.

     I remember walking into the path of a car but I must have gotten out of the way. No bruises, no cuts, so wasn’t hit.

     Still getting off track. Got to keep thinking about what happened.

     A big contract. Lots of blood. Something about a fire.

     Now I’m jumping ahead. I need to go back.

     The strip joint. What did I do next?

     I tried hailing a taxi, but none stopped, even just to give me the chance to ask for a ride west. These cabbies are all new arrivals. They’re looking to make some cash over here because there’s no work and too many people back in their own country. And that’s how it’s always been. Hasn’t it? People seem to forget that. I forget that.

     I remember looking at my watch. Just before 4am. For a few moments I don’t know where I was or how I got there. That seems to be going around a lot lately. I can even remember looking up and staring around not recognizing the houses or streets. Then being worried about falling down and not being able to get back up again. I saw a house that I thought looked familiar. Man, was I zonked. I didn’t know this place.

     “Idiot.”

     I walked up the driveway and tried the front door, still thinking like a drunk, thinking I know what I’m doing. Of course it was locked. I go around the back. Locked too.

     I finally realize I don’t live here or know anyone here. Nothings familiar. Embarrassing. My brain’s scattered. Even now I can’t think clearly. Maybe I jumped ahead again? Maybe I went there later?

     I remember feeling pretty useless after so much drink. Pretty sick too.

     I turn to my bed and see it’s covered in puke. I guess that’s why I didn’t sleep there.

     My head’s pounding. I lean down to get clean clothes from my lower drawer. Then I stop because my face gets hot and begins to get wet with sweat. I can feel more vomit swirling around in my stomach. That taste comes to the back of in my throat, getting me all ready to puke again. I breathe in like I’m running out of air. My body stops shaking.

     I’m losing my thoughts about... Where did I get to last night?

     I have to remember.

     I made it home sometime in the morning. Not sure when, but it was still dark. I must have managed to get a taxi. My wallet’s empty. That doesn’t mean a lot; probably spent it all on booze.

     I remember the phone ringing after walking in the door.

     Annoying, repetitive.

     Instead of throwing it through the window, I answer it.

     “Hello,” I kind of said.

     “Are you available tonight?” the voice said.

     Damn. Pity it wasn’t that girl in room three on the bottom level. Sometimes she would call to see if I was awake and wanted five minutes of romance. It’s the only reason I answer the phone at that time of night.

     “Yeah,” I told him.

     It wasn’t my regular office job. They wouldn’t call Sunday morning. I wasn’t very good at sitting at a desk at my day job anyway. Everyone at the office were good people though. I always have a laugh or chin wag with them. Still, doesn’t mean I have to like it there.

     “You need to go to New City before light.”

     “Yeah,” I answered. The guy’s all business, so that helped sober me up.

     “Instructions are being sent,” the voice said.

     “Yeah. Yeah, I got it. It’s coming in,” I said reading the information on my phone, “Uhuh.”

     “Good. Make sure it’s done when they first come in.”

     I hang up. No one tells me how I work.

     Assholes and Sundays. They go together like carnivals and creepy clowns.

     I’m back on the street now feeling as sober as I could remember ever being, although was still on cloud nine.

     A guy’s walking toward me. He’s got that look in his eye like he’s thinking of trying something. So I feel around inside my jacket until my hand passes over the polymer handle of my Glock. I’ve got a grip on it. I aim it at him from the waist. He sees it there. His face drops.

     I usher the unhappy fellow into the alley. Take his money—from three different wallets stuffed down his pants. None of them his.

     I don’t like crooks. I tell him this and then break a couple of his fingers. The guy screams so I put the angry end of my Glock to his forehead and he stops. He whimpers. He goes away.

     It’s getting close to six. Cabbies are desperate for fares. One beeps me as he gets close, to get my attention. I wave him over and we get to the newly built shopping centre in short time. I pay the cabbie extra for his driving talent. I pay him a bit more to forget me. Cabbies love cash. They pocket it without a thought. I like greedy people; makes them predictable. This guy would have stayed quiet even if I said I was going to kill his next door neighbor. As long as I gave him enough green.

     It’s not always about money. Some of the people in this life I’ve met I’ve enjoyed plucking from the earth and sending them to the next life. There’s also some that I want to see gone but just haven’t been asked to assert my particular talent upon them yet. I don’t get contracts for government types—strange that. I guess it’s because it’s easier to buy them off rather than kill them.

     I think It’s always going to be money that sets the rules, you just need to know how to play so you can get more money than everyone else. Maybe even enjoy yourself while you’re doing it.

     There I go again, getting off track. Now where was I... the cabbie.

     After paying the cabbie I walked, or probably staggered, to the shopping mall entrance.

     Shares for Randolph Group need to plummet. Stop their next shopping mall from opening on the first day. Casualties preferred.

     Nothing worse than dead people to bring in poor sales. There would be a crowd waiting to get in the doors to grab an opening day bargain. All they would see instead is shrapnel tear flesh from bone.

     Now, what happened next?

     As I think on it I bring my hand up to rub my face. There’s blood. Large, heavy clots of it. Also under my fingernails. That’s not right. I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the action.

     This isn’t good.

     I must have gotten sloppy. Shouldn’t have done the job with no sleep and with more than just a few drinks in my guts.

     It’s coming clearer. I can remember. It was a big job, lots of cash. I should have paid that cabbie more. He may go to the cops. I’ll have to pay him a visit before the cops do and give him more. Cabbies are good that way; predictable. Cops won’t pay cabbies to talk. They also can’t threaten cabbies with what I can if they don’t do what they’re told.

     I’m sort of like Santa that way. If the cabbie’s bad, he dies and I burn his house down, and everyone inside dies. But if he’s good he gets cash. And cash is still king.

     Pants. I need pants.

     Maybe a jog first. I’ll need shorts then.

     I’ll have to eat later. Maybe some celebratory drinks for a job well done... hmm, except for the blood. Almost forgot. Well, no use worrying about that now.

     Today is Sunday, which means back to the office on Monday. Sit behind a desk while some bitch looks over my shoulder and tells me to hurry. Nah, it ain’t that bad. Both my jobs are good.

     The blood on my hands is still annoying me. How did that happen? I was nowhere near it when the place went up in flames and with the black smoke.

     I sniff my hands and it brings back a memory. Smells like cabbie. I remember saying that after killing him.

     I guess he didn’t need the money that badly after all.

     I start to chuckle, but it doesn’t go on long.

     Some other thought is tickling the back of my mind.

     I’m not smiling anymore. My mouth droops like a kid that found his dog dead in the street. I sit slowly down into the couch and look again at my hands. Moments pass but my mind is empty.

     A semi-full Jack Daniel’s bottle is sitting on the coffee table with a stained glass next to it.

     I don’t want to remember anymore.

     In the next moment the glass is half full and It’s tipping past my lips. The warmth of the alcohol rushes over my tongue. The satisfying brown liquid makes its way to the back of my throat.

     I won’t leave the house today. I got plans.

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

Monday morning.

     Tingrin came alert as soon as his eyes opened.

     A soft beam from the low spring sun barely warmed his lounge room. The blurred orb, obscured by thin cloud, rose above the next door neighbor’s homes, just enough so a glimmer of sun shone through his window and past the heavy brown curtains. He shivered, then vomited. Nothing came up.

He slipped out from under the covers that had been draped across his mid section and down to his ankles. He still wore his socks, which poked out from the bottom of his bed. A disturbing smell wafted up from under the covers and made him want to wretch again.

     He stood and walked to his dresser and pulled open his top most drawer. He searched his under clothes, but was unable to keep focus on his hands as they blurred moving from socks to underpants. He closed his eyes for moment, then opened them again and took another moment to focus before remembering what he had been doing in the first place.

     He also found runners, shorts and a T-shirt. He had time for a twenty minute jog before work. Something he had missed out on yesterday due to things best forgotten.

     Once back he would shower, dress and run out the door. Possibly buy breakfast on the way to work. Ending his short commute by train into the grandest city in the world and less windy than some were led to believe.

 

Tingrin found a seat on the half full train, so sat while savoring the feeling of his overworked muscles. He took another bite from his bacon and cheese bun, recently bought from a small shop on his rush to the steps of the raised railway. They had outdone themselves on this occasion; mushrooms and green peppers had been included with the pig meat and mozzarella. Oil drizzled down his hand toward his shirt, which was quickly soaked up by a napkin before it got under his cuff. He held a book in the same hand as his napkin, managing the two tasks at the same time, well enough that his mind stayed engulfed in the story about a man with amnesia on the run.

     Upon finishing his food he turned the page and unscrewed his juice and washed the remainder of the bun still clinging to his teeth, thinking of each morsel as a rat being swept away down a flooded sewer pipe.

     Tingrin idly thought of the killings at the mall and the taxi driver. His actions had been warranted. What was done was done.

     Remorse could occasionally be expected to touch upon a hired gun’s mind—not in an open weep way, over someone lost, but enough so a needle poked him in a tender part of his chest, which would serve to make him remember what it was to be human. This could cloud a professional’s judgment. It was best avoided, lest it get him killed. It could also make it so he couldn’t deliver upon a contract. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

     Contradictory to the news delivered into people’s lounge rooms via their television, no one generally enjoyed inflicting damage on others, more so, they would help rather than harm.

     Yet, were people acting on feelings of empathy? Moral instinct? Or is it just that we have been guided by society ethics? Have we somehow developed a fake sense of morality that instructs us not to hurt others? Would it all fall to pieces if society suddenly collapsed?

     Tingrin shrugged.