Lucy Morris: 'What I’m not looking for is polished perfection – I’m looking for potential'
BY Discoveries
17th Nov 2022
CBC and Curtis Brown are proud to be partnering with the Women’s Prize Trust and Audible to run Discoveries, a unique writing development prize and programme, which offers practical support and encouragement to aspiring female novelists of all ages and backgrounds, from across the UK and Ireland.
This week the Discoveries team talk books and writing advice with Curtis Brown literary agent Lucy Morris. Lucy is also on the Discoveries 2023 judging panel – she will be joined by chair of judges and founder of the Women's Prize Kate Mosse, acclaimed authors Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Chibundu Onuzo, and CBC’s founder Anna Davis.
You’ve work at Curtis Brown since 2014 and prior to that you worked at Bloomsbury Publishing. What initially inspired you to work in the book industry?
I always wanted to be involved in the creation of something tangible. Having spent much of my childhood with my head in a book, it was nonetheless a total revelation that there was an entire industry built around them. Initially, I thought I wanted to be an editor at Penguin, which was the only publishing job I’d heard of, and it wasn’t until I discovered a wonderful Marian Keyes novel called The Other Side of the Story that I found out that literary agents existed…
What does a typical day in the life of a literary agent look like?
It sounds like a cop-out, but I’m not sure there is a typical day! There are always emails to send and answer, and manuscripts and submissions to read, but beyond that the day is often a smorgasbord of the unexpected. The variety is something I really love -- agents get to wear a lot of different hats -- from negotiating small print and reviewing royalty statements and publicity plans, to constructing pitches, talking through knotty bits of plot and longer-term career plans, and looking at cover directions (both with my face very, very close to the screen and then standing at a distance with narrowed eyes, to see how it looks as a thumbnail!).
Do you have any advice for budding writers on how to construct a compelling synopsis?
The synopsis is a tricky beast, but one worth trying to harness! It can be a really useful exercise in examining the threads of your narrative and seeing how they hang together. For me, the hallmark of a compelling synopsis is that it gives away the big reveal(s) and the ending, but I’m still desperate to read the novel to see how it’s been done. I would also recommend making sure you’ve left enough space to properly introduce your main characters alongside the central plot points.
What’s a common pitching pitfall that new writers should avoid?
Stick to pitching one book – this is your prize jewel that you’re sharing, so focus on that even if you’ve got lots more in your swag bag! And that prize jewel short pitch should aim to hook the reader with a tantalising set-up and the central tension of the novel, rather than being a potted A-Z of the narrative arc that includes the resolution. Leave the latter for the synopsis!
What books have you enjoyed reading recently?
Currently I am devouring one Claire Douglas after another! And after looking at them longingly on my shelf for about a year, I recently read The Appeal by Janice Hallett and Assembly by Natasha Brown. Both are masterclasses of construction – intricate, ambitious and skilful.
Do you have any advice for aspiring authors getting ready to submit to Discoveries 2023?
Make yourself accountable! It can be really hard to find massive chunks of time to write, even if it’s something you love. So, see what you can do to give yourself some structure, and make it manageable. It might be as simple as committing to getting a certain number of words on the page each week. The Discoveries submission window (22nd September 2022 to 15th January 2023) gives you 16 weeks, so even if you didn’t have a single word down before then, you can get to 10,000 words by writing 625 of them each week, which works out as just under 90 words per day.
What will you be looking for from entrants when reading for Discoveries?
What I’m not looking for is polished perfection – I’m looking for potential. And that fizz of excitement that comes when I’m reading something really special! Entries for Discoveries don’t have to be from fully finished novels, so it might be a single stand-out element from an idea in its early stages that knocks me off my feet. For example, a fiendishly clever piece of plotting, a singular voice from a lead character I’m already rooting for by the end of the first page, crossing the threshold into an amazingly imaginative new world.
Best of luck preparing your submission to Discoveries 2023. We’re so excited to read your work!