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A common metaphor used in the writing community for those of us on the hunt for representation by a literary agent is that we are ‘in the trenches.’ I can see the appeal of this device and have even used it myself. The trenches of World War I seemed like an impossible-to-win and impossible-to-escape situation for the poor men trapped in that years-long stalemate. Sending out endless queries about your novel to overworked and overwhelmed agents has a distinctly similar vibe to it. An agent can easily get hundreds of queries each month, thousands by the year, and of those they might sign up as new clients less than a dozen. I can see how that feels, from the author’s perspective, like going ‘over the top’ and into ‘no man’s land’ to face mounted machine guns of which very few survive.

But lately, particularly with the passes I have been getting from agents, I wonder if such a violent and combative metaphor is the right one for the process. After all, we authors are not trying to take the ground from the agents, we are not trying to annihilate them as an enemy but hopefully find an artistic partnership that can grow and flower for years and years to come. Perhaps it is more akin to romance than warfare.

Instead of the corpse-littered fields of France and Belgium, this is the crowded discos and singles bars of the 1970s. The agents are like the single attractive women who have high hopes of finding that special person, that match that works on every level. Authors are the swarms of men, dressed as snappily as they are able, deploying their practiced ‘lines’ in hopes of gaining that look, that, as Dolly so eloquently put it in her song, ‘when a glance becomes a stare,’ desperate to find some way, some ‘trick’ that can make them stand out from all the hustlers vying for that woman’s attention.

And if that metaphor works, then we can see its applicability over the death and destruction of the battlefield. Between the firm rejection and the exploration of a relationship there is a netherworld derisively labeled ‘the friend-zone.’ Now, this metaphor should not be pressed too far or adhered to too devoutly. In relationships far, far too often men are seeking a simple sexual ‘conquest’ and are not seeking a partner to share life with. Such men, with their fragile and brittle egos bruised when rejected by a woman who has proclaimed that they see those men as ‘only friends’ or ‘like a brother,’ vanish, never seen again because all that they wanted was the physical and not the emotional. Writers seeking representation are very, very rarely seeking it for just one book and as such this metaphor breaks down in its analogy. Agents are not conquests but partners, and no one is looking for a ‘one-night stand.’

But it is not without some service and, in my opinion, some emotional value.

This has come to me because lately I have been getting a different style of ‘pass’ from some agents. In these emails and responses, the agents are making it clear that while they did not ‘fall in love’ with the submitted project, they know that someone out there will and encourage me to continue querying and submitting.

Oh, how this feels precisely parallel with ‘I like you as a friend, but there’s some girl out there who is perfect for you.’ This is the rejection I have felt many times before I was so fortunate to find the woman who became my sweetie-wife and the way these passes rhyme with those failed dates of yesteryear is powerful. It fits so much better and resonates so much more truthfully than a battlefield strewn with artillery craters flooded with water and bodies that lay nearly half a century before my time.