In the past I've been lucky enough to make a few competition lists and have agents reach out. I, and my manuscript weren't ready at that time so things didn't go further. But I'm now sat with my completed (and strange) epistolary thriller in hand, ready to commence querying. Whilst attempting to find information and assistance, I'm coming across a lot of people with their hand out, and a lot of conflicting and generic advice. How did/do/would you go about trying to find the right eyes for your manuscript? Are you just searching on query tracker or a similar service? Checking industry sites and newsletters? Paying for a service? Reading tea leaves?

Just to let you know where we are with the contest. We don’t like reading on a screen, so we send the entries off to a printer and get them back in big ring-bound booklets. Then we annotate, produce feedback for those who have requested it and work out who will be commended or long-listed. Good luck all!

I’m kind of anti-realism. Imagine how boring police procedurals would be if they were full of actual police work. And I don’t have that much patience with people who are fine with fanciful depictions of every other profession but nitpick about ways in which fictional depictions of their world differ from reality. But things need to feel real. How do we achieve this?

Speech marks! New speaker, new line, people. Does anyone know of a good explainer of how to punctuate speech, as it is something lots of people struggle with?

Clarity is so important, and often where good pieces go wrong. But over-explaining is a problem. How do you balance the two?