The Agitating Wait

Query Sent.

You bite your lip.

You check it over to make sure you got everything right.

What if you got the agent's name wrong?

Or what if you missed something?

Darn. But you didn't.

You check your e-mail.

Click. Click. Click.

You wait and click and refresh and read about the agent.

Weeks of clicking are over.

You no longer have fingernails to chew on, you ran out of coffee and red bull.

Should you open it?

It has to be a rejection.

Darn. You click again. They like it!

Manuscript request.

Toast yourself with champagne.

You send it off.

And now you have to wait...Again.

So how do you guys spend time waiting? I personally like to start to work on my next project and the other things I do in this funny thing called life. So, my next project happens to be book 2 of my trilogy. What about you?

Query Critique #1

My friend Jon, who works at a publishing house as a slush reader promised to read some of your guys' queries. Here is the first. Leave your comments and suggestions, I am sure Kay will appreciate them.

I’m sending THE BAD LUCK MAGNET -- a middle grade fantasy set in 1921, complete at 44,000 words. It was very common to start with a small description of your story at the beginning of a query letter, but unless I am hooked by the idea I don’t care for the title or the word count. At the same time, those can lead to a rejection themselves. Personally, I recommend sending the agent directly into the story.


Thirteen-year-old EMMA KLOKEN just knows she’s the unluckiest girl in the world. Just knows? I would recommend something along the lines of… “is the unluckiest girl in the world.” She could know, but really is she? The hook is interesting. But you are setting yourself up for another question which I want to see answered. I want to know why. Every time she turns around, her grandmother locks her in the broom closet -- even before she thinks about doing something wrong. Ok, I believe it would be very strange is her grandmother locks her is a closet every single time that she turns around. Does she lock her in the closet every time she sees her? Does she punish her in that way, or is she trying to let loose her own angst by taking it out on Emma? Just some things to think over. Emma wishes she was able to tell the old bat to go jump in a lake, but she daren’t. So she hats her grandma, but the conflict isn’t set up straight up and right in this query. There has to be more to her hate if she wants her own grandma stone cold, if you know what I mean.

When her family moves to Hardscrabble in the California Gold Country, Emma’s bad luck holds. I didn’t really hear of any bad luck in the first paragraph, other than her grandma locking her in a closet and I wouldn’t call that bad luck. Bad luck is when everything seems to mess up for you. But a nasty grandma isn’t luck its your family, and family you cannot change. The first girls she meets [NANCY and GLENDA] hold a grudge against her because they think Emma’s father ‘stole’ Nancy’s mother’s promotion. Here you mention bad luck again, but you don’t explain it. Why would two girls that are strangers hold a grudge against her because of something her parents did to one another. It doesn’t really make sense to me. You need more explanation and detail. Not a longer query, I am still recommending short but concise. When Nancy and Glenda take Emma for a picnic in the foothills, they throw her new bike down an abandoned mine shaft and ditch her. I still don’t see why they would do that to her. Because of her parents? Trying to rescue her bike, Emma slides into the mine where she encounters GRIMM, a hobgoblin, who rescues her.

When Emma learns Grimm was punished for helping her, she decides to go to Faery to rescue him. What is Faery? This should be mentioned WAY earlier. This IS the importance of the book I imagine. Not the way she got there but the adventure she will have there. Only problem, Nancy insists on joining her because Glenda has disappeared into Faery too. How exactly did that happen? I though they both ditched her?

Overall, I think you have a nice premise, but the query needs work. Not too much, but some rearranging will really make a difference. I wish you the best of luck!


Jon.

Kay, thank you so much for sending in your query! I really like the premise as well and I am sorry I posted this so late. You can visit and FOLLOW Kay’s really awesome blog here: http://kaytheod.blogspot.com/ If anybody else would like their query critiqued by Jon, just e-mail me or comment and I will e-mail you and send it to him. :D

A toast to getting partials, manuscript requests and contracts for all of you guys!!!

Want to take a stab at my query?

Well, I posted my query over critique forums and got pretty good feedback but I thought it wouldn't hurt to see what you guys think. Is it at all gripping? Does it suck? Do you hate the idea? Be honest, I won't block you lol. I will appreciate the honesty because in the long run its help :)

Dear Agent,

Raised by his father to hate humans, Vitiosus is a dark Lassertian warrior feared by all. He secretly rescues humans from torture being inflicted upon them by his father’s army, only to see them murdered. His search for peace halts when he learns of his human mother, and that his impure blood could cost him his ambitions, his life, and the hopes of his nation.


Being the prince won’t help Vitiosus when he falls in love with Tiya, an imprisoned human girl. A group of rebels who threaten to attack the Lassertian kingdom see Vitiosus’ love for Tiya and take her hostage. Now Vitiosus has no way out except to surrender to the rebels, but on his way he meets with his long time adversary, Gabriel, a warrior on a mission to bring the Lassertian Prince to his queen dead or alive. During the ensuing battle, he discovers that Gabriel is his human brother. Now he must decide… to trust Gabriel and create a connection between their warring people to save Tiya and the kingdom, or to trust his own kind, that has been helping him all along. Battling for the rights of his people and humans, Vitiosus finds himself venturing a journey that leads him to discover the truth about himself, his people and his kingdom. He only has to keep his life, despite the fact that skulls appear everywhere he goes, warning him of the worst, his death.

OVERCAST SHADOW’S is a fast paced 89,000 word YA fantasy novel. I believe you’d be a great fit to represent my book because you work with fantasy, science fiction and YA and enjoy an action packed and intriguing narrative. Thank you for your consideration and time.

Sincerely,

Me!

So what did you think?

One more Contest!

I thought it was really nice of Rachele over at Freckle head to host this contest and to critique others query letters. She has an agent and her novel is on subbmission so she has experience with those nasties. Check it out over here on her blog: http://freckle-head.blogspot.com/

Exclusive Query letters

We all want the greatest chance of getting an agent. Do exclusive queries really make agents pay more attention to us? In one way they are worse because we have to wait. But at the same time patience is everything in the publishing world. The other way if this is a reputable agency that you really want to land then maybe its worth the wait...Personally I sent out one exclusive query letter and am still waiting for a reply. The only reason I took that step was because the agent is surely reputable and because they are looking for a novel just like mine. How about you, what is your take on exclusive  query letters?

Types of Rejections

Good Saturday morning and happy Easter weekend. I realize I just posted up my organization post and I have missed two days of blogging, but I do have an excuse guys. I was in Guam running far and wide from the CIA who believes I have started spreading a nuclear conspiracy far and wide to literary agents. All right, that's just a joke. Truthfully I simply didn't have much in mind to review on Thursday and no query stats for Friday. Other than a little update on my query which I will post at the end here. So today I wanted to talk about rejection letters, for I am afraid I am going to be getting some...There are quite a few of these babies that you may hope or not to get after you have sent your query. Here goes a list I have created.


Personalized Rejection: This probably means that the agent really liked your work. So good news so far. The only problem is that it most likely isn't right for them. Resend to someone else and hope for the best.

The Idea rejection: In this type of letter the agent will most likely ask if you have any other novels up your sleeve because they like the way you write but your idea either really compares to an already published one or simply your project is far from original. This is also good news for you as a writer but bad news for the manuscript you have been slaving off of.

The Revision Rejection: This is probably in my opinion worse than the personalized rejection but its still fairly good news. They like it. They only have a problem with the opening, ending, middle, climax, MC, plot holes, whatever. There is so much I can list, but either way all you have to do is revise like crazy and return to the agent hoping that they will accept, but keep this in mind. Some agent's revision suggestions are very personal and may not apply to others so don't accept what your gut tells you not to.

Last but not least...The dreaded form rejection: Ok, fine. The form rejection isn't so dreaded because at times the project isn't right for the agent. Still this is probably the worst rejection you can get, particularly if you got it from 10 or more agents. That’s a hint for you to stop querying, and take a look at your query. There are countless things in an idea or a query that can make agents reject. This is what I have come up with...

• They just don't like it and it’s boring. I hate to admit it but some *winning* queries I have read are great but the idea doesn't appeal to me. It sounds like a boring read. Just like us agents have personal opinions so respect them because if they don't like your novel better they don't represent you. Let me rephrase that... They will just hit the big red rejection button.

• You messed up with the guidelines. That seems just careless to the agent. No salutation, spelling issues, wrong formatting and so on.

• Your word count is too long. 120,000 is the highest word count for a first time author, unless you want to pile up on rejections just for your count. If your story is stellar and you have a higher word count you may have a chance but still I personally wouldn't risk it.

• You didn't mention the story in your query. Don't talk about how amazing it is and how epic oh and how amazing you are. If the story really is that amazing it will talk for itself.

• don't mass submit. That has been said so many time I don't even know why I am repeating it.

Anyways. There you go. So how do you react to rejections and what make you keep going when it looks like there is no hope. (I hope that you aren't in that situation. lol.)

My Query Stat: Ok so I have sent off one query and I may be too hopeful but I sent it off to one agent. Yes, its exclusive and I did mention it. I just want to see a first reaction because I feared blowing my chances with 10 great agents. The agent has preference and likes that exactly fit to my novel so I hope that goes well. According to people on AW they reply quite quickly so I will be looking forward to a reply and will update you guys. Again, I am not too hopeful and don't start thinking that I expect myself to be represented after sending only one query. I wish. Happy Easter!

The 10 Sins of Query Writing

As many, I have been working on my query letter for my YA Fantasy novel and I must admit that I am quite happy with it. I have tweaks and little changes that I need to make but it is almost there. From my old query which I was actually brave enough to send to 13 agents I love my new one. Since I was foolish with my first novel I rewrote it and it turned out completely different so thankfully I get to require those agents with my new query since the last time I queried was last summer. Anyways back to the topic of queries. They practically decide the faith of your manuscript, yes, and the one you have been slaving over for months or even years for some. So why send off a query that isn't as great as the manuscript only to come back to rejections?

When I was reading the 'Guide to Query letters' I discovered quite a bit of useful information. Now, there is nothing you won't find on the internet but it is all sort of condensed into one book so you don't have to search different sources. So here are the 10 Sins of Query writing...

1. Addressing the wrong agent. (You may think this is so hard to do but when you are sending off a lot of queries, you are tired, it's nearly 12 and you happen to mess up.)

2. Soliciting a manuscript idea that has been done to death or one that has already been covered. (Dear Agent, my novel is about a young wizard named Garry Blotter. Apparently this happens. Beats me how though, particularly with best sellers.)

3. Ignoring submission guidelines.

4. Spelling or Grammatical Errors.

5. Talking about how your friends and your mom loved your novel to death and told you that it is going to be a best seller.

6. Discussing money, contracts, TV and movie deals.

7. Threatening to take your book elsewhere.

8. Not enough info about your book.

9. The manuscript is incomplete but I though you would want to see...no.

10. My novel is better in quality than Lord of the Rings combined with Shakespeare. (That was random because that would be a very weird combination)

So there you go...The 10 Sins of Querying. If you have committed any of them or have more to add, comment! If not comment anyways!

The Damn hardship of writing.....

Ok. I am frustrated. Officially. Well at least I was yesterday, and I am thinking to myself "What are you frustrated about it's sunny and there is no snow?" but just as so many of us, I can't get my plot to shine through my query. I am literally four chapters of revisions away from the end and I can't write a proper query. So I do many query critiques and I can really see where the query is weak and where it can be improved but staring at my own query is like staring at a whiteboard. I can't notice any issues because I know what my story is about! But I am not giving up hope. What I am trying to do is simply to erase all my thoughts and ask myself the three questions that are supposed to help...


Who is your MC?

What is his (in my case it's a guy) goal?

and how will he achieve his goal?

As of today I am still struggling with the perfect query particularly because I have so much sub-plot and twists. I have no problems with the manuscript..I have betas that love it and love the story and are rooting for me but...The dreaded Query. Oh and did I mention that I still haven't started the synopsis and that I planned of sending out queries back in January. Was I that crazy? I guess the new year was keaping my mind very fuzzy lol. So how do you write the perfect query? What strategy do you use?