#227-revised 4x FTW

Thirty something year old Vivienne has had big dreams since childhood.

Winning an Oscar before she's forty and marrying a good guy with George Clooney looks.... being two of them.

The trouble is the men in her life have a habit of bursting her bubble.

So when she leaves London for the States and lands a promising movie role, her luck looks to be changing.

Until she gets played by handsome fitness instructor Jamie Parker.

And has no idea that her confrontation with him at the gym is being secretly broadcast by a third party for all to hear.

As the truth unfolds loud and clear, he loses his job, shady schemes and meal ticket girlfriend.

She only wanted to give him an ear bashing but now Vivienne is in trouble and made the immediate scapegoat.

Intent on revenge, he resurfaces with a tabloid talk show and a plan to drag Vivienne's name through the mud, jeopardizing any chance she may have in Tinsel Town.

Once again faced with a no good heartbreaker, she has to ask herself, how badly does she want to live the dream and is she even tough enough to survive the showbiz world.

The thing is, when it's in your blood, it's in your blood.

    


 The only thing I'd change here is I'd use paragraphs instead of single sentences.  

I think you've done a GREAT job on this revision. You've got all the pieces in the right places.  You'll need the word count and the category and a closing, but this looks good.





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Third revision

Thirty something year old Vivienne has always had big dreams.

Winning an Oscar before she's forty, marrying George Clooney and living happily ever after.
The trouble is, the men in her life have a habit of bursting her bubble.


Now that you've cleared out all the debris from the previous starts we see the reason this query is having a hard time catching my interest: the protagonist sounds like an idiot. There are "big dreams" for grown up girls, and big dreams for teenyboppers. Marrying George Clooney and living happily ever after is something out of TigerBeat magazine (do they still have that?) It's not the starting point for a book if you want us to take the story with any degree of seriousness.  It's one thing to joke around about marrying George Clooney; it's something else to make it your protagonists "big dream"

And since marrying George Clooney doesn't figure in to the plot at all, leave it out.  Finding a nice man who supports her acting ambitions: that's more what she really wants anyway isn't it?




So when she leaves London for the States and lands a promising movie role, her luck looks to be changing.

Until she gets played by love rat Jamie Parker.

And has no idea that her request for an explanation of his cheating antics will blow the lid on his shady schemes and lose him everything.

And here again: what? There's a purpose to his "cheating antics" (a phrase that does not resonate well since antics rarely cheat) ??

Intent on revenge, he comes back with a reality TV show and a plan to drag Vivienne's name through the mud, jeopardizing any chance she may have in Tinsel Town.

Revenge for WHAT?  As far as we can tell poor old not-Mrs-Clooney hasn't done anything other than ask why Not George is a rat.  That doesn't make revenge sound likely. It makes revenge sound psychotic.


Once again faced with a no good heartbreaker, she has to ask herself, how badly does she want to live the dream and is she even strong enough to survive in the showbiz world.

She's offered a reality tv show. What's not to say yes to? If she's an actor she'd leap at the chance to play toilet tissue (singing toilet tissue!) in a national commercial.

You'll need to be much more specific about the problem here.


Maybe London wasn't so bad after all...


The thing is, when it's in your blood, it's in your blood.


One of the very first things to remember about any query is you've got to make sure your protagonist sounds like someone I'll want to spend some time with. Either cause I like them, am rooting for them, am fascinated by them, or can't wait to see if they get eaten by wolves.  What they can't be is a two dimensional cartoon.

And the plot has to be real enough to make me want to find out what happens.

This doesn't do that yet.
It's better than where you started but it needs work.
  
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Second revision

Dear QueryShark:


Finally, Los Angeles has changed Londoner Vivienne's luck for the better.

A favorable acting job, a step closer to celebrity crush, George Clooney and a dinner date with handsome fitness instructor Jamie Parker.


I don't know what a favorable acting job is. I know what a favorable rating is, and I know what a good job, or a job with prospects, or a lead in a tv sitcom all are, but those are not things speakers of US English would call "favorable."

And this list is kind of weird: she has a job, and that's on par with one dinner date? She must not get out much.



But after the date, she finds out he has a rich, young girlfriend and is a total player. She confronts him and sees him for the shameless con artist he really is.


Welcome to Hollywood, Vivienne.
 If she found this out after only one date she's pretty lucky that's all the time she wasted.



Then he disappears.


As the dust settles, she gets back on track and finds that a nurturing friendship with stand-up corporate guy, Drew Simmons, blossoms into something more. Though totally different from anyone she's dated before, she realizes that her past choice in men brought her nothing but unhappiness. This time she was getting it right.

Life is good....

Then Jamie Parker reappears with a TV show and only one thing on his mind... revenge.


Revenge for what?

The sooner you get to this point - the shady ex turns up with a reality TV show in his hip pocket - the better. THIS is where things get interesting. Which is to say everything that comes before it isn't.



Naively, she faces the biggest test of her life. How badly does she want to live the dream and is she even tough enough to survive the showbiz world.


Why is she still naive?And what's the test? This is the first point where things get interesting and you leave us with no details.


The trouble is when it's in your blood, it's in your blood.

BREAK A LEG is a 103,000 word women's fiction novel. It is my first novel.

Thank you for your consideration.



There's both too much and not enough here. There's all this set up but the real story is the TV show. THAT'S the interesting choice. And it's interesting because there's a dilemma. There's no dilemma with Drew. He's the safe path. Thus...not all that enticing.

If you spend more than 20 pages of the book getting to the tv show, I think your book starts too soon.

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First Revision
Dear Query Shark,

Maybe it's the disastrous stage performance, cheating boyfriend, London or all three.

But Vivienne is ready to throw in the towel on her lifelong dream.

Until she heads to Las Vegas for fun and hits the jackpot: an offer of a movie role in Hollywood.

Now in Los Angeles, things are finally looking up for Vivienne, a favorable acting job, a step closer to her celebrity crush, George Clooney and a dinner date with a handsome fitness instructor Jamie Parker.

Get to the plot as soon as you can.  The story starts in LA when she is trying to make a new life for herself.


After the date she finds out he has a rich, young girlfriend and is quite the player.

Determined not to be humiliated again, she confronts him and sees him for the womanizing con artist he really is. This time around, she comes out on top, putting him in his place as he disappears.

As the dust settles, she gets back on track and finds that a nurturing friendship with stand up corporate guy, Drew Simmons blossoms into something more. Though totally different from anyone she's dated before, she realizes that her past choice in men brought her nothing but unhappiness. This time she was doing it right.

Life is good...

Then Jamie Parker reappears with a TV show and only one thing on his mind... revenge.

Vivienne finds herself taken on a roller-coaster ride to the shady side of Hollywood that was never mentioned in her gossipy glamour magazines.

This is too generic to be interesting. The next paragraph says the same thing, but much better.


Naively she faces the biggest test of her life, how badly does she want to live the dream and is she even tough enough to survive the show biz world.

The trouble is when it's in your blood, it's in your blood.

I like this sentence a lot because it tells me she's going to go for it event though we all know she shouldn't.

BREAK A LEG is a completed 103,000 words contemporary novel aimed at women's fiction. readers and It is my first novel. I am currently writing my second.


Thank you for your time and consideration.


I can always tell when you actually have read the archives! 

This is clearly better than the original but you've still got some tightening to do. When you're revising the question is always "can I take this out?" Revision is almost always the art of saying more with fewer words.


Revise. Resend.




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ORIGINAL
Dear Query Shark,


Catching her boyfriend cheating with the neighbor and making a disastrous community theatre debut all in the same hour was so painful for thirty-three-year old Vivienne Jaystone that she gives up on her dreams of becoming a famous actress and finding Mr Right and resigns herself to being stuck in a dead end Customer Service job in East London.

Right off the bat, that's a 59 word sentence. Here's a rule of thumb: if you can't say the entire sentence out loud in one breath, it's too long. Not always, but generally, and that means for sure in a query letter.

And second, let's think about the purpose of a query letter. It's to entice an agent to read on. This sentence goes from high to low. Vivienne is excited to make her debut and it goes flat, then she gives up her dream, and becomes a clerk. High, low, flat, splat.

In other words, not enticing. This is not what you want to do. At all.

That first paragraph should end on an upswing.  The only response you want from an agent is "what happens next" and six thousand interrobangs. 



Until, she goes on a girly weekend to Las Vegas where she meets a musician, Frank who offers her the chance to work with his band and pursue her love for actng.

Ok, so that's not how you spell acting, and spell czech will tell you so. I watch for these kinds of things. I prefer working with writers who obsess over every word and run spell czech twice. Yes, it's true I have clients who have forgotten to do that (and yes, we torment them about it forever) but they didn't forget in their query letters.

This is my introduction to you. Comb your hair, polish your shoes, check your spells.

Also this paragraph is the start of your story. It's where Vivienne is making a choice that leads to the story. The other stuff is backstory.

Inspired, Vivienne re-thinks her ambitions and takes a gamble, staying in Vegas, where by her career with the band is short lived after a chance meeting with small time director Michael Brown, who offers the opportunity of a small role in a low budget movie in Los Angeles.

So far there's no plot. There's a series of events. Don't know the difference? How to get the plot on the page is listed in at least a dozen QueryShark entries here. I purposely don't list them on the blog roll because Honest to Godiva I want you to read the entire thing. Yes, it's a lot of work. Yes it's going to take some time.

Also, the stakes here are so low that it's almost hard to care. Small role, low budget movie. There are a million people who have those roles. If she fails, so what?  

Will La La land give Vivienne the courage to conquer her fear of forgetting her lines on stage and help fulfill her dreams of becoming an Oscar winning actress? Will she finally find true love? Or will it end up being her worst nightmare?

This isn't plot either. 

And honestly, this just doesn't sound like anyone I know who's pursuing a career as an actor.  Here's where research comes in.  Look up the bios of actors and see how they got started. They may have done community theatre, but it was when they were six.  Most of them were in regional theatre at least, and more likely they were doing soaps, or indie films to get noticed.  Getting the details right is part of your job.

"Break a Leg" is a completed 104,000 word contemporary novel written with aspects of comedy, romance, drama and quirkiness aimed at women fiction readers, hoping to inspire readers to believe in themselves and their hopes and dreams. "Break a Leg" is my first novel and I am currently writing my second.

You're telling me this is a comedy in a letter that isn't funny; that it's quirky in a letter that isn't and inspiring in a letter that isn't that either.

You can forget the inspiring part. You're writing to entertain first and foremost. There is no higher purpose in my mind. But more than that, you can't tell me this is comic, or quirky and write this flatly if you want me to believe you. You don't need gimmicks. You need quirky comic diction.

And you can avoid the whole problem by simply saying this is women's fiction. Leave out the other stuff.

My name is (redacted)
I know that. It's in your signature line. This kind of thing in queries drives me bonkers because it's one step up from "hi, how are you." It's awkward and amateurish. Would you put that in a cover letter applying for a job?

I was born in London and raised in Loughton, Essex in the U.K. I currently live in California, where I have lived for eleven years.

None of that is important (in your query anyway--it's important to you the person of course.)

I am looking for representation and appreciate you taking the time to consider my work.


Thank you for your time and consideration.


You could be the best writer on the planet but this query doesn't show me that. It's listless and flat and has no plot.

When I get a query like this I don't even look at the pages other than a quick glance at maybe the first line to see if somehow, maybe, good writing has wiggled through.

This is a form rejection.