Third revision
THE GIRL IN THE JITTERBUG DRESS is the parallel story of two young women struggling with love, loss, and redemption, united across generations by a 1940's swing dress.
June, a 17 year-old ingénue,
graduating early, finds herself face to face with one of her deepest desires. Dance. Couples dancing. She'd always wanted to learn. A subculture of classic cocktails, nostalgic fashion, and dance halls, open a whole new world
to June. And the vintage gab skirt wrapping around her warm thighs on a crowded dance floor, awakens her repressed sexuality.
I had to look up "gab skirt" and how someone is going to dance in that I do not know but that's beside the point really.
We've got the first two requirements of a query here: who the main character is and what she wants.
When an accomplished dancer is injured before the international jitterbug contest, June is tapped to take her place. June struggles to overcome her undiagnosed panic disorder, win the contest, and not fall in love with James, her otherwise engaged dance partner.
And here is what's keeping her from getting what she wants, but you've buried it so completely it almost isn't there: her panic attacks. If her panic disorder is undiagnosed, you need to show us how June feels, and convey that sense of panic. And if she's that prone to anxiety, why did she agree to enter the contest?
Fifty years earlier in 1942
, another 17 year-old jitterbug, Violet, leads the life June and her friends emulate. But Violet's life is not all malt shops and swirling skirts. Her life begins to unravel when she and her sailor beau, Charles, find her grifting father passed out on her doorstep, blood oozing from his head.
You've got the main character. You don't have anything else.
Dance becomes their refuge and language of love in the war
town torn world. Charles’ battle group deploys before they can marry and his letters mysteriously stop arriving. Violet has no chance to tell him she's pregnant, and is forced to make the decision of a lifetime alone.
Mysteriously stop arriving? In a war? Why hasn't she drawn the most logical conclusion? He's dead. So, what does Violet want? What's keeping her from getting it? What's at stake?
And when I see typos like town/torn I almost always stop reading. This is something you should see when you revise. When I see this kind of mistake, I know I'm going to see more like it in your novel and that's a big red flag for me. I want to work with authors who are meticulous about their work. Sure mistakes happen, and we've all reupholstered our guns one time or another, but in a query, you've got time to let something sit, to read it out loud, and do all the other tricks that help you find these bugaboos.
Half a century later, June brings a torn vintage dress into a tailor shop, a shop owned by Violet. Teary-eyed Violet recognizes the dress, hugging it to her body. It's the jitterbug dress she made and wore in the historical swing dance contest in 1942 with Charles.
Violet agrees to help fix the dress and coach June and her partner into a winning routine. At the contest, June finally lets go of all her fears when James kisses her and admits his feeling for her.
But there is one last act. June and James have arranged a guest of honor, a jitterbug lost to time. Charles. When he gathers Violet in his arms the years melt away. They find the love they lost as fiery as when they were young. Redemption, passion, and love, the perfect dance.
Don't give away the entire book in a query. There's no reason to read the book if I know what happens. The query should cover Act One AT THE MOST. Just the precipitating incident is often better.
The purpose of a query is to entice me to read the pages, not fill me in on the whole story.
There is absolutely no sense of zest or pizazz here. Dancing is fun, adrenaline fueled, and the spectre of war heightens everyone's sense of "party like there's no tomorrow" but we get NO sense of that here. You can convey that through language and word choice, rhythm and style. There was some great slang in the 40s that will elevate this without adding to the word count.
The novel is New Adult Fiction, 110,000 words with romantic and historical elements. Readers who enjoyed The Notebook, Water for Elephants, and Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet are the target audience.
I'm not sure you want to call this New Adult. When you put your book in a category, you want to pick the one that has the most readers. For this book that would be women's fiction. And you know that's the correct category because you chose comps that are ...ta daaa...women's fiction.
Being a Navy wife, Editor in Chief for Swivel: Vintage Living Magazine (out of print), and teaching vintage dances combined with years of writing about antique clothing, movies, and vintage sewing have given me a unique and studied perspective on my subject. I have been published in
LOTS OF PLACES and other small press magazines.
~ The past doesn't always stay in the past, sometimes it comes to life on the dance floor ~
You're still missing what's at stake, which makes me think your novel needs work, not your query. You must have something at stake for a novel to have any tension. If you don't know what's at stake, chances are there isn't.
----------------
Questionish:
I am confused about how much info I should reveal. I have given an alternative choice in red.
I know you said not to begin a query with a rhetorical question, but are they always taboo? It seems like some rhetorical questions can create tension or am I misunderstanding?
Yes/No/Yes Rhetorical questions do not create tension. Tension by definition means something is at stake, something will change. Rhetorical questions are used in conversation to make a point.
A rhetorical question is: "Do you want me to kill you?"
A question that creates tension is "Why do you want me to kill you?"
Is it normal to feel like I'm getting worse?
Yes. Revisions often involve two steps forward three steps back. Don't feel like a failure because of that. Just keep trying.
Dear QueryShark:
The past doesn't always stay in the past. Sometimes it comes to life on the dance floor.
Enter a world of big band jazz, dance halls, malt shops and meet Violet's
. Her life begins to unravel when she finds her alcoholic father on their doorstep,
blood from a bullet wound oozing from his head.
For the first time you actually have an enticing sentence here to start the query.
Violet turns to her jitterbug sailor, Charles. Dance becomes their refuge and language of love in a war torn world.
And then you go splat. There's NO connection between her wounded father and jitterbug Charlie. I'm interested in how her dad got wounded. You never mention it again.
AND when you open a query with a sentence, I assume it's and important part of the story. If you never mention it again, that's Very Confusing. I don't have to tell you that's Death in a query.
His battle group deploys before they can marry. When his war letters mysteriously stop arriving, Violet has no chance to tell him she's pregnant, and is forced to make the choice of a lifetime, alone.
splat.
Half a century later, another 17 year-old ingénue discovers dirty martinis, old jazz, vintage clothing and a skirt wrapping around a warm thigh on a crowded dance floor.
When an accomplished dancer is injured before the international jitterbug contest, June is tapped to take her place. June fights her fears and insecurities in the midst of discovering her recently deceased grandmother is not her biological one.
or Can June overcome her fears, win the contest and not to fall in love with her otherwise engaged dance partner?
While searching for
her grandmother answers June finds an antique dress which leads her to Violet and the key to unlocking a fifty year old mystery.
THE GIRL IN THE JITTERBUG DRESS is the parallel story of two young women struggling with self-doubt, loss and redemption, united across generations by a 1940's swing dress.
THE GIRL IN THE JITTERBUG DRESS is Women's Fiction, 120,000 words. Readers who enjoyed The Notebook, Water for Elephants, and Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, are the target audience.
Being a Navy wife, Editor in Chief for Swivel: Vintage Living Magazine, (out of print) and teaching vintage dances combined with years of writing about antique clothing, movies, sewing, and collecting have given me a unique and studied perspective on my subject. I have been published in "The Lucid Stone," "Red Dog Journal," "Spoken Word from Lalapalooza" and other small press magazines.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
The problem of what's at stake hasn't been solved. In The Notebook, the question is the basic one of a romance: will the boy and girl get together across all the challenges life has put in their way. Here, I'm not even sure who the main character is, let alone what they care about. Winning a dance contest isn't what's at stake. Finding out who grandma was isn't what's at stake. What's at stake are the CONSEQUENCES of wining/not winning, discovering/not discovering.
You've got to get the stakes on the page here. And I hope you've got them in the novel.
You might want to start with June, not Violet, in the query.
---------------------------
FIRST REVISION
Questions:
1. My rhetorical question was supposed to be a tagline. I read on
another agent blog that I needed a logline and a tagline. Start with the
tagline end with the logline? I have others like: "Sometimes the Past
Doesn't Stay in the Past, Sometimes it Comes to Life on The Dance Floor."
Should I forget about the tagline?
Yes. I'm not
sure I could tell you the difference between a log line and tagline. What I can
tell you is that loglines are ways to express the concept of a novel, and it
come from the film world where they love that kind of short hand thing, because
in film it's NOT ABOUT THE WRITING.
A query is about the writing. Tell me about your story.
2. A couple of the comments said it was too long. Is it?
Your word count right now is 452. A good taut query is 250. If you lose all the "platform" stuff at the end, you're down to 330.
3. I thought of my query letter as my blurb, but my new and improved
query seems like it might be too much information? What do you think?
You're throwing around terms here that have zero relevance
to your query. Your query is the query. It's not the blurb. It's not the log
line, it's not the tag line. It's not the Maginot Line.
4. I'm still confused my how much platform to include. Most of the blogs
for writers drive the platform hard. So, how much do I say, if anything?
You don't need platform to write a novel. You don't need to
tell me why you're qualified to write a novel. All you have to do in a query is tell me about a story I
want to read. It's harder than it
looks.
Dear QueryShark:
Enter Violet's world of big band jazz, dance halls and malt shops.
Violet's mother has abandoned her and Violet's father. Violet must take care of
her alcoholic when she finds him on their doorstep, a bullet wound oozing from
his head. Her jitterbug boyfriend, Charles, tries to help, but Violet sends him
away.
Bullet wounds don't ooze, blood oozes. (This kind precision is what I look for in a query because it tells me the level of precision I can expect in the novel. I value precise elegant writing in EVERY genre and category.)
Why does Violet send Charles away?
The young lovers battle their fears about life, love and death. Dance
becomes their refuge and language of love in a war torn world. Charles is
called to duty before they can marry. When his war letters mysterious stop
arriving, Violet has no chance to tell him she is pregnant, and no choice but
to give their baby up for adoption.
Ok a couple of word choices; Charles is called UP (not
"to duty") if he's in the service. You probably mean mysteriously, not mysterious.
And Violet DOES have a choice. By saying that she doesn't
you squeeze every bit of tension out of the query in two words. This is A Bad
Thing. Violet has a choice, but
what she chooses is to give up the baby. You might want to mention why.
Half a century later, another 17 year-old ingénue discovers dirty
martinis, old jazz, vintage clothing and a skirt wrapping around a warm thigh
on a crowded dance floor. The Lindy Hop becomes a vertical expression of her
repressed sexuality.
June discovers her recently deceased grandmother is not her biological
one. While obsessed with finding her real grandmother, dealing with her
anxiety disorder, and navigating college, she finds an antique jitterbug dress
which may lead her to the one person she’s been looking for and an unexpected
quest to find the woman’s long lost dance partner.
I've said before and I'll say again: the stakes here are not
high enough to sustain my interest in reading this novel. Complex family relationships need
consequences if untangling them is the plot of the novel.
I haven't even gotten to all the cool stuff you do with
dance at this point in the query, and if this was a query in my in-box, I'd
stop reading here. You MUST entice
me to read the book before anything else.
The Girl in the Jitterbug dress is the parallel story of Violet and
June: Violet, who races against her boyfriend's deployment and her grifting
father to win a dance contest and tie the knot before WWII interrupts; and
June, who half a century later struggles to find her biological grandmother and
solve a fifty year old mystery. United across generations by a 1940s swing
dress and their passion for dance.
The novel fits into the Women's Fiction category. Readers who enjoyed
the parallel story structure and time era juxtapositions in The
Notebook, Water for Elephants, and Hotel at the Corner
of Bitter and Sweet, will want to read The Girl in the Jitterbug
Dress. The manuscript is complete at 120,000 words.
The Girl in the Jitterbug Dress is women's fiction, 120,000
words. Readers who enjoyed (list
all those books) are the target audience.
Say things simply with as few words as possible.
The chapter titles are song titles which reflect the mood of each
chapter and are listed and linked on the soundtrack portion of the website
<http://www.girlinthejitterbugdress.com/soundtracks/>
as well as a glossary for 1940s slang.
You absolutely do not need this in the query. All it does is take up space. At the query stage I'm looking at 3-5 pages, not chapters. I'm not going to your website to listen to the soundtrack, I'm reading your pages.
After my run as Editor in Chief for Swivel: Vintage Living Magazine
(1996-1999, currently out of print) my dance blogs inspired a novel. Fifteen
years of being a Navy wife and teaching vintage dances (1920s-1950s styles)
combined with years of writing about antique clothing, movies, sewing, and
collecting have given me a unique and studied perspective on my subject. I have
been published in "The Lucid Stone," "Red Dog Journal," "Spoken
Word from Lalapalooza" and various other small press magazines (some out
of print).
For my complete publishing credits, please see my resume.
<http://www.girlinthejitterbugdress.com/about-tam-francis/resume/>
Thank you for taking time to consider my novel.
Thank you for your time and consideration
The problem here is that the novel doesn't have high enough stakes to sustain interest. You can have all the pub credits in the world, and a lot of cool things that make you knowledgeable in your field but you MUST have a novel that I want to read first.
The problem isn't your query. It's the novel, or at least what you're telling me about the novel here.
Original ----------
Questions:
(1) I have been getting a one out of four response and request for ms. Is this good? Can I do better?
(2) I wasn't sure about listing publishing credits since they are smaller magazines and some out of print. Many of the queries in the archives lead me to believe NOT, but honestly, I'm not sure. You told one gal not to list her "college paper" credits or small obscure publications. You also told another person that living in France did not (alone) qualify or make them an expert to write about France.
(3) Looking for help.
(4) Is my (below) signature fine for contact info or should it be in the query body?
Dear QueryShark:
Can one dance change
your life?
Don't
open your query with a rhetorical question. Not now. Not ever.
Enter the world of a
world of big band jazz, dance halls and malt shops. 17 year-old Violet
struggles to balance her troubled father, seamstress job, and growing passion
for a jitterbug sailor. He moves her to distraction by "expertly
shifting his leg between hers, delicately pushing her into intricately guided
dance steps.”
This
is description. It's not bad, but it's not all that interesting either. A world
in and of itself is not enticing. What HAPPENS in that world can be enticing.
What's really enticing though is tension, and while you allude to it here
(struggles to balance) it's still pretty bland.
They race against his
deployment and her grifting father, to win a dance contest, and tie the knot
before WWII interrupts.
This
might be the plot of an old movie but it's not all that enticing now. It's not enticing because it's not specific.
Fifty years later, June, another 17 year-old ingénue, discovers dirty martinis,
old jazz, and her vintage skirt wrapping around her thighs on a crowded dance
floor. Before leaving for college, June's mother drops a bombshell: her
recently deceased grandmother is not her biological one.
Unless
there's some huge amount of money or a life threatening hereditary condition
involved: so what?
While researching her ancestry, navigating college, (work, school,
dating), June finds an antique jitterbug dress which may lead her to the
one person she’s been looking for, and an unexpected quest to find the woman’s
long lost dance partner.
This sentence doesn't seem to relate to anything that came before it. Who is she looking for? Bio-gramps?
THE GIRL IN THE JITTERBUG DRESS is the parallel story of two young women
struggling with budding sexuality, new independence, and recent loss, united
across generations by a 1940's swing dress.
None of those are things you mentioned before. "New independence" --isn't Violet still emeshed with her grifting father? Budding sexuality? I didn't see any hint of that all unless you consider dancing to be vertical sex. And recent loss? Again, nothing.
The novel fits into the Women's Literature category with Historical Fiction,
and New Adult cross-over.
NO NO
NO. For a start, the category is women's fiction, not women's literature.
There's no New Adult crossover here. Pick ONE category (and pick the one that
has the largest amount of shelf space) and ONLY ONE.
If you enjoyed
reading THE NOTEBOOK, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS and HOTEL AT THE
CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, you will want to read THE GIRL IN THE JITTERBUG
DRESS The manuscript is complete at 125,000 words.
I don't
think of those books as comparable to each other at all, but ok. I also intensely dislike the form "if you enjoyed reading" because what you really want to say is "readers who enjoyed these books will like yours."
The first draft of a
sequel, THE GIRL IN THE JITTERBUG DRESS HOPS THE ATLANTIC is also
complete. The chapter titles are song titles which reflect the mood of each
chapter and are listed and linked on the soundtrack portion of the website (website)
NO NO
NO. You're wasting valuable space on something that doesn't belong in a
query. This is the stuff you put
on your website if you must. And don't get ahead of yourself on a sequel.
With the success of "Dancing with the Stars," and "So You Think
You Can Dance," this novel taps into America's renewed obsession with
dancing, vintage fashion and nostalgia. In addition to its commercial appeal,
THE GIRL IN THE JITTERBUG DRESS has a built-in niche market in the swing
dance/vintage subculture community (networked by websites, clubs, camps, events
contests and global communities). I am intimately connected with this
community. Social networks (facebook, twitter, google+) as well as my
novel website (website)
are well established.
Those
are TV shows, not books. There's almost zero correlation between popular TV
shows and sales of novels, unless the TV show star is involved.
After completing the run of my magazine, Swivel: Vintage Living, my dance blogs
inspired a book. Fifteen years of being a Navy wife and teaching vintage dances
(1920s-1950s styles) combined with years of writing about antique clothing,
movies, sewing, and collecting have given me a unique and studied perspective
on my subject. For my complete publishing credits, please see
my resume. (resume)
NO NO NO.
List your publishing credits. Do NOT just put a link in the query.
Thank you for
considering my novel.
You're too occupied with what you think you need (credentials, platform) and too light on what is really important: what is the novel about. We have no sense of who June and Violet are. Because of that, we don't care. And "your grandfather isn't who you think he is" is too low on the scale of what matters to be very interesting. You need to raise the stakes here a LOT.
Answers to your questions:
(1) I have been getting a one out of four response and request for ms. Is this good? Can I do better?
Of course you can do better. You can get an offer of representation. I don't know if you mean you're getting a request for a full for every four queries you send but if that is so, that's good.
(2) I wasn't sure about listing publishing credits since they are smaller magazines and some out of print. Many of the queries in the archives lead me to believe NOT, but honestly, I'm not sure. You told one gal not to list her "college paper" credits or small obscure publications. You also told another person that living in France did not (alone) qualify or make them an expert to write about France.
YOu can simply say you've been published in smaller magazines (some now out of print).
(3)Looking for help.
Well, here ya go.
(4) Is my (below) signature fine for contact info or should it be in the query body?
If you've read the archives you know the answer to this question.
