#264-revised once

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FIRST REVISION

Dear Query Shark,

Fia Colibri, 26, wants two things: to hide from her father and to recreate herself. Neither is possible after when her car breaks down and she’s stranded in East Ridge, North Dakota, a blip of a town near the Canadian border.

I yammer a lot about looking at every single word to make sure it's the right word in the right place.  Here I've changed one word. It seems like a small thing but when keeps us in the moment AND guides the reader to think "why is that not possible now? What happens next?" It's just a matter of style. Both words are grammatically correct. One word though is better than the other. 


Raised in Cirque du Soleil and trained as an aerialist, Fia was just 12 years old when her father forced her to steal jewelry for him. After he abandoned her at a heist on her 17th birthday, she served eight years in prison as an adult. He’s been chasing her for more than a year now, determined to get his cut of the $10 million in diamonds she cached before her arrest.

This paragraph is SO MUCH BETTER than the one you have at the start.  It has tension. It has what's at stake. It sets up the plot.  If you flip the order of these two paragraphs, you've got a MUCH better query.

But it’s hard work staying hidden. Fia’s lonely, tired of moving all the time, and bored. Worse, she’s stuck in a podunk town. After meeting Aiden, a lawyer who’s searching for his missing sister Kylie, she decides that spending a few days helping this charming man is worth the risk of being found. After all, it’s North Dakota, right? Her father couldn’t possibly find her here. Surely she can find Kylie before her car’s repaired.

Fia and Aiden track Kylie to a nearby Cold War radar station that’s been converted into a private Russian orphanage. When they investigate, they’re surprised at every juncture by duplicitous townsfolk, belligerent thugs, and a corrupt police force. As they plumb the secrets of the orphanage, they uncover a heartbreaking scheme—and Fia’s new fear isn’t that her father will find her, it’s that she won’t survive.

And you lose me with "private Russian orphanage." As far as I know, North Dakota is in the United States. True, they're uncomfortably close to that looming giant Canadia, but I think they're still one of us.

You don't have a lot of room to explain things in a query. Sometimes the better part of valor is leaving out detail.  If I'm intrigued enough to read the full, there's time enough to set up how the hell you have a Russian orphanage in the United States. (What the hell do they do? Import them?)



UNDER THE RADAR is an adult action thriller complete at 86,000 words. I’ve worked as a book designer, editor, and website manager in the nonfiction trade publishing arena and am currently writing full time.

action thriller is redundant. It's just a thriller.


Thanks very much for your time and consideration.



Sincerely,



Question:


I’ve received a request for a full manuscript for UNDER THE RADAR from a publisher. If the stars align and they offer a contract, do you think it’s wise to sign with them without agent representation? I’ve done some due diligence--they’re a good fit for my book and so far I can’t find any red flags.


Answer: I'm an agent. I think it's insane to do a deal without an agent however, I'm not untethered from reality (right now) and realize that not all authors secure representation before submitting books and receiving offers.

If you do not have an agent and you receive an offer, you get a publishing attorney or a contract review specialist to go over your contract before you sign. You do NOT sign the contract they give you thinking "oh gosh, if I don't, they'll withdraw the offer." Publishers expect to negotiate terms of a publishing deal.




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Dear Query Shark,

I would be grateful if you’d consider representing UNDER THE RADAR, an adult action thriller complete at 86,000 words.

I know you think it's polite to start off with "I'd be grateful" but honestly, you don't need it here. Are you grateful if your real estate agent answers her phone?  Same thing. You're proposing we enter in to a business relationship. Just tell me what your book is about. Save the grateful for when I sell the book for wheelbarrows of cash.

And leave the housekeeping stuff like word count and category till the end.

A former Cirque du Soleil aerialist and ex-con who’s hiding from her father is drawn into the perilous world of human trafficking when she agrees to investigate the disappearance of a journalist in rural North Dakota.

 And here's where I stop reading. I can hear your screams of anguish when I say this but it's true. I don't want to read about human trafficking for entertainment. I see news reports, I hear fund raising appeals, it's an awful awful topic.

And here's the kicker: you could avoid that instant rejection by leaving out this worse-than-useless, actually detrimental, LOGLINE!   I've railed against loglines for years. They're an  import from the film business and they have no place in a good query.  A good query entices me to read on because it engages me with the STORY. A logline is all about concept.  Useful if that's what you're pitching, but that's not the case here.




Fia Colibri, 26, wants two things: to hide from her father and to recreate herself. Neither is possible after her car breaks down in East Ridge, North Dakota, a blip of a town near the Canadian border.


If you'd started here, I would have kept reading. When you start with your main character, not a news headline, you've increased your chances I'll keep reading. 


While stranded, she meets Aiden, a lawyer who’s looking for his missing sister Kylie, and agrees to help him with his search. Her acrobatic skills—and prison savvy—are just what he needs. When they investigate a nearby Cold War radar station that’s been converted into an orphanage, they become immersed in the dangerous world of the Russian bratva and discover that the orphanage is a front for child porn, prostitution, and slave trading. Kylie is being held prisoner there, but she won't leave until she’s amassed evidence to expose the Russians.

Why does Fia agree to help Aiden? You've told us she wants to hide from her father and recreate herself. How does helping Aiden do that? And what's at stake for her? If she helps Aiden, what will she lose? 

There's a logical inconsistency between "Kylie is being held prisoner" and "she won't leave."  Being held prisoner means she doesn't get to leave even if she accumulates enough evidence of anything.



Frustrated by secretive townsfolk, belligerent thugs, and a corrupt police force, Fia and Aiden ultimately save the children, rescue Kylie, and evade her father.



Never Ever EVER give away the ending in a query. Your job in a query is to entice me to read on. Now that I know what happens, why would I read the book? And in revealing the end of the book so hurridley you've taken all the verve out of the story. That's absolutely fatal in a query.



Get the plot and stakes on the page, and that's ALL.

I’ve worked as a book designer, editor, and website manager in the nonfiction trade publishing arena and am currently writing full time.

Thanks very much for your time and consideration.



Revise, resend.

#263-revised once

Revision #1
Dear Query Shark:

Valadae Copperstone helps breed snakes and spiders just to keep food on the table for her family. When a mysterious contract arrives promising substantial payment for her skills, it’s her opportunity to escape this minimum wage existence. The ink barely dries on the dotted line before Valadae realizes she’s been deceived. The contract has morphed into her worse nightmare; an enlistment agreement from the United States of Alacove Army.

That first sentence makes it sound as though they eat snakes and spiders. If that's the case, Army chow doesn't look quite so bad, does it?

This is a vast improvement over your initial effort.

Now bound to fulfill an eight-year term, Valadae is thrown into a boot camp full of drill instructing warlocks and warwitches threatening to shove a combat boot up her ass. However, none of the instructors are tougher on Valadae then than Warwitch Beaning, and it’s certainly not because she sees any potential in Valadae.



Uh oh, the dreaded then/than mistake.  I've shouted from rooftops about how important it is to have every word right in your query.  Right after really bad writing, this kind of mistake is one of the main reasons I elect to NOT request a manuscript that might be interesting. If I see it here, I know I'll see it in the manuscript, and moreover I know that you DIDN'T see it which means I'll be copy editing your work forever.


Suddenly soldiers start falling ill with an untraceable sickness and dying in the midst of training. When Valadae develops similar symptoms, all fingers point to Beaning after Valadae finds a journal with Beaning and the dead soldiers’ names written inside.


Sickness or illness isn't "untraceable" it's unknown. Or untreatable.

And you don't need all the words in that sentence. Consider:  Suddenly soldiers start falling ill with an untraceable sickness and dying in the midst of training. 

or this: Suddenly soldiers start falling ill with an untraceable sickness and dying in the midst of training.

See the difference?

This means you're not paring down enough. You don't have a good sense of rhythm yet for what makes good writing.  This is just a function of practice. Absolutely no one has that at the start of their career. It is the stuff of which trunk novels are made.  After a million words of practice (the Stephen King benchmark) you'll see it when you revise. NOT when you write your first draft, but when you go back through it the second, third and tenth time.



With each turned page, Valadae discovers details of an ancient artifact called the Millicor, and its host being the heart of an entire country.


 This sentence makes no sense. For starters, you can leave out "with each turned page" because we know from the preceding paragraph she's got her mitts on a journal of some kind.

"It's host being the heart of an entire country"--I don't know what you mean here but I'm going to guess that the artifact is important.

Beaning’s scheming to auction the Millicor to any enemy insurgent with the highest bid. If things weren’t bad enough, Valadae learns in order to obtain the Millicor, the host’s must die. She needs to identify the host before Beaning or Alacove will face the biggest death toll in history.



You've left out what's at stake for Valadae personally. Every protagonist must have skin in the game. "People will die" is too abstract to qualify. What bad thing will happen to her if she succeeds? What must she sacrifice to succeed.


TIN YEAR, a YA Military/Fantasy, is complete at 90,000 words.

I am serving my eighth year in the United States Army Reserve. I drew on my beginning experiences with Echo Company 113th of Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in the writing of this book.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


 I think you're querying too soon. Even if you polish up your query, your novel is going to have these same errors.  These errors indicate you need more practice. That's not some kind of character flaw, every single writer has a story about querying too soon.  (I bet some of the comments will elicit those)  The trick is to figure it out as soon as you can and get back to work writing.

By writing, I don't mean get back to work on this novel.  One of the best ways to improve your writing is by working in short forms.  Flash fiction contests are good. So are book reviews for blogs. So are short stories.  Hell, letters home to Mom and Dad are good practice. Journal writing that you REVISE is good practice. Just writing in a journal is ok, but going back over what you've written and revising and improving it is where you'll really make progress.

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Original Query
Dear Query Shark:

Valadae Copperstone’s agenda didn’t include becoming a statistic in the Army’s portfolio of causalities. Her main focus is providing a decent living for her family, and working any odd end job available. She can’t very well do that if she’s serving on the frontlines. When a mysterious contract arrives promising substantial payment for her work skills, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. The ink barely dries on her new hopes for a better life before Valadae realizes she’s been deceived. The contract rearranges into her worse nightmare; an enlistment agreement from the United States of Alacove Army.

Your first sentence robs the entire paragraph of tension.  It does that because it tells us what happens FIRST, not deliver it as the punchline to the paragraph. What you've got here is the first draft. When you revise, you go back through the paragraph and take out all the things that undercut the tension or reveal things too soon. You won't see this when you write it, you'll ONLY see it when you revise.

You'll want to check your novel for this too. This is one of the things I see a lot in early novelists: they put sentences in the wrong order. One too many lessons about "topic sentences" from your fourth grade teacher stuck in your brain. Novel writing and expository writing are VERY different creatures paragraph wise.

Now bound to fulfill an eight-year term, Valadae is thrown into a boot camp full of screaming warlocks and warwitches threatening to shove a combat boot up her ass. However, none of the instructors are harder on Valadae then Warwitch Beaning, and it’s certainly not because she sees any potential in Valadae. Soldiers are suddenly falling ill to an untraceable sickness and dying in the midst of training. When Valadae develops similar symptoms, she just knows that Beaning is the cause.

Are the warlocks and warwitches the instructors? That's not clear. I thought at first that they were Valadae's fellow boots.

There's no connection between Warwitch Beaning seeing no potential in Valadae, and soldiers falling ill. That means they do NOT belong in the same paragraph unless you link them.

Consider this revision with that in mind:

Now bound to fulfill an eight-year term, Valadae is thrown into a boot camp full of screaming warlocks and warwitches instructors threatening  to shove a combat boot up her ass. However, none of the instructors are harder on Valadae then Warwitch Beaning, and it’s certainly not because she sees any potential in Valadae. 

Suddenly soldiers are start falling ill to with an untraceable sickness and dying in the midst of training. When Valadae develops similar symptoms, she just knows that Beaning is the cause.



"Just knows" drives me crazy. I think of it as sloppy writing because you haven't got a reason, it's just "she knows." Like deus ex machina, it's a device to clean things up without having to explain anything.  Even if you use "she suspects" you're better off than with "she just knows."

Again, this is something you'll see only when you revise. Revising isn't copy editing. It's not checking for spelling errors. Revising is making sure all the sentences flow in logical order,  the arc of the paragraph is correct, your style and rhythm are right.  If you're not moving sentences, and paring out words and changing words while you're revising, you're not doing it right. 

As Valadae slowly makes the connections, (what connections?) a conspiracy is uncovered. A myth surfaces surrounding an ancient artifact called the Millicor, said to hold the heart of an entire country. Anyone bearing a surname similar to Copperstone could lead towards the right country. It has to be what Beaning is after. The longer Valadae takes to prove it, the faster she risks meeting the same fate as her sick comrades and never getting back home to her family.

You're over explaining something we don't need to know. Pare down. The only thing we need to know in a query is what Valadae's choices are and what's at stake. She's going to choose to confront/kill/quit and if she succeeds X happens and if she fails Y happens. But X also means Z bad thing could happen too.

Get the stakes, not just the set up on the page.

TIN YEAR, a suspenseful YA Military/Fantasy, is complete at 90,000 words.
I am serving my eighth year in the United States Army Reserve. I drew on my beginning experiences with Echo Company 113th of Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in the writing of this book.

You don't call your own book suspenseful. Of course, you want it to be, and you're writing so it will be, but that's a designation someone ELSE needs to give it. 

I'm usually not keen on including bio lines but this one works because it relates directly to the book you're writing.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Revise, resend.

Question 1): When an agent requests a partial or full of your MS, are writers allowed to request time (short time frame of course) to give their manuscript a final once over before emailing it? Or does an agent expect writers to be so extremely confident in their work that they’ll send it anyway, even with the possibility of the agent finding an error or two?

You should be prepared to send your manuscript to an agent the instant the request comes in.  The time for that once over is between sending the query and getting the request for the full.  

Of course, in the real world, there's no way I'm going to talk you nit-picky writers (and don't think I don't value that quality!) out of doing a once-over.  The trick is to do it in less than 24 hours.  Don't write back saying "hold on, I want to go over it one more time" just DO IT, and then send promptly.



Question 2): I remember you explaining in several posts (actually more than several) that shorter sentences are always better. If a query comes off as too simplistic, couldn’t that  accidentally advertise the writer’s style as being unworthy of representation?

I'm not sure what unworthy of representation is but it sounds bad, and I don't really like using the word worthy. Suitable for publication, or publishable are the standards I use.

And by shorter sentences, what I mean is sentences that don't go on too long. Nice concrete standard there, no? 

You're supposing that short sentences sound simplistic. I assure you they don't. Short sentences have a punch and vigor their lengthier comrades lack. That said, style and rhythm are key. Short and long are better than one or the other.

#262-Revised 3x

Version #3


Dear Query Shark:

Growing up on Long Island, Pru watched her mother pick a parade of the worst men available, from her absentee dad to her lecherous stepdad. Young Pru dreamed of being swept off her feet by the perfect guy, raising children, and living happily ever after.

When she married Carl over her mother's objection, she convinced herself she did not share her mother's bad luck in men. Whenever anything went wrong, she fixed it and started the next day with a smile. She was as good at hiding Carl's faults as he was at pointing out hers. As she approached her 45th birthday however, Prudence Aldrich was starting to believe bad luck in men was, in fact, an inherited trait.


I was ready to mark all this out as back story, but I think you're right, we do need to know that Pru hoped for something other than what her mom had, and didn't get it.

She had grown to dread seeing Carl's car in the driveway or seeing his name appear when her phone rang. After twenty loveless years, waking up with a smile every day simply isn't cutting it. Even shopping and cheating can no longer fill the void left by Carl's passive aggressive demeanor. Blaming herself, Pru checks into Serenity Hills, hoping to save her marriage.

If Carl is such a louse, why did she marry him?

What she learns there changes everything. Other patients find Pru to be a source of strength. She sees Carl's true colors. Most of all, she finally sees a future filled with love, with or without Carl, and with or without luck.


We have no sense of what's at stake for Pru. There has to be some reason she doesn't just ditch Carl, and decamp for greener pastures.  What bad thing will happen if she wakens to new-found self respect? What worse thing will happen if she doesn't?

Without choices, or stakes, there's no compelling reason to read the book, it's just a series of events.

If you're having a hard time figuring out what's at stake, the most likely answer is nothing is.  

One of the ways to fix that is to take your ten favorite women's fiction novels and re-read them with your writer eye. Look for what's at stake in those novels, and how the writer layers that in to the story.  Then do that. You learn by watching the people who know how to do stuff.  It's how we all learn.

A DRESS THE COLOR OF THE SKY (99,000 words) is women's fiction. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


 Revise, resend.




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Revision #2

Dear Query Shark,

Prudence wants her mom happy. She cleans the house and does the laundry but driving the car is another story. After all, she's only five.


This is a great line, except that "driving the car" doesn't relate to anything that happens further on in the query. 


Her stepdad Richard makes her do gross things with his pants down. She doesn't tell her mom because that wouldn't make her happy. Pru pretends she is someone else when bad things happen. Richard says Pru is too damned pretty and that's why he makes her do stuff she can't talk about. Richard beats her for holding her fork wrong or not filling the ice trays. Pru thinks that's better than spending a moment alone with his greasy grimy gopher guts.



Less is more on this kind of thing. I know I said be specific in that last revision, but there's a point at which too much specificity is just off-putting. I can't stand this kind of story (abuse is on my list of auto-rejects) so my tolerance is probably a lot lower than agents who DO consider this, but even with that, less is more.


Pru's marriage to Carl doesn't break her. She has survived worse things than his psychological torture. But it does take a toll. Pru's shell cracks when her infidelity becomes sex for cash. The possibility of losing Carl, and more importantly, her son scares the bejesus out of her. Not sure where to turn, Pru checks herself into rehab.


Rehab for what? I don't think this lady needs rehab. I think she needs a firearm. (That's just me, I know) But what's she in rehab for? Sex addiction? She's not addicted to sex, she's a victim of abuse. I'm pretty sure there's a difference here.


You've gone from five to (I hope at least) twenty-five here. That's a big leap in time for a query letter. Generally you want to start a query where the precipitating incident occurs. I'm going to guess it's when Prudence marries Carl and thinks she's getting out of an awful situation, only to find she isn't. Starting at that point solves the problem of all that abuse in the first paragraph--you can leave it out. 


Pru is shocked when other patients say her smile lights up a room. That's not possible when you think you're worse than dog doo stuck in a shoe. Pru's beautiful monkey brain kicks into overload. Should she leave Carl? Can she say her first authentic no?



"Beautiful monkey brain" is an odd pairing of words. Like "jumbo shrimp" or "non-fiction novel" it seems oxymoronic. It doesn't illuminate anything about Prudence to me, so you might think about another phrase.

A DRESS THE COLOR OF THE SKY (99,000 words) is commercial fiction. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


this still doesn't have any plot on the page and has such a jarring first paragraph that I don't think too many readers will keep reading.


Revise. Resend.

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Revision #1
Dear Query Shark,

Prudence Aldrich had it all when she was born in the early 1960's in Los Angeles: shabby genteel yet glamorous parents, a rustic yet refined suburban upbringing, even a grandmother right out of a Pepperidge Farm commercial.

It all falls apart with a bi-coastal divorce, a new home and new friends. But it is her step family she cannot abide: self-centered, abusive, perverse. None of her kids books taught her how to handle those nightmares. Before long her sweet demeanor grows a thicker skin, and she takes the world one comer at a time.



This is too abstract to be interesting.  You have to tell us what happens here. Be specific. I don't mean a laundry list but "self-centered, abusive, perverse' isn't as interesting as "her new stepfather walks around naked with a gun and threatens to shoot her mom if she doesn't do what he asks."  See the difference?



Pru's emotional state unravels, and before long a blur of bars, men and one-night stands lands her in an abusive marriage with a sullen husband. Clearly, the time has come to change. But what are her options? A complete transformation is called-for: Rehab.



You're skipping over the ONE point that we need to see: the point where she decides things have to change. That's actually the start of the second act (if a book were  three-act play.) We have to see it on the page for sure, and it helps to see it in a query.

But I'm puzzled by where the book starts? How much page time is devoted to Pru's fall from her happy times in LA?  If it's more than about 60 pages, you need to cut back here in the query on the stuff that happens later.  The query should focus on where things change for the protagonist. What choice does she have to make? Or in this case what choice is made for her? And what's at stake? What does she have to sacrifice to get what she wants?




A DRESS THE COLOR OF THE SKY is a story that many contemporary women can relate to: personal habits and relationships flipped out of control, "back-burnered" dreams no one else cares about, and a total lack of emotional support.




This broad generalization about audience appeal is a red-flag to agents and editors. Leave it OUT. Tell us what the story is about.  That's it.

And what back -burnered dreams? There's no mention of that at all up to now.

Yet it is through her rehab for whatever "sex addiction" is that her butterfly emerges from its chrysalis. This soul-searching process, one she would have scoffed at not long ago, with its group therapy sessions, individual counseling, art therapy, public confessions and chastisement, radically changes her view of herself and the world. No one is "cured" of trauma in the final sense, but Prudence is on her way. On her way to freedom.



You don't give away the entire plot or the complete arc of character development in the query. You focus on the beginning of the book.


A DRESS THE COLOR OF THE SKY (99,000 words) is commercial fiction. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

The central problem here, other than it's a mess, is that you've given us nothing to empathize with for Pru.  She needs to catch and hold our interest. She doesn't need to be likable, but she must be interesting.  Really stand back from your narrative and ask yourself if Pru herself can hold our interest for 300 pages.

If you're not sure, or you don't trust your instinct, give it to a friend to read. Don't ask her what she thinks of the book (your friends will lie through their teeth about that, and god bless them for that kind of love and devotion, right?)  Ask her what she liked about Pru. Ask her what she didn't. That will help you figure out if Pru is interesting.

This is a mess, but it's a whole lot better than the initial salvo. I'm not sure you've studied the archives closely (you  haven't) but there's help there about getting the plot on the page.

And if you're having trouble getting plot on the page, you might consider if it's the book, not the query.

Revise/Resend.

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ORIGINAL
Dear Query Shark,

BEAUTIFUL: Prudence Aldrich is a striking, vivacious and captivating woman. But this is just a facade.

BROKEN: Pru harbors demons, secrets and shame. Sex addiction is plaguing her life. If she continues this self-destructive path - SHE COULD DIE. She can't lead a double life anymore.

SICK: Sex with random men and constant self-deprecation are Pru's only sources of comfort. Decades of abuse, neglect, rape and psychological torture turn and innocent girl into a self-loathing, desperate sex addict.

ADDICT: Prudence's self-destructive behavior has driven her to the brink. She must make critical choices in order to heal - accept her stolen childhood and leave her alcoholic husband. If she leaves Carl will she die? She feels as though she will.

ACCEPTANCE: Prudence joins the other "broken, addicted losers" in rehab as she seeks solace from her living hell. The patients tell Prudence she is brave, inspiring and that she lights up a room with her smile. Could all these people be wrong?

SET BACK: Prudence has sex with Carl while in rehab. Big mistake.

HEAL: Prudence inherits her beloved mother's poor choice in men. It's time for that family tradition to end. Prudence gains insight into her conflicted life and learns she has value, power, and most of all hope for an authentic, happy life without Carl.

A DRESS THE COLOR OF THE SKY (94,000 words) is commercial fiction. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.



What in the world are you thinking here?

This is one of the oddest query letter formats I've ever seen.  I was so perplexed I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out if the ALL CAPS headers spelled something out, or were some sort of subtle clue.  If they are, it's too subtle for me. 

This is a classic case of a gimmick that Does Not Work.  Don't try to be fancy.  Don't try to be unusual. Just tell me what happens at the start of the story that will make me want to read on. Right now it doesn't. Right now this is a bunch of statements about a woman I would run from as fast as I could.. She sounds like a red hot mess. Your job is to make her compelling.

Simple, elegant writing is incredibly difficult. Don't try to take shortcuts, they Do Not Work.