Dear QueryShark:
His code name: Kangaroo. His special ability: The Pocket--a unique portal into an empty "pocket universe," which Kangaroo can use to smuggle contraband throughout the Solar System for his intelligence agency employers.
The bad news: Kangaroo sucks at being a spy.
Even equipped with state-of-the-art, 22nd-century biotechnology implants, Kangaroo keeps screwing up. Now his whole department is under internal investigation, and Kangaroo's handler sends him away: mandatory leave aboard an Earth-to-Mars pleasure cruise, where the agency's auditors can't reach him.
But even on vacation, Kangaroo can't seem to stay out of trouble.
First, there's an unexplained murder on the cruise ship, and security thinks Kangaroo is the prime suspect. Then a hijacker seizes control of the vessel, threatening to crash it into Mars Capital City, and Kangaroo risks exposing his true identity to help the crew take back their ship.
When he discovers another spy on board, conspiring with the hijacker and intimately familiar with agency tradecraft, Kangaroo must face the possibility that this act of terror is an inside job. Cut off from his support team and unsure whom to trust, can Kangaroo prevent an interplanetary war--and prove he has what it takes to be a real secret agent?
WAYPOINT KANGAROO is a 115,000-word science fiction spy thriller. This is my first novel.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Let's do something a little different today. This query is a Win on the First Try.
Tell me why. Use the comment column below.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Saturday, March 23, 2013
#241-revised 3x
Third revision
Dear Query Shark
At fifteen, Vani is forcibly married to a gardener and becomes a servant in a British household. Her childhood dreams of becoming a teacher are shattered. Robbed of her innocence but not her optimism, Vani clings to her dreams as she aims to be her bigoted employer’s best cleaner by day and endures her husband's depravity by night.
Unless her husband's depravity is a major plot point, leave it out of the query, particularly in this first paragraph. Depravity is sort of a hot button word and you don't want agents thinking this a book about that if it isn't.
At sixteen, Vani is widowed. Her position is made tenuous by her employer, Mem Lynette. Returning to her parents an unimaginable option, Mem Lynette’s daughter and the long-serving Chinese servants rally to Vani’s side. Soon after, Vani is seduced by a new arrival, Mem Lynette’s nephew, Thomas. He captivates the spirited Vani with the flavours of an intoxicating city and vivid tales about his family. She falls in love with Thomas, who releases feelings in her she never knew existed. When he gives her his most prized possession before leaving abruptly for England, Vani is sure she will see him again. She begins night school, juggling homework with cleaning while she waits for him, oblivious to Mem Lynette’s suspicion and wrath.
this is a list of events. There's almost no sense of verve or excitement here.
At seventeen, Vani is a single mother. An impulsive move forces her into a desperate situation. As her employer’s family history begins to unravel, Vani must make the most important decision of her young life. Keeping her baby can only mean a precarious life ahead, tainted with condemnation and scandal. Giving her baby up for adoption means misery but also the life she always dreamed of and good prospects for her child. Dare Vani believe she can have both her baby and the dream life?
Set in the sixties, spanning the early years of Singapore’s path to independence, JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 124,000 words.
This is my first novel. My memoir, Praying to the Goddess of Mercy, was published by Monsoon Books in late 2012.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
You can condense all this stuff about Vani to a couple sentences, focusing on where things change, and she has choices to make. That will give you some room to expound upon what will make your novel stand out: time and setting. You also need to ratchet up the language and zest here. Right now this is a list of things that happen to Vani. There's no verve or style. There's no voice. That's absolute death in a novel, and pretty bad in a query.
Revise, resend.
------------------------------------------------------
Revision #2
At fifteen, Vani’s bright future is snuffed out when she is forcibly married. This unholy union takes her from her small Malayan town to Jacaranda, a British colonial home in Singapore. By day, Vani aims to be her employer’s best cleaner and by night, she keeps alive her childhood dreams of being a teacher while enduring her husband’s acts of depravity. She plans to run away before lunacy sets in, unless her husband kills her first.
Does she really have a bright future or is it just what she dreams for herself?
At sixteen, Vani is a merry widow***. She befriends the Chinese servants. Soon after, she is seduced by a new arrival – her employer’s nephew, John. Vani is introduced to the sights, sounds, flavours and wonders of an intoxicating city. She falls in love with John, who releases feelings in her she never knew existed. If her employer found out about this affair, Vani would be sent back to her parents, who would rather see her dead than their family name ruined. When John gives her his most prized possession before leaving abruptly, Vani is sure she will see him again. While waiting, Vani begins night-school, determined to be a teacher. She soon learns she is pregnant.
At seventeen, Vani is a single mother who vows to keep her daughter’s paternity secret. When her suspicious employer tricks Vani into giving her baby up for adoption, Vani is desperate. Keeping her baby can only mean a precarious life ahead, tainted with condemnation and scandal. Giving her baby up for adoption means misery but also the life she always dreamed of and good prospects for her child. Dare Vani believe she can have both her baby and the dream life?
If you stop here, it entices someone to read on.
With help from a motley group, especially her employer’s daughter, the Chinese servants and a teacher at her night school, Vani chooses a path which pushes her limits of trust, patience and confidence. In her pursuit of an education and self-reliance, Vani learns she can have much more than she ever allowed herself to dream.
By eighteen, Vani is beginning to live the dream.
If you stop here, you give away the entire plot=not enticing.
Set in the sixties, spanning Singapore’s early years of independence,JACARANDA traces Vani’s spectacular transformation from country bumpkin to shining star in a richly textured story of friendship, loyalty and love in a fledgling multi-racial nation.
Again, you're giving away too much story here.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 87,000 words.
You still don't have enough words but this is a lot more hopeful than what you had before. I still think you need to clock in at 120k to have a fully furnished world built. Remember, the sights, smells and sounds of Singapore are essential here or you've just got a plain old romance novel. (I've said this every single time you've revised, but I fear my words are falling on deaf ears!)
This is a LOT better format as well.
This is a workable query but I'm still worried that you don't have enough book yet.
***This is a clear misunderstanding of the vernacular. Merry Widow means a rich widow who is beset by suitors. Vani is a widow, but not a merry one. Relieved maybe.
-----------------------------------------
Revision #1
Vani is only fourteen. Bruised but not broken, she finds solace in the countless books at Jacaranda while her husband tends the garden. When a cobra kills him, Vani does not grieve; she flourishes. Soon, seduced by a new arrival - her employer’s freshly-graduated nephew, John - she experiences absolute delight for the first time. He creates a new world for her, one filled with love and secret rendezvous. Their blossoming relationship is disrupted when John is summoned home to attend to family matters. He gives Vani his prized possession, a first edition of Tagore’s Gitanjali, and promises to return soon.
In the following years, chronic unemployment and a dire housing shortage rage outside, fuelling the servants’ fears of an unpredictable future without their British masters. Wanting the best for Gitanjali, Vani realizes their survival depends on unity with the Chinese servants. The spirited foursome, once cocooned in comfort and security at Jacaranda and still not ready for the freedom thrust upon them, rebuild their lives together with a mixture of anxiety and optimism in turbulent times.
JACARANDA weaves a story of loyalty and hope in a fledgling multi-ethnic nation ushering in new beginnings while struggling against all odds to become self-sufficient.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 65,000 words.
----------------------
Original query
Dear QueryShark:
Vani is an avid reader whose favourite author is Jane Austen. She dreams of becoming a teacher and marrying a man like Mr. Darcy. Instead, she becomes a live-in servant for a British family at Jacaranda, a magnificent colonial bungalow in Singapore, after she is forcibly married to her abominable uncle according to an ancient South Indian tradition.
This is a nice set up. I wonder who forced her to marry her uncle: her parents or the social norms of her community. It seems odd to have a tradition to marry a close blood relative, but I'm willing to suspend my skepticism and read on.
For any blog readers tempted to jump on the juxtaposition of "magnificent" and "bungalow" remember the Brits use bungalow to mean something quite different than we do.
Vani is only fourteen. In between cleaning, she finds solace every afternoon in the countless books which line the shelves of every room while her husband tends the tropical garden. Within months, she is widowed. Soon after, her employer’s nephew, John, arrives from England. Before long, he is summoned home to attend to family matters.
There's no connection between John and Vani. There's no followup to her being widowed. A lot happens but it's not the plot.
When the coffee-coloured Vani bears a coffee-with-lots-of-milk-coloured Eurasian girl, Vani’s employer is suspicious and secretly plots to keep her unknowing nephew away from Singapore. While waiting for John to return, Vani juggles work, motherhood and night classes in the hope of being a teacher.
Ok, well, that is one way not to do plot: off the page. You've just skipped over the most important part of the story: John and Vani. Are they in love? He's part of her employer's family. I do NOT assume that she is in love with him at all.
It is the late fifties; anti-colonial sentiment is strong and Britain is losing her grip on Singapore. On the cusp of independence, with chronic unemployment and a dire housing shortage, the live-in servants, cocooned in comfort and security at Jacaranda, are not ready for an unpredictable future without their British employers. The impending reality is especially harrowing for Vani, who has a young child and does not know when, if ever, she will see John again.
That last sentence makes it sound like you're introducing Vani, when in fact the first two paragraphs are about her. Suddenly introducing the wider world in paragraph three is jarring. So far this has been a story about two people. Now it's about the end of colonial rule in Singapore. You've got to blend these two aspects of the story.
Here's the description for UNDER THE BANYAN TREE which is about the changes wrought with the arrival of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia:
Spanning two decades, from British rule to a young Singapore going through a sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll phase, JACARANDA weaves a story of friendship, loyalty and hope, drawing parallels with the tide of uncertainty in a fledgling nation struggling against all odds to become self-sufficient.
This is all tell and no show. Because there's no plot I'm afraid the first couple of chapters will be only a series of events. This is where I'd stop reading and send a form rejection.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 69,000 words.
There is NO way in the world you can write a fully developed novel that spans two decades and is set in colonial Singapore in 69,000 words. This is the kind of book that needs to clock in close to 120K. Detail takes time, and if you've got twenty years of events, those too take time. If I hadn't already said no after the paragraph above, I would here.
Most of the time word count is a problem on the other end: too many. But historical novels (like this), fantasy, family sagas, novels with a BIG story---those need more words than a thriller, or a romance.
This is my first novel. My memoir, (title redacted) was published late last year.
It's crucial you include the publisher if you've had a book published before.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Kind regards
There's not enough here to pique my interest, and what is here isn't plot. The characters are almost two dimensional. We have no sense of what they think or feel, let alone the choices they have to make.
Dear Query Shark
At fifteen, Vani is forcibly married to a gardener and becomes a servant in a British household. Her childhood dreams of becoming a teacher are shattered. Robbed of her innocence but not her optimism, Vani clings to her dreams as she aims to be her bigoted employer’s best cleaner by day and endures her husband's depravity by night.
Unless her husband's depravity is a major plot point, leave it out of the query, particularly in this first paragraph. Depravity is sort of a hot button word and you don't want agents thinking this a book about that if it isn't.
At sixteen, Vani is widowed. Her position is made tenuous by her employer, Mem Lynette. Returning to her parents an unimaginable option, Mem Lynette’s daughter and the long-serving Chinese servants rally to Vani’s side. Soon after, Vani is seduced by a new arrival, Mem Lynette’s nephew, Thomas. He captivates the spirited Vani with the flavours of an intoxicating city and vivid tales about his family. She falls in love with Thomas, who releases feelings in her she never knew existed. When he gives her his most prized possession before leaving abruptly for England, Vani is sure she will see him again. She begins night school, juggling homework with cleaning while she waits for him, oblivious to Mem Lynette’s suspicion and wrath.
this is a list of events. There's almost no sense of verve or excitement here.
At seventeen, Vani is a single mother. An impulsive move forces her into a desperate situation. As her employer’s family history begins to unravel, Vani must make the most important decision of her young life. Keeping her baby can only mean a precarious life ahead, tainted with condemnation and scandal. Giving her baby up for adoption means misery but also the life she always dreamed of and good prospects for her child. Dare Vani believe she can have both her baby and the dream life?
Set in the sixties, spanning the early years of Singapore’s path to independence, JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 124,000 words.
This is my first novel. My memoir, Praying to the Goddess of Mercy, was published by Monsoon Books in late 2012.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
You can condense all this stuff about Vani to a couple sentences, focusing on where things change, and she has choices to make. That will give you some room to expound upon what will make your novel stand out: time and setting. You also need to ratchet up the language and zest here. Right now this is a list of things that happen to Vani. There's no verve or style. There's no voice. That's absolute death in a novel, and pretty bad in a query.
Revise, resend.
------------------------------------------------------
Revision #2
At fifteen, Vani’s bright future is snuffed out when she is forcibly married. This unholy union takes her from her small Malayan town to Jacaranda, a British colonial home in Singapore. By day, Vani aims to be her employer’s best cleaner and by night, she keeps alive her childhood dreams of being a teacher while enduring her husband’s acts of depravity. She plans to run away before lunacy sets in, unless her husband kills her first.
Does she really have a bright future or is it just what she dreams for herself?
At sixteen, Vani is a merry widow***. She befriends the Chinese servants. Soon after, she is seduced by a new arrival – her employer’s nephew, John. Vani is introduced to the sights, sounds, flavours and wonders of an intoxicating city. She falls in love with John, who releases feelings in her she never knew existed. If her employer found out about this affair, Vani would be sent back to her parents, who would rather see her dead than their family name ruined. When John gives her his most prized possession before leaving abruptly, Vani is sure she will see him again. While waiting, Vani begins night-school, determined to be a teacher. She soon learns she is pregnant.
At seventeen, Vani is a single mother who vows to keep her daughter’s paternity secret. When her suspicious employer tricks Vani into giving her baby up for adoption, Vani is desperate. Keeping her baby can only mean a precarious life ahead, tainted with condemnation and scandal. Giving her baby up for adoption means misery but also the life she always dreamed of and good prospects for her child. Dare Vani believe she can have both her baby and the dream life?
If you stop here, it entices someone to read on.
By eighteen, Vani is beginning to live the dream.
If you stop here, you give away the entire plot=not enticing.
Set in the sixties, spanning Singapore’s early years of independence,
Again, you're giving away too much story here.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 87,000 words.
You still don't have enough words but this is a lot more hopeful than what you had before. I still think you need to clock in at 120k to have a fully furnished world built. Remember, the sights, smells and sounds of Singapore are essential here or you've just got a plain old romance novel. (I've said this every single time you've revised, but I fear my words are falling on deaf ears!)
This is a LOT better format as well.
This is a workable query but I'm still worried that you don't have enough book yet.
***This is a clear misunderstanding of the vernacular. Merry Widow means a rich widow who is beset by suitors. Vani is a widow, but not a merry one. Relieved maybe.
-----------------------------------------
Revision #1
Vani dreams of becoming an English teacher and marrying a
kind man. Instead, she is forced into an avunculate marriage to an abusive
uncle by her tradition-bound parents and becomes a live-in servant for a
British family at Jacaranda, a magnificent colonial bungalow in
Singapore.
This is all set up. You'll want the query to begin when Vani
has to make a choice. The way this
is written there's no choice made, she simply obeys her parents even though she
doesn't want to.
Vani is only fourteen. Bruised but not broken, she finds solace in the countless books at Jacaranda while her husband tends the garden. When a cobra kills him, Vani does not grieve; she flourishes. Soon, seduced by a new arrival - her employer’s freshly-graduated nephew, John - she experiences absolute delight for the first time. He creates a new world for her, one filled with love and secret rendezvous. Their blossoming relationship is disrupted when John is summoned home to attend to family matters. He gives Vani his prized possession, a first edition of Tagore’s Gitanjali, and promises to return soon.
And here's the problem: this is a series of events but
there's no plot. Vani isn't making choices. She's just having experiences.
That's what real life is but that's NOT what novels are. Novels need a plot.
When Vani bears a light-skinned Eurasian girl and names her Gitanjali, her employer is suspicious and secretly plots to keep her unknowing nephew away from Singapore permanently. Meanwhile, with calls for Independence mounting and hopes for a reunion with John dimming, Vani plans her future while the Chinese live-in cook and his washer-woman wife help raise her child. She juggles work, motherhood and night classes in the hope of being a teacher, believing John would be proud of her.
When Vani bears a light-skinned Eurasian girl and names her Gitanjali, her employer is suspicious and secretly plots to keep her unknowing nephew away from Singapore permanently. Meanwhile, with calls for Independence mounting and hopes for a reunion with John dimming, Vani plans her future while the Chinese live-in cook and his washer-woman wife help raise her child. She juggles work, motherhood and night classes in the hope of being a teacher, believing John would be proud of her.
Again, no plot. This is a recitation of events. There's no
emotion here, no passion. I don't feel anything when I read this, and that is
death in a query.
In the following years, chronic unemployment and a dire housing shortage rage outside, fuelling the servants’ fears of an unpredictable future without their British masters. Wanting the best for Gitanjali, Vani realizes their survival depends on unity with the Chinese servants. The spirited foursome, once cocooned in comfort and security at Jacaranda and still not ready for the freedom thrust upon them, rebuild their lives together with a mixture of anxiety and optimism in turbulent times.
JACARANDA weaves a story of loyalty and hope in a fledgling multi-ethnic nation ushering in new beginnings while struggling against all odds to become self-sufficient.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 65,000 words.
And here's the second HUGE problem. You've described a book
set in what would be an exotic, unfamiliar location for most US readers, set in
a time most people are not familiar with, and spanning at least a dozen years.
There's simply no way to do this in 65K words. There just isn't. [And to make matters worse, this is 4k FEWER words than the 69K you had last time when I said pretty much the same thing--ARGH!!!]
You'll need at least twice this word count before I'd
believe you'd gotten the story down on paper.
This is my first novel. My memoir,[title] was published by [publisher] late last year.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
This is my first novel. My memoir,[title] was published by [publisher] late last year.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
No plot.
Short word count.
I'm thinking the problem here is not the query, it's the
book. Don't revise the query. Revise the book then work on the query.
----------------------
Original query
Dear QueryShark:
Vani is an avid reader whose favourite author is Jane Austen. She dreams of becoming a teacher and marrying a man like Mr. Darcy. Instead, she becomes a live-in servant for a British family at Jacaranda, a magnificent colonial bungalow in Singapore, after she is forcibly married to her abominable uncle according to an ancient South Indian tradition.
This is a nice set up. I wonder who forced her to marry her uncle: her parents or the social norms of her community. It seems odd to have a tradition to marry a close blood relative, but I'm willing to suspend my skepticism and read on.
For any blog readers tempted to jump on the juxtaposition of "magnificent" and "bungalow" remember the Brits use bungalow to mean something quite different than we do.
Vani is only fourteen. In between cleaning, she finds solace every afternoon in the countless books which line the shelves of every room while her husband tends the tropical garden. Within months, she is widowed. Soon after, her employer’s nephew, John, arrives from England. Before long, he is summoned home to attend to family matters.
There's no connection between John and Vani. There's no followup to her being widowed. A lot happens but it's not the plot.
When the coffee-coloured Vani bears a coffee-with-lots-of-milk-coloured Eurasian girl, Vani’s employer is suspicious and secretly plots to keep her unknowing nephew away from Singapore. While waiting for John to return, Vani juggles work, motherhood and night classes in the hope of being a teacher.
Ok, well, that is one way not to do plot: off the page. You've just skipped over the most important part of the story: John and Vani. Are they in love? He's part of her employer's family. I do NOT assume that she is in love with him at all.
It is the late fifties; anti-colonial sentiment is strong and Britain is losing her grip on Singapore. On the cusp of independence, with chronic unemployment and a dire housing shortage, the live-in servants, cocooned in comfort and security at Jacaranda, are not ready for an unpredictable future without their British employers. The impending reality is especially harrowing for Vani, who has a young child and does not know when, if ever, she will see John again.
That last sentence makes it sound like you're introducing Vani, when in fact the first two paragraphs are about her. Suddenly introducing the wider world in paragraph three is jarring. So far this has been a story about two people. Now it's about the end of colonial rule in Singapore. You've got to blend these two aspects of the story.
Here's the description for UNDER THE BANYAN TREE which is about the changes wrought with the arrival of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia:
For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours, bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as the Khmer Rouge attempts to strip the population of every shred of individual identity, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of her childhood— the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival.
Spanning two decades, from British rule to a young Singapore going through a sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll phase, JACARANDA weaves a story of friendship, loyalty and hope, drawing parallels with the tide of uncertainty in a fledgling nation struggling against all odds to become self-sufficient.
This is all tell and no show. Because there's no plot I'm afraid the first couple of chapters will be only a series of events. This is where I'd stop reading and send a form rejection.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 69,000 words.
There is NO way in the world you can write a fully developed novel that spans two decades and is set in colonial Singapore in 69,000 words. This is the kind of book that needs to clock in close to 120K. Detail takes time, and if you've got twenty years of events, those too take time. If I hadn't already said no after the paragraph above, I would here.
Most of the time word count is a problem on the other end: too many. But historical novels (like this), fantasy, family sagas, novels with a BIG story---those need more words than a thriller, or a romance.
This is my first novel. My memoir, (title redacted) was published late last year.
It's crucial you include the publisher if you've had a book published before.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Kind regards
There's not enough here to pique my interest, and what is here isn't plot. The characters are almost two dimensional. We have no sense of what they think or feel, let alone the choices they have to make.
Friday, March 8, 2013
#240
Dear Query Shark,
Sophie Anderson has finally accepted her fairly large butt and somehow managed to snag the coolest, hottest guy in school. Are the two related? Who knows and who cares. Sophie’s sophomore year of high school is guaranteed to be totally awesome.
Sophie Anderson has finally accepted her fairly large butt and somehow managed to snag the coolest, hottest guy in school. Are the two related? Who knows and who cares. Sophie’s sophomore year of high school is guaranteed to be totally awesome.
This does what it needs to do: I want to find out what happens
next.
Then Anthony (who?) cheats on her with his ex-girlfriend, Chelsea. The same one he dumped so he could be with Sophie in the first place. Ugh. Seriously. The irony would probably be hilarious if it wasn’t busy ruining Sophie’s life. Probably.
When you introduce characters in a query, you can't label them
and then name them. We don't know who Anthony is. We know she's with the
coolest, hottest guy in school, but we didn't learn his name.
Is a sophomore in high school going to think this is ironic?
And ironic while it's ruining her life?
This feels distant, like you're observing Sophie not actually showing us what she's feeling.
Now Sophie not only has to deal with her first heartbreak, which is like, the hardest thing ever, but she also has to see that homewrecker at school every freaking day, flaunting her non-boobs, raccoon makeup, and oompa loompa tan. Once again, ugh.
I LOVE oompa loompa tan. I love it so much I can forgive
almost everything else.
Then there’s that cute new guy. Too bad he’s full of himself and has that way of getting under Sophie’s skin… but he has the softest, nicest looking hair and all she wants to do is run her fingers through it…
Remember the oompa loompa tan? I loved it cause it was fresh
and funny. Running her fingers
through his hair isn't either of those.
At least she has her friends to get her though it
all. Sure, they’re completely insane, but they’re all she has, and for
some reason they put up with her insanity, too. With them around, Sophie may
just get out of this unscathed.
Ok, you've avoided character soup here, that's good. But
again, this feels distant "Insane" is how I describe my friends in a
throw away comment. If I was REALLY describing them, I'd be more specific: they're slithery for starters, fierce, don't suffer fools gladly (or even at all), and funny.
Then again, this is high school, so probably not.
And that's funny too, but it's ironic and distant and I'm not
sure it's the right tone BUT oompa loompa tan still keeps you on the plus side
of things.
BECAUSE I’M AWESOME is a 60,000 word Young Adult novel.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Wait, that's all? This is only half the story. You have things that happen but NO
PLOT!
"Wait, wait," I hear you gasp, clutching your gold
ticket to the QueryShark tank. "There's plot, look at all the stuff going
on!"
Plot is not what happens. Plot is how the characters react to
what happen. [I know this is true cause I read it in a comment on one
of my blog posts!] We need a sense of the choices Sophie has to make, and the
consequences.
And right now, this feels very thin to me in terms of what
does happen. I'm not well-read in
the YA category but what I have read of contemporary YA seems to always involve
MORE than just a romance. Something more is at stake. You need a subplot
here, or a plot with the romance element is the subplot.
This is also what editors will call "too small" a book: there's not enough story there to carry a full book.
This is also what editors will call "too small" a book: there's not enough story there to carry a full book.
Go back and read your 20 favorite YA novels published in the
last five years. (Yes, they MUST be published within the last five years)
When you read them, map the book's plot and subplot. See how
they intertwine and relate.
It's not enough to have one great phrase, you've got to also have one great plot. And you need to have a more immediate sense of Sophie and her friends in the query. We're can't be ironic observers, we need to be right there with her.
Research. Rewrite. Revise. Resend.
Revision takes time. Not just time to write, but time to think (and in this case research.) More good writers shoot their career in the foot with impatience than anything else.
Revision takes time. Not just time to write, but time to think (and in this case research.) More good writers shoot their career in the foot with impatience than anything else.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
#239-Revised 2x
Second Revision
Dear QueryShark,
Kris Kennedy is living a nightmare.
A mental health counselor at Bison Mental Hospital in San Jose, California, one fateful day Kris is assigned a schizophrenic named Lorelei Cooper who turns up out of the blue at Bison. Within days of working with Lorelei, who acts extremely erratic around Kris, she quickly realizes that Lorelei has a disturbing fascination for her.
This is awkward nonrhythmic writing. I'd stop reading and send a form rejection after this first paragraph. Awkward writing in a query means awkward writing in the novel.
How to fix this: put the sentence in the right order first. Subject. Verb. Clause. Every sentence. Then, when you have the form right, you can revise it to be more artful. Right now this is a mess because you're not using this sentence structure on purpose to make a point. It's just raw.
One night Lorelei escapes the hospital, clearly having been let out. Kris's master set of keys are found near the crime scene. The janitor saw her come in late the night of Lorelei's escape. Offices were searched; Lorelei's shredded documents are found in Kris's office. Quickly everyone turns on her.
But Kris is innocent.
Her close friend and administrator at Bison, Mac, regretfully gives her an ultimatum, restrained by his primary obligation to the hospital: figure out who let Lorelei out soon, or risk being thrown in jail by the police for the crime you didn't commit, by the people who hate you: everyone. I'll send out search teams to find Lorelei, but you will still seem guilty unless you defend yourself, he advises. Kris knows that Lorelei, who is mentally unstable, could be a danger to the public, and especially to herself, since Lorelei has such a fixation with her.
The grammar here makes me weep. Even some quotation marks would help. If you don't know what's off here, it's time to do a refresher course. Honestly, I'm not a grammar Nazi, and which/that confounds me to this day, but this paragraph should sound wrong to you. If it doesn't you need to recalibrate your ear.
Kris must figure out who the culprit is before it's too late, all the while battling her personal problems. And in the end, when all is said and done, she learns of a secret that changes her life forever.
"Learning a secret that changes her life forever" isn't the resolution of the book. If it changes her life forever, it's the start of the book. Also, I strongly urge you NOT to include the resolution of the book in the query. The purpose of a query is to entice me to read the book. If I know how it ends why would I read it?
I grew up in San Jose, which is the reason why I set my novel, PUZZLES, there. I also write for a local newspaper, and have been published in many magazines.
PUZZLES is my debut suspense novel, and is complete at nearly 61,500 words.Thank you for your time and consideration.
I'm not sure if you're revising too quickly, or in getting the query down to a manageable number of words the awkward writing is just more prominent. Whatever the reason, it's the writing that's going to be the problem here now.
One of the ways to tune your ear to awkward writing is to read things aloud. Read books you love aloud. Or listen to them on tape. Hearing things rather than just seeing them will help a lot.
Sentences have to flow. They have to have rhythm. And you've got to be able to create sentences with flow and rhythm for the query to work.
-------
First Revision
Dear QueryShark,
First Revision
Dear QueryShark,
Kris Kennedy is living a nightmare.
A mental health counselor at Bison Mental Hospital in San Jose, California, one fateful day Kris is assigned a schizophrenic in her fifties named Lorelei Cooper who turns up out of the blue at Bison as her patient. Within days of working with Lorelei, Kris quickly realizes that Lorelei seems to have an intense fascination for her, bordering on the disturbing. Lorelei acts very erratically around Kris. One day she'll be a sweet old woman, the next she'll try to bite Kris's hand off. Kris soon develops a fear for Lorelei, which is abnormal for a calm, stoic professional like Kris.
You're drowning in words here. All of this is backstory and set up. All
we need to know Kris has a disturbing patient; one who is erratic and fixated
on her.
One night soon after Lorelei's arrival at Bison, she escapes the hospital, clearly having been let out by someone. And looking at the crime scene (Lorelei's room), it's not hard to see who did it: Kris's possessions are strewn round the crime scene. Plus, people saw her come in late during the night of Lorelei's escape, unusual for Kris. Quickly, everyone turns on Kris.
And again, too much information that we don't need. Lorelei escapes.
Kris's possessions are strewn about her room. Kris gets blamed.
But Kris is innocent. In fact, she only came in late that one night to grab her coat.
So whodunit really?
One of the commenters to the original version (Raquel) pointed out that
"whodunit" is both abrupt and too comical for the rest of the query and I agree with
that.
Her close friend, and administrator at Bison, Mac, gives her an ultimatum: figure out who let Lorelei out soon, or risk being thrown in jail for the crime you didn't commit. Kris knows that Lorelei, who is extremely mentally unstable, could be a danger to the public, or especially to herself, since Lorelei has such a fixation with her. Kris realizes she must figured out who let Lorelei out before its too late.
Wow, Kris REALLY needs better friends. If any of my friends threatened
to throw me in jail for a crime I didn't commit, I'd quit my job and move to
Texas where they let you buy guns at the drive through window.
But what this really does is illuminate a key problem with the
novel. This isn't plausible. Unless the rule of law has ceased to apply in this novel, ordinary
people can't just get their friends thrown in jail. Trust me, I've asked.
There has to be a plausible reason Kris is both accused/suspected of
helping Lorelei escape, and why Kris has to find Lorelei on her own.
Unfortunately, there's a billion other problems going on in Kris's life. She is suffering from intense depression, having killed her mother in a freak fireworks accident. Soon after she becomes involved in the mystery behind Lorelei's escape, an unknown stalker begins to terrorize her at night. Her best friend, and only source of support, Julia, begins to slowly drift away from Kris, tiring of Kris's misery. A new friend she makes, Eli, has ulterior motives, and after pretending to be friends with Kris and helping her to figure out whodunit, he uses the information they found together to try to solve the mystery himself, for the cash prize involved. In the end, when she finds out who the culprit is, she learns a secret about her mother that changes everything, including her life.
This is a list without any purpose to the plot.
I grew up in San Jose, which is the reason why I set my novel, PUZZLES, there. I also write for a local newspaper, and have been published in many magazines, like (redacted). I
Writing contests really don't count unless they're well known.
PUZZLES is my debut suspense novel, and is complete at nearly 61,500 words.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
You're well over the desirable word count here: 460 is 200 words
too many. The reason you want to
adhere to word count is it forces you to write sparely, and focus on what
matters.
You've got a lot of stuff that doesn't matter. Take that out. Focus on getting the plot on the page.
I'm glad you paid attention to the very astute commenters on the original post particularly those like Lauren H.T. who pointed out the problems
with mental health nomenclature
and description.
I think you're trying to revise too quickly here. This feels like you read all the comments and my critique and rushed to fix it. That's good. What you're missing is the revision process.
You need to let your work sit for at least a day, maybe two. Then go back and figure out what you can take out. Revising is almost always taking stuff out.
All first drafts are dreadful. Novelist Bill Cameron once said "give yourself permission to suck" and that's really good advice. Revision is where you get out of suck and into "this works."
You've got some awkward constructions and some sentences in the wrong order. It's easier to see that with fresh eyes.
Revise. Wait. Revise. Wait. Revise. Resend.
----------------------
Dear QueryShark,
Life is out to get Kris Kennedy. Not to mention a crazy old
woman, a stalker, etc.
etc? Et cetera is used at the end of a list to indicate that
further, similar items are included. It's only useful if the reader already knows what
that list would be. I have no idea what the next item on the list of things out
to get Kris Kennedy is. Her girdle? Her cat? A posse of clowns?
If I'd gotten this query for real, I would have stopped
reading here. (Scary isn't
it) Your first sentence should
grab me, but if it doesn't it should at least not make me think Huh?
As a grieving young woman who burned her mother alive in a
horrible accident, Kris, usually sharp, crisp, and at the top of her game, is
drowning in depression.
And right here, my response is whaaat? For starters, you'll want to reverse
the order of these phrases--
Kris, usually sharp, crisp, and at the top of
her game, is drowning in depression. A grieving young woman who burned her
mother alive in a horrible accident,
-- to get the description in logical order.
And really, you just can't leave us with nothing else about what happened to Kris' mom. It's too awful to leave hanging. Either leave it out (you don't need to explain the cause of her depression) or elaborate.
One day, Kris, a mental counselor at Bison Mental Hospital
in San Jose, California, is assigned a new patient, a brooding old woman named
Lorelei Cooper who is sort of...creepy. Kris quickly realizes how
pathologically insane Lorelei is. Soon, Lorelei escapes from Bison, let out by
someone, and with some incriminating evidence, Kris is quickly under everyone's
suspicions.
A mental counselor? I think you mean mental health
counselor. I'm not sure
"pathologically insane" is something a mental (health or otherwise)
counselor would say. It sounds awkward to me. Also "sort of creepy" would seem to be a lay-person's description of someone, not a professional.
Also this doesn't make sense. If Kris is the counselor and Lorelei is her patient, there's paperwork attached to the case. Kris isn't going to "realize" how pathologically insane Lorelei is, cause it's going to be on the admittance form.
And why is Kris under suspicion? She's a counselor not a guard. Or a nurse. Unless Lorelei escapes while Kris is meeting with her, why would she be the target of the investigation?
Also this doesn't make sense. If Kris is the counselor and Lorelei is her patient, there's paperwork attached to the case. Kris isn't going to "realize" how pathologically insane Lorelei is, cause it's going to be on the admittance form.
And why is Kris under suspicion? She's a counselor not a guard. Or a nurse. Unless Lorelei escapes while Kris is meeting with her, why would she be the target of the investigation?
But whodunit really?
Kris, deep in peril, must battle her misery and investigate
who let Lorelei out and framed her, before Lorelei, one of the most insane
patients Bison has ever housed, does something dangerous to the public. She
must solve the perfect crime before the police get involved and throw her in
jail for the sin she didn't commit. With powerful enemies and fickle friends lurking,
high stakes, little time, and a mystery maniacal stalker terrorizing her, Kris
confronts truths, makes foes, and learns of the greatest deception of her life,
an epiphany which rocks her to the core. Her journey is one fraught with
danger, destiny, and above all, discovery, about life and all its own puzzles.
The stakes here are pretty abstract: something dangerous to
the public. It's always better to have something specific. Lorelei has a long
standing enmity toward someone and now she's out, she's going after
him/her/them/it.
And the rest of this paragraph is too generalized to be
useful.
Go in to the archives and read the posts. Look for the ones
that show you how to get plot on the page. You don't have that here yet, and
that's a fatal weakness in a query.
I grew up in San Jose, which is the reason why I set my
novel, PUZZLES, there. I also write for a local newspaper, and have been
published in many magazines (names mentioned.) I have also won
several writing contests. I have an interest in psychology and penning stories,
and this book is the crossing point of those interests.
I have a personal aversion to the phrase "penning stories" because it evokes a sense of Victorian ladies at their escritoires with a damn feather. It makes writing sound bloodless and I've seen the carnage y'all inflict on yourself and others.
I have a personal aversion to the phrase "penning stories" because it evokes a sense of Victorian ladies at their escritoires with a damn feather. It makes writing sound bloodless and I've seen the carnage y'all inflict on yourself and others.
PUZZLES is my debut mystery novel, and is complete at nearly
61,000 words.Thank you for taking the time to read my query. Thank you for your time and consideration.
61K is pretty short for a suspense novel, which is what this
is.
Sincerely,
This isn't doing what a query needs to do: entice me to read on. Lorelei is a cardboard villain, the other villains (powerful enemies, fickle friends, a mystery maniacal stalker) are one dimensional.
The protagonist is a depressed woman who burned her mom alive.
When you see the setup rephrased like this, you can understand why I'm not all that keen to spend the next three hours reading your novel.
Characters have to be enticing and interesting. They don't have to be paragons of virtue, in fact it's better if they aren't but they have to be interesting, and these aren't yet.
Here's one way to learn how to describe characters well in a query.
1. Make a list of 20 books you've read that had characters you liked. Books where you hope there's a sequel soon cause you want to go back to that world.
2. Look at the flap copy for those books and see how the characters are introduced. What words describe the character? Make a list of the words. What does the character DO that reveals what they're like. Dick Francis was a master of this. All of his heroes were essentially the same guy albeit with different names, circumstances and professions.
3. Look inside the book to see what the characters DO that reveal what they're like.
Analyze those lists and see how to do the same kind of thing in your book.
This is one of the reasons you keep a list of books you've read, and a notebook of observations, comments and tricks and tips you picked up from reading.
The protagonist is a depressed woman who burned her mom alive.
When you see the setup rephrased like this, you can understand why I'm not all that keen to spend the next three hours reading your novel.
Characters have to be enticing and interesting. They don't have to be paragons of virtue, in fact it's better if they aren't but they have to be interesting, and these aren't yet.
Here's one way to learn how to describe characters well in a query.
1. Make a list of 20 books you've read that had characters you liked. Books where you hope there's a sequel soon cause you want to go back to that world.
2. Look at the flap copy for those books and see how the characters are introduced. What words describe the character? Make a list of the words. What does the character DO that reveals what they're like. Dick Francis was a master of this. All of his heroes were essentially the same guy albeit with different names, circumstances and professions.
3. Look inside the book to see what the characters DO that reveal what they're like.
Analyze those lists and see how to do the same kind of thing in your book.
This is one of the reasons you keep a list of books you've read, and a notebook of observations, comments and tricks and tips you picked up from reading.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
#238-revised twice
Second revision
Dear Query Shark:
Reed has reached the pinnacle—a beautiful fiancée, successful career, prestige—but the toll for all this is too high. Directed to bury a damning memo, he knows he’ll lose his soul if he continues working at his law firm. He decides to opt out . . . way out and leave all the shadows of success to find something else. But what? An old friend suggests that Reed consider a refugee camp along the Thai-Cambodian border as a place to start, where he soon finds himself in the middle of a Cambodian civil war and the aftermath of Khmer Rouge genocide: perdition.
If you add one word to this you'll change everything: Reed thinks he's reached the pinnacle.
Adding that one word tells us that this is going to be a novel about a guy who finds out life isn't what they told him it would back there at WhiteShoe Law Review.
He still sounds like a total drip (I'm sorry but he does) It would help if we had a sense that he'd struggled to get where he is, or the thing he was asked to do seemed a little more dangerous (hell, we bury damning memos here every day of the week, and twice on Festivus). You mention "past wrongs" farther down. What were they?
And it will help if we have a sense of why he thinks going to Cambodia during one of the worst genocides we know about seemed like a good idea.
At first Reed works hard to try to make up for past wrongs. But his motivation quickly turns deeper when faced with the cold reality of the refugees’ plight. These newfound convictions put him on a collision course with Dith, a murdering Khmer Rouge operative who brutally conscripts refugees. Their battles culminate when Dith kidnaps Reed’s new friend, seemingly perfect Sister Claire. Reed calls in a favor from a powerful Washington, D.C., ally to save her; now he’s in trouble with the Thai government.
What's he doing to make up for past wrongs? In fact what wrongs?
Amid the chaos Reed not only connects with his own buried morals but also with Sister Claire, who impels him to examine the path his life has taken. Yet he discovers he isn’t the only one running from a past. Sister Claire has a stunning secret of her own that, when revealed, flips Reed’s retraced life upside down.
THE UPPER AIR, a 92,000 word commercial fiction, is set in 1980. It is my first novel.
Sincerely,
You're drowning in generalities. Be specific.
It will really really help if you can frame the antagonist in a way that doesn't make him a cartoon. The Cambodian Holocaust was awful, but there were true-believers. Your job is to convey why they were, and to make us see their point even while we don't agree with it, and certainly don't agree with the results.
You have to show me there's a story here, not just cardboard characters moving through an exotic landscape.
This doesn't work yet.
-----------------------------------------------------
First revision
Dear Query Shark:
When the senior partner at his law firm directs Reed Sutcliff to bury a damning memo implicating his client in covering up defective heating units, he knows it’s wrong—continue down this path and he will lose his soul. Deciding he needs to put as much time and distance between himself and his current situation, Reed takes a sabbatical from his firm. Of course, he will miss his fiancée, Suzanne, but he has to sort this mess out.
You're writing like a lawyer and that is not a compliment. Law school beats the "trust your reader" stuffing right out of you. Here at Fiction Central, trusting your reader to fill in the gaps will be an enormous asset not a liability. I know, it's a world gone mad.
By trusting your reader I mean you can leave out things. Consider: Asked to bury a damning memo, Reed Sutcliff knows he'll lose his soul if he continues working at his law firm.
There are two advantages to this: you cut the number of words spent on set up, and it's zippier. I'll even spare my usual rant about starting with a clause rather than my preferred subject/verb/clause structure.
With the help of Suzanne’s father, a powerful member of Congress, he heads to a refugee camp on the Thai and Cambodian border and finds himself in the middle of a world of dire suffering. There he meets Claire, a remarkably caring, gifted, and enigmatic woman—who is also a Catholic nun. Although she initially gives Reed the cold shoulder, his tenacious attempts to befriend her pays dividends.
And here's just more set up. It's not that big a deal that he meets someone in his travels. I'd be shocked if he didn't. It's not a big deal she gives him the cold shoulder, he's probably utterly useless at refugee work, and certainly if he's trying to hustle her in to the sack she's not going to just fall all over him.
What's the story here? Why does he persist? What is it about her/the situation that calls to him. For that matter why the hell is he in Cambodia in the first place. Unless it's listed under Places to Save Your Soul in Lonely Planet, there must be something there.
But all that matters not a whit cause what you don't have here is PLOT.
After they have several harrowing scrapes with corrupt border operatives, most notably a murdering wretch named Dith, and amid the daily chaos, Reed eventually finds himself falling for Claire. He’s certain nothing can come of it; still, he can’t shake these feelings. He’s bewitched.
"Murdering wretch" is such an unequal pairing that it made me laugh. It's like nefarious unicorn or wily sloth.
And still, despite those murderous wretches and their nefarious ways, There Is No Plot here.
And the irony of a Catholic nun being "bewitching" is not only not lost on me, it makes me wonder if you don't realize how funny it is. Witches not being something nuns aspire to and all.
When Claire winds up in the hands of Dith, Reed takes a risky course of action to rescue her that results in his expulsion from Thailand and lands him back in the States. Now what? Should he return to the life he had—Suzanne, money, power, and prestige—the good life, or should he leave it all and return to Thailand for seemingly unrequited love? No doubt, it’s messy, but life and love often are.
Winds up in the hands of? She hailed a cab and he was driving? He hijacked her mule? She took a wrong turn at the footbridge?
And sadly, this reveals the problem with the novel: Reed is kind of lame. Why is he dithering if the woman he loves is in the hands of a murdering wretch? He's going to leave her there and return to the vapid Suzanne and her porkbarrel paterfamilias?
I understand this is not a romance, but the idea that he just leaves her there makes me wonder why I ever got in book with this guy.
THE UPPER AIR is a 96,000 word romantic novel set in 1980. It is my first novel.
Oh wait, it is a romantic novel.
Ok, I take it all back. Reed better get his asterisk back over there and rescue her.
This is still not working. There's no plot, there's too much dithering and Reed is a damp rag of a hero.
This whole query needs a good stiff dose of starch. There's not enough substance here to entice me to read on. Come to think of it, that's what I said on the first version of this too.
---------------
Dear QueryShark:
I see from your Publishers Marketplace listing that you have represented Book/Author XYZ.
This makes me crazy. It's akin to saying "hi, I see you are breathing." What you need here is WHY you're mentioning Book/Author XYZ.
Yes, I represent Jeff Somers. So? Unless you are writing top notch commercial urban fantasy like TRICKSTER, it doesn't matter that I rep him.
Also, you want to be VERY careful about Publisher's Marketplace. Unless you've actually read the book that's listed, it's very easy to think it's a comp title when it isn't. Remember, Publishers Marketplace lists books before they have been published.
And the ten-twenty word buzz phrase that's listed in Pub Mkt is NOT a reliable indicator of whether the book is a good comp for your book. Trust me on this please.
Comp titles should be published books. If you want to use a comp, you say I see you represent Jeff Somers, author of Trickster. Readers who like Trickster (like me!) are the audience for this book.
Reed Sutcliff sits on a bench looking out over a frozen Lake Michigan wondering, Where in the heel did it all go wrong? As a successful attorney, he had it all complete with a beautiful fiancée, Suzanne Warner, and her well-connected father, a powerful member of Congress. Reed's charmed life crashes down on him when the head partner in his firm asks him to engage in some questionable ethics and tactics.
Where in the heel?
This is a textbook illustration of the value of reading your query out loud. You'd have heard heel and known in wasn't the word you meant to use. Your spell czech does not recognize homonyms as errors.
Also, this setup doesn't make Reed Sutcliff sound enticing or interesting. He had a charmed life? I'm kinda glad life has taken a turn for the worse for him then.
Also, "asks him to engage in questionable ethics and tactic" makes Reed's charmed life crash around his head? Unless Reed is facing jail time, this doesn't seem all that serious. It makes Reed sound naive and wet behind the ears. Those qualities are not the qualities of a romantic novel hero.
To try and sort out his life, with the help of Suzanne's father, he goes to a refugee camp along the Thailand and Cambodian border. There he meets Nicki, a remarkably caring and gifted woman—who is also a Catholic nun. At the camp, he witnesses the terrible condition and treatment of the refugees. During several excursions outside the camp, he encounters a nasty border operative named Dith.
This is actually where your story starts. I'll eat my rosary if a Catholic nun is named Sister Nicki though.
And you'll notice that your main character is very passive here. He's witnessing and encountering. He's not involved. He doesn't really seem to have anything at stake. He's a cardboard cutout of a character. This bodes ill for my interest in spending several hundred pages with him.
Reed's growing attraction to Nicki adds to his confusion regarding his life. Besides his uncertainty concerning his career, he must now sort out his feelings for Nicki and then reconcile them with his relationship with Suzanne. Of course, it won't be easy. Love never is.
This is tepid. You've got to insert some vim and vinegar in this narrative or it will be too flat to hold anyone's interest.
THE UPPER AIR is a 96,000 word romantic novel set in 1980. It is my first novel.
Sincerely,
Contrast what you wrote with the jacket copy of another male protagonist romantic novel THE CHOICE by Nicholas Sparks:
Can you see the difference? For starters the language is more vibrant. Second, we see the tension and understand the plot, and what's at stake.
Romance novels aren't plot driven, so everything depends on writing characters we want to spend time with, that we care about.
I'd suggest reading more of them to really see this. Read as a writer does: watching how the author turns a phrase, introduces a character, keeps you reading on. It's helpful to keep a writer's journal where you write this stuff down. The act of writing helps you understand things more fully, and helps you remember stuff. Just READING isn't enough if you're analyzing books.
Dear Query Shark:
Reed has reached the pinnacle—a beautiful fiancée, successful career, prestige—but the toll for all this is too high. Directed to bury a damning memo, he knows he’ll lose his soul if he continues working at his law firm. He decides to opt out . . . way out and leave all the shadows of success to find something else. But what? An old friend suggests that Reed consider a refugee camp along the Thai-Cambodian border as a place to start, where he soon finds himself in the middle of a Cambodian civil war and the aftermath of Khmer Rouge genocide: perdition.
If you add one word to this you'll change everything: Reed thinks he's reached the pinnacle.
Adding that one word tells us that this is going to be a novel about a guy who finds out life isn't what they told him it would back there at WhiteShoe Law Review.
He still sounds like a total drip (I'm sorry but he does) It would help if we had a sense that he'd struggled to get where he is, or the thing he was asked to do seemed a little more dangerous (hell, we bury damning memos here every day of the week, and twice on Festivus). You mention "past wrongs" farther down. What were they?
And it will help if we have a sense of why he thinks going to Cambodia during one of the worst genocides we know about seemed like a good idea.
At first Reed works hard to try to make up for past wrongs. But his motivation quickly turns deeper when faced with the cold reality of the refugees’ plight. These newfound convictions put him on a collision course with Dith, a murdering Khmer Rouge operative who brutally conscripts refugees. Their battles culminate when Dith kidnaps Reed’s new friend, seemingly perfect Sister Claire. Reed calls in a favor from a powerful Washington, D.C., ally to save her; now he’s in trouble with the Thai government.
What's he doing to make up for past wrongs? In fact what wrongs?
Amid the chaos Reed not only connects with his own buried morals but also with Sister Claire, who impels him to examine the path his life has taken. Yet he discovers he isn’t the only one running from a past. Sister Claire has a stunning secret of her own that, when revealed, flips Reed’s retraced life upside down.
THE UPPER AIR, a 92,000 word commercial fiction, is set in 1980. It is my first novel.
Sincerely,
You're drowning in generalities. Be specific.
It will really really help if you can frame the antagonist in a way that doesn't make him a cartoon. The Cambodian Holocaust was awful, but there were true-believers. Your job is to convey why they were, and to make us see their point even while we don't agree with it, and certainly don't agree with the results.
You have to show me there's a story here, not just cardboard characters moving through an exotic landscape.
This doesn't work yet.
-----------------------------------------------------
First revision
Dear Query Shark:
When the senior partner at his law firm directs Reed Sutcliff to bury a damning memo implicating his client in covering up defective heating units, he knows it’s wrong—continue down this path and he will lose his soul. Deciding he needs to put as much time and distance between himself and his current situation, Reed takes a sabbatical from his firm. Of course, he will miss his fiancée, Suzanne, but he has to sort this mess out.
You're writing like a lawyer and that is not a compliment. Law school beats the "trust your reader" stuffing right out of you. Here at Fiction Central, trusting your reader to fill in the gaps will be an enormous asset not a liability. I know, it's a world gone mad.
By trusting your reader I mean you can leave out things. Consider: Asked to bury a damning memo, Reed Sutcliff knows he'll lose his soul if he continues working at his law firm.
There are two advantages to this: you cut the number of words spent on set up, and it's zippier. I'll even spare my usual rant about starting with a clause rather than my preferred subject/verb/clause structure.
With the help of Suzanne’s father, a powerful member of Congress, he heads to a refugee camp on the Thai and Cambodian border and finds himself in the middle of a world of dire suffering. There he meets Claire, a remarkably caring, gifted, and enigmatic woman—who is also a Catholic nun. Although she initially gives Reed the cold shoulder, his tenacious attempts to befriend her pays dividends.
And here's just more set up. It's not that big a deal that he meets someone in his travels. I'd be shocked if he didn't. It's not a big deal she gives him the cold shoulder, he's probably utterly useless at refugee work, and certainly if he's trying to hustle her in to the sack she's not going to just fall all over him.
What's the story here? Why does he persist? What is it about her/the situation that calls to him. For that matter why the hell is he in Cambodia in the first place. Unless it's listed under Places to Save Your Soul in Lonely Planet, there must be something there.
But all that matters not a whit cause what you don't have here is PLOT.
After they have several harrowing scrapes with corrupt border operatives, most notably a murdering wretch named Dith, and amid the daily chaos, Reed eventually finds himself falling for Claire. He’s certain nothing can come of it; still, he can’t shake these feelings. He’s bewitched.
"Murdering wretch" is such an unequal pairing that it made me laugh. It's like nefarious unicorn or wily sloth.
And still, despite those murderous wretches and their nefarious ways, There Is No Plot here.
And the irony of a Catholic nun being "bewitching" is not only not lost on me, it makes me wonder if you don't realize how funny it is. Witches not being something nuns aspire to and all.
When Claire winds up in the hands of Dith, Reed takes a risky course of action to rescue her that results in his expulsion from Thailand and lands him back in the States. Now what? Should he return to the life he had—Suzanne, money, power, and prestige—the good life, or should he leave it all and return to Thailand for seemingly unrequited love? No doubt, it’s messy, but life and love often are.
Winds up in the hands of? She hailed a cab and he was driving? He hijacked her mule? She took a wrong turn at the footbridge?
And sadly, this reveals the problem with the novel: Reed is kind of lame. Why is he dithering if the woman he loves is in the hands of a murdering wretch? He's going to leave her there and return to the vapid Suzanne and her porkbarrel paterfamilias?
I understand this is not a romance, but the idea that he just leaves her there makes me wonder why I ever got in book with this guy.
THE UPPER AIR is a 96,000 word romantic novel set in 1980. It is my first novel.
Oh wait, it is a romantic novel.
Ok, I take it all back. Reed better get his asterisk back over there and rescue her.
This is still not working. There's no plot, there's too much dithering and Reed is a damp rag of a hero.
This whole query needs a good stiff dose of starch. There's not enough substance here to entice me to read on. Come to think of it, that's what I said on the first version of this too.
---------------
Dear QueryShark:
I see from your Publishers Marketplace listing that you have represented Book/Author XYZ.
This makes me crazy. It's akin to saying "hi, I see you are breathing." What you need here is WHY you're mentioning Book/Author XYZ.
Yes, I represent Jeff Somers. So? Unless you are writing top notch commercial urban fantasy like TRICKSTER, it doesn't matter that I rep him.
Also, you want to be VERY careful about Publisher's Marketplace. Unless you've actually read the book that's listed, it's very easy to think it's a comp title when it isn't. Remember, Publishers Marketplace lists books before they have been published.
And the ten-twenty word buzz phrase that's listed in Pub Mkt is NOT a reliable indicator of whether the book is a good comp for your book. Trust me on this please.
Comp titles should be published books. If you want to use a comp, you say I see you represent Jeff Somers, author of Trickster. Readers who like Trickster (like me!) are the audience for this book.
Reed Sutcliff sits on a bench looking out over a frozen Lake Michigan wondering, Where in the heel did it all go wrong? As a successful attorney, he had it all complete with a beautiful fiancée, Suzanne Warner, and her well-connected father, a powerful member of Congress. Reed's charmed life crashes down on him when the head partner in his firm asks him to engage in some questionable ethics and tactics.
Where in the heel?
This is a textbook illustration of the value of reading your query out loud. You'd have heard heel and known in wasn't the word you meant to use. Your spell czech does not recognize homonyms as errors.
Also, this setup doesn't make Reed Sutcliff sound enticing or interesting. He had a charmed life? I'm kinda glad life has taken a turn for the worse for him then.
Also, "asks him to engage in questionable ethics and tactic" makes Reed's charmed life crash around his head? Unless Reed is facing jail time, this doesn't seem all that serious. It makes Reed sound naive and wet behind the ears. Those qualities are not the qualities of a romantic novel hero.
To try and sort out his life, with the help of Suzanne's father, he goes to a refugee camp along the Thailand and Cambodian border. There he meets Nicki, a remarkably caring and gifted woman—who is also a Catholic nun. At the camp, he witnesses the terrible condition and treatment of the refugees. During several excursions outside the camp, he encounters a nasty border operative named Dith.
This is actually where your story starts. I'll eat my rosary if a Catholic nun is named Sister Nicki though.
And you'll notice that your main character is very passive here. He's witnessing and encountering. He's not involved. He doesn't really seem to have anything at stake. He's a cardboard cutout of a character. This bodes ill for my interest in spending several hundred pages with him.
Reed's growing attraction to Nicki adds to his confusion regarding his life. Besides his uncertainty concerning his career, he must now sort out his feelings for Nicki and then reconcile them with his relationship with Suzanne. Of course, it won't be easy. Love never is.
This is tepid. You've got to insert some vim and vinegar in this narrative or it will be too flat to hold anyone's interest.
THE UPPER AIR is a 96,000 word romantic novel set in 1980. It is my first novel.
Sincerely,
Contrast what you wrote with the jacket copy of another male protagonist romantic novel THE CHOICE by Nicholas Sparks:
Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life-- boating, swimming, and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies--he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style.
That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Despite his attempts to be neighborly, the appealing redhead seems to have a chip on her shoulder about him . . . and the presence of her longtime boyfriend doesn't help. Despite himself, Travis can't stop trying to ingratiate himself with his new neighbor, and his persistent efforts lead them both to the doorstep of a journey that neither could have foreseen.
Spanning the eventful years of young love, marriage and family, THE CHOICE ultimately confronts us with the most heartwrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?
Can you see the difference? For starters the language is more vibrant. Second, we see the tension and understand the plot, and what's at stake.
Romance novels aren't plot driven, so everything depends on writing characters we want to spend time with, that we care about.
I'd suggest reading more of them to really see this. Read as a writer does: watching how the author turns a phrase, introduces a character, keeps you reading on. It's helpful to keep a writer's journal where you write this stuff down. The act of writing helps you understand things more fully, and helps you remember stuff. Just READING isn't enough if you're analyzing books.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Thanks
The overwhelming response to my frustration Sunday night was both helpful and heartwarming. Thank you.
It's clear QueryShark archives have value and should continue.
It's clear that most writers understand the value of having their work in the archives, and the revision process available for other writers to benefit from.
With that in mind there is a change in the QueryShark submission process:
1. Every submission must include a phrase agreeing to be posted and archived.
2. The option to have your work removed is gone.
Because this is a major change in the submission agreement, ALL queries are being discarded as of this morning.
IF your query was not posted, and you wish to be considered you MUST SEND AGAIN.
You MUST use the new submission policy.
It's spelled out here.
It's clear QueryShark archives have value and should continue.
It's clear that most writers understand the value of having their work in the archives, and the revision process available for other writers to benefit from.
With that in mind there is a change in the QueryShark submission process:
1. Every submission must include a phrase agreeing to be posted and archived.
2. The option to have your work removed is gone.
Because this is a major change in the submission agreement, ALL queries are being discarded as of this morning.
IF your query was not posted, and you wish to be considered you MUST SEND AGAIN.
You MUST use the new submission policy.
It's spelled out here.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
My patience is at zero
There have been several writers who've submitted queries to QueryShark recently, had the query posted and critiqued, only to ask to take it down shortly thereafter with NO revising.
The value of QueryShark is in the archives, everyone learning from the work of other writers.
It's also a complete waste of my time to critique a query and then have it taken down. Given I spend more than an hour, frequently several, on each entry, you can understand my patience is wearing thing for this kind of thing.
So, help me out.
Do I:
1. Remove the provision that allows writers to remove their work at will?
2. Require that the query be posed for a minimum length of time?
3. Turn off comments for the first week the query is posted?
4. Throw in the towel and let the archives serve their purpose, with no new entries?
5. Something else?
Input needed. Input received. It was VERY helpful, thank you.
The value of QueryShark is in the archives, everyone learning from the work of other writers.
It's also a complete waste of my time to critique a query and then have it taken down. Given I spend more than an hour, frequently several, on each entry, you can understand my patience is wearing thing for this kind of thing.
So, help me out.
Do I:
1. Remove the provision that allows writers to remove their work at will?
2. Require that the query be posed for a minimum length of time?
3. Turn off comments for the first week the query is posted?
4. Throw in the towel and let the archives serve their purpose, with no new entries?
5. Something else?
Saturday, February 2, 2013
#236-revised twice FTW
Dear QueryShark:
Ariel Cordova's soon to be dead husband calls to say he loves her, he's sorry, and he doesn't think they know about her. He directs her to leave Texas, go into hiding and find the clue he tucked away in her books explaining his perilous predicament.
oh yes! yes! Yes!!!! MUCH better!
An assassin's bullet keeps him from warning her of the rogue C.I.A. operative demanding the return of four million dollars. Or the blackmailer who has stolen the digital plans for Jester, part of a missile launching system he was unwittingly designing for the spook.
Across the country in Granite Pointe, New Hampshire, when Ariel escapes a kidnapping she's forced to hire Marco Romano, security and protection specialist and notorious playboy. Rebuffing his advances will be as challenging as avoiding kidnappers and killers.In the end, she teaches Romano to be a better man while he helps her to find personal strength she wasn't aware she possessed.
The only chance of survival will be to identify and capture the blackmailer, destroy the plans for Jester, keep it from being used against American targets, and stop a murderer from adding them to his growing list of dead bodies.
At 82,300 words, KEEP AWAY is a Romance.
I left a few strings untied to allow for a sequel which I'm currently working on.
Thank you for your time and attention.
You've got all the pieces in the right place now and I think this is pretty spiffy. Let it sit a week, then pare and prune as needed but don't fuss yourself in to not sending.
Good luck!
-------------------
Dear QueryShark:
Ariel Cordova's soon to be dead husband calls to say he's sorry, he doesn't think they know about her and she should leave Texas and go into hiding.
An assassin's bullet stops him from warning her of the rogue C.I.A. operative who wants his client's four million dollars back.
Those troublesome double subjects. When you have the CIA guy acting for someone else, you end up with sentences flailing from too many people.
How about this: CIA operative who wants a four million dollar refund.
In a query, you don't have to spell out every connection. The CIA guy wants the money back for someone else it's true, but in this form, you don't have to explain that. It's enough for our purposes here to know he wants it.
Or the blackmailer who has stolen the digital plans for Jester, a navigation system for a missile launcher he was unwittingly designing for the spook and his buyers, some not so nice people with a grudge against the United States.
and you've got the same convoluted problem here too.
Across the country in Granite Pointe, New Hampshire, Ariel wants to settle in to an anonymous life, stay off the radar of her husband's killer, and avoid the charms of Marco Romano, security specialist and notorious playboy.
Can you say that sentence in one breath? If NOT then it's too long.
After a run-in with a bungling F.B.I. poser, a nervous man who knows all aboutjester,Jester she's forced to hire Romano for protection and investigation. Not willing to join Romano's fan club of bimbos, she attempts to train the dog in the ways of monogamy while he digs to find the truth.
You need to be careful here. If Romano's fans are "bimbos" and he's the romantic lead...that makes OUR girl one of the bimbos. You don't need to characterize his "fan club" as more than that. We get it.
Also why is she training him for monogamy if she doesn't want to join his fan club. You're revealing too much here. "Forced to hire" gives us the sense she doesn't want to be around him. What's missing is what changed her mind.
In her book collection hides a clue, an explanation and the location of the money. The only chance they have at making a life together, or living at all, will be to identify and capture the blackmailer, recover and destroy the plans for Jester, and stop a killer from adding them to his growing list of dead bodies.
In her book collection hides a clue. In this sentence awkward rhythm prevails. I've jumped up and down endlessly about the value of putting sentences in the "right" order: subject verb object. If you need to gussy it up after you see it in that form, do so. START with the simple. Then gild.
At 82,300 words, Keep Away is crime romance.
Ah, MUCH better title.
I'm not sure what a crime romance is. At some point we'll need to figure out if this is going to crime editors or romance editors. I think it's romance.
I left a few strings untied to allow for a sequel which I'm currently working on.
Thank you for your time and attention.
One of the things about revising is when you do one round, it often reveals things you didn't see on the first round. Thus this is better but still not there.
----------------
Dear QueryShark:
Arial Cordova's soon to be dead husband calls to say he's sorry, he doesn't think they know about her and she should leave Texas and go into hiding.
This is a great opening. I particularly like "soon to be dead." It puts us in the moment and creates instant tension.
Contrast that to what I see a lot of--backstory: "Arial's husband was killed in the middle of a phone call warning her..."
See the difference?
An assassin's bullet ends his life before he can tell her of the ex-C.I.A. operative who wants his four million dollars back, or the blackmailer who has stolen the digital plans for Jester, a treasonous weapon her husband was unwittingly designing for the former spook.
Ok, here we get a little muddled. "Treasonous weapon" isn't very clear. Because of that wonderful first line, I have confidence in the writer though, so I'd keep going.
The good thing though is that we instantly see the problem, and what's at stake.
Across the country in Granite Pointe, New Hampshire, Arial would like nothing more than to blend with the community and avoid the charms of Marco Romano, local security specialist and notorious playboy. However, a bungling F.B.I. impostor, and a kidnapper hired by an elusive stranger in the neighborhood are keeping her from settling into a new life.
Now this is interesting because the tone changes. It's not a high stakes thriller, it's more of a down home cozy. Can you have both? Well, not really. This isn't a deal-breaker though. I'll keep reading because there's nothing here that goes splat. It's just going in a direction other than what I thought--not always a bad thing.
If Arial can't find the clue her husband said he left in her book collection and stop his killer from adding her to his growing list of dead bodies, she won't get the chance to live happily ever after.
Err...living happily ever after is NOT what can be at stake for a mystery or thriller. There has to be a real problem that has an impact on other people. Happily ever after is what's at stake in a romance novel.
So, I'm confused, but I like the writing. Not a deal breaker yet.
At 82,300 words, The Jester Project is crime fiction with some laughs and a little romance.
TERRIBLE title because it sounds like a thesis for an undergraduate degree at Clown College (a college I always wanted to attend in fact...it was run by Ringling Bros.--but I digress)
So, here's the rub. This isn't really crime fiction since what's at stake is romance. And there's not enough here about the romance to make me think it's a solid romance.
I left a few strings untied to allow for a sequel which I'm currently working on.
I love this line. It's funny and fresh. It makes me think I'd like the writer, that s/he'd be fun to work with.
Thank you for your time and attention.
And the writer hasn't made an crazy claims of self-importance or included pictures of his/her cat, rat or alpaca--all good things to avoid.
This is good, but not really good enough. To work it needs better stakes, a better description of the weapon (and what would happen if it got in the wrong hands) and a new title won't hurt.
Revise, resend.
Ariel Cordova's soon to be dead husband calls to say he loves her, he's sorry, and he doesn't think they know about her. He directs her to leave Texas, go into hiding and find the clue he tucked away in her books explaining his perilous predicament.
oh yes! yes! Yes!!!! MUCH better!
An assassin's bullet keeps him from warning her of the rogue C.I.A. operative demanding the return of four million dollars. Or the blackmailer who has stolen the digital plans for Jester, part of a missile launching system he was unwittingly designing for the spook.
Across the country in Granite Pointe, New Hampshire, when Ariel escapes a kidnapping she's forced to hire Marco Romano, security and protection specialist and notorious playboy. Rebuffing his advances will be as challenging as avoiding kidnappers and killers.
The only chance of survival will be to identify and capture the blackmailer, destroy the plans for Jester, keep it from being used against American targets, and stop a murderer from adding them to his growing list of dead bodies.
At 82,300 words, KEEP AWAY is a Romance.
I left a few strings untied to allow for a sequel which I'm currently working on.
Thank you for your time and attention.
You've got all the pieces in the right place now and I think this is pretty spiffy. Let it sit a week, then pare and prune as needed but don't fuss yourself in to not sending.
Good luck!
-------------------
Dear QueryShark:
Ariel Cordova's soon to be dead husband calls to say he's sorry, he doesn't think they know about her and she should leave Texas and go into hiding.
An assassin's bullet stops him from warning her of the rogue C.I.A. operative who wants his client's four million dollars back.
Those troublesome double subjects. When you have the CIA guy acting for someone else, you end up with sentences flailing from too many people.
How about this: CIA operative who wants a four million dollar refund.
In a query, you don't have to spell out every connection. The CIA guy wants the money back for someone else it's true, but in this form, you don't have to explain that. It's enough for our purposes here to know he wants it.
Or the blackmailer who has stolen the digital plans for Jester, a navigation system for a missile launcher he was unwittingly designing for the spook and his buyers, some not so nice people with a grudge against the United States.
and you've got the same convoluted problem here too.
Across the country in Granite Pointe, New Hampshire, Ariel wants to settle in to an anonymous life, stay off the radar of her husband's killer, and avoid the charms of Marco Romano, security specialist and notorious playboy.
Can you say that sentence in one breath? If NOT then it's too long.
After a run-in with a bungling F.B.I. poser, a nervous man who knows all about
You need to be careful here. If Romano's fans are "bimbos" and he's the romantic lead...that makes OUR girl one of the bimbos. You don't need to characterize his "fan club" as more than that. We get it.
Also why is she training him for monogamy if she doesn't want to join his fan club. You're revealing too much here. "Forced to hire" gives us the sense she doesn't want to be around him. What's missing is what changed her mind.
In her book collection hides a clue, an explanation and the location of the money. The only chance they have at making a life together, or living at all, will be to identify and capture the blackmailer, recover and destroy the plans for Jester, and stop a killer from adding them to his growing list of dead bodies.
In her book collection hides a clue. In this sentence awkward rhythm prevails. I've jumped up and down endlessly about the value of putting sentences in the "right" order: subject verb object. If you need to gussy it up after you see it in that form, do so. START with the simple. Then gild.
At 82,300 words, Keep Away is crime romance.
Ah, MUCH better title.
I'm not sure what a crime romance is. At some point we'll need to figure out if this is going to crime editors or romance editors. I think it's romance.
I left a few strings untied to allow for a sequel which I'm currently working on.
Thank you for your time and attention.
One of the things about revising is when you do one round, it often reveals things you didn't see on the first round. Thus this is better but still not there.
----------------
Dear QueryShark:
Arial Cordova's soon to be dead husband calls to say he's sorry, he doesn't think they know about her and she should leave Texas and go into hiding.
This is a great opening. I particularly like "soon to be dead." It puts us in the moment and creates instant tension.
Contrast that to what I see a lot of--backstory: "Arial's husband was killed in the middle of a phone call warning her..."
See the difference?
An assassin's bullet ends his life before he can tell her of the ex-C.I.A. operative who wants his four million dollars back, or the blackmailer who has stolen the digital plans for Jester, a treasonous weapon her husband was unwittingly designing for the former spook.
Ok, here we get a little muddled. "Treasonous weapon" isn't very clear. Because of that wonderful first line, I have confidence in the writer though, so I'd keep going.
The good thing though is that we instantly see the problem, and what's at stake.
Across the country in Granite Pointe, New Hampshire, Arial would like nothing more than to blend with the community and avoid the charms of Marco Romano, local security specialist and notorious playboy. However, a bungling F.B.I. impostor, and a kidnapper hired by an elusive stranger in the neighborhood are keeping her from settling into a new life.
Now this is interesting because the tone changes. It's not a high stakes thriller, it's more of a down home cozy. Can you have both? Well, not really. This isn't a deal-breaker though. I'll keep reading because there's nothing here that goes splat. It's just going in a direction other than what I thought--not always a bad thing.
If Arial can't find the clue her husband said he left in her book collection and stop his killer from adding her to his growing list of dead bodies, she won't get the chance to live happily ever after.
Err...living happily ever after is NOT what can be at stake for a mystery or thriller. There has to be a real problem that has an impact on other people. Happily ever after is what's at stake in a romance novel.
So, I'm confused, but I like the writing. Not a deal breaker yet.
At 82,300 words, The Jester Project is crime fiction with some laughs and a little romance.
TERRIBLE title because it sounds like a thesis for an undergraduate degree at Clown College (a college I always wanted to attend in fact...it was run by Ringling Bros.--but I digress)
So, here's the rub. This isn't really crime fiction since what's at stake is romance. And there's not enough here about the romance to make me think it's a solid romance.
I left a few strings untied to allow for a sequel which I'm currently working on.
I love this line. It's funny and fresh. It makes me think I'd like the writer, that s/he'd be fun to work with.
Thank you for your time and attention.
And the writer hasn't made an crazy claims of self-importance or included pictures of his/her cat, rat or alpaca--all good things to avoid.
This is good, but not really good enough. To work it needs better stakes, a better description of the weapon (and what would happen if it got in the wrong hands) and a new title won't hurt.
Revise, resend.
Friday, January 25, 2013
#235-revised 3x
Dear Query Shark:
For 26-year-old Promised Savior, John, life changes forever when he grows fond of a bar girl, Tanya, and struggles to decide between human bondage and a divine duty.
Are you getting tired of listening to me yammer about putting things in the right order in sentences? I'm getting tired of repeating it but it doesn't seem to be getting through.
This opening sentence starts with a clause, not the subject.
Start with the subject. John.
Then the verb. John's life changes forever.
Then the clause. John's life changes forever when he must choose between human bondage and divine duty.
Can you see the difference?
The reason this is important is twofold: it's stronger writing, and it's easier to understand.
Once you get the sentence in the right order, smaller problems are easier to see. Smaller problems like what the hell is human bondage?
On a quest to find a middle path of reconciliation, John lands into a part of India simmering with the six-month-old communal conflicts that started in December 1992. The all-round suffering and violence push him into a spiritual cul-de-sac, where priests, pujaris and maulvis bay for every Tanya’s blood.
Put the sentence in the right order: India simmers with communal conflicts in December 1992.
Smaller problems: everything else.
On John’s lookout is a fugitive Roman priest, who carries the gift of a two millennium old secret. Generations of the dying priest have scouted for a virgin-born Savior like John, who can convince the world about the reality of the Last Gospel of Jesus.
This paragraph makes no sense. Phrases I don't understand: "on John's lookout" "fugitive Roman priest" "generations of the dying priest."
The heartrending gospel of worldly bliss removes John’s blinkers. As he accepts Tanya’s hands and prepares to preach a new message of salvation, a revenge-seeking journalist reveals the shocking conspiracy behind the tale of his sacred birth. Now, John must prove to his betrayed followers even a disgraced mortal can be a true messenger of God. If he fails, the world will never hear the redeeming songs of the Last Gospel..
At 100,000 words, The LAST GOSPEL is a literary fiction based on the theme of the Second Coming.
I’ve extensively reported on religious and political issues as a professional journalist for 20 years. .
Thanking you for your time and consideration.
This isn't getting better. You're not doing what's been suggested in the previous critiques. You don't have to implement my suggestions if you don't want to, but you do have to improve. Right now, I don't see that.
Start with simple sentences. Be clear about what John wants. Be clear about what is keeping him from getting what he wants. Make every sentence less than 10 words. That will force you to take out all the adjectives, adverbs and clauses.
That will become your skeleton. From there you can add things, but you have to START with that basic form.
Revise. Resend.
--------------------------------------------------------
Dear Query Shark:
When a faith healer and promised Savior of the Second Coming, John can’t revive a dying child, he senses the urgency to tackle its possible cause: A raging conflict between his prophesied duty and fondness for a bar girl, Tanya. At stake is his evangelical mission, the faith of his virgin mother, his mentor priest and thousands of followers.
This is very awkward writing. One of the reasons is because you're starting with two clauses rather than the main sentence. I have GREAT fondness for subject/verb/object structure in query letter sentences. It establishes a base rhythm for your query and you can alter the cadence when it makes sense to do so. This is what you agents call "being in control of your writing." You're not being awkard on purpose to make a point. You're awkward here cause you are writing as if you're talking.
And you're trying to stuff too much in to one paragraph: faith healer, promised Savior, dying child, raging conflict, prophesied duty, bar girl, evangelical mission, virgin mothe, mentor priests, thousands of followers.
Any ONE of those would be the subject of an entire paragraph.
By way of comparison here's the blurb for Dan Brown's DaVinci Code:
After months of prayers and penance in a distant region, when John can’t regain his peace and healing touch, he prepares to live a life in obscurity. That’s when a dying Roman priest provides him refuge and a two millennium old secret. Generations of the fugitive priest had guarded the last gospel of Jesus and awaited a Savior like John, who could convince the world Christ passionately loved Mary Magdalene and sang the virtue of earthly bliss before his Ascension.
You're trying to tell too much of the story here.
The gospel opens John’s eyes: If Jesus doesn’t see human bondage as sin, why can’t he embrace Tanya and carry on with his Divine duty?
And here again, too much.
Hand-in-hand with Tanya, when John prepares to resume his mission and preach The Last Gospel, a revenge-seeking journalist unearths the scandalous conspiracy behind his sanctified birth. Now, John faces another challenge: To prove to his betrayed followers that with the power of love and compassion each of us – whether the Chosen son of God or a mere mortal – can be a true healer of body and soul.
And this is the ending of the book. A query is NOT a synopsis or a description of the whole book. A query has ONE goal: entice the agent to read more. If you tell me how the book ends, you've removed any reason to read it.
At 100,000 words, The LAST GOSPEL is a literary fiction.
I’ve extensively reported on religious and political issues as a professional journalist for 20 years. .
Thanking you for your time and consideration.
Simplify this. Get down to basics. What does John want. What's keeping him from it? Give us a sense of the time and place the story takes place in.
Right now this is an overstuffed sofa on skates.
--------------
Dear Query Shark:
Tall, dreamy-eyed, and three months short of thirty, Master John falters on his divine mission when a mystique bar girl, Tanya trespasses into his evangelical life. If he lets her tarry there, he’ll betray his virgin mother and millions of Christians who see him as the Promised Savior of the Second Coming.
Some of this word choice may simply be cultural (the writer is not American): "dreamy-eyed" is not something an American reader would associate with a handsome man. He might be called "dreamy" if he were 60's heartthrob of some kind (ex. what Doris Day calls Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk) but it's not a word a contemporary reader would resonate with.
And "mystique" is an aura, not a state of being. Someone has mystique (Thomas Pynchon! Greta Garbo!) but they are not called mystique writer or mystique actor.
When I see this in the opening paragraph of a query, I know I'll see it in the novel. Sometimes this can work to your advantage if you use words in a fresh, new way. This isn't that. This is confusing. That's NOT what you want.
Here's where the value of an American English beta reader comes in handy. Even Brit writers need an American reader if they are querying here. There are some words that simply do NOT mean the same thing here as they do there.
And if he shuts the door on her, he dies of a broken heart!
This is a tad melodramatic isn't it? And as consequences go, I gotta say...so what? I haven't come to know or care about the characters yet. They can defenestrate themselves with impunity at this point.
In a theater of religious fanaticism, violence and death, John receives a rare gift: The Last Gospel, preserved by a fugitive Catholic sect through generations. Only a Savior like John could convince the world Jesus sang such a sweet sermon of earthly bliss in between the Resurrection and his Ascension. The gospel opens John’s eyes: God wouldn’t have created this Eden if he wanted his children to practice renunciation.
Theatre? You're using this like theatre in "theatre of war" but this isn't taking place across a wide swath of Europe or the South Seas as far as I can tell. Thus, it's the wrong word.
Practice renunciation? I actually called on a friend, a former monk to see what this meant, and he didn't know. Thus again, confusing.
Hand-in-hand with Tanya when John prepares to unveil the supreme message of The Last Gospel, the Serpent coils up. A revenge-seeking journalist unearths the explosive truth behind John’s sanctified birth. Now, he can strip the Savior of divinity and leave him to the mercy of his betrayed followers.
At stake is not only a life, but a gospel that can reconcile Tanya and God in every troubled soul.
oh dear, this sounds like some sort of parable.
The LAST GOSPEL is a 100,000 word literary fiction based on the theme of the Second Coming.
It's not "a fiction" which is what you're saying here if you strip out the word count and the adjectives. You're writing a novel. Thus: The LAST GOSPEL is literary fiction, 100,000 words, and based on the theme of the Second Coming.
And if I can talk you out of including any talk about theme/purpose/intent when querying about a novel, I will count this a good day's work. Leave it OUT. Let the story lead the reader to conclude what the book is about.
I’ve extensively reported on religious and political issues as a professional journalist for 20 years. .
Thanking you for your time and consideration.
This is a LOT better than the first iteration, but it's still a form rejection.
Focus on the elements of the story. Leave out all the folderol which is Sharkspeak for fancyschmancy. Just tell the story as PLAINLY as you can.
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Dear Query Shark,
What if you grow up believing you are the Chosen Son of God born of a virgin mother? What if the Church has forecast your birth as the fulfillment of the Second Coming prophecy? What if a revenge-seeking journalist is out to prove you are an impostor? Will you lead a reclusive life as the promised Savior, or marry a Hindu bar girl and enjoy the bounties of creation? Will you choose your own life over salvation of the world?
This is the classic example of why you should not ever start your query with a rhetorical question, let alone a series of them. You're writing a letter to me, and I am not marrying a Hindu bar girl no matter how well she cooks.
Also, there's no context of any kind here. "You" ie me is not the protagonist of the story. What choice I would make is utterly irrelevant. What choice your main character makes---that's what we want to know about. That's where the story lies.
The rule of "don't start with a rhetorical question" is a rule for a reason. You can break it ONLY if you improve your query. This doesn't. This isn't enticing.
These are the questions Master John must resolve in The Last Gospel, a 1000,000 words literary fiction.
I'm really REALLY hoping you don't mean 1,000,000 words cause one million words is about ten times too many. It's really ok to abbreviate word count as 100K, or however many thousands of words your novel is. It might help you avoid this kind of glaring error that, if I had kept reading, would make me stop now.
Unable to any more preach the gospel of morality during the day while thirsting for love in the loneliness of night, John flees Goa and takes refuge in Kerala. In that war zone of Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, suffering, fanaticism, violence, death and a series of events open his eyes: A loving Father would never deprive his sons and daughters of the fruits of His own creation and set them against one another.
This is so general as to be meaningless. I had to look up Goa and Kerala. They're both places in India, but I didn't know that for sure. I have no idea what any of the rest of that means because I don't know what the story is here.
John now wants to embrace Tanya and spread the supreme message of Love and Joy, but he may be risking his life. His followers disown the Savior who does not preach abstinence, and the journalist zeroes in on the scandalous story of his birth. Will there be any taker for the preacher of The Last Gospel?
Who's Tanya? Right here your reader is adrift in information but there's nothing enticing. For all intents and purposes this is Stranger in A Strange Land without Mars, set in India.
Set in the former Portuguese colony of Goa, The Last Gospel is based on extensive research and may well trigger a major controversy across the Christian world.
This last phrase is the kind of hyperbolic over-statement that even if you had written a magnificent query would make me reach for the rejection form. It demonstrates unrealistic expectations about the reality of publishing: you'll be lucky if people read it, let alone care enough to protest about it.
I am (job) of India’s (newspaper). I was also associated with the country’s (other newspaper) for eight years.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Once you get rid of the rhetorical questions and the absurd estimates of the novel's impact, you're still left with generalities and little to entice me to read pages.
Start over.
Use the formula in the archives to get your plot on the page. There's a lot to be said for just plain straightforward writing. And it's a whole helluva lot harder than it looks.
For 26-year-old Promised Savior, John, life changes forever when he grows fond of a bar girl, Tanya, and struggles to decide between human bondage and a divine duty.
Are you getting tired of listening to me yammer about putting things in the right order in sentences? I'm getting tired of repeating it but it doesn't seem to be getting through.
This opening sentence starts with a clause, not the subject.
Start with the subject. John.
Then the verb. John's life changes forever.
Then the clause. John's life changes forever when he must choose between human bondage and divine duty.
Can you see the difference?
The reason this is important is twofold: it's stronger writing, and it's easier to understand.
Once you get the sentence in the right order, smaller problems are easier to see. Smaller problems like what the hell is human bondage?
On a quest to find a middle path of reconciliation, John lands into a part of India simmering with the six-month-old communal conflicts that started in December 1992. The all-round suffering and violence push him into a spiritual cul-de-sac, where priests, pujaris and maulvis bay for every Tanya’s blood.
Put the sentence in the right order: India simmers with communal conflicts in December 1992.
Smaller problems: everything else.
On John’s lookout is a fugitive Roman priest, who carries the gift of a two millennium old secret. Generations of the dying priest have scouted for a virgin-born Savior like John, who can convince the world about the reality of the Last Gospel of Jesus.
This paragraph makes no sense. Phrases I don't understand: "on John's lookout" "fugitive Roman priest" "generations of the dying priest."
The heartrending gospel of worldly bliss removes John’s blinkers. As he accepts Tanya’s hands and prepares to preach a new message of salvation, a revenge-seeking journalist reveals the shocking conspiracy behind the tale of his sacred birth. Now, John must prove to his betrayed followers even a disgraced mortal can be a true messenger of God. If he fails, the world will never hear the redeeming songs of the Last Gospel..
At 100,000 words, The LAST GOSPEL is a literary fiction based on the theme of the Second Coming.
I’ve extensively reported on religious and political issues as a professional journalist for 20 years. .
Thanking you for your time and consideration.
This isn't getting better. You're not doing what's been suggested in the previous critiques. You don't have to implement my suggestions if you don't want to, but you do have to improve. Right now, I don't see that.
Start with simple sentences. Be clear about what John wants. Be clear about what is keeping him from getting what he wants. Make every sentence less than 10 words. That will force you to take out all the adjectives, adverbs and clauses.
That will become your skeleton. From there you can add things, but you have to START with that basic form.
Revise. Resend.
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Dear Query Shark:
When a faith healer and promised Savior of the Second Coming, John can’t revive a dying child, he senses the urgency to tackle its possible cause: A raging conflict between his prophesied duty and fondness for a bar girl, Tanya. At stake is his evangelical mission, the faith of his virgin mother, his mentor priest and thousands of followers.
This is very awkward writing. One of the reasons is because you're starting with two clauses rather than the main sentence. I have GREAT fondness for subject/verb/object structure in query letter sentences. It establishes a base rhythm for your query and you can alter the cadence when it makes sense to do so. This is what you agents call "being in control of your writing." You're not being awkard on purpose to make a point. You're awkward here cause you are writing as if you're talking.
And you're trying to stuff too much in to one paragraph: faith healer, promised Savior, dying child, raging conflict, prophesied duty, bar girl, evangelical mission, virgin mothe, mentor priests, thousands of followers.
Any ONE of those would be the subject of an entire paragraph.
By way of comparison here's the blurb for Dan Brown's DaVinci Code:
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ.
The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle.
The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself.
After months of prayers and penance in a distant region, when John can’t regain his peace and healing touch, he prepares to live a life in obscurity. That’s when a dying Roman priest provides him refuge and a two millennium old secret. Generations of the fugitive priest had guarded the last gospel of Jesus and awaited a Savior like John, who could convince the world Christ passionately loved Mary Magdalene and sang the virtue of earthly bliss before his Ascension.
You're trying to tell too much of the story here.
The gospel opens John’s eyes: If Jesus doesn’t see human bondage as sin, why can’t he embrace Tanya and carry on with his Divine duty?
And here again, too much.
Hand-in-hand with Tanya, when John prepares to resume his mission and preach The Last Gospel, a revenge-seeking journalist unearths the scandalous conspiracy behind his sanctified birth. Now, John faces another challenge: To prove to his betrayed followers that with the power of love and compassion each of us – whether the Chosen son of God or a mere mortal – can be a true healer of body and soul.
And this is the ending of the book. A query is NOT a synopsis or a description of the whole book. A query has ONE goal: entice the agent to read more. If you tell me how the book ends, you've removed any reason to read it.
At 100,000 words, The LAST GOSPEL is a literary fiction.
I’ve extensively reported on religious and political issues as a professional journalist for 20 years. .
Thanking you for your time and consideration.
Simplify this. Get down to basics. What does John want. What's keeping him from it? Give us a sense of the time and place the story takes place in.
Right now this is an overstuffed sofa on skates.
--------------
Dear Query Shark:
Tall, dreamy-eyed, and three months short of thirty, Master John falters on his divine mission when a mystique bar girl, Tanya trespasses into his evangelical life. If he lets her tarry there, he’ll betray his virgin mother and millions of Christians who see him as the Promised Savior of the Second Coming.
Some of this word choice may simply be cultural (the writer is not American): "dreamy-eyed" is not something an American reader would associate with a handsome man. He might be called "dreamy" if he were 60's heartthrob of some kind (ex. what Doris Day calls Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk) but it's not a word a contemporary reader would resonate with.
And "mystique" is an aura, not a state of being. Someone has mystique (Thomas Pynchon! Greta Garbo!) but they are not called mystique writer or mystique actor.
When I see this in the opening paragraph of a query, I know I'll see it in the novel. Sometimes this can work to your advantage if you use words in a fresh, new way. This isn't that. This is confusing. That's NOT what you want.
Here's where the value of an American English beta reader comes in handy. Even Brit writers need an American reader if they are querying here. There are some words that simply do NOT mean the same thing here as they do there.
And if he shuts the door on her, he dies of a broken heart!
This is a tad melodramatic isn't it? And as consequences go, I gotta say...so what? I haven't come to know or care about the characters yet. They can defenestrate themselves with impunity at this point.
In a theater of religious fanaticism, violence and death, John receives a rare gift: The Last Gospel, preserved by a fugitive Catholic sect through generations. Only a Savior like John could convince the world Jesus sang such a sweet sermon of earthly bliss in between the Resurrection and his Ascension. The gospel opens John’s eyes: God wouldn’t have created this Eden if he wanted his children to practice renunciation.
Theatre? You're using this like theatre in "theatre of war" but this isn't taking place across a wide swath of Europe or the South Seas as far as I can tell. Thus, it's the wrong word.
Practice renunciation? I actually called on a friend, a former monk to see what this meant, and he didn't know. Thus again, confusing.
Hand-in-hand with Tanya when John prepares to unveil the supreme message of The Last Gospel, the Serpent coils up. A revenge-seeking journalist unearths the explosive truth behind John’s sanctified birth. Now, he can strip the Savior of divinity and leave him to the mercy of his betrayed followers.
At stake is not only a life, but a gospel that can reconcile Tanya and God in every troubled soul.
oh dear, this sounds like some sort of parable.
The LAST GOSPEL is a 100,000 word literary fiction based on the theme of the Second Coming.
It's not "a fiction" which is what you're saying here if you strip out the word count and the adjectives. You're writing a novel. Thus: The LAST GOSPEL is literary fiction, 100,000 words, and based on the theme of the Second Coming.
And if I can talk you out of including any talk about theme/purpose/intent when querying about a novel, I will count this a good day's work. Leave it OUT. Let the story lead the reader to conclude what the book is about.
I’ve extensively reported on religious and political issues as a professional journalist for 20 years. .
Thanking you for your time and consideration.
This is a LOT better than the first iteration, but it's still a form rejection.
Focus on the elements of the story. Leave out all the folderol which is Sharkspeak for fancyschmancy. Just tell the story as PLAINLY as you can.
------------------
Dear Query Shark,
What if you grow up believing you are the Chosen Son of God born of a virgin mother? What if the Church has forecast your birth as the fulfillment of the Second Coming prophecy? What if a revenge-seeking journalist is out to prove you are an impostor? Will you lead a reclusive life as the promised Savior, or marry a Hindu bar girl and enjoy the bounties of creation? Will you choose your own life over salvation of the world?
This is the classic example of why you should not ever start your query with a rhetorical question, let alone a series of them. You're writing a letter to me, and I am not marrying a Hindu bar girl no matter how well she cooks.
Also, there's no context of any kind here. "You" ie me is not the protagonist of the story. What choice I would make is utterly irrelevant. What choice your main character makes---that's what we want to know about. That's where the story lies.
The rule of "don't start with a rhetorical question" is a rule for a reason. You can break it ONLY if you improve your query. This doesn't. This isn't enticing.
These are the questions Master John must resolve in The Last Gospel, a 1000,000 words literary fiction.
I'm really REALLY hoping you don't mean 1,000,000 words cause one million words is about ten times too many. It's really ok to abbreviate word count as 100K, or however many thousands of words your novel is. It might help you avoid this kind of glaring error that, if I had kept reading, would make me stop now.
Unable to any more preach the gospel of morality during the day while thirsting for love in the loneliness of night, John flees Goa and takes refuge in Kerala. In that war zone of Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, suffering, fanaticism, violence, death and a series of events open his eyes: A loving Father would never deprive his sons and daughters of the fruits of His own creation and set them against one another.
This is so general as to be meaningless. I had to look up Goa and Kerala. They're both places in India, but I didn't know that for sure. I have no idea what any of the rest of that means because I don't know what the story is here.
John now wants to embrace Tanya and spread the supreme message of Love and Joy, but he may be risking his life. His followers disown the Savior who does not preach abstinence, and the journalist zeroes in on the scandalous story of his birth. Will there be any taker for the preacher of The Last Gospel?
Who's Tanya? Right here your reader is adrift in information but there's nothing enticing. For all intents and purposes this is Stranger in A Strange Land without Mars, set in India.
Set in the former Portuguese colony of Goa, The Last Gospel is based on extensive research and may well trigger a major controversy across the Christian world.
This last phrase is the kind of hyperbolic over-statement that even if you had written a magnificent query would make me reach for the rejection form. It demonstrates unrealistic expectations about the reality of publishing: you'll be lucky if people read it, let alone care enough to protest about it.
I am (job) of India’s (newspaper). I was also associated with the country’s (other newspaper) for eight years.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Once you get rid of the rhetorical questions and the absurd estimates of the novel's impact, you're still left with generalities and little to entice me to read pages.
Start over.
Use the formula in the archives to get your plot on the page. There's a lot to be said for just plain straightforward writing. And it's a whole helluva lot harder than it looks.
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