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Expert Advice from Jessica Faust |
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EXPERT ADVICE ARTICLES BY JESSICA FAUST
Printed in RT BOOK REVIEWS BOOKclub Magazine
| The First Three Pages, #8 | | The First Three Pages, #1 | | The First Three Pages, #2 | | The First Three Pages, #3 | | The First Three Pages, #4 | | The First Three Pages, #5 | | The First Three Pages, #6 | | The First Three Pages, #7 | | The First Three Pages, #9 | | The First Three Pages, #10 | | The First Three Pages, #11 | | The First Three Pages, #12 | | The First Three Pages, #13 | | The First Three Pages, #14 | | The First Three Pages, #15 | | The Query Letter, #1 | | The Query Letter, #2 | | THE QUERY LETTER, #3 | | THE QUERY LETTER, #4 | | THE QUERY LETTER, #5 | | THE QUERY LETTER, #6 | | THE QUERY LETTER, #7 | | THE QUERY LETTER, #8 | | THE QUERY LETTER, #8 | | THE QUERY LETTER, #9 |
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Category: WRITER'S TIPS
THE QUERY LETTER, #2As many aspiring writers know, getting the query letter just right can make even the most level-headed writer go a bit mad. To help you learn the ins and outs of querying, agent Jessica Faust will be reading your query letters and giving you her honest advice on what works, what needs to be tweaked and what needs to go.
If you have a query letter written and are
looking for some tough love from Jessica, send it to: Faygie@RomanticTimes.com.
LETTER No. 2
Dear Agent,
(1) Daily life as one knows it can change in an instant. The most benign decisions can have the most serious of consequences. Unintended. Deadly even. (2) Finding Grace follows the intersecting journeys of a young woman reeling from family tragedies for which she blames herself and a man bringing faith to teens while hiding his own devastating secret. (3) Is it possible to find hope and love amidst the ashes of heart-rending grief and a shameful past?
(4) Vanessa Jordan has never had reason to think her life would ever be anything but perfectly normal -- until the bottom drops out. In the space of a few short years she loses everything that matters, which leaves her stunned and grief-stricken. Jake Wagner is surprised to find himself running a wildly successful high school ministry. Living a life he never planned, he is also living a lie -- hiding from a shameful, destructive past and determined to keep it that way. When Jake unwittingly thwarts Vanessa's suicide attempt, their lives become entwined in more ways than they could have imagined. His attempts to convince her there is more life to be lived force them both to face a past filled with regret before they can forge a future of hope.
(5) I have included the first three chapters and the synopsis
of Finding Grace for your review. With a word count of 95,000 it was written for the inspirational market. I appreciate your consideration of Finding Grace and would be happy to answer any questions you may have and provide you with more chapters.
Thank you.
JESSICA'S COMMENTS
Once you are finished writing, editing and revising your manuscript, it's time to move on to what is probably one of the most daunting tasks in the publishing process, and that's finding an agent. I'm not going to pretend that it's going to be easy, and I'm sure many of your fellow writers will agree that the agent search is more difficult than writing the book. However, I am going to attempt to make that mysterious query letter a little less mysterious for you.
A query is frequently your first introduction to an agent, especially since most agencies only accept unsolicited queries first, without any actual pages, and it's probably one of your most important pieces of correspondence. So for the next couple of months we're going to take a look at query letters. I'm going to give my critique of the letters sent and show you not just what goes into a great query letter but also how many different ways a letter can be written and still grab an agent's attention -- because the truth is, there is no formula for writing a book, and there's no formula for writing a query.
One note to readers: We've made a few changes in format to make this more comfortable for those of you brave enough to submit a letter. Each letter you see will be addressed to "Dear Agent," but don't ever, ever do this when sending out actual queries. Each query you send should be addressed to the agent you are hoping to query. That's either "Dear Jessica" or "Dear Ms. Faust" (always safer to use a more formal address). We've also, for obvious reasons, deleted the author's contact information. But each query you send should always include, at a minimum, your name, e-mail address and phone number.
OK, here we go. The first brave soul ...
What I like about this letter is that the opening line immediately grabs my attention. Rather then starting with a dry introductory line like, "Thank you for taking the time to read this," or, "I found your name through a popular search engine,"
you jumped immediately into the heart of the story and
the heart of the hook. From the first sentence I started to get a sense of this book and of your voice. (1)
(2) Be careful that you aren't writing too generally. I like my queries and, frankly, any book descriptions, to sound very specific to that book. In these sentences you aren't giving me a sense of the story or of your voice. You've lost it by trying to be generic and maybe clever. Frankly, I think you could delete them altogether without losing anything from your query.
(3) I would also warn against open-ended questions. The last thing you want me or any agent to think is, sure, it's possible and toss the query aside. Questions like this are the ultimate query cop-out and don't tell us a thing about the story. Look at it this way, would you ever verbally describe a book or a movie to someone in this way?
I hope not.
(4) This paragraph is a little better in that you give me more specific details, but it doesn't wow me, and this is the trouble with a query-letter critique. Does it not wow me because the query itself needs buffing up, or does it not wow me because there isn't quite enough in the book to stand out? I think this blurb could be a lot stronger if, again, you got even more specific. What exactly happened to Vanessa that the bottom drops out? Why is Jake surprised to be running a ministry and, more importantly, how do their lives become entwined?
A query should focus on the heart of the book. What is the biggest conflict and what's really going to grab readers? The descriptions you used feel like backstory. I don't care that much about where these characters are coming from; what I do care about is what this story is about. I think your blurb should focus more on what's happening to them in the book. For example, "when Jake saves Vanessa from a suicide attempt he never imagines that their lives will become entwined, but when ... "
(5) Your last paragraph is good and provides all the information I need. The one thing that's missing is that I would like to know even one sentence about you. Are you a member of a writing group or chapter? Are you a newspaper reporter? Anything that gives me a peek into who you are just adds a personal touch to the letter.
This is a great start, and I think with just a little tweaking you'll be ready to start querying agents. Best of luck!
TIPS FOR WRITING QUERY LETTERS
CREATIVITY COUNTS While query letters are business letters, they don't have to be staid and boring, and they shouldn't be. As a writer we expect you to be creative, so let your creativity shine through.
Q&A If possible, avoid open-ended or rhetorical questions. They rarely add any real information or spark to your letter and ultimately just waste space.
YOUR WORLD When writing your blurb, focus on the heart or real conflict of the book. This is what agents are really looking for, and it should be what makes your book stand out from others.
WRITING THE ANTHOLOGY
Interested in writing a novella suitable for an anthology, but not sure how to make all the elements come alive in a shorter word count? Here's some advice from authors who've done it.
JODI LYNN COPELAND
What Happens in Vegas ... After Dark (May, Spice)
The sky isn't the limit. Unlike with full-length stories, a novella doesn't contain room for endless
twists and turns, in plot or character. However, readers still want a great, unique story with emotion, conflict,
a strong plot and so on. Good ways to keep a story strong yet short include: eliminating subplots, limiting the number of secondary characters and their involvement in the story, avoiding backstory as much as possible and starting with the story in progress. Also, characters don't always need both an internal and external conflict in a novella. If either an internal or external conflict is strong enough to carry the limited word count, it will provide enough of a story all on its own.
Know your purpose. Plotting at least a portion of a novella before the writing process begins will go a long way to keeping it within word count. I love
to write without boundaries, letting my imagination and mood of the day shape a scene. However, this can lead to a lot of extra pages and unexpected twists in the plot. Determining the major plot points and how they affect each character in advance will help shape how many scenes a story will require. Once this is known, the length of the overall scenes can be oriented around the allowable word count. This too will ensure that enough space remains for a well-paced, emotional ending.
HELENKAY DIMON
To All a Goodnight (2008, Brava)
Shorter does not mean you are free to forget the basics, like characterization and a cohesive plot. You still need a beginning, middle and end.
Keep secondary characters and subplots to a minimum. With limited space you should focus on the hero and heroine.
Figure out if a happily ever after is realistic in so few pages. A hint of a possible forever might work better than a walk down the aisle.
MELJEAN BROOK
Shifter (2008, Berkley)
If it is part of a paranormal series with complicated worldbuilding, don't try to fit it all in
or explain all of the rules. Instead, try to explore one small aspect of the world or highlight a unique feature.
Keep the romantic conflict between the main characters simple, and tie that emotional conflict into the external plot so that they can be resolved together.
Don't try to force declarations of love or marriage proposals if the timeline of the story can't support that deep commitment. The promise of togetherness and an eventual happily ever after is more satisfying than an unbelievable declaration of love. |
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