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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, #3As 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 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@RTBookReviews.com.
LETTER NO. 3
After one night of the horizontal tango, Callie and Matt know that they're in trouble, and it only gets worse with strippers, Tasers and Alice Cooper littering their rocky road to love. (1) The completed 100,000-word contemporary romance Shear Genius would complement your list of authors by appealing to readers who enjoy the humor of Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Susan Andersen and Carly Phillips. (2)
(3) Callie is on the corporate fast track until she meets a gardener who cuts her hair with hedge trimmers. (4) From there, her carefully laid plans get lost in a sea of chaos (5) that revolves around Matt, the would-be gardener and anti-businessman. Matt plays at work and works at play. It's a philosophy not without its merits, since he's been successful in both the boardroom and the bedroom -- until he crosses paths with the prickly executive. Their sexual attraction is undeniable, even as Callie's career falls apart and Matt's pleasure in life on the "lite" side wanes. Separately, they forge a new course for their lives, expecting happiness to follow. That's not possible until Callie and Matt carve out their own thorny and uneven path back to each other.
(6) A partial of my first novel has been requested by Harlequin's SuperRomance, and it finaled in the 2009 Suzannah Contest, sponsored by the North Louisiana Chapter of Romance Writers
of America. Also, I had a short romance published by Woman's World magazine. I regularly write for Keystone Builder, Business Woman and b Magazine.
As a writer working on her career, I am a member of Romance Writers of America, the Central Pennsylvania Romance Writers and Pennwriters. Additionally, I have a master's degree in journalism.
The completed Shear Genius manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your time and consideration.
JESSICA'S COMMENTS
When writing a query the focus should be on the heart of the book. What makes the book really stand out from others in the same genre and what is the chief conflict? What will bring readers to this book above all others? The most painful part of editing queries is to tell the writer that it's not the query, it's the book that's the problem.
Too often I find that the reason an author struggles while writing the query is not because she isn't great with marketing her book, but because there's really nothing all that exciting about the book to tell. Which is why I always advise readers to start thinking of the query well before you've finished the book. If you have an idea, think how you would pitch it to your agent or an editor or even a reader before writing. Do you have a strong, coherent pitch? You probably have a strong, coherent idea then. If not, you might want to rethink the story before hitting the keyboard.
And as a reminder, to protect the anonymity of the authors submitting here, I'm going to assume that a name, e-mail address, phone number and the correct form of address (Dear Ms. Faust) were included in all the letters I'm editing.
Now on to our query.
(1) I'm afraid I don't get the power of your opening sentence at all. I suspect you left it purposely vague in an attempt to grab my attention, but it doesn't grab me and really, it only confuses me. My question to you is, what is this story really about? Is it about a one-night stand? Is it about strippers? How do these two things connect?
(2) What confuses me about your second sentence is that you seem to imply that I represent any of these authors, which I don't. Be careful that your sentences are clearly thought out and say what you mean them to say. By writing things that are vague or confusing you give me the impression that your manuscript itself is probably not that clearly written.
(3) OK, on to the heart of your query. This paragraph, the paragraph that describes your book, is the single most important piece of your query letter. In many cases, this is what agents will read before they read any other piece of the query because, let's face it, the only thing we really care about is the book.
Unfortunately, with your pitch paragraph I only feel that I get more vagueness. I really don't understand what your book is about and, most importantly, I don't have a sense of what makes this book stand out from the many others on the bookshelves. (4) I think the line about getting her hair cut with the hedge trimmers is fantastic, but you don't take me anywhere. You lead me on and then drop me. What happens next or what happened to lead up to that?
Throughout the letter you use a lot of really vaguely descriptive terms like, "sea of chaos," (5) that don't tell me anything about the story. Just like a book should show and not tell, I expect the same from a query. I want to see the story, or the story's blurb, come alive in the letter. I want to get a feel for your voice, which I don't here, and a solid idea of what happens in this story.
Your final paragraphs describing your success
(congratulations) (6) and writing background are perfect.
Before sending this out I would suggest you work on infusing a bit of yourself and your personality into the query. Make sure your writing shines through in this as well as in your book.
TIPS FOR WRITING QUERY LETTERS
HEART OF THE MATTER The blurb in a query letter should focus on the heart of the book. What is the chief conflict and what makes this book different from all others?
DON'T BE VAGUE Get specific. Agents don't want vague or cliched terms. We really want to know specifically what happens.
EXPERIENCE COUNTS One or two paragraphs describing your experiences as a writer, even if it's only a membership in RWA, makes you stand out from the pack. |
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