Query Letter

First things first:  Keep in mind that (so far) all of my query letters have been rejected, so take everything I say with a whole barrel of salt.  Of course, I’m hoping that this one won’t be rejected, but just in case it is, if you happen to have any advice or tips for how to improve it, please feel free to leave a comment.  I’m always looking for ways to improve all my writing, including query letters.

Last year, around this time, I was receiving rejection letters.  I had spent hours researching literary agents, making sure they were accepting submissions, checking to see if they were interested in the genre of my manuscript, googling them to learn everything I could about them.  I wrote one fantastic query letter, and then made changes to it as I queried each individual agent (the plot summary stayed the same, but other things changed, like “Dear John” became “Dear Sue” and “I’m querying you because…”).  I paid the most careful attention to every submission guideline.  If they only accepted post mail, I sent it the old fashioned way, and included the self-addressed stamped envelope.  If email was okay, I submitted digitally.  If they wanted a synopsis, that was all I sent them.  If they wanted the first three chapters, that was the only thing that went.  I queried less than 20 agents.  And heard back from half of them.  I received nothing but rejections, of various kinds.  Most were form emails.  One was a small square slip of pink paper tucked into my SASE.  One was a personal letter written by the agent who said my writing had good points but that they weren’t ready to take it on for one reason and another.  That letter gave me hope.

This year, I queried one agent.  I met her at a conference, and she requested the submission.  Which cut down a lot of my work load.  And cut my query letter in half.  Instead of spending an entire paragraph on introducing myself and another paragraph on why I was querying her, I wrote this:

It was a pleasure meeting you at the American Independent Writers conference in May 2010. I enjoyed discussing my supernatural urban fantasy manuscript with you, even though it was not fully polished at that time. Since we met, what I thought was polishing turned into full-blown editing, based on the advice I received from a writing group I had recently joined. This is why it has taken so many months to prepare the submission you requested.

Then I wrote a plot summary:

In a world similar to our own, Kyla Jones is a religious 17-year-old who has just graduated High School and is preparing to go to college. The night before she leaves home a powerful servant of The Goddess visits her and tells her that she has an important role to play. Kyla is given a sword that vanishes when it is not needed and is the only weapon capable of rescuing the Goddess’ servants from the power of The Paenitet. Before the first semester is over, Kyla will discover that in order to save the servants of the Goddess, she must defeat them, and in order to defeat The Paenitet once and for all, she is going to have to save him, too, whether he likes it or not and whether she wants to or not.

And then I closed up:

Complete at 99,000 words, Lumen tells a story about a teen becoming a young woman amidst a battle between good and evil that shakes the foundations of her own faith and complicates every relationship she has.

I have attached the first three chapters and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

(contact information went here)

 

I’ve already done a post on how to write a query letter, which was called Ten Tips for Query and Cover Letters , in which I talked a lot about the basic (and some of the finer) points of composing a query letter or cover letter based on research I had done using the internet (I still say queryshark is the best thing to read if you’re looking for query advice).  In the few weeks since I sent this query letter, I have been panicking like no other.  Some of my reasons are almost valid, but most of them are ridiculous:

1. Should I have said it was a “complete” manuscript, or does that make it sound like I’m assuming it’s perfect and it won’t need anymore work (because the agent will always have suggestions for how to make it even better and they want to know that you’re open to that)?  On the other hand, I did say in the beginning that I had taken advice from a writing group, so why wouldn’t I take advice from a literary agent?  Still…will the word “complete” be a point against me?
2. I forgot to include a link to my blog in the contact info?  I forgot to include a link to my blog in the contact info!  I forgot to include a link to my blog in the contact info.
3. Are the first three chapters good enough?  Will the agent be hooked?  Is the rest of the manuscript good enough?  Dare I go back through it and read/edit it – AGAIN?
4. Should I have sat on the query letter for a week and spent more time on it or would I never have sent it if I had sat on it?
5. Should I have made the summary shorter?
6. Should I have made the summary more explicit, even if that means making it longer?
7. What if 99,000 words is too long and the agent will reject it out of hand because of the length?
8. What if my email gets lost in the slush pile??????
9. What if my manuscript is not ready to be published?
10. What if I get rejected (again)?

I keep reminding myself to take a deep breath and relax, because the reality is this:  either the full manuscript will be requested, or it won’t.  Either way, the world will not stop turning.  If it’s rejected, it means that I need to spend some more time on it, after I take some time away from it first.  If more is requested, then I get to bite my nails some more until the final verdict comes out.  In any case, I will still be a Latin teacher and, as always, a Hopeful Writer.

Submitted

As the title suggests, I have now officially submitted a query letter and the first three chapters of my manuscript to the agent I met at the conference from 8 months ago.

Now, the only question is this:  Is that the light at the end of the tunnel I see ahead, or is it just another rejection train coming to run me over?

I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

I’ll post the query letter soon, with commentary and break down based on research I’ve done about writing query letters.

Done…ish

Are you ever really done with a manuscript?  Probably not.  Because as you grow and write more things your writing grows too and you could pick up a published copy of something you wrote ten years ago and take a red pen to it because you’ve learned so much  more since then.  But thank goodness you only knew what you did when you wrote that story, or that exact particular story would never have existed!

The reason I did not post last week was because I had just finished editing my manuscript…and the ending sucked.  Completely fell flat.  Totally lost.  It took me another week to fix it, but now it’s done.  It currently makes me cry, and I’m the one who wrote it.  It’s probably time to hand it off to someone else who can read it with a fresh eye.  I’m definitely too close to really catch everything that’s wrong with it.

In the process of fixing the ending this last time, I had to cut three scenes and change two.  Two of those scenes I cut had been there since I started chapter one.  It was really hard to let them go, but they just weren’t working and were completely not necessary.  It’s so much better without them.  But I still miss them.  They had their good points.  I saved them in separate documents, so I can keep them and maybe work them into something else.

Now I’m scared to do the whole consistency edit.  I need to sit down and read this thing from page 1 all the way to page 486 without stopping (except for food and sleep and stuff like that), but I’m afraid of what other “darlings” I may have to kill.  *sigh*  On the other hand, the sooner the consistency check is done and all typos and misspellings are corrected, the sooner I can send the first three chapters to the agent who requested them.

I am so close it hurts.  I think the only thing I ever wanted more than getting published was to marry the guy who is now my husband.

So CLOSE!

Chapter 33 has been edited – a scene was added and three others were trimmed.  I have 7 chapters left to edit and the next two days are going to be absolutely insane!  First of all, there’s work.  The school system has a two-hour delay on Wednesday, which means full days on Monday and Tuesday.  On Monday, after dealing with detention duty, I have to cook my chicken stir fry dish for the Holiday Gathering that’s happening after work on Tuesday, and go to a small reunion of high school friends.  On Tuesday, I have work, the Holiday Gathering, and then my writing group (with any luck whatsoever I might actually read everything before I get there, but we’ll see what happens).  On Wednesday, I plan on packing up as soon as the students are gone, getting lunch, and going home.  At that point, I will edit some more of my manuscript (hopefully at least two chapters).  If I spend Thursday (three chapters) and most of Friday (two chapters) on just editing, I think I might be able to finish before Christmas.  After that, it’s just the consistency check (done by December 28, I hope) and then it’s off to the agents (just in time for New Years)!  It’s only been about seven months since I met that agent at a writing conference who requested the first three chapters of this story after the polishing was done – and of course, what I thought at the time was just polishing turned into full-blown editing.  Anyway, I am THIS CLOSE to finally getting this submission to her!

I am also excruciatingly excited about working on something other than this “Buffy the Vampire Slayer Meets Angels and Demons” manuscript.  Maybe dragons, or sorcerers, I think.  Or possibly the emoish vampire story I’ve been sharing with my writing group, since they’ve been giving me such awesome editing advice.  Or maybe I’ll go back to that epic fantasy thing I started when I was in high school.  Who knows?  I might even come up with a poem or two.  Anything that is not this manuscript.  And then if (when?) I get a positive response from an agent about this manuscript, I will be able to go back to it with a fresh pair of eyes and a healthy level of enthusiasm.

I will probably be posting my query letter and pitches along with advice that I’ve gathered about writing such things, so hopefully this blog will be about something interesting and useful for once instead of just me ranting or complaining or sharing even more editing updates – because really, how much fun is this thing to read?  Maybe I should start doing writing exercises on this.

NaNoEDMo!

Since I have a hefty-sized manuscript already, I have decided to participate in a self-imposed “NaNoEdMo” while all my writing friends do their frenzy of writing.  I worked it out this afternoon that if I edited three chapters a week, I could be finished with this round of edits by the end of the month.  I rebroke all the remaining chapters and came out with a total of 36 for the whole manuscript.

At the end of the day, I have finished editing two and a half chapters and managed to write in enough extra material for one more chapter in the manuscript, so now I have a total of 37, which means I need to edit one and a half chapters tomorrow instead of just half of one in order to keep to my goal.  Ugh.

What’s making me really nervous is the fact that my manuscript is now well over 90,000 words, and if I keep adding chapters here and there, it’s going to be up to 100,000 pretty quick, and this is supposed to be young adult.  So I’m hitting my threshold of length, and I’m scared that I’m going to have to go back through and cut like 100-400 words from each chapter.  Granted, having to cut that much will make each chapter that much stronger, and it’s probably a really good exercise to do anyway just to make it that much more awesome, but it means another round of edits before I can send it to the agent who asked for it.

And I refuse to settle for sending her something that’s good.  I’m not sending it until it’s knock-your-socks-off awesome.  Every word will demand that she read more.  The plot will blow her mind.  The characters will fly off the page and drag her into their reality.

I will get as damn close to these goals as I can before I send this thing off into the world of agents.

Reflecting on the Journey

I am about two-thirds of the way through editing my manuscript and teachers have to start back for the new school year this Friday.  Considering how I’m ripping pieces of this manuscript apart at the seams and then sewing it back together with new pieces here and there, I’m really not thinking this is going to get finished before Friday.  That has me worried.  I’m going to have very little time and energy for editing, or even writing, once the school year starts.  My focus is going to have to be on the job that’s actually paying me instead of on the job that I hope will someday pay me.  So, I’m kind of bummed.  The good news is my manuscript is the strongest it’s ever been.

I was thinking back on my “journey as a writer”, and how it started out by my writing pulling me, and how it’s come to a point where I’m pushing my writing on.  There was a moment about a year ago, where I decided that I was going to be willing to spend money on writing, just like I spent money on college for my teaching career.  I decided that I was going to look at writing like a career instead of a hobby.  That was when I bought my first book on writing: How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein.  I’ve collected a few more since then.  Following some advice from the 2010 Guide to Literary Agents, I started this blog, and got a twitter, in an attempt to start a platform, without fully understanding what a “platform” is supposed to be.  Now I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with marketing yourself and turning you as an author into a brand along with the books you write.  I joined the American Independent Writers and attended their annual conference last spring.  This was my first writing conference ever, and it was also where I met an agent who requested the first three chapters of the manuscript I’m two-thirds done editing.

Today, I’m deciding that I’m in this for the long-haul.  I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was fourteen.  From that point, it took seven years of learning and training before I started teaching.  I knew I wanted to write as a career when I was twenty-two.  From that point, I need to give it at least seven years of solid effort before I even think about giving up.  Probably eight or ten, because now I have a job and a husband and sooner or later I’ll have kids.

So, new goals:  Finish polishing this manuscript by December 31, 2010.  Send the first three chapters of this manuscript to the agent who requested them by January 31, 2011.

And, challenge goals:  Finish polishing this manuscript by October 31, 2010.  Send the first three chapters of this manuscript to the agent who requested them by November 1, 2010.