Query Letters -- Love or Hate?

I hate query letters

That's not completely true. I hate that to the writer, the query letter is seen as the chasm between unfulfilled dreams and a career.

winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Query letters are how your manuscript lands into the hands of your dream agent, assuming you need an agent. And to be clear, my dream agent is still Martin Short from the Big Picture.

But the query letter doesn't have to be seen in such a limited way. My recommendation -- even if you're going independent, self-pub, small-pub, or Irish pub, you should still do the query letter.

Before you send the mob to my house, here me out.

I've spent considerable time and brain cells (what little I had left) on this topic. I am convinced that when you develop the query letter, it will highlight gaping holes or issues in your story. If you've been struggling with your query letter, the issue may not be the letter itself, it may be (ghasp!) the story you've written.

So I've made a solemn oath. I will write a query letter, before I've started to write my next story. Call this a story treatment if you like. But the approach is sound and powerful if used properly.

After countless hours of research (mostly on Super Agent Janet Reid's Query Shark, but also on dozens of other sites) I have compiled my notes for you:

1. Focus on the Action: leave out the backstory. Most queries give too much description. Probably because we feel like we need to explain why we are where we are, etc. Get to the heart of the matter and fast. Show it. Use powerful verbs. In other words, trust yourself as the writer. Everyone has a backstory. Only your protagonist is about to get into this specific problem.

2. Who is the Protagonist?: Who is the hero/ine? Wee need to know very quickly. Janet Reid recommends opening the query with the hero, in action, facing a problem. Also, only mention the most important characters -- no character soup.


3. What is the Problem?: Start with where the protagonist has a problem (the inciting incident, the disturbance). Again, show it. Let us feel the protagonist's problem. Let us care for her and what she's going through.


4. Compelling, interesting Villains: Boring villains mean boring story. The antagonist has to be so bad that you love him. Think silence of the lambs. 

5. What are the Stakes?: They need to be high. Saying, "He just got laid off," is sad, but not enough to carry an entire story. The stakes need to be high. James Scott Bell says there needs to be a feeling of impending death (actual or psychological). High stakes raise difficult choices...

6. Choices, please: The choices your protagonist faces must be explicit and compelling. If the choice includes, "she'll walk away," then there's no story, is there? Real choices. Though ones. Gut wrenching ones. If Katniss Everdeen does not survive the Hunger Games, her sister and mother will most certainly die. They have depended on her for everything. She volunteered to save her sister. She must survive, even if it means killing the boy whom she has known since she was a child. Tough choices, make for high stakes.

7. 250 words please: General acceptable theory says your query letter should be one page -- but one page can go as high 380 words... maybe more. By sticking to the 250 word count, you are forcing yourself to be succinct and stick to the core of the story. If you're doing this for the benefit of developing your idea you'll be tempted to cheat -- but you shouldn't. Get your main plot down. You will be able to overlay your subplots later. But no matter how many smart sub-plots you add, it will not make up for a flawed main plot. Make sure your main story rocks.

8. Rhythm: You need to develop an ear for rhythm. That's accomplished by reading your lines out loud, We've talked about this, reading out loud is a good (critical) practice. This practice will also highlight clunky writing. Reading out loud tells you when "They are" sounds better than "They're." Rhythm will also establish the tone and voice of your story.


9. Entice: The whole point is for the reader to say, "I want to know more." As you write the query letter, you should get excited too! Your blood should be pumping, and your fingers should be ready to explode with words.


10. Test: Let your writer friends read it. Get their input. Not only for proof-reading (which is critical, of course) but to see if they get it, if they're excited, if they want to read the manuscript. A good query letter/story treatment should sell itself.


As for me, I have to apply all the above to my query letter and story. 


I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you have anything to add to this list? I'm sure you do. You can tell uncle Ara :)

Fight the good fight.

Fail Gloriously!

My eight-year-old wanted a skateboard for Christmas.

I wasn't crazy about it. My wife wasn't crazy about it. Yet, Santa apparently chose to fulfill his wish.

Needless to say, he was giddy with excitement. And in his excitement we were happy. My wife even went on YouTube with him and found how-to videos by the man, Tony Hawk. All was good.

For a few days, all he did was practice on that thing. During the day, in the yard. At nights, in the house. I cringed when I saw the scratches on our hard-wood floor, but turned a blind eye.

One night, while I wrote, I heard a thud from downstairs. "You okay?"

"Um, yeah."

I went back to my work. Ten minutes later, another noise. "What happened?"

"Nothing. I'm practicing."

I knew better than to just walk away, but I did. Five minutes later--you guessed it--a louder bang.

I inspected the war area... I would have been justified to get mad, take away the skateboard and tell my wife I told you so. But I didn't.

I can replace plaster and paint. I can't take away words that will forever tell him that failure is bad.

You see, I'd been breaking my own "plaster" upstairs. I'd been struggling with my writing. Trying and failing. Trying and failing.

There is nothing wrong in failing. Implied within failure is that you gave it a shot, you tried. And more importantly, you tried again.

If you're hitting walls, don't give up. Don't talk yourself out of it. There are plenty of people in your life (including the little voice in your head) who will convince you that you're not good enough, smart enough, creative enough.

Fail. Fail gloriously.

Some of us will understand and applaud you for trying. And do me a favor--once in a while, remind me that It's okay for me to get it wrong too.

I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

~ Michael Jordan

Fight the good fight!

The Risk With Revisions

Since September, I've been engaged in this wonderful thing called revisions.

No, I'm not a sadist (or is it masochist? which one likes to be punished? I forget). I really do enjoy spending time with my characters in my story world.

But there are risks with revisions.

If you're like me, when you finished your first "this is it!" draft, you got your manuscript out to a handful of beta readers. They probably picked up a few (a thousand or so) mistakes.

If you happen to have a couple of extra bucks (or euros, or Thai Baht, or whatever you use) you might have even hired a proof reader who found every single stray comma, adverb, or you-name-the-offense that reared its ugly head in your manuscript.

But then something else happened... you discovered that you had holes. Or you could do some scenes better. Instead of telling the reader "He was pissed," you showed, "He pulled off his belt and bit into the leather, yelling until tears burnt his cheeks."

This is the area of risk.

The moment you make updates to the story, whether a line, a paragraph or a whole new chapter, you have introduced the possibility of silly errors. We are human after all, are we not?

What's my solution to this? No, I do not want to bother my eagle-eye readers, or pay a few hundred drakma to an editor again (apparently, my children have expectations of being fed).

Read Out Loud

When you are done, reread that chapter out loud. It may seem odd at first, but this is the most effective tool a self-editor must use. In fact, reading out loud is a critical piece of my revision process. I read the entire manuscript out loud and as I read, I find mistakes, and more importantly, lines that don't sound right.

Let Technology Work For you

Although you should (must) read out loud, you will not catch everything.

Sometimes, your eyes overlook the obvious. Example:

• breath or breathe
• through or though
• lighting or lightening

We've all seen it happen. That one little letter gets passed us, just to embarrass us. After all, you've written the darn thing, and if you're like me, you know those lines so well that you can almost recite it without reading each word. Unfortunately, I am not able to turn off my automatic read-ahead mind. I'm not that disciplined.

As I've said before, I use (and love) Scrivener.

[Soap Box: If you don't use Scrivener, I don't understand. At $45, it is the single most powerful tool you will ever use as a writer. Visit my friend Gwen Hernandez's site to learn how to use it. Even better, sign up for her class.]

When I'm done editing, I highlight the paragraph in question, right-click and choose "Speech" --> "Start Talking."

(Note, you can do this in MS Word also, but I'd rather pretend that everyone uses Scrivener)

On the Mac, the voice of the reader is fairly decent. The beauty is that you hear the mistakes immediately. As I listen to the narrator, all I do is highlight words, or sections that sound odd. I don't edit right then and there. I don't want to miss other mistakes that the narrator may pick up.

In Scrivener (or Word) highlighting is fast. So you won't miss more than a micro second at best.

Or you can do this with hard copy of your manuscript at hand. Listen and follow along on the printed document. When something catches your ear, highlight it.

When you hit the end of the chapter. Correct the mistakes. But wait, you're not done. Listen to the corrected section one more time. Yes! Do it. Be picky. This is your work. Listen again. Make sure you didn't just introduce another mistake.

I use the computer narrator all the time. It's a powerful feature. And although listening to the whole book is time-intensive, it is invaluable. The things you hear, will surprise you. Also, the experience of hearing your story read back to you is fresh and powerful.

I highly recommend it. Give it a shot.

Do you have any special tricks? If you try this technique, let me know if it works for you.

Fight the good fight!

Give Yourself a Promotion

"How can I get promoted?"

Secret handshakes go back a few years...

I hear this all the time at work. Everyone wants to know how they can get to that next level, then the next, and the next one after that.

Implied in that question is that there may be a secret handshake, a magic book, or fraternity that if they joined, then "it" would all come together. Whatever "it" may be.

I don't have the heart to tell people the truth -- not everyone is promotable.

Sorry, but it's true.

So when someone asks me that question, I tell them, "If you want to be a leader, then lead. If you want to be a project manager, then manage a project. You don't need the title to make it happen."

Show me. Don't tell me that you want to do something. Do it!

And when you do it, you'll show us all two things: you have the desire and the will to achieve even when you don't have the official title.

We must mentally promote ourselves to the role we aspire to hold. The answer is within us, waiting to be tapped.

No one wants to hire a project. But I can guarantee you that everyone wants to hire a winner. That person who has shown desire and will to do the hard work even when there is no guarantee of payoff.

Sound familiar?

So you want to be a traditionally published author? Then do everything that's consistent with "being" a published author. Show the professionals in the industry that you're also a professional. You have to be the baddest badass out there. You are not competing against the slushpile. You're competing against those on the bestseller list. That's what the industry is looking for. Elevate your game. Give yourself a mental promotion--now!

Or maybe you will self-published. Then behave like a professional author for your readers. Give them your best work. The beautiful cover, the professionally edited novel, and build the personal connection with your fans who will spread the word for you like the plague. You are trying to win their trust. You're trying to establish a sacred agreement that if they take a chance on you, then you in return will honor their valuable (and diminishing) free time. You will give them the ride of their life.

By the way, these habits are not mutually exclusive. We have to do all of the above and then some.

Eliminate "good enough," or "pretty good" from your vocabulary. Only the best qualify. The good news is that it's all up to you--me. The bad news is that it's all up to you--me.

If we want to win at any game, then we must play the game as if we've already won. Believe in yourself, so others will believe in you.

Bad things happen to good people all the time. Lady luck shows up on the wrong table sometimes. But in the end, if we play the game fully, with passion and excellence in heart and mind, then on my scoreboard, we've already won, haven't we?

Believe in yourself, then do it. And when you do, the rest will believe in you too.

Fight the good fight!

Gratitude

I'm a natural optimist. Always have been.

It's not to say that I've had a rosy life, or that all is wonderful now, nor am I delirious enough to assume that from this day forward, rose petals will pave my path (although, I must admit, if that happened, my wife would be very impressed).

All I mean is that I believe my outlook on life is directly correlated with how I choose to experience it. If I think good things will come from fighting the good fight, then good things will indeed happen.

Last September I attended the Southern California Writers' Conference. I blogged about that experience and continue to reap the rewards of the guidance I received from that weekend.

As I've already mentioned, at that conference, I took an opportunity to meet with agents and editors. Amongst the people I met was prolific author and veteran editor Laura Taylor. Here's a brief bio from her site


1985 to Present: award-winning author of 22 novels for a variety of international publishing houses, including Bantam-Doubleday-Dell, Franklin Watts, Inc., Berkley Books, and Harlequin-Silhouette Books. Current works in progress include a mainstream novel and an associated screenplay.
Some of Laura's awards include:

• TWO-TIME MAGGIE AWARD WINNER
• LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER FOR BEST NEW CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE AUTHOR
• CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER FOR SERIES ROMANCE STORYTELLER OF THE YEAR
• TWO-TIME REVIEWERS CHOICE AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SERIES ROMANCE – BANTAM BOOKS LOVESWEPT IMPRINT
• CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SERIES ROMANTIC ADVENTURE
• BEST CONTEMPORARY MAINSTREAM NOVEL AWARD WINNER

Also, she's a member of Readers Rule -- these are authors (like Bob Meyer) who have earned the stamp of approval of readers by selling 100,000+ books. To put it in context, Laura Taylor has sold more than a million.

Why do I mention all this?

Because the great Laura Taylor is now endorsing my novel, Aces. Her blurb is below.

"ACES from author Ara Grigorian is a powerful, well-crafted, and compelling novel guaranteed to delight readers."

— Award-Winning Author and Editor Laura Taylor

I am eternally grateful for this. In a very crowded and tough marketplace, it's hard for a debut author to get noticed. This is officially my second endorsement--the first from bestselling author Michael Levin. I have update the "Aces" page on my site with both blurbs.

The more I expand my network of friends in the writing community, the clearer it becomes that there are a lot of gracious and giving people amongst us. I am honored to be a member of this tribe. With the help and guidance of people like Laura and Michael, I can't help but have an optimistic view of the future.

Whether 1 year, 5 years or 10 years from now, you can rest assured that I will continue to fight the good fight!

Art is Never Finished

"Art is never finished, only abandoned."

Leonardo da Vinci

During my senior year in undergraduate school, I enrolled in an Art History class. This was a fun class. Basic premise was that through art, we could learn about the history of the people, the region, the era.

The professor (I can't recall her name) told us that during the renaissance, the only reason the artist in question stopped the work of art (painting, sculpture, murals, whatever) was because the sponsor of the piece "wanted the damn thing already." They were tired of waiting.

The artists generally had a hard time parting with it, because in their view, the work was not ready.

For an unpublished author, this is an interesting dilemma. We want to be published, yet each time we look at our manuscript, we find maybe "one more thing" to touch up. Speaking for myself, each time I read my manuscript, I want to modify something--again.

If you're doing it right, you're always learning about the craft, you're always reading more novels, and you're always writing. These three things have one significant impact -- they make you a better writer.

So it's only natural that what you know today, makes you slightly better, than what you were say, a month ago.

This isn't a dilemma in and of it self. But it's a problem if you don't hit send. I spoke to a few agents recently and they said something that nearly dropped me on my arse (I was going to say ass, but the way the British say it so much more refined.)

They each said that more than half the people that are asked to send in pages, don't. Don't! In other words, the agent is showing interest. They ask you to send them the manuscript (partial or full) and yet, the writer in question never follows through.

There are a variety of reasons, I'm sure. One is probably fear. What if they hate it? What if they love it? And when you start asking these questions, it is a natural step to think, "It's not ready yet." I need one more review, one more beta reader, one more proof reader, one more scene, one more adverb. That last one was a joke... you never need more adverbs, he said, passionately.

The reality is that you have no deadline. When you have no "sponsor" (agent, editor, etc) the only gate is you and your own inner-voice that doubts you and reminds you that you're not good enough, smart enough, or just enough. Please do not misinterpret this. You should NEVER send out material that is not ready. You need to slave over every word, and clean it up with a toothbrush, and have trusted people read and critique it. You must do these things and these things will take time -- a lot of time.

If you are signed, you don't have a choice. You throw caution into the winds and you let fate take its course.

Here's my recommendation. Set a deadline. Create goals that will challenge you. Declare it to others in your writing world. Then be committed to that timeline. Have integrity in your own words. Amazing things happen when you put yourself out there.

Then test it. Test the quality of your work. Be ready to share it with some people that you trust. Get their feedback, and be brutally honest with yourself. Be ready to internalize and understand the criticisms you get. It's not personal, it's opinions that may make your manuscript better.

I have a small, but badass set of first readers who want to see me succeed. So they will not let me make a mistake. I also have a mentor who is a NYT bestselling author who will call me out on the deck. He doesn't let me get away with anything. I also turned my work in to agents and editors at a conference (20 page critiques) to get their feedback. Was I nervous? Yes. But not knowing was worse. And once I had all the arrows pointing north, that's when I knew I was ready for a final proof read. Once you're there, the only next step is to jump in with both feet.

If you don't, then you take the risk of falling into Leonardo da Vinci's astute observation. Your art will never be finished, and one day you may decide to abandon it.

How do you know if you're ready? What criteria do you use?

Fight the good fight.

I'm a Liar

Some months back I served on jury duty.

For those who may not know what that is--"it's your civic duty, son." At least that's what I've been told.

In a nutshell, it's where a large number of unhappy people come together in a poorly-lit hall, where unhappy county employees treat them poorly, and a judge hopes that the unhappy people are ready to participate in the legal process of determining ones innocence or guilt.

I was on the panel for a criminal case (gang related stuff... fun). Not a lot of pressure. Rival gangs, where the life of a 22-year-old sat on the balance. Like I said, no pressure.

The judge and attorneys started with some basic questions. What is your occupation, have you served on a jury before, etc?

When they got to me I said I had two jobs. By day, I set information technology strategy in the entertainment industry, but by night, I write novels.

(By the way, you better learn to say it with pride and power. Use your words to remind the universe that this writing thing is real. Your muse will hear it if you believe it)

The next step was where the attorneys asked different questions of the potential jurors, with hopes to select the best fit and to eliminate the worst.

The defense attorney, a scary looking guy, who could have been a gang member himself, suddenly turned to me.

"Juror number nine, have you lied before?"
"I lie all the time," I said.
He flinched. Literally took one step back. "I write novels," I continued. "It's my job."

Somehow I was selected for the case, and I must say it was exhilarating, depressing, scary at times, but in the end, I felt good about what we had done.

At the end of the case, we all had a chance to talk to the lawyers. The attorney in question approached me.

"That thing about being a liar... that was a first. I had to tell my wife about it," he said.

I know I was grinning.

The job of a fiction writer is to create a world where the reader finds herself living in that town, with those people, in that time period--but the place never existed. We create characters that you want to believe could be your best friend if you ever met them--but they were conceived in the author's mind. We create situations that make you feel like they could absolutely happen to you--but they never did. We can also take seemingly innocent questions like, "Where were you?" and turn them into a 90,000-word story.

We are liars. We don't make excuses, nor apologize for it. We lie because we can. We lie because our readers expect it from us. We lie, because the truth of our world is sometimes scarier than the worlds we create on the pages you read.

But when it comes to the stories we tell, we never hold back, we never take the easy path--there we always tell the truth. The people, the places and the situation are all fabrications. But the message and the sincerity by which we tell the story is true. We find the most painful or exhilarating emotions in our lives and transpose them to our characters. These fake people become the vessel to tell our truth. The only truth we know.

Those who know writers will sometimes wonder why we're a bit moody sometimes, or seem hurt or even sad. It's because, when we write, the worlds and the people we create are real. They carry our truth. We are vested in the story, in the characters and their outcome. These lies need to feel true to us, otherwise our readers will never believe us. And that would be a crime worthy of a judge and jury.

"Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want. Anything at all... so long as you tell the truth." 

-- Stephen King, On Writing

Fight the good fight.