Query Letter Blues

The dreaded Query Letter…

We’ve all been there— staring at the screen, reading then re-reading our attempts at the dreaded query letter. Every writer has to write them, and every writer seems to hate them. I myself loathed my recent foray into the seventh circle of query letter hell.

My journey started simple enough: a homework assignment from an RL writing group. My mission: to write a first draft query letter for critique. No problem right? Wrong. Many problems, and drafts later (I think I got up to version 9.2) the query letter had me beat (500) to my (0). I was lost.

Miss Conceptions

It’s not that a query letter is confusing. It’s not. No, really— it’s not. The problem with query letters is that they are subjective. There is no right, or wrong way to write a query letter. There are good query letters and bad query letters. Mine fell into the latter category for many reasons.

Thanks to Writer’s Digest resources which can be found HERE I had lots of advice on how to craft my query. But something was still missing. What I had was a lifeless letter that didn’t represent my voice, the tone of my novel, or even its characters. My problem was that my query letter lacked the punch my novel had, but why?

Realizations

In a query letter, you have one page to sell your writing, and your novel idea to an agent, or editor. The piece I decided to do my letter on wasn’t even a completed project! I realized that I had to boil my query letter, and my project down to the bones, then pick the bigger plot question, and that would become the basis for my query letter. Sounds easy right?

Then why did it take me four days to figure that out? Because I got so tied up in trying to find the right way to do it, that I forgot to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Query letters are a pain in the neck. There is no magical way around that, but knowing what I now know, I would strongly recommend authors write a query letter regardless of where they are with their particular work in progress. 

If you’re looking for a place to workshop your query letter, there are several online forums that were of great help to me. The first is WritingForums, I’ve been a member here for years, the people are polite and extremely helpful. Kevin Hearne also recommends AbsoluteWrite’s water cooler forum.

I hope this post helps fellow writers remember to take a step back (and a deep breath) before the query letter blues get to you!  

Stuff to look forward to...

Pens and Pages writer's group is in the middle of hosting Lauraine Snelling's "Writing Great Fiction" cd seminar at the Library. The group is currently on the fifth of seven discs but the group owns the set so if you missed a session, I'm sure you'll be able to catch up!

Our group is also hosting Dianne Sagan on April 16th, starting at 10:00 a.m. From 10:00 a.m. to noon, Ms. Sagan will present a workshop on Plotting and Character Arc, followed by a member-provided potluck from noon to 1:00 p.m. Ms. Sagan's husband will then present a workshop on Rewriting and Editing Your Manuscript from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Members are collecting gas money for the Sagan's. You can make your contribution to Diane or Brenda.

And from my perspective...
After a little bit of a rough start with Ms. Snelling's workshop (technical difficulties, etc) I can say that I'm actually taking a lot of useful stuff away from her presentation. I'm in the middle of reading a book by Larry Brooks (an affiliate of Writer's Digest) titled, Story Engineering. I have a great deal of difficulty grasping story structure - call it a mental block. (For me, Ms. Sagan's upcoming workshop couldn't come to soon.) Mr. Brooks' Story Engineering clearly and concisely outlines the architecture of a story and I think I'm gaining the insight I've desperately searched for lo these many years. I highly recommend it if you are looking for some advice on the more technical aspects of storytelling.

I haven't "written" anything lately... but I've been furiously jotting down little scraps of characterization, scene outlines, and possible plot points for my two flagging NaNo novels. I'm getting excited again - but I'm trying to temper my excitement with caution.

See, I tend to "binge" on "writing procrastination". I can come up with a million reasons why writing every day just isn't convenient, or not possible because I lack inspiration or a topic or any number of real and imagined road blocks. Just like a person who procrastinates in developing that healthy lifestyle through daily moderation, exercise and nutritious food choices, I put off developing the daily practice in writing that will make me a "healthy" writer. Then, I will get excited about something, and I'll go on a writing "diet" - much like the person trying to lose 10 pounds before some event - and I'll write like crazy... for a while. But eventually, I start cheating, and before I know it, I'm off my "diet" and haven't written anything for a week... and well, you know the end of that story. Once you've gone so long, you tell yourself you can't get back on that wagon again.

So, I'm trying to change that pattern, hence the caution, this time. I want to develop a writing habit... not a writing diet.

How about y'all? What's going on with you?