Oh, I know this looks like I am about to give you some tutorial… but nope.
I’m asking you, dear reader… how?
Here I sit starting at a query, and I know the story is a good one. I know it has a good hook, a great conflict, and frakkin awesome characters. So how do I summarize it and get an agent to read it?
A month or so ago Nathan Bransford did an agent for a day experiment on his blog.
Basically, there were 50 queries, and your task was to go through and decide which ones were actually published books. I got about three into the list and realized something. Queries are kind of boring, and they shouldn’t be!
Now, I’m frustrated because I don’t want to bore with my query. How can I hook them reader?
How can I get the voice of my smackin story into these two teeny tiny paragraphs?
How do you do it? I am dying to know!
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3 Comments so far
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I try to write my query in a similar tone to the manuscript. Also, I make it sound totally scandalous in the description of the manuscript, including ending. DON”T BE CUTESY AND LEAVE IT OUT!
Anywho, if you really need good advice check out the library. It will usually have a Writer’s Market Book and it has pointers what not to put in the query and what to put in it. Really, it is all common sense, a formula: hook, manuscript summary, about you (credentials and why you should be writing it), word count, genre, target audience, and state of completion.
MAKE IT TERRIBLY CLEAR!
Oh, and always thank the editor for his or her time.
Thanks for reading.
Keep positive!
Ceylan
[Reply]
By Ceylan on 05.07.09 4:40 pm | Permalink
Voice in query is essentially–but SO SO SO hard to do.
I try to do it in my opening and closing line. I add a twist to the hook, and something in the final line of the summary.
[Reply]
By beth on 05.07.09 6:17 pm | Permalink
I am soooo struggling with this.
[Reply]
By Joyce on 05.07.09 11:10 pm | Permalink
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