In this newsletter: - Authorly Happenings
- Bookish Obsessions
- Conquering The Query Trenches
- #QPOCChat
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Authorly Happenings This past month has been a little rough as far as productivity goes. I know I'm not alone in that it can be difficult to get things done during a pandemic, but it is so important that we are kind to ourselves during this time. It is absolutely okay to not be productive 100% of the time. This past month, I gave myself a break, and had to forgive myself for taking the time I needed. If you're in the same boat as me, please be kind to yourself! That said, I did get one thing done that I'm very excited about! I started an authortube channel! I'll be posting videos every Wednesday, so if you want to check it out, go ahead and subscribe here!
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What I'm reading: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland I originally bought this book so that I could get it signed by Justina Ireland at the Tucson Festival of Books, which was unfortunately cancelled due to the virus. Even though I couldn't get it signed, I'm of course enjoying the read. This is another book I'm reading with my mom, who usually hates zombies, so props to her for letting me read this one to her! |
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My Current Obsession: We Unleash The Merciless Storm by Tehlor Kay Mejia I knew I was going to love this book ever since I finished reading the first one: We Set The Dark On Fire. I loved the second book even more than the first, which is amazing because I really loved the first one too. I just can't get enough of my favorite gay rebels Dani and Carmen. I would read a million more books about them if I could! This was such a refreshing quarantine read, it was so easy to forget everything going on in the real world from the very first page. Highly recommend! |
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Conquering The Query Trenches Query Critique The winner of the giveaway for this month's query letter critique is Jacob Rundle(@jrundy08 on Twitter)! I have the query letter below with my in-line comments in bold, and a more in-depth critique below that. As always, I focus my in-line notes on any questions I or the reader might have in order to best get the point across, and to keep the agent from getting confused. Any questions other than "what happens next?" should be avoided or answered in the query letter. Jacob's Query Letter: Dear Agent Name, Seventeen-year-old Anissa Brodeur never wanted to be her mother’s apprentice as an embroiderer. (Make sure you start with a catchy first sentence!) She’d much rather be adventuring around the world, but the Rebublique’s tyrannical ruler Roi Adama is clear: Defiance leads to death. Then her mother disappears. (Does this look like a kidnapping? A supernatural disappearance? A runaway? If it's unknown, maybe say 'mysteriously disappears' so we don't wonder needlessly.) Desperate, Anissa abandons her post and sets off to find her. (Connect the first paragraph to this one so the first doesn't feel out of place. Ex. "Anissa risks execution by abandoning her post" etc.) Just when she is about to give up, (She's already giving up? Since the previous sentence is Anissa starting the search, this feels like she's giving up really early.) a long-lost sorceress of Avalon seeks her out with news. Anissa is the reincarnated Keeper—a line of mystically connected women throughout history called upon to protect the world against malicious evil. Tasked with ending Adama’s reign, her desire for his destruction grows when he punishes Anissa for her rebellion (what rebellion? Is this about her abandoning her post to look for her mom?) by condemning her adopted sister Dominique as a heretic, and burning her at the stake. (a lot just happened in that last sentence, it is a bit much to digest. Maybe break this up, or minimize the amount of info given to what is necessary.) Grief-stricken and furious, Anissa, as Keeper of Avalon, pledges to take him and his whole corrupt government down one sword slash at a time. It’s easier said than done as she runs into resistance in the form of an evil soldier with information on her real identity(she has a fake identity?) who is also hell bent on killing her. (This sentence could be deleted. It feels like we're getting too much information to process in the span of a short query letter. Focus on the inciting incident and the stakes.) When she finally finds out where her mother is being kept, she has to make a choice—she could save her mother and fail in her mission to take down Adama or she could risk her own life and do it all, just like the powerful women who’ve held the title before her. (Does "do it all" imply that she saves her mother in both scenarios? If so, these two choices should be reframed so they feel more contradictory, otherwise the first option feels redundant, if she can save her mom either way.) THROUGH THE EYE OF A KEEPER is a Young Adult Fantasy complete at 88,000 words. It is a standalone with series potential and will appeal to readers of THE GUINEVERE DECEPTION and ONCE & FUTURE. I am the author of AUGUR OF SHADOWS, scheduled to be released by Three Furies Press in August 2020, a short story “Solomon’s Shadow,” released in August 2019, and the short story “Sierra and the Bow of Golden Rays,” scheduled to be released by Celticfrog Publishing in June 2020. Thank you very much for your time. Sincerely, Jacob Rundle Sounds like an awesome story! The first thing I noticed is it feels like a lot of information to digest. At first, the conflict seems to be the mom disappearing, then there's the reincarnated Keeper, then the sister burning, then the evil soldier. These details may very well all be connected, but they need to feel connected, and if they aren't connected, the query letter could be cut down quite a bit. Another thing I noticed is that the query letter is a little bit on the long side. In general, a query letter should fit within 250-300 words including personalization and author bio. Yours falls at 327 without personalization, so you'll really want to look at what can be cut and what is absolutely necessary to get the point across. I think if you focus on the inciting incident (mom disappearing) and the stakes (what happens if she doesn't fulfill her mission?) then you'll easily be able to cut down on that word count. Another note I have is that the first and second paragraphs feel disconnected. The first paragraph should make that first sentence of the second paragraph feel all the more intense. Since there's no context to Anissa's relationship with her mom other than that she doesn't want to follow in her footsteps, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about the disappearance. Revised version: Dear Agent Name, (Personlization--if I have one with the agent) Seventeen-year-old Anissa Brodeur loves her mother, but she would rather be an adventurer than her mother's apprentice embroiderer. Despite what she wants, the Rebublique’s tyrannical ruler Roi Adama is clear: Defiance leads to death, but more devastatingly, it would hurt her mother's feelings. When her mother mysteriously disappears, Anissa sets off to find her, risking execution upon her return for abandoning her societal role. Her journey is interrupted when a long-lost sorceress of Avalon seeks her out with news. Anissa is the reincarnated Keeper—a line of mystically connected women throughout history called upon to protect the world against malicious evil. Now Anissa has to make a choice: save her mother, or take down Adama and his entire corrupt government one sword slash at a time. THROUGH THE EYE OF A KEEPER is a Young Adult Fantasy complete at 88,000 words. It is a standalone with series potential and will appeal to readers of ASH PRINCESS and ONCE & FUTURE. I am the author of AUGUR OF SHADOWS, scheduled to be released by Three Furies Press in August 2020, a short story “Solomon’s Shadow,” released in August 2019, and the short story “Sierra and the Bow of Golden Rays,” scheduled to be released by Celticfrog Publishing in June 2020. Thank you very much for your time. Sincerely, Jacob Rundle |
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This month, I'm interviewing fantasy author J. Elle(@AuthorJ_Elle on Twitter). J. Elle is the author of the highly anticipated Young Adult fantasy novel Wings Of Ebony, which will be published by Simon And Schuster in 2021. Add it on goodreads! Read on to learn about J. Elle's query tips, and the query letter that got her her literary agent: Natalie Lakosil of Bradford Literary Agency. |
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What did your querying process look like? (ex. did you query widely/go in rounds/etc) In October of 2018, I queried my debut after participating in DVPit. My pitch received hundreds of likes and over 22 requests from editors, so I dove into querying shortly after. (See the PITCH.) I'd just finished writing the book. It took me about a month to draft the story and I revised as I wrote. So I'd only completed revisions on the book a couple of days before the pitch contest. But I threw caution to the wind and pitched. And although it worked out for me, I'd never recommend any writer do that. In hindsight, I can see that my manuscript would have benefited from some more distance and an additional revision. Patience would have only made it stronger. Any writers querying out there, my biggest advice for you is to not rush your story to query. Ensure you give yourself distance and revise with fresh eyes at least once. At least. Since my pitch received such wide interest, I created a list of my top 30 agent choices and queried them all at once. I had a second and third round planned, but I never got to it. While querying I received replies very quickly. Literally, within minutes of my email, agents responded, which was both exciting and terrifying. I was grateful to seem like a priority for them, but I was terrified that they wouldn't love it. My first rejection came 2 days into querying and it was long and detailed and it soured my entire weekend. I was working a wedding at the time and I remember trying to remind myself to smile at the bride and groom lol. More reactions came in the following week and eventually the doubt set in. Then, I got a reply from an agent who only had the first 10 pages. She sent me a very long email with pointed notes about what she thought worked in the opening pages and what didn't, with screenshots of excerpts from the manuscript. These were very craft-focused notes and obviously took up a lot of her time. I was super grateful. She said if I end up revising, she'd love to see it again. I immediately dove into digesting and applying her notes. Quickly, I could see how doing them was really transforming my grasp of the craft. I completed the revision on the opening 10 pages and sent it back to her within 2 weeks, apologizing for how quickly it was done. I just knew it was ten times better and the best work I could do at that time, so sitting on it while I had so many active queries out didn't seem prudent to me. In a non-time-pressured scenario, I'd strongly suggest spending at least a month on any sort of partial revision; even longer if needed. Focus on quality not the time it takes. My situation was a very a bit odd, so I sent it with a quick turn around. She replied very quickly, saying she loved the changes I made and wanted to give me more inline edit notes on the chapter if I was open to that. She wanted me to then take those inline edits and duplicate them throughout the entire manuscript. Once that was done, she wanted me to send her the full manuscript for consideration. (This is a very unusual process, but I really wanted to lift the veil to show you how really being patient with how soon you query is wise. I was very lucky in this situation. But, this is super rare.) Again, I jumped right into working on her inline comments and saw my pages really shape up even more. From that point on, I knew without a doubt, I wanted a highly editorial agent. As I continued to work her edits throughout, another couple weeks passed and I received an offer of rep. So, I nudged all the agents I'd queried, including the one who'd give me such thorough notes. I was transparent with her that I hadn't finished yet, but she still wanted to read and consider the full. With what felt like a gazillion fulls out and thanksgiving on the horizon, I requested 3 weeks to reply to my initial offer. It was a whirlwind of additional rejections, some nonresponders, and a few more offer calls and on Dec 5, I decided to sign with my amazing birthday twin, Natalie Lakosil at Bradford Literary Agency. How many books did you query before getting your agent? Wings of Ebony is the second book I wrote. Before that, I'd written a 4-POV adult fantasy which I shelved. (I'd queried it to a handful of people, but when I started writing Wings of Ebony I knew I wanted that to be my debut.) How long were you querying before you signed with your agent? I started querying around October 17 and signed with an agent on December 5. Do you have any advice for anyone new to the query trenches? For anyone new to the query trenches, first and foremost, understand that a rejection of your book isn't a rejection of you as a person. Agents have to both love the project enough to want to read it over and over and over again. But, they also have to have an idea of how it could be positioned in the market. Plenty of beautifully written books get passed over all the time. Publishing is a business with finite resources so they are choosey with where they put their resources. And while how they decide what to buy is an entirely different conversation that involves a bit of eye-rolling, the reality remains that what publishers are buying influences (at least in some small way) what agents are offering to represent. Sometimes you'll get a pass from an agent and it has nothing to do with your writing. It's just a bad fit for the market at that time. And yes, it's hard to tell which is the reason for the rejection. Agents are wildly busy people and responding specifically to each querier is just not realistic or sustainable or even a reasonable expectation. I've intered at PS Literary and ICM and let me tell you-- their inboxes and email traffic are mind-blowing.) The only sure way to learn and grow as a writer, both in craft and hitting the market at a good time, is to keep trying. A few other things to keep in mind that I cannot overstate: - Be sober-minded about your grasp of the craft, get feedback from writers who have a good grasp of the craft, enter contests and try to get as much feedback as you can. What's the trend in the feedback you're seeing? Pay extra attention to that.
- Spend time learning about the industry you want to be a part of. Look at Publisher's Weekly announcement to see what's selling.
- Reach out and ask for help. Tap into the writing community's wealth of free resources. Most of what I've learned about the industry, I learned on Twitter. Every critique partner or beta reader I've had, even my mentor, came from being engaged in the writing community online.
- Know what will work in your manuscript's favor and what challenges your manuscript will have against the market. But keep in mind, the market fluctuates too! What's "out of style" right now could cycle back in style in a number of years.
- Work on the next project. Sometimes you need to fall out of love with a story, set it on a shelf, and then come back to it to really see how to strengthen it. Allow yourself that distance to really produce your best work.
- Sit with feedback before reacting to it. Read feedback, step away for days, weeks if you need to, then read it again. Can you see where they are coming from?
- Don't be overly precious about your work, but don't allow your voice to get lost either.
- Understand that tenacity is your greatest weapon. Wield it.
J Elle's Query Letter: Dear [Fill in Name Here]: It’s 1938 in Berlin, Germany and 10-year-old Werner Rubenstein doesn’t understand why the Nazis hate him and his family just because they are Jewish, but two weeks before Kristallnacht, Werner meets Dahlia Avilés, the sassy, intelligent, and gorgeous daughter of an Ecuadorian diplomat. They quickly become close friends. As World War II advances, Dahlia and her parents need to return home and they offer Werner refuge in Ecuador. However, Werner must go alone. He doesn’t want to leave his family behind to the Nazis, especially his widowed father, Hans, but his family begs him to leave. In 1941, Werner flees to Ecuador under a false identity. Once in Ecuador, Werner enjoys living with the Avilés family, but his new life means major adjustments. He struggles to learn Spanish, attends a rigorous private school, tries to stay faithful to Judaism while in a dominantly Catholic country, and then he falls in love with Dahlia despite the rage of her religious father. As the years fly by, Werner constantly wonders about his family in Berlin. Are they in hiding? Did they escape to another country? Are they dead? What Werner doesn’t know is that his father is writing a detailed log of what’s happening to the family in Berlin and later, in the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz concentration camp. Told mostly from Werner’s and partially Hans’ perspectives from 1938 to 1945, The Center of the Earth is a young adult historical novel at approximately 75,000 words. It’s a little-known fact that Ecuador aided the emigration of between 3,000-4,000 Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. In the process of writing this novel, I interviewed seven of these refugees and their accounts shaped The Center of the Earth. Furthermore, I traveled to Washington D.C. to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s archives for additional resources. As an Ecuadorian-American, this piece of Ecuadorian and World War II history fascinates me. I am the author of Behind Mount Rushmore, Summer Camp is Cancelled, and Heaven Isn’t Me, young adult novels traditionally published by Vital Narrative Press. I have been featured in Book Riot, School Library Journal, and the radio show Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say. From late 2017 to mid-2018, I was a remote editorial mentee for Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic, and for Penguin Random House. Thank you for your consideration. I appreciate your time. Sincerely, Darlene P. Campos, MFA in Creative Writing |
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#QPOCChat For the uninitiated, #QPOCChat is a monthly chat I host on Twitter that started in August 2019. It's a space where queer writers of color can come together for an hour to talk about our projects, identities, writing processes, and more! The next chat will be held Thursday, April 9 at 8pm ET. Have a suggestion for a #QPOCChat question? Submit it here! |
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