Query

I have a lot of writing friends deep in the midst of query hell.  A few have asked for advice on how to write a successful query, questioning format, hook, and appropriate length.  I am no expert; my query letter went through nearly seven revision before I found one I liked.  To be honest, most of the credit goes to one of my trusted beta readers, Julie Duck. Where I was personally vested in the story and unable to see what was important information and what was fluff, she was dead on.  Took my bare bones and added a little curve and edge.

So rather then blog about what I think is important, I thought I would just share mine with you.  Enjoy, and hopefully you will soon be reading these exact same words on the back of a jacket cover.

 

Seventeen-year-old Cedar McIntyre is hiding in the mountains from Tommy Hartwell . . . and her life.  She survives in a world many refuse to believe even exists.  Poorer than the projects and as destitute as a third-world country, this tiny Appalachian Mountain town is about to change, and so is Cedar when Noah Stockton arrives.

 

Resilient, proud, and averse to anything charity-tinged, Cedar’s not sure what to make of Noah’s generosity.  He’d gladly give his life to see the girl he loves safe and free of a man who has already left Cedar broken and scarred.  But Tommy staked his claim on Cedar years ago, secured her father’s blessing for the marriage and intends to make good on his promise . . . by force if necessary. 

 

But Cedar’s not about to succumb to the life this mountain’s carved out for her.  Having already survived her belt-wielding father, endured days without food, and thwarted Tommy’s relentless advances, Cedar’s determined to forge her own fate – finish high school, go to college, and be something more than a perennially pregnant wife living in constant fear of abuse.

It’s Noah’s protective kindness that brings Cedar’s world to a shattering halt when Tommy goes after what he feels is rightfully his . . . Cedar.  When Noah offers her safety and a piece of the life she’s dreamed of, Cedar can’t refuse, leaving behind the only life she‘s ever known and the only boy she ever dared to love. 

Cedar is a YA novel complete at 74,000 words.

I am a freelance editor and a proud member of the SCBWI.   I graduated from the University of Vermont with a degree in Social Work and attended Suffolk University School of Law.  Having dedicated time in the social service field as child advocate, I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity of seeing some of the blacker shades of life and the honor of witnessing some of the most amazing stories of recovery and triumph.  I draw on these experiences to weave stories that show the depth and courage of the human spirit in today’s youth.

Crossing Me or Mine

My writer friends and I joke a lot about a beta-read rejection form.  In truth, I have more of a beta-reader indemnity clause.  It reads something like this.  "Be forewarned, grammar is not my forte.  I will correct any glaring errors I see, but will undoubtedly miss more than I catch.”  To be honest, Im actually quite adept at grammar; I just hate to read for it.  See, I’m the daughter of a copy-editor who took great pleasure in schooling her children on their grammar mistakes.  Mom would hand me back an essay (or my WIP as the case is today) with little asterisks in the margin with a note telling me to go find the error in the sentence.

Plus I’m from Boston, and we are all “whicked smhart” up here!”

Yesterday I had the privilege of reading a third round of edits for a talented, amazingly-creative writer friend of mine.  The edited copy had already been marked up by another critique partner.  That particular critique partner, after a few choice phrases like “this project needs a lot of work,” and “you are going about this all wrong,” and “trust me, I am a bit of an expert at this,” went to town on my friend – specifically her use of passive voice.  

I held my tongue for the last two critiques, but yesterday I let her other critique partner have it.  If she wants to condemn my friend's book for grammar errors, then she should at least take the time to get it right!  I included charts, graphs, and even solicited the advice of my copy-editor mother to make my case.  It was a little over the top, even by my snarky standards, but I was pissed – that whole cross me or mine protective instinct kicking in.

A noun of direct address does need a comma.  A hyphen is used to connect two words that form a single-thought adjective.  And grAy is the traditional spelling of the color in America.   I could stomach all that; but, when the faux Grammar-Goddess instructed my writer friend to bring her passive-voice sentences into active voice, I lost it.  I totally agree that active voice is a more effective choice for our writing.  Problem is, last time I checked, phrases like I heard, I sang, or I thought aren’t written in passive voice.  They’re active-voice, past-tense!  HUGE DIFFERENCE!!!

So thank you for listening to my rant.  I don’t do it often, and I promise not to do it again for at least a couple of weeks.  I will leave with one of my charts – one created by me and approved my copy-editor Mom!

                          

                  Active Voice     Passive Voice                                    

Present       I sang               It is being sung (by someone)

Past            I sing               It was sung (by someone)                                                      

Future        I will sing            It will be swung (by someone)                                                                       

The Impossible Task of Silencing my Inner Editor

 

Is it possible to silence your inner editor?  As a write, edit, and revise one chapter before you start another type of author, I never saw the value in doing that.  It means that my first draft is near-final quality when I type “The End.”   It also makes the task of beta reading much easier on my critique partners.

 

Enter NaNoWrite 2010 and my entire writing style is called into question—and for good reason!  I crank out my required 1666 words per day, give myself a pat on the back, and log my progress.  Then I go back and edit, takes out entire strings of dialogue, and move scenes around.  The end result is usually a few hundred words less than what I logged in.  Now I am charged with making that word count up the following day.  

           

My local group of NaNoers keep telling me to STOP EDITING!  A friend of mine suggested I have run two versions of the same ms – "one for NaNo and one for me to screw around with.”  That seems like a lot of cutting and pasting to me.  LOL!

           

As of last night I am fully caught up and have a little over 19,000 of polished, near final-draft quality words. Unless you guys have any sage advise on how to silence my inner editor, I figure I just need to up my world count to 2500 a day to accommodate my compulsion.

Back-story is not a Curse Word!

 

Although treated like a curse-word, back-story is a necessary part of any good manuscript.  It lays the ground work for strong characters while enabling the reader to connect with their plight. Strong characters are layered -- their reactions  an accumulation of a lifetime of defining events, emotions, and their surroundings.   These factors need to come out, and the easiest way to do that is through back-story.  But, be careful.  Back-story does not equate to info-dump.   

So the question is how do you get that necessary information across to the reader without pouring out paragraphs of dry information?

           

Dialogue- My least favorite way of expressing back-story.  This is your typical conversation between your MC and another character where they play the game of twenty questions.  It is effective, but often predictable and one-dimensional.

Info-dump – Detested by me and often met with a thick read line in those manuscripts I critique.  I usually find this in the first three chapters of a manuscript where the author expounds for paragraph upon paragraph on “character-building” material.

Memories - Getting better.  This is a more active way of relaying important information.  Add some dialogue to the memory and a little bit of a tension and you’re almost there.  

Setting and Description – Now we are on to something. This is an amazing, and often under-utilized, tool to explain why your characters act the way they do.  I often find that  setting is something authors only tackle in the first few chapters.  If you carry the theme throughout . . .  if you let the setting influence your MC’s decisions at every turn, then you have provided the necessary back-story to justify your character’s choices without dumping info.  Use you setting to amplify and contradict your MC’s choices and be specific. Let the setting unfold throughout the book and make it an integral part of your story.

There are dozen’s of other ways to get your information across, but regardless of your preferred method, come at it with a light touch.  Sprinkle the information throughout the manuscript, and utilize your scenes as a way to feed your readers little pieces of information.  Don’t assume that just because your story is contemporary, you don’t have to build a world.  Regardless of whether your story is set in a post-apocalyptic arena or contemporary Boston,  every character’s reactions revolve around a past, a present, and a future.

My Nasty Little Writing Habit

So I have this nasty little writing habit that often keeps me up at night, trying to piece scenes together.  I am not a plotter; I’m a panster through and through.  However, I tend to wake up in the morning, an idea or dream about a character fresh on my mind, and I write it down.  Sometimes these little blurbs end up being pages long and don’t occur for many unwritten chapters ahead.  I’m then stuck trying to weave them into my story when the time comes.

Does anybody else write this way, or do you adhere to the strict, linear chapter by chapter form of writing?

Nanowrimo Is Working Against Me!

I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year thinking it would be a good distraction from the submission and editing process.  I had my idea semi-plotted out, a new laptop loaded up with Scrivner, and a month’s supply of chocolate-covered coffee beans.  Now, I’m not so sure it’s the best format for me to write.

There is a group of Cape Cod NaNo Writers who meet on Monday and Wednesday evenings at the local coffee house.  They are an amazingly inspiring bunch of women who are fun to laugh and write with.  What I am not so sure about is what they fondly refer to as “Word Wars.”  You get thirty minutes to simply write as much and whatever you want, and then they total it up and log the words. Apparently they have a little word contest going with the Western part of the state.

I can easily hack out 1600 words in a ½ hour.  Problem is they are crap.  None of it is salvageable; I would have to edit, revise, and even delete entire passages to make any of it work.  The other issue is that I am a constant editor/reviser.  Being a panster and not a plotter, I frequently have to go back multiple chapters to make a “new idea” flow.

So here’s my dilemma.  I love being in the company of other writers, and I love the atmosphere.  (Nothing like rich coffee and over-priced pastry to get my creative juices flowing) And there is nothing like being able to sigh, look up, and say “I need another word for poor, but it has to reflect sad and hopelessness as well” and having four people shout out destitute.  Do you think it would be completely rude of me to partake in their write-in, but not partake in their word wars???