Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Query Equals Pain

Truth and nothing but: writing a query letter and a synopsis is harder than writing the novel itself. At least it is for me.

I started about a month ago, writing a little bit here and there, trying to somehow describe a 100,000 word story in one paragraph (for the query) and in less than a page and a half (for the synopsis). Over the summer, and every single day forever and ever, I've been reading about queries. If you're in the same boat that I am, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite help articles:

-- Query Letters, an Agent's Perspective (Jessica from BookEnds)
-- Anatomy of a Good Query Letter (Nathan from Curtis Brown LTD)
-- Queries - An Inside Scoop (Jennifer O' Connell's Query) (Kristin from Pub Rants)
-- anything by Miss Snark (unfortunately, she no longer blogs, but her advice is razor-sharp, witty, and oh-so-helpful... like this one... ooo, and this one too!)

Anyway, yesterday, I sat down determined to focus on my query letter. It took me one hour (no exaggeration) to write two sentences. I have to say that thanks to kwatz, those two sentences are pretty strong (for a version 1 query letter). Thanks kwatz, for sitting there at 3AM (your time) to analyze single word choices with me. You're a pal!

Now... on to the next sentence!

(Being a writer is almost sadistic. In a good way, of course.)


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