Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture. (Lydia M. Child)
As anyone who has queried knows, sending out queries is akin to ripping a knife through your vein. You bleed. You hurt. You wonder if you have the strength to keep going.
You start with great optimism, and end up with anything but hope.
At least until your next book is finished, and the process starts again.
The next time you get feedback from your critique partner or beta reader, even if it’s just an email or DM on Twitter telling you how much they love your book so far, save those comments. Copy them onto a Word document and post them by your computer. And when you’re ready to query, read those comments. They’ll remind you during those darkest days that there are people who loved your book even if it wasn’t quite right for the agents you queried.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. (Sir Winston Churchill)
Do you refer back to your betas’ and CPs’ positive comments when you’re querying? Do you let rejections get your down or do you find a positive to them?
When you ask most querying writers what scares them most, they’ll probably tell you rejections. Not so for me. My biggest fear is signing with the wrong agent. Now, I’m not talking about the agent who doesn’t sell your manuscript. In today’s competitive market, having an agent doesn’t guarantee anything. But a bad agent can be the ultimate doom to the book you’ve so worked hard on. Recently, one of my friends ended her relationship with her agent due to lack of communication. In her gut, she knew this person wasn’t right for her. Turns out, her gut knew what it was talking about. Last week the agent quit agenting, and her clients found out about it through Facebook. Classy. What most people don’t know is that I recently got The Call. Now, before you skip to the end and congratulate me, please bear with me for a moment. I spoke with the agent, and while I was flattered by her interest in my novel, I knew she wasn’t the right one for me. She was moving away from repping fiction, and was focusing on non-fiction (which she has an awesome sales record for). Because of that, she only wanted to rep Still. It was a hard decision, because of factors I’m not going to mention, but my gut told me I was doing the right thing. Plus, I want to deal with some issues that other agents had talked about. While I know it’s a subjective industry, I wasn’t ready for Still to be out there yet. And I need to deal with those issues before signing with an agent (or querying again). So how can you avoid signing with the wrong agent?
Google the agent’s name and find out as much as you can about them. Yep, that’s right: Stalk them. This is your career we’re talking about.
Look up their name in P&E (Preditors & Editors) to see if they have a bad rating.
Check out writer forums such as Absolute Write, Querytracker, Verlakay’s blue boards (for kidlitwriters), and see what other writers (and sometimes clients) have to say about the agent.
If you get The Call, ask to talk to the agent’s clients. Though that might not always help. My friend did that and look what happened.
Know what you want in an agent. Maybe you’re fine if he only wants to rep the one book. Or maybe, like me, you know you want an agent for your career (but this doesn’t mean you can’t change agents at some point).
Have questions ready for when you get The Call. Check out this list from Literary Rambles.
Ask if you can have a list of the editors the agent is submitting to. The manuscript from one of the ex-agent’s clients was out on submission. Now the writer has no idea who the agent submitted to, which is going to be a problem if she wants to query other agents. No agent wants to rep a book that’s already been shopped around.
If you want to see the rejections, let the agent know that before you agree to representation. Some agents don’t like to do that, and you’re left in the dark as to what’s going on with your submission. I’ve heard this complaint a number of times. Of course, if you don’t want to see the rejections, then you don’t have to worry about this.
Listen to your gut.
Remember, just because the agent has a pulse, this doesn’t mean you have to accept the offer. Do what’s right for you. Your book and career will thank you for it. Does anyone else have suggestions on to how to avoid signing with the wrong agent? (Update: It turns out my friend’s ex-agent never submitted manuscripts from a number of her clients. This is why seeing the rejections and submission list is so important. If someone hadn’t phoned the president of the agency, the client never would have known. She would have written the book off. Now she has the option to query it again.)
Two weeks ago, I started querying my YA contemporary novel, Still. Things started off well. Within two days, I landed a partial request (I already had a full out).
Naturally, I did this:
But I'd also submitted my query to Agent Mailbox on a website for YA writers.
If your query and first 250 words are accepted, it goes to a panel of ten agents. It’s faster than going the regular channels, plus you get feedback from the site administer and her assistant. The assistant had already given me her feedback so I confidently fired off the query that landed me the request.
But the site administer felt the query could be improved. I worked on it, and took it to my local RWA meeting (Romance Writers of America) for query night. And boy did I get some bad advice, as well as a few good suggestions. After that, one of my friends had a go at it. As did someone else. Before I knew it, I'd completely lost confidence in my query because it never seemed to be right. And it didn’t help that during this, it had lost my main character’s voice. The thing that’s vital in your query.
I was ready to give up. I had become paralyzed by fear. Fear that agents would find something wrong with it. Fear that I would send it out, only for someone to come up with a better version which might garner me a request instead of a rejection.
A few days later, after reposting the shiny new query on Agent Mailbox, the site administer critted it but there was one major problem based on my hook (which was pretty much the same hook as before):
Most seventeen-year-olds struggle to keep secrets, but if Calleigh screws up, her best friend is dead.
According to the individual, the death of the best friend wasn’t a big enough stake. It should be a family member. Huh? I was positive this line indicated the type of person Calleigh is and the strength of the friendship. Alejandra’s like a sister to Calleigh.
Several hours after this, I landed a request from my old query. I send out the new one, and landed another request.
Apparently, four agents didn’t share the individual’s opinion. Why? Because they didn’t read it using adult logic (like the critter did). They used teen logic. Plus, what's important to a teen, might not be as important to an adult. If the book was about a forty year old, then the potential death of the wife and kids would be a better choice.
Well, let’s just say I'm now cured of Querying Paralysis (I just have to drag myself from my new WIP to send out more queries).
Has anyone else had to deal with Querying Paralysis, and what did you do to overcome it (or maybe you haven’t)?
As you may remember, a few weeks ago I won a blog contest. My prize was a ten page crit and a five minute phone conversation with Joanna Volpe (agent). This is NOT a transcription of the phone call. I scribbled some notes and as soon as I hung up, I was typing the answers like crazy.
1. What are your biggest pet peeves when reading the first chapter? (Note: Joanna doesn’t request sample pages with the query. Her manuscript requests are based on query alone.)
• When the writer starts at the wrong point in the story. Maybe she should have started on page three or on chapter two.
• When the story starts with forced back story. In other words, the back story doesn’t have to be there for the reader to get what’s going on. It can be delayed until later, if it’s needed at all.
• When a character has powers and the beginning opens with her using the powers just show she has them. It comes off sounding forced, and that’s a big turn off.
2. If you have key background information but don’t want to reveal for awhile to create suspense, how can you do this without driving your readers crazy?
(I’m going to use an example here without naming the book. I was stunned when Joanna knew which book I was talking about. Turns out she had been involved with the project when she was an editorial assistant.)
Example: In the YA book, the main character has witnessed her best friend being raped. She’s the last person to see the friend alive. The main character was drunk at the time and doesn’t report what happens. Her friend goes missing. Near the end of the book, her body is found. However, even though the mc knows about the rape from before page one, the reader doesn’t find out the truth until the climax. (If you want to know which book I’m talking about, send me an email. It’s a great book.)
Joanna’s answer: You have to determine what the main focus of the story is. In this case, it was the main character coming to age, not the rape and disappearance of her best friend. The latter part was the inciting incident, but the story was really about how the main character grew as she dealt with her guilt. Pacing, storytelling, and tension also play a role.
3. What should a writer do if they query an agent and land a request, but before they receive the request, they win a critique from a different agent for a portion of their manuscript? The feedback resulted in substantial changes. Should they mention this to the requesting agent?
If the agent is responding to a query alone, the answer is just send the requested material. But if the writer sent sample pages with the query, she should mention to the requesting agent that the writer won a critique in a contest, which resulted in rewrites to the sample pages.
4. When someone participates in a conference pitch session, how long should the pitch be?
It depends on the length of the session. Basically, the pitch should be half the length of the session. If it’s ten minutes, then your pitch should be five minutes long. It gives time for the agent to ask questions, but it’s also long enough so the agent isn’t still left wondering what your book is about. And it should definitely be longer than a one liner.
Can the writer reader her pitch? Yes. Agents don’t expect you to memorize them. [Remember, you’re selling your book, not auditioning to play a role in a movie.]
5. What do you wish writers would ask you during THE CALL?
She didn’t have any specific questions, though she likes it when potential clients ask how she works so they know if they’ll mesh together as a team. If she’s calling the writer, it means she’s passionate about the book and really wants to represent it. She’s trying to sell herself to the writer.
6. Do you have advice for writers who want to write in different genres, for example MG and YA, or different subgenres within YA (paranormal, contemporary, and thrillers)?
Write what you want to write. It really depends on the writer, and it’s something that the individual and her agent would discuss. It certainly isn’t a problem. Published authors are doing it all the time. For example, Suzanne Collins had a successful middle grade series before The Hunger Games trilogy was published. Joanna pointed out that maybe because Suzanne had the successful series first, the violence in The Hunger Games wasn’t as much of a problem as it might have been if she had been a new author.
She also said that if you write a middle grade fantasy series, writing a YA one makes sense. Your readers will eventually outgrow the middle grade series and will move onto your YA one. Bonus for you.
I hope you found the answers helpful. If you’re interested in querying Joanna (and I highly recommend it. She’s super sweet), check out these sites for more info about her. And make sure you’re querying what she’s looking for.
Mother. Write. Repeat
Literary Rambles
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I’m not a big fan of blogfests. But Steena Holmes is having one you don’t want to miss out on. Why? Because there’s an ultra cool prize for the best logline.
That’s right. Steena is hosting a logline blogfests/contest on Monday (which means there’s no photography post next week) to help us prepare for the MSFV December auction.
I recently entered my query for Lost in a Heartbeat (YA thriller or romantic suspense—still trying to figure which one it is) in the Adventures of Children’s Publishing query contest. Our queries (which could be only 175 words max) would be assigned a mentor, and we would crit five other entries. We would then have a chance to fix them up for the final round—the judging.
During WriteOnCon, I received some great feedback on my query. I entered this contest to see if there were some things that needed further tweaking. Okay, the prize was pretty cool, too.
To my surprise, it was attacked. Some critters told me that my main character’s behavior wasn’t logical, and that I wasn’t setting a good example for other teenage girls in who are in a similar situation.
Three problems with their comments:
1. Not every survivor of rape reports it. Not every teen age girl who is raped tells her parents and/or the police.
2. If I did what the critters wanted me to do, then there would be no story, no consequence. And there’re definitely consequences. I just can’t tell what they are in the query because it’s a query not a one page synopsis.
3. These critters were using ADULT logic not TEEN logic.
During WriteOnCon, nineteen-year-old author, Kody Keplinger (her book THE DUFF was released yesterday—I can’t wait to read it!!!), talked about writing authentic teen novels. Check out the link for the full article, but here’s the main point:
What
Would
Teens
Do?
Scary question for some, I know. But that’s what you have to ask yourself when writing YA fiction. You have to think like a teenager when you write.
Not like a parent – even if you are one.
Not like a teacher – even if you are one.
Not like a big sister or brother or aunt or uncle worrying about the lessons you are teaching today’s youth and what not.
No, you have to think like a teenager. Plain and simple.
According to Inside The Teenage Brain by Sheryl Feinstein (I’ll be discussing this book in a future post), teenagers and adults rely on different parts of the brain. "Teen brains are ruled by emotion and adult brains by logic".
So for you YA writers out there, my question to you is (and you don’t have to answer here): are your teenage characters using adult logic or teen logic?
And my question to everyone, what are your query woes? Do you have any?
(note: since my query is now 217 words--thanks to all the suggested changes--I am no longer eligible for the contest. But that's okay. Hopefully I now have a kick-ass query. *grins*)
