Queries are my kryptonite. Not only are they not good, but I suffer a complete psychological shut down when I even start to think about them. When I force myself to write one, I can't even remember what my story is about. I start babbling and think of alternative things I could have written that would be great in m query. It's bad.
Writing a synopsis is not as bad, but it's not fun either. I took a great class this past summer at RWA13 in Georgia which really broke it down. In fact, when I had to write a synopsis for Golden Heart, it flowed from my finger tips. Of course, some really horrible grammar mistakes also flowed (and remained unnoticed by both myself and my husband). Still, it's the best synopsis I've written (now that, too late, I've fixed it).
I see these online classes about how to write a query. I read Query Shark and nod in agreement at the sage comments therein... but when I try to apply it, I freeze.
Do you have any tricks to writing a query?
4 comments:
I've taken query classes and blurb classes and they definitely help. They show you how to break your story down in 25 words! Never thought it was possible.
Check out Laurie Campbell (Q us for Query, A is for Aack). She's really a great teacher!
I tried writing one a decade ago. I was traumatized.
I just wrote my first one on the 29th of the January, and the publisher needs five months to reply, so I have no clue whether I butchered it or not. Merely writing it (or, I should say, researching how to write one) was traumatic enough. I suspect an inventor feels much the same way when his investors take his products for a test drive. I did manage to keep the word count of the letter below 300 (as per regulations) and, I think, aptly sum up the heart and soul and muscle of my work. Now let's see if Penguin Books takes the bait. What sucked is that they only wanted the first ten pages of the novel pasted into the text of the e-mail, and there's NO FRICKIN' WAY the first ten pages of this 112,000-word beast are going to give an editor a good idea of the timbre of this manuscript.
Argh. Good luck, friend.
29th of JANUARY. No "the." Jeez, what happened to my proofreading skills??
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