How Not to Write a Query Letter

Hello, everyone! Here: a brief and goofy post for your Monday that will make you feel like an extremely talented query writer, no matter who you are or where you are in the process.

Brief back story: I went on RottenTomatoes -- a frequent lurking location of mine -- to check out what's new in new releases. I ended up discovering the most hilarious example of complete vagueness that I've seen in a long time. In fact, I realized that from said example, we can glean a rudimentary set of basics for the beginning query-writer.

Lo! From the description of Safe Haven, the obligatory annual Nicholas Sparks film adaptation:

"An affirming and suspenseful story about a young woman's struggle to love again, Safe Haven is based on the novel from Nicholas Sparks, the best-selling author behind the hit films The Notebook and Dear John. When a mysterious young woman arrives in a small North Carolina town, her reluctance to join the tight knit community raises questions about her past. Slowly, she begins putting down roots, and gains the courage to start a relationship with Alex, a widowed store owner with two young children. But dark secrets intrude on her new life with such terror that she is forced to rediscover the meaning of sacrifice and rely on the power of love in this deeply moving romantic thriller."

For the greater good, let's take a closer look. This could be useful in that it gives clear examples of practically every mistake one could make in a query letter! Yay!
 
An affirming and suspenseful story (Show, don't tell -- these sorts of descriptions tell us little to nothing, and certainly don't have lasting impact.) about a young woman's struggle to love again, Safe Haven is based on the novel from Nicholas Sparks, the best-selling author behind the hit films The Notebook and Dear John. (Not an excellent idea to use a film that was almost universally reviled as part of a platform, methinks. Similarly, if you've unsuccessfully self-published, or have some sort of sordid publishing past, probably not the best plan to include a mention of it in your pitch.)

When a mysterious (Again, show, don't tell. This is actually a case of showing and telling, because her mysteriousness is implied by her unwillingness to mingle with the community. Thus, the telling is redundant and can be cut.) young woman (Name your protagonist.) arrives in a small North Carolina town, her reluctance to join the tight knit (tight-knit. Grammar counts. When you have limited words, even incorrect hyphenation glares.) community raises questions about her past.

Slowly, she begins putting down roots, (Here I'm left wondering where the "questions about her past" went. Abrupt changes in subject without resolution to the first subject are incredibly jarring; everything in a query should be clearly connected.) and gains the courage to start a relationship with Alex, a widowed store owner with two young children. Okay, so we have somehow ended up with a decent setup. Now it's time to introduce the conflict, the antagonist, the danger -- a concrete problem that puts the unnamed young woman's budding relationship at stake. This should be followed with the protagonist's goal, to show what action she can take to fix the problem. Instead, this happens:

But dark secrets oh boy, here we go intrude on her new life with such terror the secrets ... are terrified? that she is forced to rediscover the meaning of sacrifice the longer I look at this phrase the less sense it seems to make and rely on the power of love I love this particular cliche because it always makes that one Celine Dion song play in my mind in this deeply moving romantic thriller. WHAT EVEN IS THIS SENTENCE.

...right. Go ahead and reread that a few times -- every writer can use a nice ego stroke every once in a while.

What I've personally gathered from this is that even the most incompetent of query-writers could be an A-plus blurb writer for Hollywood. Woohoo! [adds this surreptitiously to list of potential careers]

Happy Monday!
Riley

Review of A.G. Howard's SPLINTERED

Disclaimer: This review is biased. I know and love the author. But it's not much of a disclaimer, because I'd be writing this review even if I didn't know her.

(Review double-posted on Goodreads.)

Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.


Words like "lush," "vivid," and "rich" get tossed around a whole hell of a lot when it comes to books. Usually, I agree to disagree with those claims. Usually, I find those sorts of adjectives are used as an easy way to talk up a book, because being able to 'watch' a scene play out in your head is something most books should accomplish, let's be real.

But SPLINTERED? Truly, honestly, THIS book is lush. And vivid. And so richly written you'd be well-off to bring along, like, a tart drink to accompany it. If you loved sinking into the prose of Laini Taylor's fantastic DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE, you'll be right at home here. There is so much imagination, so much spectacle, so much intricate detail lovingly spilled into these pages that I'm surprised they don't burst, heh.

You know how when you take a bite of a particularly sweet dessert, your mouth wells up, and you get embarrassingly excited to inhale the rest? That is the effect of the writing in this book. Within a couple pages, it's like, BAM. Good luck extracting yourself.

To be quite frank, I'm not a huge Alice junkie and I don't particularly enjoy reading most romances. The fact that I unabashedly loved Splintered, picky asshole that I sometimes am about books (and love triangles especially), is such a testament to Anita Howard's writing. I devoured it in two and a half hours. And I can't wait to read it again.

In other news: The characters are round and relatable, the setting is wild and crazy and off-the-chain awesome, and (very important to me as a feminist) the male leads are the diametric opposite of the squickiness I've come to dread in YA recently. Both men respect Alyssa as a human being, not as a sex object or some delicate flower.

Ooh, and a personal weakness of mine - there's so much here that's delicately and delightfully macabre. FUN.

Don't miss SPLINTERED. If you have expectations, get ready for them to be blown away.

It was shipped out to bookstores on the 1st, so it'll be hitting shelves near you any day now! Get pumped! What an excellent New Year's gift to readers everywhere. =]

All the best,
Riley

Bloghoppin' Back Into Existence

I've been thinking lately that I want to get this blog back on its feet. And what better way to ease back into regular blogging than with a bloghop? This li'l ol' meme (which is on Week 23 of its existence) is called The Next Big Thing, and I was invited to participate by the lovely Sakura Eries!

So, with that said, here are my answers regarding my current WIP:

1- What is the working title of your book?
IN SIN

2- Where did the idea come from for the book?
High school in general, to be honest. Everyone is so secretly messed up, I felt like I owed it to high schoolers who are suffering through being messed up to write it.

3- What genre does your book fall under?
YA Contemporary

4- Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Ah, that's tough. I don't think any movie actors look quite ordinary enough for these characters, though Amanda Seyfried might come pretty close for one character, Sophia.

5- What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Seven high schoolers, each an embodiment of one of the deadly sins, find themselves drawn together in the wake of one of their suicide attempts.


6- Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I would love to get it agented! But we shall see, as ever.

7- How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Not yet applicable. Hopefully I'll be done quite soon, though.


8- What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Hm. Probably Will Grayson, Will Grayson. Nothing else really comes to mind ...

9- Who or What inspired you to write this book?
High school. High schoolers in general. And wonderful teenagers I've met on the internet whose lives are far more difficult than they deserve.

10- What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Oh golly. It has funny bits? It's written partially in verse? It undertakes the wildly ambitious task of juggling seven distinct first-person perspectives? I don't know - I don't have anything flashy like my usual sci-fi concepts. It's an just an honest, bittersweet story of broken people trying to fix themselves.

Aaand that's all she wrote. Unfortunately, I do not have anyone confirmed to pass this tag along to! So if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged.

Thanks for the invite, Sakura!

All the best,
Riley

Why I Love Adverbs

Hey guys! Remember that time I blogged regularly?

...yeah, me neither. *sigh* I suppose I should grovel and whatnot. So, uh, consider yourselves plied with virtual sweets, hugs, and various other saccharine sentimental items. Like kittens.

yep i hope all is forgiven

All right! Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about adverbs. To be specific, let's talk about why adverbs are a fantastic tool, especially in comedic writing.

Good God, that cat is distracting. I hope you guys have scrolled down by now.

...er, sorry. Onward.

Let's go to the first thing we know about adverbs: By and large, they get a lot of abuse. Some people detest them unequivocally and on principle. Others hate them because they can bog down prose, and tend to sneak in uninvited. Still others hate them because uh, this one dude told me I shouldn't use adverbs, so yeah.

Adverbs should be used with care: Much like your average firearm, they should (but do not) require a few safety courses before everyday application. They're also like a strong spice: startlingly unpleasant if used in excess. Heavy-handed metaphors aside, the question remains - why are adverbs hated?

Because they have a natural proclivity to create redundancy, that's why. I mean for God's sake, they're a part of speech used to describe parts of speech that are describing other parts of speech. That's about as close to a ready-made disaster as you can get without involving BP. (Too soon? Ah well.) So, how to combat the fierce suckitude that is the very nature of the adverb?

Use it unexpectedly, that's how. Which blends with the core ideal of comedy: Do something unexpected.

I was watching Magic Mike the other day (I shouldn't feel the need to justify this activity, but I do. Go figure), and everyone in the theater laughed when Mike nearly hit his head on, like, a metal pole or something. And it occurred to me that comedy is outrageously simple at heart. All the director needed to do was almost whack a character's head on something for people to laugh. No connection to anything. No relevance to plot or theme. Just an instant framed in a particularly goofy way. And similarly, the adverb can pop in and out for no reason whatsoever and give the reader a fun little surprise.

Why yes. Yes, I am comparing a part of speech to physical violence. Good Lord, it's been a while since I blogged.

Anyway. Example time. During Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, he uses an adverb that's so delightfully out of place, I have to share. Here it is:

"I have a particularly bad feeling about all this," said Fat Charlie, helpfully.

Perhaps it's because I'm prone to laughing at everything that's even marginally sarcastic, but holy crap I lost it when I read that line. (So much so that I still remember this sentence several years after first reading it ... and yet, if you asked me anything about last year's physics class ... oh, my brain's priorities.) Point is, the narrator's voice there is pitch-perfect, dry and snarky and sneaky about it. "Helpfully," the narrator says, after Fat Charlie's said the actual least helpful thing in the entire book. The reader never sees it coming.



It works because it's a surprise, and it's a surprise because Neil Gaiman is so economical with his words. There aren't useless adverbs littered around. All too often, you see stuff like, "Shut up!" he said loudly, wherein the word 'loudly' adds little to nothing. But if you say, "I am going to eviscerate you," she said cheerily, hoo boy does the tone of the sentence do a quick 360 at that adverb. Reading should always be an exercise in the unexpected, and that goes double for comedy. If you don't want to go the absurdist route and toss in a flying giraffe or what have you, worry not. You can just make a subtly sarcastic jab at your own character with your friendly neighborhood modifier. Yay!


My question for you today: Who's your favorite comedy writer?


Mine is Dave Barry (holy annual Year in Review, Batman), but I'm always on the lookout for more funny. By all means let me know your favorites in the comments!


All the best,
Riley


P.S. - sorry if my blatant Neil Gaiman fangirling got out of control. It's not voluntary, I swear.

50 Shades of Green

Nope, haven't read it. I don't plan on reading it, either. But 50 Shades of Grey has brought up something I love talking about, something that's (inexplicably) kind of controversial: fanfiction.

(also, hoo boy, it's been a while! I've missed you, blog buddies! *tacklehugs*)

On Fanfiction

Let me start by saying that it makes me a little suspicious when writers look down on fanfiction. I'm like, dudes, why are you getting so defensive? I think a lot of people think it's easier or somehow less valid than original fiction, but it's really not. It is just as hard to be good at fanfiction writing as it is to be good at original fiction, and it's just as easy to be bad in both arenas.

Although fanfiction doesn't involve the same skill set as original fiction, that doesn't mean there's less skill involved - it's a different creature entirely. Because you already have the characters, your job is to bring something new to the table while keeping the characters in-character. And if you're an original-fiction writer struggling with character inconsistency, or if your writing relies too much on character development and not enough on plot, fanfiction can be an awesome practicing tool. It's also awesome in and of itself for readers who are devoted to a certain book/movie/show/etc. and want to read more about certain characters.

Preface

I joined a social networking site called Tumblr a while back. It's a wonderful environment - people are hilarious, openminded, and as obsessive about fictional characters as I am. In fact, if you're a YA writer, and you haven't stalked a few Tumblogs, you (yes, you! :D) really should. Tumblr is mostly comprised of teenagers, so you can creep around and get an idea of what goes on inside this generation's crazy little minds. Yay!

Oh, also, if you ever start thinking, "Teenagers don't read!" just get on Tumblr. You'd be astounded at the work these teenfolk put into writing, reading, and reviewing fanfiction of, and making fanart for, their favorite books. It astounds me daily. They expect nothing in return, because obviously, everything's copyrighted. They're just there for the joy of it, and for the sense of community between fans.

Anyway, rewind to the copyright bit. This brings me to Fifty Shades. This book has made a big splash - New York Times bestseller, yada yada. The question is, why did it explode? Join me in the fandom world, and we'll find out.

(Quick side note - I've seen the word "plagiarism" bandied about with reference to 50SoG. For the record, even if it's in a totally different genre and world than the original, I think 'converting' fanfiction into a novel without a complete rewrite is a remarkably bad idea. If it's well-written fanfiction, the characters will be exact mirrors of someone else's, and that is pretty much plagiaristic. But I don't really want to discuss plagiarism. Let's talk about audience.)

On Fandom

I read an article the other day about how the fanfiction market was "something publishers would want to tap into in the future," and everyone in the comments was freaking out and moaning about how this is the death of publishing, and stuff. But I respectfully disagree.

Revelation time! (I might have revealed this before, which would make it less dramatic. Oh well. Let's bold it anyway:) I too write fanfiction, when the fancy strikes me. And gah, here's where I talk about me for a bit. I don't really have any other statistics to use, fanfiction-wise, so here's a snapshot of my experience:

In summer 2010, I wrote a piece that ended up resonating with members of a certain fandom, and the story got pretty popular. To date, it's had over 475,000 hits and almost 2,000 reviews. Having a readership that size is a surreal feeling--but more importantly, the statistic totally shows where publishers are coming from. Especially since in the fanfiction world, there are endless stories with thousands more reviews (so presumably, hundreds of thousands more hits) than mine. This type of audience is huge - and it's an established one. These people, the ones who are hunting around fanfiction sites, are the type who have gobbled up books and are looking for more. In an age obsessed with video games and movies and iPhone apps and 3-minute YouTube videos, people who will take the time to read a lengthy work of fiction are the types of people a publisher would, naturally, want to reach. (And in fanfiction world, 'lengthy' has a whole new meaning. My behemoth of a story, which topped out at around 250,000 words, was considered "not that long." Yeah, try figuring out how that one works... XD)

If I were pursuing a self/e-publishing road, I'd sure as heck go ahead and slap a link to my book on my fanfiction profile. Just since May 1st, my profile has had 1,200 hits. I've never had that many hits to this blog in fifteen days, and frankly, I find it sort of inconceivable that my little jungle might ever have that sort of attention. But in fanfictionland? Anything is possible.

Do you see what I'm getting at? These devoted readers, the ones who use fanfiction.net and tumblr.com in droves, are a gold mine for publishers. If an established fanfiction author released a novel, their fanfic readers would be all over that. It feels ridiculous to say I have 'fans' or 'loyal readers' or whatever, but my fanfiction alias does have fans. There are people who would buy my stuff based on my fanfiction. And it is both a strange and awesome thought. Why would publishers not want to tap into that market? And why, I sometimes ask myself, do so many writers reject the idea with such vehemence?

The Inevitable Answer: The Quality Threshold.

Yep. It's true. For every awesome piece of fanfiction I've seen, there are literally tens of thousands that are atrocities to the English language (and, uh, lots of other languages, I'm sure). But hey - can't we say that about original fiction, too? Yes, we can. There are so many terrible books out there (like my first novel, which is doomed to live in a drawer forever). And just as the awful works of original fiction floating around don't diminish the worth of the brilliant stuff, the bad fanfiction doesn't have any right to tarnish the reputation of the good.

In short, the fact that there's crap out there doesn't make awesome writing less awesome. I would without question purchase anything published by whomever wrote Alone on the Water, a particularly exquisite piece of Sherlock fanfiction. Just because you don't need quality to get readership in the fanfiction world, doesn't mean there isn't quality out there. Which - sadly - kind of mirrors the current publishing climate, let's be honest; with the right ad campaign, authors can get away with murder. Fanfiction in and of itself is not the problem.

So, What Is the Problem?

In the end, I feel like it gets down to envy. Fanfiction has this (undeserved) stigma of being a 'lesser art,' so when an author reaches success based on fanfiction, some people have the natural compunction to cringe, to shudder away, to criticize in an instant. To scoff, because they believe they are so much more deserving than a lowly fanfiction writer - and at heart, they are secretly jealous.

It makes sense, though. In some ways, I as a writer of original fiction envy my fanfiction alias. After all, my often-overwrought, grossly overlong, largely unedited fanfiction work has had 475,000 pairs of eyes on its pages. And my babies, my novels, my own characters into whom I've poured my sweat and tears? They've been seen by me and my critique partners. Maybe a couple of agently eyes. And that's everyone. I guess it's sort of unfair in a way, but as the two types of writing are separate in my eyes, it doesn't bother me most of the time.

And here's where we loop back to 50 Shades, to wrap things up:

When I write fanfiction, I don't expect people to judge it like it's great literature. It's not the ultimate labor of my life, it's not huge and important, and I'm not asking people to pay money for it. It's fun, like when I write a doodle of a short story just for myself. Where the problem lies, I think, is in the fact that the author of 50 Shades has turned fun into profit. But if she were a fanfiction writer and her books were impeccably written, what then? Would people still complain? I've read endless rants about how mediocre the writing is. Would people still care that it's ex-fanfiction if the woman were the next Faulkner? And if they wouldn't, then why do people still look down on fanfiction for the mere fact that it's fanfiction?

Phew, I'm stupidly nervous about publishing this post. I like speaking about fanfiction, but not necessarily my fanfiction, and I'm pretty sure it's because of that stigma I referenced above. *prods 'lesser art' stigma*

I would really love to hear your thoughts on this! I sort of lack perspective, being fully invested in the fan world.

Have you read 50 Shades of Grey? Or any fanfiction? What did you think - and do you think tapping into the world of the fanbase is worth transcending the stigma of writing fanfiction?

All the best,
Riley

In Which I Venture Forth from the Jungle

...which is just an annoying way of saying I'm guest posting today. I've been invited over to YA Indie, which is a tres cool collaborative blog run by a group of classy writers (with beautiful book covers!) who've independently published. I'll be chatting about race in YA and sharing anecdotes from my own experiences. I did a previous post on the same subject, but this one's not a repost - it is a little more personal this time around, hehe. Please do check it out!

All the best,
Riley

The Five Stages of Query Revisions

1) Overconfidence
"Yeah," you think to yourself with a small smirk, "I got it. This is it. I tinkered with a million different forms and structures, but this is the one."

Then you press 'post,' and your query critiquers pick out some not-so-small problems. How, you wonder, did you forget to put in your main character's name? How did you forget that writing those three sentences about your book's thematic value was not necessary? How did you forget there's this one plot point which totally makes sense in the story but out of context looks like a glaring hole in your sanity?

This leads to...

2) The Revision Frenzy
"Well, whatever," you say. "That one was just a blip on the radar. It'll get better. I'll do this with some hard work!" You make revision after revision, carefully weighing others' feedback, deciding what you like and what you don't. You slash back the encroaching forests of empty rhetoric and unnecessary details, and your plot emerges clean and beautiful. A manic triumph descends upon you. "Almost there!" you cry. "Almost there!"

Then someone drops the bomb: You have entered...

3) The Voiceless Hell
"WHAT HAVE I DONE?" you wail. Looking back at that first draft, you almost wish you could return to its raw cluttered failure, because at least it had voice. At least your character had some semblance of personality in version #1; at least the words rang from the page with a distinct, fresh feel. You could hear the query in your head! That, you realize, is why you loved it so much at first, and you sort of forgive yourself for thinking it was worthy.

Then you sink back into misery as you stare at your current draft. No matter what you do to try and resuscitate it, it lies there lifeless. The thing sounds limp. Not as punchy, witty, snappy, or sharp as the voice in your first draft, and certainly not as punchy/witty/snappy/sharp as your manuscript.

You keep fooling around with the draft. Eventually, you get to the point where you're okay with it. You don't love it, but you're scared to change it, because you've already tried everything imaginable and nothing helps.

"Well, shit," you say.

Then you turn away, embracing ...

4) Willful Ignorance
"It's not that bad," you say to yourself. "It really isn't that bad." Once you've persuaded yourself of this blatantly false statement, you sit there and you do other things and you ignore the voice in the back of your mind that sees reason.

Perhaps - horrors! - you even send out the version you have, because you're so desperate to prove to yourself that the work hasn't been for nothing.

Then the rejections. Oh, joy!

"I have a .04% request rate?" you moan. "God! Why do I even write? I can't write a stupid one-page letter! <Insert various existentialist angst here>!"

So you take a break. You start a new project, you do edits, you do anything. possible. to escape. the damn. letter.

And after a few weeks, months, whatever - you return, and find yourself in the glorious land of...

5) Perspective
"How did I not see this before?" you say, choking on your excitement.

You draft a new letter with the bones of the new and the voice of the old. It gels perfectly. An angelic chorus descends from the heavens and drapes you with laurels and such. You clutch the Perfect Letter in your hands and thrust it aloft and kiss it and laugh triumphantly. People give you strange looks.

You send the Perfect Letter.

And then?

Then you get the privilege of having your full rejected. ;)

All the best,
Riley