kt literary

We’ve got a special treat for you here today at kt literary. Not one, but TWO About My Query posts! The first one comes from EB, who won a contest sponsored by Elana Johnson for a query critique by yours truly. So, EB’s letter is addressed to me and has some personalization about winning the contest, but I know we can look at the juicy part in the middle, right? No further delays, then. Let’s do this!

Dear Daphne,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to have a critique of the query letter for my latest work IF ONLY YOU KNEW, a Christian based thriller that combines page-turning suspense and culture driven characters.

The mysterious disappearance of Ellie Halifax’s closest friend threw her ordinary, good girl life into a world of suspicion, interrogation, and some very strange, nearly fatal accidents. But the strangest thing of all might be that her hard-rock, soon to be stepbrother, Adam, seems to be her only chance of survival.

IF ONLY YOU KNEW is a fast paced 90,000 word contemporary Christian suspense novel set where Miami’s hotspot nightlife and the up and coming business word collide in two people struggling to uncover a secret much deeper than one girl’s disappearance.
It will appeal to fans of works by suspense authors like Terri Blackstock and Colleen Coble, but carries plenty of next generation twists and as much humor as heart-stopping moments.

After working as a research assistant for two non-fiction writers, I switched to fiction and published my first mystery novel, ONLY ANGELS ARE BULLETPROOF, through Tate Publishing in November of 2008. I am also actively involved in marketing through social networking as well as bookstore events and local media.

I am excited to read your comments. I know critique is one of the most valuable things a writer can have.

Sincerely,
EB

So, after I just said we could concentrate on the juicy middle, I do want to start with the introductory line, which would be similar in any email to an agent. Namely, your reference to your book as a “a Christian based thriller that combines page-turning suspense and culture driven characters.” First of all, I don’t think you need to say “Christian based” — I think just “Christian” is fine. I assume a thriller includes suspense — that’s sort of one of the hallmarks of the genre. And “page-turning” is one of those phrases that writers use that doesn’t actually add anything. Go ahead a stripe it. As for “culture driven characters” — I just don’t know what that means. What culture are you referring to? Christian? South Floridian? A statement like this should be followed up with a sense of the characters’ culture, but I don’t get that in this. Let’s keep looking, though.

Next, “The mysterious disappearance of Ellie Halifax’s closest friend threw her ordinary, good girl life into a world of suspicion, interrogation, and some very strange, nearly fatal accidents.” Again, I see what you’re trying to say here — her friend’s strange disappearance turns Ellie’s ordinary life into something vastly different — but it’s awkward. Maybe it’s the grammatical disconnect of throwing someone’s “life” into a “world.” I feel like you could throw Ellie into a world of suspicion, etc., and you could throw her good girl life into disarray. In either case though, it reads as a bit overdone. How else can you express this in a way that feels more organic to the story?

Moving on, just what exactly is so strange in the idea “that [Ellie's] hard-rock, soon to be stepbrother, Adam, seems to be her only chance of survival”? Why? What can you tell me about how the characters relate to each other that will make this statement make sense?

In the next paragraph, I like “fast-paced” better than “page-turning,” but note again that you’re telling, rather than showing. The phrase “where Miami’s hotspot nightlife and the up and coming business word collide in two people struggling to uncover a secret much deeper than one girl’s disappearance” also feels awkward — even though I assume you mean “world” not “word.” I also think, if you use this phrase, that “up-and-coming” should have hyphens. But what I really want to know is WHY the nightlife is colliding with the business world? Who are these two people from these (to my mind) not-so-different worlds? Can you give a further hint about the disappearance? What does it mean? What does it suggest, rather, since you don’t want to give away the whole plot?

In the final paragraph, the fact of you working for two non-fiction authors doesn’t seem to necessitate a “switch” to fiction. Your publishing credit looks nice up until an agent realizes it’s a self-publishing credit. You may want to be more upfront and name it as such, or leave it out altogether unless you can provide sales numbers of more than one or two thousand copies.

Readers, what do you think? Please share your thoughts on improving EB’s query in the comments.

I know, I know, I’m horribly late with my post today, and I’m going to let you down even further with something short. In my defense, I had to run around quite a bit today, trying to get things done before I leave for Bologna (one week from tonight!), and helping a friend.

But I did want to make sure you saw the fantastic interview with Josie Bloss than Meg Cabot posted on her blog! Please do check it out, and consider picking up your own copy of Albatross!

My favorite part may be the picture of Josie and Meg at one of Meg’s signings years before. It reminds me of a picture of myself from college, when some friends and I went down to New Orleans over Spring Break, and I insisted on our visiting Anne Rice’s house in the Garden District. (I was a huge fan of her vampire books, looooooong before the current vampire publishing phase.) We were looking at the outside when who should pull up but Anne Rice herself! So yeah, I totally got a picture — and years later, when I worked at Janklow & Nesbit, I got to work on some of her books!

What authors have you met that inspired you in some way?

Sometimes it seems like every query I receive is for the same book — or, more truthfully, the same audience. And I just KNOW that’s not true. For one thing, it seems statistically unlikely, for another, I know that there’s room in publishing for lots of different books, and I’m sure you know that too. But just to settle a bet, I’ve embedded a little poll below.

Considering your current manuscript (either one you’re currently writing, editing, or querying), who do you think is the primary audience? You’ll see I’m not going to let you answer “everyone.” That doesn’t help anyone. I’ve broken the answers down by sex and general age range. Feel free to be more descriptive in the comments — i.e. “I write for the teenage girl audience who loved “Hunger Games” but hates “Twilight.”

I look forward to seeing the results!

Lately I’ve gotten a number of emails from authors who’d like me to feature their query in my regular weekly “About My Query” posts (or AMQ for short). And I thought it would be helpful to put up the guidelines for such here, as a single reference point, and so that I don’t have to say the same thing multiple times.

What I don’t do: just pick random queries that are sent to me for consideration as an agent to post and pick apart.

What I do: every few weeks, I will put out a call on my blog for queries to post. Then, and only then, should you send me your query in an email with the subject line “About My Query: YOUR TITLE”, where “your title” of course represents your actual book’s title. All of these emails should be emailed to daphne.unfeasible@gmail.com, NOT to queries@ktliterary.com. I’ll anonymize your name and use your initials or some other nickname that you request. (WordPress doesn’t think “anonymize” is a word, but I like, so I’m using it! Also, FreeDictionary.com totally says it is, so there.)

Once I get your query for an AMQ post, I will email you with the date that it will be posted. At any point before that time, if you change or revise your query, I ask that you email me back with your edited query, so that I can post the most up-to-date letter.

I do things this way because, in the past, I just let people send me AMQ posts whenever they felt like it, and I often ran into the problem of posting queries only to get comments from the author that said, basically, “Oh, this old thing? Yeah, I completely changed it, and I got an agent, and I just sold my book for a bazillion dollars.”

When I do open my mailbox for AMQ posts, I’m hoping that I won’t have to set a specific number of how many posts I’m looking for. So far, I’ve been able to take what I get and schedule posts for a few weeks (somewhere between 5 and 8, maybe). If I get 25 next time, I think I may have to cap it at a lower number — in which case, yes, I will let those authors who are over the cap know to try again in a few weeks.

So, them’s the facts. Any questions I haven’t answered? Put ‘em in the comments, and I’ll answer them there. And stay tuned — I expect to put out a new call for queries shortly!

Clearly, I was a little too excited yesterday by the Oscars to actually blog, but I’ll make up for it today. First, as promised in last week’s post in which I asked you to make a speech about your theoretical awards-show thank you speech, one free copy of Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson goes to…

Sarah Fisk! Sarah, please send an email to daphne.unfeasible@gmail.com with your mailing address, and I’ll get the latest adventures of Scarlett, Spencer, Mrs. A, and the whole gang off to you!

As for the Oscar ceremony itself, for all that the movie Precious is subtitled “Based on the novel Push by Sapphire”, I found it somewhat obnoxious that the winner of the Best Adapted Screenplay award didn’t thank the author! But what were your favorite Oscar moments?

Beautiful colorful shoes for Vee, whose About My Query follows. Before we go, though, a quick note about these posts. Each query that appears here was sent to me for the express purpose of being posted and commented on. I don’t just pull queries from my inbox and throw them up here. For the authors, then, I understand it to mean that they’re looking for honest feedback towards the purpose of improving their query. But honest — as most of you know — doesn’t have to mean “mean.” I’m not thinking of any commenter in particular, and in fact, almost every comment on these posts is kind and generous. So consider this just a congratulatory “good job” pat on the back. Keep up the good work!

And now, onto the query!

Dear Ms. Unfeasible,

Sixteen-year-old Skylar Jones hasn’t seen her jailbird mother in ten years. So when mommy dearest arrives on the doorstep armed with apologies, Skylar has no idea what to do.

Skylar would prefer meeting up with the Wicked Witch to seeing her mom again. But fragmented childhood memories– her mom’s shallow dimples when she smiled, their hands twined together– convince Sky to chase after a reason to let her mom back in. To figure out whether she can trust her mom Skylar puts the motto her mother taught her to live by, “Find Heaven on Earth,” to the test. If it was more of her mother’s drugged up bullshit, Sky plans to dump her childhood memories in the nearest ditch and move on.

Artistic Skylar’s version of heaven is nothing more than a stunning colour palette, so she sets about getting blissed out on colour combinations. She lights illegal fireworks at the local park, letting pink and green spark above her. But heaven’s yet to appear and Skylar just discovered why her mom finally came back: she’s dying of cancer. Skylar’s attempts to find heaven become desperate. When she jogs headfirst into a field of speeding cars – yellow headlights, red taillights, rusty bumpers and the bruise-coloured evening – and her heart rate doesn’t spike, Skylar realises she’s no longer just looking for a reason to trust her mom. She’s searching for a reason to live, and a way to make peace with her past, but heaven’s still slipping through her fingers.

SKYLAR’S STORY is a 45,000 word contemporary YA novel. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Vee

I really like the start of this. It’s a good, quick summary of the set-up. I have some question about the term “jailbird,” since I’m not sure if you just mean a person who’s been in jail, someone who’s been in and out of jail repeatedly, or if you mean someone who’s literally “flown the coop,” or escaped. Using the word “armed” in the next sentence gives me another pause, but I’ll read on for clarification.

The next paragraph causes me to stumble a bit. You say “Skylar would prefer meeting up with the Wicked Witch to seeing her mom again” but Skylar isn’t really given a choice about “seeing” her mom. She just shows up on her doorstep. Unless this alludes to a follow-up “seeing,” in which case, I’d want to know more about it. Is her mom staying with her? Asking her to meet regularly?

You ask the reader to assume a bad relationship between mother and daughter, and then contrast it with the “fragmented childhood memories”, which are lovely images. I’m less sure about Skylar “chasing” after a reason to let her mother back in, especially when the method she’s using to test things is a motto from her mom in the first place. Do you see how this can confuse the reader? By one way of thinking, the very method she’s using to find a reason to believe is a reason. Twisty!

The phrase “If it was more of her mother’s drugged up bullshit,” doesn’t seem to me to agree with the tense of the rest of the query. But it does put another thought into my head — is Skylar ALSO on drugs? Her actions, as you describe them in the next paragraph, don’t just seem like the normal actions of an artist — they seem like those of an artist on drugs. Does Skylar turn to drugs to help her deal with the reason behind her mom’s return?

In fact, by the time I get to the end of the third paragraph, you tell me that Skylar’s searching for a reason to live, which — OMG! — is a MUCH BIGGER issue to deal with than just her mom’s return and diagnosis.

By the end, I suppose I just don’t know what this story is. I’m intrigued by aspects of it, but I don’t get enough detail to compel me to read more.

So that’s my opinion. Readers, how do you find this query?

With the Oscars coming up this weekend, it seems like everyone has award show fervor on the brain. I was reading John Scalzi’s reprint of an article he wrote a few years ago about borrowing a friend’s Oscar, and it got me wondering…

If you were given an award for your life’s work — call it a Newbery, Printz, Caldecott, Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Tony, or what have you — who would you thank? What would your acceptance speech sound like? Would it be short and sweet? Funny? Inspirational? A laundry list of names?

Give it a try in the comments, and I’ll pick a random commenter and award them not with an Oscar, but with a Scarlett. Scarlett Fever, that is. Extra bonus: no one will be played off! Take all the time you need.

Technically, I was back on Monday, but I had a lot of catching up to do yesterday and today, so I feel like I’m only now back in the swing of things (Note: not my back pictured.). But I want to issue a huge round of thanks to my guest bloggers: Sara Beitia, Kiki Hamilton, Stephanie Perkins, Intern Jenny, Maureen Johnson, and Trish Doller. They’re all stars, and if you haven’t read and commented on their posts, I invite you to do so!

In additional to just the normal stuff of getting caught up after a week away, I’m also prepping for my trip to the Bologna Book Fair later this month, where I’ll be meeting with dozens of foreign editors and talking about my authors and my books. Things are going to be busy busy busy around here for the next few weeks! I’m thinking of another round of guest posts while I’m in Italy — what do you think? Do you want to hear more from my authors (and maybe a few additional guest bloggers) or do you want me to just set up some scheduled posts of my own? Let me know in the comments!

And speaking of European trips, have you seen the gorgeous cover to Stephanie Perkins’ debut novel Anna and the French Kiss? Love!

We all know how the publishing process is supposed to go. You write a fabulous book, then land your dream agent, who sells your book to a publisher. A year later–voila! You’re a published author.

Except, it doesn’t always work like that.

Sometimes that first book never finds a publisher. Sometimes the project dies along the route to publication, and you and your agent have to go back to square one–which is what happened with my first book. My deal died in the pipeline and we had to go back out on submission, which hasn’t proved as successful as the first time around.

So what do I do now? Well, I write another book. Only this time it’s not so easy.

With book one, I had no clue about “the market” and whether or not my book would fit. I just wrote the story that was buzzing around my brain and it turned out to be a pretty good one. But now–having had a brief taste of what it’s like–I’m keenly aware that my next book should be something editors will want. Oh, I still believe I have to write a story that calls to my heart, but I have lots of ideas. The trick now is to find the one that can keep its head above water in a market swamped with zombies, angels, demons, werewolves, and vampires. Yeah. No pressure there.

It also seems like I’ve got a lot of other people in my head while working on book two that I didn’t have with book one. Writing partners who are so much better than I am. An agent who is certainly going to dump me if I don’t finish this project immediately. And that imaginary editor who will reject the entire book if I make the main character’s dad a cheater instead of a chronic gambler. Instead of being motivating, it can be sometimes paralyzing.

And finally, when I first sold my book, I joined a group called The Tenners, whose books are scheduled for publication in 2010. Now I’m watching their books hit the shelves and while I’m happy for them–no, I really am!–their successes make my disappointment that much stronger. Sometimes it’s enough to make me want to throw in the towel.

I’m not telling you all this because I’m looking for a pity party–although I’d take a cupcake if you’ve got one. I’m just here to serve as a real life reminder that publishing is full of pitfalls.

So what do I do now?

I pick myself up, dust myself off, log off the Internet, and write.

Trish Doller is hard at work on her next novel, and is a fantastic cheerleader for her fellow Tenners. Learn more about her and other kt literary clients here.

Another Friday, another image of fabulous shoes, another About My Query post! In the spirit of this week, however, we’ve got a guest blogger commenting — Maureen Johnson, author of Scarlett Fever and many other fine novels, available wherever books are sold! Without further ado…

Dear Ms. Unfeasible,

I am seeking representation for my manuscript, COLORS LIKE MEMORIES, complete at 65,000 words. It is targeted toward an upper young adult, adult crossover audience.

Living with Julia’s college roommates is like living in a mine-field, one wrong step and she’s going to lose one of them. Navigating this treacherous ground is Julia’s job, and if she can get the three girls to work together they are supposed to be a powerful source of good, but only if she can keep them alive. Julia is a Sary, the soul of a child who died before she was born, only allowed to obtain a body and stay on earth if she secretly aids humans in need. She’s supposed to forget herself through service for others, but Julia’s never been very good at keeping that rule, or she wasn’t until it cost her the man she loved.

While her roommates struggle with grief, abuse, and suicide, a new boy in Julia’s classes, and at the bookstore where she works, draws her attention. Something about him reminds her of the man she lost, but also of memories better left buried. As the problems facing her roommates threaten to detonate in the form of a stalker bent on terrorizing their apartment, Julia can’t deal with her own issues, let alone help anyone else. Julia must get her life, and memories, together if she has any hope of saving her roommates, and herself.

I am a graduate student at the University of California, where I am in constant contact with college-aged students facing problems much like those Julia’s roommates face.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best,
MHS

Hello! Since I’m author and not an agent, I’m not really going to address the form of the query. I’m entirely concerned with the story as it is presented here. I’m going to be honest—I don’t really understand what this is about. I have a lot of comments, so I’m going to talk through the letter.

THE FIRST PARAGRAPH:

“Living with Julia’s college roommates is like living in a mine-field, one wrong step and she’s going to lose one of them. Navigating this treacherous ground is Julia’s job, and if she can get the three girls to work together they are supposed to be a powerful source of good, but only if she can keep them alive.” You begin with “Living with Julia’s college roommates is like living in a minefield . . .” Your first sentence, a simile, is instantly destroyed. You’re comparing something to itself. What you seem to be saying here is—if Julia makes a wrong move with either of her roommates, they will explode in some way. In fact, you say that if she must keep them alive. That’s dramatic! But . . . what? What is trying to kill them? I must know instantly! But there is no answer to this. From there, we learn that it is Julia’s job to manage these people in some way. Why is it her job to manage these dangerous, explodey people who face this undefined threat? The implication seems to be that the three of them, working together, have some kind of special power. (Like the Power of Three in Charmed. That’s what springs to mind.)

“Julia is a Sary, the soul of a child who died before she was born, only allowed to obtain a body and stay on earth if she secretly aids humans in need.” I guess this is the explanation, but these concepts aren’t really linked up. Now I have three sentences that fly in different directions. Moreover, the concept of dying before you are born is a bit tricky to get the head around. Because if you’re born—you’re born. You didn’t die. Birth and death are clear markers. And who let her “obtain a body”? Is it some kind of god or a committee or something? This concept needs to be explained. And why does she have to do this in secret?

“She’s supposed to forget herself through service for others, but Julia’s never been very good at keeping that rule, or she wasn’t until it cost her the man she loved.” Okay, now I’m really lost. “Forget herself” is a slippery expression, and I don’t know what you mean by it—so I don’t know at all what you mean when you next say that she’s not good at this. Then we get to losing the man she loved! That sounds juicy! But what happened?

THE SECOND PARAGRAPH:

“While her roommates struggle with grief, abuse, and suicide, a new boy in Julia’s classes, and at the bookstore where she works, draws her attention. Something about him reminds her of the man she lost, but also of memories better left buried.” So now I’m thinking that the roommates aren’t imbued with any special powers—they’re just insane. I still don’t know why it’s Julia’s job to deal with them, since they are so deeply unstable. Then the new boy breaks into the sentence, and he’s in two places at once. And then, the memories come. And they’re even more ^#&$*ed up than what’s going on, I guess, but I have no idea what they are. None of these concepts are defined or completed.

“As the problems facing her roommates threaten to detonate in the form of a stalker bent on terrorizing their apartment, Julia can’t deal with her own issues, let alone help anyone else. Julia must get her life, and memories, together if she has any hope of saving her roommates, and herself.” Yeah, I don’t know what’s happening. The first sentence throws a lot of information at me (I think the detonate is an attempt to carry through the minefield thing, but the verb doesn’t quite work and the whole image is still wobbling). The second sentence doesn’t make any sense. From the title, I get the idea that memories must play into this in some big way, but I have absolutely no idea what you mean when you say she has to get her life and memories together.

“I am a graduate student at the University of California, where I am in constant contact with college-aged students facing problems much like those Julia’s roommates face.” Given my confusion, I find myself staring blankly at this. Is this book about “college issues” or being some kind of creature that dies before it is born?

There seems to be a LOT going on in this book. The major thing that leaps out at me is that it seems this is a story about a girl with powers of some kind (does she have powers?) who had a tragic romance that she doesn’t want to repeat. I can’t tell if the roommate stuff is a plot of equal importance. One plot must win. You can have other things going on in a story, but there has to be one throughline.

When rewriting this query, here’s what I would focus on:

I think you are trying to write in soundbites or in sentences you think might look good on the jacket of a book. On examination, they don’t mean much and they don’t fit together to build any kind of clear picture. That means the query will fail. To succeed, you need to sharpen. You need to be clean and clear and proceed in an orderly fashion. And you need to provide answers for some very basic questions.

What is Julia? Sary means nothing to me. Is that a thing? I don’t have a clue, and therefore, it is likely that most YA readers won’t either. (Google also doesn’t know.) You’re going to have to explain right up front. The concept of dying before you are born is going to make a lot of people scratch their heads—so you’re going to have to deal with that fact. (It can be done, but it will take work and finesse.) I want to know who or what has sent her into the world with this mission. (Whatever it is, it must be pretty mean. And how do you negotiate with someone in utero?) I need the mission defined, I need to know what the consequences are of failure.

Because you said she already has failed. And that means, from what I have read, that she should be dead.

So why is she still here? What are the rules? Is this some kind of last-ditch chance? Is that why she has to live with these crazy people? Has she been told by whatever it is that rules over her that she can have no more guys?

I feel like that’s paragraph one. What is she? What is her mission? What happened last time to the other dude?

Paragraph two can move you into the current situation. I’m sort of making this up now in my head—but I’m thinking she’s been given some kind of second chance. What is up with this second guy? All I know about him now is that he goes to class and hangs out in a bookstore, and that doesn’t sound too problematic.

I don’t know what to tell you about the roommates, because I just have no idea what’s happening. I know it sounds serious but I can’t build a picture from these facts. If the story is about saving the roommates, then don’t dwell on the guys in the query. As for the memories, they seem to be a tertiary concern. These scary memories are not defined or explained in any way, which in a query is annoying . . . especially when the concept is in the title. Don’t play games. Say what the memories are about. Then decide which point is most important. Of these three things, I must know which to focus on.

And definitely go for clarity over nebulous, quasi-atmospheric phrases. Agents want to know what the book is about. The minefields and the detonating stalkers will blow up your chances. I understand the impulse—but QUASH it! QUASH the SQUISHY BITS! It’s fine to say something poetically, but every sentence must have a clear underlying meaning, correctly expressed.

I know that’s a lot to take on board! But good luck!

-mj

[Note from Daphne: MHS, you should also know that the "upper YA/adult crossover audience" is more a thing of hope than a true market. Yes, St. Martin's has launched a New Adult line, but it's still a little early to hope it opens up a world of possibilities for authors. Stick with calling your work "upper YA" for now, I think.]

[Another note from me: So what do you guys think?]