20 Tips on Query Letters

This is another great post that came across the Guide to Literary Agents blog. Since we were talking about queries, I thought I'd share it.


Agent Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary Management gave an intensive workshop on queries at the South Carolina Writers Workshop. Here are 20 tips to writing an effective query, according to the Query Shark herself.


FOR STARTERS

• Be professional. It’s a business letter—not a personal letter.

1. Regarding salutation and tone, err on the side of caution because formality is never out of place.
2. “Dear Agent” or “To Whom It May Concern,” however, is too impersonal.
3. Pet peeve: If you’re querying an agent’s direct e-mail (i.e. “janet@” and you address the query “Dear Agent,” you don’t come across as being too smart.

• Be comfortable with computers. Publishing is moving toward the electronic age, so move with it.

1. Have an e-mail address with your name in it (e.g., SuziWriter@gmail.com). This shows her you are professional. How is she to take you seriously if your e-mail is cutiepiehoneyface@aol.com?
2. Have your own e-mail account—not one you share with a spouse.
3. Have a Gmail or Earthlink account. She says AOL is bad for queries because its spam filters sometimes eat e-mails without your knowledge, and you could be missing a reply.
4. Also, add the agents to your “safe senders” lists to ensure you receive their replies.

• Use a referral. Agents always move referrals to the top of the stack if someone they know vouches for the writer.

1. Do not, however, quote your rejection letters, friends, critique partners, paid editors, or conference critiques. These comments are not the same as referrals.

THE NITTY GRITTY

1. Don’t start with a rhetorical question. You’re talking to really sardonic people in New York City, and they’re not going to answer the question how you expect.
2. Get right to the main character—by name.
3. Tell who he/she is, and do it in as few words as possible.
4. Tell what happens to him or her—the initial point of conflict in the book.
5. Show two choices the main character faces as well as the consequences of those choices. The stakes must be high.

SUREFIRE QUERY KILLERS

1. “Fiction novel.” A novel is fiction, so when someone writes “fiction novel,” not only is it redundant, it makes the writer sound ignorant.
2. “Surefire bestseller.” Let the agent be the one to decide that. Declaring your work to be the next best thing shows you know little about the industry—and that you’re probably too arrogant for the agent to want to work with you.
3. “Film potential.” Janet says, “First of all, you don’t know shit.” (See arrogance comment above) Also, she’s not a film agent. She just wants to know what the book is about.

KEEP IT OUT

1. Inspiration. You only have 250 words, so don’t waste them. Stick to showing her what the book is about because how you came up with the idea does not interest agents in the query. “It’s the equivalent of making sausages,” she says. “I do not want to see you do it.”
2. Personal information. It doesn’t matter to agents where you live or how many cats you have.
3. Sometimes work information is relevant to you being the only person able to write a particular book; however, sometimes the worst people to write certain types of books are those who actually do those occupations (e.g., cops hate cop shows, doctors criticize medical dramas). They know the reality of the job too deeply, and it doesn’t make for good fiction.

TAKEAWAY

1. A query letter is the foundation upon which your publishing career rests, so remember: You can query too soon; you cannot query too late.


Janet Reid's publishing background includes 15 years in book publicity with clients both famous and infamous. She specializes in compelling fiction, particularly crime fiction, and narrative non-fiction, and she keeps a blog about agenting as well as a query critique blog.

Writing the Query Letter - Key Point #1

As promised, we're going to do a series of posts on writing the query letter, including examples of query's that worked. Eventually, I'll post my query as well and we can dissect it together.

To start with, there are tons of references on how to write a query, and I've read them all, but it never really seems to make it easier to write one. The problem is effectively summarizing the hook of your story, making it eye catching, without being overly flamboyant or non-professional. In fact, that word professional, is the key in writing your query. The agent wants to know that you are a serious writer, understand professional demands, and can adhere to them. We've all heard of the queries written on pink paper or with cursive font because the author wanted to "stand out." Unfortunately, those tricks will make the author stand out . . . in a bad way!

Key #1: Be professional at all times.

This excerpt comes from the Guide to Literary Agents Blog.


ON PROFESSIONALISM:

"The first thing to think about when you sit down to write a query letter is that, in a lot of ways, it’s similar to writing a cover letter for a job application. You’re addressing your letter to a person who’s never met you before, and who sorts through hundreds of such letters a day. This crucial first contact is your chance to demonstrate that you’re smart, professional, and interesting. The way to convey those traits is through the tone and content of your letter. The tone should be professional, specific and engaging—never general, overly familiar or abrasive. Make sure your letter is well written and grammatically correct. And make sure to include all of your contact information, including your mailing address, phone number and e-mail address.

"These suggestions may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many letters I get that leave out vital contact information, start out with 'Hi Mollie—' instead of 'Dear Ms. Glick:', or include unprofessional phrases such as, 'You’ll probably just throw this letter out like the other agents have.' Occasionally, I get a letter written in a lighter, more humorous tone, and that’s OK—as long as the letter reflects the kind of book the author is querying me about (i.e., a humorous nonfiction book or funny novel) and it still includes all the information I need to know. But if in doubt, stick with a professional tone, and include a one- or two-line quote from the book to give the agent a taste of its voice.

"Like a cover letter, your query letter should be no longer than a page. It should include your contact information, a salutation, a paragraph describing your book, and a paragraph explaining why you’re the perfect person to write that book. Lets take a closer look at each of these components."

- Excerpted from the article "Write a Killer Query Letter: How to Hook an Agent," by Mollie Glick, in the 2010 Guide to Literary Agents.

More coming as we examine this in depth. Having written several queries, some that worked, many that didn't, we'll look at my letters and examine for strengths and weaknesses.

Yup, You Knew One Day It Would Happen, I'm Back

Gotta admit, it's been so long since I logged on that I almost forgot my password. Two months, my how time flies.

I'd like to thank all of you who continue to support this blog. Your comments mean a lot to me.

So, why's it been so long since my last post?

Two reasons really. First, my writing has been on hold because the Ripple has been sucking away all my time. It's stunning how fast things have grown over there. Wonderful fun, yes, but a massive time sink. I'm going to have to do some major time budgeting between writing and rippling once I start on the next novel.

And secondly, in truth, I haven't had much to write about. My original idea for this blog was to use my experience revising, querying, selling, publishing my novel as a way to pass on tips that I'm learning to you. My thought was that maybe my experience could help you along the path with your own writing. Also, I wanted to share that experience so we all could be there together, learning the joys, pains, tribulations of this darned difficult path we've chosen.

Along those lines, I hadn't had much to write about. Once I finished the revision and went through the Ten Point Revision Strategy, not much was happening. A long time was spent searching for the right agent.

But now I have news to report. Deadly Vision is being handled by a great agency that seems very excited to work with it. Even better, they hired an independent outside editor to read the book and review it. I suspect they did this before they agreed to handle it, to get another opinion. I don't know if this is a common practice with agents, to hire outside editors as another opinion, but it's an interesting concept.

Anyways, the editor read the novel and . . . loved it. Actually called the book the work of the next "new and improved Michael Crichton." With that the novel has been sent to publishers and we'll see what happens.

If you all would like, I'll post that first review of the novel. It's an interesting concept, being reviewed before the book is sold, as an agent's guide and agent marketing tool.

So now I've got lots to write about, as the book moves through the publishing channels.

In the meantime, let's get back to queries. These seem to be the bane of most writers, including myself. My next several posts will be about how to write an effective query letter. I've got some great references to share, and we'll post actual successful query letters so you can see what works and what doesn't. I'll even post my query which resulted in my novel being read by several agencies and eventually landing me with my agent.

Stay tuned. I'll be back.

Promise.

Rewriting the novel - quotes from our peers

At the moment, I'm kind of in writing stasis. The novel has been mailed out to agents, and I'm waiting for that special person to fall in love with it. I've done most of the research for the new novel, but haven't begun the actual writing process as I've been too busy taking care of other projects.

My father, with whom I wrote the TriEnergetics book (www.trienergetics.com) has formulated an idea for another book, so I need to write and prepare a non-fiction proposal. Very different than a fiction query. My Ripple Effect partner (www.ripplemusic.blogspot.com) and I are in the finalizing portion of forming a new business for the Ripple, so I need to write a business plan. And finally, I have some long lecture trips coming up this month, so I need to write and prepare some lectures.

All of which keeps me from writing.

But I'll get there. We'll write off May as a lost-writing month, but come June, I hope to be roaring back.

In the meantime, I found these quotes from your fellow writing peers on the internet and thought I'd share them with you, a way of sharing the anguish you feel about your rewrite. Let me know if any of these resonate with you, and also let me know how you're doing on your rewriting (and rewriting and rewriting.)

Tips on Rewriting From Your Peers

"At this point, it seems that no matter how far away I get from the work of rewriting (lawyering during the day, playing music at night, watching TV with my son, etc), I am always having thoughts and ideas about changing the bar room scene to this way or revising the dialogue between MC and chick #2 that way. Too often these flashes of utter brilliance would dissolve as quickly as they appeared. Unfortunately, they lack the manners to appear only when I am at the computer.
So I carry a tiny digital voice recorder at all times. After carrying it for a while, I've found it increasingly easier for my mind to summon chunks of text from the draft and to think through rewrites in my head, which I then articulate into the recorder. This has yielded some exhilarating results and improved my time management too."
- Peter

"A well-published author read an early ms of mine and gave me the best tip I've ever had. 'This is good,' he said, 'but more color, more smell.' "
- David

"I know one thing - revision is just that: a new vision. The story changes and grows during that process and there are many surprises for the writer. Another friend compared the revision process to a pop-bead necklace. You find the thread that runs through the book. Then you pick and choose what beads to string on that thread. Some you will put aside, some you will keep, sometimes you’ll have to find brand new beads not used before."
- Sharon

"From Stephen King's memoir On Writing: An editor wrote to him on a rejected manuscript: "2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%. Good luck." This has always helped me. In the first draft you simply write the story. Get it down and out and properly archived. Then go back later and operate. One last point, also from Master King, is to be sure and let your first draft rest after it's written. Save it on your thumb drive, your hard drive, and on paper and walk away from it. Don't even think about it for at least a month. Chronological and psychological distance are key to the revision process."
- Ted

"Don't look at (rewriting) as a daunting task. If you do, you will feel like you will never get it done - and I know people who don't. I am one of these writers who personally loves editing and this is why: I think of my end result. I can see just how great my story is going to be once all the polish is on and it's glossy and shiny."
- Madison

"When I'm ready to do a rewrite, I read the 'original' out loud and anywhere I stumble--that gets changed/rewritten/deleted or at the very least fixed so it can read more smoothly. And along this line, reading to a mirror (of what you think might be your last rewrite) helps you get used to reading to an audience (even if it's only an audience of one) and picks up even more rough spots."
- Dia

"My suggestions: 1) Don't rewrite until you've finished the first draft. 2) Take a break. This way, when you come back to it, you can get that lovely feeling of it being written by someone else - and therefore fair game for criticism and cutting! 3) Use a good thesaurus if you must, or really work at re-thinking what you want to communicate - this will bring up some great language, and improve your style."
- Drew

"It is in rewrites that love of language is expressed. First drafts are for inspiration, concept, and organization. Then the fun part comes - get the details right."
- Gene

"Once I have committed to write about the contents, it then becomes a part of my life. There of course is the initial composition. Then I put it aside for a month or two and perform a re-write. Put that re-write aside for the same period of time and do it again. Ad infinitum, until it's press time."
- Bob

ThrillerFest in July - Will You Be Going

If you're writing a thriller, odds are you know about this already, but just in case you don't, here's a little update on ThrillerFest. I'm not sure yet if I'm going. My beautiful wife and I are working hard to see if we can fit it into our schedule. But if you're writing a thriller, you probably ought to give it a shot.

The place to be for thriller lovers is New York in July. It'll be hot outside but inside ... it'll be hot, too! Hot bestsellers, hot topics, hot authors. Better than going to the beach with your favorite new thriller book! You can mingle with your favorite thriller authors instead.

A preliminary schedule is available now at www.thrillerfest.org. CraftFest, held July 8-9, 2009, is devoted to writers of all levels, including aspiring writers working on their first books. AgentFest, on the afternoon of July 9th, will thrill you in a different fashion if you're looking for an agent. Over forty top agents will be available to hear your pitch.

Final Read and Final Changes

I don't usually take space in this blog to talk about personal affairs, but I did promise in my sub-header text that I was going to share everything with you as this novel heads towards completion, publication and it's eventual Nobel Prize :)

Anyways, I'm happy to report that this morning I put the finishing touches on the final read through (and there was much rejoicing!) After going through the Ten-Point Revision Strategy, incorporating the extra few points, I can honestly say that this is the tightest version of the novel yet. My final act, other than one last spell check, was to use the search command to help me incorporate my last revision point; eliminating "feeling" words.

Setting the search for "felt" 95 entries came up where I used the word felt. Such as "he felt his heart begin to race," etc. After re-reading each entry, there were times when I wanted to keep the "feeling" word, whether for cadence, pausing, or an intentional distancing of the character from the act, ie., when one of my character's is dying and he can feel his oxygen content dropping in his blood. But about half the time, I rewrote the sentence to remove the word. "She felt her anger rising," became "her anger surged," or such.

Tomorrow, I write the cover letter and the book goes off to my agent. On the off chance, she is no longer interested, hates it or puts out a contract on my head, I'm going to write a new query as well. I imagine then, my next few posts will be on query writing, which is always a fun and challenging thing to do.

Moving forward feels so good.

More Editing Tips - Writer's Common Mistakes

I found this article at On Writing, and felt it was very well done. Another nice set of tips to add to the Ten Point Revision Strategy.

More Common Mistakes Writer's Make. I'm guilty of quite a few of these myself.

1) Spelling. We all rely too much on the spell checker. Nothing cries out amateur more than gross misspellings in a submission. The spell checker only finds words that are misspelled from its vocabulary, which may have no relation to how they're used in your sentence. The misuse of there/their and they're is a great example. One I make too often.

2) Grammar. It's important to maintain consistency in your use of grammar. I tend to write with quite a few sentence fragments, which is my style. Others right with run-on sentences as a style. Neither is good or bad, just be aware of grammar rules. Break them only when you know them. The On Writing article stresses maintenance of tense also. Can't argue with that.

3) Homophones and similar looking words. Another item that your spell checker won't pick up. Pour or pore. You have to know which is which.

4) Punctuation. Not my forte, but always try to use the proper punctuation, proper use of commas, colons, semi's, etc. I've probably broken the rules ten times in this post alone.

5) Maintenance of Point of View. Old rules are changing. You can shift from one point of view to another in the same chapter now. Even in the same paragraph. But you must do it clearly and elegantly.


I'll keep my eye out for these errors as I'm finishing this final read.

More soon.

Traveling and Research

Well, I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted. To all of you who continue to write comments, thanks. I definitely haven't given up on the blog, in fact, soon I'll have a whole new bunch of posting ideas for us to discuss.

As far as the novel goes, I'm on track to finish the revision by my deadline of 12/31. I have one more minor change to make then truthfully, just the final read through. Soon it will go back to my agent.

Which brings us to the new and exciting stuff and why I've been gone so long. You've all heard the adage "write what you know." Well, in truth, the adage should be "write what you can learn about." We can't all write about what we know and make it interesting, but we can all do research and bring new and interesting ideas and information into our lives and writing. To that end, I intend to do several posts coming up on research, how, where, when and why.

As for me and why it's been so long between posts? I've been doing my own research, in Istanbul. My next medical thriller will take my hero there so I went away for a few weeks to live in the City and gather the vibe. Details, sights, sounds, smells, sensations. People, places, foods, drinks. Tourists and locals. I have detailed notes and images to lend veracity to the next novel.

That one, we'll write together.

The Eleventh Point - Kill the Clunkers

As I'm finishing up this (hopefully) final revision of the book, another revision strategy point has come to mind so frequently that I've been tempted to add it as the eleventh point on our Ten Point Revision Strategy.

Unfortunately, it's so simple and basic, I'd be embarrassed to have to remind myself to do this.

Yet, time after time, reviewing the book that I'd worked on, slaved on for such a long time; woke up at 4 am daily to squeeze more hours out of my exhausting day; obsessed over in the waning hours of night, story ideas coming to me instead of dreams, I've realized I don't always do this one particular thing.

What is it you ask? What daunting discovery have I made that could have such magnitude that it deserves consideration as the 11th point of our strategy?

It's really very simple.

Write well.

Yes, that's it. The new 11th point of our revision strategy. Write Well. Or as I'll rename it and gussy it up; Kill the Clunkers.

It's stunning to think that after all the times I've gone through the novel, how many clunkers remain hidden in the text. What happens is that our eyes get immune to our own bad writing. When we re-read it, our brain nods "yes, that's what I wrote. That's what I intended to write," without ever realizing that what we wrote was bad.

Sometimes it takes an external eye, like a writing group, to help point out these bastards of the English language. If you don't have a group, then the best thing to do is to read your book out loud to yourself. Not in your mind or in a whisper, but out loud. Belt it out. Imagine you're giving a book reading in front of 1,000 of new, unfamiliar readers. Talk loud, with emphasis, and listen to your own words. See how they hang together in this context.

You may find a few clunkers.

What's a clunker? Simply a really badly written sentence. It may be cliche. Melodramatic. Flat. Overly reaching. Whatever, it clunks when it should purr. It's a clunker.

Since I've never been embarrassed to show the horror of some of my own writing, I'll offer a few examples of clunkers I found on this draft that somehow survived all my other reads.

1) What are you going to do?" she asked, drawing on her cigarette. (how can you ask something when you're sucking on a cigarette? You either ask, then suck, or suck then ask. Not at the same time.)

2) Malcomb's eyes widened like a terrified doe's. (that's just bad)

3) Memories he'd spent his entire life running away from were now chasing after him, like a rabid dog biting at his heels. (What? Doggy memories biting me? Ouch!)

4) A tear fell onto her cheek. (cliche)

Other things I've noticed is using the same word too many times in short bites of the book. For example, I have a character who has a "familiar toothless grin." Darn if I didn't write toothless three times in three paragraphs.

These are all clunkers. Examples of bad writing. I found them in my book. I killed them.

Now I'm hunting for more.

Getting Back to Revisions - Rewrite or Start Over

Time to get back to revising.

Heard from my writing group in a fillet session, er. . . constructive criticism session. Actually, they were quite kind and actually very complimentary, which was unusual. Must have been the wine.

But their comments brought up one very important point that's worth discussing and getting your thoughts. Rewriting or Starting Over.

Before we get there, let me explain. My current novel is actually a revised version of a revised version of an earlier work. Essentially, I took concepts and basic plotlines from an earlier work and deconstructed the novel, re-concepted the plot and characters, wrote new story arcs for each character and wrote a new outline for the new story. I did however make one major mistake that has come back to haunt me over and over, which is the title of this post.

Whenever possible, in order to save time, energy and writing, I reused some of my old book parts. At the time, I thought I was being clever. If I could reuse a chapter here or a plot line there, make some minor changes, I'd make my writing faster. Turned out to be wrong.

Here's the problem. In reusing some of the old stuff, I ran into a few instances where the character motivation for doing a certain thing was actually no longer valid. Since I wanted to reuse the part, I simply changed the motivation in my current form, thinking it would solve the problem, but it didn't, it created new problems.

Let me give an example. In my first version of the book, after the police come to the lab and my hero and his research partner make a daring escape, they go back and meet at the hero's apartment. At the time, this was crucial, because my hero desperately needed to do something with their research project and time was of the esscence. It had to be done right then. Afterward, they went on the run before the police found them at the apartment. Are you following this?

In the new version, after they escape the police I decided they would still go back to the apartment and do the same repair of the research project. The problem is, the reason they desperately had to do it before, no longer existed. Now, they just did it, to which my entire writing group could only ask "why?" And my answer? Well, there really isn't one, is there. My characters did it because I was lazy and wanted to keep some old scenes rather than rewrite them. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

I violoated one of my own ten immutable laws of revising: Know each character's motivation.

My advice then, when confronted with a similar situation in your rewriting, is not to reuse old scenes. Rather, it's always best to rewrite them. When you rewrite them in the flow of your current writing, the character's motivation is more organic from the story, not contrived by the author just to be able to reuse some segments. And this is the key lesson from this experience. Each action that the character performs, each motivation, has to be organic to the current book. If you're going to reuse some scenes, make sure that the motivation and action still makes sense in your current writing. If there's any question, it's probably best to just rewrite it.

I'm doing that now. Fortunately, I'm very near the end of the novel, and this is a quick fix for me, but I'm going through each line, making sure that any old vestiges from the last novel still make sense now, that the reasons are organically grown from the current state of the characters.

Then I'll be done and it's off to the agent!

We'll write about query's and synopses then.

I'm Back!

Wow! Hard to believe so much time transpired since my last post. But it did.

In case you were wondering, I've been fine. In fact, your great comments of encouragement and the growing number of readers who've found some value from this blog keep me motivated to keep on going forward.

Over these last three weeks, I simply took a break. After completing the novel and waiting for my writing group to come back to me with their final recommendations (which will happen this Thursday) I decided to take some well-deserved time away from writing or writing about writing. Instead, I focused on The Ripple Effect, which has been incredibly busy of late.

But with my writing group meeting coming later this week, soon I'll be launching back into the novel. And with that, I'll begin updating here again as well.

I intend to finish our discussion of outlining. And with the novel just about ready to go back to my agent, I thought I'd write about the all-important query letter and the extremely difficult novel summary. Both essential topics if you hope to get published.

Please keep your comments coming. It's nice to know that all of my blabbering may actually be helping some body.

Back to the updating and novel after my meeting Thursday!

Revising the Novel - Performance Update

I may not have been quite as sequestered as the monk in this photo, but it's been pretty darn close, hiding myself away, working feverishly to finish the revision of Deadly Vision. And, after about 6 months of mostly concentrated work, I'm thrilled to say, that I've finished! Yea! Much applause and fanfare (and hopefully some much needed sleep!)

Sunday, I went through the last chapters, made the final cuts and got the novel down to about 100,000 words, which was my goal. Without a doubt, this is the cleanest, tightest, most aggressive version of the novel ever.

Keeping the Ten-Point Revision Strategy on my desk the whole time, I found the points useful in constantly reminding me of what I needed to do. One thing that I realized is that during all of my previous revisions, I didn't really revise the book. instead, I would really just read the book. Sure, I'd make a few changes here or there to wording, expand a small scene to add more detail, fix a grammatical error, but that's about it. It's so easy to get into the pattern of reading our writing, not really revising our writing.

To that end, the Ten-Point Revision Strategy was really helpful.

Particularly:

1) With each chapter, I asked myself consciously, what are the character's motivations here. What does each character (not just my main hero) really want to happen? This brought up lots of previously unseen opportunities for conflict.

2) Does this scene move the story forward. Wow! That one was really powerful for me. I can't tell you how many times I read a scene that I really liked, but on close scrutiny, realized it wasn't necessary to move the story forward. Here's the latest example.

In one scene, my hero needs to use the internet to contact someone. He can't connect from the place he's hiding for fear of it being traced back to his location, so he has to go to the public library to use their computer. In that scene, I loved writing about the elderly librarian who ran the library since our hero was a school boy. I loved the descriptions of the library itself, really imparting the small town feel I was reaching for. I loved the tension, our hero felt by connecting from such a public place.

There was only one problem. None of it was necessary.

The Librarian never appears again. I'd already described the small town. Our hero has been nervous and in fear of being caught for the last several pages. In the end, the whole point of the scene was to mention that he connected with his lab partner to set up an important trial, then steps to the payphone and calls the police officer that's been chasing him. That's it. I wrote 3 or 4 pages to describe what I just wrote to you in one sentence.

So I cut it. All of it. Kill your babies, they say. Librarian, gone. Library in small town, mentioned in passing. The scene now starts with my hero stepping out of the library where he'd just connected with his lab partner and walking into the phone booth. I still have all the tension of him getting caught while he's standing there, fully exposed, making the phone call. I mention in brief back story, that he'd just connected with the lab. Now, I'm moving directly on to the conversation with the cop. Saved 4 pages. probably 700 words.

3) I really loved the "end each chapter earlier," point. I really recommend you try this one. Something so simple, often times had a really powerful effect of increasing tension and drama. Sometimes I just eliminated the last sentence of the chapter, sometimes the entire last paragraph. Either way, what I found was all those cut little pat endings I'd written, the final chapter summary or forced dramatic ending, were usually hampering the drama. By cutting them, and ending the chapter with an earlier sentence, I often felt there was actually more tension. More of a cliffhanger.

4) I paid lots of attention to word choice, avoiding overused words, and overall tightening my word selection. I eliminated writing "he paused," instead, creating the pause. And adverbs became an endangered species in my book. Or as Metallica once said, "Kill em all!"

5) Tightening dialog also worked well. In truth, we tend to never speak more than 3 sentences during a conversation before the other person interrupts us with a comment. Yet, when we write, we have no problem with one character going on for whole paragraphs. I've even seen some characters in books going on for a whole page, or more!!

This doesn't happen in real life, and shouldn't happen in your novel. Keep the dialog tight, brisk. It flows faster, the book flows faster and the dialog feels more natural, less forced.

So now, I just need to let my two writing groups catch up with me, give them a chance to destroy . . er, I mean critique my work, then one more final read through and it's back to my agent.

Just so you know, Warner Books and Bantam had both expressed an interest and both requested this revision, so hopefully we'll hear soon. Either way, I'll keep y'all posted of the developments as we move through this publishing experience together.

As always, you comments are most appreciated. They've kept me motivated to keep this blog going when I felt like stopping.

In the future, we're going to finish up outlining, move to query letters, novel summaries, plotting and other points. Let me know what you'd like read about.

Writing the Novel - Outlining Part 2

Back to outlining.

A while back, when I started the first outlining post I answered the question, "Should I outline?" with a flippant, but honest answer.

Yes, if it works for you. No, if it doesn't.

In truth, very few people are capable of writing a successful novel without some sort of outline. Even the most free-flowing of us has some idea of what the novel is about. And even if they never commit this to paper, in their mind, if asked, they'll have an idea of where the story starts, who the characters are (at least some of them) and a vague idea as to what will happen in the book. Even if it's a totally vague idea, they'll at least know that their novel is a story about Mandy and Mike, growing up in a small town in Oklahoma, and they fall in love, but as economic hardship strikes their town, they break up and have to deal with the question of whether or not to have their unborn child or abort it. Etc.

This little sentence may be all the author knows about his/her book, and they may intentionally say, "I never outline because I want to be free to explore the story where ever it goes." But they're wrong. That little sentence is an outline. Even if it's only in their head, it's still an outline.

An outline is a basic structure for a story. A preconceived notion of a beginning and various events that will happen as the novel moves towards the end. Notice I didn't say that an outline includes an ending. It doesn't have to. If you really want to live the "mystery" of writing and see how the story ends for itself, that's fine. You've still outlined in your head how the story will go.

Let's look at that for a moment, as loose as this "outline" is.

There's a story start; characters and a location.
Story points are laid out; economic hardship, a romance, a break-up, a pregnancy.

That's an outline. Now to take this basic idea and turn it into a more structured outline, one that won't cramp your "creative freedom," all you need to do is add a timeline and vision the obligate scenes that are necessary to make these events happen.

In other words. The beginning. You may start by introducing the town, the characters, the economic setting, what have you. But you've identified your beginning.

At some point you must introduce the characters. So you will need obligatory introductory scenes to bring in Mandy and Mike.

They need to have a romance. It can be already started and we're catching it in the middle or we can watch it start and grow. It's up to you. But either way, there are some obligatory scenes you must have to show a romance growing or maintaining.

She becomes pregnant. Her discovery of this is a pretty obligate scene.

Economic hardship strikes. Another obligate scene (or several)

They breakup. Many obligate scenes here to show how the economy has affected their relationship.

They need to decide what to do about the baby.

Where you go from there is anybody's guess.

It may not seem like much, but you've just outlined the basis of your novel. Now, once you really start to think about this and add a timeline, you'll see that there are really several obligatory scenes that need to happen to connect these scenes. As you fill those in, the outline becomes more clear. And you haven't necessarily written anything yet.

Tess Gerristen, the best-selling author, states that she never outlines. But this isn't true. What she means is that she never commits an outline of her novel to paper. But she knows from before she starts writing at least some of the obligatory scenes she'll be telling. She's also already done a ton of research, which in and of itself, dictates some scenes. By the time she sits down, with all her research, she's ready to start writing. She may not know everything that will happen as the novel unfolds, but she certainly knows where the book will start, the major events that will happen, how the research will factor in, and the obligate scenes she'll need to have those events unfold.

That's an outline.

In truth, I'm a big fan of outlining. And I'll go over my outlining process next post.

Writing the Novel - Another List of Overused Words

I hope everyone's writing is going well and that progress is being made. Again, I'd like to thank all those who've posted comments. Your thoughts are much appreciated and gives me motivation to keep this blog going when I really have so many other things I should be doing. A while back, I posted a list of words that I'd jotted down during various writing courses. These were words to be avoided, poor modifiers, weak descriptors, over-used words. That post has turned out to be one of my favorites, as I go back to it often as I'm rewriting. As I'm nearing completion of my revision, each word it seems is taking on greater importance, and I find myself commonly go back to that list. So for today's post, I wanted to update it and expand it. Some of you may remember that the reason I originally started this blog was to share all that I've learned over the years towards publishing, but also for myself. When I came up with my Ten-Point Revision Strategy, this blog served as a thinking pad for me to flesh those ideas out, help me to concentrate and focus in the important details. And I still find I'm doing that. Each time I post, what I write about is as much to help me understand the topics as it is to offer any insights to the readers. Hopefully, we'll both be able to learn and grow in our writing together. This list has been modified from phschool.com I present it here as a tool for all of us to remember those weak, overused words. If you'd like any further research on the topic, please visit their site. Overused Words about approximately, nearly, almost, approaching, close to

absolutely unconditionally, perfectly, completely, ideally, purely

activity action, movement, operation, labor, exertion, enterprise, project, pursuit, endeavor, job, assignment, pastime, scheme, task

add attach, affix, join, unite, append, increase, amplify

affect adjust, influence, transform, moderate, incline, motivate, prompt

amazing overwhelming, astonishing, startling, unexpected, stunning, dazzling, remarkable

awesome impressive, stupendous, fabulous, astonishing, outstanding

bad defective, inadequate, poor, unsatisfactory, disagreeable, offensive, repulsive, corrupt, wicked, naughty, harmful, injurious, unfavorable

basic essential, necessary, indispensable, vital, fundamental, elementary

beautiful attractive, appealing, alluring, exquisite, gorgeous, handsome, stunning

begin commence, found, initiate, introduce, launch, originate

better preferable, superior, worthier

big enormous, extensive, huge, immense, massive

boring commonplace, monotonous, tedious, tiresome

bring accompany, cause, convey, create, conduct, deliver, produce

cause origin, stimulus, inspiration, motive

certain unquestionable, incontrovertible, unmistakable, indubitable, assured, confident

change alter, transform, vary, replace, diversify

choose select, elect, nominate, prefer, identify

decent respectable, adequate, fair, suitable

definitely unquestionably, clearly, precisely, positively, inescapably

easy effortless, natural, comfortable, undemanding, pleasant, relaxed effective powerful, successful emphasize underscore, feature, accentuate end limit, boundary, finish, conclusion, finale, resolution energy vitality, vigor, force, dynamism enjoy savor, relish, revel, benefit entire complete, inclusive, unbroken, integral excellent superior, remarkable, splendid, unsurpassed, superb, magnificent exciting thrilling, stirring, rousing, dramatic far distant, remote fast swift, quick, fleet, hasty, instant, accelerated fill occupy, suffuse, pervade, saturate, inflate, stock finish complete, conclude, cease, achieve, exhaust, deplete, consume funny comical, ludicrous, amusing, droll, entertaining, bizarre, unusual, uncommon get obtain, receive, acquire, procure, achieve give bestow, donate, supply, deliver, distribute, impart go proceed, progress, advance, move good satisfactory, serviceable, functional, competent, virtuous, striking great tremendous, superior, remarkable, eminent, proficient, expert happy pleased, joyous, elated, jubilant, cheerful, delighted hard arduous, formidable, complex, complicated, rigorous, harsh help assist, aid, support, sustain, serve hurt injure, harm, damage, wound, impair important significant, substantial, weighty, meaningful, critical, vital, notable interesting absorbing, appealing, entertaining, fascinating, thought-provoking job task, work, business, undertaking, occupation, vocation, chore, duty, assignment keep retain, control, possess kind type, variety, sort, form know comprehend, understand, realize, perceive, discern like (adj) similar, equivalent, parallel like (verb) enjoy, relish, appreciate main primary, foremost, dominant make build, construct, produce, assemble, fashion, manufacture mean plan, intend, suggest, propose, indicate more supplementary, additional, replenishment new recent, modern, current, novel next subsequently, thereafter, successively nice pleasant, satisfying, gracious, charming old aged, mature, experienced, used, worn, former, previous open unobstructed, accessible part section, portion, segment, detail, element, component perfect flawless, faultless, ideal, consummate plan scheme, design, system, plot pleasant agreeable, gratifying, refreshing, welcome prove demonstrate, confirm, validate, verify, corroborate quick brisk, prompt, responsive, rapid, nimble, hasty really truly, genuinely, extremely, undeniably regular standard, routine, customary, habitual see regard, behold, witness, gaze, realize, notice small diminutive, miniature, minor, insignificant, slight, trivial sometimes occasionally, intermittently, sporadically, periodically take grasp, capture, choose, select, tolerate, endure terrific extraordinary, magnificent, marvelous think conceive, imagine, ponder, reflect, contemplate try attempt, endeavor, venture, test use employ, operate, utilize very unusually, extremely, deeply, exceedingly, profoundly want desire, crave, yearn, long

Writing the Novel - To Outlne or Not to Outline

Some debates can't be settled with the passage of time.

When it comes to writing, the question I'm asked more than any other is; do I outline?

And the truthful answer is, it doesn't matter whether I outline or not, what you really want to know is; should you outline?

It seems that very little can rile up as much contention, debate, anger and anxiety as this one very simple question. Should I outline?

And the answer to that can only be: Yes, if it works for you. No, if it doesn't.

How's that for a vague way to start a new series of posts?

For some reason, outlining seems to be this mysterious process, knowledge hidden by reclusive writing gurus, kept in secret, protected from the eyes of the rest of the world. Or else it seems to be this amazingly tedious, painful, arduous process, like a scientific experiment, that can only performed in one precise way to get the proper results. If done incorrectly. . . BOOM! The whole novel explodes in a silty smoke of disaster.

Neither of these perceptions are true. Outlining is simply that, outlining. A guide. A short "high points" guide to what the novel is about. A road map to where the novel is going. There is nothing mysterious or scientific about it. There is no right or wrong way to do it. It just is.

Good, now that we're past the philosophy of outlining, let's get down to the nitty gritty. The real deal. How to do it.

Of course, the answer to that last statement will be as varied as there are writer's, and that's important. You need to find a system that works for you. You may try several outlining systems before you find what works in your hands, with your brain. But eventually, you will find that system.

Or not.

Tess Gerristen, the best-selling author of ten billion books doesn't outline at all. She never has, never will. I've asked her about this and we'll talk about her views, my views and other views as we move along through this segment of posts.

We're going to explore all aspects of outlining. And we're going to do it without an outline.