Write Your Query Letter Now

I am an impatient type of person. I like always to be starting on the next step, the next thing. So, part way through my novel, I became a query troll, roaming the internets for information on ‘what comes next’.

Not long after, I developed an addiction for Query Shark. “Here’s where I stop reading,” the Shark declared over and over. I absorbed her critiques and grew eager to write a query letter of my own.

So I began. It sounded easy enough. Main character + one choice + consequences.

Oddly enough, my first two paragraphs had none of those elements.

And I tried to start the third paragraph, but couldn’t quite figure out what to say next. The odd thing was, I heard the Shark’s voice in my head: “This is where your story starts.”

“What?” I thought. “This is where my story starts? This paragraph I haven’t written yet? What about these first two paragraphs?”

I read them again.

Uh oh. The voice in my head was right.

Those two paragraphs were not where my story started.

Worse yet, those two paragraphs represented the first 10 chapters of my story. That, and I still couldn’t come up with the third paragraph.

So I forgot about the parts of the story I’d actually written, and headed forward with my query letter. I finally wrote a query that didn’t incite the Shark’s voice to pop into my head. (Mind you, the one in my head is not the real Shark, so I’m sure the real Shark would have plenty to say. But she’s not allowed to read my query yet, because I haven’t finished my manuscript.)

It was a difficult exercise, and perhaps prematurely executed. Yet it was surprisingly helpful

Things I learned writing my query letter:

My story started in chapter eleven. [Eek, chapter eleven. That doesn’t sound good.]

Having an omniscient narrator gave me no reason to withhold information that needed withholding. I realized this when I couldn’t even figure out how to withhold this in my query.

Odd as it sounds, I had not a clue who my main character was. [I still think of my story as having an ‘ensemble cast’ but I also now have a character who is a ‘red cord’, someone whose character arc compels the story from page one to page last.]

What happened:

My chapter eleven is now chapter one. All the backstory from the first ten chapters has been distilled and inserted sparingly in the action of the tale.

I have a narrator who is also a character, who is capable of not knowing the whole story until she finds out later.

I had to start from a blank page to accommodate this narration.

I found a character I did not know existed in my tale, but whose presence is of inexorable significance.

Several events that I had feared would seem extraneous and gratuitous became necessary as I reshaped the novel.

I realized how utterly glad I am I had these revelations and made these changes before actually sending a query to agents. I learned that my novel needed serious help, without even having to be rejected. When I finally do send that query, I will be confident that I have done all I can in my limited knowledge and the knowledge available on the internet. And that is a good feeling. (But when I get rejections, don’t try to calm me down by reminding me I said that. I will yell at you for not understanding, and it will not be pretty. Fair warning.)

So, write your query letter now.

Charlotte and Thomas

It's that time again. Time for the Flash Fiction Challenge for #storycraft. The focus this week was dialogue. Write an entire story in dialogue only? That really put the emphasis on Challenge!

This piece is a reprise/continuation/tangent of The Bouquet Wrapper.

Charlotte and Thomas

“Charlotte,” Thomas said, standing to greet her, “I’m so glad to see you.” He pulled out her chair before sitting back down.

Charlotte smiled, but only with her lips.

Thomas smiled back.

Charlotte opened her menu. “This is quite the restaurant.”

“I wanted to make sure it was worth your while.” He reached his hand out, letting it rest on the table.

Charlotte looked at his hand and then continued reading the menu.

Thomas swallowed and pulled his hand back. “Did you like the flowers?” He asked.

“They died already,” she said.

Thomas stared at her for a moment, watching her eyes scan the menu. He picked up his own, staring at it blankly. “I should have sent them. I shouldn’t have just dropped by your place like that,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Charlotte looked up quickly. “That’s what you’re apologizing for?” She set down her menu and crossed her arms on the table.

The waiter walked up, smiling politely. “Good evening, I’ll be your server tonight. Can I start you off with something to drink?” He looked at Charlotte.

Charlotte smiled. “Yes, I’ll take a glass of the Chateau St Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon.”

“Good choice.” The waiter smiled and looked to Thomas.

Thomas looked at Charlotte and said, “why don’t you bring us the bottle?’

“Of course. I’ll go grab that for you and give you some time to decide on the menu.”

Thomas and Charlotte looked at each other in silence.

“So,” Charlotte said, “did you treat her this well? The fancy restaurant, the bottle of wine? You certainly seem to know how to put on a show, and you’ve never done this for me before.”

Thomas stared at Charlotte. He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Whatever I did with Meg, I never loved her.”

Charlotte clenched her jaw. “Did you ever love me?”

Thomas trembled slightly all over. He nodded lightly a few times and then sat up straight. “If I say, ‘of course I did, and still do,’ you would say ‘you certainly haven’t done a very good job of showing it.’ Because I haven’t. But I don’t know how else I can make you know, without having to wait and wait for you to believe me. To trust me.”

Charlotte stared at him. She sat up straight as well and crossed her hands in her lap.

“I will wait,” he said. “Will I be waiting with hope or despair?”

Charlotte half-smiled with trembling lips. “If there was nothing left for us, I would have left you a message. And it would have been more than you deserved.”

Thomas’s eyes watered. “It would have,” he said. “But I’m glad you came.”

The Blue Ribbons

Flash Fiction challenge from@Story_Craft. Check out their blog for the image, the challenge guidelines, more great Flash Fiction pieces and an all around good time.

The Blue Ribbons

I pulled on my soggy trousers ignoring the mud stains on the knees. Mamma wouldn't be proud. I pulled my socks off, and stuffed them to the bottom of the laundry hamper so Mamma wouldn’t see the black footprints stained onto the bottoms and remind me not to wear them outside. I dug through my drawers looking for a clean shirt and picked a ratty, faded-blue T-shirt I could get dirty. I noticed my training bra where I’d left it on the floor and stared at it for a moment. Ugh. I kicked it under the bed and pulled my shirt on.

On my way out the back door, I grabbed my baseball hat and noticed a bundle of blue ribbon on the counter and stuffed it into my pocket. I stepped outside and smiled at the grey clouds and pulled my hat on snugly.

“Is this it?” I asked the air beside me. “The ancient lantern?” I took the lid off the lantern in the garden and looked inside. “I thought it would be, I don’t know, more hidden.”

My imagined companion answered, “It’s stranded on an isolated mountain top. Seems pretty hidden to me. We’d be lucky to find this place again.”

I stared at the lamp for another moment. “If the emperor finds it, he’ll be the one to fulfill the prophecy. We have to keep it from him,” I said.

I pulled the ribbon from my pockets. “I still have some of the fairy rope. I can use it to mark the trees and since it will only be visible to me only I’ll be able to find the way back. Where’s the nearest rebel outpost?”

“It’s just beyond the Dallmar Pass, in the wood by Lake Dallmaru.”

I nodded. “Stay here and guard the lantern. I shouldn’t be more than a fortnight.” I started into the wood, carefully tying trees with the blue ribbon, marking my route.

I soon heard the back door slide open, and I quickly wielded my imaginary sword, squinting through the trees.

“Stacy! Are you out here?” Mamma’s voice carried through the trees.

I re-sheathed my blade, and let the last ribbon fall to the ground, and ran toward the house. “Yeah, Mamma?” I asked, coming through the treeline.

“Why haven’t you sorted the laundry like I asked?” she said.

“Can’t I do it later?”

“You said that an hour ago. It is later,” she said.

“I meant, like, after dinner,” I grumbled.

“Nope, now,” she ushered me into the house. “Look at you, you're filthy!” she noted as I walked past. As I made my way down the hallway I heard her yell behind me, “Stacy? There was a bundle of blue ribbon on the counter. Have you seen it?"

Oh, The Horrors of POV!

My novel used to be over 60,000 words, and not yet complete. I was well on my way to a decent length for publishable fiction, closing in on that lovely number agents like to see in query letters (at least that’s what they say on their blogs; I have yet to actually query).

But then something horrible happened. I changed the POV from a decent third person limited to a first person. A first person who is not writing his/her own tale, but that of someone else. So first person who sometimes writes in third person. (Oh, and he/she is not androgynous, I simply do not want the internets at large knowing things like that about my story. I know, I’m weird.)

When I made this POV change, the stars aligned, the heavens opened up, the outline fell together and all the characters rejoiced!

Until I got to chapter 18.

Those of you who follow me on twitter may be aware that chapter 18 of my work in progress has been quite the ball and chain recently.

My poor narrator ran into a problem: He/she had never been to the major scene in chapter 18, nor had any of her informants. What to do? Put one of her informants at the event? No, too many unbelievable plot twists. Change to another POV for this chapter? No, too inconsistent with the manner of the telling.

So, finally, I made my decision. The lovely scene I had so looked forward to writing got cut. Gone. Finito. Thin air. Funtoosh. I simply couldn't make it work.

And this, I think, is among the hardest things writers have to do. We must separate our wheat scenes from our chaff scenes and throw our chaff in into the fire. (Actually I recommend saving them in a separate chaff file, to be retrieved during your third draft when you decide to change the POV back to third person omniscient. Just in case. You can, however, name the file “unquenchable fire”.)

POV is an important decision. It can make or break your story. In fact it can make and break your story at the same time. So beware!