SNOW DAY!

This is right outside my apartment.

It doesn't matter how old you are. The words "snow day" can still bring joy and glee to your heart. Today I have a snow day. It's snowed a whole three inches and as a result, I don't have to go to work. The towns in the area are pretty much shut down.

I know those of you in the colder regions are laughing. When we lived in New York, if the snow fall was less than several feet nothing closed. They got the snow plows out and life carried on.

Here in Georgia, it's another story. We don't get snow very often, so they don't have snow plows and salt. So when the snow falls, or the roads ice, it just stays there until it melts. 

Last night my manager called me and said we were closed in the morning. It was already sleeting/snowing outside. I did a happy dance, and resumed working on my book.  


Which is going well. I decided that constantly stopping to brainstorm for what's going to happen next is putting a cramp my creativity though, and there are some events that I actually need to plan out in order to be able to write the book, so I stopped writing for a few days to plan out said events. I find that as the book progresses I am planning more and more out. 

Cold white stuff on the ground! What is this?

Next time I think I will plan a little more out than I had this time around. It's just too weird for me to go back and forth between planning and writing. Also, some of my ideas require knowing how specific things work, and it's hard to write when you haven't thought that part out yet. 


I guess I am really not a pantser after all. I tried, but as time goes on, I am planning more and more out. I do think it was a success to cut back on the planning, since now I am only planning what I have to know. I think as writers it's good to test your process. Figure out what still working for you and what isn't.

Also, in case you didn't know, the wonderful Sara Megibow is hosting a webinar! She is an agent at the Nelson Literary Agency. Seriously, this agency is on my dream agent list. Agents Kristin and Sara are so sweet, and smart, and really seem to know the industry. I am very excited about Sara's first three pages seminar. It seems like a great way to get feedback on your book.


Speaking of pages, it's back to the work in progress!
 
How do you figure out parts of your writing process? Trial and error? Habit?

Snow day!

 

Old School Query Letter

I am still not feeling 100% on the account of the strep throat my sister in law passed on to me, but I at least feel like a human being again.

Last week I took part in a wonderful webinar hosted by the fabulous Kristin Nelson. She gave a great discussion on query letters and how not to suck at them (my words, not hers). Ms. Nelson has some great resources for query letter writing on her blog that will start you off, but the webinar expounded upon those gems. 

Ms. Nelson approaches the query letter process in a slightly different way than I've ever seen. She suggests looking at your inciting incident, the plot event that kicks off your entire plot, and building the query letter around that. It gives the agents a taste of the plot without drowning them in details and irrelevant bits. 

This is not as easy as it sounds. I started out with a terrible query letter, mostly because I was trying to cram too much information in there. So I took a step back, and wrote down with a pencil and piece of paper the three most interesting parts of my novel. Three things I thought made my novel unique. I then crafted those bits into three sentences. From there, I worked out how to make those three pieces connect, and only then did I have something that vaguely resembled a query letter. I also chose to add a little detail about a subplot, to flesh out the query letter better.

I then rewrote those sentences a bajillion times. Or that's how many times it felt like. I wrote the same handful of sentences over and over, playing around with my word choice, and reading it out loud to see if it made sense or not. I didn't just erase when I made a mistake either, I started over. I worked on each sentence by itself until it read the way I wanted it to.

Why all the bother? Because with the webinar I get a free pitch paragraph critique from Ms. Nelson. I am literally jumping for joy with the thought. So, I made my pitch paragraphs (the paragraphs that talk about your novel) as awesome as I could so when Ms. Nelson looks them over she'll catch the real mistakes, and not something I could have fixed myself. 

It really surprised me how different writing those paragraphs out long hand felt. I almost wish I had the time to write a novel like that. I've tried, but I think too fast for a first draft to be written by long hand. A friend of mine wants to re type her manuscript while editing it, and I am considering doing that the next time I edit.

Here are some lessons I learned from the webinar, and the subsequent rewriting of my pitch paragraphs:


*Make sure the information in the pitch paragraphs is new and interesting. Don't say what was a normal day or event for your character--tell us the extraordinary stuff that happens to her. 

*Pick out three to four details about your novel that makes it unique. Expand upon these details and how it affects the main character. Don't try to talk about too much as once. Remember, show don't tell works just as well here as your novel.

*Space is a premium in your pitch paragraphs. Don't waste it by saying things like "It was a normal day until..." or repeating what you've already covered.

*Make sure each sentence builds on the last, and connects in a way that makes sense. Read the backs of novels to get a sense of how novels are pitched in a short period of time. Given enough to whet their appetite and leave them wanting more. Wanting more means a request for partials!


*Write the query letter out by hand. Everyone has time for this. Your query letter is your first impression to an agent. You can take the time to write it out long hand and pay attention to every single word you're putting into the paragraphs. 


These are some tips I've picked up along the way. What other techniques have helped you write a good query letter?

A Webinar on How to Write Science Fiction/Fantasy Queries! Huzzah!

I feel like that actress clutching her Oscar, crying, "You do love me! You really do!"

Kristin Nelson, of the super awesome amazing wonderful fabulous Nelson Literary Agency is giving a webinar next Thursday called "How to Write and Sell Fantasy and Science Fiction". She stated that they are actively looking to expand their roster of Science Fiction and Fantasy novels, but they are the area that is the weakest in terms of query letters. 

Sure, there are plenty of conventions for us geeks, but precious little "How to" information at those seminars for writing novels (which is why I jumped on that seminar I took at Dragon*Con like a rat terrier on a tennis ball). How do you work the worldbuilding and back story into the query letter, where space is a premium? How much of that worldbuilding is crucial? If you refrain from including a major detail in the query letter in favor of space, will that hurt you later on down the partil-full requests line?

These are questions I am sure us fantasy and science fiction writers are no stranger to. These questions and more will be answered by the wonderful Kristin Nelson next Thursday. Here are the details: How to Write and Sell Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels 

The extra awesome aspect of this webinar is you get a critique of your query letter, and if you can't make the time of the webinar, you can still access the archives for up to a year later. Sounds like a sweet deal to me!

Now if you will excuse me, I have a query letter to butcher.