agents

The Query Quandary

Mention queries, and writers of all ages sprout a few more gray hairs.  The first rule of #AskAgent chats on Twitter is No Query Questions.  I haven’t yet come across a writer who looks forward to writing one or an agent who adores slogging through hundreds of them to find a few gems.  (If you’re out there, give a shout.)  [EDIT: Cat likes writing them, just not sending them.  So there’s at least one out there.]

No one (or almost) really likes them, but I get why they fall under the “necessary evil” category.  And it’s not like there aren’t resources out there to help – enough blogs to overload anyone’s browser, for starters.

Even with all that help, we struggle.  After doing my best to help critique several queries on AgentQuery Connect and overhauling my own query for the umpteenth time, I thought about what makes it so difficult.  Boiling a novel-length plot down to a couple hundred words isn’t easy, obviously.  But what – above all else – stands in the way?

They say the devil’s in the details.  I contend that the devil’s in determining the depth of the details.  (How’s that for alliteration?)

Boil down the plot too much, and you get something like this:

An orphan boy discovers he has unexpected power and is the Chosen One who must battle ultimate Evil.

Could be Harry Potter.  Or Star Wars.  Or possibly dozens of other fantasy works.

More often, though, I think we tend to go to the opposite extreme, thinking every nuance of the story is essential if the agent or editor is to understand the plot.  Try this (exaggerated) example:

Milton Dauntless, a shy thirteen-year-old boy with a faithful Chihuahua-Corgi mix named Gargantuar, discovers his parents, Darwina and Ted, weren’t killed in the famous So-So Steakhouse food poisoning scandal of ’99 as he’d been told all his life by Grandma Gertie.  In fact, his father was killed by the evil vampire lord Vladindeath, who has secretly ruled the underworld ever since defeating the werewolf clans seven hundred fifty-two years ago.  As the sole survivor of the powerful Dauntless clan, Milton must now learn to harness the power of the Crystal of Purity, find out what happened to his mother when she escaped the bloodbath of her husband’s murder with her long-lost brother Sherman, and defeat the vampires once and for all.

(Okay, that was kind of fun.)

That one is obviously bogged down in excess detail, including irrelevant backstory and too many names.  (See my earlier musing on the issue of Name Soup.)

Here are some of my conclusions, and I hope others will add to them.

Get Enough Detail

• The whole point of the query is to show an agent or editor what makes your story stand out from the others.  Part of this can be through voice.  But these days, if you’re writing about vampires or angels, for example, you’ve got to show your unique twist.
• Make it memorable and leave them wanting more.  Again, the point of the query: get a request for more material.
• Include details that are snappy, quirky, or unexpected … without belaboring the point.

Don’t Overdo the Detail

• R.C.’s Personal Rule of Thumb: Anyone who won’t be mentioned by name again in the query shouldn’t be named at all.
• Avoid backstory.  Plenty of time (and more creative ways) to incorporate it into the manuscript itself.
• Axe details that can leave the reader saying, “Why should I care about that?”  For example, knowing all of that about Milton’s dog doesn’t really tell us anything substantial about the character (except maybe that he has a silly sense of humor when it comes to naming pets) or the plot.

It’s a thin line to walk between too much and too little.  No wonder so many of us find it so difficult.

Do you have any pointers for finding that perfect balance?

~R.C.

Speak up:

Keeping Busy

Progress!  I have written another short story.  I won’t be posting it here, because I have hopes of submitting it to a few places.  (Imagine if it got accepted – I’d have a publishing credit.  How snazzy!)  Just under 4000 words, so about four times as long as the first attempt.  The first was just a fun little exercise to see what happened if I tried.  This one I took more seriously.  If anyone’s willing to offer some feedback, drop me a line.

I’ve also gotten back to the sequel for Fingerprints.  Wrote several pages, knowing that I was likely to cut most of one scene.  I had to write it to get things rolling again, but as a scene, it wasn’t going anywhere.  SNIP!  I hope I can keep pushing forward on it.  It feels like it’s a third of the way (or maybe halfway) through, so I’m curious how long it’ll end up.

Meanwhile, the day job has plenty going on as well.  State testing this week, which I have to miss my morning classes to administer every day except Thursday.  Seven of my students (including my entire Pre-Calculus class) will be leaving for Europe Tuesday afternoon and will miss the rest of this week and next.  Oh, and I’ve been procrastinating a final project for my professional development class.

All this has helped a great deal in keeping my mind off the next round of cuts for ABNA (happening Tuesday) and the full I have out to an agent.  I prefer stressing about things I have some (if little) control over.

Speak up:

While Waiting

I got my first request for a full on Friday (prompting a weekend-long happy-dance).  While it’s not out on an exclusive basis, I have various reasons for waiting a bit before querying further.  Thus, I find it’s time to make a list:

Things to Do While Waiting on an Agent

1. Work on the sequel  (I know, I know … sell the first one first.)
2. Try hand at short stories  (First attempt seen here, more “sincere” attempt underway.)
3. Reorganize a closet or two  (or three …)
4. Do stuff for the day job  (Should this be higher on the list?)
5. Consider learning another language  (ASL? Check. French? Semi-check. Spanish, which would be particularly useful? D’oh!)
6. Watch episodes of Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs  (Am I the only one waiting for these two shows to collide?)
7. Back I’ve Been Deader  (Hey, where’d that come from?!)
8. Reconsider languages  (I wanna learn Welsh … but why?)
9. Ponder what would happen if Roombas became self-aware  (I mean, really, think about it.)
10. Read “real” books  (Got a stack of seven waiting for me.)

There’s my first ten.  What do you do while waiting for an agent’s response?

Speak up: