Revise that ineffective query letter!

So. I’ve been querying literary agents for a while now. Feels like forever. Mostly, I’ve gotten form rejection after form rejection (or no response at all…yippee). It’s been rough. I’d send out a batch of queries and wait awhile, then send more and keep waiting. No requests. No feedback. No idea what I was doing wrong.

I bought a few books on writing queries and read countless articles online. I gathered and implemented some very useful tips from those sources, but still wasn’t getting anywhere. I began to wonder if my sample chapters were killing me.

One day, a very gracious agent offered me more than just a standard form rejection. Actual feedback. Nothing Earth-shattering, mind you, but enough to help me see the error of my ways. As it turns out, my query and manuscript didn’t quite match up.

See, my original query focused too much on events that happen in the second half of my manuscript. I merely glossed over the first part—effectively making it sound like backstory that doesn’t actually occur IN the novel, even though it does. I have no idea why I did that. I guess I didn’t realize how it would come off.  

The agent told me my sample pages need to start closer to where the query describes the story as beginning. As it was, the query implied the novel “began” halfway through. Cue the “OMG, she’s riiiiiight,” groan.

It also dawned on me that I hadn’t sufficiently set-up the story. Thinking myself a genius, I had revised it to start smack dab in the middle of the action, hoping to grab the reader’s attention. Maybe it did, but starting that way also gave the reader no reason to care about the characters or the consequences of their actions. No sympathy had been established.

So, with the advice that I needed to start closer to the “beginning” of the story, I gave my story a new beginning. I wrote a new first chapter and adjusted the story’s timeline. The past became the present.

Then, I tossed my old query letter out the window and started over from scratch—at the beginning. I also followed query writing advice more closely. In my original letter, I explained my main character’s goal, but only vaguely said what would happen if she didn’t achieve it. In the new letter, I made the “stakes” higher and the goal clearer. My protagonist’s dilemma is now much more imperative.

I sent my new query to a few agents to test the waters, and you know what? So far, I’ve gotten one request. My first request. Obviously, I was excited, but am definitely not holding my breath. I’m well aware that a request doesn’t mean anything (and I'm probably totally jinxing it as I write). Besides, I still haven’t heard from the others, so maybe it was a fluke.

Regardless of the outcome, I now know my old query sucked. Big time. It was a stinker. I’m pretty sure my new query is more along the lines of what I should have been shooting for all along. Too bad it took me this long to figure that out.

Now I’m playing the waiting game. I’m holding off querying more agents until I see if I get any feedback on my sample pages, which would make me so very happy. I sent my original query (the sucky one) to too many agents, meaning I lost my chance with them (for this novel, anyway). I don’t want to make that mistake again. Live and learn, right? 

Is your query letter getting you nowhere? Maybe it needs to go out the window, too!

News Flash! Querying sucks.

I’ve heard many stories of now-successful authors who faced initial rejection. Stephenie Meyer, C.S. Lewis, John Grisham. The list goes on. (And on!) In fact, I think it would be harder to find an author who didn’t get rejected at least once.

The query process is, for most of us, a bitch. I’m pretty sure every agented and non-agented writer out there will agree that getting shot down is no fun. Regardless, that query letter is a necessary, yet evil, stepping stone on our quest for publication.

In my experience, here’s how the process generally works:

Step 1: You finally finish that blasted manuscript. And by finish, I mean you’ve edited the crap out of it, re-wrote entire chapters, and are pretty confident it’s done. DONE.

Step 2: You feel such a weight lifted off your shoulder because, hell-ooooh, you’ve just completed the next best-seller and who wouldn’t want to represent you? You compile a list of agents you just know will fight to the death for the chance to sell your masterpiece.

Step 3: You start drafting a query letter to send out to agents. If you’re new at this, you realize it’s not so easy. How can you summarize your entire story in one page? Much whining and gnashing of teeth ensues. 

Step 4: After days (or weeks?) toiling over this make-or-break letter, you think it’s ready. You immediately send it to your Dream Agent (you know, the one that represents your favorite author?). You’re sure they’ll immediately sign you, so you feel pretty good. You send the letter to a few other agents, just to be safe. Having options never hurt anyone, right? You send them by email, of course, because it’s so easy and who sends actual letters anymore?

Step 5: You wait. 

Step 6: You’re still waiting. Good grief, when will they respond already? Don’t they know you’re dying here?

Step 7: You get a rejection from one of the “other” agents. It’s a form letter basically saying, “Thanks, but no thanks.” There’s no feedback. No advice. No consolation prize.

Step 8: You are dev-a-stat-ed. A little voice emerges and tells you that at least Dream Agent hasn’t rejected you, yet. There’s still hope.

Step 9: You check your outbox and realize it’s been over three months since you sent those queries. No one else ever responded. Not even Dream Agent. You’ve been rejected à la the classic, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” method. 

Step 10: You take a good, hard look at your query letter and writing sample and decide to revise and try again.

And you do. Try. And try. And then try some more. Maybe you should've waited to send your letter to Dream Agent, huh?

If you’re only querying by email, there’s a good chance you’ll never hear back. Agents usually state this on their webpages. Most get hundreds, if not thousands, of queries every week, so can we blame them for only replying if interested? Not really. I mean, they have other things to do, you know, like sell books for their existing clients—the luckies who got that golden contract.

There are a few agents, however, who sent me a personal reply and offered me the tiniest tidbits of feedback, which I happily and thankfully gobbled up. It can happen. It’s pretty amazing when it does. The rejection stings a bit less.

Maybe one day you and I will get a request for more pages, but who knows. It’s frustrating and humbling and takes a long, long time. 

I’d love to hear from you. How is your query experience going? Did you find success? What’s your secret?

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Hopefully no one told you this would be “so easy a monkey could do it.” If so, they lied and you should definitely cut them out of your life.

Finally! I know what I want to blog about when I grow up.

Gosh. My last entry was back in June. Kind of embarrassing. I guess I abandoned my blog because I felt it lacked something important: a focus. I was just writing about this and that, snippets from my life that didn’t add up to anything. There’s nothing wrong with that--it is my personal blog, after all. However, I want to get back in the game and to do that, I need a reason to write. I need my blog to be about something.

I thought long and hard about where I could take it. I love movies, but I’m not sure I’m committed to writing up reviews of stuff I see. I’m just a regular gal, so my idea of what a “good” or “bad” movie is may not be appreciated by those who know what they’re talking about. (Though, let's be honest. Opinions on movies are pretty subjective...right?) Regardless, I don’t think that’s the route I should go. Perhaps I’ll include a review here and there, but only time will tell.

Honestly, there’s not much I’m an expert on. I make jewelry as a hobby, but I don’t feel like writing about it. I’m also super slacking on my book reading, so that’s out of the question. Fashion? Sports? Current events? Um, no. I’d be laughed out of the blogosphere.

So, I’ve decided to write about the only thing I feel comfortable writing about: writing. (Did I overuse a particular word in that last sentence?) I’m not claiming to be an expert in the field or that I’m doing something new and ground-breaking--I merely want to share my journey. If nothing else, maybe I can commiserate with others in my situation.

What exactly is my situation, you ask? Well, I have one full-length manuscript under my belt and am involved in the long and harrowing process of querying agents. I’ve also entered the world of screenwriting, and am working on a screenplay as we speak. I don’t know how many people do both, or how feasible it is, but I’d like to try. I don’t want to choose. Am I any good at either? No idea. I’ve also got my stack of Works-In-Progress (or WIPs, as we writers like to say), and I alternate working on those depending on my mood.

So, that’s what I’m gonna do. Reveal a bit about my process and share my trials and--hopefully one day--my successes. Come with me, if you’d like. I’d love to hear your thoughts along the way.

Thanks for reading.