Deadlines, Editing, and My Unofficial Query Letter....UNofficial...

So, I totally blew my self-imposed deadline of March 23rd to have finished all edits and send out my first query letter. Death, taxes, 6 feet of snow, and the Olympics...all things totally unrelated, yet all things I've allowed to stray me away from my goal.

Therefore I'm imposing a more SANE deadline of "by summer", and this gives me time to polish and shine my query letter. A few weeks ago I polished and shined my "one sentence" pitch of my novel, and I am happy to say that I LOVE IT! No need to edit any further. Next step now, is to start with the paragraph synopsis of what happens in the novel, beginning to end, leaving nothing out...

How the hell?!?! The whole book, explained in detail, in one paragraph!?!?!?

Enter, the query letter...

Whether you snail mail or email an agent, you need to formulate one hell of a kick ass query letter to not only GET their attention, but also KEEP their attention.

I took a quick crack at swallowing my entire novel into one horribly written paragraph, just to see if I could manage to get all the major points in there (NOTE: there is much work to be done on this...the following is just for fun). But I did manage to capture the darkness of the novel, and then show that it all turns bright by the end. I think for me this will be my biggest challenge. I can't leave out the fact that my MC is a bit of a nut case in the beginning (of course 'nut case' by normal standards. I think she's fine, just needs a little TLC...we've bonded ;)

So, without further delay, here is one horribly written query for my amusement only (and yours too, I hope ;).

My novel opens with a past rape scene, moves forward to the present, where you see my MC living with the after effects of an abusive past, she goes to therapy, you are inside her head, see her odd living style, hear voices, all sorts of strangeness, until she breaks free from it all and finds a way to heal, finds her courage again, finds herself again...then she meets someone, falls in love, has a normal life, albeit there are still triggers from her past, some of which threaten to suck her back down into that deep black hole...but she's a new woman now, has tools to help her stay in her present and deal with her past, and she moves on and up and it's great at the end!

Phew!

That is one long run-on sentence ;)

Yet, somehow, I feel one tiny small step closer to my goal...Feel free to leave a link to your own horrible one paragraph synopsis!

;)

Creating a 10-Second Elevator Pitch for your Novel...

Creating a one sentence, 10 second pitch for your novel is attune to condensing all the flavors in a margarita pizza into one small itsy, bitsy bite. Doable, but OMG, why?!
Simple...what if you get stuck in an elevator with a pizza editor and you only have under a minute in order to pitch your pie?

Ok, so the scenario doesn't really fly, but the deal is that we as writers are supposed to condense our whole story into one sentence just in case we are called upon to pique the interest of an influential in under a minute.

So, after you write your novel, spend countless MORE hours editing and polishing it, you have to do a few more things...

The synopsis...a 4 page write up of everything that happens in a novel in case...

someone likes your query letter, which is one single paragraph that explains your entire novel, which they'll only read after they get interested in your...

ten second pitch that will appear at the beginning of your query letter or, if you happen to be caught in an elevator with an agent/editor, you blurt it out, ever so eloquently, and they want to see more...

That, IMHO, is a lot of condensing!

I thought I was going to go in that order, write the synopsis, in hopes it would help me write the query letter, in hopes it would help me write that one little sentence that was supposed to entice readers to read my story. Of course I have to admit that before, I thought it was an editor or perhaps a marketing guru who did all this junk...why on Earth did I think writers weren't the ones who did this?

So, anyway, now that we've established that we have to write one, then how? I tried out many formulas, but I think I found one that really works. You have to work with it and give it your own flare to really make it sing, but the end result will be great.

I got the idea/formula from this blog post from WOW: Women on Writing.

Here's the formula:

My story is about ___(character)_________who wants more than anything to _____(goal)_________ but can’t because ____(conflict)_______.

Extremely simple, I know, but it gets out of your head what you need to include, so you're introducing your main character, their main goal and the conflict in their way. Of course there is more to your novel. But you can't explain it all in one sentence. Hell, you can't even explain it all in a query letter!

But this isn't about query letters - yes, I'm very nervous about writing mine! hence I keep mentioning it - this is about your one sentence, ten second schpeel. Phew!...

I took a stab at it, adding my own hint of Lia'ness, and this is what I came up with for my 10 second pitch for my novel Waiting for Paint to Dry:

Matty Bell longs to rediscover her self-confidence, empowering her to pursue and enjoy the passions of her life once more, yet is held captive by her painful past until the night of her thirtieth birthday.

Actually, I'm pretty excited - stoked - that in one sentence I was able to capture my main characters dilemma and conflict while hinting to much more. I might need to tweak it a bit now that I see it again - a lot of the word "her" in one sentence. Then again, sometimes you can't get a way from something like that.

You'll have to do it eventually, so why not try it now, and share yours too!

Now all I need to do is find some elevators and start pitching...

;)