Taking some down time

 

It's been a hard week

This week has been pretty awful.

I'm taking a short break from everything and escaping into a good book.

Are you reading anything special this weekend?

Has your reading during the pandemic changed in any way?

This is the reason there's a word count limit in queries.

 

 

My WIP is historical fiction.  It covers a year-long period during the American Revolution featuring real players and rare biographical insights I have uncovered from my extensive research, as well as narrative non-fiction-like accounts of specific battles.  The "fiction" part comes from the main POV character, whose fictional story (a composite of accounts) is interwoven among these real events, connecting everything together.  I would say the balance is 50% accurate history/50% historical dramatization.  My main goal is to introduce readers to some great unsung heroes from both sides and educate about this lesser-known saga.

 

I know query space is ideally limited to plot/stakes/first act, but since most agents will not be familiar with the events or people I am covering, I feel the need to explain the real history and why it's worthy of being written about.  I am afraid if I just present it as a standard fiction query, the true history I am trying to bring to light will get lost.  

 

For example, I would like to include something like this to introduce the agent to the real history behind the story:

 

Lt.-Col. The Honourable John Maitland, the son of the 6th Earl of Lauderdale, has been dubbed by military historians as the "Savior of Savannah" for his ingenuity in leading 800 troops from Beaufort under impossible odds, reaching Savannah ahead of the French blockade just in time to defend the town--despite having already lost one arm in battle and while suffering from malaria.  Even the USMC museum on Parris Island has a display memorializing this feat, despite the fact that Maitland was an "opponent." 

 

(1) Is it okay that I include a brief paragraph like this explaining the real history behind the story?

(2) If I do this, can I be forgiven for going over the standard query word count, or would I have to sacrifice precious plot/stakes space? 

(3) Or is this unnecessary altogether and I am overthinking it?

 

(1) No

(2) NO

(3) Sorta but not really

 

This is a textbook example of the value of an author website even if you've never published anything.

 

These kinds of explanations/elaborations/info dumps belong on your website, not in the query.

 

You need to engage the agent in your story first, not the history behind it.

 

If I'm interested in the story, I'll probably swim by your website BEFORE I request pages.

 

One reason I do that is to find out if you've self published this and "forgot" to tell me.

 

You can make sure I know to swim by if you include something like:

 

"My main goal is  I want to introduce readers to some great unsung heroes from both sides

 

Your main goal is to tell a good story.

Please don't hint that it's anything else.

 

and educate about this lesser-known saga.  There's more information about them on my website (listed below.)"

Under NO, ZERO, ZIPPO circumstances will you use the word educate in a query for a novel.  People do not buy novels to learn about things. They buy novels for the story. That they learn stuff is a bonus.

 

Any questions?

 

 

Backstory and set up in a query

 

As I work my way through queries and requested fulls, one problem consistently crops up: the amount of backstory and set up presented in the query or the first pages of a novel.

 

You don't need as much as you think you do.

 

Consider this "query":

 

Felix and Betty Buttonweezer live on Carolynn Lane. They've raised four (mostly) good kids, and avoided killing each other over arguments about which way the toilet paper should hang.  Sure, Betty likes to finish Felix's sentences, and Felix has been known to tune out Betty's litany of complaints about her harridan sister in law (the wife of her otherwise quite nice sister Petunia.) They vowed for better for worse 25 years ago, and so far so good.

 

When Betty rescues what Felix thinks is a yappy, neurotic, scruff bomb with minimal resemblance to a dog, now called SweetumsMyPrecious (Betty's choice of course), Felix finds himself the odd mammal out.

 

Betty makes dinner when  SweetumsMyPrecious seems hungry, not when Felix comes home from work.

 

Betty sits in the backseat with  SweetumsMyPrecious when she and Felix take drives.

 

Worst of all, she's made Felix smoke his cigars not just outside on the porch but across the street because "the smoke bothers little Precious"

 

But Betty has found something to lavish her love on. With the kids grown and gone, and Felix off to work, then perfectly content to sit in his recliner after dinner watching The Great British Bake Off or Forged in Fire, Betty has felt alone and useless. Moreover, her Facebooks stories about, and photos of,  SweetumsMyPrecious has garnered her an adoring fan club.

 

What neither of them know is that  SweetumsMyPrecious wasn't a stray. And Felix is closer than he knows in his doubts that SweetumsMyPrecious is really a dog.

 

How much of this can you take out but retain verve and voice, and enough description and plot to entice an agent?

 

There's no one right answer, but there is at least one wrong answer: "none." At 252 words, this needs to be trimmed by at least 50 words.

 

Feel free to answer in the comments section.

 

 Hack at it!

"Beginner mistakes"

Dear Madam Shark,

 

I was taught that there are “amateur mistakes” that will likely knock a writer straight into an agent’s circular file. I’ll leave out the most obvious, such as careless typos. The ones I’m questioning include:

 

Creative speech tags, instead of the almost invisible “said,” “asked,” etc.

 

Too many exclamation points.

 

When I see these in excellent novels, I wonder if, when these writers were newbies, they avoided these habits, but now that they’re well-known, they can do what they like? What are your thoughts?

 

 

 

If I like a book, if it has a fresh, vivid voice, an interesting concept, and the writer isn't a self-aggrandizing professional PITA, do you really think I'm going to let exclamation marks get in the way??

 

 

Hello, I'm an intterobang!

 

 

Of course not.

These are minor things.

 

Fixable things.

That's what editing is all about, although I'm not keen on doing copyediting level work on your ms. That's YOUR job.

 

Authors are quick to blame almost everything but the real problem: uninteresting writing, stale concepts and inter-personal communications that make me want to smack them upside the head.

 

 

If you're reading this blog, most likely you've avoided that third one.

 

It's much harder to assess your own work for stale concepts and uninteresting writing.

 

As to seeing those small errors in published books, well sometimes established writers get away with stuff that all y'all debut author cannot.

 

 

Established authors can write terrible books and hit the NYT Bestseller list cause they have an thriving fan base.  Case in point: the otherwise amazing Robert Parker started phoning in his novels at #13 or #14. 

 

Don't sweat the small stuff as Richard Carlson famously said. (Which is hilariously ironic if you ever had a chance to work with him, as I did back in m publicity days. That guy was as meticulous as they come.)

 

 

 

Follow up on yesterday's blog post

 

Steve Forti asked

My last book didn't get picked up, but a number of agents said they loved the writing and would like to see the next one. What's the right way to remind that when querying the next one?

 

 

First thing to remember here is that agents DO NOT say that as a matter of course, or just to let you down gently. They mean it.

 

And if an agent says that to you, they're NOT sending you form rejections. (Also a good thing.)

 

And it sounds like the agent read some or all of your novel. Yesterday's post was more about writers who did not make it past the incoming query stage.

 

Now to the specifics:

 

Dear Snookums:

You read my epic tome Nemesis last year and complimented the writing and asked to see my next one. 

 

Quote what the agent said as closely as possible.

We have a keen ear for our own voice so you want to be as close to it as you can.

 

LEAD with this so that the agent knows you're not cold querying.

 

 

 

Does this help?

Do not make me regret replying to you

There's a great scene in Casablanca with a linen seller in the Bazaar. 

Ilsa is out shopping (cause really what else would one do when living out of a suitcase and fleeing the Nazis?)

The seller offers increasingly special discounts for special friends of Rick's.

 

I always think of this scene when writers respond almost instantly to a pass with another query.

 

"You didn't want that, what about this?"

 

I'm always at a bit of a loss on what to reply.

I use a form letter, and just sending that same pass seems rude.

I like to avoid that if I can, but just saying "No, not this one either" seems worse.

 

So then I'm left with not replying at all, which I loathe as a business practice, and as general deportment in the Query Aisle.

 

So, why is this a problem for you?

 

If you want me to consider your work, you want to present it in a way that doesn't make me want to smack you upside the head.

 

That means give me some time between queries to refresh my mental desk top.

A month is a good ball park figure.

 

I don't reply to queries the day I receive them.

I got that habit kicked out of me by writers who were dead certain I didn't read the query cause I responded too quickly.

 

When a query comes into my inbox, it's sent to a file marked Incoming Queries, where it can visit with the other incoming queries, gossip, compare tattoos, and order out for pizza.

 

If you send me a query that starts with "you didn't want X" all that does is remind me that I didn’t want X.

 

It's much more effective to start with the story you're pitching.

 

Telling me I passed on something doesn't remind me of our "connection" cause there isn't one.

Telling me I passed on something doesn't tell me you're prolific and not a one-trick pony.

 

Effective queries  are about your novel not your querying history.

 

 

 

Any questions?