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Do you know the secret to writing a good query letter or a synopsis?
Do you have tips on conquering writer's block and writing efficiently?
If so, my little corner is looking for articles on writing.
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Writing a Query Letter
by Antoinette Swanson

Taking Control of your Material
by JB Justice

Agent Adventures
by Antoinette Swanson
Check back for updates on my journey in finding an agent
Updated December 2, 1998

My Writer's Journal
Taking Control of your Material
by JB Justice

Writing a novel is not as easy as I first thought it would be! As a matter of fact.....I had to revise the way I started out, to get my work in order! I was doing a lot of writing but it wasn't coming together in any meaningful way.

I have now adapted a chart for my time line, emotions, reactions: (external and internal)....and it is time consuming, but the results have been worth it. I had done one for the overall plan of the novel but it wasn't much help when it came to actually writing down the nitty gritty details in each chapter!

Theme and premise worked out nicely...I then knew how I would end the first and last chapters...so all that needed to be done was to fill in the middle. I hopped all around this story, writing down ideas as they occurred and getting hopelessly muddled as to how to tie it all together. I tried to go back and start at the beginning and just write the whole thing that way but that wasn't working either!

My last journal post described my problem with "instant editing", I assumed that it was my excellent writing habits that caused me to stop to correct grammar and spelling. Mr. Kilian (Fiction Page for Writers) suggests writing a letter to yourself and putting down what you think is the problem with the work at that point. I did this and found out that the problem was not one of grammar or spelling but one of structure.....there was none!

Back to the character chart! Ok, I thought I had a pretty comprehensive chart here, I should be able to figure out what this character will do next! It came to me that it was not hard to write about the main character but my other characters had to have interaction with him. There had to be emotion, setting, time lines etc. I was writing on the fly so to speak and had not taken time to carefully plot out my story. I do have the story in my mind, but not in the detail necessary to get it across on paper to a reader. The new chapter chart has helped me immensely with this and the writing is going much more smoothly now.

I understand, from chatting with some writers online, that there are those who can sit down and just start writing, and actually get from start to finish without much more than an outline and a few character charts. I have great admiration for those that can do this. Unfortunately I am not one of them!

I thought I might just let you know that there are some tricks and tips that have helped me to organize my material. It does take a bit of time and effort but I have found it much easier to keep focused since I started to chart out each chapter.

I try to list out the basics: Who, Where, When, What and sometimes Why. So for example the following is a sample of how to do this. I use large index cards. When I have the concepts firmly in place, I type out the following things on my card.ie:

CHAPTER 1: subtitle (if you have one)

WHO:
List the characters you will work with in this chapter.
If you have made character charts, have them handy. Charts for central characters will be much more comprehensive than the ones you make for minor characters. If you've never used these, I think you'll find them very helpful. Go to character chart.

WHEN:
List the date, time, day, season and anything special to do with WHEN the action takes place. If there is to be a progression of time or a flashback here, make note of it.

WHERE:
Make a note of your setting here. If there is more than one type of setting ie: outside, an office, a home etc. briefly, with one word, record which settings are needed in this chapter.

WHAT:
Here's where you put down what takes place in this chapter,
ie: the action. You will need a bit more description for this part but try to concisely describe the action for this chapter.

CONFLICT:
Just a few words here telling what conflict, if any, is to be written in this chapter.

INTERNAL REACTION TO CONFLICT:
How do your characters feel in this chapter? Just one word notes here on each character involved. This is the character's inner feeling, not always what she will display.

EXTERNAL REACTIONS:
Does your character make a plan to solve the conflict? How does he interact with the other characters if any? Is he displaying anger, humour, love. what is he doing? Briefly note key words to describe the actions to take place.

OUTCOME:
What is the point of this chapter, how is it going to end? In my own first chapter, I wanted to establish the basic theme of the story. I wanted the last line of this chapter to set out the theme with dialogue from one of my charaters. Thus, my outcome note was: work to state theme, and I just wrote the last line of the dialogue I wanted to use and a couple of words to remind me of action I wanted to lead into the second chapter.

So there you have it, my little system to gain control over my material. So far it is working well and as I am the kind of writer that at the moment is hopping around from one part of my book to the other, as ideas occur to me, having the cards to check makes it easier for me to find the already written parts that I want to refer to. If you think it might help you, try it!

Agent Adventures
by Antoinette Swanson

    The search for an agent is not an easy task. I knew it would not be easy, yet I didn't realize that there were so many people out there you had to watch out for. Some agents refer authors to editorial services and when they've paid to have their book edited and go back to the agent, he still won't represent them. Meanwhile, he's made off with a commission from the editing service that he's refered you to.   Still there are other agents who string along writers by elling them how great there book is and in the contract charge up front fees. After you've paid them, your book still doesn't have home. Although, I've read that some charges, for photocopying and small stuff is okay, but I think it also depends on who you talk to. I am trying to find an agent who is not going to charge for any small stuff. My system for weeding out the agents is rather simple. First I look up all the agents in my genre, historical romance, and delete any who charge reading fees and who mention right off about extra charges. The ones who have extra charges go into another list, sort of like a "C" list.
    The "C" list is basically the agents that are left over that sound decent after I've already contacted all the primo sounding ones that I really wanted, and all the secondary ones.
    Then I sent out the batch of query letters and gaurded the mailbox waiting and hoping I got a favorable response. My first batch of queries consisted of 12 letters. All but 2 letters were rejected and of the two good responses one agent refers authors to an editor and gets a kick back commision from it. The other agent was not a traditional literary agency and I would have to help put up money to cover the marketing expense. So in the end, both of these yes's I rejected and they now sit in my 'I reject' folder. It's a nice little folder to have I think. If they could reject me...I could REJECT them! Unfortunately the agents rejecting me have begun to out weight to agents I am rejecting.
    So what do I do now? Nearly all my query letters have been rejected and the ones that were rejected were not reputable. Why was I attracting sleeze? I sat back down and with the help of another writer revamped my query letter. In the original query I had a paragraph that admitted I had not been published in novel leghnth fiction, but that i did have a short story and poem published in my college literary magazine. Since I'd read it was good to point out if you've been published I wanted to add this to the letter, but this was not good. It wasn't positive. So I deleted the paragraph and enclosed the tear sheets from the literary magazine. Now instead of telling them that I had been published, I've now included the two pages of samples. I also added to my letter that I could provide a sample hardcopy print out or a diskette in MS Word format
    In this second batch of query letters, 9 letters were sent out. To date I've received 1 rejection, 1 not deliverable, and three good responses. Of the three good responses, one I have rejected because he leads the author on and has an unfavorable contract that charges the writer unnecessary fees, also I've learned the agent has no recent sales.
    The reputable agents that requested material asked to see the first three chapters and an author's biography and the second agent requested the first ten pages and a synopsis. Since I am still pulling my hair out trying to figure out a synopsis, I am only getting back to the agent who wants the bio right now and hopefully I will have the synopsis figured out in the next week.
    Accompanying the sample manuscript in the mail today, will be three more query letters do more agents.

December 2, 1998 Update

    I received the sample mauscript back from the agent I submitted nearly three weeks, enclosed was a rejection letter stating that my novel was "too plot driven". I've given it some thought and was going to do a major point of view edit since I thought I might actually have a lot of characters and a lot happening in my first chapter, but now I don't know that I will do that. If I do do any editing on it it may be to take a few scenes from chapter one and bring them into the book a few chapters before that.
    Of the three querys that I sent out to other agents at the same time I sent the sample out, all came back rejected.
    Since then I've submitted a query letter to an agent in England and will know more in 28 days and I plan to get back to 2 agents with samples and send out 2 more querys with samples by the end of this week.

Check back often to get updates on my adventures in finding an agent.

Writing a query letter has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to write. Where do you begin and how do you word the letter. How do you get an agent's attention while keeping the letter brief? These were just a few of the questions I asked when I thought about having to write a query letter for my novel.

I started writing my query letter and fussing with it before I finished writing my novel. I did this so I could kind of test the waters and send it out. I wanted to see what kind of responses I would get back from this first query. And I am glad I did the test letter and got this really rough draft, though at the time I thought it was a good draft, out of the way month's before I was actually ready for an agent.

Though I can't swear that this is the correct and perfect way to write a query letter, it is how I wrote my final draft and I've received numerous positive responses from it, as well as the usual amount of rejections.

After the usual formal letter formations, ie: addresses, date and the saluation, you being writing the letter that can change the life of your novel.

Open with an attention grabber. You need something to hook the agent into reading the rest of the letter. Mine was a one liner. Falling in love can be dangerous, especialy when you have a fiance.

Paragraph 1:

The first paragraph also helps with the attention grabber. I started my query off with a short description of my book. I explained a little bit about the heroine in one sentence, then added an "until". I stated that all was basically well in her life, until she did an act of kindness that changed everything she felt and knew to be right. So there was a bit from the beginning of my book and the turning point, where things started to stray from the norm of her every day life.

Paragraph 2:

This paragraph explaines one of the obsticles in the heroine's life by telling a little bit about her fiance. I showed how he felt about her act of kindness and that he acts in a despret manner to insure his marriage to the heroine.

Paragraph 3:

In this paragraph state what genre your book is along with the setting and time period. I also added that while my novel was a historical novel, it was not meant to enlighten the reader on the political in's and out's of the time era. Basically this is another point of how my book is different from other books in my genre.

Paragraph 4:

I used this paragraph to explain that this novel was the first of a series of three books and why it is unique to other books of the same catagory and time period. I added a little bit about the 2nd and 3rd books and what stage of completeness they were in. Although I am trying to get an agent for the one book, by mentioing the others, I amd showing the agent that this could be a long term relationship and that I am capable of producing more work.

Paragraph 5:

Here I stated what I'd like to find in an agent. Basically that I want an experienced agent, etc... to give my book the attention it deserves. Also in a round about way I compliment the agent.

Paragraph 6:

One of two things could be mentioned in this next paragraph. If I am contacting an agent that wants the query as well as a synopsis and sample chapters, I state that I am including with the letter the synopsis and what ever the other stuff is.

If I am only sending the agent the query letter, then I include tear sheets (photocopies or actual pages torn out of a publication) of my work that has previously been published. This way they have the query letter and while my query may not be effective, they will most likely take a peek at the published work also enclosed. But either way they get some sort of a sample of my work.

If I enclosed only the query and a sample of other works published, then I add a paragraph letting them know if they are interested in reviewing a synopsis and a sample of the novel, that I can provide either a printed copy or a diskette and the wordprocessing program used.

Paragraph 7

This paragraph is used for information on how they can contact me. ie: phone numbers and email address.

Of couse now is the time to end the letter, closing salutations, signature, then enclosures.

As I said, I don't know if this is entirely correct, but it has provoked interest from agents and I currently have sample chapters being reviewed by a few angents now.

Best of luck with your own query letter. It is hard to write and I was ready to pull out my hair until someone showed me their letter and another friend helped me refine some of the wording. I hope this helps and if you have any questions, send me an email. I will help you out as best I can!

Also check out Query Letter Tips.

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