FOLLOW THE MAP TO A GREAT QUERY

{Image by Viktor Vasnetsov in public domain}

BAD

WORSE

WORST

 

Those are the signposts you keep in mind when writing your

one paragraph summation in your queries.

 

What?

Yes:

BAD ... WORSE ... WORST.

They are the 3 keys to writing a GOOD one paragraph summation for your query.

 

I.) Think Three Act Play:

 

Act I. Bad (First Sentence)

 

You introduce your character and set up the conflict.

 

Conflict being the goal that is desperately desired and the adversary who stands in the way.

 

Act. II - WORSE (The next three sentences.)

 

Each sentence details a disaster derailing the progress of your main character and the victories of the adversary.

Each disaster gets progressively worse.

The sentence of the first disaster contains the MC's decision which sets the disaster into motion.

The sentence of the 2nd disaster contains some small victory for the MC that is destroyed by the sudden turn in fate.

The sentence of the third disaster contains the seeds of the final confrontation between the MC and the adversary.

 

Act III. - WORST

 

The final sentence contains the final confrontation and its resolution.

 

If you don't detail in full the resolution,

you should at least give definite hints on how the story ends

with the MC triumphing over the adversary -- even at the cost of his/her own life.

 

II.) Polish this paragraph until it flows like the narration to a movie trailer.

 

III.) IMPORTANCE of this paragraph summation:

 

This paragraph is the skeleton of your thoughts as you write your novel.

 

Go back to it often and check to see if it matches the story you're writing.

 

a.) If not, no big deal.
b.) Just revise your paragraph accordingly.

 

You will not become bogged down if you have this paragraph as your guide and map

to chart your course through your chapters.

 

IV.) This paragraph has to be intriguing and persuasive.

 

A.) The agent will most likely decide to reject or ask for more from this one small paragraph.

B.) This paragraph should probably contain that all important hook, without which most queries are immediately rejected.

C.) Reading this paragraph like the voice-over to a movie trailer will help you in deciding what that all-important hook should be.

 

D.) A well-written one paragraph summation will provide the outline for your one page (single spaced 500 words) synopsis.

* I hope this helps in some small way when writing your novels and queries ... always your friend, Roland

HOW TO GET YOUR eBOOK NOTICED

THE QUESTION OF THE YEAR

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S7HOCVG

HOW TO GET YOUR eBOOK NOTICED!

You can write the most selling novel ever crafted ...

     but it will die if you cannot draw internet attention to it.

Most self-published books sell fewer than 100 or 150 copies.

GETTING YOUR eBOOK NOTICED IS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT SELLING YOUR BOOK.

I. HOW DO YOU GET THAT ATTENTION?

1.) Book cover

You can choose a proper image for the book cover that will draw attention to your eBook.
    
a.) You need to choose the proper thumbnail with a theme that reflects the contents of your eBook.

     b.) Many readers will be drawn to the book cover long before reading the description and the reviews.

     c.) It helps if you have a book cover that instantly draws attention.

     d.) Look at the image for RETURN OF THE LAST SHAMAN.

2.) Pricing

      a.)  It should neither be too cheap or too expensive
      b.) People value what costs them and hold to be inferior what they got cheaply.

3.) TITLE

      a.) Pick your title BEFORE you begin (you'll be with your novel for weeks so have a
           title that inspires you!

      b.) It's a marriage - LOVE YOUR TITLE

      c.) What a great title does:

            1.) Captures your audience’s attention
            2.) It communicates what your e-book is about
            3.) If it’s your style, it should include a little bit of a “What the Heck?” factor:
                      
Titles tell your audience a little something about you.
Look at these three sets of words:

• Epic; Awesome.
• Remarkable; Brilliant.
• Elegant; Erudite

Each pair of words has a unique flavor. 

You can almost begin to see the people that would use them in a title or a headline.

Which means that the words in your e-book title need to reflect your style.

       D.) WHO'S AN OXYMORON?~!

           i.) EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE was a great title to an older book because it linked two
                opposites.

           ii.) Startle your reader and snare his attention.

4.) YOUR BOOK DESCRIPTION

     a.)  Most people skim the content.

          1.) You’re also one of them (okay, including me)
          2.) This is where you need to write creatively
          3.) Use short paragraphs
          4.) Use short sentences like this.

     b.) Divide your content into three blocks

          1.)  Introduction (first two to three lines or really important. Tell them a story,
                make them scary, make them laugh, do anything but don’t make them bored.
               
They must read your first two lines.

          2.) Middle of the content (this is where your actual MEAT of the content comes in)
          3.) Ending (end with either a surprise twist or question.)

II. HERE BE MONSTERS

   A.) It is the Old West once again.

   B.) Remember the Klondike Gold Madness (well not from actual memory, of course.)

   C.) Wild-eyed dreamers would race to Alaska where they would fall victim to prospectors
          selling fake maps to sure gold mines.

   D.) There are no GUARANTEED WAYS TO SUCCEED or

7 CERTAIN STEPS TO
          RICHES WITH YOUR EBOOK.

   E.) Once again, just write what you love, what fills your imagination with magic and delight.

BUT WHAT DO WE LEAVE IN?

BUT WHAT DO WE LEAVE IN?

We all know what to leave out:

1.) It’s Open Season on anything ending in –ly.

2.) Clunky sentences and long paragraphs that dull the readers’ focus and wither her/his attention-span.

3.) Any word that you wouldn’t pay a quarter to keep in your manuscript.  

Ernest Hemingway learned to write lean when a foreign correspondent. EVERY WORD cost his employers money.

Elmore Leonard suggests: “Leave out the boring stuff.”
 
In reverse logic: we leave in the riveting stuff:

1.) Primal is riveting.

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA is riveting. Why?

Because the fish means more to the old man than just something to keep hunger at bay. 

Catching the fish would say to those who jeer at him that he is not old and useless, that he is still a man.
 
2.) Sex is riveting.

Without it, the species would end. But we don’t live for abstractions. We live for attractions.  

Flirting is only verbal fondling. The act doesn’t have to be literally on the page, blow by blow. Still, the sparks should be seen,  and the heat felt.
 
3.) Danger is riveting.

But only if we care for the characters at risk. And the danger must flow out of the natural development of the narrative – not just be thrown in for spice out of nowhere.

 
4.) Empathy is magnetic.

We care for characters to whom we can relate. So we leave in those prose strokes that resonate with 

the pains, the dreams, the struggles of our readers – the search for love, the endurance of loneliness, the tragedy of being misunderstood. 

5.) Great dialogue sparkles.

No clichés – even for teenagers, for clichés or even modern slang has a very short shelf-life.

Think of your favorite movies.

 Each one had snippets of dialogue that had you repeating them to your friends. Try to make your novel someone’s favorite in a like manner.
 
6.) Poetry in prose.

Ernest Hemingway said the secret to writing great novels was that they contained poetry in prose.

Make each first sentence on a page memorable by use of metaphor, dialogue, or simply tilting an image on its ear.

Each of us must do that in our way. Read a page of Hemingway or Zelazny at random to see how they did it.

“She gave him a look that should have left bruises.”

“The sea was harsher than granite.”

*) I hope this has helped in some small way. Roland
***
Please read the free sample of RETURN OF THE LAST SHAMAN:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S7HOCVG
***

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BOOK?

Or what makes a book good?

What is the criteria you use to gauge whether a book is worth the read?

Does a book have to be good to make a difference in someone’s life? Why or why not?

Victor Standish:

"For me, if it grabs my interest, makes me think, or helps me learn something then it is a good book."


Samuel McCord:

"A good book is a treasure trove of humanity so that no matter where you open a page and start reading, there is something new to be discovered."


Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace:

" I can more easily say why I don’t like certain books and to be honest, it is often the result of the author.

Of the most recent books that come to mind: one author I simply don’t like due to her style of writing and how her characters are always women who can’t take care of themselves."

So?  What do you think makes for a good book?

Action.  No action.  Romance.  No romance.  A bit of both?



I believe there are some universal facets that make a book good and a good book (the two are sometimes not the same.)


1.) AN INTERESTING VOICE

If you don't connect to the voice, then no matter how spell-binding the plot, you will drift away from the book ...

that is if you even buy the book at all.

Why?

Because the Voice, like the wind in a ship's sails, is what carries you through the book's journey. 

Like an aroma, it permeates each page, each word of the book.

The voice is what will make a page detailing even a train ride something memorable or witty or both.


2.) MEMORABLE CHARACTERS

The sparkling character of Tony Stark made IRON MAN.  Hannibal Lector dominates each page he is on.

The characters in the world of Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz kept me turning the pages to meet more of his one-of-a-kind neighbors.

Memorable characters bring the story to life.  They make you itch to get back to their banter when the world draws you away from their adventures.

In a way, they become friends you can come back to.  They let us see and feel the world in a new way, expanding our minds, enriching our lives.


3.) A VIVID SETTING

It doesn't have to be a fantasy setting.  No matter the genre, however, the world around the characters must feel "real." 

Great settings "ground" the story.  They highlight in the larger world, the tragic or comic elements in the smaller world of the lead characters.

Settings in good books become actual characters in the story either nourishing or preying, sometimes doing both.

After Katrina, New Orleans' streets killed the children/teens who roamed them.  Their souls went before their lives.

Take 1895 Cairo:

 the common man fared even worse.  Their servitude was to multiple masters: taxes, poverty, landed aristrocrats, British prejudice.  They were always in the crossfire of conflicting demands.

A well done setting breathes life into the story you are reading.


4.) A GRIPPING STORY

In essence, the plot has the reader asking, "What happens next?"

What is riveting to you may not be riveting to me. 

But the bottom line to the gripping plot must be PERSONAL and PRIMAL to the reader.

The neighbor of a police detective has her baby kidnapped.  The child is being returned to the cleaning lady one finger, one toe at a time.  No ransom demand.

Did the cleaning lady see something she shouldn't have?  Did she throw away the wrong thing?  Or is it about the detective's past, something to punish him?

Whatever the plot, the reader is invested in it and is staying up longer than she should to see what happens next.

What do you think is essential in a good book?

EVER WONDER WHO READS YOUR OLD POSTS?

The ghost of Gypsy must be purring happily in the Land That Knows No Shadow 

since 64 people have visited today and read the tribute post I did of her:

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2011/04/g-is-for-gypsyonly-happy-wordspromise.html

Why did so many visit that post today?  Who pointed it out?  I wonder such things.

It is Mother's Day after all.  

But today can be a lonely day for so many, and Gypsy's post speaks of unconditional love that heals.

Which might explain my most popular post: 

WHY FRIENDSHIP?

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-friendship-return-visit.html

Do you have popular posts?  

What are they about?

I am still wondering why so many visited 

Gypsy today?

MARK TWAIN'S GUIDE ON HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR

The ghost of MARK TWAIN here:

Want to be a successful author?

Well, first off, children, do not be put off by criticism!

Why listen to the comments made by famous folks about the same book:

"A  book so bad that it gives bad books a bad name."
Salman Rushdie

"The intellectual equivalent to Kraft's Macaroni & Cheese."
Stephen King

"A best-selling primer on how NOT to write an English sentence."
A.O. Scott (New York Times)

The book?  THE DA VINCI CODE!

There are two kinds of writers:

literary (poor) and commercial (books people actually read!)

Literary writers

 are the ones who write dry, thoughtful books that try to illuminate "the human condition", "the human experience" or "the human heart". 

These books tend to move at a slow pace,

 so that the author can stick some preachy bits in and you won't really notice 

because he just spent three paragraphs describing a daffodil or an entire chapter on a turtle crossing the road. 

The point of these books is that the author is actually quite a bit smarter than you 

and has something to say about your life even though you two have never ever met.

Of course most folks these days are a few French Fries short of a Happy Meal,which explains why 

E.L. James and Stephine Meyers 

have the kind of money that gets you a private island on which to hunt people who think they're on a reality show. 

 
Being an  old newspaper reporter, I know that "Don't get too close to a story" has forever been the mantra of ethical journalism 

and, consequently, no one in America has uttered it in the past hundred years. 

All of which points a big neon arrow with the word "problem" flashing inside it at one question: 

how can you be objective about humanity if you are yourself human?


The answer is "isolation". 

History's greatest literary minds have all been locked away from normal human interaction (if any) 

by layers and layers of madness, misanthropy, and manic-depression. 

(I just love Alliteration!) 

Addiction, depression and destitution are history's hallmarks of genius, don't you know?

Why, it is a bedrock fact of Wikipedia that all great artistic geniuses were insane, addicts or had Mrs. Bates for a Ma.

 The recipe for literary genius is 

1) a consistent outsider status, 

2) above average intelligence and 

3) a thorough grasp of whatever language you are writing in; 

unless you're one of those dang Rappers, in which case you can play the culture card anytime someone tries to correct your grammar! 

You listening Kanye?

Oh, you want to be a successful COMMERCIAL writer?

Well, children, why didn't you say so?

What you need for that is:

1.) INACCURATE HISTORY

Those adorable Vikings, bare-chested, all good looking, all swoon worthy.  

Naw, they t'weren't smelly, toothless, and rape mongers!


2.) TWO DIMENSIONAL CHARACTERS

Prose puppets that will spout dialogue no self-respecting morons would spout.

Characters so mind-dead that they will gleefully walk into a trap, following arrows painted in blood on the walls


3.) MORE TWISTED SEX IN 30 PAGES THAN HAPPENED DURING THE ENTIRE REIGN OF CALIGULA

Readers these days don't just want to be witnesses to orgies.  

No, children, they want to participate in them so throw in as many jaw-dropping details as you can 

with kitchen utensils if possible ...

especially the egg-beater!


4.) WRITE THE SAME BOOK OVER AND OVER AGAIN

It worked for Dan Brown, Charlaine Harris, and George R.R. Martin.  It will work for you!

IF ALL THAT DON'T WORK:

The thing about this here literary success is that it tends to not be a conscious choice.

 Sometimes it's inspired by radical political ideals (like Tolstoy), 

other times it's a reaction to your high-functioning psychosis (two words: Love, craft),

 or sexual deviance (Mary Shelley and her super-famous poet hubby, Percy, were known to have sex on her mother's grave),

 or jealousy over your awesomeness (Ernest "hunting elephants from a plane while drunk" Hemingway).

Uh, oh, children, 

the ghosts of Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, and Hemingway are heading my way.  

The Mississippi is calling to me!  Bye for now!

A CLASS RESPONSE TO REJECTION

Ioan Gruffudd on cancellation of FORVER 

to his fans:

So I sat down and started reading the thousands of Tweets in response to the announcement.

 And the more I read, the more I couldn’t believe it. 

The love, the sense of solidarity, the hope, the kindness, the support. 

Not just for the show, but for each other. 

And slowly I began to focus on 

What we had gained in the past year, rather than what we had lost 

in the last five minutes. 

I was overcome by a sense of gratitude. To have met you all and to have you all rooting for me and the show. 

At having a chance to play the role of my dreams, even if it was only for a year. 

To have been given the chance to bring Henry to life.

Watching the interaction of the FOREVER fans come together and share their love for the show has been breath-taking. 

It was you guys who held me up when I thought I could no longer go on. (Those days were LONG!) 

You made me smile when you pointed out the little things I did on screen that I thought had gone unnoticed. 

You gave me confidence when I accidentally found myself reading less than shining reviews. 

You were always with me, every step of the way, waving your flags, shouting your support for the show. 

It’s been an incredible, wonderful year, one that I will never, ever forget.

And guess what?

The memories belong to us. We get to keep them ‘forever!’ 

Thanks again a million times for your unwavering support. 

Stay strong, be brave, and show kindness as often as you can!

Ioan xxx