LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION; I CAN FIND THE WAY MYSELF

Gore Vidal once said, "To call Harold Robbins a writer is like calling a woodpecker a carpenter."

Yet Harold Robbins continually outsold Gore Vidal.

There is art. And then there is marketing.

We writers have to know the difference.

We take months, years even, to finish a novel. Then

burning to see it published, we hurriedly scratch off a query letter in two weeks and send it to six agents found in a dog-eared edition of last year's WRITER'S MARKET.

And you know what happens next.

Query letters are like eyes. You can tell a lot from them. A good agent can look at your one page query letter and tell you things about yourself that would take your breath away at their accuracy.

Harlon Ellison, one of the greats authors of science fiction, said that a good writer can write in any genre. We must consider marketing just another genre -- with its own rules and guidelines.

You could be the next J K Rowling, but if you don't query like Billy Mays, you will never get your novel read.

You must sell yourself first. And what do great salesmen do? They study their target market. See? I rhymed just like Billy Mays. All right, put down the rotten tomatoes.

Our target market? Agents. And with agents think : Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

O.K. They're not in that bad a shape. But close.

1) They have seen an ocean of terrible queries : on scented paper, on colored paper, addressed to their dog or cat, sucking up -- "Oh, wisdom and wit drip from your blog like honey from a comb." Quick! Get me my insulin!

2) They've seen it all, and it has made them : very harsh critics, jaded, and very, very impatient.

3) They are dreamers. Yes, dreamers. You think money got them into this business? They could make more money selling real estate, earth shoes, or unlimited texting to Tiger Woods.

4) They want to discover the next Faulkner or Clancy. Or they wanted badly to be a writer themselves.

5) They are sinking in a sea of bad queries. And when your rowboat is sinking, what do you do? You bail out the invading flood just as fast as you can -- which leads them to do this ...

6) Reading to reject :

No hook? Reject! First three sentences boring? Reject! Addresses it "To Whom It May Concern?" Reject! Calls me by the name of the guy I replaced last year? Reject!

7) They carve a niche in early or late hours to read queries. They read fast. They skim. They're already tired when they begin to hack down the emails or letters. In a few dreary, mind-numbing minutes of root-canal skimming, they are reading with half-listening eyes. YOU GOTTA BE BILLY MAYS HERE! But a smart one.

All right, Mr. "I've got the answers" Roland, what do I do?

A salesman is a hunter. And a good hunter knows his quarry. And it is Agent Season, so be veeery smart and remember these things about agents :

A.) The embers of the dream that got them into the business are still there.

B.) It's up to you to fan them into the fires of renewed hope and curiosity.

C.) Don't give them obvious handholds to toss your query out of their rowboat. Refer to #6 up there for some clues of how to do that.

D.) Remind them why they got into the business in the first place. Spark their sense of wonder at the magic of words. Give them hope that you know your business, that you know them ...

E.) A hunter knows his game's habitat. Go to your target agent's website. Google his recent interviews. Go to conferences where she/he is speaking.

Faithfully read their blog if they have one. Stay away from "the drippling wit and wisdom" bit. But do get a sense of who they are, what they like, what they detest, and what genres they CURRENTLY solicit.

F.) Remember your real goal :

1. not to convey everything

2. not to include the detailed plot, every character, all the themes.

BUT your real goal is :

1.) Get them to want to read more. That's all. Period. The End.

*** Now doesn't that take the pressure off? It crystalizes your focus. Now you can be calm instead of desperately trying to cram 400 pages into a detailed synopsis and thesis of your work. All impossibly in one page.

** You don't want to come across like a used car salesman. No, you want to come across in a calm "Sam Elliot -- Wouldn't you like a steak?" approach.

Another analogy that might help :

Agents are like drug lords. Hold on. Go with me on this.

Imagine you're a poppy farmer in Columbia. You're in front of the lovely new representative of the Drug Cartel. What you say next is literally life or death.

She doesn't want to hear how long you've worked on your crop. She doesn't want to hear how lovely you find her, how witty and charming she is. And what she wants to hear better be quick, to the point, and mighty damn interesting. Or else.

She, like any agent we query, wants to know the answers to four questions :

1) What is your product exactly? {What genre is it. Fantasy. All right, is it urban or classic? You get the idea.}

2) What is its quality? {Do you have a suspenseful story with a definite beginning, middle, and end?}

3) How large is the market for your particular product? {The love life of clams may tickle your fancy, but mostly it is a dead topic to the rest of us.}

4) And will her bosses be impressed with her buying your product for them? {If you're dealing with a large agency, chances are your agent will be lower-rung. She wants to keep her new job, so she doesn't want to hit them in the face with a cold fish.

And if she is a lone wolf agent, her bosses are the publishers to whom she has to take your novel. If they gag at the sight of it, her next meeting with them will be tainted with that memory -- if they agree to see her at all.}

****

We have to be Billy Mays before we get to be J K Rowling. We have to concentrate on what the agents want and need from our query letter. If we can do that successfully, we have a shot at scoring an agent.

Sigh. Which is only the first step in the thousand mile journey of getting our novel published. But it is a very crucial one. Without it being accomplished successfully, our novel and our dreams will stay unborn.

But if we stand our ground, continually grow, then we will succeed. The Texas Rangers had a saying : "There is no stopping a man who believes he's in the right and keeps on coming."

Lastly {no applause at that -- you'll just depress me}, this entire post has been a blueprint for your query letter. A title that grabbed your attention. The first sentence that made you laugh. The meat of the post which gave you hope.

And that is the blueprint for your query in a nutshell. Eye-Catching Book Title. Hook at the beginning. Make them laugh or smile. And briefly tell them why they can't let another agent make off with your great writing. Oh, and let them know how they can get back into touch with you.

And here is something stirring for your ears ...

MAP_THE WAY TO A WINNING QUERY

Two days ago, I wrote how to get a good story ...

C ..... Conflict

A ..... Action

R ..... Resolution

Yesterday, I wrote how you got a GREAT story ...

G ..... Goal

A ..... Adversay

S ..... Sex

Today, I let you in on what you need to write a winning query ...

M ..... Mission

A ..... Answers

P ..... Passion

I. First, a broad view of M.A.P. :

A.) A MAP is a visual medium ... like fiction and a query themselves.

B.) To get anywhere using a map, it must be clear to the eye, to the mind.

C.) If the agent can't "see" your novel clearly from your query,
you're in trouble.

1.) If your prose is so muddled that your agent can't see it in her mind,
the odds are your novel's prose and plot are muddled as well.

2.) An unclear idea of your novel means the reject button from the agent.

D.) What does a Map do for you as you drive?

1.) Shows you where you are. (In the query, it gives the agent your MC's start.

2.) Shows you where you where you want to go. (In the query, it gives the novel's end.

3.) Indicates the best way to get to your destination. (In the query, it gives the agent a brief idea of how your MC gets from the start of the novel to the climax. It also lets the agent know you have a blueprint for your story.)

E.) A MAP gives broad strokes.

1.) Condenses. Miles become inches. Cities becomes dots.

2.) Few details -- no descriptions of the fluffy bunnies, or the angst of the teen MC, or the unsavory dietary habits of the adversary.

MISSION :

When you looked at the picture of the treasure map above, did you frown, going "what kind of language is that?"

EXACTLY!

If you write to a Frenchman, you use French. If you write a query to an agent, you must use agent-ese.

A.) We write the query backwards usually.

1.) We write what the textbooks say : a winning one page summary of the plot, putting down why we think the agent would be a good fit for our novel.

2.) WRONG!

B.) If you want to accomplish the mission of your query, you must be clear to what it is in the first place.

1.) What is your query's mission?

2.) TO GET THE AGENT TO ASK TO SEE MORE. Period. The End.

3.) How?

ANSWERS

A.) Again, we get this word backwards.

B.) We think of answers to how to write a GREAT query.

C.) WRONG!

D.) We have to ANSWER the AGENT'S QUESTIONS as she reads our query.

1.) Can I sell this story easily to any editors I know?

2.) Can the targeted editor sell this story easily to the PURCHASING DEPARTMENT of the publisher?

3.) Is there a mass audience for this story large enough that will convince the editor and the purchasing department that the returns will far outweigh the cost of this novel?

4.) Is this query so long it depresses my weary eyes?

*) How can we know the answers to those questions?


PASSION

A.) Passion, not of your characters, not even of yourself, but in the minds and hearts of prospective readers.

B.) Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

1.) I saw the TV ad for this movie as I walked across a hospital lobby today. Derivative and cliched. Generic beauty in mini-skirt. Generic Stud with flashing smile. Vampires who obligingly waited for the awkward leg sweep of heroine. Puh-lease.

2.) TV can get away with that because it's free. Books cost the reader hard cash money. Cliches are out. Hot, imaginative twists to popular themes are in.

C.) Imagine the book in your query is an audio book :

1.) Would your story, your MC and her obstacles be good company on a road trip?

2.) Would your story entertain or depress?

D.) Imagine reading this query to a hospitalized respected teacher or landlord or ill mother -- would they want to hear more?

E.) Look carefully at your brief query :

1.) Would your story make a stranger want to root for your heroine?

2.) Does your story and its outcome seem real or cardboard?

F.) It's hard to become passionate for a cause

1.) Donna wrote yesterday that her novel had no real adversary or antagonist.

2.) There always is one : inside the MC

Think RETURN OF THE JEDI :

A.) It wasn't Darth Vader or even the Emperor who were Luke's adversaries.

B.) Luke's enemy was his temptation to give in to anger, to abuse his skills.

I hope this has helped in some small way to help you craft a stronger query, Roland
***

THE ART OF DRIVING IN POURING RAIN {AND WRITING A QUERY}

Among those killed in action on this day in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme was Alan Seeger (uncle of Pete Seeger), a twenty-eight-year-old poet who had gone to live in Left Bank Paris, and had joined the French Foreign Legion in order to fight in the war. From Seeger's "Rendezvous with Death":


I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air —
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.



Now back to the title of this post :


The art of driving in the pouring rain {and writing a query.}

Yes.

There are similarities between the two.

For instance, the question :

SHE DOES SEE ME, DOESN'T SHE?

The truth? No. No, she doesn't.

In her mind's eye, she sees the face of her friend as she's talking into her Bluetooth headset. By the dashboard clock, she sees that she's 10 minutes late. In the rearview mirror, she sees the bouncing image of her lips as she tries to apply lipstick without ending up looking like Bozo the Clown.

But you? You she doesn't see.

Not to worry. Just drive as if everyone around you is going to do the stupidest thing imaginable, and you'll be just fine.

THE AGENT TO WHOM YOU'RE WRITING DOESN'T SEE YOU EITHER.

She sees the precious sleep she's missing by reading query after query into the wee hours of the morning.

She sees the worst pieces of prose from past queries that stick like cockle burrs in her mind.

She sees the long list of things she has to do the next day on less sleep that she wanted.

She sees the sad face of that editor saying "No" to her earlier in the day when she was so sure he was going to say "yes."

She sees the mounting bills she has to pay ... BUT SHE DOESN'T SEE YOUR QUERY ... at least not clearly.

What do you do?

With a driver, you honk the horn. With a weary agent, you reach out and shake her awake to truly see your query for what it hopefully is : engaging and intriguing.

How? However you do it, you have to do it in 10 seconds. That's how long you have before her routine of "Wax on; wax off" is finished. Actually, it's read, yawn, reject.

For you to get through to her, it has to be a one - two punch. Hook of a title. Then, wham! A fascinating one paragraph summation:

PROJECT POPE : Robot priests construct their own Pope in their search for God. Then, the unimaginable happens. They find Him. {The classic by Clifford D. Simak.}

2nd Way Querying is like driving in the pouring rain :

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DO A THING DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD.

Hundreds of thousands of drivers die needlessly each year by insisting on driving the speed limit in blinding rain.

In writing a query, you have fantastic leeway. You can write in any voice you choose. Frivolous. Condescending. Antagonistic. Suicidal, oh I repeat myself.

Your query is a business interview. Treat it as such and treat the agent as the potential employer. Be professional. Follow her website's guidelines. And show respect.

3rd Way Querying is like driving in the pouring rain :

YOU HAVE TO ALWAYS KEEP THE BIG PICTURE IN MIND :

In driving that is looking past the hood to at least 200 feet ahead of you. Flick your eyes from side to side to prevent nasty surprises. Keep looking at the rearview mirror to see what may be charging right at you.

In Querying :
Keep in mind the ultimate goal : intriguing the agent enough for her to want to read more.

You don't have to cram 500 pages of story into one page. In essence, you're writing a movie trailer. Remember the latest movie trailer you saw. Did it give the whole story? No. It teased, giving you the hero, the antagonist, and a glimpse of humor and danger.

And if you're beginning to despair that no agent will be interested in your novel, someone convinced a movie studio to spend millions of dollars on this :

Then, there's this song, an echo of yesterday's post :