Back to Query Hints (#2)

So, before I left for Florida, I gave you my first hint on successful queries.

Here's hint #2: make sure your query shows your MCs voice.

Queries are tricky little things, because you have to accomplish so much with so little. One of the most important things that you need to succeed at (and that will get your request rate to probably double), is to show the voice of your main character in the paragraph(s) that describe your book. A query with a great hook and no voice will probably still get some requests, but a query with a great hook and a fabulous show of voice will probably get at least twice as many requests to read more.

You might be thinking "that's great, but how do I show voice in a query?" (Especially if your mss is written in first person when the query has to be in third person?)

I heard a great little tidbit once that you might want to give a try. Write it in first person. Don't SEND it in first person, just write it that way until it shines. Most people find that it's easier to show voice in first person. Ask yourself how would Jane/John (or whatever your character's name is) explain their story? Is Jane snarky and outgoing or is Jane shy and reticent? Is John hilarious and quirky, or is he an angsty MC with an attitude? Every one of those options would tell their story differently, right?

Then, once you have a great paragraph or two, told in your character's voice, you go back through it and change the I's to she/he/the MC's name. You may have to tweak it a little bit once you change it to third person to make it read cleanly, but those changes shouldn't be too hard.

You might be surprised at how much voice that simple exercise will help give your query. Try it and let me know how it goes. Good luck to all of you out there in the query trenches!

Friday Five

Five Random Thoughts for your Friday enjoyment:

1. Authors are awesome (or frawesome as Elana J. would say). They are giving, they are understanding, they are inspirational, they are just dang cool. Don't you agree? I love being able to hang out with other authors, and I'm very lucky to have so many where I live that are so friendly.

2. Why is it in style to be tan? Why can't it still be considered fashionable to be pale and healthy? I mean, seriously - who decided "You know what would be really attractive? Having everyone get burned by the sun until their skin changes colors to varying degrees of brown, grows freckles and moles and wrinkles and cancer! That would be truly beautiful." Who?? Didn't it use to be a sign of your status and wealth to have flawless white skin? Now to look good, I have to age my skin, and risk death by melanoma. Yes, I've had a melanoma scare on my back, and it was not fun. And somehow I still find myself thinking, maybe I'll just wear 15 spf today so I can get a little color. What is wrong with us? (or is it just me?)

3. While we're on the subject, why did being so stinkin' skinny become fashionable too? Being pleasantly plump also used to be a sign of status - why can't it still be a good thing? Then I could go eat three more of my caramel chip bars and not feel like I need to go run for an hour to "deserve" it. Okay, who am I kidding, I'm going to eat them anyway.

4. I know I'm opening myself up to all sorts of attacks with this one, but I just have to put it out there. The best line in ECLIPSE (the movie) is when Jacob says, "You know I'm hotter than you." (I think that's the exact quote, but if I got it a little bit wrong, you still know which on I'm talking about.) The whole theater I was in cheered at that one. So true, so true young werewolf or shapeshifter or whatever you are. Even though you are a foot shorter than you're supposed to be, you are definitely hotter than poor Robert Patty; and you are the one who accomplished what Rob/Edward couldn't - you actually produced chemistry when you kissed Bella.

5. I love movie soundtracks, and I'm always listening to the music in movies I see to try and find new music to write to. Some of my favorite composers are Hans Zimmer, James Horner, and Howard Shore, but there are many others. I just love music. Some of my favorite music I've heard recently is actually from the HP7 movie preview. I really hope that is the actual soundtrack music, because it's gorgeous, and I have no idea where I can find it if it's not the soundtrack. Does anyone have any clue? Probably not, but just thought I'd put it out there. I know many authors dream of having their books made into movies someday, and I'm one of them - but one of my biggests reasons why is because I want to have a soundtrack that is because of my story and my characters. How cool would that be?

So what are you thinking about today?

Vacations are like rough drafts

Okay, go with me on this for a minute. Due to a family wide case of the major-bad flu (excepting me for now), mountains of laundry threatening to bury my bedroom and everything in it, and needing to banish my new friends that came home from Florida with me (4 lbs courtesy of Disney World meal plan), my brain is sort of on the fritz. However, I will still try to have this make sense. Wish me luck.

Going on vacation is like writing a first draft of a novel. You have freedom! You can have fun to your heart's content! You get to go anywhere, and do anything you want! Vacation is a break from the day-to-day blah-ness of life; it's a blissful state of ditching reality and living in pursuit of happiness with no restrictions from work and other stuff like that. (I know, this is one eloquent post, right? ha ha)

Coming home is like going back to that rough draft to start editing. Suddenly there are rules governing your life - bedtimes, naptimes, mealtimes, bills, budgets, work and school and cleaning. These "rules" must be adhered to or else everything falls apart at the seams. You have to organize the mess that inevitably follows a vacation back into order. Or, in my case, at least try to organize it.

So, when you're writing that rough draft, don't let yourself get bogged down by all the rules and constrictions of editing and revising. Just get the story out. Finish it. Write. The. Whole. Thing. Enjoy the pure power of creativity that flows when you're letting those words flow from your mind to your fingers, through the keys, and onto the screen.

Then come back and clean up your mess later.

Did that make sense? Well, hopefully it did, at least a little bit. I better run, my laundry seems to be flowing out of the room and threatening to bury my sick children and husband, too. Can clothes multiply spontaneously?

I'm baaack!!

Hey everyone! I made it back home, but I kind of wish I wasn't. This was one of those trips that you wish could have just kept going. We had a total blast in Florida. I hope you enjoyed the guest posts while I was away.

Celebrating the 4th of July at Disney World was truly magical.
Our family at Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure. Aren't my boys handsome?

Now... remember that picture I posted last Saturday of "this is where I am, down in that crowd?" I pulled that off the web before I left... and it ended up not being quite as accurate as I thought it would.

This is what we ended up looking like for at least half of the trip (at Disney World anyway) -- it kept raining! I think the drowned rat look is good on me though, right? No? Oh well. The upside of the rain was that it wasn't too hot at all, and the crowds weren't that bad at all. Also, it made for some great memories - getting soaked, walking barefoot through the rivers that were once sidewalks, and many more fun things. My sisters, my mom, and I (and the boys) all wore a lot of hats. Ha ha. The sun came out and stayed when we left Disney World and went to Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure. Yes, that is Hogwarts in the background and a frozen butterbeer in my hand. I know it is cliche, but my hero is J.K. Rowling and I really, really love the Harry Potter series. Being here at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was like being in a dream. The ride was incredible (totally worth the 2.5 hour wait, plus I got to go twice because of child swap! woot!) - and the town of Hogsmeade was amazing. I didn't ever want to leave.

We ended our trip at Cocoa Beach (which I love - my DH and I spent a day here last year for our anniversary). The water is warm and shallow (which is good since my boys are little fishies with no fear of the ocean - Son A got a body board and surfed the waves with us for hours). This is me and my sister body boarding.

What a wonderful trip!

Now, back to reality. After going to the WWofHP and seeing the trailer for the 7th movies (almost made me cry just watching the trailer... I know, I'm a baby), I am seriously considering putting off the 100+ books on my TBR list to reread the HP series before the movies end. We'll see...

So that is what I've been doing for the last ten days. I took over 200 pictures, but I figured you wouldn't want to see ALL of them, ha ha.

Stay tuned for my next post in which I try to make an analogy of how vacation is kind of like writing that first draft of a novel and how coming home and getting back to "real life" is sort of like the revision process. Intrigued?

GUEST POST: NATALIE WHIPPLE "What I'd Wish I'd known While Querying"

I'm thrilled to have ninjarific Natalie Whipple on my blog today. Not only is she an awesome author repped by the illustrious Nathan Bransford, she's also a talented artist. She may or may not have a horrible fear of public speaking. I almost had to catch her at a writer's conference we were both speaking at. Luckily she didn't faint, so I didn't have to employ my own vast ninja skills to save her. Okay, I have no ninja skills. But I did go to nursing school so I was ready to do any first aid necessary. Anyway, I'm so glad to have her here today. If you aren't already a follower of her blog, you'd better get on the bandwagon pronto! (click here)

What I Wish I’d Known While Querying

Sara asked me to do a guest post on this topic while she was away. So hi there, Sara readers! I hope you’re all doing well. I’m not sure any of this will be helpful, but it has been interesting to look back and think about my time in the query trenches.

*two days later*

Wow, so I’ve been trying to come up with some kind of gem for you all, some tidbit of knowledge that would help you through querying. I gotta admit, I got nothing.

First I was gonna say something like “I wish I’d known I wasn’t ready to query.” But then I realized if I’d known that I never would have tried, and then I never would have learned all the things I did by querying.

I made a lot of silly mistakes, but I also grew as a writer, met my crit partners, and became part of the online writing community.

Those are all things I’d never take back, even if I still cringe when I realize my own agent probably has my very first, very horrible query.

Then I was gonna try “I wish I’d known how long it would take.” Well, read the above answer for that. It took me two years from my first query to land an agent. If I’d really known it would be that much waiting…yeah, I’d have taken up crocheting ninjas instead of writing about them.

Same with “I wish I’d known how hard it would be emotionally,” “I wish I’d known the journey didn’t end at The Call,” “I wish I’d known rejection truly isn’t personal, and that they mean it when they say this business is subjective.”

I guess I’m saying, in a round about way, that ignorance is bliss. It’s okay that you don’t know everything yet, and I guess I don’t regret going into this business green as grass. I mean, you gotta start somewhere, right? As long as you’re willing to learn, things will eventually work out, no matter how much you know when you send off that first horrible query letter.

If I’d really known how it was, I probably would have saved myself the trouble. Or at least sometimes I think that. Sometimes I miss the naive dreamy days, when hope abounded and reality was for other people. I don’t think I want to take that away from anyone by telling them my regrets. Because if I’m being honest, my wish-I’d-knowns pale in comparison to everything I’ve received through honest effort, persistence, and a lot of starry-eyed hope.

Isn't she awesome? Her honesty, humor, and wisdom are only some of the reasons I love Natalie and her blog. Thank you again!!

GUEST POST: ELLE STRAUSS "The Road to Publication or Writing’s A Little Like The Game Of PacMan"

I'm so excited to have Elle on my blog today. She has a wonderful blog you can check out here and she is repped by the fabulous Natalie Fischer of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. I hope you enjoy her post as much as I did!


Do you remember that old arcade game PacMan? The little jellyfish icon (You) has to find its way through a dark maze to the end to win the game—only the world is full of peril, a little yellow biting mouth thing is chasing you and before you know it, you’re doomed, swallowed up by the little yellow biting mouth. The WIN alludes you.

The road to publication is much like that. It’s a dark and nebulous without much for directional markings. And if you are fortunate to make it to out of the maze unscathed, your victory dance is short lived—because there is ANOTHER LEVEL.

First Level: Write the book to the end. This is surprisingly hard. No doubt there is many a drawer with an unfinished novel residing in it (or computer file).
Second Level: Perfect the book. Since nothing is perfect this is a near impossible level to pass. You can see early on that we are set up to fail and only writers with Indiana Jones type luck, skill and bulldogged determination can ever hope to cross the gapping chasm to the....
Third Level: The murky waters of Querydom. This level takes a lot of mental fortitude to win. The little jellyfish icon must BELIEVE it can beat the level, and if it (you) keep trying, over and over again, you will succeed.
Fourth Level: Yeah!!! You made it to Agentdom! You spit on Querydom, and stamp on it with your jellyfish feet.
Fifth Level: Agentdom has an eerie resemblance to the second level—more perfecting with Agent guidance. Jelly fish sucks it up and perseveres.
Sixth Level: Whoo-hoo! Venturing out in Submissionville. So exciting, so nerve-wracking, so LONG. Some find they get antsy at just how long they traverse the maze at this stage and begin to wonder if they’ll ever see the next level—it’s some kind of purgatory, level six— endless travels down dark alleys....
Seventh Level: You did it! You got a book deal! You won the game!

Only now you find you’re in another game.

So, you’re wondering, If it’s so hard to win, why play at all? Because it’s FUN. And isn’t that why we started writing? Because we liked it? We thought it was fun. And that’s why we keep writing. It doesn’t really matter what level we’re on, does it? As long as it’s still fun. And if it’s not, well, maybe it’s time to give it a rest, find something else that is fun, right?

This is the reality on the bumpy road to publication—if you’re in it for the money, you’re going to be disappointed. If you’re in it for anything other than the love of the game, you’re going to be disappointed because many worthy contenders never make it to the seventh level. And that’s okay.

How about you? Are you still having fun?

See? I told you she's awesome. Very inspiring and true. I'm in this business because I love it and just can't quit. No matter how many levels I have to keep trying to pass to get there. Thanks again Elle!

In case you were wondering

This is where I am. This means I survived the five hour plane ride with my two young boys on Thursday. (My first time travelling by plane with either of them. Yikes!)
My family and I are squished down there in that crowd somewhere. Okay, not this exact crowd, because let's face it, I'm not sitting in my hotel room uploading pics from Disney World. I'm at Disney World waiting in line for a ride, I'm sure. In a crowd that is something close to this. I'm sure I'm sweaty from the 100% humidity, and hopefully not sunburned. But I guarantee I'm having a blast!


I will be watching fireworks above this castle for the 4th of July. How about you? Any fun plans? I hope so! Happy Independence Day to all my American followers!

Stay tuned for some awesome guest posts next week.