Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Ten: Querying Your Frickin' Heart Out

You read my pathetic attempt at a first draft for my Query. And you didn't laugh TOO hard, which I totally appreciate. I wish that was all I had to do, but unfortunately it's not. That was just the beginning. Now I have to trim it down and tighten it up. And I'm going to share that process with you! (Feeling lucky?)

Edits in red. Text that is strike-through indicates I'm considering removing it.
Here goes: 

Second Draft

All hope is never lost. Not even in Nowhere. Good line. That stays. 

Cerulean and Amarillo Saffron are sisters separated by guilt, regret, and a secret the Ardor Laboratory Corporation will go to any lengths to protect. Only hope can reunite them and save the Lost Children of Nowhere. Amarillo hasn't seen her baby sister since the day she disappeared from their family home nine years ago. The older sister is plagued by guilt: if she hadn't left home, if she hadn't sought an exciting life in Somewhere, maybe she could have saved Cerulean. A chance assignment given to her by her boss, Mayor Naples Orange of Somewhere, proves to Amarillo that there was nothing she could have done all those years ago to protect Cerulean. It also gives the spunky young woman something else she sorely needs--hope that it is still possible to save her sister, and all the other Lost Children who are trapped in the neighboring city of Nowhere.

All Amarillo has to do is find a way to get inside Nowhere Rewrite! To save the Lost Children, Amarillo has to get inside Nowhere. That is no small feat. No one in Somewhere can remember anyone ever being able to get in or out of their sister city, except maybe Nowhere's mayor, the boogeyman Mayor Blue. But Amarillo knows she can do it, even if she has to do it alone. Mayor Orange is busy with his pet road project, the Roy G. Biv highway that will connect Somewhere and Nowhere and hopefully spur economic growth. Also there is the issue of the continued hope theft from the emotion recycling plant. At first Amarillo thinks she may be able to turn to Deputy Mayor Scarlet for help, but when she spots him inside Nowhere--on the other side of the seemingly impenetrable force field that seals that city off from the rest of the world--with an armload of stolen emotion actuators, she knows he is up to no good.

What is Somewhere's deputy mayor doing? Maybe it has something to do with The Outlawz, the elusive gang of saboteurs who have been attacking the road construction from the very beginning. Both Mayor Orange and the Somewhere Times have surmised that The Outlawz are probably a youth gang comprised of Lost Children. No one has any suggestions about what the saboteurs' motives might be, but when Amarillo sees Deputy Scarlet inside Nowhere with the pilfered hope, she gets an idea.

The more Amarillo digs into the problem of the Lost Children, the more she realizes it's not just a Nowhere issue. It's a Somewhere issue. The histories of Nowhere and Somewhere are inextricably connected, and they are tied to the secret that the Ardor Labs Corporation--the largest employer in Somewhere and the biggest supporter of the Roy G. Biv highway--will do anything to keep buried. Amarillo finds an ally in Somewhere Times reporter Fern Viridian, and together, they--along with Mayor Orange--fight to unravel that secret and free the Lost Children.

What Amarillo doesn't know is that the Lost Children have not been sitting passively by, waiting to be rescued. Led by her intrepid little sister Cerulean and former Outlawz members Azure and Denim, they have been fighting: against the other Outlawz, against Deputy Mayor Scarlet, and even against the evil Mayor Blue. When the battle finally unites the forces from Somewhere and the forces from Nowhere, they are ready to stand together and vanquish their foes with their strength and their hope restored.

ROAD TO NOWHERE, a young adult urban fantasy novel, is complete at just over 77,000 words.

Well...it's a start? I'm submitting this slightly-revised second draft to The Saturday Slash query critique because I really super-duper need help in knowing how to trim this sucker down.

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Nine: Query Writing the Hard Way

I was going to subtitle this post Query Writing for Dummies, because I'm a dummy and I'm embarking on the first draft of the query letter for my MS (that's manuscript for you non-writing types), but I was afraid that y'all would assume that I'm calling YOU dummies. Then I got all flustered and turned around and was all: what am I going to call this post, then? And I chased those anxieties down the rabbit hole for a bit. Eventually I made it out and remembered what I'm supposed to be doing here:

Writing the goddamned first draft of my goddamned query letter.

So let's get the fuck on with it!

The very best piece of advice I ever received concerning query writing comes from a query-writing help book my amazing and super supportive boyfriend Brandon bought me. It's called Make it Catchy: The Quintessential Guide to Writing Query Letters by Marta Acosta. It's available as an ebook and you can buy it here.

Acosta says:

I suggest that you write a first draft without worrying about the word count. Then revise your letter to make it as tight and as intriguing as possible.

If you're like me, you read that line and breathed a sigh of relief. Because I've been pretty much paralyzed by the thought of having to summarize my book in a catchy, unique way--while following all the rules of convention and without getting TOO unique--all in 750 words or less. But I think I can give it a pretty good go without being shackled by the word count.

Here it is, in all its lengthy glory:

Query Letter: First Draft

All hope is never lost. Not even in Nowhere.

Cerulean and Amarillo Saffron are sisters separated by guilt, regret, and a secret the Ardor Laboratory Corporation will go to any lengths to protect. Only hope can reunite them and save the Lost Children of Nowhere. Amarillo hasn't seen her baby sister since the day she disappeared from their family home nine years ago. The older sister is plagued by guilt: if she hadn't left home, if she hadn't sought an exciting life in Somewhere, maybe she could have saved Cerulean. A chance assignment given to her by her boss, Mayor Naples Orange of Somewhere, proves to Amarillo that there was nothing she could have done all those years ago to protect Cerulean. It also gives the spunky young woman something else she sorely needs--hope that it is still possible to save her sister, and all the other Lost Children who are trapped in the neighboring city of Nowhere.

All Amarillo has to do is find a way to get inside Nowhere, which is no small feat as no one in Somewhere can remember anyone ever being able to get in or out of their sister city, except maybe Nowhere's mayor, the boogeyman Mayor Blue. But Amarillo knows she can do it, even if she has to do it alone. Mayor Orange is busy with his pet road project, the Roy G. Biv highway that will connect Somewhere and Nowhere and hopefully spur economic growth. Also there is the issue of the continued hope theft from the emotion recycling plant. At first Amarillo thinks she may be able to turn to Deputy Mayor Scarlet for help, but when she spots him inside Nowhere--on the other side of the seemingly impenetrable force field that seals that city off from the rest of the world--with an armload of stolen emotion actuators, she knows he is up to no good.

But what, exactly, is Somewhere's deputy mayor doing? Maybe it has something to do with The Outlawz, the elusive gang of saboteurs who have been attacking the road construction from the very beginning. Both Mayor Orange and the Somewhere Times have surmised that The Outlawz are probably a youth gang comprised of Lost Children. No one has any suggestions about what the saboteurs' motives might be, but when Amarillo sees Deputy Scarlet inside Nowhere with the pilfered hope, she gets an idea.

The more Amarillo digs into the problem of the Lost Children, the more she realizes it's not just a Nowhere issue. It's a Somewhere issue. The histories of Nowhere and Somewhere are inextricably connected, and they are tied to the secret that the Ardor Labs Corporation--the largest employer in Somewhere and the biggest supporter of the Roy G. Biv highway--will do anything to keep buried. Amarillo finds an ally in Somewhere Times reporter Fern Viridian, and together, they--along with Mayor Orange--fight to unravel that secret and free the Lost Children.

What Amarillo doesn't know is that the Lost Children have not been sitting passively by, waiting to be rescued. Led by her intrepid little sister Cerulean and former Outlawz members Azure and Denim, they have been fighting: against the other Outlawz, against Deputy Mayor Scarlet, and even against the evil Mayor Blue. When the battle finally unites the forces from Somewhere and the forces from Nowhere, they are ready to stand together and vanquish their foes with their strength and their hope restored.

ROAD TO NOWHERE, a young adult urban fantasy novel, is complete at just over 77,000 words.

This is obviously waaaaaay too long. Also, it's very rough. But it's a start. Now I NEED your help. I am completely out of my element with this query writing business. I've read helpful books and helpful blogs on the subject, but what I really need is feedback. PLEASE LEAVE ME COMMENTS. Tell me, if anything, in this first draft works, and what doesn't. What should I cut? Should I add anything?

HELP ME!!

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Eight: GRADE MY HOOKS!!

When you're attempting to have your novel traditionally published, your query letter is the most important part of your submission package. And your HOOK is the most important part of your query letter.

I know not everyone agrees with me but everyone else is full of shit and that's fine. My journey is my own, and your journey is yours. I don't have all the answers just most of them.  But I DO know this: the HOOK is the opening of your query letter, and it's how you suck potential agents and publishers into your story. 

In other words, the HOOK is how you reel 'em in. And remember, the agent or publisher you're courting will likely read 67 other query letters the day he/she reads yours, so you wanna make sure your HOOK is damn good.

And now I'm asking for your help. Before I throw my query letters out to the universe, I want to make sure I've dotted all my T's and crossed all my I's and written the hook-iest hooks possible. So I'm posting them here. Read them, love them, hate them, laugh at them, be intrigued by them. AND THEN TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF THEM. Leave me a comment or 2 or three. Which hook is the best? The worst? WHY? 

Then find me on twitter (right here!) and tell me there, too!

Remember when I wrote that it takes an army to publish a book? (Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part 7) Well now I'm asking you to enlist. Will you be my literary soldier?

Okay! Here we go....HOOKS:

(1) All hope is never lost. Not even in Nowhere.

(2) No one in Nowhere can exist without hope, even if that hope is stolen.

(3) When children go missing, it's assumed they're Somewhere. But what if they were Nowhere?

(4) The road to Nowhere cost several lives, but saves many more.

(5) More than the contested Roy G. Biv highway separates the free citizens of Somewhere from the Lost Children of Nowhere.

(6) To save an army of Lost Children, Amarillo Saffron uncovers hidden secrets and battles real and figurative demons, armed with nothing but her unwavering hope.*

(7) The road to Nowhere means freedom for the Lost Children, death for the evil Mayor Blue, and an unceremonious end to the nefarious goings-on at the Ardor Labs corporation.*

(8) Cerulean and Amarillo Saffron are sisters separated by guilt, regret, and a nine-year-old secret. Only hope can reunite them and save the Lost Children of Nowhere.*

Got wordy there at the end, didn't I? Hmmm... Wonder what that means. Now! GRADE MY HOOKS!!!

*This hook was shortened for twitter.

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Five: Queries

Whenever I think about querying I want
 to shoot myself in the eye.

There. I said it. It's out in the open. I'm a PUSSY when it comes to the topic of querying. And I know I'm not the only one. Who invented this shenanigans? It's horrible. It's a veritable creative rape of your mental processes. You write a book and then you're asked to justify its existence to people you hope will become champions for the book but in order to do that you have to strip yourself and your work down figuratively naked. 

And you're standing there, naked, begging these people to like you. 

"Tell me I'm clever," you say. 

It's GOD AWFUL. 

This is how I want to query: