Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 22

Query Letter Template

Dear Agent/Editor

[Intro paragraph]I am looking for an agent/publisher for my completed novel, PUBLISH ME, a YA contemporary of 75,000 words. I have read your blog and appreciate your advice to aspiring authors. I also love THE LAST REJECTION, which you recently represented/published.

[Hook paragraph]High school senior McKayla is challenged by her English teacher to write a book better than The Scarlet Letter, which McKayala loudly complained about during the two weeks the class spent talking about the classic. McKayla does just that. She is sucked into the process, begins skipping classes, losing friends, and even saying no to dates. When she finally finishes her magnum opus, she polishes it, then sends it out, ready for fame and fortune to follow. But things are not that simple in the brutal world of publishing, especially not for a seventeen year-old girl. McKayla soon finds out that crushing rejection letters are all part of the process, and she is left to wonder if she should give up and try to pick up her ordinary life or fight on.

[Closing paragraph]I have published two short stories in literary magazines, but no novels as of yet. This would be my debut. Thank you for your consideration, and I am eager to hear your opinion.

Sincerely,

Mette Ivie Harrison

First, I want to say what I have been saying a lot lately, which is that a query letter is a business letter. To me, that means, it needs to be short. It should stick to a function—which is to get people to read your pages. The best query letter in the world is not going to result in a request for a full manuscript unless the pages are good. There’s no contest for a great query letter without great pages. So keep your focus where it needs to be.

It may feel mechanical to say that you are looking for an agent or a publisher, but do it anyway. Put your book in a category and please, please DON’T tell me your book is uncategorizable. Where does it go in the bookstore? That’s it’s category. It has to go somewhere for people to buy it.

Your hook paragraph should tell about your main character. Who is s/he? Age, a few personal details to show what makes her/him unique. Then a description of the problem that propels the novel into motion. A few stabs at the problem, and then you can be vague about the rest. Try to avoid cliches and vague descriptions as much as possible. The first rule of writing is to be specific. Don’t take a lot of time on this, but be specific anyway. No need to get into minor characters or secondary plot threads. You don’t even have to tell the ending. A query letter isn’t a synopsis.

The closing paragraph should also be short. You don’t need to be overly friendly or overly personal. Sure, you can mention something about your own life if it is really pertinent to the book you are writing. Example, if you are writing a book about a diabetic, you could mention you are diabetic. Otherwise, don’t bring it up. Don’t talk about how many kids you have. Don’t talk about how many books you’ve written before this one. Don’t mention what your college degree is in, or that you wrote on your college paper.

Less is more.

That means that you don’t have to have previous publication credits. Really, it looks better for you to leave that part out than it does for you to try to cobble together a bunch of things that are tiny and unimportant and sound like you straining. Nothing wrong with being a debut author. In fact, that can be a selling point. If you’d like, just say that you haven’t previously published or that this will be your first novel.

End with a thank you for taking time. Then double check for spelling and grammatical errors. I’m not saying you can’t have any, but you’re better off with none and even one can make you look unprofessional.

Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_waBFUg_oT8

I loved this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert about “going home” to the place where you write. One of her great quotes was “I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing, which is to say I loved writing more than my own ego.”

I am still pondering over her argument that success and failure mean the same thing to our conscious minds because both are so outside of our range of experience/expectation. I think that for many of us, failure is a lot more comfortable than success because we are used to it.

"Oh, yeah, another rejection letter." *shrug*

But unexpected success can be truly devastating because it demands all new things of us. It makes us feel unworthy and that can cause us to sabotage ourselves. I know I have done this, downplaying my accomplishments because I feel like I have no wisdom to offer, that any success came undeserved and randomly to me.

I think I have learned that success comes randomly to everyone. Just like failure is pretty random. Which is why it’s important not to only ask people who have succeeded wildly for advice. Sometimes they don’t know. Often, they don’t know. Plenty of people who appear to be failures are fountains of interesting advice, and those of moderate success, as well.

I have also learned, as Elizabeth Gilbert says, that the only remedy for success or failure is going home to writing. That is, going home to the deep self who is a writer and doesn’t care about anything else but doing the work, whatever comes to me, whatever is given.

On Control

Lack of control is one of the great lessons that Mercy’s death has taught me. I spent so much time running around trying to control everything in my life and congratulating myself on how well I did at this. It was only something that stopped me in my tracks that forced me to see how little I can control. That was a great deal of the depression I faced. The hardest task in returning to life has been returning to the truth of life that I have discovered, and for so long could not and did not want to face, that I am not in charge of life. I do not always trust that God is in charge of it, either. There are small things that I control, but it is good to see how small those things are.

In part, my obsession with triathlon is that I love to control as much as possible, and my body I control to some degree. I control doing a workout every day at my full capacity. But I do not control how well I do in races. I don’t know who my competition will be. I don’t know what challenges I will face in terms of weather, road conditions, mechanical failures, or illness. Triathlon has been a great microcosm of real life, the see-saw of control of giving up control. When I am most anxious about an upcoming race, I remind myself to let go. I have done as much as I can do, and the rest is not in my hands.

Life is like this, too. My anxiety is caused by an attempt to control too much, to want to be in charge of things I am not in charge of. My subconscious realizes the lack of control and feels unhappy about it. I have to slowly release my gripping fingers and allow myself to fall once more. I don’t know if God will catch me, but I can choose to enjoy the feeling of falling. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I can take pleasure in not knowing, in not controlling, and merely letting life unfold around me.

Truths from the other side of Publication

The things you think you will get from publication are mostly things that won't come along with it except possibly as a coincidence. You will not be instantly more confident, more important, or feel more validated.

Publication won't mean that your second book will be easier to sell. It may be a great deal harder to sell, depending on how your first book does in comparison to expectations.

Being published means that you will forever be known as the person who published this book. You will never again be the person who could publish anything again.

Being published will largely take away the magic of writing. It will feel more like a job, which is both a good and a bad thing.

Publication isn't the same as happiness.

It is incredibly difficult to write from the heart once you have been published and people offer you money to write what they want you to write.

There will always be a new gauge of “real” success. Now you've published one book, you want to get a contract for a series. Or be a NYT Bestseller. Or win a Hugo or a Newbery. Or write a small quiet book under a pseudonym to see if anyone really likes your writing if they don't know it's you.

You will still have to do your laundry in the morning and put your pants on the same way as everyone else.

Your kids will always think that whatever you do, by virtue of being their parents, is exceedingly dull.

Your dress size will still be the same and your hair still won't do what you want it to do, especially if there are going to be photographs.

New and never before known people will now sneer at you and your work.

People you knew from high school still won't read your book, but they will ask you to read theirs and recommend it to your agent and basically get it published for them.

You will still get writer's block and you will still often think that your work sucks.

Your mother will tell you she wishes you hadn't used that word on page 116.

You will offend people you did not mean to offend.

You will discover that people really, really do not like you.

One Answer for All Questions

One of the reasons I get tired of answering questions like “how many words in a YA novel?” or “how much sexiness can you get away with in YA romance?” or “what publishers are publishing x?” is that these are questions that I can answer, but I feel like I shouldn’t answer them. Really. It feels like meat before milk.

I’m not trying to be obnoxious, but knowing this information sometimes leads people to think that they are closer to being ready to send a manuscript in than they really are. The way I want to answer all of those questions (and many others) is with this:

Read 100 books a year in the genre in which you want to publish, books which have been published in the last year in the US.

Doing this will, I believe, be more helpful to your writing career than any individual answers accumulated will be.

If you tell me that you don’t have time to read 100 books if you’re trying to write your own book, I’m afraid I won’t feel much sympathy. I will think that you are trying to skip steps that can’t be skipped.

You can’t rely on the knowledge of children’s books (or mysteries or thrillers or romances) that you have from your own childhood, or from twenty years ago. The market has changed drastically from then, to the point that what you think works may be laughable to editors today.

I know you think that Dr. Seuss (or Agatha Christie or Danielle Steele) is a classic. He is still selling today. He is still being read today. But he isn’t being bought today by editor’s today. If you want to understand publishing today, it’s really not difficult. You don’t even have to buy those books. You can check them out from your local library.

I think you are going to have a lot better chance of being published next year if you spend all of next year not writing your book, but reading 100 books and thinking about how to make your book better from what you learn by reading those books. I really, sincerely do. This is my best advice to you. I am not trying to sell my own books.

I just meet so many people at conferences who dismiss this advice simply because they say they don’t have time. But they are at conferences, and they think that the conferences will fill in the gap. Conferences are great. I think they can be really useful. But I also think that if you took all that time and money you spend on conferences and spent it instead on reading books, you may end up with more useful information for a beginner.

Trust Your Subconscious

When people ask about outlining v. “pantsing,” I think a lot of the time what they are actually asking about is whether or not as a writer you have to trust your subconscious. My answer: At some point, you do. And the more you do, the better your stories will be.

This doesn’t mean that I think that it’s bad to outline. Writers work in lots of different ways to unlock their subconscious, creative minds. I don’t care what way you work. But the problem is that I see too many writers who think that “planning” out a book means following a bunch of rules that someone has written in a book somewhere and that you just use a formula and you have a bestseller. That isn’t the way that it works.

A lot of incredible books come out of someone who is a new writer, trying new things, unafraid not to use formulas and rules. Which isn’t to say all the good books are that way. A lot of the best books come from writers who are experienced in the trade.

But all of the best books come from people who know how to trust the subconscious.

When I sit down to write, I try to give myself a framework for what I’m going to do that day. I write a few sentences about the next few chapters. I often write the first line of the next chapter before I leave my computer the day before, so I know where to start. But here’s the thing: I never really know what’s going to happen next. When I think I do, I am almost always wrong. And even when I’m right, it never happens the way that I think it will. And that’s the way it should be.

Writing should be surprising, and I believe it should surprise the creator as much as it does the audience. When you sit down, you have to trust that something other than your limited conscious mind is in charge of this immense project. If you don’t believe that, I don’t see how you can keep working. There are too many other things that are more concretely successful, that you will control more. Why write?

Writers learn in time that your subconscious plants clues for you, like the villain in a detective story. Sometimes when you are stuck in a book, all you need to do is go back and read the clues and you know where you go next, what the ending is. And of course, you have to see all the crap that got put in there by your conscious mind and carefully weed it out.

Every novel I’ve ever written, I wrote by sitting down each day and letting myself do what I didn’t know how to do. And that’s what I know about being a writer. You don’t know anything, and you embrace it. You stop trying to push away the fear, and you greet it like an old friend. You again? Ah, well, we will work together.

Dare to Write the Book . . .

that is above your head.

that someone else should have written, and didn’t.

that you’ve been waiting to read.

that haunts your dreams.

that you never got right.

that the kid that you know needs to read.

that won’t be made into a movie.

that only six other people will be smart enough to get.

that combines genres no one imagined before.

that people will hate.

that is small and just a retelling, and who will care?

that is beautiful, and too short.

that your parents will be embarrassed about.

that strips you naked in front of the world.

that reinvents everything.

that isn’t going to make money.

that serves up your heart and allows people to stomp on it.

If you don’t dare, who will?

Gender Bending at Salt Lake Comic Con (FanX) 2014

I want to say again that my experience at Comic Con last year and this year was so very different from what I expected. I feel like all the media coverage of Comic Con focuses on how “weird” the cosplayers are, and how they seem irrationally caught in another world and unable to connect in this one.

That was not my experience at all. I am sure there are weirdos at Comic Con, as there are anywhere, but the cosplayers I met were articulate, smart, and subversive. They all put their own spin on their costumes.There was a commentary inherent in almost every costume I saw. Some were just adorable, like the families from Star Wars where you saw a little baby Jedi and a Dad Darth Vader with a mom dressed as Lando Calrissian. There was the Asian Elsa I saw, and the homemade T-shirts with pithy sayings, some twisted from the original, some not.

One of the spins I was most interested in was gender bending. I took some photos of the VAST number of women who were cosplaying as Doctor Who, which seemed to me in direct defiance of the showrunners’ insistence that there would never be a female Doctor Who. Many of these were cleverly redesigned versions of the doctor. I saw cute skirts with the standard bow tie and jacket, and lots of feminine touches. There were also women who were dressed in masculine attire. I found them both interesting.

Here are a few:

And finally, there is this photo of a female “Captain Hammer,” which I find to be the most interesting of all. Captain Hammer is the most obnoxious stereotypical male super hero, over the top, so to speak, making fun of the maleness of super heroes. So to see a female version does some serious subversion.

Anyway, I love Comic Con. I love the cosplaying. I loved talking to people about their costumes and choices. Where else in the world do people dress in a way that invites immediate comment? And I had fun asking to take pictures, since normally that would cause a fearful reaction, but here, people were delighted and flattered that you wanted to take a photo.

FAQs from panels

Seriously, every author has answered these questions a thousand times.

1. Where do you get your ideas?

I get a lot of ideas from other art, especially when I dislike it and want to write my own version. People get ideas from lots of places. What you really need to be asking is—where do I get my ideas. And no one can answer that question but you.

2. Do you do your own illustrations/cover art?

The general answer here is no. If you publish traditionally, this isn’t something you either worry about or get much input on. If you publish yourself, then yes. But I advise finding a professional.

3. How do you get an agent?

You go to Literary Marketplace at your local library and look at the long listings of agents and write down their addresses and send them a query letter or whatever it is they ask for. Or you can go on-line to Writers Market and pay a monthly fee to get a list of agents interested in your genre there. But as a warning, it may take you a long time to find the right agent, and you will probably not find the right one with your first book.

4. How do you find a publisher?

Go to the local library and look at Writers Market. It takes a long time to look through all the listings. There’s no good shortcut in my opinion. Many publishers are closed to unsolicited submissions. You will either need to get an agent to get around this or go to conferences where editors give you a special code to get around it. Truth.

5.  How long is a MG or YA novel?

Really, the length can vary widely, but I would see a MG is about 50-60,000 words and a YA is 60-80,000 words, but genre fiction can be about 20% longer. Also, if you use bestsellers as a guide (which I don’t recommend), then you will think your books should be a lot longer than a debut author can usually get away with.

6. Do you have to know someone to get published?

No. Most authors I know get found either by the slush pile or by meeting editors at conferences and wowing them with a first chapter.

7. What is the new trend in YA/MG/adult right now?

It doesn’t matter what the new trend is now, because it will already be over by the time you’ve written something good enough to be published. So write what YOU want to see published, and hopefully you will find someone who is in sync with you, and you will convince other people that you’re brilliant. And write another book, and another one, until you find the right match.

8. Should I send my son’s manuscript in for him?

No, please don’t do this. I strongly believe teenagers’ manuscripts shouldn’t be published and that parents shouldn’t push this. When your kid is ready to submit, they’ll figure it out on their own. I’m not saying kids shouldn’t write or try to be published.Only that they should do the driving themselves, and that they should be judged the same way anyone else is, and not as cute kids who are prodigies.

9. Why are terrible books like Twilight published?

If you want to get into a rumble with me, start saying misogynistic things about Stephenie Meyer or her fans. If you want to have a genuine conversation about problems with Twilight and you’ve actually read the book (preferably the whole series), I’ll happily sit down and talk about it. However, please remember that different people like different things in their books and that any author who has found so many readers is doing something right that you probably need to learn from.

10. Do you have to have romance in your books to get published?

No. But there’s nothing wrong with romance, either. I personally love romance, especially when done well. I love that publishing has realized that there is a significant teen girl market out there and that they love romance. I was a teenager who read a lot of adult romance because there wasn’t anything else. I would have adored teen romance.

11. Why aren’t there any good books for boys being published today?

Ha! There are lots of good books for boys being published today. Just because every book isn’t for boys doesn’t mean there’s a problem here.

12. How much do you get paid for a first book?

To be honest, I would say $5,000-$10,000 is a decent advance on a first book. I don’t recommend going with a publisher who pays no advance at all. I think at least a token is nice. But on the other hand, I also think that it’s not very polite to ask about how much money someone makes in public. Maybe the simpler answer is to say—don’t quit your day job when you sell your first book.

Mental Illness and what you can do

Talking to a depressed person as if you are talking to a mentally whole person is only going to end with you being frustrated that the depressed person “takes everything the wrong way.” Of course they do. That is the symptom of their problem. It isn’t that they are doing this willfully, however. Don’t imagine that they *want* to remain depressed, though it may seem that no matter how stubbornly you present the “real” facts to them, they won’t listen.

You can talk all day long about how grateful they should be about the good things in their life. And none of those good things will matter to them. They can’t weigh the good and the bad. They can’t feel happy just by thinking about good things. They can’t because they’re depressed and that’s what depression is. It means they can’t just turn a switch like a normal person can who feels a little blue—but isn’t clinically depressed.

When I look back at my experiences as a depressed person and think of the people who said things that hurt me, I am aware at the same time that it is entirely possible I am remembering every single one of those conversations incorrectly. It may be that if there were some objective view of the universe that we could go to, rewind the tape, and see it again, I would be astonished to discover that not only do I have the intent wrong, but all of the words wrong, too. I could have made things up that other people didn’t say simply to fit with my depressed mood.

I don’t think that’s what happened, but that’s another one of the effects of depression, that you end up unable to tell what’s real and what’s not. It’s another reason why people who are depressed tend to stay away from other people, which in some ways deepens the depression because all humans have a basic need for social interaction. We aren’t sure that we are being rational and we don’t want to think that we are causing other people hurt. Even if our brains aren’t working, that doesn’t mean that we’re mean (not usually). We can’t trust ourselves, and so we do this self-protective thing to keep from doing crazy stuff.

You can’t just fix this with a book on how to be happier. You can’t fix it with love (though love certainly doesn’t hurt).

Right now, Robison Wells, a good friend and someone who suffers with multiple mental illnesses needs help right now. We can’t help in many ways, but we can do this one little thing. Please, donate!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/altered-perceptions#home