Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 52

My 5 Stages of Grief

Years after losing a baby at birth, I can look back and see that there were stages to grief, but mostly my stages of grief did not map well to the stages of grief that you were "supposed" to go through. I suspect that most people have utterly idiosyncratic grief experiences, but I thought it might be useful to write about mine in case someone else feels like this, and also in the hopes that it will allow other people to think about their own stages and accept that they are perfectly normal for them.

#1 Terror

This stage came within days after my daughter's death. It meant that anytime any of my other children were out of my sight, and sometimes even when they were in my sight, I felt terrified that they would also die. The world seemed like such an unsafe place, so many ways to die, and I started to think of all of them. It wasn't that the word had changed, but my perception of my children's risk had dramatically changed. It felt sometimes like all my skin had been flayed off and I was walking around, so vulnerable and exposed that everything hurt.

#2 Robot

This stage came a few months later. I remember feeling like I was so cut off from normal human interaction that I saw everything as a kind of robot parroting of words. Saying "Hello?" and "How are you?" felt like performances rather than real questions. No one wanted to know the real answer. I also felt like I was expected to act like a robot, that when people contacted me, that they wanted me to behave in particular manner. When I didn't, then they perceived me as broken. That made them want to "help" me, but it felt mostly like they just wanted me to be fixed, so that their own lives could go on being normal.

#3 Self-Flagellation

This stage came about a year later. I think in some ways this is like what other people call denial, but had a lot of "what ifs" involved in it. I thought through the thousand scenarios that would have led (I imagined) to my daughter surviving. And then I proceeded to blame myself for not doing any of them, despite the fact that there had been no reason for me to believe that anything was wrong with the pregnancy except perhaps the last few days before the fateful delivery. This, of all the stages, makes the most sense to me because I realize now that I was actually getting over the terror stage. If I was the one at fault for my daughter's death, then I had control. I could make sure never to do that again, and thus my other children would be safe. This was an important part of the healing process. As painful as it was, it was part of me becoming myself again.

#4 Crazy 

This stage came about 2 years later, when I realized that I was actually crazy. That is, I realized that the rest of the world was probably still the same as it had been before my daughter's death and it was probably me who had changed. This meant that I was the one who had to get better, to change, or do something to move on. I didn't even like to think about that phrase, moving on. I didn't want to move on. I was convinced I was going to be broken forever. Maybe some part of me felt that I owed it to my daughter to never heal, or that it made me somehow more special or more deep if I never healed. Or maybe that's just me looking back on that time. In any case, this was when I finally went to see a therapist and it actually helped. I'd been to 2 others before this, but since I was convinced that other people were going to change instead of me, the therapy didn't work very well and didn't last very long.

#5 Repair

After about 5-6 years later, I am just now starting to realize all the repair work that has to be done. At first, this made me defensive and angry. After all, it wasn't my fault this had happened to me. Why did I have to do all this extra work to make up for the hurt I'd caused while I was hurting myself and no one was helping me. But gradually, that has faded away and I think that I have come to accept (there's that grief stage word) that it doesn't really matter whose fault it was or wasn't. It only matters that there is work to be done, and that if I want to be happier and have richer relationships in the future, I've got to work on them now. It doesn't mean that something else terrible is going to happen to me, either. It's not an invitation to be hurt if you are healthy. Though hurt probably will come. No one lives a life without it unless they have no feelings. And that is not the path I want to be on.

Friday Tri: 2 Experiments

Experiment #1: No Watch

I'm pretty sure most of the rest of you gave up watches a long time ago. I have a phone, but it isn't as easy to get out and look at as a watch, and for a long time I was using my watch for sports-related things like setting it to go off underwater while I was swimming, to make sure that I made my times on long swim sets (and also didn't forget which number I was on--it went off only on even numbered laps). But it broke 10 days ago and I thought it might be an interesting experiment to see what happened when I didn't have it.

There are a lot of times when I wonder what time it is, look at my left wrist, and remember I don't have my watch. Sometimes I then try to guess what time it is, based on the last time I knew and how much time I think has passed. But other times--and I think this is important--I simply shrug and say to myself, It is the time that it is and nothing you can do will change that. So get on with what you are doing. I was astonished to realize that I had actually deluded myself into thinking that my checking my watch frequently, I had some actual control over the universe through time. I have long prided myself on hurrying through things, so that I had more time to do other things. But ultimately, what am I doing this for? What is all the rush about? Is this really improving my life?

As for sports related items, looking at my watch or having it beep at me, also does not make me able to suddenly run faster, bike faster, or swim faster. And secondly, I think my hearing is going because I can't hear my watch beep under the water very well anymore anyway. Luckily, I am at a new pool with two clocks posted, one on either end, so I can look up and check my time there. Am I constantly doing that? Well, I do look a lot, but not every single length. Sometimes because of my stroke pattern, I end up needing to breathe on the wrong side at the end of the pool. Guess what? This is not the end of the world. I can still choose to swim fast or slow and checking my time doesn't change that. The rest of you probably figured this out a long time ago, too. Further proof that there are ways in which I am shockingly immature.

Experiment #2: No Calorie Counter

So, last week a friend of mine posted a link to an article about exercise addiction. As I was reading, I began to wonder if I am addicted to exercise. Everyone who probably knows me is probably groaning right about now, having figured this out months ago. But yes, it takes a while to process. As I was explaining to friends last night, one of the things an addict does is point out all the people who are MORE addicted. And then they say, well, that means I'm not addicted. If i don't do everything that guy does, then I'm not addicted. I shield myself by pointing to others.

My kids have been annoyed with my obsessive calorie counting for a long time now. I have logged all the food I have eaten every day for the last two years or more. It started when a friend mentioned myfitnesspal as a free app to help with weight loss. He said he was playing with it and asked me and my husband if we wanted to join him and be "friends" on-line and support each other. The first thing I said to him was, do you really want to introduce me to some new way for me to count stuff? You know how OCD I am. So he didn't press the issue, but nonetheless, I started that night and just kept going.

Even when I did Ironman competitions, I would make sure to keep track of every bottle of Gatorade I drank, every Power bar I ate, every chip or banana or pretzel that I got in. And even when myfitnesspal refused to count my Ironman days (it simply starts over counting how many days I've logged and refuses to display this information to my "friends" about how many calories I burned while exercising--for over 13 hours in one day).

And why did I do this?

Because there was a certain feedback mechanism that I thrive on. Every day, I was able to get my numbers below the little bar that marked how many calories I was allowed to eat, and then I felt good about myself. The days where my calories went "red" were bad days, and I wasn't as happy about those. This sounds really dumb, but there is something in me that likes this kind of feedback and control (sound familiar?).

I wondered sometimes why I was doing it. I don't really want to lose weight or gain weight. I'm perfectly happy with where I am and I don't exercise hours and hours a day without a purpose. If I'm training for an Ironman, then a couple days a week are long days (3-5 hours each), but when I'm not, I stick to 1-2 hours a day. But there is this illusion of control, that if you are tracking it, then you can make it do what you want.

I don't know that a doctor would think of me as clinically in need of intervention. If I am injured, I switch to other sports so I don't hurt myself. I don't really love pain. I don't force myself not to eat for hours on end. I haven't lost any dangerous amount of weight and I still cycle regularly. But still, I think I am in danger of losing sight of the goal. Instead of thinking about what was the best workout the day before a race last year, I would sometimes find myself just wanting my numbers to look "right" on my little weekly chart. And that is probably not a good trend.

So I have now gone 1 whole week without logging anything, either calories or exercise. And I discovered that I was spending way too much time looking at my chart and trying to figure out what I was "allowed" to have rather than finding things that were healthy and sounded like they tasted good. I was also working out based at least partly on how many calories I wanted to burn that day instead of doing a workout that either felt good or made sense in terms of my fitness goals.

I suspect that I will also feel less pressure to exercise when I am ill or have a concussion, as I did a couple of weeks ago. Even though I knew I was still not feeling well, I wanted to get my numbers to line up. I wanted to log in my exercise minutes, even when my husband and children and pretty much everyone I knew kept telling me that I should be going to the doctor and staying in bed. I told myself that because I wasn't doing any jumping or running that was likely to aggravate my head (which did probably help to some degree), then I was fine. So I stayed on my stationary bike. Which was probably stupid.

I'm proud of a lot of my accomplishment in triathlon. I don't plan to give it up, but I am hoping that this will help me re-evaluate my choices and my motives in a useful way. Like two years ago, when I made an effort not to write down any goals for races, I think this may actually help me improve my fitness. But even if it doesn't, I think it will help me be happier, and for some reason, I have to actually consciously try to reach for happiness and hold to it. It isn't something that I naturally look for. It isn't a number and I can't write up a little chart for my happiness. Although now that I think of it, maybe I could do something like that, after all . . .

Bella As Mormon Goddess

Here in the link to the essay I wrote this week:

http://hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/01/bella-as-a-mormon-goddess-in-stephenie-meyers-twilight/

My Schedule at LTUE at the Provo Marriott February 14-16, 2013

2/14

10—Downfalls of Bad Fiction

2—Adapting Classic Stories

2/15

12—POV

5—Writing Modern Fantasy

8--Mass Signing

2/16

9—Social Media

2—Cautionary Tales for First Time Writers

Writing Wednesday: Following the "Rules"

Trying to help my 10 year old with a writing assignment at school reminded me strongly of the ways in which writers try to protect themselves and ultimately end up hamstringing themselves by adherence to "the rules."

When I published my fantasy, The Princess and the Hound, an early Amazon reviewer complained that I had not followed the "rules" of fantasy writing. (You can still see her review up if you go to my page on amazon--it's the one about "a dog of a book, really.") Apparently these supposed rules included things like "a naming convention," and "a new word for the kind of magic." I'm sure that in this reader's mind there were a long list of "rules" about fantasy writing which I had ignored, and I don't mean to say that this reader's response is any less valid than anyone else's. But I suspect that she is an aspiring writer and has carefully analyzed all the rules of fantasy writing as she has worked through her own manuscripts, to ensure that she is following them correctly.

But the problem with writing this way is that it ends up looking to a reader as a sort of paint-by-numbers attempt. Instead of inventing things new, the writer seems to be taking bits and pieces from some internalized canon of writing and then using them in a system that may or may not be coherent. But the real problem is that there is a lack of individuality. When you write to an agent or editor and pitch your book as the "new Harry Potter" or the new anything, a flag goes up. Because they've all seen derivative books before and that isn't what they want. They don't write writers following the rules of fantasy via Harry Potter. They want all new rules. They want a writer who feels confidence enough to break the rules and reinvent them all.

When I wrote The Princess and the Hound, I purposely refused to make up a new word for my magic (until pressured by the editor of the third book in the series, a caving I now regret). I feel that fantasy in the adult world often has a high "barrier to entry," that is, it is so difficult for those who are not used to reading fantasy to get into it that they often simply give up. YA fantasy appealed to me from the beginning in part because of this lack of barrier to entry. I know some writers and readers in the adult world think that YA fantasy is simplified, that the world building is lacking, but I often prefer this kind of writing. So when I wrote my own book, I felt no need to create a new "magical" word for "animal magic." When English already has perfectly good words, why not use them so that anyone can understand them? That was my thinking, in any case.

I am not saying follow no rules. Certainly there are good rules about how to interact with an editor, how to present your manuscript at a conference or how to write a query letter. There are rules about grammar and spelling that need to be followed. But the other "rules" are rules of thumb. When I say that you should introduce a character's gender and name on page one, I don't mean to simply spill it out because if you aren't following the rules, no one will read past page one. I only mean that you should find an organic way to help the reader avoid confusion. And if you have a good reason for concealing the age or name of the main character for a long time after that, just make sure that you are breaking the rules for a reason. It may or may not get you rejected, but your book will at least feel original.

When my children have learned to write essays from school, they were taught a very strict three-part structure and the teachers harped on it so often that they were all afraid to color outside the lines. They could never crack a joke or bring up a personal experience because that would be breaking the rules. Well, guess what? None of the essays written in this way are ever going to be publishable. They may fulfill some requirement that has been artificially set by a group of teachers somewhere, but they aren't good writing. Good essay writing breaks these rules all the time. And hammering those rules into students sometimes ends up making them unable to see the reasons for the rules and why they might break them. I'm not trying to say teachers are wrong (I know that with the current system, teachers are just trying to do what they've been told), but this kind of writing isn't what makes great writers.

If you want to write, write something that isn't according to the rules. If you see a rule, find a way to break it deliberately. Free yourself and your books from the rules that have only been made to protect people from having to make their own decisions. That kind of protection is only going to harm your writing. It's been said before, but I will say it again. If you aren't taking the risk of being an absolute failure in your writing, you're only ever going to reach a level of "adequate." You will never be great. You will never surprise. You will always be writing those student essays, waiting for a teacher to give you a grade. And writing your own story isn't about getting a grade and doing things "right." It's about making other people want to analyze your books and follow your "rules."

Writing Wednesday: It's the Characters, Stupid!

Super busy today, and even a day later I don’t have time to say much. But see above.

It appears that I have been focusing so much on trying to get plots
right in my manuscripts that I made my characters into little cardboard
cutouts. I am pretty sure I am not the only author to have ever made
this mistake.

Here’s the thing. Despite what you may think about wanting ALL the
cool things to happen in your book, it probably doesn’t actually matter.
BORING. That’s what your readers are likely to say.

Because all that matters to your readers is having really, really
great characters to spend time with, and then seeing those awesome
characters do things that matter to them. No matter what the cool plot
is going on in the outside world of your character, the plot of your
story is essentially the story of what matters to this character.

So go all out in dressing the world if you want. But it’s just window
dressing, because the focus of the book will have to be on the
characters really wanting things and going to get them. Or being changed
by the things that happen to them. And the changes are going to be
unique to them, and unique to the weird series of messed up things that
happen just to them.

Since I’m clearly not getting this right yet, I will admit to needing
more time to formulate ideas. And well, take this will all the salt you
may need. YMMV

Fictional Motherhood: Susan Rodriguez from The Dresden Files

I love Jim Butcher's books about Harry Dresden. I even liked the TV show version. I've read all of the books and I own most of them as audio books read by James Marsters (who does amazing voices), as well. But when Susan Rodriguez appears in CHANGES and announces to Harry that she had his child and has kept the knowledge of it from him for the last six years, my spidey senses started to tingle. And then when Susan was basically sacrificed at the climax of the novel, I shook my head. Motherhood again, was fatal.

One of the things I wonder in these kinds of stories is--how often do women conceal that they are pregnant from the fathers of the child? I suppose it happens often enough, when there is no relationship between the man and the woman afterward. But the fact that this is fictionally so often used makes me think. What would Freud say about stories like this? (Not that Freud had any idea what he was talking about, since he clearly was unable to see young girls were being sexually abused by their fathers in turn-of-the-century Vienna by the dozens.) This seems to be an enormous fear for men, the idea that their children will be taken away from them or that knowledge alone will be withheld from them. This is a fear about women's power. It's fear about a woman's body enveloping a man's body and TAKING from it.

Pregnancy is one of the few powers that a woman has and that a man cannot simulate, at least not yet, though we certainly have movies about it happening anyway. Because, yeah, that's what the world needs. We need to make sure that men have all the power that women have because men feel so helpless about women being pregnant and having this enormous power of life. But culturally, we make fun of what it means to be pregnant in a movie like JUNIOR. Why do we do that? Because then the reality of our world, where men can't be pregnant, turns out to be less threatening for men. Pregnancy is just about puking and getting fat and hormones raging that make women silly-crazy all the time. Nothing to worry about men. Nothing to really envy. It's for the best you never have this great power.

Back to Harry and Susan, Susan gives Harry a long list of reasons why she has hidden this information from him. Harry even says that he understands this list of reasons. And he understands, supposedly, while Susan has come to him now when their daughter is in danger. But Harry's reaction? He is pissed off. He is hurt. He is hollowed out, devastated that he has a child he has not known for all this time. He has been stripped of the chance to be a father, stripped of his manhood. His rights? Possibly. The focus of the book is on Harry's loss, and of course, Harry is the narrator and Jim Butcher is the author telling the story, a very male-oriented story here. But the story is about male fear about female power sexually (as are a lot of the stories about the vampires in this series, not to mention the fairies) and about female power in motherhood.

As a contrast in mothering, Charity, MIchael's wife, constantly appears. She's a fierce Mama-Bear type and she frankly doesn't like Harry at all, since he gets her husband into trouble constantly. It may not help that her oldest daughter falls in love with Harry and ends up becoming his apprentice. Of course, Harry wouldn't let anything happen there--she's too young for him and too vulnerable to his masculine charms--but it makes his relationship with Charity even more strained. What I find interesting here is that motherhood is so threatening to Harry Dresden. Charity is one of the few female characters who doesn't like Harry OR find him sexually interesting in the least. She ends up being the one that Harry gives his daughter Maggie to to take care of, and then he basically puts off seeing his daughter again for months because he's afraid it will only put her in danger.

In the climax of CHANGES, Harry manipulates Susan into seeing that her friend Martin has betrayed her and intends to betray Maggie. She attacks him and becomes a full-fledged Red Court vampire in the process. Then Harry sacrifices her instead of Maggie and defeats all his enemies. And at the moment, we are meant to believe that Susan would have wanted Harry to do this, perhaps even knew that he was going to do this. And we are supposed to think about how this will haunt Harry for the rest of his life, killing the mother of his child. Focus on Harry again, as you would expect.

The novel is called CHANGES for a reason. Not only does Harry discover he is a father, but in the course of the book, he ends up losing everything, his office, his home, and his beloved car. In addition, Harry has made a devil's bargain with Mab or he wouldn't have come out of this alive. He has agreed to become the Winter Knight (something that isn't clear on first read--at least not to me) and so when he is shot at the end of it, he doesn't seem to care much because he feels it may be a lucky escape. His final admission to Murphy about how he feels for her is also a cost for him at the end of this book. Susan Rodriguez, the woman he once loved but can't have because she is a vampire and that's his fault, too, has ruined his life. The power she has over Harry is splattered across the pages of this book. Her decision to have a child destroys everything that has been Harry's life. Making him become a father seems to be a kind of vicious act for which she is repaid with death.

Motherhood in The Dresden Files (and I use them as classic examples of popular culture) is a powerful role that threatens the lifestyle of the single man. Women who are mothers are scary and protective of their children. Ultimately, mothers have one role and one purpose, and that is to give up their lives for their children. Susan fulfills her role ultimately when she takes her daughter's place on the altar of the Red Court vampires. Charity is the mother remaining alive who continues to stand as sentinel over her children's lives.

But what else do these women who are mothers do? I keep thinking, do they have hobbies? Charity's only hobby appears to be sword work, which she keeps up so she can protect her children. She cooks and keeps house and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but she is such an ideal. I want to see her passionate about something else in her life. I want to know that Susan has something else in her life besides protecting her daughter, but I don't. Once you are a mother, the message here seems to be, that's it. Your life is over. You will spend all your time and energy taking care of a child until you are dead and are released from the obligation. And for men, fatherhood seems equally binding and therefore something to be fled.

As a mother myself, I don't think that this has to be true. Yes, there are times when children need a lot of care. And pregnancy itself can be dangerous and is powerful. But just as men can have an identity, as a friend, as a worker, as an artist, outside of fatherhood, so can women. Motherhood does not have to be the sole defining fact of the life of a mother. I know many traditional mothers who stay at home with children, and even for those women, motherhood is not their only defining feature. They have many passions in life, from music to knitting to homeschooling to home improvement and on and on. And then there are the mothers who stayed at home with small children and then went back to school or back to work. And the women who never gave up their work identity for motherhood. All of these are ways to mother. And all of them are good.

Monday Book Recs--Pyramid by Mankell Henning and The Rose Garden by Susannah Kearsley

Pyramid by Mankell Henning

This is a collection of four stories that are all about the early part of Wallander's career. I love the BBC TV series starring Kenneth Branagh, so that is what started my interest in this series. I think this collection would be a good introduction. One of the things I find most interesting about international mystery series is how they are able to be political without it feeling at all preachy. Immigration is an issue that all countries are dealing with (and probably have, since the beginning of time) and this series is not an exception to that rule.

But I also like Wallander. I find him an interesting and flawed hero. He focuses so obsessively on his cases and he simply cannot stop doing that, no matter what havoc this wreaks on his personal life. He is so oblivious is so many ways, and yet so acute when it comes to mysteries. The short story framework allows some smaller stories here, and also for the stories to not have the kind of final and absolute conclusion that other mysteries demand.

The Rose Garden by Susannah Kearsley

I read this book based on a friend's recommendation. I liked the characters at first, but I admit, I was a little annoyed at how easily I guessed who the romantic lead would be. Until I realized I was completely wrong and the story was going in a very different direction. There is time travel involved here, which I hope doesn't spoil the book for anyone, but I like how the rules are set up simply. I won't spoil that. I also liked the exploration of the other time period. And I am always fascinated in time travel stories to see how women from our time deal with the restrictions of other time periods. This book did a good job of it, though most of the changes were hard ones. I always wish that more books showed how women in these frontier kinds of settings also had more power in some ways.

I liked the sisters' relationship here, and I liked the strong sense of place. I thought the bad guy might have been a touch too Snidely Whiplash, and the brother-in-law a bit too womanizer stereotype. But there were so many fun characters fully fleshed out, I forgive those tiny flaws that are probably due simply to the fact that no book can do everything in a limited number of pages. This is a fun read, and it's deeper than most.

Friday Tri: Thoughts on Concussions

So, last week I did something really stupid. I was showing off flipping up into a handstand to a wall, but I did it against a door, and the door opened on me. I fell backward rather hard and hit my head and back on a concrete floor. At the time, I was mostly embarrassed. It hurt, yes, but I jumped up and took a bow and everyone laughed at my antics. Someone even joked that she wanted me to do it again so she could capture it on her camera.

Then I drove home for several hours in a blizzard and by the time I got home, I was pretty sure I had a concussion. I've had one before, and it isn't exactly painful, but it feels like my brain is swollen inside my head and it pounds a bit. Worse than that is the lack of acuity that I expect of myself, leading to me not being able to do much of anything because I can't think straight. And then there was the exhaustion. So I spent most of the next five days pretty much flat in bed. When I didn't do that, I regretted it.

Also, anyone I talked to in the next several days told me pretty much to go see a doctor. So those of you who are still worried about me, I did see a doctor. A little late, and not about a concussion, but she did see me and she told me some things to watch for just in case and then said that at this stage, I was probably fine.

So, this leads me to think a bit about injuries and how they make us feel, not physically, but about ourselves and about our bodies and athletic endeavors. I know a number of people who have tried to change their lives and become more active. They went out and overdid it and then they gave up. They told themselves a story about not being athletic, and this injury was proof of that. Or sometimes I hear people telling themselves that they've reached a certain age and so can't do certain things anymore.

I'm not saying that everyone SHOULD ignore all common sense and do crazy stuff. But getting an injury isn't the end of the world. You deal with it. You try to make sure that it doesn't happen again. And then you keep going. There's not really a need to make an injury the end of everything. It doesn't mean you are bad or incapable of pushing yourself. It doesn't mean that you should quit or give up.

And the same thing is true when we get psychic hurts. If you're a writer and you get a rejection, you can feel like you should just give up. That pain is telling you that you weren't meant to be a writer, that all of this is useless and you're just going to keep hurting yourself. But that's not really what the pain is telling you. The pain is just saying, hey, not this one little thing. Maybe not this manuscript, maybe not this agent, maybe not this editor.

But the reality is that if we do not push ourselves a little bit, we go backwards. It's true in athletics and it's true in any other part of our life. We are meant to try crazy stuff. We are meant to keep thinking we're younger than we are. We're meant to hope for more than we have right now. Sometimes we get hit with hard stuff, like a concrete floor. But it doesn't mean give up. It just means not that door, not a handstand against it.

When people tell themselves the story that they can't do this or that, it is always true. It becomes true in their telling of the story. When we tell the opposite story, it often becomes true in the telling, as well. When we stop and give up, we make defeat true. I'm not saying that we should ignore common sense or that we should do dangerous things. Or maybe I am. Maybe just a little.

What is it they say, better to aim for the stars and land on the roof than to aim for the cowpie and make it? Today, I'm revising that to say, better to aim for a handstand and fall on your head than to never try to land that handstand. Better to write a book that doesn't work than to tell yourself that you aren't a good enough writer to try that book. Better to get a rejection than to keep your book safe where no one ever sees it.

And me, I'm going out to Cross-Fit today and then swimming. And of course, I'm writing.

Writing Wednesday: Query Letters

Query letters are important. They are a way for you to introduce yourself these days mostly via email to a potential agent (rarely an editor). Standard advice:

1. Begin with an introductory paragraph. Say a few words about how you found this agent or why you think this agent would work for you. If you know other clients of the agent, this is a good place to say it. If you read the agent's blog, again, this is a good place to say it. I would say to stick to less than three sentences here, so don't go on and on, but make sure that you give a detail that matters. Don't just say you read the blog or you know a client's work. Say which client, which book and what you LOVE about it. Say what specific blog post or series of posts or the tone or whatever makes you think you would be a good fit. Also list in this first paragraph the name of ONE title that you are pitching, presumably with the word count and genre info (YA fantasy, adult romance, etc). [Please make sure that your word count is reasonable for this genre. I get frustrated with people who ask what word count they should shoot for. You should know this based on your extensive reading in your genre, but basically, don't query about a novel that is only 10,000 words long and don't query about a novel that is 400,000 words long.)

2. Second paragraph should contain a hook for the novel you are pitching, and about three other sentences summarizing main plot points, including a hint about the ending. Look, you don't need to reveal all your secrets here, but it's useful for the agent to know that you have an idea what the shape of a novel actually looks like. A novel doesn't end with the main character doing nothing. It doesn't end with everyone dying. Make sure you make clear what makes your novel part of its genre and what makes it stand out. If you're writing a romance, the agent will expect a happy ending. If you're writing a mystery, there will be a dead body. You don't have to point to specific books your book is like or unlike (and I recommend avoiding trashing other authors or books in general). But if you're writing a romance, what makes your spunky, sassy heroine different? Is she a sky diver? Is she a former movie star turned politician? If you're writing a fantasy, what makes your elves different from everyone else's elves?

3. A final paragraph that can be as short as one line saying that you hope to hear back soon is fine. If you have some notable personal writing credentials or other credentials that make sense to list (like you are a former lawyer and your book is about a lawyer), include them briefly here. If you have won a major contest, list it. Do NOT feel obliged to say that you wrote for the high school yearbook or paper in order to prove that you have credentials. There is nothing wrong with being a debut author. The less you say about your lack of credentials, the better and classier you will look.

4. There is a not insignificant subtext of your query letter that you should be aware of. You do NOT want to sound like a crazy person. You don't want to go on and on about things. You don't want to give too much personal information at this stage. You may end up BFFs with your agent or you may not, but it's not going to happen here. Do not threaten, even in jest. Do not be weird. Really. It won't help you to stand out in bad ways. This is a business letter. Don't be too cute. You are trying to establish a professional relationship that will basically be based on money like any other business relationship. Keep that in mind.

For the sake of truth in advertising, I am going to include a letter I sent out to adult agents a number of years ago.


Dear XXX,
I think we know each other a little from xxx.  I am a friend of client x, who recommended that I contact you. 

I have worked mostly in YA fantasy (my titles are THE MONSTER IN ME 2002 with Holiday House, MIRA, MIRROR 2004 with Viking, and THE PRINCESS AND THE HOUND in 2007 with HarperEos), but I now have an adult manuscript I am looking for representation for, THE MAN I MARRIED, 65,000 words.

Angie Stander is in her thirties, married, with three kids (twin girls in school and Tommie, still at home). She's put on weight and she
doesn't remember what romance is anymore. Her husband Jeff seems to be more of another child, expecting her to wake him up and getting him off to work. She does household chores all day and wonders why she bothered getting a college degree for all of this. Then while she is at school, she is asked to help with a new student whose father happens to speak Arabic, which Angie also speaks. Johnnie is handsome, lonely, and smells intoxicatingly good. For one moment, Angie forgets who she is and kisses him. At that very moment, Jeff sees her and is sure that she is having an affair. The two end up with a hilarious marriage counselor who is convinced that they just have to remember why they fell in love in the first place, and asks them to relive some of their favorite moments from the past. In the end, Angie finds out that Jeff has dealt with some temptations of his own, but laughing at each other and themselves, the two fall back in love.

I think of this as Pride and Prejudice for the married woman. Because why should single people have all the fun? Romance doesn't die when the wedding bells ring. Or at least, it shouldn't.

Mette Ivie Harrison


I don't know that this is the perfect query letter, but I think it is good enough. I think it is probably too long in the third paragraph, but I also think it's serviceable. Serviceable is often as much as you need. It's your pages that are going to shine. You mostly need to have good grammar and not a ton of typos and to leave a reasonable impression that you know the field and that your novel has some new spark to it.