Adam Heine's Blog, page 32

My Query and a Chat With My Agent

Many of you have been asking to see my query letter. Well, today's the day. To see the Air Pirates query, along with comments from myself and Matt MacNish, go visit Matt's blog. (If you'd like to read the query without comments, I've pasted it below).



But wait, there's more! To read more about Air Pirates, how it came to be and why my agent likes it, head over to Krista V's blog (wherein also my agent makes MY NEW FAVORITEST COMPARISON EVER).



What are you still doing here? Get thee to Matt ...

Tricking a Reader: Character Death

In the last post, I talked about misdirection as one of the ways you can hide a secret and fool a reader until that critical reveal. But how do you do that? I think one important aspect of misdirection is to believe your own lie.



For example, say you want the reader to believe, just for a moment, that a major character is dead. This is really hard to do because major characters almost never die (George R R Martin, notwithstanding), so the reader will always be looking for the trick. For exam...

Holding Back Surprises

I can't think of a story with no mystery at all, whether it's a revelation of secret paternity, a mentor back from the dead, or a social worker with government connections. So as a writer, you have to figure out how to hide your secret long enough to surprise the reader.



Unfortunately, readers will be trying to figure out your secrets the whole time and, as we've said before, they are super geniuses. Their reaction is directly related to the amount of time between when they figure out your m...

Holidays, a Sketch

Cross-posted from Anthdrawlogy's Holidays week. The floating lanterns are stolen from Thailand's Loi Kratong festival, but the scene is actually from Air Pirates (the lanterns are also in Tangled, apparently, but I swear I stole the idea first!).







I don't expect many of you to stick around next week, what with our Earthly holidays and all. And anyway, I thought you'd appreciate a break from the only thing I seem capable of talking about anymore. Have fun. Eat much. Sleep well.



Me? I'll b...

The Offer I Turned Down

If all the posts about getting an agent didn't drive you off, then you know I got another offer before Tricia called. I turned it down because it felt sketchy, for a number of reasons I'll go into here. Though I won't name anybody; for all I know, the agency and the offer was totally legit and it was just the way it was handled that scared me off.



When the Agent still had my full, I did some research on them (I do that sometimes; part of the Crazy) and discovered two things. (1) The agency w...

3.5 Years + 231 Rejections = 1 Crazy Author

(I've been using my temporary insanity tag a lot lately. That's what querying will do to you, I guess.)



So here are statistics on three rounds of querying, including some highlights and A Chart. Let's jump right in!





QUERY STATISTICS

("Queried From" counts from the months in which I sent out queries; it doesn't count when I got responses. "Rejections" are of the query itself. Consequently, "No Response" are also rejections.)



Travelers

Queried From: May 2008 - Jan 2009 (8 months)

Queries Se...

How I Got My Agent, Part II

You've all read everything leading up to this post, right? Cuz if you think querying is all excitement and roses, you should go back and read the last post.



So Tricia Lawrence is my agent, but it may surprise you that I never queried her. I couldn't have if I wanted to: she wasn't an agent until after I'd stopped sending new queries out.





Ammi-Joan Paquette was one of the first five agents I queried, being one who asked to see the YA version when it was ready. She had my manuscript throug...

How I Got My Agent, Part I

I don't know about you, but when I read these stories, I'm always more interested in how long and difficult the journey was (it encourages me when I'm dealing with The Long and Difficult myself). So this first part is everything leading up to the call. The part where Tricia chose me comes on Friday.



BACKGROUND

2003-2008: I wrote a novel (Travelers). I learned what a query letter is. I got rejected a lot.



2008-2010: I wrote another novel (Air Pirates). I got lots of feedback on it, learned...

AchievementLevelUpUnlockedHolyCrapYouGuys!!!

Three and a half years ago, I started this blog just so I could type this sentence:



I HAVE AN AGENT.


























I am now represented by Tricia Lawrence of Erin Murphy Literary Agency. She's a new agent with a great agency, and she is very excited about Air Pirates. I can't wait to start working on this thing again.



I'm aware, of course, that this doesn't change the game. I've beaten a boss, but there are more levels to come, and the princess is in another castl...

On Choosing an Idea

I've created a label for demotivational posters. You're welcome.