A query letter may be sent separately, before you send in your entire proposal, or it may take the form of a cover letter. It can be sent via email (check to make sure your intended recipient – agent or editor – accepts email format!), or hard copy. A query letter is your pitch…the what, why, and how’s of your story. What makes a good query letter? 1. A compelling, succinct first paragraph hook (aka, premise/big bang) 2. A summary of your book in two-three sentences 3. An explanation of where your manuscript fits into the publishing world 4. Who you are and why you can successfully pull off this book 5. The mechanics of the manuscript – where you’re at in production. Again, I cover this in […]
Read the RestArchive | June, 2009
Synopsis of….well, whatever we’re calling our book
Limelight, or Take Another Shot, or Dark Secrets – (Current Working Titles) Synopsis Former Green Beret Luke Alexander just wants to forget his past, and mind his own business in the wood of east Tennessee. And, his park ranger job seems just the solution…until into his world walks a diva movie star looking for someplace to hide. But the Cherokee forest isn’t big enough for the both of them, not if you include the trouble MacKenzie has dragged along behind her. And soon she’s stirring up his own murky past – a past out for revenge. Which trouble will find them first? It’s going to get much darker for Luke and MacKenzie in the hills of Tennesse… [okay, that is what I call the big bang, or one-two punch […]
Read the RestThe Plotting Roadmap…or scribbles about how I put a book together
The Plotting Roadmap Now that we have three chapters written of our story, I wanted to flesh out the plot to the end so you could see where we want to go. One of the voices asked me – do you always write a story by “the Seat of your Pants?” Uh, NO. I hate that, actually, because it gets me all blocked and wandering the house in a fog. I like having a plan, a roadmap. In my workbook: From the Inside/Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you, I have a plotting roadmap template – and of course explanations of each step in the journey and how to determine them. If you want deeper explanations, you can either pick up the book, or search […]
Read the RestChapter 3.2 Clean!
Wow, it’s amazing how much easier it is to read without all the read squiggles. And as I got further into the piece, I appreciated RH’s comments more and more – it’s a good lesson – when you are going over the critique of a partner, make sure you have two versions – their comments, and a cleaner one to help you really evaluate them. I made more changes…and this is going in the Final Rough Draft Vault. Hope you like it! Next week, we’re going to shift gears and approach this like we might be sending it out as a proposal to agents and editors. I’m going to start with showing you how to put a synopsis together, using what I call the “Plotting Roadmap.” Then I’ll show […]
Read the Rest
