Agent for a Day . . . or so Part 3

I'm halfway through. I've cheated and already read some of the follow-up comments on what people learned, but I don't believe it's affecting my decisions.

A few of my thoughts:

1) This reminds me of grading papers. It starts slow, especially when you're figuring out what you're looking for and what's really important, but once you know what you're looking for, the process goes really quickly.

2) Also like grading, just as easy as it is to spot a plagiarist, it's equally as easy to spot a compelling hook and a well-written query.

3) Form rejections in this day and age (especially when agent blogs are so specific) are deserved. If you haven't done the research before you send the query, then you'll make the mistakes that will lead to rejection. You don't need a personal rejection; you need to put in some time, research what the agent wants, and be brutally honest with yourself if you're doing all of that in your query. Brutal honesty is hard. That's probably the greatest value of a good critique group (ie. bad critique group=ones who pat your back and tell you how wonderful the story is).

More thoughts to come.

Agent for a Day . . . or so part 2

The English teacher in me is screaming as I read through these queries. I spent lots of quality hot air trying to convince my students that they don't need phrases like, "I am going to write a book report about such and such" or "This will be about . . ." or "I believe you are going to . . ." Get rid of the first person, don't insult my intelligence by telling me something I can figure out on my own, and, as cliche as it may sound, show, don't tell. I've gotten through 4 queries so far, and now my baby girl is calling. More later :)

Query Advice

Another great post to check out when starting the query game. Agent Jessica talks about what not to do in a query. It seems like these points would be obvious, but after years of grading high schoolers' essays/reports, I found that it happens more often than not that the "obvious" alludes many people. This is not to be condescending. It's simply a fact that people fall into a habit of doing the same thing over and over because it's comfortable. And it's not until someone is willing to speak the truth in love that we realize the rut we've fallen in to. I'm just as guilty as the next.

Read the post here. 

Queries

For aspiring writers, Jessica Faust, an agent at Bookends, LLC, has posted the first in a series of query letters that worked and why. There's a lot of food for thought. And, as one of the comments states, it's always good to see examples of good queries as opposed to just examples of bad ones.

Read the post here.

Enjoy.