I have finally progressed to writing a query for my manuscript. It is not easy. It doesn’t matter how many articles I’ve read, how many blogs I’ve perused, how many how-to’s I’ve studied, it still isn’t easy. How can I whittle down my wonderful story to a mere, measly paragraph? And still have it sound good?
To write a query you really have to know your story inside and out. I’ve rewritten it so many times so paraphrasing isn’t a problem. I just have to make it sound alluring.
So far I’ve written I don’t know how many versions. One I wrote last year and I thought it was good. I thought no one in their right mind would turn this story down. I read it again last month before I got down to the serious business of thinking about the query (which was before the serious business of writing a query) and thought: boy, does that suck. What was I only thinking when I wrote this?
I totally scrapped that disaster and typed a new synopsis based on some query letter’s I’ve seen dissected. Pleased with myself, I put it up for review at a critique site. Too long. Bummer.
I reread blogs, took the advice of the person who wrote the critique (someone is a published author) and rewrote it, condensing the query to what I thought was the bare bones.
There were still problems. Who is the antagonist? Whoops, forgot that part. What is the protagonist’s challenge? I guess I didn’t describe that well enough.
I reviewed more blogs and how-to’s from agents and the like. I think I got some good advice again. I have to make the first sentence a better hook then I had before. This is what I came up with.
Far in future, Schwinn O’Quinn who comes from an isolated, simple, underground community, confronts the unknown and a domineering government after being swept from her home in this 74,000 word YA novel entitled The Big A’Wanderin’.
I’m thinking it still needs improvement, but I can’t say at the moment what I should do.
I also spent quite a while looking up words to describe my main character so I might insert them in the synopsis. The big trouble is I couldn’t think of the right word. She’s the type of person who pours her whole being into one thing and cares little about anything else. There’s a word for a person like that (I’m sure), but I just can’t think of it. It’s buried deep in my brain, I know it is because I know (I’m sure) that I used it before. Darn it. Hopefully a restful weekend will restore the brain cell in which that word lives. Hopefully a restful weekend will give me ideas on how to improve my query.
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