Query letter?

NEXT STOP - The Public Query Slush Pile - it's time to get savaged over there!

Dear Agent

I have recently completed my 72,200-word YA paranormal romance entitled Near Edgware, and I hope you might consider representing me. My writing lulls with school-based settings and bites like a Kelley Armstrong.

Sixteen-year-old, Jess Trainer, has a lot in common with Caleb Ridgeway: the athletic skills, unusual senses and the feeling of being something different - a little apart from their peers. If her parents had told Jess their family secrets she might have understood why she is attracted to the boy who cannot let anyone see the other side of him.

Jess does not understand why Caleb fights to keep her at a distance when their classes, common interests and the almost addictive attraction makes being away from him unbearable. After spending time together Caleb's scent lingers on Jess' clothes, this brings out the worst kind of wolves still living in England. The sight of Caleb, and his protectors at work, is the solution to the puzzle she has been piecing together. Jess finds the reality hard to accept, but she realises she loves someone who is neither human nor wolf - he is Were .

Jess risks her life, and her humanity, to reach a traumatised Caleb after the pack is attacked. Only she can guide him back with her love.

This book can stand alone but it has series potential.

I am a teacher with the usual English qualifications and a less usual counselling one.

Thank you for your time,

Anne says, "Still, no!"

Anne says, "No. Not like that, like this..." She gave me enough frame to work with so I could improve my query - hook, line and...

Dear Literary Agent

My novel NEAR EDGWARE is a YA paranormal romance complete in 72,200 words.

Sixteen-year-old, Jess Trainer, has a lot in common with her classmate Caleb Ridgway: the athletic skills, unusual senses and the feeling of being something different - a little apart from their peers. If only her parents had told Jess their family secrets she might have understood why she is attracted to the boy who will not allow anyone to get to know the real him.

Jess does not understand why Caleb fights to keep his distance when their classes, common interests and an almost magnetic attraction keep pulling them together. His resistance crumbles and he trusts Jess with his heart. When his lingering scent puts Jess in danger, Caleb rescues her and his secret is revealed. Can Jess still love him when she knows he was born Were?

Jess becomes the Pack's protector when they are attacked. She risks her life, and humanity, to reach a traumatised Caleb, and guide him back to her love.

This book can stand alone but has series potential.

It is more specific and precise but what can I tell, I wrote the last twenty-two!
Thanks to Anne and Keren, what was long is now much shorter.
Donna - we are agreed - this is the Query - without the writer's biographical details



Please feel free to add your thoughts, I'm finding it incredibly helpful.

Has it taken longer to write the pitch?

I struggle with the letter - you know the one that hardly matters - the one that sells both the writer and the writing to an agent.

I could talk for Britain about the Near Edgware concept, as over-enthusiastic as a labrador puppy, but distilling it into a pitch has taken longer than the time it took to throw the first draft at my computer!

This is the version I'm staking my career change on:

Dear Literary Agent (who I have researched properly to make sure this is not a waste of your time and mine also :s )

I would like to introduce you to my debut novel written for young adults, it has been well-received by teams of pre-teen and teenage Beta readers and others, who were considerably older, in my Writers' Circle.

Near Edgware is a paranormal romance complete in 72,200 words.

Sixteen-year-old, Jess Trainer has been away - out of everthing - for two years; her life on-hold while she was living in Guyana. Now she is back she just wants to run, word hard and socialise with her old friends. They welcome her back but she cannot shake the feeling she is looking at the life that should have been hers.

The re-named new-old-school with its blend of old and new facilties, familiar and new faces, reminds her of the last, difficult, year. Her understanding of alientation makes the three brothers who keep themselves apart fascinating. Where others see only the similarities, she sees the differences. Immune to his brothers, Jess knows that Caleb Ridgway attracts her attention with every sense she possesses.

Jess' determination to learn more about Caleb, and to provoke his interest pays off when he decides to trust Jess - not with his secret - but with is heart. From her first terrifying glimpse into the world of those born Were, Jess is offered choices. Caleb, his pack and its Alpha ensure she learns about their value system and way of life.

It is Jess who acts as the Weald Pack's protector when the are attacked by feral Were. The strength of their love means she can reach the traumatised Caleb when his pack, and bothers, believed he was lost.

HELP!

If you love it or hate it please let me know. I can't guarantee not to cry tears of blood but I can always send it - and me - back to the drawing board. bahaha!

So, to summarise...

Unlike small Indian girls, there is one hurdle in my life that actually makes me cry tears of blood. I would rather poke my eye than attempt to take the book concept and find the fifteen words that encapsulate it.

The problem is, before I typed the first word I plotted the "Big Picture." This is a sound and sensible writing technique. The complication is my global view covers the two academic years of Post-16 study - the Sixth Form (Lower and Upper) - Years 12 and 13. The two years are broken into six school terms and the summer holiday in between.

With a note book in one hand and sucking on a pencil I yelled at my resident expert - (all names have been altered to protect the innocent) - my Minnow became the first Beta Reader. The phrase, "No one would say that..." was worn out during the first drafting process. She also appointed herself as the official Anti-Cheese Monitor! My book is Dairy-lite!

"Oi! Minnow? Would it take a year to trap a boy who was, basically, interested in you?"

She snorted! (Badly brought up, probably.)

"Is he seeing someone else?"

"No! What kind of a boy do you think I'm about to invent here?"

"Then, no! A week is a long time in the Sixth Form."

This was the foundation I built my story upon.

I wrote termly plans (teacher in joke) very separate - different focuses - different books. Six or seven. I let the strands wind out through Jess' life and her motivations, then Caleb's, Jess' destiny, the issues that plague sub-cultures on the edges of society, and the past. I suddenly felt very Christine Feehan!

NEAR EDGWARE

Jess Trainer

An athletic teenager, sees the public image others present as the mask they hide behind .

She wants to be accepted and loved.

She wants Caleb to let her into his world and trust her.

But secrecy, to him, means safety when unexpected danger stalks the woodlands.

Love can overcome any obstacle if you can see the individual as they truly are and love them for themselves.

My thanks to Randy Ingermanson who's on-line advice helped me to distill, if imperfectly, my WIP.

Which part of the writing process drives you to distraction?

Procrastination is not the thief of time - that's me

Thinking about time.

I've spend hours this weekend reading. I do that, again. Finding a book I truly loved was a bad thing, for a while there.

This weekend was crazy. With more things on lists than I can remember having to work my way through for a long time, I was wandering around with a book in my hand looking for moments or minutes (or hours) to steal. I blamed Paul Hoffman while He-who-must-be-paid-attention-to blamed me. There were times this weekend when he reminded me of my mother - she used to pull that face too!

There used to be a lot of time for reading. (I wrote that and instantly decided it was a lie. Great, I'm lying to me too: - "I'll be down in a minute." or "I'm nearly at the end of the chapter!")

I read six books a week, most weeks, from the age of eleven. The other weeks were my favourites, the weeks when I read the same book six times. These were books that glittered with multi-faceted characters, fascinated with settings and enthralled with plots that twisted like the Serpentine - writers that made me care. I read by daylight, desklight, nightlight or streetlight depending on how many times I'd been caught reading at the wrong time ! Reading was more important than sleep.

Then work and autism took over my life and I was the servant of time. This time next year things will be different, or better or easier. I found that things were, generally, different, worse and bigger.

I only read in school holidays. (No sign or symbol equals how I feel about that, now.)

September last year I rebelled: I read in term time. I knew what this would mean, I'm not to be trusted around books. But the rebellion lacked revolutionary qualities. I felt radical. I moved into my partner's shrine to football, colonised half, and started to write. So the girl from the blue-collar, Irish-Catholic family with far too many brothers, who learned to read because the library was full of places that were somewhere other, decided to write.

The Thief of Time was not procrastination, it was me: I took time, made time, stole time, and wrote.

I took control of what I was reading - not with selections at the library or the bookshop - but letter by letter and word by word.

One year ago today I "finished writing" Near Edgware, then I learned how to write.

NEAR EDGWARE Diary format?

Nathan Bransford has a competition!! I didn't even read what the "prize" was, it's a Bransford Blog competition, so - I'm in!

I started writing something entirely different but I was never happy with it. Great words - angsty and tortured - but I kept hearing Jess' voice, "Aren't I angsty enough for you?"
She had a point.
There were two places that stood out as being ripe for a diary entry. Day 1 - Jess bumps into Caleb and Day 19 - just before Jess' friends perform an intervention (the clothes, and make-up, Jess had decided to wear - to force Caleb to pay attention to her - had crossed the line marked "Decency".)

Changing the work into diary format took time - more time than I would have thought. I could feel the writing becoming all Jess, that was an odd realisation!

Hey, Diary
24 September - Wednesday

It’s me, Jess – not writing about Caleb again, because I said I was done with that, but I’m going to make such a fool of myself (I don’t mean here) and I don’t care. I slip out of focus and into daydreaming in school. I catch a glimpse of him, track him down... pounce. I imagine us together – in the stockroom, lunchroom, library, Headteacher’s office – my head says public places aren't too extreme, at all.
It's not that I'm a stalker, if Caleb isn't interested - he isn't interested. That’s life. But when he held my hand and rubbed circles on my wrist, I didn’t dream that look on his face. He wanted me. He cared. I know he did. He is interested.
So, why are their times when he pretends I don’t exist? One thing, or the other, would be... fine. Then, I’d know what to do–how to be–when he’s near. But, I see him looking when he thinks I’m concentrating on something else. (Like that happens, often.) I don’t get it. But why should I, when I don’t even understand me? Something is driving me–pulling me–almost out of control. Attraction, maybe? I feel it somewhere in the space just below my stomach. I’m living... desperate.
Have to stop thinking this way, even if I can’t stop feeling it.
I’m going back into training. If I run more–run and swim and get a life–it’ll be a change from balancing on the never-knowing knife edge. Is this love? Hell, no! Love is easy like skipping in sunshine not the twisted mess I’m feeling now.
I keep thinking it’s all about his body–ripped and tanned, true–or that face, but it’s not. I know that better than anyone else because, if that’s it, I’ve got early birthday presents: my boy comes in a matching set and everyone says the Ridgeways look way-similar. I could, maybe, stretch to saying that I like his interfering brothers, but, I’m TOTALLY immune to them – this insanity is all Caleb.
So, if anyone asks, I’m never thinking about him again. Again!

What can you do in 50 words?

We had some fun with mini-sagas in school. Are you up for the challenge? ALL you have to do is write a complete story within the 50 word limit.

Listening to The Blue Nile - Let's Go Out Tonight (in fact the whole of "Hats" - that kind of a day - Hi, to Paul Buchanan and hugs and kisses to Joannie.)

IN HOT WATER

Cloud-like vapour billowed. Ronnie stumbled back into the corner, on adrenalin-clumsy feet. Sweat dripped from his brow. Steps beyond the door thudded louder than heartbeats.
What words could he say? He was responsible. All he could do was wait.
“Ronnie! Hot enough? That shower has a cold tap too!