your thoughts on my query

[pico_the_great]

Kids, I am totally balls at querying. In fact I am so balls at it that the last time I queried was four years ago, for a book that's been sitting on my HD finished since Feb 2009. God's almighty damn I hate querying, because I can't do that Clever Marketing Voice thing that seems to works so well nowadays. Hargh

Comments

[dungeonwriter]

I didn't feel a good sense of the plot. I know it will be good, but I don't know what is the problem.
http://www.magicalwords.net/mindy-klasky/synopses-the-nitty-and-the-gritty/

Try this.

[pico_the_great]

yeaaaaaaaaaah. >___< I hate writing these things. Shall look at the site you suggested. Thenk you.

[historicula]

Okay, so. Where to start...

First off, I agree with dungeonwriter. There's no good sense of the plot, or even of who the main characters are, nor is there any indicator of the "other" nature of this world (i.e. the wings). These are all key things for a reader to know going in.

Second, overall the sentences feel...choppy. They don't flow quite right and tend to be more cryptic then mysterious. Also, the third-person omniscient viewpoint of the blurb isn't doing it for me. Either be entirely objective, or be fully subjective.

Third, I like the opening sentence. Keep it. It has good draw.

[pico_the_great]

Yeah, I can see that. I figure i will indeed keep the first sentence, for sure, but I might read around and try try try again with the rest of it - maybe squinch up my writing-sense and try to write one of those movie-cover-style synopses? Hargh. Inunno. I guess the best is just try again.

[kuridee]

There are a lot of commas! This is my only gripe. You gotta make it quick and hook-y. Short sentences and stuff. Like, queries freak me out because I'm like I WRITE LONG SHIT HOW DO I FIT 150,000 WORDS INTO A FEW SENTENCES??? But I mean, I've been working on mine too. You just gotta highlight all the stuff that you think will interest people, I think. I don't know? I am not the person to ask? What actually happens in the book? Maybe start with a character and explain what they're up to? What's their story?

Also, the first page you linked to has a link to get to ~successful queries!~ which I think have helped me somewhat, because I don't know how to appropriately address people. HOW DO I BE FORMAL AND WITTY AT THE SAME TIME I DON'T EVEN.

[pico_the_great]

oh jeezy chreezy I didn't even think of this. there are indeed 18 commas. dat is hella lotta comma.

But yeah, I understand. Queries are more irritating than scary for me, because it's like: your entire huge long fictional creation is being judged entirely on this one sheet of paper. Hating that, because I can't write flash fiction ( if I could i wouldn't be a novelist...) and there's some dude who explained this perfectly: an author-guy, on a TV or radio interview, was asked, "what does you book mean?" and he responded stg like, "all of the words, on all of the pages, in the order I wrote them."

BASICALLY.

(I saw, btw, that you posted one, but haven't had brainspace/time to read and respond - shall do that!)

sssoooo yeah. I'm jsut going to try again. Snot like I have any other options (since I think I prefer this being a published book and not an internet giveaway, because marketing).

[kuridee]

YES OH YES. There's something totes unfair about your entire VERY LONG work being judged on a VERY SHORT letter. Like you said, if I could write good short things, I prolly wouldn't take 153k to write a novel. :I

(That's okay! :D)

Marketing! Marketing is good! And so are royalties. :o