Saturday, January 21, 2012

Query Letter

I have written the same novel six times now.  I have edited, re-edited and edited again. 

 The title has changed three times,  the main character has had different personalities.  
The Story Line has changed (to a point). 
The Point of View has changed.  
Some Characters have gotten news names and the writing has changed.  

But most of all. . . I have changed.  
I now know how Not to write this novel.  
I know my characters better than I know myself.  
I can name each character, their age and describe every one of them to you. 
I can say without a doubt that my writing has improved. 
My style is more clear.
I have learned a lot, gained many friends,
earned respect,  created a blog that people (aside from my family) read.
I have become a part of an amazing team (The A to Z team, of course) 
And I go to Writing Conference yearly.  

And yet,  after six years. . . I have still never written a Query letter.  I am terrified!  (No I am still not done with the book.)
But I know it is time to start working on the query letter.  
I have always been told that you should put just as much work into the Query letter as you do your book.  I used to think 'I have to work on the query letter for six years too?  I thought working on the same novel that long was hard!'

I now know that this is not what people meant.  Putting the same amount of work into it is not the same as taking as long to write it.  
But. . . I don't know where to begin.  So Suggestions?

Where did you look for help in writing your first query letter? 

2 comments:

  1. I had to stop and make sure I wasn't on my own blog when I read this post. I have also revised SIX times and thoroughly convinced myself I now know how NOT to write a book!

    I've just finally written my query letter, though I haven't sent it yet (one more revision, coming right up!) I read about a thousand critiques on Query Shark, and read the first 71,000 results on google for "how to write a query."

    Recently though, I blogged about letting my followers critique it for me, and it has been soooo helpful, I would definitely recommend it.

    Good luck, it's agony! I mean, it's wonderful!

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    Replies
    1. I've noticed that knowing how NOT to do something still doesn't tell you how to do something.

      71,000. . . that's a lot of results on Google. Good thing I decided to start working on my Query letter long before my book is done. :D

      Thanks for the tip. I will for sure have to use it when I get to that point. And thanks for wishing me good luck. . . I have a feeling I am going to need it!

      Konstanz

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