My Twitter followers have been listening to me giggle about finishing the final edits on my first novel, “Crossing Clouds” this week. Hooray!
Now, it’s time to write the query letter, and I’d love your input!
I’ve been thinking about my pitch for quite some time, but crossing the finish line on this past round of edits has definitely brought it to the forefront. Now I’d love to hear what YOU, my beloved readers, have to say about my pitch!
Love it? Bored? Have suggestions to make it stronger? I want to get your gut reactions, so get out the red pen!
Thanks a million!
Alone in the back of a limo on her wedding day, Cora Caffrey’s first love suddenly becomes a man from her past; her groom-to-be, Christopher, has left a letter at the church, and walked away.
Desperate to escape the well-meaning advice and sympathetic looks in the aftermath of that day, Cora astonishes everyone—herself included— and boards a plane for the village of Sevenoaks, England. The weeks pass, and soon it is clear that the brief reprieve from life in Connecticut has become something very different.
Cora is enchanted by life in the small village, and the longer she stays, the harder it becomes to part with it. Then, a misplaced wallet leads her to the doorstep of Alex Bishop, and her reluctance to return home blossoms into a desire to make a new one. But when Cora’s past visits her in the form of two little pink lines, everything about the burgeoning romance changes.
“Crossing Clouds” is a story about family. It is about discovering our desires, and the virtues we will abandon in their pursuit. The manuscript is complete at 79,000 words and is available for your review upon request.
Everyone has words that become mainstays of their vocabulary. There are pet lists of “crutch words” available online that you can search for which weaken your prose. (“That” is a big one. A good three times out of four, you can eliminate “that” from a sentence because it’s implied.) After you’ve gone through those common “weak” words, go the extra step: Identify YOUR crutch words.
For some reason, mine is “little”; I realized that it comes up a lot in my writing, like “A little shop”, “a little tired”, “a little thing”. So I started to notice it, and did a global search. What did I find? Ugh…
Two-hundred and forty three “little” crutches in my work.
“How the heck did that happen?!” I said to myself. It happened the same way it happens in conversation. We tend to revert to certain phrases, words, or tones of speaking that help define us from the 6 billion OTHER people yammering on all over the planet. This “flavor language” makes us interesting, funny, identifiable from the rest of the crowd- whatever. But in your writing, your characters won’t all speak with the same “verbal mannerisms” that you do, or at least they shouldn’t. They are their own people, after all.
So, how do you identify words that crop up more than others, sneak into descriptions, or become a crutch for your imagery? The short answer is: Read. Read your work. Read it more than once. After you’ve read it? Yeah, you know what I’m going to say: Read it again. I’ll be the first to admit that reading your full-length manuscript after the initial hammer-fest, and then sober first-draft edits is a labor of love- I’ve been editing my book in some shape or form since this past August- but it’s worth it. It should be your priority to make certain your prose is as diverse as the world have created. It will show.
Besides reading? Listen. I know, you’re about to say “What am I supposed to do, read my 350-some-odd page novel to myself out loud?” No. But we live in the computer age. Most computers have seldom-used accessibility software (newer versions of MS-Word have a “Speech” option under the toolbars section), primarily intended for use by the vision-impaired. It’s a fabulous tool for actually hearing what your work sounds like (and what it will sound like in the head of a reader, who will catch every missed word and typo.) I’m writing this blog-post from 30,000 feet while flying home from a very exciting three days in Las Vegas, after which I’ll be using the 5-hour flight to listen to Alex read me “Crossing Clouds” so that I can pick out missed words, strange-sounding phrases, rough edges and the like. I’ve been through the first eight chapters already, and you would not believe the things you might miss with your eyes that will become clear as day when your computer-voice-of-choice is reading things to you. (The brain has this lovely habit of filling in gaps. Clever thing!) The best part is, you can make the changes on the fly as you listen along.
It’s a tough world out there for new writers and established authors alike. Every blog I’ve read has made some mention of publishing cutbacks, killed tours, and piles of queries littering the desks of agents and editors. This is all the more reason to identify the “little” weaknesses in your manuscript, fix them now, and send your absolute best and sharpest work out the door. It could well mean the difference between an enthusiastic full-manuscript request, and a polite “we’ll pass” letter in the mailbox.
On your blog, post the rules and the first line, and then add your line.
Come back and leave your line in the comments of the previous line, with a link to your blog.
So… if I was playing, I would see on someone else’s blog post the story so far (perhaps with each line linking to the individual author’s post?) Then, I would post the previous story and a new line on my blog, and link back to the previous blog post in the comments to let that person know that I’d ‘grown’ the story from their line.
As everybody enters the story at different points, we’ll all have vastly different stories by the end, even if they’ve all started with the same line.
Does this sound incredibly confusing?
Think of it like “I’m going on a picnic,” where the picnic list grows by just one item with each person that goes on. But, instead of picnicing, we’re bringing the next line of a story. Or perhaps think of it as a “Choose Your Own Adventure,” but over the blogosphere.
Ready? Here’s the first line from Tracy’s Blog along with my next line:
“It could be worse,” my mother said, as she handed me the newspaper.
“And how exactly do you figure, Mother?” I sighed, casting a disdainful eye over the Page 9 headline that read “Up for Grabs: Bouquet Toss Scufflers Land in Court”.
Welcome to the second installment of the “Kindle Unboxing Experience”. You’ll get to see the “tutorial” set-up on the Kindle, as well as a glance at the Kindle’s on-demand dictionary function.
Stay tuned next time for an introduction to Tom, Kindle’s onboard text-to-speech voice (you know, the one that’s causing all the hubbub in the audiobook community).
See you then!
About the author
I’m a writer, artist and degenerate internet addict. I have a day job only to keep the lights on and the internet working. I’m not always PG, but I’m always A+ (not to mention humble.) Please do not try to make me think before coffee. It will only end in tears.
