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Posts Tagged ‘revisions’

The Evolution of a Query Pitch

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on June 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Query letters are incredibly important and very hard. Your first introduction to an agent you hope will want to represent your work. As I struggle with revisions to my current query letter for FIRE AND EARTH, I thought I’d take a look at how it evolved. Fair warning, this is going to be a long post. And, at that, I’ve left out a couple of intermediate queries. There are currently six versions of this query on my hard drive.

This is what I started with back in November, five months before I actually started querying:

At seventeen, Casora has spent nearly all of her life either training to be a warrior or fighting in someone else’s battles. That’s the fate of anyone born with the mark of the berserker curse until they prove they can fight without losing control. The alternative to such discipline is exile for those who let the berserker out. 

Then her homeland is overrun by a fierce enemy and the young man she loves is killed in the retreat. This news reaches Casora just before she goes into battle. In grief and rage, she triggers the curse and goes berserk. When she comes back to herself, she’s filled with regret. Now she can never go back to help fight the invaders or even find out if her family is still alive. Instead, she becomes the leader of a band of teenage warriors with no options but to turn mercenary. They’re united by a hunger to avenge themselves on the marauders that destroyed the homes they can never return to. What she really wants is to find a cure for the curse and go home.

Eighteen-year-old Prince Tiaran is the youngest and least of the princes of a neighboring country. He’ll never be the warrior his two bigger and older half-brothers are, and they take every opportunity to remind him of it. When the raiders turn to attack his country, Tiaran knows he must take part in the fighting, but no one will take him seriously. His brothers exploit his desperation and gullibility to send him off on what they think is a wild goose chase.

Tiaran is on the wrong side of the walls when the capital city is besieged. Casora rescues him from certain death. Tiaran, by default the leader of the resistance, must rely on Casora to help him become the warrior he needs to be to save his kingdom. In helping him, she discovers knowledge that might help to manage her curse.

It’s just possible that they may be the answer to each others’ prayers.

Well, you shouldn’t expect the first one to be good. For one thing, there’s way too much back story.

By April, when I actually started querying, I’d brought it down to this:

Now that she’s lost it and gone berserk, seventeen-year-old Casora is doubly cursed and there’s no going back.

Born with the mark of the berserker, she’s been sent away to learn war craft. Those skills are no use when her home is invaded while she’s far away. She turns mercenary, leading a band of teenage warriors looking for the chance to avenge themselves on the marauders.

What she really wants is to find a cure for the curse so she can go home. When she prays for an answer, she’s told to rescue the youngest prince to find what she needs.

Tiaran, third prince of a neighboring kingdom, is considered more a scholar than a warrior, but he’s determined to fight for his home. When the raiders attack, he’s trapped on the wrong side of the city walls. Casora and her band are sent to rescue him. With the capital city now besieged, there’s no option but to keep him with them and teach him to be a warrior.

But Tiaran has something to teach them, too. It’s just possible that Tiaran and Casora may be the answer to each others’ prayers.

This query actually got a couple of partial requests, but then there was a long drought with nothing but straight rejections. My request rate was only about ten percent, so it was time for a revision. Version 4:

Born with the mark of the berserker, seventeen-year-old Casora has been sent away to learn war craft. When her native land is invaded, she’s not there to do the one thing she’s been prepared for all her life–to use those skills to protect her family and home. Learning that the young man she loves was killed in the fighting is the final straw. She releases her curse and goes berserk.

Now she’s doubly cursed, because she can never go home to find out what happened to her family. With no way to help the ones she cares most about, Casora turns mercenary, leading a band of teenage warriors looking for the chance to avenge themselves on the marauders. She prays for a way to cure the curse and gets a mystifying answer: rescue the youngest prince to find what she needs.

Tiaran, third prince of a neighboring kingdom, is considered more a scholar than a warrior, but he’s determined to fight for his home. When the raiders attack, he’s trapped on the wrong side of the city walls. Casora and her band are sent to rescue him. With the capital city now besieged, there’s no option but to keep him with them and teach him to be a warrior.

But Tiaran has something to teach them, too. It’s just possible that Tiaran and Casora may be the answer to each others’ prayers.

This query got sent out to half a dozen agents. The responses weren’t encouraging. But, I’d gotten a few positive responses on a pitch contest (more like an elevator pitch than a full on query pitch) that had a slightly different approach.

Start revising again. At every step along this process, I’ve sought other opinions on my query. I got a really good one, here and discovered that there’s still too much back story.

The next version is at least pared down to just Casora and Tiaran. Agents can find out about the mercenary band in the synopsis. Plus, have you noticed one line that stayed the same in all versions? Something about being the answer to each others’ prayers? It may just be time to kill that little darling, too.

The new query will look something like this (no guarantees it won’t be revised again . . . and again.):

When her country is invaded, seventeen-year-old Casora loses her battle against her berserker curse. Being a berserker turns her into a ferocious warrior, but that’s no help to her family when she must be exiled as a danger to everyone around her. She turns mercenary while searching for a way to tame the berserker so she can return home. Being sent to rescue Prince Tiaran gives her hope.

No matter how hard he tries, Tiaran will never be the kind of warrior his brothers are, but he still feels compelled to fight to defend his homeland. When the raiders attack, he’s trapped on the wrong side of the city walls. Rescued by Casora from his first disastrous battle, he learns from her that there’s more than one way to be a warrior.

Tiaran has something to teach Casora, too. He’s the only one who’s ever been able to calm her berserker rage. The only one who has ever called her curse a blessing. Together, they may be able to shake off the expectations of others and find a future neither of them ever dared dream of. First, though, they have to stop the marauders from destroying everything in their path or there won’t be any place for that future to unfold.

That’s it for now. I have query fatigue.

 

 

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Cover Art

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on June 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

As I work my way toward completing the revisions to “The Music Box”, I have to start thinking about the next step: a cover. I’m not in a position to pay for a cover designer–at least not yet–so this is something else I have to do for myself. Hopefully, I’m getting better at it.

The cover is critically important. It’s the first impression a reader has of the book. A poor cover understandably makes them question the quality of the work inside. You can see my first two covers over in the sidebar.

The cover for “Heart of Oak” is based on a photo of mine. No issues about copyright, there. But it’s not a great cover. It’s busy and, besides that, it just looks like a blob in gray scale. Most e-readers are black and white. I hadn’t learned to take that into consideration when I did that cover. At some point, I’m going to have to redo it.

The cover for BLOOD WILL TELL is better. It’s based off of a couple of very old engravings. It works well in gray scale, but there’s still something about it. Maybe it’s the background. At some point, I’ll have to redo it, too.

So, now I’m working on the cover for “The Music Box”. Actually, I’ve been working on this for a while, but none of my ideas have worked out. Let’s face it, a picture of a music box is pretty boring.

I think, however, that I may have finally hit on something that will work. This is still very much a work in process. The color is less than half done–and may change without warning. There’s a lot of clean up needed. Unfinished Cover for "The Music Box"This will give you an idea what it might look like.

 

 

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Adding Material to a Completed Story

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on June 6, 2012| 4 Comments »

Wow. Got right to work writing and almost forgot to blog. Oops.

Well, I’m still in the middle (almost exactly) of my revisions to “The Music Box”. Some of that is fixing problems with the story, but a lot of it is adding back in world building details that I’d either deleted or left out trying to make it fit into a more publishable length.

I think I’ve managed to spread out that info dump problem I mentioned in my last post. Let’s see what you think. Here’s the first page or so:

Liri paced across her darkened room. Everyone else was sensibly napping during the hottest part of the day, but there wasn’t anything Liri wanted less than to fall asleep. She didn’t even dare lie down for fear she’d doze off and have the same nightmare again.

As his sister, Liri had been the one to help prepare Eralan’s body for burial. She’d wanted to spare his widow and she was very glad she had. Jenae didn’t need to see that. Liri had seen all of his wounds and the other marks, enough to know the truth. Eralan’s had not been a clean warrior’s death on the battlefield. He’d been tortured to death. And now, scenes of what Eralan must have endured haunted Liri’s dreams.

She needed movement, more than she could get in this confined space. Sometimes when she danced, she could lose herself in the music and shut out everything else. She couldn’t dance here, though. She’d be sure to waken someone. There was a quiet spot out in the garden where she wouldn’t disturb anyone.

Liri picked up her music box and padded silently down the corridor. The box had been her brother’s last gift to her, less than a sevenday before his death. Odd that it should be her greatest comfort now. For a moment, she stroked the smooth, inlaid wood, feeling its texture. It must have been an expensive gift, because it undeniably had a touch of magic bound within it. One side of Liri’s mouth quirked up. Eralan had joked that the music box was supposed to help her find her true love and she’d laughed at him for his naïveté.

Falling in love was not something to be desired for a princess. Liri wouldn’t be allowed to choose her husband, after all. Her marriage would be used to formalize some alliance for her father. When that day came, even falling in love with her own husband would be a risk. Their mother’s fate proved that. Love was a weakness that other players of the Game could exploit.

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Front Loading World Building Details

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on June 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

This subject comes up because it’s something I’m dealing with right now. I’m in the middle of revisions to “The Music Box” in preparation to e-publish it. One of the major changes I’m making is to put back and actually expand certain aspects of the world-building that I had purged (not quite completely, as the critiques proved) when trying to cut this story down to a (traditionally) publishable length. There just aren’t a lot of markets out there for novellas.

So, now that I’m going to e-publish it instead, I’m working those details back in. Right now, a big lump of this kind of detail is located in the first scene. That’s okay for this stage of the process. Just like in a first draft, sometimes it’s necessary to just get it out on paper–or at least on the computer screen. The important thing is to make sure it doesn’t stay there. Too much world building up front keeps the reader from really connecting with the characters and slows the story down too much.

My goal for feeding in world building is “learn as you go”. In other words, the reader should find out about these details when they become relevant. Of course, for some things that are going to be really important in the story, it’s sometimes also necessary to foreshadow a bit.

My standard for this is Lois McMaster Bujold’s THE CURSE OF CHALLION. (I love this book, by the way.) In the first six paragraphs, the reader discovers that Caz has or has held a rank higher than his apparent current status, that there are something like the knightly orders in this world, that the world is likely to be medieval-esque, and a little bit about the religious system. All from Caz’s interaction with a group of riders. And with that, the reader has enough information to go on with. By the end of that first scene, the reader will also be introduced to the concept of death magic, which seems almost like an interesting aside at this point, but will turn out to be very important later in the story. But all of it just flows naturally from Caz’s actions, reactions, and thoughts.

That’s what I’m striving for in this and every story. So, as I go through the revisions, I’m on the look out for places where I can feed that info dump from the beginning into the story in smaller bites right where it fits naturally. I’ve already found a place to show a bit of the political game that is the basis for a lot of one character’s motivations rather than just tell about it.

In the end, the goal is to leave only that bit of information that is really needed in that first scene and to make it look seamless. Not quite as easy as it sounds.

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Mixing Things Up

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, this is why I like to have multiple projects to work on. I can let THE BARD’S GIFT simmer a bit more, while I work out how to bring my main characters firmly together in a short amount of time and in just about one more chapter. I want it to feel like the end of the world to them when they’re parted, but I can’t spend half the book getting there. That’s a tall order and I need to do some more brainstorming on it.

Multiple projects are wonderful for this. I don’t have to lose productivity; I can just switch to something else–in this case, a bit of editing.

  1. I’ve had some ideas about that ill-fated science fiction story of mine, “Apocalypse Cruise”. I think maybe, just maybe, I can fix it–more conflict and a more satisfying ending. Actually, the ending won’t change. Just a bit more build up may make it work better. It’s worth trying, at least.
  2. Now that my critique group has had a crack at it and I’ve had time to digest their comments, I need to make the revisions to “The Music Box” so I can e-publish it next month. The main revision on this one will be to put back a bit of world building that I’d removed when I was trying to make it fit into a more (traditionally) publishable word count. Novellas are a tough sell, traditionally. If I e-pub it, I don’t have to worry so much about the word count. And it’s precisely the kind of story that should do well in that venue (romance, with only a slight fantasy element).
  3. I was beginning to think that the query for FIRE AND EARTH needed a touch up. The contest below, celebrating the publication of Wilde’s Fire, has provided me with some ideas on a couple of directions I can take to improve it for the next round.
  4. The contest has also given me an idea or two on how to improve the opening of FIRE AND EARTH.

By the time I work through that list, my subconscious should have thrown up some good ideas on how to get through this part of THE BARD’S GIFT. If not, then I’ll either:

  1. Skip ahead and write around it, for now. Not my preferred course, but it can be done.
  2. Or, do a little work on the first draft of my backup, MAGIC’S APPRENTICE.

Forward, always forward.

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Project Status

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 18, 2012| 6 Comments »

Almost a month ago, I posted this set of priorities:

  1. Finish the revision to “The Music Box” and decide what to do with it.
  2. Get ready to query FIRE AND EARTH.
  3. Start THE BARD’S GIFT.
  4. Revisions to MAGIC’S FOOL.
  5. Prepare BLOOD WILL TELL for e-publishing.

I’m doing pretty well on these goals.

  1. I’ve finished the revisions to “The Music Box” and have it out to one reader. I’ll probably seek more readers at the beginning of the month, and then decide what, if anything, I need to change before e-publishing it. There simply isn’t any other market for a romantic fantasy novella. I’m also waiting to hear about a novelette, “Becoming Lioness”. It’s currently out on submission and I expected to hear back almost a month ago. Maybe that’s good news. If not, I’ll be e-publishing that one, too.
  2. I’ve now sent out nine queries on FIRE AND EARTH and gotten one request for a partial.
  3. I’ve started THE BARD’S GIFT, but only barely.
  4. I’ve just about completed the revisions to MAGIC’S FOOL. I’ll be looking for new readers soon.
  5. I haven’t yet done anything about preparing BLOOD WILL TELL for e-publication.

So, here are my current priorities:

  1. Keep querying FIRE AND EARTH.
  2. Complete the revisions to MAGIC’S FOOL and find a couple of new readers to see if I’ve solved the problem of the slow beginning. The revision should be complete by the weekend.
  3. Mark up the revision notes for the last segment of BLOOD IS THICKER. That’ll only take a couple of days at most. I’m not ready to actually start on the revisions, yet, though.
  4. Then I’m going to concentrate on getting BLOOD WILL TELL e-published. That’ll also involve getting way more serious about some marketing.
  5. And once all of that is out of the way, I can go full bore on the first draft of THE BARD’S GIFT.
  6. I’ll probably tinker with the first draft of MAGIC’S APPRENTICE during any slow spots on THE BARD’S GIFT.

That’ll do for at least the next month, don’t you think?

 

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Using Critiques

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on April 8, 2012| 7 Comments »

I can’t over emphasize the value of critiques–both getting and giving them. They’re not only how we make a story better, they’re also how we grow as writers.

I’m starting to work through the critiques of MAGIC’S FOOL so the topic of how to make the best use of these critiques is very apropos.

Some critiques are like ringing a bell. They start an avalanche of ideas that makes the writer jump up and down shouting “Of course. Of course, why didn’t I see that.” Those critiques are precious. Sometimes you have to work a little harder for that same insight, but it’s just as valuable when you do see it.

Often a critique or a group of critiques will point out a problem that the writer isn’t aware of. After all, as the writer, you know all sorts of things about the story that didn’t make it onto the page and no matter how long you let it rest you can’t ever completely come to the story the way a reader would. If three or more people say the same thing, you probably ought to pay attention because there likely is a problem there. But, and here’s where things get interesting, it isn’t always the problem that the critiquer points out. It might be something deeper. Occasionally, it’s something much simpler that leaves me saying to myself something like, “Yes, but if I hadn’t been an idiot and cut this paragraph, that would have made much better sense and you wouldn’t have been confused.”

In this case, I’ve got an interesting mix of critiques. One reader says that I need an external antagonist. Another keeps asking me to show not tell and says the first half was slow, but the second half was great. Still another says that the story has potential, but lacks excitement. As a writer what am I to make of this? 

The first thing is to wonder if they’re all reacting to the same thing and just saying it in different ways. I think they are. I think what they’re trying to say is that they’re not feeling the protagonist’s problem, at least during some parts of the story. I haven’t done a good enough job of ratcheting up the conflict.

 And now I have at least some ideas of how to make my protagonist’s conflict much stronger. I’ll need more, but that’s what revision is all about. So, thanks to my great beta readers. It’s going to be a much stronger story when I’m through with this revision.

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Themes

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on March 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

A theme is the central concept of a story. I don’t generally write a story with a theme in mind. However, it often happens that when I finish a story, I realize that there is a theme in there. When that happens, I can use that knowledge to inform choices that I make in the revisions to strengthen that theme, if I want to. Often, I don’t even ask myself what the theme is. I’m focused on telling a good story. Though, when I do, I can usually identify it pretty quickly. Sometimes, it surprises me.

For example, MAGIC’S FOOL, and in fact the entire series that starts with MAGIC’S FOOL, is about acceptance in various forms. (I really am going to have to think of a title for the series as a whole soon. Something to do with the two kinds of magic, I think.) In this case, though, it’s a little different for me because MAGIC’S FOOL and it’s sequels are rewrites of earlier stories with the unfortunate titles THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY (TSC and TIP for short). Now that I’ve decided it should be a middle-grade story, the events of TSC with a little of TIP thrown in will be broken down into three separate stories. The fourth book in the series will cover the central plot that was planned for the end of the original trilogy, but never written. It’ll actually flow much better this way.

What’s different this time is that I recognized the theme in those earlier versions, so I could construct the story around it in the first draft of the rewrites.

In MAGIC’S FOOL, the theme actually comes close to also being the central conflict as the protagonist has to learn to accept the things that make him different from who he expected to be. That works, I think, as a good middle-grade internal conflict. My beta readers who have it now will let me know if they feel bludgeoned by it, I hope. But I don’t think it came off as that strong. The two critiques I have back so far haven’t mentioned it, at least.

Still, that conflation of the theme and the central conflict is not something I necessarily want to continue throughout the series. In this case, I’ll have to be aware, not of what theme is developing in my story, but of keeping the theme and the central conflict at arm’s length.

That’s a little different than my usual course, where I don’t even recognize the theme until I finish the first draft. In the long run, of course, that’s all to the good: a learning opportunity.

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Making Plans

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 21, 2012| 4 Comments »

When I look ahead, I’m feeling a little scattered, so it’s time to lay out a plan again.

E-Publishing:

  1. “Heart of Oak” is out. I’ve made four sales so far–two on Amazon and two on Smashwords. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but then I haven’t done very much to try to promote it, either. Actually, “Heart of Oak” is likely to be part of the promotion when I eventually get BLOOD WILL TELL out.
  2. “Becoming Lioness” is another novelette, currently out on submission. I should be hearing in the next week or so. If it comes back, it’ll be my next e-publishing venture.
  3. “The Music Box” is a novella I had shelved because it’s really much more romance than fantasy. The speculative element is very slight and, in fact, you could remove it altogether and the story wouldn’t be noticeably changed. But I’ve always liked it anyway, so I keep coming back to it. So, I’m halfway through a revision right now. I’ll probably try to get a critique or two. Then I’ll either submit it to the same market that has “Becoming Lioness” now or just e-pub it.
  4. All this leads up to e-publishing BLOOD WILL TELL probably at the end of April or the beginning of May. It’s ready to go except for the specific e-publishing formatting, but that’ll be more complicated than for the shorter works. One or more of the shorter works published in advance of this will probably then be used as giveaways to help pomote the novel.
  5. I’ll need to make the revisions to BLOOD IS THICKER, the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL, so I can e-publish this sometime later this year.
  6. Then I’ll have to write the third book in the series BLOOD STAINS, so that I can e-publish it no later than this time next year.

Traditional Publishing:

I haven’t given up on this.

  1. I’m still querying MAGE STORM, at least until I get FIRE AND EARTH (formerly SEVEN STARS) ready to query.
  2. I need to finish up the last little details to get FIRE AND EARTH ready to start querying, probably next month. I think the query’s good–for this pass anyway. Experience tells me I’ll probably do a revision or two during the querying process. I do need to polish up the synopsis. I’ve got some feedback coming in on the first chapter. I’ll need to give that a shine and also make one more pass through the whole thing before starting to query.
  3. MAGIC’S FOOL is out for critiques now. I’ll need to make revisions to that, too, when all the critiques come back.
  4. I’ve started work on MAGIC’S APPRENTICE, sequel to MAGIC’S FOOL, but I’ll probably be setting this aside, soon. It really doesn’t make much sense to devote a lot of time to the sequel before I even start querying the first book.
  5. I’m just about ready to start work on the first draft of THE BARD’S GIFT, my young adult alternate history (with dragons).

All right. No wonder I’m feeling a little scattered, is it? Now all I have to do is prioritize. For the moment:

  1. Finish the revision to “The Music Box” and decide what to do with it.
  2. Get ready to query FIRE AND EARTH.
  3. Start THE BARD’S GIFT.
  4. Revisions to MAGIC’S FOOL.
  5. Prepare BLOOD WILL TELL for e-publishing.

That ought to keep me busy for the next couple of months.

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Moving On

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on February 8, 2012| 4 Comments »

I’m actually playing hooky (sort of) from an on-line writers’ hangout to post this, so it’ll be quick.

Well, yesterday I finally finished the fourth draft of MAGIC’S FOOL. That last ten pages was like pulling teeth–and there weren’t even that many changes. I suspect I’d just gotten burned out on the story, having done three straight drafts back to back. Note to self: Don’t do that again.

However, I’m now much happier with the story and I think it’s ready for readers next month. I’ll probably give it one more read-through before then, but not for a couple of weeks any way.

So, now I’m moving on to the polishing edit of SEVEN STARS. This one has been resting since July. I’m trying something new–giving it a good long rest before the last pass and sending it out into the world. That’s only really practical when you have enough completed works to keep querying while you give the new one the benefit of that time.

I’m less than ten pages in and already feeling energized by the change to a “new” story.

I’ve also been working on the query and synopsis. Look out agenting world. SEVEN STARS will be coming your way soon!

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