September 9, 2016

(via emmaswritingthoughts)

December 31, 2015

(via nature-with-love)

April 14, 2015
‘Question’ in a query letter hook…

I occasionally see this come up, and as a writer, it’s tempting to use a rhetorical question as a query letter hook.  Yet it’s almost never a good idea, and I’ll offer my personal reasons as to why. 

- A query letter is first and foremost a business letter. Treat it like you would a job interview.  

- Agents want to read a letter, not answer a quiz.  Since they read hundreds of queries a week, they want the author to get right to the point.

- Using a rhetorical question as a hook is a pet peeve for most agents, who consider it a tired trope.

- A query should only contain the bare essentials necessary to get the agent interested in reading your novel.  Does the question do that?  If not, then leave it out.

- Asking a question gets a person thinking inward and not outward. You want the agent thinking about your book, not about how they personally would answer a question. 

 - Often times the question has an obvious answer. “What would you do if you could save the world?”  Ummm… I’d save the world.  Next?

- Other times the question being asked is something that would get a different answer from each person that answered it.   What’s the point?

- Last, and most important, the hook needs to entice the agent so that they request the full manuscript. Getting them to think about their own answer to a rhetorical question won’t do that.  


Can there be an exception?  Sure.  If a person can come up with a question that totally blows away an agent, then it may actually work. But I would get the query properly critiqued before even attempting it.  

As writers we all want our query letters to stand out from the crowd, but the way to do that is with great writing, a killer hook, and a succinct query.

February 20, 2015
visinfocat:
“The Shapes of Stories, Kurt Vonnegut’s theories about archetypal stories.
”

visinfocat:

The Shapes of Stories, Kurt Vonnegut’s theories about archetypal stories.

(Source: mayaeilam.com, via visinfocat)

October 23, 2014
Never judge a book by its movie.

Never judge a book by its movie.

October 7, 2014

 

August 24, 2014

August 23, 2014
cody-kennedy:
“ Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book. ~Jane Smiley
”

cody-kennedy:

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book. ~Jane Smiley

August 3, 2014
Show me a typo in a book I’ve edited or published, a blurb I’ve sent to an author, a letter I’ve painstakingly composed, or a note I’ve scrawled to remind me to do something, and I will feel like you’ve taken my firstborn. I will be heartbroken, crestfallen, consumed with self-pity, and utterly, utterly furious. Because there is nothing more crushing, more bruising, more humiliating, more mortifying, or more upsetting—to an editor, at least—than a typo.

- Just My Typo, Drummond Moir. (via bookish-soliloquies)

July 26, 2014
‘When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,’ he said. 'When you rewrite it, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.’

- Stephen King, On Writing (via thewrittenmagic)

June 24, 2014

 

June 12, 2014

(via threadless)

June 11, 2014
I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.

- Toni Morrison (via lastincurableromantic)

May 28, 2014
Being a good writer is 3% talent and 97% not being distracted by the internet.

- the writer reblogs, being distracted by the internet  (via hughsdancys)

(via blackbucky-blog)

May 19, 2014
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

- –G.K. Chesterton (via twoavidbookworms)

(via twoavidbookworms-deactivated201)