By request - Query and Summary Letters

Dee Solberg asked about query letters and summary letters, in terms of their construction and how to navigate the apparently bizarre demands from one publisher to the next.

A word first about those demands - they've never struck me as bizarre. Just like going from one store in the mall to another has never bothered me about where they put the registers or whether or not they wear name tags. Every place is different, and entitled to make up their own methods for accomplishing the same end goal - which in this case is getting your work published.

Now, a tangent: Do you know why those needs are so different? Mostly for two reasons - First, to see if you follow directions (you'd be shocked by the number of people who don't) and second to see if following directions discourages you from going forward. Publishing on the whole, is a test of endurance, (writing is the test of skill) and there are many stages of hurry-up-and-wait as well as stages of I-cannot-believe-I-have-to-rewrite-this that turn publishing into a very intense pursuit. I would also like to point out that you (the author to-be-published) should avoid taking this time to start developing the philosophy that you're competing with other writers. This is not about scarcity or about some game of book-musical-chairs. There are PLENTY of chairs and the music NEVER stops playing.

So what's step one? Where do I begin?

Step one is something that doesn't go down easily, but if you commit to it, life gets exponentially better. Step one is 'make sure the project is complete'. I know, some people reading this are going to grab this magazine or that website over there and point to examples that say flat-out you can query a partially completed 'thing'. Yes, you can. You possess the ability to package pages together and get it sent to a destination. That is an option.

But doing that, moving ahead to acquire all the bells and whistles of publishing (the elements often thought to bring legitimacy: an agent, a publisher, a partridge in a fruit bush) without finishing your work puts you on someone else's schedule. And that new schedule likely is unaware that your children may have sick days, school plays and sports practices. Or that your spouse might decide to rewire the house and leave you powerless on a Saturday afternoon. Or that you have two jobs and a mortgage and the phone bill and the credit card and you want a vacation and what about the grocery shopping.....etc etc.

By finishing your work ON your schedule, you make their schedule INFINITELY easier, no matter who the "their" is.  Take the extra time (which shouldn't be a problem if you've disciplined yourself to a good writing schedule, right?) to make the project the best it can be before it leaves you, and everything thereafter is much simpler.

Okay, I did that, but what's up with queries?

I do a lot of workshops about queries. Here are the basics.

• Start where the action of the story is. I don't mean action like where the first emotion is felt or where the first verb is, I mean start telling me the story at the good parts. The parts that are going to make me want to hear more about it. Practice this - summarize your favorite movie. Now out loud, talk about it. Those scenes and facts you're saying? Those are the things that show where the action/meat of the story is. 
• Find out how many words the whole thing has. Put that number and the title (which you'll put in ALL CAPS) in one of the last two or three sentences at the bottom of the page. 
• You have between 200 and 300 words (I aim for around 225-240 max) to seduce the person into reading the manuscript. That's the job of a query - to entice the reader to go to the manuscript. Not give away the story. Not bore people to tears. Just excite the person into wanting more information.
• Do not give away the ending. If you tell the whole arc of the story, there's no reason to read the manuscript. Remember, you're supposed to be seductive. Telling the reader how this is going to end is not seductive. 
• This query is about your story NOT you. I'm now beating a dead horse, but the query letter is not the place to list all your great publishing or personal successes. (The document for that is called a resume) The query letter is about this story, and its merits, not the struggle you went through to put it together. I'm sure it's a very harrowing tale, but it's completely irrelevant to the quality of the story or a reader's interest in making the jump from query to manuscript. 

That's the basic template. You get those pieces set in your query, whatever other demands come down the road at you are cake. 

And what about story summaries? 

That's a different animal. Here you want to treat the page like a candy bar or a cake - and that having one piece (the summary) makes you want to have other pieces later. Like ten seconds later. Or at midnight. Or for breakfast the next morning. 

You still start where the action is, you still need to know how long the whole manuscript is, but now you have about DOUBLE THE WORD COUNT (400 to 600, I like a cap of 550) to demonstrate in tiny version what happens in the big version. 

Think about movie trailers. That's a small piece of a larger cake. You now get to do that by writing. Look at your outlines, your notecards, your bullet points. Identify the big action beats, the funny beats, whatever beats make you proud of your creation, and find a way to string them together. The magic here lies in how you make use of the words and ideas available to you. 

And in non-fiction?

For the love all that you hold dear, DO NOT drown the document in headings. Not everything needs to be broken out and explained. Do you know how that comes across? Like the sniffly desperate kid in your class who used to eat paste and who just had to keep yapping and explaining. (In my elementary school, his name was Chas or Charlie or Chuck or something)

Likewise don't go the other way and have two or three headings and then big blocks of text underneath them. That looks more like you just don't know what you're doing and you're desperate. 

Instead, try this. 5 headings.

1. About the book (the length, the genre, etc)
2. The Characters
3. The Plot
4. The Author (that's you!)
5. How You Plan To Market This

If you're writing a book that lacks characters or plot (hi cookbook authors!), then change into "Reasons For This Book" and "Recipes". The point is that you don't need a TON of headings. You just need organization. Critical here are items 1, 4, and 5. Especially 5. 

Why is 5 important? Because the more you know about how you're going to get that book into other people's hands, the easier that will happen and the better it will be for everyone involved. If that means you need to educate yourself on how to market or publicize, do it (Here's a starting point, come ask me questions! Email or Twitter). Also, the heady days of disposable income are for the moment gone. So take the initiative and make something happen with your work. 

Any other advice? 

Yes. Two things.

I. There's no one road to this goal of yours. Even if you and I do the same research about the same topic and go to the same people to ask the same questions and query the same book, we're going to get different results. There is no one way to get published. There is no "right" way, there is no "wrong" way. One way is NOT better than another. What matters here is the answer to the binary question - Published? Yes/No. Having said that though, remember that publishing is NOT legitimacy. Getting published does not make you a better person or a superior one or smarter or kinder or more loved or anything like that. It's just something you did, like yesterday when I did laundry. There are lots of ways to accomplish it. 

II. There comes a point where you have to stop asking for help and start doing it. Lots of people and books and websites offer great advice. And you can spend many many days/weeks/months/years searching through them all - but NONE of them have the one magic bullet answer for you. It's the sum total of what they say, what you choose to take with you and choose to leave behind that shapes you. 

Yes it's great to ask for help. But there is such a thing as asking for help about a thing IN PLACE of doing that actual thing. This industry, this craft, this art, is PACKED with people who bloat the lanes and passages with poor habits, wrong intentions, poor writing and unhelpful attitudes and advice. This industry is thick with people who aren't going to ever get past the "talk about writing" phase. 

What separates the successful from the unsuccessful is yes, in part talent. But also the fact that the successful actually wrote. And got edited. And re-wrote. And published. And repeated this whole process. 

If you're doing this to be successful, that's the path.

If you're doing this to prove other people wrong, you're going to be disappointed.

If you're doing this to prove your own self-worth, you're going to be SUPER disappointed.

If you're doing this to be rich, you're going to be doing this a long time.

If you're doing this to be more famous than other people, you're going to be disappointed AND doing this for a long time. 

Dee, I hope this answers your question somewhat.

Happy writing

Pitch 101 - Part 4: Pitch Autopsy

This was actually part of Part 3, which you can read here. It got its own section when I realized how long that post would be.

Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series are also worth your time.

Note: What follows are sample pitches I created for this post - they ARE NOT actual client pitches.
Note 2: They may be pitches I wished actual clients had used.
Note 3: Yes, I got their permission.

If you've been following along, you should be aware of and comfortable with USPs (Unique Selling Points), pitch styles and Velcro Theory (which was just introduced in the last section, but operates on the idea that a pitch hooks into particular interests of the audience).

Previously, we talked about our Eskimo Tim (Assassin who has to kill a senator) property. Let's look at a sample pitch for the novel. (You may recognize this as a query letter, which is a pitch, written down.)

The corrupt senator Aloysius Fedora is about to engineer his largest political coup to date - an oil pipeline from Alaska all the way to Arizona, with all the contracts going to his company, EvilDoucheCorp. This pipe will run from the frozen north to the scorching desert, bringing black liquid wealth thousands of miles. 


But that pipe ran into a problem. A small village of Eskimos sits where a critical part of the pipe goes. And in the village, there is one Eskimo not ready to move.


Eskimo Assassin Tim is about to run muckluck first into EvilDoucheCorp and slice it to ribbons.

Yeah, that's a rotten pitch. Let's make it not suck. Drag that bloated word-corpse to the table, and get ready to learn how to dissect your pitch.

Step 1: Write your pitch down. In full sentences. And paragraphs. As if it counted.
Step 2: Don't judge it, just write it down.

I combine these two steps because you're not going anywhere until you can get them both accomplished. You may need to refer back to Step 2 often to get Step 1 done, which is okay. This isn't the part where you edit the pitch as you write, this is where you just lay it out, all messy and not-how-you-want-it, so that we can in subsequent steps, make it better.

Bring our pitch back. And hand me a knife.

The corrupt senator Aloysius Fedora is about to engineer his largest political coup to date - an oil pipeline from Alaska all the way to Arizona, with all the contracts going to his company, EvilDoucheCorp. This is a great establishing, expositive sentence. 

 This pipe will run from the frozen north to the scorching desert, bringing black liquid wealth thousands of miles. This is still good, and even has a little cute turn of phrase.


But that pipe ran into a problem. Red flag #1 - This is a cliche. And it's a poor bridge to whatever comes next, as most cliches are.

A small village of Eskimos sits where a critical part of the pipe goes. And in the village, there is one Eskimo not ready to move. While these two statements are true, and good, they're also incredibly boring ways to relay this information. If I wanted to sleep, I'd go watch War Horse or listen to parade commentary. Boring sentences, especially when words count, the way they do in a query, will kill your pitch.


Eskimo Assassin Tim is about to run muckluck first into EvilDoucheCorp and slice it to ribbons. I like this sentence. I also like the idea about running muckluck first. Not happy with the dull 'slice it to ribbons' bit, but we can rewrite it.

I know, I'm basically asking you to be objective about your own work so as to dissect it. And I know you're going to be blind to a lot of the red flags, errors, weak spots and loose connections in your pitch. This is why we get step 3.

Step 3: Get someone else to read your pitch. Get someone who knows pitches. Sales professionals, consultants, editors, writers...people in the industry you're pitching to - that's who you need to chat with for step 3.

If you can't find anyone, email me. Put 'Pitch 101' in the subject of the email, and we'll talk your pitch through. Seriously.

Now, wait, maybe you're going to tell me that you did find people who knew pitches, but they didn't help you. And I'll ask you, who did you talk to about your novel (for example), and you'll tell me you talked to a librarian.

And when I'm done laughing, I'll say that a librarian knows books the way a consumer knows books - via popularity or similarity. They don't know how to take your idea and make it excel or how to amplify it so that it can then become popular or super-successful.

Oh, and then you'll say you've taken your script and given it to your three friends who go to the movies all the time, and that one time about fifteen years ago they all wanted to be Kevin Smith, so they know. Oh sure they know. They know what not to do, they know where the potholes were in the road forward. But if you want to get past the potholes, find the people who found the potholes, patched them (or are patching them) and kept driving. Yes, such people exist. And you should go seek them out.

Step 4: Rebuild/Rewrite your pitch to make the USPs stand out, while remembering your velcro.

The success of your pitch isn't only the charisma you have, you need to back it up with substance. That substance is your USPs. If you're more formula minded, try this:

Good pitch = USPs + Charisma + Hooks + Receptive Awareness

We'll talk more about that formula in Part 5 of the series, but for now, understand that you can immediately control what the USPs are and how they're presented to the audience. Do you build tension in your voice when talking about the tense parts? Do you race through way too quickly because you're nervous? Do you skip around all over the place because, 'you're so ADD, lol'? (Please don't ever write a professional email and use 'lol' in it. PLEASE.)

Let's rebuild Eskimo Tim's pitch:


In two days, EvilDoucheCorp will run a pipeline right through Eskimo Tim's village. In two days, the ancient Eskimo ways will be gone, replaced by gallons of liquid wealth, fattening the pockets of Senator Aloysius Fedora. 


All that culture, gone. And it's not just mucklucks and seal clubbing. Eskimos are also Assassins. And Tim is one of a long line of proud killers for hire. 


In two days, the village will be destroyed. In three days, EvilDoucheCorp will come to know that Eskimos have 40 words for snow and 41 words for murder.


BLOOD OF THE SNOWMAN is a novel of 92,000 words.

See how much more compelling that is? We added a time element (the two/three days bit), toyed with Eskimo knowledge (40 words for snow) and kept the mucklucks.

We made the product matter for our audience. We gave them a reason to keep their eyes moving down through the pitch. We made the story engage them, not just lie flat on its back like a bad date.

Pitches aren't just for novels. Your game pitch (here's a great one from Rob Donoghue) is built the same way, and can benefit from the same reconstruction. The same is true for your script.

But it all starts with writing SOMETHING, some kind of pitch down. And then getting eyes on it. And hopefully those are objective eyes. Then the rebuilding can begin.

Once the pitch is rebuilt, trust me, you won't want to wait to show it off.

In Part 5 of the series, we'll talk about that formula for making a good pitch.

Happy writing.

How To Write A Query Letter, In Three Steps

This is the article that several of your How-To websites didn't want....

So, you’ve written a book. Congratulations. Welcome now to the harder process -- getting published. I mean, that was the point of you spending nights and weekends staring bleary-eyed into the screen until your eyes bled and your mind was day old pudding, right?

I’m assuming that you’re going to pursue the more traditional route of publication, the route you’ve probably heard the most about, or the route maybe you assumed was your only option. Yes there are other options, and I'll talk about them in later posts. But for our purposes, let’s say you’ve decided to go the ‘legacy’ route and you want an agent and a big-house publisher.

You’re going to write a query letter in three steps, and if you’ve done it right, the query letter you produce will be shorter than this article, and that’s mostly because I’m long-winded and enjoy hearing myself narrate instructions.

For this query letter, you’re going to need the following things:

1. A word processor document
2. Notes about your manuscript including the title, the word count and a general sense of plot and theme. (I like to put these on a note card)
3. The address of a specific person/agent/editor/publisher to whom you’re sending this letter (Make sure you spell everything correctly)

Once you collect all those things, we start with Step 1.

Step 1: Understand The Ground Rules
A query letter is essentially your manuscript’s pickup line, looking to interest the reader into taking the manuscript home and getting comfortable/intimate/freaky with it. And to avoid the ignominy of bad pickup lines, there are rules to follow before you start flirting:

A. You have AT MOST 250 words (including your name and contact info) to put on this page and get someone to read the manuscript. The people who are reading this have a lot more than just your query to read, and they cannot afford (nor do they want) to have their time wasted because you took three pages to say what can be said in a paragraph. (I suppose the exception is made for ‘How To’ articles)

B. This is NOT a desperate endeavor. Desperation is palpable, and it does not encourage people to read the manuscript. Don’t beg. Don’t dawdle. Desperation is death. This is your novel, this is your baby, love it, be proud of it, and talk it up.

C. You’re going to do this more than once. Nobody gets it right the first time. The words you put down on paper can always be fine-tuned, you can always send it to another (and possibly more receptive) audience.

D. It gets easier the more you do it. A lot of resources want to scare you about queries, demonizing them and making the process one of scarcity and limitation rather than of creative endeavor. I promise you, it’s supposed to be fun. This should feel like showing off the baby pictures, talking about your new puppy and praising your significant other. Learn to love this process.

Armed with these ground rules, let’s talk about the act of writing.

Step Two: Start Where The Action Is
Tell me about the movie you just saw. Tell me about your favorite episode of your favorite television show. How did you do it? Did you tell me about what color the sky was and how the camera moved over the scenery before it zoomed in on the hero? No, you didn’t, if you wanted me to stick around and listen. You started with the action of characters.

On a technical point, I’m talking about verbs here. Yes, you can say Moby Dick is about the pursuit of a whale, but if you really want to seize me and hold my attention, tell me that it’s Ishmael’s recounting of Ahab pursuing the whale that will ultimately be his undoing. Find your verbs, find the actions that the characters do to make the plot and story move forward. Verbs are king of the query.

Yes, that action paints enough of a picture. Also, with 250 words, it’s the actions that you describe that I will dive into the manuscript to enjoy.

This is the part where I tell you to start writing. Keep your word count in mind, remember your verbs and get me interested.

But wait, how will you end this? Endings matter too, you just can’t trail off when you run out of words. Within those 250 words, save the last fifteen to twenty or so for a wrap-up.

Step Three: End Assuming You’ll Be Spoken To
Repeat after me: I do not fear rejection, rejection shows me I’m on the right path. Chant this daily. Tattoo it on your children and pets. Do whatever you need to do to staple this philosophy to your soul.

That last paragraph should include the title of the manuscript (in all caps), the word count (because, yes, there is such a thing as too long for a particular genre or audience), and any information you want to impart to the reader about how to reach you. Notice here that I didn’t say to tell the reader about how you’re new at this or how you really liked two other books you just read. Stay on target, talk about your work and make sure the reader knows how to contact you.

That’s it. Three steps. Not to freak you out or anything, but anything else is just further complication. It helps to know your book, it helps to know your genre, but there aren’t any great and magic bells and whistles. Just write. A lot.

Good luck, and happy writing.

3 Reasons Why Your Query Letter Is Getting Rejected

Good afternoon everyone.

In my afternoon inbox clean-out session, I came across a few query letters from some friends of mine, who wanted me to take a quick peek and give them some advice. I did. And now I'm passing some of that advice to you.

Here now are 3 reasons why your query letter is getting rejected. Yes, there are more than three reasons, but I just picked three, and later, we can talk about more of them. Consider these the 'Big Three'.

1. It's too damn long.
I know, I know, it's called a query letter, not a query text or even a query missive, and that in a letter you can go on and on a bit about the particulars of your story or your own writing experience.

Well, this isn't a letter like you're writing to Santa or Grandma thanking her for the very fine afghan she knitted you, this document you're crafting is the ambassador for your manuscript.

And like all good ambassadors, it needs to be very very savvy in its word choice.

I am of the school of thought that you have at most (and I mean at absolutely the maximum) 300 words to say everything that you're going to say, and that includes your name, contact information and the recipient's address.

Yes, 300 word-Spartans for your literary-Thermopylae.

Actually, 300 is the ceiling, and I'd really want to see between 230 and 260 to get the job done.

Because it shouldn't take you volumes of words to get your point across. It's not like you're blogging or anything....

2. It starts in the wrong place.
Stories can start in the beginning. But as I just said, this query letter isn't a story, it's an ambassador at best and a flirty chat-up line at worst. And since you only have less than 300 words to work with, do you really have the time to start me at the beginning of the story?

Start the query like it's an 80s rock video (minus the denim vest and soulful emoting) -- start with action. Is a character doing something? (is that the something the plot? Even better.)  Is there a problem, and like Vanilla Ice, you have a character able to solve it?

Your query letter has to launch the reader forward, interesting enough to send them diving into the manuscript to see if the promise is fulfilled at length.

3. You're relying on a gimmick to make this story sell, because you're heavy with doubt.
A character narrating his own query letter is a weird thing to read - because when we read a query letter, just like admiring a painting, we're not only seeing the characters portrayed, we're made aware of the artist's brush strokes.

You're the artist. And your words are brush strokes.

In the query letter, this is a chance for you the writer/creator to display your creation, and make it do a little interesting dance for us, provoking us into curiosity.

Gimmicks like character-narrated queries, or queries told in flashback...butcher the display quality of the work. The magic is in the objectivity and flair for crafty magic the writer displays. This is your chance to show off. So, break out the best words and pull rabbits out of hats.

The reason you're likely not wowing people is that your own fear, your doubts (either self-doubts or doubts about "what's right") are coming across in the the words you choose and don't choose, and in the formatting of what you say and don't say.

Don't be afraid. Don't let fear stop you. Don't let fear get ahead of your dreams. Take that leap. You won't need the gimmicks, they don't serve you.

You're good enough to do this on your own merits. You've made it this far. This is just one step further, and this is, by all accounts a much easier step (300 pages versus 300 words?) - so go do it.

I hope this helps your query letters out. For more help on query letters, or for anything you'd like to say, leave some comments.