Author Topic: Query letter for Murder On Marsh Island Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks (Read 32191 times)

eric · « **Reply #150 on:** April 13, 2009, 08:43:15 PM »

X:

Well, I REALLY like that concept for our next Hollywood mealticket, bucko! Have your person call my person and we'll do lunch. And who said we've run out of ideas in the old writing world?

(I do think the idea's pretty funny.)

Wolfe, sorry for the hijack. May I redeem it by saying I think W. is exploring for query language, not being just literal, X.?

Wolfe · « **Reply #151 on:** April 13, 2009, 09:19:02 PM »

A novel can go without a universal message. Now, please review all blockbusters on the market. You will find one in them all. So ... if you want to cement your name as a household one, write your novel deeper than your average competition.

The bigger and more universal the message, the more it sells ... even if the writing lacks skill or talent.

And I know we all can pick those blockbusters out, can't we? Combine this with writing skill and talent, and your name will shine throughout history.

Set the bar high. Set your standards higher. Set your goal highest. Do this, and I promise you will set your place in history. Agents, editors, and publishers seek authors like this.

Ask Sara Gruen ... she sought query and writing advice on another website too.

Wolfe

eric · « **Reply #152 on:** April 13, 2009, 09:30:05 PM »

I don't know Sarah Gruen, but I think that is valuable and useful advice, Wolfe. I remember reading an interview with Salman Rushdie where he said he decided at one point to write a book about the entire history of the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent. A laughably impossible task that no publisher in their right mind would countenance. He insisted. And the book became Midnight's Children.

Swampfox one · « **Reply #153 on:** April 14, 2009, 10:29:13 AM »

Maybe something like this

Sheriff Lightfoot, repulsed and dismayed by the evidence, digs into Marsh Island’s secrets to solve the crime.

BrigidMary · « **Reply #154 on:** April 14, 2009, 11:21:53 AM »

Literary Agent Janet Reid just posted a link this morning that you might find helpful. It's an exercise about creating compelling log lines, and it seems to be a very valid (and worthwhile) exercise. Check it out. I plan to use it myself:

http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-put-it-together-into-one-neat.html

Annmarie · « **Reply #155 on:** April 14, 2009, 11:28:26 AM »

Quote from: Wolfe on April 13, 2009, 09:19:02 PM

Set the bar high. Set your standards higher. Set your goal highest. Do this, and I promise you will set your place in history. Agents, editors, and publishers seek authors like this.

I'm trying, brother.

Xerika · « **Reply #156 on:** April 14, 2009, 12:57:28 PM »

Quote from: eric on April 13, 2009, 08:43:15 PM

Well, I REALLY like that concept for our next Hollywood mealticket, bucko! Have your person call my person and we'll do lunch. And who said we've run out of ideas in the old writing world?

eric, I look forward to the collaboration. I understand my person called your person and reversed the charges ('called collect', I believe you colonial types call it), but they couldn't agree on who would buy the lunch.

Wolfe. Thank you for your response to my my post about messages and themes. I'll do my best to make my writing less shallow in future. Honest.

JH. Apologies for subverting your thread for a few minutes.

eric · « **Reply #157 on:** April 14, 2009, 01:09:17 PM »

Well, my person got that call from your person but she thought it was an obscene phone call. Apparently the heavy breathing pushed her over the edge. Anyway, as soon as we can figure out how to use Other People's Money for lunch we're set to go, and I look forward to it too. Hi to your dogs and your darling, and JH, apologies for the hijack, it's over now.

Wolfe · « **Reply #158 on:** April 14, 2009, 08:07:16 PM »

Sheriff Lightfoot, repulsed and dismayed (telling) by the evidence (passive phrase), digs into (weak verb and preposition combination) Marsh Island’s secrets to solve the crime.

Remember, you want to write a line the agent, editor, and publishing house will use again and again with promotion. After you write your last line, you need to feel amazed and confident about it. If you doubt it, redo it.

I'll help. Donald, please forgive me if you read this...

Use one of these words in your last line: love, heart, dream, journey, fortune, or destiny.

You can choose a synonym, but place the word near the sentence's start or end.

Wolfe

Swampfox one · « **Reply #159 on:** April 14, 2009, 08:57:53 PM »

The corpse, sprawled on the ninth green, draws more stares than it did as Miss Georgia. Yet, Sheriff Lightfoot discovers more to the murder than a dead diva.

He came to admire this woman and it was his destiny to deliver justice.

eric · « **Reply #160 on:** April 14, 2009, 09:06:04 PM »

There's an unfortunate tense change in the third sentence, an even more unfortunate non-parallel syntax construction in the two parts of the compound sentence, and a wholly unfortunate passive verb as well. The "came to" phrasing is also passive as well as clunky. The admiration is telling and it is a plot detail, it does not seem to belong here IMHO. Sorry, JH.

What you have now contains two abstract nouns as well as an abstract verb (even), all of which is just too much. You can use the rare abstraction when it serves your purpose ... but I personally would shy away from a crowd of them.

And last, I wonder if there might also be a way to get your special word closer to the end of the sentence, less telly, and perhaps more snappy. Just my thoughts.

Briefly, I guess if I were drawing lines I would line out the whole sentence. Maybe Wolfe can salvage something.

Wolfe · « **Reply #161 on:** April 15, 2009, 06:14:54 AM »

May we see all three sentences together?

Wolfe

Swampfox one · « **Reply #162 on:** April 15, 2009, 09:35:25 AM »

The corpse, sprawled on the ninth green, draws more stares than it did as Miss Georgia. Yet, Sheriff Lightfoot discovers more to the murder than a dead diva. He came to admire this woman and it was his destiny to deliver justice.

Or

The corpse, sprawled on the ninth green, draws more stares than it did as Miss Georgia. Yet, Sheriff Lightfoot discovers more to the murder than a dead diva. He would have liked her in life; he would serve her justice in death.

Wolfe · « **Reply #163 on:** April 15, 2009, 10:43:19 AM »

I like the second one more, but it needs clean-up. First, correct the tenses. Make them all present or past tense. For example, you need to change draws to drew if you use sprawled in the first line.

Wolfe

LinRobinson · « **Reply #164 on:** April 15, 2009, 03:29:18 PM »

Hey, I'd read it.

Quote

The shallowest book you'll read all year!

Jason Myres knows that the CIA are plotting to implode the ozone layer, and he is the only one who can save the world.

Don't be mistaken though. This is not just another book about global warming and conspiracies.

It's a book about a guy like you or I who'd rather party than save the world.

And that's exactly what Jason does with some riproaringly hilarious results.

Let's paaaarty!!!!