Pay It Forward Blogfest

Today is the official announcement of Alex and my Pay It Forward Blogfest. I know we've been hinting at it for a while, and we know how excited you've all been (hopefully), so we're happy to announce that it's finally here.

Well, that is, the announcement is finally here. The actual blogfest isn't until Friday, October 14th, but that gives you plenty of time to sign up on Alex's linky list. Please sign up, and then be ready for the madness to ensue two weeks from now.

Here is how the blogfest will actually work: The idea is to introduce everyone to everyone else. We want this to be an easy post that allows you to meet and follow as many other bloggers as you can. In your post, we would like you to please list, describe, and link to three blogs that you enjoy reading, but that you suspect may fly under the radar of a lot of other bloggers. Or they can be famous blogs, as long as they're awesome.

But don't stop there! Certainly visit and follow all the blogs that are featured in people's posts the day of the blogfest, but those don't have to be the only blogs you visit. You can visit everyone who enters in on the fun, and signs up on the linky list. In the interest of time you don't even have to leave comment. You can just follow, and come back another time. After all, we all know we don't have time to visit every blog we enjoy every single day.

So that's it. Please sign up in the linky list, and we will see you in two weeks!

Let's Take it Back to the Old School

I'm not even going to discuss the Atlanta Braves, the (current) Boston Red Sox, or mention the fact that they both just broke records for the worst end of season collapse in the history of baseball.

Er, wait - I just did mention it, didn't I? Well I'm not going to discuss it any further, because I'm disgusted. Instead, I'm going to discuss something else that disgusts me, because I feel like it.

You probably weren't aware of this, but there was a close race in the National League this season, between Jose Reyes, of the New York Mets, and Ryan Braun, of the Milwaukee Brewers, for the batting title. Before yesterday, Reyes was in the lead with an average of .347. What he did to secure his lead in yesterday's game was lame, as far as I'm concerned.

Jose Reyes bunted on his first at-bat, which with his speed almost guaranteed a hit. That in itself is not a big deal, but what he did next is a sign, to me, of what's wrong with our culture these days. He asked his manager to take him out of the game. He did. This preserved his average, meaning he did not have any strikeouts, groundouts, or outs of any kind that day, which could have lowered his average.

He should have played the rest of the game, because Ryan Braun ended up going 0 for 4 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Reyes would have won no matter what.

Anyway, you're probably wondering why Ted Williams is up there, assuming you knew that was Ted Williams. Ted is up there because I want to use him to illustrate how things should be done.

70 years ago, Ted Williams was in the same position as Jose Reyes - poised to take the title, and with a decision to make. His situation was a bit more historic though. He had a .3996 batting average, something which is essentially unheard of. The last day of the season was a double header. He could have sat out, which his manager suggested, and MLB would have rounded his average up to .400.

What did Ted do? He did what any self-respecting hero and role model would. He played both games, went 6 for 8, and ended up with a legitimate .406 batting average. No one has ever had an average of over .400 since.

Not one single player.

Kids, don't be like Jose Reyes. Be like Ted Williams.

He played for the Boston Red Sox. I bet they wish they had him back.

iPad and the Young Mind

So I went and bought an iPad on Monday night. We'd been saving for it for a few weeks, and I decided I needed one when I finalized my plans to visit WFC in San Diego next month, and meet up with wonderful writers and author friends like Simon C. Larter, Shannon Whitney Messenger, Carolina Valdez Miller, Sara Ann McClung, and Andrew Smith.

I won't get into the things that are cool about it, or the things that it ought to be able to do, but can't, because those would be long posts all on their own. I will, hopefully briefly, discuss how cool this thing is for kids.

My daughter Madison and I played a game of scrabble on it against each other last night. She has an iPod touch she's had for a while, that she paid for by saving up her allowance, and that allowed us each to play our tiles from our own device, so that we weren't too obviously revealing our letters to each other.

Now, I have to say, in some ways I'm a bit of a Luddite. I don't believe in kids walking around with headphones constantly in their ears, shutting out the world around them, eyes glued to the screen of some device like little LCD versions of The Mirror of Erised, but the potential for interesting educational opportunities with a device like the iPad is off the charts.

The coolest thing about it is how it excites my child. When she came into my room last night (I didn't have time to set it up after buying it on Monday) and saw me installing some apps on it, her eyes lit up, and she bounded onto the bed with me.

My kid never hangs out with me in my room. She's 10. I had the horrible Braves game on the TV, which she would normally never suffer through. But she spent the next few hours hanging out with me, talking to me about the iPad, and showing me cool things like how to organize my apps into folders so I don't have 5 pages of apps. Then we played some games. Like Scrabble, pictured above.

I'm not going to go on about this any longer, but I see a very high cool factor when it comes to technology and young minds. I think if we leverage these devices properly to our children, we can help them focus on the benefits, without turning them into backlit LCD zombies.

What do you guys think? Do your kids have e-readers? Smart Phones? Other tech?

Boozy

I'm taking a blogging hiatus today, because I've got some writing related obligations, so here's something for you, my lovelies:



I don't know why he's drinking beer when he's singing about wine (in the music video version, which for some reason doesn't have the great dub verse), but at far as I'm concerned, as long as it gets you drunk, it's all good.

Have a wonderful day, friends.

Blog Chain - Keeping the Faith

It's Blog Chain time again. Okay, technically yesterday was blog chain time again, but I didn't realize we did this thing on weekends, too. I don't blog on weekends. Hell, if it doesn't involve my daughter's soccer game or getting drunk and watching football, I don't do much on weekends.

Anyway, back to the business at hand. This chain topic was selected by Shaun, whose first post you can find: here.

Here is how he introduced it:

In writing, we talk a lot about grabbing the reader from page 1. From the first paragraph, the first sentence. I spend a lot of time working on my first paragraphs because I know that agents and editors are pretty much going to decide whether they want to keep reading based on that. It's the first impression. A crappy first page is like walking into an interview in your underwear. So it's important to grab your reader right away.

But what about those books that don't?

What are three books you would tell people that they need to keep reading even if they aren't immediately sucked in by the first page?

Before I share my three, I just want to point out that I'm a very patient reader. I don't have a problem with books whose stories take time to build. I've only ever given up on two books in my life, and it was never within the first five pages. Do people really do that? Give up on a book that quickly? Or is that only when industry professionals are considering work?

Right. So here's my three:

1) The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm listing this one, because it's basically famous for starting slow. Now that I'm a (somewhat) professional writer, I can see the point people are making when they make this argument, because the plot does take some time to get going, but in my opinion, it starts out just right. It's a vast world Tolkien was building, and it took time to get a feel for it. Personally I love every minute of it.

2) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling. This is one I'm a bit ashamed to admit. But it's an interesting story. I first bought this book for my daughter when she was about 6. I had seen Good Morning America talking about the lines outside of bookstores when The Chamber of Secrets was released, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. So I bought her the book. I read the first two or three chapters myself, and being the fool I was at the time, I scoffed. "This is a children's book!" I said to myself. "Clearly it's beneath me," was my second sentiment. So I'm sad to say that I gave her the book and it took another 4 years or more before she finally convinced me to give them another chance. I think she was on Goblet of Fire at the time. Well, this is going to sound cliche, and it probably is, but reading those books changed my life. I realized that great writing could be meant for any audience, and I've been reading, and loving, and writing, and toiling over, "YA" and "MG" books ever since.

3) The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner. This one I was reminded of by the blog chain member who came before me, Sandra. I'll link to her post at the end. This is a perfect example of this topic for me, because honestly? I still don't fully understand this book. I've read it three times. The whole stream of consciousness style is one I always struggle with. The first time I read this book it made no sense to me. But I came back a few years later, and read it again. Okay, admittedly, there are still parts that don't make sense, but it also contains some of the most powerful writing I've seen, and I've come to love it in spite of my ignorance.

So there you go. A day late and a few dollars short, that's my take on the topic. Be sure to visit Sandra's post, that came before me, and Kate's post, which will probably go up today (sorry, Kate)!

Caledonia Lass's Current Query Critiqued

It's Friday. I'm exhausted. It's raining. Let's get to work.

Remember, Caledonia's query will be in plain text, my feedback will be in red.

Here we go:

Dear Ms. X,

I am pleased to submit for your consideration my fantasy adventure novel, Adversarius, Shadow Of The Rose: Book One, complete at 61,921 words. Book two, Veritas is nearing completion and book three, Bellum is in rough draft form.

Okay. So what we have here is what I call housekeeping. I suggest saving this for the end of the query letter, and getting right into what truly matters first: your story. That being said, there are agents who prefer this stuff up front, so let's roll with it.

My next point is that the title of an unpublished work needs to be in all caps in a query letter, like this: ADVERSARIUS, SHADOW OF THE ROSE: BOOK ONE. You also would not normally need to focus on series potential, because when it comes to landing an agent, the first book must stand on its own, but considering the heavy genre nature of this novel, and the giveaway in the title, I don't think it's a big problem in this particular query. If you do mention the other two, make sure to put commas after the titles, like when you mention someone's proper name.

Finally, you don't give exact word counts like this. I would say this book is about 60,000 words, but that's actually really short for fantasy, so you might want to say about 62,000. You don't need to give the exact count, because that's going to change by the time you get to publication anyway.

Oh, and one last thing, you can leave the "adventure" part out of the genre. Fantasy is essentially always adventuresome by nature.

The two kingdoms of Paridzule and Relavia have been battling since before recorded history. Relavia's motivation for war? Power. Paridzule has fought valiantly to maintain their borders and have built a formidable navy, but so far all of their efforts have just kept Relavia contained.

Hmm. So normally you want to start out with a character, but I think with this kind of book, in which the setting (hopefully) almost becomes a character of its own, starting with a bit of world building might be fine. The only problem here is, we need more world building.

You've got some cool names for these countries, which is a good start, but other than that there's nothing hooky about this. We need more clues as to what kind of world this is. Is it pure fantasy? Are there monsters? Is there magic? Is this navy just regular old clipper ships? The way you have it worded now is kind of dry.

In a desperate bid to put an end to the conflicts once and for all, Kayta Ni'adzul's father decides to arrange a marriage between his eldest daughter, Senweis, and the sole heir of Relavia, Alabassin. But Alabassin quickly discovers he doesn't want Senweis; he wants Kayta instead. Alabassin's father refuses to allow a union between the two kingdoms and launches an attack that would let him take over Paridzule with very little resistance. A ship Kayta and her brother are traveling on is attacked by pyrates. She's thrown overboard and left for dead but an unlikely rescuer comes to her aid.

All right. So you've got more great character names here. Seriously, you're great at naming things, but this is a bit if a jumble. I'm confused as to how this all works. If these countries are at war, how is the prince discovering anything about which princess he wants? Are they exchanging letters? Have they met? If his dad won't allow the whole thing, I can't understand how they meet.

Next, when it comes to this attack, you need to get specific. What does he do? How will it allow him to take over the country so easily? Is it an assassination attempt on Katya's father?

I like this part about the pyrates, especially the way you spell pyrates, but it's very sudden and does not follow logically what you were describing right before it. As a reader I go from the vague description of the attack, to suddenly we're on a ship, and there are pyrates. It makes me go: huh?

With no memory of who she is, Kayta suddenly faces strange places and meets new people. Some of them are legendary, others are downright deadly. Now it is a race to see who will arrive in Paridzule first, Kayta or Relavia's armies. But if Kayta can't recall who she is, how can she fight for a home she doesn't remember?

This is all incredibly vague too, but as a final summary it kind of works. I would maybe just cut the line about legendary versus deadly.

Although I have yet to be published, I love books that center around a large world and introduce some of the same characters over again or even just mention a beloved character's name as a history reference. Adversarius is the beginning of such stories. I've also been blogging for over a year and have an internet presence on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and AbsoluteWrite.

I would cut this whole paragraph. If you don't have any publishing credits, that's fine, you can just skip it. None of this other stuff matters, except for maybe your blog. You could just say something like: "I blog about writing, musings, and other nonsense at http://caledonialass.blogspot.com/"

With heavy emphasis on world-building and strong, memorable characters, Adversarius, Shadow Of The Rose: Book One will appeal to readers who enjoy such works as Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and Lord of the Rings.

First of all, before I critique this part, I just want to say I effing love this comparison. Those are three of my favorite worlds/franchises, so I'm definitely hooked. However, I think you can present this better. For one thing, you've named one world, and two series of novels. I think you should word it like this: "... will appeal to readers who enjoy worlds like Krynn, Middle-Earth, and the Forgotten Realms." You could also name the planet that Paridzule and  Relavia exist on, thus making the comparison parallel. Your other option would be to name one of the most famous Forgotten Realms books, like Baldur's Gate, Drizzt, Elminster, or The Knights of Myth Drannor.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this proposal, I look forward to hearing from you.

Okay. So I think your main problem is that we have a lack of understanding about how things happen in your story. I've got a relatively decent sense of the plot, but it kind of jumps around, and I'm not clear on how one thing leads into another. Your biggest strength is your awesome names, which gives your world a strong sense of culture, but I would like to see just a touch more world building. Is there magic, how does the navy work, and are there dragons, trolls, elves or anything like that.

You've obviously got a cool story here, and I think you've actually got room for a bit more information in this query.

So that's it.

What do you guys think? Can you suggest anything else? What other important information would you like to see?

Please leave your feedback in the comments, and thanks for reading!

Caledonia Lass's Current Query

More queries. Today is Caledonia Lass's. I do know about her blog, so you need to go follow it, before we move on: here.

Now, you guys remember how this works, right? Today is just for introductions. Please save your feedback for tomorrow.

Here's her query:

Dear Ms. X,

I am pleased to submit for your consideration my fantasy adventure novel, Adversarius, Shadow Of The Rose: Book One, complete at 61,921 words. Book two, Veritas is nearing completion and book three, Bellum is in rough draft form.

The two kingdoms of Paridzule and Relavia have been battling since before recorded history. Relavia's motivation for war? Power. Paridzule has fought valiantly to maintain their borders and have built a formidable navy, but so far all of their efforts have just kept Relavia contained.

In a desperate bid to put an end to the conflicts once and for all, Kayta Ni'adzul's father decides to arrange a marriage between his eldest daughter, Senweis, and the sole heir of Relavia, Alabassin. But Alabassin quickly discovers he doesn't want Senweis; he wants Kayta instead. Alabassin's father refuses to allow a union between the two kingdoms and launches an attack that would let him take over Paridzule with very little resistance. A ship Kayta and her brother are traveling on is attacked by pyrates. She's thrown overboard and left for dead but an unlikely rescuer comes to her aid.

With no memory of who she is, Kayta suddenly faces strange places and meets new people. Some of them are legendary, others are downright deadly. Now it is a race to see who will arrive in Paridzule first, Kayta or Relavia's armies. But if Kayta can't recall who she is, how can she fight for a home she doesn't remember?

Although I have yet to be published, I love books that center around a large world and introduce some of the same characters over again or even just mention a beloved character's name as a history reference. Adversarius is the beginning of such stories. I've also been blogging for over a year and have an internet presence on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and AbsoluteWrite.

With heavy emphasis on world-building and strong, memorable characters, Adversarius, Shadow Of The Rose: Book One will appeal to readers who enjoy such works as Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and Lord of the Rings.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this proposal, I look forward to hearing from you.

That's it for today.

Please go follow her blog, say hello in the comments, and be sure to come back tomorrow for the critique!

Kathleen McLaughlin's Current Query Critiqued

All right. Here we are with the critique you've all been waiting for. Or at least a couple of you. One of you, surely, at least, was waiting for it.

Anyway, I have some new readers here, so before we get to work I'm going to go over a few basics. A query letter is a strange and unique animal. It's part business letter, part resume, part creative essay, part evil synopsis, and part shrinking padded room. Many people hate query letters, the fact that they're necessary, and the act of creating them. I'm not going to say I blame you if you feel that way, but my relationship with the big Q has grown and morphed over the years to the point where I now hate to love them.

Right. So a standard query letter is a one page document, usually around 250 words long, that includes some kind of housekeeping information about your novel like: genre, word count, WORKING-TITLE, and so on. This information comes along with a sort of synopsis-y section that creatively describes your story, your characters, and uses voice to convey the tone and style of your novel. Finally, there really ought to be some kind of personalization that explains to an agent why you choice to query them in particular, even if you're using a poorly disguised shotgun approach (which is not recommended). This can technically come in any order, but I always advise to get right to the story, and then follow with housekeeping and personalization.

Now, in case you haven't seen one of these posts before, Kathleen's query will be in plain text below, and my thoughts, feedback, interjections, hallucinations, and mad-man's ramblings will be in blood red.

Let's do work:

Ms. So Anne So
Ural Writers Agency
1234 Publishers Avenue
NY, NY 55555

I just want to point out that I find this to be hilarious. Obviously Kathleen won't put this addressee in her real query, but why not have some fun with the example?

Re: Blood Clouds

Awesome working title, but it should be in all caps: BLOOD CLOUDS. And also, since you put the "re:" I'm assuming this is your subject line. You need more than this is your subject line. I would suggest this: Re: QUERY - BLOOD CLOUDS - Kathleen McLaughlin. But, you should also read this hilarious post on the subject, by Nathan Bransford: link.

Dear Ms. So Anne So,

Okay. So here we get to the meat of your query. The important part. The part that talks about what actually happens in your book.  Let's see what we've got.

In the quaint hamlet of Raven's Corner, Detective Jordan Ireland profiles a serial killer, but her night terrors hint she's connected to the killer.

You usually want to open up a bit differently than this. There are queries that break all the rules and break them gracefully, but let's try to follow standard procedure here. You want to open with a hook and a strong sense of character. You've got some hooky information here, which is a good start, but its presentation could be better, and except for a possible occupation (someone who profiles serial killers, possibly professionally, possibly not. NOTE: I say possibly because although we know she's a detective, we don't know who she works for, or whether the profiling is her hobby) we've got almost no sense of who your character is.

I would suggest a few changes. I'm not sure you want to call Raven's Corner a quaint hamlet. To me hamlet is an archaic term, which technically refers to a small village that does not have its own church, and the phrasing here gives your setting a tone that I think you do not intend. Unless you do.

I would also add "Raven's Corner, Washington," to it, so we have a familiar sense of place.

The next thing is that I would add more information about Jordan's occupation. Is she an FBI agent? A detective for the local Sheriff's Office? There are lots of different kinds of detectives and unless she works for a large agency, it's unlikely her job actually involves profiling serial killers. It's clear you've done your research, but be more specific in your query.

Next, I want to know more about what kind of person Jordan is. Is she a divorcee? A single mom? A young professional? Often just one word to describe her personality can go a long way.

Finally, you should re-word this sentence: "profiles a serial killer, but her night terrors hint she's connected to the killer." The repetition of the word killer sounds odd here. I realize you may not want to use the pronoun "him," to replace the second instance, but you could consider using another term like "the murderer," or something like that.

So here's an example:

In the quiet Pacific Northwest village of Raven's Corner, Washington, ambitious young County Sheriff's Detective Jordan Ireland profiles serial killers even when she's not in the office. One particular murderer becomes her focus when her night terrors hint at a personal connection to him.

That's just an example, and a bad one, but it does show you how only a few more words can convey a lot more needed information.

Okay. I promise not not analyze the rest of your paragraphs so deeply.

Jordan generates the serialist's what does this mean? I looked this word up, and it either refers to a writer of serials, or a composer of serial music. Do you mean the serial killer? profile, but repressed memories vex her. When the murderer expands his hunting grounds to the emerald hillocks love this. I'm from Seattle, and I grew up on one of those emerald hillocks. of Seattle, Detective again, we need more information about his job. Is he a detective for the Seattle Police? The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension? Generally (at least to my knowledge) serial killers are handled by the FBI. Blaine Davis enters Jordan's world, but he wants to exchange more than profiling notes. She cools his ardor, focused on the killer eluding her. This whole bit is vague. I get that there's a romantic element here, and that's fine, but be specific. How does he hit on her? How does she spurn him? When the serialist there's that word again. This may be a known term for serial killers among experts in the field, but most people would not be familiar with it. I think you should just use the term "serial killer." targets Jordan's loved ones, which loved ones? the tragic events what tragic events? He actually kills her loved ones? rush her repressed memories to the forefront. She fills in the missing pieces of her own past and discovers the killer is her own brother. Wow. Now that's a shocker. It actually sounds like an awesome twist, but I think you need to work on how you present it. Talk about some specific memories, some actual example of how she figures it out. Right now it's just a bunch of vague language with a nice specific punch at the end. Stressed to the breaking point, she wonders if she's courageous enough to revisit a childhood best forgotten to face down the killer. When Davis why use his last name? is taken hostage, Jordan faces the love she can no longer deny. Wait. So now she's into him? When Jordan deduced watch your tense. This is past tense all of a sudden. she is the killer's psychological trigger, it forces him up close and dangerous. The psychological thriller, Blood Clouds, is 100,000 words.

Okay. So it's obvious you've got a great story on your hands here, and the premise is certainly an interesting one. The problem is that you're burying it under some vague and confusing language. Get specific. Show us why she get's stressed, how Blaine tries to win her love, why she's the killers trigger. Explain their occupations with more detail, so we can understand why a small town detective and a big city one would meet.

I'm college educated in criminal law and criminal justice and researched criminal profiling and serial killers. This sounds weird. Why is it worded this way? Do you not have a bachelor's degree or an associate's? If you do you should just name your degree. It should also say "haved researched ..." As a former publicity agent, lecturer and instructor and having been interviewed for print and television, I bring the professional experience needed to promote my books. Additional completed manuscripts in the series show my commitment to future projects. Don't put it this way. You need to focus on this book. If you are offered representation, then you can discuss other projects, but a query letter needs to focus on one book, even if it's in a series.

Renowned serial killer expert, Dr. Steven A. Egger, Ph.D. endorses Blood Clouds. BLOOD CLOUDS “A very good read! You obviously have done your homework...an excellent writer!” Dr. Egger is the published author of, The Need To Kill, The Killers Among Us and Serial Murder.

Hmm. I'm not sure about this paragraph. I'm not an expert in this field, so my lack of recognition of Dr. Egger probably means nothing. Let's Google him ...

There's a Tru TV article about him, but no Wikipedia page. The fifth result returned is your blog, but that may be because Google knows I've been there.

Bottom line is I'm not sure Dr. Egger's endorsement of your book is going to mean much to an agent. At least not in a query letter. If you choose to leave it in, it probably won't hurt anything, but you might want to consider letting your story and your background stand on it's own.

Also, if you keep it in, don't call him a "published author." If he's an author, then's he published. If he's not published, he's just a writer.

Please find enclosed a synopsis and sample chapters. Thank you in advance for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

You don't need to include a synopsis unless they ask for one, and your sample pages should be specific and match exactly the agent's submission guidelines, but this is just a sample query, so I'm sure you customize that in each letter. Otherwise this ending is fine.

Most sincerely,

Kathleen McLaughlin

I think you're off to a great start here, Kathleen. You've obviously got an interesting premise and an exciting story going on in your novel, and with a little work I think you can polish your query to match. Try to focus on Character, Conflict, and Choice, and be specific when you describe plot points.

That's it!

So what do you guys think? Feel free to disagree with me, but if you don't maybe help us out by suggesting another wording for Kathleen's opening hook?

Otherwise please leave your feedback in the comments, and let us know what you think.

Kathleen McLaughlin's Current Query

Morning, readers. Today we're finally getting back to business on the QQQE. I can't for the life of me remember what we've been doing since the last one of these, but that's not the point.

Anyway, today I'm sharing Kathleen's query letter with you. I know Kathleen from the Your First Novel group I'm in on Facebook, and she was looking for some help with her query, so I offered up my services.

I've got some new followers around here, so I'll explain how this works in a moment, but I just want to make sure everyone knows what a query letter is, and how they're usually structured. I'm not going to explain it right now, because we're all writers and probably already know, but if you don't, or you're just curious, please ask in the comments.

So, assuming we all know what a query letter is, how it works, and what its purpose is, this is the way I handle them on my blog: Today I'm sharing Kathleen's query. The point of today's post is to familiarize yourself with her story premise (and of course to introduce you to her). Please save all feedback for tomorrow, after I've shared my critique of Kathleen's letter.

I like to make these critiques a two day series, because it gives me a chance to think about her story, and it keeps me from having to write yet another blog post. Not that I don't love writing blog posts.

So that's enough of my rambling. Here's here query:

Ms. So Anne So
Ural Writers Agency
1234 Publishers Avenue
NY, NY 55555

Re: Blood Clouds

Dear Ms. So Anne So,

In the quaint hamlet of Raven's Corner, Detective Jordan Ireland profiles a serial killer, but her night terrors hint she's connected to the killer.

Jordan generates the serialist's profile, but repressed memories vex her. When the murderer expands his hunting grounds to the emerald hillocks of Seattle, Detective Blaine Davis enters Jordan's world, but he wants to exchange more than profiling notes. She cools his ardor, focused on the killer eluding her. When the serialist targets Jordan's loved ones, the tragic events rush her repressed memories to the forefront. She fills in the missing pieces of her own past and discovers the killer is her own brother. Stressed to the breaking point, she wonders if she's courageous enough to revisit a childhood best forgotten to face down the killer. When Davis is taken hostage, Jordan faces the love she can no longer deny. When Jordan deduced she is the killer's psychological trigger, it forces him up close and dangerous. The psychological thriller, Blood Clouds, is 100,000 words.

I'm college educated in criminal law and criminal justice and researched criminal profiling and serial killers. As a former publicity agent, lecturer and instructor and having been interviewed for print and television, I bring the professional experience needed to promote my books. Additional completed manuscripts in the series show my commitment to future projects.

Renowned serial killer expert, Dr. Steven A. Egger, Ph.D. endorses Blood Clouds. “A very good read! You obviously have done your homework...an excellent writer!” Dr. Egger is the published author of, The Need To Kill, The Killers Among Us and Serial Murder.

Please find enclosed a synopsis and sample chapters. Thank you in advance for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Most sincerely,

Kathleen McLaughlin

So there you go. Please remember to save your feedback for tomorrow.

For now you can just say hello to Kathleen in the comments, and thank her for having the courage to share this. I don't believe she has a blog, but I will double check and update this post if necessary.

Thanks!

UPDATE: Kathleen does have a blog. You can find it: here.

The Love Movement

This video doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but I enjoy this song: Find a Way, by A Tribe Called Quest, from their final album, The Love Movement.

You don't have to listen to it if you don't want to.

Last week, my friend, Renae Mercado, asked her readers how they deal with rejection.

Here's what I had to say:

Now I realize that's a bit idyllic, I mean rejection will always hurt, always sting a bit like freezing air biting against the mucus membrane of your nostrils in the morning, but I'm a Pisces. I can dream.

I vote we should start a movement. We should start calling rejection subjection instead. I just got subjectively subjected to a subjection.

Word.

In other news: my follower project experiment worked. Since last Tuesday I've gained 49 new followers. Alex and I are planning a blog fest to help it work for all of you as well. Elana may also get involved. We haven't figured out anything official yet, but I will keep you posted.

In further other news: I'll be critiquing two interesting queries on the blog the rest of the week. So be sure to come back. You might learn something. Or, even better, you might teach me something.

In final news: please visit my friend Michael Gettel-Gilmartin's Middle Grade Mafioso blog this morning. He's got a great interview up.

Why Follow?

It's Friday. For my final post in my series on following I'm going to keep it short.

I just wanted to share some thoughts on what following means, why I do it, and how I go about reading blogs.

What does it mean when I follow you? It's a bit like a promise. I don't follow people arbitrarily, just hoping that they'll follow me back. I don't follow blogs that aren't about writing and publishing (unless they're really funny). Anyway, back to that promise. What I mean is that I follow a blog, because its content interests me, and relates to my own writing career and feeble attempts at achieving publication, and when I follow, it means I promise to come back.

That doesn't necessarily mean every day. It doesn't necessarily mean tomorrow. There are blogs I read every day, without fail. And even one I check on weekends, when I can. It does mean that I will be back. I wouldn't take the time to follow if I didn't want to come back.

When I read blogs every single weekday, I have a method. There are a few blogs I load up every morning, because I know they post daily, and I consider the people who run them good friends of mine, and I care what they have to say. I load these blogs from the links I keep on my sidebar. When I'm done reading them I go to my blogger dashboard, and check the rest of the blogs I follow to see if they have posted something new. I do not open every single post that comes up in my dashboard. I read posts that have interesting titles or pictures, or seem relevant to a current trend I'm curious about.

If a blog doesn't post something new between about 5 AM Eastern and around 11 AM, I am highly unlikely to ever see it. That is my blog reading time. If you want me to read your blog, you should try to post sometime during that time.

Now this is starting to come off rantish, and that wasn't my intent. This is just the way I do things, and it certainly doesn't mean that everyone has to do it the same way.

How do you go about reading blogs? What makes you decide to follow a blog? What keeps you from following a blog? Do I make any sense, ever?

Google Friend Connect and Wordpress

In my next post in my series of posts about Followers and blog traffic, I'll focus a bit more on Google Friend Connect, and then explain how to add it to your Wordpress blog, if you have one.

You see that image to the left? That's my Google Friend Connect widget, as it looks when I'm logged in. See how the top half is the members (followers) of my blog, and then the bottom half is my friends?

Yep. There are some pretty famous people in that bottom half. People like Simon C. Larter, Nicole Ducleroir, Jeff Beesler, Jon Arnston, Frankie Diane Mallis, and so on.

Anyway, I just wanted to demonstrate about the friends function in Google Friend Connect. It's not something I use often, but it can be useful if I find a great new writing blog, and want to easily invite all my friends to follow it as well. It's really quite simple.

According to another friend of mine, Susan Quinn, you can also use Google Friend Connect to send mass updates to announce things like Blog Tours, Book Releases, and so on. I've never done this, but knowing Google, I would think it's probably not that complicated.

Now let's get down to the nuts and bolts, and talk about how to add the Google Friend Connect follower widget to your wordpress blog. I'm basically stealing this walkthrough from this site: Expand2Web, by Don Campbell. So please give him all the credit.

How To Add Friend Connect To Your WordPress Blog

Here are the steps to add Friend Connect to your WordPress Blog.

1. Log into Friend Connect at http://www.google.com/friendconnect/home/

2. Click on the “Set Up A New Site” button. This will walk you through a short process.

3. Upload files - canvas.html and rpc_relay.html to the root directory of your blog.

Note: Google has simplified this step and you no longer need to upload these files. The process will ask you for the name and URL to your website that’s it! (as of Oct 2, 2009)

4. Get the code for the “Members Gadget”

5. Go into WordPress Admin -> Design -> Widgets (this assumes you are using a widget enabled theme.)

6. Create a Text Widget, give it a title, and insert the HTML code into the the Widget.

Now people can join your site as members. They can see other members on your site and meet them. You might want to consider adding some other Friend Connect Gadgets to the site now.

And that's that! Obviously the biggest advantage to "following" and Google Friend Connect is that it's the easiest way to keep up to date on what's going on with the blogs you're interested in. Could you imagine manually checking the blogs you follow every day? Only to find that they hadn't posted in a few weeks? That would be such a hassle.

Also: followers make you look cool. And popular.

UPDATE: Thanks to Rogue Mutt, I now know this only works on wordpress blogs that pay for their own domain, or something like that. If you have a free wordpress blog, it doesn't work. I have no idea why. I'll try to research some more.

Analysis of Followers

For my second post this week of focusing on followers, I'm going to start out by analyzing the results of yesterday's post.

Before I posted the Follower Project yesterday, I had 755 followers. I now have 774. That's an increase of 19.

Now that may not sound like much, but in my experience, 19 is astronomically high for a single day, especially considering the fact that I have not had time yet to visit all the blogs suggested (I'll get to that after writing this post) and some of the blogs I did visit probably have not had time to follow me back yet.

So, in short, as far as I'm concerned, my idea worked. Hopefully it will continue to work. I may also talk Alex into doing some kind of blog-fest which is an extension of the idea. As writers, published, agented, aspiring, or otherwise, there's no reason not for us to all know each other. As far as I'm concerned, we're all in this together.

Now, I want to talk a little bit more about following, Google Friend Connect, and the follower widget. As Adam pointed out yesterday, and I'm sure many of you know, there are many ways to follow blogs. Personally, I don't subscribe via email, RSS (real simple syndication), or atom (whatever that is, I don't even know), because my inbox is already choked, and I happen to care a lot about being very responsive to email. But I know I have readers who follow me that way, and while I would prefer people use the GFC widget, because it let's me see your face (or Yoda avatar), and gives me an opportunity to follow you back, I don't mind if a reader prefers another method.

There is also another way to follow blogs without using GFC, and without showing up in the follower widget, that will still cause the blog's new posts to show up in your blogspot dashboard and your Google reader. Have you noticed this toolbar:

It will show up as different colors on different blogs (it's clear on mine), but as long as you're reading a blogspot blog, it should always be there. Using this toolbar to follow gives you the option to follow privately. I'm not really sure why you would want to do that, but the option is there.

Come back tomorrow for more talk about Following, and to learn how to add the Google Friend Connect Widget to your Wordpress Blog, if you would like people to be able to follow you that way.

In the meantime, you should really read Rachael Harrie's first post about the topic of Followers and Following, she really breaks down the whole subject a lot better than I do.

Now I'm off to introduce myself to the rest of the blogs you guys suggested yesterday.

The Follower Project

I have a silly goal.

I would like to try to reach 1000 followers before I start querying.

Hopefully this year.

That's an arbitrary number, and I know agents really don't care how popular your blog is, but it's just something fun to think about while I do my best at this networking with other writers thing.

Lately the growth of my follower count has been stagnant. Don't worry, I know why. It's because I haven't been discovering many new blogs lately.

I'm an extremely prolific blog reader, and a very loyal visitor to blogs I like (as many of you know), but one thing I don't do (which I probably should) is poach followers. If you don't know what that means, don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds. Poaching followers is basically just visiting the blogs of people you see commenting on blogs you read.

You visit their blog, follow it, comment about it, say hello, and hope they'll do the same for you. I'm not saying I've never done it, because I have, but I don't do it often, mostly because I'm just lazy.

So anyway, I had an idea. If I was smart, like Alex, I probably would have planned ahead and made this into a blog fest, but no one's ever accused me of being smart. So I'm just going to do it today, and see what happens. The thing about blogging is that there's so much out there. So much content, and so many bloggers, it's hard to know who to follow. It's not all about who will follow back, because that's just selfish, but that is part of it. Mostly (at least for me) it's about how do I find blogs to connect with that have interesting content, which is actually relevant to what I'm trying to accomplish?

Well. I'll tell you how. You ask your friends. The people who run the blogs you already know and love. Chances are they read some great blogs you've never heard of.

So what I'm going to do, right now, is point you all to five blogs I love, that I think might be flying under your radar. They'll all be people I've never blogged about before (or at least not for a long time). I'll list them here, then you will go follow them, and tell them I told you to. That will make them like me even more than they already do (which is a lot).

Before I get to what I want you to do, I'll list the blogs. Here:

Micahel Offut - Micheal runs slckismet, and he's an interesting guy. He talks about books, and publishing, and his honesty is refreshing.

Adam Heine - Adam has an awesome last name. Add a -ken and he'd be a great beer. He also runs Author's Echo. Adam blogs about writing too, but he also loves Anime and Manga, and knows more about board games than anyone I know.

Sarah Ahiers (Falen) - Sarah runs Falen Formulates Fiction. She's a writer too, and knows the second most about board games of anyone I know. Her dog, Yvie, also writes the funniest Friday Funny posts.

Hannah Kincade (Palindrome) - Runs Musings of a Palindrome, and like Sarah, she's one of my Minnesota peeps! She also blogs about writing and publishing, and always finds the most interesting inspirational pictures (not inspirational like that, I mean as in inspiring you to write, duh). She also just got back to blogging, and we missed her so!

And here's one I know most of you don't know about, because it's nearly brand new. YA Confidential is run by some of the dopest ladies out there. Yes, it's a group blog, and I don't know if they have a follow back account, but this one is worth it for the fun design alone.

So. There's five blogs you should be reading and following. You know the rules. Go visit those links, follow the blogs, and told them I sent you.

Now here comes the important part. I don't want to just poach your followers, the people commenting on all of your lovely blogs. I want you guys to tell me who to go follow. Not just because they'll follow back (although that would be cool), but because you think I'd enjoy their blog, and you have an inkling that I might not already be aware of it.

You don't have to give me five, but please give me at least one blog you read in the comments, that you think I would like, and might not know about. You don't have to go through all the work to code the html. Just give me the link, I can copy and paste it into my browser.

Oh, and if you follow me, and lurk, and I haven't visited your blog to follow back, shame on me. Please tell me so in the comments, and I'll remedy that right now.

I don't expect this to astronomically improve my followers in one day, but it may be a repetetive theme for me, and if I get to 900 this year, I'll hold an awesome contest to get to 1000, and give a bunch of cool shit away.

NOTE: Google Friend Connect and Blogger have really been effing up the widget lately. If you visit a blog, and can't find the follower widget, hit F5 on your keyboard, to refresh the page, and it should come up.

ANOTHER NOTE: For the love of all things holy, if you run a blog, and your follower widget isn't right at the top, like mine, what are you thinking? Are you trying to make it hard for people to follow you?

A Moment of Silence

I don't post on weekends, so I'm using today to have a day of blog silence in remembrance of those who are gone.

May they rest in peace forevermore. Comments are off. Have a nice day.

Dragon Joke(r)s Part Cuatro

This is the scary post. The one where I show you the disturbing costumes.

Yes that's Jareth. His makeup was really good. Unfortunately he was missing one major component of the character, namely: a gigantic, bulging moose knuckle.

I know. This Ronald MacDonald/Chris Nolan Joker hybrid was the best costume at the Con. He epitomized the contradiction that is our current society's corporate greed. Only in America can you sell Whoppers, Big Macs, and Chicken Nuggets to our children while still not providing fair and affordable health care for everyone. Those in poverty can't afford to eat healthier when healthy food is so expensive, and health care takes a quarter of their paycheck or more, if, like me, they have a good plan.

Anyway, sorry for that rant. It really is a fun costume, and this guy was hilarious too. Really friendly, and ready for conversation in spite of his high freak quotient.

I'm sorry but that's all I got for scary day. There was a pyramid head guy from Silent Hill, but I didn't get his photo because I'd already done that at Anime Weekend Atlanta.

Happy Friday, and have a great weekend!

Non DragonCon Part Drei

This is the serious post. The one with the most awesome costumes. What does that leave for tomorrow?

This is Poison Ivy, from Batman and Robin. I think.

This is GLaDOS, from Portal and Half Life. Or else it's the other little eye guy from Portal 2.

These people are definitely from Portal. Looks like a couple of Scientists from Aperture Science, and a female test subject. The portal guns were really cool looking.

This is Doctor Who and some chick. Someone who watches that show will probably know. Someone talked them into holding some little toy man.

And this, my friends, is a travesty. I mean don't get me wrong, the stormtroopers had some of the best costumes at the Con, and they were really awesome dudes. But Darth? I don't know what's wrong with this guy. Darth Vader is probably the most bad ass villain in the history of stories, and this guy defiled his Sithness with this ridiculous costume. It's blasphemy if you ask me.

When I asked him what happened to his costume, he said he was Darth Vader crossed with The Green Lantern.

I've never heard anything dumber in my life.

Proof of Wandering Around Outside DragonCon Part Deux

This post is going to be the cute post. I'll show you all most adorable costumes, on the most adorable kids, and I won't say much.

This guy is dressed up as a character from some Anime that my daughter and her friend love. I try to keep track of that stuff, because some of them are cool, and I like to try to get into the stuff my kids are into, but I can't remember this one.

This is Dobby and Harry Potter. The costumes are pretty bad, but the photo is adorable because Madison is so obviously ecstatic.

This is Pikachu, from Pokemon. Madison loves Pikachu almost as much as she loves Pandas.

This is Ronald Weasley. It's a girl dressed up as Ron though, and that's just AWESOME.

This is the panda crew. You can't tell, but Madison also has a Panda backpack.

That's it for today. Stay tuned for cooler, and creepier costumes for the rest of the week.

A First PROPER DragonCon Post

I know. I wrote about it yesterday, but that was just a segue into trying to trick you people into reading my Project Mayhem post. Not that you should need to be tricked, it's an awesome blog.

I only say tricked because I was chomping at the bit to post these photos, but I couldn't because I'd agreed to cover for a friend, and PM is a FAR more professionally slated blog than this dirty little corner of the World (US) Wide (Thin) Web (Net).

Anyway. Here's a tease. This is the worst photo my shitty camera captured at the Dragon-Non-Con (maybe):

Admittedly, this photo does have one thing going for it: The LOVELY Cole Gibsen taking up the spotlight. Also, it has an excuse: My oldest, Kylie, hit the button on my POS camera.

To be noted: That's my littlest, Madison, on my right (your left) with the panda hat/robe/hakama, and that's Kylie's BFF, Michaela, on my left (your right). I have no idea what I'm looking at, but I promise it's not a passing Princess Leia's cleavage. At least not at this particular moment.

One more thing: God I'm a huge human being. I know the evidence from my meeting with Joe may have suggested otherwise, but it was obviously false.

NOTE TO SELF: Don't write posts the night before anymore. You were probably drunk.

Okay, now it's morning, so hopefully I'll leave all that surliness and poor humor behind. Here's a better picture of a similar situation:

I don't know what has Madison grinning so broadly, but at least it's obvious she's having a blast.

Here's one I took:

Boy, my camera sucks. Oh well. You probably can't tell, but Kylie is wearing her cat eye/demon eye colored contacts. That was her way of dressing up. You can see what I'm talking about in this post.

That's it for photos for today. I'll share some of the awesome costumes with you guys tomorrow and maybe Thursday.

I talked a little bit more about Cole, what a great friend she is, and how nice it was to meet her in my Project Mayhem post yesterday, and I linked you to all her important stuff, but there was one more thing I forgot to mention that I wanted you guys to read, if you have time.

I used to do these successful query letter guest posts on my blog when I was first getting started, and Cole was one of my very first guests. You can read that post, here: KATANA.

Blog Chain: Writing Time

It's blog chain time again already!

This round started just the other day, with Christine.

Since we are all writers, I thought it was about time for us to stretch our creative muscles and do a little writing. So, take the following topic and go crazy! Show us what you've got. Your story can be as long or as short as you choose.

The topic: A dark and stormy night.

Here's my entry:

The night's darkness enveloped him like a shroud, the air full of pressure that stabbed him gently in the ears. Clutching, it choked his ragged breath away with groping claws of unchecked desperation. He could smell the charge of electricity, feel it tingle the tiny hairs inside his nostrils.

He stumbled through sheets of hail that defied all laws of physics and petty concepts such as gravity. They seemed to be coming up from the earth, to tear at his embattled face. The trail before him stood clogged with leaves and branches torn from bush and tree and flung into his path with curious frequency.

The lightning was his only beacon.

Flash!

So sudden and so near it lit the cliffside up like a thousands suns, and for a moment all was illuminated. A sandy footpath. Tufts of yellow grass. Reaching brambles. Swaying tree limbs overhead.

Just a camera click of his surroundings before he was plunged back into the depths utter blindness.

Boom!

The storm was right above him. The thunder followed the flash of light like a boxer's combination and the bass of it's crash almost threw him to the ground and nearly moved his bowels.

But he had to keep moving.

It was coming.

The presence was upon him.

There you go.

Not great, but not bad, for off the top of the dome status. Probably could use some edits.

Now, don't forget to visit yesterday's post: Sandra, and tomorrow will be Kate. Thanks, have a great night!

DragonCon (and Conferences in General) at Project Mayhem

I had a great time at DragonCon on Saturday.

I brought my daughters and their friend.

I met Cole Gibsen and her husband.

I want to tell you about it.

I have some great photos.

This is not a cop-out.

I will be posting about the whole thing, possibly taking up several posts. But I can't do it today, because I'm covering for Mike at Project Mayhem. Please go read my post, here.

Stephen Tremp's Current Query Critiqued

All right. Let's get to work.

If you've never been here before, my notes and feedback for Stephen's query will be in red.

Before I get to his letter, I'll point out a couple "rules." I'm not going to pretend to be an absolute authority on anything, but this is what I've learned in my own road to publication.

The working title of an unpublished novel is written in ALL CAPS in a query letter. Like: OPENING. The finished title of a published work, even self-published, is written in italics. Like: Breakthrough.

Now, I also want to warn Stephen that a literary agent is highly unlikely to consider representing the second book in a series when the first book was already self-published, unless the first novel has sold literally thousands of copies. On the other hand, I want to commend Stephen for his courage, and for not letting that dissuade him. I obviously have no idea how well Breakthough has sold, but even if it sold only 10 copies, I think it's great that he continues to follow his ambition.

I just want to make sure he's aware that seeking representation for this book may be slightly more difficult than for another book.

Okay, let's get to the query:

Chase Manhattan I'm not going to comment on the name. With the first book in the series already published, you wouldn't be able to change it even if you wanted to. has just been rescued from certain death in Boston. Otherwise I think this opening is decent, if unconventional. It sets the stakes and tension up pretty high right away, which is great for a thriller. One thing I would change is the phrase "certain death." Not only is it a cliche, but it's also vague. Be specific. What kind of death did he escape from? His talented team of California-based comrades, this is also vague. How are they talented? Hackers? Assassins? Acrobats? contriving and executing a bold and daring plot, another vague phrase. "Bold and daring plot" sounds cool, but it could mean anything. You need to be specific in a query letter. Tell us the plot, but keep it brief. managed to thwart his execution by a group of psychopathic M.I.T. grad students. Love this. It's sort of weird, but hilarious, and awesome. These gifted zealots are on a mission to stop a new global order of aristocracy by the super-rich egregious elite and instead establish a scientific oligarchy. This is where you start to lose me. These gifted zealots sound pretty cool to me, and I can't fathom why Chase would want to thwart their plans. Wresting control from the super elite would be a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. They will murder anyone who stands in their way, now I see how they're kind of bad buys. using to their exclusive advantage a stolen technological innovation of future altering eminence—wormholes. I think you need to be careful about the language you use, and the diction with which you place certain words in certain places. "Exclusive advantage" and "future altering eminence" are both phrases that sound pretentious to me. Unless the novel is purposely campy, you don't want you query to sound like this. Be direct, get to the point, and be specific. Also, I always advise people who ask for my help not to use em-dashes in query letters. Don't get me wrong, I love em-dashes in prose, but making them work in a query letter is very difficult, because you never know what an agent's email application is going to do to advanced formatting like an em-dash. I would suggest you keep you query letter as close to plain text as possible. A bit of italics is okay, but don't overdo it. Chase and his band have blocked and counter(-)punched, huh? I get that's supposed to be a metaphor, but it sounds weird and is again just a vague phrase that sounds cool. Tell us HOW they did it. stymieing the M.I.T. maniacs temporarily; but their problems have just begun. More challenges and a diverse array of new villains await them in the second installment of Stephen Tremp’s action suspense Breakthrough Trilogy—where science meets the supernatural. Don't do this. A query letter should almost never be written in first person as far as being from a character's POV (rules can be broken, though), but when it comes to YOU, being the author, you do need to use first person. Don't refer to yourself in third person. It makes it look like someone else wrote this for you. Even if they did, you don't want an agent to know that. I would just cut everything after "just begun." You're basically just telling us things that you're about to show us anyway.

As if tampering with wormholes in unchartered spatial realms—a key plot dilemma in Breakthrough—cut these em-dashes and everything between them. wasn’t enough trouble, in Opening, see my point about working titles, above. the naïve use of wormholes unlocks Pandora’s Box, unleashing demonic forces of Biblical, Armageddon magnitude. This is where your story actually begins. You may want to consider re-writing this, and start here. Everything before this supernatural spin is essentially backstory. I realize you have to set things up, and there's a whole novel that comes before this, but you need to focus on THIS story, and begin at the beginning. Chase, and a cast of diabolical villains competing for control of this reality-shaking discovery, are compelled to consider concepts of parallel dimensions—impugning their perception of the universe and humanity’s place in it.

The action and adventure for Chase enters the global stage where the geopolitical scene is almost overnight thrust into what appears to the unsuspecting population to be an inevitable World War III—but it’s much worse than even that. This is where it starts to get good. You're being specific, and giving us a great description of the actual conflict that takes place in this story. The aggressing personally I did not know that aggressing was a word, but I looked it up, and it is. China’s leadership has been usurped by a military leader who is now possessed by an archfiend from hell and its army is backed up by a demonic host of death angels on a mission to kill the entire human race. This is cool. Your novel sounds like a fun mix of sci-fi and paranormal/biblical fantasy. Love, sacrifice, greed, betrayal, and spiritual contemplation define this thriller of science run amok. Chase Manhattan must discover a depth of courage and rely on the strength of his soul mate, Susan Anderson, and the rest of their group if he is to destroy a technology mankind is clearly not ready for. This is a pretty good summary. The mention of Susan comes a little bit out of left field, but otherwise you sum this story up quite well.

I have a BSB in Information Systems and an MBA in Global Management, and have worked for some of the world’s largest banking institutions such as General Electric, Deutsche Bank, and E*Trade Bank. This background allows me to weave a particular complexity into this unique thriller. People often put a lot of irrelevant info in their bio, but yours actually sounds like it fits your story perfectly. BREAKTHROUGH no caps will appeal to fans of Dean Koontz, Dan Brown, Stephen King, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I don't think you need to compare your book to 5 bestselling authors (even though Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are actually the same person). Also, does your story really have that much of a horror element to it? Because I don't get that from your query. Another also: why are you comparing Breakthrough to these other authors' work, when it's actually OPENING that this query letter is seeking representation for?

Okay. So over all I think this query has promise. It's clear that your story has a cool premise, and it sounds like an exciting blend of science and fantasy. The voice in the query is also pretty good, and I think it fits well with the tone of your story.

You do need to fix some things, though. You can cut or at least trim most of your first paragraph. You need to be much more specific about what happens, and how things are accomplished. Also be careful about superfluous language, and I think with a little work, you could have a great query letter here.

What do you guys think? Have I made any points you disagree with? Please add your feedback to the comments, and let's see if we can help Stephen make his query letter better. Rhyme intended, just for fun!

Stephen Tremp's Current Query

Okay. Today I'm helping Stephen Tremp with the query letter he's written for OPENING, the second installment of his Breakthrough trilogy. I hosted Stephen on his original blog tour, the post for which you can find here.

Today is just the query, and my critique will follow tomorrow. Please save your feedback until then as well.

Here's his query:

Chase Manhattan has just been rescued from certain death in Boston. His talented team of California-based comrades, contriving and executing a bold and daring plot, managed to thwart his execution by a group of psychopathic M.I.T. grad students. These gifted zealots are on a mission to stop a new global order of aristocracy by the super-rich egregious elite and instead establish a scientific oligarchy. They will murder anyone who stands in their way, using to their exclusive advantage a stolen technological innovation of future altering eminence—wormholes. Chase and his band have blocked and counterpunched, stymieing the M.I.T. maniacs temporarily; but their problems have just begun. More challenges and a diverse array of new villains await them in the second installment of Stephen Tremp’s action suspense Breakthrough Trilogy—where science meets the supernatural.

As if tampering with wormholes in unchartered spatial realms—a key plot dilemma in Breakthrough—wasn’t enough trouble, in Opening, the naïve use of wormholes unlocks Pandora’s Box, unleashing demonic forces of Biblical, Armageddon magnitude. Chase, and a cast of diabolical villains competing for control of this reality-shaking discovery, are compelled to consider concepts of parallel dimensions—impugning their perception of the universe and humanity’s place in it.

The action and adventure for Chase enters the global stage where the geopolitical scene is almost overnight thrust into what appears to the unsuspecting population to be an inevitable World War III—but it’s much worse than even that. The aggressing China’s leadership has been usurped by a military leader who is now possessed by an archfiend from hell and its army is backed up by a demonic host of death angels on a mission to kill the entire human race. Love, sacrifice, greed, betrayal, and spiritual contemplation define this thriller of science run amok. Chase Manhattan must discover a depth of courage and rely on the strength of his soul mate, Susan Anderson, and the rest of their group if he is to destroy a technology mankind is clearly not ready for.

I have a BSB in Information Systems and an MBA in Global Management, and have worked for some of the world’s largest banking institutions such as General Electric, Deutsche Bank, and E*Trade Bank. This background allows me to weave a particular complexity into this unique thriller. BREAKTHROUGH will appeal to fans of Dean Koontz, Dan Brown, Stephen King, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

So that's it for today.

Except for this: if you missed Diane's blog post yesterday, you should go have a look. Alex, Talli, and I were talking blogging and comments with Diane, and it turned into a great discussion!