AUTOCHROMATIC

Today's guest blogger is the amazing, spunky, punky, hilarious Emilia Plater, author of AUTOCHROMATIC and proprietor of the Punk Writer Kid blog. Make sure you visit and become a follower before reading on, you will not regret it.

Emilia is only 17 years old, and still in school. She should be an inspiration to us all but she is especially close to my own heart because my daughter, Kylie, would like to be a writer when she grows up. Kylie is 14 and has just entered high school but when she looks at someone like Emilia and sees that with enough hard work and dedication anything is possible, it really gives her good reason to believe in herself.

Emilia's query will follow in black text, along with her analysis and thoughts on why it worked in a sort of lovely aqua. I'll add some off-hand remarks and pointless jokes in goldenrod, just for fun.

Take it away Emilia!

Matthew, I'd like to first thank you again for recruiting me for the QQQe. It's such an honor! I can't claim to be an expert on queries - it took me a looong time to write this one - but hopefully I can help somebody out. Plus, it's cool to look back when the trauma is over!

You're most welcome Emilia! That's the idea.

Dear Suzie,

You may remember me as that crazy blonde girl in pigtails who sang Boom De Ya Da (I Love Publishing) back in April. You requested then that I send you a query for my YA novel, AUTOCHROMATIC, when the time came. Having heard nothing but awesome things about your work as agent from my fellow YA Highwayer Kristin Miller, I was happy to oblige. Now, the time has come - and it is ready to sing. (...Or something.)

And you have now all been introduced to the silliness that is Emilia. It wasn't necessary, but I couldn't resist the urge to start off with a little silly personality - especially because I had some connections to work with beyond "I thought you'd be interested in this." Agents are human, and if a particular agent strikes you as good-humored, why not be yourself? Of course, professionalism comes first, but it's always nice to give agents an idea of who they'd be working with. (In my case, it's more of a warning.)

Have you seen this video? Is freaking hilarious.

Ask seventeen-year-old Riley Tanner how she's dealing with the death of her boyfriend, Adrian, and she'll respond with an eye-roll and a "fantastically." Truth is, the car crash wrecked her world, and Riley has pretty much accepted her fate as a screwed-up therapy case. But when she starts getting texts from Adrian's phone number, each containing a different address, her plan to spend the summer not thinking about him falls apart.

In the same realm as the above paragraph, my main concern with the summary was communicating Riley's voice. Riley is such a powerful force in the novel, but in earlier drafts, she just came across as depressed. (Which she is, but in a fun way.) Looking back, I could have tried to highlight the hook more - texts from dead boyfriend omg! - but this worked well enough, and since Riley is so important, I wanted to introduce her inner conflict from the very start. In my grandest dreams, Riley's voice is as much of a hook as the boyfriend texts.

Cool premise, strong voice and very current, contemporary scenario. I would say this is all big win.

Desperate to track down the sender - mostly so she can punch that creep in the face - Riley sets off on a follow-the-texts road trip with her best friend. From New York City to the Wild West, she meets people from Adrian's past who she didn't know existed. Their stories of betrayal, alcoholism, and messed-up family dramas paint a not-so-pretty picture of the guy she thought she loved. Great.

A few people suggested I delete the "punch" bit. In the end, it felt so right, I decided to be stubborn and keep it - and that ended up being the bit Suzie liked most! This paragraph was all about keeping things clear: motivation for the trip, check, what the trip exactly is, check, where the trip goes, check - and then, the big conflict. Again, I wanted to get the emotions across without using too much Lifetime Language (i.e., "a betrayal of her heart").

This reminds me a lot of a bit in my own query. I have to agree with Suzie, that line rocks!

Fun fact: I spent nearly an hour obsessing over whether to delete that Great. In the end, I went with what felt truer to the story - and I found italicizing the word gave it a lot more snap. Ah, only a writer.

I love it. I don't know for sure about the italics because I catch a lot of crap for using that kind of formatting in my own query but it obviously worked, which is the most important thing anyway, right?

With her beliefs caught in a crapstorm, Riley recognizes the real source of her frustration: Adrian's mistakes. But there's nothing in the Angsty Teen manual about conflict resolution with dead people, and things only get worse when her best friend heads home after a fight. Stranded on the wrong side of the country, Riley has to choose: give up healing for good, or ask for help from the one person who refuses to show their face…

Mistakes? Misdeeds? Lies? I went through a million synonyms for the first sentence, but nothing quite fit. Eventually, I chose the one that flowed best, even if it wasn't 100% perfect. The Angsty Teen thing is probably my favorite bit - so Riley. Here we have the ever-building problems, and finally the concluding conflict, AKA what you leave the agent freaking out over. Important stuff! I wanted to finish off with the mystery of the sender, since that's probably what a skimming agent would be most interested in.

I can see your point about the mistakes bit. Obviously it gets worked out and makes sense in the book but it is the kind of thing we can agonize over in a query. I also love the idea of an Angsty Teen manual. That is a great bit of snark, voice, hilarity and characterization all wrapped up in a nice, tight little package.

AUTOCHROMATIC is a contemporary YA novel complete at 47,000 words. I've included sample pages below; the whole manuscript is available upon request. Thank you so much for considering my work!

I didn't really have much to say for a bio (I put the link to my group blog in my contact info), so I skipped that part. Most of my queries included sample pages - I stuck 'em in unless the agent asked otherwise - but whatever it was, I ended up having a pretty good request rate. I received three offers total and went with Suzie thanks to her great revision ideas and overall awesomeness. Yay!

Awesome. Good for you Emilia!

Sincerely,
Emilia Plater-Zyberk
struckheartera@gmail.com
www.emilia-plater.com
www.yahighway.com
[Phone number]
[Address]

Emilia also just so happens to be currently holding a contest. It's for the Punkiversary. Some of the prizes are query critiques so I thought it was highly appropriate to mention today. You can find out more by visiting the post here.

Otherwise what do you guys think? Can you imagine being an agented author at 17? Can you think of a more amazing dream come true? Any questions for Emilia? Comments? Feel free to share your thoughts below, and thanks for visiting!