Full Proposal Completed!

Inspired by Iceland

I finished my full proposal yesterday, and I feel incredibly accomplished! This means that all I need to do now is take a second look at the query synopsis before I send it out. I'm uncertain if I should send the Hollywood-action-blurp one, or the sedate-'stating what happens'-professional one. It seems that Query Shark would prefer the sedate one, but Heather Brewer has this nice action one that gave her nine out of eleven responses. But Heather's book is rated for kids of ages 9-12 on Amazon, and my book is for 14-22, or thereabouts. I wish I knew how Stephenie Meyer, Christopher Paolini and Cassandra Clare queried. Honestly, there should be a site with examples of the successful YA writers' query letters.

--> Have your query letter read for mistakes before sending it.

I have a problem. My fingers are itching to rewrite the whole first chapter and delete a chunk of the second chapter. I'm not sure if it's just an excuse not to send out the query yet (because the act of sending a query is terrifying to me), or if I'm truly unhappy with the first chapter. I suppose that if I look deep, I am happy with the first chapter, but it has a lot of backstory and doesn't "dive in" like many people suggest that first chapters should do. Still, I think it's beautifully written and it explains so much that needs explaining before the "point at which the action starts" (as Query Shark calls it). That point doesn't happen until the end of the second chapter/beginning of the third. And my chapters are loooong, I realized after I wrote the book. They're 7,000-8,000 words.

Kristin at Pub Rants says that the point of action should be within the first 30 pages. Mine is at page 33. I hope it doesn't make too much of a difference, but I'm now thinking that I could change the first chapter and delete a big part of the second to make that happen.

...Or maybe I'm just having a hard time letting go...

--> Learn to let go!

I asked Randy of how to do it and hope that he'll reply.

Task for the day: Look at nice queries and see if I can apply my novel to the recipe. Look at my already existing queries and see if I can make changes. Have my queries read to check spelling/punctuation.

Have a nice day!