Conquering the Savage Query

The query animal is not a wild beast, though most writers will assure you it seems to be when first faced with writing one. If you are one of those wrestling with these wily creatures, here’s a checklist and a few tips to help. Checklist:

1. Who is the main character? This seems obvious, but it will focus you on not worrying about all the secondary characters. Almost all of them don’t need to be in the query, especially not by name. Sure , they are going to help or hinder the main character along the way, but there’s not enough room for them to pop up in the query.

2. What is the main character’s ordinary world? Contemporary? Historical? Fantasy world? Kansas? Middle Earth?

3. Important-What is unusual or unique about the main character? Their background? Their interests? You don’t want a query that says ‘Joe was just an ordinary teenager’. Snoozefest may follow. Find something about Joe that is slightly interesting, and something that will be important in the plot, even if it’s just a hobby. You’re in luck if your story is fantasy or historical, because that often adds a bit of interest right away.

4. What happens to the main character to take them out of their ordinary world?

This relates to number 5

5. Who or what is the antagonist? What is the main problem the main character have to solve? Make sure you can show that the main character is an active participant in the story. In modern fiction, it’s hard to get a reader interested in a passive MC.

6. *VERY IMPORTANT* What bad things will happen if the main character don’t solve the problem or triumph over the antagonist-THE STAKES.

Once you have this list, it becomes much easier to write the query without letting distracting subplots sneak in. Don’t let them in, no matter how much they plead their case!

In my opinion, I wouldn’t spend too many sentences, especially in the beginning of the query, talking about the theme. Too often, writers spend a whole paragraph describing what the main character learns about themselves or others, while neglecting to add in the most important part-The Plot! It’s okay to add in a few sentences about the theme after you’ve hooked an agent or an editor on the story itself.

Here’s an exercise I did trying to come up with a query for The Wizard of Oz:

Twelve year old Dorothy Gale longs to travel over the rainbow to escape her drab life on a depression era Kansas farm, but when a tornado magically transports her to the land of Oz, she realizes life on the other side of the rainbow may be far more dangerous than she expected. As soon as she arrives, Dorothy makes a powerful enemy, the Wicked Witch of the West, when she accidentally kills the witch’s sister and gains control of a pair of magic shoes. Learning her only way home is to seek out the mysterious wizard in charge of the land, Dorothy must travel down a perilous yellow brick road to find the legendary emerald city before the witch can capture her, and keep her from ever returning to those she loves.

Hope this helps.

A Book Cover!!

I have a book cover to share, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. This is very close to my original image I have had in my mind ever since I began to think about a cover.

I’m afraid I don’t have any insights into how the cover design people begin to approach this, but the cover artist did try to match some aspects of the characters’ appearance even though their images are mostly in silhouette. I know it’s hard to tell from this small picture, but the main character, Luke, is in the middle, and he’s a relatively average kid, even if he is the President’s son. His friend Callie is on the left, and I can’t tell if the artist tried to get in the red cowboy boots the girl wears all the time or not. It’s hard to see her legs. The other kid is Luke’s friend Theo, and he’s on the right, tall and kind of awkward with hair that’s usually out of control. I was looking for all these aspects in the cover because I’ve lived with these characters so long, it’s almost like they’ve taken up residence in my brain.

I did actually edit one word in the manuscript so it would fit the cover, just because I like consistency. In the book, it’s August and I have Luke wearing shorts, but since he’s wearing jeans on the cover, I decided to change it in the story. Small details I obsess over….

Camp David has morphed: New Title

I’m thrilled to let it be known that it looks like I will be busy writing a second book over the next several months. Because the new book will be an adventure as well, the title of Escape from Camp David has been changed to DANGER’S EDGE: Wildfire at Camp David, so that DANGER’S EDGE can be used in the new book title as well. I’ll update as I write the second, because it will be a fun book to work on and research.

Reasoning with a cat

Okay, the title is a joke. I’ve tried, but it doesn’t work, and the latest result of faulty cat reasoning had me running around the neighborhood early Sunday morning, shoeless, in my pajamas (black, not revealing and kind of ninja-like) chasing a cat who was intent on vanquishing an enemy. We have a one-sided war going on at our house, between our two mostly indoor cats and the neighbor cat. It’s one-sided because the neighbor cat doesn’t realize he’s the enemy. He strolls over about every day to look in various windows and doors. I don’t know why he does this, but that’s another issue. Anyway, our cats go berserk every time, either not realizing the cat can’t come through solid glass or just hating the sight of him. He’s an unusual cat, with one green eye and one blue eye, but I don’t think that’s the reason they loathe him. They get so agitated they end up fighting with each other, while the cat outside sits and watches as if viewing a bad kung fu movie.

This might be just be a minor problem, except one of our cats, Tinta, has anxiety issues. I didn’t know cats could have anxiety issues until she arrived at our house, but she’s got them. She’s a great cat who keeps me company while I’m writing, following me around during the day, and acting like she’s missed me terribly whenever I’m gone, but she also gets so anxious she’s rather obsessive about grooming herself and ends up with bald patches, among other things. The neighbor cat is a major anxiety for her.

On Sunday, I opened the door just briefly and out dashes Tinta. I didn’t even see the neighbor cat, but she did. She took off after him, not thinking rationally about what she would do if she caught him, chasing him through back yards with me in pursuit, because I knew she wouldn’t find her way home. The neighbor cat finally took a stand and turned on her, so she ended up under a trampoline, determined to defend her position. I wasn’t about to crawl under the trampoline, so I made various weird noises to get her to look at me. When she saw me, she got confused (the ninja pajamas perhaps?) and ran again, this time to another neighbor’s house where she tried to get in their door, I guess thinking it was our house. A house is a house on the outside to an indoor cat. I did manage to grab her then, and carried her home. The end result-My children are mortified I was running around outside in my pajamas, and Tinta has a few more bald spots. Is a visit to the cat psychiatrist next?

Shiny Book Jacket Copy

I’ve learned many things in the past few months about publishing. One of the things I didn’t know was that writers usually don’t write the back cover copy or the inside jacket flap copy for their books. I’ve discovered a good reason for this-having another person write it leads to some great ideas. I’m so pleased with how this turned out:

Jacket Flap Copy:
The presidential retreat, Camp David, is one of the safest places in the United States. So why can’t the President’s son, Luke, and his friend Theo stay there without Secret Service agents constantly hovering over them, watching their every move? But what should be a fun summer for Luke, Theo, and Luke’s once-friend Callie suddenly turns deadly when an earthquake sets off a raging wildfire, causing a chain reaction that wrecks havoc on Camp David’s security—and everyone’s safety.
Now, Luke needs a plan
To override the security systems
To save those who were supposed to save him
To get through an impassable gate
To escape Camp David

Back cover copy (this is going to look like an official memo):

TOP SECRET/CONFIDENTIAL
Subject Luke Brockett
Status: Son of President Brockett
Agents Assigned: Adam Martens and Isabelle Keller
Location: Camp David presidential retreat, Maryland
Coordinates: 39°38’54N 77°27’55”W
Mission Statement: To protect the President’s son as he vacations with his friends Theo Ellias and Callie Lansa from physical harm, terrorist threat, and their own curiosity. Subject is highly intelligent, but prone to endangering himself…

BIG Books – High concept?

Literary agent Kristin Nelson has sparked a debate among writers this week over her blog lament on the desire of publishers for ‘big’ books. With the economy still on an uphill climb, it’s understandable publishers are being more cautious, but what does that mean for us as writers? What is a ‘big’ book? Is this the same thing as high concept? I like definitions, but it’s hard to find ones that agree on these terms. As far as I can tell, ‘high concept’ started in the film industry to mean a concept that was easily understood and could be sold to a wide audience. Think ‘Jaws’: man-eating shark terrorizing town. ‘Titanic’: doomed love on a ship the audience already knew was going to sink.

These were both big movies, and both of those concepts are easily understood, but it is not so easy to predict which ones have wide appeal. Titanic yes, but Jaws? It did tap into some fundamental human fears of nature outside of human control . Maybe that’s why Jurassic Park succeeded. Dinosaurs are scary to begin with, but man-eating dinosaurs are really scary.

High concept can also mean high stakes. All those movies dealt with life or death, and not just to one or two characters. To bring it into the realm of literature, look at Harry Potter. I don’t know if that would have originally been pitched as high concept, but in essence it was. The stakes are not only for Harry’s life, but also for the future of the wizarding world.

So what do you think? How would you define a ‘big’ book? Is it the same as high concept?

White House Photos

Sadly, I missed the tour of the Library of Congress on my recent trip to D.C., but did get to do the White House Garden tour. I’ve done so much research on the White House, presidents, and presidential children in the last year that this was a dream come true. In fact, even though I’m not normally an outgoing person, I asked three different strangers to take my photo in different spots on the tour so I could have a record I had been there. None of them are posted here, because I look delirious in them, and the non-Dee photos are much better.

If you are a fan of the West Wing, here’s my favorite, the Oval Office:

The playset for the Obama children is right outside the Oval Office:

Playset

The Rose Garden is much smaller than I pictured:

Rose Garden

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There is a tennis court:

Tennis Court

And a children’s garden, which wasn’t really much of a children’s garden. When I saw the small pond, it became clear to me that it probably wasn’t designed by someone with children.

Entrance to the Children's Garden

Children's Garden

Now, I just need to go back and tour the inside of the White House.

Show, Don’t Tell

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~Anton Chekhov

Chekhov’s elegant phrasing is a good way to begin to understand the writer’s adage of ‘Show, Don’t Tell’. Several writer friends agreed to spend some time pondering this with me, and to all post on this topic on the same day. At the end of my post are links to their musings. We’re all writing and reading in different genres, so I’m excited to read the examples they’ve used.

First of all, what does ‘showing’ mean? I see it as a way to describe what’s happening through the emotions and senses of the characters, their dialogue and the action.

So, what’s the problem with telling?

Nothing. Telling can’t be banished in writing, nor should it; it should just be used in the right places for the right purposes. Too much telling doesn’t work well in beginnings, when the reader needs to be drawn in to the story. A laundry list of descriptions and events doesn’t evoke a connection between the characters and the reader, even if it’s a beautifully written laundry list.

Too often, writers try to introduce their characters by their physical description, even down to what the characters wear. Unless the story revolves around the fashion industry, I need to know, as a reader, more about the character’s personality before I can begin to care that they have auburn hair, blue eyes, and wear designer clothes.

Overdoing the physical description is an especially easy trap to fall into when writing fantasy characters. Yes, it’s important the readers know they’re not learning about the old lady next door, but there are so many other ways to show a fantasy world full of fascinating characters. Eoin Colfer in Artemis Fowl, The Lost Colony, introduces a character this way:

“Holly Short’s career as an elfin private investigator was not working out as well as she’d hoped. This was mainly because the Lower Elements’ most popular events show had run not one, but two specials on her over the past months. It was difficult to go undercover when her face was forever popping up on cable reruns.”

In a mere fifty-six words we learn Holly is an elf, a private investigator, and is having trouble with her job. We also learn of some sort of world called the Lower Elements, and we can figure out that the setting is in a modern time period, because of the mention of cable shows. Even though we don’t yet know what Holly looks like and we don’t know anything about this other world so far, I, at least, don’t want to stop reading.

Even for characters who not the good guys, readers need to feel some sort of interest in them, because it’s hard to worry about what a cardboard cutout might do. Bartimaeus, a 5,000-year-old djinn, in Jonathon Stroud’s The Amulet of Samarkand, is not your typical character a reader could love, but he’s important to the story. Here’s how we learn a bit about him when he is debating what kind of creature he needs to become to carry out a robbery:

“I hate the taste of mud. It is no fit thing for a being of air and fire. The cloying weight of earth oppresses me greatly whenever I come into contact with it. That is shy I am choosy about my incarnations. Birds, good. Insects, good. Bats, okay. Things that run fast are fine. Tree dwellers are even better. Subterranean things, not good. Moles, bad.”

Dialogue and action are crucial as well. I feel a bit strange posting some of my own work, because I’m still having a hard time believing real people will actually read it, but I decided I needed to take the plunge for the this post.

Here’s an example of how I could have just told a brief action scene from Escape from Camp David:

“Luke knew the helicopter was going to crash, and he was scared. He yelled to Callie and Theo to run, grabbing Callie and dragging her away. When the helicopter crashed, it made a booming sound. The heat from the fire was hot.”

Here’s how I actually wrote it:

“Get out of the way!” Luke screamed. He flung himself at Callie and Theo, both standing transfixed at the sight of the helicopters tangled together. “Run! Run! They’re going to crash.” He grabbed Callie’s arm and dragged her away, not wanting to look back. A boom sounded behind him, nearly knocking him down, and he felt a surge of heat washing over him.”

There are so many other examples I could find , but this post would grow way too long, so I’ll stop with the thought that if a writer draws you into a story and keeps you there, they’ve mastered the art of showing the glint of light on broken glass.

I’d love to see more examples of ‘show, don’t tell’, so please comment if you have any to share. If you want to explore this question more, check out these writers (Their posts should all be up by noon on Tuesday):

Tracey Martin
Gretchen McNeil
K.A. Stewart
Wendy Cebula
Amy Bai
Bryn Greenwood

Guest Blogging – Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Batman

Holy Blogging!

It was a blast to participate in writer Chelsea Campbell’s guest event on her blog debating who is better-Pirates, Ninjas, or Batman. Until I started answering her questions, I had forgotten how much I loved the Batman television show. In fact, though I don’t admit it on the Q & A, Robin was my first crush. Batman was just…old, but Robin qualified as a cute boy to my five-year-old eyes.

Here’s the link where you can read the questions and answers, plus more about Chelsea’s book, The Rise of Renegade X, which comes out next March. There is a great book trailer about it and prizes too!

The Peryton Wins!

My kids chose the peryton as the winner of the contest, though there was much debate about it versus the dragon and the abatwa. Congratulations, Arissa!