Fact 1 - writers are not timid
You want to be a writer? Grow a pair. Get cocky. Someone reads your stuff and they don't get it, do not go home and throw yourself on your bed and cry into your pillow.
Fact 2 - confidence comes with a price
You want to be a writer but are having a hard time growing a pair and want to know how to address the problem. Writing helps. Writing every day really helps. Reading and writing every day will encourage enthusiastic creative testicular growth.
Fact 3 - find your muse
I once met an author who lives in Manhattan. She told me that her primary motivation for writing is the mass of people she meets at cocktail parties that are always asking if she is still writing. Not wanting to say she hasn't come up with anything lately, she writes all the time so she can keep the drinking crowd at bay. I'm not going to tell you what my motivation is. When I'm famous, I may write a book about it.
Fact 4 - act professionally
Dreams tend to bring out the child in all of us, namely, when our dreams don't come true, we pout like children. A good portion of trying to get published comes with the word no. We put our best foot forward, no. We enter a new flash fiction contest every week, no. We send letter after letter to an agent list longer than Santa's 'nice' spreadsheet, no. Get used to it. At some level agents are friends to us all, keeping a ton of shitty books off the shelves of your local bookstore, which will soon to be closed and converted to a mattress store.
Fact 5 - know how to present your work
And to fulfil this, you must know all there is to know about alchemy, because you have to scrape your shit together, and turn it into gold. In all the writing I've done over the last 2,920 days, the most important skill I've had to master, or attempt to master, is the ability to tell someone, in writing, what makes my book so special.
Remember this formula, all you budding authors, Hook, Synopsis, Bio, Closing. It is these four segments that make the best query, if you do them right. The hook grabs with a simple premise, usually something from the beginning of your book. The Synopsis is not a chapter by chapter outline, but a simple paragraph that includes enough detail to make a mini storyline of it's own. The Bio has pertinent information about your writing skills. Only include things that make you a better writer! And the Closing is a quick, thanks for your time, tell me what else you need, end. You should also include some contact information, just in case.
I'm pretty proud of the query I just came up with, so I'm going to put it in this post. Remember, I have a 101,000 word science fiction novel to sell, and in less than 450 words, I'm going to try to get someone excited about it.
Let's see how I did.
When scientists are
baffled, and corporate investors angered, by the unexplained
misbehavior of dozens of drone spacecraft sent to collect minerals
from the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, the lucrative mission is
taken over by three manned spacecraft, one of which is destined to
become the last sample of human life in the universe.
Slade Hobart,
captain of the mining vessel Laersk, believes that she is the last
living human being, and as such, feels a responsibility to chronicle
the final days of mankind in a celebration and condemnation of her
own species. From the command chair of her marooned ship, she keeps
watch over the pile of bodies that were her crew, now resting frozen
and dried on the surface of Ganymede. Close by her side she keeps the
body of only one, Joseph, a teenage boy who stowed away on the
multi-year mission to pursue his prophesy of the end of man's days.
Captain Hobart struggles not only with the boy's interpretation of
events, but with her role in guarding the final human specimens.
After she realizes that travelers who attempt to return to Earth face
only death, then can she accept her fate and find meaning in
sacrificing her life to help human kind make the next step in their
development. Years later, explorers from a different world make an
expedition to the Laersk's crash site. Exposure to the body of Joseph
causes one of their crew to become ill. By the time the exploration
team reaches their next destination, that crew member has died and is
buried on the surface of a barren planet, the seed bed for human life
to begin a new phase of development.
“Banished Children
of Eve” is my 101,000 word science fiction novel with the flavor of
Arthur C. Clark's, “2001 : A Space Odyssey,” and Stanislaw Lem's,
“Solaris.” Often more about humanity's undue confidence in it's
own creations than space travel and other worlds, it's best
accomplishment is making the reader question what their role is in
the human story.
I am a creative
fiction staff writer for the independent “Bachelor Pad” magazine
and several of my works have received honors in Amazon and NYC
Midnight competitions. I recently self-published a paranormal fantasy
romance novel titled, “Atypical American Girls,” and last year
wrote my first screenplay as a part of an incubator project with Cary
Granat, producer of the “Scream” franchise and “Chronicles of
Narnia.”
It is my hope that
you will allow me to present either a portion or the entire novel to
you for review. I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Edward Varga
<contact information redacted>
