The week of writing queries

I’ve come across a conundrum. This past week I’ve set goals about writing—and sending out—queries. After one of the speediest rejections I’ve ever gotten, along with a copy of a writer friend’s query to the same agency, I had an Aha! moment. I could look at what she had offered to the agent in one page. I could easily see what I’d left out.

Here’s what she had in her query:

• She knew the different authors her book echoed.
• When she talked about her main character she had very tangible ways of showing off her unique personality. I’m talking specific and clear attributes.
• She listed the work she’d done to learn the skill sets in her novel and that the series would be vetted by experts.

The one thing she has, that I couldn’t bring to the table, she listed books she had published. I could claim that her series is contemporary suspense, and so she can bring in things like FBI or Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. I wanted to believe that this is harder to do when you’re dealing with ghosts and fortunetelling, or discussing the amorphous impact a war between memetics and genetics have on a life.

I looked at her query for the fifth time, envying her engaging style. Through some fun e-mail exchanges, I can see she’s probably far more approachable than I am in real life, and that she probably has a far better sense of humor than I do. And that’s when I fell apart. I couldn’t be fun and hip like this writer. It’s taken me years to emerge from the kitchen when I have dinner parties. This was a problem.

It’s not as if I don’t like my characters. I do. Cemirowl is a soft spoke fortuneteller who isn’t as good as villagers believe. Kuen is a sword yielding future goddess who decides to become a farmer. Phayaden is a crazy shaman who ends up guiding a hero and a demigod. Aylycha pushes through pain to do her job. Ali Jayne is the anti amateur detective, full up on enthusiasm, but fuzzy on the details. Hero doesn’t believe in demons, but he has to go kill a monster.

The above paragraph is the first I’ve been able to write about them with such few words. It’s like a short introduction. But it’s not exactly natural to me. When I have parties, I contemplate who will have a good time with each other, or throw it to the winds at pot luck. I put people together and see what happens. I might say, or have it said to me, “You’ll like this person.” I rarely say why. It’s up to my friends, or me, to find out.

In a query, I have to write a letter of introduction. I can’t wait for these people to engage with Cemirowl or Kuen or Hero by reading my books. They won’t till they have a reason. It feels as if I have to uncover their deepest secrets. A conundrum. I’ve betrayed their secrets at length in a novel. Why can’t do I do it on one page or one sentence? I have to say, “This is this person, and these are reasons to like her. She’s faced these adversities, so I know that it’s true.”

But since the agents or editors will probably not be joining me for dinner any time soon, I’d better get cracking at writing those letters of introduction. I’ve had tea, and dinner, and arguments with my characters. Perhaps it’s time to pretend I’m inviting agents and editors to dine at my table. I suspect this will take more than a week.