So yeah, the most important step after writing your story is writing that perfect query letter. Everything else literally depends on nothing else but that one important letter! In the past few years God knows how many letters I sent out for my past stories and failed. During that time I kept on discovering ways to improve my letters and hopefully now with my other story I'll do a better job. My point is that by now I know a lot about query letters and as promised I'm here to share my knowledge to help you!
So there are four parts of a query letter; Into, hook, story description, and bio. INTRO; the intro paragraph is the start of your letter which will consist of the general info about you and your story. It's the introduction, so start by introducing yourself of course! I usually go for the basic 'my name is...and I'm writing...' Too much irrelevant info about yourself is extremely discouraged, just tell your name and move onto the story because that's the real thing that matters. In the intro tell the name of your book, the word length and genre plus any other important basic info. Also MOST IMPORTANT, include something about the literary agent in the intro too, they mostly ask you to tell them how you heard of them and why you decided to query them. This is very important because it helps personalize your letter according to each literary agent and it's always good to start off on a friendly note and make them feel slightly flattered. HOOK; the hook is something that you can even entwine into your intro or you can begin your story description with it. The hook is basically that one line intro to your story that is supposed to get the agent's attention. I personally encourage to write that one quote or dialogue in the book that defines your story, think of it as that one (probably first) line in a movie trailer that is meant to make the viewers interested in it. STORY DESCRIPTION; then you get into a one paragraph description of your story. It's just a brief interesting introduction to the story of your book. It is said that the story description mostly starts of with 'when this this happened then...' And then you just write about briefly telling about the main plot and the main characters. It is supposed to be short and to the point. Think of it as if you don't have much time but you are gonna give your best to impress the literary agent in just a few words. BIO; finally comes your biography. Basically this is where you professionally introduce yourself and show off your strengths and achievements. But please only talk about what's relevant to writing and your story. No one is interested at the moment about where you come from, what you do or even who you are; telling things like even your age is discouraged as it is only a waste of time for the agent. So keep it brief and to the point and only talk about your previous writing related works, any writing related achievements, any previously published work, any writing related degrees and that is it! And of course in the end you thank them for their time and sign off with a polite salutation. Well that's all, hope I was of help, feel free to ask anything in the comments, I'll help you out. Follow me for updates on the book I'm hoping to get published and wish me luck! Meanwhile, check out my eBook; Bonds of Friendship and help it reach a 100 sales so that it can be available in bookstores soon!
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I remember back to when I prepared my query letters for the first time and got ready to email some literary agents, when suddenly something made me hit the breaks...oh wait, they are all asking for a synopsis along with the query. And henceforth, I had to go back, do some research and recall what a synopsis is. So here's what I found out;
In simple words it's just a (good) summary of your story. It's basically something brief but interesting. I have a better way to put it, if you are having a conversation with a friend and you mention writing a book and they ask oh what it about... The summarized, interesting, to the point, spoiler free summary you would tell them in like five minutes is probably the same thing as a synopsis. In fact, that's exactly what a synopsis is, something you'd tell your literary agent briefly and interestingly in a short time to gain their attention. So if you get the general idea, I'll move on to the main points about writing a synopsis,
Am I the only one struggling as I find myself asking this question; how do I categorize my story into the appropriate genres?
Well I did my research for it and so I'll share what I understood with you... First you need to understand that categorizing is important for the following reasons; 1. It helps you find the appropriate agent who is into the type of story you wrote 2. It helps the literary agent understand your story through your query 3. It helps you decide your target audience If you mess this part up then it can be bad. Consider this for example; if you labelled your story as horror without much thought but to your readers it wasn't really scary then it would obviously be rejected by literary agents who were actually looking for something spooky. Get what I mean? So basically there are a few steps of categorizing your story that I'll talk about below. If you decide the genre of your story by looking at the points below then your query letter would probably say, My novel XYZ is a 1(f/n.f), 2(m.g/y.a/adult) of a 3(SciFi/lit/F/H), 4(*) genre. Personally my own stories are usually genre bending or multi-genre and I feel that failing to classify my last novel was one of the reasons I failed to get it published. I've done a better job now so if you have the same problem this blog might be helpful.
In the end my own new story ended up something like; a New Adult (fantasy) fiction with Gothic elements and slight magical realism. So yeah, hope this helped. Wish me luck for my new book and check out my eBook for sale on Kindle and Nook! Also follow me for more updates and help on writing. Feel free to ask anything writing related in the comments. Other than writing their story to be published as a book, there's a lot more a writer can do to keep their skills polished. Which brings me to some of the habits and hobbies that I suggest are best for all aspiring writers;
1. Journal/Diary Writing; this is a very good habit even for non writers that everyone must try to do regularly. What makes your diary/journal better is if you pretend your life is an interesting story and try writing it how you would write a novel for publishing. It is one of the best habits to adopt and a great way to practice writing. 2. Blogging; like what I'm doing here, you too should start a blog, write about whatever you like frequently on your very own blog to stay polished. Blogging is also helpful for your bio in your query letter that you send to literary agents, if you mention that you have a good popular blog then the agents can check it out and judge your writing skills and capability from it. 3. Writing Online; whether its fanfics, short stories or some kind of article, writing online can really be helpful in improving you writing skills especially when all kinds of criticisms are waiting to be written in your comment section. Don't be afraid, criticisms can help you do better as you can learn from your mistakes and attempt to remove your flaws. 4. Scribbling; this is one good habit that I lack but I found it in my friend and it seemed to be a great thing. Always keep a paper and pen nearby and when bored scribble whatever comes to your head; a small poem, a cool quote or an idea that can be used for a story. This way you can always make sure to have a record of ideas to refer to when writing and use them whenever you like without forgetting them. That is all I can think of now, let me know if this is helpful and feel free to ask me anything you want about writing and becoming a writer. Also follow me for more useful posts like this, thanks When writing a story one may come across the question of the narration technique I.e first person or third person or multiple narrations and p.o.vs? Though the choice is up to you but it is important to know what is most suitable for your story so here I am to help.
Firstly let me the you that first person narratives have become extremely overrated and if you grew up like me hearing your English teachers say that she/he will only accept essays with first person then you probably believe that first person is the best choice no matter what. WRONG! So now that this confusion is clear that you don't have to write in first Peron no matter what, here's how you can tell what fits your story best. 1. How many main characters are there? If there are too many important characters in your story than you already know that first person might limit the content of the story especially if you wish to give equal importance to all your main characters. Plus I discourage the use of multiple POVs because unless used skillfully it makes ones writing seem immature and it can be annoying for the readers at times to. 2. How many storylines are there? Sometimes a story is more than one straight forward plot and if it is then first person isn't the best option. Only use first person when there is a single plot(and has a single main character) if there are multiple storylines with many characters and other things involved than the best technique is to use third person narration to discuss all plots, each in a different chapter. 3. Is your story about external conflicts or internal? First person narration is only recommended when internal conflicts play a more important role in your story. Using first person is the best way to express the main character's thoughts and feelings clearly (though the thoughts and feelings of other characters would become harder to express through first person) if the story has more action, dialogue and external conflicts than third person would be better especially if you wish to reveal little of every characters thoughts. 4. How do you plan to create suspense and mystery? This is very important, to choose between first person or third person. Try to think of different ways to tell your story, what do you think is the best way to create suspense and reveal your plot twist in an unpredictable way. Sometimes in first person narration, the readers become to clueless about things happening outside the main character's life and suspense is harder to create. For example if you want to reveal the villain's intentions and plans beforehand you won't be able to give a good clue unless you use third person 5. Do you want your narration to be biased? This is something people tend to forget about first person narration is that it happens to be biased at times. The reader will only see what the narrator wants to show and hence the reader will have a limited clarity on all things. This can be a useful technique to misguide the readers about the narrator or other characters because first person narration is untrustworthy BUT if you want to be honest and clear about the story to the reader than only use objective third person narration. 6. What about multiple narrations? Basically you have to be very skilled to know how to use multiple narrations or else you should avoid it. One technique is to change/switch POVs in every chapter which isn't a good technique, you'd rather want to use third person instead. Second technique is harder i.e telling different stories through other character's dialogues, letters or other sources ( I recommend you look into Wuthering Heights' narration to better understand what I'm talking about) 7. What kind of tone/formality&authenticity do you want for your story? In other words do you want your story to be more skillfully and maturely written or do you just want to write what you like without caring about formality. Basically first person narratives seem more immature because when using the stream of consciousness technique people feel the freedom to write anything in anyway they like with any tone but for more maturely written narration third person is better especially if you wish to show off your skillful writing techniques that you picked up in literature class. Third person is also more neutral in tone, formal and authentic while first person can be effected by the character's emotions. 8. How do you wish to communicate with the reader? This is where second person comes in which can be used alongside with your choice of first or third person narration (though it won't look best with third person) The only importance of second person narration is that it helps in connecting the reader with the writer. If the narrator talks to the reader directly there is a feel of friendliness as the distance between the reader and the writer has been reduced BUT otherwise there is no need to use second person and it isn't really recommend. OK that's all guys, hope this helped you. Plz follow me and feel free to comment and ask me anything you want to know about writing. I'm here to help. In all the years I've hoped to get my books published, God knows how many Query Letters I've sent out. There's so many people out there, so many that before a Literary Agent picks you - you need to understand better how to pick them. Though it may seem easier to just forward your email to every Literary Agent you come across, it would be a waste of time in the end. You need to know how to narrow down your choices to increase your chances of working with the right person.
And so here are some tips I had to share.
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AuthorWelcome! My name is Iman Malik and I am an aspiring novelist who is dreaming to be a bestseller one day who can be well known as writer Iman Malik. Archives
September 2021
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