Write Good or Die

picked up for the movies (admittedly, it was made into a very bad movie, but the check was good and the popcorn tasted great.) I later sold two sequels, as well.
    EXAMPLE TWO
    Another for my recent novel, The Priest of Blood :
    "In this tale of swords, sorcery, and vampires, a boy grows to manhood in a brutal medieval world. Rising in his station through his talent as a falconer, he falls in love with the baron's daughter—but when their love is found out, he is forcibly conscripted into the Crusades. There, despairing of life, he seeks death—and finds his destiny as a messiah of vampires in the bloody embrace of a female vampire called Pythia.
    Filled with ancient buried kingdoms, battles against the Saracens, as well as a quest for a legendary Priest of Blood who will bring power to this falconer, this is the first book of a proposed dark fantasy trilogy called The Vampyricon .
    FOUR SENTENCES. I bet you're so smart, you could whittle these down further, couldn't you? You're smart, I know! You get a gold star for smarts.
    Bear in mind, I'm a novelist, not a short-order copy writer.
    I don't expect to have written deathless prose in the query. But, as you can see, this gets the gist of the story across.
    I did not sell this query, by the way, because I wrote the novel before selling it and already had an agent. I'm not trying to present this as "Only THIS will sell in a query letter."
    I want to give you a sense of how simple this is—but keep the secret to yourself!
    Just kidding.
    Truth is—what piques the interest of an editor or agent is what will pique MANY readers' interest, too. Editor and agents are looking for . . . wait for it: what people will want to read, as well as what they believe they might want to read, per the taste of the editor or agent.
    It's their business, and they know what they're looking for and sometimes are surprised by what they didn't think they were looking for.
    I can't spend my life second-guessing them, and neither can you. All I know is what fascinates ME—and I've learned how to convey that fairly quickly and simply. But it takes a bit of practice. Nobody says you can't practice first.
    BUT you can learn to get your story or plot premise down in a brief synopsis and get on with your next novel while you wait to hear back.
    And you thought I was going to tell you how to write the entire query letter for a novel?
    Nope, but there are books for that. I can't tell all my secrets at once!
    However, my QUICK TIP!
    Just write a regular letter as you would to anyone at a company where you wanted to:
    (a) not waste their valuable time on unimportant things and
    (b) get a job.
    This involves being respectful, not whining, demanding, threatening, or appearing pitiful. It also involves self-respect, if that wasn't apparent from my previous sentence. Double-check your spelling and look for grammatical errors.
    I make errors all the time, and it's oh-so-easy to go back and revise before sending the query off. Admittedly, I leave typos in these notes just so I can hear from those among you who love pointing out errors to people.
    Here's a basic query letter for a novel:
    "Dear _____,
    My name is _____________, and I've written a novel of _______ words that fits most comfortably in the genre of ____________. It's called ___________, and I would very much like to send it to you for possible publication/representation.
    ____________ is a story of...(and here's where you write that 3-5 sentence synopsis that includes the basic premise, a brief highlight or two, with the idea that you're telling the story to a buddy as if you just saw a really great movie.)
    I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and consideration.
    Sincerely,
    YOU"
    I know some might argue that this wouldn't work for literary novels, but I don't know: if you want to believe that, feel free. Life is short, and in the long run, you can do what you want.
    Thus, endeth my lens for the day. Please link to this, and let your writing friends and writing groups know about it. Heck, argue over what I've written here—but if it works for you, I'm glad I could help.
    If it doesn't help you, go forth and find something that does. Disagreeing with me will get you nowhere, but finding out what you need to do will get you everywhere.

    Douglas Clegg— http://www.douglasclegg.com
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24. NOVEL PITCH LETTER
    By Jonathan Maberry
    http://www.jonathanmaberry.com

    Jonathan Maberry
    PO Box 84
    Southampton PA 18966
    Email: