WIP

On Queries

Sunday, as I gritted my teeth and relaunched my cleaned up blog (did you notice all my flowers and my new sappy bio/description? heehee), I first sat down and rummaged around other blogs, notably those on the left sidebar, for inspiration.

Blogging is TOTALLY different from writing a novel and it is more than just a 'online journal'. This because you have to write tidy, short, and interesting blog posts and resist the urge to type in something that is way so personal or sensitive that your ten-year-old-self would kill your brother if he stole said-journal and read it aloud to everyone (in my case, I had four siblings who did stuff like that).

That is why I like to sit down and read other blogs to get an idea of what other people are saying. Learning experience, etc...

Other blogs I read for other reasons - such as gathering ideas of what is going on in the industry, plus I'm always learning how to write and do other things - like querying. That is why I suggest EVERYONE read Query Shark. You simply must.

But I digress.

On Sunday, I came across one entry on Query Shark that had me nodding in relief. Go ahead and click the link and read.

Apparently, QS read a query for a mg novel about a babysitter who is playing sleuth on her charge's parents, as she discovered they are in trouble. QS loved it. Some of her readers didn't. They wanted more plot and they were confused about the details in the query.

QS set them straight and I felt that the "don't be tempted to tell the entire story in the query" gist was important enough to snag and bookmark here. Other places where I've helped out with queries or just been an invisible reader, I've seen some 'helpful' comments suggesting that the author bulk up a short query and turn it into a small synopsis. As always, this is bad advice, and the link above is proof. :)