I suck at writing queries.
Big time.
I thought I was good when I wrote my first attempt. Nope. The kind people over at AbsoluteWrite told me why I needed to change almost every word of it. I did do some research before but clearly not enough…
This was last year. For a book I I ended up not querying.
Fast forward this summer – I wrote a query, corrected it based on Taryn´s suggestions and it even won her contest. (yay! And if you don´t follow Taryn´s blog, you totally should)
I post said query for feedback on several sites and got again very constructive suggestions/comments. I plugged at it again and posted back for critiquing…
One poster let me know that at some point during the query, my book sounded like a Taylor Swift song (and it wasn´t a compliment :P)
And I thought about it…for a long time. I came to the conclusion that it´s okay, for the following reasons:
- My novel contemporary is character-driven , just like many of her songs. Plenty of things happen..Natalja has to deal with a lot of things, grow, get to know herself, open up...There are both external and internal conflicts in my novel, and emotions run high.
- I can feel the emotions when Taylor Swift sings (the soundtrack from Hunger Games anyone?) And I´m pretty sure I´m not the only one…
The query version that got that remark is an older one, and thanks to all the comments I received, Sara´s webinar, Christa, Ian, I have a much much stronger one right now. Well, I have two versions but both of them are better than all the previous ones.
It may still sound like a Taylor Swift song, but if I can bring out the same enthusiasm about my story than she does with her songs. I say: Yay!
Next Monday, I´ll tell you more about queries in: Query writing (part 2) – What I learned in Sara Megibow´s webinar…I´m definitely not a pro but I learned a thing or two thanks to Sara 😀
So tell me, how long does it take you to write a query?
Elodie Nowodazkij 