Contest

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m offering up two Second Place winners today. Ch-ch-ch-check ‘em out!

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The first winner comes from Lynn Rush, for a YA book:

Dear Ms. Mary Kole,

Thank you for taking the time to review my query. I am excited to share with you my novel, Frostbite. It is a completed, 80,000-word, action-packed, paranormal romance geared toward the young adult audience. It has finaled in an RWA contest and has been sent to five agencies for consideration.

Good summary and impressive that this has finaled in an RWA contest. RWA, or the Romance Writers of America, is a huge organization full of very talented and motivated writers.

Kissing is part of being a teenager, but when Amanda Smith kisses a boy, there’s a chance he’ll be frostbitten.

“Kissing is part of being a teenager” is a little dry but we get the premise right away. I’d stay away from saying “there’s a chance” because that decreases tension — if this doesn’t happen all the time, where’s the danger? — and raises nitpicky questions. (When does the frostbite occur? When does it not? Why not? Etc.) Notice that I’m only pointing out areas of improvement because she’s given me a lot of great stuff to work with below. I wouldn’t offset this sentence before the query because it doesn’t quite open with the bang I need.

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Amanda Smith is sick of getting chased from town-to-town. So when she lands in tiny Trifle, Arizona, she hopes it’s her last move for a long time. Despite hating the smallness of the town, she settles in and finds a best friend, and even a boyfriend. Normality at its finest, right?

The first line here, however, is a whole other story. I want to know more! The last line also has a great, sarcastic voice that shows me I’ll see more of that in the manuscript. The contrast of hotter-than-Hades Arizona with what I already know is a girl who gives people frostbite is also interesting.

But for a girl who can shoot snow from her hands and lift a two-ton truck over her head like a bag of feathers—normal is not an option.

Nice. Could easily work in the kissing information in this bit to increase and compound the tension. Give that part to us here.

The scientists who murdered her mother come barreling into Amanda’s quiet life forcing her to run yet again. Or will help from an unlikely source cause her to take a final stand so she can stay with those she loves?

A little bit general here — tell us about the help, tell us about the unlikely source, tell us about those she loves — but I can see there are going to be lots of complications. Like the active verb on “barreling.” Just give me a little bit more meat to work with.

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I am actively involved in American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and Romance Writers of America (RWA). When I’m not writing, I enjoy road biking with my husband of thirteen years and volunteering in my church bookstore. I’ve already begun building an audience for my writing through my blog, which I’ve been writing for twelve months and through my FaceBook and Twitter followers (numbering 3,500 to date.)

Good stuff here and nice numbers for your Twitter. I know you love your hubby but maybe save that for the personal chat with the agent.

Thanks again for your consideration. Have a great day.
Lynn Rush

Excellent. Next we have a picturebook query from Miss Franziska (Siski) Green:

Dear Ms Kole,

“My love for you is bigger than an elephant,” whispers a mother to her child as they go to sleep in their shantytown home. The little girl has never seen an elephant and cannot imagine just how big that is. When a surprise trip with her school brings her nose to nose with the biggest land animals in the world, she finally understands what her mother means.

In my Honorable Mentions post, I talked about picturebook queries giving me an image to work with and keep in mind as I read. Here, the writer does this brilliantly in the first sentence. I love the dialogue, I love the atmosphere created by the verb “whispers” and I can perfectly imagine them falling asleep in their little hut.

Elephant Love, a story based on real events in South Africa, is an uplifting 700-word picture book. Readers will learn about shantytown life, what families eat, how they sleep and play, but the storyline does not dwell on hardship. The spotlight is not on the living conditions in many South African shantytowns, but rather how a new experience teaches a little girl something both amazing and important: how much her mother loves her.

I love the tone of this query letter. It is positive and uplifting, just like the manuscript it describes. Be careful, though “but the storyline does not dwell on hardship” and “the spotlight is not on the living conditions in many South African shantytowns, but rather” are saying two very similar things. Just use the first line, because it answers a question in the reader’s mind. When I read “story based on real events in South Africa,” I did worry for a minute whether it would be too depressing or political to reach a wide audience. The writer here has allayed my fears by answering my question before I even got a chance to ask it. Very skillfully done. The message of love at the end of this paragraph makes me want to curl up in my own little hut (with my elephant-sized fat cat).

I am an experienced freelance journalist, writing for Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan and Saga magazines and websites in the adult market; Junior, Father’s Quarterly magazine and First News newspaper in the children’s market. Having written two non-fiction adult books (How to Blow Her Mind in Bed, Piatkus, 2007; How to Blow His Mind in Bed, Piatkus, 2010), I am aware that the success of a book relies on marketing and publicity. I will do my utmost to get maximum exposure for my book.

Lots of great publication credits here. It’s also interesting to see the author has chosen to tackle a whole new spin on something people do in bed… talk about love and elephants, of course! Sorry, I had to make the joke. Start throwing the rotten tomatoes. I deserve it.

I am an active member of the SCBWI.

This is a simultaneous submission.

Yours sincerely,
Franziska Green

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Great job, Siski! I’m so excited to keep sharing queries with you all. This has been really fun. Now I’ll take a break for the weekend and be back with the big show, a First Place and a Grand Prize winner!

I am phenomenally proud of myself, folks, and that’s because I have finally chosen all the winners for the contest. It was so difficult, I will need a serious nap to recover. So many good queries. So much to think about. Now that I’ve got my line-up, I can tell you for certain that I have one Grand Prize winner, one First Place winner but TWO winners for both Second Place and Third Place. I know technically that’s cheating and, clearly, I’m a masochist and want to give myself more critiquing work to do, but this is what I’ve decided. Showcasing real queries, as someone put it in yesterday’s comments, is what this is all about, so the more winners, the more queries. Right? Right.

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I present to you today: two Third Place winners! I decided to offset the actual query text in italics just to make my comments and the intros and the text all separate. Let me know if that’s annoying. The first query is for YA and it comes from Windy Aphayrath. Here it is:

Dear Ms. Kole,

Seventeen-year-old Lisa grew up in a very traditional Laotian family. Raised by a distant father and strict grandmother, her priorities were laid out for her: education and family. There usually isn’t much room for anything else.

Very clear conflict. Also makes me wonder what happened to Mom. I bet that comes up in the manuscript. Good tension! Also, as an immigrant myself, I’m always interested in stories about cultural identity. (But that’s just the cherry on top, really…)

When Lisa’s friend Samantha is involved in a devastating accident, it isn’t an option for Lisa not to be there to support her. Lisa’s decision to step outside expectations and her grandmother’s wishes causes a rift in the family.

Ooh, a compelling friendship hook. Though I’d like to know more about the accident and what’s required of Lisa — and why it might be so frowned upon in her family — I like this increased conflict.

As Lisa struggles to find a balance between expectation and real life, she meets Tony, a boy she’s always known and for the first time sees him in a whole new light. Maybe she doesn’t have to try to balance on the tight rope of old World Asia and modern America on her own.

More conflict! The writing here is a tiny but clunky but that’s forgivable. For example, if she’s always known Tony, she isn’t technically meeting him, etc. This brings up a huge question though… where does Tony fit in with her two different cultures? Is he American or Laotian? This is CRUCIAL to mention, as the tensions with her culture are already so high, and where he falls on the spectrum will tell me so much about what kind of problems these two will be having.

Complete at approximately 77,000 words, JUST MAYBE is a multicultural young adult novel about growing up between cultures, figuring out where your place is and realizing who you are is not the country your family came from.

Great summary here. Being able to get your novel down to a sentence is VERY important and, as you can see here, it’s really quite an art.

I am querying you because your information on the Andrea Brown website states you are interested in realistic/contemporary young adult fiction. I would be happy to send the completed manuscript at your request.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best Regards,
Windy Aphayrath

And our second Third Place winner is Karen Collum and she has a middle grade project. Here’s her query:

Dear Ms Kole,

Jack Menzies is a kid on a mission; someone is stealing Mum’s raspberries and he intends to find out who. If he doesn’t catch the thief soon Mum won’t be able to defend the title of Best Raspberry Jam at the local show which is only three weeks away. With the help of his best friend, Benny, Jack identifies the most likely culprit – the former Jam Queen of Natimuk, Old Mrs Curran.

Even though this story seems like it’s set in a more quiet place with lower stakes — a jam competition instead of, say, THE END OF THE WORLD (DRAMATIC MUSIC CUE) — the opening is exciting and introduces a lot of tension. As a result, I might think that, even though the plot might be a bit small-town and charming, the writer will most likely be able to keep tension high in the story itself.

The two boys embark on a night of adventure and intrigue as they set out to catch Old Mrs Curran but they get more than they bargained for when Mrs Curran discovers them spying. She not only gives them a lesson in proper surveillance techniques, but teaches them a thing or two about environmentally friendly bio-fuels in the process. And just when Jack and Benny think all the excitement is over, they discover the identity of the real raspberry thief – a giant, growling, menacing beast.

I would have to quibble with boring, general words like “adventure” and “intrigue” because they don’t tell me anything specific about this story, but I like that the author tells us exactly what happens: they get caught. Then we get a huge surprise. Old Mrs. Curran teaches them surveillance techniques? (At least that’s what it sounds like.) This makes her an instantly quirky and interesting character, which is hard to do in a query. I did raise an eyebrow at the bio-fuels thing. It seems to come out of left field for the query. If it’s not absolutely central to the plot, maybe don’t mention it. Random details snag my attention and slow down my progress through your query. Finally, our characters get into even more trouble… there’s a beast involved! (Dramatic Music Cue, for real this time.)

“Operation Raspberry” is a fast-paced mystery with a dash of friendship, family and assumptions gone wrong. It would appeal to independent readers in the middle grades, particularly boys. It is the first novel in the planned “Operation________” series tracing the adventures and mischief of Jack and Benny in a small Australian country town.

I’ll forgive the series mention because I’ve really liked the query so far. Boy middle grade is tricky, as most middle-grade boys do not read middle-grade books, but editors are always looking for it, so it’s a good genre to be writing in.

I am a published Australian children’s author and primary school teacher with three picture books due for release in 2010 (Stanborough Press, UK and New Frontier Publishing, Australia). I have also had articles published in a number of magazines in the past 12 months, including Writing Queensland (Queensland Writer’s Centre), Melbourne’s Child (Copeland Publishing) and Making Babies (ACP Publications). My short story, “Glow” was a finalist in the Skive Short Story Competition 2008 and my picture book, “Samuel’s Kisses” was short-listed in the Ipswich District Teacher Librarian Picture Book Competition 2008.

Lots of credentials. This is good, but I’d pare this list down a little bit. Especially for querying American agents. Since most of the prizes and publications are international, I have very little name recognition for them. While their sheer number here is impressive, she could’ve easily condensed it. (Of course, I don’t mean to minimize all your achievements, Karen! They’re quite impressive!)

I have chosen to send this query to you as your website states that you are looking for a Middle Grade mystery. I believe “Operation Raspberry” fits that description perfectly. “Operation Raspberry” is complete at 8,700 words and is ready to be sent at your request.

The word count is a little low for Middle Grade (I just wrote a post about it this morning but it’s in the queue and won’t be published until after the contest is over) but otherwise a nice, professional touch at the end, noting my personal preferences.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my work. I look forward to your reply in due course.

Kind regards
Karen Collum

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You all have impressed me so much with your entries. I’ll be posting Second Place winners tomorrow, then First and Grand Prize winners next week. In the meantime, I hope you’re all finding this a very helpful exercise.