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Query letter: art or science?

So a writer friend who is about to submit to agents asked me to check out her query letter for her today. While I was looking at the query letter, my dad called and asked me what I was up to. "I'm helping a friend with a query letter," I told him.

"Why does she need help?" he wanted to know.

"It's harder than it sounds, Dad."

"I don't know. I think I could write one."

"You're an engineer, Dad," I said sadly. "Real writers struggle with this."

"Well," said my dad, who is a practitioner of the religion of Spreadsheet, "I think all you have to do is put the most important stuff at the beginning."

"Huhn." Huhn.

"I'm not sure I ever told you," he went on, "but back when I was in college, they made all us engineers take a writing class."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I guess they didn't want us to not get jobs because we couldn't communicate enough to fill out the job application."

"Fair enough."

"Well, in this writing class, they taught us that you have to always be able to chop off the end of whatever you've written, and still have it stand on its own. If you're writing a newspaper article, you never know if they're going to decide to shorten a column after you've written it. If you're writing an essay or a business proposal or a letter, you never know when someone's going to lose interest or stop reading, so you need to say all the important things in the beginning."

"Huhn." Huhn.

I really, really didn't want him to be right or knowledgeable about this, but I couldn't in good faith argue with him.

"So," he concluded, "that's what I do if I were writing a query letter for a book. I'd just start with what was most important right off the bat, and then go to the second most important stuff, etc."

"Well, Dad, maybe you should write a book so you can write a query letter for it."

"No, I don't think so. I think the rules for writing a book are different."

So what do you think, agents? Would you take an engineer-style query letter?

So as everyone clearly already knows, on Monday night, Dadrat truckled up to New York (took the day off to do it, too) to sit all afternoon in the Union Square Barnes & Noble so we would have seats for the Brandon Sanderson/Gathering Storm event.

For those who aren't tired of my personal story, I read Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time--well, the first 7 books, all that had been published at that point--for the first time when I was 12. My dad had brought them home and was probably a little peeved when he starting having to compete with me over custody of a given book at a given time, but he never let on (it would only get worse when my brother and sister would also become obsessed). When Robert Jordan died tragically in 2007 without completing the 12th and final book in the series, my poor father went into occlusion. Hope and order was restored to the world (partially, at least) when it was announced that Brandon Sanderson would be completing the series with the aid of Harriet McDougal, Jordan's widow and amanuensis--not to mention editor--hence the rather feverish anticipation with which he sat at BNN warming second-row front-n-center seats for three and a half hours before the event started.

Rather than having Harriet read very much--too many spoilers--Brandon talked mostly about how he came to be the one to finish the series. There was bound to be scepticism toward anyone taking up the project, but Brandon definitely won us over--he might actually be a bigger WoT geek than my dad. For a man who's really had a major break in his career with this, Brandon's beginnings were modest and inspiring. He wrote 13 books before he got his first book published.

("You should blog about that," Dadrat said. "Your people will want to know that.")

Just in case anyone was waiting for a report.

Oh, ps, whoever the genius people in the Tor marketing department are thought of creating and giving out bumper sticker. Mine says "I killed Asmodean," but I could have gotten one that said "Bela is a darkfriend" instead. It makes me want to go out and learn to drive so I can buy a car to put the bumper sticker on.

YT: Are you going to watch MAMMA MIA with us?

Dadrat: I don't think so.

YT: But you are an ABBA fan, right?

DR: No.

YT: No?!

DR: No.

YT: Whyever not?

DR: Ugh, the problem with ABBA is...it's like bubblegum. I don't like sugary pop.

YT: ABBA? Bubblegum?! Have you ever heard ABBA?

DR: Like what you and your sister were singing all morning?

YT: Exactly!! It's the edgiest pop music that ever played on the radio! My theory is that ABBA is able to say things so honest in their lyrics only because they are not native English speakers. "I apologize/if it makes you feel bad/seeing me so tense/no self-confidence"? Can you even imagine an American saying that?

DR: You're telling me that's not bubblegum?

YT: You know what? I just think you're uncomfortable because everyone thinks you look like Bjorn.

[Eight hours later. Mother is singing "I Have a Dream" in the kitchen, sister is singing "Lay All Your Love on Me" in the living room, and I'm singing "Mamma Mia" in between.]

DR: I remembered what the problem with ABBA songs is.

YT: Oh yeah?

DR: It's not that they're bubblegum. It's that after you hear them, you can't get them out of your head for the rest of your life.

Today, we welcome Dadrat for our Celebrate Reading Month Guest Blogger.

About the Guest Blogger: Dadrat is a rennaissance man who can smoke a buffalo, steam a rug, fix your electrical miswiring, memorize 10-digit numbers, ferment Kool-Aid to get brain-numbing psuedo Vodka, dance the Troika clockwise AND counterclockwise, change his own car's oil, stew a chicken in chickpeas and curry powder, and reprogram over the phone your home wireless certification and access codes from three states away while ordering a coffee at a Barnes & Noble Starbucks. He cannot, however, speak French, knit a sweater, or survive a week without a flavored latte from Starbucks. At least, not to the best of my knowledge.

A book that influenced my life.

Growing up with two school teachers as parents, I had no choice but to read from a young age. It was really not difficult, since we had so many books around the home and I enjoyed reading. We had all the great books, classics, mysteries, Norwegian Folk Tales, children classics including the Arabian Nights, King Arthur, Hardy Boy, Nancy Drew, & Tom Swift. We even had about 10 Oz books. But mostly we had science fiction, and that is what I read.

My parents were members of the Science Fiction book club starting around 1952. By the early 1960’s we sure had a lot of science fiction books. I think more than our local library. And believe it or not, I had read most of them by the time I was in the 6th grade. Many of them several times. I tend to read books I like multiple times. What does that say about me? We had all the classic authors of the genre; Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clark, L., Ursula K. Le Guin, Andre Norton, Robert Silverberg, E. E. “Doc” Smith, Jack Vance, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Roger Zelazny.

I think that these books gave me the wonder of space, and science. It was a time when medicine, science and engineering could solve all the world’s problems. We were racing to the moon. Nuclear Power was going to provide unlimited power for almost no cost. We were hearing about new discoveries everyday. It was before the Vietnam War, before hippies, and the Beatles had just arrived in America. The country was optimistic. We were going to the moon, and I was going to become a pilot and go to Mars.

However, all this being said, the book that changed everything had nothing to do with any of the above. I had to do a book report for school. My 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Carruth, would not let me report on any book that I had read, or for that matter was interested in reading. My last many book reports were all science fiction books, and it was time to read something else. She had a list of “proper” books that were allowed for my book report. No science fiction, no stories of Oz, not a Tarzan story of Edgar Rice Burroughs. No stories of grand adventure in space. Not even a book by the great Isaac Asimov was acceptable.

So I went over to the book shelf, and looked over her collection of books. She had a very respectable number, but I had already read most of them. The rest looked boring. Well, except for one. It was about the Civil War, but what self respecting 6th grader wanted to read about history. Well I didn’t. She offered to let me select a book from the library, assuming that it was an acceptable book. She still didn’t like that I was reading so much science fiction. I needed to broaden my horizons. What was wrong with science fiction anyway!?

Well, this was getting to be too much work. So I took the novel about the Civil War, thinking that I would read quickly and then I could get on to more important reads.


Well, the book was very interesting, and about a part of our history I knew very little about. It was about a Kansas farm boy named Jeff, who decides to join the army after their family is bushwhacked. He wanted to hold the Union together and clean up the border trouble in Kansas. And so the grand adventure starts.

The book had everything. There was conflict, determination, kindness, hardship, loss, happiness, even love.

Almost the entire story takes place in the Indian country of Oklahoma. Both the Union and Rebel armies could not seem to hold on to anything. So many people had their homes and shops burned, their live stock and grain taken for food, and their belongings plundered, by both sides.

And the soldiers were always hungry and tired. Nobody came out of the war better off than where they had started, unless the war was somewhere else.

First Jeff is in the infantry. Then he moves to the cavalry since they needed to be more mobile. And finally he becomes a scout. Please note that a scout is just another word for spy. And when you are scouting, you are out of uniform, with no identification or information that would let anybody know you belong to a specific side.

But the book had a twist. Part way through the story, Jeff is captured by the Rebels during one of his scouting missions. The armies were shooting captured scouts, so thinking fast, Jeff claimed that he wanted to join the rebels. Sort of like, better Red than Dead, but I guess it is better gray than dead. Well they signed him up.

Now he was on the other side. He lived beside them, ate with them, fought with them, all the time trying to figure out how he could get back to his own troop. Over time, he slowly realized that he liked these men and their easy going attitudes, and he learned that they had grievances as great as his own. Who was right in this war?

Well the story ends with a discovery, meeting Lucy again, and a chase, and … Who is Lucy? Well you have to read the book to find out.

The book is “Rifles for Watie” by Harold Keith. Some of the language is dated, but it is very well written, the story is great, and the history is accurate. The author even interviewed twenty-two Civil War veterans living in Oklahoma and Arkansas for the background material, or so it says on the back cover.

As for me, after reading this book, I had to buy it, and read it again. I almost stopped reading science fiction for a couple of years, and started reading about history. I read about the Civil War, the Indian Wars, and the Revolutionary War. I read about all the great generals, Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander, and Saladin. I read about the great civilizations, the Romans, Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians. And I read about the great explorers, Magellan, Francis Drake, and the Vikings.

I read history, and I read historical fiction.

Well until I discovered the “Lord or the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien, but that is another story.

The trouble with moving is that Momrat has accumulated all kinds of crap. She's a compulsive tagsaler. Also a, well, a packrat.

"She won't let me get rid of your old crib," Dadrat tells me woefully. "Of course, it's actually probably illegal to sell or give the crib away, anyway, because it's not up to those new crib standards."

"What crib standards?" I ask.

"Oh, you know," he tells me. " 'Crib slats must be narrower than such-and-such a distance, or your baby will get its head stuck between the slats.' You know, that kind of thing. Of course, you had such a fat head that that was never a problem with you."

"Thanks, Dad."

"What's that typing noise? Are you blogging about this?"

I spent Thursday and Friday at the NYS Reading Association Conference in Saratoga Springs.  Here's a roundup of the highlights...

1. The Authors Progressive Banquet was fun and stress-free. I didn't even spill anything.  I was a little concerned about how the logistics would work, because the authors start the evening at one table and then rotate, switching tables for each course. Turns out you got NEW silverware every time you moved and didn't have to take it with you.  That worked out well, though I think I might have been drinking from another author's water glass at one point. It's hard to say...

2. I found out about four minutes ahead of time that all the authors would be giving a brief, two-minute talk to the ENTIRE group in the ballroom during that banquet, which caused me to panic momentarily, but not for long because there just wasn't that long to worry about it. I think I said something coherent.

3. I was on a quilt!

       


 NYSRA had authors sign quilt squares and put them together into three gorgeous quilts for a raffle. Wasn't that a great idea?


4.  I got to meet Eric Luper (eluper) and hear his presentation about his YA novel Big Slick and his journey from reluctant reader to novelist.



High school teachers, take note:  Eric is smart and engaging and funny, and I predict that pretty soon he'll be booked solid for school visits because he's going to connect with teen boys in a big way.  Plus, he has wicked-cool poker chip key chains as giveaways. What more could you want?

5.  I spent some time chatting with Susan Goodman, who writes children's non-fiction and has a funny book about elections called See How They  Run coming out this May. My students are going to love this one!




6.  I met Mitali Perkins and got to tell her in person how much I liked Rickshaw Girl.

7. I heard Anita Silvey talk about current trends in children's publishing.  She said fantasy and science fiction are still strong, historical fiction is on the rise,  publishers are looking for "no-blush" MG and Tween books that families can enjoy together, and this is the age of the graphic novel.  Shaun Tan's The Arrival is now on my must-read list.


8. I gave a presentation called "Historical Fiction as a Bridge to Content Area Literacy" and got to share bunches and bunches of my favorite HF titles.  We talked about dozens of titles from different time periods -- some well known and some that flew under the radar.  I shared excerpts from Spitfire, Sarah Miller's Miss Spitfire, and Elizabeth Bunce's A Curse Dark as Gold (March, 2008), which is a shining example of how historical fantasy can be used to introduce students to a time period (in this case, the Industrial Revolution).







9.  Not exactly conference-related, but still a highlight... I had perhaps the best chocolate chip cookie of my life at Four Seasons Natural Foods in downtown Saratoga.  It was really, really crunchy....a sweet ending to a fantastic two days of talk about reading, writing, and why we love stories so much.