Breakdown: How NOT to Write a Query 2

So my second How NOT to Write a Query was very fun, and I had some great comments, but I don't think we actually covered all the mistakes, so I'm going to try to make a more complete list, as well as explain (in my own, poor, noobie way) what went wrong in mine. See the real blurb for Jessica Day George's awesome book TUESDAYS AT THE CASTLE here.

Once again, this is my awful bastardization of her blurb (please don't judge a book by a bad blurb):

Celie's brother is training to be the next king--and the castle she lives in likes him enough to move his rooms right next to the throne room. Her sister is regal and efficient, just like their mother, the queen. The castle likes her, too, and gives her lavish rooms to live in. But the castle likes Celie the best. It gives her ramps to slide down and turrets to hide in. All of which comes in handy when Celie's parents go to pick up her oldest brother from wizard school and don't make it home. As the Counsel moves to set up a regency and control the royal children and as foreign powers close in, the castle will have to help Celie protect her siblings and keep her country safe... until her parents come home.

The comments on Tuesday identified the following mistakes:

1. No sense of the conflict
2. Too much backstory and world building
3. Doesn't seem to be a point

Just for fun, let's compare the parts of the good one and mine, shall we?

Good Conflict:

But when King and Queen Glower are ambushed and their fate is unknown...

Bad Conflict:

Celie's parents go to pick up her oldest brother from wizard school and don't make it home. As the Counsel moves to set up a regency and control the royal children and as foreign powers close in...

What's the difference? 
In the good one, we know that the king and queen didn't just get lost or decide to stay longer at the wizard school. Also, though my bad one has more details about who the antagonists are (the Counsel and the foreign powers), it doesn't really explain why they're bad. This is a case of less being more: we don't always have to know exactly what the threat it--just that there is one and what the heroine will do about it. Details can sometimes confuse things. For instance, why is a regency so awful? Wouldn't that make sense when the new king is too young to rule? What do the foreign powers want? How do we know they're not just trying to help or express condolences? I'm starting to think that the confusing parts of my own query might be fixed if I don't try to explain quite so much....

Again?

Good Backstory:

Tuesdays at Castle Glower are Princess Celie's favorite days. That's because on Tuesdays the castle adds a new room, a turret, or sometimes even an entire wing. No one ever knows what the castle will do next, and no one-other than Celie, that is-takes the time to map out the new additions.

Bad Backstory:

Celie's brother is training to be the next king--and the castle she lives in likes him enough to move his rooms right next to the throne room. Her sister is regal and efficient, just like their mother, the queen. The castle likes her, too, and gives her lavish rooms to live in. But the castle likes Celie the best. It gives her ramps to slide down and turrets to hide in.

What's the difference?
The good blurb frames the backstory as it helps tell us about Celie, the main character. In this way, the backstory does double-duty. In my blurb's backstory, we learn about more about Celie's brother and sister and the castle than we do about her. While her brother and sister are very cool, Celie is the main character. CELIE. She should be the focus of the query. In mine, all we know about Celie is that she has siblings, the affections of a castle, and occasionally slides down stuff. In the good blurb, we know that she loves her castle enough to actually map it out, even though no one else bothers. Make sure any backstory in your query is also helping your reader learn about your main character.

Also, in the good backstory, it is much easier to see how special the castle is. My backstory makes you wonder how the castle is doing all that stuff--does it just assign the best rooms to the people it likes? Does it just lead Celie to the already-existing slides and turrets? The magic system is completely muddled. Bad world building.

One more time:

Good Point:

...it's up to Celie, with her secret knowledge of the castle's never-ending twists and turns, to protect their home and save their kingdom.

Bad Point: 

...the castle will have to help Celie protect her siblings and keep her country safe... until her parents come home.

What's the Difference?
In the good blurb, Celie saves the day. In the bad blurb, the castle does most of the work. No matter how it actually happens in the book (the castle does help a lot), the query blurb has to show the main character acting. As cool as the castle is, the castle isn't human. We can admire it, think it's gee-wiz-neato, but we can't really relate to it. Human readers will rarely be able to picture themselves in the castle's position--and, perhaps more importantly, the book itself doesn't try to make us relate to the castle. Celie is the main character and we relate to her most of all. We want to root for her, so the query must hint that she will ultimately triumph--not "help" someone else do it for her.

The Devil's in the Details
One main thing that wasn't mentioned in the comments that I intentionally did wrong was the wealth of inconsequential details. The following details aren't mentioned at all in the good blurb:

• Celie's brother who's training to be king
• Celie's sister
• Celie's eldest brother who's at wizard school
• The Counsel
• Foreign Powers
• Moving rooms next to the throne room (a sign of succession)
• Giving lavish rooms to favored people
• That Celie's parents went to pick up her brother from wizard school
• That the Counsel wants to set up a regency and control the royal children
• That Celie's parents might come home

What did the good blurb mention that I didn't?

• That the castle adds stuff on Tuesdays
• That no one knows what the castle will do next
• That Celie maps the castle
• That no one else bothers to map the castle
• That the king and queen are ambushed

What's the difference? My details are inconsequential and we don't miss them in the good blurb. The good details, however give us specific and essential world-building or character-building or plot information. When they're missing, we feel it.

Go look at your query and see what details you've included that could go. What are you leaving out that could help explain things better?

Golly, it sounds so easy, doesn't it? 

What else did I miss? Can you spot any other mistakes? Would you like to suggest a book for my next How NOT to Write a Query?

How NOT to Write a Query 2

I'm still busy trying to fix my own query, so, until I get tired of it, I'm going to continue this feature. Mostly because it was fun last time. :)

Here's how the game is played: I take an excellent book blurb for a book I love that has demonstrably good sales (so it WORKS), and I see how badly I can screw it up. Sort of reverse-engineering it back to the drivel that it might have started out as, if the author had been a noob like me.

Today's book is in honor of my next Authors' Advisory guest: Jessica Day George. (She'll be talking about Retelling Fairy Tales, if you wanna come join us. Wednesday night. 8:45 EST. Just saying.) I love soo many of her books, but her newest is my favorite. Here's the real blurb:

Tuesdays at Castle Glower are Princess Celie's favorite days. That's because on Tuesdays the castle adds a new room, a turret, or sometimes even an entire wing. No one ever knows what the castle will do next, and no one-other than Celie, that is-takes the time to map out the new additions. But when King and Queen Glower are ambushed and their fate is unknown, it's up to Celie, with her secret knowledge of the castle's never-ending twists and turns, to protect their home and save their kingdom. This delightful book from a fan- and bookseller-favorite kicks off a brand-new series sure to become a modern classic.

Sounds awesome, yes? It is. Magic castles rock.

So, this is how it could all have gone terribly wrong (again--don't do this with your own query):

Celie's brother is training to be the next king--and the castle she lives in likes him enough to move his rooms right next to the throne room. Her sister is regal and efficient, just like their mother, the queen. The castle likes her, too, and gives her lavish rooms to live in. But the castle likes Celie the best. It gives her ramps to slide down and turrets to hide in. All of which comes in handy when Celie's parents go to pick up her oldest brother from wizard school and don't make it home. As the Counsel moves to set up a regency and control the royal children and as foreign powers close in, the castle will have to help Celie protect her siblings and keep her country safe... until her parents come home.

Can you help me spot the flaws? Leave them in the comments: What did I do wrong, here?

In other news, it seems I'm not completely useless when I'm not writing a query, since my first page is a semi-finalist in Brenda Drake's Can We Guess Your Character's Age blogfest/contest! Yay!

UPDATE: I won first place!!!!

Reading Woes

Back in April 2008, at the encouragement of Robyn Carr (oh, yeah, lookit me: she's my mentor) I started keeping track of the books I read . Between April 1 and December 28, I read 125 books.

The next year, my spreadsheet got a bit more elaborate (as do all my spreadsheets). In 2009, while working sporadically on my WIP, I read 173 books, 15,632 pages, and averaged 157.9 pages a day.

In 2010, I wrote most of my first draft--and finished it--but still read 138 books, 47,515 pages, and averaged 130.54 pages a day.

Now I'm editing my WIP and this year, so far, I've read 22 books. 7,179 pages. Averaging 85.46 pages a day. My spreadsheet now keeps track of book genres (most books are more than one genre): 12 YA, 13 Fantasy, 10 Urban, 14 Romance, 1 Dystopian (MATCHED), 1 Horror (THE MERIDIANS), 0 Non-Fiction.

Pathetic, yes?

I'm happy with all the other things I'm doing. I am. I'm managing a full-time career (the day-job), trying to start up another full-time career (writing), social networking, blogging, running my online crit group for David Farland's Writer's Groups, critiquing for my group (Meredith, I swear, I'll get your novel crit to you by the end of the month!), holding down two church jobs (teaching Gospel Doctrine and Cub Committee Chair) and being a wife and a mother to three young boys. I sleep 7-8 hours per night (or I get sick). It's a full, busy, and happy life.

But I sure did enjoy this week, when I got too sick to sit at the computer for long periods, and all I could do was lie in bed and read. (Sleep? Who needs sleep?) I MISS reading. I look at Jessica Day George and all she's reading (seriously, that girl is a reading fiend--check her out on Goodreads) and I'm so jealous. I mean, there are hundreds of reasons to be jealous of JDG, but mostly I want to be able to read as much as she does. I'm also jealous of my friend Susan Jensen, who has already read 39 books this year (including mine :))--and that while still writing HER WHOLE FIRST DRAFT.

So, I'm still trying to find balance. Work, writing, family, service, networking, reading, sleep. I watch almost no TV. I hardly ever go anywhere.

Everyday, excellent books are released, and I just DON'T HAVE TIME to read them all. It's tragic.

So how do you do it? How do you decide which books to read? Do you carve out specific time each day for reading, or just grab time as you can find it? How many books have YOU read this year? (Go ahead--rub it it.)

(Also, if anyone wants a great spreadsheet to keep track of their books--with genre--let me know....)

How Twitter is Cooler than High School

I have recently discovered the joys of Twitter. I know, I know, it's been around for a while, but I've always assumed it was more of a time-waster than an actual, like, tool and stuff.  Well, I was right and wrong. Twitter is a time-waster. I can sit for hours watching it... but that's because of all the cool writerly people who are tweeting.

The other night I was fascinated by an interchange between Dan Wells (@johncleaver) and Howard Tayler (@HowardTayler)--they were done writing for the day and needed to blow off some steam. Being LDS, they didn't head to the bar: they scheduled an evening of board games and popcorn. Through Twitter. (Like they don't have each other's direct phone numbers? Ever hear of texting? Or, well, talking on the phone?) Entertainment at its finest, folks. In the midst of this, Aprilynne Pike (@AprilynnePike) did what I really wanted to do and popped in to say she wished she lived closer so she could join in the fun. Me too, me too!!

Last week, Shannon Hale (@haleshannon) noticed that Logan, Utah's libraries are constantly checking out her books, so she blogged about it, promising to visit them--and to drag two other locally popular authors--James Dashner (@jamesdashner) and Jessica Day George (@JessDayGeorge) along with her. Then she called James and Jessica out on Twitter--and soon had replies from both, promising to go. Am I the only one with a sudden desire to visit Logan later this year?

I'm new, like I said, so I'm not following very many people yet (88 right now), and even fewer are following me (18), but #therearesomanycoolpeoplethere!!! I got the thrill of my Twitter experience when Gail Carriger (@gailcarriger) started following me this week. ME! Gail Carriger! And she was completely gracious when I went all fangirl on her and even agreed to do a conference call for Farland's Authors' Advisory!!! (June 1st--read her books now, if you haven't: they're awesome!)

Watching all this fun, I can't help but feel a little like I'm in high school again (where I was far from popular), watching the cool kids hang out, plan fun parties and road trips, and generally flaunt their coolness. Oh, how I wanted to be included! I had my own friends and we had a good time, but, well, that looked like fun, too. Now, rather than just sitting back and dreaming about inclusion, I have an actual goal to become one of the cool kids. I want Shannon Hale to invite me to go on road trips with her. I want Dan Wells to issue an open invitation to his house for popcorn and board games (and the scones they've been tweeting so much about) the next time I'm in town. I want these awesome writers to know my name and to think of me as #oneofus.

Because I want to BE one of them. I want to be a bestselling YA fantasy author. There: I said it. AND I want to be friends with all the other cool authors--because, let's face it, they're really, really cool. How do I know? I stalk them on Twitter, of course... which encourages me to read their blogs... which encourages me to read their books... which only makes me want to know them more. Lather, rinse, repeat. See? Twitter works.

Now I'm going to get going on my editing so I can someday invite them all to my book launch party....