It's one of those cases where I think ignorance is bliss. When you only know the bare bones of a story, it's a lot easier to do a basic summary because you're not trying to jam all sorts of extra detail into it. And also it's not my book so I don't really feel the pressure of trying to make it perfect. That I think makes the whole process a lot easier.
Sometimes people like to get snarky in critique groups and say, "If you can't write the query then you can't write a book!" But they're completely different animals. And really most novelists don't write the blurbs for their books. They have marketing departments to do that. You know, people who actually know about marketing because they took a bunch of classes in college and junk.
Anyway, I guess if you're ever stuck on your query, just give me a rough outline and I'll go rewrite it for you. And maybe you can do the same for me.
One thing that annoys me though is some people you tell them their query is a rambling, incoherent dumpster fire (or a little nicer than that) and what do they do? They repost pretty much the same thing, only changing a few words. If not making it even longer and more incoherent! I think these people are hoping the people who critiqued it the first time won't see it the second time and some more "enlightened" critics will give the author the go-ahead to send it out. It's frustrating because you know what they say is the definition of insanity: doing something over and over and hoping for a different response. Though that's querying in general.
I have to say that of all the genres fantasy (adult and YA) tends to be the worst. Someone described it as "mystery fantasy-speak" and that's generally the problem. You get these references to things no one knows or cares about and all this stilted bullshit. "Kane was born into the Order of Armagotto who rule the World of Make Believe. But now that he's nearly sixteen summers old, he must go on a perilous quest to find the Amulet of Glitter to stop the Death Dogs of Kum-Ra." Only take that and add about ten times more mystical bullshit no one except the author has heard of.
I guess then the point is like I said: when I know the story I want to cram all this stuff and use all these names and places that have meaning to me. But they don't have meaning to anyone else. When you put it up for critique, someone like me can see it and cut through the bullshit because none of it means anything to me, thus I can see what's more important.
Think of it as if you're the author it's like you're standing right up close to a painting on a wall so you can see all the brush strokes. While me, I'm standing ten feet back, so I just see the general shape of it. Sometimes it is better to see only the general form rather than the details.
On a related topic, when I write the blurbs for my Eric Filler stories, I generally don't make them all that long. I like to think brevity is better. But when I do my newsletter every couple of weeks and go to a rival book that's free, often the description is a lot longer. And the funny thing is usually they use a lot more words for a story that's maybe a third or quarter the size of mine. Maybe that's better. I don't know. Here's a sample from a newsletter a couple of months ago:
Reece and Alexia are really good friends. They're also incredibly attracted to each other but too afraid to do anything about it.
When they come across a fountain rumored to have magical powers, Reece and Alexia each throw a coin in and silently make a wish - for the same thing.
Reece wishes that Alexia could spend a day in his handsome, muscular body so she could see how much he wants her. And Alexia wishes that Reece could spend a day in her gorgeous body so he could understand how much she desires him.
Imagine their surprise when they swap bodies!
Wasting no time, the young and attractive friends start exploring their new emotions and bodies. And before long, they're exploring each others' bodies.
Will Alexia and Reece finally take their friendship to the next level?
*** This 6,000-word erotic gender swap story contains scenes of intense gender swapped sex between two consenting adults. ***
So do you like a more in-depth description or are you afraid of spoilers?
2 comments:
I tend to prefer shorter blurbs. One thing I do sometimes, is try to summarize my story in one or two sentences. It really helps put things in perspective.
I agree with you that queries and story writing are totally different animals. I guess that people want writers to be versatile. You should be able to switch from technical writing to short fiction to long fiction to news articles and to resume writing all within the same breath. Otherwise you just suck.
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