First Impact: RACHEL ON FIRE by Vanessa Shields

It's time for another First Impact Critique, where we take a look at your queries, first pages, back cover copy, etc. You want to make an impact right from the start. We're here to help you do that.

If you'd like to submit your first impact material, send it to firstimpactAE@gmail.com. Details here.

Remember, anyone who offers their comments this month is eligible for either $10 for Amazon or B&N OR a 20-page critique from me.

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This week we have a logline and first page for a YA Contemporary from Vanessa Shields. My inline comments are to the side, with overall thoughts at the end. As always, this is all just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Logline

The bit about him killing his parents
hooked me. I wonder if that couldn't
come sooner.

I'm less sure about the last line.

On the bus out of town, it takes one kiss with Tom to ignite sixteen-year-old Rachel’s love. She’s ready to uncover the truth about Tom, the blue-eyed loner, who is rumored to have killed his parents in a house fire. Through a series of fiery firsts that uncover Tom’s scarred story, Rachel falls courageously in love. True love is real.

First Page

I was following this until the last
line. Then I felt out of the loop. Why
does she feel like something's up?

I watched my older brother Alex fidgeting with his university acceptance letter. He was speechless, for once. In fact, we all found ourselves happily silenced. My parents took a sip of their coffees. Then my mom put her hand on my dad’s shoulder. Suddenly, I felt so far out of the loop I couldn’t even see it.

“That’s great. Really great,” my dad said. He looked at my mom. We all looked at my mom. “Actually, we’ve got some news for you guys, too.”

A bad feeling in my guts stood at attention.

“We’re selling the house,” my mom said. A little sob slipped out of her mouth, which she quickly covered with her hand.

“What?!” I barely had enough breath to say the word.

“We don’t need to live in this big, old thing with Alex going off to school,” my mom said.

“Hey, Rachel, it’ll be okay,” Alex jumped in.

“Will it?” I glared at my mom. I couldn’t believe what my ears were hearing.

“Did you know about this?” I looked at Alex. His eyes found my mom’s, and then he nodded. Guilt shaded my family’s faces a bright hue of red. I pointed at them dramatically.  

“You all knew about this! How could you not tell me?” I was shouting. I wanted to run out of the room, but my legs were concrete heavy.

“We should have told you Rachel,” my dad said.

            I still felt like there was part of the loop that wasn’t being revealed.

Adam's Thoughts
I'm intrigued by the mystery, but I feel a little disconnected from the character. Nothing stands out to me as "wrong," but I think it's a combination of little things:

• The sentence in the first paragraph where she feels out of the loop, but I don't even know what signals she picked up on that made her feel that way. I'm still trying to get grounded in these characters and the acceptance letter and what that means.
• I think there's something lacking in her reaction to the news. Plenty of emotions are shown, but why is this so bad for her? What does this house mean for her? (Part of this might just be me: I don't personally identify with the issue because I've never felt that way about a house.)
• It also might be that nobody else seems to have any emotions (with the exception of when her mom covers her sob -- that part's great).
• Like the first "loop" sentence, I'm not sure what signals she's picking up on to make her think they're hiding more from her.

I'd read on, for sure, but if nothing changed, eventually the characters would be having All The Problems, and I would be like, "So?" And you don't want that.

What do the rest of you guys think?

Attention Blog Readers

I'm officially lowering my commitment to this blog, for obvious reasons. I will keep up the First Impact posts as long as I have submissions, and I'll post other things when I've got the time/inclination. But I need to give myself the freedom to back off my M/W/F schedule.

The new official schedule is "One to Three Times a Week and If I Miss a Week I'm Sorry." I highly recommend the RSS feed or an e-mail subscription if you are one of those who still checks websites on specific days.

I don't even need to read the comments to know you understand. I know you guys, and you are AWESOME. Three posts a week isn't even really hectic, but it does weigh on me as One More Thing. And when I've got too many Things weighing on me, the harder-but-more-important ones (like writing or playing games with my kids) get skipped.

And yes, playing games with my kids is hard. They have no attention span, so I have to triple mine to compensate.

Secret Hobbies

Name both these movies, and you win my eternal esteem.
Cross-posted from Anthdrawlogy's Heat week.

I am not a dancer, not by any twisted aerial of the imagination. But I do watch a lot of dance media: Shall We Dance, You Got Served, Stomp the Yard, all four Step Up movies, every single episode of So You Think You Can Dance...

I'm not sure how this happened (I married a dancer), but I regret nothing. Some of these guys are fricking superheroes with what they can do.

So what's your secret hobby?

First Impact: LOST AND FOUND AT THE BEAR CLAW BREWHOUSE

It's time for another First Impact Critique, where we take a look at your queries, first pages, back cover copy, etc. You want to make an impact right from the start. We're here to help you do that.

If you'd like to submit your first impact material, send it to firstimpactAE@gmail.com. Details here.

Remember, anyone who offers their comments this month is eligible for either $10 for Amazon or B&N OR a 20-page critique from me.

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This week we have the first page of a black comedy. My inline comments are to the side, with overall thoughts at the end. As always, this is all just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

First Page

As I stared at the two little blue lines, my grandpa’s words from a few months before echoed in my head. Doped up and pregnant.

I think adrenaline is produced in the
brain. And it actually enhances your
memory.

The memory is a blur thanks to the massive dose of adrenaline my heart shot out when I asked to live with him while working at his competitor’s restaurant. I only remember snippets of conversation and images, like the half deer carcass over his shoulder.

No granddaughter of mine. 

The cleaver, gleaming in the afternoon sun as he lifted it above his head.

Forty years I’ve run this resort. I know what goes on.

His grey eyes boring into me from over his half moon glasses.

You’ll end up doped up and pregnant, just like all those other poor innocent small town girls. 

The cleaver again, this time coming down between ribs with a heavy thunk.

Looking at those blue lines,

I could feel adrenaline clouding my thoughts again. Two lines, I thought. Two beings, one body. Me and my baby. My fetus. My... embryo? Whatever. Two. One too many to prove my grandfather wrong.

I'm having trouble parsing this
clause.

I like the end line.

I sat down on my creaky twin bed, standard issue in the 50s motel now home to Bear Claw Brewhouse employees, and lit up the joint my roommate rolled for me. If I was going to fail, I was going to fail all the way.

Adam's Thoughts
There's a lot of good stuff here. There's some nice voice and a so-far-compelling character. I like how you intertwined her grandfather's words with his actions in the flashback. This feels like a good start to me.

Be careful you don't over-explain why you're doing things. You don't need to explain that her memory is blurred and in snippets in order to introduce that particular flashback. Most of the time, you can just jump into it. Keep things tight and snappy.

And I know the adrenaline thing is really nitpicky, but that's the kind of thing that can either gain or lose the reader's trust. You have to have the reader's trust, and it starts with the small details. You don't have to research every little thing (I mean, I do, but I'm slow and obsessive), but do get good critique partners who can catch this kind of thing. It's one thing we nerds are good at :-)

How do the rest of you feel about this opening?

Making Up Fantasy Languages

It's impossible (perhaps illegal, and certainly blasphemous) to talk about fantasy languages without mentioning the Godfather of Fantasy Language: Mr. John Tolkien. The guy invented languages for fun since he was thirteen years old. He wrote the most epic novel of all time just so he had a place to use those languages.

If that's you, read no further. You're fine.

Most of us, however, did not specialize in graduate-level English philology. So most of us don't really understand how language evolves or what it takes to create an artificial language that has the feel and depth of a real one. That's why a lot of amateur fantasy languages sound silly or made-up.

So how do you create a language that FEELS real, without spending years determining morphology, grammar, and syntax? I'll show you what I do. It's the same thing I do with most world-building: steal from real life, then obscure my sources.

Let's take the phrase "thank you." It's a common phrase, often borrowed between languages (e.g. the Japanese say "sankyu" as borrowed English; in California we say "gracias" as borrowed Spanish, etc).

STEAL FROM REAL LIFE. First I need a source -- some existing, real-world language I can base my fantasy language on. I want it to be somewhat obscure, and I want to show you how you can do this without even knowing the source language (which means no Thai), so I'll pick Malay.

There's lots of ways to find foreign words in a chosen language. If I wanted to be accurate, I'd use 2-3 sites to verify, but I'm making up a language, so Google Translate it is. It translates "thank you" as "terima kasih."

Now that's pretty cool on its own. It's pretty, easy to read, and sounds totally foreign. But despite the odds, somebody who speaks Malay will probably read my novel at some point. That's why we obscure the source. Two ways I do that: (1) alter the letters/sounds/word order of the existing phrase and (2) mix it with some other language.

OBSCURE YOUR SOURCES. For my second source language, I'll pick something from the same family in the hopes it will make my made-up language sound more real. A little Wikipediage tells me Malay is an Austronesian language, and lists the major languages of that branch. I'll use Filipino (just because it's also in Google Translate) and get "salamat."

Then I mish-mash for prettiness and obfuscation. Salamat + terima = salima or salama or, slightly more obscure, sarama. For kasih, I already used the "sala" part of salamat, so I'll take mat + kasih = matak. "Sarama matak." But that feels a bit long for a thank you phrase, so I'll shorten it to "Sarama tak."

And there you go. It was a little work, but a lot less work than it took Tolkien to invent Quenya. If I'm really serious about this fantasy culture/language, I'll keep a glossary of the phrases I make up in my notes, along with a note of what the source languages are (so I can repeat the process to create more phrases that sound like they could be from the same language) and links to the translation sites I used.

If the glossary gets big enough, I might (because I am a bit of a language geek) start converting the phrases into their constituent parts: individual words, verbs, maybe even conjugations. But that's breaching into Tolkien territory where I said I wouldn't go.

Anyway, now you know my secret. Go forth and make cool-sounding languages.

(remixed from an older post)

Top Secret Project is No Longer Secret

Let me tell you a story about a little boy and his dreams. This boy (we'll call him Adam) wanted to make video games since he was 11 years old and Nintendo Power ran a contest to design your own game.* Back then (the late 80's), the only career paths to video games were computer programming and art. Believing he was no good at the latter, he studied computers for the next twelve years.

But Adam wrote too. Oh, God, he wrote -- and designed, because for him it was always about creating the games. Programming was just a means to an end.

In early 1999, Adam got his wish. Feargus Urquhart, head of Black Isle Studios, took a chance on a rookie programmer not quite out of college, and Adam became a scripter on one of the greatest RPGs ever made. And he impressed some people. So much so that when he told them he wanted to be a designer on the next project, rather than a programmer, they happily obliged.

But it didn't last. Oh he loved the job, but the hours were many, and he was commuting 2.5+ hours a day on top of it. When Adam got married, he decided a less demanding (and possibly better paying) job would help ensure the longevity of his new family.

And then he went crazy and left it all for Thailand.

It was all good, though. He'd found a new creative outlet in his novels, and being a full-time dad actually gave him opportunity to write. Of course he missed game design, just like he missed steak houses and the ocean; it was just one of many sacrifices he'd made for the greater good.

But Adam, like so many of us, underestimated the power of the internet and social networking.

Now, this is happening. My old friend, Colin McComb, asked me to be one of the primary designers on a successor to our beloved Planescape: Torment. We're working with Monte Cook (one of the creators of my favorite edition of D&D) and other equally cool people that I can't even mention yet.

We're still in pre-production, and there's always a chance the game won't even happen: big publishers don't want this thing, so we have to go directly to the people who do (BTW, if you're one of those people, we'll talk later).

But just the fact that there's a chance I can do game design again is kind of blowing my mind. We're living in the future, guys. Next stop: teleporters and flying cars.

* Before 11, I wanted to be a jet fighter pilot. I blame Iron Eagle.

First Impact: HUNTED by Jessica Hutchison

It's time for another First Impact Critique, where we take a look at your queries, first pages, back cover copy, etc. You want to make an impact right from the start. We're here to help you do that.

If you'd like to submit your first impact material, send it to firstimpactAE@gmail.com. Details here.

Remember, anyone who offers their comments this month is eligible for either $10 for Amazon or B&N OR a 20-page critique from me.

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This week we have a query letter for a YA urban fantasy. My inline comments are to the side, with overall thoughts at the end. As always, this is all just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Query

A one-sentence logline? I'm wary :-)

Zuza always thought superheroes were cool until she became one.

Oh! You went right on with the plot
instead of backing up. Great!

A lot of great voice here.

Now when her evil step-mother asks her to pass the salt, she can launch it at her head without lifting a finger. And then there's the healing. H: her regeneration power rivals a salamander's. It's that awesome.

Just some suggestions here. Reword
them to taste and, you know, accuracy.

But not everything's that coolit's not as cool as it sounds. She seriously has to worry about bounty hunters from other dimensions tracking her down and tossing her through a portal to the Phantom Zone.

The family issues here feel like
first world problems to me. Focus on
the story.

It's just one more complication in an already complicated life. She's got a weird Latvian name (thanks Dad) and a pregnant step-mother determined to replace Zuza with her own spawn. That would be more than enough to handle, but now there's Raven, the intense guy with lethal eyes and a habit of punching people who try to kiss her. Somehow he's the only one who gets that she's in trouble. That she needs help. Problem is, she's having trouble deciding whose side he's on. And when she learns her superpowers are about as stable as a Russian nuclear power plant, she knows she's almost out of time.

The query shows Zuza's character.
You don't need to tell it.

This highlighted bit is exactly how
to write about yourself (if you're
going to do that).

FINDING ZUZA is an urban fantasy for young adults complete at 96,000 words. It takes a curly-headed, dramatic Felicity-like character and puts her into the fast-paced action and romantic suspense of a Cassandra Clare novel. I've published a few short stories, one titled Lazarus in the short story anthology Bicycle Love (Breakaway Books, 2004). Currently, I teach agriculture-related courses at a small university where driving tractors, shearing sheep and tapping maples are all on the syllabus.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Jessica Hutchison
[address, email, blog address]


Adam's Thoughts
There is a lot of Great here. The voice and the story sound solid enough that you could probably get requests with this as is. But I bet we can make it better.

For me, the threads start to fray in the last plot paragraph ("It's just one more complication..."). Up to that point, I'm totally hooked by the character and conflict, and all I need is to know the stakes -- what she has to do and why it matters. But instead I get dumped back into family matters (which, to be honest, sound a little whiny to me considering she's got telekinesis and healing factor).

Introduce Raven for sure, but be more clear about the trouble Zuza's in. The bounty hunter paragraph makes it sound like it's an ongoing problem, rather than something new and deadly that she needs help with.

Where I really got interested again was how her powers were unstable. That's a great hook and I want to know more about it. What does she need to do before her time runs out? That's what I'm unclear on: her goal.

Those are my thoughts. What do the rest of you guys think?

Failed Olympic Events

The Cat Toss. For the record, I would totally watch this.

From Anthdrawlogy's Olympics week.

What's your favorite failed Olympic event?

The Problem With Self-Imposed Deadlines

The trilemma above is a universal for any project. And I've realized this is exactly why my self-imposed deadlines almost never work. I mean, I'll set them, but then I'll get stuck on something, or a problem will appear that I didn't foresee. And once my deadline is broken, replacing it just feels . . . fake.

My self-imposed deadlines don't work because, in the querying and submission stages, the choice above is made for me:

CHEAP, because nobody's paying me. (The only way it could be cheaper is if I paid for the privilege to write which, really, yuck).

GOOD, because if it's not my best stuff, then nobody will ever pay me.

In a way, it's kind of nice. I don't have to choose! I can take all the time I need to make it right, and it's okay.

Under real deadlines, now, I'm a pro. But that's usually because somebody gave them to me. With money. And an implicit declaration of which of these three is least important to them.

I can do that.

How about you? Do self-imposed deadlines work for you?

First Impact: WARRIORS OVER DARKNESS AND THE UNSETTLED GRAVE by Clarissa

I hope you all had a good vacation. Because it's time for another First Impact Critique, where we take a look at your queries, first pages, back cover copy, etc. You want to make an impact right from the start. We're here to help you do that.

If you'd like to submit your first impact material, send it to firstimpactAE@gmail.com. Details here.

Remember, anyone who offers their comments this month is eligible for either $10 for Amazon or B&N OR a 20-page critique from me.

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This week we have the first page of a YA urban fantasy from Clarissa. My inline comments are to the side, with overall thoughts at the end. As always, this is all just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

First Page

The highlighted bit is a little vague
for me, but okay. I'm curious who
thinks bloodshed is a good thing.

2nd sentence is a bit awkward.

After-hours at the lakefront carnival was a perfect place for bloodshed, especially the kind saddled with revenge. As an assassin of daemonic creatures, Aleera Merrick knew that fun fact all too well considering the shoreline was where she found plenty of her victims and even dumped them in the very handy Lake Michigan. Plus, the high rides and skyscrapers were great stakeout points. 

Isn't a lager a kind of beer?

The longish, awkward sentences are
starting to get to me.

It was past the pier’s midnight closing hour, but teenage lagers in their drunken stumbles were taking forever to leave the grounds. She could hear their hoots and slurred tongues along with the wasted giggles and sloppy kisses of insecure girls. They didn’t see Aleera of course; but the eeriness her mere presence exuded could put more pep in their steps than any vicious canine. She supposed it was wrong, but even after decades of looking like a youngster fresh out of school, abusing her abilities was a habit no rehab could ever break. 

I like these two highlighted lines.

And abuse them she did. Her exhale was the prickly sensations bouncing across their necks. Her intense gray stare burning cracks in their backs was the feeling of a predator on prey. The dark whispers melting from her lips were the voices inside their heads. Like the devilish ones that tell long-face men to kill, kill, kill their loved ones in disgusting ways…but Aleera vowed to never go that far.

And just like that they were gone. 

If she wasn’t careful she could drive folks mad. The extent of her power tugged slyness at her lips. Mundane humans never changed. They would always be so easy to manipulate. It was in their nature; Adam and Eve were proof enough. That’s precisely why she had to protect them from creatures like to her…the untamed ones.

Adam's Thoughts

I don't think I really got into this until the third paragraph. And I think the reason is that there's a lot of thinking and telling here, but the third paragraph is where we really get to see what Aleera can do. And it's awesome and it's creepy.

Not that you can't ever tell. Sometimes that's just what you gotta do. But it'll draw the reader in more if she's doing something, and if we can learn about her through what she does.

I think this is why people say you should start with action. Not because you need exciting openings with explosions, but because we want to do something with the character, rather than read her thoughts.

And it does seem like a fascinating world. Aleera is an intriguing anti-hero, and I'm curious what shakes up her world.

So, what do the rest of you guys think?

The Reality of Dungeons & Dragons

As a kid, I was taught that D&D is of the devil, but the reality is much, much worse.



Yup. Good times. Good times.

I realize it's Christmas Eve, and you're probably not even reading this right now. If you are, then know the blog is going dark for the holidays. (And if you aren't reading this . . . weird). I'll be back with a First Impact post on January 2nd.

Have a good break!

We Should Have a Firefly Friday or Something

Cuz this video makes me all manner of nostalgic.

First Impact: TALIHINA GRACE by Randal J. Brewer

It's time for another First Impact Critique, where we take a look at your queries, first pages, back cover copy, etc. You want to make an impact right from the start. We're here to help you do that.

If you'd like to submit your first impact material, send it to firstimpactAE@gmail.com. Details here.

Remember, anyone who offers their comments this month is eligible for either $10 for Amazon or B&N OR a 20-page critique from me.

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This week we have a query letter for a commercial literary novel. My inline comments are to the side, with overall thoughts at the end. As always, this is all just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Query

I wasn't sure if these were part of the
query, or here just for me. If the
former, write it in paragraph form and
round the words to the nearest 1,000.

Talihina Grace - The hard place no one plans for and the person that meets us there.
93,451 words/complete
Commercial literary fiction

Make sure line breaks between the
paragraphs make it into your e-mail.

After Yola Hernandez kills her abusive boyfriend in a sudden rage and flees in a panic, she finds herself stranded in a small Eastern Oklahoma town with nothing but a new name and a young daughter. It’s a temporary stop; just a place to hide and save a little money before moving on; not a good place to become connected to the people, and not a good place to fall in love.

You should mention the name of the
town in para 1. It's not clear this is
the same town Yola's in.

Vivian Greene has moved from the city into her grandmother’s mountain home and opens a café in Talihina. Her pending divorce feels like freedom to her, but has placed her teenage daughter in the same unhappy situation Vivian once lived through.
Cale Williams has tried to fill the void left by his wife's death by working, raising twin boys, and pastoring a small church, but the arrival of two new women in Talihina has thrown off his careful balance. He is attracted to Vivian, but conflicted by his position as her pastor and the proper counsel he should be giving her. He is equally conflicted, perhaps even tormented by the visions he has of the beautiful and secretive waitress at Vivian’s café whom the folks of Talihina know as Teresa.

See here for why I cut this. And you
can talk about future novels if/when
the agent considers representation.

I have no writing credits or education to offer other than a time as a sports editor for small local newspapers. I am self-taught, and Talihina Grace is my debut effort. I am very proud of the result, and the sequel (Talihina Hope?) is underway. I plan to make these the first of many future novels.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this letter and for your your time and consideration,
Randal J. Brewer


Adam's Thoughts
The meat of the query, the story, is not bad at all. It shows me you can write, and it sounds interesting.

I want a little more though. Maybe connect the three characters sooner (for example, you could tell us Yola is working at Vivian's cafe in Yola's paragraph, maybe). And I really want a sense of the plot. This is a good setup, and I would read the sample pages, but I still don't know what happens. What compelling choice do these characters need to make?

Writing a query highlighting three different characters can be difficult. So another thing you might consider is sticking to a single point of view and focusing on fewer characters.

Lastly, in your submission you said that TALIHINA GRACE has already been self-published. This is something you need to mention in the query. Rachelle Gardner wrote a post on this topic that you definitely should read. I don't know whether it will hurt your chances (probably depends on the agent), but if you don't tell them up front, your chances will still be the same and the agent might be upset you didn't tell them. No need to risk that.

What do the rest of you guys think, about the query in particular?

When Is Piracy Okay?

It's been a while since we talked about piracy. I don't have anything new to say on the subject, but I thought we could have a little discussion starter. So first, a poll: When is it okay to pirate something?

The question is about ethics, not legality. The legality answer is easy and objective (for most countries, the answer is "never").

poll by twiigs.com

ANSWER DESCRIPTIONS:
1) Never. Self-explanatory, I think.

2) When there is no way to get it, even with money. For example, your favorite TV show is geo-blocked and is not available on iTunes. Netflix and Hulu are likewise geo-blocked. You couldn't pay for a copy even if you wanted to.

3) When there is no way to get it, except with a lot of money. The publisher of a book you want refuses to release an e-book version. You could get a paper copy, but within shipping it'll cost like $40. For one book.

4) When you've already paid for one version of it, but you want another version as well. You bought that TV show you want on iTunes, but you want a DVD so the kids can watch without tying up your computer.

5) When you could get a version of it, but it's not what you want. You don't actually want it on iTunes, since iTunes sucks on Windows and you'd rather watch it on your TV.

6) When you could get what you want, but the owner of the property is a money-grubbing corporate tool. Why pay for it when you can stick it to the man?

7) Whenever the heck you want. It's a free country. Also self-explanatory.

Feel free to elaborate your answer in the comments. It's a sticky issue, after all.

I'll be honest: I answered (2). We try very hard to lean toward NEVER (seeing as we are not, in fact, poor mountain villagers that eat only rice and chilis), but we also have a So You Think You Can Dance addiction that Fox won't let us feed :-(

On Covers and Curse Workers

I just finished reading RED GLOVE, the second book in Holly Black's Curse Workers trilogy.

And GAH! This trilogy!

Understand: I LOVE the stories. Love the characters, love the cons (oh my GOSH, the cons), love the powers, love the world. I think I liked WHITE CAT better than this one (the big con felt . . . connier in the first book), but RED GLOVE was still very good.

When I read WHITE CAT, my only problems with it were a minor plot issue and the cover.

Guess what my problems are now.

So, the minor plot issue is really minor. More of a world-building nitpick than anything: If everyone wears gloves all the time -- and the murderer was wearing gloves when she was caught on camera -- why would Cassel need to wipe prints off the gun? (And do police even use fingerprinting if everyone wears gloves all the time?).

 
But the cover. It's better this time -- it's not whitewashed, for example. Actually, it's a pretty cool design, but . . . I dunno. See, I think boys would love this book. Crime bosses, con artists, murders, brothers. What's not to love? But the cover's PINK, man. Even I was embarrassed to read it in public.

(Okay, so I'm very easily embarrassed. But still, it'd be nice if the cover could be more...neutral.)

First Impact: DEATHSIGN by C.A. Schmidt

It's time for another First Impact Critique, where we take a look at your queries, first pages, back cover copy, etc. You want to make an impact right from the start. We're here to help you do that.

If you'd like to submit your first impact material, send it to firstimpactAE@gmail.com. Details here.

Remember, anyone who offers their comments is eligible for either $10 for Amazon or B&N OR a 20-page critique from me.

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This week we have the first page of a cool-looking YA fantasy. My inline comments are to the side, with overall thoughts at the end. As always, this is all just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

First Page
I’m supposed to have powers, not nightmares.

But every night it’s the same. A young man’s scream. A shattering blow and a white flash. Then the wizard comes to me through the gloom, wearing a sleep tunic and shabby sheepskin slippers. “Just a dream, Lina.” He hugs me, beard prickling my forehead, and I gasp. He’s real, he's Barba Luc, an old man with corkscrew curls and eyes of profound blue. The young man is just a dream. I clutch the rough wool of my blankets as my cheeks begin a slow burn.

I'm not following this yet.

Because, really.


I’m the tyro, apprenticed to one of the world’s seven wizards. Fifteen summers old and now, as Barba Luc steps beyond my canopy, utterly mortified.

Because I’m supposed to have powers, not nightmares.

Suddenly, she doesn't seem so
mortified.

It’s a cold morning, just past Spring Smallfire—the Games ended yesterday—so I pull on a tunic and wrap my cloak around me. The cloak is pale gray lamb’s wool, lined with fleece so soft it’s like wearing a cloud. I love the the way it drapes around my shoulders, the way it makes me look, reflected in my little bronze handmirror. Squint a little and I might look wizardly.

Or not. A thin face and dark-but-not-quite-black hair. A bruise splotching my forehead and freckles dusting my nose. I blame that bruise for my nightmares and my memory lapses, but the freckles and I don’t get along, either. As for the hair, well, hair’s hair. I drag a comb through it, then push my way through the canopy and out into the cottage.

Seven shuttered windows and an enormous bearskin rug. The hearthboy is chopping goatbites for breakfast, his open-backed tunic showing a shaggy black mane down to his waist. He grunts “morning blessings” without even looking at me. Typical. No respect.

I’m supposed to have powers, not nightmares.


Adam's Thoughts
The writing is good. You've got a great handle on craft, and there's some good voice in here (I particularly like the line: "well, hair's hair.").

I have two concerns here. The first is a first person POV technique so common it has become cliche: describing the narrator in a mirror. Now I, personally, have not seen this trope enough to be bothered by it, but I'm certain other people have (that's how I know this is a cliche).

But also, the reason the mirror trick usually doesn't work is because it's artificial. The narrator has been wearing this same cloak, and seeing this same face, all her life. Why is she thinking about them now?

The second concern is also a common trope: starting with a dream. The reason this usually doesn't work is because the reader isn't grounded yet, and a dream is ridiculously hard to get grounded in because we know it's not real. I don't even know the gender of the narrator (I'm guessing about the "she"), let alone what her conflict is: why is it so terrible that she has nightmares? Why does she gasp when the old man (whom I also don't know) hugs her?

These are things the narrator knows, so the reader should know them too. We don't need to know them right away, necessarily, but the conflict and tension currently in the open are lost on us because we don't know what's going on yet.

(Also, I'm pretty sure the young man is going to turn out to be real, to be someone she meets, and (if I'm right about the "Because, really" line) to be a love interest. That's another problem with the dream trope: if it's prophetic (they often are) then it's also predictable, and you don't want that.)

What do the rest of you guys think? Do these things feel cliche to you?

The Science of Persuasion

A friend directed me to this great video on persuasion. It's about the psychology behind why people make decisions, and how you can ethically apply these concepts to persuading people to do what you want. This is ridiculously useful if you're trying to get somebody to buy something (like, say, a book you wrote), but it also applies to things like getting people to follow your blog, critique your manuscript, or blurb your novel.

(You can use them unethically too, of course. That's the problem with scientific principles. Con artists, for example, make use of these tricks all the time. For the record, I don't endorse this.)



In case you can't watch the whole thing, here's a summary on six shortcuts people use to decide whether or not to say yes to somebody.

1. RECIPROCITY: People are more likely to say yes to someone who has done something similar for them. It works best if you give something FIRST, and if that giving is PERSONALIZED and UNEXPECTED.

2. SCARCITY: People are more likely to want something that is about to be unavailable.

3. AUTHORITY: People are more likely to go along with something suggested by a credible expert. Apparently, this works even if the expert obviously benefits from whatever is suggested.

4. CONSISTENCY: People are more likely to do something consistent with prior commitments they have made. Even if that commitment is something minor (like hosting a guest post for a blog tour of your upcoming book), it can increase the likelihood of more major behavior (like buying your book when it comes out).

5. LIKING: People are more likely to do something for people that they like. And some of the main reasons people like someone are: (1) that person is similar to them, (2) that person compliments them, and (3) that person is cooperative with them.

6. CONSENSUS: When people are unsure about something, they are likely to look at what others are doing before making their own commitment. This is probably why bestsellers take off like they do. It's also why shills work.

Many of these seem obvious, but you'd be surprised how effective they can be when you use them intentionally in a marketing campaign (and ethically; sock puppets have a way of backfiring).

What do you think? Have you seen these work?

Query Letters and That Pesky Bio Paragraph

If you've done any research into writing query letters, you've probably read that you need (1) a hook, (2) a mini-synopsis, and (3) a paragraph about you. I see a lot of confusion about what to put in that bio paragraph. Hopefully we can clear that up here.

(NOTE: This is specifically for fiction queries. In non-fiction queries, the bio paragraph is a lot more important).

RULE #1: If you're not sure what to write about yourself, write:

Thank you for your time and consideration.

And NOTHING ELSE. Seriously. The agent is interested in your story. Nothing you write here will change their mind about that.

The bio paragraph is frosting. Yes, frosting can be very pretty and tasty, but if the cake sucks, the agent isn't going to eat it. Conversely, if the cake is awesome, but the frosting is . . . weird, the agent MIGHT scrape the frosting off. Or they might decide to go with one of the other equally awesome cakes topped with plain vanilla. Which brings us to . . .

RULE #2: You are not a special snowflake.
I mean, you are. Of course, you are. But so are the other tens of thousands of writers who want their book published (that's why they call it slush, cuz, you know . . . all the snowflakes).

And you know what? All of them were born with a pencil in their hands too. Or were published in local writer's journals. Or have a critique group. Or head the local chapter of SCBWI. Or came up with the idea when they traveled to Ireland. Or were inspired by God.

Whatever.

None of these things mark you out as special. For agents who have seen them over and over, they mark you out as someone who doesn't realize how not-special they are. And since you can't know what they've seen over and over, see, Rule #1.

RULE #3: Include professional publishing credits only.
"Professional" means you were paid professional rates for it, typically 5 cents/word and up. If all you got was half-a-penny per word and a copy of the magazine, chances are the agent hasn't heard of the publication. And if the agent hasn't heard of it before they read your letter, they're not going to care when they do.

RULE #4: Include previously self-published books if you sold more than 20,000 copies.
Less than that isn't as important as you'd think.

RULE #5: Mention if you share some background relevant to the story.
Like you have a degree in whatever skill the protagonist uses to solve his problems, or you live in whatever exotic location it's set in (Canada? Not so exotic. The Ozarks? Surprisingly, yes).

RULE #6: You can include something unique about yourself. I guess.
I don't want to tell people not to include stuff like this -- it's memorable and unique, and I've seen it done in cute, writerly ways that made me laugh.

But you won't ever look bad if you follow Rule #1. I mean, what could be more unique than living in Thailand and raising 10 kids? But I didn't say any of that in my query, and it didn't hurt my request rate any. In the bio paragraph, less is more.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Tell us in the comments.

First Impact: MY SISTER'S DATING A SERIAL KILLER by Carolyn Chambers Clark

It's time for another First Impact Critique, where I take a look at your queries, first pages, back cover copy, etc. You want to make an impact right from the start. We're here to help you do that.

Congratulations to commenter PATCHI! The gods of probability have favored you for November's prize!

December's prize will be the same: either $10 for Amazon/B&N OR a 20-page critique from me (seriously, guys, I've had ZERO time to think of/hunt people down for better prizes; I can't imagine why). Anyone who leaves their thoughts in the comments is eligible.

If you'd like to submit your first impact material, send it to firstimpactAE@gmail.com. Details here.

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This week we have a query for a YA thriller from Carolyn Chambers Clark. My inline comments are to the side, with overall thoughts at the end. As always, everything here is just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Query

Opening sentence is a bit long and
awkward for me.

I laughed a little imagining her tying
corpses to her sister's boyfriend ;-)

Junior year could be her last for sixteen-year-old Cammie Carter who knows her big sister's dating a serial killer, but she needs more proof. Cammie races to find a couple of dead bodies and tie them to her sister's boyfriend before he puts Cammie and sister on his To Murder List.

Don't need to repeat her name & age.

Sixteen-year-old Cammie Carter appoints herself amateur detective in her town when the local police in Sleepy Valley, SC, spend more time drinking beer and playing cards than paying attention to evidence.

How does she catch him? What does
she see?

What's her plan?

After she catches a guy in what she's sure is attempted murder, she tries to stop her sister from dating him, but big sis, her parents, and the police all tell her she has an over-active imagination. No one listens to Cammie excerpt her over-the-wall Nana, but that just makes her more determined to find evidence the guy's murdering people. Based on the TV mysteries she watches, she devises what could be a foolproof plan ... unless her sister's boyfriend catches on.

MY SISTER'S DATING A SERIAL KILLER is a young adult thriller, complete at 60,000 words.

Contests: Unless they're HUGE and
PRESTIGIOUS, cut them.

Publications: Unless you got paid pro
rates for them, cut them.

Critique group: Cut it.

I won 2nd place for YA fiction from the Florida State Writing Competition and first place for YA fiction from the Utica Writer's Club Competition. PALM PRINTS, the University of South Florida's writer's journal and RIVERWALK have each published one of my short stories. I've been extremely active (top 7%) for a couple of years at www.critiquecircle.com, critiquing others' work and having mine critiqued.

Thank you for considering my work.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Chambers Clark


Adam's Thoughts
I like a good thriller, and this has as much potential as any, but I'm afraid there's not enough meat for me to tell.

I think you did the thing where you start with a hook paragraph and then back up to tell your story. I've talked about why this is a bad idea before. Short version: Get right to your inciting incident (Cammie saw her sister's boyfriend dumping a dead body in a lake!), then use the rest of the space to lead into your compelling choice (if Cammie exposes him, her sister will hate her forever, but if she doesn't, her sister will die!).

Obviously I made up an incident and choice, but I had to. That's another issue I had with the query: I wanted more specifics. Tell us how she knows the guy's a killer, what (specifically!) she plans to do about it, and what the stakes are if she fails.

Also, some folks may take issue with my last comment (the one that basically says cut the whole bio paragraph). I can understand that, but you can save your issues for Friday. I'm going to write a post on that particular topic.

Otherwise, what do the rest of you guys think? Your comments are at least as valuable as mine.

Books I Read: Neuromancer

Title: Neuromancer
Author: William Gibson
Genre: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk
Published: 1984
My Content Rating: R for sex, language, and violence
Cliffhanger Ending: No

Case is a washed-up computer hacker; a toxic enzyme from some folks he double-crossed ensures he can never jack into the matrix again. He spends his nights trying to get himself killed in the seamier side of Japan when he's approached by a mysterious man named Armitage and his muscle: a woman with mirrors for eyes and blades in her fingers. Armitage says he can give Case his life back, but he needs him for a job tougher than any hacker has ever faced.

Case is so totally in.

This novel is what cyberpunk is, guys. You have no idea how much science-fiction is influenced by this story, from Shadowrun to The Matrix. I once put this on a list of 10 sci-fi books every SF fan should know, and it has earned that spot.

And it's totally fun on top of it. The only thing that bugged me at all were the descriptions of cyberspace, which were a lot more amorphous that I would have liked. But it's surprising how well Gibson's imagined tech almost 30 years ago holds up to what we have today.

A Free, Easy Backup Plan

You need to backup your stuff. Not because your computer might get stolen or your house might burn down. But because your hard drive WILL fail within a couple of years. Someone in your house WILL, somehow, put a virus on your machine. You WILL accidentally-but-permanently delete your work in progress.

I am the most tech savvy, obsessively careful person I know, yet all three of these things have happened to me. They'll get you too.

I'm also supremely lazy. So if my backup plan requires any maintenance from me, it just won't happen. Here's how I do it then.

STEP 1: DROPBOX
You guys know about Dropbox, right? You can store 2 GB for free online with very little work. That's not enough to keep all your pictures and music, but it's more than enough to protect your writing.

Make an account and download the app to your computer. That's it. After that, Dropbox will auto-upload anything you put into the special Dropbox folder, anytime it changes.


"But wait," you say, "Don't I have to manually copy my stuff into that folder as I work?"

Well, yeah. One solution is to work directly within the Dropbox folder, but you don't want to do that (especially since Dropbox can sync two ways -- if somebody hacked into Dropbox, or you had multiple computers linked up, you might lose everything accidentally again). The other solution is this:

STEP 2: CREATE SYNCHRONICITY
Create Synchronicity is this nice little program that will automatically copy files from anywhere to anywhere, on a schedule. It's free, lightweight, versatile, and smart enough to only copy files that actually changed.

Just install it on your machine and set up a profile to copy your important files wherever you want them -- an external hard drive, another computer on the network, or (in this case) your Dropbox folder. Schedule it to run once a day and bam, you never have to think about protecting your work again.

Is this helpful to you? What's your backup plan?

First Impact: JUMPING ANTS by Lori Goldstein

It's time for another First Impact Critique, where I take a look at your queries, first pages, back cover copy, etc. You want to make an impact right from the start. We're here to help you do that.

If you'd like to submit your first impact material, send it to firstimpactAE@gmail.com. Details here.

Remember, anyone who offers their comments is eligible for either $10 for Amazon or B&N OR a 20-page critique from me.

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Here, in Lori's own words: I'm submitting two takes on a pitch that would go in my query letter for my upmarket novel, Jumping Ants.

These posts aren't usually double-pitches, but I did say anything under 300 words, so let's get to it! Remember, this is all just my opinion, so take it or leave it, as you will.

Query Pitch #1

If he was already unpaid and broke
anyway, why do his parents suddenly
get fed up just because he's fired?

I get lost at the "older, rounder
version of himself." Can't tell if it's
literal or not.

At twenty-nine, the charming but aimless Max Walker is too old to be an unpaid intern at a Manhattan advertising agency. He’s also too old to be single, broke, and living with his parents. But he is. When a raunchy photo of a drunken night between the sheets with the busty HR assistant gets him fired, Max’s formerly indulgent parents kick him out onto their suburban New Jersey lawn. A chance stop at a fast-food drive-thru presents Max with a much bigger problem when a stranger opens his car door, puts a gun to his head, and orders him to drive. The weekend-long adventure with this desperate, older, rounder version of himself leaves Max with a black eye, a crush on a feisty bartender, and the truth that the unfazed grin he’s been honing hasn’t fooled anyone, least of all himself.

Query Pitch #2

The opening question made me laugh
(though maybe because I just read
Pitch #1).

Who gets fired from an unpaid internship? The charming but aimless Max whose has a talent for self-sabotage that gets him hired, fired, and evicted from his parents’ house in the same week. The twenty-nine-year-old is waiting in line at a fast-food drive-thru assessing which friend’s couch he’ll now call home when a stranger opens his car door, points a gun at him, and orders him to drive. The weekend-long journey with this older, rounder, more desperate version of himself leaves Max with a black eye, a crush on a feisty bartender, and the truth that the unfazed grin he’s been honing hasn’t been fooling anyone, least of all himself.


Adam's Thoughts
First, a query basic: paragraph breaks. These both need some.

So, personally, I like the second pitch better, primarily because it doesn't raise the question of why his previously-indulgent parents suddenly get fed up with him. (Remember that, guys: When people have problems with your plot or your world, sometimes the best solution is to cut whatever raised questions.)

But both of them have the same last sentence, which is where I have a couple problems. A minor problem is the one I mentioned in my comment: I can't tell if the "older, rounder version of himself" is meant to be taken literally or figuratively. Likely this is due to all the spec fic I read, so you might be able to ignore it.

The more major problem is that this is all setup. His firing and eviction is the inciting incident, with the gun to his head as the turning point. But that leaves 3/4 of the novel that we know almost nothing about.

I've noted before this is a common problem. The solution is to get to, and through, your turning point as fast as possible, then use the rest of the space to lead up to a sadistic choice -- two compelling things Max must choose between that will make the reader go, "What will he do?!!!"

What do the rest of you guys think?

When You Open Your MS for the 1,000,000th Time and You LOATHE It

Thank you for indulging my forced vacation last week. I actually didn't mean to time it with Thanksgiving (I often forget about American holidays out here), but sometimes things just work out, don't they?

So. You sit down to write. You open the Word doc that you've opened a million times before, see the chapter heading or title page and . . . you hate it. You hate that chapter title, that opening paragraph, that scene that you've revised twenty billion times.

This happened to me a little while ago. I've been revising Post-Apoc Ninjas for like ever, and I was so frigging sick of seeing this screen every morning:

Single-spaced, 10-point font, baby. That's how I roll.

But hey, writing's hard, right? We just gotta deal with it and move on.

But this was affecting my mood (and my predilection toward distraction) every single day. It was making a hard thing harder. So with the help of some basic psychology, I fixed it. Now I see these instead:

Emo Billy, but lots cooler.

Alternate view: a map prettier than any I could ever draw.

I found pictures related to my story, pictures that got me excited about it, and pasted them all over the first page. Now I don't have to see any text until I'm ready (and with the Document Map, I don't have to see the opening text at all, if I don't want to).

So that's your tip for today: When you open your manuscript for the millionth time and you LOATHE it, drop some awesome pictures on the first page to remind you why you still love it.

What about you? When you hate your manuscript and don't want to see it ever again, what do you do about it?