Last Query Roundup of 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012

Last Query Roundup of 2012

Queries were cleared out by 8:00 pm, 12/16/2012

Total Queries in the Inbox: 209

Manuscripts I Requested: 3

YA Fantasy
YA Sci Fi (something I haven't seen yet!)
Adult Women's Fiction

In my queries, there was a lot of YA and a lot of really long manuscripts.

The thing about long word counts is that manuscripts a little over 100k words don't necessarily scare me. Manuscripts that are 150k, 170k, or over 200k, those do scare me. I know there are some great manuscripts that are that long, but for every great one there are hundreds that need a lot of work.

If you have a really long manuscript, make sure you check your pacing. Go scene by scene. Get into each one late, get out early. Make sure each scene moves the plot forward in some way. Check the dialogue and cut any repetitions.

Then have a beta reader go through your manuscript with the same things in mind.

Then, if you still have a long manuscript go ahead and query. But maybe, and don't quote me on this, leave your word count out.

7 comments:

Eric Steinberg said...: Thanks for these helpful roundups, letting us in on what's out there and what you're requested.

The bit about work count was particularly helpful to me. My almost ready to query YA sci fi is in concern rather than worry territory...still trying to get it down.; December 17, 2012 at 8:30 AM
Sam Mills said...: I think it helps to envision your word count in page count, because it's easy to get lost in your plotting (it seems faster to you because you've got the whole thing memorized!). It's always a really rough estimate because of font/size/yadda but when every 50K adds another 150-200 pages, you've got to start thinking, "Would I pick up a 500 page young adult novel if I didn't already love the author?"; December 17, 2012 at 7:06 PM
1m4n5h0w said...: Well now, seems the blogging gods are against me. Third time lucky to post a comment! Seems that the favored amount of first time writers should write is roughly 100k-120k words. This may seem like a lot. But it isn't really. I am past that and while not quite done yet, I am roughly 3/4's through and closing on 150k. I can’t see myself breaking the book up into two just for the sake of keeping my word count within a boundary. So perhaps I should rather 'forget' to mention how many words I have written.; December 19, 2012 at 7:27 AM
Lexa Cain said...: Thanks for all you do for the writing community! :-)
♥ Merry Christmas! ♥; December 24, 2012 at 12:58 AM
Amiya Liccian said...: The very first MS I finished, came in at 180k words and I SWORE up and down that nothing needed chopping. Every scene in the book was absolutely necessary and even if I cut one chapter, the reader would be completely lost. Man, was I wrong. Wrong, wrong WRONG. I am currently in the process of completely overhauling and editing the entire MS. Sometimes, less really is more.; December 25, 2012 at 7:59 PM
joanyedwards said...: Dear Suzie,
I nominated your blog for the Blogger of the Year 2012: http://confessionsofawanderingheart.blogspot.com/. Every week you accept manuscripts according to your guidelines and list how many you accept and reject. Thank you, Suzie for your time and dedication to helping writers.

Celebrate you.
Never Give Up
http://joanyedwards.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/i-gave-the-blogger-of-the-year-2012-award-to-3-blogs/; December 26, 2012 at 9:26 AM
mmahessh said...: Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is a really well written article. I’ll be sure to bookmark it and return to read more of your useful information. Thanks for the post. I will definitely return. Plots for sale in Hyderabad; January 5, 2013 at 9:18 AM

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Five Random Things About Suzie

1. I drink so much orange soda, it's probably running through my veins. I've been known to go through a twelve pack of diet sunkist in a day.

2. I'm legitimately nocturnal (or a vampire). I will be so exhausted at two pm that I'm falling asleep standing up - it has happened before, at Six Flags no less - but as soon as the sun goes down I'm wide awake.

3. I have a gorgeous unused $6000 Reem Acra wedding dress hanging in my closet, and it showed up on my doorstep the same day my (now ex) fiance broke up with me. And thank God for that. I wouldn't have wanted to waste that dress on him.

4. Social anxiety plagues me daily. I write a script and practice in front of the mirror when I have to make a phone call, but most people who interact with me have no idea how nervous I am (or perhaps they lie) because I've worked so hard to try to overcome it.

5. I'm actually worried that I will never love my children (when I do have them in the far off future) as much as I love my dogs. I just like animals better than people - they're sweet and innocent and soft and furry - is that so wrong?

quotes

金不一定閃
流浪者不都迷路

"I dreamed you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane
I think I made you up inside my head
I fancied you'd return the way you said
But I grow old and I forget your name
I think I made you up inside my head" ~Silvia Plath, Mad Girl's Love Song

"Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." ~ Robert Frost

"Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds." ~ William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 116"

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…And one fine morning-...So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, THE GREAT GATSBY

"For deadly secrets strike when understood
and lucky stars all exit on the run:
never try to knock on rotten wood,
never try to know more than you should." ~ Sylvia Plath, "Admonitions"

"The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become." ~ Milan Kundera, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

William Wilberforce: "No one of our age has ever taken power."
William Pitt Jr: "Which is why we're too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway."

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." ~ Mark Twain

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." ~ Mark Twain

“You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace.” ~ Charles Dickens, A MUTUAL FRIEND

"I think the idea of life after death is a bad idea. It distracts you from appreciating the uniqueness of the here and now, the moment you are living." ~ Joseph Campbell

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear...Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end." ~ Alan Paton, CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

"To laugh often and much.. to endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better... To know even one life has breathed easier because you lived, This is to have succeeded." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"After telling the hard facts to anyone from lover or friend, I have changed in their eyes...[Some see it as] a mission, as if ...they can pull me back from the wreckage of that day. Of course, their best efforts are largely useless. No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved." ~ Alice Sebold, LUCKY

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared." ~Tupac, The Rose That Grew From Concrete

Confessions

Monday, December 17, 2012