Unabashed

There are a couple of posts I’ve read lately about the writing of queries that I think are just brilliant. First, from Kameron Hurley:

If you’re working on writing up queries or synposes, I’ve found it sorta fun and helpful to write up one of those “back cover” blurbs that you see on the back of books as practice.

This is actually a tactic I’ve been straining to employ myself. The big pitch, you know, that reels in readers who, once they’ve read it, have no choice but to read on. Sounds good on paper, don’t it? The best-case scenario would be to write such a great pitch that they actually do use it on the dust jacket.

And then from Colleen Lindsay, literary agent-at-large of the FinePrint Literary Management Agency:

A well-respected agent I know who has been in the business for more than twenty years recently said to me “Colleen, remember this: the writer never gets any better than the writing you see in the pitch letter.”

This statement should be framed in gold and hung on a wall beside every writer’s favorite place to write. When I read this, it made perfect sense to me and kind of terrified me at the same moment. It also occurred to me that a really good pitch writer might sell a crappy book a long time before a poor pitch writer might sell a really good one.

And finally, this bit:

I’m also impressed by the number of really excellent query letters I’m seeing! Short, succinct and compelling. Particularly from those folks who identify as former Clarion and/or Odyssey students.

Some of the worst query letters I’m seeing are, surprisingly, from MFAs. They’re long and tedious and a little wind-baggy, telling me more about the writer’s background and education than they do about the book they’re hoping to get me to read. I wonder: do most MFA programs only focus on the craft and not the business of writing? Anyone?

Now I’m not biased against MFAs. I’m sure there are a lot of really great folks who also happen to have their MFA. But I’m quite certain a good portion of them are biased against me and writers of my ilk, kind of in the same way that actors are biased against reality TV stars. So forgive me this moment of unabashed mirth as I nyah you MFAs a little bit. I know you are all extremely edumacated, and that I’m just a lil ol’ genre-fiction nerd, but every now and then it’s good to hear that the little guys are doing well.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: clarion, Fiction, genre, MFA, odyssey, query, synopsis, writing