Ever wonder what a publisher, editor or agent thinks about your query, synopsis or submission?
Here is a humorous look at a very real issue, as if you met them in a singles bar instead of the query letter, this is what they might say:
The Publisher's Dating Dictionary by Kim Whitfield
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"the prostitutes I sleep with tell me I'm really good."
neatly passionate
www.rwanational.org
MSS - manuscript/s.
RWA has chapters by state or region. I am in the New England chapter, and there are many others, some by special interest, like Kiss of Death, for romantic suspense.
Great online courses on writing via RWA and its courses.
i will explain the plot points and turning points, then the hook.
let's say there is a love story, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.
Act I
Ch 1
Boy gets girl.
Ch 2
Boy loses girl.
Ch 3 Turning point.
--------------------------
Act I
Ch 1 Boy gets girl - he is interested, he pursues. plot point 1.
Ch 2 Boy loses girl. She loses interests and leaves town. plot point 2.
Ch 3 turning point - he has a near fatal accident and is in a coma. She is out of the country and doesn't know. (changes the direction of the story)
End of Act I
Act II
Ch 4 - he gets worse. he sends letters to her old address. she never gets them because she is out of the country. plot point 4
Ch 5 she thinks he has forgotten her. She is sad, wishes she did not leave him. plot point 5.
Ch 6 he almost gives up hope. He misses her. plot point 6.
Ch 7 twist of fate - second turning point. twist of fate brings them together again.
Ch 8 - they question each other why they didn't contact each other. plot point 8.
ch 9 - third turning point and black moment. (crisis) just before declaring love to each other, he nearly dies.
End of Act II
Act III
ch 10 - she vows to help him at whatever cost. plot point 10.
ch 11 - he begins to recover.
ch 12 happily ever after.
The hook is this:
He thought he'd met the woman of his dreams until she spurned him and left for France. Then after a hit and run left him in a coma, everyone thought he would die. As he slowly began to recover well enough to write letters, he wrote her daily. But she never wrote back, and he never knew why. Her own mother's death brought her back home, and it was there, she learned for the first time of his near fatal accident. She'd missed him terribly. She vowed to help him recover, but he nearly died, a second time.
The hook is part of what you read in TV listings, on the back covers or spine of a book...The hook is what gets the reader to READ page 1. Page 1 is what gets the reader to read the rest of the story....
I have not been in a bar since 1998. I don't like all the glitz and glitter. If the pace had talking fish on the wall, then yeah I'd go in and order a cup of green tea. I of course would not make eye contact with women and try not to get too interested in that below the neck.
This is one long sentence, but I have seen this as well:
There's also a higher degree of crankiness going on - a stereotype, true, but in my own experience, internet-posters are far more likely to approach you with arrogance instead of courtesy, aggressively demand that you publish them, and flame you when you turn them down - partly, it seems, because the good feedback they've had, or even just the sense that they're proper writers now their stuff is out there, even if it's out there because they put it there themselves, can go to their heads and make them feel entitled to throw their weight around.