Come and join the club!
A few weeks ago I wrote about my big dilemma. I made a decision and have decided to go for the traditional publishing route. (Thanks to everyone who helped with their opinions and support).
So my book is now edited, synopsis written and submission letter done. But, my word, those last two were hard!
As a fully paid up member of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, I have as much difficulty selling my own work as the next person. How do you write a compelling letter that will make the agent read on? How do you compress the plot of an 86,000 word novel into one page?
Completely stuck for inspiration and unable to find what I needed on my shelf of how-to write guides, I turned to Google and thanks to the generosity of two other writers I found what I was looking for.
A post by Susan Dennard on the Pub(lishing) Crawl blog made the process so simple. The questions she poses make it so easy to start and if you follow them through you come out with a good synopsis. I’ve used this to create my own template form to fill in when I’m creating a synopsis in future.
The submission letter is always going to be tough, particularly when you’ve read tweets from agents in which they flag up the mistakes people have made in querying them and you pledge to Not Make Those Mistakes Yourself. Again I turned to that lovely search engine and found this from the Writers’ Workshop. It distills everything you need and asks just the right questions to help you supply the right information.
Now, I don’t know whether my letter or synopsis will be successful but at least I feel confident that I’ve done the best job I can.
As writers we’re all insecure in our work, even when we shouldn’t be, but by helping and supporting each other we can help other writers to develop. So thank you to the two generous souls who shared their knowledge. Let’s all try to do that.
If you’re a writer and you’re insecure, there is help out there! Pop over to Alex J. Cavanaugh’s blog and find out more about joining the Insecure Writers’ Support Group. You won’t be sorry that you did!
April 2, 2014 at 9:58 AM
I think this is a great post for showing how supportive the writing community is. I’m glad you got what you needed and I wish you so much luck with your submissions!!
April 2, 2014 at 2:46 PM
Good for you – making up your mind, sticking to it, doing your homework, and writing the best synopsis you can! Submissions & synopsis writing are by far the toughest part of this job / hobby. I cringe and tremble every time this part of the process rolls around.
Best of luck!
Terri @ Scribbler’s Sojourn