Success!!

It is really great to see so many success stories on the main site at Querytracker.net. The goal when we started this site was to give writers more accurate methods of gaining representation, and after a year on the Web, it is clear that we have done that. Thank you to all of you who plugged in your data and helped the rest of us. You can follow along with some of our successful authors as they travel the road to publication by visiting the Querytracker forum. Jessica Verday is often online giving us updates on her book, "The Hollow," the first in an amazing new series due to be released by Simon and Schuster in 2009. You can also find updates and things about Jess in general on her blog: http://jessicaverday.blogspot.com

Other members on the forum have procured representation, sold short stories, or just celebrated the completion of a new novel. All these things are a measure of success, and your successes are our successes. So as we venture into our second year here at Querytracker.net, we want to say thank you, both for being a part of our first year, and for giving us our own measure of recognition by voting for us as one of Writer's Digest's top 101 websites for writers. We are proud of that recognition, and we are proud of you! Keep writing!!

Patrick and Jason

How to Write a Great Query Letter

One of our long time members on the Querytracker community recently posted a link to a book that I thought deserved a mention on the blog. Thanks for this great info, Emeraldsky. Everyone who is at the stage in their writing journey where they are ready to start the query process should take a few days and read this book beforehand.

Noah Lukeman, author of The First Five Pages and former literary agent has made his book How to Write a Great Query Letter available online for free. Thanks, Noah. This book is a great resource for writers, as it gives them an inside look at what a lot of agents are really looking for in the ever-so-crucial query letter. As Mr. Lukeman states, so many writers spend months and years writing and polishing their book and then unintentionally shoot themselves in the foot by dashing off a query in a matter of minutes. Even if your work is Pulitzer-quality, no one will ever see it if you can't convince an agent with a well crafted query that it is worth their time to investigate further. I urge everyone to go to the link and get this book RIGHT NOW!! Just click on the title of this post and it will take you there. Keep writing!

Jason

The Second Draft

Most of us in the writing community have a way we like to go about our craft. Some writers like to map out their entire story before they even start to write, while others like to let the characters and the story emerge organically, growing almost of their own volition.

But what about the second draft?

While I am not saying that this is the only way to go about revising your work, it is a great place to start. Believe me, I don't care if you're Hemingway, your first draft needs work. We've all heard that most of writing is re-writing, and I am a subscriber to that theory. The first draft is all about blasting out those words and getting the story down. Once that's done, the real work begins.

A story is like a gemstone. I'm sure no one has ever heard that comparison before, but it is a really good way to visualize the process. In the first draft, you have unearthed this rock. It is big and blocky and very organic-looking. The first thing you're going to do is look at the whole thing and see where the heart of the gem lies. You cut away the roughest material until you can see its true form. Once that is done, you rough it into the general shape you want it to take, and finally you polish it and facet it until it glitters like a star. These are the same steps you can take when you begin the revision process.

Step one: Story If you are not an outliner, then once the first draft is finished you should go back and re-read your story and create an outline along the way. Some people suggest putting the manuscript away for anywhere from a week to a month, but that is up to you. The idea is to give yourself "fresh eyes" for your manuscript. This is important because we are so close to our work and know it so intimately that we can't look at it objectively. You need objectivity to honestly evaluate your work, so if you need time away, take it, and when you're ready, pull it back out and get to reading. Once you have a feel for your story as a whole, go back and look over your outline and make sure that everything in the story fits. Ensure that the subplots and characters are there for a reason. A major rewrite may be necessary at this step, and if it is, don't let it intimidate you. Rewriting is good if it is making the story better. Conflict, character, tension and obstacles for your main character to overcome must all be there and must all be necessary to resolve the story. Once you have the story set and you are sure that all the elements fit together you can move on to the next step.

Step Two: Scene Now that you have the story set, it is time to go back through and look at each scene you have created. Look at them with an eye toward cutting. If a scene doesn't need to be there and the story still flows nicely without it, cut it. Sometimes this step will lead you to a major plot revision. If this is the case, then go back to Step One and start all over again. I know that sounds like the worst thing in the world, but it is better than having a bad story. Scenes should begin and end naturally and dialog should be clean and realistic.

Step Three: Sentence Now your are ready to facet and polish your gem. Go through each and every sentence of your book, watching for anything that makes you stop and go back to reread. Watch for excessive adjectives and adverbs, and make sure you have strong verbs. Word conservation is what you should be focusing on here. There should be no unnecessary words in your sentences. Sentence lengths should be varied and provide an easy rhythm. It is a good idea to read your book out loud so that you can hear how it sounds. You will catch a lot of flow and rhythm problems here.

It is at this point that you should feel confident to present your work to a critique group or your beta readers, but don't be surprised if they still find things that you missed. Beta readers are especially valuable in the sense that if several readers point out the same issue, then you can be fairly sure that you have a real problem. Beta readers are going to want to give you input, but remember that it is your story, and if you don't feel like a suggested change then don't make it. Ultimately it is up to you.

This approach is logical to me, as it moves from general down to specific, from the broad stroke of the story to the microscopic sentence structure. Though it is in no way the only method for revision, it's one that many people can use and is easy to keep in your head during the process. There are definite steps and goals to be reached in each step. If you have methods that you prefer, leave a comment and let us know! Keep writing!

QT 2 is Now Live

After two long months of development, QT2 is now up and running. I thought it would take most of the day, but things went smoothly and it was ready by about 9am on December 31st.

Of course, it is far from being done. I will be tweaking and adding things to it for several weeks. I figure I was able to incorporate about two-thirds of the features I wanted to add, so I still have some work ahead of me. If you made a suggestion for a new feature but don't see it, it probably just means I haven't gotten to it yet. If you want to contact me to see if your feature is on the list, please go right ahead.

The first thing most people will likely notice is the new menu system. The original menu became quite cluttered as more and more features were added. This one is cleaner and can grow without getting ugly.

The other thing that stands out almost right away is all the on-screen help. Just put your mouse over any of the yellow question marks to get instant help. Plus, almost any icon also has help attatched, which can be viewed just by placing your mouse over it.

Enjoy and Happy New Year.

QueryTracker Version 2 Quickly Approaching

With a self-imposed deadline of January 1st, I've been very busy working on the new version of QueryTracker (which explains why I haven't been doing much blogging.) Yesterday I opened up QT2 to a group of beta testers who are giving it a full workout, and even though not all of the components are there, feedback has already been good.

Sadly, I won't have everything done by the deadline, but there is still plenty of new stuff and I am still planning to release everything available on Jan. 1. So, what will be different in QT2? Plenty. Where do I even begin?

• Greatly expanded search tools for searching for agents, including geographic region, and more.
  
  
• A system of user-definable "folders" so you can organize agents and queries.
  
  
• A Query List page showing all of the agents you have queried, sorted however you want and contained in a tree structure with branches for each manuscript and folder.
  
  
• Tracking has been expanded and broken into two categories; query letters and manuscript submissions, so now you can track all phases of your agent quest and view more detailed statistics about each category.
  
  
• An agent "Watch" feature which allows you to select agents and be notified if any user adds a comment for that agent or anything about the agent's profile changes.
  
  
• Tons of content sensitive help, making it easier to use the system to its fullest potential.
  
  
• So many little improvements that I can't even think of them all, but one that has been a big hit with the beta testers is a pop-up status window which displays a quick query status for any query just by moving your mouse over an icon. (Hard to explain, you'll just have to see it to appreciate it.)
  
  
• Word-count reports showing each agent's reply history based on the word-count of the manuscript.
  
  
• Genre reports showing each agent's reply history based on the genre of the manuscript. (This was previously only available to premium members but in QT2 standard members will have full access to it.)
  

All of the above features, and more, are included as part of the free (standard) membership, the list of new features for premium members is even better, here are a few:

• Even more detailed search capabilities.
  
  
• Additional agent reports.
  
  
• Personal statistics showing the statistics or your own queries and submissions, which you can breakdown by manuscript and folder, and view as easy-to-read pie charts.
  
  
• The ability to customize reports by selecting your own date ranges so you can view data from any time frame.
  
  
• The ability to create your own custom reports based on all the data collected by QT2. You define the criteria and the system will create and display the results for you.

Like I said, I will release the new version Jan. 1, and will continue to add to it after that because there is still so much more I want to do.

Also, note that while creating the new system, I have been very careful to keep the user-interface as similar as possible to that of the old system, so users will not have to relearn a lot of stuff.

The site will likely be unavailable for some time on December 31st while I install the new system. See you then, and I hope you like it.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I know, some of you readers may not be from the USA, but you can still be thankful, and certainly I can wish you well.

As for you NaNoWrMo writers, you had your break, now get back to work.

QueryTracker Theme Song

A QueryTracker user just sent me a link to this video (Thanks Lee) and I think it is the perfect theme song for QueryTracker.

Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TLmpL2AzLs

Not only is it appropriate and uplifting, but it also reminded me of the old days (those of you old enough to remember E.L.O. will understand.)