The event formerly known as #queryfail

Yay! I missed the last one.

Today is #Queryday on Twitter.com!

Today is #queryday (formerly #queryfail) on Twitter.

Agents are taking your industry and query related questions and answering them while they livetweet about what they like and don't like in a query. To follow it you don't need a Twitter account. Just go over here. To ask a question, however, you do need to get a Twitter account.

It's free and addictive, y'all.

merging the two threads.

MacAllister said:

I did, however, find this link. Which is sort of mind-blowingly hostile and astonishingly bitter.

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Re: that article.

Sounds like someone got one too many form rejections to partials.

There's a lot of irreverence, arrogance and ire in that diatribe. I stopped reading for value and started reading for entertainment around the end of the first paragraph.

MacAllister said:

Here's a really interesting article, too: http://www.pw.org/content/agents_amp_editors_qampa_four_young_literary_agents

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Loved that article so much I blogged about it. Fascinating stuff in there. Actually, they have a *lot* of really interesting articles, I thought.

I've followed off and on, but most of what I've read is a Q&A on basic query stuff. Only read a handful of actual query fails.

Wow. You all know my opinion about this queryfail business, but that article is ridiculous...not to mention offensive. Nice to know fantasy and detective fiction are lumped in with "first-draft bubble gum." It's a shame, too, because there are some reasonable points being made...but it's hard to see them amongst the piles of vitriolic attacks ("wannabe writers enrolled in one of the creative-writing courses that proliferate at our universities and colleges"?!?). How arrogant can you get, seriously?

ChaosTitan said:

I've followed off and on, but most of what I've read is a Q&A on basic query stuff. Only read a handful of actual query fails.

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I've actually seen more query wins, now that you mention it. Rather interesting. Wonder if it's like a lot of other things in life...good query/bad query cycles or batches?

Kathleen42 said:

Full details can be found on The Swivet.

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"The Swivet." Here we go again.

Kathleen42 said:

If less literary fiction is making it to the shelves the fault lies just as much with the buying public and the publishing houses.

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Her book appears to be commercial fiction about a woman's weight loss battle. I don't think a literary fiction bias would impact her anyway. Not for this novel at least.

MacAllister said:

It's oddly subdued. *sigh* Which is sort of a shame, honestly - while, yes, it's good to be nice whenever you can, sometimes brutal and unvarnished honesty is absolutely priceless.

I did, however, find this link. Which is sort of mind-blowingly hostile and astonishingly bitter.

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I"m a little perplexed as to why the writer is so convinced that agents and editors want different things. Both want books that they believe will sell. Neither makes money unless they do.

But I understand the bitterness. Oh yes, I do.

MacAllister said:

I did, however, find this link. Which is sort of mind-blowingly hostile and astonishingly bitter.

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And ironically enough, pretty badly written as well.

Polenth said:

Her book appears to be commercial fiction about a woman's weight loss battle. I don't think a literary fiction bias would impact her anyway. Not for this novel at least.

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I read part of the excerpt she posted on Authonomy. IMO, the agents made the right call.

ETA: here's the link I posted elsewhere. Note to self: egoboo may feel good, but it doesn't help improve my writing.

Message from Mary: I invite you to have a look at the first few chapters of The Whole Clove Diet which I have posted on Authonomy. This novel has been rejected, mainly sight unseen, by more than 60 agents. Please note the reader comments on this book — and feel free to add your own comments if you wish.
http://www.authonomy.com/ReadBook.as...d=6823#chapter

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selkn.asrai said:

Re: that article.

Sounds like someone got one too many form rejections to partials.

There's a lot of irreverence, arrogance and ire in that diatribe. I stopped reading for value and started reading for entertainment around the end of the first paragraph.

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I had to stop reading when he compared himself and his writer friends to Atwood.

How do I make the #queryday tweets automatically email themselves into my inbox? Thanks

I read the pages of The Whole Clove Diet that were posted. I didn't think they were terrible, not by a long shot -- she can write. The excerpt includes some very vividly observed passages, and the characters were distinctive. But it's not quite commercial enough to be commercial, nor literary enough to be literary. I suspect her effort to bridge the gap has left her stranded in the middle.

Also, I didn't find the MC compelling or sympathetic; we're supposed to feel bad for her, and I guess I did, but so many of the people surrounding her were unrealistically terrible to her for no reason. (That doctor would never, ever say that to her or to anyone, probably under any circumstances but certainly not while serving as a temporary fill-in.) And she just took no responsibility for her rotten situation whatsoever; all these shallow, unrewarding relationships she had were obviously meant to be the fault of the other people involved, never hers for not speaking up/not being honest/not having saddled herself with that person in the first place. There was no sense whatsoever that the character could or should have any kind of agency. Everything was supposed to be someone else's fault, even her smoking.

Which, if you look at the letter she wrote about how it's agents' fault she isn't getting published, is not that surprising.