Do I query the story (the emotional arc) or the plot (the action)?

Cindy From Oregon · Sep 1, 2017

Hello! To make a long story short, I had an idea for a middle-grade novel. It was (as I discovered later) a plotline, not a storyline. My storyline is not unique - lonely tween in a new town wants friends - but the plotline is. Unique-er, anyway.

I've completed it and done a few polishing/editing rounds, and have read approximately a billion articles on writing queries. "Make the agent care about your MC" sounds like querying the story arc, but "what's unique about your story?" is obviously the plot. I tried writing a query starting with plot and segueing to story, and one doing the reverse, and frankly they both come off a little schizophrenic.

The first five pages (assuming I've intrigued the agent with my query) are story, the plot doesn't hatch fully until about page 20 of a 100-page ms. If I query the plot, won't an agent expect to see plot elements show up right away? (Actually the opening paragraphs ARE vital to the plot, but they also start the emotional arc. Busy little paragraphs, they are.)
If I query the story, it's blah, blah, read it a thousand times.

I think I've answered my own question, but ... did I answer it correctly?
Thanks in advance...

Anna Iguana · Sep 1, 2017

Your distinction between story and plot concerns me; I'm worried that your first five pages might actually be backstory. Consider visiting the share-your-work forum here. You can do some critiquing to accrue goodwill from other authors, who might return the favor later. Once you reach fifty posts, I'd encourage you to post your first pages--and post your query letter for feedback in the aptly named "Query Letter Hell." QLH can answer your questions about the query most directly.

mpack · Sep 1, 2017

Anna Iguana said:
Your distinction between story and plot concerns me; I'm worried that your first five pages might actually be backstory. Consider visiting the share-your-work forum here. You can do some critiquing to accrue goodwill from other authors, who might return the favor later. Once you reach fifty posts, I'd encourage you to post your first pages--and post your query letter for feedback in the aptly named "Query Letter Hell." QLH can answer your questions about the query most directly.

I agree with everything the Iguana said.

cornflake · Sep 1, 2017

Cindy From Oregon said:
Hello! To make a long story short, I had an idea for a middle-grade novel. It was (as I discovered later) a plotline, not a storyline. My storyline is not unique - lonely tween in a new town wants friends - but the plotline is. Unique-er, anyway.

I've completed it and done a few polishing/editing rounds, and have read approximately a billion articles on writing queries. "Make the agent care about your MC" sounds like querying the story arc, but "what's unique about your story?" is obviously the plot. I tried writing a query starting with plot and segueing to story, and one doing the reverse, and frankly they both come off a little schizophrenic.

The first five pages (assuming I've intrigued the agent with my query) are story, the plot doesn't hatch fully until about page 20 of a 100-page ms. If I query the plot, won't an agent expect to see plot elements show up right away? (Actually the opening paragraphs ARE vital to the plot, but they also start the emotional arc. Busy little paragraphs, they are.)
If I query the story, it's blah, blah, read it a thousand times.

I think I've answered my own question, but ... did I answer it correctly?
Thanks in advance...

I don't feel like I fully understand your question, or how or why you're separating story from plot. I'd suggest you visit QLH (password: vista) and read through some of the stickies and especially some of the ongoing query threads. I fear you're way overcomplicating something both in terms of the query and the mss.

Aggy B. · Sep 1, 2017

I am a little confused as to why you are drawing such hard lines between story and plot. You shouldn't be having to query the events of the story (plot) separate from goals and stakes (emotional arc) and if you are, there may be issues with the book. I've written queries for some very action oriented books and they do not make sense without an emotional arc. (Certain genres lend themselves to querying more with sequence of events to lay out the stakes, but if you have no emotional arc in there it'll just be a series of "MC does this. Then she goes here and does this thing. Finally she confronts the bad guy and wins."

I'd suggest reading through the successful query letter thread in QLH and maybe QueryShark as well to get a better idea of how action and emotional arcs run together in a query/pitch.

RaggedEdge · Sep 2, 2017

I've seen the idea of story separated from plot before. Lisa Cron talks about this in STORY GENIUS. You can probably see it on Amazon.com since she goes into it in the Introduction and Chapter 1. I may have seen other books cover it, too.

I think Cron is getting at something important, but it remains hard to wrap my head around and even harder to explain. The OP talked about 'emotional arc' and that is probably the best I could do to explain it in few words, also.

ETA: OP, I had trouble with the query for my first book - and with the opening pages - because in the manuscript I had connected my protagonist's emotional arc to a subplot instead of the main plot. Could this be where you're having difficulty? I had a wretched time writing a strong query, but the whole novel was probably weaker for it, too. (It's so hard to see it ourselves, esp. if the story has many other strong things going for it.)

Chris P · Sep 2, 2017

I interpret the OP's question as a distinction between what the story is "about" versus "what happens." Huckleberry Finn is "about" the journey into adulthood, but "what happens" is he runs away and rafts down the Mississippi River.

Perhaps I'm projecting my own questions onto the OP, but I've never gotten a good answer myself on this. Most QLH examples are about "what happens." Writing a query based on "about" seems like it would be very different.

There is also a sticky in QLH about stakes in Romance that I found enlightening, even if it didn't really resolve my issues.

AielloJ1 · Sep 4, 2017

As long as your first 5 pages serve a purpose for the manuscript, I'd say the "plot" (or I'm assume the main problem the character faces) not starting in the first 5 pages shouldn't be an issue. Your character's main obstacle doesn't have to come in the first 5 pages or around it, but those pages should serve to move the book along and have strong purpose.

Jeff Bond · Sep 4, 2017

My two cents here--and this is tough to do speaking in generalities--is that you get about one sentence for what you're calling "story." It goes in paragraph 2 when you're introducing your MC. "Jessica Jordan is not your typical middle-schooler; she drinks coffee, refuses her parents' offer of a phone, and insists teachers called her, 'Leopold' in class." From there out, if you're writing MG or any genre fiction, you need to be telling what happens.

Now, the "story" needs to be implicit in the plot/action you're describing. An agent should be able to easily see why your plot is uniquely suited to your particular MC. And maybe you can get away with a stray clause that spells that out a bit. "When the Jessica gets assigned a joint project with the volleyball captain, not a typical passing-period ally of hers, ..."

I wouldn't worry about how the first five pages relate to the query. Paraphrasing AielloJ1-- if the opening works, it works.

Hope this helps. Best of luck.

Do I query the story (the emotional arc) or the plot (the action)?

Cindy From Oregon

Anna Iguana

reading all the things

mpack

Swooping is bad.

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

Aggy B.

Not as sweet as you think

RaggedEdge

I can do this

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

AielloJ1

Jeff Bond