Today I went over to Terry's house to pick up some baseball tickets they could not use.

And we talked about The Dark Thorn.

Terry is just over halfway through the book. He is enjoying it thus far. He really likes the story; he thinks it echoes Dan Brown but in a good way. He really likes the characters and how they are developing -- even Bran which is what I was most worried about. Right now he knows of two scenes he thinks I should rewrite to make stronger -- he won't tell me which ones until we sit down and talk about it after he has finished reading it -- and he pointed out I have some tendencies to overwrite. But he said he is invested in it which is a good thing, he hasn't seen anything that would leave him to believe it shouldn't be a published book, and that I will have some work but nothing extensive.

So that's all positive.

I told him not to hold back. I want him to use his critical teaching eyes and rip the book apart so I can learn.

I think that is an important lesson for young writers to learn. I'm not one of those writers who protects the integrity of his work from others because I know best and they be damned. Far from it. I believe quite strongly that I have a lot to learn about the craft of writing and I want Terry to be straight with me. Just like I want Ralph to be straight with me. Just like I want Betsy or any other editor to be straight with me when they eventually read it. Any suggestions they make to improve the story I will take into consideration and most likely implement if it makes even a modicum of sense.

After all, they are professionals. As yet, I am not even close!

Terry plans on being finished reading here in the next few days and next week we'll sit down and he can tell me what he thinks and how it can be improved.

Hopefully Ralph will want to work with me to make something special. I think it has massive potential. Right now it is a seven book series with several short stories planned, the entire series cataloging the life of Bran until he is almost 70 years old. Could be great fun to tell that story.

But I wait. Patiently. I go to baseball games. I work on the author websites I oversee. I maintain The Signed Page. And I have begun my research for The Long Winter.

Tis a fun life full of possibility!

Labels: The Dark Thorn

I'm not sure if I posted my first query letter on here. I'm fairly sure I did but I am too lazy to find it. And now that I am entering the process again of submitting a book to agents and editors, I'm receiving a few questions from other writers how to break in.

Well, the query letter is the key to unlock the door.

And that key must be flawlessly made.

Here is the query letter I sent to agent Matt Bialer for Song of the Fell Hammer:

February 7, 2006

Matt Bialer, Agent
Sanford J. Greenburger Associates
55 Fifth Avenue, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10003

Dear Matt:

I am confident you will find my novel, titled Song of the Fell Hammer and the first of a trilogy, to be a good fit for today's fantasy market. My craft has been influenced by the work of Terry Brooks, but my style is also reminiscent of Greg Keyes and an early Stephen R. Donaldson.

As is standard in high fantasy, my novel involves a quest. Sorin Westfall, a moral, innocent young man who discovers he is a messiah, must come to terms with the fact that his only role is to murder another messiah become evil. Sorin finds himself entrenched in a very old war between Good and Evil, where the newest battle pivots on the acquisition of an ancient, enchanted hammer. But can Sorin, destined to be Good's instrument, forego his religion's doctrine and murder another human being before Evil accomplishes its end?

What happens to a Knight who has lost his faith and his family due to actions his High King ordered of him? How can a Giant, who belongs to a self-proclaimed pacifistic race, answer a call to raise arms for war, even for the benefit of the kingdom? Why does a High King stay enthroned when he has lost everyone he loves and his kingdom rises against him? How does an Elven nation, decimated by genocidal madness centuries past, reinvolve themselves in a world that despises their way of life? I use a fantasy setting to explore these character issues as well as broad subtextual ideas about love, redemption, faith, the corruptibility of power, and religion's place in an individual's life.

As you know, I have been a part of the book industry for nine years in various capacities--marketing, publicity, editing, and retail. I feel as though I have a distinct advantage when it comes to getting my story into fantasy readers' hands. For years, I have maintained and promoted websites for some of the top names in the fantasy field. I have the unique position of recognition amongst the thousands of readers that traffic these websites. I have enclosed a marketing plan for you, one that highlights the myriad opportunities for promotion that my novel and I already have. I know this trilogy will be a success not only because of my fascinating story--it will also be a success because of my connection with the genre, the readers, and many of their favorite authors.

I respect you as one of the top agents in the field, and I look forward to any feedback you are able to share with me about my novel and its potential. I am prepared to make any revisions as needed in order to meet your expectations for submission. As you know, Betsy Mitchell at Del Rey has the book, and other publishers have expressed interest. I have included my marketing plan and resume in addition to the full 214,000-word manuscript. Please let me know if you would like any other information. Once again, thank you for taking the time to read over my materials, and I anxiously await your response!

Very truly yours,

Shawn C. Speakman
Address
Seattle, WA 98103
Phone Number
Email

Enclosures:
Marketing Plan
Resume
Song of the Fell Hammer (680 pages)
SASE


Now, it is important to point out that the format of the query letter is not what you see on this blog. There are additional spaces and returns, where some portions of the letter are justified to the right. Be sure to learn the correct formatting.

Another thing, Matt Bialer is the agent for Patrick Rothfuss, Peter David, Tad Williams, Tracy Hickman, Stephen Lawhead, CJ Cherryh... you get the picture. He likes big sweeping epics for the most part and Song of the Fell Hammer matched that. I sent it to Matt first because I already knew he liked the specific sub-genre I had written in. That is expressly important. If you've written a vampire novel, don't send it to a young adult agent/editor. If you've written a fable, don't send your query to the agent for Robert Jordan. It is a waste of materials and time. Start with those who represent work similar to your own.

That said, a query letter should be set up in a certain way. You can do a Google search to discover the dos and don'ts of the process, but for me this is how it can be broken down:

1) Introduction: This is where you state your name, the title of your book, usually the word count, and what kind of book you have on your hands. Short and succinct. You'll notice I waited until the end of the query to say my word count -- that's because I didn't want the daunting number to turn people away from reading the rest of the query letter and becoming invested in it.

2) 25 word tagline and summary: If the query must be flawless, the tagline must be even more so. It must be perfect. The tagline of my first book was, "Sorin Westfall, a moral, innocent young man who discovers he is a messiah, must come to terms with the fact that his only role is to murder another messiah become evil." That is 31 or 32 words, but I would have removed some of the adjectives if I had been cornered in an elevator with an agent who wanted to know what my book was about. The tagline should entice the agent to know more and it should hold major conflict. If you read my tagline you get conflict immediately -- Sorin against evil messiah, Sorin against his own religion. These are major conflict points. Your query should have something just as enticing with just as much conflict. Boil it down to the essence of the book. I don't want to hear, "Well, there is too much stuff going on in my book." Wrong, wrong, wrong. Do you not think my book is a lot more complex than that tagline? Of course it is. But you must get at the heart of what the book is about for this part of the query letter.

3) Why the book is important: I cheated with this paragraph. Characters drive my stories so I wanted to highlight some of the themes of the book. I did this by delving into my other characters a bit. In short, this paragraph doesn't even need to exist really in the query, but an editor friend of mine thought it worthwhile to keep in. So I don't suggest doing what I did.

4) What edge do you have: I have a lot of experience in the book industry, from top to bottom. I know a lot of writers obviously. These are things that give a person an edge. If you know a pertinent author, write their name down. If you have a writing credit in a magazine or newspaper, etc., write it down. Anything you feel might give you an edge you should write here. If you have nothing, I suggest working at a bookstore for a few months; it will really help.

4) Closing: Be polite and to the point. Always thank the agent or editor for reading the query.

5) And be sure to include your contact information. You'd be amazed at how many people do not!

With my manuscript I included a marketing plan for my book. Most people have no need to include this as they don't have the breadth of experience I possess.

This is important: Every single agent and editor out there have different submission guidelines! You must adhere to all of them. That means you will spend a great deal of time rearranging query letters or manuscripts. It is all worth it and must be done. If an agent or editor receives a query or manuscript and it isn't written to their submission guidelines, you can kiss all of your hard work away and right into the trash.

Got questions? Good. Ask them. I'm here all week. Ha!

Labels: Craft, Query, Song of the Fell Hammer, Writing

Here are pictures of the galleys I produced for my early readers:






I created five of them. Cost me $200. But having early input is always helpful and is worth bars of shining gold. These pictures were pretty much the last thing I needed to do. Now I have to redesign the Terry Brooks website front page and get some books shipped off to be signed for fans of The Signed Page!

If you have any questions about the process I went through or publishing, now is the time to ask them. I have nearly nothing to do for a while, at least until I hear back from Ralph. I don't know when that will take place. Ralph notified me he uploaded the file to his Kindle yesterday morning but I don't know when he'll get to reading it.

After all, Kindles can hold a lot of books! Who knows where my book falls among them.

At any rate, I hope he likes it and is willing to work with me to make it the best book it can be. Because I really feel this book is worthy of being published, all bias aside, and the marketing platform I bring is strong enough to have a break out debut book.

I've worked hard to make this a reality. Time will see what fruit grows.

Labels: The Dark Thorn

Saturday night I finished my extensive edit on The Dark Thorn.

Until the weekend I had been averaging two chapters a day, combing over my first draft and removing that which was not needed. Going into Saturday I had five chapters left to edit. I had plans with friends to watch soccer but they fell through, leaving me with a free Saturday night.

And how do I use my free Saturday night?

I edited.

I edited for ten or eleven hours straight. I finished the book around 9 pm.

But that wasn't good enough.

I went to my local watering hole, ordered a glass of Sterling Cab for my accomplishment, and created the outline for what would become my map. I drew its shape, its rivers, the mountains and lakes. After my one glass, I went home, scanned the fledgling map into Photoshop, and spent the next two hours adding names for cities, mountains, rivers, marshes, caves, etc.

Here is the map I quickly put together:



At this time it was 2 am Sunday.

But I was on a roll. I couldn't sleep. I decided to put together my galley file. I created one .doc file with the entire book, from Prologue to Epilogue, and added a title page and the map. I then rendered that .doc file into a .pdf.

Here is what the title page looks like:



By 5 am, I had everything I needed to get done. Almost.

Today I went to Kinkos and had them print off five galleys of The Dark Thorn. I'll post a picture of them soon.

I will give these to my early readers—my mother, Terry Brooks, friend Dave, and friend Eldon. I will keep one for myself.

In the morning I will send the .doc file to Ralph Vicinanza, one of the agents for Stephen King. He read the first four chapters in 2008 and liked them enough to ask for the rest of the book. Ralph reads his queries and submissions on his Kindle, which I think is really cool, but it may take some time for him to get to The Dark Thorn. The last time I spoke to him he had just received in manuscripts from Peter Straub and Robin Hobb. That will take up some time, I'm sure. I have no idea when I will hear anything back; it could be two weeks, it could be two months.

By the way, I edited my book down from 162,000 words to 149,000 words.

So, that's that. What will I do now? I have to redesign the front page for the Terry Brooks website in preparation for the release of the forthcoming Landover book, A Princess of Landover. I have a short story I want to write that takes place before the events in The Dark Thorn; that short story I would put up for "order" somewhere, somehow. And I have a few small errands I should finish up.

The Dark Thorn is done. For now.

Labels: The Dark Thorn