Friday, January 25, 2008

Writing Exercise


Here's your chance to practice writing a query letter, as suggested by Phoenix.

You'll need a random number between 1 and 477. You can get one here. Now get a number between 1 and 6.

Use the search feature or the archives to find the Face-Lift that goes with your first number. Now use your second number to find the fake plot of the book you'll be writing a query for. (If you happen to have the real plot, get a different number between 1 and 6.)

You have the option of doing just a synopsis of the book, or a complete query with credits and other incidentals. Either way, limit yourself to 250 words.

Submit the title, the fake plot you used, and the query. Deadline: Saturday, midnight eastern. Include a name if you want credit. After we read your query, we'll let you know if we think you should write the book.

19 comments:

Blogless Troll said...

Now that is clipart.

Kalynne Pudner said...

Does "we think you should write the book" entail an offer to publish the book?

(Not being cheeky, just wonderin'.)

Evil Editor said...

No offers will be made till after we've seen the finished product.

Robin S. said...

Hmmmm. What an insidious way to spring some query practice into the picture.

Dammit.

Phoenix Sullivan said...

Ooh, clipart with cleavage. Since I'm mentioned in this post, I'm willing to let y'all think that EE looked far and wide for just the right picture to illustrate ME (um, that's me, Phoenix, not minion me. Unless minion me really looks like that. Do you, me? If not, then EE nailed me. Well, in the figurative sense. No, not THAT figurative sense. The getting the hair and proportions and dedication to writing right sense. Yeah, THAT sense.)

(Robin, I think your writing style is beginning to have a profound influence on mine. Please, for the love of all that's holy, make it stop.)

Robin S. said...

Heh heh, phoenix girl!!!

I can be insidious, too!

So, YOU'RE the one who suggested this, this, this torture test, huh?
I thought we short,I mean, petite chicks stuck together.

And, in other news: EE is #2 on bookediting, and #1 in writer's resources, on the P & E poll tally thingie. Don't know if it's been updated recently, to be honest. I think we find out in February, right, if our sweetie, I mean that mean guy, actually won, as he should?

OK- going out to dinner now. Husband is home. Husband owes me a big... night out...

Xiexie said...

this'll be fun

Chris Eldin said...

Where's the search feature?
Thank goodness the random number generator was self-explanatory!
:-)

Chris Eldin said...

Nevermind!

I got a really good one!

Evil Editor said...

It should be at the top left corner of the blog. Type in Face-Lift 234 (or whatever your number is), click on search blog, and you might get lucky. If it fails, use the archives.

Dave Fragments said...

The challenge is twofold:
- can you sell the unwritten to an editor?
- can you make the outrageous, indispensable?

Consider some best selling books out there and you'll understand why. Consider the much-despised "Da Vinci Code" and the well-loved Blood Meridian. Or how about the seven Potter books? Or sell "Agnes and the Hitman" ...

Brenda said...

Hey! I loooooooooove Agnus and Shane!

Robin S. said...

I'm just taking a break from slogging through the personal hell known as 'my practice query'.

I'm going to a ball-eating party on Capitol Hill tonight. That's my motivation for working to finish by 5:00 pm.

Good Lord.

Anonymous said...

Phnx! Although I do have the cleavage and the Royal typewriter, I was never blessed with flowing locks of strawberry blonde, so EE definitely didn't nail me !!! See Robin's rubbing off on ALL of us.
I did do a lengthy query and I hope it is not too long to be used and abused. Mary Lou Grimm's query skills leave much to be desired, BTW.

Anonymous said...

OK, maybe I'm being daft, but what's a "ball-eating party"?

Chris Eldin said...

We want to hear about the party.
Were they served as appetizers, or the main course?
Do Republicans really have smaller ones....
Hahahahaha!

Anonymous said...

I don't think you'd want to be the clip art woman. She has no legs.

Phoenix Sullivan said...

I keep picturing Robinderella going to a ball-eating ball.

Poor Robinderella is stuck in a dreary life of ordering out for pizza, cleaning up after an ungrateful family, and witholding sex every time hubby makes a wrong comment (which appears to be quite frequently).

Then, a fairy godmother comes to grant Robinderella her greatest wish. A stack of pizza boxes is transformed into a sleek Lexus; the never-ending litter of napkins and school papers becomes an elegant, cut-down-to-there evening gown; and hubby is knocked unconscious and given a completely new personality. Fairy Godmother then hands Robinderella a pair of sling-backs with spiky, spiky heels to compensate for Robinderella's petite frame, and urges her to, "Eat 'em up, tiger!"

Unfortunately for Robinderella, she winds up at a politicians' ball, where the only balls in sight are on the women. Devastated, she flees the ball at midnight, leaving her spiked heels firmly implanted in two unnamed, unballed a**holes; her gown now unbuttoned down to there; and a husband waking up in the back of a cab complaining about how women have just gotten too ballsy for their own good lately.

Robinderella resigns herself to the fact that life in general sucks, and fairy godmothers and evil editors only exist to make it suck even more, and that no one really lives happily ever after. What to do about it? Why, write characters stuck in lives even more sucky than hers, of course, and try to pass it off as literary fiction. Fiction? Yeah, right.

Robin S. said...

Ha! I just thought to come back and check the old posts.

I ate myself some really tasty balls last night,I swear to you, at a party on Capitol Hill. Some were salty, some were hot and steamy, some were dipped in chocolate, and some, believe it or not, had allowed themselved to be simmered in curry sauce; some were amazing, and some, as any woman would expect, were a tad disappointing.

Is anyone here surprised that a party up there would have as its theme, a little round object of varying desire?

Ha! Robinderella. Love it, phoenix!
I was showing some damned good cleavage last night, although no ball gown, as it were, was even remotely in sight.