Hook Verdicts
Apr. 21st, 2007 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xakaraI never mentioned submitting, but I entered my query hook in the contest at Fangs, Fur, & Fey. Like everyone, I waited anxiously for the feedback and I'm still waiting to a degree. (There were only a few comments when I checked, so I'm hoping for more)
I wasn't one of the ones asked for pages, but the feedback from the judge was helpful and now I think I have a better idea for a third variation of the hook. The first version was entered into a query clinic by the same agent that will read the winner's 50 pages. When I sent it to her, she gave the feedback that it was too light on details. This time around I expanded it and now it's deemed a little too detail heavy.
Fortunately, an immediate middle ground came to mind and I'll be sending out the third version to the next batch of agents I query.
I'm very early in the query game. VERY EARLY, not even three months yet, and only nine agents. I got caught up in open submission deadlines and when I finally took a break to start reading again I decided to pause for six weeks and go back to edit the novel again.
It's been edited four times already but I was still too close to it. Even stopping to write short stories and novellas and look for contests to enter, the novel was very much on my mind. I wanted some distance to go back and read it anew. I wanted to be surprised by small details and to feel the flow of it in a way only distance allows.
A new book came out in a favored series and I began to reread it from the beginning so that I could fully appreciate the fifth book. I can't even begin to catalogue how many things I'd forgotten and it made me so excited to reread my own novel that I know now I'm in the right mindframe to rediscover it and see it with new eyes.
Once I reread and edit yet again (because no matter what, there's always typos), I'll dig out my list of agents, check their sites and query away.
Right now I need to get back to my book so...I can get back to my book. ;)
Ramble done
~X
I wasn't one of the ones asked for pages, but the feedback from the judge was helpful and now I think I have a better idea for a third variation of the hook. The first version was entered into a query clinic by the same agent that will read the winner's 50 pages. When I sent it to her, she gave the feedback that it was too light on details. This time around I expanded it and now it's deemed a little too detail heavy.
Fortunately, an immediate middle ground came to mind and I'll be sending out the third version to the next batch of agents I query.
I'm very early in the query game. VERY EARLY, not even three months yet, and only nine agents. I got caught up in open submission deadlines and when I finally took a break to start reading again I decided to pause for six weeks and go back to edit the novel again.
It's been edited four times already but I was still too close to it. Even stopping to write short stories and novellas and look for contests to enter, the novel was very much on my mind. I wanted some distance to go back and read it anew. I wanted to be surprised by small details and to feel the flow of it in a way only distance allows.
A new book came out in a favored series and I began to reread it from the beginning so that I could fully appreciate the fifth book. I can't even begin to catalogue how many things I'd forgotten and it made me so excited to reread my own novel that I know now I'm in the right mindframe to rediscover it and see it with new eyes.
Once I reread and edit yet again (because no matter what, there's always typos), I'll dig out my list of agents, check their sites and query away.
Right now I need to get back to my book so...I can get back to my book. ;)
Ramble done
~X
