Guidelines For Writing Good Quality Query Letters For A Novel

After you write a novel with an engaging storyline, your next job is to compose a well-formatted query letter to a potential literary agent. In this case, your query letter is the representation of a fiction manuscript. To ensure that your query letter is written in the right format and structure, you have to follow a few important guidelines.

Break the letter into three most crucial paragraphs following four criteria. First, you begin the letter with your contact details, i.e., your full name, phone number, address and email on the top left-hand corner of the page. Then, you start with the first paragraph where you put the crux of the story of the novel in three or four sentences (approximately 100 words). The idea is to intimate the agent what your book is all about and what is most unique about it.

The second paragraph offers an in-depth glimpse of what is inside the book, i.e., the length, title and genre. This paragraph is composed of an approximate 300 words and includes a mini-synopsis of the book. Undoubtedly, the last paragraph says it all about it, viz., your educational highlights, and your publishing credit, awards that you have won pertaining to your writing and lastly, mention why you deserve to be chosen by the agent.

Make sure that the letter is concise, straight to the point and is written in a professional tone. Address your letter to the specific agent whom you are writing the query letter for your novel and follow the above guidelines for immediate acceptance.

You Can Make Money By Writing Flash Fiction Journal

Being a prolific writer, the first thing that comes to mind is to grab readers’ attention. Earning recognition across a wide platform is possible right from your home. Instead of walking into a publishing house, you can register with a nonprofit literary journal website and send your write-ups.

 

Find the best website that considers every category of writing, be it novels or writing for magazines or agents, or flash fictions, etc. If you are interested in making some profit by writing flash fiction journal, then go for it. Flash Fiction is described as a style of fiction of extreme brevity. There is no particular description of an apt length for flash fiction, but it can range from three hundred words to as long as thousand words.

You will find a well-known literary journal platform hosting quarterly or monthly flash fiction competition, where you can be part of as a writer. In a way, you grow on your identity as a writer by sharing some fabulous work with the world. Focus on engaging stories with vivid characters intertwined with an interesting storyline. Make sure that your story has a fresh perspective to hook interests of readers. Once you send your writing to any reputable and nonprofit publication platform where your writing will be published on a global platform, you will soon be widely accepted and recognized.

A Submission Tracker Is A Great Way To Keep Record Of Each Submission You Have Sent Out

Gone are the days when writers had to slog it out pursuing publishers and editors to publish their stories. There were few publishers who were very selective about what they published. This made it very difficult for new and inexperienced writers to make a mark in the world of literature. However, with the advent and popularity of the internet, things have changed drastically. Nowadays people don’t necessarily have to browse through book shops to buy books and read them. Almost everything is available on the internet and some great material can be downloaded to mobiles and handheld devices. This allows readers to enjoy their literature on the go.

This is the reason writers have started looking towards the internet for presenting their stories to a large audience. The requirement of stories, articles etc on the internet is huge and this is why good writers find that they are writing much more than they would have written if they were publishing their work in the traditional manner. In this situation it becomes difficult to keep track of the work done and submitted to the publishing website. This is where a submission tracker becomes useful and some websites publishing written work have trackers of their own which a writer can maintain.

Effective Flash Fiction Stories Deal With One Event Or Time Period In A Character’s Life

If you are writing flash fiction, then you need to keep in mind that the story has to be very brief. The ideal word limit for a flash fiction story is less than 500 words. Usually this can be very challenging for writers who are used to writing lengthy descriptive stories spanning several events and time periods in a character’s life. However, in flash fiction stories the best practice is to adhere to only one event or time period. This will enable you to do complete justice to the subject and make your story effective. By keeping to one event or time period you will get enough words to play with and will be able to do justice to the buildup of the character.

It is also a good idea to not have too many characters in the story as this will take the reader away from the essence of the story. Keep true to the essence and make use of words with strict measurement. With flash fiction writing a writer has to master the art of saying in one sentence something that would otherwise take a paragraph to narrate. Apart from adhering to a single event or time period, you also need to ensure that you are able to narrate instances in such a way that the reader gets a larger picture from the little that you have said.