So after my last rejection, I think I got basically the polar-opposite. This time, it is a full-page form rejection letter, printed on surprisingly high-quality paper stock, and signed in actual pen. By the assistant of the guy I was writing to. Five will get you ten he never actually saw my querry.
I agree with you there. The assistant read your query, felt it wasn't right for what he knows his boss is looking for, and felt empowered to strike the quill himself. Don't you just loathe overzealous assistants.
Oh yes. I'm kinda bummed, I had high hopes for this agency. Not too high, though, all they asked for was a querry and a SASE, so it's not like the overzealos agent had terribly much to go on.
Yeah, I can't say I put a lot of faith in that sentiment. In fact, given what remarkably different disciplines buisness writing and genre fiction writing are, i think the whole "good querry letter = good novel" thing might explain why there are so many terrible novels available.
It's more that a bad query usually leads to a bad manuscript. A lot of bad manuscripts get justifiably rejected without needing to read past the query. You know, it's like the people on writing forums talking about their epic novel that's going to revolutionize best-seller status, and can barely string together several coherent sentences. The truth is sometimes ironic, but a lot of writers simply can't write very well, whether fiction or a query. And a good fiction writer is simply not going to produce a cringe-worthy instant-reject sort of query. It may not be perfectly professional or follow conventional standards, but it's not going to be the instant impression the person simply can't write competently.
Basically a query gives an insight into how well YOU can sell your book. A synopsis and query can only be well written if you know your story and have actually studied it. Agents have already assessed the writing style in the first three chapters, now they need to know if you can hold together a story, keep tension going etc and have a satisfactory ending that readers will appreciate. Also if you have anything that will be an asset to them in selling your book. I should imagine it also contains insight into how well you can crit your own book.
A full page rejection letter - surely there are some positives in there. It doesn't take a whole page to say 'Thanks! But, no thanks!
It certainly doesn't, but they used one The entire letter was just a puffed-up form of "we don't feel we're the right agency". Anyway, I'm out.
noa... since you don't seem to have noticed yet, the word 'query' has only one 'r'... you may want to remember that, in case you ever use the word in a query letter, so you won't come across as a bad speller... hugs, m
