Today's Contest: #pg70pit

Yep, it's June, when the first half of the summer* contests take place. (The second half happens in August. Nothing happens in July, because nobody can be bothered.)

Today it's the Page 70 Pitch contest.  Take page 70 of your completed, polished ms, and see if it's got any voice. Tweet a seven-word desc of your MC and hope it has voice.

Hope the bonheure of the universe favours your entry being selected, and the lucky winners get their entries perused by agents who may make requests.

So my hat is in the ring, along with a secret code name I cannot reveal and the book I hope to reveal to the whole world.

Now that I've submitted my entry and tweeted my tweet, I am having serious doubts about my voice.

I will not give in to my whiny muse. I will finish my WIP before I attempt to fix OTD's voice. In fact, I might write another book, then have a look at OTD's voice.


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*Summer... when Her Grace say "summer", she really means Cancerian summer, as experienced by the Northern Hemisphere (June, July, August).  For Her Grace, who lives Down Under, Capricornian summer (Birak and Bunuru) happens in December, January, February.

So yeah. Right now it's cold and miserable in her part of Australia. And dark.

After my word cloud yesterday, I saw this twitter thread and I pondered on a personalised rejection I received last week and I wondered if I was missing something in my first chapter.

I must be, though I cannot think what that is.

The rejection said that my first chapter didn't have a hook.

Really? Howzat?  The first chapter's all about the triggers and the inciting incident. The first trigger happens on the first page. My MC realises something, wonders if this new realisation will solve a problem she has, and it does. Just as she applies that solution, she's thrust into another, more dire situation, where this same solution solves this second problem. However, this solution has consequenses, which come visit her at the end of Chapter One, thus sending her life into snafu-land.

Then I wondered if the clues I'd dropped in weren't obvious enough, that my first chapter might have been too 'quiet', as they say.

A quiet book is not the same as a dull book. Everything you want is there, but it's subtle. Sometimes you've got to work for it, or maybe you'll be five chapters down the track before the penny drops, but the penny always drops.

You know how in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince he comes across a cabinet of stuff, and one of the items is a locket?  Of course not. Nobody really noticed the locket, as it was shown as setting. But then in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, you learn it's a frickin' horcrux!  The introduction of the locket is quiet, but it becomes a significant McGuffin later on.

Readers like to be trusted, even if they might gloss over a clue, only to realise it later.  To beat them over the head with every plot point is like telling them they're too stupid to figure the plot out. They don't like that. They like to feel clever, and trusted, and to lose themselves in the world.

Our Heroine has always seen how everything in the world is connected together. Think of it as everything between string theory and galaxy filaments. She's seen them her whole life, and never thought that others might not see them. But her "ah-ha" moment is when she realises that not only can she see them, but she can touch them as well, move them, pull on them, and affect the universe like that. Cool trick.

Not less than five minutes later, she needs to help rescue someone from drowning. She realises this nifty new trick can save a life, and she does so without hesitation. However, such powers come with a price. Her actions attract the attention of a dark god, one who's been looking for her her whole life. Now that she's pretty much announced her presence, he's able to locate her. Inciting incident. Everything from here on out is fubar country.

Her "ah-ha" moment is subtle, though, and readers might not understand its significance until later on in the chapter. Is that what's working against my favour?

Does a hook have to have a barb?

So I'm wondering: what's not grabbing people with my first chapter... forget that, what's wrong with my first page?  I honestly cannot improve on where I've started the plot. It is the best place to start it. But if I can't hook a reader with the first "ah ha" moment, what am I doing wrong?


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Her Grace is baffled.

Wordle of Alasograms

Based on a comment on this post, I made a word cloud of my last dozen query rejections for Of The Dark.

Anything in particular stand out to you?

Individually, rejections don't bother me. A few hundred start to nag, though. Mostly, I am baffled as to why several hundred agents fail to recognise the brilliant work I've sent them. *shrug*

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Her Grace shall continue to query until she runs out of reputable agents. By then, the next book will be polished and she can start all over again.

Alas, no #QueryKombat for me

Sad to say I didn't get into QueryKombat this year.

Oh well. Over three hundred fifty of us entered for a chance of 64 spots to battle for the attention of an agent.

Even though I didn't get in, I'm going to keep following, as I want to see what everyone else's queries look like.  If I am to be beaten, I want to be beaten by the best.

Meanwhile, I'll keep querying, because that's what you do until you run out of agents.


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Her Grace's week hasn't been all losses.  Her Astronomy project "Wet Mars, Dry Mars, White Mars..." receieved an HD (that's an A for those of you who don't know what a High Distinction is).

Going in to Battle with Query Kombat

Since I haven't participated in a query contest since... oh, last year, I thought I'd give Query Kombat a go.

There's three hosts this year:  Laura, Michelle and Michael.  I'm familiar with Michelle from QueryWars.

So I had a look through the list of agents participating and am not sure if I should be delighted or worried that I am familiar with most of their names.  I've queried many of them in the past, only to get form rejections. I wonder if my query sucks?

There's also a Proboards Forum with all sorts of nifty helpfulness.  Hoping I can get some feedback on my query before I go into battle.

I love the OWW and have been on it for years decades, but they don't have a category for getting feedback on your query letters.


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Her Grace is ignoring her Astronomy final exam for the nonce to get some Query Kombat stuff done.

Tuesday's Tale - Taking Advantage

Not all disasters were the same. Some were slow and take time to develop. Others, like today's, were quick and sudden. Nobody knew it was coming. Dust and panicked screams filled the air, blocking Sadie's understanding of what happened. She couldn't see the other side of the street, and didn't know if she wanted to cross. The tall buildings of the city loomed over her. Of course, she looked up, in case something nine-eleventy was happening. 

Only the rising of smoke, no falling debris. A businesswoman clitter-clattered past her, too frightened to think to kick off her heels before fleeing. Other people dashed about, while some clustered together on the ground; first aiders tending to the wounded.

What was it? Bomb? Accident? Runaway car? She needed to know. Sadie moved forward, her hands clutched in front of her. Her boss would ask, her friends would ask.... he would demand. She needed--

Her feet slowed. So many people lying about, especially closer to the building that... what? exploded? was attacked?  Who knew? Probably no one would know, at least, not for some time.

No one would know. A newswoman's voice spoke in the back of her head: "The death toll rose today as emergency workers struggled to find any more survivors of today's disaster..."

Some disasters were quick, and needed immediate action.  Others, like her marriage, were slow, and required planning.

She'd planned. Dani had helped her, had even volunteered to keep Sadie's Safe Bag in her bike locker under her apartment building. Dani had put a combination lock on there, so Sadie would never have a key confiscated from her.

He'd driven her into work, dropped her off right at the front door, then drove away after she'd gone inside. Sadie had come out at lunchtime, for she'd once found five dollars in the lobby. Instead of adding it to the FU Fund, she'd kept it for a time when she needed reminding that life could be so much more than the brown paper bag lunch he watched her make that morning. Sheer coincidence she was outside when a sudden disaster struck. Her coworkers would innocently explain this to the police, who would then explain it to him.

And what could he do?  Nothing. He would never know she'd taken advantage of a sudden disaster to escape a slow one. Perhaps he would have no reason to consider finding her.

Dani would know, when she discovered the locker empty. As tempted as she was, Sadie left no note.

She had to leave quickly. Everyone's focus would be on the disaster for the next day or so. Public transport out of town, to the farthest suburb, then maybe a bus to somewhere else.  Jersey? Too close. Arizona? Dunno.  Maybe up to Canada on her way to Alaska? Work a few cash-only jobs, then head off overseas.

No rush. By the time someone thought to inquire after her, she'd be well and truly away.

And this was how the rest of her life would play out:  Identity theft.

Dani came up with this one. Sadie didn't ask how, but Dani acquired an identity for her, birth certificate, passport, and more. These she'd hold on to for later.

Several months after fleeing, Sadie would get several credit cards in her original name, rack up ridiculous bills, get "caught", let them discover her "original identity", and get prosecuted for it. If she balanced it right, a misdemeanor, with some jail time.  (He couldn't get her while she was in jail.) Released on good behaviour, tap into the system for help in rehabilitation back into society, then attempt to live out the rest of her life under her new identity as some waitress in some small city.

Sadie coughed through the cloud of dust. The sounds of sirens pierced through the dust.  Help had arrived.  Police officers pushed her back, telling her to get off the street, to go inside.

She would never return to her office, daily haven that it was. 26-33-19. That was the combination of Dani's lock. New clothes, new papers, new life awaited her.

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Her Grace would like you to know that any connection between this story and any recent disasters is purely coincidental. She wrote this story many months ago and scheduled it for today, as the time was too sensitive to post this earlier. Be well.

A to Z Challenge Reflection

(Apologies for the long post. I learned a lot.)

I learn new things whenever I do the A to Z challenge. I employed the lessons I learned last time, and it made for a better go-around this year.

What I Learned

1. Pre-planning. I pre-planned my theme and populated my alphabet. I then did my posts ahead of time (when I could, on my own time) and scheduled them to post on the correct day. This pre-planning really helped A LOT. Most of my posts were done by the end of March.
2. Audience. I thought about what audience I wanted to cater to, and this helped me focus my posts and have a consistency throughout. I wanted to make my posts interesting to an audience with varying levels of education. I tried to design them so people who didn't know much about astronomy could understand my concepts, yet be intricate enough to push those who had a bit more knowledge about the subject.
3. Consistency. I wanted a certain level of quality control, so you pretty much knew what you'd get from post to post. Again, I was able to pull this off through pre-planning.
   
   That said... the topic I chose is completely not relevant to my usual blog. My blog's about writing books generally and Romance specifically. So what topic did I choose?  Astronomy!! The two rarely cross paths (except in a novel of mine that's coming out next year). Why did I choose my topic?
4. Stand out. I wanted to stand out and offer something unique that the other AtoZers weren't offering. And while there were a few who tackled the same subject, none of them approached it in the same way I did, and that was good. I didn't feel I was duplicating anyone else's efforts. I thought if I blogged about writing,  I'd get lost in the crowd. Probably was right, as there were quite a few writers writing about writing. However, I might go back to that next year and pull a Frain.

A to Z Changes

Part of the A to Z Challenge involves reading others' blogs. This year the Challenge ran a few things differently--no Linky List! This was a boon and a bane.

Boon: No long list of people who'd signed up, then never bothered to blog. You only heard about the people who were being active, and could go straight to their posts.

Bane: Having to post EVERY SINGLE DAY to the AtoZ blog to let people know you had stuff up. I don't get online every day, so this became quite a pain. I wish one could schedule comments the way one schedules blog posts. Since most of my entries were completed ahead of time, it would have been nice not to have to get online every single day to promote my blog. Also, if I came across an interesting blog, and forgot to Favourite it, I'd have to trawl through the blog comments to find it again.

I'd love to see a combination of the old Linky List with the new Blog Comment format. Bring back the Linky List, but you can only get on the Linky List if you've posted an entry. Then, post a weekly Linky List blog post where, if we posted entries that week, we can list them. The pre-registering is probably too much

I was amazed at how many bloggers there were who couldn't figure out how to make a simple anchor tag work, even when shown how.

Also, the absolutely best way to make me scroll past a comment on the A-to-Z daily letter blog post? Posting this:

 . Here is my blog.
 . LINK

Nothing is more boring than that. At the very least post your theme. No, not your name, or even your blog's name, but your theme.  That's what I'm looking for.  Roslyn Core announced how she was cross stitching a Buffy the Vampire Slayer alphabet.  You bet your sweet bippy that got my attention! (No, I'm not a Buffy fan, or a cross stitch fan. But what a juxtaposition!)

What Worked and What Didn't from This Reader's Perspective

What worked for me was a blog that was regular-ish, that had a clearly defined theme or topic, and provided interesting content.

Regular posts is good, because nothing is more disappointing than to come back day after day to find nothing new. That's a good way to lose me.

A clearly defined topic is necessary. It lets me know what to expect on a blog. Now, some topics simply didn't catch my interest because I wasn't their target audience. But the few posts I read were well put together and if I was interested in that, I would have definitely stuck around to read more.

What definitely turned me off were the "personal" or "inspirational" blogs that chronicles someone's inner journey. A lot of people did these, and frankly, I found them very boring. Topics like these are excellent for an audience of one. For the rest of us, "You" are not a sufficiently interesting topic. I'm sorry. Blog entries like "Gratitude" or "Spirituality" only have impact for you.

I noticed there were quite a few story blogs as well, writers posting fiction. Author J R Vicente had a clever "choose your own adventure" style, where the commenters got to choose what the blog post would be for the next day. She gets points for that.

Most of the fiction blogs couldn't hold my attention because the voice wasn't compelling enough. Sometimes I'm not your audience, and sometimes your writing's not as good as you think it is. Fortunately, the more you write, the better you get. I would never tell someone to stop writing simply because they weren't good.

And then there were some story blogs that completely blew me out of the water. John Frain. John Frickin' Manuscript Frain. If you didn't read any of his AtoZ this April, go back and read it. If you've read NOTHING ELSE this month, go back and read John Frain.

Frain wrote a flash fiction story a day, with him as a character that got killed. Every. Single. Time. (or did he?)

I don't think I will forget that one for a long time to come.

Blogs I Enjoyed

It's always fun going through the different blogs and see what others have posted. Some of the more memorable blogs this year were:

• Sharon Himsl wrote about "Female Scientists Before Our Time" --ancient women, pre-industrial women, women from thousands of years ago. Doing science!
• Spies and Spying by Sue Bursztynski. Totally nifty if you like spy stuff.  
• Chris Votey put up some cool Character Astrology Profiles, which combined Greek and Chinese zodiacs to come up with some rather interesting character types. Not your grandma's newspaper horoscope.
• Megan Morgan's "26 Things to Hate about Writing".  Amen, sister. 
• Totally got involved in the story of Sandra Williamson's ancestor Martha Sarah Ellis. I love a good family history story.
• Sara Snider's Herbarium was also good, with mystic connections to plants. 
• Zalka Csenge Virág (posting as A Tarkabarka Hölgy) totally got her weird on with "Weird Things in Folktales".
• Ozzypip quilted her way through the alphabet.  Yes, quilt blocks have names.
• Sage also posted about Astronomy, though focused more on constellations and the stories behind them.  (Note: Jupiter's a jerk who can't keep it in his pants.)

I read one blogger, who was rather new to blogging, never mind the A to Z Challenge. No, she didn't post every day, and that was understandable. She wrote about being a single parent to a high-needs child after a bitter divorce. Hers was a deep story about a hard life and I'm glad I got to read it. But can I find it again? No. I want to know how her story ends.

There were a few others I popped in from time to time.  Overall, there were plenty of great blogs to read.

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Her Grace will now be crawling back under a rock, as May is a very busy month for her in the Real World.