Writing Novels and Query Letters: write fiction that sells

HIGH CONCEPT

If you want to snag an agent you will be miles ahead of others if you will write a great query letter for a high concept novel. In this course we will brainstorm high concepts and we will take the mystery out of writing query letters. This will help you understand what a high concept novel is and why agents and publishers are looking for them. And then it will help you to brainstorm your own high concept ideas. 

It will force you to stretch until you've made your humdrum concept into a high-flying concept that will grab attention from the pitch. This is not a course on plotting. It is a course on pitching. It is a course that will help you with the premise of you book, not the plot. It comes before the plotting. You have to come up with a salable premise first and a killer hook. If you don't have those it doesn't matter how great your plot is--you'll have a hard time selling your book in today's busy, noisy, crowded marketplace. 

Think of it like this: The marketplace is full of a vendors, all standing in the booths. They all have flapping white canvas over their tables and  they all have grey boxes full of their wares. In those boxes are some lovely treasure. But which booth do you approach? You can't see the treasures--they all are kind of hidden away in their grey boxes.

But there in the middle of all the white, flapping canvas, there is  one table under a bright yellow canvas covering. The table is covered in vibrant purple cloth and the boxes that  hold the wares are lime green and  orange and shiny red. 

The treasures in the boxes may not be better than the treasures in the grey boxes on the other  tables. But which table do you go to first? And which treasures do you pick up? And which treasures do you buy? 

This is why you need a high concept plot that can be pitched with pizzazz. Because the marketplace is full of grey tables and white flapping canvas. 

QUERY LETTERS

It does little good to write high concept books if you can't write an effective query letter.In this course you will learn to write query letters that will make the agents ask to read the manuscript. The main thing? You don't need to try so hard. You don't need to put the whole book into the query letter. Just a short summary. Just enough to make the agent want more. 

We look at short hooks in this course, too--this section is repeated from my plot course. We look at them here because they are needed for the query letters. 

In short, this course tells you all you need to write a great query letter: you need a high concept novel, a short pitch for that novel, the ability to be friendly without being stalker-ish, and to come across as healthy and happy and a person agents would enjoy working with.