I. The Query Letter – Your Business Card
A. Keep it simple
B. Be professional
C. Don’t get cute or witty.
D. Wet the reader’s appetite
Resource Material: The Sell Your Novel Toolkit by Elizabeth Lyon
Example:
Robert Dugoni
1521 East Elvis Street
Memphis, Tennessee
RVD@yahoo.com
Phone number
Dear Agent:
Seattle attorney Dana Hill is in a bad job and a bad marriage when she is
diagnosed with a lump in her breast and her only brother is subsequently found
brutally murdered in his Greenlake home. The police are convinced that James Hill
was the unintended victim of a botched robbery, but Dana suspects otherwise when
she finds an expensive earring in the debris of her brother’s trashed home.
With a smart, iconoclastic detective named Michael Logan as her only ally,
Dana sets off to determine who killed her brother and why. It will not be easy. A
string of cold blooded murders in the wake of her brother’s death is erasing every
witness, and soon Dana’s own life is in peril. But for Dana, the quest will go beyond
exposing her brother’s killer; it will become the source for the strength and courage
she needs to change her own life. As she and Logan chase the faint trail of evidence
they will threaten the reputation, career and future of one of Washington’s most
powerful men, who will stop at nothing to protect his dark secrets on a possible path
to the White House.
Damage Control is a 90,000 word thriller that draws upon my own twenty
year experience as an attorney as well as the experiences of dozens of female lawyers
with whom I have worked, and four older sisters.
I am a Stanford educated journalist and worked as a reporter for the Los
Angeles Times before attending law school. In addition, during the past three years
I have completed the University of Washington’s writing program.
I am seeking representation and enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope
for your convenience. I hope to hear from you soon.
VTY
RVD
II. The Synopsis – Your Resume
A. Convey the Theme of your Novel
B. Setting and Period
C. Plot Summary
1. Don’t throw in the kitchen sink
2. Demonstrate Your Knowledge of classic story structure.
a. the journey flow makes sense
b. emotional turning points.
D. Traditional Story Structure
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3.
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Beginning1
Ordinary world
Call to adventure
Refusal of the call
Meeting with mentor
Crossing over the threshold
Middle:
Friends, Tests and Allies
Approaching the inner most cave
The Inner most cave
End:
Seizing the reward
Return with the reward
The Resurrection
The reward
E. Character Sketches
Resource Material: The Sell Your Novel Toolkit by Elizabeth Lyon
The Writer’s Journey – Christopher Vogler
Everything you do, from your query letter to your synopsis to your first three
chapters submitted to an agent or publisher must demonstrate that you
understand story structure.
1
The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler.
Examples:
Moby Dick:
Theme: Obsession can lead to personal destruction and the destruction of
everything and everyone caught in its path.
It is New England 1851 when a young man, Ishmael, walks into a small whaling
town, called by adventure to hunt whales on the open sea.
Ishmael signs aboard the Pequod, a whaling ship captained by Ahab, a
mysterious figure who, it is said, had his left leg bitten off by a great white whale and
replaced with a stump carved from a whale’s jawbone.
After a terrifying introduction, Ishmael befriends Queequeg, a tattooed Polynesian
wise in the ways of whale hunting. The two men swear an oath to remain shipmates, and
brothers.
As Ishmael stands on a dock in the glittering morning sun preparing to board the
Pequod, a dirty, downtrodden “stranger” emerges from the shadows to deliver a pointed
warning of peril and death. Ishmael is prepared to dismiss this herald, until he learns the
man’s name, “Elijah” - the name of the prophet. Ishmael’s eyes, which had sparkled with
anticipation and dreams of adventure, now hold a glint of fear that causes him to hesitate
before stepping up the plank and crossing the threshold onto the ship for what will be an
adventure of a lifetime. On this journey, Ishmael and the rest of the crew, including
Doggo, an African and Tashtego, an American Indian as well as Starbuck, the first mate
will come face to face with Captain Ahab’s obsession to kill the great white whale, at all
costs, including their lives.
For Ishmael the journey is the passage from wide-eyed youth to manhood, and
with it the knowledge that the line between passion and obsession is a thin one.
King Kong
Theme:
In the crushing grips of the depression, a young, unemployed New York
vaudeville actress, Ann Darrow, stands on a dark and suspicious dock contemplating a
crew of questionable character, and a ship of equally questionable seaworthiness. As
distant police sirens grow louder, an unscrupulous movie producer who has coaxed Ann
to the dock with promises of stardom scurries to get the ship underway. Amidst the
turmoil a member of the crew warns Ann about the dangers of the voyage ahead. The
young actress’s eyes, once brimming with the dreams of becoming a star and starting a
new life, flicker with fear. She hesitates but ultimately steps up the gangplank to board
the ship.
The journey will take her to an uncharted Island, Scull Rock, where a strange tribe
of natives has built huge walls to keep out creatures believed extinct, and an unseen
beast. Captured by the tribe, she is offered as a human sacrifice to the beast, which
emerges from the forest – an enormous ape – King Kong. But rather than eat the actress,
Kong takes her captive, seemingly captivated by her beauty. Ann initially struggles to
get away then realizes that the beast is her only protector from the dangers of the island.
She comes to rely upon Kong, to respect it, to pity it, and eventually to love it.
Ann’s impossible rescue is in the hands of a playwright who loves her and the
unscrupulous movie director who sees Kong as the ultimate star, a way to make millions
of dollars as an attraction if he can capture the beast and bring it back to New York.
Ann cannot save Kong from the greed of the movie producer, and in the end, the
great ape is shackled and brought to New York as part of a cheap vaudeville show.
When the beast escapes, reeking havoc on New York, Ann must rescue it, as it
once rescued her. She becomes the beast’s protector, but her love cannot save it.
Unlike the movie producer, Ann learns there are things more important than fame
and fortune, and she will not compromise her ethical and moral core to obtain them.
III. The Sample Chapters – Your Interview
Almost always the first three chapters.
A. You are familiar with the genre
B. You know how to write an intriguing, interesting opening scene that conveys
an implicit promise to the reader.
C. You can create interesting, believable characters readers will care about.
D. You understand story structure.
E. You understand how to write dialogue
F. You understand pacing.
G. You have a distinct voice
H. You have talent.
A. The First Three Pages
 Use Your Senses –
 Give Her a Goal –
 Obstacles –
 Conflict –
 Torture your characters
 The Final Word:
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A word about Prologues
Use if the scene takes place a long time before or after the main
narrative or offers a different viewpoint from the main narrative. If it’s
interesting enough the prologue can whet the appetite for the main
story.
One rule of thumb: Keep it short.
2. The First three pages –
A. Strong Opening Sentences - Hook the reader immediately.
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Can it be more intriguing by introducing something unusual,
something shocking perhaps or something that surprises the
reader?
Avoid melodrama: “It was a dark and stormy night.”
Is it interesting? Does it raise a question for the reader that will
make her keep reading to get the answer?
Example 1 - Strong Opening Sentence2
2
Tolken, JRR, The Lord of the Rings
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of the Bag End announced that he would
shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special
magnificence, there was much talk in Hobbiton.
Example 2: Strong Opening Sentence.3
They shuffled into the courtroom like twelve of San Francisco’s
homeless, shoulders hunched and heads bowed as if searching the
sidewalk for spare change.
B. One Chance to Make a First Impression.
Write an opening that:
 Excites the reader’s curiosity about a character;
 Introduces a setting;
 Sets the tone for your book.
1. Someone interesting should appear very early.
Example 1 – Character. Not the main character
Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the
shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and
unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travels had no
become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old
folk might say, that the Hill at Bad End was full of tunnels stuffed with
treasure. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his
prolonged vigor to marvel at. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little
effect on Mr. Baggins.4
Example 2: - Character. Main Character
They shuffled into the courtroom like twelve of San Francisco’s homeless,
shoulders hunched and heads bowed as if searching the sidewalk for spare
change. David Sloane sat with his elbows propped on the stout oak table,
hands forming a small pyramid with its apex at his lips. It gave the
impression of a man in deep meditation, but Sloane was keenly aware of
the juror’s every movement.5
2. Introduces a Setting: Where are We and Do We Care?
Example 1- Settings: (Chapter One)
He sat back beneath a cornflower blue summer sky that hung like a theater
backdrop behind rattle-snake brown hills rolling like waves to the
charcoal-gray Blackfoot Basalt Ridge. To anyone driving along North
Hooper Road, the rugged beauty of Southeast Idaho’s Bear River Valley
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4
Dugoni, Robert, The Jury Master
Tolken, JRR, The Lord of the Rings
5
Dugoni, Robert, The Jury Master
gave the plant the feel of a high-plain cattle ranch, but upon closer
inspection, nature could not camouflage Evergreen’s dilapidated and
tattered condition. It looked damn near abandoned - a junkyard of rusted
tanks, cut-up railroad cars and twisted bits of metal and plastic containers
littered a pocked and scarred moonscape of craters and dirt piles. Pipes
and smokestacks extended from the tanks and battered barn-like buildings
at odd angles, a maze of metal that turned and digressed seemingly
without purpose. Two mountains of mining waste rose above the building
rooflines, one a coal black, the other a starch white.6
Example 2 - (Page 7)
Mogadishu spread beneath them in its awful reality, a catastrophe, the
world capital of things-gone-completely-to-hell. It was as if the city had
been ravaged by some fatal urban disease. The few paved avenues were
crumbling and littered with mountains of trash, debris, and the rusted
hulks of burned-out vehicles. Those walls and buildings that had not been
reduced to heaps of gray rubble were pockmarked with bullet scars.
Telephone poles leaned at ominous angles like voo-doo totems topped by
stiff sprays of dreadlocks—the stubs of their severed wires (long since
stripped for sale on the thriving black market).7
C. A Word About Second Scenes – Where Do We Go From Here?
Three choices:
Backfill (or new story line).
Flashback.
Continuation of story time.
Backfill: Slows down the story. The question is, will it slow it
down too much?
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Flashbacks: Should follow a strong opening scene that roots us in
character’s present, we have a strong sense of her.
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Continuing the story line: Vary the conflict. Not every scene should
be a heightened shouting match.
Checklist for Opening Scene
Do write an opening that uses all of your senses.
Do open with an interesting, thought provoking opening sentence.
Do establish the setting and period by simple details.
6
7
Dugoni, Robert, The Cyanide Canary
Bowden, Mark, Black Hawk Down, New American Library (2000)
Do introduce an interesting character early.
Do give the character a stated scene goal.
Do have that character enunciate in words or thoughts his scene goal.
Do give the character obstacles to overcome.
Do show conflict.
Do give the reader a physical description of the main character and an
approximate age but don’t have the character look at her reflection.
Do end with a high point of tension that makes the reader turn the page.
Do write an interesting final sentence.
Don’t have the character coming or going somewhere - on a plane or train.
Don’t give a lot of exposition or back-story.
Do resist the urge to explain (RUE) Show rather than tell.
Don’t have too many people in the scene. Three at most.
Don’t introduce every new character with a profile the minute they enter.
Don’t tell us your character’s emotions - show us.