Crapometer
Want to submit something? crapometer at gmail dot com Synopses, first pages (up to ten), queries, or anything else you can think of AS AN ATTACHMENT Please send only the 'polished' draft of a work. Also, please note: My E-mail server hates yours. Its vengeance takes the form of not showing me italics, bold, or anything special. Please don't provoke it by including any of these in your submission.
Crapometer
Want to submit something? crapometer at gmail dot com Synopses, first pages (up to ten), queries, or anything else you can think of AS AN ATTACHMENT Please send only the 'polished' draft of a work. Also, please note: My E-mail server hates yours. Its vengeance takes the form of not showing me italics, bold, or anything special. Please don't provoke it by including any of these in your submission.
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Rei's General Query Tips:
* Pick only a very few plot elements -- two to four is probably good. If you choose too many, your hook will read as a dry synopsis.
* If you introduce a character by name, make us feel *something* about them. Love them, hate them, distrust them, whatever. This means showing, not telling, just like in most writing.
* Figure out what cliches your story uses. Spend as little time on them as possible, and stress what makes yours different.
* Don't repeat yourself.
* Don't repeat yourself.
* Don't just tell us the stakes; make us feel the stakes. Example: Just saying "The destruction of the world hinges on the outcome" won't make us feel it. However, giving sympathetic faces to the people who will be destroyed and presenting what the destruction will entail can make us feel it.
* Introduce your MC early on so that the reader knows who to start identifying with.