Does Your Novel Have It All?

Your novel is your baby, and of course you love it. But when it comes to pitching and submitting the work, every writer must pay attention to the essential elements agents and editors want and require.
Writing Tip for Today: While agents require submissions in a certain format–query letter only, synopsis plus query or a proposal package, here are some tools every novelist or nonfiction writer needs:

One Sentence Pitch. Can you sum up your book in 20-25 words? If not, start working on it. Although your book must be unique and fresh, your tag line or pitch sentence can draw upon the classics. For starters, why not find a classic story or even a fairy tale that most closely resembles the main theme of your story. Is it about unrequited love? Take a look at Romeo & Juliet. Is it about overcoming a dangerous monster? The Three Little Pigs did it. A story of struggling to grow up? Old Yeller or The Yearling might give you a clue. Take a look at back-cover blurbs or movie descriptions in the TV Guide for clues. You may begin with several sentences, winnowing it down. Or try a formula approach–Protagonist with X Goal meets XX Obstacles and Does XXX to overcome XX and get X.
Short and Long Synopses. From the one sentence pitch, you can expand to create a short synopsis of 100-150 words. Again, try reading back cover blurbs (except that in a synopsis you tell the ending) or other descriptions of story. Finally take the main plot points or major chapters in nonfiction and create a 250-500 word long synopsis. Don’t single-space–most agents don’t want to read a dense block of text anymore than you do. Do leave out subplots and if you have multiple POVs, decide on whose story the novel is and stick with that character for the synopsis. Many revisions are common on this, so draft it and then pare it down.
Why This Book Now? The last major necessity you’ll need is some sort of market analysis and/or unique angle and that horrible author platform. In a proposal package, typically you’ll include a query/cover letter, a synopsis of some sort (overview for nonfiction), your marketing and platform and 1-3 chapters of the actual work. If you are querying using a proposal package then your top sheet ought to be your query letter. If it’s already requested, use a cover letter, reminding the agent of the request, thanking him/her and pledging patience while you wait for an answer. Even if you have a ways to go before agent-shopping you can practice these items. The story formula and one sentence pitch can also be useful to you the author, clarifying the story arc to yourself as you write or revise.