What Literary Agents Look for in a Query Letter (with Ann Rose)

If you’re querying—or even thinking about it—this episode is going to change how you approach your pitch.

In this episode of the Write It Scared podcast, I sit down with literary agent and author Ann Rose to talk about what actually makes a query stand out. (Spoiler: it doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be clear.) We dig into hook, stakes, market realities, why “Dexter meets Legally Blonde” works, and what happens after an agent requests a full.

We also talk about imposter syndrome, the slower publishing climate, why publishing is product (even though writing is art), and why you might want to write your query—and your synopsis—before you finish your book.

If you’ve been overthinking your pitch letter, this one will ground you fast.

Timestamps
 00:00 Queries Need Clarity (Not Perfection)
 03:30 Ann’s Path to Agenting
 07:15 Her Novels + Hook Examples
 19:29 The Current Publishing Climate
 23:57 What Makes a Hook Work
 27:46 From Full Request to Offer
 30:53 Writing Is Art, Publishing Is Product
 34:50 Why You Should Write the Query First
 36:45 Why Synopses Matter

Tobias website - www.thetobiasagency.com

Ann's website - www.amroseauthor.com

Instagram/Threads/TikTok - totally_anntastic

Books By Ann Rose

The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean 

A Hexcellent Chance to Fall in Love 

www.annroseauthor.com

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A query letter does not have to be perfect. A query letter just has to give me a good idea of like the concept of the story and the stakes of the story. So anything that will make me sit up and pay attention is a really strong concept or a hook, right? And I even ask for a hook in my query form to see if authors know what theirs is. A lot of authors don't. And that's okay. But you can tell those ones that do and lead with it. And so those always make me sit up and listen just a little bit more. Because at the end of the day, if the writing is solid, even if it's not exactly where the story needs to be, if the concept is there, we can go. Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formally repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories: the one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Reddit Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hey writer, welcome back to the Red It Scared Podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser. This is where we talk about the brave and the vulnerable act of writing our novels, querying our novels, publishing our novels, so that we can do it with more clarity, more confidence, not feel so alone in the process. Today's episode is equal parts fun and wildly educational. I'm joined by author and literary agent Ann Rose, and we dive into what it actually takes to make a literary agent sit up and pay attention to a query in their inbox. We talk about the importance of finding your hook, why your query letter doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be clear, and how to present your story stakes in a way that makes someone want to read it. And yes, we also talk about tackling the synopsis, why agents ask for it, what they're really looking for, why spoilers are required, and how to structure one so that it shows a compelling chain of cause and effect instead of just a list of events. So if you're querying right now or you're planning too soon, this conversation will give you practical, actionable insight straight from an agent's desk. Let me give you Ann's bio and then we'll jump into our interview. Anne Rose is a literary agent, wrangler of words, drinker of way too much coffee, and someone who's always looking for the bright side. If the quote, though she be but little, she is fierce. Were a person, it would be Anne. She can be found at the Tobias Literary Agency. Anne is also the author of the seemingly impossible love life of Amanda Dean and a hexellant chance to fall in love. Anne thank you so much for coming onto the Reddit Scared Podcast. I'm very excited to have you on today as both an author and a literary agent. So we get to kind of pick both sides of your brain today. So thank you for being a willing guest or victim, however you want to look at it. Well, I'm here for both. So really, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely, absolutely. Why don't you kick us off by just sharing about how just getting us to how did you come to the place in life where you are an author of a couple of books and a literary agent? Sure. It's it's kind of a funny story, and that it does intertwine a lot because that's just, I guess, how I am. So years and years ago, my niece, when she was like still a teen, she came to me and asked me, Auntie, will you read books with me? And so her friends didn't really love reading, and she wanted someone to like read books and like to have little discussions with her about the books she was reading. And so I was like, Yeah, sure, just tell me which ones to buy and we'll and we'll just read the same books. It'll be fine. And so we we did that for a while. And one day she just calls me. I remember I'm at the mall and my phone rings and it's her, and I pick up my phone and she's just sobbing, sobbing, sobbing because if one of her favorite characters has died in a book. And I go, Well, what any you know auntie would do in such a situation, your niece calls you crying, you go, Well, I'll write you a book, of course, because that just is so logical and reasonable, right? So I put it out there that I'm gonna write this book for my niece. And I, as of as I was drafting it, I was like, well, you know, if I'm gonna draft a whole novel, I should see what this whole publishing thing is about, right? And so I did some research and I started following the peoples on the socials and doing all the things and ended up getting myself an internship with a literary agency. And so I did that for a few years as I was drafting novels and writing and all of the things. And at one point, my actual career that I had been getting paid for, right? They eliminated my position. So I was like, well, I I really like doing this agenting thing. Maybe I can get a job doing that. And I did. So that's the long story. That's the short of the long, right? Right, exactly. The short of the long. Wow. So it was a rescue mission for this character in this book for your niece that turned into becoming a literary agent.

unknown 5:37

Publishing authors.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah. I'm sure there's some years stacked in this. There's years. Years. Yes, there is. It sounds like it just all happened overnight. It did not. But then you said you really enjoyed being a literary agent. What do you like about it? What's what makes it rewarding and fun and why do you want to stick with it? It's so fun to see. I mean, it's fun to work with authors. Every day is different. There's never a day that's the same, right? Like there's when I, you know, quote unquote go to the office for the day, you know, it's not like, okay, well, at eight o'clock we have a meeting, and then I have to do the TPS reports. And you know, it's none of that. Like every day is different. There's always some sort of fire that's going on. You have to like put out, right? So it's so, it's so interesting in in those respects. And then also I just like working with people. And this gets me to work with people, and I get to, you know, interact with them all the time. And I talk to clients, I'm texting with them, I'm in, you know, chats, we're emailing, we're doing all the things. And then also just the creation, right? So I get to help authors create stories. And I think that's so fun. And and being that I'm a step away from it, you know, it's not my work, it allows me to kind of like see the forage through the trees, right? So I can help them hone in and fix and do all the things. It's just, it's so much fun. I don't know. I wish I got paid more, but you know, that's I think everyone feels that way about my own. I wish you didn't, you know, because that's that's I I'm I'm so appreciative of people like you in the world who love the work and are there to champion, you know, for for uh for the writers, for us, right? Right. Okay. Well, let's talk about your books. So under Anne Rose, you've got two out in the world, but you also have more. You've written under a pin name. So you pick and choose. What do you want to tell us about? Well, I don't so my pen name's kind of on hold at the moment because I've stepped into like the adult arena. So I'm writing under my own name. The other one is my name too, but it's just my initials. But this one is these are just my adult novels, and I'm I'm really proud of them and really excited to check about them. So we can yes, tell us about both, please. Sure. So my first one that came out last year is called The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean. Best paper ever, by the way. Thank you. My the artist who her name is Susanna Gentelli, and you can follow her on Instagram at Susie Gentelli. She's fantastic, she's Italian, and she just has these pieces that are just so incredibly moving. If you just kind of like sit and look through her portfolio, it's it's ri she's really captivating. That cover in itself is a hook. It's the it is a hook. I think it's gorgeous. I feel like I have a piece of art. Like I don't just have a cover, I have a piece of art. And so I feel very blessed with it. But you also get a journey with it. I do. Art that gives you a journey. Like I can already see like pieces of this, like my expectations for the story are set. So perfect. Okay, well, I'm glad to you, Susan. Shout out to you. Okay. Shout out. Always love to shout her out. So that story is a is very different from my other one. It's a non-linear plot, which was not an easy book to write. So every chapter you're in a different year of Mandy's, Amanda Dean's life, as you're trying to figure out who she might be, who might be waiting for her at the altar. So we don't really know who the love interest is, technically. I mean, some readers obviously figure it out because of course there are clues and they're very smart readers. So but yeah, it was super fun to write. I really had a good time with it, and I I hope people like it too. Dang, I'm intrigued. Yeah, it's fun. It's like a mystery and a romance. It's like I was just thinking, it's like clue, but not and about romance. Oh, I love it. Cool, cool. Exactly. Now, the next one, which is titled A Hexellant Chance to Fall in Love, just came out. Um at the time we're recording this, it's November. So it was in September, I think. Is that right? I think that sounds right. September early September, yes. Okay. And so this is not the not similar. Or tell tell us more about this. What makes it different? So this book is kind of they call it paranormal, but there's there's like no ghosts or anything in it. It's about my main character Pepper White, and well, maybe this might help you out. You know the Spirit Halloween store, right? I was just there. Like excellent. Five weeks ago, four weeks ago. Right. So I don't know if you know this about the store, but it needs a human soul for it to operate. That's how it can just randomly appear in a location and then it disappears a couple days after Halloween, right? That's that's how it works. The trick is you remember the store, but you never remember the human that it's attached to. But it's a romance. So obviously it's not called Spirit Halloween in my book. It's called The Dead of Night. And they but it is a seasonal Halloween store that pops up in the location in town, and Pepper's soul is the thing that helps power the magic that makes that happen. So the the problem is she can remember everyone in the town, but nobody remembers who she is from year to year. Oh gosh, it's almost got like there's some Addie LaRue vibes in there, too. It's Addie LaRue, Safic, Halloween. Yes, it's oh my gosh, I'm gonna re-release this episode next Halloween. Excellent. Yeah, she only has 70 days to break her curse, otherwise, you know, the love of her life will forget her forever. So oh I that's awesome. That's a really fun premise. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about your process. Like, what is it like for you to have an idea of something like this and then walk it all the way to, you know, a draft that sure will move on to the editors. When I signed with my agent, I was writing young adult books. And so one day, I think it was like during the pandemic, I just kind of woke up and I had this idea for this story of this girl Amanda. Like I knew her name was Amanda, I knew what her life was gonna be like. I just I just knew this story. And I just sat there one morning and I hand wrote out like every chapter of the book in in nonlinear form. Like I knew exactly how it was supposed to go. And so I hand wrote all these notes about this girl, Amanda Dean. And I just started writing this story just for fun. Like I had no intentions with it whatsoever of doing anything with it until finally my agent was like, So what are you working on? And I'm just like, Oh, well, I started writing this adult book, and and then I told her about it. She's like, Well, send it to me. And so, but as for process, like I think the process is is different every time. So that one kind of just came to me naturally, which sounds really, really strange. And rude. No, it just sounds I know. No, I've heard that many times from many authors. You know, one book, it like flies out, another book, it's like pulling your hair out. Yeah. So, and then with uh hexellant, like that, I get plot bunnies everywhere. I feel like all writers do, right? Like plot bunnies are literally jumping at all times. I can I could come up with at least 20 ideas a day. Luckily, I don't send them all to my agent, but I I will send her like ideas. And so one time I was like scrolling through social media and I saw this tweet that was, you know, don't be in the Spirit Halloween store at midnight on Halloween, because you'll just basically you'll disappear with it or something along those lines. And I was like, wait a minute, that's actually pretty brilliant. What if? And so of course I text my babe didn't. I'm like, listen, there's this girl, and they she's attached to the Halloween store, and when it disappears, everyone forgets her, but it's a romance. So then, you know, my agent, you know, being an agent, of course, was like, well, you need a plot, Anne. And I was like, you know, you and your plots. These are what I tell my my authors too. Like, I love the idea. Do you have a plot? I can't falter on that one, but we've we came up with a plot. That's great. Give it to me in something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Yeah. I'm one of those people that's like, is this a good idea? Should we flush this one out or not? And if we should, awesome. And if not, eh, I will pitch it with the other thousand ideas that I'm not writing, right? Okay, so you got the spark. You got weigh in. And then then do you pants it or do you develop a plot first? Do you do some character discovery writing? How does it work for you? I don't do any character discovery writing per se. I kind of like conceptualize them in my head first, but I do like keep like a handwritten like journal or diary or something that has like is basically like the novel Bible. So as I'm like figuring out who the characters are, if they have siblings, what their names are, I'm like writing it all down. And for Hexlin, I had to write down like every store name that I came up with because it's not a real town. It's Clover Creek, which I made up. And I made up all the street names. So I had to make sure I I was using this, you know, which what which restaurants and things are on which streets. So I had I had a quite a little diary of all the things that I've written down. So fun. But I do try to cut up with like a semi-outline. So I kind of plot out like each chapter where I think it's gonna go, and then I go from there. So it's it's plotting with a little pantsing. Do you know your end to begin or do you find it? No, I generally have learned to know your end. I am learning that again. Yeah. It's such a it's such a kick in the face, right? Like, I just I hate to tell everyone that outlining really does help, but it really does. So, and I say that with like a very bitter taste in my I know, I know. Within your writing journey, I mean, a big focus of this podcast is looking at the pieces of the process where we get down, we get disheartened, where it gets hard, and talking about them. And kind of, and and I believe that all of us tend to struggle with kind of like these internal stories that are not necessarily helpful. You know, the the tapes that play in our head that say it's not good enough, it will never be good enough. Like, what am I doing? Why am I bothering? You know, it's just that very loud inner critic that sits on our shoulder. So I'm wondering if you can think back to a time in your writing journey when you were in a situation like that, and and if you would share your experience, what it was like in the I mean 20 minutes ago, like me seeing a book announced and sending it to my agent. Like, didn't we just pitch something semi-like this? Oh my gosh, F me, you know. So yeah, imposter syndrome lives rent-free in my head at all times as a writer. I'm really, I'm really good at like dismissing my own whateverness, like, you know, oh, my ideas are terrible. Oh, it's okay if no one wants to read my book, right? Whatever. If it's my client, forget about it. Like, you're not talking bad about them to me, because I will I'll start throwing hands, right? But but myself, whatever. You gave me a one star, that's fine, whatever. Got it. But I think that we we all struggle. Like it doesn't matter where you are, and that's something I've learned too. Like it it doesn't matter who you are and what your journey has been. Everyone struggles with it. Authors who have sold tens of thousands of books still have those moments of, oh my gosh, am I a fraud, right? Because I've seen it, I've seen, and I've talked to authors who who have those moments of like, I what am I even doing? So I just I think that it's a validating feeling because I feel like we all have it, but I think that that should be be something to be aware of. Like, even the people that are doing who we are all aspiring to be, right? They they still have those feelings too. So right. And I just think hearing about that normalizes the roller coaster. It just kind of does. And it maybe it doesn't make you feel any better while you're experiencing it, but just having the knowledge of like this is not just me. Right. It's not is I think incredibly validating too. And it's art. And art's kind of like that. Yeah. Like, what the hell am I doing? I don't know. Let's try this. I don't know. You know, it's the most subjective thing, right? Because one person will be like, oh my god, I love it so much. Like, if any anyone, any one of his listeners, right, goes to like go to Goodread and look up your absolute five-star favorite book of all time. And there will be people in those reviews that have given it one star and said, This book is the worst book I've ever read in my entire life. It's subjective, right? And that's part of it. Absolutely. Wait, one of my favorite sayings is this two-shell pass. Like whatever it is, like if it's good or if it's bad, it's temporary. And so just keep the kind of keep the focus on where what you need to do, just you know, the next place you need to put your foot absolutely in the direction of wherever your goal is going, and just try to like narrow that focus down. But hearing other people's stories is I think one way to just keep us motivated and keep us reminded that you know it's okay to be uncertain. It doesn't mean we're on the wrong track. Absolutely. Okay, so let's kind of shift gears here. And I know, let's shift gears. And we're gonna talk a little bit more with the focus of you as a literary agent. Sure. So you already said, you know, a favorite part of being a literary agent is being a part of the creative process and kind of championing, championing, championing I can't think that. That word, that's what we do. We do that, we champion the things champion all the things, but being a part of the process and working with people. So I'm curious, you know, this is not an easy time for writers who are attempting to query for traditional publishing, who are aiming for traditional publishing. So, from your perspective as an agent, what are some of the things that writers need to be aware of in our current publishing climate that maybe we didn't need to think about five years ago before the pandemic? Well, I would say that the volume has increased, right? So the volume of people who've written books or who are writing books and querying books has gone up significantly. So that is a big thing. Which is yay! Yay. It's amazing. I mean I love that. But there is limited resources on those books getting made, right? So there might be more literary agents now than there were five years ago. But there's also I would say, yeah, I would say so. Wow, okay, okay. But at the same time, like there's still only so many publishing slates, right? For each year. So I would say that this year, especially, this year has probably been one of the most challenging that I've experienced in publishing and and just the publishing train that the the way things kind of roll through the station have slowed down significantly. So whereas a submission that we send out as agents would get response in a certain amount of you know, weeks generally, it's taking now months. And so, and when that slows down, it slows down us being able to take on new authors because we kind of have to keep rolling through, right? Like so if we have so many things sitting out with editors, like we can't take more on in that area until those kind of either get bought or we kind of roll through them. So that's a big thing. It makes it makes complete sense, yeah. And and a lot of those books that are slated like they were slated two years ago. Correct. Right. So we are selling in the future. So I have a client who's already sold us slated until 2032. So for some products. Yeah. Right. I'm like, I can't even do the math. And how old I'll be then? I don't even want to. It's so long that the contracts department couldn't even put 2032 on the contract because they it only went to 2031. So we just know like in our heads that that's where it's gonna be. But yeah. The system wouldn't let them do it. Yeah, so so definitely slower production time that we're seeing across the board. Fair enough. Well, let's talk about the process. Just walk us through kind of the query process, like when, and by the way, you have such a cool process on your query tracker. I I mean it's just so clear, like what you're looking for, what you are not looking for. I trust and and some really good, like helpful hints of hey, by the way, don't do this. Or don't do this. It's funny how many people don't read that. Oh, really? I thought it was incredibly helpful. I wish every, you know, I wish I wish they were all that. I mean, I will say, and I maybe this I don't know if this is the time to say it, but I will say that if anyone is listening to this, right? And if anyone has actually taken the time to Google or or search, right? I don't want to pick a specific search engine, but search up. How do I write a query letter? They are already ahead of the game. That the I'm not kidding you. That is insane. I'm not joking. So I I do try to be helpful in my query notes to help people out, but you would be surprised how many people do either don't read it, don't pay attention to it, or try to convince me otherwise. So I know you said you don't like this, but so what makes you sit up and pay attention to something in your inbox as far as query goes? You can always tell when someone has tried to write a query letter. So I don't expect perfect query letters ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. A query letter does not have to be perfect. A query letter just has to give me a good idea of like the concept of the story and the stakes of the story. So it anything that'll make me sit up and pay attention is a really strong concept or a hook, right? I even ask for a hook in my query form to see if authors know what theirs are theirs is. A lot of authors don't. And that's okay. But you can tell those ones that do and lead with it. And so those always make me sit up and listen just a little bit more. Because at the end of the day, if the writing is solid, even if it's not exactly where the story needs to be, if the concept is there, we can go. We can do it. But give us an example of a hook, like what you're referring to as a hook that in a query that would catch your attention versus like, I mean, there's a lot of different hooks when we talk about narrative fiction, right? So this is the big fish. Right. It's understanding your concept and being able to express it in a quick and decisive manner, right? So a great example is a book that came into my inbox as a query, as this as a quote unquote slush, right? It was just in there. They just queried me. And we ended up going on to sell it. That'll do it. That'll do it. Like you know exactly what you're getting. You're getting this woman who is fantastically dressed, probably blonde, absolutely just impeccable, wonderful human, right? And is a serious one. And she's also going to be killing people. In this case, bad men. So specifically, bad men. So that book now is called This Girl's a Killer, and it is on shelves. And if you haven't read it already, it is the revenge fantasy of every woman's dreams. I'm just going to say that. Right. Which would also be an example of a brilliant hook. Yeah. The revenge fantasy of everyone, every woman's dreams, right? Yeah, very cool. I think I think that's really helpful to kind of have an idea. Okay, it could be a comparison or contrast of things together. It could be a this meets that, or it could be a what-if statement, for example. I would be careful with what ifs or questions, because you don't want to lead the wrong direction, right? Like, so I, for example, like I think years and years ago, so I hope I'm I'm probably not hurting anyone's feelings. I hope I got a query that basically is like, well, what if the world ended tomorrow? And I'm like, well, if I wouldn't be reading this right now, right? Like I'd probably be doing something much more, I don't know, hanging out with family, friends, doing something, right? So I'd be careful with rhetorical questions. I I kind of it's a good it might be it might be a really good place to start to ideate from, right? For example, like you were sharing with the Hexellent Chance, right? What if this bookstore, or not bookstore, oh my brain, you know, this Halloween store was truly magical and was attached to a human soul. And you know what, and that human soul was desperate to fall in love, but couldn't because they vanished, you know, every so often. So so there it is, but then breaking it down into something way better than I just said it. Right. It's taking that what if question and turning it into a statement, right? With a solid period or exclamation point at the end instead of that question mark.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Beautiful, beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

So give us the hook for the hexellant chance to fall in love. I mean, uh that's what I usually say is that it's Addie LaRue, but Safic and Halloween. Beautiful. Okay, so walk us through the process of once you get a query in your box that you're like, ooh, yes, hmm. What's the next steps? I ask for a full. I don't dance around asking for a certain number of pages before I just go straight in for the full. So I will ask for a full, and then generally, unfortunately, it sits around for a before I get a chance to read it. And then when I do read it and I really love it, I will schedule some time to talk to the author. Also, in this meantime, I'm doing some, you know, I hate to say it, but a little light stalking, right? Like I like to, I like to know who the writer is. So I kind of try to do some research about them, who they are as a person, because at the end of the day, we are people who are working together, right? We are not just inanimate objects. So I like to know that whoever I'm working with is someone I can work with, that we will, I think we'll communicate well, that you know, we're kind of those kinds of things. So I like to kind of get a feel for people before makes it. And then what's a relationship? Exactly. And for me, it's monogamous. So like we're in a monogamous relationship. So like we're in it for the long haul. Most of my clients are there from like the beginning. So yeah, I I I am uh I'm a I'm I'm a Taurus, I'm a I'm a monogamous. Um my picture in the dictionary is commitment. Like, commitment is there and my face is here. Yeah, yeah. I I hear you.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

I hear you.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

So when you are taking on a new project, how much are you thinking about career potential? A lot. A lot, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if it's I just wrote this one book that I want to sell this one book, it's like, okay, well, then you can probably, there's probably an agent out there that's more than happy to just go sell this one book for this one author and they're just one and done. And that's five. And there's lots of people that do that, and that's great. It's just generally not how I work. So do you want to drop in like what you represent? I represent everything from middle grade, young adult, and then adult projects. So in middle grade and young adult, it's pretty much all genres. I also do graphic novels, and then in the adult arena, I'll do romance, light science fiction and fantasy. So I like to describe it as I don't need you to tell me how to build a flex flux capacitor. I just need you to tell me it makes time travel possible, and I'm in, right? So I don't need the nitty-gritty detail. So in adult, I like a little bit, a little bit lighter on the science fiction and fantasy realm. I do thriller, I do mystery, I do I say don't do it. I do a little horror, but very selectively. There has to be the right horror. It really, really does. It really, really, it does have to be. So and that's like the canon for horror is so big. So I get it. So so I take a little bit of that. I do historical, especially if it's an underrepresented voice, or historical women doing amazing things that we haven't heard about in the past. Like those are the things that I want to hear about. Generally, everything I represent is feminist in some way, shape, or four. Love it. Love it. Okay. Two last two questions around agenting and publishing and all the things. What is one or two things you really wish writers understood better about the query and publishing process? So I think it would help authors understand that once you decide that you want to publish something, it it no longer is just art, right? It's now a product. And I know that's a really hard shift to make, right? Because this thing that we've made and we've built with our hands, right, and our brains and all the things, right? We've we've created this thing. And it's it is an art to make it, but to sell it, it becomes a product. And so it's about not being as precious. Sometimes you do have to make changes. Sometimes there are concessions that need to be made. And if you don't want to do these things, that's fine. But know that the publishing side of it might want those things. So you might need a new title, you might need to axe a character, you might need to, you know, they might suggest these things to you in order to make your art something that they feel that is more something they can sell to the public, right? So a product. So I think that is that is a big distinction when it comes to writing and publishing. So that's on the publishing side. And on the querying side, other than learn how to write a query letter and check the fine print on the agent, okay, agent's submission site. What do you wish writers knew about the querying process? Something that would help them that they miss a lot. A couple of things. So, first and foremost, I would say that a lot of times I have to pass on things not because they aren't good, but because, you know, I have a client that's working on something similar, or it's just too close to something else, or, you know, I just have too much of X at the moment, or there's there's so many different things. So just because someone's getting rejections doesn't mean that it's bad. I want people to know that, right? I will give you this hot tip, which is that if you are querying a lot and you are only getting form rejections over and over, then likely the query letter or and or those first pages, depending on the process, right? Something in there is not not clicking, right? So I would say take it back to the drawing board and like maybe redo your query because you you should be getting asks from that letter alone. Yeah. So also if the query letter is landing and you're getting manuscript requests or partials, and then you're getting rejections. That means your murky middle is a little too murky. So look at your pacing. So something is off in the pacing of your novel. And a lot of times it a really quick and quick and dirty, well, not really quick, but a a way to fix a pacing problem is to look at your ending and say, hey, can I move that to the midpoint and then up the stakes for the ending? And a lot of times that'll solve a lot of your murky middle problems. I think you just blew my mind. I don't, I don't, I don't know if I can accept that answer right now. Like I'm thinking about my my own plot problems. I'm like, shit. Okay. Well, I think a lot of times, especially when people write like fantasy, right? Like they have like these ideas of these series that are in their head. So they want the book to end a certain way to lead them to the next, which is great and all. But if you took that ending and moved it to your midpoint, how could you raise the stakes for this book? And then also, you know, you can leave things open. I am in a position that I think that any book, I don't care what it is, any book can have a series. There can have a prequel, they can have a sequel, they can have a spin-off. There can be something, right? That makes that book a series. If enough people are gonna buy it, they're gonna buy, they're gonna want more. That's just it at the end of the day. So I would say, like, don't worry about book two. Think about book one. Fair enough. Okay. So last few wrap-up questions here. What do you think is the best piece of either creative or writing advice that you've received over the years? Something maybe that you've held on to that you've used kind of like as a North Star. Sure. Okay, I will give you two. One is just for like the general, like a good starting point, I think, is write your query before you write your book. And I know that that's gonna sound kind of bananas, but if you can concisely tell whatever the story you want in in a query form, you already know you had goals, obstacles, and stakes at the end of the day. So you're gonna save yourself a lot of a lot of trauma of trying to figure this out later on if you start there. And of course it can change and evolve along with Louis. Absolutely here and over there. But the second one I think is that's most important and kind of where we started, right? Is that you really have to focus on your own lane. It's really easy to like get distracted and want to look over there, like, oh, well, so-and-so's getting this, so-and-so is doing that. Every journey is different. I mean, a publisher can market two books the exact same way and get two different results. So you really can only focus on what you're doing and what you personally can control. So that is that is the advice that I try to keep in my back pocket as a writer at the end of the day. I love that. And when you say write your query before you write your book, are you talking about the meat, right? Yep, the blurb. Like, like find your hook and find the blurb. Yeah. Yeah. I always say there's four things that you need to do. Who's your main character? What do they want? So what are their goals? What stands in their way? What are their obstacles? And then what is at stake? What what happens if they don't get what they want, right? Those are the four things that are in that little tiny 400-word, three, 350, 400-word thing. Back cover copy blurb for your query. Backup, yes, since we have a couple of minutes, I want to ask a question that I forgot to ask. Okay. Personally, I hate synopsis. I hate writing them, but why are they important to you as a literary agent? And you know, can you give listeners like some idea as as to why we you asked this question at a great time because our head against the wall to get this done. I just created a form rejection for my query manager, was basically this isn't exactly a synopsis. So if you would like to try again, I'd be more than happy to look at this. Oh, you're so kind. Wow. So I I love a synopsis. I read synopsis. I read as many que as many queries as I'm reading a day. I'm reading those many synopsis a day. So I've gotten to a point where I can see problems in the story just for reading the synopsis. And I can pretty much guarantee that if I read the book, I could, it would be exactly what I said, versus based on the synopsis, what is not working. Because I read them all the time. All the time. I love a synopsis because it is a tool that I use as an agent to watch you, as the writer, create, set up the dominoes for the book. So if I already know what's coming, I can be in the book. If tell me it's an unreliable narrator, great. I love it. Love to know in advance because then I can see, oh, you sneaky little thing. I see what you're doing here. And I love seeing those inner workings as a meeting. So that's why I love a synopsis. So I do expect spoilers. Quick and dirty way of like trying to put one together is to think about like your major plot beats of your book and write those down and then show how they connect. Right. The makers of South Park do a great little three-minute clip you can find online. And it's basically if you are saying this happens and then this happens and then this happens, you don't have a story. You have a series of events. Yeah. But if you have this happens, therefore this happens, but then this happens, so therefore this happens. Now you have Domino's a connective story, right? So and we do expect spoilers. We expect spoilers, we expect the ending. Tell us the ending. I cannot tell you how many times I get, especially for fantasy, it's like it like eludes, like there's no closure. And I'm like, okay, well, is this just book one then? Or what is this? So you gotta tell us what the ending is in that synopsis. Fair enough. And length. That's another question. I it's kind of all across the board. I mean, lately there's another literary agent I follow, and she's I can't think of her name, but she put up an example of one of the synopsis she used for her own work, and the thing was 500 words, maybe maybe six. And I was like, whoa, yeah, good for her. And also, it was multi-pov. It was a thriller. I know, I know. Anyway, uh, so here's what I've heard: 500 words to a thousand words, one page to two page. I mean, I guess I guess 500 words would be about one page single spaced, right? Like, that's yeah, probably about a page. Yeah. So I mean, so that's not completely out of the question being able to do a 500-word synopsis. I say one to two pages. I'm not stickler on it. If it's longer, great. If it's shorter, fine. So there's no like hard and fast rule for me personally. It's it's whatever, however many words that you need at the end of the day to be able to show all the dominoes lining up. I mean, if we're getting to 10 though, like we're like, no, I'm we're getting like five like pops, but like the sh maybe the less. So I I'll start skimming. But okay, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, last two questions. What is your wish for your fellow writers? I wish them all success. I want them all to be best-selling authors, making all making a living writing because that is their dream. Like, that's I mean, do I get to this is a witch, so I get to that. This is big. Like, I can get whatever you want it. Everyone gets to live the dream of being able to be an author and supporting themselves and just write the stories of their heart. That is, that would be my dream for everyone, is to be able to do all of that. I I would love that. Wonderful. And is there anything you want to share about what you're currently working on as an author? And also where can listeners find you online? Listeners can find me mostly. I'm on Instagram a lot. I do, I try to react on there a lot, even though I take terrible pictures. Like my no, I'm that is not a strength. But I, you know what? I lean into it. I just lean into it. You just might get a picture of a book with some bananas. That's just the way that's that's my brand. But so I'm there, I'm on blue sky. You can find me there. I have a Tiki Talk, but I'm not on there so much just because edit videos. I'm a one-take girl. Like that's if they just let me go live, I would just like go live, answer questions all the time. That would be my thing. But you have to have so many followers, and I don't have that many followers. So get me to a thousand followers, and I will do all the AMAs that you're forcing me on TikTok. Oh what? Because I cannot edit videos. Like, I don't have time to edit a video. I write in Carline. Like, I spend in Carline a day just so I can write without interruption. That is my writing. You speak my language. You speak my language. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I have not done, yeah. Those are the places you can probably find me. And then what was the other Christian? I kind of forgot. Does you have anything that you're working on that you want to share? Or I need all of you to read my book so I can write more basics of it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, yes. So the seemingly impossible love life of Amanda Dean. That was the first adult contemporary romance, right? Correct. Yes. You got it. And then the second is a hexellant chance to fall in love. And that was just out either somewhere in September of 2025. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for your time for sharing your journey and your knowledge. This is gonna help a whole heap of writers. So yeah, 100%. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Write It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.