Anyone who seriously follows my blog (yes, you quiet people who keep reading without leaving comments, and Mom!) knows that I get a bit obsessive about things like first sentences and first chapters because, well, they are pretty damn important and the sorts of things worthy of obsessing over (IF you so choose to obsess over anything at all -and that my friend is a very personal choice!). But I'm getting away with myself.
One thing I very rarely think about and obsess over is the query letter. And that is probably even more important than the first sentence of your book. Because while you hope the first sentence of your book is going to hook your future reader into the story-you need the first line of your query letter to hook an agent or publisher or your book won't exist and no reader anywhere is going to read that first sentence that you dreamt about writing 100 different ways!
The great Lin Oliver of SCBWI fame said to take lots of showers because inspiration comes in the shower. I haven't really kept track of where or when I recieve inspiration but I wouldn't have placed the shower too high on that list, until today when the entire opening of my query just popped into my head.
I think some small part of it may have gotten lost in translation bc I had to actually finish showering and get dry and put clothes on and stuff. But I think I have it, which is good, because I mean to finish this draft and send it off ASAP! And I had better have one hell of an amazing query letter to back up my one hell of an amazing fantabulous story!
So here it is:
As Lilliana packed her bag, her "list-book" fell to the ground, opening to the note she had written to herself weeks before.
"What would you do if you lost your magic power? What would you risk to get it back?"
How seriously she had taken this idea when she wrote it; but back then she was only risking getting in trouble with her dad or with Ruby. She was risking a possible grounding for the weekend. Now, she knew, she wasn’t risking something trivial, she was going to risk everything, more than everything, she was going to risk it all: the lives of her six older sisters and probably her own.
What do you think?
Knowing me I will reconstruct that 100 times, but for now, I'm really quite pleased. I hope I have more showers like that.
So of course school, work and life have gotten me completely off my schedule. Hope to finish the revision of chapter 3 tonight! Also...so excited for the new episode of America's Best Dance Crew!!!!!!! Go Quest Crew!
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