Thesis Writing II MFA Lessons #1-5

Time for more MFA lessons! My original content in this class or generally shorter, since I had to use most of the announcements focused on assignments.

Lesson 1: Revision

Every writer struggles with revision, but that just means there's a lot of revision advice out there. In Lisa Preston's article "7 Strategies for Revising Your Novel",  she offers a lot of great strategies for approaching revision, like listening to your novel and writing an outline after finishing your novel to see if all the pieces fit.

Lesson #2: Setting

Today, we're discussing an important part of writing: setting! Every story takes place somewhere, so setting in very important to ground the reader in your story. It can give them a real sense they're inhabiting your story. Setting is an often-remembered part of fantasy especially and one of my favorite settings is Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Even the description of the "planet" itself is vivid and rooted in mythology- it's a flat disk on top of four elephants on top of and enormous turtle spinning through space. All of Pratchett's settings--from craggy Ramtop mountains to Ankh-Mopork, the city-state bursting with corruption and vitality--are memorable and well-realized. This description of Ankh-Mopork from the book Mort is a great example of how to make your setting vivid and alive, while having a sense of humor about it:

"Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound" (Pratchett 21).

It's a great example of a setting description that makes use of multiple of the five senses, and it makes the setting a very vivid character in it's own right. K.M Weiland gives further tips on how to do this in the article "16 Ways to Make Your Setting a Character in Its Own Right". Give it a look if you want some advice!

Lesson #3: Query Letter: Part One

Next week, you will be participating in a query letter workshop. A query letter is a one-page formal letter used to pitch your novel’s premise (usually to literary agents, sometimes to small publishers) in hopes of securing representation and eventual publication. It can be one of the most anxiety-inducing parts of the pitching process, but fortunately, you're going to receive a lot of support in this course to craft the perfect query letter! There are a ton of resources to help you in this week's Reading and Resources, so be sure to check those out!

In order to help you with the querying process, I'm going to share the query letter that helped me get my first book, In the Way of All Flesh, published. It is by no means the perfect query letter, but it was enough to get someone interested.

Dear [Publisher], 

Gloomy teenager Manee Srikwan wears long sleeves and keeps her hands to herself for a good reason–whenever she touches a person for the first time, she sees how they will die. Manee’s weird powers cause nothing but misery and she’s resigned herself to a life of loneliness. But her vivacious classmate, Stephanie Pierce, changes all that. 

As the girls grow closer, Manee’s feelings for Stephanie blossom into love. She yearns to be more intimate but is anxious about breaking her all-important “hands-off ” rule. When she finally gives in to temptation, she sees a terrifying future where Stephanie is murdered — and Manee is her killer! Now Manee has a choice to make— will she fight this fate or let it rule her?

The above is the premise of my 80,00 word young adult fantasy novel, In the Way of All Flesh. This story, written on a Microsoft Word 2016 document, is a thriller, romance and paranormal drama all rolled up in one. I believe it would fit in beautifully with [publisher's] line of diverse and exciting LGBTQI books. 

I am an author who is full of enthusiasm and armed with experience. I am a journalist, teacher, blogger, poet and, above all, a huge geek for all kinds of fiction. My passion led me to earn a MFA in writing from Queens University in Charlotte and I’ve been published in several literary journals, including The Great Smokies Review. 

 I wrote this story with the intent of reaching out to queer teens and letting them know they are not alone. I drew on the alienation and confusion I felt regarding my own sexual orientation growing up. In this book, I use the supernatural as a tool to subtly explore teenage relationship anxiety alongside other issues, such as mental illness and the question of fate vs. determinism. The message of my novel is one of self-love and self-determination. Readers will walk away from it believing in themselves and believing in a brighter future.

I would be delighted to work with [publisher]. If you have any questions or anything to communicate, please do not hesitate to contact me using the information below. Thank you in advance for your consideration of my work. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Yours sincerely,

 Caitlin Donovan

Please note the "2016 word document" bit was a requirement of that publisher and will likely not be a requirement for most-- but it's a good example of how different publishers and agents will give different requirements for their query letters, so you should always be certain to check.

You'll notice that I personalized my query letter to the publisher. I mentioned their "diverse and exciting line of LGBTQI books", showing that I had checked into what they published and considered why my book would be a good fit. I specifically referenced some of the phrasing on their website. Personalizing the letter to the publisher and agent and showing that you did your research is an important thing to help your letter stand out. I could have even gone more in depth with it and compared my novel to specific titles they had published. You want to show interest in the publisher or agent so they show interest in you.

This letter has a lot of the elements you'll need for your query: The hook, the title stats, the genre, the word count, the stakes for the character, the bio, and the words of gratitude. Make sure you pay attention to all these elements.

Lesson # 4 Query Letter Part Two

Welcome to Module Five! This week, we will be doing your 5-2 Submission: Query Letter workshop!

Last week, I showed you all a sample of my query letter. This week, I'll let you in on another secret: I left out some parts of that letter. In the original letter, I included information about my following on social media. I was trying to show I had a significant platform I could leverage into readership, but honestly, my platform actually wasn't that significant, being under 10,000 followers at the time, and it wasn't a social media service where one could check my followers anyway, so all they had to go off of was my word. It was a mistake to include that, but my mistake wasn't a death sentence-- I still got published. That's an important thing to remember- one small flaw won't necessarily sink your query letter, even if you cringe looking back on it. 

Another thing to remember is query letter requirements will vary. My original query letter actually included a full synopsis of my book, because that's what the publisher wanted. I also tried out comps in some query letters, comparing my book to The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin or Pushing Daises meets The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (which was really off, since it gives the impression my book is really funny and it wasn't). But I wasn't confident with my comps, so I decided not to use them after a while unless the agent or publisher required it. It's okay to make that decision!

Lesson #5 Dialogue

Welcome to Module Six! This week, we're going to discuss dialogue, which is one of my favorite things to write!

Dialogue can be snappy and memorable, heartbreaking and profound, funny and revealing, and everything in-between! John Fox offers some great examples of way dialogue can be used to convey a point in "50 Examples of Dialogue to Inspire Writers" and Reedsy's article "15 Examples of Great Dialogue" offers further insight. 

For this week's optional discussion topic, you can discuss your favorite and least favorite dialogue examples.

For my money, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir contains some of my favorite dialogue. The book shows incredible range, including funny exchanges like:

“Why was I born so attractive?”

 “Because everyone would have throttled you within the first five minutes otherwise" (Muir 397).

And heart-wrenching confessions, like:

"I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you” (Muir 356).

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My next lessons include my synopsis, so I'll make a separate post for the remaining lessons in this section.