Fiction500 contest: surprise inside

[edelweiss]

Thanks, Tele! I was completely shocked.

Karma and gratitude to you.

[DMcWild]

Congratulations Sonja,

What a wonderful story. You are a gifted writer with a great voice.

Cheers,
Don

[edelweiss]

Thank you, Don, for your generous and encouraging words!

[munley]

What a great piece of writing! I hope some agent lurking on QT will read it and ask to see your novel manuscript. If I were an agent, that's what I would do.

By the way, I noticed that you have posted 2 versions of a novel query. Why not include a link to this contest entry? It may be an unorthodox thing to do, but your writing speaks so well for itself. Many good writers have difficulty writing a query that does justice to their talent or the merits of the novel they have ready to publish.

Queries are basically sales pitches, a very different kind of writing from writing a novel. Unfortunately, queries are often regarded as samples of how well one can write.  While a query full of grammatical errors might be a sign of a ms that would require more editing than an agent/publisher is prepared to undertake, an error-free query that doesn't have much "voice" or some of the other "exciting" must-haves doesn't necessarily portend a so-so work offiction.

What I like so much about your contest story, besides the voice, the atmosphere, and detail, is that, while telling about the things at hand, a much larger history and future are implied regarding this family, especially the children. That is a great thing to pull off in a work of fiction, especially in so few words.

[edelweiss]

Thanks, Munley. I really appreciate your kind and thoughtful words.

I have been wondering whether winning this contest constitutes a legitimate writing credit, and find myself agreeing with you that it can't hurt to include it. Sometimes I think we get so hamstrung by the rules for querying that we overlook what you put so succinctly: it's a sales pitch.

Thanks again for your support!

Sonja (Edel.)

[munley]

I think it's worth mentioning in your query, though I'm not so sure about my advice to include a link to it. 

I've read a number of agent guidelines that explicitly say don't include links, partly because of the risk of linking to a virus site, and partly because they feel that the query should speak for itself. Any samples should be of the book you are looking for representation for and attached to the email, not an extra step to some web page.

I imagine that agents who have gotten interested in you from a query might decide to find out more about you by browsing the web, but that is their choice, not something you impose if they want to see a sample of your work.