The Black Dagger Brotherhood_ An Insider's Guide - J. R. Ward [104]
(Note: I asked her to read this part before this book went to print to make sure she was comfortable with being mentioned—and she said that the advice she gave me was a “pay it forward kind of thing”—it was first given to her by a wonderful Harlequin writer, Pat White, who got it from a book called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Now I’m passing it along. Kind of cool, huh.)
So, look, on the publishing journey . . . don’t beat yourself up. Do the best you can. Inevitably, real life is going to get in the way of the quality or the quantity of your writing . . . or your enthusiasm or your faith in your dream . . . or your success. Know this going in, and find yourself some good support, whether it’s friends or other writers or your family or your dog—and remember that there are only guidelines, no hard-and-fast rules for anything, whether it’s craft or business or success. I always temper whatever advice I give with the caveat that what’s worked for me may not be right for someone else, and that everything is just an educated guess. And that’s okay.
Because miracles happen.
Every day.
The thing is, if you don’t put yourself out there, it makes it a lot harder for them to find you. So, please, take a chance and see where it leads. And be kind to yourself along the way. At the end of the day, all we can do is believe in ourselves and work hard . . . the rest is left to fate.
Oh, and be grateful.
I know I am.
The Black Dagger Brotherhood Proposal
A lot of writers who are starting out on their journey to get published ask me questions about query letters (which are the correspondence you send out introducing you and your project to agents and/or editors) and proposals. Writer’s Market has some good examples of query letters. Bottom line is keep it on one page, detail your project succinctly, but with enthusiasm, and list your writing credentials (such as any publishing credits you have, contests you’ve won, and professional memberships [like RWA]). Include also any relevant personal information that pertains to the particular material (i.e., you’re a pediatric nurse who’s writing about a heroine who’s a pediatric nurse).
Proposals are generally the outline of your book, which is all about telling, not showing, and the first three chapters of the manuscript. What follows is the exact proposal I sent out for the Brotherhood through my agent (you can read the first three chapters in the book if you like). Right off the bat, I’m going to tell you it’s way too long—so if you follow this example, I encourage you to do one full version for yourself, then pare it down for agents/editors. I made up the format myself—I’d never seen anyone else’s proposals at that point and just focused on what I would want to know about the series if I were an editor. I will say that I think the layout works especially well with paranormals—you’ll note I include the rules of the world as well as an overview of every major character and their role not only in the book, but in vampire society.
For me, it’s cool to go back and read it through and see the changes in content. The vast, vast majority of the discrepancies that show up are because I misinterpreted what I saw, or because I saw more later which changed the implications of these original scenes. In a few cases, however, the differences came about because there were holes in what I was shown and I filled them in with stuff I made up. For example, when I first saw Phury and Z, I didn’t know they were twins, didn’t know much about them at all. Rather than leave the slate blank, I developed some background for them both that I thought was suitably dramatic. The truth came out though as I actually drafted the full manuscript.
And the same was true for the way Dark Lover ended. While I was outlining, the scenes stopped coming to me at the point that Wrath was in the clinic after he got shot. That just didn’t seem like the right way to end the book,