Dear Query Shark
At fifteen, Vani is forcibly married to a gardener and becomes a servant in a British household. Her childhood dreams of becoming a teacher are shattered. Robbed of her innocence but not her optimism, Vani clings to her dreams as she aims to be her bigoted employer’s best cleaner by day and endures her husband's depravity by night.
Unless her husband's depravity is a major plot point, leave it out of the query, particularly in this first paragraph. Depravity is sort of a hot button word and you don't want agents thinking this a book about that if it isn't.
At sixteen, Vani is widowed. Her position is made tenuous by her employer, Mem Lynette. Returning to her parents an unimaginable option, Mem Lynette’s daughter and the long-serving Chinese servants rally to Vani’s side. Soon after, Vani is seduced by a new arrival, Mem Lynette’s nephew, Thomas. He captivates the spirited Vani with the flavours of an intoxicating city and vivid tales about his family. She falls in love with Thomas, who releases feelings in her she never knew existed. When he gives her his most prized possession before leaving abruptly for England, Vani is sure she will see him again. She begins night school, juggling homework with cleaning while she waits for him, oblivious to Mem Lynette’s suspicion and wrath.
this is a list of events. There's almost no sense of verve or excitement here.
At seventeen, Vani is a single mother. An impulsive move forces her into a desperate situation. As her employer’s family history begins to unravel, Vani must make the most important decision of her young life. Keeping her baby can only mean a precarious life ahead, tainted with condemnation and scandal. Giving her baby up for adoption means misery but also the life she always dreamed of and good prospects for her child. Dare Vani believe she can have both her baby and the dream life?
Set in the sixties, spanning the early years of Singapore’s path to independence, JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 124,000 words.
This is my first novel. My memoir, Praying to the Goddess of Mercy, was published by Monsoon Books in late 2012.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
You can condense all this stuff about Vani to a couple sentences, focusing on where things change, and she has choices to make. That will give you some room to expound upon what will make your novel stand out: time and setting. You also need to ratchet up the language and zest here. Right now this is a list of things that happen to Vani. There's no verve or style. There's no voice. That's absolute death in a novel, and pretty bad in a query.
Revise, resend.
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Revision #2
At fifteen, Vani’s bright future is snuffed out when she is forcibly married. This unholy union takes her from her small Malayan town to Jacaranda, a British colonial home in Singapore. By day, Vani aims to be her employer’s best cleaner and by night, she keeps alive her childhood dreams of being a teacher while enduring her husband’s acts of depravity. She plans to run away before lunacy sets in, unless her husband kills her first.
Does she really have a bright future or is it just what she dreams for herself?
At sixteen, Vani is a merry widow***. She befriends the Chinese servants. Soon after, she is seduced by a new arrival – her employer’s nephew, John. Vani is introduced to the sights, sounds, flavours and wonders of an intoxicating city. She falls in love with John, who releases feelings in her she never knew existed. If her employer found out about this affair, Vani would be sent back to her parents, who would rather see her dead than their family name ruined. When John gives her his most prized possession before leaving abruptly, Vani is sure she will see him again. While waiting, Vani begins night-school, determined to be a teacher. She soon learns she is pregnant.
At seventeen, Vani is a single mother who vows to keep her daughter’s paternity secret. When her suspicious employer tricks Vani into giving her baby up for adoption, Vani is desperate. Keeping her baby can only mean a precarious life ahead, tainted with condemnation and scandal. Giving her baby up for adoption means misery but also the life she always dreamed of and good prospects for her child. Dare Vani believe she can have both her baby and the dream life?
If you stop here, it entices someone to read on.
By eighteen, Vani is beginning to live the dream.
If you stop here, you give away the entire plot=not enticing.
Set in the sixties, spanning Singapore’s early years of independence,
Again, you're giving away too much story here.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 87,000 words.
You still don't have enough words but this is a lot more hopeful than what you had before. I still think you need to clock in at 120k to have a fully furnished world built. Remember, the sights, smells and sounds of Singapore are essential here or you've just got a plain old romance novel. (I've said this every single time you've revised, but I fear my words are falling on deaf ears!)
This is a LOT better format as well.
This is a workable query but I'm still worried that you don't have enough book yet.
***This is a clear misunderstanding of the vernacular. Merry Widow means a rich widow who is beset by suitors. Vani is a widow, but not a merry one. Relieved maybe.
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Revision #1
Vani dreams of becoming an English teacher and marrying a kind man. Instead, she is forced into an avunculate marriage to an abusive uncle by her tradition-bound parents and becomes a live-in servant for a British family at Jacaranda, a magnificent colonial bungalow in Singapore.
This is all set up. You'll want the query to begin when Vani has to make a choice. The way this is written there's no choice made, she simply obeys her parents even though she doesn't want to.
Vani is only fourteen. Bruised but not broken, she finds solace in the countless books at Jacaranda while her husband tends the garden. When a cobra kills him, Vani does not grieve; she flourishes. Soon, seduced by a new arrival - her employer’s freshly-graduated nephew, John - she experiences absolute delight for the first time. He creates a new world for her, one filled with love and secret rendezvous. Their blossoming relationship is disrupted when John is summoned home to attend to family matters. He gives Vani his prized possession, a first edition of Tagore’s Gitanjali, and promises to return soon.
And here's the problem: this is a series of events but there's no plot. Vani isn't making choices. She's just having experiences. That's what real life is but that's NOT what novels are. Novels need a plot.
When Vani bears a light-skinned Eurasian girl and names her Gitanjali, her employer is suspicious and secretly plots to keep her unknowing nephew away from Singapore permanently. Meanwhile, with calls for Independence mounting and hopes for a reunion with John dimming, Vani plans her future while the Chinese live-in cook and his washer-woman wife help raise her child. She juggles work, motherhood and night classes in the hope of being a teacher, believing John would be proud of her.
When Vani bears a light-skinned Eurasian girl and names her Gitanjali, her employer is suspicious and secretly plots to keep her unknowing nephew away from Singapore permanently. Meanwhile, with calls for Independence mounting and hopes for a reunion with John dimming, Vani plans her future while the Chinese live-in cook and his washer-woman wife help raise her child. She juggles work, motherhood and night classes in the hope of being a teacher, believing John would be proud of her.
Again, no plot. This is a recitation of events. There's no emotion here, no passion. I don't feel anything when I read this, and that is death in a query.
In the following years, chronic unemployment and a dire housing shortage rage outside, fuelling the servants’ fears of an unpredictable future without their British masters. Wanting the best for Gitanjali, Vani realizes their survival depends on unity with the Chinese servants. The spirited foursome, once cocooned in comfort and security at Jacaranda and still not ready for the freedom thrust upon them, rebuild their lives together with a mixture of anxiety and optimism in turbulent times.
JACARANDA weaves a story of loyalty and hope in a fledgling multi-ethnic nation ushering in new beginnings while struggling against all odds to become self-sufficient.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 65,000 words.
And here's the second HUGE problem. You've described a book set in what would be an exotic, unfamiliar location for most US readers, set in a time most people are not familiar with, and spanning at least a dozen years. There's simply no way to do this in 65K words. There just isn't. [And to make matters worse, this is 4k FEWER words than the 69K you had last time when I said pretty much the same thing--ARGH!!!]
You'll need at least twice this word count before I'd believe you'd gotten the story down on paper.
This is my first novel. My memoir,[title] was published by [publisher] late last year.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
This is my first novel. My memoir,[title] was published by [publisher] late last year.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
No plot.
Short word count.
I'm thinking the problem here is not the query, it's the book. Don't revise the query. Revise the book then work on the query.
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Original query
Dear QueryShark:
Vani is an avid reader whose favourite author is Jane Austen. She dreams of becoming a teacher and marrying a man like Mr. Darcy. Instead, she becomes a live-in servant for a British family at Jacaranda, a magnificent colonial bungalow in Singapore, after she is forcibly married to her abominable uncle according to an ancient South Indian tradition.
This is a nice set up. I wonder who forced her to marry her uncle: her parents or the social norms of her community. It seems odd to have a tradition to marry a close blood relative, but I'm willing to suspend my skepticism and read on.
For any blog readers tempted to jump on the juxtaposition of "magnificent" and "bungalow" remember the Brits use bungalow to mean something quite different than we do.
Vani is only fourteen. In between cleaning, she finds solace every afternoon in the countless books which line the shelves of every room while her husband tends the tropical garden. Within months, she is widowed. Soon after, her employer’s nephew, John, arrives from England. Before long, he is summoned home to attend to family matters.
There's no connection between John and Vani. There's no followup to her being widowed. A lot happens but it's not the plot.
When the coffee-coloured Vani bears a coffee-with-lots-of-milk-coloured Eurasian girl, Vani’s employer is suspicious and secretly plots to keep her unknowing nephew away from Singapore. While waiting for John to return, Vani juggles work, motherhood and night classes in the hope of being a teacher.
Ok, well, that is one way not to do plot: off the page. You've just skipped over the most important part of the story: John and Vani. Are they in love? He's part of her employer's family. I do NOT assume that she is in love with him at all.
It is the late fifties; anti-colonial sentiment is strong and Britain is losing her grip on Singapore. On the cusp of independence, with chronic unemployment and a dire housing shortage, the live-in servants, cocooned in comfort and security at Jacaranda, are not ready for an unpredictable future without their British employers. The impending reality is especially harrowing for Vani, who has a young child and does not know when, if ever, she will see John again.
That last sentence makes it sound like you're introducing Vani, when in fact the first two paragraphs are about her. Suddenly introducing the wider world in paragraph three is jarring. So far this has been a story about two people. Now it's about the end of colonial rule in Singapore. You've got to blend these two aspects of the story.
Here's the description for UNDER THE BANYAN TREE which is about the changes wrought with the arrival of Khmer Rouge in Cambodia:
For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours, bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as the Khmer Rouge attempts to strip the population of every shred of individual identity, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of her childhood— the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival.
Spanning two decades, from British rule to a young Singapore going through a sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll phase, JACARANDA weaves a story of friendship, loyalty and hope, drawing parallels with the tide of uncertainty in a fledgling nation struggling against all odds to become self-sufficient.
This is all tell and no show. Because there's no plot I'm afraid the first couple of chapters will be only a series of events. This is where I'd stop reading and send a form rejection.
JACARANDA is women’s fiction, complete at 69,000 words.
There is NO way in the world you can write a fully developed novel that spans two decades and is set in colonial Singapore in 69,000 words. This is the kind of book that needs to clock in close to 120K. Detail takes time, and if you've got twenty years of events, those too take time. If I hadn't already said no after the paragraph above, I would here.
Most of the time word count is a problem on the other end: too many. But historical novels (like this), fantasy, family sagas, novels with a BIG story---those need more words than a thriller, or a romance.
This is my first novel. My memoir, (title redacted) was published late last year.
It's crucial you include the publisher if you've had a book published before.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Kind regards
There's not enough here to pique my interest, and what is here isn't plot. The characters are almost two dimensional. We have no sense of what they think or feel, let alone the choices they have to make.
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