INVISIBLE: query second attempt

[Jeanne Bannon]

Below is my second attempt at my query. I truly appreciate the invaluable feedback and suggestions I've received from this forum. Any advice is greatly appreciated since I suck at query writing. Thanks in advance.

Dear Agent


Lola wants to be invisible. Her funky, tattoo-covered parents don’t understand why she’s not like them. They can’t fathom why Lola spends her time reading and writing with dreams of becoming an author. During a humiliating moment at her summer job, her wish comes true. She vanishes after having to don a bathing suit, her worst nightmare since she’s a big girl.

Lola discovers the ability to disappear is one she shares with her spunky 80-year-old grandmother Rose, who she goes to for advice. Granma Rose tells her the ability to vanish is genetic and skips a generation and that the vanishing will stop when Lola learns to love herself. But when her beloved grandmother dies suddenly, Lola’s panic attacks derail the progress she’s made in learning self-acceptance and love.

With the support of her only friend, Charlie, an emo lesbian and Jon, a boy she’s adored from afar for years, Lola begins to feel hopeful about her future. But her hope is short-lived when she discovers Nino, the school bully has plans to beat her and sexually assault Charlie after the graduation dance. Lola, Charlie and Jon devise a plan. Once they prove to Nino that Lola really can disappear, Lola threatens to vanish and humiliate Nino in front of the entire graduating class, parents and teachers by pulling down his pants, unless he reads a speech that Lola has written admitting to his plan.

Lola’s not sure she can go through with the plan. Is she destined to a life in the shadows; never being seen for the beautiful and talented girl she is, or will she have the courage to stand up to Nino and finally allow herself to be seen?

INVISIBLE is a 50,000-word young adult novel. It’s edgy and timely, tackling issues relevant to young people today including bullying and gay issues.

I've worked in the publishing industry for over twenty years. I began my career as a freelance writer, then worked as an in-house editor for Butterworths Canada. I've had several short stories published and recently won first place in the Writes of Caledon Short Story Contest. One of my flash fiction pieces was voted ‘Best in Issue’ by Moon Drenched Fables. Another of my works in progress, Dark Angel, was a finalist in the 2010 Strongest Start Contest. My most recent short story is published in an anthology titled Visitor to Sandahl which is available on Amazon.com.

Sincerely,


Jeanne Bannon

[lmjackson]

Lola wants to be invisible. Her funky, tattoo-covered parents don’t understand why she’s not like them. They can’t fathom why Lola spends her time reading and writing with dreams of becoming an author. When she has to don a bathing suit in front of others, her wish comes true. She vanishes after having to don a bathing suit, her worst nightmare since she’s a big girl.

Unable to relate to her funky, tatto-covered parents, Lola shares the discovery with her grandmother discovers the ability to disappear is one she shares with her spunky 80-year-old grandmother Rose, who she goes to for advice. Grandma Rose tells her the ability to vanish is genetic and skips a generation and that the vanishing will stop when Lola learns to love herself. But when her beloved grandmother dies suddenly, Lola’s panic attacks derail the progress she’s made in learning self-acceptance and love.

There's a confusing break here. ^ Lola is suffering from panic attacks and her progress is derailed, yet here \/ she's starting to feel hopeful about her future? Though there are separate paragraphs the whole query needs to fit together.

With the support of her only friend, Charlie, an emo lesbian and Jon, a boy she’s adored from afar for years, Lola begins to feel hopeful about her future. But her hope is short-lived when she discovers Nino, the school bully has plans to beat her and sexually assault Charlie after the graduation dance. Lola, Charlie and Jon devise a plan. Once they prove to Nino that Lola really can disappear, Lola threatens to vanish and humiliate Nino in front of the entire graduating class, parents and teachers by pulling down his pants, unless he reads a speech that Lola has written admitting to his plan. Think the inside of a book jacket or the back cover of a book. You're giving the reader--or in this case the agent--enough of the plot and characters to get them interested without telling them too much.

Lola’s not sure she can go through with the plan. Why? Is she destined to a life in the shadows; never being seen for the beautiful and talented girl she is, or will she have the courage to stand up to Nino and finally allow herself to be seen? Sounds really cliche. I like like the "allow herself to be seen" phrase, since it ties in with the theme of invisibility and the title of the novel.

INVISIBLE is a 50,000-word young adult novel. It edgy and timely, tackles relevant issues relevant to young people today including bullying and gay issues.

I've worked in the publishing industry for over twenty years. I began my career as a freelance writer, then worked as an in-house editor for Butterworths Canada. I've had several short stories published and recently won first place in the Writes of Caledon Short Story Contest. One of my flash fiction pieces was voted ‘Best in Issue’ by Moon Drenched Fables. Another of my works in progress, Dark Angel, was a finalist in the 2010 Strongest Start Contest. My most recent short story is published in an anthology titled Visitor to Sandahl which is available on Amazon.com.

This is definitely better than the first run. But I'd say some of the second paragraph and definitely the third paragraph can be reworked. Also, as you continue to make edits you can keep all of the rewrites in the same thread and just make updates.

There really is no mentioning of how invisibility has directly changed Lola's life.

Why are there no adults involved? Beatings and sexual assault are pretty severe. (this is more of a plot question than query-related question)

Is it relevant that Charlie is an emo lesbian or that Jon is a boy "she's adored from afar for years"? If not, then I'd nix those descriptions and save your word count.

Also, if the vanishing stops once she learns to love herself, will standing up to Nino stop her from becoming invisible? If so, mention this! That's an important plot element and decision that Lola has to make.

As always, good luck!

[wilderness]

Hi Jeanne --

This seems like an interesting premise and I applaud you for tackling some tough and relevant issues. However, I think you can greatly simplify this -- a lot of sentences are too wordy when a cleaner sentence will serve you better. Notes below. Good luck!

Dear Agent


Lola wants to be invisible. Her funky, tattoo-covered parents don’t understand why she’s not like them. They can’t fathom why Lola spends her time reading and writing with dreams of becoming an author. During a humiliating moment at her summer job, her wish comes true. She vanishes after having to don a bathing suit, her worst nightmare since she’s a big girl. I liked lmjackson's recommendations for simplifying this pararagraph. The first time I read it I thought 1) "her wish comes true" referred to her dreams of becoming an author, not being invisible and 2) "She vanishes" meant she left, not that she literally became invisible. So definitely work on clarity here.

Lola discovers the ability to disappear is one she shares with her spunky 80-year-old grandmother Rose, who she goes to for advice. Granma Rose tells her the ability to vanish is genetic and skips a generation and that the vanishing will stop when Lola learns to love herself. Again, agreed with lmjackson for less awkardly stating this. Also, there is a lack of chronology here -- She must go to Grandma for advice first before she discovers that the ability is one she shares. But when her beloved grandmother dies suddenly, Lola’s panic attacks derail the progress she’s made in learning self-acceptance and love. I don't think you need this sentence, -- the next paragraph makes sense without it.

With the support of her only friend, Charlie, an emo lesbian and Jon, a boy she’s adored from afar for years, Lola begins to feel hopeful about her future. Confusing -- if Jon is helping her, then isn't he her friend and therefore Charlie is not her only friend? Also, you might has well leave Jon out since he is not very relevant to the bullying plot. But her hope is short-lived when she discovers Nino, the school bully has plans to beat her and sexually assault Charlie after the graduation dance. Lola, Charlie and Jon devise a plan. Once they prove to Nino that Lola really can disappear, Lola threatens to vanish and humiliate Nino in front of the entire graduating class, parents and teachers by pulling down his pants, unless he reads a speech that Lola has written admitting to his plan. This is too much detail, can you simplify this? Also, again a chronology issue -- she will pull down his pants and then disappear, but the wording is backwards.

Lola’s not sure she can go through with the plan. Is she destined to a life in the shadows; never being seen for the beautiful and talented girl she is, or will she have the courage to stand up to Nino and finally allow herself to be seen?

INVISIBLE is a 50,000-word young adult novel. It’s edgy and timely, tackling issues relevant to young people today including bullying and gay issues.

I've worked in the publishing industry for over twenty years. I began my career as a freelance writer, then worked as an in-house editor for Butterworths Canada. I've had several short stories published and recently won first place in the Writes of Caledon Short Story Contest. One of my flash fiction pieces was voted ‘Best in Issue’ by Moon Drenched Fables. Another of my works in progress, Dark Angel, was a finalist in the 2010 Strongest Start Contest. My most recent short story is published in an anthology titled Visitor to Sandahl which is available on Amazon.com.

Sincerely,


Jeanne Bannon

[Jeanne Bannon]

Thanks to everyone for the valuable assistance. Writing a query is never easy, but you've helped me a lot. I guess it's back to the drawing board with this one, lol.

Jeanne

[Sanwrites]

Hi Jeanne:
You've gotten lots of good response on this, but I wanted to add one more thing. I think that it needs a better sense of the MC herself. Her personality doesn't come through as much. We get to see what happens to her because of abilities, but how I'd like to see how it all affects her more. Just a thought.
Good luck!

[Jeanne Bannon]

Thanks for your valuable input. I'll take it into consideration when I polish it up a bit more :)

Jeanne