My latest query, happily course-corrected

 

I've never been so happy to be wrong. And to be corrected, very kindly, with a great big smile and warm encouragement from an agent from the Manuscript Academy. (Which I highly recommend if you're at the query stage.) I hope I am doing what he told me to do. I won't mention his name in case he doesn't want to be associated with my current work in progress.

 

This guy took a LOT of extra time to give me feedback. Long story short, the problem is that I have this trilogy. I know you aren't supposed to query more than one book at a time, for a lot of good reasons.

Even though I have tried as hard as I can to make book one as stand-aloney as possible, resolving the emotional arcs of four major characters, there's still a big issue at the end of book 1 that does not get resolved until the end of book 3.

"Holly, it's not a standalone," the agent said, smiling kindly, when I explained how book 1 ended.

But then he said I simply query it "as book one of a trilogy." He later added that I am to say that books 2 and 3 are outlined.

My mouth dropped open. "You can do that?" I felt stupid. Because I am stupid.

He assured me it was done all the time, even with debut authors.

I told him I thought of a pro and a con to this. The pro, which I am really liking a lot, is that this just feels more honest. I want to have that feeling going forward.

I mean, I was telling myself that certain arcs are resolved at the end of book one. But does that really make book 1 a standalone? Just having uncertainty about whether or not that was true was making me feel a bit nauseous. I would like to not have that feeling going forward.

Now the con to this, and I asked him this, is, Who would want to risk taking on the first book in a trilogy from a debut author?

Again he assured me that this was done all the time, but I had to look for agents that did this. "I'm sure you read trilogies all the time," he said, indicating through the Zoom interface, the wall of books behind me in my office.

Okay, he did not know this, that wall of books behind me are all my favorite chemistry texts, and they make horrible trilogies. I recommend skipping all of inorganic and going straight to bio-organic because that's where all the action is. But yes, the fiction section is downstairs in the living room and it is even bigger than my chemistry text collection, so I knew what he meant.

He listed a bunch of authors that got published this way. It's been done before.

This gives me confidence to proceed in this more straight-forward manner, which I prefer.

Sometimes all you need to hear is that other people have had success doing something a certain way.

Here's another important point. This agent used italics, which as a writer I reserve as one would the use of nuclear weapons, like for special occasion only, to emphasize that I should not mention the other works specifically.

When another writer uses italics, I listen. From now on, I shall not mention the other two works except to say they are "in outline". I've heard this warning so many times. (Sound of information penetrating my brain: This means something.)

So, here's my latest query, course-corrected from my flying it into the side of a mountain.

I've pared the synopsis down, because I was worried that too many details would add confusion. So no, you are not hearing about the brother who compulsively imitates people and likes to wear costumes, or the failing indie bookstore owner, or the love interest with her carbon dioxide-sequestering bionic leaf invention at all.

Dear AGENT,
I’m seeking representation for my debut, THE TIME BOMB FROM OUTER SPACE, a lighthearted, contemporary, character-driven solarpunk sci-fi for adults. Complete at 119,000 words, it’s the first in a trilogy with the second and third book outlined. For lovers of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, TIME BOMB offers the thrill of first contact expressed through real-life science. Imagine the structure of The Overstory—eight eccentric characters tangle over environmental conflicts—softened by a hopeful ending, nice aliens, and dairy products.

Like most folks, engineer Jim doesn’t know about the secret space station orbiting at the outer fringes of the solar system. There, humans have coexisted with benevolent aliens for millennia. Jim also has no clue that in two days, without intervention, a sentient power generator from this Colony—which has gone missing for thirty-eight years—will unintentionally vaporize him and all the tourists crowding the picturesque shores of his Door County, Wisconsin home.

Jim’s been depressed over his failure to become an astronaut. On the advice of his therapist mother, he skeptically tries meditation, and gets struck by an unexpected vision. In it, he’s leading others on a blissful hike in the nearby woods. He can’t understand why this vision feels so urgent. He’s driven to do everything he can to push his reluctant brother and best friend into helping him reconstruct it. Jim can picture the exact spot in the woods where they need to go.

Meanwhile, 1G-0 the generator can’t comprehend the dairy farm that it’s been powering for the past thirty-eight years, but it’s liked being useful. But 1G-0 desperately needs maintenance. Its captors seem unable to respond to its escalating warnings, but dairy farmers don’t speak alien. 1G-0 doesn’t want to explode. It’s hoping its last-ditch distress call to the Colony was intercepted. It was, and someone from the Colony is now speeding to Earth as fast as the laws of physics will allow. Koyper the spaceman, a trained master of his thoughts and emotions, has a personal attachment to 1G-0. It went missing during the 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, where his father’s spaceship crashed under mysterious circumstances. Despite the stakes of his quest to find and repair 1G-0, Koyper looks forward to another landing in his favorite woods for bioprospecting. Koyper can picture the exact spot where he needs to land. Jim and the spaceman don’t know it, but they are destined to meet.

I’m a neurodivergent PhD biochemist living on Wisconsin’s Door County peninsula. I dabble in astronomy and discovered an asteroid by mistake. An AALA agent contracted Marlowe & Co to publish my Herbs Demystified: A Scientist Explains How the Most Common Herbal Remedies Really Work, (under Holly Phaneuf, now managed by Hachette) in 2005. Italian and Mandarin editions that I can’t read exist. I co-created and co-produced an award-winning, indie sci-fi feature film, The Emissary.
Thank you for your consideration.

Warmly,
H. P. Erskine (she/her/hers)

 

 

Comments

[Rosemary]

Thanks for posting this! I’m on version 3 of mine ( you saw version 2 and 1)looks like lots of revisions are normal. I think I’ll check out this ms group for a month.