The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

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My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

OUR SECRETS WILL SAVE US is a 72,000-word YA modern-day psychological thriller. Told through multiple points of view over a 2-day period this “whodunit" mystery revolves around small town secrets and the lengths each character takes to keep them hidden. It’s perfect for fans of Holly Jackson’s FIVE SURVIVE and Netflix’s series MURDAUGH MURDERS. Good intro! I typically tell writers to put title, word count, genre, comp titles at the bottom, but you've done a solid job with this and I see no reason to move it.

It’s the night of prom prom night in the small southern southern is implied in naming the state, so you don't need it here town of Foley, Georgia. The high school guests all gather to celebrate the grand finale of the year I'd find a different way to intro this thought, you're basically describing prom, and we all know what that is and everything is going as planned - that is until one of their fellow classmates is found dead.

I'm not sure about the structure that you're using here. Is one of the listed characters below the victim? My initial reaction is that you're listing possible suspects, but then the last sentence implies that one of THEM is going to die... so do two people die, or is there only one death and one of the listed characters is the victim?

It also raises questions about timeline - is this book about the murder, or about figuring out who the killer is? In other words, are we going to see all these characters bouncing off each other, and then the penultimate moment is the murder itself? Or is the murder an early occurrence, and the story is actually about figuring out who did it? You call it a whodunit in the intro para, but if that's the question, then one of these characters has to be searching for the answers - not just being listed as having a motive.

Vivian - the Junior Class President - has worked tirelessly in perfecting the night, but of all people, she knows that nothing is ever as perfect as it seems. That's a pretty broad statement that could mean anything

Walker - the druggy - has one last chance to prove to them all that what happened last year doesn’t define him, that what happened last year should have never happened to him. But what happened last year, and why does it matter now? How does it tie into prom?

Averitt - the musician - has suffered for three years after his best friend’s death, but how can he move on when he is in love with his dead best friend’s sister? But how is that a motive?

Miya - the runner - has learned how to keep her distance, but when an unexpected romance becomes the center of her attention, she will do anything to protect their interracial secret. Definitely interesting, but again, I don't know how this is a motive, partially because I don't know who's dead

Brookyln - the newbie - has moved in with a step-father and step-brother she hates and is desperately searching for a connection - a connection that quickly turns into an obsession. Again, interesting, but all of these feel very disparate. It might be more intersting to trace how they connect, rather than setting each apart

Each of them has a secret. Each of them has a motive. And when each of their secrets begin to collide, someone will not leave prom alive. I like this, but it might work better as a hook!

I think you've created a difficult plot to query, lol! First of all, ask yourself if each of these 5 characters actually needs their own POV. Five is a LOT to juggle and as a first time writer, an agent might question your ability to pull it off. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but I do think it's something of a barrier.

I think your plot sounds interesting, and I love the idea of a prom murder, and each of their secrets being interconnected. That interconnection might be a more interesting way to structure the query, rather than listing characters.

The Path From Journalist to Novelist

I had known since pretty early in my life that I wanted to be a writer. My parents had given me the complete works of Mark Twain when I was in fourth grade, after I had devoured Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. By middle school, I was a fan of Edgar Allan Poe. As a high school freshman, The Catcher in the Rye moved me to my fourteen-year-old core. I wanted to write novels that affected readers the way JD Salinger had affected me.

As I prepared for my first year of college, where I planned to major in English, I made a fateful decision. I added journalism as a double major along with English. That, I thought at the time in a rare instance of good decision-making as a teenager, would enable me to get a day job until I wrote the Great American Novel and became rich and famous. I figured that might take a couple of years.

More than forty years later, I retired from the newspaper business.

I started as a reporter and then editor before moving to the business side, management, and eventually executive positions with media companies. But my career in the journalism world carried me and my family to places around the world, from small towns to major cities, from eight years in Washington DC to five years in Tokyo.

With a family, a mortgage, a career, paying for braces, saving for my kids’ college, and often sixty or more hours in a workweek, fiction took a back seat. I never stopped writing fiction, but it was a hobby. A short story here and there. A few attempts at novels that never got off the ground.

Then, in my forties, a character showed up in my head and wouldn’t shut up. I took dictation while she gradually revealed her story. That took a few years, but it eventually became a novel—my first book written, although it would be the second book of mine published after numerous rewrites over several years. I had to learn how to write a novel first.

Writing a novel turned out to be a bit more complex than writing a news story, an opinion column, or a 5,000-word short story. Who knew?

A number of writers and interviewers over the years have asked me how journalism prepares a writer for fiction. Many are a bit skeptical of any connection between the two. Journalism didn’t just impact my fiction writing but formed my style and voice.

What does journalism teach about writing that transfers to long-form fiction? Quite a bit, actually.

First, the basics of news writing is the standard:

  • Who = characters

  • What = plot (what happens)

  • When/where = setting (last night in a liquor store robbery or a two hundred years ago in an English nobleman’s castle)

  • How = narrative arc (how does the story unfold; how does one event lead to the next)

  • Why = character arc and theme

In journalism, we’re taught to use quotes and proper attribution from the subjects and sources (the “characters”). Only use the best quotes, the important parts that tell the story in the characters’ words. In fiction, we call this dialogue. But in a news story, just as in fiction, you can’t (usually) just write quotes. You have to fill in the story in narrative form.

The advice my journalism professor repeated ad nauseam was “Write tight.” Use just enough words to say what needs to be said. Strip it down. Find the simplest, most direct way to convey the story to the reader. Don’t wander around aimlessly or try to write pretty sentences. Make your point and move on. Don’t write a 2,000-word story if you can tell it in 500 words.

There are many more connections and continuities between short-form journalism and long-form fiction, but it doesn’t fit every writer, of course. Every author has a different style. Every genre has different expectations. Longer, more complex sentences, more detailed description, deep dives into philosophical musings in narrative form—all of these appear in many works of fiction that would be edited right out of most journalism, and for good reason, but can work well in fiction.

There are also newer writers who feel compelled to write deep, complex sentences and detailed descriptions because they think that’s what writing is supposed to be. But as the famous author Elmore Leonard has said, “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.” I think my journalism professor said something similar four decades ago.

Journalism has infused my writing style. Simple, direct, natural. Dialogue as realistic as possible, and kept to the important parts, leaving out chit-chat and conversations that don’t drive the story forward. The bare necessities of description. Just enough to create an image that the reader can fill in the details in her own mind.

An exercise my literature professor gave me years ago—just a voluntary project, not a class assignment—to help see the difference between writing styles as my own voice developed was to read a dozen or so novels. Start with a book by Ernest Hemingway, then read one by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Then read another by Hemingway, then another by Fitzgerald, until I’d read them all. These were two of the greatest authors of twentieth century America. They wrote during the same time period (mostly). They were friends (mostly).

I loved Fitzgerald’s beautiful and complex prose, use of metaphors and similes, descriptive phrases that made me stop and see something routine or mundane in a different way. He used vivid imagery with delicate phrasings and precisely chosen words. I would often stop and reread a sentence just to wallow in the beauty of his prose. I’d think to myself, “This is how I want to write.”

Then I’d read a book by Hemingway. The writing style was polar opposite to Fitzgerald. Simple, direct, almost plain, terse. His description was minimal yet effective. Yet this simplest of writing styles held a depth. The characters and their emotions, their pain, would pop off the page and surround me. He was a master at realistic and spare dialogue, letting the characters speak as they really would speak, not forcing them to say words that were from the writer.

Hemingway’s advice on writing was, “A writer's style should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous.”

Despite the beauty of Fitzgerald’s prose, Hemingway’s writing felt more natural and powerful to me.

It was no surprise when I learned Hemingway had been a journalist.

A few other famous writers—you’ve probably heard of them—who started their careers in journalism include names like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Joan Didion, Carl Hiaasen, Susan Sontag, Anna Quindlen, and many, many more.

Robb Grindstaff is the author of four novels of contemporary southern lit, and more than twenty published short stories. He’s been editing other fiction writers for fifteen years, including traditionally published, agented, and bestselling independent authors, and also regularly teaches fiction writing courses. Robb will be an instructor this June at the Novel-in-Progress Book Camp, held in Racine, Wisconsin (between Chicago and Milwaukee). The Novel-in-Progress Book Camp is sponsored by the Chicago Writers Association, the Wisconsin Writers Association, and HerStry LLC.