A name change, and a new query

The query below is something I wrote this afternoon. It represents, I believe, the fourth or fifth iteration of the query for my second novel, previously titled, EMPTY SPACES, and now retitled, RUNNING ON EMPTY.

At least, it will be titled that until I change my mind again. I'm fickle. What can I say?

Anyhoo.... The query is rough and not yet polished. But I thought I would toss it up here to get some early feedback. Let me know what you think, although as always please try to be nice. And if you can't be nice, at least be specific.

And also, as always, thank you!


Here goes:


Dear agent,

Grant Bachman is an ordinary junior college teacher, the kind of guy who says “excuse me” when he sneezes alone. When an armed student opens fire on an otherwise gorgeous New England morning, Grant is forced to use a fellow teacher’s desk-drawer pistol to stop him.

Once the smoke clears, Grant assumes the worst is over. He’s wrong.

Over the next five days Grant encounters an assortment of characters, all of whom will alter his life’s trajectory. Among them are a beguiling lost girl with the morals of a feral cat, a therapist offering the sweet hope of a restored life, his own self-absorbed wife whose affair with a roguish young cop is reaching critical mass, a pack of reporters hungry for a hero to tear apart, and a straight-arrow police sergeant hell-bent on solving an unspeakable crime.

When Grant’s estranged wife finds the school shooter’s cell phone hidden in her husband’s car and turns it over to her crazy boyfriend, the finger of blame turns toward Grant Bachman. With his lost girl tagging along, Grant finds himself on the run from the police, his wife, his therapist, and his old life. Now he must find the truth before his pursuers find him.

My novel, RUNNING ON EMPTY, is a fast-paced suspense/thriller complete at 91,000 words.

As a newspaper reporter, columnist, and editor, I’ve received more than a dozen national, regional, and state awards from the Associated Press and the Illinois Press Association for writing and reporting.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

It's time to relax

Over the past three days, I have completely re-worked my manuscript. I have a new query letter that I really like. And I'm now at a point where I honestly feel like I've done everything I can do to get The Devil You Don't Know published.

(Thanks, Anne!)

Oh, there's one more thing, I guess. I have to write a synopsis. Damn it. I have a secret that I'm going to share here for the first time: I have been purposely avoiding agents who require a synopsis in the hope that I could just, you know, skate around it.

Yeah. Right. Not going to happen. So tomorrow, after I mow the entire yard and before I make dinner and then take the kid to his first Little League game of the season, I am going to try to kind of start writing a synopsis.

Damn it.

I sent three more queries tonight with the new query letter and shiny new manuscript just ready to pounce on the world. Ahem. Anyway, I really got my courage up and queried .... wait for it .....

Nathan Bransford!

I know. It'll never happen for several reasons (not his cup of tea, not his kind of writing, too adult, etc.), but what the hell. Since I figure he'll reject me like he does 99.99999999 percent of writers who query him, I figured I might as well get it out of the way.

I sort of expected the rejection fairly soon, since he's like super-human when it comes to the speed in which he rejects people (although he does it nicely, I'm told; I'll let you know). But then I remembered that the series finale of Lost is tonight, so I figure that'll keep him occupied for the entire evening.

So I should hear from him in the morning. (Yay, he says weakly.)

I've decided to post the latest incarnation of my query tonight for you guys to sniff around and rip to shreds should the desire strike you. Seriously, if you guys see anything that needs work, please tell me. I still have lots of prospective agents left -- including all of my A list with the exception of Nathan. So I can still tweak this baby.

Thanks in advance. Here it is:

Dear Mr. Bransford,

Newspaper editor Michael Reed takes a frantic call from a former nun, begging him to meet her son, the resurrected Jesus Christ in the form of fifteen year old Jordan Crane. Michael blows her off as just another crackpot.

When Michael's son is hit by a car, his fragile faith is tested in ways he could not have imagined when Jordan Crane places his hands on his son's dead body—and brings him back to life. A skeptic by nature, Michael questions his own sanity.

Michael soon learns Jordan needs him to lead a small group of average people into the greatest spiritual battle of all time—the last fight between God and Satan. Can they save the world? Is this kid really the Son of God? Or has Michael truly lost his mind?

As he suspends his disbelief and rationalizes the miracles Jordan Crane keeps delivering, Michael's newspaper instincts take over and he knows he must tell the world this story. It's not an assignment he relishes.

THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW is a thriller complete at 114,000 words.

As a career journalist, I've received a dozen national, regional, and state awards from the Associated Press and the Illinois Press Association for writing and reporting.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I would be delighted to send you the first three chapters.

Very truly yours,

Terry L. Towery
[contact info redacted]

My first rejection

January 14, 2010

Dear Author: Thank you so much for sending the [name redacted] Literary Agency your query. We’d like to apologize for the impersonal nature of this standard rejection letter. Rest assured that we do read every query letter carefully and, unfortunately, this project is not right for us.

Because this business is so subjective and opinions vary widely, we recommend that you pursue other agents. After all, it just takes one "yes" to find the right match.

Good luck with all your publishing endeavors.

And there it is! My first rejection letter. And it's a form letter -- the worst kind of all. No feedback. No "You're almost there, keep at it." Nothing but no. Yay.

I ended up sending out two letters to prospective agents yesterday, the first included the first five pages of my manuscript as per her instructions, and this one, which consisted only of the query (per this particular agent's instructions).

Want to know a secret? This didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. Weird, huh? I fully expect to receive my second NO any time now -- since that's the one I sent to the Mikey of the agent world (she doesn't like anything!). Of course, I screwed that one up. BUT, it contains a sample of the book, something the above agent didn't see.

So we'll see. But I know from exhaustive research that no author -- not one -- got accepted the first time they sent a query or a manuscript. Stephen King? Dozens of rejections. J.K. Rowling? Rejected by every single agent and publishing house except one -- and it got rich from her in the long run.

So, there's no telling. But I shall persevere. The process has only just begun. (Why am I starting to sound like John Paul Jones?)

I'll update if I hear from Agent No. 1 today.

UPDATE: I sent a third query out late this afternoon to an agent in Tennessee. I found him on the Internet and he reps what I write. So we'll see. In summary -- three queries out, one rejection, two pending. I'm told many published authors send out up to 50 or even 100 queries before they get an agent. It's gonna be a long winter.

Well, I did it

God help me, I just hit send on my first query to a real literary agent! I sent the query and the first five pages of the manuscript (i.e., the entire prologue) to a very well known agent who is famous (infamous?) for rejecting almost everything she gets.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Granted, I fully expect to be rejected. And that's probably why I chose her, to get that first NO out of the way. Once the initial sting of rejection passes (and provided my wife can get my nearly dead body cut down before I really suffocate), I can then continue on with my edits and start querying in earnest.

But I've felt ready this week to stick my toe in the waters. So, I have.

I talked to Staley a few minutes ago (Staley, you might remember, is my awesome book editor) and she said to go for it. Of course, there's much left to do on the manuscript, mainly cutting some of the excess verbiage and tightening some character stuff. But even if the agent in question asks for a few more additional pages (ha! like that will happen), I'd feel confident providing them.

I think.

I'll update when the first rejection comes in. It's almost a rite of passage among new authors. Some even print the email out and frame it. Me? I'll probably delete the damned thing.

I don't generally handle rejection well. So I might as well start getting used to it.

UPDATE: Holy crap! I just checked the emailed query I sent earlier today to an agent and IT HAS A MASSIVE SCREW-UP IN IT! Okay, not massive. But pretty bad. I was changing around the personal stuff at the bottom (you know, where you kiss their butt!) and inadvertently cut off a sentence!!! This to a literary agent who's known to look for reasons to reject people.

Foot, meet bullet. Bullet, meet foot.

Oh well. Lesson learned today: CHECK THE DAMNED THING SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE HITTING SEND.

Editing frenzy continues

I got through two more chapters today and I fixed my prologue, which I managed to screw up yesterday during a classic case of editing gone wild.

Sometimes, I just can't leave well enough alone. People will tell me a passage or chapter is really good, and then I'll spend hours tinkering with it. I'm not sure why that is, although I suspect it's connected to my perfectionism. Which is probably linked to ... oh, forget it.

Bottom line is, I need to edit my words, make them as good as I possibly can, and move on.

I think I'm getting close to screwing up enough courage to send out a query or two. A journey of a thousand miles can't begin until one takes that first step.

The book editor who has been combing the manuscript is almost done and I should find out very soon if there's any major problems with plot, character, etc. I've already instituted many of the changes she had suggested for the first several chapters. I'm becoming pleased with the manuscript, something I never thought I would do.

As a perfectionist, just the simple act of blogging becomes hell. When I first started, I edited and re-edited my posts until I realized I was using valuable writing time -real writing time on my real book - screwing around with my posts.

Now, I pretty much bang them out. I know it shows, and I'm sorry for that. And if I see a major problem, I still go in and fix it. But I also know that I need to hold back my perfectionism for the manuscript.

Okay. I'm going to hit publish post now and ... wait a minute. Does that paragraph make sense? Is that word misspelled? Shit.

No really, I'm going to hit publi....

Query & writing update

Last week, I posted my query letter for THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW. I also mentioned that I had submitted it to a couple of highly regarded online writers' groups to be critiqued.

I was actually very pleased with the responses, for the most part, and came away from the experience convinced I'm almost there. I spent the weekend polishing it even more and I think it's there. Really.

Here's the newest version. Please refer back to my earlier query and you can see the differences in tone and content.


Dear [agent],

Burned-out newspaper editor Michael Reed reluctantly takes a call from a disgraced former nun that changes his life forever. The desperate woman’s request that he meet her son sets Michael on a quest to determine the true identity of fifteen-year-old Jordan Crane. Is the kid Jesus Christ in the flesh? A fraud? Or is he something far worse?

Within hours of the call, Michael’s life inexplicably falls apart. He loses his job and eighteen years of sobriety. Two days later, his eight-year-old son is killed on the highway in front of his home. Within seconds, Jordan Crane mysteriously arrives on the scene and places his hands on the child’s body. When the dead boy opens his eyes, Michael finds himself face to face with the unthinkable.

Fearing for his very sanity, Michael must choose between believing what his heart tells him is true and what his mind says is madness. As a journalist, Michael has valued truth over all else. But what if the truth leads not only to his own death, but the death of everything he holds dear?

My first novel, THE DEVIL YOU DON’T KNOW is a mainstream thriller complete at 120,000 words.

As a career journalist, I received several national, regional and state awards for writing and reporting. My newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star, submitted my work to the Heywood Broun Award and the Pulitzer Prize committees.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Terry Towery

With the query letter ready (I hope), it's time to move on to yet another edit of the manuscript. No kidding, this is the tenth time I have gone through DEVIL, editing, cutting and polishing where needed. I think I know all 120,000 words by heart.

What I'm doing now is called a "line edit." It means just that -- I am going through each line of the 470-page manuscript, pondering each and every word. Can I use a stronger verb here? Can I cut this modifier there? An adverb? ACK. Kill the bastard!

I've completely put aside the new novel to get this one ready to send out into the big, bad world of publishing. I needed to get the new one's opening scene down, and I did. Now it can wait. Its time will come.

Trust me.

Let me know what you think of the new query letter. And thanks, as always, for your help and your visit.

My query letter for DEVIL

A query letter is, without a doubt, the hardest thing an aspiring author must write. It should contain about three paragraphs on the distilled essence of your novel, and it needs to contain a hook.

A hook is that magical phrase or sentence that screams to a prospective agent: Read me!

A good query should show that your book includes a quest or personal journey, lots of conflict and a moment of choice. While it's difficult to pull those out of a long and complex novel, if you look closely you'll find that all of the good ones are built around those elements.

An excellent query is designed to land you a literary agent. It's a huge first step toward conventional publishing, i.e., with a commercial publishing house as opposed to self-publishing (which is a cat of a whole other color). Once you nail that agent, she then acts as your advocate in finding a publisher and selling your project for the most money. The agent also helps to negotiate your contract -- a rocky shoal on which many a newbie writer has been stranded.

A good query letter must be concise (less than 300-400 words) and basically sum up a 400-plus page novel in three paragraphs. It also needs to contain the title, the word count and the genre.

A query letter has to shine like a diamond. Good literary agents read upwards of 30,000 queries a year! And they generally offer representation to about six or seven lucky souls. And it's all based on their query letter. A good one means you have a career as a novelist. A bad one means, well, that you don't. In other words, you can have a monumental novel written, but no one will see it if you can't write the best damned query letter in the world. Seriously.

No pressure. (gulp)


Your query should also contain a very brief author's bio, and should include anything in your background (writing work, awards, etc.) that will catch an agent's eye in the brief seconds he is scanning it before moving on to the next one in his in-basket. I've spent weeks polishing my query after the initial version was ripped apart on an online critique group. Man, that hurt. But it was good advice and I'd like to think I followed it for the most part.

So, today I'm going to post my query letter as it stands right now. It may yet go under the knife again, since I've re-posted it to that very same shark pit that tore me apart last month.

Here goes:


Dear [agent],

Burned-out newspaper editor Michael Reed reluctantly takes a call from a disgraced former nun that changes his life forever. The desperate woman’s request that he meet her son sets Michael on a terrifying quest to determine the true identity of fifteen-year-old Jordan Crane. Is the kid Jesus Christ in the flesh? A fraud? Or is he something far worse?

Within hours of the call, Michael’s comfortable life inexplicably falls apart. He loses his job and eighteen years of sobriety. Two days later, his eight-year-old son is killed on the highway in front of his home. When young Jordan Crane mysteriously arrives on the scene and places his hands on the child’s body, Michael finds himself face to face with the unthinkable.

Haunted by his tragic past and fearing for his very sanity, Michael must choose between believing what his heart tells him is true and what his mind says is pure madness. In making the choice, he learns that sweet redemption always comes with a price.

My first novel, THE DEVIL YOU DON’T KNOW is a mainstream thriller complete at 120,000 words.

A career journalist, I have received several national, regional and state awards for writing and reporting. My newspaper submitted my work to the Heywood Broun Award and the Pulitzer Prize committees.

(Note: The following paragraph is aimed at one particular agent and may not appear on all queries sent)

On a personal note, I enjoy your blog and read it daily. Your informative and helpful posts not only afforded me the technical skills to craft this query letter, but the courage to send it. Thank you.

Terry Towery



So there you have it. My query letter as it stands today. My question to you is this: After reading it (and understanding that it's meant for literary agents and not the general public, since the overall novel is far more complex than it appears in this query), would you want to read the story?

If so, why? And if not, why not?

As always, thanks for your help and input. I value it highly!

SNOWSTORM/WRITING UPDATE: We got hammered here in Peoria last night and early this morning. I'd guess we got an additional 6 or 7 inches on top of the 8 inches already on the ground. Our patio furniture looks like white topiary! It's really quite beautiful and ... we're snowed in. The driveway is long and sloping and un-driveable.

So what am I doing about it? Well. I'm hoping my really nice neighbor fires up his John Deere tractor with the really cool blade on it and comes over and plows it. Again. Did I mention he's really nice?

The 12-year-old got his wish. Schools in the area are shut down. But, as luck would have it, the poor kid woke up sick this morning with a high fever and sore throat and is currently asleep upstairs in his room with his Playstation 2 game paused. What a waste of a perfectly good snow day! Poor kid. The wife is also home (see driveway status above).

Me? I'm sitting at my desk, smoking a cigar, drinking my fourth cup of Starbucks Sumatra, staring off into space and occasionally stroking my chin. I also say "a ha" every so often. Hey, writing is tough work sometimes.

Really, I'm thinking the new book through. It's coming, albeit slowly.

I also plan on spending several hours pondering tomorrow's Friday Family Movie. I hope the driveway gets itself cleared soon, so we can get to the video store.

SNOW REMOVAL UPDATE: I have the best neighbor in the whole world!