Title: FINDING FINLEY
Genre: Women's fiction
Word Count: 83,000 words
Query
40-year-old Terrin Finley has one foot stuck in
her relationship with her ex, one toe in a new flirtation, and--unbeknownst to
her--a fetus growing in between. Terrin has six months to sort out this
yoga-pose-of-a love life, and to find stability for herself and her baby. A
commercial women’s fiction manuscript complete at 83,000 words, Finding Finley
follows Terrin’s quest to create a family of her own.
On the way to Dominick’s grocery store, Terrin’s
future included an evening of lasagna and the Sound of Music Sing-Along with
her “almost-family”--her boyfriend Steve, and his five-year-old daughter Molly.
Mere moments later, Steve’s last words--I just couldn’t sign the papers--leave
Terrin empty-handed and broken-hearted in the parking lot.
With one errant keystroke, Terrin sends an email
intended for her ex (Steve) to Sam Abrams instead--an old summer camp crush
that holds potential. Terrin soon learns of another area in her life that holds
potential--her uterus. Despite the company of her couch-squatting brother Jeff,
her best friends “The Dads” plus their baby Esme, and her parents, Terrin feels
farther away from finding her people than ever before. And one very small, very
needy person is about to find her.
A Stay-At-Home-Humorist, my writing has appeared
on McSweeneys Internet Tendency, College Humor, and the website Women On
Writing, which named my flash fiction Date Night as a Top 10 finalist in
2009. Babble recently named me their funniest Top 50 Twitter Mom, and I
write a humor fitness column for Madison, Wisconsin’s premier women’s print
publication, Brava Magazine. My growing platform also includes my award-winning
blog and Listen to Your Mother, the acclaimed national live reading series I
founded and direct.
First 250
Friday morning April 2nd smelled like dryer sheets
to Terrin Finley, and felt like the first sip of a perfect cappuccino after an
entire year spooning in bed. Steve woke at five and left before six. He kissed
Terrin on the forehead and said “See you tonight.” His breath sounded
shallow--his voice not warmed up for the day. Maybe he felt nervous. Terrin
could only assume that signing divorce papers made a person anxious, even if
two years had passed since filing them.
She fell back to sleep until the sound of the
street cleaners awoke her--with their buffing away of parking ticket fragments,
past-season cedar mulch, and errant dollar store gloves. All sorts of flotsam
emerged from Chicago's gutters after a winter buried beneath feet of snow and
parked cars. Steve had Molly with him that weekend, and they all planned to go
to The Sound of Music Sing-A-long at The Music Box to celebrate as, well, a
family. A campy raucous affair, everyone dressed as characters from the movie.
Five-year-old Molly planned to wear her “fancy lady” pink nightgown as Liesel,
and Terrin's 30-year-old couch-squatter brother Jeff volunteered to dress as
Liesel's younger sister Gretl. Terrin and Steve's rented nun’s habits hung on
the back of her bedroom door encased in vinyl garment bags, like tuxes awaiting
groomsmen. At 40 years old, Terrin's future with Steve and Molly could
officially begin, and she could finally allow herself to imagine a family of
her own.
Loved the first line of the query and then you sort of lost me. I assumed the "papers" meant a marriage certificate or something, not divorce papers. You also named dropped a lot of people and situations - brother, dad, old boyfriend in the query and it wasn't clear how they all hung together. I'd focus on the main elements of the story in the query and leave the rest behind.
ReplyDeleteLove the cappuccino line, and really the whole first paragraph of the 250. The second paragraph sort of left me flat - a lot of telling about people I don't yet care about.
Good luck.
Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteThe first line of your query is interesting, but it leaves me with a visual of a foot, a toe, and a fetus in between. Ick. I get where you were going with this, but my mind wandered I guess. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteI don't get how she could send an email to Steve, but Sam receives it? Don't you type the recipient's name in the box? But even so, you never mention what's at stake when Sam receives the erroneous email. The next line is about her uterous.
"Terrin feels farther away from finding her people than ever before." Who are 'her people?'
In your first 250, you say "Steve woke at five and left before six. He kissed Terrin on the forehead..." if he left before six, why do you proceed to tell us what he did while he was still there? Just a thought.
Finally, I like the "couch-squatting brother" reference, but I was confused by "felt like the first sip of a perfect cappuccino after an entire year spooning in bed."
I'm sure if you tighten this up a bit, you could make it really great. Good luck!
Thanks for reading and taking the time for feedback, Aldine.
ReplyDeleteHi there! This is a great concept and so clever too! If you have any questions, feel free to catch me on Twitter! @andimjulie
ReplyDeleteQUERY: I actually LOVED the first line and thought your query had just the right amount of voice! I just had a few issues with the query. "On the way to Dominick’s grocery store, Terrin’s future included an evening of lasagna and the Sound of Music Sing-Along with her “almost-family”--her boyfriend Steve, and his five-year-old daughter Molly. Mere moments later, Steve’s last words--I just couldn’t sign the papers--leave Terrin empty-handed and broken-hearted in the parking lot." Maybe I missed something (which is quite possible), but what KIND of papers? Adoption? Divorce? (Divorce, I know. But an agent won't necessarily have the luxury of your first 250.) Overall, I think this whole second paragraph can be tightened because this is just your set up for the meat of the query, which is paragraph three. Also, I don't think need to worry about introducing all of your characters in your query. I would say Terrin, Steve, and Sam are the only names we need to hear throughout the query. Like Aldine, I too am wondering who Terrin's "people" are. Great bio! Girrrrrrl, them is some accomplishments! ;) I always like to see comps in a query, so that might be something to think about! (And could easily be dropped in the first paragraph of the query.)
First 250: I'm always wary of a book that begins with the main character waking up, but, that being said, I like that we get a glimpse of Terrin's life before everything changes. The first paragraph is just great. The sing-a-long sounds awesome, but the second paragraph does feel like a bit of an info dump. It'd be nice if we could get to know Steve and his daughter, so that when Terrin hurts, the reader can sympathize for her. You may do this in later pages, but maybe consider moving that up. Plus if we know the characters, picturing them at this sing-a-long is even better.
Cheers! And good luck!
oh, forgot to add that you skip tenses here at INCLUDED! "On the way to Dominick’s grocery store, Terrin’s future included an evening of.."
DeleteThanks so much Julie!! Awesome of you to take the time.
DeleteHello #71! I don’t have time for in-depth qualitative analyses right now, but here is the language/spelling/punctuation-only grammar-fairy drive-by you requested on Twitter! Hope it helps you clean up for the next round.
ReplyDeleteLanguage notes on the query:
* “this yoga-pose-of-a love life”—This hyphenation choice doesn’t make sense to me. “yoga-pose-of-a” isn’t one adjective. I could see just hyphenating “yoga-pose,” though honestly you don’t even need to do that to be correct and make sense.
* “an evening of lasagna and the Sound of Music Sing-Along”—I’d say The Sound of Music Sing-Along would usually be italicized since it’s a specific title.
* “Steve’s last words--I just couldn’t sign the papers--leave Terrin empty-handed”—Technically if those are someone’s words, “I just couldn’t sign the papers” should be in quotation marks.
* “A Stay-At-Home-Humorist, my writing has appeared”—This makes it sound like your writing is a stay-at-home humorist, not you. I suggest rephrasing. Also, the capitals seem unnecessary and the hyphen between “home” and “humorist” is unnecessary.
* “McSweeneys Internet Tendency”—“McSweeney’s” needs an apostrophe.
* “my flash fiction Date Night”—Short stories’ titles go in quotation marks.
* “Brava Magazine”—Magazine titles are italicized. The full title is Brava Magazine, so the italics go on “Magazine” too.
* “Listen to Your Mother”—Radio programs should have their titles italicized.
Language notes on your first 250:
* “Chicago's gutters”— I see a mixture of smart quotes and dumb quotes in this excerpt. (Look at the apostrophe here in “Chicago’s”—it’s straight instead of curled like your other ones, and there are several other instances, but your quotation marks are curled.) You need to really watch this sort of thing because it makes it clear the text has been transferred between formats and has undergone revisions in more than one program. I recommend switching all dumb quotes to smart quotes.
* “they all planned to go to The Sound of Music Sing-A-long”—Here again I’d italicize the title of the show they’re going to, but here you’ve got “Sing-A-long” instead of “Sing-Along” like you had in your query, so you need to pick one and apply it globally. I think the actual show uses “Sing-A-Long” (watch the capital; you’ve got it lowercase).
Fingers crossed for your judge to smile upon your entry! (My not-so-lucky ten are already covered in grammar-fairy dust.)
This story has a lot of potential, it reminds me a bit of some of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' work--she writes wonderful characters.
ReplyDeleteI have some suggestions for your query, take as you will:
Forty[40]-year-old Terrin Finley has one foot stuck in her relationship with her ex, one toe in a new flirtation, and[--unbeknownst to her--]a fetus growing in between. (great line!)
The "unbeknownst" part feels off because in the rest of the query she knows she is pregnant. We don't need to know in the query that she doesn't immediately know she's pregnant, which is more like a synopsis than a query. I would continue on to what's in the next paragraph and save the finding stability line and word count for the end of the query.
Watch for synopsis play-by-play (and then this happens) in a query and stick to the overall theme. Instead of mentioning the grocery store at all, focus on the larger concept of what she expects: evenings at home with her makeshift family, and what she gets: a lack of commitment from Steve. You can sum this up in one or two lines.
I really like that Terrin has other people in her life and I think you should keep that in there, but also you need to show what choice Terrin has to make. This is where you can add back that stability line, but maybe make it more clear what the stakes are if she doesn't. Steve is out, so is camp crush going to be scared away by her pregnancy? Does she fear her child growing up without a father figure? Even if the threats are internal, I think spelling them out more clearly will strengthen your query. Good luck!!
Such good suggestions here. Thank you very much!!
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