And now for Ms. Bowman’s winners! She also had a few things
to say about the entries in general, so I’ll hand things over to her:
This has been a fascinating contest for me--so many of my
query decisions are made "from the gut" that it was fun to go through
and look at what was really working and not for me.
I was particularly interested to note that there were a lot
of great first pages here. In general, in fact, I found the first pages more interesting
than the queries. But concept is very important to me (other agents may
disagree!). Even on queries where I would read on, just given the first page,
if the query letter has given me pause, from issues with the plot or premise,
it's not usually worth it for me to read further, because the story as a whole
won't work for me. And in my own inbox, I usually just look at query letters
for this reason--I want to know where the whole book is going, not just if the prose
is good in the first few pages.
That's a long way of saying that there are a lot of great
projects here, and I enjoyed looking at all of them. But after going through in
detail to critique, I went back through the queries to pick the winners,
looking at the writing in both the query and the first page, and also just considering which premises and concepts I was
most excited by. I came up with four projects that really stuck in my head from
a combination of all those factors.
So without further ado, I'd love to see:
20 pages of:
#19 THE OTHER SIDE
50 pages of:
#16 HOPE IN BLOOM
and 100 pages of:
#9 WARWICK HALL
#17 CAN'T BUY ME LOVE
Thank you all for participating, and thanks to Krista for
hosting! And I'll add--if you didn't win in the contest, feel free to revise
your query and re-query me with it; I'm always happy to take a second look.
Yay! Winners, please e-mail me at
kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com for specific instructions on how to submit your
materials. And as always, thank you, thank you, thank you to Ms. Bowman and everybody who
entered, critiqued, or just lurked in the shadows:) Couldn’t run these contests
without you!
14 comments:
Yes! I love losing!
Congrats to all the winners! Y'all were awesome!!
Congrats to all the winners, and thank you for hosting such a fun contest. It was a great learning experience.
Krista, you are so wonderful to host these. And thank you Ms. Bowman for your time. It's helpful to all of us (even if we aren't in the contest).
Congrats to the winners!
THE OTHER SIDE and WARWICK HALL were definitely two of the ones I would've requested - congrats!!
Congrats to the winners and I really enjoyed reading through the agent's comments!
Thanks for putting these on Krista... Looking forward to having something to submit... Someday!
Congratulations to all the winners!!
I'll be revising furiously. :)
Thanks so much for the great feedback, Ms. Bowman. And HUGE thanks to Krista for hosting.
Congrats to the four top picks! This was a great contest -- thank you Krista for hosting, and thanks to mystery agent Ms. Bowman for all the amazing feedback.
Wow. I'm so honored! I seriously didn't think I had a chance against so many talented writers. A big heartfelt thanks to Ms.Bowmwan for the request, and Krista for hosting this contest. Both of you are made of awesome.
Big hugs to everyone who gave me feedback. You all rock.
Congrats everyone! Kristy––you already know how much I like your concept from WriteOnCon ;-)
You guys are so welcome! Thanks for playing along!
Congrats to the winners! And many thanks to Krista and Ms. Bowman for this opportunity. And to everyone who gave feedback...wow! I've already revised my query from your critiques and it has transcended another level.
Congratulations to the winners and thanks to Krista for hosting these contests! Next time I'm in on the game. good stuff.
Congratulations to the winners and thanks to Krista for hosting these contests! Next time I'm in on the game. good stuff.
You're welcome, Karen! September's round will be in the middle of the month, so definitely come back then.
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