You Can Say That Again!

I’ve been cursed with a profound fascination of words and how we use them.

Sure, when I happen to eloquently orate a soliloquy or transcribe a compelling composition—rare feats indeed—one may say I am blessed. But when friends and coworkers are interrupted with the correct usage or pronunciation, cursing usually follows.

The problem does not lie, however, in any gratification of being right or of anyone else being wrong, it lies in my never-ending quest for the truth. How does one pronounce Puyallup, for example? My belief systems and my education both point at the notion that a word has a specific intended pronunciation.

Imagine my chagrin, a Midwestern English major arriving in western Washington in the mid 1990’s. Back there, the names of town’s usually start with a name and ended with either “ton,” “burg,” or “ville.” As an example, I grew up on a farm near Dyersville; home to the movie Field of Dreams. A guy with the last name of Dyer started the community a long time ago. Within a 10 mile radius, there are towns like Colesburg, Earlville, Worthington, Bankston, Petersburg, Luxemburg; all easily and consistently pronounced.

Then a job takes me to Washington, just outside the city limits of Puyallup. Being the inquisitive perfectionist, I wanted to know the correct way to pronounce my new community. But I received almost as many different pronunciations as there were people answering! Not big differences, mind you; but just big enough to raise the ire of this verbal purist. Some would answer “pew-al-up.” Others would say “pew-all-up.” Then I’d hear “poo-yal-up,” and then “poo-yall-up.” The horror!

After 15 years, I thought I had it down. Then someone decided they had to change the name of Washington’s biggest carnival event to the “Washington State Fair,” and I no longer had that yearly educational jingle stuck in my head. The one that not only suggested how to say it, but how to “do” it.

After spending 40-something years with a name like Thier, which by the way rhymes with “deer” and has a soft “th,” I had to correct thousands of people on how to say it if they happened to read it first, and how to spell it if they happened to hear it first. It’s perhaps one good reason I am the way I am, and although my memory of names is horrific, my pronunciation of them is much better.

Take the name Dawn, for instance. Easy enough, right? That’s what I thought, until I met my wife. At the time there was a lovely associate named Dawn in the same real estate firm. Then I found out my then-girlfriend and I both had an uncle of the same name: Don. Can’t mess that up, right? Not so fast. My nearly-ousted girlfriend pronounced both names exactly the same! The horror!

Countless arguments ensued. Quickly, collaborators and arbitrators were gathered and their (not Thier) pronunciations were measured carefully against ours. I argued there was a huge difference in how you say the names. Gigantic; unlike the difference between ice cream and gelato, but that’s another argument.

I would ask her, “Dawn rhymes with lawn, right?” She would agree of course. And then I would ask, “And Don rhymes with Ron or the bon in Bon Marche’, right?” Still she would agree, normally something that wouldn’t add to my growing frustration. But to no avail. To this day, my wife, along with countless others I’ve discovered in the Pacific Northwest, pronounces the two names exactly the same.

Despite the fact that this particular quality ended up on the “con” (rhymes with Don) side of the page, where I actually did weigh carefully the pluses and minuses of a pending proposal, my wife taught me an important lesson that had nothing to do with verbal skills. Sometimes, however rare the occasion might be, it just doesn’t matter if we all pronounce words like “Don” exactly the same. It’s a lesson I’ve flunked over and over again, and still flunk to this day, but I acknowledge that there are bigger fish to fry. Like how to say Puyallup. Does it rhyme with dollop, or does it rhyme with gallop? Oh please don’t tell me they sound the same.

Perhaps my Linguistics professor from college should be impugned for my black and white outlook on pronunciation. After all, he would constantly demand of his students, “Soy it roit!”

Oh, by the way, my Linguistics professor was Scottish.

The Query Letter

Navigating the Query Letter

Designed to entice, to inform, to sell, to wow. In the literary world, the query letter is your pick-up line. Make it sexy.

Your first impression is critical, obviously. You have to write perfectly, or at least give that impression. You have to throw out the fluff, regardless of the genre, and stick to the nuts and bolts of the book. You have to sell yourself as the successful author you wish to become, without reaching. And you have to do all of this on a single page: Intro, hook, summary, relevant biography, salutation.

A query letter is a hard-hitting sales pitch. But it’s like trying to sell water to someone who isn’t thirsty, and who owns a water bottling company. Literary agents are inundated with new authors peddling their wares, so be persistent, be professional, be good, stand out, and be considerate. The key is finding that spot where you gently hit the agent between the eyes with something new, something fresh, something irresistible enough to at least ask for more. And that’s what agents will do, if the query letter meets its objective.

What more could they ask for? That depends on the agent. Every agency, and agent within the agency, handles the agency business differently. Some will ask for a synopsis, usually in the case of fiction, generally considered the next level of information about the book. A synopsis is a 1-2 page summary of your book, complete with the main protagonists and antagonists, and capped off with the ending. Yup. You gotta give it up.

With fiction, some agents won’t bother with a synopsis and, if the query is good enough, may just ask for some or all of the manuscript. In fact some want to see part of the manuscript with the query letter, so finish it before you query. It’s a school of thought that has come full circle, but now we are back to the finish it first side.

With non-fiction, be prepared to have a complete summary prepared if your query is successful. I know from experience that a summary is basically a small book about your book. It can contain chapter summaries, competition, synopsis, chapter outline, first and final chapter, biography, and a host of other things an agent may want to see. Be prepared to copy and paste together a package between 30-50 plus, pages long.

So what do agents want to see? View their websites! If you want to begin with an old-fashioned, paper catalog of literary agents, stop by the book store. They will list companies and their websites, and you can do your homework. Research not only the agencies, but the agents within them. Most are very genre- and submission-specific.

“Hi, literary agent. Hang out here very often? Want to read my book?”

Doesn’t sound very sexy does it? Your query letter, on the other hand, should.

At least enough to get the agent to say, “More.”