Go, daddy, go daddy go. You're in the class you might as well do it all the way. Write a query letter and a synopsis. What the heck why not? Many agents like Jimmy Vine will let you submit on line. Polish that little letter until it shines like a diamond on Liz Taylor's ol but still impressive breast. Extra credit of 100 points if you write the letter and the synopsis and get a rejection letter by the end of the year. 10,000 points if your work is accepted or if an agent asks to see the rest of your work. If your novel is published you may apply these point to any class in the school. (But that doesn't mean your teacher will accept them.)
Come on do it, what's there to afraid of, rejection. Aw big deal, get used to it, it's not like asking for a date, they can't see you!!!!
Read the sections 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 and 11. Click here to read the Advice
Then when you're done edit your own writing with the section three: a style checklist for writers.
Answer these questions with a writing implement; pen, pencil or sharp crayon. No blood, water colors, typing or pastels.
Section 6 Plotting the Novel and 7, The Story Synopsis.: Summarize important points and then summarize what you know about your plot right now. Outline the kind of plot, the main events or the direction you might want the story to take. This should look like a query letter to an agent that might be interested in your book. You must have a real live agent's name and address taken from the Internet or the book in my Classroom, the writer's marketplace.
Here are some great links to look at examples of query letters, synopses and agents.
http://www.literaryagents.org/
http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubagent.htm
For instance in my book right now I know it's the story a washed out DA investigator, Lance Creep, who now coaches a high school softball team and works as a detention supervisor. He's asked by his ex-wife, a public defender, to find Cynthia Hamilton, possible runaway, a girl he knew briefly two years before. Cynthia Hamilton's parents have filed statutory rape charges against a senior at another high school. But Cynthia had disappeared with the evidence and Creeps ex-wife is convinced the boy is innocent and Hamilton's' parents are hiding much more sinister secrets about their daughter's life and sexual history.
As Creep searches for Cynthia, his desire to care about the world and himself is rekindled. When a young man dies it makes him even more determined to discover the truth. And his investigation reminds him of his own lost brother, sick and incarcerated, the lost seven year old girl who died as he investigated her case, who died because of bureaucratic bullshit, who nearly drove him off the board of life, and reminds him of his own lost children, the ones he didn't have because he couldn't take life or marriage seriously enough to care. And he vows not to lose Cynthia Hamilton as he feels he's lost most of the people that matter in his life.
Section 8: Understanding the genre: What kind of novel are you going to write? As well as you can list the elements of the genre you would like to write. Mystery, suspense, coming of age, picaresque, romance, western, sci-fi, literary, young adult ?????????????
Section 9: Summarize the section symbolism and all that: Write a summary of the cycle in your novel: Will the protagonist change? If so how might she or he change? How might this change apply to the hero's journey?
Section 10 and 11: What is your voice? What is a scene? Summarize the first five scenes of your novel (these might change).