How to Write a Query Letter: The Secret Sauce That Landed Me 8 Offers from Literary Agents

If you’re looking to land a literary agent and get traditionally published, I'm going to teach you the four-part structure you need to include in your query letter, plus the secret sauce I used that helped me to get 26 full requests and eight offers from literary agents. 

The query letter example I'm going to show you is the one that I wrote for my second book, which got me a six-figure two-book deal. (This is not the query letter for my first book, which got me eight offers from literary agents, but I do have a sentence-by-sentence breakdown of that in my online course Query Bootcamp, so check that out if you want more query letter writing advice).

And make sure to grab a copy of my free Query Letter Toolkit, which includes the full query letter template I am about to teach you below!

Breaking Into The Publishing Industry

Before I get into the query letter template, I want to share more about why the structure is so important!

Literary agents are flooded with query letters. Even the smallest deviation from the norm can be a red flag and might mean that your query letter that you've worked so hard on — and your book that you've worked even harder on — gets thrown in the trash!

The publishing industry is tough and literary agents are really judging a book by its cover, or rather—its query letter, (sorry, terrible joke!), so you want to make sure you include all of the elements I'm about to share.

Let’s get started!

The 4-Part Query Letter Structure

Your Query Letter Subject Line

You want this to read Query for: and then the literary agent's name, your book title in all caps, and, in parentheses, your genre. 

Here’s what that looked like for my book:

Now, onto the four elements!

Element 1: The Intro

You want to start out your query letter by personalizing it to the literary agent and letting them know that you're not just mass bcc-ing a bunch of agents. You want to show that you did your homework and you really think this particular agent is a good fit for your book.

(Some people include this personalization at the bottom of their query letter. That is fine as well, but definitely make sure to include it!)

You can mention an author or a book that the agent has repped or maybe a part of their wish list and why your book would be a good fit for them.

Next, you want a quick transition line, such as “I would love to offer WE SHIP IT for your consideration.”

Element 2: The Hook

And now we are at the most important part of the query letter: the hook. 

This is the part that actually pitches your book. It’s called the ‘hook’ because your goal is to hook the literary agent and make them need to read more!

But you don't have to include every single element of your book — that would actually be a bad thing to do. You want to give descriptive information so that the agent knows what's going on in your book and so that they're not confused. But the most important part is that you leave them intrigued and wanting more. 

Your hook is generally around 150 to 200 words, max. And it's really a test of your skills as a storyteller. Do you know how to synthesize what you have written into a really compelling summary, such as the blurb that you would find on the back cover of the book?

Your goal with the query letter is to get the literary agent to ask for your full manuscript. If they love your hook, that's what they're going to do!

1. Your Hook’s First Line

The most important part of your hook is the first line. Often this is where you're going to either include, or maybe lead up to, the inciting incident of your book. Because the inciting incident is the reason that you have a story at all. Think about The Hunger Games. There wouldn’t be a story without Katniss’s sister Prim getting chosen as tribute!

The way that I started out my query letter was:

The last place type-A overachiever Olivia Schwartz wants to be is on a cruise.

This gives a taste of what the inciting incident is going to be and also provides some defining details about our main character. Remember — you don’t want to tell the literary agent everything, but at the same time you want to make sure you include enough information to make your story stand out.

My inciting incident isn't some huge galaxy-ending inciting incident — it's not nearly as huge as the scene in The Hunger Games — but it is huge and galaxy-ending for the main character, Olivia. 

Your inciting incident really needs to be earth-shattering for your main character, even if it's not earth-shattering for anyone else.

2. Defining Your Main Character’s Old World

Next, you want to make sure you include some background info about the current state of your main character's life before this inciting incident, so the literary agent has a sense of why this is so earth-shattering.

I wrote:

Especially with her parents — and all the unspoken things between them since her older brother's death. 

Now we know why Olivia getting forced into close quarters with her parents for a week on a cruise ship is such a big deal.

Next, I established things a little bit more by telling what my story is about:

But when her parents win a free Caribbean cruise, it's all aboard for the Schwartz family.

We have the inciting incident, some revealing information about the main character, and we know why this is such a big deal for her. And that’s it! That's my first paragraph of my hook. 

3. Your Main Character’s New Plan

Next I get into the main character's plan and how they're trying to avoid this new world that is being thrust upon them: 

Olivia plans to spend the week holed up in her cabin with her research and her highlighters in her quest to get chosen for a prestigious medical internship.

This is some more defining information about our main character. She's not just some random teenager—she's a type-A overachiever. And not just any type-A overachiever but one who is trying to get a medical internship at 16. The type of person who goes on vacation and still breaks out her books and studies (not that I would know anything about that…).

4. Make Sure to Include Conflict!

You really want to ensure you get conflict into your query letter. You don't have to say everything that happens; you don't have to give anything away; but generally there should be some huge game-changing conflict that happens around a quarter or a third of the way through your story.

My query letter continues:

But then she meets Sebastian. He's everything Olivia’s not — charismatic, oddly interested in the cruise’s teen programs, and not afraid to take risks.

In my book, Olivia meeting this charming love interest is the first conflict she encounters after entering her new world (the cruise ship).

5. The Secret Sauce: Create an Emotional Heartbeat

Here it is. The secret sauce!

For the first time since her brother died seven years ago, Olivia feels like she can have fun.

Why is this the secret sauce? Because we are hitting on the emotional heartbeat of the story.

This isn't just a book report. We're not just saying things that happen. We're talking about why these events are so impactful for our main character. And we’re also going right back to the opening, by talking about her older brother's death. We don't yet know much, and we're not telling the agent everything — not even the name of the older brother or how old he was or how he died — but there’s enough here that—if you have a heart—you're thinking “Oh! I really want to know more.” 

6. End With Intrigue!

I finished my hook with: 

But there's a lot bubbling up under the surface on this cruise. And when past secrets begin to come to light, Olivia must face all the truths that she's ignored for so long: about herself, Sebastian, her brother, the past she thought she understood, and the future she thought she wanted.

We’ve got the literary agent hooked now! 

We haven't said what's coming, we're not confusing them, it's not just a bunch of rhetorical questions, and we're showing that there's a lot more to this book. They’ll just have to request the full manuscript in order to see how things play out!

Remember: This is your main goal of the query letter. To get the literary agent to want to read more and request your full manuscript. 

Element 3: Include Good Comps

Comps are books or other forms of media that you are comparing your book to, and you want to include two of them in your query letter. Your book isn’t supposed to be identical to your comps, but they should have something in common—similar thematic elements, settings, tones, etc. You want to show your literary agent where in a bookstore your book would be placed.

As a reminder, these can go before the hook or after.

In my query letter, I include them after:

Element 4: Add In Your Bio

You want to finish with a short one- or two-line bio. You can put anything you've published before, but don't worry if you haven't published anything. You just want one or two interesting details about your life, especially if they relate to why you are the person telling your story. 

My interesting detail was that I graduated with a degree in love and learned how to add all of the feels to my romantic subplots after founding a matchmaking startup. 

You’ll close out your query letter with a brief and friendly sign off like this:

Perfecting Your Query Letter

Query letters are so easy and fun to read! But actually sitting down and writing them takes a whole lot of work. Make sure to get tons of feedback on your query letter. Send it to friends and family; find people on social media to read it; share it with people who have read your book and people who haven't. 

Keep improving it—because this is your big shot with literary agents!

I’m Rooting For You!

I really hope this helped and best of luck on your querying journey! If you want even more resources—including the full text of this query letter, my query letter madlib generator, my top query letter writing resources, and my query letter template—make sure to grab a copy of my Query Letter Toolkit.

How I Got 8 Offers from Literary Agents in 1 Month (For My First Book?!) + My Query Stats

After I sent out query letters for the first time for my debut novel, I got eight offers from literary agents. But don’t be fooled: it was a long journey to get there, one filled with a lot of tears and self-doubt.

When I was starting out, I just wanted to know step-by-step how to get a literary agent—and how long the process would take.

So that is what I am setting out to teach you in this post.

I’m going to share the top five things I did that got me from clueless new writer to published author with a six-figure advance.

But first I want to get into exactly how long each part of the process took me—from first draft to fifth draft to landing an agent to signing a contract for a two-book deal with a major publishing house.

I’m also going to break down my exact query stats: how many agents I queried, how many requests for the full manuscript I got, and the total time that it took—from sending my first query letter to signing my offer letter for agent representation.

And I’m a hugeee fan of free resources, so you’ll see tons of those throughout!

How Long Does Getting a Book Deal Really Take?

When I first started writing, I wanted a clear roadmap for how long it would take for my book to get out into the world. I was starting from zero, with no fancy writing background, no MFA, no innate “natural gift” for writing.

I started writing in 2017 and queried my very first manuscript in 2020, right as the world was shutting down due to Covid (do not recommend!). And I love sharing my querying story with other writers because I didn’t have the traditional background that many published authors have. I think it’s so important for writers out there to know that you don’t need a certain background to get a literary agent.

Before I started querying, I read every “How I Got My Agent” blog post. Those writers shared their extensive backgrounds in writing: they’d gotten MFAs, studied English in college, and had written eight or 10 books before even getting an offer. And I felt so behind, like I would never catch up.

Because I didn’t major in writing in college or get an MFA. I didn’t start a journal when I was 12. I didn’t write every day for 10 years, and I didn’t write other manuscripts before I began querying. Instead, my journey involved a massive and public career failure, a ton of self-doubt and insecurity, and a lot of trial and error.

I hope my story inspires you and that these tips help you get closer to landing an agent and getting your story out into the world. Anyone with any background can get a literary agent; the only prerequisite is that you’re willing to put in the work. And I’m not going to sugarcoat the truth—it’s a whole lot of work.

Now let’s get into what that worked looked like for me.

2017: Getting Started as a Writer

I first started writing in the summer of 2017, after I had burnt out from running startups. And let me tell you, my first draft was rough.

Writing a book was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I can’t even begin to explain how much I doubted myself, how much I hated my earliest sentences. I spent hours simply staring at my computer screen without writing a single word. I repeatedly questioned if I was mentally prepared to deal with the highs (some) and lows (mostly) on a consistent basis, if I had the talent, patience, and resilience that this industry demands.

Fiction didn’t come naturally to me. I started writing for all the wrong reasons—out of a desire to prove myself in a new career path—and my early writing was terrible. At the end of my first summer of writing, I gave up.

2018: Take 2

But in the summer of 2018, I tried again. And then gave up again.

And then I read this lifechanging advice from Ira Glass, which I am about to share with you.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit … It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.”

- IRA GLASS

2019: Third Time’s the Charm

In 2019 I finally committed to writing. And, slowly but surely, I got better. I ended up throwing out everything I had written in 2017 and 2018 and starting over. I did, however, keep the same cast of characters that I had spent weeks researching and painstakingly developing.

It took six months, from March to September 2019, for me to write the first “real” draft of the book I would end up querying. I only spent around 10 hours per week writing.

Then it took another six months, from September 2019 to February 2020, for me to write a second, third, and fourth draft of the book. This time, I spent around 40 to 50 hours per week writing and editing.

2020: Putting the Finishing Touches on My Manuscript

I worked with a line editor for three weeks on the final line edits in March of 2020. I was working around 80 hours per week, because as you might remember—a global pandemic had just started and I was trying to block out the world.

From mid-March to mid-April, I wrote approximately 30 different versions of my query letter and got tons of feedback. And in April of 2020, I began querying literary agents!

Writing a Book Takes a Long Time—Like, a Really Long Time

All in all, that was two years of writing part-time and one year of writing full-time. And one of the biggest things I learned was that writing a book takes more time than you would think.

I’m someone who can easily work 80-hour weeks because I love getting things done. One of the hardest parts for me with writing a novel was that that was not the case. If I wasn’t in the right headspace, if I was doubting myself or my words, I couldn’t write. This meant that there were multiple years when I only wrote in the summers. And out of those summers, I only spent a few weeks here and there, and a few hours during those weeks, actually writing. It was not linear. But the more I wrote, the more confident I became and the more consistent I got with my writing.

That said, if I was giving advice to a new writer now, I would say try not to do what I did, which was write sporadically. As Neil Gaiman once put it, “If you're only going to write when you're inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelist.” Novels benefit from disciplined writing sessions, full stop. Learn not to rely on external stimuli to get you “in the writing mood.” Instead, do as Hemingway did and end every session knowing what you’re going to write next. That way each of your writing sessions can flow into the next. If you make time for writing every single day, and make it a priority, you’re going to see improvement so much faster.

Top 5: My Advice for Writers Who Want to Get a Literary Agent and Land a Traditional Big 5 Publishing Deal

Now that I’m able to look back, here are the top five pieces of advice I wish I’d had at the start of my writing journey.

1. Get Constructive Criticism on Every Draft

The first—and most important—thing I did that helped me get a literary agent was that I started getting constructive criticism on each of my drafts.

When I first started writing, I was too nervous to share my writing with anyone because I didn’t think it was any good. But by not sharing my writing, I wasn’t getting any better. When I finally started putting my writing out there and getting feedback, my novel began to improve.

One of the most helpful, and hurtful, pieces of feedback I received was that my protagonist was a complete narcissist. It felt like a knock on both my writing and my personality, and it sent me spiraling. But using that feedback as my guide, I wrote a new and stronger draft of my book that fixed a lot of my protagonist’s flaws.

If you find yourself only getting positive feedback, you will keep writing in a straight line, rather than improving. Constructive feedback can be hard to find, but here are four ways to get it:

• The Free Route:

  Find and work with critique partners—and check out my free Critique Partner database if you are in need of some!. If possible, find at least one critique partner who has more experience than you. Being a good critique partner takes work, but make sure to give at least as much as you receive. Be meticulous and precise with your feedback. For example, instead of saying, "Chapter three was boring," specify exactly what you found dull about it (pacing? plot? character development?) and suggest revisions. And, of course, make sure to point out what is working and include praise. We writers are sensitive people! Agree in advance on the timeline for the critique and what you are looking for. Maybe it’s cheerleading, or notes on grammar or pacing. Personally, I’m a fan of the voice note exchange, which allows both partners to quickly provide feedback on their own schedules.

• The Cheap Route:

  Hire beta readers from Fiverr. For around $40 to $80, these readers will review your book and send back a critique. Initially, I was concerned that this feedback would be biased. But my reviews were rarely sugarcoated. Instead, they were extremely constructive and helpful. I used Fiverr for each draft of my book.

• The Investment Route:

• Hire a developmental editor, but only if you can afford it. And remember that paying a professional editor will not get you a book deal. But a great editor can definitely fast-track the learning process, which the editor I worked with certainly did.

• The Free (But Selective) Route:

• Apply to mentorship programs. If you’re at a stage where you’ve put in the work—written a few drafts, had critique partners and beta readers—to make your manuscript as strong as it can be, I recommend applying to mentorship programs. These programs can be really selective, however. So if you aren’t chosen, that doesn’t mean that your book isn’t going to be selected by a literary agent. (I was rejected by the one mentorship program I applied to, only weeks before I landed 8 offers from literary agents!)

2. Learn From the Experts (a.k.a. Books)

The second thing I changed? I finally started studying writing as a craft, rather than just winging it.

After a year of writing some very bad prose, I decided to get serious. I read every writing craft book I could get my hands on. If you are writing with the goal of becoming traditionally published, I do think it’s important to learn how plots are structured, how they work technically.

In addition to craft books, I also read dozens of Young Adult books. I thought I was familiar with Young Adult books, but really I was only familiar with the YA books from when I was growing up in, ahem, the ‘90s and early aughts. I hadn’t read any recent YA books, which was a huge mistake. So I read and read and read, and I read outside of my genre too.

But I didn’t just read the books—I ripped pages out. I retyped my favorite passages to feel out the rhythm. I used an array of colored highlighters to understand how different story elements were utilized.

My favorite fiction books became my guides. By reading through them over and over, I instinctively began to understand what good writing sounded like, the cadence, how it made me feel—and what tools the writers were employing to make me feel that way. For a while, this knowledge made me feel like everything I was writing was garbage. So if you’re in this boat too—congrats!—you have developed an ear for good language. If you can identify good writing, you can learn to write good writing too.

Before I started on each new draft of my novel, I would identify a few key elements of my writing that I wanted to improve. I would then pick out one book that did this particular element exceptionally well and study it. Here are a few aspects I focused on:

• Secondary Characters: How are secondary characters written? I counted how many scenes secondary characters appeared in and how much time was devoted to their story arcs.

• Character Description: How are characters described? I focused on what types of physical descriptions were used and when.

• Emotional Beats: How do you explain how a character is feeling without just saying “heart-racing” over and over? As I read, I highlighted my favorite emotional descriptions and added them to a list.

• The First 10 Pages: How does a writer capture the reader in the first 10 pages? I zeroed in on how writers distributed backstory, action, internal dialogue, and dialogue in the first 10 pages of a novel. Every book did it differently, and they were all layered. I had no idea how to do this myself, and that’s totally normal. In fact, my first 10 pages didn’t come together until I had written the whole book, and I revised them at least a dozen times.

3. Find Your Community

The third thing I did was that I stopped going at it alone. I’d always heard about people having writer friends, and I was so jealous—but too scared to actually put myself out there or call myself a real writer.

But finding your community is essential to surviving in this industry. The ratio of hard work and no acknowledgment to actual success and recognition is insanely unbalanced in the writing world. I would estimate it’s about 10,000 hours of hard work to every 10 minutes of success. The only way to survive with these kinds of odds—and not just survive but thrive and enjoy writing, even without an agent or a book deal or 50,000 followers—is to find your people.

Entering the querying trenches finally gave me the courage to reach out to writers on social media. I connected with a few writers who soon became my closest writing friends. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long. Although my friends and family were supportive when I signed with my agent, no one celebrated like my writer friends.

Check out my free Writer Toolkit for free information about my favorite writing communities!

4. Make a Professional Author Website

I put off making a writing website forever because it seemed really overwhelming. I also didn’t think I was a “real-enough” writer to have a website. But before sending out my query letters, I spent a few hours creating an author website. 

I had so many writers ask about it that I ended up creating a free template for other writers. One of the agents that offered to represent my book specifically mentioned how much she loved my site. She thought I had hired a web design firm to make it!

5. Don’t Jump the Gun

And finally: I’m generally an impatient person who starts a project and then a few days later decides it’s done and in need of validation. But this time I waited, and I worked and worked on my manuscript until I truly thought it was the very best it could be.

As writers, we are all too eager to cross to the finish line after putting our hearts and souls into our work. Because of this, I think that many writers query too soon, before they have made their book the strongest it can be.

But remember—it’s the manuscript, not the query, that prompts an agent to offer representation.

Every time I finished a draft of my book, I thought: I have done it! This book is perfect. But I was too close to my manuscript to see its flaws. Originally, I’d thought that I could get the story out onto the page and then work with an agent to make my draft read more like a book.

But the idea that a literary agent will see potential in your manuscript and work with you on edits? Unfortunately, that is rarely the case anymore. This industry has gotten tougher and tougher. Agents expect you to have already worked with beta readers and critique partners and to be querying a clean, tightly structured, and well-paced book. They are looking for fully polished manuscripts that are more or less ready to be published books.

A Note Before I Get into My Query Stats

Before I share my query stats, I want to acknowledge—if you are writing your book and about to start querying or currently going through the query process, just know this process is difficult. It was tremendously hard for me, even with how lucky I got with agents.

If you’re not seeing similar results, that’s okay! My results are not normal. You only need one offer, and even for the very best books that offer can sometimes take a long time to get. There are so many authors who had less success with the query process than I did but who ended up having more successful books.

Remember to keep your head up, to try not to take rejections personally, and no matter what—to keep writing.

Now—Time for Those Stats!

I queried 50 literary agents over 4 weeks, between April and May of 2020.

13 literary agents requested my full manuscript.

I got my first offer for agent representation 1 month after I began querying.

After that offer, I notified all the other literary agents who had my full manuscript or who had not yet responded to my query letter and asked them to get back to me within 2 weeks.

I got 13 more full requests for my manuscript after that.

From there, I got 7 additional offers for representation, bringing the total to 8 offers. Most of those came either at the start or the end of that 2-week window.

In total: 4 weeks of querying; 2 weeks between my first offer and accepting an offer; 50 queries; 26 full manuscript requests; 3 no responses; 21 query rejections; 17 rejections on the full manuscript (which all came after my first offer); 8 offers; 1 likely offer but an eventual pass due to timing.

If you want to read the query letter I used, grab a copy of my free Query Letter Toolkit!

And Finally…

Good luck to everyone who is writing and querying and working toward finding an agent. If you’re feeling sad and hopeless, you’re not alone. We write because we are sensitive people. Our sensitivity to the world around us makes us great writers, but it also makes us insecure and unnecessarily hard on ourselves.

The publishing industry is opaque. It’s so easy to feel disheartened because so much of the process is outside of our control and agents share so little feedback with writers.

Leveling up is within your control, though. You can aim to make one new writing friend a month. Or read five new books and improve in one area of your writing. Or create your author website. Or apply to mentorship programs.

And remember to enjoy the process as much as you can. Don’t wait until you have a literary agent to celebrate. Celebrate the completion of each draft. Celebrate each sentence that you brilliantly crafted out of thin air. Celebrate that you are doing this amazing, brave, difficult, and important work.

Best of luck out there. I’m rooting for you and your story.

Best Books on Writing: The Four Craft Books Every Fiction Writer Should Read

If your dream is to become a published author, finding a book that breaks down the often mysterious craft of writing is a great place to start. Today, I’m going to share my four favorite writing craft books. These books helped me go from an amateur writer who didn’t know what I was doing to a published author with HarperCollins and a six-figure advance. I really believe in the power of craft books, and I think that every aspiring writer should read at least a few.

And if we haven't met already, hi, I'm Lauren. I'm a young adult author and mom based in Brooklyn, and it is my goal to end gatekeeping in publishing and make publishing a book accessible to all.

Do Writing Craft Books Really Work?

Before I get into what my four favorite craft books are, I want to drop a few caveats. First of all, I think some people are against craft books because they think that they make every story sound the same and very formulaic.

And I just don't think that's the case. I think that there's a general structure that most top movies and books follow, and it's really important to learn the bare bones of that structure. You can still make your story completely unique. But you want it to fit within the common realm of stories that are told so that readers can get emotionally invested, and if you're looking to traditionally publish so that agents and editors will be interested.

When I first started writing, I didn't have some fancy writing background, I wasn't some genius writer, and I don't think I ever would have gotten a book deal if I hadn't read these four craft books or worked with my amazing book coach and developmental editor at the same time. That said, take all of the advice you get from me and from these books with a grain of salt. You don't have to follow them word for word. I can be a very literal person, and I really trust the experts, and I sometimes felt stuck with these books because I couldn't answer their exact questions as they wanted them to be answered, and then I would give up on writing for months. 

Don't do what I did! Read these books, and don't just read them once passively, really study them, highlight their pages, go back and continuously reread them as you become a stronger writer. Give these books the time and I know they will transform your writing, just like they did for me.

The Four Best Writing Craft Books

So with all of that said, let's get into my top four. And after that, I'm also going to share the bonus reading that you absolutely must be doing.

And make sure to grab a free copy of my Writer Toolkit, which also includes links to all of these books!

1. story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)

by Lisa Cron

My Favorite Quote from Story Genius:

“The problem is that most writers mistake story for the things we can see on the page: the stunning prose, the authoritative voice, the intense and exciting plot, the clever structure. It’s a very natural mistake, and a crippling one.”

Buy at Bookshop

If you have watched any of my videos on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram, you know how much I love this book. And one of the coolest things about getting to give writing advice online is how many people have told me that they read this book because of me and how helpful it's been. (In fact, while I think you should read all of these books, you should definitely grab a copy of this one.)

In Story Genius, Lisa Cron goes over the brain science behind storytelling, specifically how to hook the reader. I didn’t know any of this when I first attempted to write a novel, and I can't tell you how much it helped me but also how hard it was to implement. She has a lot of really great exercises throughout the book where you practice each part of storytelling. I would sometimes spend days stuck on an exercise, but then I would have a big breakthrough, and it would be amazing.

First of all, Cron discusses how books aren't just about cool events that happen, like a big tornado or someone winning the lottery, but are also about how your characters react to the events that are happening to them, and that is huge. Satisfying books are about the internal struggles and journeys that your characters go through. This really helped me because when I was starting to write, I had this idea for a story about a girl who becomes a YouTube star. What would it be like to be someone like Emma Chamberlain who gets all this fame at a young age? I thought, cool, that would make a great book, right? Wrong.

There wasn't enough there. That was about an interesting thing that happens, but it wasn't about the internal journey of the character. For example, Cron talks about how a character needs to have a defining misbelief that is caused by some event or cluster of events that happened to them sometime in their childhood or before the book began. So I had to think a lot more about my character and get to know her better as I was writing my book to create that defining misbelief, which was that she didn't think that she was attractive enough to be loved and she didn't think she was deserving of love as she was. Doing all of that work really helped me to develop my main character.

Another part of Story Genius that I absolutely love is the idea that your book must have a third rail. The third rail is the rail that powers subway trains, and if you touch it you’ll get electrocuted. And so you want that kind of third rail powering your story. It's the internal heart of your story, and every single event and character and thing that happens must, in some way, strike that rail and relate to that internal struggle that your character is going through.

2. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

My Favorite Quotes from Writing Down the Bones:

“We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don’t have our own style. Don’t worry. Writing is a communal act.”

"I am free to write the worst junk in the world."

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I remember seeing that this was a top book on writing, and I started reading it and I was like, wait, this isn't teaching me about plot structure or characters. Do I need to read this? But now I can't tell you how important Writing Down the Bones has been for my writing journey.

Before I read this book, I thought that writing was about learning about characters, plot, etc. Now that I've been at this for six years, I have realized just how much writing is about sticking with it and believing in yourself, about finding community and realizing you're not alone in the struggles you go through. And the more I got into this book, the more I felt like, wow, it's like she's reading my mind and all of my deepest thoughts and insecurities, which helped me to break through them and continue writing. And that is the top reason why writers fail at publishing a book: they give up.

I don't want to give too much away, but I do want to highlight a few of my favorite parts. I remember when I started writing was also when I was seriously getting into marathon running. I had always been a terrible runner, like I couldn't even run a mile for most of my life. Then I met my husband, who was a D1 runner and could run a four-minute mile, and he really got me to see that running is something that you improve over time. You're not just born a terrible runner or a really fast runner, it's about putting in the work even when you don't want to. And that is also what Goldberg says in this book. My mile time improved so much when I just put in the miles. The same thing happened with writing.

I used to think: this is the level of writer that I am, and I'm going to stay here, so I might as well give up. But that is not the case. Goldberg has this amazing quote, "I am free to write the worst junk in the world." And just giving that permission to write badly was hugely helpful for me. At the time I just didn't realize that this is how pretty much every writer in the world feels, including top published authors. And just because I felt like that didn't mean I was a bad writer.

The final aspect that I want to discuss with this book is the terrible act that most of us do to ourselves because it's human nature, which is that we compare ourselves to others and then we feel bad about ourselves. Here’s another quote from Goldberg that is so helpful: "They are good, and I am good.” It's not I am the best and everyone's terrible, or everyone's the best except me and I suck. It's that there is room for everyone and everyone's stories. And if you are reading your favorite author in the world and feeling bad about yourself, just remember: “They have been at it longer, and I can walk their path for a while and learn from them.” Amazing, right?

3. Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need

by Blake Snyder

My Favorite Quote from Save the Cat:

“The catalyst is not what it seems. It’s the opposite of good news, and yet, by the time the adventure is over, it’s what leads the hero to happiness.”

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This is such a foundational book for story structure, and I read it before the edition came out that's for novels specifically (Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need by Jessica Brody). The original Save the Cat! is for screenwriting, but it’s so good that pretty much all the fiction writers I know have read it. So I'd say you could read either version. Save the Cat! goes over story structure and story beats. There are a lot of different craft books that do this, and you don't have to do what I did and read all of them. I’d say if you're going to pick one structure book, this is the book I would highly recommend.

One of the big techniques this book addresses is the catalyst, which some other books call the inciting incident. It's the reason your story is happening at all. What's that huge thing that happens that seems really, really bad at first but spurs your character’s huge transformational journey? Then there's the midpoint, where everything changes for your character. It can be good or bad. And the all-hope-is-lost moment. Ever since reading about that, I have never read a book or watched a movie the same way. Because they always have this all-is-lost moment about two-thirds of the way through, where the character is at rock bottom, and then they pick themselves up.

Another important element is the logline. You can think of this more as your query letter, and Snyder says that in that logline, or the hook you're using to pitch your book, there should be irony. You don't just want a flat story like, "Woman goes to the store and buys pickles.” There's no irony there. For instance, the logline for one of my books could be: a traditionally unattractive girl becomes a YouTube star. So we've got some irony there. Or for another: a type-A control freak who just wants to be studying all the time gets forced to go on a cruise and relax and have fun (check out We Ship It!). So you really want that juxtaposition if you have to sum up your book in one line.

Next, let's talk a bit about the title, Save the Cat! Snyder emphasizes that with your main character, regardless of whether they're good or bad, you want your viewer or reader to root for them so they keep watching the movie or reading the book. He describes the "save the cat" moment, for instance. Imagine there's a cat on the highway, and your main character, who we at first maybe thought was a terrible person, runs out into the highway to save the cat. I don't know about you, but I love cats—I have an absolutely perfect cat, Sneezy—so that definitely would endear me to a character, especially if at first they seemed cold or not personable.

The final thing that I want to bring up from this book is how you really want to make sure your character is proactively reacting to everything that goes on. It's not just a series of events that happen to your character. It's a series of active decisions that your main character is making.

4. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

My Favorite Quote from Bird by Bird:

“E.L. Doctorow once said that ‘writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don't have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.”

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The fourth book I want to recommend is Bird by Bird. This is another book that’s very close to my heart. After I read Writing Down the Bones and it changed me so much, I then just wanted to read other books like it. Because I feel like these motivational books help me even more in some ways than reading books on story structure.

A very important thing that this book goes over is fighting against perfectionism by just writing a shitty first draft. It was very helpful for me to hear that this is a problem that a lot of writers face. The title Bird by Bird is about how overwhelmed we feel as writers when we have an entire book to write and how that sense of overwhelm can really block us. Lamott shares a story about how her brother at the last minute had to write this whole report on birds, and he felt like he couldn't do it, and their dad just said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” It’s the same thing with writing a book: one teeny aspect at a time. Lamott talks about how it's like driving, and you can only see a little bit ahead of you. It's super dark but your headlights are on, and you can finish a book even if you can only see a bit ahead of you at a time as long as you believe in yourself and keep going.

The final aspect that I want to bring out from this book, although I could talk about this forever, is Lamott’s discussion of how you are not going to feel whole or happy or loved just because you've published a book. And this is regardless of whether you publish it and no one reads it or you publish it and it's some huge bestseller. She quotes the movie Cool Runnings and says, "But if you're not enough without the gold medal, you’ll never be enough with it." She also talks about how when your book comes out, it's often not what you pictured. It's a lot quieter than you probably expected, which I definitely experienced as a debut author. I was really happy that I'd read about this years ago and wasn’t surprised by it. This book, like Writing Down the Bones, is just like getting a hug or taking a warm bath. It’s so necessary for your writing soul.

Don’t Forget to Read the Competition.

The final piece of reading that I definitely encourage all writers to do is to read recent books within your genre. This wasn’t something I was doing. I was going into writing young adult contemporary novels because I had grown up reading them. But when I looked back I realized that the most recent YA book I had read was already five or six years old. So I read something like 50 books in one summer to really familiarize myself with the current market, which is huge if you want to sell a book in a particular genre.

And I studied the technical aspects of the books I read: how different authors constructed their characters and their first pages and the themes and messages of their stories. I also read a ton of reviews online to see what readers actually liked or didn't like about these books. All of that was incredibly helpful for me as I was trying to write a viable young adult contemporary book.

I really hope that this has helped, and I would love to hear more about your favorite writing craft books in the comments.

How to Use Scrivener: A Simple Tutorial for Overwhelmed Fiction Writers

The most life-changing thing I ever did as a fiction writer was move the draft of my novel from Google Docs to Scrivener. This innovative technology was instrumental in helping me land both a literary agent and a book deal. 

Today I'm going to share exactly how to set up and use Scrivener in just a few minutes. But before I get into that, I want to talk about why it is so helpful to use Scrivener.

Why Scrivener is Better than Google Docs

Explaining Scrivener to writers has basically become my religion. A lot of people are comfortable in Google Docs and think that's all they need. And it’s true that Google Docs can be great for first drafts. But if you're anything like me, I just get lost once I have more than 10,000 or 20,000 words, especially while trying to manage all of the different storylines and subplots at the same time.

If you're the type of person who can write an entire draft straight through, completely in order, never looking back, hitting all of your plot points, first I am very jealous of you. Second, as I am not one of those lucky people, when I get stuck I often jump to different parts of my manuscript. Scrivener makes this a lot easier to do. Because when you're trying to balance all of your different characters, subplots, character arcs, and the arcs of each subplot, especially when revising, it's really hard to keep everything in your brain at once.

So just like accountants and lawyers have special software, with Scrivener so do writers. Technology serves a real purpose, allowing us to move much faster and maybe even utilize the best parts of our brain as we write. Instead of sitting there thinking—where's my pen and where's that piece of paper?—we can dive right into the part of the story that we are working on that day.

How to Use Scrivener: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Now let’s discuss exactly how I set up and use Scrivener. It can be overwhelming at first, as there are seemingly a million different moving parts to this super-powerful software. But you only need to master a few key features of Scrivener to get started.

If you want a PDF that covers all of the tips that I’m about to go over, click the link below for a free cheat sheet on how to get started with Scrivener.

1. Select a Template

The first thing you want to do is select a template for the type of writing project you’ll be working on. Here, I will select Fiction > Novel > Create.

Super important note: Many writers get upset with Scrivener because it doesn't automatically save your work, but there is a really easy workaround. If you have Dropbox, you can save your work there automatically and not worry about losing any work, which is naturally any writer's greatest fear.

2. Set Up Acts, Chapters, and Scenes

Once I’m in the fiction template, the first thing I do is create folders for acts and chapters. I usually do three acts, and then I can drag chapter folders into and out of the act folders.

For a new scene, simply go into the chapter folder and press the green + sign in the top menu bar. Here you can also name the scenes or simply describe what’s happening.

3. Switch Between Draft, Corkboard, and Outline Views

A feature that I think is really cool is that there are three different views you can use in Scrivener. 

On a Mac, press Command+1 for Drafting, Command+2 for Corkboard, and Command+3 for Outline. On a PC, press CTRL+1, CTRL+2, and CTRL+3 for these same options.

I used to make notecards by hand, but Scrivener’s Corkboard view generates them automatically from your chapters. You can also add a synopsis to each scene in drafting mode, and it will instantly be added to your Corkboard notecards as well.

4. Change the Default Format

I think all writers are pretty particular about how we like our document to look when we’re writing. What’s great about Scrivener is that you can change the default settings for writing without changing how the document will appear after you finally compile it.

For example, I like to change the font. To do this, go to Format > Paragraph > Tabs and Indents. I also like to change the spacing. To do this, go to Format > Paragraph > Line and Paragraph Spacing.

To keep this formatting in any new scenes that I write, I go to Format > Make Formatting Default > This Project Only. Now every time I start a new scene it has the same format, and I can breathe and keep going.

5. Use Notes 

With the Notes feature, you can include any additional notes for a scene you’re drafting. Being able to have the notes side-by-side with the scenes is super helpful for me because I hate deleting anything that I'm writing. If there’s something I want to save, I can put it into Notes, and if I want to use it later I have it right there along with the scene.

Click the blue i icon in the top right corner to show or hide the scene synopsis and notes, then select the leftmost icon. The synopsis will automatically appear in both Corkboard and Outline view.

6. Scene Snapshots

Another cool thing that you can do when it comes to deleting is the Snapshot feature. So let's say you are about to totally change a scene, completely rewrite it, but you want to keep the original. To take a snapshot of a scene and preserve that version, click the blue i icon on the top left. Then in the menu below the i, choose the Camera icon.

You can also compare different versions and roll back to the original version in the Snapshot, which is pretty awesome.

7. Color-Coded Binders

The next thing that I love doing is having color-coded scenes based on their status. Scrivener has a status menu at the bottom of the document, but I’m not a big fan of how they categorize status. Once again, it’s more important that you set things up the way you like them when writing.

For me, I’m really big on colors. For example, I might choose to label scenes I consider done with the color green. To do this, click on the scene, then click on Label to choose a color. Next I will go to View > Use Label Color In > Show as Background Color in Binder. For scenes where I need to do a lot more work, I will choose another color like orange.

Another thing you can do with colors is if you’re writing a multiple-POV novel or just one with a lot of characters, you can give each character a color.

8. Timeline Feature

Colors are also really useful in the Timeline feature. If you have labeled your scenes or characters with a color, when you view your draft as a timeline it will show you the progression of your story based on the colors. This is a really useful feature when you’re writing multiple points-of-view or fantasy novels.

9. Add Icons

A great way to keep track of all your different subplots is to add icons. To do this, click on the scene, then click on Change Icon. You could add the notepad icon for the main character or a ticking time bomb to indicate suspenseful scenes.

10. Hit Your Project Targets

You can also use Scrivener to help you hit your word-count goals by adding targets. You can add a word-count target to your entire manuscript and a word-count target for each writing session. This feature also shows you how much progress you’ve made on your goals as you go.

Choose the green Bullseye icon to display draft and session targets. Edit the targets by double-clicking the number and typing over it.

11. View Your Writing History

If you're really into stats like I am, you can also see your writing history by going to Project > Writing History. This will show you how many words you’ve written by the month and day.

12. Add Characters as Keywords

Another innovative way to keep track of your characters is through metadata. In the Scene menu, click on the Metadata icon and then Keywords. Here you can add keywords, like your characters’ names. Click the three dots icon to view all your project’s keywords. 

Then if you want to edit all the scenes that have a particular character in them, you can search for your keywords in the main search bar. This will bring up all the scenes that include that character.

13. Name Generator

Speaking of characters, if you have a lot of trouble coming up with character names like I do, Scrivener has a name generator tool. Go to Edit > Writing Tools > Name Generator. You can choose the character’s gender, the country of origin, and even the obscurity level for the name. You can also generate alliterative names if the sound of the character’s name is important for your project.

14. View Two Pages at Once

It can be really helpful to view two pages at once when you’re working on a book. In the menu bar of your draft, simply click on the Two-Page icon. That way you can edit two separate pages side-by-side. To get out of this view, click the One-Page icon to return to single-page viewing.

15. How to Compile Your Scrivener Manuscript

When I was querying literary agents, I ended up having to compile my manuscript multiple times. I had to recompile the manuscript any time I made a change, so learning how to compile in Scrivener quickly is super helpful.

First, in the top menu bar go to File > Compile. Make sure you select all the acts, chapters, and scenes that you want in the final manuscript. You’ll also want to select the title page, which is found in Front Matter in your manuscript menu.

Next, you want to define your section types, which is important because that is going to tell Scrivener the style you want to export the manuscript in. Choose a section type for each element. For example, for front matter choose Front Matter, for acts choose Part Heading, for chapters choose Chapter Heading, and for each scene within a chapter choose Scene. 

Go to Assign Section Layouts to choose how you want your different elements to look. Here you can choose the layout style for your headings, chapters, and scenes. Scrivener will also number your chapters for you here.

To preview the final format, at the top of the Compile window choose Compile for > PDF. At the bottom of the Compile window, click Compile. Select where you want to save the manuscript, then click Export. If the PDF looks good to you, then the manuscript is ready to email to literary agents!

Go on now; write that next great American novel!

I really hope that this tutorial has helped you by making Scrivener seem just a little less overwhelming, as I truly believe that this technology is an essential tool that can assist you in getting your story out into the world.