x-post from LJ
Misc:
• Jenny Rappaport has some interesting things to say about query letters.
In the comments, someone asked her about mentioning higher education degrees. That’s something I’ve never even thought about including. If it’s not strictly relevant, I don’t see why anyone would care. “I became interested in writing about research students at a university while pursuing graduate study in physics.” Just not relevant.
Now, if I wrote science fiction rather than fantasy, or fantasy about materials science, that’d be different. Or if I wrote books set in modern times, I could pull up the other degree/career. (Someday I’m going to write a murder mystery involving the perils of installing sidewalks in a subdivision that doesn’t want them.)
Do you guys include your education or career experience? Is it relevant?
• Dvorak update: I know almost all my letters (the top two rows – I still can’t type my name) and some punctuation. Though I’m not too fond of having the ‘ and ” key where the qwerty’s q is. We’ll see.
Writing Summary:
I’ve decided to reduce the number of soldiers that show up at Jessa’s inn in Chapter 1. While reading through to check all the times I referred to their number, I found these lines:
Page 15: “There must have been at least fifteen of them.”
Page 17: “Seventeen against three. I like those odds.”
Page 20: “…killed twenty men.”
Good thing they didn’t run into those guys on page 354; my characters wouldn’t have stood a chance against so many men.
I’ve dug through chapters 1-3 to see where I can tighten things up a bit. Chapter 2 has the most potential for shrinkage. That’ll be tomorrow’s task, though; for now I’m declaring myself done for the night and am going to go read.