The Writer's Digest Guide To Query Letters by Burt-Thomas Wendy

Author:Burt-Thomas, Wendy [Burt-Thomas, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2008-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

• Whether the book includes exercises, quizzes, or a glossary

• Possible shelf life of the book

• That a full proposal is available upon request

For a good sample textbook query, see Example 3.9.

Narrative nonfiction

Narrative nonfiction can encompass a pretty wide scope of material. This could include personal essays, food writing, biographies, or even travel pieces. You’ll sometimes hear the genre referred to as “narrative journalism,” “literary nonfiction,” or “creative nonfiction,” although the terms all do have subtle distinctions. For the sake of brevity, we’re going to lump these together and say that this genre includes any presentation of facts (as opposed to fiction) that uses your own style/voice/perspective (as opposed to straight journalism that presents bare facts to describe news). Basically, it’s storytelling of nonfiction accounts. (Memoirs often cross into this category.)

Now that you’ve finally got a genre classification for your book, you can work on crafting the perfect query. To properly express that your travel-related manuscript is narrative nonfiction (rather than how-to), you’ll probably want to open with an actual excerpt from the book. That’s because showing is always easier (and more demonstrative) than telling when it comes to this genre. Just look at the difference between these two introductory paragraphs from a query for a narrative nonfiction travel book:

FLAT: I spent a year in Africa and have created a book about the experience to help other travelers make the best of their time. Sleeping With Lions is my personal account of 360 days in the open plains of the continent’s most dangerous areas. In it, I’ll advise readers about what to pack, what to avoid, and how to survive without the comforts of civilization.

DYNAMIC: On day twelve, I was awakened from a deep-sleep dream by a four-hundred-pound lion foraging through my backpack. She barely gave me a second look as she ripped the blue canvas to shreds in search of the half-eaten protein bar I had planned to finish for breakfast. I stayed huddled in my tent, fumbling equally fast for both my serrated knife and my camera. Luckily, I only needed one that night. Day thirteen wouldn’t fare so well.

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