Jul 24, 2009

Whadyacallit?

Some dude named "The Bart" once said that names are like roses, everyone has one and they all smell real sweet. Might have been that Simpson kid. No, wait. I think I got my wires crossed.

What I mean to say is: please submit your queries with a title. If you are considering querying, you should at least have a working title. If you don't even have an idea of what you want to call your book, there's a good chance your manuscript/story still needs attention, and time spent working on the query is time better spent perfecting your manuscript.

I've posted a couple of untitled queries, and if there are more it will get confusing for me to read back through them and determine what's a revision and what's a new query; I would imagine that most of the Slushpile followers would have the same issues and QUERY-UNTITLED may have a lower chance of garnering immediate feedback; some people may think, "Oh, I've already commented on that one twice. I'll wait for fresh meat."

NOTE TO VEGETARIANS/VEGANS: It is perfectly acceptable for you to wait for fresh tofu or another form of protein in lieu of meat. No animals were harmed in the writing of this post.

NOTE TO THOSE WHO ALREADY SUBMITTED UNTITLED QUERIES: I'm not mad at you, please do not feel obligated to post apologies. I just made this rule up. You had no way of knowing when you submitted and bear no fault.

8 comments:

storyqueen said...

Dude, for the first half of your post, I thought it was a query! I really liked the voice.....

I kind of think I'd ask for pages of "whadyacallit."


Shelley

J.B. Chicoine said...

That's so funny! I thought it was a query also. And now you've used up WHADYACALLIT as a possible title for those in Title-Limbo.

Julie said...

Sorry Rick! I'm done with the untitled entries I promise!

Maybe it should be a rule, from this point on if someone submits an untitled you get to make one up with out even reading the entry.

Anything goes!

Rick Daley said...

I'll always include "QUERY" in the post title when it's a real query ;-)

Glad you like the voice, for more check out my other blog:
http://mydaleyrant.blogspot.com

JB...No problems with multiple works with the same title. There are two works titled "Broken" up there now.

Julie...I said don't apologize ;-)

For future untitled queries, I'm probably not going to post them. I would be looking at it from the agent perspective, I think many agents would delete a query like that.

Lori Folkman said...

I think you should post the untitled queries....and let us name them. It would be the one chance we wouldn't have to be polite and professional! It would be like making nicknames for someone's ugly baby...like Festus or Hilda.Think of the fun!

Unknown said...

I like the idea by folksinmt

pot luck names would be fun :)

Or

if you don't have a name you HAVE to use your verification word instead LOL

verification is TIONNY - name for a heroine in a seedy bosom heaving romance ?

Rick Daley said...

I like the idea of using the word verification!

Julie said...

I love that idea! yesterday one of my verification words was "Friday", I don't know how that happened.

This one's "docker"