Stan Miller has recently signed with agent Jason Pinter of Waxman Literary Agency. Stan, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Congratulations and good luck.


QueryTracker: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you’ve found representation? What inspired you to write it?

Stan Miller: The story bounced around in my head for years. Reading Tony Hillerman showed me that native American characters could find an audience. So I banged out this story about a Cherokee Indian solving a mystery. I truly suck as a mystery writer. It was awful, but it got better during the third rewrite, when it morphed into a thriller.



QT: How long have you been writing?

SM: Let's see...twelve years.



QT: How long have you been working on this book?

SM: The same twelve years.



QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?

SM: I did give up and trunked it after the first round of queries ten years ago. I came back to it in 2002, rewrote it completely, then queried it again. After getting taken in by a pseudo agent, I wrote a sequel, then hit the rounds with the first book again in 2005. With nil interest, I trunked it again until 2008, when I started a standalone thriller with the same main character but a completely different setting and a new cast of supporting characters. A year of querying that one brought many requests for fulls, but no offers. While querying that one, I wrote a sequel to it, along with revising the first two for consistency, finishing in June this year, for a total of four completed thrillers.



QT: Is this your first book?

SM: I don't know if it could be called the first one, as a couple times I jacked up the title and slid in a completely different story, but it is the end result of that first pitiful foray into self-contemplation. I queried it as a standalone, but the first thing Jason asked is "...are there any others?"



QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

SM: Years ago, in college. Nothing recent.



QT: Do you follow a writing "routine" or schedule?

SM: No. I write as along as I can each day.



QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?

SM: The way I did it was probably not the most efficient way to write. I'd say three or four complete rewrites over the twelve-year period, plus innumerable editing passes.



QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

SM: One. My brother. He has no trouble tellling it like it is. I bribe him with ammo and hamburgers on our trips to the shooting range. If I think he's sugar-coating the crits, he buys his own ammo for a while.



QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?

SM: Not an outline, but a list of plot elements that I think will make a good thriller. I work up three or four acts, depending. Then I start writing. If something doesn't pan out, I abandon that version and start another version headed in the new direction. I generally end up with eight to nine versions by the time I work through to the end. As I said, it's probably not the most efficient way to work, but it does produce a tight, consistent plot line with good pacing.



QT: About how many query letters did you send out for this book?

SM: Sixty or so. Lately, I query in batches of twenty and gauge the results, then revise the Q and try another batch of twenty. I usually use QT's search function to pull a list of agents that indicated an interest in Thriller/Suspense, then start at the top of the list and query alphabetically.



QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?

SM: The query that pulled in the offer was from the third batch of twenty queries for this round. I had aimed that batch specifically at the agents that had attended this year's Thrillerfest in New York.



QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?

SM: Not really. QT's premium service lets me track the agents queried and their responses, along with the stats for each agent. Plus, I always check each agency's website (or blog, or Facebook page) to confirm their interest in the genre. I just drop a specific salutation in for each agent. The Q itself is boilerplate.



QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?

SM: As Chief Dan George says to Clint Eastwood in THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, "...Endeavor to persevere..." Persistence and a willingness to accept criticism are traits that will help. I rate QueryTracker, along with Absolute Write, as the most useful of the online writing resources. The people that hang around the Share Your Work query forum in AW are merciless in shredding queries. Put on your thickest skin, don't argue, say thanks and slink away to write a better one.



QT: Would you be willing to share your query with us?

SM: I queried with many versions. The latest version popped out after reading QueryShark's query blog. In most of the winning queries, voice comes up trumps.

Dear Awesome Agent,

Cherokee Indian Sam Longwalker goes after bear poachers, but the body he finds at the bottom of a cliff in the Nantahala Range near Great Smoky Mountain National Park isn't a black. Bears don't wear canvas field coats.

The shooters seem unhappy to have a witness and take a whack at Sam. That doesn't end well for them, but now Sam is in the sights of some idiots calling themselves white supremacists, dirtbags that hired the former shooters in the first place.

Not only that, the county sheriff already likes Sam for the murder that started the whole mess, and the sheriff hasn't yet heard about one of the shooters that fell off a cliff. Sam hatches a plan to deal with the supremacists. He figures some useful Cherokee myths--Boogers, Spearfinger, and the Fire Carrier--are just the thing to loosen the bowels of superstitious louts and bring them out in the open.

Now if he can just stay out of jail long enough to get the fellas to come out and play....

--Stan