Amra Pajalic

There’s a trend that’s been pissing me off no end and inspired by this article I thought I’d get if off my chest. I work in a community health centre and among the services we provide is Maternal Child Health. As parents come in to see the nurse, I tick off their name that they have arrived and as result I get to see the new trend of giving children a ‘unique’ name.

In most instances this involves giving the child a traditional name that is then spelt in a unique way that will showcase a child’s individuality. You see these moronic parents think that the way a child feels special and individual is by their annoying moniker.

The article I’m linking thinks that the “phonetic spelling popular in text messaging and emails has been blamed for degrading the English language,” and is the reason for this trend.

“Parents are shunning traditional spellings for versions such as Alex-Zander, Cam’ron, Emma-Lee, Ozkah, Thaillah and Ameleiyah.

Analysing Australian births in 2007, social analyst Mark McCrindle found the name Jayden was registered spelt 12 ways, Aidan nine ways, and Amelia and Tahlia eight ways.

Lachlan had five other versions – Lochlyn, Lochlin, Lochlen, Lochlain and Lauchlan.”

“The use of a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’ has hit epidemic proportions, as has the use of ‘k’ over ‘c’ like in the names Jaykob and Lynkon, double letters like Siimon and Chriss and hyphens like Emma-Lee,” said Mr McCrindle, of private research agency McCrindle Research.

The trend was due to the phonetic spelling in email and text messaging and to parents wanting their children to stand out, he said.”

As someone who has a unique name I can tell you that while yes, it does make you stand out it also annoying as hell. Having to constantly spell your name and teach people how to pronounce it really takes away from the rosiness of uniqueness. And I’m lucky in the sense that my name is pronounced the way it’s spelt. No tricky sounds to be found.

I didn’t always appreciate the uniquness of my name. It wasn’t until I went to Bosnia to live for four years as a child and realised how common the name was that I felt good about it. As a child you need the comfort of knowing that others share your name. That there is a community of people that you belong to.

When I came to Australia after this experience and had people commenting on my name, I was able to deflect any discomfort on my part by saying that it’s common in the Bosnian community. While yes, it’s nice to be different, sometimes you just want to blend in. You don’t want to feel like a sore thumb.

In my job I have to take down people’s names for messages etc. If someone calls and say their name is Katherine, I know to ask if it’s spelt traditionally as Catherine or as Kathryn. Same with Stephen/Steven.

There are certain names that can be spelt in different ways and you know to flag this before you write down the name incorrectly, but with all these newfangled names these poor children will be spending a good portion of their lives spelling their names, and to what end?

Research conducted on unusual names has actually found that children with different/unique names suffer self esteem issues because they feel apart from their peers and are subjected to teasing. They’ve found that children with common names usually achieve more.

Uniqueness is just another word for target. Being noticed is not always a gift, but a burden. These parents are getting wrapped up in their own ego and are using these names as a way of achieving status. While yes, they are guaranteeing that their children will be noticed, it’s not in the way that they hoped.

Josephine Damian who is on my daily must read blog roll did a post about query letters. She referenced an agent who says he’s been receiving terrible query letters and this is possibly due to the e-query process. In the comments I wrote an essay-long comment and thought I’d post my query letter in case anyone can get any use out of it.

As I said in the comments on Josephine’s blog-I don’t think I’m a query letter savant. I think this query is okay, but what I think lifts it up is the bio. I’m going to explain why I included each sentence in this query letter.

I also think that everyone has to find their own way through this query process. Every writer is unique and every agent has individual tastes. What might work for one person, might not for another.

My rule of thumb is know what the rules are if you decide to break them-have a really good reason.

Dear Vicky

I pitched my young adult novel The Good Daughter on Tuesday 24 October 2006 via the phone.
Firstly, my working title was The Wog Manual. It has since been changed to The Good Daughter and I have changed the working title to this new title in this posted query.

I sent this query letter to the Office Manager after pitching to her on the phone. I don’t recommend you ever call to make a phone pitch unless it is explicitly stated on the submission guidelines. As a guide most American agents don’t ever want you to call, while most Australian agents encourage an initial phone or email pitch.

When I did pitch my query on the phone I read from this query and answered questions that Vicky had. As you can guess my voice was wobbly and high-pitched, but I got through it.

When I read forums or other blogs I’ve heard a lot of writers complain about pitching to an assistant. My advice is-Stop Whingeing. Pitch to the person that has been allocated this task. They have been given this task for a reason-they know what the agent is looking for. If you’ve received a knock-back it’s not because the agent would have had a different response, but because that is not the right project for that particular agent.

As requested I am sending the first three chapters. The Wog Manual, 86,000 words, is set in Melbourne in 1994.
The most important things that I think should be included in the first couple of sentences is genre, title, word count and setting. Since my novel has been sold the word count will change as well as the setting. It is now a contemporary setting rather than 1994.

The best way I can describe The Wog Manual is by saying it is like a cross between Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Ali Brandi and Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Does my Head Look Big in This?
The two novels I am referencing are well-known and well-sold Australian young adult novels. In Looking for Ali Brandi the protagonist has an almost friends relationship with her single mother. She and her mother are outside the community because her mother had a child out of wedlock. These elements are similar to my novel. Even though my character’s mother was married, there is a scandalous story to Sabiha’s conception.

I am referencing Does My Head Look Big in This? because the protagonist wakes up one day and decides to wear a hijab, a headscarf that women of the Muslim faith wear. The story is about the way that she is perceived by her classmates and the struggles she goes through as she tries to reconcile her Muslim identity in an Australian setting. While my character does not become a Muslim, her mother does and this is the crux of the conflict within the novel.

The most Bosnian thing about Sabiha Omerovic, 15, is her name. Raised by her single mother outside of her community Sabiha is yanked into the Bosnian way of life when her grandfather and aunt come to Australia as refugees during the Balkan War. To the Bosnians she’s Australian, to the Australians she’s Bosnian, while all Sabiha wants is for her life to return to the way it was before the war.
This paragraph tells you who the character is, what is her problem, what is the conflict in the novel, and how her desires are in conflict with the action in the novel.

Since the war began Sabiha’s suburb has become a mini-wog land and her house sees more traffic than Tullamarine Airport. Her mother is acting like a Born-Again-Muslim and is trying to teach Sabiha how to be a good housewife, while Sabiha thinks of new ways to resist.
This is more description about the novel. Re-reading it now I think it’s superflous and might not be needed at all.

School was the one place where she could drop the wog tag and be normal, but after she’s bullied she’s forced to change schools and now she faces a whole new set of problems. Usually the invisible nerd she becomes Ms Popularity with girls using her to get close to her spunky cousin Adnan. But things are about to get a lot more complicated as Sabiha learns about the meaning of friendship, love and family.
My novel is equally about Sabiha’s home-life as much as it is about her school-dramas. So this paragraph is setting up that dynamic. While there are six more characters at Sabiha’s school who play a part in the story there is no way to include them all in such brevity so I’ve used the last sentence about the lessons that she will learn to hint at the further complications she will face.

I have placed in short story competitions, been published in magazines, journals and in anthologies. My short stories Siege and Fuck Me Eyes have been appeared in the 2004 and 2005 Best Australian Stories published by Black Inc and edited by Miles Franklin Winner, Frank Moorhouse.
This is where I start about my bio. The first sentence is compressing all the different things I’ve done. The two short stories are the cream of my literary achievements and what I’m focussing on most. Frank Moorhouse is a well known writer in Australia and the descriptor of him being a Miles Franklin Winner is for international agents who don’t know him and a shameless plug on my part.

My short story Siege has received review mentions in Australian Book Review “a powerful and moving story of family dissolution and the suffering, deprivation and terror of war,” and in Bulletin “Amra Pajalic’s Bosnian Diary is a masterpiece of broken elegy.” Fuck Me Eyes has also received a review mention in Australian Book Review as “briskly narrated” and “interesting and original writing.”
The review mentions are the reasons that these stories are the cream of my achievement.

As requested I am attaching copies of the reviews. You can view all my publication achievements with links on my webpage
I have only included the copies of the reviews because the agent requested these. I don’t recommend you include any copies of short stories, write ups etc unless it is requested. My view is that this would be the quickest way to piss an agent off. I have also included the link to my blog page where I’ve listed all my achievements with links where I could.

The Good Daughter is complete and ready for submission. Thank you for your time and attention.
This is where I reassure the agent that the novel is complete. I’ve heard horrible stories about writers pitching a novel that wasn’t complete, getting a request, writing it in a rush and then getting a speedy rejection. My advice would be not to pitch a novel that is not complete.

The last sentence is a courtesy acknowledging the agents time as it is a big thing to read someone’s first three chapters.
Yours Sincerely

Amra Pajalic

Enc The Good Daughter first three chapters
Synopsis
Copies of reviews
SSAE
This is where I follow good business practice and give a list of all the enclosures I am sending. I included a two page synopsis and the all important Stamped Self Address Envelope.

This query was not created in isolation. I posted my earlier efforts on Evil Editor and I think it also appeared on Miss Snark’s website. Thankfully these links have now been removed. I would encourage all fledging writers to use resources on the website to create the best query letter they possibly could.

Unfortunately you only get ONE change to make a good impression with an agent. Do not rush the submission process. My novel had been completed for four months before I submitted and throughout the writing process I was collecting information on good and bad queries and reading as many samples as I could on the internet.

I hope this is of some help. If you have any questions post them in the comments and I’ll be happy to answer them.

What is it with movie titles at the moment?

No Country for Old Men
There Will be Blood
We Own the Night

It’s almost like a poem:

There will be blood
In the No Country for Old Men
Where we Own the night

Which leads me to my latest update. My novel has a new title. Unfortunately it’s not nearly as poetic as these examples, but it is very resonant of the themes in my novel.

After coming up with a list of 10 possibilities

1. This Girl’s Life
2. This Wog Girl’s Life
3. Welcome to St Albans
4. White Button Girl
5. From Bosnia with Love
6. Connect a Bosnian
7. West Side Story
8. The Return of the Exiles
9. From Here to St Albans
10. Sabiha-No-Country

I settled on none of them and instead chose THE GOOD DAUGHTER. Although I have to acknowledge that my husband was the one who came up with this. The great news is my publisher loves it, my agent loves it, I love it and hubbie really, really, really loves it.

Other great news is that I’m in the home stretch of revising my novel. Have been doing quite a lot of re-writing and hopefully it will be a much better piece of work. By the end of March I want it complete and ready to be delivered to my publisher. So expect sporadic posts while I get my butt into gear.