Success Story Interview - Darelle Cowley

An Interview with Darelle Cowley (darellecowley on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Alex Brown of Mad Woman Literary Agency.

11/18/2024

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

Darelle Cowley:
I wish I had written down what inspired the book that helped me find representation, but I honestly do not remember what little plot bunny appeared in my head first. I can say that both the main character and villain of the story arrived in my mind via a conversation between them and it just spiralled from there. The setting was always very clear to me too, I knew from the get-go that it was a marriage of Edinburgh's High Street, Dublin, and Six of Crows' Ketterdam. This is usually how my brain begins to spin stories, a character's personality, an environment that draws out both their strengths and weaknesses, and some adversary that challenges them.

QT: How long have you been writing?

Darelle Cowley:
Technically, I've been writing for the better part of twenty years, starting with writing fanfiction (as I think many writers do)--very specifically, Tamora Pierce fanfiction. I tried a handful of times in high school and college to write original work but always struggled to make it past the first few chapters. It wasn't until after I finished graduate school and was working full-time with a really lovely officemate who also writes that I got back into the swing of it. I finished my first wholly original work with a beginning, middle, and ending in the spring of 2022 (I started it in the fall of 2020). Since then, I've finished a number of manuscripts, some of them polished, some of them not.

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

Darelle Cowley:
I started this book in August 2023 when I wrote the first ~60k before getting to a stick point and setting it down until February 2024 when I decided I wanted to submit it to RevPit. I finished the last 40k of the first draft and speed-edited it over a four day weekend before sending it off to RevPit in March. I did another six rounds of major edits throughout the spring and summer as I went through the process of querying it.

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

Darelle Cowley:
All the time. Imposter Syndrome is real, and I combat it not just as a writer but also in my day job. While that double whammy can really get me down some days it also means I have a really robust set of coping skills to manage. I personally cannnot manage things if I'm not actively moving my body in a meaningful way. Some days that means a walk in the park with my dog, other days that means running 10 miles on the treadmill, singing and dancing it out to whatever playlist scratches the itch until I've grappled with my self-doubt and anxieties. My advice to everyone is, figure what scratches the itch and lean into it when you need to. The downs are part of the ups, you need both, without them life is just flat and boring.

QT: Is this your first book?

Darelle Cowley:
This is the fourth book I queried, but realistically it is only the second one that is truly polished.

QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

Darelle Cowley:
I don't have any formal writing training, but both of my degrees were very writing intensive and I always excelled in elementary and high school in writing-based subjects.

QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?

Darelle Cowley:
I follow the routine of procrastination and whim. While I would really love to have some sort of formal routine or schedule, whenever I've tried to implement one everything seems to suffer. I've gotten very good at leaning in when my brain starts to hyperfixate, and not getting down on myself when the words just get stuck. I'm very fortunate to have a partner who is supportive of my publishing goals and lets me lock myself in our basement for days on end to hammer out words when they're floating around in my brain. I think the only thing that is "routine" about writing for me is making playlists as I start the drafting process and the dent in the couch that is my preferred writing spot, also I tend to write better late at night and early in the morning.

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

Darelle Cowley:
I had to go back and take a look at how many drafts I have saved. I keep everything with a very specific numbering system, X.Y, with X being the major draft revisions (new scenes, new characters, new chapters, chapter reorganization, etc.) and Y being the smaller line editing revisions. I ended on draft 8.1 with a total of 17 different drafts since starting.

QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

Darelle Cowley:
Yes! And they made all the difference this time around in the querying process. I linked up with some fellow writers through RevPit this past spring and their feedback was so exceptionally helpful in navigating revisions and polishing not just this book, but my writing overall.

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

Darelle Cowley:
I'm a panster until I get stuck. I usually start with a character or a snippet of dialogue between characters and let the story evolve from there. Music tends to guide the atmosphere while I'm writing. Once I get stuck, I'll let the unfinished draft sit for a month or two, or six as it was with this book, and go back to edit/revise what I have while jotting down any ideas that come to mind. Normally once I get to the end of what I already have written, I have a loose outline of how to get to the end of the draft, or at the very least know what ending I want to work towards and can reverse-outline back from there.

QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?

Darelle Cowley:
I sent the very first query (prematurely, of course) at the end of March and received my official offer at the end of October. My vague era started exactly six months from the day I sent my first query for this book. But this wasn't the first book I queried. I spent exactly 690 days querying before receiving my offer and that was across four different books. Granted, the first two were not anywhere near polished when I queried them and were also shelved very quickly (six weeks for the first, three months for the second). The third book in the trenches was where I learned a lot. I spent a year querying it and shelved a month before querying the fourth book that landed me representation.

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

Darelle Cowley:
I did end up requerying a handful of agents as I made some significant revisions throughout the six months I queried (aged up from YA to adult, slashed the word count by 15k, and tweaked some pretty major elements). Per the tracker, I sent 99, but I know it's probably closer to 120 as there were some agents who use a communal inbox not listed on QT and some who I requeried. If I counted correctly (I probably didn't), my agent was the 99th query.

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

Darelle Cowley:
Through revisions and agent feedback early on, I discovered I do very much live in the dreaded dreamscape of New Adult. I quickly pivoted to querying agents who accepted both YA and adult fantasy, and scoured the internet for those who have recognized New Adult as an emerging category even though publishing hasn't yet. If there was even a slight chance my book might be a fit for their MSWL, I sent it. I did always make sure I read their anti-MSWL or trigger/content warning lists so I wasn't sending it out to agents who would pass for those reasons.

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

Darelle Cowley:
I didn't personalize a single query outside of noting if the agent liked a pitch on Twitter or if we'd had the pleasure of meeting at a conference/workshop. Fitting a synopsis for a fantasy into a query letter is freaking hard and I decided the words were better spent pitching the book than personalizing. That's just my opinion though.

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

Darelle Cowley:
There are three major themes I noted in terms of what I learned in the last two years of querying. Community. Accepting Feedback. Being Flexible/Adaptable.

Finding a community to support you and help provide feedback is crucial. I would not have made it anywhere near as far as I have without the wonderful beta readers, critique partners, and supportive writers I've built friendships with, particularly those I've met in the last year.

Learning how to take feedback and implement the parts that resonate is really important, especially considering editing and revising do not end when you land an agent. Allowing others to read your work is nerve wracking and requires a lot of vulnerability, but when you do it opens you up to the opportunity to grow. As I mentioned above, finding the trio of writers through RevPit who helped me navigate revisions on this book brought it up to a level I don't think I would have achieved otherwise. The first couple of chapters they read had me rolling in anxiety because it felt like they were shredding my manuscript, but when I took a step back I could see how their comments resonated and learned how to implement them. It's a valuable skill to carry with me into publishing knowing my ultimate goal is to land a deal with a Big 5 publisher where I will work with an editor to further polish my work. It's also helped elevate the first drafts of current projects I'm writing, so really a win-win situation.

And being flexible/adaptable. This one was hard for me, probably the hardest lesson to learn. Publishing appears to roll in cycles (hello rise of vampires, happy to see you coming back around!). I missed the mark with the third book I queried, and receiving feedback that while it was a lovely premise and well written, it wouldn't stand out due to market saturation hurt. But my options were: give up (not a chance) or adapt (pivot to something new). I had the pleasure of listening to a talk from Fonda Lee about resiliency in publishing and being adaptable was one of her key points. Things come back around, but sitting as the wheel trends down and waiting for it to come back up isn't much of an option and you never know what that timing will look like, so I decided I need to be flexible and adapt to the market. Not necessarily writing to trend per se, but acknowledge I'd missed the moment and needed to move forward rather than dwell.