Welcome, this is a weekly interview series with other querying writers for querying writers. For first time querying authors, querying is the process of trying to find an agent for your manuscript. The right agent will be able to help you prepare your manuscript for submission to publishing houses, broker book deals, and hopefully establish and grow your author career. If you’re someone who is thinking of querying your novel, have been querying, or are generally curious about the process this is the interview series for you!
This week I had the pleasure of interviewing B Wheeler who also goes by @MagicalHippo on X (formerly known as Twitter).
B Wheeler, can you tell us a little about your writing journey? Did you start out writing for fun or always knew you wanted to be traditionally published?
I always wanted to be an author, but in the same way that teens want to be popstars, I didn’t think it would ever happen. I didn’t know the first thing about writing or publishing a book, but that didn’t stop me writing short stories and fanfiction, or joining interactive creative writing websites.
I won a fancy fountain pen in a writing competition when I was thirteen years old, but didn’t finish my first novel until much, much later.
Rapid fire, name 5 things that you do while querying that is not repeatedly clicking refresh on your inbox?
1. Write something else. This could be plotting the next novel, writing a short story to try out a new genre or style, or responding to a publication or competition prompt. While querying my first novel, I wrote another two manuscripts, and a short story that has been published in little living room.
2. Read. Read in your genre, read outside your genre, read for other age groups, read books that have been recommended to you. I’m a very busy person, so don’t read as much as I’d like. Having worked so hard to get a manuscript ready to query, it’s good to kick back a little and enjoy books again.
3. Critique others’ work. I’ve learned so much from reading and editing others’ work, and have found others’ feedback invaluable.
4. Keep researching agents. When I first started querying my co-authored novel, my co-author and I found around forty agents and naively thought that was plenty. We were so very wrong.
5. Support the community. I’ve connected with hundreds, if not thousands of other writers on social media, at writing workshops. Some days, the support of complete strangers understanding the pain of a rejection is very healing. These are my people.
I see that took part of #QuestPit on February 14, 2024. For writers that don’t know, this is a X (formerly known as Twitter) based pitch event for authors to showcase their work. Could you tell us a bit about what you prepared for this event and any other writing-related events (on or off X) that you’ve taken part of?
I didn’t know this event was happening until I jumped online and found all the hashtags! I have participated in a few similar pitch events before. I have a mood board ready for each manuscript I have queried (although cannot take the credit for them, as they have been expertly created by my co-author, @wisdomofthesea) and a range of pitches that fit into the tiny character limit.
I have gotten a few agent ‘likes’ from pitch events, and even a couple of partial requests, but ultimately the events have been most successful in helping to build my online community.
I’ve entered a range of writing competitions since winning that fountain pen. Sometimes I don’t hear back. Sometimes I’ve had feedback, from agents, editors, and readers. Once I’ve made it to the shortlist and featured in a pitchbook sent out to agents and editors – and I’ll talk more about this later. Particularly for free writing events and competitions, my advice is to enter them. There’s no downside.
Every writer has their inspiration, what inspires you?
Broadly, my inspiration is walking into a bookshop, seeing all those stories beautifully packaged on shelves, and knowing I need to be a part of it.
How long have you been querying your current work and is it the first one you’ve queried?
*cracks knuckles* Settle in for story time.
I have been querying my current work since January 2024, and no, it’s not my first. It’s only my second, but allow me to start at the beginning.
As previously mentioned, I co-authored a Young Adult (YA) fantasy. We finished the first draft in 2020 and then edited it again, and again, and again, until it was ready – by our standards – to submit to The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction competition in June 2022. We sent our first query out that month … which received a rejection six weeks later.
We sent out a total of twenty queries that summer, to agents in the UK and USA, and on August sixth got our first full request! Feeling pretty excited, we were then thrilled to be longlisted for The Times/Chicken House competition!
It was so encouraging to know that other people had read our story and chosen it ahead of hundreds of others. People in the writing community told us that this would be a big deal, that agents would take notice. But six months later, in early 2023, that full request turned into a rejection, and no other agents had shown any interest.
We kept researching agents, and entering pitch events and competitions. In summer 2023 we were longlisted in Voyage by Uncharted anthology excerpt competition, had two more full requests that turned into rejections, and received three requests for more material. Eighteen months after querying, and over one hundred rejections under our belt, we reluctantly decided to retire the manuscript.
And then. We made the shortlist of the Searchlight Award for Best Novel Opening for Children or Adults 2023. Our pitch and opening lines were included in a pitch book sent out to agents and publishers in the UK, which has resulted in a further two full requests to date. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Meanwhile, because I’d assumed the co-authored book had died in the trenches, I started querying an independently written YA sapphic romance. I’ve sent out twenty queries in 2024 and had three rejections so far, all form (form responses are when an agent responds to your query with a non-personalized rejection, typically recognizable by lack of feedback on your query). I’ve hit a new querying milestone of being rejected for two different projects in one day.
There are so many agents out there, some writers find it difficult to know where to start. What are you looking for in the agents you are querying?
First I check they represent YA, and then I check that they represent fantasy. It’s a waste of everyone’s time if you query agents who don’t represent your target age or genre. Both my co-author and I identify as LGBTQ+ and are passionate about bringing queer characters onto shelves, so agents who champion these characters, or who also identify as LGBTQ+, are top of our lists.
I also read acknowledgements of books that I find with similar themes, settings, or characters to my work, to discover who represented that book. For my own work, I’m primarily querying agents based in the UK, as that is where I live, but I wouldn’t automatically rule out representation by an agent living abroad.
Rejection is tough, and there’s plenty of it when one goes through the querying process. What comes to mind when you receive a rejection and do you have any advice for other writers that may want to stop querying after getting a rejection?
I hate rejections. It’s staggering how many queries agents receive in a given week, so obviously they must send out loads and loads of rejections, but it can feel devastating. Personally, I’m hardest hit when an agent’s Manuscript Wish List (MSWL) reads like a description of my book, and then I get a form rejection, or worse – no response at all.
I want to shout, ‘You asked for this! I have given it to you!’ but that wouldn’t help. Sometimes I see the funny side, for example an agent once commented on Twitter that they’d love to find out more! Their rejection commented that there was too much fantasy for their taste. I’m not sure what they expected from a magic school!
For my new project, I was inspired by others in the writing community to commemorate each rejection with something beautiful. I chose origami flowers. So each time a rejection lands in my inbox, I take time to sit and fold a new paper flower. When my book is published, I will mount these origami flowers in my office: a garden of perseverance.
My advice is to take care of yourself while querying, because it can be brutal, but remember that the only way to guarantee failure is to stop trying.
Finally, I’m intrigued by all the posts you’ve shared about your work. Would you be able to give readers a short pitch on the work you’re currently querying?
My newly queried work is a speculative Young Adult sapphic romcom that blends the dating disasters of Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales with the high-stakes matchmaking of So This is Ever After by F.T. Lukens. Em’s best friend & secret crush, Carla, is cursed to become a hag unless Em finds the perfect prince to kiss her and break the spell. Something is getting broken at the year eleven fairytale ball: Carla’s curse or Em’s heart.
Thank you again to B Wheeler for taking the time to answer all my questions and hopefully the questions of other querying authors, be sure to follow her on X here.
Love,
EJP