Thanks so much to everyone who offered up their query for critique. As always, if you want to discuss the queries in the comments section, please be polite as if your life depended on it. Because it does.
I’ll reprint the queries in their entirety and then write my comments below each one.
#1.
I wrote the second draft of my query to you this weekend—your timing couldn’t be better. See below (and note that the formatting got cut out):
January 26, 2009
(Sent via e-mail)
Dear Mr. Bransford:
Anders Davis and Shannon Niles, two University of Washington student reporters for The Daily, decide to explore the Greek System following what appears to be a rape at a fraternity house. Over the course of their investigation, the two become so enraptured with the object of their study that they become increasingly implicated in the events and crimes they are supposed to be covering.
I learned about you through your blog and am writing to offer A Winter-Seeming Summer’s Night, an 80,000-word novel, largely because of it. One post in particular stands out, in which you wrote, “Around the publishing industry there has long been a hankering for a certain type of book that is both literary and yet commercial, familiar and yet exotic, well-written but not too dense, accessible but with some depth. They are books that are kind of tough to categorize, because they don’t exactly fit into any one genre. I’d often hear people calling them either literary commercial fiction or commercial literary fiction.” I like to think that A Winter-Seeming Summer’s Night fits the hybrid category you describe: it’s fueled by a powerful plot but is also concerned with language and expression, especially because its protagonists are self-aware writers.
The title refers a couplet from the Donne poem “Loves Alchymie:” “So, lovers dreame a rich and long delight / But get a winter-seeming summers night.” The couplet implies that what one so ardently seeks might, once it is acquired, seem quite different than how it is anticipated, and in that respect reflects the novel’s arc.
By way of background, I began the Ph.D. in English Literature program at the University of Arizona this fall, and I graduated from Clark University in 2006, where I earned a B.A., Magna Cum Laude, in English, with a specialization in creative writing. In addition, I write an independent literary blog, “The Story’s Story,” at https://jseliger.wordpress.com, as well as “Grant Writing Confidential” with my father, Isaac, at https://blog.seliger.com. Although I have never been a fraternity member, A Winter-Seeming Summer’s Night draws on more than a dozen interviews conducted with current and former members as well as numerous books and articles about Greek life.
Thank you in advance for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Jake Seliger
First off, I don’t know what formatting got cut out in the transfer, but you’re lucky it did. This is precisely how a query letter should be formatted! Forget indents, forget centering….. just a single-spaced letter with two spaces between paragraphs. So good work on that.
I’m afraid, however, that this query demonstrates one very, very common foible: very little of the query is actually about the work itself. Particularly for a novel, this is a grave error. There’s a paragraph about me, a paragraph about the title, and a paragraph about background. The amount devoted to the actual novel: 64 words. That’s not enough.
I don’t really need to know where the title comes from, don’t really need to know so much background unless it’s directly pertinent, don’t really need to know the inspiration that led to the novel, and while I very much appreciate that one of my blog posts resonated, I don’t need to see it quoted back: I remember it. Just a reference is ok.
What IS described here…. it sounds like an interesting premise, but I’m afraid I feel it’s described somewhat awkwardly. How do two people, male and female, investigating a rape become implicated in the crime? I guess that’s the plot, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.
#2:
Attn: Mr. Bransford,
Gil Jacobs must die in order to save his soul. After living dozens of lives over hundreds of years, the events of Gil’s past are catching up with him, and he is powerless to prevent it.
Gil is supposed to die in a car crash, it’s his fate, but a ghost who knew Gil in a past life is trying to keep him alive as payback for a lost love. If Gil lives past today, he will not be able to cross over when death eventually claims him, and his soul will be ripe for the taking. If Gil dies, he will escape to his next life and the ghost’s chance at vengeance will be lost.
Fortunately, Gil is not alone in his struggle. The soul of a friend watches over him, and she alone has the capacity to keep the antagonist at bay long enough for Gil to die. Even if it means sacrificing her own soul.
FATE’S GUARDIAN is complete at 120,000 words. It is a supernatural thriller directed toward a commercial fiction audience, and first in a series titled DESTINY’S WILL.
I have been writing professionally for the past eight years, although admittedly not in my preferred style or market. I welcome the opportunity to embark on a career as a novelist. Writing is in my blood and I want my stories to be read.
I am a longtime reader of your blog, and I chose to query you because I trust that you have the talent and contacts needed to sell FATE’S GUARDIAN to a respected publisher. I also think that we could work well together, after all, people do business with people.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Regards,
Rick Daley
This query is fine. It’s structured well, it’s not too long and not too short, and I think the opening sentence is evocative.
But I’m afraid that while I think there’s an interesting idea here, I found the setup confusingly described. Take just this one sentence: “Gil is supposed to die in a car crash, it’s his fate, but…” This sentence could be very easily rewritten as “It is Gil’s fate to die in a car crash, but…”, which would be more readily comprehensible because it doesn’t have a repetitive interjection.
I also came away from the second paragraph thinking, wait, why does this ghost want payback over some other ghost, how did vengeance get in here, and what does this have to do with Gil? The first ghost’s relationship to Gil seems kind of crucial, no? Or is this two stories, and the only relationship that matters is between the ghost and the other ghost? And then there’s a third benevolent ghost, but does Gil know this person is trying to help him by killing him? And most importantly: how does Gil feel about all of this?
Ultimately, I just didn’t get enough of a sense of the “quest” of this novel. Is Gil just a pawn or does he have control over his fate? If Gil’s the protagonist, what is he trying to accomplish?
I also am not a fan of things like “people do business with people” and “writing is in my blood.” They’re cliches, and even if they don’t relate directly to the work itself, remember: Avoid cliches like the plague.
#3.
The Realm of Elin might look like 18th century anywhere, but it isn’t. Not even close. It’s the world where Joanna Messina wakes up, after she drowns herself. At least, that’s where Ruarc Trevelian, the man who saved her life and calls himself the king of wherever she’s landed, tells her she is. She thinks she’s delusional and hearing Ruarc describe visions that he’s had of her since she was five years old only confirms that assumption to her. Joanna tries as best she can to cope with being the honored guest of a king that rules over a land of wizards and feuding barons, some of whom would like nothing better than to see Ruarc abdicate and are on the verge of rebellion, and then, of the blue, Ruarc forces her to marry him. Since she’s less than thrilled at the idea, he agrees to keep it a marriage in name only, until she decides otherwise. But that turns out to take much longer than Ruarc ever imagines. Joanna doesn’t want to be a wife or, even more inconceivably, a queen. She wants to go home, especially after she begins having prophetic visions, herself, one of which is of her own death.
As Joanna’s new crown teeters very ineptly upon her head, Ruarc’s long dead cousin, Asric, returns to Elin, hell-bent on revenge for his own execution. To settle the score, he strikes at the two things Ruarc loves most and has sworn to protect. The kingdom he rules and his wife.
Thanks,
FAS
I’d like to take this opportunity to plug the following resources on this very blog:
The basic query letter formula
Anatomy of a Good Query Letter I
Anatomy of a Good Query Letter II
And please don’t forget about the FAQs.
Thanks again to the brave authors who volunteered their queries!
Anon-
In a query, how do you describe that your book has humour in it?
I’m not the expert, but I can cash in $0.02 on the topic.
There is a humor section in the bookstore, and if you think that’s the shelf your book belongs on, tell the agent so.
If your novel is in another genre (thriller, mystery, fantasy) but a few funny things happen, that’s probably best left for the synopsis or manuscript.
If your writing style alone elicits unbridled laughter, regardless of the story being told, this will probably be evident in your query.
If you think the humor in your thriller/mystery/fantasy will be a primary reason people will buy it, read it, and talk about it, consider switching it to humor as a genre.
I hope this helps!
And thank you to everyone who provided feedback regarding the queries, this was very helpful for me (query #2). Now back to the revision…
WORD VERIFICATION: sadab. Flabby abdominal muscles.
Reading the queries and the critiques are helping me craft my own. Thanks to the brave writers who submitted their queries and thanks to Nathan for taking the time to read and critique them.
Re: the question about showing the humor in your book
Make the query funny! Your query should always demonstrate the voice and style of the manuscript. If there’s a significant amount of humor in your novel, you’d be selling the novel short by not including hints of that in the query. Even if you’re not writing strictly a “humor” novel, you can show through voice that your fantasy, thriller, or literary novel has a lot of humorous elements.
Re: “unagented writers spend more time publishing short fiction, for instance, both on the web and in print, in at least semi-pro payscale publications, than squirreling about,”
You know how agents are always setting records for the number of query letters they have in their inbox? Well, “semi-pro payscale publications” are too. I just got a rejection back after 5 months, a few months after I started wondering if they were even still publishing.
All I can say is, have a spreadsheet/querytracker.net online or something to keep track of it all, query letters, subs to semi-pro payscale publications, etc.
Hey, Theo, the theophagous monkey,
If you’re only spending a week on your query letter, I bow to you. I’ve done about a hundred different forms of my query letter over the entire 2 years that I’ve been working on my novel. And I STILL don’t have a good one (or a good novel, but that’s another story entirely). If you’ve invested a lot of time and effort in your novel, then surely taking a week (?!) to hammer out that query won’t throw off your other writing plans too terribly much. It’s worth the effort.
Writing short stories for publication with an indirect goal of avoiding writing a query for a novel isn’t really the ideal way to go about getting an agent. Certainly if you’re already publishing short fiction in the top markets, you may be on your way to getting contacted by an agent. But I wouldn’t recommend sitting on a submittable novel while waiting for a pro market acceptance.
Plus, some genres have very few short fiction publication options. My novels are YA, but it’s rare to find a market for YA short fiction. My short fiction is literary; were I to publish in The Iowa Review and get a call from an agent about my story, it would probably be an agent who wasn’t interested in repping my YA novels.
Advice to Jake Seliger (especially after reading your chronology question):
Don’t describe the book. Instead, tell the story.
Tell the story whatever you think is the most effective way to capture it in a small space.
Your query read as “academic” to me (I say that as a fellow grad student) in that the sentences seemed like utilitarian attempts to work in information about your book. But what you want is someone reacting to your story, right? That means, to me, tell it like it’s a story.
My caveat is I’m neither an agent not a published writer, so this is only my reaction as a reader.
Hey Theo-Monkey,
Don’t lump me in with the haters. I love writing queries. I actually start each book with the query and synopsis before I ever put prose on the page, adjusting them as I work along. I also run queries through my critique group and other trusted sources to shop them before I write the book.
And whoever spoke of the midrate magazines–I edit one and yes, our subs are way up–quantity and quality! Short story writing is a great way to cut your teeth on writing and publishing.
SSAS, you are disturbed, I believe 🙂
This is very helpful! Thanks so much to Nathan for all of the information. Thanks to the brave souls who posted, as well. I learned alot, and I appreciate it.
Dear Nathan Bransford:
I am writing to you today to offer Secrets and Lies: Disclosing The Truth About Foster Care in New York City, an 81,000-word memoir.
Imagine for a moment that you are a young adolescent girl. You’re away at a church retreat with about thirty other adolescents in your youth group when your pastor’s wife engages you in a conversation in which she alludes to the possibility that you are being sexually abused by your uncle, who is also your state-certified foster father. You’re amazed at how quick and intelligent this woman is, and you’re dying to know how she was able to figure out in a brief conversation what the social workers have continually failed to detect in the twelve years that you have been a ward of the state. You’re also bursting to reveal the truth, because your uncle has spent the last seven years abusing your body and soul. Would you continue protecting the Secrets and Lies, or would you finally disclose the truth and begin the process of healing?
These are some of the questions that the main character must resolve in my memoir, Secrets and Lies. At the moment of her disclosure to social workers during her late adolescence, the main character questions whether she made the right decision. An opportunity to attend an out-of-state college consumes her attention and seems to support her decision. However, within a few months, a series of events make Valarie wonder if she made the right choice at all.
Secrets and Lies is the true story of a young girl born to a schizophrenic mother and an absentee father. At the age of three, she is placed lovingly by her mother into a temporary, informal foster home immediately following a family crisis. She endures five years of physical abuse, torture and neglect in her first foster home. The little girl is then thrust into the chaos of the New York City foster care system, which would become a way of life for the youngster for the next thirteen years. The young girl would eventually reside in over ten foster homes during her most unusual and painful childhood, and two foster group homes during a difficult adolescence and young adulthood.
After graduating from college and establishing a career in social work, the main character begins digging for the truth about her family and unearths secrets woven deeply in the family’s closet. Using the experiences of an abusive childhood and indifferent foster care system, the second half of Secrets and Lies focuses on the “Aging Out” process and shows the determination to overcome the many obstacles that children in foster care face. Rather than becoming another statistic, Secrets and Lies will show readers how foster care alumnae can become successful in their personal and professional lives.
Does the market have a need for this book? Yes! My social work career has shown me that there are hundreds of people in need of acceptance, love and healing, all of which must come from within. Many foster youth grow up believing that they are not good enough. Secrets and Lies will help prove that they are.
In addition to my status as a foster care alumna and member of the Foster Care Alumni of America, I am also a social worker, teacher, writer and parent. I have worked in the field of social work, providing services to adults, children and families. I am a graduate of Cambridge College and currently work as a Master’s-level professional for a local non-profit agency. I am actively involved in community and vocational services, and am editor of Lo’Down, a quarterly newsletter for unemployed, homeless adults.
I am more than prepared to promote and market the merits of Secrets and Lies: Disclosing The Truth About The New York City Foster Care System, in conjunction with Curtis Brown, Ltd. If Secrets and Lies has piqued your interest, please let me know and I will gladly forward the complete proposal package to you. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Valarie Anthony
Rick Daley and lauren-
Thanks heaps for the replies! It definitely helped me a lot 🙂 I think I know what to do now basically: make the query funny.
…make the query… funny…
Gah!! I thought just writing the things was hard enough!!
Anyway, thanks again for all your help- I really appreciate it 🙂 and good luck to everyone else going through the agenting process… it’s tough!
A brief update for those of you who are curious: I changed the query and sent it, but Mr. Bransford declined to ask for more.
Query #1
“…Over the course of their investigation, the two become so enraptured with the object of their study that they become increasingly implicated in the events and crimes they are supposed to be covering…”
I would advise not repeating the verb “become” twice in one sentence.
these query examples and your comments are extremely helpful in helping to write a query letter. Thank you Nathan for taking the time to do this. It seems to me however, that writing a query is much harder than writing the book itself nowadays. I wonder what Mr. Hemingway would have thought if he were to encounter such particularity in representation. then again, he probabely would have accepted it all the same with all the technological and philosophical advancement that has taken place.