People often say to me: “Listen, agent person (they don’t actually call me this). You agent blogging people always talk about what not to do in a query, why not talk about what people should do in a query!”
The people have spoken. They want things they should do.
And here’s what I think is one of the very most important thing to do in a query: be as specific as possible. Allow me to be even more specific: be as specific as possible about the right things.
When I say “be specific” I don’t mean that we need to know every character’s name and the name of every city and place in the Realm of Unpronounceable Cities and Places. In other words, I don’t think it’s a good idea for your query to read along the lines of, “Morfor travels to the Uwn’uim Square in the town of Zxcimist in order to meet his brother Phoidum.”
When I say be specific I also don’t mean that we need to get bogged down in tangential details either, like ages and hair colors and other things characters are doing if they don’t play a major role in the story.
Instead I mean this: be as specific as possible about the plot.
I get so many queries that read (literally, though this is made up for the purposes of this post) like this:
Character Name is living peacefully in Hometown. But then a life-changing event occurs that changes everything. Secrets are revealed that turn her life upside down. Character Name faces grave danger as she embarks on a quest to save her people. This novel is filled with humor and passion and suspense and romance, and there’s a shocking twist that leaves the reader breathless.
Being vague leaves an agent with so many questions: What are the secrets? What is the life-changing event? What is the danger she’s facing? What happens that is funny and suspenseful and romantic?
When all of these key details are kept hidden the query ends up sounding like… well, pretty much every novel ever written. And chances are an agent is going to move on to the next query.
Replace that vagueness with key details and suddenly the query comes alive. Let’s try that query about Character Name again, hmm?
Angelina lives with her cats in Moonville, an outer space colony known more for its knitting festivals than anything resembling excitement. But when Moonville is invaded by cat-eating space monkeys, Angelina learns that her cats aren’t ordinary cats: they are actually hyper-intelligent feline assassins who can kill their enemies with a flick of a paw. And they need a leader. Angelina has to leave her knitting behind to defeat the space monkeys, and an intrepid and handsome space explorer named Brad may hold the key.
I think when writers face the daunting task of condensing their work down to a few sentences it’s tempting to simply say “shocking secrets are revealed” rather than trying to sum up in just a line or two what are, in the novel, complicated and nuanced events. I know it’s tricky to do this.
Also, there’s a balance between being specific and being concise. You don’t want to be so specific that you’re boring down to what the character ate for lunch on the way to slay the space monkeys. But it’s utterly, utterly necessary to give the agent some glimpse into what actually happens.
As always, specificity wins.
Dear Agent-Type-Person,
Thanks for giving me a chance to review your opinion on specificity. However, I detest cats. I'm gonna pass.
Hugs and bubbles!
When do I get to read about Angelina, and more importantly, does she use her knitting needles like the weapons of a kung-fu master?
I use your blog as a teaching tool in my advanced creative writing classes. You validate what I tell them (they never believe me!) 😉 and you do it with style!
Thank you!
Nathan, you sure are hilarious! Why don't you write a book?
I have a cousin who lives in Uwn'ium. Hm, small world.
KIDDING, of course, Nathan. Thank you for posting. Your advice is ALWAYS helpful.
Yes! "be specific about the right things" I don't think a lot of new writers get this. Thanks for making it clearer.
Weird. I've been reading your blog for a while and I thought monkeys always won with you. Now it's specificity? Great. Just great.
I'm new to your blog and love it. I was wondering … have you done any blog entries about what happens when your agent starts pitching your book? Mine is about to start, and I'd love to know how that works, from an agent's point of view.
This was immensely helpful. Thank you. It cleared up a lot for me.
Ah yes, specificity. It works in all areas of life.
Thanks for the tip. I know the last time I did querying, they were vague as all get out.
Knitting festivals. I love your laugh-out-loud synopsis. Very illustrative.
"Good point – I think it's okay to leave the ending a mystery in the query, but everything else in the plot (inciting incident, complications, character arc) should be included."
Thanks for this added comment. I've often wondered if the ending can be left a mystery in a query.
Queries, yadda yadda.
Queries, yadda yadda.
I just want to read the space monkey book.
That how-not-to-do-it sounds like one of mine. Your lastest positive advice is well taken. Gotta' go now, it's back to the synopsis / query writing pit for me!
Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado
Nathan, I've heard agents disagree about whether book jacket copy is a good model for queries. Your thoughts about this? Thanks very much.
Thank you for the helpful information Nathan. I bookmarked this post for future reference.
moses-
It's a start, but I tend to think queries are somewhat of a different beast. Queries are shorter, more to the point, and need to reveal more about the plot. Blurbs also tend to use review-type words (heartbreaking, hilarious, poignant etc.) and those don't really belong include in a query.
Nathan –
Have you seen this?
The End of Publishing As We Know It
I starred this in Google Reader 😀
Susan,
That rocked. Very nicely done, indeed.
This is why it's impossible to write the "perfect" query, or even just have one query while shopping a book. If you read Noah Lukeman's ebook on queries, he says the EXACT opposite. He says to him, the point of a query is to generate all those questions you listed in the beginning of your blog post so the agent will want to ask to see more, be that synopsis, partial or full. We're helpless no matter what we do or how much research we drill through. I think I prefer the old transom approach — tie a rock to your manuscript, toss it in and run. About as effective.
Thanks for the advice. I feel like the query is such a daunting task. Your post finally made all the stuff I've been reading on how to query finally click. Awesome 🙂
My perfect query letter just got thrown into the trash can. At least I was laughing as it disappeared into the deep dark can.
martin-
I think the trick is to get the agent to ask "What happens next" questions rather than "What in the world is happening" questions.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing. And I wasn't trying to take shots at Mr. Lukeman (who's book "The First Five Pages" is a must read, IMO). My point was more that when you can find such diverging opinions between obvious professionals (in this case yourself and Mr. Lukeman) then there obviously is no "right" way to do it. It's a crapshoot. Just my opinion, of course.
Hmm. Oops. Not specific.
Martin, well, I see it differently.
Just write an extremely good book. That's the one right way. That's not a crapshoot – an extremely good book will find its way to publication, one way or another, if the author is persistent.
A good query is the icing, and it makes the cake look delicious and pretty, but if a cake is good enough, it's yummy even without icing.
Your next contest should take a well known movie, like Nemo or something, and have us write a query for it. It would be interesting to see the different views on the same story.
Space monkeys = Jacob Wonderbar sequel? Hrm…
The first Russian in space was a dog. So the USA responded by sending up a cat? No, actually a space monkey.
Love your example query. LOL. That's hilarious. Great details, although I want to know: What is Angelina knitting? 🙂
One good way to learn how to query is by reading the descriptions of books that sold (Deals) in Publishers Marketplace. Agents often draw from the sold book's original query to create that blurb (which is usually what he/she passed on to the editor before the sale). If you read those queries, you may notice they're not incredibly earth-shatteringly original, but always of-the-moment and very specific.
Nathan,
Thanks for the advice. I have seen basically the same thing before, but not exactly this way. When the time comes for me to query, I will keep it in mind.
I find composing a pitch either before or after free writing allows me to determine what's important to a story and what's not. Composing a synopsis either before or after also provides me with a filtering mechanism for narrowing focus.
Regardless, for me, a pitch is like an opening, it must do one thing, establish rapport between the text and an audience.
An example pitch's log line for _The Great Escape_: Allied prisoners plan a mass escape from a high-security Nazi POW camp populated with notorious escape artists.
Or…. how about this:
MeyowYum is Cat-eating Space Monkey whose planet was recently destroyed by the hyper-intelligent feline assassins…also known as The HIFS. Armed only with her blunt teeth and sharp wits, MeyowYum must find a new home for her dying family. But standing in her way is a strange yarn-spinning human and her overly-emotional, protective boyfriend.
~John Reason.
Cowardly anonymous blogger, and defender of the Cat-eating Space Monkeys.
You're wasting your talents on Jacob Wonderbar. Now, get busy on that cat-eating space-monkey book.
BTW: when is your book surfacing for sale?
Thanks for the insider advice Nathan.
……..dhole
Good advice. I'd like to encourage agent-persons to spend the 30 seconds to 1 minute extra it takes to read the two-page synopsis I included (it gets very specific).
A good agent will read the synopsis.
anon-
True enough, but it's the author's job to make the agent want to read the synopsis.
I just went through this very revelation about my query.
Despite my years of studying queries and reading agent blogs, and the fact that I ran the query past several people before sending, it suffered from vagueness and arty presentation.
When I submitted the query in an online forum those folks gave it to me straight, and their big criticism was lack of specificity. ("Sounds great, but what does it mean?)
The interesting line in reworking the query was the one between, "I'd like to hear a little more about A and B" and "I don't understand what's happening with A and B." I found that if I told a bit too much, it generated too many questions about what was happening. But if I told just the right amount of information, it was specific enough to generate interest in knowing more. That seemed to me to be the right place to leave it: with the reader (agent) wanting more.
Now I am ready to being querying again.
I love that story idea. I hope that's what your next book is about. Cat-eating space monkeys RULE!
I just wrote a query for fun. (I know, what kinda sicko writes a query for fun?)
My novel is only on the first edit, so it's at least 6 months from ready. I'm thinking if I edit my query every other month til the novel's ready, my query should be kicking some space-monkey butt by the time I send it out!
That is a great post. I've helped a few authors with their queries the main issue I have is always pulling out the specifics. It's like they generalize because they're afraid of giving away the plot, but if you do so to the point where the story sounds bland you haven't saved yourself from anything…except maybe a request for a partial or full. I'm going to forward the link to some folks, and say, "See? Told ya so!"
This is excellent!
Thanks for sharing, Nathan 🙂
I'm starting a knitting festival- anyone else in?
You don't think the feline assassins will find out, do you?!
Seriously…great advice, Nathan. In a world where agents receive hundreds of queries weekly, we really *do* have to stand out (in a good, pronounceable way) in order to grab attention.
Gotta go. The space monkeys are coming, and they're MAD… 😉
Martin: I think that's the way it is with everything in writing. There are "rules" you can follow, but none of them are unbreakable. I think you should only try to bend the rules if you know the rules first. Some of the best authors step outside the box, but when doing so, they must be extra careful that they do it well.
And I second that Noah Lukeman's "The First Five Pages" is a must read for all writers.
Thank you for the specific advice on writing a specific query!
I'm going to save this post for the next time I have to tackle back cover copy.
You'll have to excuse me if I am a little bit breathless.
CONGRATULATIONS! I just got out of the acquistions meeting and we are offering a three-book deal for the MOONVILLE series, provided the author will provide a minimun of four knitting patterns per volume and will agree that no cats will be killed in any of the three continuing stories and that the cat-eating space monkeys will be rounded out to full characters showing positive trends and friendly acts at least among their own kind.
Potential corporate sponsorship all requires that the author agree to allow the publisher to insert a brandname cat food of its own choosing. We look forward to hearing back from you in five minutes.
ghostfolk-
ACCEPTED. Purina here I come.
I love space monkeys!