Query letters: the college application of the writing world. The thing standing between you and all your literary dreams. The sheer importance of this one little page is enough to give anyone hives. I mean, how can you possibly boil down your 90,000-word masterpiece, the baby you’ve labored over for years—into a few snappy paragraphs?
Not easily, I’ll admit. Then again, anyone who has ever written a novel—especially an SFF one—isn’t interested in easy. Am I right? So sit down, strap in and keep reading for the formula I used to write my query letter, and land my agent.
So what’s the formula?
1. Start with the Hook
I can already hear some of you screaming “wait but..” Yes, I know there are exceptions to this rule. If you met the agent in person at a conference, or they liked your PitMad pitch, then go ahead and put that upfront. But for everyone else, get to the story. Fast.
This opening paragraph needs to be short and snappy. These two or three sentences need to set up the story. For my debut novel, THE FROZEN CROWN, I summarized the inciting incident, because not only did it introduce my awesome heroine, but it also set up the stakes of the novel. And the stakes are so important. It must be clear as daylight what will happen if your MC fails. So start strong and get those stakes on the grill ASAP!
2. Conflict
You notice how I don’t say plot? That’s on purpose, because writing out point-by-point everything that happens is for the synopsis not the query. It may seem like I’m splitting hairs here, but I promise, I’m not. Conflict drives the story, let it drive your query too.
Now this second paragraph is where a lot of queries go off the rails, so here are some extra tips to avoid becoming a slush-pile victim:
- Don’t get bogged down in subplots. Stick to the conflict at the core of the story and don’t forget those stakes!
- Don’t throw around all your made-up names. Yeah, I get it the urge. I too have dozens of beautiful nonsense words in my novel, but the only ones that made it into the query were those vital to making sense of the summary—and vital is the keyword here. You’ve got limited space, and if the agent can’t make it through two paragraphs without getting confused, they probably won’t stick around to check out your pages.
- Hand-in-hand with cutting fancy language, is to simplify the setting. Your query is not the place to do heavy worldbuilding. Make gestures to the world your book is set in, but don’t waste precious space going into elaborate details.
- Focus on one MC. Many of us SFF writers have a soft-spot for multiple POV stories. For your query, its usually best to focus on one character. Chances are one of your POV characters is more dominant, so sick with that one.
This second paragraph is all about balancing the specificity that makes your story special, with the broad-strokes action that moves the novel along. Sounds easy, right? Okay, not at all, but with a little time and a lot of revisions, you can do it too.
3. Book Stats and Bio
This is the required reading section of the query. It won’t necessarily land you an agent, but it has to be there. I put this section at the very end of my query letter, because honestly, it wasn’t as interesting as the hook, and I wanted to get agents interested in my story right away. So start simple: list your category (i.e. Adult, Young Adult) and genre.
But what about books that straddle YA and Adult? Should you list them as New Adult in your query? NO! I’m sorry to break it to you, New Adult simply isn’t a thing in traditional publishing. Publishers have tried to make it happen. They failed. So, what should you say if you aren’t quite sure what your category is?
Simply say: My novel is Young Adult (or Adult) with crossover potential. This will let the agent know that you have a young protagonist facing adult situations. Or that you have an older (ie early twenties) protagonist who is still finding their place in the world.
I really wish that I had known this when I was querying my debut THE FROZEN CROWN. I ended up listing it as adult even though it firmly occupies that crossover sphere. (insert shrug emoji here)
And for the love of god, please don’t make up your own genre. If you aren’t sure what genre you’re in, go to the bookstore and figure out where your novel would be shelved. And if you tell me that no other books are like yours, I will pop out of this screen and curse you!
This is also the paragraph where you add your comp titles, and weave in a little personalization. For instance, did your dream agent say in an interview or on twitter that they fell in love with SKY IN THE DEEP? Perfect, because your MC’s family dynamics are just as complicated.
See what I did there?
Personalization and comp title in one sentence. And man, the idea of comp titles used to make me sick, because even though I read a lot, I could never find that book that captured the essence of mine. Then I realized I was going about it the wrong way.
Comp titles aren’t supposed to be exact doppelgangers, so don’t stress out about finding your book’s twin. Find titles (published in the last five years) that have similar tropes and themes and elements. And if your dream agent just happens to love the book your comping to? Well, it just goes to show that you’ve done your homework.
As for a bio? As with the rest of the letter keep it simple. List your best publishing credits and add a link to your website to your signature line. If you don’t have any credits, that’s fine too. I didn’t, and it didn’t stop me. Just drop a line or two about who you are and where you’re from—remind the agent that you’re a person, one who would be fun to work with.
Last but not least, say thank you and sign off. Don’t over-think this one. I always closed with a simple, “Thank you for your time and consideration.”
Curious for more query tips? Interested in seeing the query letter that got me my agent? Click here for a look at my query letter. I’ll show you what I did right (and wrong) and help you apply these lessons to your own query.
Happy writing!