Query Letter Critique: A Retry

As promised, for your reading enjoyment, the recipe query letter, Round 2….


For those who are interested, here is the first attempt.

Original Query Letter

Dear [Literary Agent],

Superpowers had not changed the one thing Jimmy Ranfaz hated; he was still average.

Jimmy, a daydreaming teenager from Earth, has always been ordinary at everything. When the tree-descendant super-powered people from Ulfitron pick him to be their new saviour, he believes he finally has a chance to be special. Apparently being the doppelganger of their previous hero makes him powerful enough to stop a returning nemesis, Enshreto, who wants to annihilate the Ulfitronians.

He begins training in psionic abilities only to discover that he is average at handling them as well. As his frustration mounts, an attack wipes out almost everyone he knows on the planet. Only Juvall Spelding remains. A powerful Ulfitronian, his disdain of Jimmy's limited abilities is only outstripped by his determination to save his people.

When they learn of an even bigger invasion looming, their only hope of saving Ulfitron lies in tracking down the legendary trees which hold unlimited knowledge. But within the journey lies a deep deception. One which betrays everything that Jimmy has been told about the previous battle and also reveals his own true origins. With time running out, Jimmy must decide where his priorities lie; the heroism in attempting to save countless people or choosing to pursue limitless power to finally rise above mediocrity.

EVOLUTION: THREADS OF CONTROL is a 90,000 word YA high fantasy novel with a scientific flavour and is stand-alone with series potential.

The complete manuscript is available on request. [I have attached the first five pages for your perusal.]

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards,

(Name redacted)

Query Letter After I Got My Grubby Paws On It

Dear [Literary Agent],

Superpowers had not <I’d stick with all present tense, personally changed the one thing Jimmy Ranfaz hated; he was still average. Pretty solid opener. Now nitpick time. I would actually do a colon over a semicolon, and an em dash over both of those.

Jimmy, a daydreaming teenager from Earth, has always been ordinary at everything. When the tree-descendant super-powered people from Ulfitron pick him to be their new saviour, he believes he finally has a chance to be special. Apparently being the doppelganger of their previous hero makes him powerful enough to stop a returning nemesis, Enshreto, who wants to annihilate the Ulfitronians. This is really good!

He begins training in psionic abilities only to discover that he is average at handling them as well. As his frustration mounts, an attack wipes out almost everyone he knows on the planet. Only Juvall Spelding remains. A powerful Ulfitronian, his disdain of Jimmy's limited abilities is only outstripped by his determination to save his people. I might reconsider naming so many characters in your query letter, especially when those names are confusing and hard to pronounce/remember. You don’t want the agent getting stuck on names when it’s really not the most important thing. On another note, I think Jimmy’s motives are starting to become unclear beginning in this paragraph. Jimmy was originally from Earth, correct? So that would mean all of his family and friends died in this attack, which to me would be a catastrophic life event. That doesn’t come across here. Especially not with the ‘even bigger invasion looming’ sentence that follows. Why does Jimmy care more about Ulfitron? I think some sort of clarifying sentence or two to say that he’s devastated, but has to overcome his emotion because of the threat to more lives (or whatever his motivation is), would make this much stronger.

When they learn of an even bigger invasion looming, their only hope of saving Ulfitron lies in tracking down the legendary trees comma which hold unlimited knowledge. Knowledge of what? How would this knowledge help them? I think that’s a bit unclear. But within the journey lies a deep deception. One which betrays everything that Jimmy has been told about the previous battle and also reveals his own true origins.<I can see what you’re trying to do here, but I’m afraid this sort of vagueness is frowned upon as it’s confusing and doesn’t have the effect you’re probably aiming for, which is to intrigue the reader. I would delete it, but again, it’s totally up to you. With time running out, Jimmy must decide where his priorities lie; the heroism in attempting to save countless people lives at the risk of his own, or choosing to pursueing limitless power to finally rise above mediocrity. Sorry. Got a little snip-happy there. With regards to the last sentence, I’m assuming the limitless power is as a result of what they discovered from the trees. If that’s the case (which I hope it is because that’s a fun idea, especially with the whole ‘it pains him to be average’ thing), then I think you need a sentence between the first one, and the last, replacing the one I cut, to state that clearly, without any vagueness. You and others are welcome to disagree.

EVOLUTION: THREADS OF CONTROL is a 90,000 word YA high fantasy novel with a scientific flavour and is stand-alone with series potential.

The complete manuscript is available on request. [I have attached the first five pages for your perusal.] <I hope you don’t plan on attaching documents with your query letter! Big no-no. Agents automatically delete emails with attachments unless they’ve been specifically requested. If you’d like to include a sample, do so by pasting the pages directly into the email below the query letter.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you. All good here!

Kind Regards,

(Name redacted)

Author, I cannot tell you enough how much of an improvement this query is over the recipe one. In the last attempt, the format was the focus, whereas your story is the focus in this one. I’m so happy you decided to give it another go, and even happier you decided to share it with me and my readers. Good luck, and thank you!