A Near Perfect Query Letter

Dear Agent,

Surviving on her own comes naturally to sixteen-year-old Evangeline comma whether it’s squatting in vacant apartments, crashing on Charlie’s couch, or sleeping in a nearby tree. It has to be. If she’s not careful comma Evy will end up back in foster care—or worse, the nearest padded cell. The voices she hears aren’t just in her head. This. Is. Awesome.

After the murder of her only friend<I’d say that is was Charlie. I’d missed that it was him who’d died on my first pass. Also, add a comma. Evy is kidnapped, and taken to a covert research facility where an unbelievable truth is revealed: she is a product of genetic engineering, a secret soldier designed to combat an endangered human race with superhuman abilities known as the Gifted. Once worshipped as gods, then hunted as witches, the Gifted have assimilated into society by keeping their existence hidden…until now. This is so good. Seriously.

Chace, Subject Number Seven and fellow telepath, oversees Evy’s training as she reluctantly learns the skills necessary to defend humanity. Despite her developing feelings for Chace, Evy struggles with the suspicion that he is responsible for the death of her friend. The other children of her experimental trial are far less charming comma and the more she learns about the Chimera Corporation and the scientist who created her, the more she questions their motives and her real purpose in this conflict. Like, like. Building the conflict. All good here.

While investigating Charlie's murder Evy must separate fact from fiction, friend from foe, and decide where she stands before war breaks out. <This falls a bit flat for me. What exactly does she have to do, and what does she risk if she fails? 

THE THIRTEENTH SUBJECT is a YA science fiction complete at 81,000 words. It is the first book in a proposed trilogy, THE CHIMERA CORP CHRONICLES. <I would mention that it stands alone so as not to frighten poor agents. I am a pre-med student by day and an avid writer at night. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

Sincerely,

(Name redacted)

You will get full requests from this. It’s awesome. That is all. 

Query Letter Critique

Original Query Letter

Urban Fantasy, Adult.

Kylie Rippons carries a unique skill the gods want to use in their wars - no matter the personal cost. She, however, prefers to keep soul and sanity in tact.

Kylie is among the rarest of mortals, born with the ability to see time as strings in her mind, the outcome of every action, and the power to thread those strings into braids with any outcome she wants. As with all things, it comes at a steep cost – a piece of her soul for every braid.

Refusing to answer the gods' demands, she tries to survive with only Tiamat, an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of chaos and creation, and Anahita, the Persian goddess of war, women and water. But life kills the idea with a few truths, a deep, gaping wound of betrayal and a heart rending threat against the one Kylie loves most. Instead it sends her an outcast Valkyrie and a rogue Beserker. The new cast of allies propels Kylie to hunt the gods for peace and an end to their constant bickering.

As Kylie tries her best to keep from braiding and changing the outcome of major events, she realizes a truth – she may have to sacrifice herself in order to save the one she loves most.

Query Letter After I Got My Grubby Paws On It

Urban Fantasy, Adult. The author indicated this query was for a work in progress so I’m going to assume this isn’t actually how she plans to lead the query :D

Kylie Rippons <To be honest, this name sounds a bit too made up/cartoony. carries a unique skill the gods want to use in their wars - no matter the personal cost. She, however, prefers to keep soul and sanity in tact. Pretty nice opener!

Kylie is among the rarest of mortals, born with the ability to see time as strings in her mind, the outcome of every action, and the power to thread those strings into braids with any outcome she wants. As with all things, it comes at a steep cost – a piece of her soul for every braid. While the opening para is nice, this one is infinitely more interesting. I would consider leading with this more fun and unique para. After all, you don’t get long to hook an agent!

Refusing to answer the gods' demands, she tries to survive with only Tiamat, an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of chaos and creation, and Anahita, the Persian goddess of war, women and water. <This sort of comes from left field. Also, the way you’ve worded this, it’s like she’d just be getting by with these two goddesses helping her, but I imagine gods and goddesses to be very powerful and strong…. But life kills the idea with a few truths, <I don’t know what that means. a deep, gaping wound of betrayal and a heart rending threat against the one Kylie loves most. Instead it sends her an outcast Valkyrie and a rogue Beserker. The first part about the wound of betrayal and threat against her loved one is too vague while the second part is confusing. Why specifically are these people sent to her? And who sent them? Life? Is that an actual person in the book, an agency, a power? And most importantly, what does this all have to do with braids of time and a war of the gods? The new cast of allies propels Kylie to hunt the gods for peace and an end to their constant bickering.

As Kylie tries her best to keep from braiding and changing the outcome of major events, she realizes a truth – she may have to sacrifice herself in order to save the one she loves most. Who is the one she loves most? We need an idea of that to care. What danger is her loved one in and from whom does he/she need to be saved?

There are some very interesting ideas here, and unique ones too. Definitely a lot of promise, but this query suffers from a common problem, which is that it’s too vague to be truly intriguing. It raises more questions than a query letter should. Some might argue that raising a lot of questions would then intrigue the agent to request to read more, but that’s not the case. The one question the agent should be left with is: how will the main character handle whatever high stakes problem they’ve gotten themselves into? Now I think that might be a reflection of the fact that this query is for a work in progress and not because of another issue, which is that some people worry about ‘giving away’ all their interesting plot details in the query…but just in case, let me harp on about that for a moment too.

It’s a fine balance in writing a query between saying too much and saying too little. While you don’t want to give away the ending and you definitely don’t want to start getting into every single interesting subplot and character role either, you also don’t want to be so vague that your book sounds generic, doesn’t stand out from the crowd, and worse yet, gives the agent no idea what the novel is really about.

Also, don’t worry that someone is going to steal your idea. As Nathan Bransford so eloquently said: “the success of your book will hinge on the quality of its execution, not on the originality of your idea.” Again quoting Nathan, ‘There were vampire books before Twilight, there were wizard books before Harry Potter, there were books that were like whatever Fifty Shades of Grey is like before Fifty Shades of Grey.’  

Anyway, now that I’ve rambled, thanks so much to the author for sharing this query with me. I hope the writing goes well and that you’re collecting full requests in no time J  

Query Letter Critique

Original Query Letter

Dear (Mr./Mrs. Agent Name)

Andrea Smith and her friends learn that they have fallen into a killer's trap. It all begins with a prank on a classmate that goes entirely wrong.

As if the prank wasn't bad enough, they accidentally kill the kid that was label a social outcast by their school. So they cover up the murder and lie to the police about it. They think they got away with the crime. But it will catch up with them sooner than they could have imagined.

Little do they know that someone close to the victim was watching them that fateful night. Someone who won't stop at anything to exact revenge. When a couple of Andrea's friends mysteriously disappear, she knows something bad is going on.

After receiving death threats, almost getting shot in a drive-by shooting, and having a strange person reach out to her in cyberspace, now she knows that this killer has hit too close to home. She grows frightened by the day and tries to find out who this person is in order to stop the mayhem.

She wonder if it's one of her friends or a scorned lover from a past relationship only because the killer knows many personal details about her. Andrea must solve the mystery quickly because her own life depends on it.

I recently published an article in Sync magazine. CRUEL SACRIFICES: BITTER SWEET MEMORIES, is a 53,000 word Young Adult novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

(Name redacted)

Query Letter After I Got My Grubby Paws On It

Dear (Mr./Mrs. Agent Name)

Andrea Smith and her friends learn that they Unnecessarily wordy have fallen into a killer's trap. It all begins with a prank on a classmate that goes entirely wrong. <I would move this second sentence down so that it’s the start of the next paragraph to highlight the first sentence, which is pretty dang good.

As if the prank wasn't bad enough, they accidentally kill someone the kid that was label a social outcast by their school. Not important. So they cover up the murder and lie to the police about it. They think they got away with the crime. But it will catch up with them sooner than they could have imagined. I hate to say it, but main characters aren’t coming across as very sympathetic here. At first we learn they’ve fallen into a killer’s trap, but actually they themselves are killers (and seemingly unremorseful, immoral ones at that—I would highlight that they cover up the death and lie to the cops because they’re scared, etc., etc., so they don’t come across this way.  

Little do they know that someone close to the victim was watching them that fateful night. Someone who won't stop at anything to exact revenge. When a couple of Andrea's friends mysteriously disappear, she knows something bad is going on. I apologize for the bluntness to come, but the plot so far sounds a little too similar to I Know What You Did Last Summer—a group of teens accidentally kills someone and now a mystery killer is after them, but who?

After receiving death threats, almost getting shot in a drive-by shooting, and having a strange person reach out to her in cyberspace After trying to shoot her, contacting her on the internet comes across as anticlimactic. Reword? , now she knows that this killer has hit too close to home. She grows frightened by the day and tries to find out who this person is in order to stop the mayhem.

She wonder if it's one of her friends or a scorned lover<Scorned lovers doesn’t sound like a YA plot. from a past relationship only because the killer knows many personal details about her. Andrea must solve the mystery quickly because her own life depends on it.

I recently published an article in Sync magazine. <Move this down to after the next sentence. CRUEL SACRIFICES: BITTER SWEET MEMORIES, Just my opinion but the title sounds much better without this addition. More punchy. is a 53,000 word Young Adult novel. What genre? Contemporary? Thriller? 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

(Name redacted)

To be completely honest, this query needs some work. I could have gone more in-depth with my critique but I’m not sure it’d serve much of a purpose as there just doesn’t seem to be enough plot here to carry a whole novel. Perhaps this isn’t the case at all and it’s just how it comes across in the query (Damn query letters! So hard!), but what I’ve read so far seems like a basic plot that could be great if expanded on, but one that has been done before. What it’s missing is the BUT element that would take it to the next level—Andrea and her friends cover up a murder. Now the murderer is after them and they have to find out who is it before their time is up. BUT such and such complication happens. Now what? This is just an example, of course, but hopefully you see what I mean.

Again, very sorry to have been so blunt, but I’ve done so with the sincere hope that it helps push you in the right direction. What I would suggest is linking up with writing groups or a critique partner if you haven’t already done that. Scribophile.com is fantastic and I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Best of luck, author! And have a great New Year.

Query Letter Critique

Original Query Letter

Jimmy Rickliefs’ rock star career ends when a drunk driver runs a red light.

In the wake of the near-fatal accident, Jimmy’s shattered body can’t keep up with his job. Permanent injuries from the accident leave him barely able to walk. A brain injury caused seizures. When the emotional impact of his recovery starts tearing his marriage and his friendships apart, he starts to re-think going back to the band.

But when his daughter is born twelve weeks early, Jimmy’s priorities change. His daughter faces an uncertain future; the doctors don’t know if she’ll ever walk or talk. Between Jimmy and his daughter, medical bills are drowning the new family. Jimmy knows that if he quits the band, his wife will carry the financial burden and they could be out on the streets. But if he returns to the band that he loves, he could provide everything his daughter needs. Faced with a quandary between what’s right and what’s safe, Jimmy has to decide if returning to music is worth the risks.

Driven is mainstream/commercial fiction complete at 85,000 words. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Query Letter After I Got My Grubby Paws On It

Jimmy Rickliefs’ rock star career ends when a drunk driver runs a red light. Strong opener! Although, if I’m going to get picky, I have to say the last name sounds made up and not so rockstar-ish.

In the wake of the near-fatal accident, Jimmy’s shattered body can’t keep up with his job. Permanent injuries from the accident  It’s a given how he acquired these injuries since you just mentioned a near-fatal accident. leave him barely able to walk. A brain injury caused seizures You’ve switched tenses here. The rest of the para is present tense (which is correct for a query letter), and here you have past tense. When the emotional impact of his recovery starts tearing his marriage and his friendships apart, he starts to re-think going back to the band. I like this. It’s a nice set-up and I’m curious what’s going to happen next—exactly what you want from your reader!

But when his daughter is born twelve weeks early, Jimmy’s priorities change. I’m going to be honest, this seems like a big shift. You’d not mentioned his wife was pregnant before now—the focus was on Jimmy’s accident and difficult recovery, and so I expected you to built on that. Instead you’ve thrown a completely separate plot into the game. I would mention his wife’s pregnancy earlier, at the very least. But I’m not sure that alone would be enough to make this transition smooth. His daughter faces an uncertain future; the doctors don’t know if she’ll ever walk or talk. Between Jimmy and his daughter, medical bills are drowning the new family. Jimmy knows that if he quits the band, his wife will carry the financial burden and they could be out on the streets. But if he returns to the band that he loves, he could provide everything his daughter needs. <This doesn’t sound like a difficult decision. Live on the street and give your wife all of the financial burden? Or be a rock star, which is a job you love. It’s obvious what he should do. I’m willing to bet there are stronger stakes in your story that are difficult to see because you’re so close to the project. Damn you, query letters! Faced with a quandary between what’s right and what’s safe, Jimmy has to decide if returning to music is worth the risks.

Driven<The title should be in all capitol letters ‘DRIVEN’ is mainstream/commercial fiction complete at 85,000 words. Thank you for your time and consideration.

You have a solid start here. A great opener and lead-up to the stakes, and the bones of the query are very good. It gets a little weak near the end, but I can’t see that being something very difficult to fix. You’re in pretty good shape. Thanks for sharing this with me, and good luck in your querying endeavors!