Free Excerpt from How to Write a Great Query Letter

            Most writers put at a tremendous amount of effort into their content, spending months or years with their manuscripts, agonizing over word choice, scene order, character development. Yet when it comes time to write a query letter, they will often write something off the top of their head, sometimes with a mere hour’s effort, and let this suffice to represent their work. They will rush through the letter process so that the agent can get to the book itself, which they feel will explain everything. They feel that if an agent just sees the writing, nothing else will matter, and a poor query letter will even be forgiven.
            This is faulty thinking. For agents, the query letter is all. If it’s not exceptional, agents will not even request to see the writing, and writers will never even get a chance to showcase their talent. For most writers, the query letter—which they rushed through—becomes the only piece of writing they will ever be judged on, and the only chance they ever had.
            Many writers are upset that their work is evaluated and judged by a one page letter—much less a letter that doesn’t even include a sample of the writing. It is understandable. But it is also the nature of the business, and something we all have to deal with. It is like an actor’s being judged by merely a headshot. It won’t change. The solution isn’t to rail against the industry, but rather to get good at writing your query. Actually, to become great at it. To make the query an art form in and of itself.
            In truth, while it might seem as if a query is a shallow way to judge a writer, I can tell you from an agent’s perspective that it is a very effective tool. For the professional eye, a query letter is much more than just a letter: it shows the agent whether you are able to exhibit word economy, whether you have a grasp on the nature of your own writing, whether you have a realistic grasp on your own background and credentials. If you’re writing non-fiction, it also demonstrates whether you can write good marketing copy. A query letter can also serve to warn an agent, to act as a red flag, if for example you are too aggressive, or pitch too many projects at once. The way it physically looks speaks volumes, as does whether you’ve sent it to the right person in the right way. A layman looks at a query letter and sees a one page letter. An agent looks at it and scans it for 100 different criteria. If you know how to look and what to look for, this mere page can tell you more about the writer and his work than you can possibly imagine. I will share these secrets with you here, and teach you the perspective and criteria of a publishing professional.
            It is not the writer’s fault that he does not naturally know how to craft a great query letter. Writing is an artistic endeavor, while the query letter is a marketing endeavor. Artists and marketers usually do not co-exist. Many great artists have trouble crafting a good query, while many great marketers can’t deliver on their art form. It is the fortunate writer who is born with the talent for both, but for those who are not, marketing is a learned skill. It takes time, patience and humility. I’ve encountered many writers who frown on the art of marketing, who consider themselves too much of an artist to deign to write a tagline or synopsis. There is nothing wrong with marketing—indeed, a good writer should be humble, and willing to learn from any form of writing. Indeed, if you are willing to listen, there is much that the query letter can teach you about the craft of writing: the art of crafting a query letter makes a writer re-evaluate his own work and might even lead to his revising it. In this way we come to see that writing a great query letter is more than a mere marketing exercise: it is a medium through which to re-evaluate and perhaps even alter your work. At the very least, it will offer you insights into your work that you may not have had before.
            The query letter is indeed an art form. Books have been devoted to it, and if you go out and read 10 different books on how to write a query, you might walk away with 10 different approaches, even conflicting advice. None of this makes the query letter easier to grasp; it is by no means a science, and you will never find a consensus on how to craft one. Most writers never had a class in writing a query letter, were never given an expert’s perspective, so they are left to their own devices, and must struggle to become a marketer. The mistake writers make is not their being ignorant of how to craft a query; the mistake they make is believing that they do not need to rectify this ignorance, do not need to spend time learning the query’s special art form.
            The more practical, hands-on experience someone has with them, though, the more you might trust his judgment—particularly if this person is an active publishing professional who evaluates query letters for a living. As a literary agent for the last 10 years, I have received, on average, about 10,000 queries a year. That makes almost 100,000 queries received over the last 10 years. Over the years I have shared advice with writers around the world and have heard back from many that the advice I gave them was directly responsible for their finally, after years of struggling, being able to land an agent. This is the advice that I will share with you here.
            While the numbers against you are staggering, the road is not as bleak as it may seem. If you learn what to do, and how to avoid the pitfalls that signal an amateur, you can indeed write a great query letter. And with a great query letter, you will be a lot closer than you can imagine to landing an agent, and eventually getting published. While agents tend to be harsh critics and somewhat jaded, they all also secretly hope to discover the next Clancy or Grisham or Faulkner or Hemingway. It’s why they entered the business—the thrill of discovery, or of a financial windfall, or of simply being able to help another human being achieve his dreams. Along the way, agents become besieged with queries and they can become jaded, overwhelmed with work, and read queries with an eye to reject. But no matter how jaded they become, they also, deep down, never let go of the desire to discover the next great writer. Some flame exists somewhere inside them waiting to react. It is up to you to spark that flame.
            Great query letters do exist. A great query letter makes an agent sit up and want to read more. It stands out from the fold, shakes an agent from his stupor regardless of how many queries he’s read that day. It makes him excited, makes him want to reach for the phone and call the writer immediately, regardless of what time of night it is. It reminds him why he’s in the business. There have been many times in my career when I’ve sat down late at night, pouring through hundreds of queries, exhausted, and not expecting to find anything. Yet there it was. A great query letter. A letter that, despite all odds, filled me with energy late at night, sparked in me a feeling of excitement, that made me want to call the author right then. Sometimes these letters offered no publishing credentials whatsoever, had only the barest idea of a plot, had hardly any evidence of the writing. Yet still they worked. How? I’ve given this a great deal of thought, have analyzed the elements that comprise a great query letter. These elements I will share with you here.

Why CAPS Matter

While we are taught book titles should be italicized, there is a convention in the publishing industry that book titles are set in ALL CAPS. This alone can signal a pro. Someone who really knows the business will put his book titles in ALL CAPS. The titles of other books, though, while they can go either way, are usually put in italics, as are the titles of literary magazines and other publications.

As explained above, you cannot exceed three sentences, and it should also go without saying that these three sentences should belong to one paragraph. Do not use two or more paragraphs to convey your plot. This sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many queries I receive which use two, three or even four paragraphs to summarize the plot. Remember, there will always be time for an extended synopsis (for example, a one page synopsis) later, which you can send if requested. Now is not that time.

When reading a book it takes effort for a reader to learn new characters’ names. The same holds true with reading a query letter—it expends unnecessary effort on the agent’s behalf to stop and absorb a character’s name. And almost always it is unnecessary. At this early stage, an agent doesn’t need to know your protagonist’s name; all he needs to know is “the protagonist” or “the antagonist” or “the main character” or “the narrator.” You never want him to have to slow down or expend any unnecessary energy, and you don’t want to include anything not absolutely necessary. Any well-written tagline or plot synopsis should be able to exist just fine without a character’s name—in fact, if it needs a name in order to work, then it is a sign something is awry.

An agent does not need to know subplots at this early stage. Remember, he will likely make a decision based just on the genre, and if he will read so far as to decide based on the plot, he will only want to know the general concept. He certainly will not need to know subplots. Summarizing your plot in a few sentences is enough of a task—don’t overload it with cramming in your subplots. Indeed, sometimes writers use subplots as an escape for focusing on the main plot, because the work is lacking a strong plot to begin with.

Strong writing is specific. Instead of writing “There was a string of murders in a small town” you might write “Four people were hacked to death in Wichita, Kansas over a two week period.” Instead of “My novel tells the story of a natural disaster that occurred in the middle of the century,” you might say, “My novel tells the story of the Great Earthquake of 1948 which killed 221 people.” Specific writing not only indicates a strong writer, it also helps the agent immediately get a fix on the plot. Indeed, sometimes writers write in generalities to avoid getting down to the specifics of the plot, as there isn’t much to say. If you have the facts, use them.

2. Time period
            You’ll notice in the corrected examples above specific time periods. This is not by accident. Specific writing means a specific period of time. Indeed, time is a tremendous tool, one of the strongest elements you can incorporate in your plot paragraph, as it conveys so much with a single word. 1776. 1812. 1945. These few numbers evoke an entire feeling.
            Similarly, time frame is extraordinarily effective. “My novel takes place over three weeks.” Two days. A weekend. 24 hours. 10 years. With only a few words, each of these brings so much to mind. It gives an agent an immediate grasp on the structure of the novel; it also shows him that your book does indeed have a structure, and that you, the writer, have enough objectivity to be aware of it. Compare:
            “My novel takes place over a short period of time.”
            Or:
            “My novel takes place over a three day period in 1842.”
            This is a huge difference. The first example tells us nothing: it could be a novel about anything. In the second, though, a tremendous amount is accomplished. In a mere sentence, without a word about the plot, we can almost picture the book.   Only one thing is missing.

3. Location
            And that is location. “My novel takes place over a three day period in 1842” gives you an idea, but “My novel takes place over a three day period in 1842 in Biloxi, Mississippi” completes the picture. Fargo, North Dakota. Brooklyn, New York. Los Angeles. Rome. Reykjavik. Location says so much, evokes an atmosphere, a climate, a people, a language, a culture. A novel set in New Orleans will offer a different sensibility than one set in Northern Maine.
            Location, like time, is an effective tool in creating a tagline, since it conveys so much in so little space. It also, by its nature, demands specificity, another trait of good writing. Location, like time, demands a writer to wrack his brain and ask himself what, precisely, is the main location of his work. Some locations are so big, or so overused (like New York City), that naming them doesn’t really evoke much that is unusual—indeed, doesn’t even bring to mind a specific location, since anyone who lives in New York City knows that the Lower East Side is a completely different city than the Upper West Side. Thus, if you find yourself stuck with a rather generic location, try to make it more specific. For example, instead of New York City, you might say Harlem; instead of Los Angeles, you might say West Hollywood. Specificity also helps establish authenticity, especially if your work is set in a place that few people would know about unless they had been there or had researched it heavily. McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Poznan, Poland. If the writer chooses such a setting, there is a greater likelihood he knows what he’s writing about.
            Consider also that an unusual climate can sometimes substitute (and/or complement) a location.   For example, “My novel takes place during an unusual warm spell in New York in February, over a three day period of 70 degrees.” Or during a cold spell in Los Angeles, or a drought in Texas, or heavy rains in Tennessee, or heavy snow in Marquette, Michigan, or the burning heat of the Arizona desert.

Exercise: Refining Your Plot Synopsis

· Take your plot synopsis and share it with five trusted readers. Ask each if they immediately get what the book is about. Ask each for their understanding of what type of book it is, of what genre they think it falls under, of what they think happens. Ask them if they’d be intrigued to read more. Ask them why or why not. Are there any common reactions? Can you make any adjustments based on this?

· Read your plot synopsis aloud. How does it sound when you vocalize it? If you had been given 15 seconds with a top executive and pitched that synopsis aloud, do you think they would have given you a deal based on that? Why or why not? Does it feel different spoken than it does on the page? Can you make any adjustments as a result?

· Pretend a stranger has just asked you the question that all writers dread: “What is your book about?” Can you answer that question quickly and definitively, in 10 seconds or less? If not, why not? The answer to this will be the key to your finding the right synopsis for your plot.

· Looking at your plot synopsis on paper, does it capture the essence of your story? Does it feel specific? Unique? If not, is there anything you can do to enhance it?

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