#35

Dear Query Shark:

Like a storm ready to make landfall, my near-death hiking experience twenty-five years ago has hung in my mind, waiting for all the elements to come together. The storm has struck and the result is my middle-grade novel, OUT OF THE STORM.

Why you wrote the book may be compelling but it's not THE most compelling thing about the story (I hope!). It goes later in the query letter. Lead with your strongest element: the story.

Jessie MacGregor’s thirteenth year isn’t at all what she had in mind. She struggles with her mom’s recent departure from the family to “find herself.” Her dad hides his broken heart by burying himself in his work. He pressures Jessie to go on a teen backpacking trip, which turns into a rescue mission. When her hiking guide shatters his ankle, Jessie and two other teens must hike to safety from deep in the Sierra backcountry.

This is good.

Throughout her adventure, Jessie struggles with her mother’s search for herself and the angry terms on which she left her father. She wonders what the future will hold for her family and desperately wants to feel that she has some kind of control over her life. This inner struggle parallels her physical challenge of getting out alive and causes Jessie to develop an inner strength she never knew existed. Jessie realizes that whatever life throws at her, she will survive.

This isn't. You go from specifics to generalities. What happens on that trail? Is she attacked by bears? Struck by lightning? Solicited for an anthology of teen sex writing (ok, this is a bad joke but you get my point)

We need a sense of what she struggles with other than the obvious.


I have extensive wilderness experience, particularly in the Sierra Nevada, including numerous backpacking and mountain climbing trips, and a 270-mile trek from Yosemite National Park to Mt. Whitney. I’ve drawn on these experiences and research to create this high-action adventure novel.

This is actually better than the first paragraph about why you wrote the book.

I’m the proud author of seventeen children’s book...(publishing credentials to follow).

err...you have 17 books published and NOW you need an agent? Why?

My current goal is to obtain an agent to represent my novel, but I’m also interested in an agent who represents picture books and easy readers.

oh man. You don't need me to tell you that finding an agent who covers all these areas is gonna be tough. We have enough agents at FinePrint to field a baseball team, and even with that many I don't think we do picture books or easy readers. Sometimes if an author has a wide array of work, we can keep it all in house with several agents doing different projects, but this one is a tough problem. Yikes.

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

Warm regards,
XXX

#34

Dear Query Shark


A job interview at Southern Georgia University is great news for Tyrinn Mack, but his boyfriend believes this opportunity could ruin their relationship. After a heated discussion about their future, Tyrinn tries to find a happy medium between his post graduate plans and his love life. Inadvertently, his search leads him to a former flame. Their reconnection instantly reminds Tyrinn of their steamy past and the reasons why their friendship fizzled. He knows what they had was amazing, but it’s also history. Tyrinn has a boyfriend now, and regardless of their issues the relationship is solid. But a sudden kiss stirs up old feelings and the truth Tyrinn can no longer avert.

BEFORE YOU TAKE FLIGHT is a 93,000 word gay fiction novel set in a small college town in Kentucky.

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


"fiction novel" is an instant rejection no matter what. It seems like a small stupid thing doesn't it? Well, words are your tools (I've said this before) and I look for writers who know without even thinking about it that fiction and novel are redundant. You can certainly write it, but you'd damn sure better edit it OUT of your query letter.

You've also used "avert" oddly. This is one of the things I watch closely in queries. You can do all sorts of nutty things but if you WRITE WELL, and that means using words with precision, I'll read your pages.

Now, if I hadn't hit "auto reject" for those two things, I still would have rejected it because you don't make this novel sound very compelling. It sounds like a police report. Well, ok, not quite, but it's pretty bland.

A query letter is enticing. Vivid is good. Compelling is good. Avert your beige sensibilities and give us intimations of fire!

#33

Dear Ms. Reid,

Set in the year 1996 and complete at 80,000 words, OVER EXPOSED is an erotic suspense centering on the risks a woman takes to have her sexual needs fulfilled and the extent women will go to get revenge when they have been wronged.

When Jewell Layne’s twenty-year marriage ended, she vowed she would never be beholden to another man. Five years after her divorce, the brash, forty-four-year-old, six foot blond is living in the lap of luxury—and she is still being expected to provide sexual favors to the judge who handed her a biased property settlement after conveniently arranging for some incriminating photographs to be lost on the day of her divorce proceeding.

Incriminating photos of whom? It may be obvious to you as the writer, but it's not to me as the reader. Also, if she's so brash and determined, why hasn't she marched down to the local Bar Association and filed a complaint? In 1996 people don't get mad, they get lawyers.

This difficult relationship provides the backdrop for a series of transgressions in which envy, jealousy, greed, and Jewell’s prurient urges puts her in harm’s way, tests the boundaries of her relationship with her best friend, and subjects her to the judge’s wrath.

Series of transgressions? Against what?
Prurient urges? Prurient implies deviant.
Judge's wrath? I thought he was the bad guy?

I'm sorry, I find every single one of these characters repellent. I don't want to read about them, I want to Purell my computer screen.

You can write about this topic all you want, but one character has to be compelling and interesting, and likable.

After persuading her new neighbor, who is a professional photographer and a member of the Fort Worth Black Chamber of Commerce, to photograph her in her townhouse while his wife is out of town, the consequences of Jewell’s earlier follies will pale in comparison to the price she, her neighbor, the race-baiting judge, and a third man will have to pay when Jewell becomes emotionally involved with her neighbor and her explicit photographs are discovered by her neighbor’s wife.

What does his membership in the Chamber of Commerce have to do with the plot? Whose wife is out of town?

May I send you a synopsis and sample chapters from my complete at 80,000 words manuscript? Thank you for your time. I look forward to your reply.

Automatic rejection on this one.

#32

Dear Query Shark:

Shattered Ceiling is a 82,000 word political thriller set in Louisville, Kentucky, and Washington, D.C.

Former juvenile delinquent turned P.I. Jo Grant tracks a client’s runaway daughter to a feminist commune in the hollows of Kentucky. The missing girl is an unwitting pawn in a U.S. Senator’s scheme to frame his popular opponent for a staged assassination attempt – on himself. Jo discovers an ex-Vietnam sniper, furious at military funding cuts, out to kill the Senator for real, but Jo’s dicey past prevents the authorities from believing her. As bodies pile up, Jo races to extricate her clients, foil the Senator’s plot, and stop the real assassin.

You lead with the runaway daughter, and then that character disappears and it's about an ex VietNam sniper. The characters you mention first should be the most important ones.

Why does the ex VietNam sniper care about military funding cuts? Does he have lucrative contracts that got cut? It's not his being a sniper that matters, it's why he cares about the budget cuts.

Every single PI in the world has problems with police. That device is as old as disgruntled VietNam vets.


I am Executive Vice President of the (redacted) Sisters in Crime and a founding board member of the (redacted) Writers’ Festival.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my work. The full manuscript and a SASE envelope are included.

Sincerely yours,

This is an auto rejection for lack of clarity, and lack of something new and compelling. You can use devices that have been used before but you MUST have something new to say, or use them in a new way.

#31

Dear Query Shark:

Gus had warned Proli not to get involved with the first angry mob that comes along, but when the workers stormed across the city that night, she drunkenly joined their ranks without hesitation.

That's a pretty intriguing opening line. The only problem is that I don't have an immediate sense of when/where. Paris in 1968? Petrograd in 1911? Babylon in 1165BC? New York in 2020?

Poor work conditions had led to the gruesome deaths of two young girls at the Governor's paper mill, the latest in a long string of injustices. Armed with out-dated weapons and homemade bombs, the angry workers clash violently with the security forces at the Governor's estate and are forced to retreat.



At 76,000 words my first novel, Viva La Stasis, is a work of literary fiction that follows Proli as she is forced to ask herself the very question most of us try to ignore: what if nothing happens? From the war vet hammering an "Impeach Bush" sign into her front yard to the English teacher stammering his way through rounds of speed dating on a Thursday night, we adamantly reject any inkling that our efforts may prove fruitless. In the days following the workers revolt, that sentiment burdens Proli as she walks the streets of a city awash with rumors of a full-scale uprising.

It's not discussed in the factory where she works, but York Finster, a former resistance hero, has emerged from retirement. Proli hears his name whispered in taverns and diners through out the city, and his demands for change are echoed in the hearts of every worker. Except for Proli's. York Finster has delivered thousands of moving speeches, and nothing has ever come from them. She cannot lend her energy to a false revolution, especially with rent being past due and her roommate, Gus, spending most of his time chasing after university girls instead of honest employment. As the Governor and his council clamp down harshly on suspected dissidents, however, Proli discovers that she has unwittingly been entangled in the heart of a messy rebellion she never thought could happen.

I am seeking your representation for this novel. A full manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your time.


I'm absolutely not clear about when this takes place. There are hints that it's now (Impeach Bush) and hints that it's 50 years ago (former Resistance fighter).

I like the idea but you need to be much more specific. Every single word in a query letter matters. Use the most specific, vivid word you can every single time.

This would be an automatic rejection right now because I just don't have a compelling sense of where this novel is headed.

#30

Dear Query Shark,

My lineage made me one of the fortunate ones. But to paraphrase an old Hollywood bumper sticker, “My Mercedes went up my nose.”

My father is A.B. My mother, C.D., came from Hollywood royalty. My memoir, SCARS, is a candid journey through a world of dangerous people, and crimes fueled by an all-consuming battle with drugs and alcohol. And when I found myself dangling on the edge of a New York city subway platform, waiting for the next train to burst through the tunnel and put an end to the horror my life had become, I wondered how it had all gone so terribly wrong. I hoped that this last desperate act would finally atone for years of senseless aggravation, deception and pain inflicted on those I loved and those who had struggled to love me.

This is often a harsh look into life with a father I feared as much as I loved, as he watched me self-destruct and waste away a promising career. Little did he know that from the moment he introduced me to playwright, Miguel Pinero, life would begin to unravel.

From the beauty and wealth of the Hollywood suburbs to sleeping on cardboard in the alleys of San Francisco, it is a story of guns, jail, a lover's suicide, and transvestite hookers turning tricks in my back room. This is an honest, revealing, and sometimes humorous look into a life I didn't find worth living until my father reached out and rescued me from the clutches of death.

I plan to include photographs and letters from this time period and I am ready to send you my completed 171,00 word manuscript.

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


Sincerely,

Note; names will be included in mailed queries


171,000 words is about 71,000 words too many.

This is a query that would get an instant "not right for me" and that would be absolutely accurate. You can't pay me to read these kinds of memoirs any more. However, there is an audience for this, and it does sell, particularly if you have a lot of famous names attached so that is why you query widely. After paring it down of course.

And be prepared to prove everything. Memoir, particularly drug recovery memoirs are subject to increased scrutiny by skeptical editors who don't want to the subject of blistering commentary on Oprah.

#29

Dear Query Shark:

Teenager Cassandra O'Hare knows what it's like to live in constant fear of being mauled by a werewolf. Generations ago, a curse was put on her family that makes even the most civil of lycanthropes want to devour anyone in her bloodline. After her sister is left dead on the front porch, Cassandra and her parents move two states away to start over in a new town.

So, can you imagine the questions for the realtor? "Do you have werewolves here?"
Seriously though, you're missing the most obvious question of why they would think moving away would save them? Is there a den of werewolves nearby? (Where do werewolves live actually?) Wouldn't they be safe if they just took a boat out on the water when the moon was full? The set up for a story has to make sense. You can't just say "this is how it is cause it's my book."



At first Cassandra believes there is safety in the suburbs of Fox Hollow, but when a crazed werewolf begins stalking her, it becomes clear that she cannot escape the family curse so easily. Using what little she knows of magic and the help of new found friends, Cassandra tries to ward off her supernatural stalker before she shares her sister's fate.

I didn't think the werewolves had to be crazed to stalk her. I though it was the curse. And now she knows magic? New found friends?

What you've got here is all set up. There's no antagonist. There's no plot.

Into the Fire is an urban fantasy novel complete at 52,000 words.

This is a good closing sentence, but it's probably YA urban fantasy if the protagonist is a teen.

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