If you are thinking about submitting your work to agents or publishing, they you’ve probably come across the query letter. You know it’s the first thing publishing industry people read. You know you need to somehow condense the thousands of words of your manuscript into less than 300, written in a way that catches someone’s interest. You’ve probably pored over numerous articles, attended seminars, read lists of do’s and don’ts. And you know that no matter how hard you try to follow the guidelines, grabbing an agent’s attention is like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands.
I don’t have the secret sauce to writing a perfect query. Yes, I’ve read quite a lot of them as a book coach and
and each one reminds me that we’re all writing unique stories. What works for one doesn’t, and shouldn’t, work for another. What I’m here to do is give you a springboard to come up with your own ideas. Feel free to take the pieces that work for you and discard the rest (or at least put it aside for next time).
Note: I’m operating under the assumption that you already know the basics of how to write a query letter. The tips that I share here are to make what you already have more memorable.
Query Tip #1: Start with a Character Contradiction
Contradictions create tension right from the beginning. Starting your query with a character contradiction cause the reader—in this case, the agent—immediately start asking a series of questions. Why is the character the way they are? How does this affect their daily lives? And, possibly most importantly, they now know that your protagonist won’t be a “typical” character.
I learned the concept of contradiction from Matt Bird’s craft book The Secrets of Story. He uses the word Irony:
“[Irony] not only piques the audience’s interest, but it also upsets their certainties. It lets them know you’re going to do things they don’t expect in ways they haven’t seen before, and ultimately show them things they don’t already know.”
Contradictions indicate that your protagonist is a lot more complicated than they seem. Even if the story develops as expected, a complex character makes the in-scene actions more interesting.
Some examples of character contradictions I came up with are:
- A character’s actions conflicting with their motivations.
- A character being barred getting what they want because of fear.
- A character placed in a situation that clashes with their personality.
- And then there’s your classic: a character being raised a certain way when they want to do something else.
How to Do This
Sometimes the contradiction is obviously; other times, it’s less so.
If you’re thinking that your protagonist is pretty typical with typical wants, don’t fear. I firmly believe you can find an interesting contradiction in almost any story you write. After all, we’re human, contradiction is our middle name. All you need is to dig a bit into your protagonist to find what’s there.
Exercise: Read through the first few chapters of your manuscript and make a list of all the character-related information you find.
Look at your protagonist’s dialogue and, especially, look at the actions they take. Actions speak louder than words. Do they tell a slightly different story?
For sure there will be information that you as the writer know about your character that isn’t on the page. You can draw on this to find the contradiction.
Now take a look at this list the find two that feel exciting to you.
Combine these elements into one (maximum two) introductory sentences.
Query Tip #2: The Protagonist’s Decision
Query advice tells you to give just enough of the plot to pique the reader’s interest. However, “just enough to pique the reader’s interest” is typically left vague and many writers focus exclusively on the “just enough” part.
Here’s what a lot of queries look like:
This is my character. They are in a really bad situation that they can’t get out of. If they don’t fix bad situation, they will lose who they are forever.
This might seem like enough of a tease; no one wants to give away too much of their work without being paid for it. But after reading a whole bunch of queries in a row, bad situations and vague stakes all blur together. Life gives us bad situations. What makes stories interesting is how the characters react to them… and what action they decide to take to deal with it.
In traditional story structures, characters don’t take significant action until 20-25% into the story. This means that you might have to reveal more of the story than you’d like.
Even if you don’t use a traditional story structure, focusing on an important character decision as the meat of your query creates momentum.
How to Do This
The most valuable piece of advice I received during a query critique was from agent Dongwon Song [paraphrased]:
Give your reader something to picture. Your goal is to make your query memorable, and it’s much easier to hold on to a scene than a theoretical concept.
In other words… actions. Decisions.
Exercise: Make a similar list as the previous exercise but this time look at the entire first half of your manuscript. (Yes, I said first half. Sometimes, your protagonist’s major decision happens quite far into their story. This is not a bad thing. Remember, all stories are different.)
Quickly jot down the important events. Once you have your list, examine each item on it.
Ask yourself: What does my protagonist do at the end of each scene? Do they decide to change something about their situation or are they trying to maintain things the way they are? (Again, there’s nothing wrong with either answer. You need both in a novel.)
If an obvious option doesn’t come to you right away, you will need to write several versions of your query to see what works.
This part of the query take up 1-2 paragraphs.
Focus on a single storyline for your query, including only the events that build upon one another. There will be a lot you won’t be able to include in your query.
And remember to use specific details where possible to form a visual scene.
Query Tip #3: Stakes, Internal and External
Stakes are always hard to pin down in a query, mostly because of the “not wanting to reveal too much” thing. Stakes, by default, reveal something of the conflict in the climactic scene of your novel.
If the MC doesn’t accomplish [specific action] then [specific outcome].
- If the MC doesn’t figure out how to destroy the magic barrier, then the people will starve to death.
- If the MC doesn’t heal the rift in the family, the grandchildren might never see each other again.
This doesn’t leave any doubt in the reader’s mind where the story is going.
But stakes are important. Stakes give your story urgency; push the character to act. Why now? Why should you, the reader, be concerned?
There are two types of stakes: internal and external.
Internal doesn’t necessarily mean emotional or “inside the character’s mind.” Perhaps the word I should use is “personal.” Your protagonist wants something for themselves and achieving it will have very little effect on the other characters. This could be gaining confidence, becoming financially stable, overcoming a fear/flaw or learning a new skill.
The external stakes affect not just the protagonist but the protagonist’s community. The examples I gave above are of this type. External stakes can be world-spanning, community-altering or as seemingly “small” as making life better for a family or a classroom.
In other words, what can your protagonist do for other people? How can they take that extra step and do something un-selfish?
How to Do This
Personal stakes makes readers care about the character. External stakes make them want to read to the very end of the story to see what happens. Fitting the two together is never easy; creating enough tension for each by themselves is equally difficult. Yet it’s just as important to end strong as it is to catch the agent’s attention up-front.
The stakes will comprise the last sentence or two of your query. This sentence can be in a paragraph of its own or a continuation of the previous one.
There are many different ways to write the stakes sentence (which is what makes all of this so hard). A few ways I’ve seen:
- Overcoming personal stakes helps conquer external stakes (“MC needs to learn X before Y happens”)
- Personal and external stakes are pitted against each other (“MC must choose between X and Y” or “MC is determined to accomplish both X and Y”)
- Purely personal stakes (“MC must learn to X before time runs out”)
- Purely external stakes (“MC must achieve [the story goal] to stop Y from happening”)
This list is by no means exhaustive. There are as many ways to write a stakes sentence as there are stories in the world. Just keep in mind to give your readers something specific to latch on to. If you read your stakes sentence and can immediately imagine several different actions the protagonist can take to deal with it, then you know you’re on the right track.
I hope these tips have given you some inspiration on how to write your query letter. Please remember that what I have here aren’t strict instructions but a starting point for you to come up with your own ideas. We’re all writing our own stories, and you know what’s best for yours.
What are your thoughts on writing a query? I’d love to hear it in the comments.
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If you’re looking for help with your query letter, and you like my outlook on writing, check out my query critique packages