While chatting with some of my Seton Hill MFA students the other night about agents, they asked me about my query letters. I asked if they’d like a blog post about this subject, and they told me they would.

I am NOTHING if not amenable, people. So here it is!

First of all, you might be wondering how I learned to query. That’s easy: I Googled “how to write a query letter.” And yes, I’m completely serious. There are great internet resources out there, with everything you need to know about the subject of finding agents, vetting agents, and how to write queries. Now, I do not mean for you to trust everything on the internet. Not all of the information you’ll read can be trusted and some otherwise good advice won’t be great for you, so use common sense. If the “expert” telling you how to query doesn’t have an agent, maybe they’re not the best resource. Ignore advice that doesn’t make any sense or that solicits anything, especially money, from you. Finally, if someone gives great advice but it doesn’t suit your personality or voice, keep looking till you find what does.

What I’m going to do now is give you one of the very, very early versions of my query letter:

I am seeking representation for my contemporary urban fantasy novel, Tempest Rising, complete at around 89,000 words.  The sequel, Tracking the Tempest, is in its initial stages of writing and I have tentatively outlined a series of six books involving the same characters.  My novel is urban fantasy at its most razor sharp—I like to describe it as inhabiting the space created if Interview with the Vampire collided with Sex and the City.

In the tiny village of Rockabill, Maine, Jane True—bookstore clerk and secret night swimmer—has no idea that her absent mother’s legacy is entry into a world populated by the origins of human myths and legends.  It is a world where nothing can be taken for granted: vampires are not quite what we think; dogs sometimes surprise us; and whatever you do, never—ever—rub the genie’s lamp.   For Jane, everything kicks off when she comes across a murder victim during her nightly clandestine swim in the freezing winter ocean.  This grisly discovery leads to the revelation of why she has such freakish abilities in the water: her mother was a selkie and Jane is only half human. With this knowledge, Jane soon finds herself mingling with supernatural creatures alternately terrifying, beautiful, and deadly—all adjectives that quite handily describe her new friend Ryu, who is a handsome bloodsucker (literally—not in the corporate sense).  When Ryu is sent to Rockabill to investigate the murder, he and Jane fall hard for each other even as they plummet into a world of intrigue threatening to engulf both supernatural and human societies.  For someone is killing Halflings like Jane.   The question is, are the murders the work of one rogue individual or part of a greater plot to purge the world of human life as we know it?

Despite the seriousness of her situation, Jane’s sardonic voice carries the action.  Strong-minded and incapable of taking herself seriously, Jane is someone we both laugh and sympathize with as she learns as much about herself as about her strange new world.  Her strong voice is especially evident in the short sample chapter, comprising the first six pages of the book, which I have embedded in this email.

As for me, Tempest Rising is my first novel.  I’ve just finished my doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, and will soon be returning to the States to take up a teaching position at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.  Thank you very much for considering my query and I hope to hear from you soon.  If you give me a shot, I’ll live up to your faith in me.  Promise.

I very much liked aspects of this query. Although most of my queries were emailed, they would fit on a single page if printed out. I knew I was doing the right thing by starting out with the basic facts of my manuscript, then moving to a synopsis, then moving to my bio. I also liked my synopsis, for the most part. But I had this third paragraph thrown in, that I wasn’t sure I was happy with. It felt a bit like I was bragging. Plus, I’m pointing out something I say they should be able to see in my synopsis. So why am I saying something that’s supposed to be obvious? Finally, I knew I was showing my nervousness about my lack of experience in that last, biographical paragraph. It screams, “I know I have no credentials! I’m sorry! Please like me anyway!”

So here’s the next evolutionary stage of my query that I sent out:

I am seeking representation for my supernatural novel, Tempest Rising, complete at around 89,000 words.  I believe that Tempest Rising would interest your agency in that it’s a contemporary urban fantasy that’s sassy, intelligent, and sexy.  I like to describe it as inhabiting the unique space created if Interview with the Vampire collided with Sex and the City.

In the tiny village of Rockabill, Maine, Jane True—bookstore clerk and secret night swimmer—has no idea that her absent mother’s legacy is entry into a world populated by the origins of human myths and legends.  It is a world where nothing can be taken for granted: vampires are not quite what we think; dogs sometimes surprise us; and whatever you do, never—ever—rub the genie’s lamp.   For Jane, everything kicks off when she comes across a murder victim during her nightly clandestine swim in the freezing winter ocean.  This grisly discovery leads to the revelation of why she has such freakish abilities in the water: her mother was a Selkie and Jane is only half human. With this knowledge, Jane soon finds herself mingling with supernatural creatures alternately terrifying, beautiful, and deadly—all adjectives that quite handily describe her new friend Ryu, who is a handsome bloodsucker (literally—not in the corporate sense).  When Ryu is sent to Rockabill to investigate the murder, he and Jane fall hard for each other even as they plummet into a world of intrigue threatening to engulf both supernatural and human societies.  For someone is killing half-humans like Jane.   The question is, are the murders the work of one rogue individual or part of a greater plot to purge the world of Halflings?

As for me, Tempest Rising is my first novel.  I’ve just finished my doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, and will very shortly be returning to the States to take up a teaching position at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.  Thank you very much for considering my query.  If you give me a shot, I’ll live up to your faith in me.   Promise.

Notice I’ve taken out that useless, floppy third paragraph. You want to keep your query toight (said in Mike Meyer’s Goldmember accent). I’ve also tweaked my synopsis, to make it less apocalyptic by taking out the “human life as we know it” in order to focus on what’s unique to my book, the purging of halflings.

I’ve also fiddled with my first paragraph. I was never sure, exactly, what genre TR was, since I hadn’t been reading genre fiction for years. From what I could tell by researching, it seemed to be this new Urban Fantasy genre, but I wasn’t entirely confident it wasn’t paranormal romance or something else. So, here, I waffled and wrote an extra “supernatural” along with UF. Which, basically, does nothing. I would have been better off sticking with only UF, or introducing the other genres I thought it might be. I do like, however, how I took out the bit about the sequel. It’s important information, but they have to like this project before they’ll want another project. When an agent did like this project, that was one of the first questions they asked. And I think it was sort of like rationing treats: I got to say, “Oh, yes, of course, I have a series planned,” then, after they already were interested. So my query was a treat, the fact I had a series planned was another treat, all doled out slowly rather than thrown in the agent’s face.

There’s also still that pesky, beggary last sentence.

Here’s my final version:

I am seeking representation for my paranormal mystery/romance novel, Tempest Rising, complete at around 89,000 words.  I believe that Tempest Rising fits your agency’s interests in that it’s a razor-edged example of commercial and contemporary urban fantasy: sassy, intelligent, and sexy.  I’ve included a short synopsis with this email.

In the tiny village of Rockabill, Maine, Jane True—bookstore clerk and secret night swimmer—has no idea that her absent mother’s legacy is entry into a world populated by the origins of human myths and legends.  It is a world where nothing can be taken for granted: vampires are not quite what we think; dogs sometimes surprise us; and whatever you do, never—ever—rub the genie’s lamp.   For Jane, everything kicks off when she comes across a murder victim during her nightly clandestine swim in the freezing winter ocean.  This grisly discovery leads to the revelation of why she has such freakish abilities in the water: her mother was a Selkie and Jane is only half human. With this knowledge, Jane soon finds herself mingling with supernatural creatures alternately terrifying, beautiful, and deadly—all adjectives that quite handily describe her new friend Ryu, who is a handsome bloodsucker (literally—not in the corporate sense).  When Ryu is sent to Rockabill to investigate the murder, he and Jane fall hard for each other even as they plummet into a world of intrigue threatening to engulf both supernatural and human societies.  For someone is killing half-humans like Jane.   The question is, are the murders the work of one rogue individual or part of a greater plot to purge the world of Halflings?

As for me, Tempest Rising is my first novel.  I’ve just finished my doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, and will very shortly be returning to the States to take up a teaching position at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.  Thank you very much for considering my query.

It’s as short as I could possibly get it, with no extraneous padding. No jazz hands, no cartwheels, no sequins: it just says the facts, ma’am. You hear a lot about how your query letter’s tone should match the voice of your novel, but notice how I reserve that for my synopsis. The way I look at it, agents get 1,000 witty appeals a day, and I’m not going to spend hours trying to outwit all the other witty authors. So I keep the query streamlined by having a “just the facts ma’am” approach to my bio and the facts of my MS, and inject voice into my very short synopsis.

Notice I’ve taken out the stuff about Interview with the Vampire and Sex in the City. We’re often told to compare our manuscripts to established writers, but I’m not sure I like this advice. My books ended up having something about “If you love Sookie Stackhouse, you’ll love Tempest Rising!” stuck on them, and I’ve noticed some reviews read as if the author came to the book with this expectation solely in mind. Then, they’re either pleased OR disappointed to discover they either do or do not find my Jane to be similar to Sookie. In other words, it sets up an expectation I don’t know if I really can, or want to, meet exactly.

I think the other problem with this approach is that I meant something specific from comparing Interview with the Vampire and Sex in the City about the tone of my book. But people could read this a hundred ways. Does this mean it’s a horror novel with fashionable female vamps instead of male vamps? Does this mean it’s about the dating lives of four female vampires? No matter what, though, a reader of this line is led to two conclusions: sex and vampires. While this isn’t wrong, my book only has one vampire, and he’s “not really” a vampire. So if an agent does read this line and think, “Finally! That Sex in the City with vampires books I’ve always dreamed about!” they’ll be disappointed I didn’t give it to them, and may dismiss the project because they can’t see past that disappointment.

I’ve also gone ahead and admitted I have no idea what I wrote, by calling it paranormal mystery/romance in the first sentence, then urban fantasy in the second. If you do know what you wrote, definitely say what you wrote. But if you’re like me, and you’re writing in a cross-genre, I like the idea of giving the agent space to figure out how he or she thinks it can best be marketed. This does not mean call your clearly-mystery MS an “epic fantasy mystery thriller romance” so that you “appeal” to everyone. That sort of trick will appeal to no one. But do keep your genre-bindings as loose as possible if you are writing in a cross genre.

Also note how short my bio is, especially without my silly appeal. That’s because I hadn’t done anything an agent would be interested in, really. If you have done something interesting, definitely say it! But don’t feel the need to explain to the agent in great detail what an amazing, unique individual you are. They don’t care. They’re buying into your manuscript, not you as a person.

Here are my top five rules for querying:

1. KISS: Keep It Short, Stupid!
2. Agents want a manuscript they can sell, not a BFF, so focus on your work and not on yourself. The only caveat would be if your experiences are important to your project (e.g., you wrote a book about climbing Kilimanjaro, and you’ve actually climbed Kilimanjaro).
3. Nail that synopsis!
4. Don’t be tempted to pad or apologize for your experience (or lack thereof).
5. Desperation is a stinky cologne. Thanks to Super Troopers, we have a pithy way of saying be confident, or at least act confident. No begging allowed!

The harsh truth is that querying is a brutal process, so don your thickest skin. Just as with insemination, however, remember that it only takes one. You don’t need forty agents, you just want that single agent that loves your project and really wants to see it succeed. So keep at it–keep polishing that query, tweaking the synopsis, and tightening that manuscript–until your agent comes along.

And good luck!

Feel free to ask me any questions you have in comments. I’ll either address them in comments or I may go ahead and make this a series.

Hope this helps!