Querying Queries (Part 1: The Basics and the Hook)

So, yesterday, I spent essentially my entire day researching query letters and trying to compile the start of one for The Heart Thief (with the intent to alter it and personalize it for specific agents and editors when I’m ready to pick up my copy of The Writer’s Market and get things really rolling). Thanks to a class I took in high school that emphasized business writing, and to the perfectionist teacher who nearly drove me mad with demands for revisions, I have an unnaturally solid grasp on writing business letters, especially for a creative writer. Although I knew that a query letter often makes or breaks a writer, I wasn’t intimidated. I knew I just needed some good samples to reference, and I’d be fine.

My head is still spinning!

I already knew the basics: One page and one page only; Include a short synopsis; The goal is to get the agent to want to read the manuscript; Be professional; Learn the NAME of the person you are querying along with proper title and spelling; Make sure you are querying someone who is interested in your genre; Don’t tell the agent/editor how amazing you are (“I am the next J. K. Rowling!”=No, no no!); Your friends and family are not reputable reviewers in the agent/editor’s eyes. Some basics I learned were: If you don’t know the gender of the person, address the letter using their first and last name, rather than incorrectly guessing a title (I probably should have know this, but the salutation: “Dear John Smith” seemed strange to me); Some agents ask for certain criteria in a query letter (I expect to help them weed out the mail-bombers who haven’t done their research and are just sending queries to everyone listed under their genre in The Writer’s Market).

The first thing I researched was actual physical layout and fonts, mostly because I have encountered sources that stated that manuscripts should be submitted in Courier 12pt. double-spaced, and I wanted to make sure I could use Times for my letter, because I have an eternal loathing for Courier. No one seems to put a lot of concern into font. As long as it’s clear, business-like and easy to read. Serif or sans-serif (which I learned means with or without the little extra digits on the letters. For example: Courier is a serif font while Tahoma is a sans-serif font.) doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in query letters, nor does mono-spacing (meaning each letter takes up the same amount of space. See Courier for an example of mono-spaced.), so, I went with Times (though my preference toward sans-serif may lead me to change it to Arial.). All of the sources I checked with seemed to agree that font size should be 12 point (aka 12 pitch).  The layout was as I expected: Business letter-format, including a header with my name, address, phone number and email; skip a line and put the date; skip a line and put the name of the person being queried, the business he/she works for and the address; skip a line and put the salutation; skip a line between each paragraph. No indenting (I did run into one source that recommends no line skipping between and indenting each new paragraph, but all of my business-letter writing experience tells me that indented paragraphs is too informal and not as easy to read on the page). Everything aligned to the left, though some say you can center-align your personal information if you prefer. Personally, I think it looks cleaner and more professional if it is all left-aligned.

With the physical layout planned, my next step was content. I found several sources talking about the three-paragraph rule. They all mentioned the “Hook,” the “Mini-Synopsis,” and the “Author Bio.” What exactly those are seems to vary slightly from one source to the next. Let’s start with the Hook.

All of the sources I checked out agreed that the hook is pretty short. Most said one sentence, one said it could be up to three. All agreed that it has to catch the agent’s interest without being gimmicky or unprofessional. Beyond that, they all said something different. I seemed to find two different types of hooks: The Identifier and the Logline.

What I am calling the identifier-style hook basically says the title, genre and word count of the manuscript (word count being an entirely different animal. Some say use your word processor’s number, some say use a funky math formula to get an approximate word count. I can’t find anything anywhere that says which to use, so I’m leaning toward the word-processor count rounded to the nearest hundred). Some say to write that you are seeking representation. Some say you should also put in if there is a sequel in the works. My identifier-hook would be as follows:

I am seeking representation for my fantasy-thriller novel THE HEART THIEF, which is complete at 68,200 words. The untitled sequel is in the planning stages.

(Note that my title is in ALL CAPS. Some say to do this, others say to italicize. One of my best sources said that the title of the book I am querying should be all caps, and any others I mention should be italicized. The latter pearl of wisdom seemed the most sound to me.) No frills. Very business-like and plain. Kind of boring, but not overly egotistical, either. The “complete” part is important, because it tells the agent that I’ve actually finished the manuscript. Everyone seems to agree that querying an incomplete manuscript is the ultimate no-no. I’ve also read that this information (genre, word count) is pertinent to the query, because it tells the agent how long the novel is, and what genre. That way, if it’s too long or too short, or if it’s not in a genre they are looking for, they won’t have to waste any time on the query (and, yes, your novel is precious to you, but their time is important and needs to be respected. They shouldn’t have to read queries for novels that don’t fit their parameters. If your novel was the next one in a pile after a query that was a waste of their time, you’d understand, especially if that meant your query had to wait another day on their desk). This style hook puts that information right up front for the agent to see.

The Logline style hook is a one-sentence summary of your book. Not an easy feat, but it tells the agent what the book is about right up-front, and it might be a little more eye-catching than the identifier. The easiest one to write seems to be the “When” version. For example:

When a young woman’s dying father shares a coveted secret that could save the world from a terrible invasion, she is forced to leave her life of comfort behind and journey to a distant land to find the wizard Maccus: The only person who can help her stop the coming apocalypse.

Catching. Interesting. When done right, this style hook will make an Agent want to read more, or so I’ve heard (in case you’re wondering, this is a logline for no book or movie that I know of. I just made it up). The “When” format isn’t the only one to follow. There’s also the “What happens when…?” the “Billy Joe didn’t like bacon, so imagine his horror when he learned that the only way he could save his sister from pigmies involved wrapping himself in pounds of pork and running through their cookfires…” okay, that’s enough. You get my point. There are a lot of different ways to write a logline. It just isn’t easy.

My problem is deciding which to actually use. Though it isn’t as catching, I find myself leaning toward the identifier. A logline feels redundant to me, since the second paragraph is a mini-synopsis, and I like having the title, genre and word count right up front. I’m still toying with it, of course, but, for now, I’m going with the identifier.

I was going to continue from here with the mini-synopsis, but I’m afraid this is getting to be quite long, so we’ll stop here and continue tomorrow with the next part. For now, let me leave you with the most useful sources I came across in my search yesterday.

The Writing Place is a blog with a lot of good information. The article I viewed talks about query letter layout.

AgentQuery was the first site I found, and one of the most useful. It starts off with the importance of the query letter, then moves on to the basics and gives short descriptions of each of the three paragraphs, and good examples of hooks (using the logline hook). It doesn’t give the best advise on the mini-synopsis.

CuteWriting has a lot of good information, and links to other sources for tips on things like writing powerful short sentences for your mini-synopsis. It also uses a logline hook.

CharlotteDillon.com has a very good sample query letter, along with annotations and links to other articles. It uses an identifier hook.

The Complete Nobody’s Guide to Query Letters is an article on the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America website (SWFA). It is probably my favorite source, because there is so much useful information on the website, and because the people who write articles for it are involved with writing and publishing in my genre. This article actually includes the author’s own query letter, followed by a detailed discussion on the different paragraphs, basics, paper, printing, and pretty much everything you need to know. This one is the first one I saw using the identifier hook, and (if I remember correctly) the only one displaying a query letter that was sent to an agent who asked to see the manuscript.

The final source I’d like to mention is actually a free pdf file called How to Write a Great Query Letter by Noah Lukeman. Not all of the information here was great. It is actually the only source that I ran into that suggested indenting paragraphs in the query letter, rather than skipping lines, and a few other tidbits were in direct contradiction to things I either already knew or had learned. However, it is worth the download for the tips on the mini-synopsis, alone.

That’s all for today! I hope this is helpful to my fellow writers! Please keep in mind that I’m new at this, myself. I would suggest doing as much research you can and asking other writers for their own experiences!

Happy Querying!