From Nathan Bransford:
Now then. Time for the Query Critique. First I’ll present the query without comment, then I’ll offer my thoughts and a redline. If you choose to offer your own thoughts, please be polite. We aim to be positive and helpful.
Random numbers were generated, and thanks to lovu_sarah, whose query is below.
Dear [agent name],
We all have things we regret in our life. Things that haunt our sleep and deprive us of peace. And all those actions we take that lead to those regrets are influenced by our surroundings, are they not? Or does the blame fall solely on us?
A BLAMELESS MURDER is a 65,000 words literary fiction novel that explores the life of a nameless girl in a nameless world in hopes of understanding why she became a killer at nineteen. It dives into her reasoning as to why she did what she did while the girl tries to guide the reader through every event in her life.
It is a conversation and it starts as if she’s talking to the reader; explaining how her whole life leads her to become that person at that specific point in time, much like The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.
When I saw that one of your favorite authors was Carlos Ruiz Zafron I knew I had to query you. I grew up reading his work back when I was a little girl in the Dominican Republic.
I have included the first ten pages of my manuscript per your request. Please note that even though the book starts with quotation marks that are never closed in this short excerpt, it is not a typo.
Thank you so much for your time.
Sincerely,
[Signature]
Here’s how I’d boil down this query by paragraph:
- Abstract philosophizing
- A plot description that tells us absolutely nothing about the book (essentially: “there’s a woman who killed someone”), while smushing in the “nuts and bolts” of genre and word count
- An outdated comp
- Personalization (which should be the first paragraph)
- A confusing detail about how a quotation mark is meant to be interpreted
And…that’s about it.
The goal of a query letter is to inspire an agent to want to read your manuscript or proposal. The way to do that is to actually tell them about the book you’ve written.
Link to the rest at Nathan Bransford