Author! Author!:: Anne Mini's Blog

Yesterday, I urged you to take a long, hard look at the first paragraph of the query letter you’ve been sending out, to make sure you are projecting the impression that you are an impressively qualified, impeccably professional writer destined to be discovered any minute by another agent IF the agent you are querying does not have the good sense to snap you up first. Today, I want to talk about the body of the letter, the part where you talk about the book itself.

Is everybody comfortable, query letter in hand? Read the entire letter aloud, so it is clear in your mind (and to catch any lapses in logic or grammar), then ask yourself the following questions. The numbering, of course, is a continuation of yesterday’s list:

(6) Is my brief summary of the book short and clear?

Many writers try to cram the whole synopsis into the query letter, going on for paragraphs at a time about the storyline or argument of the book. Given that the entire query letter should never be longer than a page, your summary needs to be very short and sweet. You really only have 3-5 sentences here to grab an agent’s interest, so you might well be better off emphasizing how interesting your characters are, rather than trying to outline the plot.

I hear those frown lines starting to form: here we go again, yet another arbitrary agency requirement. Actually, there is a pretty good reason for this one, something that can work to your advantage — it forces the writer to minimize distracting details. After all, if you are querying fiction, it took you an entire book to tell the story well, didn’t it? And if you are querying nonfiction, didn’t it take you a whole book (well, okay, a book proposal) to make the argument well? So how likely is it that you would be able to convey the entire complexity of your plot in a paragraph, anyway?

To get a sense of how too many details can confuse an agency screener, pretend to be our old pal, the unpaid intern who has already read 75 queries this morning, has just burnt her tongue on her latte, and is reading her last query before her lunch date. Obviously, it’s in your own best interest to read that last one as quickly as possible, right? So consider the following two summaries: which would be more likely to make you ask to see the first fifty pages of the book?

“Murgatroyd, a blind trombonist with a lingering adolescent passion for foosball, has never fallen in love — until he met Myrtle, the baton-wielding conductor with a will of steel. But what chance does he have? Myrtle’s just been dumped by the world’s greatest Sousaphinist; she has vowed never to look at the brass section again. Can Murgatroyd win the heart of his first love, without compromising his reputation as he navigates the take-no-prisoners world of the symphony orchestra?”

Snappy, isn’t it? The characters come off as quirkily interesting, and the basic conflicts are immediately apparent: request away. Contrast this with the more common type of summary:

“BATON OF MY HEART is a love story that follows Murgatroyd, the child of a smothering father and absent-minded mother who was blinded at age six by a wayward electrical wire. As a child, Murgatroyd hated and feared electricity, which causes him to avoid playing conventional sports: football fields are always brightly lit. This light metaphor continues into his adult life, where he performs in symphony halls with lights trained on him all the time. Life isn’t easy for Murgatroyd. Eventually, he gets a job with a new symphony, where he doesn’t know anybody; he’s always been shy. He makes friends in the woodwind section, but the people who play next to him remain aloof. A mysterious woman is hired to conduct the symphony. Murgatroyd is intrigued by her, because…”

Hold it a minute: We’re all the way through a lengthy paragraph, and we still don’t know what the essential conflict is!

To phrase this in the language of the industry: next!

(7) Have I made it clear what the book is actually about — and how it is different from other books?

This might seem like a flippant question, after the last, but frequently, writers get so carried away pushing the book in principle that they forget to mention the theme at all. Instead, they rely upon the kind of summary that writers use in casual conversation, chestnuts along the lines of, “My book is a political thriller about a man who tries to kidnap a third of Congress.”

“Um,” our little friend the screener thinks, “are you going to tell me anything about who this guy is? His motivation, perhaps? Who might conceivably try to stop him in his attempt?”

Burnt-lip screener has a point here: without some indication of the characters and conflict, stories start to sound very, very much alike. The result is that summaries like “LOVE SONG is the story of a romantic woman seeking the love of her life,” tend to be dismissed out of hand: this could, after all, describe the vast majority of romances, no?

Hint: if your summary in the letter does not include any mention of the central conflict of the book, you might want to rework it. And it’s always a good idea to mention your protagonist by name (by first name, at least) in the first line of the description

(8) Is my summary in the present tense?

Okay, this one is genuinely a weirdness of the industry: one-paragraph summaries, like pitches, are always in the present tense. Even if you are describing events that happened before the fall of the Roman Empire. Go figure.

(9) Does it emphasize the points that will make the book appeal to my target audience?

If you find being direct about why your book is needed by your target audience (“PIGSKIN SERANADE is designed to appeal to the romantic football-lover in all of us”) a trifle gauche — and actually, even if you don’t — it should be readily apparent to anyone who reads your summary what elements of the book are most likely to draw readers.

The easiest way to do this is to make sure that the tone of summary echoes the tone of the book. If you have written a comedy, you’d better make sure there’s at least one line in the summary that elicits a chuckle. If you have written a steamy romance, you’d better make sure there’s some sex in the summary. And so forth.

(10) Wait — have I given any indication here who my target audience is?

Most query letters include no reference whatsoever to the target audience, as though it were in poor taste to suggest to an agent that somebody somewhere might conceivably wish to purchase the book being pitched. But if an agent is going to spend only about thirty seconds on any given query letter before deciding whether to reject it out of hand, is there really time for the agent to think, “Hmm, who will buy this book?”

In pretty much every instance, no. To translate again: next!

How’s your query letter holding up? This honestly is a quiz where you want to score 100%. Tomorrow, I shall wrap up the checklist, so you can send out your queries with confidence. In the meantime, keep up the good work!

I’ve been talking for the last few days about big problems to which query letters are prone, but am I preaching to the choir here? Don’t all of my bright, brilliant, talented, and undoubtedly gorgeous and civic-minded readers already know to avoid these pitfalls?

Not necessarily – even if a writer’s been at it a while, it can be pretty hard to see the flaws in one’s own query letters. For most new writers, it takes quite a bit of rejection to open their eyes to the possibility that their missives themselves might be problematic. Okay, out comes the broken record, because I honestly do think the misconceptions around rejection are harmful to good writers: unfortunately, writers all too often automatically assume that it’s the idea of the book being rejected, rather than a style-hampered querying letter or a limp synopsis.

But how is this possible, without a level of mental telepathy on the agency screener’s part that would positively stun the Amazing Kreskin? Are the rejecting agents seeing past the initial packet to the book itself, decreeing from afar that the writing is not worth reading — and thus that the writer should not be writing? Do they have some sort of direct cosmic connection to the Muses that allows them to glance at the first three lines of a query and say, “Nope, this one was last in line when the talent was handed out. Sorry,” before they toss it into the rejection pile?

No, of course not. Only editors have that kind of direct telephone connection to the demi-gods.

Yet this particular fear leaps like a lion onto many fledgling writers, dragging them off the path to future efforts: it is the first cousin that dangerous, self-hating myth that afflicts too many writers, leading to despair, the notion that if one is REALLY talented, the first draft, the first query, and the first book will automatically traject one to stardom.

It never – well, almost never — works like that: writing is work, and what gets the vast majority of queries rejected is a lack of adherence to professional standards. Which can, my friends, be learned, as we’ve seen over the last few posts.

But what if you already have a query letter that meets all the technical criteria, and it’s still not getting the responses you want? Pull up your chairs close, boys and girls: it’s time for the master class on querying. Today, we’re going to learn the fine art of diagnosis.

Before you begin to feel for your submission’s pulse, read over your query letter, synopsis, and, if you’ve been submitting it, first chapter; better still, read them over AND have someone you trust read it over as well, checking for logical holes and grammatical problems. The best choice for this is another writer, ideally one who has successfully traversed the perils of the agent-finding ravine.

Let’s slap another broken record on the turntable: as much as you may love your mother, your spouse, and your best friend, they are, generally speaking not the best judges of your writing. Look to them for support and encouragement, not for technical feedback. Find someone whose opinion you trust – such as, say, a great writer you met at a conference, or the person in your writing group who keeps being asked to send sample chapters – and blandish her into giving your query letter and synopsis a solid reading.

(Lest you think I am casting unwarranted aspersions upon your mother, your spouse, or your best friend, let me add that my own fabulous mother spent her twenties editing the work of Philip K. Dick and others; fifty years later, she is one of the best line editors I have ever seen, in my professional opinion, but as she is my mother, I would never dream of using her as my only, or indeed even my primary feedback source. That doesn’t stop her from line editing while she reads my work, as I do for hers — years of professional editing causes a particular type of myopia that prevents one from ever reading again without brandishing a vicious pen that attacks margins with the intensity a charging rhinoceros — but I respect my work enough to want first reader feedback from someone who was NOT there when I took my first toddling steps.)

Make sure that you read all of the constituent parts of your submissions in hard copy, not just on a computer screen. Proofreading is far easier – and more likely to be accurate — in hard copy.

Once you have done this, and made sure your submission pieces say what you thought they were saying (you’d be surprised how many don’t), sit down with yourself and/or that trusted first reader and ask yourself the following questions. If you have already gone over your letter with an eye to my advice from earlier in this series, you should be able to sail through most of these questions; if not, you may have a few surprises in store.

(1) Is my query letter polite?

Not just civil, mind you: genuinely courteous. Even good queriers tend to start to sound a bit exasperated by their fifteenth try. In fact, you’d be amazed at how often people use the query letter as a forum for blaming the agent addressed for conditions in the industry: my personal favorite began, “Since you agents have set yourself up as the guardians of the gates of the publishing world, I suppose I need to appeal to you first.”

A close second: “I know that challenging books seldom get published these days, but I’m hoping you’ll be smart enough to see that mine…”

Okay, these are extreme examples, but do bear in mind that agents have to interact their clients quite a bit throughout the publication process; I hear from my agent more often than I do virtually all of my old chums from college. Do make sure that you’re coming across in your query as someone with whom it will not be painful to associate on a regular basis.

(2) Does my letter sound competent and professional, or as if I have little confidence in the work? Do I sound as though I know what I’m doing, or does it read as though I’m apologizing for querying at all?

While it is a nice touch to thank the agent at the end of the query for taking the time to consider your work, doing so in the first paragraph of the query and/or repeatedly in the body of the letter comes across as obsequious. Begging tends not to be helpful in this situation. Remember, reading your query is the agent’s (or, more likely, the agent’s assistant’s) job, not a personal favor to you.

And, whatever you do, do NOT mention that the book has been rejected elsewhere, or that you’re having a hard time finding an agent, or that you think it will be challenging to sell in the current market. These are all surprisingly common elements in query letters, as they are in pitches: give some writers a few minutes, and they’ll give you eight good reasons that no one will ever pick up their work.

Trust me, that kind of modesty does not charm on the isle of Manhattan. Even if you don’t feel confident, try to sound so.

(3) Does my book come across as marketable, or does it read as though I’m boasting?

I have literally never met an agent who could not, if asked, launch into an extended medley of annoyingly pushy, self-aggrandizing query letter openings at the drop of the proverbial hat. Trust me, they’ve already seen their share of, “This is the greatest work ever written!”, “My book is the next bestseller!”, and “Don’t miss your opportunity to represent this book!”
It simply doesn’t work.

(4) Do I make it clear in the first paragraph of the letter why I am writing to this particular agent — or does it read as though I could be addressing any agent in North America?

Agents complain vociferously and often about queries that read as though the writer simply used a mail merge to address letters to every agent listed on a particular website or in a given guide, but you need not address your query to a generic “Dear Agent” to set off their repetition radar. There are hundreds and hundreds of literary agents — why did you choose this one, out of all others, to query?

And if the answer was, “This was the first agency alphabetically,” you might want to consider coming up with a reason that sounds better on paper.

Why? Human nature. Most agents are proud of their work: if you want to get on their good side, show a little appreciation for what they have done in the past. If the agent you are querying has represented something similar to your work, definitely mention that in your query letter. (As in, “Since you so ably represented X’s book, I believe you may be interested in my novel…”)

There are many ways to find out what an agent has represented; I’ve written fairly extensively on this subject in the past (if this is news to you, please see the AGENTS category at right), so I shall only list the top ways briefly here. Check the acknowledgments of books you like (authors often thank their agents), or check the agency’s website to see whom the agent represents. There are several online search engines that will permit you to enter an author’s name and find out who represents him; I use Publisher’s Marketplace, as it is so up-to-date on just-breaking sales news.

If all else fails, call the book’s publisher, ask for the publicity department, and ask who the agent of record was. I once had a charming conversation with an editor at a small Midwestern press, who confided to me that when she had acquired the book about which I was inquiring, the author did not yet have an agent. Sensing an opportunity, I promptly pitched my book to her — and she asked me to send her the first fifty pages right away.

Alternatively, if you have heard the agent speak at a conference, read an article she has written in a writer’s magazine, or even just noticed that your favorite author thanked her in the acknowledgments of a book you liked, mention that upfront. If you have no such personal reason, be polite enough to give a general one: “Since you represent literary fiction, I hope you will be interested in my novel…”

(5) Does my first paragraph mention the book category? And have I avoided the all-time fiction agent peeve of referring to the book as a “fiction novel”?

Again, when approaching people to whom industry-speak is a native tongue, it really does behoove you to describe your book in their language – and avoid describing it in terms that a publishing professional would never use. If you are unsure what a book category is, you might want to take a gander at the BOOK CATEGORIES section at right; if you are unsure why an agent would object to the term “fiction novel,” ask yourself this: what novels aren’t fiction?

You might have noticed that all of the questions so far concern the first paragraph of your query letter. I have dwelt upon the first paragraph, because – as I was discussing yesterday — countless query letters are discarded by agents every day based upon the first paragraph alone. Think about it: if you had to get through 200 queries before the end of the afternoon, would you keep reading if the first paragraph were not promising?

Oh, yes, you SAY you would. But honestly, would you?

Take a good, hard look at your first paragraph, and make sure it is one that will make the agent want keep reading. Again, it is really in your interest to adhere to the prevailing manners of the publishing world: for all intents and purposes, it is considered rather impolite to make a busy agent (or assistant) read the entire cover letter in order to find out what you want. All too often, when writers do not make their intentions clear up front, the letter simply gets tossed aside after the first paragraph.

Which is, by the way, the primary reason I advise against e-mail queries, incidentally, except in the case of agents who specifically prefer them: it’s too easy to delete an e-mail after reading only a line of it. Yes, they’re more convenient for the writer, but they’re also much, much less trouble for the agency.

Personally, I would prefer to be harder to dismiss.

Tomorrow, I shall deal with the questions you should ask about subsequent portions of your query letter — and yes, I know that it seems impossibly nit-picky to concentrate this hard upon a page of text that isn’t even in your book. I’m just trying to save you some time, and some misery — and a whole lot of rejection.

Keep up the good work!