Hey fam! So, you know how last week I said "please be kind to yourself if you can't produce work?" Well, it turns out I can't really take my own advice, or maybe I took it a little too well? Or maybe my brain is just a strange bell curve, with "too much chaos, cannot work" on one side and "even more chaos, now functions brilliantly" on the other side.
I'm not sure. But between Tuesday and today, a lot happened. And also a lot happened.
But during that time, I actually had stunning moments of creativity and productivity, which felt almost superhuman. I'm not sure where they came from, but they were brief and yet refilled my cup in such a beautiful way in between the absolute suckiness of everything.
I finished my line edits (and then came down with the norovirus). I revised my synopsis, the one-page complete plot summary that some agents ask for (and then had to stop being sick, because my dad came down with the norovirus). I began editing my standard query for the fourth time now (and then my 17-year-old cat decided to start actively moving into Stage 4 kidney failure, which I still need to call the vet for btw, but she's stable and they're not even open yet, and if I think too much about the fact that she looks like Misty when Misty was dying, I'll never stop crying, so I am writing this instead).
Anyway, I keep having ideas for blog posts and then shelving them to revisit later, but I've had this one floating around for a while and it finally feels appropriate. It's query time, baby!
Now, for the uninitiated, a query is basically how you sell your work to an agent. It's approximately one page (in Word or Docs), which gets either sent via email or submitted via the appropriate box on an agent's submission form, alongside your first ten pages. Agents receive a lot of emails, like upwards of 300 a day, so this bad boy really has to stand out. Think about the back blurb on your favorite (or least favorite!) book, and imagine you're basically writing that, but for your own book.
This might sound stupidly easy. I promise you that it is actually stupidly difficult.
Because...
How do you summarize 400 pages in 3-4 paragraphs?
How do you decide which details/character arcs are worthy of inclusion?
How do you sketch the world/conflict enough to orient the agent, but not overwhelm with superfluous detail?
How do you make sure that it's accurate and authentic to your book's truest self, but still catchy and market-friendly?
How do you stand out in an audition for the best talent show you'll ever be in...when you can't see your competition or really the judge?
Obviously, you can stack the deck right away. Finding only agents who want to buy what you're selling is a huge one (and I use "selling" metaphorically. ZERO cash should be exchanged. Do not pay agents; that part comes in through royalties and such later).
If you're selling a YA contemporary romance to agents who want middle-grade science fiction, you've already lost them. They might not even read your query, but it's not personal. Agents have to spend almost as much time with your book as you do, and why represent a genre they don't even want to read?
Another big one is once you've found agents who want to buy what you're selling (the more specific, the better!), just follow their instructions, which might sound anal, but listen: it's basic decency. At the end of the day, agents are people, too, and formatting your stuff in the way that they ask shows that you have some small amount of respect for them. I also look at pronouns in this section. If someone doesn't list them, I don't use them. No "Mr," "Ms," or "Mx." Just straight up put the agent's name. "Dear Jane Doe." Simple. No misgendering. No unintentional awkwardness.
But those two things are just getting your foot in the door. The real test is your query letter.
When I was stupid and naive, fresh off of finishing my first draft back in August 2021, I asked the lovely MC Atwood to help me with my query letter, and she gave an excellent skeleton. I've since lost it, but the basic query outline is a little something like this:
Paragraph 1: Book title, genre, word count, comp titles (what your book is similar to, etc)...basically anything that can be described as "metadata."This stays the same with every query. AND why you think your book will be a good fit for this particular agent. This is the part where you do your homework, and changes with every query, but certain parts can be retained. (For example, if everyone that you're querying likes "found family," feel free to leave that bit in there)
Paragraph 2-5: The "back of the book" blurb, and, arguably, the most important part! You've got to nail this bad boy. This can change from agent to agent, but should remain largely the same.
Paragraph 6: Any credentials you may have, however small. Published a poem in your college lit mag? Wrote a few things back in high school? Self-published something? Anything counts. Also, a little bit about you, but keep it brief. This stays the same UNLESS said agent has a super-specific interest that you also share, and then connect on a personal level!
Paragraph 7: Something about how you thank them for their time, and these exact words: "My manuscript is available, in part or in full, upon request."
And that's it. Rinse. Repeat. So easy, right?
Except, it's not. Because while you know your book inside and out, the agents you're querying don't, so if you leave something crucial out of that query--something potentially life-changing--then they'll never know it. And that's the bad part. So, for this, I present: a series of bad queries, but just the book blurb part.
This is the first query I ever wrote, and it's never been sent for good reason.
"Aiselde and Emrys Dinsmore’s rules for staying alive in a broken world are simple:
1. Watch the civil war between the gods and the faeries unfold, but do not, under any circumstances, participate.
2. Learn enough magic to resurrect their dead father, Donn, god of death and rebel leader, so that he can end the reign of the gods and reunite their island himself.
3. Always return to their underground fortress so the gods never discover the existence of their sworn enemy’s children.
4. And never, ever let anyone know that Aiselde has her mother’s gift for carnage.
But when a routine scouting mission goes awry and leaves Ais stranded in disputed territory, she discovers that the time for following rules is long past. Faerie magic is dying, and if that happens, the wrong side will win yet again. With the help of Saoirse, a charismatic and fierce faerie who is never quite sure whether she loves or hates Ais, she must rise up to end the war...or risk losing everything."
I've heard a great saying about how you have to be cringe in order to become good and um...I want to pretend this never happened. First off, this violates all of rule 3: it's almost entirely background that never becomes relevant after the first 50 pages. Second off, the "rules" thing is bad. And third off, I actually know nothing about the story's plot from reading this. If I were an agent...hard pass.
Plus you know I would've paired this guy with the Cailleach version of Chapter 1. So, extra hard pass.
This is the second query I ever wrote, and it unfortunately DID get sent to an agent I was really really hoping would work out, and three months later, I realized this query was so bad that I retroactively emailed the agent to apologize for the query, which is absolutely unhinged behavior. Don't do this. Please.
"The first and last time that eighteen-year-old goddess Aiselde Dinsmore ever used her magic, she killed a man and told no one.
If any of her family were to discover that she’d inherited her mother’s gift for carnage, they would celebrate. It’s how wars against the gods are won, after all. She’d finally free the fae from a century of oppression, the cause her parents had died defending. She’d end the corrupt reign of Arawn, the god of death. She and her twin brother would be able to stop hiding in the shadows and watching a rebellion unfold.
She’d be a hero.
But Ais is burdened by her mother’s past as Arawn’s executioner and terrified of repeating history, even if she’s fighting for the right side. However, fate will leave her no choice. When Ais ends up stranded on faerie land after a close encounter with Arawn, she discovers that the god of death plans to obliterate faeries and their magic. And the faerie rebellion needs a goddess of her caliber to stop it.
With the help of Saoirse Varun, a charismatic and fierce faerie who is never quite sure whether she loves or hates Ais, she must face her past to save the future."
Okay, first off, words. Lots of words. Too many words that never go anywhere. And too many words that basically amount to backstory. In fact, the real meat of this query only starts at "However, fate..." and is horribly vague. What does "she must face her past to save the future" actually mean? Are they literally fighting Arawn, because it sounds like a fight? Is there a romance or not? WHY does Saoirse feel ambivalent about Ais? And why oh why did I retain the part about Saoirse from the OG awful draft, because it should've been, like, the first thing that got cut? (Spoiler: it was because I knew it was bad and yet also was hoping no one would notice. I'm sensing a disturbing pattern. Don't be me.)
Now, after this awful query got sent, I had three months to think and restrategize, and to realize that my chances were shot. I'd sent this crappy query to two other agents and received hard nos so fast, it was as if the keyboard was literally on fire. I'm talking two day response times, people.
So, I came up with this:
"Born with a gift for carnage and a fear of what she is capable of unleashing, goddess Aiselde Dinsmore is content to watch the faerie rebellion unfold from afar. She knows well the cost of her participation, but she knows equally well that Arawn, the god of death and oppressor of the fae, must be dethroned. When a routine scouting mission places her directly in Arawn’s path and leaves her stranded in enemy territory, she can no longer stand by. Not when Saoirse Varun, the charismatic granddaughter of legendary rebel leaders, challenges Ais to do better. And not when Arawn has taken possession of Murias, the source from which all fae magic and life arises. Together, Ais and Saoirse must journey into the heart of danger to kill Arawn and to return the stolen source of fae magic. But legacies are complicated, and as time begins to run out, Ais and Saoirse face a challenge they never expected: falling in love."
Short, sweet, and...entirely empty of nutritional value. The fun size candy of queries, if you will. And yet, it was a step closer. Because we'd cut most of the filler, it shrunk to like half the size, and it also managed to get a plot. It's a heist novel now. Thing is taken, high stakes, thing must be returned, romance along the way.
And it was good enough to get a personalized rejection this time! The agent liked it, but "not enough," which you wouldn't think was it a victory, but hoo boy, it was.
But here was the problem. I'd sent the agent 50 pages, because she asked for 50 pages, and these 50 pages contained a little something that the query had only hinted at: trauma. I had broken rule 2 and 4 by leaving out a crucial part of my book, which is Ais's character arc. Although it sounded good, and would probably be a pretty darn good book if someone else wrote it, this query didn't represent my book, and I knew this.
So, for my next batch of agents, as my others were returning as "nos," I came up with this (if we are keeping track, this is number 4):
"Goddess Aiselde Dinsmore can kill with a single touch, a skill that will make her a valuable ally in the faerie rebellion and more than worthy to dethrone Arawn, the cruel god of death. But Aiselde’s mother was once Arawn’s loyal executioner, and this legacy weighs heavy. Ais knows that heroes are not born of carnage, so she spends her days on futile scouting missions and her nights safely away from the battlefield.
But when Ais becomes stranded in the heart of the resistance, she begins to question the cost of hiding in the shadows. Saoirse Varun, the charismatic granddaughter of legendary rebel leaders, is certainly content to point out all the ways Ais’s privilege blinds her. And when the resistance discovers Arawn has stolen the cauldron of fae magic, threatening the lives of every faerie, Ais has little choice but to finally brave her magic.
Together, Ais and Saoirse must band together to kill Arawn and to return the cauldron before it is too late. But legacies are complicated, and as time begins to run out, Ais and Saoirse face a challenge they never expected: falling in love."
And this one was so good, it got an "I would have considered, but I am currently representing a queer YA fantasy, so I don't want to put your manuscript in competition with hers," which literally made me want to jump for joy.
But, I had this nagging sense, even before I sent my manuscript to my brilliant alpha/beta professor, that my query was...off. It had trauma. I liked that. It had romance. I liked that. But it felt...redundant and tonally off? And still alarmingly vague. Because, as my professor pointed out, I never really explained, anywhere in the manuscript or the query, why Ais has to "brave her magic," or what that even means.
So, was this a case of a bad manuscript or a bad query? I'd argue both. I was almost there, but falling short, because I kept falling back on vague, anticipatory phrases. The empty calories syndrome, again. But the flaws in my query should have helped me identify the flaws in my manuscript.
Because I distinctly remember, in my plotless and rambling first draft, having difficulty boiling it all down to a query, and the result is the overly-expository first query which never got sent. It makes sense. How can you summarize the plot and central conflict if it's kinda half-baked and cloaked in layers of unnecessary backstory?
And in every query since, I had difficulty doing away with empty phrases...because my manuscript was secretly chock full of things that never added up, never went anywhere, and bogged the plot down to the point where I couldn't see what was important.
Now, on what I hope will be my final draft, my query kinda tells me that it's ready. And, for secrecy's sake, no I won't post it here, but I promise.
I think this one's good.
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