You’ve crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s for your manuscript – you’re ready to put your story out there for the world to read. You research how to land a literary agent and learn that you need to send them a query letter in the body of a submitted email.
The reason why query letters are so discussed online is because every literary agent and publisher asks for one in their submission guidelines, among other daunting documents (looking at you, synopsis), and because they are the key to landing an agent. A good story submitted through a bad query letter can mess up your chances of securing representation. A query letter, like most essays, has 3 sections, and I’ve highlighted the mandatory components that every agent will be looking for when reading your email:
Introduction
Personalization
Book Description
Body
Status Quo
Conflict
Main Character’s Needs and Goals
The Stakes and Choice
Conclusion
Bio
To keep the query letter aesthetically pleasing, you can split it into 4-5 paragraphs, depending on how long the body portion is.
Personalization
I've heard many conflicting views on whether the query letter should be personalized to the agent you are querying. Most say yes. So let’s listen to them just to be safe.
Why are you querying this particular agent? And don’t say because they represent middle-grade romance. Everything in your query letter needs to be specific and this is no exception.
Agents are extremely specific in what they are looking for. I’ve seen manuscript wishlists for the following:
Contemporary romance with enemies to lovers, set in a non-western world with a diverse cast.
Appeal to them in what they are looking for. Refer to their favorite books if your story relates. State that you’ve listened to one of their interviews, and have a type of story that they've mentioned they wanted, and so on. Basically, show them that you have done your research.
And if you can't find any reason why they would want your book, then are they the right agent for you?
Book Description
This portion of the query letter stumps many writers. The description requires the book's specs (word count, target market, and category), the famous “One-Liner”, and the comparative book titles.
Research how long your book should be depending on the category. An adult fantasy novel will require more words than an adult romance because of the world-building. Your word count is a good tell if your book is missing something or has too much of it. A young adult book should not be over 100k words.
Many writers mistake their category, mixing up contemporary fantasy with urban fantasy.
Do. Your. Research.
Agents can determine the category based on your query letter alone.
Now, the one-liner and the comparative titles. I will give you an example of the best one I have ever read (sadly, it’s not my own) then I will expand on it:
A magical Schitt’s Creek, where a family, punished for using illegal spells, is stripped of their magic, and sent to live in a magic-less town.
Not only is the premise super interesting, but since the comparative title is a show (yes, you can use shows and movies) so recent that you can easily visualize and know what the book will be about. Certainly, there is humor. The family are outcasts. And they will try to regain their magic status throughout the story.
The comparative title needs to be recent, from the last 5 years or so and match a main component in your story. My story is the magic version of The Inheritance Games. Instead of money being bestowed amongst family members, it’s magic.
If you can incorporate your one-liner with that, you save a lot of time further explaining your story. There are plenty of Facebook groups for writers that you can join to find your comparative titles by providing a short description of your story.
Status Quo
Start off the body of the query letter by establishing what the life of your main character has always been. I’ve come across query letters that launch you into the battle. The reader pitches the story like the beginning of some movies. It loads the agents with good imagery but doesn’t provide a foundation or a history. How should they care about the conflict if there’s nothing to conflict with?
It can be a simple sentence:
In a new world, where magic is outlawed, Stefan fills his time with sword fighting.
This phrase gives you a good indication of where and when the book takes place. It’s not in modern times and the conflict will somehow affect the illegal use of magic. Maybe Stefan will learn how to fight with magic in addition to swords.
The next sentence can elaborate on why magic is outlawed if you have space in your letter.
Conflict
Your story needs conflict to push it forward. The reason you state the established status quo in your query is because you will also state the disruption. This section is what sets your entire story in motion. It doesn’t mean it always shifts from good to bad, peace to war. In a dystopian story, the status quo can be about a hundred-year war then they find peace. As long as there is a disruption that affects the main character. I’ll expand on the sentence used in the last section:
In a new world, where magic is outlawed, Stefan fills his time with sword fighting. Until one day when he rests his sword into the dirt and grass to rinse his face in the river, he hears a metal clank. With his bare hands, he claws his way through the dirt, a siren call growing the deeper he dug. The sun shone on the blue metallic tip of a book. A spell book. The only one in existence since it couldn’t be burnt like its siblings.
The disruption is the obvious reintroduction of magic in a kingdom where it's outlawed. The conflict can be that Stefan discovers that he is a warlock while being the son of a well-known magic hunter.
Main Character's Needs and Goals
A main component that is always forgotten about or overlooked is the protagonist’s needs and goals, especially for plot-driven stories. For those stories, the writer describes what’s happening to the character and leaves out how they are reacting to those situations.
A query letter spans over 300 words or so, which is not much to work with. But on this one-pager, you have to make the agent care about your main character, better if you get them to relate to your protagonist.
If your manuscript involves sibling rivalry, and you’re querying a specific type of agent because their MSWL has it, assume that the agent may have lived a life involving family drama, found families, and sibling rivalry. This is when you get them to side with the main character by writing this type of sentence in your query letter:
Saddened by the loss of their father, Rachel is blindsided when her two disgruntled older sisters conspire to alter the will to inherit what they claim is their birthright to his billion-dollar empire.
There is a lot to unpack here and that’s good. Rachel’s emotions are mentioned and so is the catalyst that’s causing the sibling rivalry. You can specify how the sisters conspire if the word count permits (the more specific you are, the better) like they pay off the lawyers to rewrite the will.
That sentence sets you up to then state their goal. Which emotion is pushing Rachel to do what? What does she want as an end result?
The next section below should explain the choice she needs to take to achieve this goal and what will happen if she doesn’t.
The Stakes and Choice
Every book needs stakes and choices that will satisfy the goal or desires of the main character. Remember, you’re not just telling a story, you're selling a product. So ask yourself, why would a reader read my book?
Answer: Because they want to know how it ends.
If you involve stakes, IE: Will this awesome character die or not? It invokes a must-need-to-know feeling in the reader.
Stakes and choices are often the last phrase of the body of the query, right before the bio. They are presented as a question.
Stakes in most stories are of the usual extremes endings like life or death, love or loneliness. It's the choice portion that creates the journey in the story.
The best choice, in my opinion, take into account the main character’s personality and judgment. For example:
Soon to face exile, will the princess bravely fight her enemies head-on to save her kingdom or will she join their gruesome ranks undercover and fight from within?
The options offer a good story no matter the protagonist’s choice, but now you’re curious as to which story this book is really about. There are also adjectives added so the agent can get a better scope of what the choices may entail. It’s not the ranks like in the army. They are gruesome, allow them to interpret what that means.
Also, is the princess brave or diabolical? An agent asking themselves this question doesn't mean you didn't offer enough detail, it means you've peaked their curiosity.
If you are pausing and cannot conjure what the stakes and choices are in your story, then your story’s plot isn’t strong enough yet. This is why query letters are a great method to determine if your manuscript is actually ready for submission.
Bio
When you’ve gotten past the grueling part of the query letter, you get to finish it off by talking about yourself. This section, like the others, should be brief. Mention where you are from, what you do, what you like, and any awards or achievements you may have (don’t sweat it if you don’t any).
Try to match the tone of your bio with the tone of your agent’s MSWL. If they are quirky and own a cat, then add in something that makes you quirky, like you have a secret handshake with your own cat if you do and that’s why you have talking cats in your manuscript. Not only are you trying to sell a story, but you are also trying to foster a relationship with the agent. Proved to them that you are both compatible and alike.
So there you have it, the points listed that should be in your query. How else your query unfolds is up to you. I’ve seen queries written in certain styles where I didn’t even understand the premise of the story, however, agents liked it.
Again, writing is extremely subjective and you need to own your style and voice while adhering to the industry requirements and expectations of a query letter.
PS. Always finish your letter with “Thank you for your time and consideration.”
Sign your name and put your contact information and handles below.
Good luck!