Do you always need to name the characters?

Franco said:

Hello all!

I have written what I think is a well-crafted query letter.

My question is this: in my second paragraph, where I briefly sketch out the plot, do I always need to identify the protagonists by name? I have looked at a number of sample query letters, and it seems to me that this is the accepted norm. However, I have multiple protagonists and naming them all, I feel, might be unwieldy or cumbersome. I have identified them only by their professions, which is quite relevant to the plot. I think that it's enough but would prefer to double-check here.

Your thoughts?

Many thanks,
Franco

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You shouldn't have multiple protagonists in a query letter. Check Query Letter Hell, in the Share Your Work section (password: vista), for stickies and lots of queries in process.

Franco said:

Cornflake,

Thank you for your response, but I don't think I understand it. If there are five protagonists in my novel and each one takes the same amount of space + significance in the plot (not one of them stands out above the others - that's just the nature of the plot and it represents my vision), why should I name only one or two to the detriment of everyone else? Yes, most novels have one or two main characters, but mine is a bit unusual in that respect...

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It doesn't matter how many MCs you have in your MS. For the purpose of the query letter, it's best to stick to one character with one problem and one set of stakes. I highly recommend you peruse the QLH stickies. After fifty posts, you can post your query letter in QLH, if you're so inclined.

ETA: The purpose of the query letter is to hook the agent, not to summarize the novel. It's really difficult to do that with five characters in under 250 words. It's what agents tend to refer to as "character soup" and can lead to an auto rejection. Welcome to AW, BTW.

I went to a query writing workshop by an agent once, and he said that it's his opinion that every novel has many possible queries in it. It's your job to pick the angle and focus that is most engaging. Tossing out too many names is not a good idea, he said.

This is a link to a success story interview on querytracker (the actual query letter is at the end). The author has a fantasy story told in multiple povs, but notice how she picks one character as her focus while making it clear that there will be other characters in the story without bogging things down with each of their individual plots. This query attracted a lot of interest and got many offers of rep (7 offers).

https://querytracker.net/success/emmie_mears.php

I whole-heartedly agree. Naming too many characters in a query letter can be confusing. I would just stick to the main character and to their trouble. There must be one character in your novel that stands out.

Franco said:

Cornflake,

Thank you for your response, but I don't think I understand it. If there are five protagonists in my novel and each one takes the same amount of space + significance in the plot (not one of them stands out above the others - that's just the nature of the plot and it represents my vision), why should I name only one or two to the detriment of everyone else? Yes, most novels have one or two main characters, but mine is a bit unusual in that respect...

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First off, multi-POV books are not that unique. Ever since Game of Thrones exploded, multi-POV became very popular in genre, and likely in literary as well. I'd say almost 50% of fantasy queries I see these days are multi-POV.

Keep in mind the, purpose of a query is not to accurately reflect your book. The purpose of a query is to entice the interest of an agent. And the very limited scope of both a query's length and an agent's attention mean that it's difficult enough to get them interested in a single character, much less multiple.

Imagine if you had one sentence to pitch (not sum up) Game of Thrones. Trying to cram in all the major characters will result in an info-dump soup. But focus on one and you get "When the honorable Ned Stark is appointed Hand of the King, he discovers a treasonous conspiracy to hide the Prince's true lineage, and is forced to choose between his honor and his life." The latter is way more compelling.