Conflicting Info on Queries -- What Agents Want

So different from being “in the stable” at magazines.

I am not an agent, but my take on this is that you're stressing out a little too much over the format.

A query letter's sole purpose (which JR and NL both say) is to get the agent to ask for pages. If it works, it doesn't matter what format you do it in.

They know, however, that not all of us can craft a rule-breaking query letter that works. Some agents spend a lot of time talking about their preferred format for a query letter because they believe the format they're explaining is a relatively easy and reliable way to produce something that works.

Still, there isn't one single way to write a query letter that works. Agents aren't requesting or rejecting based on whether you strictly answered Janet Reid's four questions or followed Noah Lukeman's three paragraph rule. They request or reject based on whether the query clearly represents a story that interests them.

So, if you are querying Janet Reid or Noah Lukeman, perhaps writing a query based on what you know of their personal preferences will illustrate that you've properly researched the agents you're querying. Otherwise, just settle on the query that you think will work best to succinctly and thrillingly convey the gist of your story and use it when agents don't specify what they want. For what it's worth, at least in my category, I see more agents asking for queries along the lines of what Janet Reid revises to on Query Shark.

This sort of frustrates me as well. I've even seen individual agents contradict themselves from year to year in interviews that I've found online. I saw one agent say something along the lines of "Don't try to be cute or try too hard to be clever or dramatic. Just tell me straight up what the story is about." So I wrote them a nice cut-and-dry, straightforward, short query. Only after I submitted that query did I see another commentary of theirs talking about how they loved queries that really had a flare for the dramatic. I was like, really? Come on now.

Basically I've decided at this point that if an agent is so particular and inflexible about their queries that they would reject just because the query isn't their "ideal format," they are probably not one I want to be working with. I would prefer an agent who realizes the query is just to tell them a bit about the story, and doesn't expect some work of art, because that's so subjective.

The secret to writing a query: There isn't one.

All you have to do is get the crux of your plot across, succinctly, and in such a way that reflects your voice, the tone of your novel, and gives the agent a reason to believe your work is worth reading in 300 words or less.

That's it. There's no template, no "rules," just guidelines.

Many agents even skip the query and go straight to the pages. If they like the pages, then they check the query to get the basics of the story locked down.

The book blurb on the back cover is about the same size, generally, as the 'meat' of the query letter. The idea, in both cases, is to entice the reader to want to read the book. If you're having trouble writing A QUERY, try writing A BLURB instead. You can get plenty of examples of those just by going to Amazon. Although if you're trying to get an agent and publisher, you should probably stick to those books that have a significant publisher, in order to better understand the formula.

Cyia said:

The secret to writing a query: There isn't one.

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QFT

Cyia said:

All you have to do is get the crux of your plot across, succinctly, and in such a way that reflects your voice, the tone of your novel, and gives the agent a reason to believe your work is worth reading in 300 words or less.

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Easy as herding cats at the catnip factory.

They're just people. Ordinary people. One day I love crunchy peanut butter and they next day, I don't want any peanut butter at all. On Monday, I can say that all I want to eat is chicken salad sammies but by Thursday, I'm so sick of them that I just want a pizza. And I can go to 40 bars and ask 40 different bartenders for an Old Fashioned and they'll make it 40 slightly different ways.

That online advice is useful at the time they write it but they can change their mind a million times because they're just people. Like us.

You're trying to find someone with whom you're compatible. You're not trying to check all their boxes.

It's like dating. Sometimes the timing is wrong. Sometimes you just don't connect. You don't want to bend over backwards for someone who just isn't right for you. Wouldn't you rather be single than have to jump through hoops to please someone who doesn't check YOUR boxes?

Write a query that you love, that makes you feel good, that you think is a good representation of your story. Send that out to a few agents who are looking for stories like yours. Once you're bored with the query, change it. Keep going.
Get rejected. Pour a drink. One day, the right agent will come along and you can go out dancing.

But take advice with a grain of salt. Pave your own road.

From a reader's view, a blurb is to tell me that you've got a cool character with a problem, and to make me think that cool character trying to solve problem will be interesting. An indication of general tone (jokey? grimdark? sweet? hardboiled) and initial plot ("Oh, this is a murder mystery/bad boy romance/chosen one/quest/Vietnam war story! I like those!") are important as well.

I don't need the whole premise or backstory, and I'll just blip over any superlatives thrown at me, unless you can really convince me someone said those things and not you or your marketing department.

atwhatcost said:

Funny thing about the rhetorical question no-no. Before jumping ship from business writing to fiction writing, I wrote resumes, including cover letters. My first sentence was always a rhetorical question, because they worked. I can sell a person, but MS? Nada! (Actually, not really angry at the wall I keep running into. I'd just like to find a way around it or through it, because my head hurts from smashing it too often.)

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atwhatcost said:

As for book blurb? That's like asking me to learn Japanese opera. I have no knowledge of how to write a book blurb, and since learning query has taken me six months and I'm still feeling lost, I'd rather not hop study.

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When you're done freaking out, you might go over to QLH (Query Letter Hell) and do some critiquing. Reading and critting other queries will help you learn a lot about what works and what doesn't.

I think you may be overthinking what it means to write a query "in voice." It's not a matter of making the query from the POV of the character (something I would advise STRONGLY against). What you want to do is give an impression with a taste of your authorial voice.

If your novel's a comedy, make the query funny.
If your novel's a horror, make the query scary.
If your novel's a thriller / mystery, then make the query intriguing.

You could query Harry Potter as a comedy by focusing on the humorous aspects of how his cousin falls prey to his accidental magic, or the prank pulling of his friends in school.

You could query Harry Potter as a horror by focusing on the deaths of his parents and attempted murder of a child, or by emphasizing the danger he faces in school as the hand of an unseen evil reaching out to destroy him.

You could query Harry Potter as a mystery by focusing on the secrets surrounding his heritage and the unseen world running parallel to the regular one, or by zeroing in on the mystery of the stone itself.

You *could* do any of those things. You could do them with books like Twilight (funny klutz, scary hunters, mystery of the family's origin) or even the Hunger Games (ridiculous capitol people, scary threats of death, mystery of the mocking jay), if you single out specifics of the world in which each book exists. The trick is to find the focus that best fits the book as a whole: Harry Potter is actually a fun adventure, Twilight is actually a romance, The Hunger Games is all action and survival.

What's your book? Fit the query to that template.

It's odd to me that you think writing a query is so vastly different from a back cover blurb that you feel you'd have to learn a whole new set of skills. Can you explain to me what you think the difference between the two are?

Okay well then this shows me you don't seem to have a fundamental understanding of what a query letter is which is so totally okay because we all start out not knowing things until we do . Because at its core a query letter contains essentially a book blurb. They are not different writing techniques like a novel vs short story, or contract vs novel. They are basically the exact same kind of writing. So now I'm going to ask you the same question again but hopefully this time you answer specifically. Your analogous joke followed by an explanation about the philosophy behind writing two different things is not what I asked. I asked: what do you think the difference between the two are? And now I'll expand on that. What do you think you need to write in a query? And what do you think you need to write in a back cover blurb? And what do you think makes them different from each other? Let's root out the essence of your confusion, which might possibly help you understand better the essence of what a query letter should be .


Also as an MG writer I still don't get what your point is about finding the voice. Do you not know the voice in which your book is written? Is it that? If so, let me ask you this: is it serious, silly, sarcastic, poetic? The story as you've described it could be any of those things. It's not about what it's about, but HOW you've told it. What other books would you say it is most like?

I feel like some of your answers are coming across as large sweeping "I can't do it! I don't know what I'm doing!" instead of literally answering us. So take a breath. Ask yourself the questions we've given you to ask yourself. See if you can come up with an answer. No one is expecting you to be perfect at this, we all had to learn and grow. We are just trying to help you by asking certain questions that could lead to some insight into your own work. Take our questions as writing exercises. And take your time with them. No need to rush back in frustration that you don't know the answer. If you don't, then let's keep working through it, but try first.

Toothpaste said:

It's odd to me that you think writing a query is so vastly different from a back cover blurb that you feel you'd have to learn a whole new set of skills. Can you explain to me what you think the difference between the two are?

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A query letter targets a professional for the purposes of selling your work further. A blurb targets the end audience.

They are very different creatures, and a quick comparison of published book blurbs with successful queries shows a divergence between the format, style, and expected information provided. In my experience reading blurbs for published fantasy novels, blurbs rarely conform to agents' expressed requirements for queries.

mpack said:

A query letter targets a professional for the purposes of selling your work further. A blurb targets the end audience.

They are very different creatures, and a quick comparison of published book blurbs with successful queries shows a divergence between the format, style, and expected information provided. In my experience reading blurbs for published fantasy novels, blurbs rarely conform to agents' expressed requirements for queries.

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Speaking as someone whose publisher put her query on the back of her book as its blurb - verbatim - they're not that different. Both are designed to make prospective readers want more.

mpack - I appreciate that that's your experience. I have to say I have literally never heard that though. In my own personal experience and the experience of most of the other authors I know, the part of the query that talks about the book itself has a ton in common with a back cover blurb. And as Cyia says, often such a query blurb ends up as part of the pitch package for an agent, and even can wind up on the back of the eventual book itself. Possibly not identical, but they serve the exact same job: selling the book. I would possibly say a book cover blurb is harder because it tends to need to be even shorter, but that's all the more reason to learn how to write one, because if you can get a good one of those, you can definitely get a good query synopsis. Yes there is more to a query than just the book blurb, but the blurb itself is the thing that the OP is clearly struggling with.

The greater point of course is that they both work to establish tone, plot, character in a short space, and attempt to tell a reader why this book instead of another book. They share that in common, and a writer needs to learn how to write concisely, compellingly and convincingly to do that.

I just quite frankly don't see them as vastly different beasts, and certainly not so vast that one needs to learn a whole new set of skills in order to write as the OP is claiming.

mpack said:

A query letter targets a professional for the purposes of selling your work further. A blurb targets the end audience.

They are very different creatures, and a quick comparison of published book blurbs with successful queries shows a divergence between the format, style, and expected information provided. In my experience reading blurbs for published fantasy novels, blurbs rarely conform to agents' expressed requirements for queries.

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mpack, that is also what I have heard from different agents. I also think it is necessary to distinguish between blurb (i.e. jacket copy) and query. While there are similarities between the two, the blurb oftentimes is shorter and more succinct, whereas the query dives into more detail on what the character wants, what the conflict is, and other details that won't necessarily be included in a blurb. See agent Janet Reid (who runs QueryShark)'s post here.

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2015/12/why-writing-your-query-like-dust-jacket.html

Again, the distinction lies in the target audience. Some people do end up having parts of their query letter used in the blurb, and it is useful to study what makes a blurb hook its readers so you can borrow some of the same elements. But I would approach them differently.

Your mileage will vary.

Except the point is . . . they simply are not vastly different things the way the OP has claimed they are. They might be different, but they require the same skill set. And that was my point. Claiming that there is as big a difference from a back cover copy and a query letter that it requires a whole new set of skills was my issue. Also since the OP is coming across a little panicked and freaking out about the whole thing I was attempting to make things seem less daunting by explaining these things have far more in common with each other than not. That there is value in doing one because it benefits the other, and that the skill set involved in concisely, clearly and convincingly sharing what your story is about with someone has a cross platform utility. I get that you guys are more interested in discussing what makes them different from each other, but I was just trying to help calm the OP and show that none of this is nearly as daunting as they think it is.