Pronouns and Query Letters: A Dilemma

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danatcsimpson

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I'm embarking on a new round of queries for a YA fantasy with an ensemble cast of four viewpoint characters. Was this a terrible idea? Perhaps! I have learned it is impossible to write a query letter for it. Taking the advice of many a How-To-Query thread, I focused the letter on the primary protagonist's goal in the first third of the book and didn't mention anyone else's storyline. This bring me to my problem.

The primary protagonist is a sixteen-year-old aspiring physician who embarks on a search for his kidnapped older 'brother'. Except he doesn't have a brother. He has a sister. She was still presenting as male at the time of her abduction and he remains unaware of her true gender until he gets close to tracking her down. I wrote a short, snappy, crisp letter about the quest to find her. Okay. Great. But I don't know how to avoid misgendering her throughout the damn thing because the protagonist himself is initially ignorant of her correct pronouns and real name.

If I mention her storyline in the letter, it's easy to establish her proper gender without confusing the ever-loving hell out of the agent. A sociopathic, politically-connected robber baron is sucking out her innate magical abilities like she's a human Slurpee (and BTW she is not and has never been a bro, bro). Then the query gets too long though. Like a full, single-spaced, Arial 12pt page. Ugh.

I would also reaaally like to avoid the sensational "...but it turns out she's actually his sister! Dun dun dun!" wording. It's concise but also shitty? The focus of that subplot is not on the problems her transness causes to him (because... no). It's on the problems his being a teenage boy insecure in his masculinity causes to her.

Ideas? Is a longish query okay in this case? I'm stuck. :(
 

kuwisdelu

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[Name] is a sixteen-year-old aspiring physician who embarks on a search for his kidnapped older 'brother'. Except he doesn't have a brother. He has a sister.

...seems like a fine start to a query letter to me.

Do you need any more explanation of her storyline than that?

Feel free to start a Query Letter Hell thread and leave a link here.
 
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that redhead

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I like the "Except he doesn't have a brother. He has a sister" part quite a bit. Maybe if the next sentence began with "Unaware that his sibling has transitioned, blah blah blah" or something simple like that you'd let the agent know without resorting to the dun dun DUN moment.

But definitely, double check with query letter hell. :)
 
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