If you’re lucky enough not to know what a query letter is, I’ll let Nathan Bransford explain:
A query letter is part business letter, part creative writing exercise, part introduction, part death defying leap through a flaming hoop. (Don’t worry, you won’t catch fire and die during the query process though it may feel precisely like that at times). In essence: it is a letter describing your project.
The following is a query letter for Little Red King. I never sent it out. As of now, I don’t have a final query letter that I’m ready to send. From here:
“Hold strong,” Michelle, a traditional Chinese woman, tells John Ingram as he tries to use chopsticks. John has come to China to teach English, and thanks to her, he learns how to use chopsticks. He holds strong.
He holds strong when he finds himself more sideshow than teacher.
He holds strong as he descends into an expat lifestyle of cheap alcohol and easy women.
And right as he finds the strength to put that life behind him and pursue Michelle, another teacher assaults a student. John finds himself being blamed.
Now he must hold strong, or lose Michelle forever.
LITTLE RED KING is literary fiction complete at 123,000 words.
Gimmicky as hell, but the Hold Strong metaphor is vital to the story.
Query letters drive me nuts. So much harder to write one perfect page to be literary and compelling and be ad gimmicky-marketing all at once. The 100,000+ words part though time-consuming is much easier!
Funny how that works, isn’t it? Add in the contradictory advice, the stacked odds, an agent’s peculiar tastes…and you have a recipe for nightmares.