Describing Plot in a Query Letter

Describing plot in a query letter can be tricky. Many writers stumble over the “meat” of the pitch. One of my favorite notes to give because it make so much sense to me is “A situation is not a plot.” You need to think about premise vs plot, and make sure you’re describing you story’s plot in your query.

(Though Stephen King is quick to absolutely disprove me by giving the opposite note here, ha! Proving once and for all how subjective writing advice can be. As the author of a book of writing advice, I’ll be the first to admit it.)

describing plot in a query letter, query letter, slush, literary agent, young adult query, middle grade query, novel query, picture book query, plot pitch — Fill this page with your query “meat.” Sounds gross, but I’m about to rock your world. Get your mind out of the gutter!

This note applies especially to queries and I wanted to remind everyone to concentrate on specific plot points in their pitch letters as 2013 and all the make-your-dreams-come-true querying gets underway.

Are You Listing or Are You Describing Plot in a Query Letter?

Here’s an example of what not to do when describing plot in a query letter:

Emma wants to be normal so badly, but she can’t. Between a cheating boyfriend, an abusive father on his way out of the family, and a rivalry with the most talented softball player in school, she has no time at all to discover that the tattoo she got over spring break is giving her secret powers.

Sorry for the lame example, but I rather like the idea of a tramp stamp giving you a little more than you bargained for. Maybe it’s my childhood memory of that one episode of the X-Files when Scully gets that snake tattoo and all hell breaks loose? Wow. Blast from the past. Anyhow…

Sell the Reader on Your Query Letter

This query is fine and I see it a lot in the slush. But it’s not the best it can be, and that’s why I’m calling it out here. What’s missing? A specific sense of plot. This query gives us a fine idea of everything that’s going on in Emma’s life, but it doesn’t really do any of the heavy lifting to connect the dots. It’s like dumping the jigsaw puzzle of your plot pitch in front of your reader and saying, “Well, there it is.”

When you’re describing plot in a query letter, you’re not just selling the reader on the hook of your story or how marketable it might be, you’re also selling them on your story itself.

Here, we don’t know if the father is going to be the main secondary plot (giving it a darker, more contemporary realistic shade despite the tattoo element), or the boyfriend (giving it a more romance flavor), or the softball rivalry (making me think it’s going to be a school-heavy story). If I’m left to reassemble the pieces of Emma’s situation in my own head, I could find three very different books in there.

Structure the Pitch, Don’t Ask the Agent to Do the Work

That’s a problem. You want to not only give us the elements of your story but arrange them in such a way that your plot pitch shines, guiding the reader even more into the specific world and events of your unique novel. A successful example of describing plot in a query letter would go like this:

Just as her abusive father is on his way out of the family, Emma discovers an uncomfortable secret: that tattoo she got over spring break is giving her the ability to see people’s futures. And she doesn’t like what it forecasts for her relationship with Rufus when she predicts his cheating on her at prom. From there, it’s one catastrophe after another, especially as she races against time to best her softball rival before the last game of the year determines who gets a coveted scholarship. As her power predicts doom and gloom for everyone around her, Emma has to do everything she can to secure her own future.

Okay, now I know that the father isn’t really going to be a big part of it, and the boyfriend’s cheating is more of an incident for the first third. The main thrust of the plot will probably be the rivalry, ending in a championship at the climax. The story feels much clearer to me now that the plot pitch is guiding me along instead of throwing me in the deep end of situation. This is a nuanced distinction, but an important one.

I spent five years as a literary agent, and I saw tens of thousands of queries. Hire me be your query letter editor, and I’ll help you avoid common traps and rise above the slush.

Communicating With Literary Agents While On Submission

Today’s question about communicating with literary agents while on submission comes from Peter:

I’m submitting simultaneous submissions (only when they say it’s OK, of course). I know it is common courtesy to let agents know the submission is not exclusive and inform the others when I receive representation from one. But what of the time in between? If I query two agents, and one emails me back with suggestions and asks me to resubmit, do I need to tell the other one? In other words, should I keep everyone in the loop of events prior to anything less than a signed contract?

communicating with literary agents, received offer of representation, following up with literary agents, submitting to a literary agent, agents actively looking — The train is leaving Fiction Station! Rec’d offr 4 rep. U in? (No, please don’t text or call agents actively looking at your work that you have another offer, but you do want to send an email…)

Keeping Literary Agents in the Loop–How Much Is Too Much Communication?

Good question! There are a few things going on here. I’ll do my best to unpack them. I hope all of you are already as up-to-speed as this writer and know that when you’re communicating with literary agents, it is courtesy to both inform them when something is a simultaneous submission (and most things should be, you know how I feel about the exclusive submission to a literary agent), and when you receive an offer on a manuscript.

Now, some people are torn as to whether to contact EVERY agent who has the query when you receive an offer, even if they haven’t responded yet, or just those agents actively looking at fulls or partials.

I’m neutral on the issue. I’ve had querying writers inform me of an offer and this made me read their query immediately if I hadn’t already. I’ve also had writers whose fulls I was reading email me to tell me that someone had scooped me and offered quickly. Both work for me. What I don’t love is someone whose full I am considering emailing me to let me know that they’ve received an offer–and accepted it already–without letting me have time to decide whether I’d also like a chance at the manuscript.

Communicating With Literary Agents When You Receive an Offer

Of course, I understand that sometimes you have an instant connection with an offering agent and all other agents start to immediately look like chopped liver. But the usual time to inform everyone is when you receive an offer. If you do accept without giving anyone else a chance, a courtesy notice to other agents actively looking at your work is, of course, appropriate, but try and make them aware earlier.

What I don’t care about are partial and full requests you’re getting while I either have your query or full manuscript. There is no need to keep everyone informed about this. I understand the psychology behind writers sometimes think this is a good idea, but it’s more annoying than anything. They want you to think, “What a hot commodity! I must read immediately!”

This is what I think instead, “As nice as they feel to this writer, partial and full requests are actually quite common. Depending on the agent, however, they could mean very little in terms of getting an offer, and we all know it.” This type of nudge email is just that: a nudge. And, the more often a writer does it, the more annoying they might start to seem.

My response may not apply to communicating with literary agents across the board, but the above are pretty standard best practices that you can follow to play fair and also not antagonize the agents you’re hoping to impress. If it’s an offer, keep us in the loop. If you’d like to withdraw your query, partial, or full for any reason, keep us in the loop. Otherwise, wait. I know it’s tough, but it makes a good impression if you can be patient.

My editorial services aren’t just for manuscripts. I also offer confidential and discrete consulting services for authors who have questions about literary agents and career trajectory.

Concrete Writing: Using Specific Language

I see a lot of vague writing instead of concrete writing in novel openings: danger and secrets and tension and action, but with no real specific language. If you’ve ever listened to the trailer for an action movie, you know what I’m talking about. A guy with a deep and raspy voice (think Will Arnett) is narrating as the sun rises over a wasted landscape:

In a world of destruction, the danger of explosive secrets will bring one man to the edge.

concrete writing, specific language — Ditch the vague writing and give readers a clear picture of what your story’s about from the very beginning.

Vague Writing: Sounds Great, But Where’s the Story?

Sounds great. Really juicy. Until you think about it and realize you have no idea what the movie’s about because of the absence of concrete writing. Well, this is the kind of thing you want to avoid in your prose and in your elevator pitch. I see this a lot with novel openings. Writers think that they can juice up the story tension by making their first few paragraphs sound like action-trailer nonsense. They often do this in queries, also, where they give me even less of an inkling as to what their book is really about.

We get a lot of talk about danger and secrets and tension and action, but nothing is actually communicated without concrete writing. And since it has all been telling, the reader never feels the emotions that those volatile things are supposed to be stirring.

The Antidote? Concrete Writing

I don’t want to hear about “danger,” I want to see it, and I want to know exactly what it is and what it means for the character. I don’t want to hear about “secrets,” I want to be blown out of the water by them and see their high-stakes ramifications play out on character and relationship. If you find yourself filling your opening paragraph with vague writing, delete it and start in scene, with specific language, action, and characters.

That pretty much does it for my daily “show, don’t tell” plug. Now, I’m off on my day of intrigue, excitement, and thrills!

(Translation: My day of reading a manuscript, taking a lunch meeting, and checking out my new gym. Sure, this line-up doesn’t exactly sound as flashy as “intrigue, excitement, and thrills,” but it is specific, and now you have a much clearer sense of my day.)

Is your novel beginning missing concrete writing? Hire me as your novel editor and I’ll help you develop a compelling opening.

Query Letter Author Biography: Keep it Short

When writing your query letter author biography, keep it short. Please. This is another quick post to answer a specific query question, and it follows on the heels of my advice about query letter POV. For the bio paragraph, where you went to college, how many kids you have, what your pets’ names are, and even what your day job is are not important unless they are directly related to the book you’re writing.

query letter bio, author biography — Nope, I don’t want you to tell me that you’re a birthday party clown in your author biography! The work itself is the only thing that proves whether or not you’re qualified to write for kids.

Your Query Letter is a Business Letter

The questions a literary agent might ask during a call to offer representation will allow you to talk about some of that warm-n’-fuzzy getting-to-know-you stuff. At that point, I want to know more about you as a human being. For your query letter bio, however, I don’t really care about personal information unless it relates to you as “the person who wrote the manuscript that’s in front of me.” That’s not me trying to sound harsh. I am sure you’re wonderful and interesting and have had a fascinating life (and you have impeccable taste, since you are one of my beloved readers, after all!). But a query is still a short cover letter, and a business letter.

You Don’t Need to “Prove” Your Experience With Kids

In children’s books, some aspiring writers are convinced that they need to “prove” that they can write for children, specifically. So in their author biography, they talk about the children they have, or the children they have access to, or how they took a class on early childhood education in college, or how they worked as a birthday party clown, or whatever. The work itself is the only thing that proves whether or not you’re qualified to write for kids, honestly (read more advice for how to find a literary agent for children’s books). In fact, the more experience with kids someone has, or the more education they’ve gotten about kids or psychology or education, the more they tend to either make their stories way too personal (only marketable to a specific kid) or too intellectual (“written by an expert” instead of just written).

Two Things To Focus On In Your Author Biography

So in the vein of telling me about yourself as “the person who wrote the manuscript that’s in front of me,” there are two things you should focus on in your query letter bio: professional writing credits and information relevant to the project at hand. First of all, if you’ve published something or won an award, present it professionally. Say something like,

My book, Biographical Information in a Query (Unlikely Press, 2012), has sold briskly, and I recently won the Stupid Blog Post Example Award from the Muse Society.

If you haven’t published or won anything, don’t sweat it. Just like you don’t need to prove that you’re familiar with children (since we all were children at one point, we have experience), you don’t really need writing credits. Everyone starts somewhere. And, to be perfectly honest, most of the stuff that aspiring writers start off winning or publishing in, I haven’t heard of. It’s just nice to know that you’ve gotten yourself out there already, but if that’s not the case, don’t sweat it.

Your Day Job Isn’t Necessarily Relevant

Finally, if you are, say, an archaeologist by day (or a superhero by night) and your characters either go on a dig or fight crime in Gotham, mention that your vocation or area of expertise is relevant to your story. Otherwise, knowing that you’re a middle manager at a corkscrew manufacturing corporation doesn’t really belong in your author biography. The only exception to this suggestion is if you have a really fun professional or personal fact that you think will add interest to the query (and if the tone of your query is light or quirky and matches the information). If you don’t, you shouldn’t sweat this much, either.

So, brief and relevant. That’s about it. An excessive author biography is one of the biggest query issues that I see, but it’s also less important, for example, on the list of query faults, than authors who are writing fiction that fails to make me care. So read this post, cut your query letter bio in half, and move on.

Hire me as your query letter editor and I’ll help you nail the tone and content of your query.

Query Letter POV Do’s and Don’ts

This isn’t going to be a meaty post, but it’s a little issue that comes up every once in a while in slush: query letter POV. In short, your query letter voice should always be in first person. It’s a very small tweak and, honestly, it’s not going to make or break your query letter by any stretch of the imagination, but in case you’ve been wondering, you should discuss your plot and characters, and then introduce yourself and do your breezy sign-off in the first person.

query letter pov, query letter voice — Wondering if you should write your query letter in the third person or from your protagonist’s POV? Here’s your answer: DON’T.

Query Letter POV Should All Be In First

Mary is not a fan of people who talk about themselves in the third person. It’s an awkward tonal shift in the middle of a query and all she can think when reading one that introduces its author in third is about the author sitting there and writing about themselves in the third person and how weird it must’ve felt, because she herself finds it weird. See? She considers this paragraph a case in point.

So your query letter POV should all be in first. And, for the love of all things good, watch your query letter tone and don’t write it in your character’s POV. A very simple reminder and a question you didn’t ask, because maybe you didn’t think to, but now you know how to handle query letter voice!

Hire me as your query letter editor and I’ll help you nail the tone and content of your query.

Identifying Your Writing Genre

This question about identifying your writing genre comes in from Kimberly:

I find identifying the genre to be very difficult. What if your novel is a mash-up of two different genres? Is it bad to mention this? What about saying something like, “YA suspense with paranormal elements”? Any guidance you could give would be much appreciated!

writing genre, children's book genres, mg genre — Which writing genre fits your book? What if you don’t slot in neatly enough?

What is Writing Genre?

You’ve heard of writing genre, even if you haven’t tried to determine writing genre for your own work. Books are referred to as “fantasy” if they have strong worldbuilding and elements of magic, “paranormal” if they feature creatures like vampires or ghosts, “romance” if a love relationship is at their core, and “sci-fi” if there’s a strong technology aspect.

(For children’s book genres, by the way, the different age groups are generally referred to as “categories” rather than “genres,” therefore “picture book” is a category. There’s no such thing as the “picture book genre.” Learn more about the different children’s book genres.)

If your book doesn’t have a writing genre, it might fit into the “general fiction” bucket, or maybe “contemporary realistic.” In middle grade fiction, stories that concentrate on real life and regular issues are often called “coming of age.”

Determine Writing Genre as Best as You Can

Writing genre isn’t rigid, and many high-concept ideas borrow from multiple genres. For example, Emily Hainsworth’s Through to You was pitched to me as “YA paranormal.” Then I pitched it as a “magical realism YA” because I thought that it wasn’t quite paranormal in the way that today’s YA market takes the term. Then the published decided to market it as a “YA paranormal thriller,” but emphasizing the book’s romantic and sci-fi elements as well.

While it’s very difficult to aim into the mists in between different audience categories, say, “upper MG genre” or “younger YA” or “tween” and I actually wouldn’t recommend it at all, genre is a completely different beast and, in today’s more evolved MG and YA markets, is more malleable.

Pick the Strongest Writing Genre for Your Pitch

Kimberly’s example of “YA suspense with paranormal elements” is fine, though I would choose “thriller” over “suspense,” personally. “Thriller” is more of a buzzword in today’s market. Still, as you can tell from my Through to You example, everyone has a slightly different way of describing genre.

What’s important to note here is that we’re picking one writing genre to highlight. It’s not a “YA thriller paranormal,” where both genres fight for attention. A “thriller with paranormal elements” tells an agent or publisher that you have written a fast-paced, action-centric plot, and there may be a werewolf here or there. If it was a “paranormal with thriller elements,” that would communicate a focus on otherworldly characters, with an extra kick for the plot.

At the end of the day, your literary agent or publisher will make the decision of how to position it, just like they will end up choosing the final title. Title and genre are both subject to change on the road to publication. Pitch your writing genre accurately and to the best of your ability, and that’s good enough for the query!

Having trouble deciding where you fit? Wondering if you’re hitting the right notes of your chosen writing genre? I’m a novel editor who works in every category and genre, with a special emphasis on children’s books.

Questions a Literary Agent Might Ask You When Offering Representation

Today we’re discussing questions a literary agent might ask you when they’re considering offering literary representation. Thank you to Susan who, in the comments for my last post about questions to ask a literary agent, wanted to know the opposite: What questions might an agent have for a potential client? There’s no way I can speak comprehensively for everyone in the industry on this one, but as a former literary agent, here’s what I was often curious about, and why.

questions a literary agent might ask, literary agent, literary representation, novel submission, getting a literary agent, interviewing a literary agent, literary agent phone call — A call with a literary agent is a great chance to interview them. But know that they’re also interviewing you, and trying to suss out if you’ll be a pleasure to work with, or a pain in the espresso.

Literary Agents Want to Know About You

A little more about yourself: All that crazy stuff you left out of your query bio? Give it to me here! Just kidding. I don’t want your entire life story on the literary agent phone call, but I do want to get to know you. So questions a literary agent might ask could address you as a persona and your sense of humor, sensibilities, and storytelling abilities off the cuff (no pressure!). I’d rather have one or two cool and unique facts about you that are memorable than the dry this-is-where-I-went-to-college spiel. In turn, I usually take a few minutes to say what makes me tick.

Questions a Literary Agent Might Ask About Future Projects

Future ideas: I want to get a sense for what else is in your pipeline, so I ask you to pitch me a few more ideas that you’re kicking around. Your pitches don’t have to be perfect and the books can be far from finished–or even started–but this is a biggie for me. If you have one amazing idea and then a nightmare litany of things I will never be able to sell in a million years, that will honestly dampen my enthusiasm. I’m not looking to sign you for one project, I want to work with you for a long time.

Those projects are a-comin’ ’round the mountain, whether I like it or not, and it’s only going to mean friction down the line if I sign you now and then fight you on every subsequent manuscript. If that’s the feeling I get, we’re likely not a good fit for the long-term, and it’s better to find out now. Don’t feel too much pressure on this one, though, because sometimes all I’m really curious about is whether those ideas are workable. They don’t have to be perfect just yet.

Your Overall Writing Career Goals

Your submission goals and overall career goals: I’ll ask you a little about where you see your career going and how you see this submission being handled. This is where I’ll also talk a little bit about my submission plans for the book and see if the two sync up nicely. The subtle thing I’m trying to figure out here is about your expectations. If you start talking book tour and six-figure advance right off the bat, I know you are going to be a handful down the road.

Publishing is full of big and little frustrations and decisions about your work that are completely outside of your control. Sure, you want to be as proactive as possible about your book and your career, but that doesn’t mean expecting the world handed to you on a silver platter by publishers who are, frankly, not handing out much of anything to the majority of debut authors these days. So some questions a literary agent might ask: Are you savvy and humble? Are you realistic? Are you prepared to work hard to see your goals to completion? This is what I’m really asking here. (God, I can’t believe how much I’m showing my cards in this post…)

Literary Agents Are Gauging How You React to Editorial Feedback

Your reaction to feedback: If I’m offering representation, I will have editorial feedback for you. Now. A lot of agent colleagues have spent hours on the phone with a potential writer, giving all their notes, laying out a revision plan, only to have the writer go elsewhere and incorporate their revision notes anyway, but after signing with a different agent.

I’m not this precious about my editorial suggestions for you, but I do think it’s a bad idea to dump all of my feedback in your lap at once. It’s overwhelming, and it may come across as me not liking the book (which, if I’m calling to offer, is the opposite of what I want to convey). So I take my three biggest revision suggestions, including one or two that might be controversial, and float them your way.

Out of all the questions a literary agent might ask, this is the most important area for me. First, I get to see if you and I are on the same page editorially. If you’re writing a dark psychological thriller and I call, saying, “What I basically need from you is to make it more like the Clique series,” then we’re not going to be a good fit because you and I see the book differently and we want different things for it. (I sure hope I never miss the mark this badly…) It’s fun for me to get into revision back-and-forth with authors, even if we disagree.

But there’s workable disagreement and then there’s an impasse. If we butt up against the latter in the literary agent phone call, we probably shouldn’t work together. You’re always going to want one thing, I’m always going to want the other, and that sort of resentment is not good in a partnership.

How Will You Handle a Novel Revision?

Your revision style: If we do agree on most of my revision suggestions and it seems like we’re thinking about the book and its potential in a similar way, I still want to know about your revision process. I’ve found that being able to revise is the single most important skill a writer can have. I’ve taken on promising first projects, given tons of notes, and what really made or broke the new relationship is how well the author has been able to run with those notes and take the manuscript to the next level.

Every manuscript will need work once it comes in. I’ve only had one manuscript in my career come in that only needed a minor revision before going on to sell. How well and how thoroughly and how deeply you delve into the task of revision is paramount. Of course, I can’t know all the specifics of how it will really be from a literary agent phone call, but that’s what I’m really talking about when we talk about revision.

Is your project going to net interest from a literary agent? Are you ready for submission? Hire me for consulting or editing services and I can give you a no-nonsense, actionable take on your manuscript’s strengths and opportunities for growth.

10 Questions to Ask When Offered Representation by a Literary Agent

This is a list that I’d written a while ago to help a friend who had just been offered representation by a literary agent.

literary agent, questions to ask a literary agent, how to get a literary agent, children's book literary agent — Your list of questions to ask a literary agent might look a little different… Either way, I would recommend coffee.

When you’re offered representation by a literary agent, you should have the opportunity to talk to them about potentially working together. This is an exciting and nerve-wracking phone call for a writer (and sometimes for an agent if we want to work with you really, really badly!), but it’s important that you really take the time, ask the right questions, get full answers, and give yourself as much information as possible. This is particularly important if you have received offers from multiple literary agents.

Getting an Offer of Representation from a Literary Agent

The following are 10 questions to ask a literary agent. They’re questions I answer about myself when speaking to writers all the time. If you get an agent who is unwilling to answer questions or seems to balk at these basic ones, that would be a red flag for me, personally. Communication problems and transparency are big issues in a writer-agent relationship, and if there are issues from the word “go,” the situation is unlikely to get better.

List of Questions to Ask a Literary Agent

So do your due diligence. Here’s the list I would use to get to know your prospective literary agent:

1. What is your communication style? Do you prefer phone or email? Do you check in often even when we’re not on active submission?
2. Tell me more about how your agency works and handles clients. Is there an agency agreement for new clients? (There usually will be, it’s okay to ask to see it beforehand.) What are steps for termination? (You hope it doesn’t happen, but you need to know that you have an out if you need it.)
3. Are you a member of AAR? (The Association of Author Representatives. Member agencies agree to abide by a code of ethics. Their website is www.aaronline.org.)
4. What books have you sold and what publishers do you work with?
5. What is your submission strategy? Do you go on a big round to editors or do you do smaller rounds that let us hear feedback and make changes, should we need to?
6. How would you position this book to editors? Where do you see this fitting in to publishers’ lists?
7. What editorial changes do you think I should make to this manuscript?
8. What happens if we don’t sell this book?
9. How do you work on revisions with clients?
10. How do you work with clients as they’re generating new ideas? (For example, I ask clients for idea pitches and then help them hone in on what’s strongest to pursue.)

How to Find the Right Literary Agent

Once you’ve solidified your questions to ask a literary agent but before you ask them, figure out what you feel like you want the answers to be. Some of these issues may not matter to you, but you may have strong opinions about others. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, per se, but right and wrong answers for you. (“If we don’t see this book, I will burn down your house and run around your backyard naked,” would probably be a wrong answer for everyone, though…)

Different agents have different styles. Part of this feeling-each-other-out process after an offer of representation is made is to see if you like their answers and strategies and if you can see working well with them.

My editorial services aren’t just for manuscripts. I also offer confidential and discrete consulting services for authors who have questions about literary agents and career trajectory.

Query Letter Personalization: How to Do It Right

The long story short on query letter personalization: Just like with citing comparative titles and other parts of a query letter, if you’re not going to do it well, don’t do it at all.

query letter personalization, parts of a query letter — Query letter personalization is a great way to start off, but only if you do it right.

The Long Story on Query Letter Personalization

It’s great when you take the time to personalize your query. It’s one of the parts of a query letter that can really catch a literary agent or publisher’s attention.

Think of all the time you spent writing and revising. That was months, maybe years, or your life. Put some time into researching agents and into writing queries as well. Most agents are online or beefing up their blog/Twitter/Facebook presence. Most agents have books out that you can buy and read and think about. You should want to reach out to specific agents because of what you think they can bring to your career, not just because it says “Literary Agent” on their business card and you’re grasping at straws. (More tips on the book pitch here.)

So the query letter personalization part should be a no-brainer. But there are many times when I get “personalized” queries that have tried to work around this step. “I am contacting you because of your love for books” is a lame personalization, (as is, “because you are an advocate for children’s literature” or “because you have sold some books” or “because you come from a reputable agency,” etc.)

I know immediately that the same line is in every other query you send out. (With agents like me, who have almost psychotic levels of online presence, there’s almost no excuse not to personalize with something that shows me that you really do intend to reach out to me and make a connection. I don’t get offended when a query isn’t personalized — far from it, I really don’t care — but in some cases, it’s just obvious laziness on the writer’s part, which does knock them down a peg or two.)

Work Hard on the Optional Parts of a Query Letter

Unless you have something real to say in the query letter personalization part, maybe don’t even mention why you’re contacting us specifically. Sure, the personalization is powerful, but it’s optional if you don’t have anything compelling to say here. It’s well understood that you’re emailing because you want to get published. And I should hope that every agent you contact loves books, is an advocate for children’s literature, has sold some projects, comes from a reputable agency, etc. That’s not personalization, that’s a waste-of-time sentence.

And, as I wrote earlier, in my query formatting post, you can put the personalization nugget either at the beginning of your query or below the “meat.”

Struggling with your pitch or submission strategy? I offer a lot services as a freelance editor, including helping you pitch, strategize, and plan your submission.

Query Letter Formatting

Here’s a common question about query letter formatting. From reader Lyla:

I have a question on formatting a query letter. Many of the agents whose blogs I subscribe to have mentioned that they prefer the ‘hook’ first and then personalization later on in the query, while as many have said that they prefer the personalization first. I’m assuming this is just a preference thing, so I was just wondering, Ms. Kole, which do YOU prefer?

query letter format, formatting a query letter — Query letter formatting: As long as you have all the main building blocks of a query, you should be fine.

As I have said before, there is a lot of undue anxiety about formatting a query letter, and even more undue anxiety about queries in general. As long as you have all the elements of a query letter — query meat, bio, query personalization, vital statistics (word count, whether or not it’s a simultaneous submission, contact info, etc.) — you’re fine to arrange them in whatever way you want. If you need some guidance on query basics, check out my post on how to write a query letter.

Common Types of Query Letter Formatting

Query meat, personalization, bio, stats
Personalization, query meat, bio, stats

The query letter formatting that I prefer is completely a matter of personal taste. I’ve seen both of the above. I’ve seen queries that lead with the bio. I’ve seen queries that lead with the stats (though this is probably the most rare). I’ve seen queries that follow no logic that I can possibly comprehend. I’d say that you should stick with one of the above and you’ll be just fine. There are as many ways of formatting a query letter as there are agents…and writers.

Feeling unsure about your query letter format, synopsis, or manuscript? Hire me as your freelance editor and we can work on your submission materials or dig deeper into your picture book, novel, or non-fiction proposal together.