THE ART OF THE QUERY LETTER

I want to talk for a fast minute about query letters. For those of you who don’t know what they are, or for those who know very little, this should prove to be a helpful post.

Query letters are the first professional handshake between an aspiring author and a literary agent. The first hurdle you must pass through in the writing world is an agent; once you snag a good one, you will usually have them guiding you for the rest of your career. Of course, it’s not unheard of to run with a certain agent for a decade and then move on for myriad reasons.

But either way: A query letter is what gets you there. Sans query letter, you have virtually no chance at making substantial contact in the literary world with someone who can get your work to the next level. Unless of course you’re a social media God and you want to self publish; that’s a whole other blog post. Or, you know, you’re very wealthy and/or you have ‘connections.’ (Kind of sounds like the Mafia.)

Query letters are, in their simplest form, a letter, like a cover letter, that demonstrates the who, what, when, where and why of you and your book. You have to remember: Agents in 2016 have to sift through hundreds, even thousands of these puppies a week. This is why they often employ assistants or find college interns to help them push through the interminable Slush Pile. I was an assistant in this area and believe me, there is a LOT to go through in order to find that gold nugget.

The truth is, there are a million different ways to write a query letter, but really, in general, only one way that most often works. The idea is simply to get the agent’s attention and make them want to read your book; that’s it. Here are the main things to remember:

• One page long, no longer (250-350 words max)

• Three solid paragraphs only: Hook (including the genre and word count); mini-synopsis; and author bio

•Don’t compare your book to major titles (some agents like this but most don’t); simply demonstrate what the book is (i.e. the stakes, the character motivation, the basic plot) and why you are the best person to write it

•Show your narrative voice [of the book] in the query but also stay formal and be respectful.

•Do your research: Mention in the first paragraph why you chose the particular agent, even maybe mention one of their titles; let them know you’ve researched their website and know their preferred genre, etc; make it clear you’ve done your homework.

The whole thing should be—to repeat here for clarity—three paragraphs and 250-350 words long. It should be clear, simple, concise, to the point. Clip the fat off the bone. Think Hemingway: terse does the job. If it’s 350; cut it down to 300. Three hundred, try to cut it down to 250. They love a short, concise query; believe me. Read these:

http://www.agentquery.com/writer_hq.aspx

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/successful-queries

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-write-the-perfect-query-letter

The point is to get your idea across. The agent will be looking for clarity, logic, and a great plot that makes their heart skip a beat when they read the letter. Everything about the idea should pop off the page and make them want to read your book; make them want to request materials.

So do your homework, make sure you have a one to two sentence ‘logline’ hook that you place first before anything else in the query, then the genre and word count (‘This is a New Adult suspense novel at 80,000 words…’), and then get into the mini-synopsis.

Read some of the examples online from the websites I listed. Also simply type ‘How to write a query letter’ into Google: Much will pop up to read and explore. Don’t try to be the exception; be the rule. Yes, there are examples on those websites that run 477 words, or have an unusual format: Those are the rare ones. Stick to three paragraphs, 250-350; trust me.

Also, use the ‘when formula’ for your hook/logline. Example: ‘When John meets Jane B. in the elevator at Nike in downtown Portland, he wants desperately to tell her there’s a bomb strapped to the inside of his backpack; but he can’t.’ See how this is simple, concrete, to-the-point and also elicits the reader’s interest? That’s what you’re going for.

In addition to having a query letter ready, you’ll want to have a one- and a two-page synopsis ready for when an agent is interested. Sometimes they’ll directly request material. The agency I interned with did that often. But a lot of the time they will instead ask for a synopsis first, sometimes a one page, sometimes two. I’ll save the synopsis for another post. Follow the directions I’ve given and you should at least get a chance at having your work read.

I am a freelance developmental book editor. I also work with authors to craft their query letters. If you have a book you’d like edited, or a query letter you need help with or written entirely, please contact me at: michaelmohreditor@gmail.com.

Till next time, writers! Good luck with those letters!

Michael Mohr

***

Here’s a sample of my fiction writing. If you like it, please feel free to buy the whole story at Alfie Dog Press for 66 cents!

Tightrope Going to Mexico was a bad idea, and deep down both of us knew it. But the great thing about my roommate was that every time I came up with a bad idea, I could count on him to be on board. My brain was always concocting thrilling plans in which the only person I could include was Hilly. No one else would be crazy enough to walk that tightrope with me. They’d be too jaded to see the adventure of it, or too nervous to take the risk. No, when these ideas came to me in the night, it was dear old Hilly whose face I saw. And that's how it came to be that I woke up in the early morning San Diego fog proclaiming, “Hey, Hilly…ok man…I got this great dig, ya see. You and I…” “Yeeeeessss…” he interrupted, drawing out the “e.” “Listen Hill, listen. You and I…we’re gonna go to good ole MEX-I-CO, Baaaby!!!” Hilly sat perplexed, his eyes unreadable, registering somewhere between indifference and exuberance — as if the plan was a no-brainer. Of course we’d go to Mexico; we lived in San Diego, thirty minutes from the border. Living at the gateway to a foreign land, a land where anything might happen, well, it was gonna go down at some point, right? It was just a matter of one of us deciding it was time. We both knew it would be me. After breakfast we headed for the bus that would take us to good ‘ole Mexico. We paid the fare and headed for the seats farthest in the rear, as we had done our entire high school careers and probably would do for the rest of our lives. Hilly looked good. I looked good. The world looked good. Mexico, the idea of it — both of us in it for the next twenty-four hours — made life seem more exciting in some childish way, how you felt as a kid getting in the car with your parents for a road trip. Yet as the bus careened through downtown San Diego I felt some warning, some distant bell sounding in the depth of my soul. I couldn’t be sure what that bell meant, nor what, if anything, going to Mexico meant. But I did have the faint sensation of fear.

By the time we got to the border, we were in such a state of excitement that I thought we might go crazy and jump out of the bus while it was moving. It dropped us off in downtown Tijuana and turned around, heading back to the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. There was no turning back now. We started sprinting — toward what we weren’t sure, maybe the road leading south of Tijuana, toward fun and freedom. After a minute we stopped running, bent over, cupping our hands on our knees. We sucked air like we were old men. Still hunched, Hilly grabbed my shoulder. “Gonna be a search n’ destroy mission, eh ol’ boy,” Hilly said.

The adrenaline slowing, we started looking around for a cab, both of us flailing our arms in the air. A beat-up taxi with advertisements in Spanish pulled over. I jumped in back; Hilly followed, slamming the door. We knew we were on the brink of being spit into the dragon’s lair. Who knew what would be waiting for us.

The road curved, winding up, up, up, like a massive concrete snake slithering toward sand. Tijuana was behind us, and Hilly seemed to relax. I know I did. One of Hilly’s leather-jacketed arms hung freely in the sun, flapping against the taxi as the force of the wind blew it back. ​ Coastal villages passed, one after the other, each identical — decrepit shanties with tin roofs and cardboard walls, covered in blankets. Kids, half-naked and filthy, played between shelters. Stray dogs, their ribs sticking out, wandered noses to the ground, groveling through lots littered with broken down vehicles and old washing machines, trash of every kind blowing in the breeze. Another landscape came into view — dirt roads leading to clusters of houses on the hillside. Rosarito — the all-night party was coming. I glanced at Hilly. His eyes shone like a million stars exploding. ​ The taxi pulled to a stop in front of a bar, as we’d instructed. It was an ancient building. Hilly pulled out a wad of bills and paid the driver. “Pay me back with drinks,” Hilly said, shoving us out of the cab. The taxi flipped a U-turn, heading back to the border to pick up the next batch of clueless American kids. (to read the whole story please buy it for 66 cents at Alfie Dog Press.)

2016 WRITING GOALS: PERSEVERANCE

Well, it’s 2016 my [writer] friends. Can’t believe it, but it is. Twenty-fifteen was a hell of a [writing] year. I pumped out many new stories, got a few published, polished my psychological suspense novel, got that brutally but necessarily critiqued by an established author (17 page single-spaced evaluation letter that broke my heart and warmed my soul simultaneously), and revised and edited by YA punk rock novel (think twenty-first century Huck Finn meets Catcher in the Rye mixed with LA punk rock) that I am now, at last, once again submitting to agents.

And that’s all in addition to my editing projects, which are numerous and extensive. I may even conjure up my first ever ghostwriting project here at some point in 2016 (three potential candidates at this point, all exciting).

Writing is a lot of work. Let me revise that statement: Writing is a HELL of a lot of work. I can say that from my years of experience. I started working on this YA ‘punk rock’ novel in 2008. By late 2010, I’d finished a first draft, landing at a firm 100,000 words, way too long for a standard debut YA novel, though at the time I knew nothing about genre or what that meant.

Over the years I edited and revised the YA manuscript and finally, after receiving some particularly harsh criticism after the reading by an agent of the first few chapters, I decided to shelve it. For, like, two and a half years. Because my girlfriend wanted to read it, I finally broke and allowed to her do so. She loved it, as my writer uncle and writer mother (her novel was just published) and a select group of friends, traditionally have. So, I brought the bastard out of the dust and started reading it for the first time in years. And I loved it.

It’s got great VOICE. It’s got character. It’s got depth. It’s got plot but the skeleton of the novel doesn’t hang solely from the plot (we all know those novels). In other words: I think I’m onto something.

But the point of this post isn’t to brag about my project (which I still haven’t landed an agent for): It’s to talk briefly about how HARD writing is, and how much of a process happens over time, like human evolution (though in a much shorter span, of course).

I hear authors all the time say, “If you’re a writer, stop whining. You have it so easy. Writing is not HARD; get a real job, THAT’S hard. This is easy.”

Bullshit.

Writing is hard for obvious reasons. Not so much the actual task of writing. We assume if you’re doing it you have a modicum of talent and it comes out naturally. No, what’s hard is the culture, the industry of writing. Publication. Connections. Conferences. Money. Writers aren’t respected in twenty-first century American culture. I know; big statement. But it’s true. Unless, of course, you’re Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, but even then these authors are criticized from within the establishment and called ‘hacks.’ So, in some ways, as a writer you can never win when it comes to society and what they think you ‘should’ be in the world.

But who cares about society, right? If you were born to write, then write you must. Forget the naysayers. Be yourself.

What makes writing hard is the core desire to get published traditionally. (Self publishing is a whole other story.) This is what drives the majority of us to succeed. We want the recognition both from the inside and from ‘them’ on the outside. We want money. We want fame. We want commercial success. But mostly, more than anything else perhaps, we want acceptance. We want to be viewed as a ‘good writer’ by the right people. And we want, honestly, to write something with some depth and meaning.

Well, for most of us that may not ever happen. Sad, but true. But for some of us, it can and likely will. I’m not saying necessarily that I think it’ll happen to me. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But I know this: If I keep trying, keep writing, keep submitting, keep establishing connections, keep book editing, keep revising and reworking my prose, making it better, I know for sure that I will continue to learn and grow and become a better writer.

Jenny Milchman—author of ‘As Night Falls’ (Random House, 2015)—spent 13 years, three agents and eight books before finally landing her ‘debut’ novel and getting published. All three of her previous agents failed to sell her novel to any of the major New York publishing houses. It was a freak of luck, through a Facebook connection, that got her an ‘in’ with a major house editor, sans agent. It’s about luck, timing, skill/talent, patience, resilience, connections.

John Lescroart (NYT bestseller) told me that it took him seven books to finally ‘truly learn how to write a novel.’ (Sounds contradictory but I think you get the gist.) I hear this story from established authors all the time. And for me, having been working on and off on my YA punk rock novel for almost 8 years now, I know that all I need to do is keep writing, keep meeting people, keep going to conferences, keep editing/revising, learning, etc. Because at some point, something’s going to happen. It’s almost the law of physics, of nature. Something HAS to happen.

My point? Don’t give up. Aspiring or newer writers out there: Make 2016 the year for renewed vision related to your writing. Resolve to work harder at your craft and to try to stay positive. Throw caution to the wind and take writerly risks. Establish that morning writing routine (or nightly, or middle of the day; whatever works) you’ve been saying for years you were going to establish. Submit that story you’ve been afraid to submit (I recommend signing up for Duotrope.com, for short story submitting, costs $50/year). Have that novel edited professionally by an editor you trust (by me, if you care to have to me perform a free test edit). In other words: Take your craft, your prose, your career, to the next literary level. I mean…why the hell not?

Writing is a lonely experience. At times it can be easy to lose site of the light at the end of the tunnel. But all you have to do is get on Facebook and connect with another author, read a favored blog about the art of writing, write a new story or novel, have it edited, etc, or any number of methods for reintroducing yourself into the fray.

Just, whatever you do, remember: If you’re serious about it, be patient: It is a long, slow road. But it’s infinitely worth it. Andy Weir—author of ‘The Martian’—said in his NPR interview that he tried for years to get an agent. Rejections, rejections, rejections. It was because he allowed his work to be downloaded for free online that first created a buzz. An agent felt the buzz, read it, loved it, and sold it to a major, who then negotiated a contract with a major film company for a movie deal.

You never know how things will go. Just keep writing.

And never give up.

Write on.

‘You said it. Let’s edit.’

Michael Mohr

JOE CLIFFORD’S ‘LAMENTATION’

I can recommend several books to read for this Holiday season for aspiring (or accomplished) writers, that will help you gain a deeper understanding of craft and storytelling. Because, as Stephen King, that great Father of Storytelling, said in “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”

For one, if you like suspense: Jenny Milchman’s “As Night Falls.” (2015.) It’s an ass-kicker of a ride that never stops, never let’s go. If you like being pulled along for a ride, this is your book. Great for studying cliff-hangers, how to add suspense and then slow time for greater effect, how to plunge sympathetic, likeable characters into an extreme situation and create a hero we care about, and solid for general plotting, going from scene to scene using action and dialogue to move us along. (Every scene has an action and reaction that moves us forward.)

If you like middle-grade/young adult fantasy, Donna Galanti’s “Joshua and the Lightning Road” is a good choice. (2015.) Study this for how to hook readers right out of the [literary] gate, how to craft a very likeable main character/protagonist we root for, and how to press hurdles and obstacles in on that protagonist and find creative ways to force that character through the hurdles out to the other side. Also, study her writing for short, active-voice, well-executed sentences that engage the reader and draw them in.

Lori Windsor Mohr’s literary YA novel, “The Road at my Door,” (2015) is a fantastic example for all of you aspiring literary writers of how to craft a compelling, deep, drenched-with-meaning novel that appeals to a young audience and yet is from an earlier era (the 1960s). A great study of writing craft in both the sense of diction (word choice; she uses very precise words), syntax (how she strings sentences together), and how to effectively meld plot and a literary sensibility without sacrificing either audience or depth of meaning (another way of saying, being true to your literary fans while also not boring your more commercial, plot-driven fans; no easy feat).

And finally, most recently, Joe Clifford’s “Lamentation.” (2014.) Study this book for, again, craft on a line-by-line basis (this guy obviously snagged his MFA at some point), deft awareness of his particular genre (thriller/mystery/noir), articulate plotting (quite complex), and complex characters.

Lamentation follows our protagonist, Jay Porter, through a series of mishaps trying to find out the truth related to a murder connected to his in-and-out-of-jail, junkie older brother. At first, for me, as a reader, it was a little tough to “care” about Jay. I definitely didn’t care much about Chris, his older brother who was the progenitor of all the drama. In a sense, it felt like Jay was built from the start to be a sort of pseudo anti-hero of sorts. Being noir, where the protagonist often crosses blurry moral lines, and where we don’t always necessarily know if the “hero” is supposed to make it, I wasn’t sure how much I cared.

But then something shifted. First off, Joe’s writing is spectacular. He can spin a yarn like nobody’s business. His sentences sparkle with brisk muscularity, and the paragraphs and scenes move us from point A to point B without too much interruption. Within all this are characters we begin to care about. Why? Because, though they are not middle-class, professional, outwardly nice/kind/polite, or externally sensitive (and are, in fact, quite crude), they are also complex and real-feeling and altogether human. In short, we care about Jay Porter because, if we’re honest with ourselves, we can relate. At least to an extent.

Over the course of the novel we begin to realize that things aren’t quite as they perhaps seemed on the surface (surprise, surprise). Maybe Jay is more than just some gruff, out-of-work 30-year-old who’s wounded from his folks’ car crash death 20 years prior. Maybe it’s about more than just saving his brother from himself. And the complexity increases when we follow Jay’s rocky relationship with an ex girlfriend (also the mother of his two-year-old son), his past with applying to college and almost going but choosing to work in their small New Hampshire, 3,000-population town instead, and his ambivalence around helping his brother, whom he loves deeply, deciding whether to let him suffer the consequences of his own actions.

Told in a dark, elegant prose style that brings to mind “The Motel Life” by Willy Vlautin (they made this novel, from 2007, a major motion picture), Joe Clifford’s “Lamentation,” in my opinion, deserves high praise. It does everything a good novel—whether crime noir, action-adventure, suspense, literary, or other—should do: It creates compelling, complex characters; it draws the reader in and doesn’t let go; it creates a deep plot network that keeps you guessing and asking questions; it forces the reader to face uncomfortable truths; and it plays with craft in a very fun, very authentic way. If nothing else, the voice is incredibly strong, and that’s something you cannot ignore.

So if you like dark, give this a try. Unless, of course, you’re too scared.

Happy Holidays to all writers, readers, and humans alike! Merry X-Mas and a Happy New Year! I’ll shoot my next blog post up there in 2016!

“You said it. Let’s edit.”

Write on.

Michael Mohr