How To Write: The Query Quandary-- and the four step approach to writing a good one

You may have noticed that after 21 How To Write installments, there's not even one written on how to write a query.

That's because I sucked at writing queries. And hated them, too. Query was just another way to spell Rejection. 

But like all types of writing, query writing can be learned. And, as I've come to realize, query writing is something you continue to do even after you get an agent. Only now you call it "the pitch".

I recently presented the pitch of my latest wip to my agent and happily I got an enthusiastic response. Yes, I love the premise. I'd be happy to see more of this. When I'd sent her an earlier "non query like" description of my idea, her response was less than excited.

Knowing how to condense the idea of your novel into a two or three paragraph pitch is a skill that you will always need. In fact, it's basically what goes on the back jacket flap.

So, what makes a good query/pitch?

Tell us who the story is about. Add the circumstance, the conflict and the twist. 

The end.

I'll use the query that got me my first agent as an example, with the caveat that I know it's not great, but it did the trick.

In CLOCKWISE (YA, chick lit, 60K), boy watching with her best friend would be enough excitement for fifteen year old Casey Donavan. Who it's about. She doesn't even mind life at the bottom of the Cambridge High social ladder, if only she didn’t have this other much bigger problem. Unscheduled trips to the nineteenth century!(A little more about who it's about. I think the last sentence could've been cut.)

When Casey gets talked into going to the Fall Dance, the unthinkable happens--she accidentally takes Nate Mackenzie, the cutest boy in the school, back in time.  The circumstance.  Protocol pressures her to tell their 1860 hosts that he is her brother and when Casey finds she has a handsome, wealthy (and unwanted) suitor, something changes in Nate. Are those romantic sparks or is it just ‘brotherly’ protectiveness? When they return to the present things go back to the way they were before: Casey at the bottom of the social totem pole and Nate practically the flag flying from the top.The conflict. (Actually there are a few conflicts listed here, but one is usually enough). Except this time her heart is broken. Plus, her best friend is mad, her parents are split up, and her little brother gets escorted home by the police. The only thing that could make life worse is if, by some strange twist of fate, she took Nate back to the past again.

Which, of course, she does. The twist.

That alone would suffice as a pitch. In a query you should add a little information about yourself.

I added that I'd had editor requests from a Writers Conference I'd recently attended, my publishing history and two book titles whose readers I thought would enjoy this book.

Thank the agent for his or her time (make sure you address the query to them personally), and let them know if you plan to submit to other agents.

Sign it Sincerely, with your real (not pen) name. 

 Here is the pitch for the second companion book  (which isn't finished).

Fifteen year old Adeline Who it's about. had hoped that the move west from Cambridge to Hollywood with her single dad would mean they’d finally bond like a real family, but all she got was a father too busy with his new female friends and his passion for acting to really see her. The circumstance.  Instead she finds herself getting attached to Faye, the divorcee hair dresser she befriends when she travels back in time to 1955. Plus Faye has a hottie, James Dean-esque, bad-boy brother who has Adeline’s heart all aflutter.  But bad boys from the past can be dangerous. The conflict. Adeline finds out the hard way that she really does belong in her own time and that the right boy lives as close as next door. The twist.

  

Again, that's not great. I wrote it a long time ago, so I think I could do better if I attempted it now. The conflict in that pitch isn't really that well defined.

I wish I could post my latest pitch, which I lurve, but for now it remains a sekrit. Someday.

Any questions? If you'd like to post your query in the comments I'd be happy to give a gentle critique.