Query Letter Writing: The 3 things you must do to catch an agent's eye
What to show, what to tell, and how to inch closer to an offer of representation.
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I read hundreds of query letters every year, not because I am a literary agent, but because I work as a query doula for aspiring authors. The writers I have worked with have published essays and short stories, they go to the big conferences, they diligently take classes and read all kinds of craft books—many of them have MFAs. And yet, everyone is struggling with the same thing in query writing. Do you know what it is? Maybe you struggle with it, too. The conundrum people have is how much detail they should include in their query letters. How much plot should you reveal? You don’t have a lot of room for “showing” in a query, so how much should you “tell?”
But these are the wrong questions. In this post, I’d like to walk you through the three most important things to consider when you are writing a query letter. This isn’t run-of-the-mill advice that you can Google—it’s culled from the work I’ve done with many writers on all different kinds of stories, from working with my own agents and editors, and from working a little bit in tinsel town. Ready? Here we go.
