Query Evolution: A Series. Kind of.
This post is a bit different from my others. So buckle up.
I posed a question on Twitter a few weeks ago, asking if anyone had blog post suggestions/query questions.
One question was how many times I rewrote my query letter, when an author can tell when they need to do a rewrite, and this question:
This sounded like a lot of fun (Thanks, Megan!), so I asked some agented friends for their query drafts along with some explanation/commentary on the changes they made.
Everyone responded a bit differently. Some authors shared comments on the query itself. Some left notes after each query draft with an explanation of what they liked and didn’t like. Others shared their queries and let the words speak for themselves. There is no standardization to the way authors contributed and I kind of love it. Take it as further proof there’s no singular way to query.
Below are the links to query drafts and notes from agented authors! They’re all a bit different, and I learned a lot from reading them so hopefully y’all do too! If you keep scrolling, I put my own personal philosophy on rewriting queries. But if this post proves anything, it’s that different people choose to rewrite at different times. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
If you choose to just read the query drafts and ignore my commentary below, I promise I won't be offended. All my love to the authors who contributed! Y’all are amazing.
Query Drafts
When to Rewrite a Query (My personal opinion)
And if you’re still reading, here’s my personal (and subjective!) opinion on how you know when to rewrite a query letter. I’ve been told this opinion is pretty controversial, but here it is: When in doubt, rewrite your query. If you’re not getting requests, rewrite your query (and maybe your opening pages while you’re at it). If you’re getting pitch likes but no requests after, rewrite your query.
That might sound aggressive to some, but hear me out. To be clear (and I’m putting this in all-caps) NOT GETTING REQUESTS DOESN’T MEAN THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH YOUR QUERY. But it does indicate that your query isn’t doing its job. Your query has one job: entice agents to read your pages and ultimately offer you representation. If a query isn’t getting an agent to request more, regardless of if it’s good (meaning well-written, contains all the necessary elements of a query, etc) it’s not doing its job.
You can have a good query that doesn’t get requests. I’ll say it again: you can have a good query that doesn’t get requests.
This means you might write a query and it has all the components. It lays out your MC and their motivation, sets up the tension, explains the stakes. You show it to writer friends and they find nothing wrong with it. They tell you it’s good and there’s nothing you need to change. And they’re probably right. Your query is good. It’s well-written. It has the information you need. But it’s not gripping. And unfortunately, until you start the query completely over, you and your writer friends will see a good query, but never know how much better it can be.
Above is a great quote from my favorite Disney Princess, Shuri from Black Panther. Just because you have a good query letter that doesn’t have any technical issues, tells your plot, describes your MC, the stakes, and the tension, doesn’t mean you can’t rewrite a query that’s even better.
I included my own query drafts in the above post. If you read them, you’ll see that being “good” isn’t what motivated me to change up my queries. I changed them because I wanted to see if I could make them better and completely rewrite them. You might rewrite your query and hate it. That’s alright. Don’t send it. But alternatively, you might rewrite your query and realize you added something you didn’t realize was missing before.
So, in short, if you’re getting nothing but positive feedback on your query but you’re not getting requests, try a complete rewrite. It might be painful, but tethering yourself to a query letter that’s good, but doesn’t get agents excited about your book, isn’t working. When in doubt, try again.
Seventeen-year-old Prince Zander strives to create peace in a broken world through a marital alliance that will send him far from home. But when his betrothed, Princess Alessia, runs away days before their wedding, the union between their kingdoms will shatter unless he can find her.