Why Listen to Me…

 One of the challenges of the internet is that everyone is suddenly an expert.  I’ve seen SO MANY authors post ‘Here’s how to write a Query’ instructions, that to be honest I’m hesitant to do so myself. 

I’ve decided to do so anyway because my query-background is a bit different.  My instructions are going to be a bit different.  They are worth paying attention to (according to me anyway).

So why me?

Because I spent several years being one of the ‘squirrels’ in the Query Letter Hell forums on Absolute Write.

What does this mean?  It means that I’ve critiqued and assisted with thousands of queries of all genres from the point of view of a fellow writer (which is different from the point of view of an agent/editor).

Query Letter Hell on its own is a huge resource and should be one of your first stops in your journey to the perfect query.  The Stickies at the head of the forum have a wealth of knowledge, and there’s an entire thread that lists out queries that were workshopped through QLH and went on to gain their author/book an agent (including one of mine).

Like all things though, there are some downsides to QLH.  After you’ve explained to a couple hundred people why their query doesn’t work for the exact same reasons as that last hundred people, you get a bit blunt.  Which can be painful.  (I mean, overall being critiqued is just unavoidably painful in a swallow-the-hideous-medicine kind of way.)  QLH also has a specific way of approaching queries, and this can lead to group-think.  98% the squirrels are right.  Sometimes they are not. Do your homework so you can tell the difference.

As for me…

I started there as a newbie with a query and a heart full of hope.  My query got slammed, smushed, flattened, but in doing so managed to engage one of the toughest of the squirrels on the forum. (You’ll recognize him by his squirrel with a bazooka avatar, although he only reads queries on special request these days). His comments changed not just my query, but my understanding of Story (big ‘S’ intentional).  He sent me to the ‘Successful Queries’ thread in search of what made those queries work.  I printed a ton of them out, broke them down structurally with colored high lighters (I was always really good at high school English diagramming), and found a pattern.

That first query I ran through QLH didn’t end up getting me an agent.  My next one did though.  Even more, my interest in queries as their own little bits of magic and art had been seeded.  The more I helped other people, the more I learned, and not just about queries but about how Story functions.