The Query Letter: short and sweet, or "Be my friend" (Page 2 of 2)

My apologies, Ronald. I was trying for a bit of cultural humor from the Bloom County cartoons. Turns out, Bill the Cat says ack, not gack. My bad.

Blurb:
Shadyia, a daring and passionate courtesan of the Silver Rose, finds herself caught between an enigmatic magician who searches for an ancient labyrinth, and a devious zealot who conspires to further a twisted agenda. Concealing both a forbidden romance with a fellow sister and a vengeful past, Shadyia must choose which man to favor. Her madam demands she please the zealot to keep the sisterhood safe from the wrath of his order, but Shadyia’s integrity requires she aid the magician. Will she follow him into the labyrinth and face the shadows of death, or betray him to save the sisterhood she cherishes above all?

This very good. Much more succinct and it plays up the MC.

That being said, this is STILL what would be on the back of the book to get a reader's attention. Follow this up with something like this:

Shaydia of the Sliver Rose is the first novel in an intended series of (how many). This adult fantasy stands at X-number of words.

Next paragraph should give a little bit about you as the author. Why should the agent want to represent you? What gives you the unique ability to be able to tell this story?

Then end with a little flattery--it never hurts. Something like: Having read your list of authors, I feel we would be a good match for each other. Thank you in advance for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Your typed name

Know this is not set in stone as the way to go, but it's a general template of a sort.

Good luck. Trial and error might be the best teacher of all, so go for it!

I do remember reading this way back when. Research which agents/publishers go for a story with as much eroticism as I remember being in this story. Send out half a dozen queries and see what kind of response you get. And remember the query should be one page single spaced. And make sure the query is free of grammar nits. No agent or potential publisher wants to fix grammar. If you can't write a query without mistakes, they'll just say, "No thanks."

Gack! or Ack! Dog food is still dog food.

Not enough here are providing real advice.

If your query letter is only one word: "Vampires" and vampires are hot and the agent likes the first 3-5 pages of your sample writing, he will not be rude and neglect to return with even so much as a form rejection letter. Such people are not interested in creativity or any other kind of inventiveness, they are there to sell dog food that can be packaged as steak.

Well, I tweeked it a bit--eliminated a few of the dreaded proper nouns.  Still a bit heavy on the adjectives, but within tolerable limits:

Demos Azari, an advisor to a militant order of crusading knights, has captured an ancient evil within an enchanted box. By extorting the fiend’s vast knowledge, Demos longs to release mankind from their obsession with absent gods. The immortal he imprisoned, however, has an agenda of its own and schemes to unleash a legion of brutes eager to rain devastation on the world. Hope resides in Aaron, a magician who searches for a way to prevent this evil from carrying out its sinister plans.

Caught between these men is Shadyia, a passionate and daring courtesan of the Silver Rose palace. Concealing both a forbidden romance with a fellow sister and a vengeful past, Shadyia must choose which man to favor. Her madam demands she appease Demos to keep their sorority safe from the wrath of his order, but Shadyia’s integrity requires she aid Aaron. Will she follow him beneath the Silver Rose and face the shadows of death, or betray him to preserve the sisterhood she cherishes above all?

And a note to those who don't like sword or heroic fantasy. There are two distinct factions of this genre; low and high magic. High magic is often populated with dwarves and elves and dragons and has a wizard on every corner, a hidden prince who rides a winged unicorn and all that childish, geeky stuff.

Low magic, the faction I prefer, may have mystical beasts and magicians, but these are rare, wondrous or downright terrifying.  These stories rely on more of what you probably love; human drama. The appeal of sword fantasy has, at its core, always been about people seizing their own destiny. Characters in these stories are not leaves in a river, they ARE the river, flowing over rocks and shattering logjams as they seek...well, often they don't know where they're going, and that also has appeal.

I model my writing after David Gemmell, whom I adore. His characters are often beaten, but rarely defeated. The back drop is magical, but the stories are human.

I don't quite get the comparison. If you marketed your book like that, you would be dishonest to yourself. Yours is an attempt at literary work. Yes, readers need to read the whole book, but that is not what you put into 150 words on the back cover or in a query. If the agent responds to your query (see if they want an initial submission with the query, usually the first 5 pages or sometimes the first three chapters), then send them what they ask for next. Sometimes they respond b/c the query piques their interest. Then they ask for the stuff in parentheses above. Then IF they're really interested, they reply with a "send me your manuscript." At that point the thing should be 99% ready. It can never be 100% ready b/c, invariably, they will want some sort of changes.

I can't compare AT's work to mine. They are quite different. I sure can't compare it to yours since yours is in a class by itself. I'm not trying to sell my material in this thread. I'm trying to give AT some pointers that I've learned, not from reading articles, by the way, but from attending conferences and/or actual contact with agents. I will mention that the hardest thing I came up against was the varying opinions of those agents. That's why it's necessary to research which ones work in your genre. For example, AT would NEVER submit this to Pelican Press b/c they don't publish anything that might be rated more than PG. However, Pink Flamingo Publications might actually give this a real hard look. (Hint, AT.) They have published some things by our own TELawrence under a female pseudonym, Daphne Chennault. AT should definitely NOT send this book to any agent/publisher that won't even take time to think about it. In the words of The Last Crusade, "Choose, but choose wisely." Nothing is so disheartening than those ugly rejections.

When you can't answer an argument, you mock.

This is your summary. IT IS LONG ENOUGH!!!! You don't need anymore than this. But you might want to make it more "active."

Into the Mind of God is the story of Joseph and Apollo, teenagers who live worlds apart but share a common bond — both are visited by a being who calls himself God. God takes each of them on an incredible journey to fulfill their destinies. With God’s help, one leads a holy crusade to conquer a perilously divided galaxy, while the other founds a radical new religion to steer mankind away from the Apocalypse. Ultimately, their destinies will collide, something neither may survive. But is God a real deity, or the imagination of two mentally ill boys?

(Joseph and Apollo live worlds apart but share a common bond--both are visited by a being who calls himself God. God takes each of them on an incredible journey to fulfill their destinies. With God’s help, one leads a holy crusade to conquer a perilously divided galaxy, while the other founds a radical new religion to steer mankind away from the Apocalypse. Ultimately, their destinies will collide, something neither may survive. But is God a real deity, or the imagination of two mentally ill teenagers?)

Plainly dishonest to anyone. But then isn't it a little like stealing money from a thief? There is no gain in the end as I would be "found out." However, it is truthful that synopses of 10 out of 14 chapters can contain descriptions of actual, possible, thwarted and past sex couplings, but none of it erotic -- save  to pervs who might find sex between a priest and a boy erotic.  The horse of melding porn into decent literature and calling it "erotic" left the barn a long time ago.

What can I say, my tongue-in-cheek moment fell flat. Pancaked. Wile E. Coyoted.
Zero future as a comedian.