Comments on: A tale of a successful query

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:25:00 +0000

I would have flagged down the first para:
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Three years ago Lexi Strauss was an ordinary freshman girl at Covington High. She had a dramaholic, boy-crazy best friend that she adored. And her biggest dilemma was figuring out how to get Xander, her older brother’s gorgeous best friend, to see her as more than just “Little Lexi.”
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Now, are "the best friend" and Xander the same person?

By: DGLM

DGLM — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:59:47 +0000

Hi again. You are right, anonymous, I was referring to the first paragraph, and not the first line. Thanks for pointing that out. Will you be my editor? I clearly need one! Happy Thanksgiving to all.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 14:18:13 +0000

Not to be nitpicky, okay I am being nitpicky, but when you say, "….that opening line is a grabber." you did mean to say the opening paragraph, did you not? I mean, "Three years ago Lexi Strauss was an ordinary freshman girl at Covington High." is simply that – ordinary. I will say, however, that the first paragraph is "filled with descriptive elements" and I would be the first to agree that the query has accomplished what it set out to do. My interest has been piqued and I want to know what happens next, who killed her family, and most of all, what did she do that was almost as bad! I don't read YA, but I would read The Killing Breed.

By: Connie McQuade

Connie McQuade — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 13:40:05 +0000

I think the general public, who this YA book is intended, will be hooked by the plot and overlook any syntactic issues that people trying to write seem to dwell so heavily on. This query is well written, catches your attention and upon publication, if the jacket cover is snazy enough, will be pulled off the shelf and read. I'm looking forward to reading it myself.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 05:10:33 +0000

Interesting – thank you for your response. I appreciate the time you took answering me!

By: DGLM

DGLM — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:48:14 +0000

Wanted to respond to the very worthwhile responses to my query letter. Speaking to the “pointful” comment, I do (and did) know it’s not a word, but it should be. And while it illustrated what I was trying to say, it’s true, I probably should have chosen another word that’s actually a word, so sorry about that.

As for the grammatical complaints, I’m not a copy editor, and don’t claim to be the most grammatically graceful voice at the agency. That said, I don’t want to in any way suggest that writers shouldn’t bother checking their queries to make sure they are well written and well edited, but in this case the grammar quibbles were minor and didn’t affect my response to the pitch. For me, it’s less about sentence structure, which can always be fixed, and more about eliciting an emotional response to the pitch (the title of the post talks about a successful query, not a perfect one!). I also think there’s more leeway for commercial versus literary fiction to be a little more casual in the pitch, which is what I think the author was intending here. There’s an informal approach to the query, and the tone, that might be (arguably) grammatically incorrect, but it did tell me enough about the story, the voice, and the tone to make me want to read more. Perhaps another agent would have been turned off by the sentence fragments, but they didn’t bother me in the context of the query. I’m quite sure there’s more to say on this subject, but it’s late and time to sign off for now! Thanks again for the feedback, and let me know if you have any other questions.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 01:00:31 +0000

I am referring to the conjunctions beginning sentences in part. This also jumped out at me as being a fragment:

"The man in black, all the blood and screams and that metallic wrong smell…."

Don't get me wrong, I think the story sounds interesting, it's just that I've read so many posts about queries talking about how grammar can be a deciding factor for so many agents. The fragments jumped right out at me, and I would wonder if the whole book was like that based on the query.

I'm really not trying to be mean or anything, I just don't understand why this is being held as an exemplar when, at least to me, the grammatical problems are so blatant.

Again, I think the STORY does sound really interesting.

By: Natalie Aguirre

Natalie Aguirre — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 23:02:49 +0000

Great post. You've really explained why this query works. I can't wait to read the book. The last sentence is such a great hook.

And it helps that the awesome author is one of my critique partners. I'm so happy for her.

By: Kathryn Packer Roberts

Kathryn Packer Roberts — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 22:58:02 +0000

Thanks! I always love posts like this because I am getting closer to this part of the process. It's nice to read a query that worked rather than one that doesn't and have people rip it apart.

By: Wild Orchids for Trotsky

Wild Orchids for Trotsky — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 22:07:39 +0000

Nice post, and nice query!

@Anon, Sentence fragments? No...not unless you are going with the rule that you can't begin a sentence with a conjunction, which is probably a bit old-school for this query's style, or unless you don't like the ellipses, which are also more of a stylistic choice, I would argue. Barring of course glaring mistakes, which this query doesn't have, it seems to me that the level of syntactic formality is a matter of voice.