I thought it might be of interest to talk a little bit about the semi-template I use for drafting queries. For those who are wondering, yes you still benefit from writing query letters, even after finding an agent 🙂 Any queries I write will hopefully become pitch letters in due course, meaning I have the chance to give input for any pitch that an editor sees, and they’re also incredibly useful in the drafting phase.
When this blog was first posted, I had written 3 chapters and a detailed outline for this novel; no more of it existed. (Current status: this novel is now under contract, as of August 2020). Writing the query helped significantly in pinpointing the direction and tone of the book, and also caused me to rethink my ending several times.
My basic template is as follows: Context, Motivation, Complication, Action, Crux, and Punchline. As ever, feel free to modify or tinker with whatever works for you, and if none of it works for you, jettison this lot entirely. There are many approaches to query letters and this is just one about thousands 🙂
Building the Query Template
HOUSEKEEPING
This section includes your title, genre, wordcount, and perhaps a cheeky summary. It can also include comp titles and so forth.
Set in an alternate 90s Britain, PAPERFLESH (118,000 words) is a moody speculative thriller offering a unique inversion of the vampire myth, led by a complex anti-heroine.
Usually, this section goes at the end, but in this case I’ve put it first because my MC has a masculine name, and this is my way of clueing the reader in that she’s female. Clarity trumps style every time, in queries.
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CONTEXT
Who is your MC, and how are they situated at the start of the novel? I usually try for 1-2 sentences that have a smidgen of worldbuilding (indicating secondary or primary world), and as little info as I can get away with about my protagonist.
Devon Fairweather belongs to a family of ‘bookeaters’, a shadowy people who live at the fringes of human society and consume written texts for sustenance.
In this case I needed to fit in: Devon’s full name, the fact that she belongs to a clan or family, and a brief explanation of what bookeaters are. The fact that she lives in the UK is irrelevant, because I cheekily snuck that into my housekeeping above (along with the timeperiod.)
MOTIVATION
Arguably, the most important part of your query. What your MC cares about and why is the foundational pillar for what they do in your book, and how they handle things going wrong. Without motivation, there are no stakes, and without stakes, there is no conflict–and by extension, no plot.
However, her young son is another kind of eater: one who devours minds instead of books. His touch steals memories and personalities, leaving behind vegetative shells.
The bookeaters typically enslave such children to wield them against the Sabbatarians, a rival organisation.
Devon’s son is her driving motivation throughout this book. He has a condition which makes him powerful, vulnerable, and exploitable, all in one go. Her desire for him to have a better life propels her out of her status quo (her original Context) and into action.
ACTION
If your protagonist does not drive the plot, you do not have a working book. I cannot emphasize this enough. (NB: I specified protagonist in this instance, as sometimes your protagonist is different from your main character.)
Unwilling to subject her child to such a fate, Devon flees her ancestral English manor and takes her son with her.
Devon’s action is initially simple: she goes on the run. Depending on your story and your query, you may want more in this section, and less in others. If you were writing a synopsis of your story, the action is often the inciting event or first plot point (but not always.)
COMPLICATION
After a character takes action, things don’t go their way. A classic example is the story of Jonah and the whale: after Jonah runs away, a storm at sea strikes, and he is swallowed. These are things which your characters endure, and it is okay for them to not be fully active here.
Life on the run isn’t easy. Devon must continually sacrifice humans to her son’s ever-growing hunger. Worse, every mind he consumes overwrites his personality afresh. The costs to her conscience, to his innocence and sanity, and to the lives they ruin, climb with every step.
Devon’s complication is that her son’s needs are literally overwhelming; the price she pays for her decision is very high. She wants a solution which doesn’t involve capitulating to her Family.
CRUX
The point at which everything crashes together! Context, action, motivation, and complication should all build naturally into a crux. You’ve created the conflict; now spell it out.
Desperate for solutions, Devon travels towards Scotland and seeks out the Sabbatarians, the enemy of her enemy, who have a treatment for her son’s condition. Their drugs allow her son to reclaim a mostly-normal life, while the Sabbatarians themselves offer kindness, sanctuary, and a real sense of family.
Here, Devon reaches for a third option (neither returning home, nor giving up, but seeking help from outside sources).
PUNCHLINE
The problem is clear, and the solution is at hand. What does your heroine need to do to win?
There’s just one problem: her story is a lie, and she was sent here to betray these people.
At this point, my example breaks down a little bit, because Paperflesh doesn’t have a traditional punchline, in the sense that it’s an about-face on the novel’s plot. However, it does technically fulfill my template in the sense that Devon seems to finally have a solution to her problems, except that she isn’t in a position to claim it, because she isn’t the right person (literally).
Put it all together…
Set in an alternate 90s Britain, PAPERFLESH (118,000 words) is a moody speculative thriller offering a unique inversion of the vampire myth, led by a complex anti-heroine.
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Devon Fairweather belongs to a family of ‘bookeaters’, a shadowy people who live at the fringes of human society and consume written texts for sustenance. However, her young son is another kind of eater: one who devours minds instead of books. His touch steals memories and personalities, leaving behind vegetative shells.
The bookeaters typically enslave such children to wield them against the Sabbatarians, a rival organisation. Unwilling to subject her child to such a fate, Devon flees her ancestral English manor and takes her son with her.
Life on the run isn’t easy. Devon must continually sacrifice humans to her son’s ever-growing hunger. Worse, every mind he consumes overwrites his personality afresh. The costs to her conscience, to his innocence and sanity, and to the lives they ruin, climb with every step.
Desperate for solutions, Devon travels towards Scotland and seeks out the Sabbatarians, the enemy of her enemy, who have a treatment for her son’s condition. Their drugs allow her son to reclaim a mostly-normal life, while the Sabbatarians themselves offer kindness, sanctuary, and a real sense of family.
There’s just one problem: her story is a lie, and she was sent here to betray these people.
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Sunyi Dean is an autistic, mixed-race single mother who emigrated to the UK from Hong Kong. She is currently living the inner city life in northern England with her two autistic children. Her published short fiction has appeared in a variety of places including the Best of British SF 2018 Anthology, FFO, Prole, and BBC Radio Leeds, and some of her writing has won local awards.
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Comparison titles:
TOUCH by Claire North (speculative thriller which also has a British/European setting, a non-human mc, and a strong emotional core)
GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn (antihero MCs with a huge plot twist at the mid-point)
THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT by Seth Dickinson (unreliable narrator who takes drastic, unethical action in pursuit of a sympathetic goal)
sunyi dean 