Queries That Worked
Below are examples of real queries authors used to get their agents! You can use these samples as inspiration as you write your own.
*All rights to these queries belong to their respective authors!
Genre: YA Fantasy
Author: Sarah J Maas
Title: Queen of Glass
Dear Ms. Rydzinski:
What if Cinderella went to the ball not to win the heart of the prince, but to kill him? In THE EYE OF THE CHOSEN, the first book of my fantasy trilogy, QUEEN OF GLASS, Celaena Sardothien is not a damsel in distress—she’s an assassin. Serving a life sentence in the salt mines for her crimes, Celaena finds herself faced with a proposition she can’t turn down: her freedom in exchange for the deaths of the King of Adarlan’s enemies.
Before she can complete her mission, she must first train within the glass castle in the capital of the empire. As training with the Captain of the Guard revives her muscles, encounters with the Crown Prince threaten to do the same to her heart. But Celaena soon learns that the King of Adarlan might have plans more sinister than assassinations.
An ancient queen’s ghost charges Celaena with an enormous task: to discover and destroy the mysterious source of the evil king’s power. Torn between her desire to win her freedom and a mission much bigger than herself, Celaena thus begins an adventure she never wanted, which will uncover her forgotten, magical past—a past more dangerous than any tyrant…
I am a 2008 graduate of Hamilton College with a degree in Creative Writing, and I have been published in Hamilton’s literary magazine, Red Weather. Because of your interest in fantasy, I thought you might be interested in my trilogy, which is centered on a retelling of the Cinderella legend through the eyes of an assassin. My completed manuscript is available at your request. Below, please find the first ten pages of my manuscript. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Genre: YA Fantasy
Author: Marissa Meyer
Title: Cinder
Dear Ms. Grinberg,
I’m seeking representation for Cinder, an 85,000-word futuristic young adult novel and a re-envisioning of the classic Cinderella story. I’m submitting to you because Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series was hugely inspirational in the writing of this novel, and I hope my futuristic world will capture your interest as well.
Sixteen-year-old Cinder is a cyborg, considered a technological mistake by most of society and a burden by her stepmother. Being cyborg does have its benefits, though—Cinder’s brain interface has given her an uncanny ability to fix things (robots, hovers, her own malfunctioning parts), making her the best mechanic in New Beijing. This reputation brings the prince himself to her weekly market booth, needing her to repair a broken android before the annual ball. He jokingly calls it a matter of national security, but Cinder suspects it’s more serious than he’s letting on.
Although eager to impress the prince, Cinder’s intentions are derailed when her younger stepsister, and only human friend, is infected with the fatal plague that’s been devastating Earth for a decade. Blaming Cinder for her daughter’s illness, Cinder’s stepmother volunteers her body for plague research, an “honor” that no one has survived.
But it doesn’t take long for the scientists to discover something unusual about their new guinea pig. The surgeons who turned Cinder into a cyborg had been hiding something. Something valuable.
Something others would kill for.
I’ve had a novelette, “The Phantom of Linkshire Manor,” published in the gothic romance anthology Bound in Skin (Cats Curious Press, 2007), and am a member of the Romance Writers of America. I hold an MS in Publishing and a BA in Creative Writing, emphasis on children’s literature. My bi-monthly writing newsletter reaches over 450 subscribers.
Genre: Fantasy
Author: Sam Hawke
Title: City of Lies
Point of interest: Hawke’s hook does its job with a nimble turn of phrase: “Protect the family. Preserve your honor. Guard your secrets. For two centuries, these rules have bound Jovan’s family; in a few short weeks, he will break them all.”
Dear [Excellent Agent]
Protect the family. Preserve your honour. Guard your secrets. For two centuries these rules have bound Jovan’s family; in a few short weeks, he will break them all.
Jovan wears two faces. To his peers he is the lifelong friend of the Chancellor’s charming, irresponsible Heir. Quiet. Forgettable. In secret, Jovan is a ‘proofer’: a food taster trained by his uncle to protect the Chancellor’s family from poison and treachery. His duty defines his life and his loyalty to the Heir is absolute.
When his uncle and the Chancellor succumb to an unknown poison and a rebel army lays siege to the city, Jovan’s structured world unravels. Trapped and desperate, unsure whom to trust, he must protect the Heir from both threats. But as he hunts the poisoner, Jovan discovers his country has two faces as well; behind the beauty and sophistication is an ugly past built on oppression. His enemies aren’t who he thought they were, and a traitor on the Council is manipulating them all.
Betrayed by the Chancellor and the Council, the rebels reject attempts to broker peace, leaving Jovan in an impossible position. Defeating the rebels means perpetuating a terrible injustice, but if the city falls he may lose the things he’s always valued most — family, honour, and his only real friend.
PROOF is a fantasy novel of 160,000 words.
Influenced by my early diet of classic fantasy and old spy thrillers, I have always loved both the transportive nature of fantasy and the tension of a good mystery. PROOF is aimed at readers who enjoy novels which combine elements of these genres, such as Robert Jackson Bennett’s CITY OF STAIRS.
Genre: Sci-Fi
Author: Jason M. Hough
Title: The Darwin Elevator
Dear Ms. Megibow,
From your profile on Publisher’s Marketplace, I see that we share a love for John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. I am contacting you for representation of my science fiction novel, THE DARWIN ELEVATOR. The manuscript is complete at 130,000 words, and can stand alone or become a series.
Skyler is immune to a disease that has wiped out most of humanity. Only one place on Earth is safe for those not immune: Darwin, Australia, where a space elevator of alien origin suppresses the disease. Trapped in the city, the ragged citizens of Darwin rely on food grown aboard orbiting space stations to survive. They rely on scavengers like Skyler for everything else.
With a small crew of fellow ‘immunes’, Skyler leads missions into the dangerous world beyond Darwin’s safe-zone, searching for the useful relics of old Earth. Spare parts, ammunition, books — for a price, Skyler will find it. When a reviled political leader hires him to retrieve information from a long-abandoned telescope, and smuggle the data to scientists living in orbit, Skyler is thrust into the middle of a conspiracy.
The telescope data proves another alien ship is approaching Earth. While trying to keep the discovery secret, Skyler’s employer sparks a bloody coup, led by a faction hell-bent on total control of the Darwin Elevator. As the uprising spirals into all-out war, and the alien ship nears Earth, Skyler must risk everything to protect a secret he barely understands.
I learned the art of creating fictional worlds while designing sci-fi video games, such as Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction and Metal Fatigue. These titles featured intricate stories and complex characters. I feel this experience, and my lifetime passion for the genre, has transferred well to the medium of the novel.
Genre: YA Sci-Fi
Author: Adalyn Grace
Title: Donor
Dear Agent,
Seventeen-year-old Analeigh Hampton would rather rip out her eyes than visit the Donor Center, the corporation that implanted them. But when she and her father are invited to stay at Donor as a publicity stunt for his political campaign, there’s no way to escape. After all, everyone wants to see America’s once-blind sweetheart support the corporation that granted her vision.
B24301, more commonly known as Black, is a donor. As he and his twin sister near their eighteenth birthday, they eagerly await their Dismissal: the promised life outside the Donor Center they’ve been prepping for since birth. They take classes to keep their minds active, eat well to protect their body, and go about life with the belief this will allow them to exist in the outside world. But Dismissal is only an illusion to keep the donors obedient. When a donor turns eighteen, their body is chopped up and harvested for the next buyer. What no one on the Outside knows, however, is the donors are not the lab-grown specimens they’ve been led to believe. They’re human.
As Analeigh and Black meet and realize the dark truths of the Donor Center, Analeigh is left with a choice: ensure the Donor-dependent society remains healthy and thriving by keeping her mouth shut, or risk life as she knows it to protect her unsuspecting new friends.
Neal Shusterman’s UNWIND meets THE ISLAND in DONOR, a 77,000 word young adult sci-fi. I earned my BA in English Literature and studied storytelling as an intern on The Legend of Korra at Nickelodeon Animation. I also worked as the managing editor for a nonprofit newspaper while reviewing young adult ARCs for Little, Brown.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Genre: Sci-Fi
Author: Mike Chen
Title: Here And Now And Then
Kin Stewart thought parenting a teen couldn’t get any harder, but then he got separated from his daughter — by a century.
Before that, he was a normal family man, working and parenting teenage Miranda — a far cry from his old job as a time-traveling secret agent from 2142. Stranded in suburbia since the 1990s because of a botched mission, he’d spent the last 17 years thinking about soccer practices and family vacations instead of temporal fugitives.
But when his rescue team suddenly arrives, Kin is forced to abandon his family and return to 2142, where everyone — including his fiancee, who’s unaware of time travel — thinks he’s only been gone weeks, not years. Ordered to cut all contact with the past, Kin defies his superiors and attempts to raise his daughter from the future. Until one day he discovers that Miranda’s being erased from history…and it might be his fault.
With time running out, Miranda’s very existence depends upon Kin taking a final trip across time, no matter the cost. Break time-travel rules, tell his fiancee about Miranda and his secret family, even put his own life on the line; those are risks Kin will take because there’s only one thing more important than the past and the future: doing right by his daughter.
HERE AND NOW AND THEN (90,000 words) is science fiction for people who hate science fiction. An intimate character-driven look at how far people will go for the ones they love, I believe the blend of sci-fi elements and traditional themes can go beyond genre readers and into the mainstream. Think The Time Traveler’s Wife as written by Nick Hornby with a dash of Torchwood.
A lifelong writer, my published credits include contributions to Thirsty? San Francisco, Fox Sports, SB Nation, Yahoo Sports, NYTimes.com, Maple Street Press, and various local arts magazines. I also run a freelance writing business.
May I send you the complete manuscript? Or can my corgi (who is snoring at my feet right now) deliver the completed manuscript to your corgi?
Genre: Romance (Contemporary)
Author: Ramsey Hootman
Title: Courting Greta
This is not a romance.
Samuel is no alpha male, or even a beta. He’s the cripple with crutches; the nerdy programmer every woman on the planet feels compelled to mother.
Greta is no beauty – not even on the inside. She’s the bitter, sarcastic gym coach with two bad knees and no sense of humor. The teacher no kid would dare mock. At least not within hearing.
This is barely even a love story.
Samuel only asks Greta out to prove he’s got the guts. When she accepts, he’s out of his depth. All he knows is that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her as long as he can. Pretend he’s got his class under control? Easy. Attend sporting events? Sure. Humiliate himself in front of six hundred teenagers? Uh… yeah. No problem.
Be vulnerable enough to admit why he ditched his programming career for teaching? Um, no. That would require honesty. And if there’s one thing Samuel can’t exist without, it’s the lies he tells himself.
Courting Greta, complete at 116,000 words, is set in the California wine-country town of Healdsburg, where the mistakes you make as a teenager follow you to your grave. It is a book about what happens when two people who don’t believe in romance give love half a chance. It is about sports and disability and, most of all, the freedom that comes with letting go of every single last scrap of pride.
Genre: Romance/Mystery
Author: William S. Kirby
Title: Vienna
Elite fashion model Justine Am has more than anyone could want. She has delusions that wooden manikins are moving. She has a murdered boyfriend in the bathroom. She has a one night stand with a gawky savant named Vienna. You know it’s bad news when lifeless lovers and shifting statues aren’t as disturbing as who you wake up next to.
As for Vienna, life is looking up. After years spent in a haze of eidetic memory, she has found someone who will actually talk to her. True, Justine is a lying, self-centered harlot, but you have to make allowances for Americans. That is, until everyone around them starts dying.
VIENNA is my new romantic mystery, running 80,000 words. The story traces a series of murders set off by a lost heirloom of the Habsburg Empire. Moving through Brussels, London, Reykjavik, and Vienna, Justine Am races to uncover a secret that leaves her unscathed while killing those around her. Her accidental companion, Vienna, appears to be little more than a collection of tantrums and tangles. Not worth losing sleep over, or so Justine tells herself as midnight slips by. Vienna may be faster to the truth than Justine, assuming she can derail her chaotic thought patterns long enough to jury-rig a coherent picture of reality. How fortunate that Justine Am is annoying enough to sidetrack a typhoon.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Author: Caroline Woods
Title: Fraulein M.
Dear Ms. Hassan,
I’m very impressed with your agency’s client list and would love to have you as my agent. Thank you for considering my historical novel, FRÄULEIN M., which I believe will appeal to fans of Jennifer Robson or Renée Rosen.
After the Nuremberg Laws pass in 1935, a young woman named Anita—the eponymous FRÄULEIN M.—flees Germany with three Jewish children, posing as their tutor.
Thirty-five years later a mysterious letter arrives for Anita at her South Carolina home, but it is intercepted by her teenage daughter, Janeen, who is pregnant and planning to run away with her draft-dodging boyfriend. Through the letter—and later, her mother’s memories—Janeen learns of Anita and Berni, free-spirited, androgynous cigarette sellers, as well as Grete, a hearing-impaired housemaid to a Nazi family, with whose son she forms a complicated bond. Janeen and Anita must navigate the past in order to heal their relationship in the present, and ultimately, after a former SS officer resurfaces in America, they must travel to find Grete in search of justice.
FRÄULEIN M. abounds with hidden identities and family secrets. With its vivid descriptions of Weimar cabaret culture and lush Southern landscapes, this novel is designed to attract readers of both literary and commercial fiction.
I teach fiction writing and freshman composition at Boston University and the Boston Conservatory, and I have an MFA in Creative Writing from BU. My fiction has been published in Slice Magazine (the editors of which nominated me for a Pushcart Prize), LEMON, and 236, BU Creative Writing’s Literary Journal. I also served as editor-in-chief of 236 for issues 3, 4, and 5. As a teenager I published a book of ghost stories, Haunted Delaware, which received praise as a self-publishing success story in The Village Voice, Writer’s Digest, and other publications. Haunted Delaware taught me a great deal about author-driven book promotion, which I look forward to doing with gusto throughout my career.
Genre: Thriller
Author: Andrea Bartz
Title: The Lost Night
Dear Ms. Machinist,
Based on your interest in Gillian-Flynn- and Megan-Abbott-esque suspense, I’m excited to share with you my character-driven psychological thriller, THE LOST NIGHT.
Lindsay is content with her life: She has a solid magazine job, a devoted best friend, and her own Brooklyn apartment, complete with a fully stocked (and frequently used) liquor cabinet. She’s certainly moved on from the bizarre night ten years earlier when she got blackout drunk and her frenemy, Edie, committed suicide. Until Lindsay discovers an unsettling video that forces her to ask if Edie was actually murdered—and if Lindsay herself was involved. As she races to untangle what really happened, Lindsay must face the demons of her own violent history—and bring the truth to light before she, too, suffers Edie’s fate.
THE LOST NIGHT is THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN meets HBO’s GIRLS, a 95,000-word literary mystery that explores friendship, identity, and obsession against the backdrop of Brooklyn’s raw and ever-changing Bushwick neighborhood.
I’m a Brooklyn-based journalist and co-author of the blog-turned-book STUFF HIPSTERS HATE (Ulysses Press, 2010), which The New Yorker called “depressingly astute.” My work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, Martha Stewart Living, Redbook, Elle, and many other outlets, and I’ve held editorial positions at Glamour, Psychology Today, and Self, among other titles.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Author: Karen Swartz MacInerney
Title: Murder on the Rocks
Dear Ms. Faust,
I enjoyed meeting you at the conference in Austin this past weekend. As I mentioned, I have had my eye on BookEnds for quite some time; when I discovered you would be at the conference, I knew I had to attend. We met during the final pitch session and discussed how the series I am working on might fit in with your current line of mystery series. Per your request, I have enclosed a synopsis and first three chapters of Murder on the Rocks, and 80,000-word cozy mystery that was a finalist in this year’s Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest and includes several bed-and-breakfast recipes.
Thirty-eight-year-old Natalie Barnes has quit her job, sold her house and gambled everything she has on the Gray Whale Inn on Cranberry Island, Maine. But she’s barely fired up the stove when portly developer Bernard Katz rolls into town and starts mowing through her morning glory muffins. Natalie needs the booking, but Katz is hard to stomach—especially when he unveils his plan to build an oversized golf resort on top of the endangered tern colony next door. When the town board approves the new development not only do the terns face extinction, but Natalie’s Inn might just follow along. Just when Natalie thinks she can’t face more trouble, she discovers Katz’s body at the base of the cliff and becomes the number one suspect in the police’s search for a murderer. If Natalie doesn’t find the killer fast she stands to lose everything—maybe even her life.
I am a former pubic relations writer, a graduate of Rice University, a member of the Writers’ League of Texas, and founder of the Austin Mystery Writers critique group. I have spent many summers in fishing communities in Maine and Newfoundland, and escape to Maine as often as possible. The second Gray Whale Inn mystery, Dead and Berried, is currently in the computer.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Author: Kim Hooper
Title: People Who Knew Me
Point of interest: Hooper’s query is a lesson in how to convey conflict without over-explaining elements of plot.
Dear Andrea,
I am seeking representation for my novel, People Who Knew Me, and wanted to reach out to see if you’d be interested in taking a look.
On September 11, Emily Morris is lazing in the bed of her lover, playing hooky while he goes to work at the World Trade Center office they share. When the towers collapse–along with the affair she’s been using to escape her unhappy marriage–she sees an opportunity. By September 12, everyone in her life thinks she is dead. By the next week, she is living a new life in California, pregnant and alone.
People Who Knew Me weaves back and forth between the present–fourteen years after 9/11–and the past. When Emily is faced with a devastating diagnosis, she must revisit the past and make peace not just with those in her current life, but with the people who knew her in the life left behind.
I am a 34-year-old novelist residing in Southern California. After completing the Masters of Professional Writing program at USC, I went into a career in advertising, writing fiction in my off hours. I have been a contributor to DimeStories, was selected for the America’s Next Author anthology, and was a featured author at the West Hollywood Book Fair. You can learn more at: www.KimHooperWrites.com.
Genre: YA Contemporary
Author: Jill Baguchinsky
Title: Mammoth
Dear Eric Smith:
The summer before her junior year, paleontology geek Natalie Page lands a coveted internship at an Ice Age dig site near Austin. Natalie, who’s also a plus-size fashion blogger, depends on the retro style and persona she developed to shield herself from her former bullies, but vintage dresses and perfect lipstick aren’t compatible with prospecting for fossils in the Texas heat.
When Natalie’s paleontologist hero steals the credit for one of her accomplishments, Nat has to unearth the confidence she needs to stand out in a field dominated by dudes. To do this, she’ll have to let her true self shine, even if that means defying the rules and risking her life for the sake of a major discovery.
Then there’s Chase the intern, who’s seriously cute, and Cody, a local boy who’d be even cuter if he were less of a grouch — Natalie’s got more than just mammoths on her mind this summer.
MAMMOTH puts a paleo spin on a DUMPLIN’-style young adult contemporary narrative — it’s ELEANOR AND PARK meets JURASSIC PARK, just without the gene splicing and marauding velociraptors. Natalie’s battle to reclaim her self-image will appeal to plus-size teens and any readers who struggle with being themselves, and the dig-site setting will engage anyone who geeks out about science. MAMMOTH is complete at 68,000 words.
Genre: Middle Grade
Author: Cindy Baldwin
Title: Where the Watermelons Grow
Twelve-year-old Della Kelly vividly remembers the last time her schizophrenic mama had a break with reality that put her into the mental hospital for three long months. But Mama’s on a new medication, and things have been better—until the night Della comes into the kitchen to find Mama obsessively cutting the seeds out of a watermelon, convinced they’ll get into her kids’ tummies and make them sick.
Panicked, Della resolves to do anything in her power to fix Mama’s broken brain. But when Mama’s delusions turn dangerous and an ambulance takes her away to the mental hospital an hour north, Della must work up the courage to seek help from the town’s resident eccentric, who claims to have a jar of magical honey that will help solve Della’s problems… even if it’s a solution that has more to do with healing Della’s heart than healing Mama’s brain.
If the honey works, Della might have a chance to finally let go of her own guilt—spurred by the deep-down knowledge that it was Della’s birth that brought the schizophrenia on in the first place—and learn to truly love her mama, sickness and all.
A SNICKER OF MAGIC meets THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH in this Southern-flavored magical realism, which is a standalone with the potential for at least one companion novel. Although I don’t have schizophrenia myself, many of the themes in the novel are inspired by my lifelong struggle with serious illness (and my frustration with the number of people who have been certain they knew just what it would take to “cure” me!).
Complete at 42,000 words, WHERE THE WATERMELONS GROW won third place in middle grade division of the First Chapter contest at the LDStorymakers 2015 conference. My poetry and prose have been featured in several print and online publications, a complete list of which can be found at my website.