Revise that ineffective query letter!

So. I’ve been querying literary agents for a while now. Feels like forever. Mostly, I’ve gotten form rejection after form rejection (or no response at all…yippee). It’s been rough. I’d send out a batch of queries and wait awhile, then send more and keep waiting. No requests. No feedback. No idea what I was doing wrong.

I bought a few books on writing queries and read countless articles online. I gathered and implemented some very useful tips from those sources, but still wasn’t getting anywhere. I began to wonder if my sample chapters were killing me.

One day, a very gracious agent offered me more than just a standard form rejection. Actual feedback. Nothing Earth-shattering, mind you, but enough to help me see the error of my ways. As it turns out, my query and manuscript didn’t quite match up.

See, my original query focused too much on events that happen in the second half of my manuscript. I merely glossed over the first part—effectively making it sound like backstory that doesn’t actually occur IN the novel, even though it does. I have no idea why I did that. I guess I didn’t realize how it would come off.  

The agent told me my sample pages need to start closer to where the query describes the story as beginning. As it was, the query implied the novel “began” halfway through. Cue the “OMG, she’s riiiiiight,” groan.

It also dawned on me that I hadn’t sufficiently set-up the story. Thinking myself a genius, I had revised it to start smack dab in the middle of the action, hoping to grab the reader’s attention. Maybe it did, but starting that way also gave the reader no reason to care about the characters or the consequences of their actions. No sympathy had been established.

So, with the advice that I needed to start closer to the “beginning” of the story, I gave my story a new beginning. I wrote a new first chapter and adjusted the story’s timeline. The past became the present.

Then, I tossed my old query letter out the window and started over from scratch—at the beginning. I also followed query writing advice more closely. In my original letter, I explained my main character’s goal, but only vaguely said what would happen if she didn’t achieve it. In the new letter, I made the “stakes” higher and the goal clearer. My protagonist’s dilemma is now much more imperative.

I sent my new query to a few agents to test the waters, and you know what? So far, I’ve gotten one request. My first request. Obviously, I was excited, but am definitely not holding my breath. I’m well aware that a request doesn’t mean anything (and I'm probably totally jinxing it as I write). Besides, I still haven’t heard from the others, so maybe it was a fluke.

Regardless of the outcome, I now know my old query sucked. Big time. It was a stinker. I’m pretty sure my new query is more along the lines of what I should have been shooting for all along. Too bad it took me this long to figure that out.

Now I’m playing the waiting game. I’m holding off querying more agents until I see if I get any feedback on my sample pages, which would make me so very happy. I sent my original query (the sucky one) to too many agents, meaning I lost my chance with them (for this novel, anyway). I don’t want to make that mistake again. Live and learn, right? 

Is your query letter getting you nowhere? Maybe it needs to go out the window, too!