While I wait (impatiently) for feedback from my beta readers, I’m starting to work on my query letter. It’s a one-page “sell” of my book that I will submit to literary agents or publishers in hopes of catching their eye. It’s the first impression–often the only impression–the professionals will see of my writing style and skill, so in one page, I have to convince them of my premise, characters, originality and talent. They get hundreds every week; I have to make mine stand out.
I think it’s easier to write the whole damn book instead.
Thanks to a blog called “Query Shark” (www.queryshark.blogspot.com), on which a literary agent critiques query letters, I’ve learned what agents are looking for. (It helped me land an agent for my first novel.)
- fresh, original voice
- intriguing hook
- conflict, including what’s at stake
- why I [literary agent/potential reader] should care.
My first version appeared as part of my “About the Blog” page. Here’s the intro:
Two weeks before graduation, 17-year-old Lyra Harmon stands in her high school’s entrance hall and watches, in mute, helpless horror, as her boyfriend Jonah blows up the school.
She wasn’t supposed to survive, but she did. Not because of a miracle—people in Lyra’s country, the First World, don’t believe in miracles or God or religion of any kind. She survived because of a condition she didn’t know she had: Cellulis Non Morietur—cells that never die. It seems her body heals itself from any injury or illness.
It seems she can never die.
Here’s my revised draft (also revised on my “About the Blog” page):
Two weeks before her June graduation, 17-year-old Lyra Harmon is blown up in a suicide terrorist attack on her high school—carried out by her boyfriend Jonah in the name of religion. It’s all the more shocking because they live in the First World, a non-religious country where a belief in God is irrelevant.
Lyra wasn’t supposed to survive, but she did because of a condition she didn’t know she had: phoenix cells—cells that always regenerate. It seems her body heals itself from any injury or illness.
This version is tighter–Lyra is blown up, not just standing around. I’ve put the focus on the First World as a non-religious country in the first paragraph instead of leaving it like an after-thought in the second paragraph. I also cut out the never-dying part. The tension of whether she can or can’t die plays out throughout the book, so it’s misleading.
Here’s the whole thing (so far):
Two weeks before her June graduation, 17-year-old Lyra Harmon is blown up in a suicide terrorist attack on her high school—carried out by her boyfriend Jonah in the name of religion. It’s all the more shocking because they live in the First World, a non-religious country where a belief in God is irrelevant.
Lyra wasn’t supposed to survive, but she did because of a condition she didn’t know she had: phoenix cells—cells that always regenerate. It seems her body heals itself from any injury or illness.
That’s why Annie Wisteria, a spy with the First World Intelligence Agency, wants Lyra to assassinate the mastermind behind the spate of terrorist attacks. Simon Moto is warlord from the Second World, a country on the brink of civil war, torn between traditional religion and a desire for a more progressive, secular society. Moto now manipulates disillusioned youth like Jonah to bring religious terror to the First World.
Annie intends to inject Lyra with Hecate’s Plague, the deadliest virus on Earth. No one who breathes the infected air survives. Except Lyra. With the help of David, a boy whose own brother died in a Moto attack, Lyra can infiltrate Moto’s compound, breathe out the contagion and kill Moto—all without leaving any First World fingerprints.
Lyra agrees to the dangerous mission. She lost her whole family in the school explosion and wants to protect others in the First World from her suffering. But as she’s thrust into the unstable Second World, she begins to question everything she knows about religion and power. She even questions whether killing Moto is the right thing to do.
But with Moto planning imminent attacks on more First World students, Lyra must decide where her loyalties lie. And what she should believe in.
Whaddaya think? Would you buy it? 🙂