Part I:

Query For Demon's Lexicon That Landed Me As The Agent

Since I just announced my two recent auctions, I thought it might be fun to share the original query letters with my blog readers.

First up is Sarah Rees Brennan and with her permission, the original query letter that was sent by email and that made us request 30 sample pages.

Dear Ms. Nelson and Ms. Megibow:

I am a big fan of Ms Nelson's blog and the dedication and positive attitude obvious in every post. I would like you to consider THE DEMON'S LEXICON, my YA urban fantasy set in modern-day England. The manuscript is complete at 75, 000 words.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for flattery! Seriously, it's a very straightforward introduction. All the necessary information is given.

What would be the first word to come to mind about the runaway romance between a beautiful, headstrong woman and a darkly fascinating magician?

For Nick, it's 'embarrassing', since said beautiful, headstrong woman was his mum. 16 year old Nick has been brought up on the run from the darkly fascinating magician after things really didn't work out between him and Nick's mother. He resents his mother for the predicament they're in, and he was mostly raised by his older brother, Alan.

The answer wasn't what I expected, and I love how she taps into exactly what a 16 year old would think about his mother and a romance. She has my full attention.

Nick has also been brought up knowing that there are certain people who have limited magical abilities. Some of them, the magicians, increase these magical abilities by summoning demons who give them more power - in return for the magicians giving them people to possess. The other magically gifted people have considerably less power and rely on magical trinkets and information, exchanged every month at a 'goblin market.' As the only people who know about the magicians and their victims, they do try to control things, but it's an endeavour that is not going well.

This is a quick explanation of the world she has created. Notice it doesn't take pages and pages. One brief paragraph. I expect the next paragraph to give me more of the conflict that is going to unfold with the character of Nick that she has introduced.

Nick, who can summon demons and is pretty handy with a sword, is mostly concerned with just getting by, but his life is greatly complicated by the advent of his brother's latest crush. Not only is she a little too attractive for Nick's peace of mind, but she has a boy in tow who bears the marks of demon possession. Added to that the fact that Nick has started to suspect that Alan, the only person in his life who he trusts, has been lying to him about a few very serious things, and not only Nick, but everybody else, are in for some surprises.

And here's the conflict. I'm intrigued. Two brothers on the run. One is lying. Hum... I think I need to see more.

I have a popular online blog, some contacts in the writing and publishing world. I want to move ahead on this with an agent, and I also want an agent for the long term, for negotiation and guidance - in fact, everything it says on the tin - that is to say, your website.

I'm still wondering what a "tin" is and if it's a Irish/British saying... but what the heck, I'm interested enough to read sample pages.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Yours,
Sarah Rees Brennan

On Monday, I'll share with you the letter I wrote to the editors that started all the excitement about this very special novel. Until then...

I'm out.

Part II:

I have to say I found the discussion about this query very interesting. I have to remember that most of my blog readers don’t spend hundreds of hours reading thousands of query letters. (If you ever get the chance to intern at an agency, I think it would be a real eye-opening learning experience).

So let’s talk about this query and queries in general some more.

1. It’s more important for a query concept to be original than for a query to be perfect.

Sarah’s query for DL is far from perfect. I didn’t post in my blog as an example of that. I’ve read hundreds of “perfect” queries that didn’t have an original story to offer (at least as presented in the query).

Now, this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t spend your time getting a query letter critiqued and perfecting it to the best of your ability. I do think that helps the cause but for the most part, agents aren’t looking for perfection. We are looking for a story spark—something we haven’t seen before—and this is so hard to define because often we won’t know it until we see it. Then it’s compounded by the whole subjectivity issue. When I talk about Jamie’s query, I’ll go into a little more depth on that. His query worked for me but Jamie also sent that same query to an agent friend and it didn’t float his boat at all. Purely subjective.

But back to Sarah’s DL query. Do you know what in that letter caught my attention? It was her outline of the family dynamics unfolding (albeit set in a fantasy world). Seriously, that’s what snagged my interest. So often I get these really distant, lacking-in-emotion fantasy query letters about three folks who end up on a quest but there’s no sense (in the query) of any real, interpersonal relationship dynamics which forms the heart of any story—regardless of genre.

Nick’s mom had an affair with a dark magician and because of her, Nick and his brother have to spend their lives on the run, and Nick is embarrassed that his mother had the affair to begin with.

That strikes me as pretty accurate as to how a 16-year old would feel about it. That alone caught my attention. I actually didn’t care what the rest of the query letter said. Now I did keep reading to get more details (and the possible romantic triangle caught my eye as well) but ultimately I knew I was going to ask for sample pages because I had NEVER BEFORE SEEN this scenario in a fantasy query letter—despite the thousands I receive.

That’s it. Simple. No need to analyze whether the grammar was perfect. Heck, I make enough snafus on my own blog that I’m not one to judge. I’m pretty flexible because grammar errors can be easily fixed. Everything else about writing such as voice? Not so easy. In my mind, the author had captured that sense of teen angst about all relationships which feels authentic. If she manages to capture the same in the manuscript itself, then I know I’m in for a good read, which leads me to point two…

2. You can have the most perfect and original query letter in the world and if you can’t back that up with good sample pages, it doesn’t really matter how great the query letter is. Sarah's query letter is just fine--not spectacular--but the sample pages were unputdownable from page one.

Don’t lose sight of that.

And here’s my last point of the day. I often think that writers want the holy grail of query letter writing. That if I do X (and just tell me exactly what X is) in the query letter, then I’ll get an agent and a book sale.

It doesn’t work that way. It’s an aligning of several factors and then having that all come together because the query caught the agent’s attention, the agent loved the sample pages, then the manuscript was strong, and then editors loved it and then once published, the readers loved it and then…

It’s magic.