Hello!
I was hoping to solicit feedback from this excellent community on a query letter that I have been working on for my first completed manuscript. I have followed a format suggested by several websites and I am reasonably pleased with it. However, I have no experience with these things. So here it is:
How do you prove that one of the brightest minds in Mars’s only city, New London, is capable of committing mass murder 140 million miles away?
This is the question private investigator, Daniel Helmqvist, is faced with when femme fatale, Charlotte Rennick, interrupts his perfectly quiet evening at his favorite watering hole. The guy arrested for the 2181 terrorist bombing that left most of Manhattan’s lower east side in smoldering ruins was a patsy, she tells Helmqvist. The real culprit was the last person anyone would suspect of orchestrating an attack of such horrific magnitude – her boss, the powerful, and influential, scientist Mara Kitterman. Reluctantly, Helmqvist agrees to take the case and quickly finds himself in a race against time to find a man – long believed to be dead – who holds the key to discovering the mastermind behind that terrible day.
I am an American presently living in the arboreal majesty of the Swedish hinterlands. When I’m not writing, I enjoy cooking, helping my wife in the garden, playing video games, painting/sketching and brewing beer. Fairytale from a Dusty Crater was conceived in a creative writing course and inspired by the rise of modern day nationalism. It is my first completed novel and is 96,983 words long.
Thanks in advance to all who respond!
Kevin
Lorraine and Lucy, thank you for taking the time to review my query and for your feedback. Some of it, I have taken to heart and I believe that my query will be the better for it. At present, it is now is a pretty serious state of disarray but I'll get there in the end. Again, my thanks for your suggestions and ideas.
Yes, remember that your biog is selling you and your book - perk it up. Look at other biogs - Terry Pratchett's is a classic. And it's probably worth saying - who cares if you play computer games? What does that tell me about you as a writer? An agent wants to know that (especially in these days of budget cuts) you can self-publicise. You've got to learn to shout - which is hard for any writer, as we are in a solitary profession, and we're ultra-sensitive.
Hi Kevin,
I think it all sounds great, but maybe could be a little more succinct? Might be worth making sure there are none of the great writing evils - like adverbs there! I think probably even the greatest writer uses them sometimes, but I guess your cover letter needs to be your best writing!
I also think your biography makes you sound rather as though writing is not that important to you - I have to say here and now that I do not have an agent, so might be talking out of my hat, but I suspect that in some ways you need to be more convincing to an agent than a publisher. A publisher is looking for a book, whereas an agent presumably will be looking for someone they want to work with - so maybe make more of your commitment to writing?
Does that make sense? V tired, but thought I'd add my penn'orth, as you might find an agent who is reading your letter is v tire as well!
Very best of luck with it!