Query advice

In my every-other-Wednesday critique group, two of the other writers last night passed around query letters to critique. One we went through one as we sat. But the other one we took home to read and will critique once we see each other again.

After reading the letter, I decided to write the author privately.

It must be stated that I'm not the best source for what is an effective query letter. If I were, I wouldn't have the tons of query rejection responses sitting on the hard drive of this laptop. But I think I have a handle on what is not a good letter.

Unfortunately, the query letter I took home wasn't very good.

The person who wrote the query is an excellent writer. I have read numerous examples of their writing and find it well-crafted, thoughtful, tight and entertaining. The writer is a great storyteller, with great imagination and color.

But to my complete surprise, none of that was displaced in the query.

It was flat and unfocused. I wasn't sure who the main character was (except that the author only mentioned one character by name but I still wasn't sure if they were the main character), and there was no conflict in the letter. The author also failed to clearly identify the genre and didn't mention the word count.

Nearly nothing in the query would entice me to read the whole letter. If I didn't know the writer, I would have stopped reading after the first paragraph.

I e-mailed them suggesting that they clearly identify the main charcter, show the challenges they face and the forces standing in their way. And I hope my comments weren't too harsh. I didn't mean for them to be.

Being in this group has helped me tremendously. I hope I was of help to this author. I haven't heard back from them. So only time will tell.

Thanks for reading. And never give up.