The Query Letter Summary

The first part of your query letter is the summary. 

The point of the 2-3 paragraph summary is to tease your book and its premise to the agent and make them want to read more - in this case, your sample pages. So you don’t want to give away the ending, and you want to end on “stakes” - a kind of cliffhanger that will leave the agent wondering what happens next.  

Try to keep this part short and to the point--ideally, around 250 words (because remember, your entire query is 300-400 words). 

What Does It Need?

1. The main characters

2. The central conflict 

3. The big stakes

The Main Characters

The first thing you want to do is introduce us to your characters. Who are they? We want to immediately know their place in the world, and we want to know the challenge they face. I like to start queries with this information to hook agents, instead of opening with worldbuilding, a generic statement about the conflict, etc. If you have a good character, your reader will want to follow them into the story, so have them be the agent’s guide as they read your query!

The Central Conflict

What is the immediate challenge that your character is dealing with? While the challenges they face may be multitudinous, or change throughout the book, pick the conflict that starts the book off with a bang. We want to delve into what makes the character’s journey one we want to follow.

The Big Stakes

The summary ideally ends on a cliffhanger--because we want the agent to be drawn in and want to know what happens next. Think about a big-picture conflict that you can share about your book without spoiling the ending.

I like to use the common formula “they must do X or suffer Y” to frame the stakes. Try this out with your book!

One good way to get a feel for what the query summary should look like is to read the summary on the back of book jackets, or on the inside cover. This is exactly what you’re going for—a summary that illuminates the main character, the premise of the book, and the big, exciting conflict that they’re facing that draws us in.

What Does a Summary Not Need?

• Worldbuilding: 

  • Especially in fantasy queries, I see a lot of this. We don’t need much, if any, information about the world. Try to use common terms (i.e. “magic wand,” “ancient artifact”) so that the agent isn’t grappling with new terminology or definitions when they’re trying to understand a summary of your book.

• The characters’ past: 

  • You want to start with your character in the here and now of your book, just like you start off the manuscript itself. Backstory is valuable, but we don’t need it in the query summary.

• All of the other characters in your book:

  • I like to focus on one character if it’s a single POV book. It’s a very short summary, so we don’t want to get too bogged down in introducing new characters.

• All the little plot tangents: 

  • You don’t need to pack everything that happens into the book. You just need to give us the main conflict and the main stakes.