Thursday, June 30, 2011

Friday Five: 5 Queries that Rocked My World

I'm of the opinion that you can never read too many queries when you're about to begin the dreaded process of writing your own.  Here are five that would get any agent's attention.

1.  The Liar Society by Lisa and Laura Roecker - Take note of a query that breaks a lot of rules, except the most important one: it makes you want to read the book!  It's so good that their jacket copy mimics it.  This is a query that sells the book on more than one level.

2.  The DUFF by Kody Keplinger - Kody's query nails the voice of her novel and is short and sweet.  It gives you a sense of the whole novel without over-loading you, which is almost impossible to do.  No wonder she landed such an awesome agent.

3.  Witch Eyes by Scott Tracey - Succinct, but interesting.  Also it references a Corey Hart song which gives it like +10 cool points.

4.  Premeditated by Josin McQuein - It takes a lot to get the shark to bite, but Josin's query obviously put blood in the water.  It's edgy and experimental and leaves you dying to read the book.

5.  Soulless by Gail Carriger  - I love the sauciness of this query.  You can hear the voice of the novel -- a very hard thing to capture in 250 words or less.

And as for queries I really want to see: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Twilight.  What about you?  What queries have stuck out do you or would you like to see?

10 comments:

  1. I definitely want to see Harry Potter. I've searched for it and found a very convincing query, but it was only a mock of what the real one might look like. It was still very good though.

    I also liked Gail's query--so good!

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  2. I love your query for CREWEL--the reference to Mad Men? So cool. I've noticed a lot of agents tweeting/blogging about the fact that queries are getting better on the whole. It's so helpful to read the ones that were successful! Great post.

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  3. I love the CREWEL query for the same reason I love the PREMEDITATED query - the steadily rising tension is just perfect. THE LIAR SOCIETY query is fantastic, too. Why I can't time-travel into the future and grab all these books?

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  4. Great question. I think I'd love to see the query for FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH - it's so original, I'd love to see how it was pitched.

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  5. Thank you for linking to these! I always find it incredibly useful to read successful query letters while writing my own. And yes! I'd love to read the query for Harry Potter.

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  6. Thank you so much for featuring TLS! I will NEVER forget when we read the query for Crewel. We just kind of looked at each other and went HOLY $hit. Needless to say, we were NOT surprised when we found out about the agent cage match that resulted.

    It was fun reading queries for so many books that I've read and loved, but holy wow that query for PREMEDITATED? Um, I want that book NOW. Amazing.

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  7. Wow! Thanks for the shout out for Premeditated's query.

    All the queries mentioned are awesome.

    I'd love to see a query for Harry Potter(though I doubt there was one in the current American sense. UK agents usually go off cover letters.) I'd also like to see the one for Twilight. I'm curious as to whether it was the story or the voice that stood out with it.

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  8. Thanks for all the query love!

    Mindy, for you my dear: http://fangs-fur-fey.livejournal.com/201005.html

    I feel like a fairy godmother.

    Also L&L, look for my review of TLS next week complete with ridiculous anecdote about the lengths I went to to read it!

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  9. I loved Lisa and Laura's. Haven't seen all the others. But yours was awesome too.

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  10. Kicking examples, as was yours for Crewel. Thanks for the the bloggy workshop. :)

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