As the Pitch Wars Hopefuls prep for submission in August, the mentors are sharing our successful queries as examples. (Check the #pitchwars Twitter feed for posts from other mentors.)
I was a Pitch Wars mentee in 2014. The following is the query letter that helped me sign with my rockstar agent, Patricia Nelson, with my Pitch Wars manuscript, which was retitled as The Secret Ingredient of Wishes and published by St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books in 2016. (If you go to my book’s link after reading the query you might notice how this synopsis basically ended up as the back cover copy!)
Dear Ms. Nelson,
Rachel Monroe, 26, can make wishes come true just by thinking about them. But it’s a gift that has caused more harm than good. And after her mother’s death, which Rachel blames herself for, she decides it’s time to leave her hometown—and her past—behind.
But when Rachel gets stranded in small-town Nowhere, NC—also known as the town of “Lost and Found”—she realizes she can’t escape her past, or her gift. In Nowhere Rachel is taken in by a spit-fire old woman, Catch, who binds the townspeople’s secrets by baking them into pies, and who has an uncanny ability to see exactly what Rachel is trying to hide. She also meets Ashe, Catch’s neighbor with southern charm and a complicated past, who makes her want to believe in happily-ever-after.
As she settles into the small town, she hopes her own secrets will stay hidden—especially the one about how she wished her little brother out of existence when they were kids. But starting over is harder than she thought, and when her wish-granting secret is revealed, the town people’s wishes begin popping out of thin air everywhere she goes. Scared the wishes will go wrong like in the past, she tries to ignore them, which only makes the wishes more determined to get her attention. Then when Rachel is forced to confront the truth about her brother, she must accept her magical ability or risk losing those she has come to love—and a chance at happiness—all over again.
My magical realism novel, WISHES TO NOWHERE, is complete at 83,500 words and will appeal to fans of Sarah Addison Allen and Alice Hoffman. I earned a BFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina – Wilmington. Swoon Romance published my magical realism novel, LOVE AND CUPCAKES, in January 2014. For the past eleven years, I have worked as a marketing copywriter and proposal editor.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Susan Crispell
*Side note, I actually queried another agent at the agency because Patricia did not request from me during the Pitch Wars agent round so I thought she wouldn’t be interested. I was wrong. The other agent loved the pitch but was moving away from adult books so she passed my query to Patricia who requested immediately. I then went through an R&R (revise and resubmit) with Patricia before she signed me.
confessions of a fangirl 
This is really helpful. I can see why it caught your agent’s eye. Sparkling and smart!
Thank you so much! I’m glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much for sharing these with us, Susan. As you can relate to, I’ve been consuming queries by the dozen, only to grow more confused! This is the first time I read a query that clicked with me, and I immediately revised my own to a version I feel better about. Though we’ll still have to see how it does in the field! 🙂
Oh, I’m so happy to hear to hear this helped! Writing a query is so tough. But if you think of it like the back cover copy on a book it helps. You want to say who the character is, what they want, what or who is standing in their way and what they will lose if they fail. Then it’s all about getting your voice in there to make it all come to life a bit more! Good luck with yours.