How much of your plot should you describe in your query letter, and in how much detail?  What are the three most important questions a query letter needs to answer?  How long should each section be?  Those are the kinds of questions this blog answers. 

Most aspiring novelists struggle with the query letter.  I certainly did—until I invested hundreds of hours studying this issue in-depth.  I started by reading dozens of blogs about “how to write a query letter.”  Many only cover the basics:  make sure to include your hook, title, and word count, and spell the agent’s name correctly.  Others offer good high level advice without delving into the nuts and bolts of how to implement that advice.  For example, they tell you to summarize your plot without getting bogged down with too many facts—which is great advice so far as it goes, but the devil is in the details.  How much of your plot should you describe?  Which aspects should you focus on?  That’s what you really need to know.

In an effort to learn those answers, I paid several agents and query letter editors to provide candid feedback on my query (multiple drafts).  Each had good suggestions, but no one came right out and said:  “Here’s the magic formula.”

So, how did I finally figure it out?  By piecing together concepts I’d learned from all those blogs and editors—one tidbit from blog X, a second nugget from blog Y, a third from editor Z—and then analyzing over 100 successful query letters to see how other authors implemented those concepts in real cases.  In short, I reverse-engineered successful query letters and discovered the secret formula.  Now, let’s get to it.

The Basic Elements:  Every query letter should contain the following elements:

1. A “Hook” (one to two sentences);
2. An “Overview” of your story (100 to 200 words);
3. The “Why Me?” section (why are you querying this particular agent?);
4. Your Bio;
5. Your novel’s basic data (genre, title, word count).

Optionally, you can also also have a short paragraph that puts your novel in a broader context, typically either by listing comps (other books that are similar to yours in some important way) or by explaining how your story sheds light on a timely issue.

The Hook:  A hook is a one-sentence encapsulation of whatever stands out most about your novel (or two short sentences).  I’ve seen advice stating that hooks can be 20 to 40 words, but I strongly recommend staying below 30 words.  The shorter, the better. 

You can choose from several types of hooks. I’m going to focus on the three most relevant to novelists who are just starting out:  (a) compelling character hooks; (b) high-concept hooks; and (c) roadmap hooks.  Other types generally only apply to non-fiction or to famous authors. 

The best hooks pick out the single most interesting thing about your novel and pitch that.  Normally, it’s either your protagonist or your premise (the scenario or conflict confronting your protagonist), but it can be the stakes.  Astute readers may notice that these are the famous “Three C’s”:  character, conflict, and consequences.

A. Compelling Character Hooks

If you have a unique protagonist, it’s usually a good idea to make that your hook. E.g.:

When Caroline Auden lands a job at a top Los Angeles law firm, she’s excited for the challenge—and grateful for the chance to put her dark past as a computer hacker behind her.  (Doubt, by C.E. Tobisman).

As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.  (All Systems Red, by Martha Wells).

Meet Brad, the world’s first genetically-engineered human, who risks everything to save mankind even as many people seek to destroy “the abomination.”

You’re basically saying, “My protagonist is so interesting, you’ll want to read this book just because of who they are.”  Notice that none of these character-based hooks provide any details about their book’s plot.  The first two say nothing about plot, while the third hints at it, but in such broad generalities that you have little idea what it entails.  Why?  I’ll come back to that in a minute, because the same principle applies to the next type of hook, too.

B. High-Concept Hooks

“High-concept” is a Hollywood term that basically means:  this story’s premise is so simple and has such widespread appeal, all you have to do is tell people one short sentence about it.  You’re pretty much saying, “What if this happened.…?”

If you have a compelling premise, this is the right hook for you.  Here are several examples (mainly from query letters, but a few come from the back cover blurbs of successful novels):

The serial killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury.  (Thirteen, by Steve Cavanagh).

What if Cinderella went to the ball not to win the heart of the prince, but to kill him?  (Queen of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas)

A young woman falls in love with a man who she later discovers is her company’s biggest competitor, forcing her to choose between her career and her heart.

A murder… A tragic accident… Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.  (Big Little Lies, by Liam Moriarty).

Once, when they were small, Carolyn wondered out loud if theman that she and the other librarians called ‘Father’ might secretly be God?  (The Library at Mt. Char, by Scott Hawkins).

Kin Stewart thought parenting a teen couldn’t get any harder, but then he got separated from his daughter—by a century.  (Here and Now and Then, by Mike Chen).

As a variant, if your stakes are compelling and unusual, that can make for a fine high-concept hook.  This is far less common, but here’s a great one in this category from a famous novel:

Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The contestants are children. Let the Hunger Games begin.  (The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins) (I tweaked this one a tad, adding the sentence about “children”).

Of course, there’s no room for a hook to go into detail; they must be short.  Less is more.  I can’t emphasize that enough.  Re-read the great hooks quoted above, both the Compelling Characters and High-Concepts.  See how all of them highlight one key point?  They don’t dilute that point by burying it amid many other details.    

The protagonist-based hooks tell you next to nothing about their plots.  They also don’t bog you down with less interesting details about the character, things like their age, personality, where they live, etc.  They stick to one trait that makes the character compelling.  A lawyer who used to be a hacker.  A killing machine who has a heart.  A genetically engineered man.  Period.

Likewise, the premise-based hooks provide no details about their characters.  For example, the first one doesn’t tell you the serial killer’s day job, how he murders his victims, or why he does it.  The third tells you nothing about the young woman or her love interest, only that they work for rival companies (which is the premise).  They also keep the premise very short and simple, no elaboration (e.g., why is the serial killer on the jury?).    

Those other details belong later, in the Overview section.  All you’re trying to do in a hook is whet the agent’s appetite so they’ll read the rest of your letter to learn more.  What’s the harm of including additional details in the hook?  The danger is, if you combine too many details into one sentence, the key point can get lost—especially if your sentence structure gives each point equal weight.  To illustrate that problem, let’s use an early draft of my query letter (before I learned this dilution principle):

After a mass shooting widows his first love, a brilliant lawyer with schizophrenia reconnects with her to sue the weapon’s manufacturer, but soon she’s the one on trial—for murder.

There’s a ton of great information in there.  It tells you exactly what the plot is about and why the main character is unique.  Unfortunately, it’s too much.  There are so many details, they all run together.  Nothing jumps out—at least on a quick reading.  If you take the time to study this hook carefully, it might interest you, but agents won’t do that.  They skim hundreds of query letters every week.  They don’t have time to study your letter and won’t, unless the initial quick read grabs their attention.  The lesson?  If your hook tries to do too much, it will end up achieving too little.

C. Roadmap Hooks

Ideally, a hook only sells one point.  But what if your story isn’t amenable to that?  Then use your hook for a different purpose:  as a map to guide agents through the Overview that follows. 

A roadmap hook is exactly what it sounds like:  one sentence that summarizes your plot (or two short sentences).  Unlike a high-concept hook, you’re not trying to sell a single, super-fascinating point that leaps off the page and grabs readers.  Instead, you’re giving us a preview so we can easily follow the rest of your query letter (it still needs to sound interesting, of course).  The last thing you want is for an agent to realize, halfway through your query letter, that they still don’t know the story’s main premise. 

This is by far the most common type of hook, although it’s not quite as effective as the first two types.  Typically, this kind of hook tells us a little bit about the main character while focusing on the storyline.  Here are several examples of roadmaps done well:

THE LOST NIGHT follows a Brooklyn woman whose world comes crashing apart when long-buried secrets force her to question whether her best friend’s decade-old suicide was actually a murder—and if she herself was involved.  (The Lost Night, by Andrea Bartz).

MAGIC, SPELLS, & ILLUSIONS, INC. is the story of an ordinary young woman who gets a job at a company that turns out to be essentially Magic, Inc., and who finds herself in the middle of a brewing magical war that’s really going to complicate her dating life.  (Enchanted, Inc., by Shanna Swendson).

The underachieving daughter of a New York congresswoman sets her sights on torpedoing her mother’s Senatorial campaign, only to find that family—like democracy—is a messy, fragile thing.  (Let’s Not Do That Again, by Grant Ginder).

Two beautiful girls: One is murdered after a teen party, and the other is accused. The accused girl wakes up with blood on her hands and has no memory of the night before. What really happened?  (The Guilty Girl, by Patricia Gibney).

Can you have your cake and eat it too by combining a roadmap hook with a compelling character hook?  Yes.  In fact, that’s how I structured my query letter.  But you have to do it very carefully or you’ll end up diluting the main message.  After many tries, here’s what I finally came up with:

Meet Maxwell Grue, a brilliant lawyer with schizophrenia. When his first love suffers a tragic loss, they reconnect to seek justice, but soon she’s the one on trial—for murder.  (The Lawyer Who Hears Voices).

The first sentence is a classic, character-based hook.  It has exactly one selling point: “lawyer with schizophrenia.”  And the second sentence?  It pitches an emotional theme with high stakes:  Max reconnects with his long-lost first love whose life is on the line in a murder trial.  Beyond that, it adds a 20,000-foot roadmap of the plot.  But notice how that plot summary is devoid of details.  What kind of tragedy caused her loss?  Who or what did she lose?  How did she seek justice (through a lawsuit for money or by catching the bad guys)?  Who is she accused of killing?  My query letter answers those questions later in its Overview section, not in the hook.     

Why not?  To avoid the dilution problem.  Watch what happens if the second sentence of my hook elaborates about the plot details:

Maxwell Grue is a brilliant lawyer with schizophrenia. After a mass shooting widows his first love, they reconnect to sue the weapon’s ruthless manufacturer, but soon she’s the one on trial—for murder. 

That’s not bad, but it’s less effective, because the extra details in the second sentence dilute the main message(s).  When you read this version, I suspect you focus on things like “mass shooting,” “ruthless weapon manufacturer,” and someone getting “widowed.”  That might cause you to miss (or downplay) the “first love” aspect.  Let’s look at my actual hook again to see how I avoided this pitfall:    

Meet Maxwell Grue, a brilliant lawyer with schizophrenia. When his first love suffers a tragic loss, they reconnect to seek justice, but soon she’s the one on trial—for murder.  (The Lawyer Who Hears Voices, by Marty Harris)

In three ways, my word choice and sentence structure highlight what you should take away.  First, the introductory phrase (“Meet Max”) announces that he’s the most important thing in this paragraph.  Second, by breaking it into two sentences, I’ve forced you to pause right after reading the key phrase (“lawyer with schizophrenia”).  Finally, by providing one specific detail in the second sentence (his client was also his “first love”), while keeping everything else vague (“tragic loss” and “seek justice”), I focused you on the “first love” point.  That’s an example of how you can balance the need for some details against the trap of providing too many. 

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I must say this:  Not all query letters contain good hooks.  It’s definitely better if you have one.  Every blog will say you need one.  And, I suspect, some agents will stop reading if you lack one.  Nonetheless, I’ve read enough query letters to know that many authors have secured agents without having any hook at all, let alone a great one.  So, if you’ve tried and tried but just can’t come up with a wicked hook, don’t panic.  As long as you write a great Overview, you still have a chance to land an agent, which brings us to our next topic…. 

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