Pitching your book is scary.
No matter which stage of writing you’re in — whether you’re querying agents, sending new material to your agent for wide submission, or even submitting a pitch to your publisher to consider — regardless of your publishing status, if you’re trying to sell a story, you’re never done with pitch letters.
There is a LOT of advice on the internet about how to write queries so I don’t want to repeat what’s already out there. Querying has changed a lot over the last few years too, especially with the pandemic altering all of our worldviews and response rates.
Recently, I went to write a pitch letter for a new story and it didn’t go very well at first. But, after talking to a friend, she helped me see the emotional journey of the character wasn’t clear. Once I realized that, writing the pitch got a lot easier because she was right — a query should focus on the EMOTIONAL beats rather than the plot.
Sounds hard but really, it’s much easier when you break it down. (Some caveats: my query letter is for a YA, sci-fi/fantasy book with one main character. If your story has multiple POVs or is in a different genre, your process might be different but still, focus on the emotions of your characters!)
First, introduce the main character and a tiny bit of backstory that adds to their emotional journey. Here’s the opening sentences for my query for CTNFTW:
For the last five years, seventeen-year-old Sena Korhosen has been scraping by all alone on her frozen, backwater world. She’s been trying to get off of Tundar ever since the planet’s infamous sled race claimed both her mothers’ lives.
As you can see, I introduced Sena, her main goal and motivation (to get off world to escape the sled race) but I made sure to include an emotional pull to that info (because the sled race claimed both her mothers’ lives.)
Next up is to bring in the conflict that’s stopping your character from reaching that goal.
Sena swears she’ll never race, even if mining the rare exocarbon at the race’s end could buy her a ticket to any world she wanted. But after falling in debt to a local gangster, her dreams of getting off-world become next to impossible. Especially when the gangster demands that she heal his prize fighting wolf, Iska, or he’ll force her to join the race instead.
You can immediately see that the conflict is exactly the thing Sena DOESN’T want to do, the race. There’s other emotional conflict I could’ve introduced here instead, like how Sena has avoided wolves since her mothers died and now she has to heal one. But because the later half of the story focuses on Sena racing and query letters have to be short and quick to grab attention, I focused on the flashier race element.
Once you’ve set up the conflict, the next step is to raise the stakes.
When Sena tries to escape, she ends up double crossing the gangster, leaving no choice but to flee with Iska in tow and take an offer from a team of scientists. They’ll pay her way off-world with one condition -- she gets them to the finish line of the race.
So now, poor Sena has no choice but to do the thing she really doesn’t want to do. And the next sentences show just how hard it’s going to be on her:
But the tundra is a treacherous place and Sena's going to need every skill her mothers taught her if she expects to survive. Especially if it means learning to trust a feral wolf.
I made sure to mention her mothers again so the reader can see how that emotional connection continues throughout the story. I think many people make the mistake of mentioning the character’s motivations but then leave the backstory as just backstory. However, what happened to the character in the past is what’s driving them in the present and what’s affecting the outcome of their story. So any emotional threads you bring up from the character’s past, it’s important to tie them in as the conflict and stakes increase.
The final bit of the query is where we end with a punch and show the choice that the character has to make. (The choice which should be between what the character originally wanted and what you the author is driving them towards on their emotional journey.)
But as the race unfolds and their lives are threatened at every turn, Sena starts to question her own abilities. She'll have to discover whether she's strong enough to survive the frozen wild. Whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.
Originally, Sena’s goal was to get off world but now she has to survive the race AND the only way to do that is for her to make this connection with the wolf — both things she didn’t want to do in the beginning of the story and the beginning of the query. I’m showing the challenges she’ll face, not from the plot, but from her inner conflict.
And that is the most important part of any query or pitch letter. Show me what the character feels as they undertake this journey.
Because if I can see what the character feels, I’ll be more likely to feel invested myself. Reading books puts the audience in the shoes of the character. If they feel something, then I, as the reader, also feel that same something. I’ll be more likely to wonder “but what’s going to happen next!?”
And that feeling is what keeps people reading pitches, turning pages, and finishing books. So fill your query with emotions and worry less about summarizing the plot of a 300 page book in less than 300 words.
Here is the whole query letter for reference:
For the last five years, seventeen-year-old Sena Korhosen has been scraping by all alone on her frozen, backwater world. She’s been trying to get off of Tundar ever since the planet’s infamous sled race claimed both her mothers’ lives. Sena swears she’ll never race, even if mining the rare exocarbon at the race’s end could buy her a ticket to any world she wanted. But after falling in debt to a local gangster, her dreams of getting off-world become next to impossible. Especially when the gangster demands that she heal his prize fighting wolf, Iska, or he’ll force her to join the race instead.
When Sena tries to escape, she ends up double crossing the gangster, leaving no choice but to flee with Iska in tow and take an offer from a team of scientists. They’ll pay her way off-world with one condition -- she gets them to the finish line of the race. But the tundra is a treacherous place and Sena's going to need every skill her mothers taught her if she expects to survive. Especially if it means learning to trust a feral wolf. But as the race unfolds and their lives are threatened at every turn, Sena starts to question her own abilities. She'll have to discover whether she's strong enough to survive the frozen wild. Whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.
A version of this post appeared in Wolves and Wonder, my monthly newsletter that includes no-nonsense writing advice along with book updates and sci-fi inspiration. Get it in your inbox; you'll love it.