Fiction Query Pitch
When you sit down to write the query pitch for your novel or other fiction, you may feel intimidated by the word restriction (no more than 100) or overwhelmed by all the bits of information that should be included (11 to 21 in most cases). And, of course, you want to put your best foot forward (e.g., avoid clichés like the one I just used).
But getting the spelling and grammar right and the category correctly pegged and even including all 21 items on the to-be-included list while using no more than 100 words does not guarantee that your efforts will produce the best possible pitch for your story.
So, what does?
Confidence. Courage. Authenticity and creativity.
Easy, right? Writers by nature are creative, and it takes plenty of confidence and courage to face the likelihood of rejection by sending your work out into the mercurial world of publishing. As for authenticity, well, if you’ve left that out of your writing, you may as well not even bother.
That said, you’re nowhere nearer to knowing what to put in your query pitch than you were a moment ago.
There can always be exceptions, and in many cases you’ll need to add even more items to the list, but here are the very basic bits of information that most fiction and memoir pitches need to include:
Type of Literature (such as novel, novella, short story collection, or memoir)
Category (such as mystery, romance, science fiction, or literary)
Title (should be significant in relation to the story, reflect the mood of the story, not be overly long, and be intriguing in itself)
Setting (time and place; time considered contemporary if not specified)
Main Character(s) (both first and last name normally used if appropriate)
Something Interesting or Important About the Main Character(s) (she is the county sheriff; his wife was murdered and he is a suspect; she is a military helicopter pilot; he is a private detective; she is a teenage girl who has run away from home; he is a former NFL player suffering from depression)
Goal of Main Character(s) (win the heart of the boy next door; survive the war; rise to the top of the company; overcome a debilitating disease; win an Olympic gold medal; save the rain forest; solve the crime; go to Mars)
Antagonist(s) (may be almost anything, real or imaginary, including a person, corporation, government, asteroid, mountain, tiger, dragon, disease, or one’s own shortcomings)
Something Interesting or Important About the Antagonist(s) (not just a man, but a homicidal maniac!)
Main Conflict of the Plot (boy’s parents disapprove of a mixed-race relationship; dragon will set the village on fire unless protagonist’s sister is sacrificed to said dragon)
Resolution or Lack Thereof (okay to hold back specifics to increase curiosity)
Theme, Stated or Implied (often implied: love conquers all; crime doesn’t pay)
For example, you might write:
In mystery novel DEAD MAN IN THE WATER, Seattle physician John Smith’s wife dies under mysterious circumstances. When he comes under suspicion by the local sheriff, whom John soon learns was having an affair with the deceased, John turns detective and solves the murder, bringing the culprit to justice and proving that crime doesn’t pay.
Ta-da! A straight-forward pitch that includes all twelve of the information items listed above in just 55 words! What could be better?
You could cut it down to 49 words by eliminating the last six words of the pitch since “crime doesn’t pay” is a common and expected theme of such mysteries and thereby implied. And there’s even room left to add in a new love interest.
If you do your research well and send this pitch to agents or editors who have indicated they are interested in such stories, you might get a positive response.
Then again, that agent/editor probably sees hundreds of pitches every week if not every day, and for yours to succeed, it really needs to stand out.
That’s why you need to put your game face on.
Have you ever seen the haka (ceremonial Maori dance) performed by the New Zealand All Blacks at a Rugby World Cup game? It’s all about psyching out the competition or, in the case of your pitch, gaining the attention of the recipient because your pitch is far more intriguing, frightening, amusing, or tragic than the rest.
You need to go for big emotions here. Not just the satisfaction of seeing the mystery solved or knowing that the lovers get together in the end, but something more. Something that will make agents and editors laugh not because you wrote “wonton” for “wanton” or cry not because the type size is too small to read or suck in their breath not because you threatened to kill yourself if they don’t accept your manuscript but because your pitch is delightfully humorous, achingly sad, or terrifically scary.
One way to do that is to captivate them with your voice.
The tone of your pitch should match the tone of your story, and the voice that conveys that tone can help lure the reader into your story world.
If your story is written in the first person, try using that same character’s voice in your pitch:
A middle-class English teacher with a wife and two children, my life would have been poetically mundane if not for the hermit of the Hoh… [Literary. The Other, by David Guterson]
I may be short, but that doesn’t mean I’m not smart. [Irish YA Mystery. Half Moon Investigations, by Eoin Colfer]
A Komodo dragon, killer ants, and twin high school bullies are no match for my sister, Taylor, and me…. [YA Comic Adventure. The Worst Night Ever, by Dave Barry]
Soon I have hunk sleeping in my bed, a one-eyed cat guarding my door, and a monkey named Carl eating Fruit Loops on my kitchen counter. Yikes! [Chick Lit Fantasy. Wicked Appetite, by Janet Evanovich]
I’m four years old when Kathi sets me on the hood of her hatchback—the Shitbox, we call it—so that I can watch her smash the windshield of a car with an iron poker… [Memoir. With or Without You, by Domenica Ruta]
To each his own. Works for me. Unless, of course, it results in murder… [Detective. The Professional, by Robert B. Parker]
My instincts told me to decline the missing ex-husband case, but in typical Kinsey Millhone fashion, I didn’t listen. [Detective. P Is for Peril, by Sue Grafton]
Witnessing a crime may be a crime reporter’s dream, but watching a four-year-old get run over by car thieves is not this gal’s idea of a good time. [Mystery. Suitable for Framing, by Edna Buchanan]
I know Isaiah, I know snow, and I know when I see his small body lying in it that this child’s death was no accident. [Danish Mystery. Smilla’s Sense of Snow, by Peter Høeg]
I am half white. I am half black. I’m a zebra with hyenas at my heels. [British Spy. The Mission Song, by John LeCarré]
If your story is written in third-person point of view, think about employing lush prose or a bit of whimsy:
Thus literary novel THE BINGO PALACE interweaves fiery human passion with age-old Chippewa magic, sews it onto harsh northern prairie reality, and adorns it with brightly colored beads of hope, love, and compassion. [Ethnic Literary. The Bingo Palace, by Louise Erdrich]
Fat Charlie, who is not fat, is a great singer too afraid to sing till after his heretofore-unknown-to-him brother, Spider, arrives at Charlie’s London flat, magic in hand, and alters Charlie’s future in fantasy novel ANANSI BOYS. [Fantasy. Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman]
Regardless of point of view (the pitch for first-person POV stories may be written in either first or third person), your pitch will still need a beginning, a middle, and an end—even if it only has one or two sentences.
Your beginning needs a hook. If it’s appropriate for your story, try using a brief but intriguing opening:
Obsession. It’s a killer. [Detective. The Professional, by Robert B. Parker]
Have toothbrush will travel. [Action Thriller. Killing Floor, by Lee Child]
Letters from the dead? [Family Life. When I’m Gone, by Emily Bleeker]
Perhaps money is not the root of all evil: perhaps envy is. [Psychological Thriller. Envy, by Sandra Brown]
When it comes to bad men, seems they just keep on a comin’. [Western. Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse, by Robert Knott]
Prepare to be enchanted! [Comic Thriller. Life Expectancy, by Dean Koontz]
For a more traditional opening, consider one that offers the reader a journey that will lead toward hope, love, or redemption:
Daughter of a steadfast, loving father and mercurial mother, eleven-year-old Willa Drake wants to be a steadying influence on a large, joyous family when she grows up. [Literary. Clock Dance, by Anne Tyler]
An eighteenth-century escaped slave finds hope, friends, and adventure in St. Augustine, Florida, as she journeys toward freedom and her true love in historical novella A SLICE OF MOON. [Historical. A Slice of Moon, by J.S. Lavallee]
On a winter practice run alone in the North Carolina mountains, pediatrician marathoner Emory Charbonneau runs smack into fate as she is hit from behind and left for dead only to be rescued by a nameless recluse whose rough demeanor hides a caring soul and a mean streak as wide as justice is short. [Romantic Thriller. Mean Streak, by Sandra Brown]
In comic mystery BAD MONKEY, a severed arm reeled in from the waters off Key West offers former Deputy Sheriff Andrew Yancy a chance for redemption. [Comic Mystery. Bad Monkey, by Carl Hiaasen]
Or start with a set-up that has the protagonist in deep trouble:
Ninety-one-year-old Ira Levinson sits slumped in his car in a snowdrift, unable to move. [Romance. The Longest Ride, by Nichola Sparks]
New York advertising exec Oliver Watson has it all until, fourteen years and three children into their marriage, his wife leaves home for graduate school and decides not to return in family life novel DADDY. [Family Life. Daddy, by Danielle Steel]
The 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor demolishes more than U.S. warships in historical literary novel WHAT THE SCARECROW SAID: it disrupts the life of California nurseryman Bill Fujita and destroys his family. [Historical Ethnic Literary. What the Scarecrow Said, by Stewart David Ikeda]
As president of the United States, I, Jonathan Duncan, must protect this country at all costs, and if that means going it alone to meet an unknown young man to avert a major disaster in political thriller THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING, then that’s what I’ll do. [Political Thriller. The President Is Missing, by Bill Clinton & James Patterson]
The promise of a revelation is always intriguing:
Just as receding tides expose Gois causeway in Noirmoutier, France, so the secrets held by their mother and grandmother are gradually revealed to Paris architect Antoine Rey and his sister long after their mother’s mysterious death in suspense novel A SECRET KEPT. [Suspense. A Secret Kept, by Tatiana de Rosnay]
The fates of a small Mississippi town and beleaguered husband-and-wife law firm Payton & Payton depend on a supreme court decision in political drama THE APPEAL. [Political Drama. The Appeal, by John Grisham]
For a more literary angle:
Hill-country folk have their own way of dealing with life, death, and disaster in literary short story collection FORD COUNTY. [ Literary Short Stories. Ford County, by John Grisham]
Or:
They carry guns. They carry grenades. They carry comic books and candy bars and a photo of their girl back home. [Literary War. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien]
And, of course, a bit of mystery never hurts:
Mankind’s fate hangs in the balance after a biologist finds himself washed ashore in the Outer Hebrides with no idea who he is in eco-thriller COFFIN ROAD. [Scottish Eco-Thriller. Coffin Road, by Peter May]
As spectacular fires light up the skies of Seattle, homicide detective Lou Boldt and police psychologist Daphne Matthews join forces to apprehend the serial arsonist who is killing single mothers in series police thriller BEYOND RECOGNITION. [Police Thriller. Beyond Recognition, by Ridley Pearson]
When bereaved mother and chemist Amy Breslyn goes missing after making contact with presumed Al Qaeda operatives, Los Angeles PI Elvis Cole is on the case in series crime novel THE PROMISE. [Crime. The Promise, by Robert Crais]
Unlike the proverbial sagging middle so many writers try to overcome in their novels, you can beef up the middle of your pitch with whatever you left out of the beginning. If straight-out-of-the-gate info has already been addressed in your pitch’s opening, then think about adding plot complications or a secondary character, such as a love interest or sidekick. Other possibilities include deepening the theme or upping the stakes:
Suspects abound as a spray-painted swastika appears on the hotel lawn and Pix discovers the body of a New Jersey importer with his head bashed in. [Cozy Mystery. The Body in the Fjord, by Katherine Hall Page]
His inquiries lead from a caravan camp to the Courtenay Manor where twin heirs of a long-awaited fortune arouse his suspicions. [British Mystery. The Blessed Plot, by M.R.D. Meek]
Although 12-year-old Carter and his eight-year-old sister do believe in ghosts, Andie doesn’t—until she is possessed by one in paranormal romance MAYBE THIS TIME. [Paranormal Romance. Maybe This Time, by Jennifer Cruise]
But when Lucius begins “walking out” with Katrina’s sister, Virginia, in British romance ROSES AND CHAMPAGNE, Katrina reexamines her own life and finds it wanting. [British Romance. Roses and Champagne, by Betty Neels]
Kathleen travels to Ireland to discover the truth behind the reputed 1850s adultery and encounters the devastating history of her homeland. [Irish Literary. My Dream of You, by Nuala O’Faolain]
Anything to stop Dark Ages, the virus that will wipe out every bit of computerized data in this nation. [Political Thriller. The President Is Missing, by Bill Clinton & James Patterson]
And then there is the ending. Here is where you may want to bring in the theme:
In so doing, Eric learns that, indeed, the ends do not justify the means. [Medical Thriller. Extreme Measures, by Michael Palmer]
But even Virgil’s innovative techniques can’t win them all. Sometimes, he learns, you can’t bring people to justice: justice comes to them. [Police Thriller. Heat Lightning, by John Sandford]
Above all, the brothers discover that family unity is far more valuable than monetary treasures. [Action Adventure. The Codex, by Douglas Preston]
Only by banding together and defending each other can a few residents survive to go back in time and save the human race. [Horror. 77 Shadow Street, by Dean Koontz]
But mutual support and unorthodox means allow them all to break the bonds of fear and infatuation and attain the freedom needed for spiritual growth. [Paranormal Literary. Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger]
As her marriage crumbles around her in psychological thriller ENVY, Maris discovers that deceit has two faces and that even though she has given her love to the wrong man, her heart has always been right. [Psychological Thriller. Envy, by Sandra Brown]
But as deceit grows, their marriage disintegrates, leaving only a chasm to be filled by remorse and sealed by forgiveness. [Australian Historical Literary. The Light Between Oceans, by M. L. Stedman]
But just as Lexi and Zach deal with their guilt by taking responsibility for their actions, Jude can only overcome her grief by realizing that love is an act of will. [Women’s Fiction. Night Road, by Kristin Hannah]
Now Judith’s yearning for the past and Willy’s for the future fuse into a few precious days, releasing Judith into a present filled with wonderment and grief as she discovers that some first loves become lasting ones that deserve to be sung underwater. [Literary. To Be Sung Underwater, by Tom McNeal]
These and other SUMMER LIES stories reveal the deceptions we impose not only on others but also ourselves. [German Literary Short Stories. Summer Lies, by Bernhard Schlink]
If your story is humorous, roll with it:
People are seriously out to kill me. But I can’t die! Who’d take care of my hamster, Rex? [Chick Lit. Smokin’ Seventeen, by Janet Evanovich]
His surreptitious investigation lands him in the arms of Rosa Campesino, a medical examiner in Miami, and the two follow clues to a remote Bahamian isle where soon they find themselves at the mercy of the killer, an island witch, and—thank goodness—a very bad monkey. [Comic Mystery. Bad Monkey, by Carl Hiaasen]
More dramatic? Incorporate that into your ending:
Is Loo-Macklin truly a savior or merely a fraudulent power monger? Chaheel will either find out or die trying. [Science Fiction. The Man Who Used the Universe, by Alan Dean Foster]
Only when he is on the verge of death himself at the hands of the killer does J.W. discover the truth and bring the murderer to poetic justice. [Mystery. Death in Vineyard Waters, by Philip R. Craig]
As Aimée is pulled deeper into the history of the old Jewish quarter and the horror that reigned there during the Nazi occupation, forbidden love is rediscovered in the catacombs and a ruthless Nazi collaborator is unmasked, saving France from repeating that dark era. [French Detective Thriller. Murder in the Marais, by Cara Black]
There, in an effort to save the lives of a family of homeless children, Arkady finds not only the truth but also justice while confronting death head on himself. [Russian Police Thriller. Tatiana, by Martin Cruz Smith]
Only I wish some assassin weren’t trying to kill our only hope for disarming the virus and that my medical condition weren’t acting up and that my closest security advisors didn’t include a traitor. [Political Thriller. The President Is Missing, by Bill Clinton & James Patterson]
While revealing the resolution, or at least giving a clue as to what type of resolution it will be, is a major point on the to-be-included list, in some cases it may be preferable to leave the reader with a question:
As romance blooms, Dani worries whether fate has sent her back in time to save Iain or merely to use her as an instrument of his demise. [Historical Romance. Iain’s Plaid, by Skye Taylor]
Now the town must await the outcome of Krane’s appeal before justice can be rendered. But will that be possible if Krane stacks the court in the giant corporation’s favor? [Political Drama. The Appeal, by John Grisham]
If your story falls into a standard genre, pay homage to expectations:
“It’s what we do,” says Virgil. And yes, flesh-and-blood horses play a role, too. [Western. Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse, by Robert Knott]
Every story is different, but if your story is more different than many in that it is literary or otherwise falls outside the common genres like mystery, romance, and fantasy, feel free to give it an appropriately unique ending:
Full of plot twists and secret trysts building to a Wagnerian finish, Bel Canto dares the soul to rise above the fray and soar along with the music. [Literary. Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett]
Because I would trek for miles through the snow to bring him books he disdained to read and food he gobbled from bare hands? Maybe. But I suspect it’s because he felt I was the only person who ever truly loved him. [Literary. The Other, by David Guterson]
And so they carry broken hearts, broken bodies, and broken dreams. But no matter what else they carry, they will always carry Vietnam. [Literary War. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien]
Just as a quick, sharp hook is a good way to get the reader’s attention, a zinger at the end can help set that hook by leaving a lasting impression:
Beginning with an amnesia-inducing accident in New York and ending with a cannibal’s strange ritual in Seattle, each succeeding portion of this ironic tale of alienation and connectivity provides further insight into the mysteries of the human heart. Bon appétit! [Literary Novel-in-Stories. Edible Stories: A Novel in Sixteen Parts, by Mark Kurlansky]
Thanks to Judith’s endless patience, energetic hard work, and voracious curiosity, the cookies get baked, the tree adorned, and the murder properly solved. Tea, anyone? [Cozy Mystery. Nutty As a Fruitcake, by Mary Daheim]
Why, Haller wonders after falling into a trap that would make him the next victim, did he ever ignore his own mantra: Everybody lies? [Legal Thriller. The Brass Verdict, by Michael Connelly]
Better to just say no and let it go. ’Night, Jenn. [Mystery. Night and Day, by Robert B. Parker]
Now that you’ve got a beginning, a middle, and an ending, all you have to do is string them together as I did in this example I wrote for one of my own novels:
Romantic suspense novel SAILING AWAY FROM THE MOON explores the ever growing and passionate relationship between idealistic young writer Maggie Johnson and her all too human hero, renowned photojournalist Ashley Graham Robertson. On a remote tropical isle, the two finally achieve marital harmony only to have it violently disrupted when Ashley’s archenemy kidnaps Maggie and forces her to choose between Ashley’s life and that of their child. In so doing, she saves them both, proving that wholehearted love demands wholehearted trust.
[81 words]
A query pitch is like a lottery ticket. If you don’t buy it (send it out), then you have no chance of winning (having your manuscript accepted for publication).
So get cracking—I mean writing—and start sending out those queries!
NOTE: All the pitch examples in this article were written by me for instructional purposes only and were never used by the authors or anyone else to actually pitch a book.
Copyright 2019 © Ann Henry. All rights reserved.
Photo Game Face copyright 2018 © Ann Henry. All rights reserved.