Once you've hooked the agent to read your whole query letter, you've got to deliver. You can't just have a hook and then let everything else slide. Following the hook, you need to get to the problem. This requires a little bit of setup. You may have noticed in some of the example hooks, the age of the protagonist was included. Of course you should specify the genre, but the agent knows right away which age group you’re writing for when you include the age in the hook. Little details like that contribute to the setup in your query.
In the setup, you have a few goals:
1. Provide a few details about who your main character is. You've hooked the agent to find out more about your main character, so give them what they want.
2. World-building information if pertinent. For fantasy and science fiction, a little taste of the world would go in the setup section of the query. For mystery, horror, thriller or other genres, including the setting here wouldn't be a bad idea.
3. The catalyst that moves the main character into the conflict.
In each of the examples below (which are numbered to go with their hooks from the first part of this section), I’m going to expound on what each sentence brings to the table as far as setup. The same as in writing, what you include in the letter should have a purpose for being there.
Examples:
1. “After committing her eighth lame crime (walking in the park after dark with a boy, gasp!), (details = Vi dislikes Rules and breaks them, world building = the Rules are lame) Vi is taken to the Green, a group of Thinkers who control the Goodgrounds. (world-building) She’s found unrehabilitatable (yeah, she doesn’t think it’s a word either) (details = Vi is snarky) and exiled to the Badlands. (world-building = exiled to another land) Good thing sexy Bad boy Jag Barque will be going too. (catalyst to the conflict = exiled to the Badlands with a Bad boy)” [3 sentences, 58 words]
2. “Whenever she's high, Annie has vivid visions of a death she can't remember and a guy she's never met. (details) When she meets Jonathan Clarke, the ghostly boy from her hallucinations, she realizes her drug use has masked the abilities she's inherited from her magic-keeping mother. (Details = Annie inherits magic. World-building = magic-keeping mother) Wielding magic isn't everything it's cracked up to be; Annie discovers her newfound powers can't cure her terminally ill mother. (More details = Annie's mom is sick. World-building = magic can't fix everything. Catalyst to the conflict = magic can't fix everything, Annie's powers are new and she can't do what she wants with them.) [3 sentences, 65 words]
3. “She can feel death approaching like you can feel rain falling on your skin. (details + world-building = Penny feels death) Penny thinks the 68th death will get her one step closer to being able to reclaim her lost life, but she’s dead (lol) wrong. (details = Penny’s lost life, catalyst to conflict = her death won’t help her reclaim her lost life) Because the death she feels is not her own, but that of a friend. (catalyst to conflict = death of a friend)” [3 sentences, 52 words]
4. “Emerson Taylor is sixteen and a kissing virgin, much to her complete and utter horror (details = Emerson hasn’t kissed a boy) - until one day when she and some friends play an innocent game of Spin the Bottle. While her first kiss is brief and nothing special, what she discovers shortly afterward is definitely special.
When Emerson kisses a boy, she can see his past. (details + world-building = she can see the past with a kiss) And it doesn't take her long to figure out how to kiss and steal test answers, gossip and secrets... (world-building) But the kiss that will rock her world is the kiss she carefully plans after her BFF disappears without a trace.(catalyst to conflict = her BFF is gone and she’s going to use her “kissing power” to find her) ” [5 sentences, 99 words]
–courtesy of Katie Anderson, author of Kiss & Make-Up
5. “Not even on the anniversary of their disappearance. Of course, that was before this message from Grace appeared in her inbox: (details = who the dead girl is)
Kate,
I'm here…
sort of.
Find Christian.
He knows.
I shouldn't be writing.
Don't tell.
They'll hurt you. (details = find Christian, dead girl might not be dead)
Most girls would ignore the warning and go straight to the police.
But Kate isn’t most girls. (catalyst to conflict = what is Kate like? What will Kate do?)
Instead, she decides to channel Nancy Drew, pearls and all. (catalyst to conflict = she’s going to solve the case) Of course, Kate’s pearls are faux, her skirts are way shorter and she’d take everyone's favorite teen detective in a girl fight, but you get the idea. (details = Kate is made of spunk)” [93 words]
–courtesy of Lisa and Laura Roecker, authors of Liar Society
All of these examples drive the reader toward the conflict. That's what you want your setup section of the query letter to do. Don't bog us down in too many details. Don't introduce your entire cast of secondary characters. Don't try to impress with single sentences that are 65 words long or the cool names of your universe far, far away. Just lay it out. Remember, you want to get to the conflict.
Think of the setup as a bridge from the sharp hook to the cliffhanger conflict. And no one wants to spend their time on the bridge.
Final words on the setup:
Stick with the main character, introducing a secondary character if necessary.
Get there quick = 3-5 sentences / 75 – 100 words
Give only the important details that build character or setting
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From the Query to The Call
Non-FictionFROM THE QUERY TO THE CALL outlines what a query letter -- or cover copy -- is, why every author needs to master the art of describing their book in just a few words, and how to successfully navigate the querying process. Authors looking to query pu...
