In Need of Critiquing: Query Letter for YA, Mystery

[John]

Brutal honesty is appreciated. Thank you so much!

Dear Agent,

Washington Day, for all his high-school popularity and abnormally advanced intellect, is in utter disgust of the world around him. The unbreakable monotony of corruption, ignorance, abuse, crime, and everyday atrocities all make the discovering of a mysterious flash drive labeled SECRETS that much more worth investigation.

Suddenly, Washington is exposed to thousands of pages of government intelligence from within the memory stick. Within days, the flash drive opens the door for Washington to make a decision: return back to the monotony, or act upon his desperate urge to mend his society.

Choosing the latter, Washington constructs and executes an ingenious plan to reveal this information while remaining anonymous, eventually garnering mass media coverage. National police agencies are helpless as they search for the person responsible, until another genius begins a crusade of his own: Themis.

An anonymous, unseen detective operating under an alias, Themis is recruited by the American Government, eventually tossing Washington into a battle of wit and strategy as he attempts to capture, counter, and toy with this young revolutionary. They play a game of cat and mouse, the smarter man wins.

If Washington defeats Themis, not only would the world lose the greatest detective it has ever known, but it would gain a young leader skilled enough to have absolute power. If Themis outsmarts Washington, however, America is left in the hands of the corruption Washington seeks to dismantle.

An Intellectual’s Game is a 95,000-word mystery, psychological thriller novel, the first in a trilogy, with a plethora of twists and clever plot points designed to leave the reader guessing throughout the course of the piece.

I sincerely thank you for the time it took to read this query and the consideration you not only give to me, but to all the authors you lend your time.

[Keith]

Hey John,

Please research "Mary Sue" and see if your Washington is slipping into that mold, as it sounds in your blurb.

You'll most likely be told your blurb is too long, at 233 words. The supposed sweet spot is 100-150 words. Very challenging, but I've seen where the exact same intent can be conveyed with much tighter word choice AND read much more exciting.

Another thing you may run into is the total word count. Mysteries generally clock in on the low side, and for debut novels (I assume for you this is the case, as it is for most of us here) the lower end of the low side is the sweet spot. That generally translates to 65-70K for a mystery, so I suspect most agents/publishers are already going to be skeptical. Longer ones will work, but then every single word has to be critical to the story and the reader must be captured from the first paragraph and not released until the final sentence. Given the relative wordiness of your blurb, I suspect you've set yourself up at a disadvantage in that regard.

It's useful to mention follow-on work, but it's very important that a debut novel be standalone. Meaning, the story has to end at the end. You mention a trilogy, which implies the story continues, which implies some sort of cliffhanger at the end. If your first story has a clean ending (this doesn't mean you have to resolve everything, just that the main story arc has to complete in a satisfying way), then you want to say something like "An Intellectual’s Game is stand-alone, but has series potential." That tells the agent/publisher that they're not committing to a trilogy if they decide to take on your first.

This: "but to all the authors you lend your time" is lovely and all, but word count matters in a query, and you have to be ruthless about cutting every single word that fails to contribute to the goal: get a MS request.

BTW: "the smarter man wins" implies a conclusion. Blurbs are typically written in present-tense without doing more than hinting that there is an exciting resolution. I suggest, instead, "the smarter man will win."

[John]

Keith wrote: "Hey John,

Please research "Mary Sue" and see if your Washington is slipping into that mold, as it sounds in your blurb.

You'll most likely be told your blurb is too long, at 233 words. The suppos..."

Awesome, thank you so much! I'll decrease the word count best I can to get it in the sweet spot, and I'll market the manuscript as a stand alone, as it does end in a cliffhanger. I'll also look back in my novel to cut out any unnecessary fat. I looked up the Mary Sue character, and Washington is actually more of a deranged narcissist than anything, so I don't think that he will fall into that mold, but I'll look back and be careful. Perhaps I'll alter my wording in the query. Thank you so, so much again!

[Keith]

The old saw is that you should cut every single word that's unnecessary, but not one more. Finding that balance point is the challenge. For thrillers and mysteries, it's even more important. Scifi and fantasy are expected to do world building, so agents/publishers actually get leery of something under 110K. You can find the general word counts by genre on dozens of places on the 'net. The important thing to note is you want to be looking at values for _debut_ authors, as once you've become Steven King, you can write whatever you damn well please.

The Mary Sue trope to avoid is your MC being too perfect at his/her job. Having a 'flaw' of being too smart isn't really a flaw, unless you balance that with being unable to maintain relationships, etc., which is belied by your "school popularity." Even if you don't intend for your MC to be 'superman,' speaking from experience, it's easy to overlook what's in your head and fail to put it on the page. In my case, my character was solving all sorts of varied problems and readers were thinking it was too much, but in my head, he was just an ordinary guy who had lots of connections with 'consultants.' I'd left out all the parts about the consultants, duh!

Good luck!

[John]

Natasha wrote: "I like how you’ve mentioned your character is a “deranged narcissist,” and I think that could be an interesting piece of information to include in your query. If he’s an antihero, I might make that..."

I'll add the narcissism part for sure! It does take place in the modern day, more or less, the year 2029. I'll try and clean it up, and I'll omit the parts you suggested. Thanks so, so much!