Query Letters To Literary Agents For Screenplays
Query Letters: Ten Ways To Hook A Literary Agent
During my years as a literary agent for both screenwriters and book authors, I received query letters by the thousands. Even small literary agencies are so overwhelmed by the influx that young, inexperienced interns weed through query letters from prospective authors before the agents even see those few “diamonds in the rough” with a chance at getting published.
So how do you become one of those agent-represented diamonds (or, at the least, get agents to request your full manuscript)? I could advise you at length, and will in the future, but for now here are ten query letter tips–some dos, some don’ts–to get you on track toward the representation and publication of your manuscript. These apply to letters directly to publishers, too–but make sure the publisher accepts submissions that don’t come through agents.
1) Leave out the bells and whistles.
Your words count, not your ability to suck up. (That counts only in person.) Your query letter should appear professional and mature: It should not be on pink stationery covered in hearts and flowers. It should not include candy–would you eat food mailed to you by a complete stranger? If you include a chapter of your manuscript (and don’t include more unless they ask), refrain from binding it in any way. The agency will only get annoyed when they try to photocopy it. Put that effort into the prose of your letter, and agents will want to see the prose of your book.
2) Proofread it.
That does not mean use SpellCheck. It means you and your friend and your friend’s friends should read it for typos and incorrect grammar. A single mistake will land it in a literary agent’s recycling bin.
3) Include a SASE (stamped, self-addressed envelope).
Why not make it as easy as possible for them to respond? It’s common book industry practice, and you’ll appear unprofessional and/or cheap if you don’t.
4) Include a synopsis, but keep it brief.
If an agent is going to represent you, they’ll need a pitch to throw at potential publishers. Both species have short attention spans. Give them the important and unique stuff about plot and characters, not a scene-by-scene rundown.
5) Do your homework.
Consult the “Jeff Herman Guide,” the agency’s website, or any other reference that tells you what types of books they’ve sold. If they specialize in chick lit and romance, don’t bother pitching your political thriller–or, if you do, play up the love story within it.
6) Type.
Seems obvious. But you’d be amazed at how many people handwrite query letters. Perhaps they think it’s more personal and will make them stand out. It isn’t, and it won’t. It’ll just make the agent doubt your professionalism and strain his/her eyes trying to decipher your handwriting.
7) Get the agent’s name right.
You’d also be amazed at how many letters I got addressed to someone at a different agency, or with my name spelled wrong, or the name of my agency spelled wrong. Carelessness is not impressive. And while agents know you’re pitching your manuscript to other agents, they don’t want to feel as if they’re getting a form letter.
8) Don’t make it a form letter.
Sure, it takes time to personalize, and you don’t need to go overboard and ask how Literary Agent Smith’s three daughters are, but this is another way homework can help. Find a book they’ve represented that’s similar to yours and tell them you truly enjoyed it. One sentence–then go into the form letter part.
9) Don’t compare your manuscript to bestsellers.
It’s not “The Da Vinci Code” meets “The Devil Wears Prada.” It’s not the perfect vehicle for Harrison Ford and Nicole Kidman. If you want, mention other books by way of genuine comparison, or suggest an actor to help paint a picture of a character. But leave out the overblown marketing predictions.
10) If you’ve written 18 unpublished manuscripts, don’t say so. That’ll only make agents ask why none of the 18 have been published. On the other hand, if you’ve had as much as a short story published in your college’s literary journal, mention that. Published = good. Unpublished = irrelevant.
Tagged with: query letters to literary agents for screenplays
Filed under: Uncategorized
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Writers: You want to know why Publishers/Agents don’t give you advice after rejection?
You’re asking a publisher to publish your book or a literary agent to take you as a client. Why in the world would you cuss them out or be belligerent when you get rejected? Low and behold, some people do! Or, maybe this is worse, act like the publisher/agent OWES you something, like a recommendation to another agent or a reason for rejection. You want to know why publishers and agents have refused to personalize rejections or give you a reason for your rejection (besides sheer volume of requests)? Here’s why, this is an email a publisher received, and she has plenty more from where this came from. Do you think she should have responded the second time? Thank writers like this for why you get a standard: “not for us” rejection letter.
Questions for you: What’s the worse abuse you’ve heard an agent/publisher receiving? Do you think writers like this will get a second chance with a different book after responding like this? What would you have done if you were the publisher and received this type of response?
*****
(head banging on desk) Why-oh-why do I not stick to my guns and send form rejection letters? Instead I wrote:
“Dear Pathetically Immature Windbag (not his real name),
Thank you for your query. I’m afraid your plot is a bit thin for us and since we accept very little fiction, we won’t be interested in reviewing this further. Best of luck to you.”
And his pitch was thin – thin as the beagle’s explanations as to where she’s been all night. His reply:
“How in the hell do you know how thin my plot is without reading it?
What a dumb *** reply.
If you can’t take the time to read a 50 page book that addresses the bullying problems in today’s schools, you are wrong for me anyway.
Thin? Hahahaha.
I also wrote 8 other novels and 61 screenplays. The actors I write for would laugh at your stupid ****.
Thanks for nothing goofball.”
Dearie me. I didn’t find 8 books, but I did find one book that was pubbed by a vanity press.
My reply:
” Great holy pardons, this is what I get for offering a personalized rejection rather than a canned rejection. See, I foolishly mistook you for a professional – a mistake I’ll be sure not to repeat.
You must remember that editors can’t climb inside an author’s brain, and we’re forced to make decisions based on what you give us. You gave me something thin, and this forces me to decline to review you further because I have over a hundred other queries awaiting my attention – and most of them are from authors who act like professionals and know how to write a proper query. If you revert to acting like a four-year-old with a simple rejection, Lord only knows what you’ll do with a bad review. Obviously you aren’t ready for prime time yet. Go grow up first.”
My reason for posting this isn’t to make this twit look foolish – he’s managing that quite well on his own. My point is that many times authors think they’ve adequately expressed their plot, and they don’t take the time to step outside themselves to determine whether it will make an editor’s mouth water. That comes from knowing how to write an effective query letter – something my ill-tempered friend hasn’t yet mastered.
Form rejection letters, Lynn…FORM REJECTION LETTERS!
*****
from http://behlerblog.com/2010/08/05/ people-behaving-badly/ [remove the spaces]
I’d feel quite insulted from being called a goofball! How dare he! 😀
Of course it’s a question. I add them to the post. 😉 How do you think I’ve been able to get so many of these types of questions restored after they’ve been deleted? 😀 The questions are in the post. Whether or not people choose to answer them isn’t something I can control. 😉
Questions for you: What’s the worse abuse you’ve heard an agent/publisher receiving? Do you think writers like this will get a second chance with a different book after responding like this? What would you have done if you were the publisher and received this type of response?
BTW, Steve, you answer one of the questions. :p
@JL – I take it you’re one of those angry writers? 😀
Don’t care to respond to your rants. You have my questions in my post. To top it off, I even posted them TWICE for you to answer. 😉 – see above.
If I received this email, I probably wouldn’t have responded either. And, I’d be seriously offended by being called a goofball, lol. I think he’s quit silly. If he ever submits a different novel, she’s going to remember his name and that might bias her against him and his work. Who’d want to work with someone that sensitive?
AND, granted, I should probably refrain from asking questions when I’m having a bad day, haha. I can see how I worded it makes people angry. 😀 Next time I’ll try to be “softer” with my wording. 😉 And, yes, if I come off as pro-agent/editor then I probably am.
Hehe~ Reading this amused me. If I was an editor I’d be chortling as I happily blocked their email so that I’d never see anything from them ever again. I probably wouldn’t be able to reply with some sort of sarcastic quip on their skills/non-professionalism/lack of balls/etc
😀 Sorry, I’m not really in the publishing world, so I don’t have any awesome pieces of abuse to show you…
But here’s the most hilariously bad (and probably fake, but still amusing) cover letter for a novel that I’ve ever seen..
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/03/29/i-see-no-possible-way-how-this-incredible-cover-letter-could-ever-fail/
If that book was ever published, I’d buy it just for how ridiculously bad it is.
Hope it entertained you too 🙂
xxChae
How difficult is it to get an agent to represent a screenplay?
I’m a novelist, so I understand about the hair-pulling stress of a query letter, submitting, getting an agent, etc.
How hard is it to get an agent to represent a screenplay? For a novelist, to get a literary agent, the average writer may have to send over a hundred queries before he gets an agent.
For screenwriting, what is the average amount of query letters sent to an agent before an agent signs on? (It depends a lot on how good the story is, how well written the letter is, etc., but in general. . . .)
Can anyone give me a critique on my query letter?
I have to write a query letter to a literary agent for a manuscript I recently finished and was wondering if anyone could help to make this something better than it is:
In 1920’s London, 22-year-old Gary Cresswell’s search for love starts in a bare flat above the infamous Sunnier Days Pub. Living with a sexually frustrated confidante of his, Charlotte, Gary feels he is missing out on the world, that his regular writing job is fulfilling but not as much as finding someone to truly love. Ironically at a party Charlotte has asked Mr. Cresswell to accompany her to, he meets a young actress and decides that night, that he would love her forever. Unfortunately, Charlotte has other plans and when Gary’s outlook on his relationship with his roommate is made clear, a bitter dispute will pull them apart. Desperately needing to find another job to cover himself after being kicked out, Gary takes one carrying letters to upper class townspeople and finds himself in a scandalous affair with one of his correspondents; Emma, the actress who had already stolen his heart. They plan to run away together but the prior engagements of her former lover adds to the already stressful position of their love.
Ellsbury is a romantic comedy of 61,000 words.
Although I am a 17 year old writer, trust me when I say (Even though I have years ahead of me) I know how difficult it is to find love in this world. My ideas have led to magazine publication, National Anthology publication, blogging, appearances on MSG, and Telecare, and a Columbia University’s High School Literary Journal #1 ranking honor as editor of my former high school’s literary magazine. I’m a member of the LIWG (Long Island Writer’s Guild, Inc.), and the AYJW (The Association of Young Journalists and Writers). I have also been mentored by screenplay writers, editors, and authors while crafting my writing ability. I am a regular to The Great South Bay Magazine, and Teenink.
Thank you so very much for reading my query and taking it under consideration.
Here’s my second revision of my story blurb:In 1920’s London, 22-year-old Gary Cresswell’s search for love starts in a bare flat above the infamous Sunnier Days Pub. Living with a sexually frustrated confidante of his, Charlotte, Gary feels he is missing out on the world, that his regular writing job is fulfilling but not as much as finding someone to truly love. Ironically, at a party Charlotte has asked Mr. Cresswell to accompany her to, he meets a young actress and decides that night, that he would love her forever. They plan to run away together but the prior engagements of a former lover add to the already stressful position of their love.
Any better? Sound more interesting?
I’ve been getting critiques on my own query letters here for a week or so, and have some advice to share.
First thing:
Paragraph breaks. You have a large chunk of text and that needs to be broken up to help the reader separate ideas out.
Good work on just diving into the synopsis – books about how to write query letters say you should have an introduction but the agents that I’ve had contact with say you shouldn’t. Take your pick.
You have quite the credentials, but I’d leave off any reference to your age. Have that be a surprise that the agent finds out after choosing to publish you on the merit of your writing, rather than a stumbling block that might prejudice the agent against you.
The summary itself doesn’t seem that interesting to me but that could easily be that it’s just not my genre. The history within your story attracts me (how do the 1920s in London shape what you wrote?) but I’m just not that into romantic comedies. So I’m going to give you the best advice I can muster:
Check out queryshark.blogspot.com. I spent a week going through the archives there, and learned everything I know about query writing.
Yeah, it’s just the same. And last time I looked, here in the UK, barely any agents were taking unsolicited submissions (they want writers that already have producer interest). Network, network, network – that’s how I sold my first screenplay.