Monday, June 7, 2010

Query Letter, draft 1, version 1

I'm working on my query letter. I started by posting it on my LJ, then posted it on the Public Query Slushpile, and now I'm posting it here.  I really like some of the suggestions I've received, and I'm thinking about how to work them in, so there are sure to be future versions :)


I took stock of my injuries. I hadn't even been on the job a month and I had 14 bruises, a concussion, multiple cuts and abrasions, a broken bone, and now, a gunshot wound. Being a tooth fairy shouldn't be this hard.

So opens my 95,000 word urban fantasy novel, A Troll Wife's Tale.

When Troll Wife first becomes a tooth fairy, all she can see are the good things. She has a steady job. She's making friends. Best of all are the tooth fairy wings and flying.

After a few days, she starts to see the problems. She's racking up an impressive number of on the job injuries. Her friends only accept her because they can't tell she's a troll while she's wearing the wings. The wings take away her troll ability to smell a person's character and emotions.

She notices that going even a day without wearing the wings makes her irritable. Are the wings addictive? If so, why?

It seems that tooth fairies also have enemies. Oubliette, the most efficient soldier in the human/fae war hundreds of years ago, hasn't given up fighting the war against the humans.

Tooth fairies keep the peace pact with humans and Oubliette wants to end that pact. Oubliette seems determined to convince Troll Wife of the dangers of humans. If Oubliette is right, is the peace pact actually destroying all the fae?

When a homeless boy that Troll Wife has befriended loses his first tooth, Troll Wife has to make sure he keeps the pact before Oubliette catches up to him.

(snip reason I'm submitting to this agent)

2 comments:

  1. Okay, you know how I feel about this. I want to see draft 2.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm working on draft 2, I'm just not happy with it yet. I think it's all those years of trying to train myself to "show don't tell" and a query letter in character is more tell than show :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for posting a comment! I know that sounds a little needy, and maybe it is. I mean, I don't need comment validation to know that I exist, right? But I like to know that someone else (maybe you?) has read what I wrote and felt moved enough to reply. So, thank you.