Query letters for literary fiction: what goes in and what to cut

A query letter is a strange piece of writing. It is short, it is formal in shape, and it asks a stranger to spend hours on your work on the strength of a few paragraphs. For writers of literary fiction it can feel worse than strange, because the qualities you worked hardest on (voice, texture, a story that refuses to reduce to a plot) are exactly the ones that are hardest to show in three hundred words.

This piece explains what a query letter for a literary novel usually contains, what to leave out, and where literary queries differ from genre ones. It ends with a full sample for an invented novel, followed by notes on each paragraph. One thing first, and I will repeat it: practice varies. Agents and agencies set their own submission guidelines, and those guidelines change. Read each agent's page before you send anything, and follow it exactly, even where it contradicts what you read here. Nothing in this piece, or anywhere else, can promise you an agent. A good query earns a reading. That is all it can do.

Before the query: is the book finished?

For a debut novel, most agents expect the manuscript to be complete and revised before you query. Not a strong draft, the finished book, as good as you can make it alone. If you are still in the middle, the query can wait. Our pieces on finishing a first draft and on revision are a better use of the next few months than polishing a letter for a book that is not done.

What agents generally expect

Most query letters for fiction follow a similar shape. Individual agents may want things in a different order or want extra material, so treat this as the common pattern, not a template.

A hook

One or two sentences that make the reader want to know more. For a literary novel this is rarely a plot twist. It is more often a situation with tension built in: a person, a place, a pressure, and a choice.

A short story summary

Usually one or two paragraphs. Who the main character is, what they want, what stands in the way, and what is at stake if they fail. It is closer to the copy on the back of a hardback than to a synopsis. You do not need to give away the ending in the query. (A synopsis, if requested, is a separate document, and it usually does reveal the ending.)

Title, word count and genre

A single sentence: the title, the category (literary fiction, or upmarket fiction if your book sits between literary and commercial), and the word count, rounded to the nearest thousand. Agents use these to decide quickly whether the book fits their list. A word count far outside what is usual for the category raises questions, so check what the agents you are approaching say about length.

Comparable titles

Two books, usually, that share something with yours: readership, tone, subject or structure. They are a way of saying "readers who liked these might like mine." Many agents prefer comps published in recent years, because they show you know what is being published now. Avoid comparing yourself to the most famous novel of the century; it tells the agent very little and can sound grandiose.

A short bio

A few sentences about you, relevant to the book. Publications in literary magazines, a degree or workshop if you have one, a job or background that informs the novel. If you have no publications, that is fine. Say where you live and something true and brief, and stop.

What to cut

Query letters get long because writers are anxious. Most of what makes them long can go.

• Rhetorical questions ("What would you do if your mother had a secret life?").
• Themes stated as themes ("This is a novel about grief, memory and forgiveness"). Let the summary show them.
• Every subplot and every minor character. Two or three names at most.
• Praise for your own book ("lyrical," "unforgettable," "a powerful meditation on..."). That is for others to say.
• Feedback from friends, family or writing groups.
• Your plans for sequels, a series or a film adaptation.
• Long explanations of why you wrote it.
• Apologies, hedges and any mention that this is your first time querying.

Personalisation

A line explaining why you are querying this agent can help, as long as it is true and specific: a book they represent that is close to yours, something in their published wish list, or a talk they gave that you attended. It should be one sentence, usually at the start or the end. Do not invent a connection, and do not flatter. If you have nothing specific, a clean professional query with no personal line is better than a vague one ("I see you represent literary fiction").

How literary fiction queries differ from genre ones

Genre queries (thriller, romance, fantasy, mystery) are usually driven by premise and plot. The hook can be the inciting event, and the summary can follow the chain of what happens. Readers of those genres know the conventions, and so do agents; the question is whether your book delivers on them freshly.

Literary queries carry a different burden. The agent wants evidence that you can write, and the query is the first evidence. So the prose of the letter matters more. That does not mean the letter should be lyrical. It means it should be precise, controlled and clear, with one or two images or phrases that sound like the book. A literary query that reads like a thriller pitch can feel mismatched with the pages that follow. One that reads like a prose poem can leave the agent unsure what actually happens.

Literary novels also often resist summary. A book that follows five people in an Ohio neighborhood over a single August day in 1953, moving back through decades of their lives, as Salvatore Scibona's debut The End does, would be hard to describe in two paragraphs. (Our reader's guide to The End takes several thousand words to do it.) The honest approach with a book like that is to pick one central character or thread, give it a clear want and pressure, and mention the larger structure in a sentence. You are not trying to capture the whole book. You are trying to get someone to read the opening pages, which will.

Common mistakes

• Querying before the book is revised.
• Ignoring the agent's guidelines: sending attachments when they asked for pasted pages, or a full manuscript when they asked for ten pages.
• A summary that describes the setup and stops, with no sense of where the story goes.
• A hook so vague it could describe a hundred novels ("A family must face the truth").
• Comps that are decades old, or wildly mismatched with the book.
• Mass emails with every agent in the To line, or a greeting with the wrong name.
• A bio longer than the summary.
• Following up within days, or arguing with a rejection.

A sample query for an invented novel

The novel below does not exist. The title, author and town are invented, and so is the bio. The comparable titles are real books.

Dear [Agent name],

I am querying you because you represent quiet, character-led literary fiction set in small communities, and your published wish list mentions novels about work and place.

For thirty-one years Dorrie Haas has piloted the ferry between the Ohio mainland and Marrow Island, a scrap of limestone in Lake Erie with three hundred winter residents and a single bar. When the island council votes to end the winter crossings, Dorrie, at sixty-one, becomes the only person who can keep the island connected through the ice months, and the only person who knows how close the old boat is to failing.

Then her son Peter, who left the island at eighteen and has barely spoken to her since, comes home after his father's death with an offer from a developer on the mainland, and a question Dorrie has spent his whole life avoiding. Over one winter, between the frozen harbor and the kitchen of the house where Peter grew up, Dorrie must decide whether to keep running a crossing that may no longer be safe, and how much of the truth she owes a son who has already made up his mind about her.

THE FERRY YEAR is literary fiction, complete at 84,000 words. It will appeal to readers of Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These and Elizabeth Strout's Oh William!, books in which a single quiet decision carries the weight of a whole life.

I grew up in Sandusky and work as a hospital pharmacist in Toledo. My short fiction has appeared in [two literary magazines]. This is my first novel.

Following your guidelines, I have pasted the first ten pages below. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, [Name]

Notes on each paragraph

The personal line

It is one sentence and it is specific: it names what the agent is looking for, in terms they used themselves. If the writer had no real reason to choose this agent, this line would simply be cut, and the letter would start with the hook.

The hook paragraph

It introduces one character, one place and one pressure, with concrete details (thirty-one years, three hundred residents, a single bar) that suggest the texture of the book without describing the prose. The last clause adds a second pressure that only Dorrie knows about. That is the hook: a public problem and a private one.

The complication paragraph

The son arrives with two things, an offer and a question, which turns the setting into a story. "Over one winter" tells the agent the book's time frame. The final sentence states the two choices Dorrie faces without saying which she makes. There are only two named characters in the whole letter.

The title, word count and comps paragraph

The title is in capitals, which is a common convention in query letters. The category is plain. The comps are two books from the same few years, both shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022, both about older characters and small decisions with long histories. The short clause after them explains the link, so the agent does not have to guess. Note what the letter does not say: that the book is as good as those, or that it will sell like them.

The bio

Three short sentences. The hometown and job are relevant (a pharmacist from the lake shore writing about a lake island), the publications are stated without fuss, and "This is my first novel" is simply true. If the writer had a degree or had won a debut prize, it would go here in a line. (For what those prizes are and who they are for, see Ivo Marchbanks on debut fiction prizes.)

The close

It shows the writer has followed the guidelines and then gets out of the way.

A last word on revising the letter

Write the query, put it away for a week, and read it aloud. Then cut a sentence. Then show it to one reader who does not know the book and ask them what happens in the novel. If their answer matches what you meant, the summary works. If they describe a different book, the letter needs another pass before it goes anywhere. More on agents, synopses and the first steps toward publication is collected on the publishing shelf.