Three queries, before and after.
A query letter that gets a request does four things in about 300 words: it opens on a person, a want and a wall; it raises the stakes in one paragraph; it names two honest comps; and it closes with the housekeeping and a short bio. Below are three made-up queries, each shown as the first draft and the rewrite from the same facts, with notes on what changed. Published 16 October 2026.
1. Thriller: THE LAST FERRY OUT (invented)
Before · 196 words · the draft
Dear Agent,
I am seeking representation for my thriller novel THE LAST FERRY OUT, complete at 112,000 words. I have been writing for fifteen years and this is my third completed manuscript. It is a fast-paced, high-stakes thriller in the vein of the bestselling authors of the genre that will keep readers turning pages late into the night.
The story follows Dan Mercer, a harbour pilot on a small Scottish island, who finds a body on the last ferry of the night and gets drawn into a web of lies and secrets that goes all the way to the top. Nothing is what it seems. As the storm closes in and the island is cut off, Dan must confront his past and decide who he can trust before it is too late.
I think this book would appeal to fans of thrillers everywhere. Thank you for your time and consideration.
After · 232 words · the rewrite
Dear [Agent],
Harbour pilot Dan Mercer has one job on the night the storm closes the crossing: get the last ferry into Kilbrae safely. He does. Then he finds the ferry’s engineer dead in the car deck, a bag of cash in the man’s locker, and his own name on the shipping manifest as the person who signed it off.
The island is cut off for three days. The mainland police cannot land. The only people who can decide what happened are the forty-one islanders who were on that ferry, and half of them owe money to the dead man. Dan has until the weather lifts to work out who put his name on that manifest, because when the police arrive, the paperwork says he did it.
THE LAST FERRY OUT is a 92,000-word thriller for readers of [recent closed-island crime novel, 2024] and [recent Scottish-set thriller, 2023]. I am a former marine pilot; the harbour procedures in the book are the ones I worked by for eleven years.
Thank you for your time. The first pages are below.
What changed. The draft opened with the writer; the rewrite opens with Dan and a specific wall (his name on the manifest). “A web of lies that goes all the way to the top” became forty-one islanders and a debt. The word count came down to 92,000 in the edit notes because 112,000 is over the thriller norm and the writer agreed the middle sagged; a query should state the count the book will be sent at. Comps are left as placeholders here because real ones must be the writer’s. The bio keeps one fact that matters to this book.
2. Contemporary romance: SECOND SERVICE (invented)
Before · 171 words · the draft
Dear Agent,
SECOND SERVICE is a contemporary romance of 78,000 words about two people who find love in an unexpected place. Nadia Okafor is a chef who has just lost her restaurant and Theo Brandt is a widowed tennis coach who has given up on love. When they are both hired at the same struggling country club for the summer, sparks fly. But both of them have baggage, and they will need to overcome their fears and learn to trust again if they want a second chance at happiness.
I love romance and I wanted to write the kind of book I love to read. SECOND SERVICE is a heartwarming, emotional, steamy, slow-burn, grumpy-sunshine, forced-proximity, second-chance romance with a happily ever after.
I am a member of a writers group and have had a short story published online.
After · 254 words · the rewrite
Dear [Agent],
Chef Nadia Okafor has eleven weeks to turn a country club’s dining room from “the place members eat because it is there” into somewhere worth driving to, or the club closes its kitchen and she goes back to her mother’s spare room with two failed restaurants behind her. The one person who can get the members through her door is Theo Brandt, the club’s tennis coach, who has not said more than four words to anyone since his wife died and who thinks a tasting menu is a waste of a Friday night.
The deal they strike is simple: she feeds his junior squad, he fills her tables. Neither of them planned on the Tuesday nights after service, or on what happens when the club’s new owner offers Nadia her own restaurant three hundred miles away, with a start date before the summer is out.
SECOND SERVICE is a 78,000-word contemporary romance, dual point of view, with a guaranteed happy ending, for readers of [recent workplace romance, 2024] and [recent grief-and-second-chance romance, 2023]. I spent nine summers working country-club kitchens before I wrote about one.
Thank you for your time. The first chapter follows.
What changed. The draft listed nine tropes and no plot. The rewrite picks one engine (her deadline, his silence, their deal) and one wall (the job offer with a start date). The genre line now says what the shelf needs to hear, dual point of view and a happy ending, without the trope pile-up. The bio drops the writers group and keeps the kitchens.
3. Upmarket book-club fiction: WHAT THE RIVER KEPT (invented)
Before · 139 words · the draft
To whom it may concern,
WHAT THE RIVER KEPT is an upmarket literary novel with commercial appeal, complete at 104,000 words, that explores themes of memory, motherhood, climate change, class, and the stories families tell themselves. It is told across three timelines and four points of view.
In 1976, a girl goes missing from a riverside town in Shropshire. In 2003, her younger sister comes back to clear their mother’s house. In 2026, the river floods and something is found. The novel asks what we owe the dead, what we owe the living, and whether a place can remember what people choose to forget.
I have an MA in Creative Writing and have been shortlisted for two prizes.
After · 253 words · the rewrite
Dear [Agent],
In 1976, eleven-year-old Carys Pryce watched her older sister walk down to the river and did not tell anyone what she saw, because she had been told not to. In 2026, the river floods the lower town for the first time in fifty years, and when it goes down there is a bicycle in the mud with a name painted on the crossbar.
Carys is sixty-one now, back in the house she swore she would never live in, caring for a mother who has started talking about that night as if it were last week. The police want a statement. Her daughter wants the truth. And the one person who could confirm what Carys saw has been dead since 1976, unless the thing in the mud says otherwise.
WHAT THE RIVER KEPT is a 96,000-word upmarket novel told across 1976 and 2026 in two points of view, for readers of [recent dual-timeline family novel, 2023] and [recent flood-and-small-town literary novel, 2024]. I grew up in the Shropshire town the river keeps returning to; it is my first novel. Two chapters were shortlisted for the [named prize] in 2025.
Thank you for your time. The opening pages are below.
What changed. The draft was a list of themes and a structure; the rewrite is one person with one secret and one object in the mud. The edit cut the 2003 timeline and two points of view, which the writer had already been told were the slow parts, so the query now describes the book that will be sent. The prize stays in the bio because it is a fact an agent can check; the MA goes because every query has one.
The pattern in all three
- First sentence: a person, a want and a wall. Not a theme, not a word count.
- Second paragraph: the stakes get specific, with a clock or a choice.
- Housekeeping after the pitch: title, word count, genre, two comps from the last five years.
- Bio: one or two facts that matter to this book, then stop.
The free sample shows a whole edit for one query: the draft, the rewrite, the eight-point diagnosis and the checklist. Related: graduate statement of purpose edit · Common App essay edit.
Questions
How long should a query letter be?
250 to 350 words for the whole letter, with the pitch itself under 200. Every rewrite below lands in that range. Agents read hundreds a week; the ones that get requests are the ones that can be read in under a minute.
What goes in the first sentence?
A person, a want and a wall: who the book is about, what they want, and what stands in the way. Not the theme, not the word count, not how long you have been writing. The housekeeping line (title, genre, word count) comes after the pitch, not before it.
Can I use these comps?
No. Comps have to be yours: two books from the last three to five years, in your genre, that a reader of your book would also have read, and not the biggest sellers of the decade. The comps below are placeholders so nobody copies them.
$49 · £39 incl. VAT · A$75 · C$65. Edited and rewritten from your own draft, pages and answers. We never submit to agents for you and cannot promise a request.