Query Letter for "Leaving the Light"

tonialoise1

January 19, 20092

Dear Gerifitzsimmons,3

Antoniette "Toni" Aloise, a young female engineer who thought her life was rather boring until she met the man of her dreams; he changed her life forever, he and the vampires who had taken her prisoner.4

I am writing to you about my proposed series "Leaving the Light." It is a vampire fantasy with elements of mystery, intrigue and romance. The intended audience is women in their 20's and 30's. This is a unique story that focuses on what it is like to be a slave and the causes and effects of decisions that will lead one to becoming a vampire herself. The premise being perception is not what you see but what you think you see.5

A vampire named Bram who fell in love with Toni brought her the underground complex where a clan of vampires live with their slaves. The slaves are forced to do all menial tasks for the vampires as well as feed them. Toni finds herself falling in love with him too but life is not so easy. There are other vampires like Keir who makes her life there very hard. 6

She experiences the great powers of the vampires and becomes despondent. She attempts escape and suicide on several occasions; nothing works. Still she's not willing to give in. On one occasion she nearly does escape and kills a vampire on her way out. She is punished severely for this as are the other slaves. The point is to divide the slaves instead it rally's them behind her and they believe she will save them from the vampires. Unfortunately, it is not enough.7

Over time she finds she has some ability to communicate mentally with Bram and this causes great concern among the vampires; for the King has foreseen his own death at her hands. Her actions to this point have solidified that notion. Nothing is as it seems as the King considers making her one of them. He puts her through a series of tests including fighting hunters until she finally gives in and bends her knee to him.8

The completed manuscript for the first volume in the series is available if you so wish to view it. It is approximately 400,000 words. It has already been broken down into episodes that I believe can easily be sold as novellas. I have a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering Technology helping me to identify well with the protagonist. I am soon to be published in "Page Dancers: Stories from Storywrite.com" anthology. Finally, I am available and willing to work on editing and publicizing this series full time.9

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope this has interested you, and that you will consider helping me to sell this series to a publisher.10

Sincerely,11

tonialoise

Author notes

written for contest; Contest Sell it to me by gerifitzsimmons


for contest; Contest Write a Query Letter by Stryke
username: tonialoise
first chapter of "Leaving the Light"; http://storywrite.com/story/173912
Since this was written for geri's contest I used them as the agent name. I know it's bad practice to send the same letter to a different agent with the other agent's name, but as I didn't want to have two exact copies of this on SW I left it. Hope you don't mind

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Comments


  • Reaver Greeters member
    January 27

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    Hi and thanks for entering.
    This is very long for a query letter. But, it was very well written. Your grammar is good and you seem to have the story well thought out and known.

    400,000 words is seems very long for the genre, but then again, i'm no expert. ALl i know is that many agents in Vampire, Fantasy and or Romance ask for no more than 95-100,000 words (from my own experience in sending queries)

    Thanks for entering and best of luck in getting your work out there.
    Rian


  • gerifitzsimmons Greeters member
    January 25

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    A bit detailed for a first contact, but very good and on the right tract.

    You could sell me this. 400,000 words wow, I was taught never to offer more than 200,000 or less on a first attempt.

    Thanks for entering.


    • tonialoise
      January 25
      Edit | Reply
      Which bit was too detailed? The summary or the rest? If it was the summary I don't know what more I can do, there's so much to this story and to remove more it seems the summary wouldn't make much sense.

      The word length is the reason I have been so hesitant to send this query letter off to anyone. Yes, actually this isn't my first attempt (my first was 3k words and I'm still trying to reduce it to 90K which an editor suggested to me). I was hoping by saying it could be reduced to novellas then that would make up for word length. Looks like I need to start figuring something else out.

      I have a problem that once a story gets in my head I can't stop writing on it. that's actually one thing this site has helped with. I'm starting to be able to write short stories.

      Anyway, thanks for hosting the content, commenting and applause. It's helpful.


  • forever-young
    January 22
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    WOW, very formal! Amazing job!