New query for The Devil You Don't Know

[Skyhawk]

HERE'S HER ACTUAL REPLY WHEN DISCUSSING HOW MANY PARAGRAPHS SHOULD MY QUERY BE...DON'T TAKE OFFENSE ANYONE...PLEASE. SHE'S AN OLDER CRABBY AMAZING WOMEN WHOM W/O HER HELP, I'D BE FLOATING IN THE HUDSON RIVER WITH NOTHING KEEPING ME FROM DROWNING BUT MY MANUSCRIPT!! BTW....She published 18 books!

I am still sick with food poisoning. I am trying to answer the urgent emails and go back to bed.

A query is not a synopsis.

I understood everything about the damn paragraph, ok? My feelings also extend to some goofy agent as well. First of all you have thousands of agents. Some agents REQUIRE a longer synopsis NOT a longer query letter. A query letter should only be one page long. And the synopsis should be ATTACHED. I don't go for the description of the book in the actual query letter. The query letter is to say hello dumb agent here is who i am and here is my damn synopsis. Unless you are a complete genius or a complete idiot, you cannot write a complete synopsis in one paragraph. I guess you could hire the person who writes for TV guide because they do that all the time. But the agents I have worked with want a reasonable, coherent synopsis, not a one-shot paragraph that does the book an injustice. If you want to continue spending years on writing one damn letter, so be it.

I dont have the talent to write a one page paragraph about an entire book, at least not one that will really GRAB the attention of an agent. I'm not saying it can't be done. But most agents want something to bite into. Dont risk it by putting it in the actual introductory letter.

That's all I have to say. NO the last paragraph in your final version is not enough.

I'm going back to bed.

[Joel Q]

Terry,
I'd like to see a revision before I add to the many comments already in the thread.

Also, etiquette.... I don't rewrite other's stuff. B/c I don't know all the info of the story. I might do a sentence or phrase. But that's it.
Nor do I critque the story, that's not what people are asking about. Suggesting plot or other major changes is going to far for a query critique.

If someone is doing that, 1. they are not getting the story from the query, which is the author's fault or 2. they just don't like the story.

I guess I'm like that because someone totally rewrote a query of mine on here and totally changed the story. And I got offended b/c that's not what I asked for.
JQ