Don’t tell us what makes your MC sound like everyone else, tell us what makes them worth reading about. Your MC doesn’t need to be a fire-breathing dragon to be interesting, but they need something more than “normal” for us to care about them. Instead of saying what makes your MC generic, tell us what makes them different. The problem is that, in so doing, you’ve made your MC sound boring. I get why this happens: authors want to draw attention to the difference between the MC’s world at the beginning of the story and highlight that shift. So many queries start with “Sally’s life was perfect/normal, until…” or variations on a theme.

I see this ALL the time, particularly in contemporary and fantasy. If you’re curious about what an extremely vague query might look like and how to fix it, check it out here.

Query Shark has an excellent critique on this issue. If your query has phrases like, “their world turns upside down” or “everything in so-so’s life changes” or “mysterious/dark threat” double-check to make sure you’ve clarified what it means. Regardless of the severity of your stakes, be specific. Don’t tell an agent about a “dark threat”- be specific!- tell them there’s a soul-eating sorcerer. Specificity is your friend! If your query is too vague, your plot points lose all meaning and become inconsequential and uninteresting. Note: these are in no particular order aside from the order in which I thought of them. If you read on, please keep in mind that I’m not an agent, my opinion is subjective, and this list is not exhaustive.

I read/critique queries all the time and love doing it! So, I went through my query archives and compiled a list of issues (we’ll call them “hiccups”) I frequently see. A few weeks ago, I posted a question on Twitter asking for blog post suggestions and a friend asked about common mistakes in queries.

Untitled by Gabi Burton