At http://seanmchandler.com/2012/07/12/how-to-ruin-your-query-letter-in-6-easy-steps/

How To Ruin Your Query Letter in 6 Easy Steps

Posted on July 12, 2012

It's been several weeks since I posted anything about query letters on this site.  In fact, I'm not sure I've said anything about them since my first writer's conference in June and even though that was only a month ago, it feels like that happened years back.  To be honest, I have spent hours (days, even) researching what makes the perfect query letter and I've probably written damn close to 100 of them myself.  I've written bad ones, I've written mediocre ones, and I've written letters that literally had me thinking, "If I don't hear back from an agent about this letter I swear I'm throwing in the towel for good."  Of course I never heard back anything even on those last letters and I've still got that towel optimistically in hand.

We've been through a lot together that towel and I and, while there are still far too many glaring contradictions in the industry for me to be able to say definitively what makes for a "perfect query letter", I can say that I've stumbled across a few things that everyone in the industry seems to agree you should NOT do in a query letter.  Let's have a look:

Overconfidence/Arrogance:  If there's one thing I can say it's that I am overconfident and arrogant about my work.  Every time I finish a book, I think it's the greatest thing in the world and I think it can outsell any other book.  It doesn't matter whether or not that's actually true, but it's what I tell myself because I am proud and secure in my abilities.  HOWEVER, I never let a drop of that overconfidence trickle into my query letter.  In fact, I never try to be anything but a humble and respectful little kitten.

And it's gotten me absolutely nowhere, but I digress…

I don't really have a picture to go with that, but I'll take any opportunity I can get to use this one again.

First, just let me spell out what I mean by overconfidence.  If you have ever written some variant of the following line, then you may want to check your ego at the door:  "My forthcoming sci-fi novel has been likened to H.G. Wells by way of Hemingway if Jesus Christ had written it while roundhouse kicking a velociraptor in the face."  Actually, if you have ever written that EXACT line in a query letter, forget everything I'm about to say because you're almost definitely going to get published—that sounds INCREDIBLE.  But you get my point.  Don't compare yourself to the industry's leading writers.  You aren't the next Stephen King.  You aren't the next J.K. Rowling.  Become successful first and then let other people make those comparisons.

As good as I think my books are, I would never call myself "the next J.K. Rowling", because right now being the next J.K. Rowling feels a lot like sitting at my computer in my underwear in a sweltering apartment in Kentucky ranting on a blog and eating applesauce out of a jar.

No Plot:  This was my major shortcoming with all of my early query letters.  I made an innocent mistake that probably 75% of unpublished writers make when they are sending out their first query letters:  Describing the book without actually getting into the plot.  By plot, what I mean is that you outline your important characters (especially protagonist/antagonist) and you outline their conflict.  A novel has to have some sort of conflict, Folks.  All agents seem to agree on that and I don't think I have to linger too long on this point.

Get to the point quickly.  Don't spend too much time talking about what your book is or isn't.  Show what it is by digging deep into the central drive of your story.  What does your character want?  Who or what stands in his or her way?  What must he/she do to get there?  You don't have to give away the ending (in fact, it's best if you don't), but you should give the agent a clear sense of what is at stake.

No Voice:  Another flaw in many query letters is that the letter does not reflect the voice of the manuscript.  Your manuscript can be the greatest thing ever, but if your query letter is full of redundancies, no confidence, sloppy editing, etc. the agent will assume that your book will just be more of the same.  Make sure that your query letter represents a concise example of your best writing and that it draws in the readers just as much as your book.  Convincing readers to come along for the ride?  That's the easy part.  Convincing an agent?  That's the true... ( more at http://seanmchandler.com/2012/07/12/how-to-ruin-your-query-letter-in-6-easy-steps/ )