When's a Query Ready?

When is a query ready to submit to literary agents?

I first asked myself this question back in September. I’d taken a class with Writer’s Digest that I was sure had prepared me and my query for agents. I sent the query out. I had some success, but not much. Then, about a month ago, another writer asked to see my query. I handed it over willingly, proud of it, sure that agents weren’t loving my MS because it wasn’t right for them. Turns out, this writer pointed out holes in my query, reasons why the agents might not have wanted to read past it to the pages I submitted in addition to the query.

Okay, so I could handle that. I had another MS prepped, another query written, and I was getting ready to submit it to Pitch Wars. I’d written several versions of this query already, once to send to an agent and once to submit to another writer who does query critiques on her blog, with a few modifications in between. I sent this query to the writer who’d pointed out flaws in the last one. She pointed out flaws in this query, too. I fixed them.

After, I traded queries with several other Pitch Wars people. I made more improvements to my query based on their suggestions. I submitted to Pitch Wars, but didn’t get a mentor. Was the problem my query? Maybe. One mentor gave me excellent suggestions for improvement while another pointed out one huge flaw. I fixed these.

My query hadn’t appeared on the query critique blog that I mentioned, so I forwarded that writer my updated query. I was confident this one was the right one. Well, I was wrong again. With the holidays I haven’t had time to make more corrections, but this writer suggested some good ones. I’ll have to make more corrections.

I’ve also joined a CP group and posted my query to our group email in hopes that these other writers will help me with more suggestions. After that, I’ll make even more corrections. After that, I’ll submit my query and first 250 words to Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood’s Sun vs. Snow contest. (If you’re prepping your query, go to their blogs to find out more contest information.) After that, I’m sure I’ll be making more changes.

So…at what point is my query ready to submit to agents? I don’t know. Honestly. If there’s a right answer to this, I’ve never come across it. I’d like to believe at some point I’ll just decide the query’s as ready as I am to be out there in agent slush piles.

You may have clicked here thinking, “Excellent! This chick is going to answer a question I’ve been stuck on forever!” I’m sorry to disappoint you. I wish I could offer you some kind of answer.

You may have clicked here thinking, “Oh! I know the answer! Let’s see if she knows it!” If that’s you, please, please, please comment here and let me know. I’d be forever grateful. Otherwise, I’m going to keep making changes until I can’t make more. At that point, I’ll start sending my query to agents. To paraphrase a character’s thoughts from Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, the chances of getting an agent go up when you start querying.