Challenge: Write a letter to an agent telling her how wonderful you are.

Honestly, posting a draft of my own query letter for all of the internet to see seems like adding an unnecessary extra layer of stress to an already-stressful endeavor. So, instead, I decided to have a little fun with it and write a query letter from the perspective of an arrogant jerk author character from one of my WIPs. Enjoy!

Dear Agent:

What would you do if you stumbled upon a dragon one day and he said you were the key to saving the kingdom?

Heron is just a peasant farmer but deep down he’s always known he’s more than that. One day he gets in a fight with some of the king’s guards and even though he’s the strongest fighter in the land the guards outnumber and overpower him. While he’s trapped in the dungeon awaiting execution the king’s beautiful and mysterious daughter pays him a visit. Silently she frees him from his cell and motions for him to follow her through a labyrinth of tunnels until they reach a cave where a golden-scaled dragon is chained up. The king’s daughter explains that her father has fallen under the control of the evil sorcerer Ramirus and begs Heron to help her. The dragon lifts its great head and looks Heron in the eyes and Heron feels the wisdom of the universe flow through him. The dragon telepathically tells Heron that only he can defeat Ramirus—if only he’s brave enough.

Will Heron save the kingdom or will everyone meet their doom? “The Dragon’s Prophecy” is a 153,000 word fantasy/action-adventure/romance/literary-fiction novel but it will appeal to readers of all genres because it has universal themes. I’m halfway done with it and my brothers in Zeta Beta Tau already love it and think it’ll make a great movie. (Brad Pitt would play Heron and Katherine Langford would play the princess.) It is the first book in “The Chronicles of Heron” which is going to be a series of at least 20 books—maybe more.

In high school I published some poems in the writing club’s literary magazine and we gave away like 100 copies so you could say that I’ve already got a reader base. Also, my English teachers always gave me B+’s on everything so even though this is my first book it probably won’t need much editing. I’ve attached the first 150 pages so you can see for yourself. (But don’t even think about plagiarizing it. My dad is a lawyer.)

I’m sure that “The Dragon’s Prophecy” will be a big hit and I’m giving you the opportunity to get in on the ground floor. I’m willing to offer you 3% of the profits—but you’d better act fast because I extended the same offer to a dozen of your competitor agencies and I should be hearing back from them any minute.

—Gabe Skil (but I want the book to be published under my pen name: “Jason Prince”)

So, the purpose of this exercise was two-fold: It was fun to write, AND it had the added benefit of highlighting the main don’t‘s of query letters—something that will be helpful as I move forward with polishing mine.

Thanks to this and this for inspiration!

In an effort to start the summer strong, I’m doing Writer’s Digest’s 12-Day Plan.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3