I’ve just launched a new website called Query Generator!
Query Generator is a tool for fiction writers in the early stages of drafting or reworking their query letters. The Generator helps you identify important aspects of your story and gathers them into a standard query structure.
The main feature of the website is the Generator itself, which has a form that’s divided into five sections:
Section 1: The Protagonist
The Generator looks something like this:
Every single item has both an explanations and a few examples of how you might fill out the item, which should help to guide you in filling out each section. Some of the questions are extremely simple (ex. ”Full Name”) while some might take a bit of thinking (ex. “Initial Challenges”).
Once you’re done, your query will look something like the ones on the Example Page:
The example page features the “blank” template and two examples of filled out forms. This will help you see how everything actually fits together, and should provide you with some further help before you start with your own query - or, if the Generator produces an incoherent mess - will help you see how it was everything was meant to come together in the end. You can really see here that there are very few words the Generator actually adds to your project. The longest string is six. The Generator is meant to help you find your own words as you draft your query.
Finally, there’s an Advice Page:
This page is meant to help you:
understand why the generator functions the way it does,
provides tips for further editing your query, and
helps you look toward next steps once you finish revising your query.
I’ve noticed, doing some query critiques here and in workshops with friends, that many first-attempts at queries are missing some fundamental story elements: protagonist ages, word counts, inciting incidents, setting, etc. No matter how well written they were, they weren’t fulfilling all of the functions required by query letters.
I have my writing the perfect query letter post, but as I was helping a friend rewrite her query, I realized that some elements were just so formulaic, that there had to be a way to just… make a query generating form.
So I decided to build, basically, a Query Ad-Libs. You fill out a form that asks for your story elements, giving you examples and explanations to help you along the way. Once it has the information, it puts everything together, and hands it back to you in a standard query layout.
It won’t be well-written, but it’ll be a starting point for you to take back to your Word Doc and hopefully use to make something amazing.
This website was created by me (concept, content, & design) and my boyfriend (qualified, professional computer programmer). We didn’t have a team or testers or any outside help along the way. Just a drive to combine our skills and do something with our time besides binging Netflix (and many, many cups of Starbucks.) It’s not a professional or moneymaking endeavor, either. There are no ads or fees.
However, if you find the site useful and would like to show your appreciation, donations of cups of coffee via Ko-Fi would be greatly valued, and spent coming up with additional content, either for this site or a new one: https://ko-fi.com/letswritesomenovels.
Also, if you come across any bugs, please let us know, so we can fix them for future visitors to the Query Generator!
I hope you check it out, and - if you do - I hope you find it useful to your writing endeavors, whether you’re getting ready to query, dreaming of querying, or just having fun.
https://www.querylettergenerator.com/
xx Julia (letswritesomenovels)
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