🕰️ the query that scored (+ my belated return to the substack scene)

March ‘25, Newsletter 0.3

It’s been a minute! Sorry about that! 💕

As it stands, it is currently near to 4 o’clock in the morning, and I’m undergoing the effects of jet lag after returning from a flight back to New Hampshire from Italy. I spent most of the last week in Tivoli on a vacation with my parents, which was a lovely time (I’ll share more at a later date, I got a lot of beautiful inspiration for the manuscript I’m currently writing).

I intended to return to this newsletter series sooner (I’m laughing at my concept of monthly updates, but I’ll do my best moving forward), but February was a busy month between returning to work after a very light January and receiving my edit letter from my agent for TGGT.

But here I am! And as promised, to circle back to the title of this newsletter, I’m going to be sharing and going over the version of my query letter that led to me climbing successfully out of the trenches.

I say version, because I sent out three letters overall (I believe, it was at least two), each tweaked slightly from the last. The one that I sent to my agent was the first version, as it happens, and also the one that scored me the most of my requests. Is that because it was stronger than others, or was I just querying the more likely candidates earlier on? Could be one or the other, there’s no real way to determine that.

---

The Letter 📝

The last thing Morgan expects upon his arrival to the City of Spires is an invitation to the phantasmagorical Glavenisean Theater. Every night, a portal in the stage transports the audience through multiple dimensions throughout the show. Behind the scenes, the theater is suffering due to the sudden departure of their head seamstress. Drawn in by the magic, the chance to put his tailoring skills to use, and a charismatic rigger named Zachary, Morgan takes the job and immerses himself in the world behind the curtains.

But there is something strange going on in the theater—stranger than an interdimensional portal and the hidden monster on the auditorium ceiling. Morgan’s dreams are plagued by car crashes and visions of the theater past, and his days are haunted by Ariel, the enigmatic prima donna who has captivated Zachary. As his own affections for Zachary smolder, Morgan uncovers a plot to sabotage the portal and the livelihood of every actor and employee. When Zachary becomes the prime suspect, Morgan vows to prove his innocence, but searching for answers only unravels more loose threads, all seemingly leading back to Ariel. 

No one knows where Ariel came from, after all. And for some reason, no one will talk about it. 

When a lead actor dies in the same car crash Morgan dreamed about, the theater is thrust into chaos. Morgan’s premonitions do not stop there, and he must work to expose Ariel’s true identity and stop the sabotage of the portal before greater harm can befall Zachary, himself, or anyone else. 

At 93,000 words, THE GREAT GLAVENISEAN THEATER is an Adult Speculative Fiction standalone for fans of the vivid setting of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and the uncanny atmosphere and unreality of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. 

I am a queer New Hampshire native who has been obsessed with fantasy since youth, and have spent a fair amount of time in theaters myself. This novel sprung from my love of Moulin Rouge, The Phantom of the Opera, and the 1920s aesthetics of The Great Gatsby, all wrapped up with a queer and unnerving twist.

---

Looking back on this now, this is not the best version of my query, at all. And that makes sense frankly, as it got the least number of eyes on it before I started sending it out. But as I mentioned before, it did net me more requests than the ones that followed it. At the end of the day, I did something right, and it ultimately worked out in my favor.

There’s a lot of debate about if it’s better to put your metadata and housekeeping at the beginning of your query or the end. I’m here to tell you that quite honestly, it does not matter. It’s one of those few elements in a query letter that is all just personal preference. I’ve always been a fan of a cold open, hitting someone with the hook right out of the gates, so my housekeeping—genre, audience, word count, bio, comps (comparative titles to your own book—yes I am still accommodating to my subscribers who are foreigners to this industry 💚) —all came at the end.

Generally speaking, it’s good to keep your blurb to two or three paragraphs. Mine was technically four, and lengthier than need be, though still within the acceptable parameters for the overall query word count. If your entire letter is toeing the line of 500 words, you need to cut down. In my personal opinion though, it’s better to start with too much information than not enough, as it’s easier to trim excess and make a finer product than it is to add bits on.

I also named three characters, which is another number that’s wise to adhere by. Any more, and you run the risk of muddling things and bogging down your plot. The goal with a query is to be as concise as possible, which, let me reiterate! this query is not!

However—let me wax about TGGT for a moment—The Great Glavenisean Theater is not just Morgan’s story. I’ve actually struggled with referring to him as the main character or even the protagonist, as the true objects of the story are Zachary and Ariel—they are the ones at the center, so I felt it was only right to include them.

Now, to address some “rule breaking”.

Comps are a vital part of a query. They give the reader an idea of stories with similar themes or atmosphere, and show that you know where it could sit on the shelf. Ideally, comps should be books published within the last five years (at the most!) that aren’t too obscure, but also haven’t blown up into industry juggernauts that aren’t favorable to compare yourself to, regardless of if they seem perfect.

Both my primary comps are well over ten years old. The Night Circus was published in 2011, House of Leaves in 2000. I knew right away that The Night Circus was going to be one of my comps, regardless of age. It’s done very well for itself, known for its iconic prose and enchanting concept, and within the industry, it’s immediately recognizable while not being overshadowing. My writing style is similarly prosey, and well, it’s a magic theater and a magic circus. It works.

House of Leaves was more of a gamble. It’s one of the most iconic horror novels around, while also regarded by its author as a love story. It is most infamously known for its absolutely whack formatting, making it an example of ergodic literature, which can be boiled down into, “any book that makes you scratch your head as you literally turn it upside down to read the text on the page to try and figure out what the hell is going on”.

While TGGT is not horror, it does have a big unnerving creepy factor. I primarily wanted to include House of Leaves because of weird sense of unreality in it, and really because TGGT also has moments where the text on the page goes bananas.

example 1. a sample of The Great Glavenisean Theater

example 2. a page of House of Leaves

Now, I also cheated a bit with my housekeeping paragraph. I didn’t have much to offer in terms of a relevant bio, so I used it as an excuse to mention my love of theater, and specifically, a few pieces of media that had notable influences on the formation of TGGT. Ergo, Moulin Rouge!, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Great Gatsby. It was my way of weaving in a few more key indicators to the vibes of the story, while not being inappropriate by literally comping my novel to a 1920s American classic.

The Revision

For clarity’s sake, this is the final version of the query I was sending before I received my offer.

---

The last thing Morgan Hastings expects upon his arrival in the City of Spires is an invitation to work for the Glavenisean Theater, where each night a portal in the stage transports the audience through different dimensions during the show. Life as head of the costume department is enchanting, but soon Morgan starts experiencing vivid dreams and hallucinations. No one will tell him why his predecessor left, and when Morgan finds her resignation letter, it only confirms his suspicions: something is wrong with the theater.

When Morgan discovers a plot to sabotage the portal and ruin the theater, the blame is pinned on his friend Zachary. But Zachary loves the theater as much as he does Ariel, the enigmatic prima donna. As his own affections for Zachary smolder, Morgan seeks to prove his innocence. Every loose thread points at Ariel, and Morgan suspects there's more to her than meets the eye—that maybe, Ariel came out of the portal one night, and does not wish to go back in.

But Morgan’s nightmares start becoming reality as a lead actor dies in a violent accident, thrusting the theater into even further chaos. Convinced that everything is connected, Morgan must stop the continued sabotage of the portal and expose Ariel's true identity before anyone else can die—but the clock is ticking, and it's already too late to save everyone.

---

It’s still a little chunky, but in my opinion, it presents much more effectively. This is the version I have shared in writing circles when in conversation about refining queries, and it did net me some other full requests as well! Would I still have received the same amount of requests if this was the first version I sent out? I think I might have gotten a couple more, but at the end of the day it’s neither here nor there. The premise and the stakes are ultimately the same, and that’s enough for an agent to know if they’re interested or not. My weird theater-with-a-portal book is certainly not for everyone.

There are some resources I could share about how best to go about crafting your query letter, but I’ll likely go over those at a later date, for any interested parties, since this has dragged on long enough and it is now *checks watch* almost noon (I’ve relocated and am watching Mickey 17 soon).

Until next time,

Catherine

🎐 🌿 🎐

Currently reading: Wings of Starlight by Allison Saft
Currently obsessing over: The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Currently listening to: Garden of Eden by Lady Gaga

🎐 🌿 🎐