Way back when I was working on my first query letter to prepare for agent hunting, I started out with a fairly long and involved pitch portion of the query. So here’s one of the earlier versions I found for The Last Slayer.

Ashera del Cid is a demon hunter who takes great pride in her work. But when a triumvirate of demigods wants her dead for killing one of its dragons, the hunter turns hunted. Even though Ramiel, a rival demigod, offers his help, she turns him down. She isn’t naïve enough to trust anyone from the supernatural realm, especially one who arouses her senses like no other.

Ramiel has his own agenda. He has waited decades for revenge on the demigod who humiliated and irreversibly crippled him by ripping out his wing. Ramiel plans to use Ashera to destroy the world order led by his archenemy.

The stakes are raised when a member of the triumvirate poisons Ashera’s best friend. To get the antidote Ashera is forced to accept Ramiel’s help. But as Ashera and Ramiel battle demigods and dragons, there is one thing they could never have planned on: the chemistry sizzling between them despite their mutual distrust.

An industry professional who read it said it was entirely too long and confusing. Her advice? Cut it down to one paragraph.

After about a week of fiddling with it, I ended up with the following query letter:

Dear Ms. Fox:

I read on one of the writing forums I belong to that you’re actively building your client list. Thus I am excited to query you with THE LAST SLAYER, an urban fantasy. It’s completed at 100,000 words.

Ashera del Cid is a demon hunter who takes great pride in her work, but when she kills a demigod’s pet dragon, the hunter becomes the hunted. Her only potential ally is Ramiel, an untrustworthy, sexy-as-hell demon who destroyed her home. Now the two work together to battle dragons and demigods…and the chemistry sizzling between them.

I’m pre-published with Samhain, with a romance novel titled DEVIL FALLS contracted recently. My other writing credits include a classical music columnist position for Disceptatio, a webzine featured on CNN.com, a series of essays on western Japan for the Japan Travel Bureau, and several short story publications. I am also a member of Romance Writers of America and RWAOnline.

The full manuscript is available upon request. I look forward to hearing from you.

Nadia Lee

The pitch paragraph in the final query contains 56 words. (Compare that to 158 words in the earlier version.)

I think the others who have blogged before are right. You want your letter to be short but still have all the relevant info. I also think that you can skip the bio portion of the pitch if you have nothing to say. I don’t think you have to sweat it if you don’t have any writing credits, etc.