Query help: How to fix first chapter bias
Over the past six years, I have edited roughly 1,500 initial query drafts. In a lot of them, a character, concept or detail is emphasized in the first or second sentence … and then never again. Here’s what I think is happening, then how to fix it.
First, what’s happening:
You have been editing the sflgjsfdglkjf out of your first chapter for what feels like nine thousand, seven hundred and eighty billion years. You have memorized the details you need (or think you need) to introduce. You could stage a one-act play consisting of you reciting the color of the leaves, the character’s shoelace style — everything. You know what happened a week ago in your book world, and a month ago, and a year ago, and all that informs the first chapter. Your world is deep, and your first chapter shows it.
Your first chapter has also been in several contests and swaps. So has your first page. Probably your first line, too. The writing community has robust opportunities for you to work your early materials, and you have engaged.
There’s a great reason for this: Your first chapter has to be your book’s best chapter, and your first page has to be your book’s best page. Having an amazing sixth chapter is pointless if your first chapter is a pile of why. When I see people asking if the “sample five pages have to be the first pages? because my chapter five is better,” I set a mental timer for that person to report getting a form rejection because ain’t nobody getting to chapter five if ain’t nobody got a reason to.
But along with that great reason is a horrible reality: All this has taught your brain that those early details are paramount, whereas they’re … okayish. As such, you’ve given yourself first chapter bias and doomed your query (and probably your synopsis).
So that’s what’s happening. Here’s how to fix it:
Delete details/names/processes in your query’s first sentence or two that don’t reappear in the thing.
“No, but I — ”
You are too close to your query. Too close to your first chapter. You are biased — physically incapable of being objective about detail relevance. And I paw-promise your query will be better if you delete early information that never reappears.
You do not need the name of the prince who tries to be a thing but isn’t, and who does little after the first chapter.
You do not need the hair color* of the bff. (You probably don’t need the bff, though that’s harder to know from afar.)
You do not need the worldbuilding but irrelevant-to-the-plot ambulatory schema*. You do not need the one-off weather, one-off magic, etc.
So delete extraneous details and implicitly emphasize the essential main plot details.
“Oh YEAH? And how do I FIND those ‘essential main plot details,’ Mr. Person Who Wants To Delete My Entire Query Without Reading It?”
Tell someone else about your book. Have them write down the things that feel important. Read what they wrote. After you’ve finished raegcrying because your friend reduced your royal family’s 65-year lineage to “queen [don’t know how to spell it] and her family’s domestic terror campaign,” delete the extraneous details. Queries aren’t supposed to be dominated by backstory. They’re supposed to be dominated by story.
Another way to get a query that isn’t drowning in one-off details and characters is to start with the stakes (usually the decision that launches your book from acts 1 to 2), then go backward. As you go, you’ll notice you aren’t using the bff, the magical wallpaper, etc. That’s because while those details are interesting, they don’t drive plot.
Finally, take a tip from one of my query editor friends. We were talking queries recently, by request. Among the crucial things she said: If everything matters, nothing matters. So pare back the details, focus on the essentials, and get the agent to want to find out if you have magical wallpaper.
good luck <3
*If the agent’s mswl says they want books that have that detail, use it, and do so in the pitch and the personalization. Otherwise, forget it exists.