Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.
I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.
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My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.
I am writing to you in the hopes of receiving representation for my middle grade and older historical fantasy novel, "The Fairies in the Window." (How I learned about them/good fit/maybe some comparisons?) "Fairies in the Window," is an 80,681 word novel that tells the story of two generations of girls and women as they each confront difficult trials in their own times and discover the true strength that lies within themselves. I always say you need to open with the hook, not the statement that you are writing in the hopes of representation - they know that, it's an assumed. A title, word count, and genre / age cateogry are something that everyone has. You need to start with what only you have - the hook for your book. Also, categorizing your readership as MG and older doesn't do you any favors. You need to know whether this is MG or YA. Upper MG is also a totally fine thing to say, however your word count is high for MG, which tops out around 70k
This is my third and most personal novel to date. This isn't a hook. You need to open with a line that tells the agent something imperative and plot-centric to the story, not yourself The story is divided into two time periods. A portion of the narrative is told through the eyes of my maternal grandmother and tells her story of survival during the Holocaust as a nine-year-old girl from Romania. I weave several stories from her personal account with those of other Romanian Jews who were forced on a death march in winter to a concentration in Ukraine. The fictional element is found in the friendship my grandmother finds in a lost Fairy Queen. A friendship so strong that enables them both to survive. In the present, two young girls, fictionalized versions of my own daughters, become enthralled by their father's tales of Fairies who live behind their house's attic window. A story, unbeknownst to their father is actually true. Through a series of misadventures, the girls discover the daughter of the same Fairy Queen that had befriended my grandmother has arrived in our world on a dangerous mission of mercy. This Fairy Princess, Calla, and her four friends, need to find the token her mother had entrusted to my grandmother’s care during the Holocaust, for with that long lost token, Calla can discover the location of her lost mother. And only her mother knows the spell that rescue her people from the invading hordes of the Fomor.
This whole paragraph is from your persepctive and is focused mostly on you, and how you are personally tied to the story. Quite frankly, the agent or editor doesn't really care. They want to know the plot of the book, not how it's relevant to you, or how it's based on elements of your life and family history. That is of interest, but can be easily summarized with a single line at the bottom such as this story is deeply personal, as it utilizes elements of my grandmother's experiences..., etc Other than that, all the personal elements here, including the fact that the other protaganists are your daughters, isn't really relevant to portraying what the story is actually about. If you look at this, you don't even mention what any of the characters are named, they are simply identified by their relationship to you.
My previous two novels, one of which has been self-published on Amazon, were mythological fantasy novels geared towards a YA audience.Unless they have very fantastic sales and thousands of reviews, mentioning self-published novels won't benefit you I was motivated to write for a younger audience when I learned during the pandemic that a large number of American children had never even heard of the holocaust. As Jewish American, I felt obligated to do my part to make sure this dark period of human history is never forgotten so it can never be repeated. I had also always wanted to write my grandmother's story. She was only nine years old when she was forcibly marched through snow in Romania to a concentration camp in the Ukraine. An important story I felt compelled to write. This is definitely a stand alone story but has great potential for a series. I would love to write a trilogy of novels with each focused on addressing a social justice issue in a way that kids can fully grasp and appreciate. I believe some of the best and most enduring stories teach as much as they entertain. Again, this is a lot of information about you - what you've written in the past, what motivated you to write this, what you'd like to write in the future. A query needs to be about the story that you are querying, with (at the most) a three line bio at the bottom, which would include any references to personal ties to the story. You need to go back to the drawing board with this and rewrite a query that focuses on the plot, the characters, and the question of what is at stake in the story.