Every genre of fiction has its own set of rules that authors need to follow if they wish to be published. Writing a novel can be exceptionally hard. Authors put in their blood, sweat, and tears to perfect it and make it worthy in their own eyes before showing it to the world. To say that authors get attached to their manuscripts is an understatement, which leads them to feel very vulnerable when it comes to submitting their manuscripts with publishers.

With the bar set high for those who write science fiction, authors have to ensure they nail approaching agents from the very beginning. The first hurdle in the way of a science fiction author is the query letter to an agent. A query letter is basically a way to entice your agent to learn about your novel without sharing an actual manuscript. Usually, authors end up being very vague in their approach and share abstract ideas about their manuscript. If you want to impress the agent enough to give your manuscript a chance, you need to be very specific and share concrete information about your sci-fi novel.

Here are some essentials in writing a query letter for a science fiction author.

• The first thing you need to focus on is the one sentence to show what you are pitching. Since agents have preferences when it comes to genres of novels, you need to show the agent that your novel is right up their alley. So such a sentence of your query letter should have the title of your novel, its genre, and its word count, respectively. For example, the sentence should look like this: Ender’s Game is a 100,609-word military science fiction novel.

• After that, you need to ensure that you hook the agent with a sentence or two that will entice the agent to want to know more. Usually, the author puts the “hook” and the “sentence” in the first paragraph so that they have the attention of the agent as early as possible. Share little tidbits about the story and the protagonist to show what the agent would be signing up for.

• The second paragraph of your query letter should have the synopsis of your story and the characters. Lay down the facts of your story, show what the story is about, but keep it short and sweet. Make it impactful so that the agent would like to see some chapters or even a manuscript.

• Lastly, the final paragraph must share information about you. Add a couple or more lines as your introduction, why you wrote this novel and what you wish to accomplish with it. Simply saying that this is your debut novel or saying that this is the first novel in a series that you wish to write is enough.

If you need help with it, you can easily find query letter online that have been accepted by science fiction agents. Many authors share their successful query letters on their websites or other platforms online, so they wouldn’t be hard to find. Just remember that this is the first impression that your agent will have of you so make your best effort.