I am sending this letter to a slew of literary agents and, frankly, I imagine that many of them will not even read this far. Anyhow, here is my proposal to garner your interest and attention: I propose that I write a short story for your perusal, something in the neighborhood of 15,000 to 25,000 words in length. Here, however, is the interesting angle I’m trying to work. I will write what you want. What I mean is that you simply respond to this query letter with a subject, a specific event (or series of events), or something similar, and I will write a story from that prompt. For example, if you respond to this query letter with the single sentence “I want to read a story about (insert subject here), in this context,” I will hammer out a story for you and you will be the judge of its merit.
Brilliant. Here’s what I want you to write a story about: a literary agent who tears all of his clothes off and runs screaming down the road after reading one too many inane queries.
