A query letter is a short email asking a manager, agent, or producer to read your script. It's one of the least glamorous parts of screenwriting and one of the most misunderstood. Writers either agonize over it for months or dash it off in five minutes. The truth is in between: a good query is brief, specific, and built almost entirely around one sentence.
What a query is for
A query has one job: earn a request to read. It isn't a sales pitch for the whole script, and it isn't your life story. The person reading it is deciding, in about thirty seconds, whether your project sounds like something worth an hour of their time. Everything in the email should serve that decision.
As our guide on how to sell a screenplay explains, your script is mostly a writing sample. The query is the sample's cover letter.
The structure that works
Most effective queries follow a simple shape:
1. A one-line opener. Address the person by name and, if you can, say why you're writing to them specifically. A recent project they worked on, a client whose work resembles yours. One sentence is enough.
2. The logline. This is the heart of the query. Genre, protagonist, goal, obstacle, stakes, in one or two sentences. If your logline isn't strong yet, no amount of letter writing will rescue the query.
3. A few lines of context. Optional, but useful: a comparable title or two, the page count, the format. Keep comparisons recent and successful, and avoid comparing yourself to the most famous film in the genre.
4. A line about you. Only what's relevant: placements in respected competitions, produced work, professional experience that informs this story. If you have none yet, skip it. A missing bio is better than a padded one.
5. A clean close. Offer to send the script. Thank them for their time. Sign with your name and contact details.
That's it. The whole thing should fit on a phone screen without scrolling much.
An example
Hi Dana,
I enjoyed the contained-thriller slate your company has been building, so I wanted to share my new spec.
When a night-shift paramedic answers a call to her own address, she has eleven minutes to find out who's inside her house before the police arrive and arrest her for a crime she doesn't remember committing.
ELEVEN MINUTES is a 98-page contained thriller in the vein of recent single-location genre hits. It placed in the second round of a major fellowship this year.
Would you like to read it?
Thanks for your time,
Sam Rivera
sam@example.com
Notice what isn't there: no plot summary, no themes paragraph, no explanation of why the writer loves movies.
Who to send it to
Target precisely. Research which managers and production companies work on scripts like yours, and send individually addressed emails. Mass emails with dozens of recipients in the address bar are deleted on sight.
Managers are usually more open to new writers than agents, and smaller companies more open than large ones. Read the submission guidelines on company websites; many state clearly whether they accept unsolicited queries. Respect a "no." Sending anyway signals that you don't follow instructions, which is the opposite of what you want to communicate.
Send in small batches
Rather than querying two hundred people at once, send ten. Track who responds. If nobody requests the script, the problem is probably the logline, and you've only burned ten contacts finding out. Adjust, then send the next ten. Treat it as an experiment rather than a lottery.
Mistakes that get queries deleted
- Attaching the script uninvited. Many companies won't open unsolicited attachments for legal reasons. Wait to be asked.
- Length. If it's longer than about 150 words, it will often go unread.
- Vagueness. "A story about love, loss, and finding yourself" tells the reader nothing about the movie.
- Hype. Calling your script "the next blockbuster" or quoting your friends' praise reads as inexperience.
- Typos. In a hundred-word email, every error is visible, and readers assume the script has more.
After you hit send
Many queries get no response at all, and that silence is usually the answer. A polite follow-up after a few weeks is acceptable; more than one is not. If someone requests the script, send it promptly, as a clean PDF with a professional title page, and thank them.
Most importantly, keep writing. The best thing that can happen after a request is a reader asking what else you have. A second finished script turns one successful query into a relationship.
