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Mastering the Fine Art of Formal Informality
by Rusty Fischer

Ah, e-mail. No postage. No dead trees. No paper cuts -- on your tongue! It's instant communication, instant gratification, and, occasionally instant rejection. Nonetheless, e-mail is here to stay. But what to do when you're e-mailing an editor? After all, this isn't Aunt Suzie or your sweetheart we're talking about. This is your, for lack of a better word, temporary boss! Here's some advice:

Never Assume

For you fellow Bad News Bears fans, you know what I mean. For instance, since I occasionally list my name with an online call for submissions, I just as occasionally receive an e-mail heading that says: "Dear Madam," because, I assume, many women, of the red-haired variety, natch, are called Rusty.

And like those "Madam" freelancers from my "Made an Ass Out of You and Me" file, you never want to give an editor any cause for pause, let alone in the first two words of your query letter! Do you think there was anything else memorable about those query letters? Who knows? I certainly don't remember anything else. Unfair? Maybe. But true.

Actually, the assumptions I'm talking about here have more to do with time than an editor's sex. For instance, while I do have a great sense of humor and happen to enjoy laughter, don't assume that in your very first e-mail. If you're pitching an editor with an article on funerals, you don't want to start off with a joke about undertakers. Unless your article is for Mad magazine, that is.

Formal Informality

The best e-mail queries I received contained what I like to call "formal informality." Usually, this is a combination of snail mail properness and e-mail whimsiness. I don’t know, there's just something about reading e-mail that's less stodgy than reading snail mail, but oftentimes freelancers mistake this frisky feeling for a chance to buddy up with an editor and shoot the breeze, neither of which most editors come by easily.

For instance, a formal query letter usually sounds something like this:

"Dear Sir or Madam,

Forthwith, please findeth my curriculum vitae and several stodgy samples with which I hopeth to impresseth you post haste . . ."

Copyright © Rusty Fischer

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