#48

Dear Query Shark:

Tearsah Slaughter was the girl voted most likely to succeed in high school. Too bad nobody told her at what. Now here she was, a wanted outlaw in America, when she’d just been a simple college junior back home in Australia. In the 85,000 word paranormal Rahzer, high school was the turning point for this lycan day dreamer turned mercenary.

What? You've got so much stuff crammed in this paragraph I'm lost already. Clearly the important stuff is she's a mercenary on the run from the law. I'm betting she wasn't born that way (just a guess) so you can leave out all that stuff about "most likely to succeed" unless of course she shot her high school home ec teacher or something.


The cliques in her high school were the aloof, model thin Vampiras who all hung together with waist length, frizz free hair. They always wore the coolest clothes and got dropped off in stretch hummers or limos. Next were the Valkyries and the Amazons. They were the best female athletes, running the basketball, archery and volleyball teams.

And what does this have to do with being a mercenary? Also, even though you're using Vampiras to describe the cool chicks, you're describing something we already recognize as cliche.

While the harpies and nymphs vied for the title of most likely to become professional escorts, the changelings were the most two faced. A few humans hung tough. From these cliques her motley group of friends called themselves the “Reckoning” crew and sleep overs included gossip, make up, and musings on where they’d be in ten years. Their goal?. To have many lovers and to save the world, looking fierce.

You've got character soup here. I don't know what to focus on, what's important, and I don't see a plot anywhere at all.

Only fighting zombie debt collectors and zapping ghouls who treat human fingers like KFC isn't glamorous. But first Tearsah has to escape from her American crime lord fiancé, then teach him the wrath of an unwilling contract bride. No means no, mofo.

Zombie debt collectors! I do love that phrase! But wait..crime lord finance? Where did he come from? Unwilling contract bride? I'm so confused here I might actually let the zapping ghouls munch on me.

I’m an educator, and this character was graphic novel at first, that I retooled.
Sample pages are available at your request. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Unless this was published as a graphic novel, you don't need to mention it.

I'm confused about what's important, what the conflict is and what the stakes are. This is list of ingredients for cake, not the finished cake ready to taste. Back to the kitchen!