#200-revised 2x

Dear Query Shark,


Looking back, 16-year-old Marine Desmona can clearly count every one of her stupid mistakes.

story starts here ------>The first mistake was dancing with Duke Sinclair and letting his cold hands touch her while his eyes absorbed light in that uncanny, lifeless way. The second was going to the stable alone where he could ambush her and rape her mind. The third was not fleeing Adara and heading for Atlantis the moment she had the chance. But of course, she would never have left her father behind. Not then.


Don't be afraid to say less. Building tension in a query (and a novel) is often taking stuff OUT rather than putting stuff in.
Now, locked in a magic closet and chained to a conjured bed, she can only dream of rescue from the madman who torments her with scandalous caresses and cruel promises. The sorcerer who means to make her his bride and condemn her father to a future as a soulless slave. All because she has magic, a throwback heritage from the days when Adaran kings hunted witches.

 

If anyone other than the duke should discover her powers, they’d burn her alive in front of cheering spectators. The duke, however, doesn’t plan to give her up. No, he wants to use her. More to the point, he wants – needs – a womb that can pass on magic to another generation. And her womb is uniquely suited to the task. Their shared heritage can grant Duke Sinclair immortality, for he plans to leech into the bodies of their offspring and be reborn again and again, always inhabiting nubile child-flesh.

Grabbing her one opportunity for escape, Marine rushes out of Adara and toward Atlantis, the pagan City of Magic. There she intends to become more powerful than Duke Sinclair so she can kill the sorcerer, thus ending his reign of secret blood-magic and freeing witch-blooded Adarans from his control. But mostly, so she can save her father.

 Do you see the difference here? This is what I'm endlessly yammering about when I say "pare away everything you don't need."  You don't need any of the stuff I struck out; your query is tighter and the level of tension ratchets up.  

One of the biggest problems in novels I see is over-explaining.  You don't need to explain everything. In fact, it's better if you don't.  Let the reader gradually discover the background of the main characters.

And here in a query, less is often more because your goal here is to entice me to read on. STOP when you have enough to do that. 

Cutting all the extra verbiage has an added benefit: it drops the word count from 332 to 169.  There's a reason good queries should be 250 words or fewer: it forces you to focus on what's important, remove all the extra words, and stop when you've said enough.

If your query is longer than 250 words you have NOT accomplished those things.

THE DESMONA CHILD is a standalone 70,000-word YA fantasy. The sequel, THE DESMONA BRIDE, chronicles the fall of Atlantis and the crucial role Marine plays in its destruction.

This is a pretty good query at this point, but now you need to make sure your novel shows the same polish. Are you over explaining there? Did you front-load the novel with a bunch of backstory and set up?  One way to find out is to look at where the novel starts.  Does it start with Marine dancing with the Duke? If it does not, you might want to think about changing that.

Also, "Marine" as the name of a character in a book about Atlantis is a bit precious.  

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Dear Query Shark,


Marine Desmona is shocked when an heir to the Adaran throne asks for her hand in marriage. Intent on understanding why the powerful Duke Sinclair is interested in unimportant her, Marine snoops out answers and uncovers a dangerous Desmona family secret. When she develops strange new abilities, a more immediate problem arises: in Adara, the use of magic is outlawed and she could be burned alive if her new powers are discovered.


The Desmona family’s heritage isn’t a secret to the Duke; he knows Marine’s witch-blood is manifesting. After generations of non-magic offspring, she is the legacy of two powerful bloodlines. Duke Sinclair plies Marine with seductive promises of unimaginable power, but she refuses him. Sinclair murders Marine’s mother with his own well-honed magic and threatens to kill her father if she doesn’t submit to his demands.


Marine flees her home hoping to learn how to master her gifts and free her father. The distant island of Atlantis, where magic-users are honored and revered, is the only place she can hide while Duke Sinclair is on his quest for everlasting life. Marine is hard-pressed to conceal her magic and evade the interest of everyone she encounters on the way to Atlantis, her fate depending on whether she can outrun the duke… and her own unpredictable magic.

THE DESMONA CHILD is my 104,000 word stand-alone fantasy novel. A sequel, THE DESMONA BRIDE, is currently in the works.

You're getting all caught up in details here. We don't need details. We need broad brush strokes of the plot, and MORE than that we need a reason to care about what happens. Right now Marine is pretty one dimensional. 

This is much better than the initial version.

Start over and use the chopping I did here to guide you on what to leave OUT of the revisions.


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Dear Query Shark,

I am looking for an agent that likes fantasy/mythology with a twist. My debut novel, THE DESMONA CHILD, is a 106,000 word work of YA/Fantasy that leads up to the fall of Atlantis.

Don't start a query with what kind of agent you're looking for. It's absolutely understood, and therefore does not need to be said, you're looking for an agent who likes your work. Don't waste time telling me what I already know.

The ladies room is hardly where Marine Desmona expected a proposal. She had danced, giggled and enjoyed the night right up until a mysterious Duke cornered her and vowed everlasting love.

You don't complete the thought here. The Duke is the one who proposed in the ladies loo? (charming)

And you'll need to explain why he's in the loo to propose.

In the tumultuous weeks following that event Marine is conflicted, but never more so than when she learns that she is the key to bringing magic back to the kingdom of Adara - and that having witch-blood makes her appealing to the Duke because he wants to create a progeny of untold magical power. Such a child could have god-like dominion over life and death.

"create a progeny" is a very stilted way of saying what you mean here. And why is Marine (egad, what a name) conflicted? What's inherently wrong with what the Duke wants? Who wouldn't want what he wants?

A long journey to escape the Duke leads Marine to the literal doorstep of a fabled haven, the legendary Atlantis, where she hopes to disappear…

Ok, well, I don't get this at all. Atlantis is legendary because it's in legends, not because it was famous when it existed. I think you're confusing the two meanings of legendary. Also, why does Marine think she'll disappear in Atlantis? That's akin to saying you're on the Titanic cause you want to hang out in the North Atlantic in a lifeboat; how would you know?

Also if this thing with Atlantis is at the END of the book, it really has no place in the query. A query should entice me to read on with the events that happen at the START of the book.  

You'll be better off starting over with the the name of the main character, what choice she has to make, and what the dire consequences are for each.

I am querying widely, but will grant exclusivity if you are interested in seeing more of my work.

NO NO NO NO NO NO.

Do not ever OFFER exclusivity.

It's bad enough some agents ask for it, but do not ever OFFER first in a query letter.

Exclusivity is almost never in your best interest. Don't give up any advantage you get by querying widely.

This query doesn't fail cause of form, although that needs work.

It fails because there's not enough about the main characters to have me connect with them and be enticed to read more. There are 122 words in the paragraphs about the book. You've got room for 100 more easily.

There's a lot to be said for short and sweet, but this is too short to do the job.

Form rejection.