Monday, August 27, 2018

#319-Revised once


Dear Query Shark,


When an asteroid hits Earth, Lauren Sand considers herself lucky to stumble upon a Cold War bomb shelter down a mine shaft—until she shuts the door. Time-locked for two years underground, Lauren has no connection to the outside world. Nothing but the final radio broadcast of conspiracy theorist Mick Parks, who claims a nuclear error caused the catastrophe. When the door opens, Lauren emerges into a drastically changed world. The sea has a new shore, breaking six-thousand-feet high into the Rocky Mountains. With everything she has ever known covered by salt water, Lauren sets out to find other survivors.

This is a promising opening.
I can see a couple places where the writing could use some polish but when I read a query, a good compelling concept trumps all.


Struggling to survive, Lauren is grateful to befriend members of a commune called Camp Genesis. But after weeks of camaraderie, she discovers it’s a cult. The women there are the charismatic leader’s chattel, destined to repopulate the Earth with his offspring. When he stakes his claim on Lauren, she flees.

Oh blarg.
Honestly, I'm so so so over this plot device. Women as chattel, women as victims. One of the GREAT things about a post apocalyptic novel is your chance to discard old tropes and invent some new ones.

I'll keep reading but my enthusiasm has dwindled.



With the cult leader on her trail, Lauren treks across the desolate remains of Northwest Wyoming where algae devour the landscape and holiday resorts have become fiefdoms that kill trespassers on sight. Death and destruction greet her at every turn until she meets homesteader Jay in the lawless last city of New Casper. Jay offers Lauren sanctuary, and the future she always dreamed of. But Lauren sees the future of humanity at stake and believes the truth about the asteroid will help give closure and peace to the dying city. Driven by her hunch, Lauren and Jay embark up the frozen summit of Gannet Peak to last known location of Mick Parks. If her intuition is right, his story may help restore their broken world and allow Lauren to stay with Jay forever— if the cult leader doesn’t silence her first.


And now, I'm utterly and completely confused. Fiefdoms kill trespassers? I'm guessing you mean the people who live in the fiefdoms. How do you have a homesteader in a town? And why is Lauren worried about the future of humanity when she's got more immediate concerns?

Closure and peace to a dying city? What does that even mean?


CAPTURE THE TIDE is a 65,000-word, post-apocalyptic YA novel.

Your first query worked just fine.
Why are you "fixing"this?
It's the PAGES that aren't working.

Thank you for your time and consideration.



 ----------------------------------------

ORIGINAL QUERY
Question:
After a handful of rejections, I decided to commit myself to the Query Shark archives and I'm so glad I did. I killed my darlings, waited, then killed some more. But, the question is still the same. Is it my letter or my pages that get me rejected? I need the Query Shark.


Dear Query Shark,

When the earth starts collapsing around her, Lauren Sand considers herself lucky to stumble through the steel hatch she finds in a mine shaft—until she reads the notice on the bomb shelter door telling her it won’t open for two years, when the radioactivity outside has safely decayed. But, thanks to the final radio broadcast of a conspiracy theorist named Mick Parks, the young woman knows it was an errant asteroid that shook the world, not nuclear war. What she has two years to wonder about is why no one knew the end was coming.

Now, standing on the new shore of the sea, breaking six-thousand-feet high into the Rocky Mountains, Lauren understands she will never see her Shoshone grandmother Jean and sister Ava again. They, and her hometown of Shadow Grass, Wyoming are covered by salt water. She has survived the end of the world, but to what end? As she begins her treacherous search for other survivors, Lauren is driven by the need to know how there was no warning that the end was near, except for the disregarded claims of a radio talk show host.

Hostile vagrants with saccharine promises haunt the desolate landscape and threaten her resolve. But when she meets Jay, nothing seems impossible. Lauren will learn that one person willing to ask why, and not flinch at the truth, can begin to reconstruct the broken world. Along the way, she will shed the doubts and guilt of adolescence and accept the most unexpected gift of all at the end of the world—love.

CAPTURE THE TIDE is a 66,000-word post-apocalyptic survival epic and love story. It is my debut novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

It's your pages.
This isn't the most compelling query I've ever seen but I like the concept a lot. I'd read pages if  I repped YA. (You know this is YA, right?)

I'm not sure finding out why the world ended is a strong enough plot; the world after all did end. No amount of knowing why is going to change that.


"Hostile vagrants" is the wrong phrase here. I'm not sure you can be a vagrant in a post apocalyptic world since it means "without visible means of support" and no one has a job in this new world, or money, most likely.

You might mean vagabond, as in traveller. 

You're also missing the obvious: why are they hostile? If I was traipsing around at the end of the world, I'd probably be glad to find someone else.

All that said, I'd read pages.

So, what's wrong with your pages?  My guess (and I haven't seen them of course) is you start at the wrong place.  Start with the door opening, not the door closing.  And you might think about the plot too.