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.
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.
The first thing that came to my mind was she needed to be opening the door to what was left of her world.
ReplyDelete"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."
If she was underground for two years, she's had lots of time to think about this and survival is probably a lot more important to her than why.
"She has survived the end of the world, but to what end?"
This is really picky, but read this aloud. Sometimes you want to repeat a word for emphasis or cadence.
"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done," --Walt Whitman
If you do not become fired for this job, you may find yourself fired from this job.
At other times the repetition close together is a stumbling block.
"Hostile vagrants with saccharine promises haunt the desolate landscape and threaten her resolve."
This is very writerly and doesn't say much. I'm not sure how they can be hostile and have sweet promises at the same time.
There's probably a good story here, but I think you start in the wrong place and the query needs work. Luckily, you have the shark to help you with the query.
I love post apocalyptic stories, so the first part of the query had me hooked. If I were an agent I'd read pages based on the premise alone. I agree with the shark that the focus in a scenario like this should be survival in a post apocalyptic environment, and not so much what caused the apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteSome things that jumped out as red flags to me: the bit about shedding "the doubts and guilt of adolescence" seems odd in this specific scenario. Doesn't she have more existential problems given her very survival is at stake? Also, it seems short for an adult novel but the author hasn't specified it's YA.
I like the whole idea for the MS. (I’m biased as I have a trunk novel that’s post-apocalypse that I’ve been sitting on)
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to know after reading the query is what happened during the two years she was in the shelter. Getting locked up without sun for two years changes people - ask any inmate who had solitary confinement for years. I hope the MS goes into that.
I do agree with the Shark that finding out why it all happened is not strong enough as the main plot; maybe it’s secondary. What is her primal drive? What is pushing her? Survival, sex, a sense of belonging? What can I (or anyone) relate to that’s the main thrust of her motivation?
My guess is that the author either did not write this as YA, or it just isn't clear enough from the query that it's a teenage main character. Maybe they haven't been querying YA agents.
ReplyDelete"Young woman" is pretty ambiguous. An adult --even an older teenager-- would have more people to worry about than just her grandmother and sister. Our found family becomes just as, if not more, important to us as we age. If she emerges in her late teens she would have gone in at... maybe 16, at the oldest? Even then, she'd be seeking out a best friend (unless she was a loner before, which could be interesting). So even younger maybe?
That's what I'd clear up immediately. How old is she, and if she only cares to find her immediate family... why? Also, this radio host person seems really important... is she searching for him? If so, maybe we should know that in the query. What, specifically, is she trying to accomplish?
My first reaction to the plot question was: there are plenty of perfectly normal reasons we wouldn't have any warning before a large asteroid strikes (there's a good chance all we'll get is a flash of light and POOF, we're gone), so if you're subbing to SFF-minded agents that could be a red flag that the premise needs work. If you want this question to drive the query (and I don't know that it has to) you might want to clarify WHY she thinks we should have known it was coming. I'm assuming the conspiracy theorist knew something? But he didn't have information another astronomer could check?
ReplyDeleteI’m just so happy right now, here I am chummin’ along feeling like I won the lottery. Thank you Ms. Shark and fellow writers for your help and support. I look forward to sending my revision soon.
ReplyDeleteThe idea seems interesting.
ReplyDeleteI guess you tried to give us a concise idea of what happened before telling us, briefly, about what will happen once the doors open.
I think what’s missing is a sense of the main character personality.
Since it’s jmportant for Lauren to understand why there was no warning sign, why nobody knew it, why don’t specify why she believes there should have been some warning sign?
I think, I don’t know this is just my idea, maybe starting from her escaping the end of the world is not the best way.
Your story seems more like focused on her finding out why the meteor caught everybody by surprise, while trying to survive in a world where everyone (I suppose) thinks only about surviving.
I definitely very interested in the premise.
ReplyDeleteI'll say I'm a bit unclear on how important the love story aspect is. It only gets a couple lines in the query which makes me think it is less important, but the way in which it is brought up makes me think it might be really important. Either way is fine, but maybe some more clarification wouldn't hurt.
I thought it wasn't necessary to name the grandmother, sister, and hometown in the query. Wyoming covered in sea water is a nice way of showing what our post-apocalyptic world looks like, but maybe those two sentences can be shortened and reworded in a way that increases their impact.
The idea of starting the story later is interesting because I'm also very intrigued by how those two years in isolation changed her, as other commenters have mentioned. You don't need to have the actual isolation period in the book, but you should see the impact it's had on her. If her isolated period is featured heavily, you'll want to make sure every scene has a purpose, that she's finding out information about herself or the world outside that will prove important later in the story.
My guess is pages, and pacing within those first ten pages. Yes, the query did catch my interest, but it did feel a bit rambly.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'd read the pages after this query because a few of the plot element twists in the query sound catch my fancy, but the pacing would have a few points disadvantage for me, unless the voice caught me in the first couple of paragraphs.
Oh, and the astronomer in me finds the asteroid (or a space rock of any variety) strike plausible. They're not exactly easy to track. There's all sorts of situations that could lead to a major asteroid strike where we're not fully prepared for it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the word count is right for YA, maybe a little low, but how did you wrap up destroying the world, spending two years in a cell/dungeon and get on with life in a post-ap world (including a love interest) in 66K?
ReplyDeleteIs it possible you're experiencing the opposite effect of word bloat when the assumption is the story is too lean?
If this isn't YA you're low by at least 40K.
I'd have read pages if that counts for more than melted ice cream on a New York sidewalk.
I have to ask:
ReplyDeleteAside from being trapped for two years, and wondering why the Earth went bye-bye, what's different about this book from the bazillions of other post-apocalypse books and movies out there? And I don't know that those things make that big a diff.
Also, if the world crashed w/ no warning, why is Lauren the only one wondering how it happened?
There's nothing bad here. I'm just not sure what's new and different
btw, according to two different spellcheckers, "bazillions" is a word
I really like the premise. However, personally I think the query is too dense. I felt a little lost after reading through it. I didn't get a good sense of the MC's voice or place in the world. The query seems to focus a lot on world building and less on engaging us with the MC. that would be my main critique.
ReplyDeletePerhaps there's a reason she needs to survive...like in the first Terminator? Would be interesting to know that reason in the query/blurb.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the shark--I liked the first query better. Despite a few flaws here and there, I could understand what was going on and wasn't really confused by anything. The revised version makes the plot sound all over the place and difficult to follow, and I also don't see how one man could get away with keeping all those women as chattel. He's one man, so they obviously outnumber him. I know I wouldn't let him use me like that--and I know some men would try to do horrible things to women--but these women are free to leave this guy. What's stopping them?
ReplyDelete(After first revision): I like pieces of both queries, TBH. The first paragraph in the second version feels like it gets the pertinent details out more quickly -- as does the third paragraph of the original version, despite the possibly odd choice of the word "saccharine". I'd use those two paragraphs as the bones if you want to make another try.
ReplyDeleteI would skip the whole second paragraph from your revision for sure, and further references to the subplot about the cult leader in the query. Even if you write about it compellingly in the book, it does have that danger of looking like well trodden ground here in summary.
(And as an aside, while people who've survived the end of the world will be carrying forward the ideas of our era, it *would* be nice to see some of the people trying to make a completely new cultures, not all rehashes of the same old ideas about Mad Max or regressing into feudalism. While there's no room in the query for this, I hope your book includes some!)