#334

Revision #1


Cinis Munimoh ripped her best friend’s teeth out on purpose, uttering thanks when the favor was returned.

As first sentences go, that's pretty eyecatching.
Horrifying but eye catching.

Mirroring her caretakers, Cinis clipped her horns, shed her skin, and seasoned her disguise with contacts, hiding her misshapen pupils. The 21 survivors of Amarith were no more. Now, they were just normal people walking the Earth, impersonating the very thing responsible for their downfall: humans.

I don't know what Amarith is, but at this point, I don't really care. I'm not going to stop reading to wonder about anything.

Even shrouded in disguise, the Amarithians are hunted down, struggling to survive and preserve their race.

This sentence doesn't connect to the next one. It's a good sentence, but it just doesn't fit well here. Thus: chop.

But Cinis craves more than mere survival. She longs  longing for the day she can rebuild her planet. that fell to humanity.

We know that her planet fell. That it fell to humanity is something the reader will intuit.  And that lets you cut that last part which improves the rhythm of the sentence.

 Just before Cinis loses hope of preserving her kind, she meets Sebastian, who reveals that

Then she learns Amarith wasn't destroyed.

I have a thing about main characters being told things. It's so passive.
Putting it as she learned makes it more dynamic.

In fact, hundreds of Amarithians and humans alike are held captive there, forced to harvest resources that Earth can no longer could provide. Now, Cin and her friends must find a way to liberate Amarith without blocking Earth from resources and triggering the extinction of thousands of species.


My science fiction novel, Human (115,000 words), is the first in a planned series. The work takes on the point of view of several characters, all of whom keep “war logs”, through which the story is told.

In a query like this it's important to say this novel can stand alone. It can, right?
Although most book deals have been for two or three books in the past, we're coming into a new norm, and single book deals may be one of the changes.

I’ve always been an advocate for the I'm active in the fight against climate change, and my fascination with the environment only aids my writing as ideals of preservation and human pollution can be traced throughout my work. Human is my first novel.

Thank you for your consideration.


Questions:


Is my bio too long? I've been struggling with it since I don't have any credentials or formal education as of the moment, but I do have some things I felt were important to mention.

Too long? It's barely there!
A good bio gives us (the reading agent) a sense of who you are.  You can mention pets, where you live, what you do when you need inspiration, your favorite kind of shark..anything that warms up the intro.

Telling us what you care about is fine, but it shouldn't be the only thing here.

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

Original query

Dear Query Shark,

Cinis was eating breakfast when the first bomb hit.

This seems like one of those sentences that should work, doesn't it?
But it doesn't really. Cause everyone is doing something when the bombs hit.
Breakfast is as good as any.

A good first sentence in a query needs to grab your reader's attention and makes them wonder "what will happen now?"

You've got a pretty good candidate for that kind of sentence. It's the last one in the paragraph

Everybody was caught off guard, sure, but they knew the attack would come sooner or later; the Humans had known about Amarith for decades now. But the day had finally arrived:
This one: The Humans had come, and they had not come in peace.

Cinis and twenty other Amarithians were forced to flee. With nowhere else to go, they ran to Earth,

this is a classic example of saying the same thing twice, albeit in different words.

fleeing and running are the same thing here.

You can revise this sentence:

With nowhere else to go, Cinis and twenty other Amarithians were forced to flee to Earth
 hoping to hide in plain sight.

Eight years have passed, and later, just before Cin loses has lost all hope of returning to her planet, a new friend reveals life-changing information.

 what is the info?

Now, Cin and her friends must make a decision, one that could decide the fate of two planets, and all who inhabit them.

What's the decision?

My science fiction novel, Human (115,000 words), is the first in a planned series. The work takes on the point of view of several characters, all of whom keep “war logs”, through which the story is told.

I’m a staff member of a popular (name) server which has over 500 members dedicated to reading and discussing each other’s work.

This is another one of those things that sound good, but my first question is do they BUY the books of the members? Discuss all you want, but you don't get paid (me either) until a book has a sales slip.


I’ve always been an advocate for the fight against climate change, and my fascination with the environment only aids my writing as ideals of preservation and human pollution can be traced throughout my work. I also would like to point out my unique position as both a member of the LGBT community, and a woman, making this novel a #ownvoices contributor, as several main characters share one or both of these traits.

You're not the only (ie unique) woman who's part of the LGBT community. Saying this makes me think you don't understand what unique means.

Words are your tools.
If you keep hitting your thumb with a hammer, I'm not hiring you to hang sheetrock.

Thank you for your consideration.


email
phone
Twitter


There isn't enough here to catch your reader's interest. It's all pretty bland, and that is death in a query. A horrible beige death of zero cuts.

There's no sense of drama or tension because you've said they get info, but not what it is, and have to make a decision, but not what that is.

Dig in. Be specific. Use vibrant language. And use it well.

**if you saw the post before Sunday 4/5/20 at noon, 

and perhaps commented, 

that was an early draft posted in error. 

Comments were deleted.