#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.

#318

Questions:
The first person viewpoint character of my novel is blind but the story is not about her blindness. It’s just something she happens to be. I know it’s a selling point, but it’s not a plot point.

Originally, I had it as a logline (A blind girl and her best friend…) Now, I’m having trouble fitting it back in earlier in the query. Is it too far down?

At the end I talk mention the blurb (author) promised-- is that worth including? It’s not a lie, but I’m worried it’s not relevant or I’m jumping the gun.

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Dear Query Shark,

When something from  space (missing word) and lands in the parking lot outside the pizza shop, Meg knows she’s in trouble.


You're missing a verb here. As I read your query that kind of typo stands out like a pink flamingo on Astroturf.  It leads me to form some opinions about your work and they're not good.

 I cannot over stress the ironclad necessity of making sure these kind of glitches get revised out. We ALL leave out verbs, make typos, have too many thats, and discover errant the thes in our writing. The trick is to REVISE those errors out.

Other than that, this is pretty funny.

But when a boy who smells like spearmint invites her to see his band and her boy-crazy, best friend, June, overhears? Meg knows she’s screwed.

And this is splat. The second paragraph should build on the first. You have an alien space craft (or something!) landing in the parking lot. Your BFF hearing a boy invite you to a concert is pretty anti climatic.

The solution? Leave it out. Move directly to the next paragraph.

There’s rumblings in town that something like this (the object from space, not the boy) without the second paragraph you don't need the parenthetical has happened before. Also, their new friend, Sev, a zoologist from the team sent to investigate, seems to know much more than he’s letting on.

Together, the three of them must unravel the mystery behind the object that fell—and they’re not the only ones searching.

Why do they have to unravel the mystery? What's at stake if they don't? Unicorns will go extinct?

And, it all has to happen before Meg’s “date” (June’s words) at Battle of the Bands this weekend.

Why? What's so important about this concert?

 THE DODO AND THE SPACESHIP OUTSIDE is a lighthearted YA, slice-of-life novel interrupted by the arrival of a sci-fi adventure in the parking lot outside.

One of the things agents say at writers conferences panels about queries goes like this: "I was reading this terrific manuscript, pretty sure it was a rom-com, then all of a sudden, aliens arrive in Chapter 14. That's why I ask writers to submit a synopsis."

And here you are with aliens interrupting a rom com, but you've kindly put it in chapter one.

You're trying to be witty here. Oh hell you ARE witty. But the purpose of a query isn't to show your wit, it's to entice me to read your novel. You're undercutting that here by using the word "interrupted." 


It’s all experienced though the ears, hands, and nose of Meg, who is blind.

It is completed at 60,000 words. Comparables are “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” meets “Steelheart.”

I’m currently a creative copywriter at (Big Ass and Famous), a large advertising agency. This novel was workshopped over a semester under (Good writer) and he has promised a blurb once it’s published. As an LGBTQ+ minority, I’m also passionate about including those narratives in my work.

Thank you for your time and consideration,


Your questions:
The first person viewpoint character of my novel is blind but the story is not about her blindness. It’s just something she happens to be. I know it’s a selling point, but it’s not a plot point.

Originally, I had it as a logline (A blind girl and her best friend…) Now, I’m having trouble fitting it back in earlier in the query. Is it too far down?

No. You handle it very deftly. Since the book is NOT about her blindness, you don't lead with that.

At the end I talk mention the blurb Brandon Sanderson promised-- is that worth including? It’s not a lie, but I’m worried it’s not relevant or I’m jumping the gun.

It's worth a mention because he's OFFERED the blurb. Where you'd run into trouble is if he'd already blurbed it. You can't ask an author twice and often books are revised and reshaped in the acquisition and editorial process such that the book read before sending out to agents is much different than the book now on its way to bookstores.  There's a longer blog post about that here.


There's essentially no plot on the page here, and even in a rom-com, you must have a plot, or what's at stake for the characters.  You've got the wit; now we need some substance.

Queries can have frothy whipped cream but it's got to be on top of the hot chocolate, not in place of it.

Revise, resend.