#337

WYSTERIA Wysteria Collins

don't cap the names of your characters in a query. That's for synopses and film scripts.

 is the twenty-four year old owner of a magic shop in downtown Olympia, Washington. She runs it with her familiar, a turtle named PANTS Pants. Things are her normal brand of chaos until her dear friend PRISCILLA Priscilla calls in a favor.

The Fae

who?

In a short form work like a query, it REALLY helps if you don't call characters two different things in short order. Were you worried about using Priscilla's name twice in short succession?

You can avoid that by paring and combining the sentences:

 

Things are her normal brand of chaos until her dear friend Priscilla calls in a favor

 

can’t break her promise to go on a date and  

persuades Wysteria to go on a date in her place. It’s supposed to be a one time event, except that Wysteria likes ARIEL Ariel and he didn’t seem put off by the way she had to chase her turtle across the restaurant floor.

 

The story is told in a series of vignettes, ranging from comforting a grief-stricken student with a request for necromancy, to an excitable baseball coach. There’s a visit to the beach that ends with bartering with mermaids, and the time Ariel shows up unannounced with a lost snake.

 

Well this sounds fun and all but there's NO PLOT.

Even a series of vignettes needs a plot, and worse: each vignette needs one, plus you need an overarching story arc.

 

WYSTERIA AND PANTS is a 60,000 word adult fantasy

I'm not convinced you have enough word count here.  The previous Query Shark post is about a book that's got too many words.

 

You've got the opposite problem.  Fantasy needs world building. World building takes words.

And not having a plot means you're going to need to add words too. You can double the word count here and still be ok.

 

 

 #ownvoices novel with series potential featuring a diverse cast of queer characters.

 #ownvoices is being replaced with #specific under represented voice you mean.

Here's the announcement about that:

We Need Diverse Books announced that it will no longer refer to books using the term #OwnVoices. Instead, they will use "specific descriptions that authors use for themselves and their characters whenever possible (for example "Korean American author" or "autistic protagonist").  They write in the release that the hashtag was originally created "for readers to recommend books by authors who openly shared the diverse identity of their main characters," but has since become a "catch all marketing term" and caused problems with its vagueness.

 

COMPS HERE

Most agents now want to see comps in a query. Effective comps are recent books (no earlier than 2018) and published by a trade house (ie not self published), and on the same shelf you envision for your book. Don't use YA titles as comps for books for the adult trade market (or vice versa.)

 

I moved from California to Washington to live with my shouty cat Icarus where I enjoy wandering around in the greenery and eating blackberries from my bush. I’ve been involved in a writing and critique group since 2015 and together we have published several collections of short stories.

 

Nice but NOT a publishing credit. Leave that for your website.

 

Thank you for your time and consideration,

(name)

 

Fae/faer or they/them

 

 

 

Questions:

 

    I want to be clear that the chapters are a little disconnected but still related without sounding like they’re short stories all to themselves.

 

"A little disconnected" strikes fear in even my sharkly heart. You don't want your novel to feel like a pinball game where the reader caroms about.  That's NOT an immersive reading experience.

 

A novel in stories is very much a thing, and are lots of fun to read. Is there any way to make that happen?

 

 

 

    Will it put agents off to include my pronouns?  How should I handle this?

Put off?

Hardly!!!

I'm tickled fuchsia to have writers indicate their pronouns.

It's helpful for gender fluid names (Dylan!) plus if you are non-binary, I'd like to respect that.

 

While I don't have a clue what fae/faer is, I do recognize they/them. How you have it listed is just right.

 

Any agent who is put off by pronouns in a query is NOT someone you want to work with.

#336

Dear Query Shark,

When Wren’s weird dreams begin to take on a reality all their own, she finds a strangely addictive second life in her dangerous dream-world, Irisen

This doesn't really hook your reader, does it? There's no tension. There's no sense of wondering what will happen next.

 

Compare that to the first line of Leviathan Wakes by James Corey

 

The Scopuli had been taken eight days ago, and Julie Mao was finally ready to be shot.

 

Now THAT grabs my attention.

 

Back on Earth, things are unraveling; her father’s recent cancer diagnosis is fracturing her family and Wren’s painstakingly organized post-college plans now feel futile.

 

Still no tension. What's the problem here that Wren must deal with?

Feeling futile is not a problem. It's a state of being. (for many of us in publishing, it's just called today)

 

While exploring Irisen, she teams up with Jasper—a headstrong botanist with reality-defying experiments—and his band of gung-ho rebels bent on undermining the oppressive autocracy that controls the region. 

 

I kinda love the idea of a headstrong botanist!

But you've brought in oppressive autocracy here like that's all we need to know.

 

Are they censoring free speech?

Are they making you read Ayn Rand?

What's the autocracy doing such that they need overthrowing?

In other words: what's the problem with the autocracy?

 

Notice a theme here?

You need to get the problem these characters face on the page, specifically. That's the essence of plot. Without it you don't have a compelling query.

 

On Earth, Wren is powerless and reminded of it every time she tallies the furniture stains in the oncologist’s waiting room. On Irisen, she’s useful; it’s a relief to fight a fight she can shape.

 

This is interesting.

 

 

Despite the wear and tear of a dichotomous existence,

 

I suggest you take this out only because if you try to explain it (it's too abstract to have much meaning as it stands) you'll just get lost in the weeds.

 

living two lives proves to be the revival Wren needs. Learning to build bombs from botanicals and helping the rebels subvert the autocracy, Wren all but disregards the woes of her Earth-life reality—until those woes clutch and drag her back. The day her father’s diagnosis goes from open-ended to terminal, her ability to dream-travel to Irisen mysteriously fails. With time running out on both her father’s life and Jasper’s rebellion, Wren must find the link between her realities (tricky, but doable) and face her circumstances at home (way fucking harder) before everything she loves is lost. 

 

DREAMWALKER, at 250,000 words,

 

oops.

instant pass.

 

If you don't want to take my word for it, how about these two recent tweets from agents I know and follow:

 

 

 

 

 

 

is a multi-perspective fantasy novel and the first in a planned series. The conversational tone, along with the layered worldbuilding will resonate with the twenty-something set currently reading Black Water Sister.

 

My academic background is in biology, and I have a soft spot for botany and bending the rules. And though I’d love to tinker in Jasper’s lab, filled to the brim with magical flora, I work in healthcare rehabilitating broken and neglected bodies… by day. 

 

Thank you for your time and consideration,

 

 

Question:

1. I like thick books: GOT, Pillars, Mistborn (don't fret, not my comps), and I like them because there are plots, subplots, and what-the-heck,-where-is-this-going?-OH-DANG! moments. But I'm a nobody. Do I cut plots/ characters now to make the WC more appealing, or do I risk it for the biscuit?

 

No. You make this 250,000 word door stop into three books.

 

 

2. Wren is the MC, but the story is told through multiple POV. This isn't represented in the ‘hook’ of my query, should it be? The other characters add twists, turns, eyes and ears in different locations (ie: Jasper's POV in Irisen). Thoughts?

 

Even if I hadn't fainted dead away at the mere idea of 250,000 words, your query does NOT support the word count.

 

You've got one storyline: Wren

 

You need a lot more.

 

Querying epic fantasy (epic anything) means you have to give us a sense of the big picture.

 

What you have here is the Winterfell aspect of Game of Thrones.

You're missing the dragons.

 

You need to figure out how to present this Incredible Hulk word count in more Bruce Banner type ways.

 

 

And you need to make the story more Hulk than Banner. 

 

Kind of an interesting problem.

 

I look forward to seeing how you solve it.

 

Revise and resend.

 

 

 

#335

“That roof is the wrong shape to talk to God.”

Chloe Reed hears this inside her head when she looks up in a coffeeshop, her house, her church, everywhere she goes. And the strange, static-laden voice is getting louder with each repetition.

It tells her she’s been chosen to build a correctly shaped roof.

Chloe bounces between thinking she’s going insane and hoping she’s been singled out to talk to God. She needs it to be the latter. She needs to know God loves her, that anyone loves her. She needs to know why her own father doesn’t even want to be in the same room as her.

She builds the roof and puts it on a shed in her backyard. She steps inside. The distorted voice that had been confined to her head crackles down at her from the roof. Chloe prostrates herself on the wooden floorboards.

The voice tells her it’s God. It tells her it has a plan and it needs her help. But it’s not the God she was expecting. This one doesn’t know who Jesus is.

Chloe must find out if the voice belongs to God. If it does, Chloe finally has concrete proof that she’s worthy of love. She finally has a way to get all the answers.

But the voice wants more than her faith. It wants all of humanity to believe. It wants total control. And it needs Chloe to get it.

CHLOE’S ROOF (80,200 words) is a work of speculative fiction. This would be my debut.

Put your comps here. Yes, you need them.

Put your bio here. Yes, you need one.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

This is clear, concise, well-written.
It works for me, I'd read the pages.

But, this is not going to appeal to every agent.
Which means even a clear, concise, well-written query is going to get some passes. 

Any questions?

 

#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.

#333

Questions:

1.) I know you said that mentioning my self-publishing published novels (despite the tens of books I sold) is a no-go, but honestly, those are the closest things to writing credits I have. Is having no writing credits better than pointing out my two independent novels?

Self publishing isn't a writing credit.
Writing credits are when your work is selected by someone else for publication.

Not having writing credits isn't a problem in fiction.
Having two books in three years with a total of 21 Amazon reviews however IS.

You can take them down from Amazon and not mention them in your query, OR wait to query until you get some additonal reviews up there.  More as in 50 or so.

2.) I'm cautious on if mentioning that I'm a recent college grad in my bio will help or hurt me.
Your email with a .edu suffix pretty much lets the cat out of the bag.
It's not a problem that you're a recent grad. (Also, congrats!)



Dear Query Shark:

Three years ago, the notorious rock star Jon Cameron loved slinging heroin in his veins

Slinging heroin means selling it.
At least it did the last time I looked which was when I was mainlining The Wire.
So, what you've said here is he's selling heroin in his veins.
You've pulled me out of the narrative and made me wonder if you used the wrong word, or this is some kind of weird new way to sell heroin.

In either case, pulling your reader out of the  narrative is something to be avoided at all costs.

more than he loved screaming the F-bomb on stage. That stopped the night Jon handed his brother and best friend, Carter, a needle and watched him die of an overdose. Today, Jon's sober, has quit touring with his renowned rock band, and has started a foundation in honor of Carter. No matter what he does, though, his brother's death clings to Jon like a cancer.


You can solve this entire problem by ditching the first paragraph and starting here:



Former notorious rock star Jon Cameron lJon gets an invitation from Nebulova, the electronics company that controls its billions of customers like a skilled puppeteer. The technology juggernaut is, apparently, about to revolutionize the video game industry by releasing its first virtual-reality gaming system. To flex its "reality-defying" VR system's muscles, Nebulova invites eleven celebrities to compete in a nationally broadcasted video game tournament -- the Eros Levels.


Yeah, woohoo, sounds cool and all, but what does Jon get if he wins? $10 million for the foundation he set up for his brother who died of an overdose. An overdose Jon gave him. And when Jon learns that his ex-girlfriend, the captivating R&B icon Nia Vermilion, is also invited, he can't say "yes" fast enough.

Captivating.
Well, at least it's not bombshell or gorgeous, or drop dead beauty, but it's damn close.
Describing female characters by their appearance is an increasing red flag. Avoid doing this.

Once Jon, Nia, and the other nine celebrities are inside the Eros Levels, Nebulova unveils its true intentions. For years, Nebulova has been using its powerful technology to secretly record everything its customers say – and think. Nebulova knows that each of the eleven celebrities has a sinister, violent, and well-hidden secret that has ruined – and ended – lives. Now, the Eros Levels will be their punishment: lose in the Eros Levels, and die in real-life. The winner gets the prize of being the only one spared.

You've revealed here what Jon's secret is. He killed his brother.
You might consider NOT revealing that here in the query.
If we don't know what Jon's secret is, you create tension. We wonder what it is, and read on to find out more.

One of the biggest problems I see is writers giving away too much, both in the query, and in the first pages of the book.  NOT knowing things builds tension, which builds interest.


Jon can either fight to win the Eros Levels – which would mean watching Nia, the only girl he's ever loved, die – or let his brother's death finally kill him.



THE EROS LEVELS (109,000 words) is a science-fiction novel complete with 109,000 words. THE EROS LEVELS  that will appeal to fans of Blake Crouch's visual writing style and Ernie Cline's creative world-building. I'm a recent college graduate that, Unlike my rock star protagonist, I do does not play guitar and scream F-bombs for a living (I only do the latter part-time). However, we both share the same inane love for Arnold Palmer drinks.


Thank you for your time and consideration.


website:
This redirects to Facebook. It's not really a website as such.
You (and all authors) should have an actual website with your contact info, your bio, and pictures of your dog and your published works if you have them and want to mention them. Also, links to your social meda like Twitter, Instagram and/or Facebook. When I say link, I mean the icons that you click on, not a URL.


  Follow @queryshark

#332

Question:

I wrote LOST IN LA as a retelling of Pretty Woman with “modern” social issues, but I don’t know whether to focus on the characters, the fake relationship trope or the social issues that bring the characters together. I’ve chosen to highlight the social issues to convey a fresh approach, but I’m worried the query is too serious and the characters don’t come across as feisty and likable.

You've hamstrung yourself with the Pretty Woman framework.

Pretty Woman was made in 1990.

A lot has changed since then.

Readers tastes in particular.

And always and evermore the thing to focus on in a query is the story.

Dear Query Shark,

Wylie’s Los Angeles roommate kicks her out of her apartment.

Is this a killer first sentence that draws me in and makes me want to read more?

Desperate to finish her yoga accreditation and land a stable job,

or this?

Wylie decides to live in her car and save money for a new apartment.

Here's where you finally engage my interest. That means this is the place to start.

Wylie decides to live in her car to save money for a new apartment after her roommate kicks her out.

Food truck vendor Nolan laughs at her social media influence and she focuses on leading beachfront yoga classes and working at a pretentious bar.

So, Wylie's living in her car. Then you whiplash your reader to Nolan the food truck guy. 

An important thing to remember in all writing, not just queries, is sentences should flow.
That is, a connection from the first to the second, and on down the line.

Whiplash your reader on purpose only.

For this to flow, there needs to be a onnection between Wylie and Nolan.

As in  

Wylie parks her "home" near a food truck owned by Nolan, the Taco King of Pismo Beach...

except laughs at her social media influence is a strange thing to say about someone, particularly if it's the FIRST thing you say about him.

Does he laugh cause he's jealous? Cause he thinks real life only happens off the grid?

Give us some context here.

 After the city tows her car, Nolan learns she’s homeless and offers her a job at the food truck and a room in a co-living commune if she'll give up the pretentious bar.

Why does he care about whether she works at a pretentious bar?

And a guy who starts demanding things as a condition of anything ...well, I hope she gives him the downward facing dog.

As Wylie works and lives with Nolan, she poses as his girlfriend for business reasons and learns the food truck the first step toward a series of fast casual restaurants for impoverished neighborhoods. She falls for him and the allure of a partnership until a roommate reveals Nolan comes from a wealthy family and owns the commune house.

At this point, there's no plot.

Plot is about choices.

So far we have what Wylie decided, not what her choices were.

And there's nothing at stake for her here on the page.

If she doesn't take the job at the food truck, and pose as his girlfriend what will happen?

How will she have to change to get what she wants?

Right now all she needs to do is earn money and keep studying for her accreditation. That's just working toward a goal, not a plot.

It's the difference between working the speed bag and a boxing bout.
Both involve punching but one has something at stake  and the other does not.

Betrayed by Nolan’s omission, Wylie tells him if he wants to make a difference, he needs to spend time in the trenches instead of selling food outside a business park. She proves her point, but an asthma attack sends her to the hospital and illustrates the stark differences between their lives. Nolan offers to take care of her and pushes her to weigh the allure of his life against the value of her independence.

This is too far in to the book to be in the query.
A query should cover just the start of the book.
The purpose of a query is to make your reader, in this case me, want to read more.

LOST IN LA is an 80,000-word contemporary romance like

The Cinderella Deal (Jennifer Crusie)

pubbed in 2011 which makes it too old for an effective comp.
Comps need to be recent, within two or three years.

Here's the rundown from Amazon on Cinderella Deal

Daisy Flattery is a free spirit with a soft spot for strays and a weakness for a good story. Why else would she agree to the outrageous charade offered by her buttoned-down workaholic neighbor, Linc Blaise? The history professor needs a makeshift fiancée to secure his dream job, and Daisy needs a short-term gig to support her painting career. And so the Cinderella Deal is born: Daisy will transform herself into Linc’s prim-and-proper fiancée, and at the stroke of midnight they will part ways, no glass slippers attached. But something funny happens on their way to make-believe bliss, as a fake engagement unexpectedly spirals into an actual wedding. Now, with Linc and Daisy married and under one roof, what started as a game begins to feel real—and the people who seem so wrong for each other realize they may truly be just right.

Notice the power balance?

He needs her more than she needs him.

He's got a LOT more to lose than she does.

That's what I mean by saying things have changed since Julia found love at the opera.

and Roomies (Christina Lauren).

Marriages of convenience are so...inconvenient.

For months Holland Bakker has invented excuses to descend into the subway station near her apartment, drawn to the captivating music performed by her street musician crush. Lacking the nerve to actually talk to the gorgeous stranger, fate steps in one night in the form of a drunken attacker. Calvin Mcloughlin rescues her, but quickly disappears when the police start asking questions.

Using the only resource she has to pay the brilliant musician back, Holland gets Calvin an audition with her uncle, Broadway’s hottest musical director. When the tryout goes better than even Holland could have imagined, Calvin is set for a great entry into Broadway—until his reason for disappearing earlier becomes clear: he’s in the country illegally, his student visa having expired years ago.

Seeing that her uncle needs Calvin as much as Calvin needs him, a wild idea takes hold of her. Impulsively, she marries the Irishman, her infatuation a secret only to him. As their relationship evolves and Calvin becomes the darling of Broadway—in the middle of the theatrics and the acting-not-acting—will Holland and Calvin to realize that they both stopped pretending a long time ago?

Notice the power balance here too?

He has the problem, not her.

I have self-published several novels

Put this in your query letter and I will look up those books on Amazon.

and have lived in California.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Twitter:

Facebook Page:

Blog:

Goodreads:

Bottom line: the query needs a plot and stakes on the page.

Revise, resend.

#331

I have so many questions, but I’ll whittle them down to two. First, do you think I’m correct in describing this as literary fiction? Second, some agents I’m interested in querying require bios... but would admitting that I’m in high school lead them to dismiss my query or my writing? If so, could I just conveniently leave that bit out?

Thank you!

Dear QueryShark,

First of all, this query is 498 words, so it's double the target word count. The first thing we need to do here is start trimming.

Anamaria huddles in her family’s barracks with her best friend Julio. Together, they listen to the sick pattern of gunshots and radicals’ bodies falling into the dust. The detainment center guards— the executioners— scare everyone, but she knows she’ll be safe if she does everything just right.

Then her childhood ends.

When you need to cut, look for set up and backstory.That's often the info you can leave out without any loss of clarity.

Anamaria is sent to Moonhaven Academy, where her name and identity are stripped away and replaced. There, she must bleach her skin and hide her accent until she can pass as the perfect white woman. And Anamaria, now Anna Clara, knows she is lucky. Had the Academy not accepted her, she would have become one of the women in red who supposedly cook and clean for white men.

But everyone knows what they really do, behind closed doors.

Or, rather, what’s done to them.

She could still become one of them if she fails.

At this point, I'm salivating.
I am thinking of editors, I'm plotting submission strategies.

Anna escapes as her dream-self, Indigo, into a fantasy world where the rainforest teems with dragons. Not too long ago, her dream-planet was colonized by the humans who made Earth uninhabitable. They genetically warped the planet’s indigenous life into creatures designed to serve. Now, one revolution later, Indigo and her only friend Oak are stuck on opposite sides of an imminent war between two of the human-created tribes.

What?
What just happened here?
We were all set for The Handmaid's Tale Redux and along come...dragons??
I've stopped salivating cause what you had was strong commercial fiction, and now I'm looking at fantasy.

Indigo must choose whether to betray Oak and live in safety with the tribe that took her in, or to leave the tribe and risk her life, alone, in the rainforest.

Yea, but it's all a dream, right?

Meanwhile, Anna is forced to either abandon her heritage for the illusion of whiteness, or let herself be given away to any man with a few dollars to spare. Her heart aches against both.

I'm pretty sure she's got a stronger reaction than heart ache here.

Three years later, Anna finds out she has been married to Julio, now Julian Taylor. He has changed beyond recognition.

Ok, and?

Ten years later, Anna must make her first autonomous choice.

are we done with the dragons?

Anna’s former classmate, tiny genius Amalia, is the leader of an underground organization intended to smuggle women to safety until the law no longer threatens them. Now Amalia has only days to find her successor before she is executed for crimes including treason, blackmail, and loving another woman. She begs Anna to take on her duties when she’s gone. After all, her wife can’t stand the thought of replacing her, and Anna is the last person the police would ever suspect. She’s pale, unassuming, well-mannered (at least in public): the perfect facade.

What does Amalia do that  makes her a genius?
Why is "tiny" something we need to know about her.

And honestly, I'm so confused here the only reason I'm still reading is that you had a GREAT opening, and I can see possibility.

If Anna accepts, she will surely die.

If she refuses, she will be a traitor to every woman on Earth.

What you're missing here is why she doesn't want to be a traitor to every woman on earth. You're assuming she doesn't. Watching a person struggle with choices, especially ones you might think are no-brainers creates tension, and tension boosts interest.

JADE AND INDIGO is just over 90,000 words of literary fiction, narrated primarily from the perspectives of Anna and Indigo. I am a high school student with a deep love for surrealist art, the poems of Sappho, and musicals. I scavenge for time to write when I’m not juggling AP classes and horse shows— no flaming swords yet, but maybe someday. JADE AND INDIGO is my first novel.

Well, if this is literary fiction, how are we going to explain the dragons?

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,

I'm not sure how large a part the dragon thing plays in the book, but you're better leaving it OUT of the query. It's utterly confusing.

You can have it in the book (without seeing the book I'm going to assume your reader will understand what's going on) and NOT have it in the query.

Or you can allude to it in the query with Anna escapes into a fantasy world (without going into specifics.)

You've got the start of something I'd read but I'm not sure I've ever seen this big a splat in such a short period of time.

Fortunately, it's all fixable.

I suggest you leave out your age. It's nobody's business how old you aren't.

#330

Question: I do not have much as far as credentials are concerned other than personal experience driving my story but I do have a large and strong social media presence. How should I go about this? Have I represented that aspect well?

Dear QueryShark,

The universe was music before it was anything tangible.

I love this idea. Whether anyone else will is subjective, but I like it a lot. It's fresh and new (to me at least.) It's not a killer first line, but it does the job: it engages my interest.

Time was measured without signature, and worlds formed from the power of boundless melody, creation in song. Within this crucible of worlds lies Tellure Grand, a land wide, young, and full with possibility. Here, power is being found in the notes of destruction.

oh splat.  That first sentence was easy to read and easy to understand.
Now we get time was measured without signature: well, my guess is you mean this:

but unless you have some education in music (versus just listening and enjoying) you may not get the reference.

And I don't know what a boundless melody is. Is it like an Unchained Melody?

The last thing you want is the agent trying to parse out what you mean, and get diverted to YouTube and dive down the Dirty Dancing rabbit hole.

Warsingers.

The world folds where Warsingers make music. Each striking sword and flying arrow is accompanied by the strum of a harp or the lilting of an aria. Minds mold, politics change, and ideologies bend in the wake of such music. Life tuning to the history they create.The land shaping by those who wield the ebb and flow of these powerful sonatas.

this is so abstract I have NO idea what you're talking about.
That means I've started to lose interest.

Now the era turns anew for Tellure Grand and her fledgling civilizations. Strains of glory hum against the strings, where baritones of tribulations rise. A young lordling, a foreign man, a blind girl, and a wild huntress find themselves caught in the orchestrations of a world steered toward discord. For in the distance a bell tolls, a powerful noise that resonates with annihilation, striking with insidious fury. And the gods?

And now I'm skimming.

Gods do not sing; they are the song.

THE WARSINGER OPUS:(Series) A BREAKING OF BELLS is an adult High Fantasy manuscript complete at 325,000 words. It is an epic for those that love The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson, The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss, and The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.

You don't need me to tell you that 325,000 words is a total deal breaker.

I grew up telling stories, comfortable with the attention of a room.

This is not the selling point you think it is.

That joy only grew as my love for Dungeons & Dragons burgeoned, kindling a deeper appreciation for worldbuilding and immersion. I market myself well and have a loyal following of 152,000 followers on the social media platform Tik Tok where the videos I have made about my book and worldbuilding have garnered hundreds of thousands of views, tens of thousands of likes, and thousands of positive comments. A consistent flow of those followers are transferring to my twitter as well, with 1,250 following on that platform to date. I also boast 950 active Discord participants that enjoy in public readings of chapters bi-weekly.

Well, that's a platform indeed.
And you put the info on how to find you at the end, which is just where it should be.
Because this query is an utter mess (right now) if I'd gotten to this part, I'd go check it out because clearly you're doing something right.

BUT note that I lost interest, and was skimming after the second paragraph.
Don't risk losing an agent's eyeballs.
Get the story on the page.

Thanks you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

E-Mail: (just put your email address. We know gmail means email)

Phone: (and we know what that pattern of numbers means)

Tik Tok: (what you had) here is where you DO need the identifier because this isn't as well known to your audience yet.

Twitter: we know what @ means.


This query doesn't work because I don't know what the book is about.  

Here's the PW review of one of your comps, the first Brandon Sanderson book:

This massive tome is the first of a 10-part epic fantasy series from relative newcomer Sanderson (Mistborn), best known for his efforts to complete the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. 

In a storm-swept world where history has dwindled into myth, self-serving aristocrats squabble over mystical weapons that render their bearers immune to mundane attacks. 

The ambitious scholar Shallan learns unexpected truths about the present, the virtuous aristocrat Dalinar reclaims the lost past, and the bitter and broken slave Kaladin gains unwanted power. 

Race-related plot themes may raise some eyebrows, and there's no hope for anything resembling a conclusion in this introductory volume, but Sanderson's fondness for misleading the reader and his talent for feeding out revelations and action scenes at just the right pace will keep epic fantasy fans intrigued and hoping for redemptive future installments. 

There's not much sense of the plot here, but at least we have an idea of what's going on.


Here's the PW review of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (2007)

The originality of Rothfuss's outstanding debut fantasy, the first of a trilogy, lies less in its unnamed imaginary world than in its precise execution.

Kvothe ("pronounced nearly the same as 'Quothe' "), the hero and villain of a thousand tales who's presumed dead, lives as the simple proprietor of the Waystone Inn under an assumed name.

Prompted by a biographer called Chronicler who realizes his true identity, Kvothe starts to tell his life story. From his upbringing as an actor in his family's traveling troupe of magicians, jugglers and jesters, the Edema Ruh, to feral child on the streets of the vast port city of Tarbean, then his education at "the University," Kvothe is driven by twin imperatives—his desire to learn the higher magic of naming and his need to discover as much as possible about the Chandrian, the demons of legend who murdered his family.

As absorbing on a second reading as it is on the first, this is the type of assured, rich first novel most writers can only dream of producing. The fantasy world has a new star.

 And again, not much plot but a sense of what the story is.

Both of these books are too old and too successful to be good comps NOW.  Generally you need comps that are new (within the last three years) and from authors who haven't sold a gazillion copies.  That's a tough challenge, I know, and it drives me crazy too.

Bottom line: even in epic fantasy you have to tell me  the story.

Saving grace: That kind of platform can rescue a query that's an utter mess, but it's a risk  you don't need to take. A query that tells me the  story combined with this platform would be very very strong.

Take another crack at this and tell me the story.

#329

I broke the rules...unapologetically so.

I rhymed, alliterated, lyricized, used big words, topped it off with an adult narrative. And yes, my word count runneth over. Admittedly, I did it all wrong. Moreover--and perhaps to my own detriment--I firmly maintain that these supposed literary crimes were committed for all the right reasons. The story is better because of these so-called 'flaws', not in spite of them. Now comes the dilemma:

Can even 'the best query letter ever' not only overcome, but actually upsell the very characteristics that have been deemed genre pitfalls?

Dear QueryShark:

Life as I knew it forever changed the day I 'borrowed' that gnome.

So, you're a character in the book?
Using I in a query for anything other than the biography section is confusing.

What started as a harmless prank, soon backfired into a frenzied search for the missing muffin pan. Three pie servers, a rolling pizza cutter, and countless other 'displacements' later...my tightrope toddle along the brink of madness spiraled into the tongue-twisted tale you are about to read.

At this point, I have no idea what kind of book this is.

Some call it 'crazy'. Others call it 'cuckoo'. I prefer to call it: 'clarity'.

I call it confusing.

The lost socks, the misplaced keys, when the 'displaced' are 're-placed' in those spots you searched thrice...

I'm losing my mind here, does that count?

Based on a true story, THE GREAT GNOME COLLECTIVE is a transitional picture storybook of 1250 words. Entertaining meets educational in this lyrical work of modern folklore: a fun read woven through an intricate maze of elevated vocabulary, emphatic punctuation, and eloquent wordplay, all set to complex rhythmic rhyme with a splash of Seussian flair.

Never compare yourself or your work to Dr. Seuss. Let other people do that.

I am best known as (nom du plume): mama to one, auntie to seven, and 'grammar nutsy' to the core. This is my authorial debut, though it is my hope and intent to grow THE..COLLECTIVE into a series of gnome adventures.

Authorial debut sets my teeth on edge.
I'm not sure if that's just me.

This is your first book. Just say so.

Fancy pants writing is best left for dialogue to illustrate hoity toity characters.

Miss Bickerstaff perhaps who refers to her serviettes, and would sooner go without food than sit at a table without flowers. She is someone who might use authorial debut.

One minor concession, if I may: THE GREAT GNOME COLLECTIVE must be--and is found most enjoyable when--read aloud...preferably, *with gusto*. Please do not dismiss this request. The gnomes will know.

I know you're trying to be whimsical and light hearted here.
But please do not dismiss this request isn't something agents find funny. Ever.

Thank you for your time & consideration.


Form rejection.
Why?
Because picture book queries include the entire text of the story.

You can break all the rules that you want, but if you do not give me what I need to evaluate your work, I'm not going to write back and tell you what you did wrong.  I'm going to pass with a form rejection.


Your question:

Can even 'the best query letter ever' not only overcome, but actually upsell the very characteristics that have been deemed genre pitfalls?

You're breaking the wrong rules.

#328

Hello:

I have written a manuscript “Baked Lunch” and I'm soliciting agents and publishers.

Brief Synopsis: I have written an update (2018) of the William Burroughs novel Naked Lunch. The manuscript has sex, drugs, and violence, which are clichés, when Burroughs wrote his novel these subjects were more controversial. We live in a more jaded age. The clichés mean that someone could read this manuscript while waiting for a plane in an airport and be reasonably entertained. People have shorter attention spans, we’re more distracted. I simply tried to write something I believe is marketable. Same titles from the same chapters as Burroughs novel, but the content is not the same.


(list of chapters redacted for space)

William Burroughs original novel was considered unpublishable because essentially it had no plot. The Chapter 22 Hauser and O'Brien did have a narrative arc, but the rest of the book was essentially a stream of consciousness. A better insight into a synopsis of the novel would be David Cronenberg who essentially re-wrote the entire plot in his screenplay when he did a film adaptation of the novel. But the movie did not follow the book at all and neither did I. I wrote the novel because I don’t particularly like Naked Lunch and thought I could do a better job of writing a novel about beat culture than Burroughs did. It’s subjective I admit, but I really gave it my best effort.


Bio: I am a retired English teacher who has been working in China for the last 15 years.

Thanks for your interest. I have had a professional edit the manuscript and I am confident there aren't any major errors in the manuscript. Approximate word count: 100,000. There are graphics in the manuscript.

You don't get to "update" other people's work and call it your own.The warranties and indemnities section of a publishing contract requires you warrant that the Work (the book) "is original."

You may think it is; you might even make the case that it is, but that doesn't matter. Any publishing house with something to lose in litigation (ie they have money; they're not running a printing press in their basement) is going to eschew publishing anything remotely like this.

And if you think publishing it yourself will solve that problem, the agent representing the Estate of William Burroughs will probably disabuse you of that pretty quickly.

And honestly, saying you can do a better job of writing a novel about beat culture that is now considered a classic, no matter what people thought of it when published, is an assessment better left to reviewers.

#327

Dear Query Shark,

MOB TREASURE is the story of Joseph, a recent New Jersey college grad, who discovers his recently deceased grandfather was a Mafia boss—and has millions of dollars hidden somewhere in Miami Beach.

So, is Joseph dimwitted? Cause I knew what my Gramps did for a living starting around age 6. Or, perhaps he was estranged from that side of the family? Or maybe everyone in the family never said what Grandpa did; he was just the old guy down in Dade County who smoked cigars and played canasta pool side.

The point here is that we need to understand why something that would seem to be obvious, comes as a big surprise.


Joseph never knew about his grandfather’s former life in the mob, but now, armed with clues scribbled in the margins of a copy of Treasure Island – the book his grandfather read to him most often as a kid – it’s up to him to recover the hidden millions. But he’s not the only one looking.

So Gramps leaves clues in a book. Why? 
Is it to keep the dough out of the hands of his other relatives?

Along with his best friend—and a crafty Art Deco tour guide—they embark on an adventure tour of the beautiful Art Deco hotels and mansions of Miami Beach’s Historic District. Hot on his heels are the mob, who claim the hidden money is theirs.


What does the sidekick bring to the plot? Why are they touring hotels and mansions?
I assume it's because the clues lead them to these places, but honestly, this is not a middle grade mystery.  Following a trail of treasure needs a level of sophistication here to make it interesting.


Entering a world of danger, mobsters, hidden casinos, secret rooms, underworld drama, and even a pirate or two, danger follows around every corner. Joseph and his posse grow more and more determined to beat the mob at their own game, finally uncovering a treasure that means more to him than money ever could.

This is a laundry list, not a plot.
The treasure isn't money? You told us the mob, claiming the money is theirs, was hot on their heels.


MOB TREASURE (78,000 words) is commercial fiction imbued with the mysteries of historic Miami—the mob boss version of The Da Vinci Code and reminiscent of the National Treasure series. It’s partially inspired by the life of Meyer Lansky, the “Mob’s Accountant,” who is rumored to have hidden over $300 million before he died.


I’ve lived in Miami Beach for over 20 years and have written for local publications on the arts, history and nightlife of the region. For the past five years, I’ve also been working as a tour guide in the Art Deco District of Miami Beach and have fallen in love with the beautifully restored buildings and the rich mob history, which inspired the story for this book.

Thank you for your time and consideration,


There's nothing surprising here.
There's no twist on a trope, or a stock character given a fresh perspective.


When I look for books to take on, it's essential there be some sort of suspense. Suspense comes from choices the main character makes, and what's at stake.

All that is missing here. 

If Joseph doesn't find the treasure, there's nothing to indicate the world will fall apart either literally or metaphorically.