Thursday, June 13, 2013

Summer Query Extravaganza #1

To celebrate the near arrival of summer and my son arriving safely in Japan (I have cleaned his room and can finally see the floor again. Imagine that!), I'm having a query dissecting extravaganza! Every day from now until my next hosting gig for Query Kombat, or until my son returns and I can no longer see the floor of his room, I will tear apart a willing victim participant. (Excepting Sundays because even I, glorious though I be, need a rest.)

To become my next participant you need only comment on the queries that come before you and contact me on twitter to volunteer for sacrifice this valuable opportunity.

Please keep in mind that I'm no query guru, but I have read a considerable amount of query slush thanks to Query Kombat. (And that is a lot of repeating of the word query.) I might have an edge on what works and what doesn't.  But as in all such critiquing, the suggestions are mainly subjective. Or in other words, take it with a grain of salt and see if others agree with me. SO here goes, Query #1.

Dear Ms/Mr Agent Person, This is a good sign. They've left room for every gender. *wink*

England, 1347. The Black Death, medieval surgery, a physician monk and the mortecarni. Hmm. I do read quite a bit of history, but this last term escapes me. Morte means death, but the rest? That could be a bad sign. The other parts are interesting.  Good vs I'd spell this out.  evil isn't always black and white. Cliche. I'm more interested in specifics. It needs a better hook.

Brother Maurice is born in Wales and his interest and talent in healing lead him to the life of a monk and physician. Which I assume means he is higher up on the social ladder as equality is a thing of the future, and we won't be getting kissing scenes. After encountering the mortecarni Again, I'm thrown. What does this mean? I hope someone can enlighten me. As an agent I probably wouldn't check a dictionary.   he is summoned by the pope and asked to join a group of dedicated individuals whose members are sworn to fight these creatures. Why him? What makes him important enough for the pope.What did the mortecarni do to him? His ordeals include the discovery that a 'saint' is really an undead farmer, the bloody amputation of a young girl's leg, treatment of plague victims and a stay at a convent filled with mortecarni nuns. This is a great list, but it doesn't give me the stakes. What will happen if our monk loses to the mortecarni? Does the world implode or does our monk's head pop off?

The Mortecarni is complete at 94,000 words and is carefully researched for historical accuracy: character and place names, village portrayals and depictions of medieval life are all faithful to the time period, as are descriptions of illness and medical practices. But it is first and foremost a horror story. Nice. Word count seems reasonable. Some people may object to it taking so long to state a genre, but I doubt agents would care.

A bit about myself: I'd cut this intro. Wordy query means wordy story. And we already did wordy on the genre. my short stories have been published in Glossolalia, Polygraff, Temporary Infinity, Bareback Lit, Death Throes and Black Heart Magazines, as well as the horror anthology "So Long and Thanks for All the Brains." I have undergraduate degrees in both European History and Religious Studies, and a Masters in Creative Writing.  Impressive bio. It means they're not a fly-by-night writer.

As per your submission requirements, I include the first XXX pages of The Mortecarni below. I hope you enjoy the story and look forward to hearing from you. Which may or may not work depending on whether the agents wants pages and whether they send replies. I assume this section 'may vary.'



Regards, Not the usual thanks for your consideration, but it works.


Two things strike me with this query: First, it misses giving the stakes and why Brother Maurice is crucial to saving the civilized world. Second, it doesn't give me a sense of our main character. Does he prefer peas or green beans? Okay, maybe not that, but what is driving him. He wants to be a healer, wonderful. What else drives him? I believe you need to be driven by something to face these creatures. This query has many thing I personally find interesting, but it's lacking the personality of the mc.


Now it's your turn. Don't be shy. What do you think?

10 comments:

  1. I do agree. The hook needs work: it is very generic and cliched.

    But the biggest thing, for me, is the stakes. Who is this Maurice? Yes, technically, we know who he is. But what is his personality? There is very, very little told in this query, about the character and the story itself. I come away from this story knowing very little about either of the two.

    What does Maurice want to accomplish? What comes in his way? What will happen if he doesn't succeed? WHO is Maurice? All these need to be answered (and answered well and awesomely).

    Good luck!

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  2. Okay, hopefully the comment thing will work now. I agree with both you and SC with the stakes. I don't get a definite sense of ____ this will happen if Maurice doesn't do ____. Really, I don't understand who the bad guys are. I'm taking it the morticarni are creatures, from the query's second paragraph. but I think we need an explanation on /what/ they are. Not just their name. I think less is more in a query--but in this case I think it'd benefit from showing more.

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  3. I generally agree with much of the above comments. This sounds like a captivating read but hook the agent with the "humanity" of MC, specific threat (who are these mortecarni and what do they do?), and goals of MC. What's to lose/gain?

    I "felt" while reading this--> "His ordeals include the discovery that a 'saint' is really an undead farmer, the bloody amputation of a young girl's leg, treatment of plague victims and a stay at a convent filled with mortecarni nuns." Make me feel something throughout the whole query. Good luck!

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  5. I'm really not good at this, first, I would delete "As per your submission requirements, I include the first XXX pages of" and maybe use Morticiam is a xxx-word work of literary fiction. It draws the reader into ------------. blah blah blah.


    please submit my query

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  6. I agree with all the comments about not understanding the stakes. I also think mortecarni needs to be explained the first time it's used.

    This sounds like a fantastic read. Good luck!

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  7. Okay, I feel uncomfortable giving critiques because it makes me feel arrogant. However, I love getting critiques and I don’t feel like the other person is being arrogant, so trying to get past that. I am only offering my first impressions and I hope they are helpful without offending. I had my comments in red and italicized but they don't show up that way.

    Dear Ms/Mr Agent Person,

    England, 1347. The Black Death, medieval surgery, a physician monk and the mortecarni. Good vs evil isn't always black and white. I don’t like the style of just throwing all these words together not in sentences and they don’t seem to stand alone to me. They need to be tied together and explained a little.

    Brother Maurice is born in Wales Why is it important that he was born in Wales? and his interest and talent in healing lead him to the life of a monk and physician. After encountering the mortecarni Yes, definitely explain this, and also maybe how he encounters them (if it’s relevant) he is summoned by the pope and asked to join a group of dedicated individuals whose members are sworn to fight these creatures. Why was he chosen? His ordeals include the discovery that a 'saint' is really an undead farmer, Is undead living or ? ‘undead’ the bloody I don’t think bloody is adding anything to this amputation of a young girl's leg, treatment of plague victims and a stay at a convent filled with mortecarni nuns. (Interesting sounding challenges!)

    The Mortecarni is complete at 94,000 words and is carefully researched for historical accuracy: character and place names, village portrayals and depictions of medieval life are all faithful to the time period, as are descriptions of illness and medical practices. But it is first and foremost a horror story. I like all of this.

    A bit about myself: my short stories have been published in Glossolalia, Polygraff, Temporary Infinity, Bareback Lit, Death Throes and Black Heart Magazines, as well as the horror anthology "So Long and Thanks for All the Brains." I have undergraduate degrees in both European History and Religious Studies, and a Masters in Creative Writing. I like all of this, and impressive credentials.

    As per your submission requirements, I include the first XXX pages of The Mortecarni below. I hope you enjoy the story and look forward to hearing from you. I like all of this



    Regards, (This sounds casual maybe.)

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  8. The first line reads more like a list then a hook to me. We don't have any character there, unless the physician monk is the MC.

    If the mortecarni is an order of monks or something similar it should be capitalized. (Nevermind, I read further and see it's a monster. You may want to note that when you first mention them).

    "His ordeals include the discovery that a 'saint' is really an undead farmer, the bloody amputation of a young girl's leg, treatment of plague victims and a stay at a convent filled with mortecarni nuns." More listing. It doesn't really give me an idea of what the plot is, just that a bunch of different things happen. I'd definitely like to know *why* all of these things matter to Brother Maurice.

    Good luck :)

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  9. "England, 1347. The Black Death, medieval surgery, a physician monk and the mortecarni."

    I'm on the fence about lists. I think they have their time and place but should be used sparingly. This one is the leading sentence to your query letter, and I would suggest leading instead with interesting information about your main character.

    "Good vs evil isn't always black and white."

    Too cliche to tell us anything. If you're telling a tale of "good vs evil isn't always black and white" (which, coincidentally, my story is, as well), you should either 1) make that come across in your story summary or 2) wait for the right agent to be interested in the story and find it out when he or she reads the novel. If you've read the Query Sharkives (you've read all of them, right??), Janet hammers again and again that she doesn't want to be preached at. Tell her a good story first and let the "message" come afterwards.

    "mortecarni"

    I agree with Michelle--I don't know what this means, so you should either tell us if it's important or describe it succinctly when mentioning it in key relationship to the story.

    I also don't see the stakes for the main character. "Brother Maurice will have to choose between X, with these dire consequences, or Y, with these other dire consequences." You can't go wrong with that formula. Brother Maurice sounds like he's along for a ride, which he isn't, right? Make us want to read about him by telling us what he does.

    "The Mortecarni is complete at 94,000 words and is carefully researched for historical accuracy: character and place names, village portrayals and depictions of medieval life are all faithful to the time period, as are descriptions of illness and medical practices. But it is first and foremost a horror story."

    I would lead with the genre:

    "The Mortecarni is a horror and complete at 94,000 words. It has been carefully researched..."

    You want to give the agent succinct information and not have to go hunting for what they want to know. The "carefully researched" bit is bonus, but the genre is bare-bones what he or she needs.

    Good luck with querying. It sounds like you have a fascinating tale!

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  10. Mortecarni appears to be a made-up word using morte (death) and carni (flesh) to basically coin a medieval term for zombie. I think the meaning needs to be more clear, maybe toss in sometime about reanimated flesh or a disease that causes death-like pallor. I'm not sure how it works (curse, virus, etc), but that little explanation is pretty important.

    I also have no idea what the stakes are or why Brother Maurice is so special. Why him?

    I would also lead with the genre. My immediate reaction wouldn't have been horror, so it's important to put out that it's not just historical fiction. I think it's an interesting concept and the query isn't bad, it just needs some plumping up.

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