Monday, November 25, 2013

Fall Query Extravaganza 13

Lucky number 13! This calls for some pet pictures! Sorry folks, can't resist. 

Yeah, he's that weird, but it's Darwin's birthday.


I'll be doing a limited number of query critiques this fall. Right now my queue is full.

Participants must comment on as many queries as they can to pay it forward. All query critiques are subjective. And rabbits don't come out of my hat, but I'll do my best. Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. Buy one and I'll throw in a set of free steak knives, just pay separate shipping and handling fees.


The kitty we found now living in high style at my sister's house.


As sent to me:


Dear Agent,

My previous agent and I have parted ways. As such I'm querying again and wondering if you would be interested in representing my latest young adult novel, as well as future works of mine.

While the rest of humanity slumbers, Alison Kingston spends her nights battling creatures known as Nightmares. These beastly terrors threaten to plunge the world into chaos and misery not seen since the dark ages. When the tall, dark, and annoying Addison Hatta charmed Alice into his life, she expected things to be less guts more glory. 
Instead, the battles grow bloodier, the days darker, and her partner a little mad…—er.

Hatta’s deteriorating mental state eventually takes a physical toll, and Alice crosses into his home world of Wonderland—the realm of Dreams—to find answers. She discovers a growing horror in the heart of the realm. The Nightmares are
stronger there, viler, and ruled by The Black Knight, whose sharp wit and sly compliments disarm Alice better than any weapon. With his power over the Nightmares, the Black Knight unleashes a cataclysm that threatens to devour Wonderland from the inside, and Hatta along with it. Countering the spell would save Addison’s life, but the Backlash could shatter the bridge between worlds, throwing them off balance, and casting both into eternal terror.

DREAMWALKER is a young adult fantasy with series potential. The whimsy of Alice in Wonderland meets the unadulterated ass-kickery of Buffy in this story complete at 87,000 words. Per your submission guidelines, I’ve included _________. Thank you for your time and consideration.

All the best,


With comments: 

Dear Agent, Some say a comma is fine instead of a colon so take your pick. I doubt it will make or break the query.

My previous agent and I have parted ways. I imagine this will perk up some eyes. This writer was wanted.  As such I'm querying again with and wondering if you would be interested in representing I crossed this out because it seemed a little needy instead of confident. my latest young adult novel, as well as future works of mine.Nice that this lets the agent know you are querying something new and not what the other agent might have already submitted.

While the rest of humanity slumbers, Alison Kingston spends her nights battling creatures known as Nightmares. These beastly terrors threaten to plunge the world into chaos and misery not seen since the dark ages. I'm a little torn on wanting a more specific example at the front of this sentence. When the tall, dark, and annoying (maybe 'unstable' instead of 'annoying' to show where the query takes us next. Maybe also 'non-Earthling' to prepare for the next paragraph. When the tall, dark, but unstable non-Earthling) Addison Hatta charmed Alice into this life, she expected things to be less guts more glory. Instead, the battles grow bloodier, the days darker, and her partner a little mad…—er. Again, I wanted a little something specific to give me a better idea of what she's dealing with. Instead Alice is up to her elbows in the blood of bystanders, the moon's hiding its face, and her partner sees enemies everywhere, even in the daycare down the block. 

Hatta’s deteriorating mental state eventually takes a physical toll (eventually leaves him shaking and ridden by headaches or whatever), and Alice together they cross crosses into his home world of Wonderland—the realm of Dreams—to find answers (help him? save him? Something that lets us know what she feels about her partner. Her emotion toward him is missing.). She discovers a growing horror in the heart of the realm. The Nightmares are stronger there, viler, and ruled by The Black Knight, whose sharp wit and sly compliments disarm Alice better(faster?) than any weapon. With his power over the Nightmares, the Black Knight unleashes a cataclysm that threatens to devour Wonderland from the inside, and Hatta along with it (Wait, did he go with her? Better make that clear.). Countering the spell would save Addison’s life, but the backlash could shatter the bridge between worlds, throwing them (does this mean the worlds or the characters. Pronoun confusion.) off balance, and casting both (both characters or both worlds?) into eternal terror. (Can you be more clear on what the 'eternal terror' is? Does that mean they have to live among the Nightmares forever?) Seems like destroying the bridge would be a good thing for Earth, but I think you're saying that's not true.

DREAMWALKER is a young adult fantasy with series potential. The whimsy of Alice in Wonderland meets the unadulterated ass-kickery of Buffy in this story complete at 87,000 words. Per your submission guidelines, I’ve included _________. Thank you for your time and consideration.

All the best, I usually let 'thank you for your time...' handle both jobs: the thanks and the closing. Again it's subjective.

I found this query pretty clear and in good shape. What I'd like to see is Alison's feelings toward her partner. Is it a romantic thing or a loyalty thing? I'm a sucker for a romantic thing between work partners. (Castle anyone?)

7 comments:

  1. Hello dear. I just had my coffee to start my test preparation, but my internet addict itchy fingers brought me here, so my critique’s gonna be crazier than usual :)

    Dear Agent,

    My previous agent and I have parted ways. As such I'm querying again and wondering if you would be interested in representing my latest young adult novel, as well as future works of mine.

    [that’s interesting. Love at first sight didn’t work, right? Don’t worry, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.]

    While the rest of humanity slumbers, Alison Kingston spends her nights battling creatures known as Nightmares. These beastly terrors threaten to plunge the world into chaos and misery not seen since the dark ages. When the tall, dark, and annoying Addison Hatta charmed Alice into his life, she expected things to be less guts more glory. Instead, the battles grow bloodier, the days darker, and her partner a little mad…—er.

    [Alison, Nightmares, Addison, and Alice; that’s four names in first paragraph, three of them with A, so not good. It took me a while to learn that Alice is another name for Alison. I won’t advise using two names for same character in a query. Less guts more glory sounds like a metaphor and now you have to waste your space to explain that also. You can do without metaphors. Did you mention the word partner? Who is whose partner, is not clear as there are too many names. I had to read it twice with patience to understand it.]

    Hatta’s deteriorating mental state eventually takes a physical toll, and Alice crosses into his home world of Wonderland—the realm of Dreams—to find answers. She discovers a growing horror in the heart of the realm. The Nightmares are
    stronger there, viler, and ruled by The Black Knight, whose sharp wit [wits] and sly compliments disarm Alice better than any weapon. With his power over the Nightmares, the Black Knight unleashes a cataclysm that threatens to devour Wonderland from the inside, and Hatta along with it. Countering the spell would save Addison’s life, but the Backlash could shatter the bridge between worlds, throwing them off balance, and casting both into eternal terror.

    [now we have another name, Black Knight with a ‘the’. And yet another detail: a place with two names, Wonderland, and the realm of Dreams. Keep names to minimum]
    [you mention ‘countering the spell’ without mentioning the spell. If it was the Spell that unleashed the cataclysm, you have to mention that]
    [I want to see some words to describe what Alice has to do and what happens if she fails. It’s all here, I know, but you have to rephrase it and link it in a flow by something like ‘Alice has to counter the spell but she can’t because Addison’s life is at stake, and… she has to choose… and so on]
    [also, I’m wondering why shattering the bridge would cast both world into eternal terror. It’s telling, not showing. What would happen if this bridge shatters, is not clear]


    DREAMWALKER is a young adult fantasy with series potential. The whimsy of Alice in Wonderland meets the unadulterated ass-kickery of Buffy in this story complete at 87,000 words. Per your submission guidelines, I’ve included _________. Thank you for your time and consideration.

    [Sounds a cool story. Good luck :)]

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would agree with Xander about keeping your MC's name the same throughout. If she goes by Alice, use Alice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. First, I love "the unadulterated ass-kicker of Buffy" part. (I also love Buffy).

    Like Xander, I got confused by the Alison and Alice thing, especially once you tossed Addison in there. It'd be good to stick with just Alice and just Hatta for the query to keep things simple and clear. (Even after typing that sentence, I had to go back to the query to make sure I was getting the right names and right characters.)

    In your third paragraph, are the cataclysm and the spell the same thing? Also in that paragraph, why does Alice want to save Hatta? The final sentence of your first paragraph makes it seem like Alice is now disenchanted with Hatta. Also, it sounds like she's been charmed by the Black Knight. Additionally, I can understand why Alice would want to save the world(s), but I want to know more about what Alice would have to do and why she's the one capable of doing it. Is it related to her connection with Hatta? I agree with Michelle here about the working partners (Castle) thing. My favorite thing in most YA is the romance.

    You mention that you've parted ways with your previous agent, but you provide no other information about yourself. Most of the agents I've been researching like to know a little about the writer, with publishing history one example of what they want to know.

    One last thing. This isn't about the query itself, but I've been querying a YA that was 82,000 words. One of the first few agents I queried mentioned it'd be good if I cut out about 10K. I got it down to 74,000 words and my query seemed to get a little more attention (though, granted, I'm still agent-less).

    I hope this helps! Good luck to you!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thought this query was strong, but it did take me two or three times to fully understand everything that was happening. I think that is due to the amount of names and titles you have included in the query. As everyone else already said, I thought Alison and Alice were two different people at first.

    Also, I think it would help if you explained a little bit more about Addison when you introduce him. Why did she expect things to get easier when he came around?

    I really liked your last paragraph. It showed exactly who the target audience would be, and you phrased it in a fun way that grabbed my attention. Good luck! I hope this is somewhat helpful!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Like most everyone else who has commented, I needed to read this 3 times to take it all in.

    Part of the problem (for me and it seems for others) was the use of Alison / Alice. On first reading, I thought they were the same person...then I back-tracked because I thought to myself "Hang on this is a query, it must be two separate people." Which of course led me to start thinking why would you have Alison & Alice as separate characters with such similar names. That was only made worse with the inclusion of ADDISON. I actually back-tracked again to be sure I hadn't read ALISON wrong.

    My point is, I was stopped and then started thinking about stuff which removed me from the query.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yeah. I would say that I was rather confused. Try to simplify everything and take out as many of the unnecessary details as possible.

    I wasn't really sure what Alice was or what her job was or what her partner was or what he did or...what any of them did.

    What kind of battles are there? I'm just confused about how it all worked.

    The idea sounds neat, but I just can't quite get a hold on it. It's almost there, but slips between my fingers. I'd say to try and sort through the details and put in only what's necessary.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This query has so much potential. For my part, I was really interested in her work: battling Nightmares! But I wasn't sure what these creatures can do. And I really wanted to know. Can they actually give people nightmares? Are their nightmares fatal to the person who has them? If I had no idea what vampires were capable of, I wouldn't know exactly why I was rooting for Buffy. I want to root for Alison throughout the entire query, and knowing specifically what she does will help me do that. And knowing exactly what the cataclysm is will finish me off and make me want to go buy the book. I'll be thinking, "How can Alison, who normally only deals with Nightmares, now handle this much, much larger problem of [blank]? I have to find out! I'm off to Barnes and Noble."

    Wonderful job overall. Honestly, I think specifics are everything. And I know your story has awesome ones, so let that awesomeness show through!

    The very best of luck to you : )

    ReplyDelete