Genre: YA Thriller
Word Count: 65,000
Query:
GRAVEL GHOST is a YA/Thriller that is complete at 65,000 words.
When you’re a seventeen-year-old assassin about to celebrate your 100th kill, life isn’t so simple.
Along with her four sisters, Payton was adopted and groomed into a lethal assassin like her new parents. An Elite agency—part of a US shadow government—employs her family to gain power by executing their competition. Payton used to enjoy her training, even excelling at her tasks, but now she hungers for an average life. Her parents dictate everything, even her meals, and she hates having to kill people who don’t deserve to die. She strikes out at the only life she’s ever known by sneaking out to see Conner, her secret best friend and only source of sanity. If her family found out, they’d silence him the one way they know how.
In Chile, on her 100th assignment, Payton is stunned when Conner appears as she is poised to take out her latest target—Conner’s father. With help from her own father, she flees the country with the assignment unfinished, making her a liability to the agency.
But the rest of her adoptive family isn’t so forgiving. Her mother takes the mission to eliminate an interfering Conner and his father upon herself. Now Payton must choose between betraying her family, or turning her back on the only person who could help her escape them.
Thank you for your consideration,
First 250:
Chapter One
Sweat drips down my back and trickles off my forehead. It’s freezing in this tunnel, but my jacket remains tied around my waist. My hair is pulled back in a long braid, I’m sure it’s matted with grime. Mud and filth splatters my clothing. My legs are aching and my stomach keeps growling, but I can’t stop. In this small shaft that tunnels through the Rocky Mountains, I take my time working towards the beam of light ahead of me. Can five hours have passed already? I need to move faster. My breaths puff like steam in the frozen air to echo in soft whispers off the mine shaft’s walls. A musty smell fills my nose from the stirred up dust. I tread lightly to hold down the echoes of my steps.
Ahead, a small cove beckons me to sit and be hidden for just a minute. I hurry toward it like it’s my lifeline. Using the wall as a guide, I slide to the rough ground before my legs give out. I take my last bottle of water out and take a small sip, enough to wet my mouth and wash out the taste of dust. Sweet relaxation lures me to linger.
A rock shifts against the dirt maybe thirty yards behind me. I start to my feet, shoving the bottle back in my pack. Too long. Time to run. My legs and feet protest, but adrenaline pushed me forward. The beam of light gets brighter.
Very interesting! The first 250 is well-written.
ReplyDeleteQuery:
1. I love the first part of your first sentence, but the second part falls short "life isn't so simple." I think the first part is a hook enough to stand-alone.
I remember seeing this on BecomeAnAgent -- it's improved a lot since then!
ReplyDeleteYou've clarified your query significantly, but I still have a few questions:
1) Does she know ahead of time that Conner's father is her target or is it a terrible surprise?
2) Her conflict seems to also include this -- that in saving her, Conner, and Conner's father, her own father has put himself and his marriage at considerable risk. If I'm understanding that correctly, I think it's a significant part of the stakes Payton faces.
3) Who is the person she's turning her back on? You allude to the fact that it's her own father - so at this point introducing yet another person she may have to turn her back on is confusing.
First 250
Still great!! First 250 are hard to critique well, because I'm inclined to want your first moment of tension to arrive BEFORE the end of the 250 (!!) Clearly that tension is building -- but, even knowing that, I wonder whether your second paragraph could be tightened, even incorporated into the first, to ratchet up the tension even more.
Good Luck!
This is a pretty strong query. Just a few suggestions.
ReplyDeleteQuery:
GRAVEL GHOST is a YA/Thriller that is complete at 65,000 words. (No slash between YA Thriller.)
When you’re a seventeen-year-old assassin about to celebrate your 100th kill, life isn’t so simple. (I feel you’re going for shock value here and the first half has that, but keep in mind the second part doesn’t tell us much about the MC. It could be done lots of ways, making the wording important—life isn’t so simple, life isn’t simple, life is complicated, life is busy, you’re not supposed to have regrets. Decide which one has more snap. Snap is important in a hook.)
Along with her four sisters, Payton was adopted and groomed into a lethal assassin like her new parents. An Elite agency—part of a US shadow government—employs her family to gain power by executing their competition. Payton used to enjoy her training, even excelling at her tasks, but now she hungers for an average life(Why now? because it’s too much work? Because she likes boys? …but now her eye would rather follow boys and her hands would rather hold someone at the school dance.). Her parents dictate everything, even her meals, and she hates having to kill people who don’t deserve to die. She strikes out at the only life she’s ever known(much shorter to just say ‘rebels.’ She rebels by sneaking…) by sneaking out to see Conner, her secret best friend and only source of sanity. If her family found out, they’d silence him the one way they know how.
In Chile, on her 100th assignment, Payton is stunned when Conner appears as she is poised to take out her latest target—Conner’s father.(Did she know the target was Conner’s father? Or is she only shocked because Conner is there?) With help from her own father, she flees the country with the assignment unfinished, making her a liability to the agency.
But the rest of her adoptive family isn’t so forgiving. Her mother takes the mission to eliminate an interfering Conner and his father upon herself. Now Payton must choose between betraying her family, or turning her back on the only person who could help her escape them.
Thank you for your consideration,
Really good first 250. Maybe just adjust a sentence length or two in the first paragraph to make it longer for more variety. Otherwise the flow can feel too rhythmic if all the sentences have the same length.
ReplyDeleteFirst 250:
Chapter One
Sweat drips down my back and trickles off my forehead. It’s freezing in this tunnel, but my jacket remains tied around my waist. My hair is pulled back in a long braid, I’m sure it’s matted with grime. Mud and filth splatters my clothing.(Maybe combine a few of these shorter sentences to vary the sentence length.) My legs are aching and my stomach keeps growling, but I can’t stop. In this small shaft that tunnels through the Rocky Mountains, I take my time working towards the beam of light ahead of me. Can five hours have passed already? I need to move faster. My breaths puff like steam in the frozen air to echo in soft whispers off the mine shaft’s walls. A musty smell fills my nose from the stirred up dust. I tread lightly to hold down the echoes of my steps.
Ahead, a small cove beckons me to sit and be hidden for just a minute. I hurry toward it like it’s my lifeline. Using the wall as a guide, I slide to the rough ground before my legs give out. I take my last bottle of water out and take a small sip, enough to wet my mouth and wash out the taste of dust. Sweet relaxation lures me to linger.
A rock shifts against the dirt maybe thirty yards behind me. I start to my feet, shoving the bottle back in my pack. Too long. Time to run. My legs and feet protest, but adrenaline pushed me forward. The beam of light gets brighter.
Query:
ReplyDeleteGRAVEL GHOST is a YA/Thriller that is complete at 65,000 words.
When you’re a seventeen-year-old assassin about to celebrate your 100th kill, life isn’t so simple. [not sure this really works to hook the reader; ‘life isn’t so simple’ is too vague in my opinion and can be applied to any story; plus, in reality Payton’s really not celebrating her 100th kill, so reads a bit false]
Along with her four sisters, Payton was adopted and groomed into a lethal assassin like her new parents. An Elite agency—part of a US shadow government—employs her family to gain power by executing their competition. Payton used to enjoy her training, even excelling at her tasks, but now she hungers for an average life [why now? What changed that made her feel this way?]. Her parents dictate everything, even her meals, and she hates having to kill people who don’t deserve to die. She strikes out at [replace ‘strikes out at’ with ‘periodically escapes’] the only life she’s ever known by sneaking out to see Conner, her secret best friend and only source of sanity. If her family found out, they’d silence him the one [only?] way they know how.
In Chile, on her 100th assignment, Payton is stunned when Conner appears [seems a little vague; appears how?] as she is poised to take out her latest target—Conner’s father. With help from her own father [why would her father help her? I thought her parents forced her to do these assassinations, and it’s not like he’d sympathize with her for having to kill Conner’s father, as Conner is her SECRET friend, right?], she flees the country with the assignment unfinished, making her a liability to the agency.
But the rest of her adoptive family isn’t so forgiving. Her mother takes the mission to eliminate an interfering Conner and his father upon herself. Now Payton must choose between betraying her family, or turning her back on the only person who could help her escape them. [nice ending]
Thank you for your consideration,
First 250:
ReplyDeleteOVERALL THOUGHTS: While well-written, the main issue here for me is there are no stakes. I personally can’t be invested with what’s happening with this character because I don’t know what her goal is. I understand her life’s in danger in this scene, at least to a degree, but I’m not sure entirely why or what she’s trying to do. I figure she’s on a mission because of the query pitch, but that’s all I know. Giving the reader some more hints as to these things will make us understand the situation better and care about what happens to her.
Chapter One
Sweat drips down my back and trickles off my forehead. It’s freezing in this tunnel [if it’s freezing, why is she sweating? Kind of jars me. I see later that it’s because she’s moving fast, so maybe make that clearer up front], but my jacket remains tied around my waist. My hair is pulled back in a long braid, [end sentence here] I’m sure it’s matted with grime. Mud and filth splatters my clothing [have the protag look down to observe this, as it currently gives us the impression of someone on the outside looking at her, and you’d rather have everything coming from inside her, since she’s in first-person POV]. My legs are aching [legs ache] and my stomach keeps growling, but I can’t stop. In this small shaft that tunnels through the Rocky Mountains, I take my time working towards the beam of light ahead of me. Can five hours have passed already? I need to move faster [probably a good place to hint as to why; show us a bit of the stakes as soon as possible without infodumping; like what will happen if she doesn’t move faster?]. My breaths puff like steam in the frozen air to echo in soft whispers off the mine shaft’s walls. A musty smell fills my nose from the stirred up dust. I tread lightly to hold down the echoes of my steps.
Ahead, a small cove beckons me to sit and be hidden for just a minute. I hurry toward it like it’s my lifeline [Again—why? I’m not worried for the protag because I don’t know why she’s worrying; show us some of the stakes!]. Using the wall as a guide, I slide to the rough ground before my legs give out. I take my last bottle of water out and take a small sip, enough to wet my mouth and wash out the taste of dust. Sweet relaxation lures me to linger.
A rock shifts against the dirt [can’t really visualize this; is it a boulder? How big is it? What’s the dirt, exactly—the ground or wall or ceiling?] maybe thirty yards behind me. I start to my feet, shoving the bottle back in my pack. Too long. Time to run. My legs and feet protest, but adrenaline pushed [pushes] me forward. The beam of light gets brighter.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteYour logline:
The first part of the sentence is intriguing, but “life isn’t so simple” is too generic. Be more specific. Why isn’t life simple?
Query:
The first paragraph makes me wonder what changed to make Payton suddenly hunger for an average life. What was the trigger? Given the stakes (her family will kill Conner if they find out), there should be a good reason.
I would merge the second and third paragraphs.
It is unclear why she leaves her assignment unfinished – because Conner appears or because the target is Conner’s father, or both? Again, given the stakes, there has to be a good reason.
Also, to me it’s not clear how Conner can help her.
First 250:
Writing in the present tense is quite a challenge, but in the opening scene at least, it’s well done. The short sentences give the pace of the situation.
Just a few small remarks:
“I take my time” seems odd when right afterwards she appears to be in a hurry.
The small cove beckons for her to “be hidden” – but who could see her in the dark tunnel?
And I think “stirred up dust” should be hyphenated: “stirred-up dust”.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!
Mayken
Thank you everyone for taking the time to give me some great pointers! This has been a blast and extremely useful! Thanks especially to Michelle for putting this together, you're awesome :)
ReplyDeleteGood luck to everyone! I hope we get to hear some success stories after this :D