The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

THE POWER OF FIRE is a first person POV, 85,000-word standalone middle grade fantasy novel with series potential. It tells the story of a young girl who has ancient powers and a destiny with an ancestral society on another planet, blending the dragon within in Dragonborn with the journey of feeling unwanted to finding belonging in Nevermoor. You may want to clarify the author(s) of your comp titles. Fantasy isn't really my arena so I realize these may be highly recongizable titles, but I still recomemend stating the author.

Brenda is a thirteen year old girl who has the power to see dragons when she looks into fire. But what does that mean? If I stare long enough into fire I can see things too. Do they talk to her? What's the importance of this? Her whole life, she has lived with her absent father, like he's distracted? or truly not present? never knowing of her powers until the morning of her birthday. When Brenda joins the academy of her ancestors and learns what it means to belong, she uncovers the planet’s dark past and realizes she may be the only one who can defeat the tyranny that has befallen it. That's a pretty big leap from she gets her powers, her father is absent, and now she's in an ancestral academy on another planet. Also, right now the plot is very vague "chosen one" trope, without really illustrating what makes this story different from every other Chosen one narrative.

Her journey at the academy takes an unexpected turn when she becomes trapped in helping to train a man-eating dragon, and she begins to realize the truth of the darkness overshadowing the academy’s light. Again, very vague. What is this darkness? What is the threat?

As she learns to understand her place in the society, a terrible truth emerges: the most powerful Dragon Lord in history has returned with a vow to destroy the academy and complete his conquest to establish total domination of the planet. Right now this is giving a lot of Harry Potter reboot vibes.

When Brenda’s true destiny is revealed, and the walls of darkness close in around the dreamy brilliance of the academy, she must face the weight of her power while knowing that among her new friends and family, she may be the only one who can save them. What is her true destiny, and why is she the only one that can save them? What is the weight of her power? What is her power, anyway?

But this is not only a story of knowing one’s power. It is a journey into the meaning of nobility, purpose, and inner strength, while subsequently guiding the reader into a true understanding of the deep, unmistakable power of love. As I said earlier, this is all very generic at the moment. The Harry Potter vibe is strong - orphaned(ish) child, chosen one, the big bad one guy is coming back and the MC is the only person who can stop them. You need to get into the specficis about what it is that makes this book different from every other book that follows that trope. What is her power? How does she use it? Find the ways that this book is not like others and capitalize on that in your query rather than walking an agent through a plot they already know and have seen often.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

BLOODFIELDER is an adult dystopian romance with series potential complete at 95,000 words, where to survive a yearly sports tournament in which the losing players - and their fans - are killed, a disabled hacker must put her fate in the hands of a mysterious star athlete, who happens to be the very man she must defeat to stay alive. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the high stakes setup of Dani Francis’ Silver Elite, the rivals-to-lovers romance of Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry, and the fusion of competitive sports and speculative world building in Sophie Kim’s The Winged Game. So this definitely sounds interesting, but the hook is a little long-winded. I definitley need to know how a disabled hacker is entered into a sports tournament.

Felicia knows that at any time, The New Earth Empire may fall. The only livable surface on the planet, the Empire’s artificial island has continued to crumble at alarming rates as its dangerously dense population only continues to reach new heights. To prevent a sudden mass death, an annual televised sports tournament is held where the losing athletes - and their fans - are killed. No one knows which sports will be played each year; only that they are deadly, dangerous, and nearly impossible to win. How are the participants chosen? And I'm curious why people would participate as "fans" if they could die as a result. Is this forced interaction? What does the winner get that would make them enter this in the first place?

Yet, Felicia has never truly cared. As a disabled hacker working for the Empire’s government, she’s cheated death multiple times before by changing her registered fandom, and she continues to illegally make a living providing the same service to others. So I initially read this quite wrong - not OnlyFans, but certainly something where she has a fandom of her own, not that she is registered as a fan of an athlete that has lost in the past, could use some clarity. But when she is finally caught for her crimes, she is granted a choice: participate in the games - alongside a ragtag team of fellow criminals, whose pitiful athletic abilities combined can barely survive a warm-up - or face certain execution. Again, the question of how the participants are chosen comes up for me. Is it just criminals? Earlier you commented that no one knows what sport will be played year to year, but why does tht matter if the people going into it aren't athletic anyway?

As an orphan and sole caretaker to her younger brother, she is determined to do whatever it takes to come out of the competition alive and back to him, even if it means forming an alliance with the one person she shouldn’t: Theo Scarling, the very man responsible for her arrest.

Alluring, mysterious, and the only person to survive the tournament more than once, Theo is New Earth’s golden athlete- and Felicia’s greatest enemy. So when he unexpectedly offers to secretly train her team in exchange for a strange favor: when the time comes, Felicia must use her hacking skills to save someone of Theo's choosing, she begrudgingly accepts, knowing that she might not live to see the day he uses it. Yet, as their alliance progresses, undeniable sparks begin to fly between the two, and Felicia soon discovers that falling for the one person who could save her could be just as dangerous as facing him on the field.

As she begins to work with (and compete against) Theo, Felicia begins to see the cracks in the Empire’s carefully constructed narrative, challenging everything she thought she knew about the tournament, the Empire, and even herself. The deeper she digs, the more she suspects that something far darker, and far more sinister, lurks beneath the games. Now, to make it home to her brother, she’ll have to survive the tournament long enough to uncover the truth, all while deciding whether exposing it is worth sacrificing everything she’s fighting for. Because when her life- and her heart- are on the line, Felicia has no choice but to play to win.

Overall this definitely sounds interesting, but I am confused about the setup itself. Same questions as before - why would anyone enter? What's the payoff? What about being a fan? Do you HAVE to participate? And honestly, idk how there could be something more sinister at work than what is blatantly in play here. You're already quite wordy for a query, so this needs to be trimmed down, particularly the last two paragraphs. Your biggest challenge is going to be how to make it clear that this isn't The Hunger Games or Squid Games all over again. The fact that your MC is disabled is probably the biggest distinction, so I would rework this query to show how her own abilities are going to be useful in the field of play, not just an athletic man shows her how to be more athletic.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

I’m seeking representation for my multi-POV YA Urban Fantasy THE TRIALS OF EVAN BLAINE with series potential complete at 115,000 words. You probably already know this but being over 100k isn't going to do you a lot of favors. Any sub genre of fantasy is completely saturated right now, so you need to remove any speed bumps in your way, one of which could be word count. It blends the ardent urge to pursue one’s own destiny despite a detestably secret double life in ICARUS with the fraught, more-or-less neurodivergent intellectual personalities shoved in the same room like THE ATLAS SIX. I have pretty much removed myself from pop culture and the internet in general, so I can't say if your comps are appropriate or not. What I can say is that they are so specific as to be confusing. I don't know what it means to pursue your destiny while having a detestable secret double life, and the sentence in general just becomes quite long and unwieldly.

Evan Blaine has been called the Firebringer his entire life. Unfortunately neither his Academy teachers nor the prophecy his parents received at his birth can tell him what that means. He is by far the top of his cohort at the Academy, where young magicians called luminaries learn to fight dark beasts called embreings. But living up to what everyone expects him to become means that Evan will never be “normal.” How does he feel about this? What is the actual fallout in his day to day life?

Evan’s (ex) best friend Noah Clark has the opposite problem: he would do anything to feel like he's actually good at something. Why are they ex best friends? Jealousy? Competition?

Evan and Noah only agree on one thing: they've got to keep the embreing trail they’ve found in their yards a secret. Confused on the use of the word yards. Do they live at this Academy? Is this private homes that are next to each other? If the Phosocracy knows its there, Evan and Noah will get in trouble for keeping the beast lying in their neighborhood a secret. Never mind the unrefined “memory healing” supposed to be used on anyone that’s seen its magic. The logic here is really cyclical and doesn't make sense - we have to keep this a secret because if the powers that be find out we're keeping a secret we'll be punished. Why would they want to keep it a secret? How do they benefit from this? Why would they take this risk? And if everyone who sees the magic of an embreing is "memory healed" why is it their entire job and training to fight them? Woudln't that entail being exposed to their magic?

When classmate Sarah Avalon discovers the trail, Noah and Evan agree that they must handle it themselves so the Phosocracy won’t come and mess with Sarah’s mind. This sounds odd b/c handling it themselves sounds vaguely threatening but they're doing it to protect her. So what does handling it themselves actually mean? And why wouldn't Sarah just report the creature, either? What's her benefit to keeping this secret?

Meanwhile, they compete in trials to determine their Academy futures. When it becomes clear Sarah and her friends are going to find an embreing, Evan, to Noah’s dissent, befriends Sarah, vowing to use his power to protect her against any dark magic without alerting the Phosocracy or revealing his secrets. Noah, to Evan’s dissent, tries to stop the quest all together. But if Evan can’t face Noah and his growing powers, Evan might lose his new friends. Lots of questions here. All of the ones from above still carry over - why keep it a secret at all, etc? But also Noah now has growing powers? What are they? How is he using them? Can't Sarah just defend herself from black magic? Why does Noah want to stop the quest altogether? What's the quest in the first place? What does any of this have to do with Evan being the Firebringer?

The job of a query is to establish what the main character wants, what stands in their way of getting it, what they must do to overcome those obstacles, and what is at stake if they fail? Right now I'm not sure what the answer to any of those questions is, but it seems like the "what's at stake" is losing his new friends, which is a pretty big difference from the opening line being about his destiny as a chosen one. Right now this is all over the place. Focus on getting the answers to the main questions that a query should address in there.

THE TRIALS OF EVAN BLAINE is about growing up while trying to live up to the unrelenting potential you (allegedly) hold, the constant questioning that surrounds growing up “gifted”; and the urge to prove your aptitude in a narrow, world-prescribed definition of what makes someone special. I don't really see any of the second part of that reflected in the query, and I'm also not seeing the detestable second life or neurodivergence referenced in your comp titles and opening paragaph.

I am on the reading committee for the nonfiction literary magazine Hippocampus Magazine and have served on viewing committees for several film festivals. I received my Biology degree from the University of Scranton with a minor in English. [