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.

TAKE THE POWER BACK (93,000 words, speculative) is an adult speculative heist novel pitting a Lupin style thief against tech billionaires. I am a traditionally-published speculative fiction author with a Master’s degree in English literature. I am querying you because this novel resonates with [YOUR MSWL]

Really strong going in. The Lupin reference might be lost on those who aren't knowledgeable about the genre.

Shelby is a security professional struggling with catastrophizing OCD. It is a gift in her line of work – helping her hyper-focus on flaws in security systems – but a torment to her mental health. Great setup! When catastrophe hits close to home and her brother begins suffering an illness that conventional medicine can’t cure, Shelby falls down the rabbit hole and becomes convinced the only treatment for her brother is a drug invented by a genius billionaire named Leader Zenden – the creator of a hyper-capitalist island utopia. So far, really good. If you can find a way to indicate in some way what her brother's illness consists of, that would be good. Because OCD and metnal illness have been mentioned already, my brain goes that direction. If that's not the case, I'd find a way to clarify.

Shelby spends all her money to journey to Zenden’s island to buy the drug – only to learn it is a scam. She swears to take revenge, and what better way to do so than by stealing Zenden’s greatest invention yet and prove to the world that it’s a fake. What's the invention? How would she steal it? How would she prove it's a fake? Her revenge plot soon throws her into the middle of a power struggle for Zenden’s island. Shelby encounters a tantalizing thief, an old flame with ulterior motives, and Zenden’s most ardent zealot, while fighting the pull of Zenden’s cult upon her psyche. As her heist barrels toward its own catastrophe, Shelby must decide who she trusts – and maybe even learn whether her brother is truly beyond saving. There's a power struggle for the island? In what way? Are these people all there, physically present and this is going own like guerrilla warfare? Why would all these people end up there at the same time? What is this cult, and why is she being pulled toward them? Another mention of her brother and the question of if he can be saved means that we definitely need to know more about his illness.

TAKE THE POWER BACK is a recipe for activism about how an everywoman can beat the 1%. It asks big questions about who we really can rely on in times of catastrophe, saving the biggest for its audacious finale. I'm not sure this is coming across in the query The novel blends the timely satire of Alderman’s The Future with the mysterious, utopia-hiding-dystopia of The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton (May 2024, Sourcebooks Landmark).

This is my second novel picking apart corporate power and oppressive tech through a speculative lens; my first [NOVEL] I have spoken as an author panelist at [LITERARY CONFERENCES] and have forthcoming pieces in [LITERARY MAGAZINES].

Really great bio and intro. The first para of the query is good, the second wanders into generic pretty quickly. I don't really understand a few things - what is this invention? Is it related to her brother's illness, is it the drug itself? Is everyone there after the same thing, or are they all after something that's privately important to them? What does who she trust have to do with anything? She already doesn't trust Zenden, so what's the decision involving trust? If it's connected to the supporting characters, their roles need to be fleshed out more.

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.

Like all of Notowi’s pilot cadets, seventeen-year-old Mokwin Gallworm is looking forward to a simple but exciting life flying on the backs of the island nation’s huge birds. Okay cool, but doing what? Is this like a special aerial soldier status, or are they releaseing weather balloons? Mokwin’s expectations, however, are shattered when he receives the startling news that he's been named as the next Wingmaster Chief and ruler of the Notowi — a role he didn't know he was under consideration for. Why would this shatter his expectations? Does this mean he can't be a pilot now? The reader doesn't know what the worldbuilding is here, so we don't see the problem. The way it reads, it sounds like he'll be in charge of the whole venture, which surely would be attractive to him.

As he tries to determine how and why he even became a candidate, doubt creeps into Mokwin's mind over whether he can step up. Does he even want to? But he’ll have to rise to the occasion and fast when hostile Bargasia declares war, sending its Grand Armada in an invasion force to overrun his homeland. Why does he have to make this decision fast? Is there currently no leader? Did someone die? Mokwin and the other young pilots move out to the front lines in a desperate attempt to halt the inexorable Bargasian advance.

Mokwin is determined to do the best he can with his situation and ensure the survival of his people, but he can’t protect everyone. As casualties mount and he’s forced to watch as friends and comrades die around him, the reality of war weighs heavily on his mind and he struggles with feelings of inadequacy and incompetency. As if all of this weren’t enough, exposed enemy secrets and increasingly bizarre behavior by the Bargasian royalty reveal that dark powers may be at work behind the scenes of the war and his unexpected election — unnatural, unholy powers thought to be the stuff of ancient myth. This sounds like the actual plot, all the way down here.

With enemy forces closing in on his homeland, Mokwin is thrust into a race against time to discover the truth behind the war and his unwanted position of responsibility before all he has ever known collapses before his eyes. Right now this is pretty vague and cliched. There's a young male character tasked with stepping into power at a young age, who then sees bad things at war and struggles with his ability to lead his people. That's not a new story. Enemy secrets and bizarre behavior by Bargasian royalty sounds like the point where your plot actually diverges into something possibly original, but you already used up all your space outlining a trope.

A standalone novel, WINGMASTER is a glimpse into the trials of transitioning from adolescence to the reality of adulthood, combining the mystery of MURTAGH with the action and character struggles found in THE WAY OF THE DROW.

I live in South Dakota, where I am pursuing a Master’s in Paleontology at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. My nonfiction work on issued SP - "Issues" affecting young adults has been recognized and awarded by the DSU Heritage Foundation in North Dakota, while my short story The Temptation of Christ was praised by Mysterion Online as “well written and containing good theological insight.” WINGMASTER is my debut novel.

This is a good bio. You're illustrating that you have an understanding of human cultures, that you're connected with the YA audience, and that you have writing creds. That's solid. What you need to do is work on getting your query focused on the elements of the story that differentiate it, not explaining the ones that follow a known path.

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.

Seventeen-year-old Cal Anderson has a secret: he can rewind time five seconds. It’s a neat trick for dodging punches or cheating on tests, but when he discovers his ability comes from the Roman gods—and that his destiny is written in an ancient book of prophecies—his life veers off course. This is a great hook! Cal isn’t just an ordinary teenager; he’s the reincarnated grandson of Julius Caesar, descended from Venus herself. And the accident that killed his mother? Maybe it wasn’t his fault after all. I think a little more here. Is this something that he's always blamed himself for? What happened? Just a line would help.

When Cal finds a new prophecy hinting at his mother’s resurrection, he’s willing to risk everything to bring her back—even if it means rewriting history. But the gods who took her from him have laid a trap: to complete the prophecy, Cal must travel to 408 AD, How, if he can only go back five seconds? a time when barbarian Goths stand on the brink of burning Rome to the ground. If he fails, Fails at what? the city will fall. How is it a trap? What do the gods gain? If he succeeds, the consequences could be even worse. What does this mean? Along the way, he falls for Amalia, a half-Goth girl fated to die in his prophecy.What's the timeline here? Is he existing in both the present and the past? With the gods pulling the strings, Cal faces an impossible choice: save his mother, protect the city, or follow his heart—even if it means dooming them all. Why would following his heart mean dooming them all?

THE AMULETS OF CAESAR is a 92,000-word YA historical fantasy that blends the fatalistic themes of Threads That Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou with the mythological stakes of Lore by Alexandra Bracken and the cunning heists of Among Thieves by M.J. Kuhn. It is a standalone novel with series potential.

I’m querying you because [personalized reason for querying the agent]. My passion for history has fueled a lifelong obsession with ancient civilizations, leading to trips to Rome and Istanbul and an alarming ability to turn any conversation into a history lesson.

Overall, this is in pretty good shape, but you need to draw the plot a little more clearly. Why does he have to save one or the other? Why would the gods lay this trap in the first place, are they just being cruel and this is entertainment for them? Draw more clearly the through lines between the fate of the city and the fate of the women in his life, and what outcomes result from each. Also, I don't really know what he's supposed to be doing... leading an army? Fighting? It just says "if he fails," so we need more detail there.