The Saturday Slash

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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.

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When Eva runs into an old friend from college, she’s immediately a little envious. I think a stronger hook is in order here. Something that indicates your genre a little more. Think: Money can buy everything... even (whatever). Just a couple of years after graduating, Eva has just been fired from her dead-end job, but her former classmate, Marin now works at a company called Ouroboros. And this is no ordinary corporation; it which enables the super-rich to upload their consciousness to the cloud when they reach old age, and live on forever in a virtual heaven.

Eva doesn't know whether to be amazed—or bitter. Around them, protests are springing up all over the overworked, underpaid city, claiming that eternal life should not only be accessible to the rich. Never mind living forever—it’s hard for most people just to be able to support themselves.

But then Marin introduces her to a colleague, Sebastian. The sophisticated programmer makes Eva feel appreciated for the first time in her life, and she begins to falls for him. They begin dating, and their connection means that Eva, too, may eventually snag a spot in the virtual afterlife.

But as their relationship progresses, things slowly change for the worse. Sebastian's dominant side, which Eva once found so appealing, becomes dangerous. It turns out that underneath Sebastian's charming exterior is a cold and calculating stranger. And when Eva learns what Sebastian has done to Marin, too vague she must make a choice between a relationship that is growing steadily more abusive, and a crumbling society in which she may no longer have a place. I'm not sure if you're talking about virtual heaven or the real world with this reference. But who's to say if Sebastian will even let her leave. Question mark here?

INTO ETERNITY is an 80,000-word work of adult upmarket fiction with a speculative twist. I have published two works with Thought Catalog Books: a book of poems, X, and a novella, Y. I have interned at two literary agencies in New York. Great bio!

The way the query is written makes it sound like the focus of the book is more on the relationship than the virtual afterlife, which is fine, as long as that is true of the manuscript. Also, you are vague about what Sebastian did to Marin... a workplace issue? Or more personal? We don't know, and the query isn't the place to tease. Also, you've got a para dedicated to the public reaction to Ouroborous, but what impact does that have on our narrator, or the story as a whole? You say she doesn't know how she should feel about the project, but not if that dribbles over into friction between her and Marin, or her and Sebastian. Tie that thought into the query to illustrate what the impact is on the actual narrative. There's quite a bit of extra verbiage here, so you can see where I trimmed things down with strikethrough to give you more room to elaborate on elements like that.