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.
It’s just another regular, boring summer Friday night in small-town Upstate New York for painfully average You've done a great job here of using a bunch of words that are going to immediately turn someone off. Introducing anything as boring, regular, or average isn't great language to use in a hook sixth-grader Ben Grishop and his friends Joe and Dana—until they’re abducted by aliens and informed by the Almighty Extraterrestrial Ruler of the Universe (coined by Ben himself) I feel like "coined" isn't great wording to use in an MG query that they, through sheer luck alone, Eh... dumb luck isn't compelling. I know you're probably trying to counteract the "chosen one" trope, but you put a lot of effort into telling us how normal / boring these kids are. So why are they going to save the world? are the only three beings in the universe who can save it from imminent total destruction. Right here is the ending of your hook sentence. All the way down here. Get this quick, concise, and above all - not inferring that anything about the beginning of this book is boring. Reading is an escape. Reading about characters who are bored is not an escape. All they have to do is push a tiny red button constructed by the aliens over the course of millennia within twenty-four hours. Confused. It took aliens a millenia to create a button?
But before they get a chance to, the aliens’ spaceship is attacked by what the aliens call “an immensely powerful, evil force from The Realm Beyond.” In a desperate attempt to save Ben and his friends, the aliens dump them on a random, distant planet full of giant, man-eating, French-speaking crabs. lol, I mean, of course they speak French Now, before time runs out, Ben and his friends must find a way to survive the deadly planet and reconvene with the aliens, so they can push the button and save the universe from oblivion.
I feel like there's a lot missing here. We need more of a goal than "push a button" and we need to have a feeling for who these kids are. Boring, average kids are not compelling characters, and dumb luck isn't what drives a plot, neither is the single act of pushing a button. Give us a better feel of the group dynamic, what's at stake for each kid (not just a generic "end of the world" scenario). The world is always ending these days - why is this version special, and why should we root for this kids to save us?
If what you're going for here is more a of Shaun of the Dead "everyman given an impossible task" / implausible hero, you'll need to get more of the tongue-in-cheek, humorous voice injected into the query. Right now it's coming off as a slightly, rambling SF adventure with characters who are just kind of meh about everything - including the end of the world. If you want your reader to care, the characters need to care, too.