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.

William Ross needs a jump start. He’s sleepwalking again but that’s not the worst of it. Just two weeks after he clears a client of child abuse, she murders her son, Latrelle. This is definitely your hook. Not a jump start, not sleepwalking. Blaming himself for the boy’s death, William quits law, and finds work as a party clown. I definitely think we need to know why a party clown. That's a huge leap from what he did in his former life. As he fights to make a living as a kids entertainer, a desire grows to give someone the protection he couldn’t offer Latrelle. How does this manifest? Is it already there in the clown aspect? Or is he searching through other avenues? His girlfriend, Clara, embarking on her own new venture, has not bargained on a beau-turned-clown. The two, along with their friends, Alessia, a performance artist with a heroin past, Nick, a millionaire who can’t sustain relationships, and Felicia, a driven perfectionist, comprise the Second Chance Club. Mediumship, a humpback whale, Sing Sing Prison, and a $1000 baby doll, all figure into William’s attempt to find his way. While this eclectic grouping might help make the book sound quirky, it might also make an agent wonder if it's not grounded enough, or question where this fits in the bookshelves in a store.

Second Chance Club is my debut novel. I was a grumpy criminal lawyer who portrayed my career change in a NY Times essay that generated 465 reader comments: http://ow.ly/fuI030iK7TC Great bio! And very smart to include the link. This will give the agent a chance to read your writing style and hear your voice beyond the query.

The intended market of Second Chance Club is readers who want to find their place in the world. Well, that's incredibly broad, and it further muddies the waters concerning both readership and genre.Complete at _ words, Is it not finished yet? Don't query until you have a full manuscript. it will appeal to fans of The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie and The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick.

Right now I think the biggest problem with this query is that I don't have a good idea what this book is about. You start with sleepwalking (which I don't see how it ties into the larger story), then child murder compounded with guilt, and then list some things that make it sound like a screwball comedy. I don't know what the genre of this book would be, and your stated audience is equally broad. You'll want to write the query in a way that conveys the tone and voice of the book, and as I said, right now it just feels like a grab bag.

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.

I am a part of the writing community on Twitter, and one of your followers. I feel compelled to query you, partially because I love your work on __, but mostly because I know you are a reader who appreciates YA adventures. I hope you will connect to my project: a finished, YA Adventure titled, “By Brain and Bone”, complete at 100,000 words. Unfortunately your word count is going to trip you up right out of the gate. YA is extremely crowded right now and a debut at 100k is going to be hard to sell. Don't cripple yourself with a bloated word count when the odds are already stacked against you.

In the over-technologized, sensor-saturated, near-future world of this story, genders have become extremely polarized. Especially in education. Why? I feel like in order to sell this world we need to know how this is a possibility, and that it's believable. Only females attend brick-and-mortar schools, while boys have been systematically withdrawn, isolated online, taught by screen. Again, why? Why are the girls allowed socialability and boys aren't? Sixteen-year-old Ewan is the exception. Because of his enormous ability to memorize nearly everything, Ewan is allowed to attend a brick-and-mortar high school alongside females. It isn’t a privilege. To Ewan, each day feels like a struggle to survive. Again, why? Why would his ability to memorize things make it reasonable to send him to a brick and mortar school instead?

Something else is also happening to boys. Ewan gradually discovers that the minds of young men are systematically being altered. A hurricane forces Ewan to live with his mysterious, estranged grandmother, a high-powered director of a large corporation that trains young men to be drone pilots. Ewan quickly finds out that she’s part of an overarching plan to permanently reconfigure the memory function in the brains of boys. A plan called: ReCognition.Again, why? What's the motivation for that?

What does Ewan do with this crucial information? Will he be able to intervene and halt the execution of this plan? More importantly, can he save himself from the villains who surveil his every move? “By Brain and Bone,” is Ewan’s coming-of-age adventure amid an oppressive technological world.

You defnitely don't want to end with leading questions. We know that there will be the question of - what does he do? I mean, that's a plot, right? I think what you need to get into this query is the larger questions. What we have here is a typical dystopian - a loner pushing back against the all powerful. What we need to know is that this world is believable, and what motivations are. Right now, I'm just getting very basic structure and genre out of this. I don't understand the world - how it got that way, why it's that way, and what the motivations of the uber-powerful are - and I don't know anything about Ewan other than that he's a boy with a good memory. Who is he? Strong? Kind? Bashful? Flirty? Altruistic? Emotionally unavailable? I have no idea who he is. Get human elements into this to make it stand out as a concept.

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.

Derrick Flynn should be dead, but he’s up and running instead. He’s just survived his second chance encounter with the infamous killer Splitlip, a man assumed dead for decades. I think your hook is actually the second sentence, and I would consider striking the first. Splitlip is a great name for a villian, and the fact that it's Derrick's second encounter is intriguing. Also, cutting the first line will eliminate the echo (word repetition) of "dead."

Several years ago, Splitlip killed Derrick’s dream of developing his magic abilities when he murdered his mentor. This is first mention of magic, or indication that this is anything other than a contemporary thriller. Get the presence of magic into your opening para. Also, why can't Derrick just get a new mentor? Derrick’s superiors chalked the death up to a botched spell--untested sorcerers become erratic and delusional when they can’t control their magic--and expelled him from their group. Okay, so it's not so much that the mentor died that Derrick can't develop his abilities, it's that he was blamed for the death and banned. Again, I think you're giving information in a backwards fashion. It was a bitter pill to swallow, made worse by the fact that even his elder brother Alek, a sorcerer himself, didn’t believe him either. Believe him about what?

Now, those woes and doubts dissolve in adrenaline and glorious affirmation as Derrick runs from his would-be grave. Splitlip’s reappearance means redemption--if he can catch or kill him. It’s a chance he won’t let pass; but it’s one he can’t take alone. Definitely confusing. Somehow Splitlip still being alive is evidence that Derrick was not at fault for his mentor's death... but I have no idea what the connection is.

Alek agrees immediately when Derrick requests help, even though he hasn’t taken a bounty in years. How does a bounty come into this? Eager for his acceptance, Derrick sees this quick consent as the first step to regaining Alek’s trust, and perhaps even earning his esteem.

Only when they’re miles away from home does Derrick learn Alek’s true reason for wanting to help--to resurrect his late fiancee Cecily--and it threatens more than his shot at redemption. So... Alex actually just wants to find Splitlip so he can help resurrect his dead g/f? How does that threaten Derrick's goals directly?

CECILY'S KNOT (fantasy, 130k words) Holy word count. That's high. Even for a fantasy realm. As a debut trying to break into a very competitive marekt, you'll need to get that lower. Ideally under 100k may appeal to readers who enjoy Tad Williams' rich worlds and Patrick Rothfuss' mellifluous style. This debut novel is written as the first of a four part series, but could be adapted into a standalone story. You definitely need to push this as a standalone with series potential, rather than the other way around.

Your story sounds quite cool, and I like the concept, but your query is suffering from too much assumed knowledge. You'll see above that most of my critique revolves around needing clarification, or not knowing enough in order to draw the right conclusions. Get more explanatory info in there; we don't know this story. You do. It's possible to answer my questions and keep this concise.