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.

SIGHT UNSEEN, my 87,000 word YA Fantasy novel, will appeal to readers of V.E. Schwab and Brigid Kemmerer. It is the character-driven portal quest of Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow married to the world-building, poetic adventure of Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. I tell everyone to start with a hook, not their data. Everyone who is querying has a title, word, count, genre, and comp titles. Start strong with what only your have - the hook for your book!

In SIGHT UNSEEN, Maya Delporte is an 18-year-old California teenager who can practically taste her independence as a college student and marine biology intern when an accident rips away her sight and future, forcing her to navigate a new path as a blind teenager. This is a long and unnecessarily complicated intro - get her new blindness front and center. Your word count is already pretty high, and you can trim this down quite a bit. When college-bound senior Maya Delporte suddenly loses her vision... etc

Doctors give Maya a BrainPort device to train her to see without her eyes using different pathways to the brain by shocking the tongue with electrodes. This is probably abit too much explanation of the device. For one thing, I don't understand at all how the tongue could help you see, and the query isn't the place to illustrate it. While using the device, she accidentally opens a portal What does this mean, really? Can she go there physically, mentally, or only visually? to a magical realm with five half-human, half-oceanic clans whose kingdom and environment are in peril. The king was murdered and his killer, Drezden, fled, but plots to attack the throne and gains strength by sapping Rhine’s ancient forest magic into his tentacles. The forest and its mighty trade resources are dying, and Prince Ari and his guard need Maya’s scientific skills to save their environment and her immunity to the strange curse befalling Rhine’s clans. Again, way too much detail for a query. ...a magical realm with a murdered king, political unrest, and an assasin who plans to use... Maya can help by...

They have something no one else can offer her—in Rhine, she gets her sight back. In California, she’s blind again. On Earth, Maya is powerless and reminded of it every time she bangs her head on an open cabinet door and fails her Braille tests. In Rhine, she’s useful and essential to save their environment; it’s a relief to fight for something greater than herself where she can see straight. Maya must not only straddle youth and adulthood but sight and blindness as she navigates her complicated relationship with her best friend (and maybe boyfriend), Sam. Though she loves Sam, Rhine offers her an escape from the painful rebuilding of her real life, so she runs further into a fantasy world and away from herself, risking her own destruction and ripping herself out of her own life. Again, way too much detail for a query. We're really deep into the query for a boyfriend to suddenly make an appearance. Right now, this reads as only pros for staying in Rhine. What are the cons? Beyond Sam?

Drezden is gaining ground in his quest to take the throne, and Maya must stop him before he enslaves the clans of Rhine, who she’s grown to love. Drezden won’t stop at Rhine. If he succeeds, he plans to take over the human world and use Maya as his weapon. The stakes just changed. We were worried about Rhine and Maya having to make a decision about which place to stay in, but now the two are overlapping and what's at risk changed entirely - now Maya can be a weapon in her own world. It muddies the plot quite a bit.

I studied at the University of Iowa undergraduate writers’ workshop under Carmen Maria Machado and Ayana Mathis. I work in tech marketing and am excited to offer eight years of marketing experience to help launch and sell my book. I have been published in trade marketing magazines and won a Nine Dot Arts writing contest. This is my debut novel. Really, really good bio! Everything here is great. Just get this trimmed up with only the essentials for a query!

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.

Elli’s classmates go missing! Should this be "are going" since it's an ongoing situation? One on Monday, One on Tuesday then Two on Wednesday. Because of the numbers, this made me wonder if it was a counting book - and why they weren't escalating with the days of the week By Thursday Elli’s worry turns into curiosity and she is forced to either finish all of her classroom chores on her own since those that were assigned to help are not there or investigate the world around her to solve the mystery of the missing classmates. This is a long and awkward sentence - but also, it makes it seem like the incentive for her to find her classmates is so that she doesn't have to do all the chores on her own, which isn't exactly the most considerate angle.

A curly-haired, fashion-forward, brown-skinned 7 year old girl, Elli is no ordinary 2nd grader. Unbeknownst to her classmates, she’s a brilliant Health Educator I'm not sure what it means to be a Health Educator... as a child? who can see and talk to germs. Oh, man! This needs to be your hook! Move this all up! While adjusting her rainbow colored glasses something bright red catches her eye and her Germoscopic lens begins flashing to alert her that the bright red be careful you're not using the same phrases twice (bright red) thing is a germ! With the help of her Big Rainbow Germ book, Elli realizes that she just stumbled upon the most common classroom germ which that is singlehandedly keeping her classmates home sick! Elli aspires to discover the truth about all the germs in her classroom and teach her classmates how to protect themselves.

I SEE GERMS IN COLOR WITH ELLI THE EDUCATOR is a non-fiction Children’s Picture book complete at 604 words, with series potential. It celebrates curiosity like ADA TWIST, SCIENTIST and has a literal yet memorable teaching hook like DOC MCSTUFFINS.

I am an active member of The Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. By integrating my experience as a Registered Nurse & a Nurse Educator, I’ve developed this Picture Book to teach children health-related concepts in an imaginatively fun way. In a recent Teacher & Principal School Report, results revealed an increase in their desire for books that serve as mirrors where children can see themselves while learning. I've accepted the responsibility to hold the mirror for brown children all over the world because when brown children SEE themselves, they BELIEVE in themselves and set out to ACHIEVE great things that will have a lasting impact on others!

This is a fantastic bio!

Overall, I think you need to get the idea of the germs and her being able to see them to the forefront, since that's the focus and it's non-fic. Otherwise this opens up reading more like a mystery and fiction. Something like, "A curly-haired, fashion-forward... who can see and talk to germs. When one of Elli's classmates fails to show up to school - and attendance drops as the week continues - Elli suspects that germs are at the root of thep problem..." Tie these two paras together in that way (or a simliar manner).

I should add that I'm not a picture book author and by no means am I the most adept at critiquing a picture book query, and it would be smart to seek other opinions as well!

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 am sending you The Warriors of Bjornfell, a multi-POV High Fantasy YA novel with crossover potential. It is a standalone with series potential complete at 101,160 words. It will appeal to fans of Kendare Blake and Jenn Lyons. In general, I tell people to put this information at the bottom of the query. I look at it like this - every author querying has a title, a genre, a word count, and comp titles. Go in with a punch - use your hook. This info can go at the bottom. Also - you can just say it's 100k and round down. However, I would advise you to get that word down to 85-90k. Breaking out at 100k is difficult, and this genre is currently packed tight as it is.

Nathaja & Brynjar are two of three predestined warriors who are the first beings gifted by the gods in almost two centuries. This is a bit convoluted - I'm immediately wondering who the third is, and what it means to be gifted. Are they really good piano players, or what? Find something more distinctive to say, or else this starts off like every other Chosen One (or two) narrative They both must learn to control their powers in order to rescue their mothers from the clutches of Nathaja's brother Geir who has joined forces with Ragnifred, the immortal sorceress Queen. But... why? Right now this is just like - hey, we've got an emergency because there's a bad person! Which is pretty generic

Gwithari is an only child and heir to the High Elven Throne. Why did we just jump over to this person? Are N and B not the MC's? The natural course of action is for Gwithari to take the throne when the King dies, however, the only thing preventing that is the secret Gwithari guards from the world. Gwithari’s true self is female though she was born male, a fact that doesn’t coincide with her parent’s strict heteronormative views. She is given an ultimatum by her parents, either conform and obey or face death. Hey, here's your hook - I found it down here. Lead with this. This is what makes your story stand out from the pack.

Atrahasis has always dreamed of discovering what became of his grandfather’s brother, the man that traveled to a far northern kingdom and fell in love with a beautiful woman. Atrahasis soon discovers that fulfilling this dream comes at a price.I have no idea what this has to do with any of the characters you've mentioned above. Right now this query has a name soup problem, and I'm not seeing threads to tie these people, or these plots, together.

Ragnifred resented the gods for damning her to a life as a giftless mortal. After stealing not only the gifts but the very life force of others Who? she vowed to one day kill the gods and remake the world as she sees fit. Now the only thing standing between her and her goals are these prophesied warriors, for they will be the key to her success. How can they both be what's standing in her way, and they key to her success?

I am a trans woman from Florida and when I am not writing I am a freelance graphic designer, artist, and caregiver to my disabled mother. Definitely mention you're trans, however, unless disability is a theme in the book, I don't know that the nod here is important.

Right now this query has too many names and not even plot. I don't have a real idea of how these stories are going to come together to create a plot. Do all of these characters have POV's? If so, multiple POV needs to be stated. If not, figure out who is the most importnat, and focus the query on their stories.