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.

Eleven-year-old Frederick David Jones is bored of school and routine and boredom. In general, having a main character who is bored can be a hard sell. Reading about someone else's boredom is... boring. You've also got an echo here (repeated use of the word). Instead, find a synonym - unfullfilled, dissatsified.. etc His solution: wander into the woods. When he accidentally drifts off, What does this mean? Floats away? Falls asleep? he wakes up Aha! Fell asleep - but you need to say as much to find the trees have grown about a hundred feet tall and look about a million years old. But did they, actually? Is he in a different place or in a Rip Van Winkle situation? A spirit lady warns that the world is fading and he must strive to “remember.” What does this mean? What world is fading? What does he need to remember? How does he feel about this? Back home, after months of trying to reconcile the two worlds, a failed attempt to run away, from what / who? and a whole lot of magically skipping through time, this is potentially confusing - is he skipping through time in our world? Their world? What is the connection to the plot? What is he trying to remember? Which world is fading and what is at stake? he meets Sage Namid Luna, a weird, home-schooled kid who just moved from the countryside and who has no qualms about holding hands. They venture into the woods and pass into the other realm, but everything has turned monochrome and misty, and the spirit has become a monster. They flee, but when Frederick emerges from the fog, Sage is gone. I don't really understand how all of these things form together to create the plot.

Frederick must resist an ever-strengthening time-skipping curse, gather his friends, escape the authoritarian adults, and charge into the woods (now crawling with cops) to find Sage and stop the insatiable spirit-turned-monster even as the greyness seeps into the eyes of the people around him and the fog leaks between worlds, throwing into question the separation of the two places and threatening to blanket everything and everyone in mindless, colorless, everlasting nothing.

Why is time skipping a curse? He was bored to begin with, now time skipping is a curse, not fun? Was it fun in the first place? What is he trying to remember and why will that stop the grayness? You say he has friends, but they're not mentioned. He sounds like a loner. Why are the adults authoritarian? Why did he try to run away? If the spirit is now the monster, was her warning bad... or good? Should the places be separate? Is that bad or good? you can see that right now I have a lot of questions about how these disparate elemeents tie together to create the actual plot, and the query will need to do more work to illustrate that.

FREDERICK AND THE WOODLANDS is a 51,000-word YA If he's 11, it's definitely more MG novel somewhere between urban fantasy and magical realism. Its primary audience is 12-18, but it will appeal to a wide range of ages. That may be true, but they want to market it to a certain age group, and kids tend to want to read UP - by that I mean, about kids older than them. They don't want to read about younger kids. With your protag being 11, this is definitely in the MG realm The novel uses magic as a means to explore such relevant themes as coming of age, conformity, expectations, belonging, consumerism, ontology, and the human-environment relationship in today’s dynamic world. It very well could, but I don't see those reflected in the description above.

Elements of the story and voice evoke books like Colin Meloy’s WILDWOOD, Katherine Paterson’s BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA and Brandon Mull’s FABLEHAVEN; movies like Wes Anderson’s MOONRISE KINGDOM, Hayao Miyazaki’s MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, and Guillermo Del Toro's PAN’S LABYRINTH; and shows like Patrick McHale’s OVER THE GARDEN WALL and the Duffer brothers’ STRANGER THINGS. Good comps, but too many - pick two!

I am a young writer living in Fort Collins, Colorado, where I study political economy and environment in graduate school. I have been published in a local magazine and a college literary journal, and I have a minor in creative writing. This project—hopefully—will be my first published novel. Name your college journal and don't bother mentioning that you don't have any novel credits yet - it's assumed.

I hope you will consider FREDERICK AND THE WOODLANDS for representation. Please find the first [] pages below. Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.

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.

Harmony “Goldilocks” Gold is hunted by a “Charming” guard she can’t help falling for as, haunted Using "hunted" so close to "haunted" had me mentally confusing the two. I didn't realize he was pursuing her until I had read further by the tragedy and accusations of her past, she travels across the kingdoms to see the trial of her abusive father. I realize I might be alone in this, but I don't understand why Charming is in quotes - is he prince Charming? But a guard? I think this opening sentence is a touch convoluted and must be unraveled in order for the reader to dissect what's going on. I'd shoot for simplicity in your opening hook.

The Criminal is a twist on the story of “Goldilocks” and tells the story of Harmony Gold, a sarcastic fugitive forced into a life on the run by her abusive father and the death of her mother. In desperation to survive after the loss of loved ones, Harmony slowly becomes the criminal the world thinks she is, taking on the identity others have given her. Harmony struggles for freedom and desires a normal life but has to come to the realization that neither is in the cards for “Goldilocks.” Right now, this is running in circles - you've got an opening para that sounds like a pitch, but then you go into an overview statement here. We need to know why the world thinks she is a criminal, and how she evolves to become one. Right now these are broad statements that don't tell us much at all about the actual plot.

But when Harmony finds an advertisement for the trial of her father, she sees a way towards the freedom she so desires. If only she could lose the guard chasing her. And if only she could stop falling head over heels for him. Why would there be an ad for a trial? Is it just like a news statement? Why would the trial be a path toward freedom for her? Why is a guard chasing her? How can she fall head over heels for someone she is evading? Do they interact? Surely they must be thrown together at some point in order to fall in love? You'll see from my questions here that the plot isn't reallly present in the query.

Now Harmony must decide: is freedom what she really wants? Or will she redefine her identity as something more than a criminal? Why does she have to decide? What forces that?

The Criminal is an 87,000 word YA novel appropriate for both MG and adult audiences. That's a pretty large statement - that this book can be read by MG to adults. You need to be more narrow, b/c the counterargument is that they won't know how to market it.It is the first in a seven-book series You definitely don't want to be pitching the first in a 7 book series. It needs to be a standlone with series potential - and that needs to be an accurate statement. entitled Once Upon a Tome with themes of identity and racial discrimination. Really? Where? I had zero idea that this was the case from everything above. The writing style is a cross between Gail Carson Levine and Sarah J. Maas with a little bit of Chris Colfer’s middle-grade whimsy.

I am a dual citizen of New Zealand and the US, a dog mother, and a tea enthusiast. I have been writing with the intent to publish since I was twelve and recently self-published a poetry book entitled Imagine This: From Pain to Possibility about the severe pain and medical conditions I face and the ways I push through. The book has sold about 75 copies so far. I hope to publish more books in the YA fiction realm in the future. Without extremely impressive self-publishing sales, don't mention it at all. Also, most people who are writers have been writing since they were children. If you don't have anything incredibly relevant to include in your bio, don't be scared to leave it simple, and skimpy.

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.

THE GREAT RESIGNATION, a first-person 66,000 word upmarket novel with a passionate adult love story, mixes the humor and vulnerability of Something To Live For by Richard Roper with the voicey style and narrative twists of a Jonathan Tropper novel. I always tell people to start with their hook - everyone has a title, a word count, and comp titles. Start with something no one else has - the hook for your book. Could just be me, but that's where I land.

Presaging today’s headlines, it’s 2009, If it's set in 2009, it can't really presage today's headlines, b/c we already have that knowledge. I realize that's a loose interpretation of the word, but it was my immediate thought upon reading it and Will and Clara quit their respective positions as lawyer and local newscaster to pursue risky dreams. Like what? We need to know what they are in order to believe that they are risky, or understand why this presages anything Spurring each other on, they become deeply involved. With what? Each other? These risky dreams? How do they spur each other on? Will persists down the low-status path of working as a children’s clown and musician, informed by his guilt over acquitting a client who went on to murder her child — an impossible debt to discharge. It's an interesting idea, however, why does he feel like this appraoch cleanses him? Will’s mother, brother, and colleague urge him to bear up and get back to work. His original career? Only Clara stands behind his career change — until she does an abrupt 360 and begs him to try her father’s battery case. What is Clara's arc? What was her risky dream? You already stated earlier that they spur each other on, so we don't need the restatement When Will refuses, Clara leaves him, claiming he is limited in his capacity to give, an assessment Will grudgingly accepts. Even so, he and Clara seem on the verge of reconciliation when she learns of his rebound one-night-stand with Alessia, the daughter of Clara’s ruthless new boss.New boss in what sector? Clara is totally lost in this narrative, even though it began seeming as if it was about both of them Now, without Clara’s support, Will must persevere in his new calling — strictly for himself. But wasn't he doing it for himself to begin with? There was no statemetn that made it seem like Clara is benefiting from his new career When a botched surgery takes Alessia’s life, Will offers his legal services to Clara’s boss to save her grandson from an abusive father. So he'll return to the career he hates for the son of his one night stnd, but not for his girlfriend's father? Why? As Will seeks to win the case, and Clara, he continues to explore whether he must change himself to fit the world. We need to know more about the motivation - why would he quit in the first place? How does he think the new career is going to save his soul, and what's the motivation for returning to it? What has changed that he would even consider it? This also needs to be reframed so that it doesn't open sounding as if it's going to be equally about Will and Clara - it's not.

This story is loosely based on my own journey from lawyer-to-clown-to-kids-musician as featured in my NY Times essay http://ow.ly/fuI030iK7TC which provoked 465 reader comments. From this experience, I learned to use my work not to gain prestige but as a means to craft a joyful life.