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.

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.

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.

He dropped to one knee, and she ran for the hills. Great hook! After annihilating her happily ever after, Fern is only certain of one thing: marriage to her long-term boyfriend felt a lot like settling, and she wants more than a safe bet. Displaced to her late grandparents’ farmhouse, the makeup artist is intent on organizing her family’s treasures and her own life. What does that mean? Is she shorting through their old stuff? Is she a city girl that is transplanted? Or does she fit in here? A little bit more on that end would fit nicely here. Instead she finds a certainty she didn’t know existed, and a place to plant her biggest dreams. But even the most idyllic havens can be mirages. This feels a little too much like a summary too early on. I'd cut, and cover these elements later in the query.

Fern grapples with clearing out the nostalgic property, and the loss of this part of her history, too. Again, this feels like a nod to her fitting / not-fitting here. A little more about how she is or is not a fish out of water would be good. As the house sale looms—along with her eviction date—she braves farmhouse misadventures, What does this mean? Like home improvements? and her neighbor, Wes, steps in to lend a hand. With Wes, Fern feels more grounded than ever before, and sparks illuminate their tract of land, revealing a path to their future. Even as Fern is finding the place she belongs, her ex draws her back into his life. And Wes’ roots in the small town are tangled with ties he can’t easily cut—like the family business he's sworn his life to, the football field where he played and now watches his daughter do cartwheels, and his high-school sweetheart bent on reconciliation. A lot packed in here - why would Wes' roots matter or be a problem? Does she want him to move back to where she came from? Does she not want to stay here? And how is the ex luring her back in if she already decided he felt like settling?

Just as quickly as they appeared, Fern’s big dreams disappear before her eyes. But what's her new dream? How is it disappearing? When crisis strikes with a shocking accident, Don't tease here. We need to know what the accident is. the divide between Fern and Wes stretches wider, and the roads back home are so inviting that neither is sure which way is forward. The metaphor feels mixed, if the rood is so inviting how do you not know which way to go? Uprooted again, Fern wonders if home was an illusion all along, and if her already battered heart can withstand another break—or if she’s simply meant to settle, not settle down. Hmm... what's the difference between those two things?

I don't really understand what's at stake. We need to know - very clearly - what Fern wants, and what is standing in the way of it. I think this query is decent enough, but you need to clariy the main problem - what does Fern want? And, it does sound like the question of home and belonging is a pretty big theme, so I'd work that in more. I don't have an idea for how Fern feels about this farm life - is THIS home? Or is where she left behind home?

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.

In the glittering backstreets of modern New York, old scars and secrets give birth to magical calamities.I think this is interesting but I'm not sure that it's quite hook-ish enough, because it's very non-specific. I do think it's decent though, and if you follow it up with real meat, it could work.

To the venandi, power is a matter of life and death. This is definitely not real meat. I don't know who or what the venandi are, so it doesn't really matter to me. And power is kind of always a matter of life and death, no matter who you are. I'd strike this.

Their hidden society is structured upon the notion of noblesse oblige — privilege entails responsibility. Okay... this makes them sound like they are the good guys, whereas power being a matter of life and death as alluded to in the line above, makes them seem power hungry, so it feels contradictory to me. Their second hearts that beat alongside the first draw power from the ether: an energy source from the realm of purity, the first out of reality’s three dimensions, which manifests into eight different types of magical abilities as it passes into the mortal realm. Way too much world building, no plot. I'm not really intereted in second hearts and ether and 8 kinds of magic, because I don't know who they are, what they want, or what the plot is. Right now this goes from being very vague, to become super specific - but still not telling me anything about what the story is.

Seventeen year old Hazel Labelle has always believed herself cursed, haunted by her strange ability to see the spirit world. Is Hazel a human? Or a venandi? We spent a lot of time talking about them and now we're talking about Hazel. She is an avid boxer and pioneer, What does it mean to be a pioneer in today's world? and she has not lived in one place for more than six months. The unstable nature of her life was put to rest upon reaching New York, where she has lived in peace for four years. You just said she's never stayed anywhere more than 6 months, but now it's four years - also, if she's seventeen, she got to NY when she was 13... so are her parents the ones moving her around and leading this wandering lifestyle? But recently, her peace is threatened by a series of strange happenings within the city — people are disappearing in groups without a trace, their bodies found burned and covered in odd markings. Why does this threaten her peace? What does it have to do with her ability to see the spirit world?

When Hazel is attacked by a mysterious man in a mask during a rebellious one night road trip with her friend, an intrusion that results in the kidnapping of her father, her fragile reality starts to crumble. Really convoluted sentence here. And what does it mean that her reality is fragile? Fragile how? Connected to her visions? Does the road trip matter to the story? Simply say - "when her father is kidnapped." You don't have a lot of room to go into this level of detail in a query. Drawn into the twisted dark world of venandi, I'm completely confused as to whether the venandi are good or bad Hazel is put through a dream trial that unveils a fledgling venandi’s magic, only to discover she possesses a cursed power that is not meant to exist. She also begins to suffer from flashes of images, bits and pieces from a past she cannot remember. With the help of the residents of the Phoenix Headquarters, Who are they? How did she meet them? Are they venandi? and she will face down age-old schemes, bitter royals, and a world-shattering betrayal that will leave her unable to tell friend from foe, illusion from reality, and lies from truths any longer. This doesn't have any impact because I don't know anything about the schemes, the royals, or the betrayals. They're just words and plot elements that any number of stories have.

For in the venandi world, ignorance equals ruination. This doesn't really have any impact either, because I don't know who the venandi are, what they want, or if they're even good or bad.

NOTHING BUT SHADOWS is a modern reimagining of medieval monarchs and nobility, heavily dusted with magical intrigue. It is an upper YA contemporary fantasy complete at 118k words, with series potential. I am currently a college student from South Korea, and I run an Instagram account (@winter.writes17) with over 34k followers.

From the query, I never would have guessed that this had any relation to medieval monachs, etc. I don't understand how any of these plot elements are connected - venandi, dead bodies in the city, her dad getting kidnapped, a guy attacking her, these Phoenix people, and then any number of things in the last paragraph. You need to get the actual plot front and center - and Hazel, not the venandi. Their hearts, etc, don't matter at all. What is Hazel's goal? Is she trying to get her dad back? He's lost entirely. I don't know what she wants, who her enemy is, who her friends are, or what the actual plot is. Work on trimming this down to the bone to get the plot front and center, not world building, or too much detail about things that don't matter (second hearts, one night road trips). Also, YA fantasy is always inundated, and 118k is pretty long in the tooth for a debut. Try to get it under 100k before you start quyering!