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 MAINTENANCE MAN (75k words), is a near future adult scifi satire that combines the themes of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model and the dramedy of Only Murders in the Building. Good job concisely starting out with genre, word count, and comps. Sometimes I tell people that it's best to put this info at the bottom b/c everyone has these elements, and to start with your hook, as it's unique only to you. That's a personal opinion though!

All Cody Moore ever wants "ever wanted" or just "wants" is better phrasing is a chance to work with Albert, a superintelligent AI that propelled the U.S. into its post-scarcity era and who is now a key government figure. But first, he’ll have to pass the biannual technical Assessment and this year is his fifth attempt. Cloudy here. Does he have to take this test in order to get this job? Or is it a test he has to pass anyway? What does he do right now? Work in tech? The government?

So maybe that’s why Gramps willed to Cody his private investigation business. Maybe it’s time he finds a new life goal. But then in walks in walks where? Into his life? His PI business? His kitchen? Dorothea, with her fiery hair and clever tongue that catches him off guard. Dorothea, with her kitchen lightbulb that doesn’t just flicker at odd hours but also spells out in Morse code: S.O.S. Is this why she came to him, as a PI? All signs point to a cyber attack. But that’s impossible because it’s 2240 and there are no security vulnerabilities left to exploit thanks to Albert. But what if Albert missed something, and this hacker found it? Then perhaps they can teach Cody enough to finally pass the Assessment. So happily Cody takes the case. Convoluted. So Cody thinks a hacker made this woman's lightbulb blink (Why? What's the point of that?) and that whoever did it outsmarted Albert, so therefore they can likely help him pass this test, correct? I had to unspool everything to get there, so rephrasing is in order.

And though Cody expects their investigation to shed light on Dorothea’s past, never does he imagine it will uncover truths that might undo Albert himself. All amidst a historic presidential election wherein Albert, a write-in candidate, is taking the lead in multiple states. Right now we need to know a lot more in order to understand how these things come together to constitute a plot. What does Dorothea's past have to do with anything? Or Albert's shot at winning an election? What about the hacker? What's the significance of the lightbulb? Right now this is just reading like a bunch of disparate elements. Although it sounds interesting, it needs to be drawn together cohesively in order to illustrate the plot.

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.

Thank you for your consideration of my manuscript, THE WOMEN WHO RESCUED THEMSELVES, a work of fiction complete at about 120,000 words. That word count is very high, especially if you are submitting to a small press, which is the feeling I am getting here. I chose your press because you are willing to accept unagented, unsolicted submissions, and per your description, you are open to the kind of book I've written. What kind of book have you written? There's no genre here, you just say that it's fiction.

There are three women. The stakes are high for each one of them. You definitely need a better hook. Saying there are three women is not interesting, it's just a cast list. Don't say the stakes are high - anyone can type that. Illustrate that the stakes are high. A disabled, suicidal lesbian stands to lose her life. The woman in love with her stands to lose her love. A battered woman stands to live a life imprisoned by violence and denigration. Their separate paths cross on Bluerock Farm, a place of refuge where each one breaks out of their own self-imposed prison, where they become more powerful than they could possibly have imagined. This is well written, but it's not telling us anything about the plot. Why do each of them stand to lose these things? How do these plots intersect? The query needs to establish these things -- What does the main character(s) want? What stands in the way of them getting it? What will they need to do to overcome the obstacles, and what is at stake if they don't? Your query needs to convey the plot, this does not. Also, this sounds like it's a "quieter" novel, character driven as opposed to plot driven, and if that's the case a 120k is quite likely an inflated word count.

I am a 73 year old disabled, retired nurse practitioner. I broke my back after a fall from a horse. Though lucky enough to avoid paralysis, I was confined to a wheelchair, and then a walker. Now I walk with sticks, and sometimes I don’t need those. I’m married for 43 years to the same woman, have grown children and two cats. I can infer that your bio relates to the content of the novel in certain ways, but this is still a lot of extraneous info taking up space that would be better spent on conveying your plot.

This is my first novel. Other publications include: Author, “What Barbara Taught Me.” 1989. short story in California Nursing Review (out of print, clips available). Author, poetry. 1996. Women’s Voices, Sonoma County Women’s Resource Network. Author, poetry, Assisi:An Online Journal of Arts and Letters, St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY Fall 2011-Spring 2012."Come Through" and "I heard morning opening". Same here, taking up too much space. I would instead use a generic line such as, "I've had multiple articles and poems published in journals such as... The mystery of fiction is that the story tells itself. I didn’t set out to write stories of representation, but my characters said otherwise. Perhaps lesbians with disabilities will become more visible in the literature. And if even one woman understands that she is worth more than what society says she is, this novel will have been worth all the trouble. This isn't useful to the query. You need to collapse your bio and publishing history into each other and shorten both considerably, and leave much, much more room for your plot in order to convey the answers to the questions I laid out above.

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.

TAKE THE POWER BACK (93,000 words, speculative) is an adult speculative heist novel pitting a Lupin style thief against tech billionaires. I am a traditionally-published speculative fiction author with a Master’s degree in English literature. I am querying you because this novel resonates with [YOUR MSWL]

Really strong going in. The Lupin reference might be lost on those who aren't knowledgeable about the genre.

Shelby is a security professional struggling with catastrophizing OCD. It is a gift in her line of work – helping her hyper-focus on flaws in security systems – but a torment to her mental health. Great setup! When catastrophe hits close to home and her brother begins suffering an illness that conventional medicine can’t cure, Shelby falls down the rabbit hole and becomes convinced the only treatment for her brother is a drug invented by a genius billionaire named Leader Zenden – the creator of a hyper-capitalist island utopia. So far, really good. If you can find a way to indicate in some way what her brother's illness consists of, that would be good. Because OCD and metnal illness have been mentioned already, my brain goes that direction. If that's not the case, I'd find a way to clarify.

Shelby spends all her money to journey to Zenden’s island to buy the drug – only to learn it is a scam. She swears to take revenge, and what better way to do so than by stealing Zenden’s greatest invention yet and prove to the world that it’s a fake. What's the invention? How would she steal it? How would she prove it's a fake? Her revenge plot soon throws her into the middle of a power struggle for Zenden’s island. Shelby encounters a tantalizing thief, an old flame with ulterior motives, and Zenden’s most ardent zealot, while fighting the pull of Zenden’s cult upon her psyche. As her heist barrels toward its own catastrophe, Shelby must decide who she trusts – and maybe even learn whether her brother is truly beyond saving. There's a power struggle for the island? In what way? Are these people all there, physically present and this is going own like guerrilla warfare? Why would all these people end up there at the same time? What is this cult, and why is she being pulled toward them? Another mention of her brother and the question of if he can be saved means that we definitely need to know more about his illness.

TAKE THE POWER BACK is a recipe for activism about how an everywoman can beat the 1%. It asks big questions about who we really can rely on in times of catastrophe, saving the biggest for its audacious finale. I'm not sure this is coming across in the query The novel blends the timely satire of Alderman’s The Future with the mysterious, utopia-hiding-dystopia of The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton (May 2024, Sourcebooks Landmark).

This is my second novel picking apart corporate power and oppressive tech through a speculative lens; my first [NOVEL] I have spoken as an author panelist at [LITERARY CONFERENCES] and have forthcoming pieces in [LITERARY MAGAZINES].

Really great bio and intro. The first para of the query is good, the second wanders into generic pretty quickly. I don't really understand a few things - what is this invention? Is it related to her brother's illness, is it the drug itself? Is everyone there after the same thing, or are they all after something that's privately important to them? What does who she trust have to do with anything? She already doesn't trust Zenden, so what's the decision involving trust? If it's connected to the supporting characters, their roles need to be fleshed out more.