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.

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My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

I am sending my YA Paranormal Mystery, XXXX, for your consideration. I found your profile through “applicable info here” and hope my work will resonate with you.

After a soul-crushing ice-hockey finals loss and surviving a near fatal bus accident, sixteen-year-old Roman Walker suffers from a head wound and a bruised ego. This is a well written hook, but it doesn't give us any indication of what genre this could be. I'm pulled in enough to keep reading, but I think you need something more to pack a punch. He returns to his childhood home in Howick Assuming this is a South African location, due to your bio. You will want to clarify this, as most US readers wouldn't be able to infer it to convalesce at his grandfather’s house while his parents go away on business. This falls into the "easily gotten rid of parents" trope in YA, so you might want to find a better method for dispensing of them. Would they really leave Roman alone after sustaining a serious head injury? His quiet retreat soon becomes anything but.

Roman is set on edge when he starts seeing glimpses of ghosts around Howick: at the cemetery, the surrounding woods, even the local teen hangout. Not all of them look friendly—the worst ones are black, veil-like spirits that seem to tear into his mind What does this mean? He's doing more than just "seeing" them if there's an interaction. and frighten him to the core. To his surprise, he manages to talk to one of the ghosts—a teenage girl. She warns him to not let the others know what he can see, but before he can get more out of her, she vanishes. Shortly after, he comes across the girl’s face again: on a missing persons poster, next to many others. He begins to investigate the mystery behind a series of missing teens, finding cases going back decades. Roman’s unease grows, along with a feeling of being targeted, as he starts seeing more of the veil-like spirits around town. This leads him to uncover a centuries-old myth of an immortal, malevolent entity that marks her victim’s forehead with an ‘invisible’ X before taking them on a new moon each June—which is only a few days away. Interesting. I like it, but again, there's the conveneint "ghost disappears right before divulging something important" element.

Roman’s fears demand action when a new friend winds up with a blazing X above her eyes that only he can see. With the help of a diverse cast of eccentric characters (both living and not-so-living), Roman will have to race against the clock and keep his friend out of the clutches of encroaching evil, while searching for a way to confront a force that's been collecting souls for ages … and seemingly cannot be stopped. Not bad, overall. I think the title XXXX is probably working against you - I read it as simply a placeholder at first. Also, does this malevolent ancient spirit have a name? Is it based on something real? If so, name it. Also, just claiming you have a case of eccentric characters doesn't quite cut it. Listing two of three would be good. And who is this friend? Does she matter? Is there a romance? It's hard to feel any concern for someone who isn't important enough to garner a name drop in the query.

XXXX is a complete standalone novel at 93,000 words with series potential. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the spooky mystery of Harrow Lake, the cinematic narrative of the Road to Ever After, and fans of stories following the bonding of friends around supernatural forces in small town settings, like Stranger Things.

As for myself, I grew up in a blue-collar town behind mine dumps in South Africa, where getting mugged, chased by men with pangas, and being shot at, was just part of day-to-day life. I now live in England with my partner and daughter, exploring places of lore and absorbing the creative spirit of this beautiful land. I've also worked in the independent film industry and have had two of my screenplays turned into feature films. Good bio. It sets you up as being the proper person to use the setting, but again, you'll need to clarify that Howick is in South Africa for the bio to hit home.

In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home

by Mona Hajjar Halaby

As a small child when I walked about with my mother, I always clutched her hand and let her guide me. It was smooth and easy, like gliding on ice. Looking up at her from my tiny stature was like beholding a superhero by my side; Mama was larger than life.

Her handgrip was firm and decisive, like she meant business, like she knew where she was going, yet it was also warm and tender, like “I love you, and I’ll take care of you.” The puffiness of her palm reminded me of a loaf of warm pita bread, and when she laced her fingers into mine like a pretzel, I felt safe. I would have walked with her to the ends of the earth.

Nothing could pry us apart, except that life happened, and when I grew up we found ourselves worlds apart. In my twenties, I moved away from home in Geneva, Switzerland, and settled in California, USA, to be with the man I loved and to pursue my graduate studies. Mama, on the other hand, a Palestinian refugee in exile from her homeland, remained in Geneva with my father and sister.

Even though I wasn’t born in Palestine, my mother fed me stories about her childhood and youth, and I grew up knowing that Palestine ran in my blood. I was enamored by the joyful and exotic life my mother led in Jerusalem, by the happy days that came crumbling down when she lost her home during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

I also visited Palestine repeatedly, but never lived in my homeland, until 2007 when the Ramallah Friends School (RFS) in the Israeli Occupied Territories invited me—a teacher by profession—to train their faculty for one year in the facilitation of class meetings and non-violent communication, my specialties. I was hired to teach the students how to problem-solve and resolve their conflicts in a direct and peaceful manner. That year, I grew as a teacher while witnessing firsthand the effects of the Israeli Occupation on school-age children.

Living in Ramallah, I had come to know every corner of Palestine like the palm of my own hand. By the time my mother joined me for that epic visit, I was a woman in my fifties, and Mama had grown old with signs of an arthritic body and a fuzzy memory. She held my hand, or walked arm in arm with me, as I helped her negotiate the narrow cobblestone alleys of the Old City and streets of Lower Baq’a in West Jerusalem. Years ago, I had dreamed of being guided by Mama down the souqs of the Old City and the leafy streets of her neighborhood. I wanted to glide on ice with her again and feel her decisive and confident stride. But alas, it was not to be. Now with our roles reversed, I had become her legs and her memory.

My book is a memoir in two voices, my mother’s and my own, the past and the present intertwined. She wrote me letters during my year in Ramallah: letters that told her story, her love of Jerusalem, and her loss of Jerusalem. I’ve included her letters in my book, because my narrative wouldn’t be complete without my mother’s voice.

Mona Hajjar Halaby is the author of In My Mother's Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home, which interweaves the story of her mother's life and her own sabbatical year teaching conflict resolution in Ramallah. She is currently working on her next book about growing up in Alexandria, Egypt in the 1950s.

Writing Historical Fiction With Debut Novelist Samantha Specks

Though my novel is about events in 1862, for me the story started on Christmas 2005. A bitter wind blew snow over a country road. I was a high-schooler, cozy riding in my parents’ Suburban making the final turn to my grandparents’ home, when my blue eyes spotted something new. Headlights illuminated shapes moving across the darkening horizon. A group of men on horseback. Curious, I asked my parents why people were riding in the cold. My mother explained: “They’re Dakota who are marching to show they haven’t forgotten what happened here long ago.” And I've spent the last 15 years of my life learning what they haven't forgotten.

It was that cold night on the frozen Minnesota prairie when the first seeds of the Dovetails story were planted in my heart. The men who I crossed paths with were the Dakota 38+2 Riders. To commemorate the US-Dakota War anniversary and promote reconciliation, this group still rides every December from Lower Brule, South Dakota to the site of the mass hangings in Mankato, Minnesota. Their journey inspired the girl I was and the woman, and author, I am today.

Writing Dovetails in Tall Grass

Dovetails grew its way through the cracks in my life. In hindsight, I can see how there was space for that, as my career path was meandering; I previously worked in sports broadcast journalism and as a therapist. It was during my graduate studies in 2011 that I began diving deeper into my interest in the US-Dakota War; somewhere amidst the academic research and my personal interest, I began to interpret the history with a lens for story, through the perspective of two women. Still, years and a career passed by. It wasn’t until 2017, once my husband and I had moved from Minnesota to Texas that he encouraged me, “why don’t you finally write that book idea you always talk about?” Story had pushed its way through, grown too big to ignore. A nudge and a new beginning in the Lone Star State were what I needed to give it the time and space it deserved.

Once the moving boxes were unpacked, I had to figure out how to write a book. I didn’t even own a laptop, so a visit to the Apple store was a starting point. My mind was overflowing with ideas. A massive roll of artist’s paper seemed like a good purchase as well. Then I spent six months doing intensive research. There was no information about the US-Dakota War that was too big or too small. My brain wanted it all: scholarly articles, old texts from libraries that hadn’t been checked out for years, or page 7 of comments on Minnesota History message boards. It was time well spent. Once I really knew the history inside and out, I outlined. I unrolled that giant scroll of artists paper and made detailed historical timelines and abstract conceptual character boards. Hours upon hours, I sat on my hardwood floor surrounded by torn sheets of paper, stacks of texts, random pages flagged in open books, and my keyboard home row already worn from the constant clickty-clack of notetaking. After a few months, I sat back and looked at the chaos of a story around me. I let myself feel it. It wasn’t in the past; it overwhelmed my heart now. This war was complex. Ugly. Unresolved. This time in history mattered so much to me.

I knew it, I felt it, I had it. It was time to write.

I took a deep breath, let it out, and started typing. Most mornings, I’d head to a Starbucks with a singular goal of getting the fictional characters of 1862 living in my mind onto a Microsoft Word document. Some days I felt hopeful the writing was taking the shape of a story, but most days I felt like an imposter. I was a first timer, and it was excruciating. To me, my pages were rough, messy, and imperfect. After a morning of writing, I’d stop at Brazos Bookstore to look at the historical fiction section. Beautiful covers, stunning prose. How did writers do this? Mornings at the coffeeshop began to feel dreadful. When I opened my document, those first draft pages felt like I was catching a glimpse of myself midway through a dental procedure. Mouth open bizarrely wide, water and bits of whatnot spraying about, drills zinging and polishers whooshing too loudly in my ears. The world was already full of brilliant authors with dazzling work who smiled perfectly from the shelves. Real, flawless, writing like that was something my messy pages could never be. When I started working with an editor, my insecurity only worsened. I couldn’t look at myself. My stomach flipped with anxiety each time I saw my editor’s name pop up in my inbox. Despite her positivity and encouragement, the comments, deletions, and suggestions throughout my pages flagged my failure. A professional was making it clear that I didn’t have the writing chops. Who was I kidding?

One day, probably while I was avoiding writing and in some rabbit hole of research, I stumbled upon an image of JK Rowling’s edited Harry Potter pages. They were marked top to bottom, Xs over massive blocks of her writing. Wait… what? Rowling’s edits were messy?! My next visit to the bookstore, the shelves looked different to me. The titles were still awe-inspiring. But the authors’ names were superhuman in a new way... they didn’t get here because they wrote a perfect first draft. They got here because they pushed through every comment, suggestion, flag, cut paragraphs, deleted precious words time and time again. The process was ugly. Ugly and necessary.

My therapist brain flipped on. An editor’s feedback would be exposure therapy for me. Bit by bit, I’d face and feel the anxiety of looking at my words. And in that discomfort of exposure, bit by bit, I’d get stronger. I needed to get okay with the ‘ugly and necessary’. Shame dissolved in the light of that truth.

 Before long, I was refreshing my inbox, hoping to see my editor’s name pop up. I craved feedback. I didn’t need my writing to be the Harry Potter; I needed it to be Rowling’s marked up pages. And with that shift in my thinking, the words poured out of me.

I got down to it and I wrote a book. 

After a handful of years writing, I don’t think of myself as a “writer”. I think of myself as someone who is just lucky enough to tap into compelling ideas when I learn about significant times in history. After I’ve spent time in the trenches of research, the fictional story is something totally outside of myself that I just happen to be able to see. The more I study the fascinating dynamics of our past (cough cough *present*), the more fire lights within me and illuminates just what complexities would play out in a story arc. If I can get my fingers to type fast enough, the actual writing feels like grabbing the ideas/feelings/characters invisibly floating beyond my mind and sticking them onto the physical page. If I write well enough, at the end of my work the fire will spread to a reader turning the pages of a meaningful story playing out on our vibrant and vivid past.

Hopes for a Reader

After finishing Dovetails in Tall Grass, these are my hopes for a reader…

I hope a reader sets the book down and thinks, “Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t know about this time in history before…” and they instantly google “Chief Little Crow” or “Dakota 38+2 Riders” -- and maybe even search for “Emma Heard” or “Oenikika” because these fictional characters feel so real, they must be part of the actual history.

I hope this is a novel that makes a reader look forward to her book club meeting – that it brings out lively, engaging, dynamic conversation in a group. And that she chooses to chime in a few more times than she usually does in that discussion.

And finally, at the end of the day, I hope a reader remembers Dovetails in Tall Grass a novel that made her think, feel, and question. When someone asks her, “Have you read any good books lately?” She recommends it; not just because she liked the story but because she wants others to know how much the US-Dakota War of 1862 mattered.

Samantha Specks is a licensed independent clinical social worker. She and her husband live in Houston with their baby (Pippa) and fur baby (Charlie). When not in Texas, they enjoy spending time on the lakes of Minnesota and in the mountains of the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado. Dovetails in Tall Grass is Samantha’s debut novel. Currently, she is writing Dovetails of a River, which is set at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. For more information, please visit https://samanthaspecks.com