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 UNTIL DEATH DO US SEW, Corpse Bride meets a sapphic Hades and Persephone when a reclusive seamstress who sews emotion into wedding gowns is pulled into the realm of Death itself. I mean, I'm in!

Inessa has spent ten years hidden inside her atelier I admit to having to Google this word. Others may have to as well, concealing a dangerous gift. Every dress she sews carries raw emotion, powerful enough to destroy whoever wears it. Desperate for a life where her existence cannot harm anyone, her self-imposed isolation is shattered when a mysterious client commissions a gown using the wrong measurements. Can't she just pass on the request? Later on, the grieving groom collects the garment at midnight and the cursed dress opens a passage straight to the Underworld. Okay, so I'm still definitely in. But I guess my big question is why doesn't she just not do that for a living then?

There, Inessa meets Morrigan, the immortal shadow entity ruling the dead. Instead of fearing Inessa's curse, Morrigan offers her a purpose as the tailor of souls, restoring the dead’s identities through shadow and thread. But as Inessa falls for her host, she discovers a terrifying truth. She is the fifteenth seamstress Morrigan has lured there, and the previous fourteen were consumed once their magic ran dry.By who / what? Yet the cycle has fractured. For the first time in four centuries, Morrigan cannot bring herself to destroy her captive, proving that the tenderness growing between them is not part of the trap. Awkward phrasing here, I'd put this more like Morrigan feels tenderness growing in spite of knowing the eventual outcome

Inessa can flee and return to a life of isolation and a gift she cannot control. Well I mean, once again, why doesn't she just do data processing or something like that? Or she can finish the coat she has begun sewing for Morrigan, threading four centuries of grief, guilt, and buried love into every seam, forcing Morrigan to feel everything she has spent centuries suppressing. Magic demands a price. To finish it, Inessa must pour the last of her gift into the stitches. The cost, whatsoever, will be her hands, and with them, the only craft that has ever given her life meaning. So this is over all super great. But there's that big question of - why not just do something else then? I'm also curious why she's sewing a coat for Morrigan and why that coat would have a different outcome than the dresses she's made in the real world.

UNTIL DEATH DO US SEW is a 99,000 words adult gothic fantasy romance. It is Mexican Gothic meets A Dowry of Blood with the atmospheric dread of Belladonna, featuring high-fashion necromancy, slow-burn emotional manipulation, and a monster who forgets how to be cruel. I am a Brazilian biomedical scientist currently based in Italy. When I am not writing gothic romance about entities with terrible emotional regulation, I am studying biotechnology and explaining to my professors why the human body is just a dark fantasy with extra steps. UNTIL DEATH DO US SEW is my English-language debut. Awesome bio, well done. Your word count might be a little high for a debut, so I'd consider attempting to whittle it down, if possible. However, the premise is so interesting that I wouldn't be surprised if you get partial or full requests even with a high word count. Like I said, the biggest thing here for me is the question of motivation - why doesn't she just do something else for a living? Or refuse wedding dress orders, if she knows whoever wears it will die?

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 currently seeking representation for FURY THE LAST RAIDER, which is the first installment of a five-part series. Firstly, I honestly don't think it's useful to state that you are seeking representation - you queried them. They know that. Secondly, you don't want to hear this but you're not going to get this off the ground with a traditional publisher as a five part series. Fantasy crested, and the trend is on it's way out (if you ask me). A trad publisher isn't going to want to get behind a five book series in a genre that is declining, or take a 5-book risk on a debut author, as well. You need to find a way to make this capable of standing on it's own, with sequeal potential.

Alvi Daine does not want revenge. He needs it. This is a good hook!

Words like ‘honor’ and ‘justice’ no longer hold weight for Alvi after the genocide of his clan. Now he is the last survivor of a once thriving society wiped out by the greed of an ever-expanding imperialist enterprise. But revenge comes at a cost. The opportunity to kill the man responsible for the slaughter of Alvi’s kin is weighed against the risk of a full-on ethnic cleansing. Is there a limit to how far Alvi will go for his revenge? So this is using a wide brush and it could apply to a lot of books, which means it's not distinguishing yours as anything new or special. Revenge, a "last one of his kind" vibe, followed by a huge leap into ethnic-cleansing. You're also ending with a rhetorical question, which is never a good idea. I don't see the plot thread here, other than Bad things Happen > Now he might do bad things > Is that bad?

Dune meets Pirates of the Caribbean in FURY THE LAST RAIDER; an emotional, high-stakes, adult fantasy set in ‘the Fury’ - a desolate wasteland filled with desert pirates and fire-breathing monsters. But what does that have to do with anything? But... is it funny? Pirates of the Caribbean is definitley funny. If this isn't humourous (and I'm not seeing that here) I woudn't use that comp. Complete at 78k words and told from multiple perspectives, If it's told from multiple POVs there needs to be more than one character present in the query this gritty, suspenseful atmosphere will appeal to readers of the The Shadow Of The Gods series and The Aeronaut’s Windlass.

I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in psychology from Utah Valley University. This will be my debut novel. Thank you for taking the time to read my work, I will be happy to send you a copy of the full manuscript upon request. Don't say it's your debut, they're assuming that. If you can find a way to tie your degree in psychology (and I bet you can) to the book you're querying, that would be beneficial.

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.

EROXUS: THE AXIS AGENT is a character-driven adult grounded fantasy complete at 118,000 words, blending metaphysics with psychological tension and an atypical romance while exploring the overlap between perception and reality. So I admit fantasy isn't really my arena, but I don't know what a "grounded" fantasy is. it could be a term I'm just not familiar with, though. You probably already guessed that I'm going to point at your word count. Breaking out as a debut is incredible hard. Breaking out as a debut in the fantasy genre is even harder. The market is completely flooded. Try to get that word count closer to 90k to give yourself a better shot.

Eighteen-year-old Jade Starr, a neurodivergent outcast, has spent her life fighting intrusive thoughts she believes mean she’s losing control of her own mind, only for them to begin manifesting in the world around her. Definitely a good hook, however the phrase "believes mean" is awkward. It's not technically wrong in any sense, but I had to read back over it. Also, you don't need to specify that she's losing control of her own mind. I'm just assuming it's the only mind she's supposed to have control of in the first place.

When a raven-headed entity called Enkidou begins appearing to her at the edges of reality and dreams,I don't know what this means. It sounds elegant, but I really don't have any sense of what this would look like, plotwise. he reveals that she is an Eroxian, a cosmic being capable of influencing probability and outcome, and that her intrusive thoughts are not symptoms of illness, but unfiltered manifestations of power that could destabilize the world around her.

After a sixteen-day disappearance she cannot fully account for, Jade is led to Dr. Leo Ingenito, an enigmatic psychiatrist who studies the relationship between neurodivergence and anomalous perception. She soon learns he may be the only one who can help stabilize her thoughts before they manifest, due to a symbiotic bond between them, one that is intertwined with Enkidou. But why does she want the thoughts stopped in the first place? Intrusive thoughts can be anything from violence to sex to suddenly thinking about cake when you're on a diet. What is the danger in her thoughts, specifcally?

As Jade grows into her power, two threats close in: a hostile Eroxian force intent on taking her, and a relentless detective building a case against Leo over her unexplained disappearance. But... why? Why would the force want to take her? And take her where? And why is there a case being built over her disappearance when she's very clearly no longer a missing person?

If either succeeds in separating them, her power, still growing faster than she can control, could break loose and collapse the world around her. But - how? Is her power specifically bad? Why do some Eroxians want to take her? What does the real world disappearance / investigation bring to the plot at all? It's the only mention of a plot line that doesn't fit neatly into the SF/F genre, and I don't know what it's purpose is, or how it fits in amongst everything else.

Eroxus: The Axis Agent is the first novel in a planned series, and I am currently working on Volume 2. I live in Minnesota, and have studied metaphysical concepts, with a particular interest in chaos magick, for over twenty years. Definitely do not try to sell the first book in a series, especially right now, especially in this genre. This needs to be able to stand on it's own and be presented as having series potential, but not as the first in a series.