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.

UNTIL THE SUN FADES is a young adult romance with speculative elements at 95,000 words. I am submitting this to you because I read on your MSWL that you enjoy PERSONALIZATION.

Seventeen-year-old Ophelia Sun has everything mapped out: get into her dream college, become valedictorian, and prove herself as a scholarship kid amidst students used to luxury. Fine, it makes her a burnt-out perfectionist, but at least she has the validation she thrives on. This is a good start, you've set up the worldbuilding and character goals from the beginning. I think my only question is this - is she looking to become valedictorian of her high school class? And proving herself a scholarship kid has me a little confused - is she going to a private high school and she's on scholarship there? Or is she planning on being a scholarship student proving herself at an elite college? It's a little muddled.</span?

She certainly did not plan to fall in love with Atlas Cai, her academic rival. Nor did she plan for him to suddenly die. Or for him to come back as a ghost right before winter break that only she can see. Awkward phrasing here - it sounds like winter break is the thing that only she can see, not Atlas Determined to stay on track and not fall in love with him again, Ophelia must help Atlas complete his bucket list to find peace in the afterlife. Why must she? Why her? Can't she just refuse?

Atlas’s list takes them from bookstores to snowy fields to a vacation in Japan, and their adventures force Ophelia to reconsider everything she’s planned. This raises the question of how any of this is affordable to her if he's a ghost and she's a scholarship kid. As the weeks pass, she finds freedom in her life away from academics, and for the first time, she’s faced with a choice—the security of the life she wants, or the love and joy she’s felt with Atlas, even if she can’t keep him forever. But she only has one month to complete his bucket list before she must return to school, and a month might not be enough to say goodbye a second time. Again - why? Why does she only have one month? Is this all taking place over winter break?

UNTIL THE SUN FADES is a dual timeline story split between Ophelia’s adventure with Atlas, and her experiences during the five years prior. My book appeals to fans of Ann Liang’s If You Could See the Sun and Dustin Thao's You’ve Reached Sam.

Overall, this is intersting but the big questions remain - why does she have to do this? Also, when you say he's her academic rival, it sets up this "enemies to lovers" feel, which I don't think is what you actually want here. I think we need to know more about their dynamic while he was alive. Was this a good natured rivalry? Was it full of friction? I think knowing more about that will help pack a little more punch into the query.

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.

Kiara Silverthorne is no savior. She’s a thief who steals from heretics in the forest with her brother to keep her starving family alive. This sentence is absolutely packed with nouns. It's not necessarily bad, but it makes me brain do some parsing, and also raises some questions - who are the heretics? Why target them? Honestly it just kind of made me pull back and have to re-read, which isn't a great attribute in the first paragraph As a human born amongst magical valen, she knows it’s only a matter of time before they kill her out of spite, but she’s determined to prove her worth. I honestly don't know what valen are, so that may be more of a fantasy term that an agent or editor would know offhand, but for me it just raised questions. And why would they kill her out of spite? If she was born among magical folk and she steals in order to feed them and keep them alive, why would they kill her? Is proving her worth by keeping them fed not enough? I'm just not totally clear on why they would hate her, or what the motivation is here.

When an attack from Selaeria destroys her home, an ancient sisterhood returns and reveals a dark prophecy, plunging the lands into a war the valen king wants her to stop by killing the Selaerian king. But if she fails, he’ll slaughter her family. Why is she the one that's got to do this? Her skills as a thief don't make her an assassin. And again, the question of her family - are they magical, but not her? Or are they a non-magical family among valen?

Dragged into enemy lands after the raid, while Kiara fights to complete her mission and survive their brutal mines, she learns of the real world where one mustn’t fight for acceptance, but survival. Not really sure what this means, since it felt like she was fighting for survival before. Meanwhile, her brother charms his way into enemy courts and forges an alliance with their king against the valen—and against Kiara herself. As a spy? Or is he really switching sides?

When she escapes the mines, the sisterhood finds her. Inducting her to be their messiah, they entrust her with the key to destroy Selaeria and change the valen eternally. But the Selaerian king’s determined to bring her down. Driven by a prophecy she doesn’t understand and a loyalty to her people that’s becoming a cage, Kiara must decide if she’s the savior the valen need, the monster they’ve made her into, or the sister of a boy who’s turned himself against her. So, overall this starts to read like a synopsis by the time we get to the last paragraph, not a query. You're walking through the plot. The ending line isn't a bad way to set up tension, but I'm truly not understanding the dynamics and motivations here, on just about anyone's side. Right now there's not much here that looks like original fantasy - you've got a chosen one, warring kingdoms, a thwarted assassination - which are all pretty common. Fantasy is absolutely flooded right now, so you'll need to get your query drilled down to what makes this different from any other of the tens of thousands of fantasty books currently available. What are you bringing to the table that is new?

THE FALLEN ANGEL, complete at 105,000 words, is my NA Fantasy with series potential. Perfect for fans of Sara Hashem's THE JASAD HEIR and Shen Tao's THE POET EMPRESS, it’s the origin story of the fae and a feminist retelling of the Greco-Persian Wars. I had literally no clue that this was a feminist retelling of the Greco-Persian wars. That's the most interesting thing in the query - lead with it.

I’m a Canadian author who studied storytelling and scriptwriting for five years. When not ensconced in my blankets dreaming about my characters, I’m working toward a B.S. in aerospace engineering.

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?