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 seeking representation for my contemporary YA fantasy, THE WITCHES OF DENHOLM, complete at 78,000 words. This witchy fall read blends the high school drama of These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling with the cozy fantasy of Practical Rules for Cursed Witches by Kayla Cottingham. Good work. You're showing that you know your audience and the market

Sixteen-year-old Melinda Hawthorne lives a carefully balanced double life in the quaint New England town of Denholm. She’s a typical teenager who sleeps in on weekends and goes thrifting with friends, while also keeping a big secret—the women in her family, going back for generations, are witches. While her grandmother could bend air, and her mother commands light, Melinda is a psychometrist, someone who can read the history of objects with a single touch. This is great - you've got the setup and the worldbuilding all right here in one paragraph.

When she’s lured from the classroom to the forest by an unknown force, her magic ignites, surging into newfound powers. Tracing a doorway in the air, she unwittingly steps into another Denholm—one not founded by Puritans, but by witches.

In this new world, a mysterious athenaeum, spellbound harvest festival, and an uncanny bond with the ravens draw Melinda deeper into the wonders of a town she thought she knew every inch of. Meeting Lucien Blackwood, a charming witch isn't he technically a warlock? Genuine question. with a wicked grin and a dark family history, sparks a romantic connection she can’t ignore. But Melinda can’t disappear into “witch city” forever—her parents still expect her home for dinner. This does make it sound like she's spending quite a bit of time in this otherworld, I think you need to clarify if she's just there once, or if this is a recurring visit.

As Melinda slips between two worlds, balancing normal high school pressures with growing abilities, she discovers that her Denholm may be harboring magical secrets of its own. And the new Denholm is not the fairytale she imagined. A shadowy sect rules through fear, and when they witness Melinda harnessing long-dormant witchcraft to awaken the community’s suppressed magic, they mark her as a threat. This is getting a little bit into the weeds, and reading more like a synopsis right now, while also being vague. It's got a "there's trouble, right here in River City" vibe, but the reader doesn't really know what the trouble is, specifically. What are the secrets of "her" Denholm pointing at? Why would the "new" Denholm sect mark her as a threat? You say why technically, but as a reader I don't see how her awakening the community's suppressed magic is threatening to them.

Now Melinda must unravel the clues linking both worlds, unite a fractured witching community using the magic of its ancestors, and fight for the future of the new Denholm, before its enchanted legacy fades forever. Not a bad ending but again, I think we need more of an idea of what the real, actual threat is here. What is the magic in Denholm 1? What is the threat from Denholm 2? Why would she feel like it's her responsibility to fight for Denholm 2, anyway? And where did the love interest go? He got a little shout out, but then disappeared. Get a little more clear on what's at stake, and what the consequneces are if she fails.

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.

Even in a world of vampires, wolfborn, saurian—humans remain the true monsters. Great hook, well done.

The Knightmares were once hundreds strong: vigilantes mutated by vampiric blood, forged to hunt the corrupt. Now five remain, hunted by the Paladins, a holy order built on human supremacy. In Tymeria, survival means knowing when not to care. Again this is really good, until that last line might need to be extrapolated on a little bit. Not care about what?

Knightmare Jevan, eighteen, lives by a code: Don’t care. Get paid. Heroics are how Knightmares become martyrs. Then a contract to rescue a nobleman's sister becomes a bloodbath — Paladins torn apart by jaws and claws, the nobleman revealing himself a wolfborn. The surviving Paladins flee with the sister. No gold. Just carnage. A touch confusing b/c the way this reads it sounds like the Paladins didn't get any gold, but what you mean is that the Knightmares didn't get paid Jevan knows the smart move is to vanish, until he faces the nobleman, not a beast, just a man on his knees begging for his sister’s life. The way this is written it sounds like the wolfborn is asking the Knightmares not to kill the sister, but actually he's just asking them to continue the original goal of rescuing the sister, correct? Jevan agrees to rescue her, telling the Knightmares it’s just for gold, fighting the growing weight in his chest. Why is there a weight in his chest? What is the feeling? Guilt?

Paladin Eriken, eighteen, witnessed Knightmares and a wolfborn butcher his comrades. His rage hardens into renewed devotion to his oath. Obedience is justice; doubt is heresy. But when men he idolizes pardon a confessed rapist and torture an elf woman before a cheering crowd, that righteousness curdles into disillusionment. Defying the Order is apostasy, punishable by death, but silence makes him complicit in such horrors. Very good

As Jevan’s contract puts him directly in Eriken’s path, Knightmare and Paladin blades clash in a struggle that could brand Eriken an apostate and doom the last Knightmares to martyrdom. Survival demands a betrayal of creed and comrades neither is prepared to commit.

KNIGHTMARE is an 86,000-word adult dark fantasy novel for readers of The Poppy War and The First Law, exploring moral awakenings in a prejudiced empire through a character-driven, multi-POV narrative.

As an autistic writer, I’m drawn to questions of morality, alienation, and rigid systems of belief. Really good. Everything you have here is quite strong, with the exception of the spots where I think clarity is needed.

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.

Memories are a wormhole jump. I believed mine were true. At thirteen, my early impressions were overlaid by questions. Exploring them could lead me home to acceptance or cut me adrift. This is pretty vague, and to be honest with you I'm not sure what a wormhole jump is. I know what a wormhole is, but using it with that phrasing just had me kind of scratching my head for a second, which isn't great for a hook.

Pa was a nonconformist, and our American pie was served in a soup tureen. Born in a commune, I lived in a van with siblings and fosters. I could skin a snake and sneak into campgrounds for a shower but struggled to eat in public. Again, this is all very interesting, but I'm not sure what's really being said here. I don't know why you would struggle to eat in public, or how it's related to the story here.

Our shifting landscape was darkened by mental illness, immune disease, and loss, but Ma’s storytelling and faith lit our way. We counted on humor and imagination. Everything else had to fit inside a Dr. Pepper backpack. But I was leaving for Africa, and memories travel light. Again, a lot going on here, but no concrete idea of what is being pointed at. Who is mentall ill? Who has immunodeficiency issues? What were her stories, why are you leaving for Africa?

SEARCHING THE WAVES is relevant in a cultural climate that yearns for reminders of a simpler time. It will appeal to those interested in pivotal shifts in perspective. It blends the 80’s nostalgia and dysfunction of Amanda Uhle’s Destroy This House with the evocative, child’s hope of Javier Zamora’s Solito and the naturalism and isolation of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult, by Michelle Dowd Really good comp titles here, but I don't have any idea what the actual crux of this story is. What's the journey for the memoirist? What is learned? How do they change? I can't even tell from what you have here if this is saying the commune childhood was good or bad.

I have led and spoken at child advocacy events. As a foster mom, I understand how a trauma-informed brain filters the present through past experience, and that humor really can heal. I’ve written for the National Park Service as a naturalist and published newsletters for The Mommy’s Network. Really great bio! You have a lot here that shows that you know what you're talking about, but the trauma angle isn't completely clear in the query itself, and if this has strong elements of humor, they need to be in the query as well. Right now it all just feels quite heavy.