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 writing to seek representation for DIE FOR ME AGAIN, a high-concept upmarket novel blending speculative elements with psychological suspense. The manuscript is complete at 119,000 words. So, right off I'm going to point toward your word count. It's not impossible that being over 100k means you won't get an agent, but it's definitley not making it easier for you. I'd adviseto get this down to at least 90k, if not 85k.
What if the best way to teach someone empathy was to make them live through other people's deaths? Interesting hook, but the wording isn't straightforward. Do you mean that they experience someone else's death? It's just difficult to parse the sentence "live though other people's death." I reread it twice. If what you're saying is that they experience the death, use that wording and it becomes much more clear.
In 2060s London, Kilo designs theatre stages and indulges in first-class cynicism nourished by his excellent and useless classical education. I feel his pain. All the while, he suffers from a strange affliction: a limited ability to read and express emotions. I don't know what this means. He can't read other people's emotions well? And struggles to exprss his own? Does he feel them but not express them? I have a limited understanding of autism, but that was the first thing I thought when I read this. I don't know if that's what your aim is, but my brain made that leap and I'm sure others will too. When a self-driving car crashes into Kilo on his way to the theatre, he wakes up in the body of a stranger—Klara, hiding in a basement in a distant distance by geography or distance through time? war zone in the 2020s. The basement teems with civilians facing impossible choices: admitting newcomers to an overcrowded space, rationing limited supplies, risking a scouting trip under the whistles of weapons. Not totally sure on the wording here either. I associate "whistles" with care free attitude, which is clearly not what this is implying. It's not wrong, per se, but it did bump me out of the query. While trying to grasp where he’s landed, Kilo remains unfazed by the suffering, including the torments of Klara’s friend Josephine, who is frantically searching for her daughter. Meanwhile, Kilo’s ghosts—childhood abuse, failed relationships, and unfulfilled professional dreams—slowly unravel. Why? How are these things connected?
When an aerial bomb drops on their hiding place, three survivors, including Kilo and Josephine, scramble to flee the city. A face-off with enemy troops reveals that Kilo’s reincarnation as Klara is only the first in a string of ‘placements’ into the lives of other people, shortly before they are due to die. Not understanding how facing off enemy troops would trigger that reveal. Until he manages to prevent the impending death, he won’t be returned to his pre-accident life.But he was miserable in his pre-accident life anyway, right? So why would he fight to return to it? Feeling watched, Kilo suspects a darker design behind the cycle of ‘placements’. Like what? This isn't a great way to end a query. I don't understand why he feels like he's being watched, or what the darker deseign might be.
This needs to see some pretty serious re-working. What does the main character want? What stands in their way of getting it? What is at stake if they don't manage it? Like I said above, Kilo wasn't happy in his 2060's life, so I don't see a real reason for him to fight to get back to it. Also, I don't see how living out Clara's death makes him feel emotions more clearly, or really what the actual condition is in the first place. Does he have an acutal "affliction" or is he just a total narcissist? Honestly in some ways this is just reading to me like a Christmas Carol reboot - someone with weak connections to other humans has to go through difficult experiences in order to find their path. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course, but I'm just unlear on what Kilo's actual issue is, and more importantly, not fully understanding what is at risk, who is pulling the strings, and what the "darker" plan might be.
DIE FOR ME AGAIN combines the gradual unravelling of a dystopian system in The Compound by Aisling Rawle with the mystery surrounding the protagonist's identity in The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker. Is there a question of identity surrounding Kilo that the reader doesn't see? Or are you just saying he was Kilo, became Klara, and needs to get back to being Kilo?
When I’m not writing, I practise human rights law, dividing my time between London and Amsterdam. A former refugee myself, I have worked with victims of war for many years. In that job, like in writing, emotional insight is everything. I also run a writing club and daydream about becoming a full-time writer. Good comps and strong bio. I just need ton have a better feeling of how Kilo's affliction, the time travel, and this darker pattern all come together.