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.

BLOODFIELDER is an adult dystopian romance with series potential complete at 95,000 words, where to survive a yearly sports tournament in which the losing players - and their fans - are killed, a disabled hacker must put her fate in the hands of a mysterious star athlete, who happens to be the very man she must defeat to stay alive. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the high stakes setup of Dani Francis’ Silver Elite, the rivals-to-lovers romance of Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry, and the fusion of competitive sports and speculative world building in Sophie Kim’s The Winged Game. So this definitely sounds interesting, but the hook is a little long-winded. I definitley need to know how a disabled hacker is entered into a sports tournament.

Felicia knows that at any time, The New Earth Empire may fall. The only livable surface on the planet, the Empire’s artificial island has continued to crumble at alarming rates as its dangerously dense population only continues to reach new heights. To prevent a sudden mass death, an annual televised sports tournament is held where the losing athletes - and their fans - are killed. No one knows which sports will be played each year; only that they are deadly, dangerous, and nearly impossible to win. How are the participants chosen? And I'm curious why people would participate as "fans" if they could die as a result. Is this forced interaction? What does the winner get that would make them enter this in the first place?

Yet, Felicia has never truly cared. As a disabled hacker working for the Empire’s government, she’s cheated death multiple times before by changing her registered fandom, and she continues to illegally make a living providing the same service to others. So I initially read this quite wrong - not OnlyFans, but certainly something where she has a fandom of her own, not that she is registered as a fan of an athlete that has lost in the past, could use some clarity. But when she is finally caught for her crimes, she is granted a choice: participate in the games - alongside a ragtag team of fellow criminals, whose pitiful athletic abilities combined can barely survive a warm-up - or face certain execution. Again, the question of how the participants are chosen comes up for me. Is it just criminals? Earlier you commented that no one knows what sport will be played year to year, but why does tht matter if the people going into it aren't athletic anyway?

As an orphan and sole caretaker to her younger brother, she is determined to do whatever it takes to come out of the competition alive and back to him, even if it means forming an alliance with the one person she shouldn’t: Theo Scarling, the very man responsible for her arrest.

Alluring, mysterious, and the only person to survive the tournament more than once, Theo is New Earth’s golden athlete- and Felicia’s greatest enemy. So when he unexpectedly offers to secretly train her team in exchange for a strange favor: when the time comes, Felicia must use her hacking skills to save someone of Theo's choosing, she begrudgingly accepts, knowing that she might not live to see the day he uses it. Yet, as their alliance progresses, undeniable sparks begin to fly between the two, and Felicia soon discovers that falling for the one person who could save her could be just as dangerous as facing him on the field.

As she begins to work with (and compete against) Theo, Felicia begins to see the cracks in the Empire’s carefully constructed narrative, challenging everything she thought she knew about the tournament, the Empire, and even herself. The deeper she digs, the more she suspects that something far darker, and far more sinister, lurks beneath the games. Now, to make it home to her brother, she’ll have to survive the tournament long enough to uncover the truth, all while deciding whether exposing it is worth sacrificing everything she’s fighting for. Because when her life- and her heart- are on the line, Felicia has no choice but to play to win.

Overall this definitely sounds interesting, but I am confused about the setup itself. Same questions as before - why would anyone enter? What's the payoff? What about being a fan? Do you HAVE to participate? And honestly, idk how there could be something more sinister at work than what is blatantly in play here. You're already quite wordy for a query, so this needs to be trimmed down, particularly the last two paragraphs. Your biggest challenge is going to be how to make it clear that this isn't The Hunger Games or Squid Games all over again. The fact that your MC is disabled is probably the biggest distinction, so I would rework this query to show how her own abilities are going to be useful in the field of play, not just an athletic man shows her how to be more athletic.