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 seeking representation for “Bennie’s House,” an 80,800-word You can just round this to 80k YA/adult It can't be YA/adult. It's YA or it's adult. It can be upper YA, but it can't be both. gay romantasy comparable to They Both Die at the End, by Adam Silvera, Yesterday Is History, by Kosoko Jackson, and We Are the Ants, by Shaun David Hutchinson.
In 2024, fifteen-year-old Dylan is in love with Gavin, but is too shy to tell him. Hoping to enlighten him, Dylan takes him to his Uncle Henry’s house to hear “the coolest story ever told”… I have a hard time imaagining a teen boy being into going to someone elses' uncle's house to hear a cool story
…which is the inner story, set in 1976 when Henry is an insecure and bookish fourteen year old with a pretty girlfriend. On his first day of tenth grade, he meets Jack, a handsome, amiable new student, and is flooded with confusing and contradictory thoughts and sensations that he can’t acknowledge, let alone understand. Not coincidentally, on the same day, to avoid a bully on the bus, Henry walks home through a wood and happens upon a strange old house and Bennie, the eccentric old man who lives there. Bookended stories (a story within a story) can work or not work, depending up on how necessary the bookends are. Also, the 1976 story feels like it's following the 2024 story a little too closely - closeted gay teen / an empathetic person's house
From the moment Henry meets Bennie, everything about him and his house feels comfortable and familiar, from the things Bennie says to the furniture and photos on the walls to all of his favorite snacks in Bennie’s kitchen, and Bennie seems to know things about Henry that he couldn’t possibly know. With Bennie as confidante, Henry asks the secret questions he has about himself and why he can’t stop thinking about Jack. Unfortunately, this is coming off as creepy instead of sweet. A fourteen year old boy hanging out with an eccentric, older stranger gives weird vibes.
My favorite stories are those whose endings are so shocking and unforeseeable that I want to consume them again once I know what’s really happening, like The Fight Club and The Sixth Sense. This story provides that experience for all readers, and also happens to be a trivia mystery game for those who remember the 1970’s and how hard it was to come out. But I have absolutely no idea what the plot of this story is, which makes me not curious at all about what the shocking and unforseeable ending is. A query absolutely cannot tease. An agent needs to know what the ending is, how either of these stories connect, why in the world this would be labeled romantasy, as well as the basic questions that all queries need to address, and this one unfortunately, is not -- what does the main character want, what stands in their way of getting it, what do they have to do to overcome it, and what's at stake if they do not? You're the author, so of course you think that this has elements of "the coolest story ever told," or "a shocking and unforseeable" ending." You've got to convince the agent of that, and this query isn't doing that.
I am an American writer, playwright, ESL teacher, editor, and copywriter with a BA in English. I have spent more than forty years working professionally with children and adolescents in a variety of capacities, and this story about a gay teenager in 1976 is somewhat autobiographical. Good bio that illustrates your connection to the material, but the plot needs to get into the query.