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’d like to share my first novel, PEPPERMINT LEAVES (88,000 words, contemporary fiction), with you. PEPPERMINT LEAVES would appeal to readers of Oisín McKenna’s EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS and Dolly Alderton’s GHOSTS for its compact portrayal of people who are just trying to work out their own story. This is a little bit vague in both the genre and the description. "Contemporary fiction" on its own is fine but "just trying to work out their own story" isn't compelling and doesn't really make me as a reader want to keep going.
MERIEM and CASI only captialize character names in synopsis, not in a query are similar in many ways: they’re in their mid-twenties, living in London, trying to fit into lives they haven’t chosen. Again, super vague. It's not distinct or interesting She is undocumented—well, mis-documented—and he is drowning in ambition. When Casi is unexpectedly made redundant from his high-flying corporate events role, one small lie to his alcoholic brother and an inkling of an ambition shared with his competitive ex-colleagues set him on a path to finding Meriem.I have no idea what any of this means. What lie? What ambition? How do any of these things come together to put them on paths that will intersect? Desperate to prove himself, he unwittingly begins to pick at Meriem’s tightly-woven world, ultimately forcing them both to face who they really are. This entire paragraph is about Casi. I know practically nothing about Meriem and I have no idea what their colliding with each other means. Are they going to fall in love? Ruin each other? Save each other? Eat each other's pets? What do you mean when you say her world is tightly-woven? I really have no idea what the plot is here. A query needs to answer these questions - what does the main character want? What stands in the way of them getting it? What are the obstacles they have to overcome to achieve their goal? What is at stake if they don't? Right now I don't know the answers to any of these questions based on this query.
I work in a youth charity where I am responsible for strategy and planning, and I parent a van-obsessed two-year-old. All of my writing happens in those little breathing spaces between full time work and parenting, sometimes at the kitchen table, sometimes on the floor outside the toddler’s bedroom, waiting for him to fall asleep. Not having any publishing credits is fine, but I would only include elements of your personal life in your bio that relate to the story, thus showing that you have life experience that makes you a credible author of this story. Right now none of this does that work.
I am now working on my second novel, which is also standalone, and follows Anna, a young woman whose neatly-packaged life unravels when her ‘friends’ discover she’s been passing off the stories of the elderly care home residents she looks after as her own. Definitely don't talk about the next thing you're writing. They need to be interested in what you've already written before they care at all about anything else. This is information for when you get to a phone call.