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 “The Sound of Ice Melting,” Put your title in all caps or italics, not quotes a modern 95,617 Just say 95k word gay YA psychological drama comparable to Poor Deer, by Claire Oshetsky, The Secret of Us, by Lucinda Berry, and Words on Bathroom Walls, by Julia Walton.

Joe was ten when he first tried to kill himself, a month after his mother’s murder. Four years later, he tried again. His psychiatrist believes Joe saw his father murder his mother, but Joe says it feels like there’s a demon in his head that makes him want to destroy himself.

When Joe’s sixteen, he meets Troy and falls in love, and a year later, they’re still together and happier than ever. Right now this is just reading like a walkthrough of someone's life, more like a synopsis than a query. They’ve just graduated and have been accepted at the same college. Life is perfect! So, everyone is surprised when Joe tries to kill himself again. Seeing the pain it causes those he loves the most, Joe vows to never try it again. As a reader we don't have a great feeling for the "why" here, and not just for this most recent attempt. In order to connect more with the character the reader needs to understand what it's actually like inside Joe's head. Right now these are factual statements with very little emotion attached.

Two months later, he’s diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given two months to live. What doctors call “a tumor” and Joe calls “a demon,” Troy calls “a memory,” specifically of what really happened on the night Joe’s mother was murdered. In order to bring the repressed memory to light, Troy, desperate to save Joe, decides to treat the tumor as Joe sees it and exorcise the demon. What they discover is a truth much darker than they ever imagined. This is kind of a tease in that you're not telling the reader / agent what is actually going on. This is reading more like what the back matter of a novel would have to entice a reader. For a query letter, you need to let the agent know what makes this book different, what makes it stand out, what is unique here. If the "truth is much darker than they ever imagined," say what that is so that the agent knows whether this is worth their time as a read or not.

I’m an American writer, playwright, ESL teacher, editor, and copywriter with a BA in English. I’ve spent more than forty years working professionally with children and adolescents, twelve as a counselor and supervisor in psychiatric facilities treating severely emotionally disturbed children and adolescents, many of whom were suicidal or had self-injurious behaviors. Great bio!

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 debut adult fantasy novel, The Journeymen, a 102,000-word story that blends humor and philosophy through the adventures of three compelling characters. You don't need to state that it's your debut; they will assume that. I also wouldn't self-describe your characters as compelling. Of course you think they're compelling - you wrote them.

Set in a world where the era of gods, monsters, and proverbial energies is losing its grasp on the world echo (same word used closely together) with "world", like an ice age, the old era gives way, moving away from the equator toward the poles. I'm really not sure what this is saying. Is this all figurative language, or is something actually moving? Even if it's figurative, it's quite murky and is mostly just going to leave the reader trying to untangle what's being said, when what you want is an enticing hook, not a head-scratcher. Leaving behind sentient races So everyone that's still around isn't sentient? and lingering magic, here in the north, the old breath of the paranormal and the impossible still holds some grasp over these lands. Here on the frontier of the still partially settled north, life thrives on the border between the mundane and the mystical. Dangerous artifacts, reality-bending spells, and unfinished afterlives shape a landscape where power is coveted and the supernatural is never far away. This entire paragraph is mostly just confusing and isn't directly informing the reader of anything. It's also all setting, which isn't a great thing to focus on if you want to hook an agent's attention.

At its heart is an escaped slave striving to navigate the complexities of freedom. Haunted by his past and uncertain of his future, he embarks on a journey to find—or perhaps create—a place he can truly call home. His story anchors the novel’s emotional core, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and resilience. Does he have a name?

Alongside him is Laurent, a roguish goblin whose restless travels mask a deeper quest: to break a curse that keeps him apart from his beloved fiancé. His charm and cunning bring levity and intrigue, enriching the narrative with a sense of wanderlust and longing.

The third protagonist, Bel-shar-usur (Bel), is a young mage fleeing the violent legacy of his powerful war-mage father. His journey is one of self-discovery, as he seeks to define his own path and wrest control of his fate from the shadows of expectation.

But I don't know what is drawing these three together. It sounds like some sort of shared journey, but I don't know where they are going, why they are going there, or what brought the three of them together.

Each character brings strengths and perspectives the others lack, creating a dynamic where they rely on one another to fulfill their personal arcs. Their intertwined journeys forge bonds of friendship, kinship, and romance, making their collective story one of connection and mutual growth. Without one another, none could fully realize their destinies. This again feels like a paragraph where you're telling the agent what you think the story is delivering. It's an assumed in a novel with an ensemble cast that they complement and contradict each other in different ways. So in essence this paragraph is just you stating that you did something that is kind of expected anyway.

The Journeymen is a tale of scoundrels and misfits, filled with sharp wit, occasional coarse language, and moments of genuine insight. It will resonate with readers who appreciate stories that balance lighthearted adventure with meaningful depth—fans of Adventure Time, Patricia Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles, Diana Wynne Jones and, to a lesser extent, Terry Pratchett’s work. Right now this entire query is very vague and isn't telling us anything about the plot. A query needs to establish these things -- what does the main character(s) want? What stands in the way of them getting it? What are they willing to do to overcome those obstacles? And what is at stake if they don't? None of that is currently here in this query.

My name is Eugene Myznikov, and I’m a writer passionate about creating immersive fantasy worlds and characters. As an autistic person, storytelling is my special interest, and I bring a unique perspective and attention to detail to my work. Inspired by nature, cooking, and a love for fantasy sparked by the Witcher series, I strive to craft stories that blend adventure, magic, and authentic emotion. Good bio, but you need to work on getting the plot into this query, rather than taking up a lot of time with setting and then explaining the themes of the story.

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’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.