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 currently seeking representation for GOREMAGE: AWAKENING. It is a 100,000-word standalone adult dark fantasy book, with series potential. Fantasy gets more wiggle room in terms of word count, but 100k is still a lot for debut, especially when fantasy is currently so clogged A world-weary veteran is forced to accept a dark power within him, to save his country from a tyrannical government harnessing eldritch magic with the help of another outcast with gripes against the world. This is a reall convoluted sentence and it took me a few tries to untangle it. Your hook needs to be much more simple and straightforward. It may appeal to fans of ‘Six of Crows’, ‘One Dark Window’ or the ‘Godkiller’ series.

Elio, a disenchanted man burdened by a dark past as a Goremage, finds himself drawn into a growing conflict in search of money, instead finding rot that runs deep in his beloved country’s veins. There's a lot of assumed knowledge here. What. Goremage is, if the dark past is a result of how he is, or what the job / role was, what the conflict even is, etc. Drawn Echo here with "drawn." by his sense of duty, Duty to what? he forms an uneasy alliance with another outcast: Atlas, a former politician turned conman, unknowingly elbow deep in the corruption caused by his ex-lover and mother of his child. Another super convoluted sentence here. Queries need to be smoother a lot more easily readable than this.

In what should be the country's golden years, Atlamaria is threatened with societal and structural collapse. The magic required to sustain it has become a dying breed, like the magic is a person? and the government, driven by greed and desperation, seeks to return to a totalitarian rule by harnessing the power of a heretic god. Again, super convoluted and I don't really know what's going on here. Why societal and structural collapse? Why is the magic dying? Why would a return to totalitarian rule by the answer and how does the god play into it?

Struggling with his identity and the true origins of his magic, Elio embraces the power that could destroy him to avenge his newfound allies and protect his home. But as the lines between right and wrong blur, he must confront not only the corrupted system - but the shadows within himself. If he can’t trust his own thoughts, how can stop forces so much larger than himself? Their confrontation becomes more than a clash of strength; but a test of wills, faith, and sacrifice. The further Elio goes for the greater good, the more of himself he loses. Again, these are a lot of barely conjoined things that I'm not really understanding. These statements aren't specific, but they're really convoluted and wordy without actually saying much. After reading this I get that there's a conflicted, probably brooding hero, who kind of connects to another guy whose subplot also feels really complex, and they are... trying to save the country from... itself? Right now you're using really broad strokes so I don't actually have any idea of what the plot is, other than what I can infer. And what I do infer is mostly based on tropes so I'm not seeing what makes this stand out in the crowded fantasy genre.

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.

Confessions of a Rock and Roll Queen is a 100,000-word upmarket historical fiction novel that combines Daisy Jones & the Six’s back-stage drama with the voice-driven, intimate emotional stakes of Deep Cuts. Good opening, but I'll need to know what makes this historical

Kaysi Bright will never achieve her rock star dreams in small-town Mississippi. After a scandalous church performance brands her a disgrace, Kaysi hitchhikes to Los-Angeles. But fame isn’t waiting to embrace her. With a long list of studio rejections and a two-bit blues club gig, Kaysi is ready to call it quits. Should that read "gigs?"

That is, until she meets Greg Stilton, a charismatic guitarist with I Do, I Do, a rising ‘70s rock band. So this takes place in the 70's? I don't think they would identify themselves as a 70's band if it is in fact, the '70s. They would just be a rock band. I realize that's your way of slipping the time frame in here, but I'd find an altnernate route When the lead singer quits to join a cult, Kaysi’s voice propels the band to arena fame. But with fame comes increasing pressure: Greg’s volatile love, fraying band loyalties, her bandmate, Kathy’s steady, complicated devotion, and the ever-present lure of alcohol and cocaine. Who is Kathy? She just kind of showed up here.

When I Do I Do implodes, Kaysi reinvents herself with Lace Riot, an all-girl band poised for success. But Kaysi is spiraling deeper into addiction. Lace Riot issues an ultimatum: get clean or get out – on the same day her sister dies in childbirth. Reeling from grief, Kaysi takes custody of her newborn niece, only to soon lose her to the baby’s father. The double loss pitches her into a drug-induced psychosis that no one believes she’ll survive.

Now Kaysi faces the hardest fight of all: not for fame or love, but for her own life. Kaysi must confront her addiction and her grief or risk losing not only her music and the people who love her for her, but the chance to become the artist she was meant to be.

I have an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop,and am a psychoanalyst living in Santa Cruz, California.

Honestly this reads a little more like a synopsis than a query, but I don't think you're way off base here. I think what you've got is worth taking out and see if you get any nibbles.

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.

Seventeen-year-old Cal Anderson has a secret. He can rewind time five seconds. You might want to say "by five seconds." It’s a neat trick for dodging punches or cheating on tests, but it won’t bring back his mother after she pushes him out of the way of a speeding truck. Why not? It feels like 5 seconds would be enough to fix that. Only when he learns his power comes from the Roman gods, and that his destiny is written in an ancient book of prophecies does he understand. The accident might not have been his fault after all. Cal isn’t just an ordinary teenager. He’s the reincarnated grandson of Julius Caesar, descended from Venus herself. But why would he think the accident was his fault in the first place, and why would this revelation change his opinion?

When the gods tempt Cal with a new prophecy hinting at his mother’s resurrection, he must find a way to 408 AD, where barbarian Goths threaten to burn Rome and the temple he needs to save her. Along the way, he falls for Amalia, a half-Goth girl fated to die in his prophecy. Why? And do you mean like Goth like modern day kid, or like she's a barbarian? But Cal will uncover the gods’ true purpose. Rome must be punished for turning its back on them, and they need his power to open her gates. The gods need his power? Doesn't seem likely. Now he faces an impossible choice: save his mother, protect the city, or follow his heart, because the gods demand blood, and if Cal isn’t careful, they’ll use him to spill it, just like they did with his mother. This is a little all over the place. You're not spelling out the connections between mom, his status, the gods, this girl, and what the goal is here.

THE AMULETS OF CAESAR is a 94,000-word YA historical fantasy that blends the fatalistic themes of Threads That Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou with the mythological stakes of Lore by Alexandra Bracken and the cunning heists of Among Thieves by M.J. Kuhn. It is a standalone novel with series potential.

I’m querying you because you’re a fan of retellings, and my book is a mythic take on the fall of Rome. My passion for history has led to a feverish addiction to biographies, and strange looks from my coworkers. Trips to Rome and Istanbul inspired the settings in my book. Good bio and comp titles, but you need more clarification on the plot. Right now all the threads feel like they aren't neatly tied together to make a cohesive plot.