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.

Kilroy’s a rowdy junkie living out of his car and Mary’s a stoic widow with a sword. A literal one? It's not mentioned again so I'm confused on this point. They were never designed to like each other. I think you can kill the line before this. After finding Mary’s husband overdosed in an alley, Kilroy’s life becomes violently chaotic as they both end up searching for the same dealer: the Funnyman. Kilroy’s looking for his next fix while Mary’s more interested in revenge. The pair can’t seem to avoid each other, despite their mutual contempt. Are they teamed up, or just running into each other occasionally?

After Mary kills the Funnyman’s goons, he mistakenly blames Kilroy and holds him prisoner in an asylum. When Mary discovers Kilroy’s been accused and tortured for her crimes, she feels guilty and tries rescuing him. Despite rescuing Kilroy and bonding over similar goals, Mary realizes the Funnyman’s fled. He might’ve been able to elude them when divided, but the dealer’s never experienced their combined wrath. Piling into Kilroy’s car, the pair drives out to confront the Funnyman one last time. Drives out to where? Right now this is reading like a synopsis, not a query.

Kilroy doesn’t realize Mary enjoys the killing, but Mary has no idea Kilroy’s still just looking for another fix. So they are deceiving each other, to some extent. They hope their lies can survive till this one job’s over. Why? How important is it that they like each other, when they have a shared goal? But the Funnyman’s too clever; he sees both of their inner desires, and he’s just itching to expose them at the worst possible moment.

NEON (112,000 words) is an offbeat cyberpunk story set in a futuristic version of the 1990s. Mary and Kilroy might hate each other, but they’ll have to work together to stand a chance at finding the Funnyman.

You wander too far into synopsizing in the second para. The agent doesn't need the details in the query, just the feel - which you do have, mostly. Biggest question for me is, to what extent does this relationship go? Are they the "odd duo" that ends up together? Is there an attraction? Or is this just "lets put up with each other for now, then we're quits." That needs clarified.

Also, how important is it that they get along? It sounds like the Funnyman is going to reveal their weaknesses, each to the other, but why does that matter? If they really don't like each other, how is that a threat? Lastly, (and this may seem simplistic) but why can't Kilroy just get his next fix somewhere else? Surely the Funnyman isn't the only dealer around.

And - why is he called the Funnyman? It's an odd moniker for a drug dealer. Is he a practical joker? Flesh him out a little bit more and get the relationship between Kilroy and Mary clarified a bit more, since it's the meat 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.

Eighteen-year-old Maki Hosoya didn't enter her first year of college expecting to be a friend-for-hire. Unlike her rich peers, however, she knows that getting the money for her tuition isn't as easy as calling up mommy and daddy and asking for their credit card verification value. My immediate reaction to this is that you're writing a YA, but it's set in college. That's tricky territory, and something that's apt to turn off an agent from the beginning. If there's a chance of setting this in an elite boarding school, or something similar, that's your better bet. Don't hobble yourself right out of the gate by pushing a YA with a freshman in colleg as your protag. As far as the pitch itself, your opening hook is good.

Not that she's jealous or anything.

Besides, even if she were, she knows that she should be counting her blessings. Her classmates may be party-obsessed and unacquainted with the real world, but they hand out money like it's candy. If they need a responsible “friend” for when their parents visit, a fake girlfriend to make an ex jealous, or a sober sitter, Maki is there. There are just two rules: Pay up, and don’t get too attached. Whose rules are these? Maki's? Or her clients? Pay up seems like a rule for a client, whereas don't get too attached could go either way.

Unfortunately, repeat client Elise Haines doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. Which part of the memo? Again, knowing whose rules these are will help. She invites Maki to parties and asks her to hang out, and before Maki knows what's happening, Elise has convinced her to join the Japanese Club, actually talk to her roommate, and start working as a rave mom. Everything before rave mom sounds social, but rave mom sounds like something that fits her job description, so the waters are muddied a bit here.

But Maki knows that she isn't here to make friends; she's here to make money. Even if it means taking on as many requests as possible to keep herself busy and pushing away everyone else. She doesn't need anyone, least of all a girl who seems hellbent on befriending her. She's just fine on her own. Just fine. I think it might be more beneficial to get Maki's personality in there sooner. This para is good where it is, but the opening makes it sound like we should have pity for Maki, yet she's entirely mercenary about this... or at least, that's the goal. Maybe one sentence earlier to clarify where Maki stands.

BY REQUEST's connection to Asian culture will appeal to fans of Emily X.R. Pan's THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER, and its disconnected and often socially clueless narrator may remind readers of Colin from John Green's AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES. Complete at 83,000 words, this contemporary YA novel weaves together Japanese and party culture, the struggles that come with the first semester of college, and the fear of forming attachments—or more accurately, the fear of breaking them.

Again, this is a great wrap-up down here at the bottom, but I feel like you might be giving us some mixed signals far as Maki's personality. Disonnected? Yes, that fits with what you've given us so far. Socially clueless? Eh... if she's getting paid to pretend to be a girlfriend, the "good girl" friend, or other social step-ins, then she can't be socially clueless. It would make her bad at her job - which she clearly isn't. Overall, what you have here is good, but setting it in a college could kill it.

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.

When Eva runs into an old friend from college, she’s immediately a little envious. I think a stronger hook is in order here. Something that indicates your genre a little more. Think: Money can buy everything... even (whatever). Just a couple of years after graduating, Eva has just been fired from her dead-end job, but her former classmate, Marin now works at a company called Ouroboros. And this is no ordinary corporation; it which enables the super-rich to upload their consciousness to the cloud when they reach old age, and live on forever in a virtual heaven.

Eva doesn't know whether to be amazed—or bitter. Around them, protests are springing up all over the overworked, underpaid city, claiming that eternal life should not only be accessible to the rich. Never mind living forever—it’s hard for most people just to be able to support themselves.

But then Marin introduces her to a colleague, Sebastian. The sophisticated programmer makes Eva feel appreciated for the first time in her life, and she begins to falls for him. They begin dating, and their connection means that Eva, too, may eventually snag a spot in the virtual afterlife.

But as their relationship progresses, things slowly change for the worse. Sebastian's dominant side, which Eva once found so appealing, becomes dangerous. It turns out that underneath Sebastian's charming exterior is a cold and calculating stranger. And when Eva learns what Sebastian has done to Marin, too vague she must make a choice between a relationship that is growing steadily more abusive, and a crumbling society in which she may no longer have a place. I'm not sure if you're talking about virtual heaven or the real world with this reference. But who's to say if Sebastian will even let her leave. Question mark here?

INTO ETERNITY is an 80,000-word work of adult upmarket fiction with a speculative twist. I have published two works with Thought Catalog Books: a book of poems, X, and a novella, Y. I have interned at two literary agencies in New York. Great bio!

The way the query is written makes it sound like the focus of the book is more on the relationship than the virtual afterlife, which is fine, as long as that is true of the manuscript. Also, you are vague about what Sebastian did to Marin... a workplace issue? Or more personal? We don't know, and the query isn't the place to tease. Also, you've got a para dedicated to the public reaction to Ouroborous, but what impact does that have on our narrator, or the story as a whole? You say she doesn't know how she should feel about the project, but not if that dribbles over into friction between her and Marin, or her and Sebastian. Tie that thought into the query to illustrate what the impact is on the actual narrative. There's quite a bit of extra verbiage here, so you can see where I trimmed things down with strikethrough to give you more room to elaborate on elements like that.