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.

I am seeking representation for my novel, Missing Connections. It is a contemporary romantic comedy and is 45,000 words long. First off, I think it's more impactful to hit the agent with your hook, if you've got a good one. Tell the something they don't know. Every single query letter is from someone seeking representation. They know that. Wow them with something else. Seconly, your word count isn't long enough. Even if this is YA, it needs to be at least 55-60k.

(This is where I write some sort of a connection I have to the agent like if they represent some of my favorite authors then I mention it in this paragraph! Depends on the agent though, sometimes I don't include this...) I recently read and reviewed 'Red, White & Royal Blue' for the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper. I absolutely adored the novel and as soon as I turned that last page, I searched to find out who represents my new favorite author, Casey McQuiston! I truly feel that the comedy and romance in my novel resembles her work. (You can find the published article here: https://www.independent.com/2020/04/16/red-white-royal-blue/ This is good, but it almost feels like currying favor. I wouldn't include. Get to your book!

Missing Connections offers a hopeless romantic’s take on love and her yearning for a storybook ending. Definitely need to beef up this hook. This describes any love story, ever. Is your main character a tone-deaf piano tuner? That's interesting! I know she's not, but- see what I mean? What makes your story different from every other romantic one out there? The novel’s narrator, Amanda, is a teenage writer who draws her love stories from the real world and reimagines them through her successful online blog. She explores the stories of six different young couples in various places (Singapore, Santa Barbara, New York and more!) as they meet through chance encounters.

While Amanda is writing about other people finding love through chance encounters, You want to avoid using the same words and phrases more than once. If you do it in a 350 word query, how much does it happen in the manuscript?>/span> she’s lusting for love like the ones she dreams about. The characters she writes about come from diverse backgrounds, and find each other in unusual settings. From near-miss-car-crashes to an audience member and a musician making eye contact at a Broadway show, this novel develops unique perspectives on young adults as they find the “one”. The stories she imagines reflect her desire to see people come together, while the alternating chapters trace her own love story gradually building to an exciting romantic conclusion in which she finds the closure she has been imagining for others. Okay, but you spent more time talking about ficitonal characters within the novel than you did on your narrator. The main story is about Amanda... not Amanda's stories. They only illuminate her wishes and dreams. The focus of this query needs to be on Amanda, not on her fiction.

I am 17 years old and a high school junior currently living in southern California. As a young girl growing up in southeast Asia, I traveled frequently. Through this experience, I discovered my love of storytelling and connecting with people from diverse perspectives and backgrounds. I am a freelance writer and book reviewer at the Santa Barbara Independent (#1 Newspaper in Santa Barbara). I am also studying playwriting in a workshop at the local Equity theater now and taking a screenwriting class at the SB city college. This is a great bio for someone without fictional publishing credits. You are putting yourself forward in a professional manner and pointing to your accomplishments while also being honest about your age.

I have dedicated the past two years to writing Missing Connections because I know what YA readers love, and I believe this is it! A beach read with emotional tugs on the heart and comedy laced throughout, this is a novel for anyone who can relate to how teens who read first imagine, and then experience, love! I don't know that this is necessary. It adds a nice way to sign-off, but it's also not doing a lot of work Right now there are more words in this query dedicated to you than there are to the novel. Refocus to make Amanda and her story stand out.

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.

‘Her love is real. She isn’t.’ Love the tag line. It works great as a hook as well, but eliminate the quotes.

To the untrained eye, Arieanna is just an ordinary woman, but she is the product of an advanced computer and complex 4D printers; the world’s first ‘perfect’ android, complete with human thoughts and emotions. Kind of a long sentence, I would split after "woman." Her purpose? To be whatever the humans want or need her to be. A personal assistant, a friend to the elderly, a spokesperson for women’s rights. Or... a sex bot? Sorry, but that's immediately where my mind went. If it's part of her possible job descriptions, I'd say so here. She is the only person on Earth who is completely adaptable to do any job. But there’s one flaw in her design. Where babies have years to adjust to their emotions and learn to control them, Arieanna has weeks. Some clarification here - meaning like, weeks from the time when she's been switched on? Or weeks to adpat to each job? When she experiences heartbreak for the first time and subsequently attacks Ashur, the very man who created her, she has no choice but to escape - or face being switched off. Is she in love with Ashur? I think so, but it's slighlty ambiguous so maybe clarify.

To the outside world, she’s a dangerous, malfunctioning machine. Everyone seems to want to do anything to catch her – and all Arieanna wants is to just live in peace. Awkward sentence construction here. Also - clarify - is there a reward for her capture, dead or alive? Or a warning about her being dangerous? Things seem bleak until she meets Catelynn, a spunky eleven-year-old, and her bad-tempered father Liam. They seem like the last people she should trust, especially since Liam seems to be involved in some dubious wheelings and dealings. But, after some coaxing from Catelynn, he’s also the only one willing to help her. You used variations of "seem" three times in this para. That's called an echo, and you'll want to eliminate those.

When they realise they are being followed by one of Ashur’s hitmen, she quickly learns that Ashur will stop at nothing to destroy her, and everything she has grown to care for. Why? What is Ashur's motivation to kill her? Now, Arieanna must decide if her found friendship is worth sacrificing her freedom for, and she must discover what her true purpose really is. Slightly confusing - isn't the friendship and the freedom the same side of the coin?

HUMAN INSTINCT (90,000 words) is an accessible adult sci-fi set in the near future. It could be described as Machines Like Me or Ex Machina with the feel of a Tom Clancy novel. Hmm... not sure of the Tom Clancy comparison. His novels tend to be realy male driven and tech-heavy. But otherwise I like the comp titles.

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.

Spencer is a shape shifter of Clan Kitsune and student of language and history in the Age of the Clans. After being attacked at Kitsune Academy by a fellow student, Spencer searches for a way out of Haniel. Right away you have a problem that can be really common to high fantasy queries - name soup. I don't know what Age of the Clans means, or if it's even relevant. or what Haniel is or means. So, the Praetor sends her to Sachi Prison in secret to find The Red Book, a text that has been lost for centuries and could shift the power in Lantea from Paladin to Praetor. How could a book do this? This drags Spencer into a decades old political battle between three parties: The Paladin, the Praetor, and the Archon, who is a leader of rebels on the Sachi Plateau. Rebelling against what? In her search, she learns the stories of three people who fought for their freedom and the freedom of generations in the Age of the Temples. Kahdea, Braid, and Owin. So do those stories take place in a different time period? The Age of Temples? How long is an age? These other characters aren't contempoaries of Spencer's?

Kahdea defied laws preventing her education in the Age of the Temples. After her twin brother, the Prefect of Fianna, is arrested by The Paladin Council, Again, so many world-building words that are just contributing to confusion. she takes his place in the building Famorian movement. With other shifter leaders who are demonized by the Temples, Kahdea helps set up the defense of their way of life. And this matters why? How is this relevant to Spencer's story?

Braid had little more than her air ship and her crew. Coming across a Famorian shifter on a trade route on the Kruvale, more names! she is able to see the danger of ignorance. She ends up going to The Hall for as an Oblate of Fianna. no idea what this means She's hoping to find more information on The Red Book to help catalyze the Famorian movement. Your tense is in past at the beginning of this para and shifts to present. Again, I don't know if these timeline are concurrent with Spencer's or not.

Owin overheard a friend of his and a strange woman from another territory talking about Famorians. He followed and fell into the Famorian movement after discovering his shifting ability. He was often thrown to a front and soon stepped into a leadership role. He and his small militia take action on Sachi Plateau following Kahdea and the other Prefects after an assault on a refugee camp in Werewood. Again, unsure how these tie together.

Fear is the great motivator. It was fear of extermination that brought shifters together against the Temples. And it was fear of the monstrous Famorian form that banished them to Sachi. What I'm not seeing is any type of continuity of these three storylines. What's the actual point and goal of the story? Right now I have three disparate tales and no idea of how everything relates to Spencer, or even if Spencer is the unifying character. I don't understand what Spencer's goal is, or why it matters or connects to these others. You've got too many names and world building elements in here at the moment, it's coming off as disjointed and reading more like a synopsis than a query. Boil down, eliminate names, and connect these storylines so that we understand what the main goal and story is here.