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.

It’s dangerous to be a sorceress in a place where magic is a crime. Good hook! 15-year-old Tatiana (Tana) Definitely pick one name and go with it has never seen the world beyond her village on the island of Kisiwa. Her past is a giant question mark, her parents are lost to her memory, and her only link to them is a strange amulet she’s had since birth. Though Tana longs to run away to the distant mainland, far from her drunken uncle and their decrepit farm, she can't risk losing her only home. But when an assassin murders her uncle, Tana flees the island and finds herself at the center of a crazed sorcerer’s insidious plan. With a bounty on her head, she scrambles to uncover the ugly truth about her amulet and save the only people she trusts.

While this is well-written, you're suffering from the same issue that an earlier Slash had - you're being too vague. You've got a name and an island, but there is nothing else here to differentiate this story from any other number of fantasies that deal with a lost past, a found hero, and a villain. Why is her uncle murdered? What is the ugly truth about the amulet? Why is magic a crime here? A query needs to not be a tease. You're not trying to get an agent to wonder what will happen next - that's for a reader. For an agent, you want to show them why they want to represent this book. In other words, what make this different and unique from every other fantasy query they had in their inbox this week that deal with these same tropes - a lost, special child, a murky past, and a destiny that can't be avoided.

The Lost Heir is book one of a YA fantasy series, complete at 70,000 words. This novel would interest readers who loved J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and John Flanagan’s The Ranger’s Apprentice.For comp titles, it's better not to use really big names. Everyone wants to think that they will be the next Harry Potter, so it's overused. I’m 16, and I live in Santa Barbara, CA where I am a student at Laguna Blanca Highschool. For the last five years, I’ve written various versions of this novel, though I’ve never submitted it for publication. I also review YA books for the Santa Barbara Independent; for example, this is my most recent review (https://www.independent.com/2020/07/20/review-hafsah-faizals-we-hunt-the-flame/). Also, I participated in a Stanford Pre-Collegiate creative writing course in the summer of 2019.

It's great that you are serious enough to pursue a pre-collegiate program, but I don't know that I would share your specific age, or student status. I would instead let the work stand for itself, and see if it garners interest. Of course, if they should request to see pages, or a full manuscript, you should be up front about your age. I don't think it can necessarily hurt or help you either way, but I don't know that it merits mention in a query.

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.

Impulsive 17-year-old Kyla has lived in the underground caverns bordering the Adara Desert for as long as she can remember. Interesting, I'm immediately curious as to why above ground isn't an option, however I don't know if it's a strong enough hook. Confined underground, she finds her independence the only way she can- by escaping to the desert surface whenever her mother isn’t looking, spurred on by incredibly vivid dreams that seem to be more than just the creations of her mind. I think you need to explain the dreams, and if they are that vivid and moving, perhaps they should be the hook.

When she is discovered on one of those forays, Kyla and her people are captured and transported across the desert to the mountain city, the same one that her people Echo with "her people" had escaped from nearly two decades ago. Why did they escape? What were they running from?

Fugitives to a cause Kyla is only just beginning to understand, which is kind of a problem because I don't actually understand it either, and I think I need to in order to buy in to the idea Kyla finds herself sentenced to theft she didn’t commit, and thrust into imprisonment in the dangerous mines. Trapped in the darkness with criminals of all types, Kyla barely escapes the first night with her life. Again, this is murky. She and her people are captured for some reason that I'm not clear on, then returned to a city they left for a vague reason, and then she's accused of a crime she didn't commit? Right now you're being too vague, so that plot points feel arbitrary.

But when Kyla finally emerges from the mines, the reunion she has been searching for turns deadly, where Kyla has to learn what family truly means in order to find, and unleash, the source of her power. Same problem, it's too vague to be compelling. I didn't know that finding out what family truly means was part of the plot, and I had no indications that she had a power until the very last line.

SPINNING DREAMS is a YA fantasy novel complete at 85,000 words. It will appeal to fans of Laura Sebastian’s ASH PRINCESS trilogy or Tracy Banghart’s GRACE & FURY. I graduated from the University of Reno, Nevada with a degree in journalism, which helped fuel my career as a website copywriter. In the rare moments when I am not writing, you can find me at the park with my dogs.

Good comp titles and good bio, but right now the body of the query is technically sound, while being so vague as to not pique my interest. I assume the dreams are important, since that's the title, and probably tied to her power... but the query itself gives no indication of that whatsoever. You've got to be bald-faced in a query, not leave things to be discerned.

Right now this just reads like - there are good guys, and some bad guys, and some unfair things happen, and this girl is special. Which, honestly that could be any YA fantasy. Get those specifics in there to show what about yours is special and different.

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.

Lacey Barker could start a war and save magic from the grip of the Elonni, celestial beings intent on claiming the realm for their God. Unfortunately I think your hook has too much worldbuilding in it to be truly a hook. I have to untangle it as a read. Instead I need to be wowed by something easy to digest, that makes me want to do that work. But knowing what’s right and who to trust isn’t so easy in a kingdom ruled by fear. This could work as a hook. Simple and digestible, yet interesting

As a human/Elonni mutt, Lacey has been raised in a distant village as a farmgirl. When her godfather arrives and whisks her away to the Elonni capital, her secret past begins to peel away. She is not a farmgirl, but the last living descendant of the royal family which once ruled the realm—monarchs with a bloody history and a deadly power hidden in their bloodline. Echo of the word "blood." Maybe start with this supposed farmgirl who is actually royalty, and don't tease about this power in her blood - what is it?

Nathy Ferrickek has lost enough in the fight against the Elonni. But he’s willing to do one last job: find Lacey Barker and deliver her to the Nine, a group of rebels who have been seeking the lost monarch for three hundred years. If he finds her, he will be paid in revenge—the chance to kill the Elonni who murdered the woman he loved. Is the Elonni he gets to kill in fact, Lacey? Is she the last of the Elonni or only the last of the royal bloodline? It's confusing.

The Nine’s attempts to locate Lacey have alerted the Elonni, okay so she's NOT the last Elonni who intend to bury the so-called royal before she can destroy their grip on the realm. Confused as to why she would want to destroy the Elonni grip? It was inferred that the deadly power in her blood was a bad thing... or a powerful thing that could be used for evil. But if she's the last of the Elonni royal bloodline, why would they want her dead? But when they try to capture Lacey, she manages to escape with Nathy’s help—only to end up in the hands of the Nine, who want to use her as a weapon against the Elonni in a war of their own design.

Stashed away in an old house brimming with secrets of its own, Lacey begins to piece together a past locked away by a potion and a future she isn’t sure she hopes to inherit. These rebels claim she is destined to save magic from the righteous grip of the Elderon—but her powers may be too dangerous to unleash. What's the Elderon? What's going on with the house and the potion?

THE QUEEN OF RUIN is adult fantasy at 136,000 words, with YA crossover potential. It is the first book in a series. Wow, okay. First in a series at 136k? That's not going to fly. Fantasy is hard to break into right now, and you won't get any traction with a manuscript over 100k as a debut. And definitely try to make this a standalone with series potential. The book world has been hard hit lately and this is a tough genre to break into.

Readers who enjoyed THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS and A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC will enjoy this modern take on epic fantasy, as well as the humor and heart of the multiple POV cast. Good comp titles, but I'm confused by the use of the word "modern." What makes this a modern fantasy? Nothing above made me see it as anything other than epic fantasy.

I hold a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Geneva College, where I served as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine. My short story “What She Left Behind” appears in Betty Bites Back: Stories to Scare the Patriarchy. This is my first novel. Good bio! Don't worry about stating it's your first novel. But hooray for Betty Bites Back!!!

Right now your query is suffering from what a lot of fantasy queries struggle with. Too much world building jammed in here without letting the story show. You can see from my questions above that I don't understand why certain characters want what they want, or see others as a threat. This needs to be simplified in terms of worldbuilding, and clarified in terms of story.