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.

The harsh Nordic land of Skoro doesn’t care about a former slave like Thaya. I think you need a better hook in terms of getting confrontation front and center. A "land" not caring about someone doesn't feel personal, or emotional. Is there a specific person she needs to impress? Ruling power? No matter. Thaya risks everything to become a warrior, selling all her belongings and embarking on a hunt for an honor kill to prove her worth. Prove to who? But her gambit fails when Eldritch horrors infect her, we don't know what this means, or what the consequences are. Is this like zombie rules? What happens to someone who is infected? and Thaya is forced to cut off her hand to escape. From a person? Or a curse? Or what? Crippled and poisoned by a dark entity she doesn’t understand, sorry, but we don't either. I don't know if you mean she's actually crippled, likewise with poisoned. Is there a ticking clock at work here? What's the fallout of the Eldritch thing? Thaya must find new allies to survive, I thought she didn't have any allies at all? And survive... what exactly? Just the rest of her life? Or Eldritch stuff? so she turns to a secret organization called the Conclave of Nine.

The Conclave offers Thaya a chance to become a warrior in their battle against a demonic cult bent on initiating Ragnarök and the destruction of their home. The way this is written it sounds like the Conclave is bent on the destruction of their own home, which I can't imagine is accurate Worse, the cult leader seems to take takes a sadistic interest in Thaya, accelerating the eldritch horror’s infection within her and twisting her memories. Why would her memories matter? Twisting them how? Thaya must stop the cult and find a cure for her eldritch curse before the corruption devours her humanity. So now she wants to stop the cult that was initially her new allies?

For a dark and ancient power awakens, beckoned by its cultists at the end of times. The twilight of the gods approaches, and Thaya will need to find a warrior’s valor in the dark word echo with "dark" days ahead.

VALOR’S LAST BREATH: THE DARKHEART SAGA is a multiple point-of-view 127,000 word fantasy novel inspired by the Viking ages and cosmic horror. This saga mixes Joe Abercrombie’s bloody, grim-dark action and John Gwynne’s historical realism with a diverse cast, adding dashes of Cthulhu terror, fantastical beasts, and witty banter.

Your word count might be a little high. Fantasy gets some wiggle room, but as a debut trying to get attention it might be necessary to get it under 100k. Also - I see no indication whatsoever in this query that it would be a multi POV story. The only person I'm aware of as a named individual is Thaya. Also, I don't have much feel for her as a character. She's a warrior - got it - but, what else? Is she broody, or is she always ready with a good one-liner? Otherwise, this para is great!

I am a current psychology professor and trained psychologist with a PhD in Counseling Psychology, which helps me accurately and sensitively portray the mental health struggles of my characters. That is super cool, but mental health doesn't seem to play into the plot much, based on this query. I'm guessing it's tied to the Eldritch element, but as you can see from my notes above, that's my big hangup - I don't know what it is, so I don't know what's at stake.

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.

Fate cannot be avoided. This principle at the base of Greek tragedy is the leit-motiv Are you going to be using phrases like leti-motiv within the book itself? If not, don't use it here. The voice, flow, and feel of the query should be similar to the book itself luring Not sure of this word use... do you mean lurking? at the background of “THE WEAVING SEA”, a 98,000 new adult, that's a pretty high word count for a debut new adult. 85k is considered high end for that age category. I would try to get that down before querying mythology retelling I like to call “The Iliad meets the Little Mermaid”. Quick note, punctuation like periods or commas go inside of the quotation marks, but also - you don't need the quotation marks.

At “almost-seven-years-old” Not sure why this is in quotes, but also, if this is new adult, why does the story start with him at 7? Opening the query this way makes it seem as if we're going to be spending quite a bit of time with a 7 year old version of the character Achilles is a mischievous and curious child who’s always lived in the sea with his godly mother, Thetis, determined to shelter her son from the mortal world and gives him his rightful place among the gods.

But Achilles longs for the adventure, wishes to become a hero and above all wants to meet his estranged father.

And the more Thetis tries to keep him in a gilded cage, the more he tries to escape.

In the end, some things are simply bound to happen, like Achilles’ meeting with Patroclus and the his? love for him, no matter the troubles and misunderstandings along the way.

Right now, this is just reading as a summary of the story of Achilles, and a pretty bare bones one at that. You need a lot more detail, and more importantly, you need to exhibit how your version does something different than the original - or any other retelling since then. This is currently way too vague : there was a guy who had a helicopter mom, he got away from her and fell in love, and faced trials along the way, but that's fate. There's nothing specific to your manuscript here, and only speaking in generalizations isn't doing you any favors. I also don't understand how The Little Mermaid would come into this.

Classicist at heart, I had a classical formation in a specialised high school and then proceeded to graduate in Economics for Arts, Culture and Entertainment.

Born and living in Northern Italy, I have been honing my writing craft for the past 10+ years, writing fictions both original and in the fandom ambience. Not sure about the word choice here In 2011 I won a prize in a literary contest. That's cool, but you definitely need to state which one.

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.

Nessa Bailey wants revenge on her brother’s killer. The only trouble is, she’s in love with him. Nice... so you clearly understand what a hook is and how to use one. Well done.

Seven years after the suspicious car accident that killed Silas and sent hmmm... so, we don't know who Christian is. We can kind of assume that he's the "killer" but I think it needs clarification. Was Christian driving? Suggested rephrasing ... and sent the driver - Silas' best friend Christian - or, if it was a two car accident and Christian was driving that car, simply refer to him as "the other driver" to prison, Nessa’s life is stunted. I think I need to know more here. Is she just unable to move past it? Is she fixated? How is it stunting her? Despite her complicated emotions, Why are her emotions complicated? Was she already in love with Christian at the time of the accident? Also, the way this is written, it sounds like the emotions referred to are the therapist's, not Nessa's her therapist's solution is simple: face Christian upon his release and forgive him. Again, I think we need more about this accident. An accident is called an accident for a reason - why was it suspicious? What is Christian jailed for, exactly? Manslaughter? Drunk driving? Only, instead of apologizing, Christian stonewalls. How? Insisting upon his innocence? Again, the details surrounding the car accident need to be given just a little bit more room. And instead of forgiving, Nessa takes a golf club to anything within swinging distance. Including him? The next line makes it sound like this was in public, and she got into legal trouble. More please.

This earns her community service alongside Christian, which she sees as an opportunity to exact revenge.How? And does it play out? The cost doesn’t matter; anything is better than shouldering the guilt of never avenging Silas. But when anonymous letters appear on her doorstep, Nessa discovers that more than her precarious mental health Is her mental health precarious? I don't think that's completely clear here, minus the golf club mention. What's her situation? Is she working? Living in her parent's basement? Hospitalized? How bad, exactly, is her mental health? Can she function? is on the line. Someone other than Nessa and Christian has vested interest in the accident, and they will do anything to make sure she stops digging. And what does that mean for the two of them? Are they both in danger? Do they both have a vested interest in finding out who this is, or why they did what they did? Would it clear Christian's name? What's his stake in this? Are they thrown together, and made to work together to find the solution? Does her "revenge" plan for him come into play at any point? Is she still in love with him? Is that blooming again? How does that feel? How does he feel for her?

THE LOVELIEST THINGS THAT STILL REMAIN is a 77,000-word contemporary romance But... it also feels like there's a mystery / thriller angle told through dual POV and timelines. If this is dual POV, then the query should be as well, to an extent. One para for Nessa, one for Christian. Also... dual timelines meaning the present, and the past, leading up to the incident? I wasn't getting that out of the query, at all. If Every Summer After married Forever, Interrupted and went to therapy, you’d have my book.

Before crying myself through writing this book, I authored missing "a?"standalone Divine and The Separation Trilogy, then appeared in First for Women Magazine and Chicken Soup for the Soul. I also write romance novellas under the pseudonym Tesla Storm. Your bona fides for the articles in magazies / collections are solid. If you don't have good / many reviews for your other titles, I wouldn't mention them When I’m not writing, I teach high schoolers as a trauma-informed educator. And when they’re not giving me scathing (if honest) critiques of my outfit choices, they are good company lol. Yah. I substitute and once had a fifth grader inform me I had on too much foundation