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 a part of the writing community on Twitter, and one of your followers. I feel compelled to query you, partially because I love your work on __, but mostly because I know you are a reader who appreciates YA adventures. I hope you will connect to my project: a finished, YA Adventure titled, “By Brain and Bone”, complete at 100,000 words. Unfortunately your word count is going to trip you up right out of the gate. YA is extremely crowded right now and a debut at 100k is going to be hard to sell. Don't cripple yourself with a bloated word count when the odds are already stacked against you.

In the over-technologized, sensor-saturated, near-future world of this story, genders have become extremely polarized. Especially in education. Why? I feel like in order to sell this world we need to know how this is a possibility, and that it's believable. Only females attend brick-and-mortar schools, while boys have been systematically withdrawn, isolated online, taught by screen. Again, why? Why are the girls allowed socialability and boys aren't? Sixteen-year-old Ewan is the exception. Because of his enormous ability to memorize nearly everything, Ewan is allowed to attend a brick-and-mortar high school alongside females. It isn’t a privilege. To Ewan, each day feels like a struggle to survive. Again, why? Why would his ability to memorize things make it reasonable to send him to a brick and mortar school instead?

Something else is also happening to boys. Ewan gradually discovers that the minds of young men are systematically being altered. A hurricane forces Ewan to live with his mysterious, estranged grandmother, a high-powered director of a large corporation that trains young men to be drone pilots. Ewan quickly finds out that she’s part of an overarching plan to permanently reconfigure the memory function in the brains of boys. A plan called: ReCognition.Again, why? What's the motivation for that?

What does Ewan do with this crucial information? Will he be able to intervene and halt the execution of this plan? More importantly, can he save himself from the villains who surveil his every move? “By Brain and Bone,” is Ewan’s coming-of-age adventure amid an oppressive technological world.

You defnitely don't want to end with leading questions. We know that there will be the question of - what does he do? I mean, that's a plot, right? I think what you need to get into this query is the larger questions. What we have here is a typical dystopian - a loner pushing back against the all powerful. What we need to know is that this world is believable, and what motivations are. Right now, I'm just getting very basic structure and genre out of this. I don't understand the world - how it got that way, why it's that way, and what the motivations of the uber-powerful are - and I don't know anything about Ewan other than that he's a boy with a good memory. Who is he? Strong? Kind? Bashful? Flirty? Altruistic? Emotionally unavailable? I have no idea who he is. Get human elements into this to make it stand out as a concept.

Enter to Win a Signed Copy of Be Not Far From Me!

Hatchet meets Wild in this harrowing YA survival story about a teenage girl’s attempt to endure the impossible, from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Female of the Species, Mindy McGinnis.

The world is not tame. Ashley knows this truth deep in her bones, more at home with trees overhead than a roof.

So when she goes hiking in the Smokies with her friends for a night of partying, the falling dark and creaking trees are second nature to her. But people are not tame either. And when Ashley catches her boyfriend with another girl, drunken rage sends her running into the night, stopped only by a nasty fall into a ravine.

Morning brings the realization that she’s alone—and far off trail. Lost in undisturbed forest and with nothing but the clothes on her back, Ashley must figure out how to survive with the red streak of infection creeping up her leg.

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Brooke Carter On Utilizing Her Scandinavian Heritage For Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Brooke Carter, a Canadian novelist. She is the author of several books for teens, including Another Miserable Love Song, Learning Seventeen (which was commended by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre as a Best Book for Teens), Lucky Break, and The Unbroken Hearts Club (a CCBC Starred Best Book for Teens).

In 2020, the first book in her Runecaster young adult fantasy series, will debut. Titled The Stone of Sorrow, the book is set in a magical version of ancient Iceland, and draws upon Brooke’s Icelandic heritage and love of rune magic. Book two is coming in Spring 2021, and Book three publishes in 2022.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

Yes! I am Icelandic-Canadian, and I’ve always been fascinated by my family’s culture. During an MFA class many years ago taught by the wonderful author Susan Juby, I workshopped—on a whim—a rough first chapter of this book. It was very loose, but the main character of Runa was fully formed in my mind. She was named after my amma (my grandma) Gudrun, and was inspired by her strength.

Icelandic myths, the magic, the fantastical creatures, are all so wonderfully weird. I studied Scandinavian Literature during my undergrad and one of the things I loved about the ancient sagas and the modern stories was how deeply flawed the characters were. They all had a darkness I could relate to. My book evolved in that same tradition—the epic journey of a broken person through darkness and magic.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

This book, the first in a three-book series, is very much about a journey. It’s an interior journey for Runa, as she has to come to terms with a destiny she never wanted for herself, and it is also an external journey to find a mystical location and save her sister. Runa’s goals were so clearly defined that I just kept throwing obstacles at her along the way.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Yes. I always outline my books, and I’m a stickler for structure because of my screenwriting background, but it is inevitable that the characters will make choices that deviate from the plan. I’m not totally sure how that happens, but it’s a good thing. You get into the zone and the story goes where it wants to. The tough part is making sure all the threads tie together in the end. It’s especially difficult when writing a series, or books that play with the element of time.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I have the TOO MANY IDEAS disease. I have to keep a folder on my desktop that just contains random snippets of ideas. I just shove them in there. Sometimes they inspire a whole story and sometimes not. I find I get the most ideas when I’m writing a tough part in one of my books. I think it’s my brain’s way of distracting me.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

That can be agony. Ultimately, I choose the book I’m daydreaming about, and the characters that feel like they have the most to say. Writing a book is a sustained creative process. It has to feel passionate to me. I’ve definitely abandoned a few projects partway through.

I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

I don’t have pets (right now), but I do have kids. They are plenty distracting, but also endlessly inspiring. I used to worry that having kids would make me less productive, but if anything it has taught me to be very protective of my writing time. I wouldn’t have it any other way.