I have a fantasy query I've edited too many times to make any sense of so I'm looking for other people with fantasy or sci fi queries to do a critique trade!!

(And if anyone who has finished their query already is feeling generous and wants to just critique mine that's always much appreciated too ❤️)

Welcome to the letswritesomenovels query critique series! In this series, I’ll be critiquing followers’ queries, helping prepare them for agents. The first query is for a YA psychological thriller by @scripturient-manipulator! 

Dear {Agent} 

Neverland is a fun-filled wonderland, and clever, forever right Tinkerbell has happily spent her centuries luring children in with the help of her brainwashed, broken, and beloved Peter Pan. There children are protected from that nasty outside world full of horrific pain. There they can be carefree and always safe. At least until the day prior to their thirteenth birthday. 

Your first sentence is so compelling! It instantly set the tone of the query, and right away, you let your reader know that you’ve put a new twist on the characters of Peter and Tinkerbell (”brainwashed, broken, and beloved” is particularly nicely phrased.)

As for your next two sentences, I would recommend changing them ever so slightly to make Tinkerbell a more active participant, because this is from her POV and we want to learn as much about her as the setting. After all, this is her driving motivation for defeating Wendy, isn’t it? Ex. “There, she can protect the children... There, she can make sure they are carefree...” 

I also recommend deleting the last sentence of this paragraph. I can see that the age limit is important to the story, but it’s not elaborated on in the query, so as it stands it’s a hanging thread. What is elaborated on, and what shakes up life for Tink, is the arrival of Wendy. That is your inciting incident. That is what should use to wrap up your opening paragraph. 

But now some useless, nasty, scum-filled imaginary friend by the name of Wendy has barged in. She thinks Tinkerbell’s Neverland is barbaric, that Peter Pan needs to be saved, that Neverland needs to come crashing down and Tinkerbell must die. So naturally, Tinkerbell wants her gone. But paradise has gotten boring, so she decides upon a game rather than just sending the snivelling little thing to whatever afterlife imaginary friends have. 

Great job of setting up the central conflict of the story in a clear and concise manner! 

Thus it’s a violent game for control over Peter Pan; whoever captures his mind wins. If Tinkerbell wins, she’ll make sure a fate worse than evisceration awaits her opponent. But if Wendy wins, Neverland will fall. 

What a great hook! 

WHERE THE LOST BOYS GO TO PLAY is a 61,000 word YA psychological thriller, and is told from Tinkerbell and Wendy’s alternating points of view. Racial diversity as well as LGBTA+ diversity are sprinkled through the manuscript, as representation is essential. My psychological thriller Perfect World was published by Jaffa Books in 2017 and I am the 2017 recipient of the Douglas R. Skoop Creative Competition On The Theme Of The Holocaust. 

Thank you very much for your time and consideration. 

 Sincerely, Jessica Suphan

You’ve ticked off everything you needed to in this paragraph: title, word count, genre, credentials, and a courteous “thank you” to the agent! 

I think it’s great that you also spoke to your desire to feature diverse characters in your book, but the word “sprinkled” makes it sound like you’re using diversity as decoration because you know it will make your book more appealing to agents. It’s a very light word to use for something that is obviously not a light matter for you. I would recommend changing the tone of that sentence. Ex. “...points of view. It features characters who are both racially diverse and members of the LGBTA+ community, as representation...”

This is extremely minor, but I also wonder if your previous psychological thriller Perfect World was YA or Adult. It might interest an agent to know if you’ve written YA previously. 

Overall Thoughts

At roughly 300 words, the query is a good length. It gives the tone of the story, effectively introduces one of the main characters, and sets up the main conflict. I think as it is, it’s really smartly set up. 

I do have a kind of big suggestion that you could either take or leave, depending on your own vision for the query: 

The dual-POV is a strong feature of your novel, very Three Dark Crowns-esque, and currently, we don’t find out about it until the very end of the query. I would suggest setting a short paragraph in Wendy’s perspective. Splitting the second paragraph into two and introducing Wendy in her own voice--not Tink’s--might be a natural place for this. (An easy place to switch back would be “Tinkerbell wants her gone”). 

Making this simple perspective change to a couple of sentence could highlight it in a way that will draw readers further into the story.

I hope this all helps! Thanks for sending your query in!

Welcome back to the letswritesomenovels query critique series! In this series, I’ll be critiquing followers’ queries, helping prepare them for agents. The query featured today is for a Sci-Fi novel by @onlyheretolookatthings

Dear Agent,

Fifty years after its pyrrhic victory in the Fae War, humanity remains uneasy.

I think you introduce an interesting backdrop to your story here! It’s definitely a first sentence that makes me want to keep reading! 

Owen Williams, loving husband and doting father, is horrified when his wife Tiffany falls prey to the unknown force that turns humans into Fae. After she’s killed and anti-Fae forces attempt to kidnap their children, he’s forced to flee with his family to the Fae Haven of Tearmann.

This paragraph is very strong. It does everything required of it: it immediately lets us know who our main character is, what matters most to him, and what sets the plot into motion. Which is wonderful! 

The only thing I would really change is the first line. “Loving husband and doting father” reads like an epitaph: pleasant but vague. And you don’t need it—the rest of that paragraph tells us that he cares about his family. 

Instead of that description, do as much as you can with 1 or 2 sentences to set up Owen as character before his wife is killed. Craft an intro that will rip our hearts out a moment later when everything changes.

Also relevant: how does he feel about the Fae before his wife’s transformation? We don’t really know, but it’s so important to the rest of the query. If he hates the Fae, if he fears them, if he secretly has always been fascinated by them—that’s something we need to know to understand the stakes of the story. 

A good place to sneak this opinion into this paragraph is when you introduce his wife’s transformation. After that sentence I would recommend a brief description of 1. what it means to turn Fae and 2. why it’s so horrifying. 

Upon reaching the Haven, Owen is thrown headfirst into the strange world of the twelve Fae races living under the protection of the Fae Queen.

Your query is on the shorter side, so you have some space here to give us some juicy details about this “strange world.” Describe it a bit for us in two or three vivid sentences. Tell us how to feel about the Fae Queen. (Is she scary? Mysterious? Beloved?) Show off some of your world building skills. To make these new descriptions really carry their weight in this query, describe it from Owen’s point of view -- the things he finds strange, that fascinate him, scare him, excite him, etc. Are the Fae as terrible as he was probably told they would be? Are they not what he expected? Play up that tension, because it’s so important to the hook of this query.

The tension between the Fae and humans approaches a breaking point as his children succumb to the change one by one. When Owen is confronted by a force that threatens everything he is trying to protect, he must choose between his family and the world he knows.

This paragraph is a good hook—the sentences themselves are lovely and the general structure is perfect—but it can be made more compelling if the stakes are more specific. Tell us what that force is—it’s far too vague for me to understand how it’s a threat. If it’s meant to be a mystery, at the very least I need to know what its nature is (human, army, force of nature, virus, evil scientist, etc.) and what it can do (blow Haven up, change every human into Fae, kill Owen’s children, start a war, etc.) Tell us exactly what is being threatened. Tell us why “the world he knows” is even a choice for this doting, loving father when his children are on the line. 

You’ve mentioned on your website that you’re interested in Science Fiction so HAVEN, a science fiction novel complete at around 103,000 words with series potential, might be of special interest to you. HAVEN will appeal to fans of Frankenstein and Dr. Franklin’s Island.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kind Regards,

[Author]

[Phone Number]

[Email Address]

There’s nothing in this query that reads as science-y, so I’m interested to know what science fiction elements are in it. I think if you want to show us some science-y aspects they can come in your description of the human world Own lives in, your description of the Fae world, your description of “the force”—if it’s a scientific achievement by a mad scientist (like your comp titles lead me to believe) that tells us a lot of what we need to know.

Speaking of the comp titles, Frankenstein and Dr. Franklin’s Island are both rather old and tell me very similar things about the book (And I love the Dr. Franklin’s Island reference, I loved that book so much when I was younger!!). I would suggest axing Frankenstein as a comp, and choosing a Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel from the past 5 years or so instead.

Otherwise, this paragraph is in good shape!! 

Overall thoughts.

The general structure of this query is great. It has so many of the elements a compelling query needs. The language is lovely and everything is easy to understand. The novel length fits its genre. This query has extraordinary bones, and it’s almost where it needs to be. I know it may seem like I’ve given you a lot of changes here, but really, it’s mostly just a matter of adding an extra four or five sentences--and, coming in slightly under 200 words, I think you have ample room to add them. 

I hope this all helps! Thanks for sending your query in!

If you’re getting ready to query your novel, or if you just want to hone your skills before that big day comes, I’m now accepting queries for critique on this blog! 

I’ve already written a Query Letter Guide, but now, for the steep price of $0, I will look over your query letter and give you personalized feedback and advice. 

HOW TO SUBMIT

Be following this blog for at least 24 hours. 

Be willing to let me publish your query on this blog.* 

Send your query as a Tumblr message. (Quick Link) 

Once I receive the query, I will:

Confirm receipt.

Double-check that you’ve removed all of the personal information you don’t want posted. 

Ask if you would like to be tagged in the critique post.

Send you a link to the post once it has been published.

[Note from Kate: Sara is out of the office today, dealing with a personal matter, but asked me to post her latest About My Query critique.] Thank you so much for sending this query in for a critique – let’s dive in…

Dear KT Lit,

A failed assassination attempt is the first warning Major Katja Kryzanowski has that she’s become entangled in a war she knows nothing about. Deep in the lightning-filled clouds of the Æster, a dark mystic, Asher Koora, has seen that she could threaten his ambition to rule the skies.

Katja’s career as an officer in the elite Rescue Service is her whole life. As much as she loves what she does, she’s haunted by those she’s failed to save and the friends she’s lost along the way. When the man she loves asks her to leave active service for a safer posting on the ground, she breaks things off with him. She’s heartsick, but it’s just one more sacrifice in a long string she’s made to have the life she’s chosen.

As always, her closest friends and adopted family – her shipmates, are there to fall back on. They understand what living up to the motto, “That None Should Be Left Behind” requires. When their ship, the Tomahawk, is drawn into a trap and attacked by one of Asher Koora’s ships, that family is threatened. The enemy ship is defeated in a brutal ship-to-ship slugfest but the Tomahawk is crippled and Katja injured. But there’s no time to recover. With casualties mounting, she joins the only fight that matters, to save their ship and themselves. In a final desperate attempt to save the Tomahawk’s crew, the acting captain crashes them into a mysterious floating island in the sky – one of the fabled “Hanging Gardens.” For two days, Katja is entombed in the wreckage, assaulted by traumatic memories and visions, leaving her badly shaken. But once again, there is no time to recover. She is the only senior officer left standing. She must take command.

In his distant floating capital, Asher Koora’s arcane efforts to confirm Katja’s death turn increasingly desperate and inhuman. But within the breathtakingly beautiful Hanging Garden, Katja finds some peace – and an unexpected ally, its gentle, monastic caretaker, Jinn. The survivors discover that there is more truth than fiction in the mythical stories about the gardens. A rescue fleet is undoubtedly searching for them, but to have any chance of contacting it, Katja must risk the lives of all the survivors – even the destruction of the garden. Jinn shows Katja that healing from her crippling losses is possible. But she also warns that there is more going on in the sky than anyone on the ground suspects. A war is brewing that threatens to engulf not just the sky, but the entire world.

The Tomahawk Incident is a complete ~110k word military sci-fi adventure story set in a reimagined space-style world where shielded warships and titanic sealed platforms float in a nebula-like landscape of supercharged clouds. Part Honor Harrington and part “Lost Horizon,” I wrote The Tomahawk Incident because I loved those “good old fashioned” sci-fi stories of far flung alien places and hidden empires. I was drawn to submit to you after reading that you wanted big adventures in complex worlds. The Tomahawk Incident can stand alone, but is truly the first book in a series that pits Katja and her friends against Asher Koora in a secret war to prevent him from ruling the skies. As a US Navy veteran, writing about life aboard ship was as natural as breathing and I wanted to give readers a glimpse into the harsh but extraordinary world of being part of the military family.

Thank you so much for your time and I look forward to hearing from you!

There is a lot of potential here and I love military science fiction! The crew-as-family angle is one I adore and the description of the beautiful “Hanging Garden” is compelling – great work!

In terms of critique, the first thing I notice is that this query is too long. Even queries for epic science fiction novels should be boiled down to one or two (or, at most, three) paragraphs. We want the query to sound like the back cover of a novel so…think short.

The first paragraph should be the pitch. I like the, “…entangled in a war she knows nothing about” angle but found the introduction of Asher Koora to be awkward. The next two paragraphs are almost entirely backstory and character description. My suggestion would be to trim way way back in these paragraphs. Being “too long/wordy” is a very common mistake in queries and especially in SF/F queries so resist the temptation to explain too much. We don’t need to know about Katja’s career in the military or even about her love life – we just need to know who she is and what the conflict of the story will be. For example, we could delete most of the first three paragraphs and say something like this instead, “The crew of the spaceship Tomahawk is like an adopted family and their leader, Katja, will do anything to save them when a failed assassination attempt embroils them in a war they knew nothing about.” That’s all we need to learn who the story is about, where it’s set and what the protagonists are up against.

From there, my suggestion would be to introduce Asher Koora as the antagonist and say a bit about the plot. I like this line from that very first paragraph, “a dark mystic, Asher Koora, has seen that she could threaten his ambition to rule the skies.” – trim it up a bit and use it after the pitch. Perhaps we say something like, “A dark mystic, Asher Koora, has seen that Katja could threaten his ambition to rule the skies.” Then add in a sentence or two about Asher’s plan to bring down Katja’s ship, how Katja learns about what she’s up against and what the crew will have to do to win this fight.

The resulting query should be around two paragraphs. Not only will it be shorter but it will be more succinct and compelling.

Finally, it’s ok to leave in the last paragraph with info on your inspiration for the book as well as your biography.

I hope that helps – happy writing! -Sara Megibow

Today’s About My Query brought to you by Hilary Harwell!

Dear [Agent]:

I found your interview on […] and think you’ll enjoy my 63,000 word YA novel, Invisible Me. I did a developmental edit with agent Elizabeth Kracht from Kimberley Cameron and Associates to be sure it’s up to snuff. It’s about a girl who feels invisible in high school. Then her feeling becomes reality.

Ana loses her genius best friend, Isaac, to masked men who want the invisibility pill that he invented—and she just swallowed. She escapes but now must rescue Isaac. Getting help from the police is tricky since they’re after her, thinking she’s responsible for his disappearance. Her only hope for clearing her name is to find clues and track down Isaac herself. This gets complicated when she discovers a hidden love note from him. Her own feelings are unclear and become murkier by Ben Cody, a young police rookie she’s had a crush on for years. Why is he always the one to come looking for her? Is what she deciphered true—that she’ll become visible to those who fall in love with her? And if so, will Ben arrest her? Or will he help her in her mission, even if it means reuniting her with a romantic rival?

Invisible Me is the first in a planned trilogy with subsequent titles Invisible Us (in progress) and Invisible Them. The style of this book is similar to the Of Poseiden trilogy by Anna Banks but with a love triangle a lá The Hunger Games.

I’ve traditionally published two non-fiction books: 101 Tips for a Happier Marriage in 2013, which has three foreign translations, and 101 Tips for Marrying the Right Person, published this past October. I’ve done public speaking and twenty radio interviews nationwide. I’ve also written numerous articles, and I blog at parenting is funny.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Author

  Dear Author,

First of all, thanks so much for volunteering your query for critique! I think you have a strong, nicely personalized opening here. It shows you’ve done your homework and are approaching the agent specifically, which always gets a closer look. My only suggestion here might be to perhaps include a quick line about why you felt your project might resonate based on the interview you read to take it one step further.

While it’s great that you’ve done a revision with a particular agent, I’d suggest leaving it out of your query. Agents are functioning under the assumption that you’ve edited and polished the project. Seeing this might also make me wonder why Elizabeth herself hasn’t scooped it up if you were working with her on a specific revision.

The opening line of the actual pitch has a bit too much going on, I’m afraid, and could use some paring down for the sake of clarity. Start with something clear and punchy to catch the agent’s attention. Moving on to the remainder of the pitch – I think overall your line-level writing here could use some tightening. For example, instead of ‘Getting help from the police is tricky…’, why not ‘She can’t go to the police’? It’s a stronger sentence and also creates a question in the reader’s mind, thus pulling them in.

The complications you introduce at the end of your pitch leave me feeling confused as to what the story is truly about. The pitch starts out with her friend getting kidnapped, leaving the reader assuming the story is about his rescue. Then it shifts gears to a possible love triangle and strong romantic element but doesn’t give us any idea about Isaac and his role throughout. My biggest suggestion overall is to nail down your plot here so it’s clear and easy to follow. What is the protagonist’s main goal, what is the main conflict, what are the stakes if she doesn’t succeed.

Just a couple final thoughts about your second to last paragraph that includes comps and trilogy information. It’s important for a debut author to be sure the first book in their planned series can stand alone. I’d suggest stating this outright in your query letter. Also, as far as comps go, I think one more strong comp that illustrates a world similar to yours or a plot similar to yours would really help paint a stronger picture in the agent’s mind of how the project can be pitched. The love triangle element as compared to the Hunger Games actually kind of reaffirmed my confusion about what the story is about, and comps should really help the agent gain clarity, not the opposite. 😉

Again, thank you so much for sharing your query with us. I hope you find my feedback useful!