DL Hammons' Current Query Critiqued

All right. Here we are, Friday morning, and we're back to Don's query. This time, with my feedback, which will be in red.

Here goes:

Mr. or Ms. Agent
The Most Awesome Literary Agency Ever,

I think you need to focus your flattery more the particular agent, and less on the agency. Something like Dear Most Awesome Literary Agent Ever, who works at one of the coolest agencies, which is only slightly less cool than the agent herself ...

Just kidding. I do love this, though.

Now, I do want to say something about voice. Many of you will already know this, but for you beginners out there, when you compare this query to Alexia's, from earlier this week, you may think this one lacks voice. It's certainly not as colorful as hers, but the thing is, that's good. The voice of the query needs to match the tone, style, and voice of the novel. Don's written a contemporary thriller, so his query needs to reflect that, which I think it does.

Lee Hamilton is watch your tense. Queries are rarely written in present tense, but if you feel it's important to do so, make sure it's uniform throughout. I'll point out later where your tense switches up. a small town HR Manager whose pedestrian life is only buoyed by his long-standing friendship with five old college buddies, the Knights. That all changes when he receives a phone call informing him that Steven Ebe, one of the Knights, has been found beaten and left in a coma. I would separate your paragraph here. These first two sentences are basically what we call hook, and they're pretty good. We've got a sense of character, a bit of backstory, and an inciting incident. Make them stand out by giving them their own paragraph. The group’s old I think you can cut this old, and the one two sentences before. By telling us they're his college buddies, since we know he's well into his career, the old is implied. motto comes rushing back -- you mess with one Knight, you mess with them all! Ebe is a reformed I would change this to former, rather than reformed. Depending on what kind of hacking he did (which can be morally ambiguous), he may or may not have had to reform anything. hacker who recently went to work for a private detective agency in South Carolina. Dianne Williams, the manager of the detective cut agency, surprises Lee with additional info explaining how her entire workforce has been sickened by some form of poison. Is this poison what put Steve in the coma, or something else entirely? You want might want to clarify. Rallying around their fallen companion, the Knights join forces with Dianne and discover a series of numbers huh? found in Ebe’s possession tied to a large scale cybercrime. The mystery deepens when the numbers are also cut linked to a Columbine-style high school shooting in Virginia? Is this meant to be a question? I think this should be a normal sentence, ending in a period.

Hmm. Okay, I think this is off to a good start. We've got a nice mystery, some heightened stakes, and a pretty good sense of upcoming conflict. I worry a little about naming so many characters, especially given that you're sharing their first and last names, but I get the feeling that's typical for this kind of novel. As long as you keep it to these three characters, I think you're okay.

I'm curious about these numbers, though. It may not be critical, but I feel like I want to know more about what you mean. Is it some kind of decryption key? If Steven was a hacker, it's got to be something related to information security, right? I would like just another word or two describing exactly what kind of numbers they are.

Dianne and Lee decide to fly to Virginia where they encounter a city I would name the city, rather than the state. You tell us it's Virginia in the last paragraph, and then you mention a city here. Just tell us if it's Richmond, Norfolk, or D.C. still reeling from the emotional impact of the shooting and distrustful of outsiders who won’t allow them to forget. Following leads withheld from the police and FBI, they quickly learn everything is not as it’s been reported in the news. Normally I would say this is a little vague, but I think you're okay here. If you explain too much, you'll end up in synopsis territory, and the query only needs to entice. The mysterious numbers are connected to even more crimes, the school shooter was it might look like this is the first tense switch, but this is actually okay. not working alone, and he left behind a suicide note that simply read…I’m not finished yet! Did the note really use an exclamation point? You've got one in your first paragraph. I would cut them both if you can, but definitely at least one. Lee and Dianne had somehow stumbled across the wizard behind the curtain, and the Knights weren’t in Kansas anymore. Now the group had this is the first place I see where we are definitely no longer in present tense. This should say has. a choice to make, make this comma a colon. return home and pass up a chance to clear their friend’s name, or put their very lives in danger by going toe to toe with an unimaginable fiend. This makes me think of fantasy for some reason. Like a demon. I know that's not what you mean, but you might want to be a little more specific about your antagonist.

All in all this paragraph is also pretty good. It sets up a mystery and a sense of conflict well, without giving too much away. It's obvious that the stakes are life and death, and there is a clear but tough choice for the protagonists to make. Except for the minor mechanics things I've pointed out, this is pretty well done.

FALLEN KNIGHT is a mystery/thriller novel complete at 105,000 words. By day I am the writer of technical journals and instruction manuals, but when the sun goes down I'm an active member of the writing community. I am also a proud member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. Fallen Knight is poised to be part of a larger series and I feel a perfect companion to your agencies other offerings. I would be careful here. If you're going to compliment an agent's list, that's fine, but give specific examples, to prove you've done your homework. If not, don't mention it.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you. Some agents have a no response means no policy, so you may not hear from them at all. I think you're fine just paring this sentence down to the first clause.

DL Hammons
Dlh.hammons@gmail.com
http://dlcruisingaltitude.blogspot.com/

So, in summary: you've got a good query here. There's a very clear sense of plot, conflict, stakes, and a difficult choice. We don't know much about Dianne, but we've got a decent sense of Lee and Steven's character, and I think we're okay without knowing a whole lot more about her. My biggest concerns, other than minor writing mechanics things, are the vagueness of the "numbers," and no real sense of our antagonist. I get the feeling the real bad guy is not the same person who shot up the high school, but we don't really know what he's after, or who he is. That can be okay, but if you want to keep him a mystery, you might cut that line about the "unimaginable fiend."

That's it.

What do you guys think? Disagree with me? What would you like to see cut or added from or to this query?