Abby Minard's Current Query Critiqued

Man. I hate my job. I've been so slammed this morning, I'm only just starting this post now, at 7 AM. Anyway, here is Abby's query again, this time with my feedback, in red.

The letter:

Dear ______,

Holding her dying father in her arms is just just is one of those words a lot of publishing professionals hate. If you keep this opening, you could replace it with only. the beginning for sixteen(-)year(-)old Nuala, a novice Ice Mage. I think Ice-Mage should be hyphenated. It's kind of a single noun construct. Jarlath, a power hungry Earth Mage, murdered him. Worse, he has found a way to acquire the energy of all four Elements: Earth, Ice, Fire and Wind -- a feat that takes a terrible act of sacrifice and murder.

Okay, so when it comes to content - I love this opening. I love fantasy, and I love elemental magic, especially your spin on it, since you've replaced the standard Water with Ice. However, I'm not sure about the execution. I think character needs to come before the inciting incident. I mean, opening with her father dying in her arms in certainly powerful in its own way, but we don't know who she is yet, and it's important to know and care about that first.

I would open something like this: "Sixteen-year-old Nuala is an uncertain novice Ice-Mage. Holding her dying father in her arms is only the beginning of her suffering (or stuggles, problems, whatever). When she discovers Jarlath, a power obsessed Earth Mage murdered him ..." That's not perfect either, but I'm sure you get the point.

I also like that you made an Earth elemental wielder the bad guy, since it's almost always the Fire guys who get the bad rap.

Nuala learns her mother’s suicide fifteen years ago enabled Jarlath’s rise in power. I like how this raises the stakes, but we need a better understanding of why. Was her mother in some kind of position of power? He now needs Nuala’s essence to complete what her mother did not finish. Be specific. What didn't she finish? If he succeeds, it could mean the destruction of the delicate balance that holds the Elements and people of Tartha together. Nuala is given the only clue to defeating Jarlath, spoken by Mother Earth herself: “Not one with four, but four as one”. I like this. Mysterious, but also a good plot ticket.

This paragraph is mostly pretty good, you're raising the stakes and heightening the conflict, and only need to clarify a couple minor things.

The timid I like this characterization, you should actually put this word right up front, where I wrote "uncertain" in my example. Ice Mage must now embark on a perilous journey in search of the key to solving the riddle while coming to terms with her father’s death and rumors of her mother’s betrayal. Now it's a betrayal? You really need to be specific about exactly what happened in the previous paragraph, otherwise, the mother aspect makes very little sense. She meets three other Mages along the way who seem to be sent from the gods: an answer to her prayers. I'm not sure about this. It kind of sounds either like hyperbole, or Deus Ex Machina. I don't think it's the latter, because it sounds like it comes too early, but be careful how you word things. With every strike from Jarlath, the four Mages form an everlasting bond of friendship, taking them closer to the answer on how to defeat him. How? How does their friendship provide the answer? With that comes a choice: risk their Elements and possibly their lives to save Tartha, or save themselves and watch their world fall to the enemy. This is great. Concluding with a distinct, tough choice is one of the hardest parts of a query letter, but you've killed it here.

So, to summarize, based on content, this sounds like one of the coolest stories I've looked at lately, from the query. I could be biased because of my general love of fantasy and elemental magic, but so what?

Now, that being said, there are some things you need to work on. You end it all rather well, and your opening is not half-bad either, but things are pretty muddied up in the middle. If you're going to bring the mother aspect into play, in particular, you need to clarify exactly what happened, why it matters, and how this backstory element pertains to the current conflict. I get the feeling Nuala's mom was someone in power, who conducted some kind of ritual to keep Jarlath or others like him from power, but it failed, killed her, and people thought it was suicide. But I could easily be wrong, especially considering you refer to it all as a betrayal at one point.

That one aspect, and maybe a little better characterization in the beginning, are the two biggest things you need to improve in this query. Otherwise, you're off to a great start, and obviously have a very cool story to tell.

ICESONG is a Young Adult Fantasy complete at 71,000 words and is available on your request. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Abby Minard

That's it.

What do you guys think? Anyone have a better opening hook than mine?