Mark Rubinkowski's Current Query Critiqued

Sorry that post went up so late yesterday. I stayed home sick from work. Ugh. I'm still not feeling that well. So if you're waiting on email from me ... that's probably why. Anyway, let's get to work. My feedback will be in red.

Here's Mark's query:

Super heroes used to exist. They protected society from the threats of super villains and mad scientists. People used to look to them for safety. One day, seventeen years ago, everything changed. The heroes accused the rest of the world of being lazy and deemed it undeserving of their protection. This has some cool things going for it, but I would suggest that this is essentially synopsis territory, and you want to hook us with something better. Something we can feel. Usually, a character.

Sixteen-year-old Mark Novak lives in Springfield, Illinois, which is run by an demented man. Like this. I like how you open with Mark's age, which is important for a YA novel (Mark doesn't include his housekeeping in this query, but I know it's YA from WriteOnCon). However, you could still stand to tell us more about who Mark is - try to think, what kind of person was he before this story started? And also, I would suggest you don't give your protagonist the same first name as you. It hints at author insertion. He is an ordinary boy whose favorite class in school is History of the Superhero this is where you might sprinkle in some of the info from your first paragraph. After you introduce us to your character, then you can introduce us to your world. And a world where superheroes used to exist sounds like a pretty cool one. and has a huge crush on a new girl. The option for romance in a YA novel is always a good one, but you don't want to introduce things from left field like this. Try to make sure things progress logically from one to another. So after mentioning the class, you can mention why such a class exists, thus building your world. One walk into the woods with his friends changes his destiny forever.

Mark and his friends start to develop powers after a chance encounter with a hidden base in the forest. Even though they barely understand what is happening, they will be forced to face down threats from science gone horribly wrong and the consequences a few acts of standing up for ones self can cause. This isn't bad, but it gets muddied by over-wordiness, especially near the end. Try to me more concise. Along the way, they begin to uncover the answers behind the disappearance of the heroes and that they may not be the heroes everyone thought they would be. Mark and his friends are faced with a choice. Use their powers and save their failing city or standby and let things take their natural course. This isn't bad either, but you need to raise the stakes. Right now, it seems like an easy choice. You need to make it clearer why letting things take their natural choice might actually be a viable option.

Okay, to summarize - I get the feeling this is an early draft, and if so, that's good. Queries are hard to write, and this is in much better shape than probably the first hundred drafts I ever wrote.

That being said, you need to focus your writing. Try to be as concise as possible, and try to make sure that things progress logically from one to another. For example, mentioning the crush right after the class, and then never coming back to it, doesn't make much sense. If the crush doesn't become some kind of romance in the manuscript, it might not be worth mentioning in the query.

Other than that, always try to be as specific as possible. You've got some cool sounding things going on here, but they're also pretty vague.

That's it.

What you you all think? Spending any time in the WriteOnCon forums?