Josh Hoyt's Current Query Critiqued

Okay. Back again? Excellent. Thank you so much for you willingness to lend a hand. My own personal belief is that as writers we're all in this together, and there's nothing more important than helping each other out, so I really appreciate everyone's willingness to jump in, and share some feedback with Josh.

Now, I haven't done one of these for a while, so before I get to the specifics of this query I just want to say a couple things about query letters in general.

There is a lot of advice out there, some of it conflicting, but probably the most important thing is to know the agent you plan on submitting to. They each have different expectations, and submission guidelines. Often the query is just a teaser for the five pages they'll allow you to include.

Anyway, I have a bit of a formula I like to use when I try to advise people what needs to be in their query letter. I call it The Three Cs. In my opinion, the most important aspects of a query are: Character, Conflict, and Choice. In other words: Who is this story about (usually one named MC/protag but there are variations), What sort of adversity do they have to overcome (internal and external plot can be discussed, depending on importance) and What choice (or choices) do they have to make to accomplish their goals?

Every query also needs a good pitch and/or opening hook, but I always advise people to make the character part of that. If we don't start off with a compelling character, most people will not read on.

Obviously there's more to these things than just that, but let's get to work. My critique, thoughts and advice will be in red.

Dear [agent name]:

I am pleased to submit for your consideration, THE ORDER OF THE ROSE, a 78,000-word young adult fantasy novel. This is what I call housekeeping, and my advice is to save it for the end. There are some agents who prefer it up front, so be sure to find out before submitting, but my opinion is that you have very little time (words) to get the reader (probably an assistant) interested in your book. Get right to the story, because in the end the story is all that matters. The novel is centered around these previous five words are not necessary, what else would you be talking about besides your novel? Tom Tom? Tom who? This is a simple and almost cliche name for a character, but it can work. I just think you need to add a last name, and something else that identifies what kind of person he is. Remember, character is more important than anything, and before we know what happens to him, we need to get a sense of who he is. You can add an occupation, call him a part-time cut-purse, a failed clergyman, whatever, a 16-year old this should say 16 year-old, or sixteen-year-old who is hunted for his unique distinction of being the only male able to wield magic in centuries. For this reason, he is chosen to restore The Order of The Rose. Okay. Now this sounds cool, it's certainly an interesting premise, but this is still more about plot than character. That'll be okay, if you fix the opening to tell us who Tom is, but I think you should think about how you write your sentences. Both of these are passive, using state of being verbs, but more importantly, they don't really tell us as much as they might seem to. Who chooses Tom? What is the Order? If you choose to answer those questions later in the query, that's fine, but I don't see that you do, from my reading.

Torn from his mother at a young age I like this verbiage, because it's a lot stronger writing than what comes before it, but what does it really mean? Did she die? Was he kidnapped? Exiled? Be specific, Tom was past tense left in an orphanage some people may say this is redundant, and it might be, depending on what torn from means to fend for himself until being rescued by a wealthy revolutionary leader WTH? In real life revolutionary leaders are usually poor, but I can accept that it may be different in this world, but this is still too vague a description of this person. You don't need to name him, in fact I would suggest you don't, but some explanation of why he's "rescuing" Tom from the orphanage is important. The revolutionary leader trains present tense Tom to use guns and swords as well as subterfuge in hopes that he can help overthrow the government. What happened to the Order? Is this guy the one that chose Tom for the Order? If so that is not clear the way this is currently written. During training Tom discovers his patron is not the only one who else, and why? interested in his new found abilities. He soon comes to find that not everyone who is looking for him, cut this comma, also: people are looking for him now? wants him alive when all is said and done.

Tom meets a ghost of the old Order who speaks to him, “You are our last hope. You must make things right.” This comes a bit out of left field, and I have to wonder what it means. You need to be a little more specific here. If Tom fails to restore The Order of The Rose and bring an end to the corruption, the land will be ripped apart. literally? By what forces? It is then when Tom finally realizes the weight he carries. Though he fears what he will become of him, he knows he must protect his friends who are the only family he's known. or? This is where you need to clarify the CHOICE. The third C.

Okay. So the biggest problem with this query is that you have a lot of vague mentionings of what sounds like high stakes conflict, but we can't really tell for sure because we don't know what is actually going on. Be specific. Tell us why the Patron Saint of Orphaned Revolutionaries rescues Tom. If it's his magic, how does he know about it, and why is he trained in guns and swords instead of staves and spells?

It also seems to be lacking a bit of voice, but I don't think that's as big an issue considering the fact that fantasy is often not as riddled with voice as say a YA PNR.

And I have to say that the concept here sounds very cool to me. I get a kind of arcane Gregorian monk feel from this query letter, and though the execution needs a little work, I think you have something interesting here.

I am getting my second master’s degree in school psychology and I already have a Master’s degree in counseling. As a result, I have come to better understand the people around me. I use this knowledge for my blog, How to Diagnose Your Character, in hopes to help writers create accurate characters for their novels.

This is debatable. This isn't really publishing credits, and I'm not sure it's directly pertinent to your ability to tell this story. I would skip this whole paragraph in the interest of having more room for words directly describing the story.

If you would like to consider THE ORDER OF THE ROSE, I’d be happy to forward you the complete manuscript.

Put your housekeeping here. TITLE, Word Count, Genre, etc. Any personalization for a particular agent can also go here, unless you find they prefer it up front, like Nathan Bransford.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Joshua Hoyt

So that's it. What do you guys think? Please feel free to disagree with me, and let's see if we can't help Josh write a better opening hook.