Laura Stephenson's Kickstarter for The Complete Guide to Being Evil

Laura is a friend of mine and a blogging pal. She's been on here before with query letters, and now she has decided to self-publish her book, The Complete Guide to Being Evil. In order to do it right, she has created a Kickstarter campaign.

You know what Kickstarter is, right? I wrote a little about it here.

Anyway, check out Laura's video:



And then you can read more, and see the rewards, here.

Laura Stephenson's Current Query Critiqued

You guys are used to this by now, right? Here is Laura's query again, this time with my feedback, in blue.

The letter:

Dear Agent,

First of all, let's talk about formatting. That is a big chunk of text below this paragraph o' mine. Before I even start reading it, just the way its girth reaches off the page and pinches my eye ... makes me want to squint. I'm not saying every query has to fit into a neat little 250 word, three paragraph formatting structure, but I do think you should consider breaking this paragraph up.

Kalara Orlov isn't just any fantastically rich young woman living in a luxury apartment in NYC, attending Columbia University--she's also a mage. Hmm. This isn't bad, and at least you introduce an interesting character right away, but I'm left wanting a little more. More voice, more characterization, more something. While at a dinner party, she discovers the host, Brentley Whitcomb, I would say you don't need this guy's last name, but then you start calling him by it. is also a mage, and lets him know they have that in common in an attempt to network. Unbeknownst to her, Whitcomb is also a powerful necromancer who doesn't want anyone discovering he's selling the souls of the dead who go through his funeral home, so he tries to kill her. Natch. I would break paragraph here. That last sentence is pretty hooky. The attempt comes too close to working for comfort, Obviously? and she decides to elicit the help of a devil. Whoa. Okay. The guy who ends up answering her call is Evander, a devil's is there more than one devil in this world? son who's bad at being bad. Like Little Nicky? He draws up a very fair contract: in return for borrowing his power for five days, she has to give him a heart from one of his enemies so that he may eat and gain the power from it. If she fails to deliver the heart, he eats hers instead. This is pretty good. You've got conflict, stakes, and a choice. Well done.

As the days fly by, Kalara has to balance school, appearances, killing Whitcomb, Hah! LOL. and finding and killing an enemy of Evander's so she doesn't wind up dead at the end. All the while she's discovering that being evil, which she had been by caring only about riches and style, just doesn't pay off. And all the while, Evander is growing to like her, but since he's obligated to fill his contract or transform into a demon, he hounds her constantly to fill her end of the bargain. But she has too many things on her plate, and it all comes down to the wire. I'm not sure about this whole paragraph. It's got some nice voice at points, but as far as substance, it doesn't add all that much that we couldn't already infer from the previous paragraph. The one piece of new information is the possibility of romance, which is good, but you don't need all this other reiteration to get to it.

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO BEING EVIL, Awesome title. finished at 60,000 words, is a stand-alone comedic Urban Fantasy.

The one thing, which people mentioned yesterday, is that the voice of this query doesn't fully match the voice one would expect from a comedic novel (I also might use humorous over comedic, but it's just a matter of taste). You do have a couple funny moments, but overall this query reads a little dry for a funny book.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Laura Stephenson

Okay, in summary: you've got some great strong points. The plot, for example, or at least the inciting incident/hook part of it is very strong. The middle of this query too, in which a clear choice for Kalara is revealed, is great.

Then we've got the beginning, and the end. The opening isn't bad. It's got all the necessary elements, I just think you need to spice it up a bit, add some voice, and maybe be a bit funny, or at least irreverent. The end, depending on where you choose to end after this critique, needs some work.

I almost think you need to re-order things here. So that the potential romance comes up before the sadistic choice about murder or death. Try to write your query so that it progresses smoothly from Character, into Conflict, and finishes up with a Choice.

That's it.

What do you all think? Can you suggest a different opening for Laura? What about the end? How or where would you wrap things up?

Laura Stephenson's Current Query

Back into the swing of things here at the QQQE, we have the new year's first query (the critique, as usual, will come tomorrow).

If you don't know Laura, go follow her blog, From the Desk of Laura Stephenson. Go on, do it. Back? Excellent.

Here's her query:

Dear Agent,

Kalara Orlov isn't just any fantastically rich young woman living in a luxury apartment in NYC, attending Columbia University--she's also a mage. While at a dinner party, she discovers the host, Brentley Whitcomb, is also a mage, and lets him know they have that in common in an attempt to network. Unbeknownst to her, Whitcomb is also a powerful necromancer who doesn't want anyone discovering he's selling the souls of the dead who go through his funeral home, so he tries to kill her. The attempt comes too close to working for comfort, and she decides to elicit the help of a devil. The guy who ends up answering her call is Evander, a devil's son who's bad at being bad. He draws up a very fair contract: in return for borrowing his power for five days, she has to give him a heart from one of his enemies so that he may eat and gain the power from it. If she fails to deliver the heart, he eats hers instead.

As the days fly by, Kalara has to balance school, appearances, killing Whitcomb, and finding and killing an enemy of Evander's so she doesn't wind up dead at the end. All the while she's discovering that being evil, which she had been by caring only about riches and style, just doesn't pay off. And all the while, Evander is growing to like her, but since he's obligated to fill his contract or transform into a demon, he hounds her constantly to fill her end of the bargain. But she has too many things on her plate, and it all comes down to the wire.

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO BEING EVIL, finished at 60,000 words, is a stand-alone comedic Urban Fantasy.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Laura Stephenson

That's it!

Please thank Laura for sharing her query with us, save your feedback for tomorrow, and have a happy Thursday.

Laura Stephenson's Current Query Critiqued

Happy Friday, friends! Today we have Laura's query again, this time with my thoughts, in blue (I have a colorblind friend, and our good old staple, red, doesn't work as well for him). So there.

The query:

Dear Agent,

The whole thing had to be a cruel joke.

This isn't working for me. Without the context of something that's come before it, this line has no real meaning. It certainly takes some on later, but I don't think that works at the opening for a query. Keep in mind though, this kind of feedback is all very subjective, so don't listen to me unless it resonates with your vision (or if pretty much everyone else agrees).

Growing up the prince of a small island, everyone always told Andren how lucky he was, and while? Though? they looked on with jealousy. This isn't bad. It's got some sense of world, and the backstory hints to Andren's character a bit, but I do think you could deliver this in a way that hooks the reader better. What kind of person is he before his story begins? We know what others think of him, but what does he think of himself? But his life was far from picturesque. Picturesque? I would imagine life on an island we be near to picturesque. Or did you mean figuratively? Be careful with your diction, because you don't want an agent to misunderstand your meaning, denotation, connotation, or otherwise. His parents were are (watch your tense) both dead, which meant means he barely got gets to see his older brother anymore due to his kingly duties. He was I'm not going to keep harping on tense, because it's going to get dull very quickly, but here's the thing: queries are normally written in present tense (for fiction, at least). You don't have to follow that rule, because while it's very rare, I'm sure someone, somewhere has made a past tense query work, but you do have to follow the rule of good writing, which means your tense must be uniform throughout, or at least follow logical progression if it switches. required to attend parties where irritating nobles dressed lavishly, so he rarely got to hunt. What is the inciting incident here? Did his parents die recently? And he was turned into a monster through sorcery, so he never got to spend time with Eiva. Whoa. What? This might be your hook. I mean, I suppose, as it ends your true opening paragraph, it is your hook, but you kind of take a bit to get to it, and it sort of drops out of the sky like a meatball. Don't get me wrong, I like it, I just think you need to either get to it sooner, or at least hint at it earlier.

Then Eiva, a canny sorceress who wears robes instead of frippery, because robes are so much more efficient than long, flowing ... er, wait. lifts the curse on Andren. Is this still backstory? What is the main conflict in this manuscript? You've got a lot of cool elements here, but I need to start getting a sense of the main conflict by this point. Still he feels (see what I mean about tense? This is present. Which I get the feeling means, that this is the beginning of the actual story, and the rest is/was backstory) choked by the evil acts he commited committed during his transformation, so he runs away from the memories by travelling traveling out into to the mainland. What he finds there are different people all living in poverty and fear, victims of a ruthless emporer. Andren is outraged, and he makes it his goal to unite the quarrelous nations in war and take out the most powerful being (is this the emperor? Because being sounds kind of supernatural) in the known world. Perhaps once he's done saving them, he can let go of his self hate.

FROM HALVMANE'S SHORE is a fantasy novel with series potential complete at 80,000 words. I also have a finished novella prequel and two other novels in outlining stages. I believe it will appeal to readers who enjoy complex characters that test what it is to be human, such as in Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind. Hmm. Be careful with stuff like this. On the one hand, it's good that you know your genre, and potentially your market, but unless you're querying Mr. Goodkind's own agent, this may sound like a bit of a reach. If you are interested in my query, I have a polished manuscript ready to send. Cut this. You don't query anyone unless you have a complete, polished manuscript, and the ability to send it.


Thank you very much for your consideration.

Laura Stephenson

Okay. So let's summarize. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, Laura, I don't intend it to be. I've nit picked it a bit, because I think you have a cool story underneath this ... sort of a Beauty and the Beast without the Beauty. The problem here is that you really have to dig, and infer a lot of things to get a sense of the story.

The main issue for me is, when does the story actually begin? When his parents die? When he's changed hack into a human? When he leaves his island kingdom for the mainland? There's nothing wrong with including backstory in a query, in fact, the best ones have it, and weave it in seamlessly, but you need to make it clear where the backstory ends, and the tale actually begins.

Other than that, you have some standard query issues that I think we all suffer from, because queries are damn hard. First, we have no real sense of Andren's character. We know a lot of stuff that happens to him, but we don't really know what kind of person he is. It seems at the end here, that maybe he starts to fight for what is right, and that makes him a little sympathetic, but the problem is you need him to be very sympathetic, right from the beginning. I mean you open with a prince, who everyone tells is lucky, but they're all jealous of him. Then, it turns out he spent some time as a monster. I mean that's not the most sympathetic character ever. I'm sure he's compelling in the book, but you need to work on getting that across in the query.

Second, I have no real sense of what your main conflict is. I mean, I can only assume it's this war that's mentioned right at the end, but if it is, you need to bring it up sooner, and make it much clearer. If the war comes later, and the main conflict is the struggle of becoming human again, you'll need to focus more on that.

Finally, I want a better sense of your world. There are some very cool elements: a prince, an emperor, an island, and especially a canny sorceress, but I don't really have a clear sense of the world. You know, the culture, the level of technology, whether there are fantastic creatures and so on. I'm sure you've woven all that in to the manuscript wonderfully, and you certainly can't fit it all in a query, but just a few more hints would help.

That's it.

I really hope this helps. I think you've got the start of something cool here, it just needs a little work.

What do you all think? Is there anything I missed? Anything you disagree with? Please share your thoughts in the comments, and have a great weekend!

Laura Stephenson's Current Query

Do you all know Laura? If not, please visit her blog, here, and become a follower. Back?

Here's her query:

Dear Agent,

The whole thing had to be a cruel joke.

Growing up the prince of a small island, everyone always told Andren how lucky he was, and they looked on with jealousy. But his life was far from picturesque. His parents were both dead, which meant he barely got to see his older brother anymore due to his kingly duties. He was required to attend parties where irritating nobles dressed lavishly, so he rarely got to hunt. And he was turned into a monster through sorcery, so he never got to spend time with Eiva.

Then Eiva, a canny sorceress who wears robes instead of frippery, lifts the curse on Andren. Still he feels choked by the evil acts he commited during his transformation, so he runs away from the memories by travelling out into the mainland. What he finds there are different people all living in poverty and fear, victims of a ruthless emporer. Andren is outraged, and he makes it his goal to unite the quarrelous nations in war and take out the most powerful being in the known world. Perhaps once he's done saving them, he can let go of his self hate.

FROM HALVMANE'S SHORE is a fantasy novel complete at 80,000 words. I also have a finished novella prequel and two other novels in outlining stages. I believe it will appeal to readers who enjoy complex characters that test what it is to be human, such as in Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind. If you are interested in my query, I have a polished manuscript ready to send.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Laura Stephenson

That's it.

Please save your feedback for tomorrow, thank Laura for sharing, and have a great Thursday!