Misha Gericke's Currenty Query Critiqued

Okay. It's Friday, and while there's a nice cold snap down here in Georgia, there's no ice on the roads, so it should be another great weekend. Go Falcons.

Anyway, here is Misha's letter again, this time with my feedback, in blue.

The query:

Dear [Agent],

Sixteen-year-old Callan Blair has been in the British foster care system for five years. One thing that's missing here is how many families she's been through. That was one of the strengths of your previous version. She should be equipped for just about anything. Turns out… not so much?

This opening is good. You start with character: good. You put her in a situation in which we feel sympathy for her: good. You hint at some kind of inciting incident: not as good, but it's fine, because you get to that in the very next sentence. One thing I want more of (and if you read this blog a lot, I may sound like a broken record) is character. We have Callan's age, and her situation, but we don't know who she is. What kind of person. Brave or cowardly? Kind or cruel? Even one or two words can go a very long way.

On day one at her new school, a lethal I'm not sure about this word here. Aren't all knights potentially lethal? knight (more like arrogant bastard - I'll say more about language in queries later) drags her through a doorway into Tardith, a continent in a different world. One a strange land where dragons still steal sheep and where her grandfather is the elvish king of Alfen Cairn. I like this premise. The execution is a little clunky, but the whole portal world concept, while certainly having been done, is one that almost always works for me. Also, I think this short and to the point version is better then the older one. I miss the cosplayers a little, but I don't miss all the stuff about her brother. Callan is his only granddaughter, so everyone counts on her to save their country from a devastating war.

The idea of having a real family and friends is a dream come true. Marrying a sadistic man with genocide on the mind in order to protect them… Nnot so much. But this becomes an echo if you add "so much" to the end of your first paragraph. But if she doesn't go through with the wedding, everyone dies. If she does, she'll be tortured for the rest of her very short life. So much for the happy homecoming.

I would end here. This paragraph is short on some of the details from your earlier version, but it works for me. Plently of conflict, very high stakes, and a tough, sadistic choice. Those are the bread and butter of queries.

Callan's choice doesn't get any easier when she realizes her only hope for survival lies with the same asshole who put her in Tardith in the first place.

Equipped for anything. What was she thinking? I'm undecided about this. It's adds a nice bit of voice, and if your manuscript's narrator is a bit sarcastic sounding like this, you might want to include it, but it could work either way.

So, before I summarize, a brief note on foul language. I love it. My manuscripts are full of fucks and shits and assholes, and even in YA lit I think it's authentic, depending, of course, on the characters, but I think you have to be careful with queries. My own first query had a pair of "bad-asses" in it, and I think it was important to include them, to give a sense of the tone of the voice in the manuscript, but I would never put a "fuck" in a query. Anyway, my point for this query is that I think the "asshole" might be a bit too much. I really like the "arrogant bastard," though.

Okay, and now, in summary: this query is way better. You're missing a few world building elements from before, but you get to the point so much more succinctly. That's part of the reason I suggest using a few more of the fantasy names like Alfen Cairn. 

Anyway, otherwise this query is mostly quite good. The beginning needs the most work, but if you can introduce us to Callan in a way that we would care about her more right away, I think you'd be in great shape.

That's it.

What do you all think?

Misha Gericke's Current Query

Today we have Misha, from My First Book and Taking Charge of my Life, and a revision of her query letter. As that last link shows, I've had this query on before, so let's just get right to it.

The query:

Dear [Agent],

Sixteen-year-old Callan Blair has been in the British foster care system for five years. She should be equipped for just about anything. Turns out… not.

On day one at her new school, a lethal knight (more like arrogant bastard) drags her through a doorway into Tardith, a continent in a different world. One where dragons still steal sheep and where her grandfather is the elvish king. Callan is his only granddaughter, so everyone counts on her to save their country from a devastating war.

The idea of having a real family and friends is a dream come true. Marrying a sadistic man with genocide on the mind in order to protect them… Not so much. But if she doesn't go through with the wedding, everyone dies. If she does, she'll be tortured for the rest of her very short life. So much for the happy homecoming.

Callan's choice doesn't get any easier when she realizes her only hope for survival lies with the same asshole who put her in Tardith in the first place.

Equipped for anything. What was she thinking?

That's it.

Please thank Misha for sharing, and save your feedback for tomorrow!

Misha Gericke's Current Query Critiqued

I have a huge meeting with the head of the European division of our client today, which of course they just old me about yesterday. My company is so messed up. I'm very near the bottom of the organizational ladder, and they don't pay me enough for this stuff.

Anyway, I hope I can get this done in time. So, we have Misha's query again today, this time with my feedback, which will be in red.

Now here's the query:

Dear [Insert Agent Name Here]

Callan Blair is adopted into a wealthy family and thinks it’s just her 23rd game of “Happy Family”, except this time she ends up in a different world, triggering events that will lead to a war generations in coming the making?

You do well to start of with your character, but after that, this falls apart. I don't know if this is a cultural thing, but here in the US, "Happy Family," is a dish you can get at Chinese restaurants for dinner. I have no idea what it's supposed to mean in this context. Also, the fact that what I assume is some kind of family board or card game ends up sending her to another world, a world on the brink of war, sounds pretty cool, but it's also incredibly vague. I'm hoping it will be explained in the next 'graph.

All this happens because her bratty adoptive brother, James, doesn’t know Callan’s dark secrets will get her out of his life soon enough without his help. This is also vague, and doesn't make much sense. I can't conceive of how this brother can make a game send his sister to another world, so if you're going to bring it up, you should probably explain how he has that power. So he does the sensible thing and plots her expulsion from Greyston Academy, but fails and Callan gets permission to skip her first day of school. Huh? Not only is this jumping to a whole other conflict, but it also doesn't make sense how the one leads to the other. He plots her expulsion, but fails, which somehow leads to her being allowed to skip? How and why does the first logically progress to the second? She escapes to a nearby castle where she bumps into a group of oddly non-geeky cosplayers who aren’t what they appear to be. Okay, this is another leap of logic for me, but I don't really care. The mention of cosplayers would make this an automatic request for me if I were an agent. I hope it's intended to be funny, because I find it hilarious, in a good way. Turns out they’re a group of highly trained and ferocious warriors on their way home after war. So she sees a group of warriors, and because she's not familiar with the world she's in, she assumes they're cosplaying? I hope that's how it works, because I can't really tell for sure. If that is how it works, it's an awesome scenario, but you could probably make it much clearer in your query. She finds this out the hard way when a very real battle erupts and she gets kidnapped by a psycho with delusions of love and plans to drag her to the continent of Tardith, a place she never knew existed.

Okay. At this point, I have to say, elements of the content are very cool, in the sense that showing up in a new world because of a game sounds really cool, if shocking, and even the basic mention of cosplayers sounds fun and funny, but the structure of this query isn't working for me.

Right now, it's set up like: Random thing A happens, which sounds cool. It's followed by random thing C, which has no logical progression from A, and then suddenly jumps back to random thing B, all of which sound like interesting things to occur in a story, but are vague, don't make much sense, and seem to have little or no connection to each other. I hope that doesn't sound too harsh, but does it make any sense? Of course you don't want to give everything away in a query, but things need to fit together better than this. I realize it's a fantasy world, and so the world doesn't have to be completely logical, but the way things connect to each other has to make sense, and the way one occurrence progresses into another has to be logical.

The “cosplayers”, at this point, the cosplayer thing starts to feel like a gimmick. After seeing them in a real battle, would she not stop thinking of them that way? Or is she a gamer and cosplayer herself, back in the real world, and is therefore obsessed with the concept? led by the most arrogant bastard Callan ever met and his absolutely stunning best friend, rescue her and take her to Nordaine -- a country in Tardith. There, she discovers two things: Her parents both came from this strange world and her mother was a princess in Alfen Cairn, the land of the elves. She wants nothing more than to discover her mother’s secrets and why she kept them, but to do it; Callan has to contend with politics, the elves themselves, an arranged marriage and her own darkest secret. Now this query is starting to get good. When you re-write this, focus on this section, and consider how all these sentences fit together, and lead from one to another. Try to write the rest of your query, especially the beginning, with this same kind of cohesion. For within her lurks an evil so powerful that she could never fight or expel it, and now it’s trying to destroy her life. Vague. On top of it all, she must decide where her loyalties lie in the boiling cauldron of Tardithian politics. And because all that is too easy, her choice will determine the whole continent’s future.

DOORWAYS is a 110(,)000 words YA epic fantasy about five people: Callan who is searching for her place in Tardith, James, who follows her there in search of his redemption, Darrion, who’s fighting to save his leader and so ensure his place on Nordaine’s throne, Gawain, who’ll stop at nothing to help him, and Ward, who is more than just the quiet guy in James’s shadow. I would skip this whole thing. I'm not saying a bunch of POV characters can't work in fantasy, because it does all the time, but it's place is not in the query. You could maybe say the story is told from multiple POVs, but you can't name them all like this. Consider George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. Awesome, crazy story, with tons of POV characters (even in only the first book), right? The query would still be told from Ned Stark's POV. Every story has a main protagonist, and in a query, you should almost always try to stick to one. The book is intended to be the first in a four part series. This is okay, but it might be better worded to just say it has series potential. Agents want a book to stand on its own.

A tiny bit about me: I live in South Africa, using my beautiful view of Table Mountain as inspiration when I write, blog it's okay to put a link here and work as a fresh produce trader/marketer.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Misha Gericke

[contact details here]

All right. Summary. First of all, this sounds like an awesome, epic tale. It's a bit difficult to excavate that information from the way this query currently stands, but I can tell it's there.

As to structure, this query needs some work. The first half in particular. The good news is that it starts to get really good near the end, and the whole final stakes and choice are pretty well executed.

What you need to do is see if you can apply the same methods to your opening hook, and introductory conflict paragraph. Right now, the first five or six things you mention jump from one to another with no sense of being connected, and even though they sound cool, it throws the reader off because he's puzzling over how you got from one to the next, instead of being impressed by how cool the next thing is.

I hope this all makes sense, and helps.

That's it.

What do you all think? Can anyone suggest a better opening hook? Or perhaps think of a way to tie this compelling string of events together better?

Misha Gericke's Current Query

Do you guys all know Misha? She has two blogs, both related to writing. Taking Charge of My Life, and My First Book. They're both worth a look.

Back? Great.

Here's her query:

Dear [Insert Agent Name Here]

Callan Blair is adopted into a wealthy family and thinks it’s just her 23rd game of “Happy Family”, except this time she ends up in a different world, triggering events that will lead to a war generations in coming.

All this happens because her bratty adoptive brother, James, doesn’t know Callan’s dark secrets will get her out of his life soon enough without his help. So he does the sensible thing and plots her expulsion from Greyston Academy, but fails and Callan gets permission to skip her first day of school. She escapes to a nearby castle where she bumps into a group of oddly non-geeky cosplayers who aren’t what they appear to be. Turns out they’re a group of highly trained and ferocious warriors on their way home after war. She finds this out the hard way when a very real battle erupts and she gets kidnapped by a psycho with delusions of love and plans to drag her to the continent of Tardith, a place she never knew existed.

The “cosplayers”, led by the most arrogant bastard Callan ever met and his absolutely stunning best friend, rescue her and take her to Nordaine -- a country in Tardith. There, she discovers two things: Her parents both came from this strange world and her mother was a princess in Alfen Cairn, the land of the elves. She wants nothing more than to discover her mother’s secrets and why she kept them, but to do it; Callan has to contend with politics, the elves themselves, an arranged marriage and her own darkest secret. For within her lurks an evil so powerful that she could never fight or expel it, and now it’s trying to destroy her life. On top of it all, she must decide where her loyalties lie in the boiling cauldron of Tardithian politics. And because all that is too easy, her choice will determine the whole continent’s future.

DOORWAYS is a 110 000 words YA epic fantasy about five people: Callan who is searching for her place in Tardith, James, who follows her there in search of his redemption, Darrion, who’s fighting to save his leader and so ensure his place on Nordaine’s throne, Gawain, who’ll stop at nothing to help him, and Ward, who is more than just the quiet guy in James’s shadow. The book is intended to be the first in a four part series.

A tiny bit about me: I live in South Africa, using my beautiful view of Table Mountain as inspiration when I write, blog and work as a fresh produce trader/marketer.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Misha Gericke

[contact details here]

That's it.

Please save your feedback for tomorrow, and thank Misha for sharing in the comments!

Jeff O'Handley's Current Query Critiqued

Before we get started, let me point you to a guest post I wrote for Misha Gericke. Her two blogs, Taking Charge of My Life, and My First Book, are both worth visiting and following, even when I'm not making an appearance. It's an appropriate post for today too, somewhat, because she asked me to write about queries. Back now? Great, let's get to work on Jeff's query. My feedback will be in red.

The query:

Dear Agent,

For high school senior Chris Burke(,) life has never been better. He's college bound, more popular than ever, and finally ready to tell best friend Madison Cooper how he really feels. This opening is good, in the sense that it's full of setting, provides some backstory, and sets up some potential for both romance and conflict (if Madison doesn't feel the same), but if you examine it closely, you'll see that it's all about what happens to Chris (and what he might do about it) but doesn't tell us anything about who Chris is. We need a strong sense of character, right up front, so that we know who Chris is, and why we should care about what happens to him. But when long-time nemesis James LaValle is it key to name this character? Glancing through the rest of the query, I'm not sure. takes his feud with Chris too far and kills Madison's dog, Chris kills or murders? This is kind of critical, because we need to know what the circumstance is. Self-defense is one thing. Accidental manslaughter, another. And pre-meditated (if justified) murder, a third. James and loses everything but his life. Other than the things I've mentioned, this whole opening paragraph is pretty good. I mean it certainly ends with a shock, and makes it clear how high the stakes of your conflict are.

Thirty years later, Chris has paid his debt to society and is a free man. Whoa. Okay. I'm not sure about this. Your opening paragraph usually introduces the character as they are when the stories occurs, and then the inciting incident that begins the conflict in your story. In this tale, the character is Chris as a middle-aged man, and the inciting incident is him being released from prison. I'm not saying this unique set-up won't work, it could, but you're definitely breaking the rules of standard query writing here. Now a counselor for troubled teens, is this the kind of job convicted felons are usually allowed to have? he leads a quiet, anonymous life, shared with his parents and a few close friends, and that's good enough for him. Until Madison calls. I like this. A new angle, a new option for tension and conflict. My only problem: this is kind of where your story begins. You've spent almost two full paragraphs telling about everything that happens before your story even started.

Madison needs Chris to help her come to grips with her lingering guilt over her role in James' death and the testimony that helped put Chris in prison. Her unexpected return brings old memories to the surface and, with them, feelings Chris buried long ago. Seeing her, he realizes not all prisons come with barred doors and wire-topped walls: the past can hold you as securely as any penitentiary. And it doesn't grant parole. The rest of this final paragraph is pretty good. A little vague, a little cliche-ish, but it also has some good voice, and hints at Chris having to make some tough decisions.

Complete at 93,000 words, PARALLEL LIVES is a work of literary/commercial fiction. Its past/present narrative traces Chris' changing relationship with Madison, his inevitable collision with James, and his struggle to reintegrate into a society unwilling to forget. Whoa. All right, I guess the rest of your query makes more sense now. I'll talk about this in my summary. A story of friendship, forgiveness, and taking ownership of the past, it might appeal to readers who enjoyed HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET and THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. This is good.

Okay, in summary: your query has some strong points. It's written cleanly, with strong, direct language, and it's clear that there is a powerful story here, with plenty of potential for conflict, tension, and difficult, painful decisions.

Now, things are going to get subjective. I'm not exactly sure how you should rework this. For me, overall, the query isn't working. I think the reason is that reading the meat of the query, the part that describes the story, before we get to the housekeeping details, I get one impression of what the story is about, that it covers one part of Chris' life, but then at the end, in the housekeeping, I find out that's not the case at all. I'm concerned an agent would not like that kind of surprise.

But, that could easily be my subjective opinion. I wonder if maybe it would work better with the housekeeping info coming first? I know, I usually suggest against that, but if I knew about the "past/present narrative" up front, the meat of the story section of the query would probably work better for me. If that was the case, many of the things I tripped over or suggested changing might work much better.

The notes I place in the body of the query are what comes to my mind as I'm reading, so I'm thinking that maybe if you re-ordered everything, this would all make more sense?

Let's see what my readers think.

That's it.

Man. This one was tough. The details are solid, in the sense that even in spite of my confusion, I can still see a powerful story underneath. I just got lost in the chronology, and I'm concerned some agents might have the same problem. What do you all think? Did you have to go back and read anything again yesterday for it to make sense? Do you think the housekeeping details coming first would help?