And extending further. Does a dual POV between say Third Person one chapter and Second Person the next change things? Is that likely to be acceptable in trad publishing?

I know traditional publishing can be quite rigid and quite against stepping outside the boxes they have created. And while I know first person can definitely work in, say, romance, how does it look in other genres? And where does Second Person find a space if any at all?

And are you allowed to switch between the three?

I read a book as a kid that switched between all three for three different characters. But that was a unicorn of a book made for middle schoolers. Besides maybe chapters containing letters from characters you don’t see stories switch up.

So it is just a thought on my mind as I contemplate whether I should keep the abnormal perspectives I have in my own writing.

Hello all! This is my first time writing in the horror genre, as well as my first time querying, so this entire experience is very new to me. I would appreciate any and all feedback. Thank you!

Dear Agent,

In the small town of White Deer, Maryland, an epidemic has become a nightmare. Heroin flows through the streets, destroying families, ravaging the community. People disappear without a trace, are found brutally murdered and dismembered, with no explanation, no motive, no suspect.

For Michael, a young journalism student from a dysfunctional household, heroin is personal. Still plagued by his cousin’s unexpected overdose, Michael ventures into White Deer, volunteering to write about the crisis—and instead finds himself knee-deep in something far more sinister. With each day, he navigates a web of horrifying encounters, secrets, and bloodshed, until he uncovers the truth. There is a demon in White Deer stalking and killing the townsfolk. The only ones safe from its wrath appear to be the addicts. And Michael may be its next target.

Befriending an unlikely group—a bubbly waitress hiding a dark past, an opioid-addicted mother and her teenage son, a hardened drug dealer with a reputation for violence—Michael and his new friends seek out to stop the creature’s carnage, end the violence, save the town. Yet as their own personal demons slowly return to haunt them, only one thing appears certain: Even if they all survive, none of them will ever be the same.

PRODUCT OF HELL is a genre-defying horror novel complete at just over 78,000 words. It combines creature horror elements as found in Stephen King’s It with the noir-style grittiness of Gabino Iglesias’ The Devil Takes You Home, along with exploring the complex themes of grief, addiction, socioeconomic struggle, and familial trauma.

[Bio]

Hello all! I'm looking for feedback on my query. It's gone through a few rounds of revisions, but I think I need some fresher eyes on it. So, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thank you all!

__________________________

Born to lead a country, denied his birthright, and fed to a Godbeast—Princep Vico Calvio should have died in his aunt’s coup as a child, but Orsa let him live and groomed him to be her principal negotiator. Shadowed by ghosts and plagued by a berserker rage, all Vico wants is to be freed from his aunt’s shackles and live out the rest of his days with his alchemist lover, Rauno.

When a neighboring country threatens war, Vico is ordered to negotiate a non-aggression pact and open trade. Orsa offers to free him from his duties if he succeeds, but she’s a known liar, and her intentions with their enemies remain unclear. For Vico, this could be an opportunity to escape from under her thumb, but that risks the lives of everyone he cares about. 

Vico chooses a small team, including Rauno, to accompany him to the mountainous country. The locals consider Rauno’s alchemy a perversion of the natural order, creating the first schism in the delicate negotiations. Everything worsens as a howling, stalking monster begins a killing spree of the locals, and a dark voice lures Vico to the forests. The call escalates his hauntings and stokes the flame of his berserker rage. 

To make matters worse, he’s forced to help kill the stalking monster before negotiations can continue. The more he learns about his enemies, the more he realizes what Orsa seeks: the Godbeast hidden at the mountain’s heart. She’s not the only one looking for that power. Those he brought and the enemies he negotiates with have secrets, and they’re all willing to tear him apart to keep them. 

He must make a choice—kill this stalking monster and force the negotiation to hand over the power of the Godbeast to his aunt or aid his enemies in hiding this power, who have entrapped the Godbeast for centuries. Vico risks losing his lover, his home, and his soul. 

I am seeking representation for WOLF BONES DON’T LIE. It is an epic dark fantasy novel of 149,000 words. Inspired by historical nations that never coexisted together, the Roman Empire and the age of the Vikings with an LGBTQ normative flavor. This is aimed at readers who enjoy the SHADOWS OF THE GODS by John Gwynne and THE JUSTICE OF KINGS by Richard Swan. This is a standalone with series potential.

______

Thanks again!

Introduction

First, thank you to u/BlockZealousideal141 and u/carolyncrantz for helping with Attempt 3. I especially appreciated you pointing out that Reed was getting buried.

While feedback on the query and first five pages was positive during the RevPit 10queries event, 3 of my 4 queries have been form rejections. One specifically mentioned that they didn't feel the concept was strong enough to stand out in the current market.

My big questions are:

1 - Do you agree, and should I set this aside to work on the next project?

2 - Otherwise, how can I improve this query?

Thanks!

Query

Dear [Agent]

I am writing to seek representation for THE SNIPE, my 40,000-word middle-grade creature horror and action novel. I am writing you because [reasons].

When twelve-year-old Reed Saros pranks Cade’s scout troop into hunting fictional snipes, Reed only wants to mess with his annoying younger brother. He doesn’t mean to attract a hungry mutant dinosaur to their lakeshore campground.

Armed with razor talons, crocodile-like jaws, and axolotl gills, the no-longer extinct Icthyovenator’s first strike seriously injures the youngest scout. Subsequent attacks destroy the getaway van, and separate Reed and Cade from both the troop and their adult leader. As the terrified brothers argue, the bus-sized dinosaur’s relentless pursuit swiftly traps them in the campground’s bathroom.

Reed quickly realizes that tricking the dinosaur is the key to their survival. To do that, he needs his brother's help. But Cade is paralyzed by fear. With time running out, Reed must control his own panic while convincing Cade to follow his lead. If he fails, the Icthyovenator will eat them both! 

THE SNIPE will appeal to readers who enjoy sibling relationships like the one seen in Shakirah Bourne’s Nightmare Island, the scouting antics and fast-paced monster attacks of Ally Russell’s It Came from the Trees, and the dinosaurs seen in Netflix’s Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. It is based both on the camping trips I took as a cub scout and on my experience teaching elementary school students about dinosaurs at [Science Museum].

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and attention,

The Author

First 300

This is the best prank I’ve ever done. I can’t believe Cade fell for this.

I’m lying under a bush so my younger brother can’t see me, holding my hand over my mouth to hide my laughter. It isn’t a comfortable spot. I’m lying on wet sand, I’m being swarmed by mosquitoes, and there’s a stick poking my back. 

That’s ok, though. My view of Cade is perfect.

My brother crouches down on the lakeshore rocks about thirty feet away. He faces the woods, holding open a pillowcase in front of him. I watch Cade take a deep breath, and his shout echoes through the trees.

“Ee-er! Ee-er! Ee-er!”

I can’t help it - I snort. I taught him that call ten minutes ago. I told Cade if he made it, a delicious bird called a snipe would run right into his pillowcase. I also said there were a million snipes by our campground, but there’s more baloney in that fib than there is in a sandwich. While there are a ton of birds around, they’re all songbirds. They fly above Cade’s head and far away from his bag.

Fortunately, Cade doesn’t hear me. Further down the lakeshore, out of sight, a second voice starts calling for snipes. Parker Lee, the youngest scout in my brother’s troop, covers my laugh with a perfectly timed “Ee-er!”

You see, I didn’t just trick my brother. I’m fooling all his dumb friends, too. 

I know I should probably feel bad about pranking Cade. If Mom knew, I would be in sooooo much trouble.

“Reed Saros!” she’d scold. “You’re twelve. Cade’s only seven. You’re the big brother. Act like it!” Then she would punish me, probably with chores, or maybe by grounding me for life. And it doesn’t matter that Cade’s scout leader gave me permission for this prank. Mom won’t care. I’m on this trip as punishment and supposed to be on my best behavior.

So so thankful for the previous advice I got on my first query letter. I rewrote my query letter and was hoping for some feedback before I submitted queries to agents. I also changed the title to sound more positive.

Query letter:

Learning to accept that real life doesn’t resemble what you see on tv...

Sixteen-year-old Amanda "Mindy" Campbell has always wanted her life to look like what she sees on the screen and further more to be on-screen. After her parent’s recent divorce, the foreclosure of their home, and a summer spent as an unpaid babysitter watching her younger brother Billy, who is on the Autism Spectrum. Mindy is desperate for a win. Landing a role for the first time in the school play could help prove that she has what it takes to fulfill her dream of becoming an actress.

Things start to look up on the first day of her Junior year when Mindy is paired with her long-time crush, Colin O'Malley, to prepare for Romeo and Juliet auditions. But as Mindy and Colin spend more time together, Colin confides that his father recently passed away. This would explain why he’s been skipping and struggling with school. Wanting to help, Mindy takes on more than her share of their assignment and even does his homework for other classes. Tensions arise at home as she sneaks out to meet up with Colin when she is supposed to be watching her younger brother. But the more she tries to help Colin, the more she uncovers a darkness within him that she hadn't expected.

When Colin’s self-destructive behavior is revealed to include substance abuse, Mindy finds herself caught in a downward spiral with him. A drunk driving accident leaves her hospitalized, shattering her dreams of performing in the school play. As she recovers, Mindy is left with more questions than answers, especially when Colin's very much alive dad drops off a Get Well Soon card. With Colin gone without a trace, Mindy turns to his ex-girlfriend for the truth, determined to piece together the mystery of the boy who disappeared and finds the closure she desperately needs.

Complete at 60,000 words, Finding the Light is a YA novel is perfect for fans of Ellen Outside the Lines and Looking for Alaska.

I am submitting Finding the Light to you because (will personalize this part).

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello, PubTips! Although the manuscript is not complete, I’m working on the query to determine if the story will work on a basic storytelling level and if it’s marketable in the YA sphere.

My specific questions are:

1. Is the story too complicated? 
2. Are the characters hard to keep track of?
3. Do you have any suggestions for comps?

However, please point out anything else that comes to mind. Thank you in advance for your feedback! :)

---

[Personalized intro]

Eighteen-year-old Briar Rudenko plays ice hockey. Seventeen-year-old Addison Hinsdale plays softball. Eighteen-year-old Finley Ross does synchronized skating. But they all play a part in Orange Canyon Prep’s biggest scandal.

After their best friend and water polo captain Jo Lawrence is in a coma after surviving an attempted murder by her teammate, the three senior friends have to continue with their daily lives as top-tier student-athletes without a hitch—even Finley, who witnessed the event with her boyfriend. But the talk of the school is about to turn on them when one after the other, each girl receives a written message on their sporting equipment to share their biggest secret—the secret not even the other girls know—before it’s shared for them. This sounds like a prank.

But it’s not: The school athletics social media account posts the secrets the following day. Paying the consequences in suspensions, lost scholarships, and tarnished reputations, the girls investigate who is behind the account and why they are its target. But as they dig deeper, the cracks in their pristine athletic lives reach their friendship, which threatens to burst when they discover the attempted murder plays a role in leaking their secrets.

THE GAMES WE PLAY (71,000 words) is a YA sports mystery novel. It combines the strong female, sport-centric friendship of WE ARE THE WILDCATS by Siobhan Vivian with the mystery elements of the ONE OF US IS LYING series by Karen M. McManus.

[Bio]

Hi friends! I've sent this out to 30+ agents. I did get one full request back but that was back in July, so instead of agonizing over it I'm reworking my query to do another round. (For comps, I do have a line I can add in if there's something on the agent's list that makes sense, though I am struggling there a bit.)

Dear [NAME],

I’m currently seeking representation for my novel WOLFSBANE AND WITCH HAZEL, a contemporary queer romantasy. With an irreverent approach to the supernatural and a corrupted, failing magic system, my novel is a grounded fantasy exploring the balancing act between love and duty (think Teen Wolf meets Clexa from The 100). 

Witches and werewolves have been at war for generations. They live in hiding, concealing themselves from humans and hunters alike. But it’s their darkest secret that threatens to destroy them both: Their connection to magic is failing. Without it, their gifts might be lost forever.

Haze Luna wants nothing more than to take her mother’s place and lead the witches. It’s what she was raised to do—unfortunately she’s an impulsive, disorganized, ADHD-fueled mess who can’t even cast spells. After her abysmal attempt to broker a truce between her Covens and the werewolves’ Packs, she feels destined for failure. 

When Roma, the leader of the wolves, is attacked by deadly hunters, Haze doesn’t hesitate to defend her. While it doesn’t erase decades of conflict, Roma is convinced to join Haze in a desperate alliance to find, and fix, whatever is weakening their peoples’ magic. Their only lead? Fairy riddles and forgotten history, leading them to a puzzle neither can solve on their own.

However, generations of bloodshed and the misgivings of the people closest to them threaten Roma and Haze’s tentative partnership. No matter how hard Haze tries, her mother doesn’t trust her with their people’s future. Roma’s leadership is challenged, and she’s forced to fight her own people to survive. Despite all that’s driving them apart, Haze and Roma find themselves drawn together by more than their shared commitment to their people, until their love is undeniable.

But cunning fairies, bloodthirsty hunters, and the ravages of war aren’t all that’s standing in their way. Dissent and distrust fester among the Packs and Covens, and the greatest threat to Haze and Roma’s fragile bond is even closer than they realize. When Roma is accused of a heinous crime against the witches, Haze must choose between newfound love and her duty to her people.

WOLFSBANE AND WITCH HAZEL is complete at 87,000 words and the first book in a planned trilogy. The first three chapters come with content warnings for internalized ableism and violence. 

Thank you for your time and consideration!

First 300:

The scorched remains of a long-abandoned church would not have been Haze’s first choice for a meeting place, but she’d ceded the right to choose to her guests. Why they’d chosen this place, full of sulfur and sorrow, was beyond her. 

The ceasefire only meant that no one could draw blood, and Haze found herself cataloging all of the ways she knew how to maim someone without breaking the skin. Gravitational dislocation. Deoxygenation. Simultaneous extremity fractures. Not counting forbidden arts like blood magic, there were sixteen torments in total, one for every step she took between the car and the square, limestone chalk bright against the charred gravel. What was the sixteenth card of the major arcana? She should have studied more. 

Maybe it wouldn’t come up. 

The werewolves didn’t drive. They traveled on foot, appearing like smoke on the wind. There were two tall figures, wiry and powerful. A man and a woman, both much younger than Haze had imagined. They looked near her own age, in their early 20s. 

The man wore a modest wedding band, but they were both otherwise unadorned. Their clothes were dark, cut from grays and blacks and navy blues. Not what Haze had been expecting, though then again, what had she expected? She hadn’t spent much time with members of any other clades—magical creatures like fairies, witches, and wolves, all likely evolved from a common magical source. She knew stories, the legends that immunes spun to explain non-human phenomena. And she knew very little of it was true. 

Haze chanced a look at Aunt Vera, but she was unwontedly stern. Of course. This was somber business. It would not do for the Envoy to look nervous. Haze tried to adjust her posture without being obvious about it

Hey everyone!

Good news, I got a full request on the third version of this query I posted about a week ago!

Potentially bad news: I'm impatient and have already edited the third version of the query and made a fourth version (this one) + already submitted it to a few agents.

So I guess the question is if I should revert back to the third version since I've had success (albeit only one so far, I've only queried the third version to two or three agents), or if this new version is better for continuing forward. I got a lot of feedback on the third so I changed quite a few things around. Same goes for the first 300. Not sure if I made it worse? Please let me know, thanks!

Query Letter:

Dear AGENT, 

THERE WAS FIRE BEFORE US is a 65,000-word literary thriller that will appeal to readers who enjoyed the psychological suspense and unconventional narrators in The Push by Ashley Audrain and White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi, with added themes of environmentalism and climate change as featured in The Wildlands by Abby Geni. 

Wren Walker’s family has always had a strange affinity for fire. Her sister was convicted of arson after a stint of ecoterrorism, her brother is afflicted with a respiratory illness from the smoke of the town’s incinerator where he works, and Wren has her own fiery nemesis: She was a fire lookout the summer the Sweetgrass Fire burned through 9,300 acres of the North Cascades. When it came time to evacuate her position, she was found running toward the wildfire and away from rescue. 

No one believes that there was someone in the North Cascades with her, chasing her into the flames. Forest Service labelled her unfit to carry out essential duties, and her summer ended swiftly. Now, almost a year later, she is back at her mind-numbing minimum-wage job in the heart of the city, skipping her classes at community college, and living with her family in a cramped house that is being swallowed on all sides by the surrounding industrial sprawl. 

But the person who cost her everything last summer is still watching, she’s sure of it. They leave her gifts: Dead birds and cigarette butts, small fires left for her to put out as a test of her sanity. They could have burned her alive last summer, but they seemingly let her go. She sometimes wonders if what they really want isn’t to set her on fire, but to make her set the fire herself.

After a fallout with her family on her twenty-second birthday, Wren’s stalker is back once again. She reaches her breaking point, packs a box of matches and takes off in the middle of the night. Embarking on a surreal journey to escape the industrialized world and a family legacy of fire, Wren tracks down the flames of her past; from her pyromaniac sister in the Eastern Washington desert to arson on the Olympic Peninsula. And in the meantime – she will have to try and stop whoever is following her from sending her and her family up in flames.

I have lived in [region] and the [area] my entire life, where I found a love of the ocean and of birdwatching. I earned a Bachelor of Science in [degree] and a minor in [study] from the [school], and researched marine pollutants and their effect on the environment and human health.

Thank you for your time and consideration, I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Name

First 300:

Like the fir trees, you’re not afraid of the fire. In fact, you’re running toward it. 

Your thick boots skid down the rocky mountainside. Ash falls like snow, litters hair that's black like soot. Radio crackling at your narrow hips, hidden by a vintage work jacket two sizes too big, a half-empty matchbox shaking in your pocket. 

The sun is red and wide-eyed behind the smokey lens of July sky, the long blink of night waiting behind the mountains. An orange glow, fire independent of the sun, rises from behind the jagged teeth of the North Cascades. The lookout tower like an industrial heron, opposite of the coming wildfire with a flock of evergreens at its feet. It'll spread its wings to either side of valley, blow out the horizon of flames like a candle. 

Go ahead. Make a wish. You are halfway down the mountain now, running from rescue. The helicopter arrived at the lookout tower twenty minutes ago only to find you missing. 

Keep running. Tumbleweed to the valley. Weave between the trees. Check your shoulder. Skid. Run. Tumble. Weave. 

Pause. 

Breathe.

Hands on knees. Conifers crying on your every side. The douglas firs stoic as ever, bark flanks too familiar with life, too old to know your fear; war generals leading the woods into hot battle without weapons, their only shield the river. 

You cough, tears streaming down your cheeks against the searing heat. Fire crops up around you like flowers in bloom. Now look over your shoulder to remind yourself what you’re running from and keep on, keep on into the flames. 

Make haste like something hunted.

Skid. Run. Stumble. Dodge black tree trunks with orange veins through the bark, pine needles curling up on themselves to sickle the hot air, smoke crowning from the sky to lay upon your head. 

Look at you, oh, just look at you. So exhausted, so frightened, so perfect – so crowded by smoke you don’t notice the sharp rock pitched up out of the soil. 

Thanks again!

First off: just want to state my gratitude for the excellent advice in this community. It's been only a few weeks since I found this sub and I've learned more in these few weeks of lurking than I had in the past three months of Googling/AI-ing. Allrighty, on to the query...

–––––––––– Query ––––––––––

Fresh out of the dish room at a trendy San Francisco restaurant, Caledon "Cal" Aske lands an unlikely job as spokesman for a tech startup. With the role’s six-figure salary and fast-track to Silicon Valley fame, Cal decides not to question his luck. His only task: stand in front of cameras and praise Lade, an AI-powered marketing tool that can predict – and influence – what people will buy.

Meanwhile, Swedish-American social worker Elin "E" Jantesson has always lived between worlds, splitting her life evenly between her dual home countries. But as she builds a life in San Francisco – including a hesitant romance with Cal – she finds herself caught in a paralyzing uncertainty that seems to grow stronger by the day.

Neither Cal nor E suspects they are essential pieces in Lade's programming. Created by tech executives hungry for perfect prediction and control, the AI carries out its imperative: achieve total digital omniscience. Using illegally obtained Big Tech user data, Lade tests its growing power through Cal's meteoric rise and E's paralyzing indecision. Amazon packages arrive before they're ordered, social media feeds become impossible to resist, and decisions – from career moves to romance – are invisibly guided toward the future Lade's creators desire

While Cal bumbles through media appearances, anti-tech activists wage a secret war against Lade's creators. Inconsistencies and unlikely coincidences pile up around Cal: his old roommate vanishes overnight, E withdraws into indecision, and his coworkers carefully position him to be a scapegoat if Lade's true capabilities are exposed. But Cal, the perfect puppet CEO, notices nothing amiss – until a bombshell investigation reveals that he's been set up as Silicon Valley's latest fall guy.

An upmarket speculative fiction complete at 60k words, SUPERCERTAINTY combines the satirical edge of Dave Eggers' THE CIRCLE with the cautionary tech tale of Jennifer Egan's THE CANDY HOUSE. Like Cal, I spent my early twenties in San Francisco's tech scene among startup founders and investors. Now thirty-one and living in Sweden, I brought both insider knowledge and an outsider's perspective to this story.

–––––––––– First 300 ––––––––––

From pretty much everywhere inside T.H.R.E.S.H.O.L.D, no matter which hot desk you sit at or which glass-enclosed micro office you look out from, you can see the lobby’s navy blue wall and its message in human-sized white letters:

THIS TOO COULD BE BETTER

It’s dogma around T.H.R.E.S.H.O.L.D, which pitches itself as San Francisco’s leading incubator for tech startups. But it’s also an inside joke for those savvy to Silicon Valley folklore.

As the story goes, in the late 90's a manager at Apple went to Steve Jobs asking for a Friday off – some versions say it was for his wedding, others for his mother’s funeral. But, with the company in crisis mode, Jobs couldn’t let Apple managers be seen taking time off. Jobs told the manager to keep his absence secret by setting an email auto reply that would fit every situation. The manager was stumped. What response could possibly fit every proposal, draft, and progress update? He asked Jobs for a suggestion. Jobs sighed, leaned back in his desk chair, picked a pear seed from between his teeth with his pinkie’s fingernail, then replied: ‘This too could be better.’

Caledon ‘Cal’ Aske doesn’t know this story. Plus, from where Cal is sitting in the waiting area by T.H.R.E.S.H.O.L.D’s entrance, all he can see of the message is the ‘BE BETTER.’ He avoids looking at it; with his pre-interview nerves the message hits him like a personal criticism. Instead, Cal tries to puzzle out what the incubator’s acronym might stand for. The Highest Reaches… Those Heroic Revolutionaries…

My question is regarding advanced Lexile levels for lower elementary.

I have a completed, 15K word chapter book that I have found a good editor for. She is VERY experienced, and I trust her.

Background: My goal is traditional publishing, and the book is going to appeal to about 2nd grade. Main character is a neurodivergent BIPOC boy. So far my beta readers have loved it. The editor loves it, too, but says there is one sticking point: I wrote it with the goal of having "clean", non-objectionable material written at a higher reading level, because I don't think there are enough of those out there. (Like, I don't want my gifted second-grader reading John Grisham! Those struggles are real for parents!)

Anyway, she says that traditional publishers will reject it flat out, solely due to that. I thought it was 6-7th grade and she verified that the grade level is 7.3

So...what to do? I really want to try the traditional publishing route. I feel that at some point, some author has to break the mold, like they have with so many social issues. Why not me, right? Is this worth pursuing? I know that part of publishing is what sells and what's in vogue, though. Do I hold out, hoping that someone will see value in material for advanced elementary readers? Do I seek out a small publisher? Must I give up and go hybrid or vanity? Or should I stop looking down that path and change the book so that it fits the mold?

Surely, someone has walked this path before me. What do writers do when they've written something that doesn't fit the mold, but still want to go with traditional publishing?

Hello there,

Here is my second version. I tried to add more details to the plot paragraph. Comps are still weak: this is a workplace romance with a "it was right in front of you all along/ "friends" to lovers trope. If you have any ideas on comps, I would love to hear them. The query itself is a bit on the long side at 371 words with no personalization line yet, so I have to get rid of some words too.

QUERY:

Dear [Agent],

I’m seeking representation for my rom-com LOOK AT ME, a rom-com complete at 75,000 words that will appeal to fans of Lucy Score’s voice on BY A THREAD or Elena Armas’ workplace romance THE SPANISH LOVE DECEPTION*.*

Twenty-two years-old Annie Holden has moved to Toronto with two goals in mind: to kickstart her career in advertising and to leave her dull small-town life way behind. For reasons completely unrelated to her talents, she manages to achieve them both on the first week into her internship at Sinclair Advertising. Not only she scores working as a copywriter for a big campaign, but she also discovers that her hot neighbour, with whom she shares an uncensored view of their bedrooms and a kink for peeping, is Marcus Sinclair, son of her boss and soon to be head of the company. After her first visit to Marcus’ office, where they agree to see where their mutual interest in seeing each other naked takes them, Annie has everything she thought she ever wanted.  

Everything… except for Jeremy.

When Annie is teamed up with Sinclair’s young graphic designer talent, Jeremy, she is not expecting to slowly fall for her awkward, sweet co-worker. But as Marcus’ demands grow more risqué and Annie starts suspecting that his interest in pursuing her has nothing to do with her pretty face and more to do with involving her into embezzling company money, it’s Jeremy’s gentlemanly ways and kindness that keeps her daydreaming. When Jeremy discovers her relationship with Marcus, Annie will have to decide whether the cutthroat job she always wanted is worth compromising her morality, at the risk of breaking Jeremy’s tender heart.

Although my experience in writing reduces to my academic past as PhD on Philosophy of Language, I spend an ungodly number of hours in Critique Circle honing my craft and helping others advance theirs. When I’m not glued to the computer screen, I’m navigating being a mom to a nerdy 9-year-old boy and an unhinged Husky mix pup named Cheese. If you want to find me, look for the woman dragged by a leashed dog and chased by a kid in the streets of XXX, YYY. Just follow the trail of spilled training treats.

FIRTS 300 words:

I never thought I’d become a voyeur at the tender age of twenty-two. Yet, there I was, in the midst of getting ready for my first day of work and unable to take my eyes off the guy in the sixth-floor window across the alley. The one right in front of mine.

From a distance, he looked exactly like the son of the mafia boss on the cover of my last read: young, dark-haired, with broad shoulders that dipped into a muscular waist in a perfect triangle. Except he wasn’t seducing some lucky hostage. Either I was hallucinating, or he was dancing. In his underwear.

He shimmied backward, giving me a glorious glimpse of his perfect peach-shaped behind, clad in tight black briefs. Swaying rhythmically, he flexed muscles I didn’t know humans had. A twirl, and I choked to the sight of a six-pack so toned it could have been an eight-pack. I mean, this guy looked nothing like my pasty white, freckled ex-boyfriend back home. Did they even belong to the same species? 

If that’s how he rocked his hips, I could only imagine what he’d do without his undies on.

I knew I should look away. I was better than this, damn it. But I couldn’t stop watching, mouth agape and clutching a white tee to my racing heart.

Did he know I could see him clear as day? I had a perfectly acceptable excuse, with this being my first morning in the flashy Toronto apartment my parents had rented for me for the next three months, but him? He must have known. 

Maybe he didn’t care? Maybe he wanted me to look?

Hey everyone,

I recently went looking for beta readers for some story I was writing, and I want to get published eventually. I posted a message to a close group of writers/readers who I get along with well, but which also has a lot more random folks. They are all real people who I have met irl, but some I know better than others.

One of them says she's a professional journalist, who also does this on the side. She's offered to give feedback for the structure, the coherence of the story, analysis for each character, pointing out topics, suggestions for dialog and scenification... Just corrections that go a bit more in depth than just an opinion after a first read.

For all that, she wants to be paid 565 euros. I consider that to be way out of my budget. I don't think I will pay it, since its waaay way too expensive imo, and I do not *need* all that analysis, just a "looks fine, this chapter is a bit boring, I don't understand this character, this dialogue was funny..." type of reader. I don't need to know if everything makes sense or is coherent.

My question is: is that a normal price to ask for that type of work? Or is it too high? Should I drop a post into the betareaders subreddit? My text is in spanish, so not sure if there will be many readers.

Thanks all for the help! I have no idea what I am doing :D

I want to quickly shout out the mods for saving everyone's time by taking down my first 2nd attempt because I overshot the blurb by like 300 words, and then to thank everyone for their advice on my first attempt. I really and truly appreciate all the time everyone took to help me out, I know we're all busy and you're taking time out of your day to help me along. Thank you so much!

I'll do my first 300 of the manuscript in the next iteration of my QCrit, I'm still in rough draft and want to take a pass at the opening again before I show it off in public.

All criticisms are welcome! I want to make this pop because I'm immensely proud of this story.

Dear [Agent],

Julia Winthrop was a software engineer before her second child was born two years ago. She and her husband Taylor made a hard decision due to high childcare costs: for her to stay at home. Julia blossomed, discovering a deep love for this traditional lifestyle away from corporate grind culture. She is devoted to her family, her Eastern Orthodox faith, reading, and gardening.

Her husband Taylor has yet to bloom, and his desperation to advance at work creates a crack in the foundation of their life. Christie, Julia’s former boss, uses powers gained from a pact with a demonic entity to manipulate Taylor. As Taylor succumbs to Christie’s witchcraft Julia’s life spirals to pieces. Her plants die, her children are plagued by nightmares and mysterious injuries, her husband is a stranger, and one night she finds herself alone in the backyard facing a gigantic wolf caught in their fence while Taylor “cheers” her on.

The wolf attacks, sending Julia to the hospital where she suffers a devastating miscarriage, the pregnancy so new she didn’t even know. This final tragedy is too far. Julia fights to recover from the physical and emotional wounds, but an ancient curse seizes her in its grip: werewolf.

Taylor suspects the truth as his bewitchment fades. He fears a silver bullet may be the only solution, but this isn’t a fairy tale, and a Hollywood remedy won’t heal the deep wounds in their relationship. It will take all the strength and understanding Julia and Taylor can muster to patch the cracks in the foundation of their lives and shatter the curse before Christie’s evil influence can seep in and destroy it all.

BLACK PICKET FENCE is an 85,000 word supernatural thriller that combines a family thriller with the visceral folk horror of THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones.

I am a union carpenter and beekeeper. I have published short fiction with Cohesion Press, Third Flatiron Publishing, Pseudopod, and others. BLACK PICKET FENCE is based on my interest and research in historical werewolf and witchcraft lore, and the worst year of our lives working for an insurance agency.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I chose to query you because [personalization.] The full manuscript is available at request.

Sincerely,

Author

Hi! I'm very early into the publishing process and am looking for any feedback on my first attempt at a query letter and any tips overall:

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Dear Agent,

One morning inseparable twin sisters, Scylla and Charybdis, steal their mother’s earrings and make a sacrifice to the sea, hoping to be granted two wishes in return. Innocently, Scylla wishes for their mother’s forgetfulness, protecting them from the crime, while Charybdis makes a much grimmer request, wishing to kill their friend, Andreas. 

Like the sisters, Andreas also has a deep affection for the ocean, weaving it in between his adoptive origins and as an active coping mechanism for his crippling paranoia. Drowned in his own neurosis, Andreas is left completely unbeknownst to the familiar monsters who lurk inside his beloved waters. 

With Charybdis’s waning patience and Andreas’s pitiful ignorance, Scylla becomes desperate to stop her sister. However, after years of fixating on her sister’s wish, Scylla has become burdened by her own devious desires. Trapped and tormented by obsession, dangerous rifts begin to form as deceitful romance begins to bud, splitting the sisters apart and suffocating the boy inside. The one thing uniting and entangling all three of them in madness, their devolution to the sea. 

THE TASTE OF MOONLIGHT(58,000 words) is a speculative fiction Young Adult novel with an element of horror, riddled with allusions of Greek mythology and the Odyssey. “Between Scylla and Charybdis” is the Greek idiom for being caught between two evils and this novel is just that. The narrative is split between the three characters and is embedded with childhood flashbacks within the present destruction, suffocating the reader, alongside Andreas,  with the consequence of the sisters' dangerous desires. 

Thank you for your consideration

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First 300 Words:

MY SISTER and I used to go play in the woods next to our house, our favorite spot was the remains of a stone wall from an old house that once existed. We would sit in front of the wall, crawl on the wall, jump off the wall. Our favorite thing though, was when each of us would be on a side of the wall, sneaking along it very carefully, then abruptly stopping and peeking through the cracks to see if we both ended up in the same spot. We almost always did. There was only one time we lost this game. 

“Scylla, where are you?” I whined, squinting my eyes through the cracks. I could see trees and leaves, but no sister. 

I impatiently stomped my feet on the ground and stood up. “Scylla, this isn’t fair!” I continued to moan as I made my way around the wall. I was a very sore loser. Once around to the other side, I saw Scylla squatted down at the other end of the wall. I ran to her and shoved her hard, so hard that she almost wobbled over onto the ground, but caught herself. 

“Charybdis, look!” 

I looked down in front of her and at first saw nothing. I squatted down next to her to get a better view and then I saw it. It was one of the leaves, it was moving? Out of impulse, I reached my hand out and flicked the leaf away, underneath was a small garter snake.

"Oh my gosh!" Scylla said in awe. "Look what we found!"
Scylla laid down her hand and let the snake slither onto it. We were not scared of nature, we were used to the birds, the squirrels, and even the foxes. The snake coiled around her fingers, she brought her hand close to me.

Hi everyone!

This is my first attempt at my query. I'm struggling because it's multi-POV (but I'm trying to focus on the two main POVs here - my question is, should I even mention the others because they're important but I think it makes the query too complicated. I've kept them in here but open to feedback on that). I'm also struggling to condense the plot because it makes sense in the manuscript (I promise!) but there isn't room for it in the query. In saying that, the query is already a bit too long, I know, but I'm working on that :)

Here it goes:

Dear [agent],

My novel, WHEN THE SHADOWS WHISPER, is a multi-POV, 109,000-word queer YA crossover dark fantasy novel and the first in a planned trilogy, about a girl who is forced to decide how far she will go for the truth—and the darkness that she is willing to confront …

WHEN THE SHADOWS WHISPER is set in the Romanian-inspired city of Albor, where the citizens live in fear of the dark witchwood beyond the walls, turning to the teachings of the Order of Light to keep them safe. It’s been a year since the Order murdered Enrieta’s mother when they come for her—or, more specifically, for the blood majik inside her. With nowhere else to go, Enrieta turns to the shadowy Resistance and the enigmatic Silvea Lin who leads it.

Silvea helps Enrieta escape the city, only for Enrieta to find herself in the witchwood, a world of shifting shadows and whispering darkness. There, she meets Kithi, a Druyd with a dark past. Kithi is desperate to save the witchwood she calls home from the shadows that threaten to consume it, even as her quest takes her back into the city that still features in her nightmares. Because Kithi knows that something is coming, something that the world won’t survive—and the Order is behind it.

Two others are drawn into the Order's plans: a leader searching for a way to save her people, and her childhood rival, hiding a darkness that could be the downfall of them all. Something ancient is hunting on the streets of Albor ... and it might be hunting them. It is the first to rise, but it will not be the last, not if the Order succeed.

Enrieta just wants the truth about why her mother had to die, but she realises that the Order’s plans put far more at stake than her own personal search. Enrieta can't trust anyone—and she certainly can't trust Silvea, who knows far more than Enrieta wants to believe. When Enrieta discovers the extent of Silvea's betrayal, she will have to choose: flee Albor and stay safe, or fight on alone, no matter the cost.

But things long-forgotten are waking, and the secrets her mother—and Silvea—kept may just seal Enrieta’s fate.

This novel explores the effects of trauma and pain on a landscape, and the darkness within each of us. It combines the interweaving ensemble cast of Susan Dennard’s Truthwitch series with the darkness and forest-as-character in Greymist Fair by Francesca Zappia. I have had previous work published in [bio].

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thanks for the feedback a week ago. This is a revision based on those comments. Let me know if it's a bit more focused and easier to follow. Otherwise, any and all thoughts are more than welcome.

P.S. - I did forget trigger warnings last time, and I apologize. There are mentions of suicide and self harm in the query as well as a scene set in the aftermath of a suicide for the first 300 words.

The Query Letter:

Dear Agent,

“Come. Give into sin,” Zulta the Vampire Queen beckons every day when humans hesitate at the black gates of Satan’s Playground. Her amusement park is one of many frights on the horror themed island. She has lived there ever since winning the Forsaken Sweepstakes.

Presenting the event as charity, her orphanage entered the "hard-to-place". This was Zulta no thanks to her mother’s suicide. When she found the woman with slit wrists, she was too young to understand. She simply saw pretty red. She started making pretty red messes of her own skin, a bad habit no adopter wanted to deal with.

Her vampiric caretakers never minded the blood though. Alongside the other sweepstakes winning orphans, they raised her in the ways of devilish dramatics. This was step one of the grand plan – turn the children into park performers. Zulta showed such promise the Vampire Queen bit her and entrusted her with step two – draw in a record number of tourists.

A bomb blowing the Queen up was never meant to be step three. She never meant to burden Zulta with responsibility and so, she never told Zulta the truth. A truth the human sympathizer of a bomber knew. The bomber meant to prevent but could only delay the real step three – reap human flesh to pay the Devil back.

According to a long-standing deal, the Devil made the first vampires, granting them supernatural senses and immortality. He built them an island and sowed its fields with blood nectar flowers, but these gifts were never free. To collect His overdue pounds, a demon crashes Zulta’s park parade. Its banishment requires blood magic she cannot do. Her ex-girlfriend the Werewolf Queen is the expert, unfortunately.

Of 101,000 words, Fangs Destined for Repossession is a Dual-POV dark fantasy that delves deep into broken character psyches like Claire Kodha’s Woman, Eating in a world where the grotesque and gruesome are presented with an eccentric twist like Katherine Dunn does in Geek Love.

First 300 Words:

A coppery tang stunk up the motel bathroom. Overwhelmed and overworked, the exhaust fan screamed. My mother had neglected me and the poor fan all day, so we took turns shrieking and wailing. Ultimately, the hell we raised amounted to nothing. Lesson learned. Tears were a waste of time.

After shutting up, I crawled out from between the toilet and peeling wallpaper. I scratched my wet cheeks dry with a square of toilet paper.

Fine. If Mother didn’t want to play with me, I’d entertain myself.

Sticky red stuff pooled at the base of the tub. Like it was finger paint, I wetted my hands. I slapped around. The bright red enlivened all the beiges and browns.

With red smears, I connected dots of mold spots. I traced the cracks in the cheap linoleum tile. On the bathroom sink, I even painted smiles. None of this turned my mother’s frown upside down though.

Still bored with me, my mother stayed slumped in the bathroom tub. Her arm dangled over the rim. The drip, drip, drip of her wrist was slowing down. Every drop ticked like a clock, telling me draw time was almost up.

Sunken to the bottom of her bathwater, the silver thing my mother used to pretty her wrists was gone. I couldn’t keep painting without it. I couldn't make my own red. I couldn't bleed out before anyone stopped me. My foster would later have to stop my every attempt.

Certainly, I wouldn't have made it to forty years old. Or so my vampiric sire told about my human origins. Till written out like this, it only ever felt like someone else’s sob story. This was, is my attempt to empathize with younger me because the officer who found her surely didn't.

“The toddler waddled towards me with blood crusted hands, trying to grab my good pants,” his police report read...

For example, if a deal announcement on PM goes “…. to Sarah at XXXX, by X Agent at X Agency.” But there is no mention of how much the deal was, no ‘good deal’ or ‘nice deal’ etc. Does that mean the book sold for lower than 50k or was the amount simply not mentioned for whatever reason?

Hello! I'm looking for a bit of feedback on my query letter. I have two specific questions I wanted to ask:

-Slufton is a fictional city, should I specify this or is that unnecessary?

-I'm having a tough time with deciphering the genre. Not entirely sure it meets the upmarket criteria?

I've only sent out to 14 agents, and 6 came back rejected. One gave some personalized feedback, as in they specifically mentioned liking the concept and writing, but not connecting with the synopsis. Still a rejection, lol. Anyway, thank you again!

Query:

Dear Agent,

There’s something innately wrong with Grace Rosales, something she feels sprouting deep in her bones, and it’s the knowledge that love is dead.

A natural introvert, Grace lives and works in the small northern city of Slufton, MA. While resisting the societal pull to obtain a relationship for the sake of it, she feels alienated for not. But when she’s invited by her only friend to a local bar after her most recent break-up, she inadvertently makes an enemy that will change the course of her love life forever. His name is Frank. 

The prickle of hatred sparked between them spurs a pseudo-dare to co-pen a novel after Grace creates a book club, but the novel is only a ploy to keep Grace and Frank in contact, disguising the perverse stages of their volatile courtship. A tit-for-tat emerges while the novel is written, resulting in mutual stalking, boundary pushing, undermining, sabotage, violence, arson, and eventual collateral damage.

Grace doesn’t know who will prevail, but the tendrils of their slow burning obsession will only end in devastation the longer she delves into its depths.

Told in dual 3^(rd) person POV and at 70,000 words, AN AWFUL NOVEL is a dark literary/upmarket (?) psychological suspense exploring societal/self expectations, the allure of negativity, and emotional ambivalence while depicting the toxic co-authorship of two unhealthy individuals until their relationship culminates in ruin. It combines the sharp and absorbing prose of Sarah Rose Etter’s Ripe with the dark, intoxicating obsession in Micah Nemerever’s These Violent Delights and the psychological complexities in Maud Ventura’s My Husband.

First 300 words:

Before

The two gravestone rubbings hung between sun-soaked vines on Grace’s studio apartment wall. Tranquil inverses: two stately human shapes made of solid black charcoal outlined by recessed white. One male, one female.

A timeless tale.

Yet, something about them was modernized. Not visually, but in their placement. They were captured on separate parchment, enclosed by matching ornate frames. Distanced. Had they once been together at some point, on the same parchment, on the same grave, buried in the same tomb, back before the age of dating apps, twin flames, toxicity, and sexual marketability? Or was their placement indicative of something more? Something truly telling?

Grace peered at them, head tilted, sunlight dappling through the curtain onto the studio floor, illuminating her dark eyes. Annoyance wrote its way into the subtle worry lines of her thirty-year-old face. She hadn’t meant to hang them—she hadn’t meant to buy them, not both, but the genesis of their procurement hadn’t been that simple.

It had started the day before with a single text. The spark.

Are you mad at me?

She’d been in bed, lounging the weekend morning away, and thought long and hard about it. Two minutes and she had her answer. She and this guy—Sam, Joe, Jeff, who cared anymore?—had only been dating for a month, and there was no connection. Whatever he thought was there, she had to douse it. Quickly.

I think we should see other people.

Cutting him loose felt like freedom, and yet her heart clenched as she slipped on a pair of yoga leggings and a sports bra. She fled to her gym and punched a bag. Forty minutes of this and her heart slowly unclenched, but it wasn’t fully loosened, so she ran her usual route. Oak St., then Lake to Maple, Maple to Grove. 

Hello again! Many thanks to everyone who commented on v1.

In this version, I've

• switched up comps
• made Caitie less of a monster because this isn't a paranormal
• kept the structure/focus on Caitie because it's single POV
• attempted to clarify + raise the stakes in the last para

And I should probably mention that the title is just a placeholder. While I'm grateful for the comments on it, I'm querying under a different journalism pun.

I’m excited to share STET ON YOU, a 90k adult workplace rom-com with the hot-mess heroine of Ashley Winstead’s Fool Me Once, the tech-bro-with-a-heart-of-gold hero of Jessica Joyce’s You, With a View, and the dream job gone sour of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Business or Pleasure.

Intrepid NYC business reporter Caitie Maloney knows it’s wrong to date her source, a secretive crypto tycoon charged with fraud. But he’s not talking to anyone else, and she needs a scoop to keep her job. So she gambles, only to be fired, laughed out of journalism, and, when it’s clear she can’t provide any more press, dumped via tweet.

Lonely and desperate to stay in the city, Caitie leans on a friend to get a startup job, where no one follows media gossip and she can save up VC dollars until she can get back to a newsroom. She even makes out with a smart-talking stranger at a tech-industry party. Take that, redditors who called her “weird,” “sad,” and “unf-ckable.”

Unfortunately, said stranger is Ethan Zeller, a developer who’s still finding his feet as CEO of the startup he founded. He admits he should be focusing on the company’s next million users, not making out with employees, so he agrees to forget they ever kissed. Still, when Caitie has to profile Ethan for the startup’s website, she’s drawn to the soft heart beneath his tech-bro hoodies. Maybe their attraction is something real. (Unlike crypto.)

Then Ethan trusts her with a lead on a friend being harassed at another tech company—probably because Caitie let Ethan think she was on the Pulitzer track, not in ethics-violation exile. It might be wrong to chase the story after she torpedoed her credibility, but Caitie’s still tempted. Get it published, return to reporting, and she can date Ethan without mixing her professional and personal lives in another disaster. Get it rejected, though, and Ethan will find out she’s a weird, unlovable loser. This time, Caitie’s not just gambling her career, but her chance at love, too.

I’m an editor who worked in magazines and newsrooms for a decade before pivoting to [current field] at, yes, a startup.

I guess the main idea is, how much better is a line editor than something like grammarly? If I'm not mistaken, line editors can be fairly expensive, do you really get your bang for your buck? Does anyone have experiences with line editors that they can share?

Hello! Hope everyone had a good October and Halloween! Because now the fun is over. We have hit NaNoWriMo season (even though NaNoWriMo dot com has been cancelled), the US election (thanks, but no thanks), daylight savings (thanks but no thanks), and the beginning of the holiday bombardment (yes to the food, no to the family baggage).

Let us know what fresh hell November has in store for you and what you accomplished in October, the last happy month of our lives.

Hello! Long-time lurker and reader. I finally have a full draft of a manuscript and am setting my sights on drafting a query. (Eek!) I'm a thick-skinned overthinker and quite stumped at this shortened query format. Many thanks.

----

I am seeking representation for an Adult Fantasy, Blood Reign, complete at 97,000 words. Set in a world divided by blood, the story explores themes of inequality, forbidden love, and the lengths we go to protect those we care about most. With its blend of political intrigue, high-stakes competition, and forbidden romance, Blood Reign appeals to fans of The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and The Will of the Many by James Islington.

Three hundred years ago, one nation unleashed disease to secure victory in war, fracturing the world into two groups: the immune high-bloods and the low-blood Druans, who refused to submit. Without full immunity and confined to city slums, Druans are controlled by daily rations that allow them to leave the slums for work—safe from all but blood contact.

Ryn, the youngest descendent of the royal family at eighteen, is exiled to the mines in the mountains. Her father and aunt search relentlessly for Athyrium, the rare stone that powers their world and the ingredient to the antidote keeping the Druans alive. Ryn finds solace only in climbing with her best friend, Jae, a Druan she can never touch.

When a terrorist attack on the mine leaves one of their own dead, Ryn is forced to return to the palace. Her family has a new plan for her: she’s to be engaged to a foreign prince, a descendant of Druans who fled centuries ago and built their own kingdom.

With abilities including immunity, the prince’s people now hold the last known source of Athyrium. Their royal family is in the palace for a series of four Unity Games that will seal a treaty. Ryn’s family promises antidotes for the Druans in the slums in exchange for generations of energy and their continued rule.

Ryn agrees to pose as the prince’s fiancée, and her mother promises true freedom for her and Jae once the treaty is finalized. But as Ryn navigates the lies in her family, her forbidden feelings for Jae, the safety of the Druans in the slums, and a foreign enemy, the fragile peace could shatter at any moment.

Thank you for your consideration.

First Attempt

Dear (AGENT NAME),

I am seeking representation for THE DEEP AGES, an adult fantasy stand-alone with series potential, complete at 119,000 words. It combines the thrills and pacing of Shannon Chakraborty’s The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and the dark, magical world of H.M. Long’s Dark Water Daughter.

Since childhood, Ridney has been hunted by a demon that won't let him die by any hand but its own. To ensure its claim, the demon raises the dead to protect him from afar, a power coursing through Ridney’s body that he has no control over. He grows tired of such a life, and his desire to settle down and start a family drives him to cross the sea in an attempt to escape the demon’s reach forever.

But his plan ends in tragedy when his ship is attacked by those pursuing the eccentric assassin Espaneen. He survives inside the wreckage, trapped in a waterproof room, only to find she is the only other survivor.

Sinking to the seafloor, they’re rescued from the wreckage by a mysterious band of divers. With his necromancy nullified by the demon’s absence, his survival depends on people that live inside shipwrecks, harvesting air trapped within magical stones. Though he desires to complete his journey, his rescuers are unwilling to let him return to the surface, committed to keeping their existence hidden from the rest of the world. As Espaneen is tempted to ally with a tyrannical rebel threatening the queen of the isolationist kingdom, he becomes sympathetic with those struggling to uphold the monarchy. Aware that the demon may be closing in, he must decide whether to attempt returning to the surface, or risk everything to help the throne remain intact.

I have a BA in English from Luther College. A stay-at-home dad to two energetic boys, I live in Minnesota, where I spend my free time consuming stories on page and screen, hiking, gaming, and home remodeling. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your consideration,

(Author Name)

Hey all,

This is my first attempt at querying and I would love to get some insight on my blurb. I'm particularly interested in feedback on:

• Are the stakes too vague?
• Should I spend more page space on defining my two protagonists?
• Is there too much worldbuilding set-up?
• Is there a better way to represent dual-POVs in the blurb?

Thanks for taking the time to read through and I appreciate any criticism and feedback offered!

Query Draft:

After seven years on the run from the witch hunters that burned her mother, wild and inquisitive Ingrid Silvaticus would’ve chosen anywhere else in the world to lay low than the crescent-shaped island at the edge of the map her huntsman father has brought her to. Stalked by its massive, diseased wolfpacks; scorned by its backwoods, too-superstitious folk; and hunted by creeping mists that cling to the island’s every tree, edifice, and memory, Ingrid knows, miserably, she’ll be forgotten here.

When she stumbles upon a blood drinking grimoire, she unwillingly brings the myths sealed between its bindings to life. But in doing so she catches the attention of a myth too primordial for the tome: the Moon Bound.

The winter is weakening, and hapless Moon God Llendar is to blame. Not that he minds terribly. Llendar’s ascension to godhood and fear of his monstrous vassals have made him a prisoner in the island’s listing tower for the last eleven years, and Ingrid’s magic may be his once chance to slip his forced-upon divinity.

As Llendar and Ingrid work together—and behind each other’s backs—to pry themselves free from the hold of the island and their own mythologies, their dark legacies surface to haunt them. The last of a proud werewolf bloodline returns to rear Llendar into a brutal, sharper god, and the grimoire’s author seeks to turn Ingrid into the world’s most powerful and dangerous witch: the culture feeding, fable-spinning Mythmaker.

Can they survive the next moon cycle without being turned into the monsters they’ve been running from?

Complete at 110,000 words, The Moon Bound is a young adult, gothic fantasy novel with series potential. It mixes the creeping legacies and sodden gravity of Alix E. Harrow’s Starling House and the eerie, sharp mythology of Cassandra Khaw’s The Salt Grows Heavy, with a dash of the divinity present in Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller.

First 300 words:

Even on an island of interlopers, Ingrid knew she was an outsider.

By the end of her third month stranded here, she dreaded her resupply trips down to Dorlin, the isle’s sole pit of civilization. It seemed to have been birthed out of the island’s strange, greasy gray-stone itself, and its inhabitants, likewise, had pulled themselves from the forest mud.

Dorlin was the most miserable town she had ever visited, built in the most miserably damp spot on a miserable gash of land that had been forsaken to the miserably bleak and frigid waves of the north Belcon Sea.

When they landed, stepping off the rotted trawler onto an empty dock, Eadric, her father, had tousled her hair, saying how brave she’d been in their flight to safety. They had been on the run seven years and Ingrid preferred sleeping in hovels and treading in shadows two steps ahead of the sun-emblazoned inquisitors to this new desolation.

The woods were her only consolation: sinister and wonderful. She spent hours underneath the crypt quiet deciduous boughs, breathing in the scent of uncolonized loam, reading her mother’s old travel journals and Ducain’s books, while her father worked his woodsman’s axe at the stoic ironwoods and alders.

Today, she had fallen into the spell of one of Ducain’s tomes—a fairytale of a snail-shelled serpent slithering from still rivers and spreading miasma over farming fiefdoms—and missed her midday arrival in Dorlin by hours.

A lingering gasp of sunlight, angled through the gnarled branches, landed on a mottled, slender feather, long as a rapier. Her father would know what creature it could’ve belonged to, and she tucked it into her layers of cloaks, feeling its warmth press against her heart.

In the dead-wind clearing, a branch shifted.

Warning: this query contains puns!

Broken by the Bandit’s Axe. The crowsaders gave the recruit a name, a sword, and a fatal destiny. Bandit joined the army to kindle fires in his mother’s footsteps, but every corvid is a soldier first. When a deadly training incident shatters his bonded, sentient sword, Bandit takes up another in secret to avoid punishment. His new blade, Lost at Last, is a violent, bloodthirsty blade who clashes with Bandit’s personality. Soon he realizes its shrill scream in his bones is changing him for the worse.

But there’s no time to pick allies. Bandit’s nation is under attack by reaving seabirds, treacherous parrots, and sword-wielding eagles. As the crowsaders battle enemies over islands and forests, Bandit discovers a plot masterminded by an unliving intelligence from the human era. At Lost’s insistence, he cedes his sanity to the sword, sacrificing memories and convictions for the strength to protect his squadmates. But will the victory be worthwhile if Bandit completely unravels along the way? More likely he won’t even recognize who he’s become.

Crowsaders (79,000 words) is a YA Fantasy novel set in a grim future Europe where ‘civilized’ corvids battle savages with fire and sentient steel. It is inspired by Wings of Fire and the Guardians of Ga’hoole series, inverting the corvids from pests to conquerors. More recently, it combines the _______ with the __________. I’m seeking your representation because…

Note: This story’s alternate title is Full Metal Jackdaw. Like FMJ, it’s a war story that’s also inherently anti-war. I think it trends more ‘young YA’ than ‘upper MG’, but I read Redwall in middle school, and it fits solidly into the ‘aw, cute animals!’ + ‘wow, there’s a lot of bloodshed’ camp.

Update: If anyone's curious to see how this story actually reads, I've posted the first chapter for feedback here! The names have changed (Clara was Anna, Sophie was Rachel - I'm indecisive like that!) but the story's heart is the same.

Hey everyone! 👋 My brain is currently 59% self-hatred from attempting this first query draft and 40% query-writing knowledge I've inhaled over the last month. The last 1% is just a faint scream while I write this.

As someone who chronically over-explains and overshares, condensing my story into a query feels like running an Ironman. While my manuscript isn't completely finished, I’m starting to draft the query early because this is a character-driven story that I suspect will need several query iterations to get right. 😮‍💨

My main priorities are:

1. Capturing Clara's voice and dark humor,
2. Showing how this story differs from typical ED narratives (it focuses on someone who exists in that "invisible middle space"),
3. Balancing the multiple threads (grief, ED, isolation) without making the query feel overcrowded.
4. Avoiding clichés and usual tropes, I am worried that it now sounds like the typical healing narrative.

I’m particularly interested in feedback on:

1. Whether Clara's voice comes through clearly,
2. If the balance between plot and character development works,
3. Whether the stakes feel clear enough for a character-driven story.

Another weak area are my comps. They’re not there yet, but I'm reading as much as I can between writing/editing breaks! So far, I have a couple in mind, like HAPPY FOR YOU by Claire Stanford, VERA WONG'S UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR MURDERERS by Jesse Q. Sutanto, and Jennette McCurdy's I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED (perhaps MILK FED by Melissa Broder as well...)

Thanks, PubTips, for any advice you can share!

QUERY DRAFT:

Dear agent,

Clara has perfected the art of disappearing in plain sight. She buys self-improvement books for a future self who's definitely coming (any day now), declines invitations with excuses so relatable no one notices she never says yes, and only speaks to Sophie when she's absolutely sure no one can hear her – because Sophie’s been dead for a decade.

By day, Clara counts calories in black coffee and makes her coworkers laugh with spot-on impressions of their CEO. By night, she orders enough takeout from different apps that no delivery driver sees her twice, then hides the evidence at the bottom of her trash bin like murder weapons. Her eating disorder doesn't fit the stereotype – not thin enough to look “ill”, not big enough to seem “unhealthy”, just invisible enough to keep everyone from asking questions.

When Clara discovers a tiny, rage-filled dog in her building's trash, she sees herself in those hungry, mistrustful eyes. As she struggles with this furious little dog who treats kindness like a trap, Clara finds herself doing the impossible: living a life that isn't measured in calories consumed, calls dodged, and hours until she can crawl back into bed. Not because she wants to, not because she's finally ready to "get better," but because this dog needs her to.

But every morning walk, every awkward conversation with other dog owners, every small moment of actual living chips away at the walls Clara built after Sophie died. And as she gets her first real taste of the life she's denied herself for a decade, Clara realizes she can’t have both - the safety of her self-imposed exile and the chance to actually live again. Because facing why Sophie’s voice is all she has left means confronting the truth she buried along with her best friend all those years ago.

Complete at 85,000 words, HOW MANY CALORIES IN A FINGERNAIL is a literary fiction novel that will appeal to readers who loved the darkly humorous exploration of grief in X and Y (in the works!). While this novel walks through the dark corners of grief and disordered eating, it stumbles (sometimes literally, thanks to one very determined dog) into something unexpected: the possibility that recovery isn’t about fixing yourself to fit the world, but finding the courage to create your own place in it.

First 300 words:

The waiter sets down our food at Giuseppe's, our office's go-to place where the lights are always dimmed so low you'd think they're trying to hide something. Probably the fact that their "imported Italian olive oil" bears a suspicious resemblance to the generic stuff from the supermarket next door. Sarah's margherita pizza arrives in a cloud of steam, while Jen's fettuccine swims happily in a rich cream sauce. And then there's my dinner, The Artisanal Garden Salad, looking like the contents of someone’s compost pile.

I push a piece of lettuce around my plate, dodging the croutons I told the waiter to leave off. "How's the pizza?" I ask, watching Sarah's first bite while trying very hard not to think about melted cheese and perfect crust and everything else I'm not supposed to want. Instead, I do what I always do – count. Fifteen calories per crouton (why are they even here?), and that dressing... It's definitely creamy, probably hiding at least three hundred calories in there. Nice try, you delicious little liar. The wine in my glass catches the warm light – another two hundred calories I shouldn't have ordered, but saying no when Jen from HR suggests drinks? Please. She's got that effortlessly cool thing going on, with her vintage band tees and intricate sleeve tattoos, and I'd really like her to like me.

Besides, after spending two hours trying to explain to a client that no, their car insurance doesn't cover damage from their teenager "accidentally" reverse-parking into their ex's front door, I think I've earned it.

I'd really love to tell you about my thrilling career in insurance, but honestly, if I think about it for one more second, I might spontaneously combust. Though knowing our HR department, they'd probably just make everyone attend a mandatory webinar on proper combustion protocol. With PowerPoint animations.

I've finished my novel draft and am now working to polish it up for querying. I've posted a bit about my WIP on social media, but I'd like to share more. I'm wondering how much is too much to share/promote during the drafting/editing phase. I know that if my book were to get picked up by an agent or publisher, they'd have a lot of say in the look and feel of marketing and promotions—and that things in my book could also change during the professional editing phase.

But in the meantime, is it okay/appropriate to create fun graphics of my own and share more details about the novel, such as character names, working title, blurb, etc.? I don't want to ruin any chances with an agent by posting "too much" or creating a very public vibe for my book too soon.

Where do I draw the line? What do agents like to see and not like to see on social media?

Hopefully, the 6th time is the charm. I've really tried to take all previous comments to heart in this attempt. I truly appreciate all the great feedback I've gotten on my many, many attempts. Here is attempt #5 for reference.

Dear Agent,

The Memories of Mary & Thomas (60.5K words) is the first publicly released output of the Regenerated Episodic Memory Interpretation (REMI) program, a groundbreaking technology that transforms memories into a stylized narrative using artificial intelligence. Guided by REMI-1, a customized AI narrator, we follow Mary, the program’s inventor, and Thomas, a Parisian philosopher—two strangers whose lives collide unexpectedly. Alternating between their parallel timelines, REMI-1 recounts their memories from separate childhoods, through their meeting as adults, and onward into their shared future.

Mary grows up in East Tennessee, charting the lives of squirrels and coping with her father’s death. As an adult neuroscientist researching the physical structure of memories in London, she begins to doubt her ability to accomplish her life’s goal. On her fortieth birthday, she impulsively travels to Pamplona to escape work pressures and her mother's insistence she move back home.

After tragically losing his older brother at a young age, Thomas dedicates himself to soccer, but an injury sends his life in a different direction. A divorce and the departure of his children for university leave him sitting alone in a silent apartment. Seeking purpose, he sojourns to the Spanish countryside to jot down a new philosophy. On his way back to Paris, he stops to observe the Running of the Bulls.

Amid the chaos of the bull run, Mary crashes into Thomas's feet. Injured and disoriented, she invites him to accompany her to the hospital. He hesitates but leaps into the back of the ambulance at the last moment. Conversations in the hospital reveal they both lost someone important on the same day, sparking a connection that could deepen—if Mary can overcome her ambivalence toward the concept of love.

Throughout the novel, REMI-1 interjects with observations inspired by Thomas’s emerging “Distraction Theory,” which examines how humans juggle physical impulses, unanswerable questions, and the diversions that keep them sane. REMI-1’s insightful and often humorous interruptions illustrate how Mary and Thomas’s lives are shaped not only by poignant moments but also by the everyday distractions that perpetuate humanity’s illusion of purpose.

The Memories of Mary & Thomas blends absurdism, humor, and a dash of romance. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the exploration of human connection in Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and the satirical, non-human narration in Simon Stephenson’s Set My Heart to Five.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Author name

Thank you everyone for your wonderfully helpful comments on my first two attempts.

Dear [xxx]

I am querying you because [xxx].

Composer Johnathan Campbell sees the past everywhere, his memories stained onto the world around him like spilt wine. Each time he returns to his hometown of Edinburgh, the city is painted with riotous friezes of his life: his younger self collapsed in gutters, or dancing, ecstatic, on the edge of the castle esplanade. As though they were happening right now. It is a talent he will need: his childhood friend Eòghan is missing, and the answer to his whereabouts lies somewhere in this landscape of sedimented, technicolour time. So Johnathan searches for his pal by retracing their steps, from the pair’s career as celebrated composers in London back to when their Edinburgh folk band first made it big. 

But voyaging into their shared history means he must confront the loss of the one girl he ever wanted, Morag, and the reasons he and Eòghan left Scotland in the first place. As Johnathan unravels under the weight of these—his own struggles with alcoholism and narcissistic self-destruction—his search will lead him to face a dark, black space at the heart of the Scottish capital. It is the one place that he cannot see. At all. Like the centre of a zero, or something just behind you…

EVERYTHING THAT DIES is a 100,000-word work of literary fiction that charts the rise and fall of a friendship under the burden of dreams. The novel interweaves Johnathan’s first-person memoir with lyrical third-person chapters that stage its writing as part of his surreal journey into the past—in shimmering, Dantean overlays of time bent bank on itself. It would appeal to fans of Andrew O’Hagen’s Mayflies, Olga Tokarczuk’s The Empusium and Keanu Reeves and China Miéville’s The Book of Elsewhere. Think Alasdair Gray’s Lanark but with classical music.

This is my first novel. [bio paragraph]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

This is my most recent attempt at a query, which has been through a few rounds of feedback and editing on here. I know it's probably bit long but I was under the impression that dual POV queries have more leeway with query length.

Query:

Dear [Agent],

      Champions of Troy is a 75,000-word dual POV retelling of the Aethiopis, a lost epic which was once sung in the same breath as the Iliad and the Odyssey. While other epics were told from the point of view of the Greeks and Trojans, this was told from the perspective of the Amazons and Africans who joined in the fray. I saw that you [blank] and thought it would be a good fit.

      Penthesilea never wanted to be Queen of the Amazons. But when her errant spear struck her beloved older sister, she was left a broken woman atop an unwanted throne. The guilt and grief were more than she could bear. Only one labor could possibly redeem her sin, as Heracles's labors had once cleansed his. She must slay Achilles, and save the people of Troy.

      Memnon is famed beyond the borders of the known world. From east of the Indus to west of The Pillars, all nations tell tales of the great African king. Men see him as a god. Gods speak to him as they do each other. So when all hope seemed lost, his distant cousins in Troy call for aid. Memnon answers.

      Joined in purpose by fate and in friendship by pain, the pair of them march to war. She must stave off madness long enough to earn her redemption. He must maintain the mirage of legend which hangs over his true face. Achilles awaits with death beside him. But only together can they find the strength to meet him on the field. Only their friendship can make them the Champions of Troy.

           As for myself, I have been published in Carmina Magazine, The Castle, Colp and The Rye Whiskey Review as both a poet and short story writer. I currently work for an in-school tutoring program in Newark that helps struggling students keep up with the rest of their class and reach their full potential. I included my first [insert amount] pages below and look forward to hearing back from you.

First 250:

The two sisters walked through the catacombs of trees within the thick forest, surrounded by beasts, walled in by the edge of their trail, and entirely alone. Yet they feared nothing. Each one felt that their only equal was the other, and nothing in all their battles, journeys and adventures had shown them any different.

To the rest of the world, Hippolyte was the Queen of the Amazons, the regal demigoddess whom her people revered and whom men feared. Yet to Penthesilea, she was simply a woman, a searching soul, stripped of all her pomp and circumstance. She appreciated that. She valued her unassuming sororal bond almost as much as she valued her service as a warrior. And that value was great.

Together they were the crook and flail of the Amazons, the warrior and the queen, the sisters who made men mourn. Penthesilea was as strong as Hippolyte was clever, as brash as she was cautious and as loyal as she was grateful. No queen could ask for a better lieutenant.

There were only two fears which the sisters held as they journeyed through their nation's wilderness. Hippolyte feared that she might make the wrong decision, and spell the ruin of her people. Penthesilea feared that they might never stop walking and eat.

"We'll make camp here for the night" said Hippolyte as she saw the thicket of trees finally giving way to a grove.

"Thank the gods" muttered Penthesilea, laying down her burden as she looked to her sister.