The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

Your enthusiasm for smart, commercially appealing fiction with strong protagonists and unexpected twists makes me think my manuscript, Capo Cruise Lines might interest you. Not a bad start, but you need to indicate a genre for your story here. Smart, commerically appealing fiction with strong protags and twists is a broad swath. Where would this be shelved in a bookstore?

Josh, a repressed engineer, reluctantly joins a singles cruise at his father’s urging to loosen up and live a little. But when he’s seated with four captivating women—each with ties to organized crime—his vacation spirals into a dangerous flirtation with seduction, secrets, and betrayal. As shipboard antics and exotic ports of call complicate the group’s dynamics, Josh must navigate a web of intrigue to escape with his life and livelihood and a newfound sense of self. This isn't really doing the work of a query, it's way too broad. What are the secrets? The seduction? The betrayal? What are these antics and how are the group dynamics complicated? What is this web of intrigue? Right now this could be anything from an at-sea Amish puppy mill to sex trafficking. There's no indication here of what the book is actually about. A query needs to answer these questions -- 1) What does the MC want? 2) What stands in their way of getting it? 3) What will they have to do to overcome the obstacles? 4) What's at stake if they don't? Right now this answers the first one - the MC just wants to chill out and maybe hook up. What stands in their way is vague at best, and the last two questions are unanswered.

Complete at 70,000 words, Capo Cruise Lines is my debut novel.Don't bother mentioning this. I’m a professional freelance writer specializing in cybersecurity courseware for high school students, where I craft engaging, accessible content on complex topics. This manuscript draws from my own travel misadventures and is written in the spirit of Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, and Janet Evanovich. I studied under Pulitzer Prize winner, Frank McCourt, who described my work as “witty, intelligent, and humorous”—qualities I’ve strived to carry into this manuscript.

Right now your bio is longer than the part where you actually talk about the book. Get the word count and comp authors into the first paragraph to make your genre more clear. Studying under Frank McCourt is awesome, but the query isn't conveying wit or humor. If it's a voicey work (and the authors you use as comps are very voicey) then the query needs to have a voice that conveys the voice of the manuscript itself.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

Complete at 78K words, THE WORST OF US is a romantic suspense exploring a conflicted love story tangled in past trauma and lingering guilt, similar to All the Missing Pieces by Catherine Cowles. It also mirrors the morally gray character and the found-family dynamic of The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave. Good intro! You're clear on your genre, comp titles, and audience.

Against her better judgement, thirty-year-old teacher Emma Johnson provides a false alibi when her troubled but beloved brother Tony is accused of a minor drug-related crime. However, a week later, Tony kills a single mother in a hit-and-run, leaving the victim’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Brianna—one of Emma’s students—completely alone. Overwhelmed with guilt, Emma vows to offer the girl support and a stable home, carefully concealing her brother’s involvement in the accident. Normally I would say that I need to know how the two crimes connect to each other, but that becomes clear later on, so I think this para is good as is.

Detective Nathan Stone has made it his mission to dismantle the drug organization Tony is tied to, committed to live up to his father’s reputation in the Narcotics Division. Despite his sharp instinct for reading people, he cannot determine whether Emma is a victim of her brother’s manipulation or a masterful liar hiding his whereabouts. Either way, he knows she could help bring Tony to justice.

Bound by their mutual concern for Brianna’s struggle with grief, Emma and Nathan find themselves unexpectedly aligned and slowly drawn to each other. Soon, their nightly conversations Nightly conversations seem like a lot. How did this develop? Did they cross paths as part of his investigation? shift from formal to intimate. But when Tony threatens to expose Emma’s false alibi But wouldn't that implicate him in the drug related crime? I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense in terms of something he's holding over her head; he loses his alibi if he rats her out if she doesn’t help him stay hidden, she must choose between the man she’s falling in love with, the girl she promised to care for, and the brother who protected her throughout their abusive childhood. Technically these are three things, so she's not choosing "between" them, because that implies two things.

Overall this is in pretty good shape in terms of plot. What it needs is a little more character injection. We don't have any feel for who these people are. Sad or scrappy? Doing great or pretending? We don't really have any idea what they are like as people, just what their purpose in the plot is. The last line says that Emma had an abusive childhood, which needs to be developed more and metioned earlier.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

I am seeking representation for “The Sound of Ice Melting,” Put your title in all caps or italics, not quotes a modern 95,617 Just say 95k word gay YA psychological drama comparable to Poor Deer, by Claire Oshetsky, The Secret of Us, by Lucinda Berry, and Words on Bathroom Walls, by Julia Walton.

Joe was ten when he first tried to kill himself, a month after his mother’s murder. Four years later, he tried again. His psychiatrist believes Joe saw his father murder his mother, but Joe says it feels like there’s a demon in his head that makes him want to destroy himself.

When Joe’s sixteen, he meets Troy and falls in love, and a year later, they’re still together and happier than ever. Right now this is just reading like a walkthrough of someone's life, more like a synopsis than a query. They’ve just graduated and have been accepted at the same college. Life is perfect! So, everyone is surprised when Joe tries to kill himself again. Seeing the pain it causes those he loves the most, Joe vows to never try it again. As a reader we don't have a great feeling for the "why" here, and not just for this most recent attempt. In order to connect more with the character the reader needs to understand what it's actually like inside Joe's head. Right now these are factual statements with very little emotion attached.

Two months later, he’s diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given two months to live. What doctors call “a tumor” and Joe calls “a demon,” Troy calls “a memory,” specifically of what really happened on the night Joe’s mother was murdered. In order to bring the repressed memory to light, Troy, desperate to save Joe, decides to treat the tumor as Joe sees it and exorcise the demon. What they discover is a truth much darker than they ever imagined. This is kind of a tease in that you're not telling the reader / agent what is actually going on. This is reading more like what the back matter of a novel would have to entice a reader. For a query letter, you need to let the agent know what makes this book different, what makes it stand out, what is unique here. If the "truth is much darker than they ever imagined," say what that is so that the agent knows whether this is worth their time as a read or not.

I’m an American writer, playwright, ESL teacher, editor, and copywriter with a BA in English. I’ve spent more than forty years working professionally with children and adolescents, twelve as a counselor and supervisor in psychiatric facilities treating severely emotionally disturbed children and adolescents, many of whom were suicidal or had self-injurious behaviors. Great bio!