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.

Confessions of a Rock and Roll Queen is a 100,000-word upmarket historical fiction novel that combines Daisy Jones & the Six’s back-stage drama with the voice-driven, intimate emotional stakes of Deep Cuts. Good opening, but I'll need to know what makes this historical

Kaysi Bright will never achieve her rock star dreams in small-town Mississippi. After a scandalous church performance brands her a disgrace, Kaysi hitchhikes to Los-Angeles. But fame isn’t waiting to embrace her. With a long list of studio rejections and a two-bit blues club gig, Kaysi is ready to call it quits. Should that read "gigs?"

That is, until she meets Greg Stilton, a charismatic guitarist with I Do, I Do, a rising ‘70s rock band. So this takes place in the 70's? I don't think they would identify themselves as a 70's band if it is in fact, the '70s. They would just be a rock band. I realize that's your way of slipping the time frame in here, but I'd find an altnernate route When the lead singer quits to join a cult, Kaysi’s voice propels the band to arena fame. But with fame comes increasing pressure: Greg’s volatile love, fraying band loyalties, her bandmate, Kathy’s steady, complicated devotion, and the ever-present lure of alcohol and cocaine. Who is Kathy? She just kind of showed up here.

When I Do I Do implodes, Kaysi reinvents herself with Lace Riot, an all-girl band poised for success. But Kaysi is spiraling deeper into addiction. Lace Riot issues an ultimatum: get clean or get out – on the same day her sister dies in childbirth. Reeling from grief, Kaysi takes custody of her newborn niece, only to soon lose her to the baby’s father. The double loss pitches her into a drug-induced psychosis that no one believes she’ll survive.

Now Kaysi faces the hardest fight of all: not for fame or love, but for her own life. Kaysi must confront her addiction and her grief or risk losing not only her music and the people who love her for her, but the chance to become the artist she was meant to be.

I have an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop,and am a psychoanalyst living in Santa Cruz, California.

Honestly this reads a little more like a synopsis than a query, but I don't think you're way off base here. I think what you've got is worth taking out and see if you get any nibbles.

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.

Seventeen-year-old Cal Anderson has a secret. He can rewind time five seconds. You might want to say "by five seconds." It’s a neat trick for dodging punches or cheating on tests, but it won’t bring back his mother after she pushes him out of the way of a speeding truck. Why not? It feels like 5 seconds would be enough to fix that. Only when he learns his power comes from the Roman gods, and that his destiny is written in an ancient book of prophecies does he understand. The accident might not have been his fault after all. Cal isn’t just an ordinary teenager. He’s the reincarnated grandson of Julius Caesar, descended from Venus herself. But why would he think the accident was his fault in the first place, and why would this revelation change his opinion?

When the gods tempt Cal with a new prophecy hinting at his mother’s resurrection, he must find a way to 408 AD, where barbarian Goths threaten to burn Rome and the temple he needs to save her. Along the way, he falls for Amalia, a half-Goth girl fated to die in his prophecy. Why? And do you mean like Goth like modern day kid, or like she's a barbarian? But Cal will uncover the gods’ true purpose. Rome must be punished for turning its back on them, and they need his power to open her gates. The gods need his power? Doesn't seem likely. Now he faces an impossible choice: save his mother, protect the city, or follow his heart, because the gods demand blood, and if Cal isn’t careful, they’ll use him to spill it, just like they did with his mother. This is a little all over the place. You're not spelling out the connections between mom, his status, the gods, this girl, and what the goal is here.

THE AMULETS OF CAESAR is a 94,000-word YA historical fantasy that blends the fatalistic themes of Threads That Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou with the mythological stakes of Lore by Alexandra Bracken and the cunning heists of Among Thieves by M.J. Kuhn. It is a standalone novel with series potential.

I’m querying you because you’re a fan of retellings, and my book is a mythic take on the fall of Rome. My passion for history has led to a feverish addiction to biographies, and strange looks from my coworkers. Trips to Rome and Istanbul inspired the settings in my book. Good bio and comp titles, but you need more clarification on the plot. Right now all the threads feel like they aren't neatly tied together to make a cohesive plot.

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.

Joseph Abramovich, born to opulence, wakes in a county jail cell. His life is shattered by reckless choices and the body of his secretary, left bleeding on the cabin floor. This is confusing becuase he wakes in a cell but the way the sentence is written it sounds like the secretary's body is right there, but it can't be Across from him sits a stranger gleaming with unnatural light who stops time at 3:00 a.m. From a bottomless flask, he pours a drink that drags Joseph not only into his own buried past but into a night-long tribunal of his lineage. With each revelation, Joseph’s illusions are stripped away and he is drawn closer to judgment. By dawn, will one last chance at redemption await, or will he face stern judgment? This is way too vague. It's a very broad brush that isn't conveying much of a plot

Told across three generations, Shlimazel, A Blessed Man is a 100,000-word historical-literary novel infused with magical realism and Jewish mysticism. From the brutal confines of an early 20th-century orphanage to the gilded halls of mid-century banking, the story weaves a saga of resilience, downfall, and the possibility of redemption. Threading it all is the stranger in the cell, the accuser, who serves as crucible for Joseph’s lineage. At its heart lies a single question: can the sins of one man be tempered by the blessings given to his ancestors? This is still really vague. It's not bad by any means, and certainly sounds like more of a literary novel, but I think more plot is necessary rather than big, sweeping statements

Readers of Dara Horn and John Steinbeck may appreciate the novel’s blend of intimate character study, historical sweep, and moral inquiry. Comparing yourself to John Steinbeck is probably going to raise an eyebrow

The manuscript is undergoing final line edits and will be complete by mid-November. Definitely don't say this. You need to have everything in the best possible shape before you even begin to consider querying.

I am a software developer with a PhD in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. Throughout my career, I have published research and patented algorithms in computational geometry.

You definitely sound like a smart person! A query needs to answer these things - what does the main character want? What stands in the way of them getting it? What will they have to do to overcome the obstacles? and what's at risk if they fail? Right now those points aren't terribly clear.