SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: I am very low on queries to critique! This means that if you submit yours, there are fairly good odds I’ll critique yours.
If you’d like to nominate your own page or query for a public critique, kindly post them here in the discussion forums:
Also, if you’d like to test your editing chops, keep your eye on this area or this area! I’ll post the pages and queries a few days before a critique so you can see how your redline compares to mine.
And, of course, if you need help more urgently or privately, I’m available for edits and consultations!
Now then. Time for the Query Critique. First I’ll present the query without comment, then I’ll offer my thoughts and a redline. If you choose to offer your own thoughts, please be polite. We aim to be positive and helpful.
Random numbers were generated, and thanks to Zena, whose query is below.
Dear [agent],
Susannah is a young white woman living in Detroit during the American Civil War. She believes her proper sphere is taking care of home and family. That’s everything she longs for. On New Year’s Eve — the night before the Emancipation Proclamation comes into effect — she finds a five-year-old black orphan, Noah, hiding in her stable. The hungry child has been bitten by a feral dog. Susannah does what comes naturally to her — she helps the little boy. However, although she continues to do what she believes is right, her family rejects the child, and her beau withdraws his offer of marriage.
As her eyes are opened to the racism that’s been around her all along, Susannah learns that loving Noah and providing him with a comfortable home is not enough. She must fight for Noah’s rights and his safety at every turn — from confronting the local school district to defending him from a rioting white mob. She loves Noah, and feels more fulfilled than she ever has in her life before. When Noah chooses to live as part of the black community rather than as her son, she’s devastated, but sees it’s best for him. Now aware of racism, she concludes that restricting her sphere to home and family is unjustifiable. She resolves to continue helping in the fight for emancipation and racial equality.
Proper Spheres is a 90,000-word work of literary historical fiction. It’s inspired by the Detroit race riot that occurred in March, 1863 after a man the newspapers described as a ‘negro’ was convicted of sexually assaulting a white girl. It’s my first novel, told from the points of view of Susannah, Joshua (a black man who escaped slavery in Virginia), and William (a white Irish immigrant). My style is similar to your client, [author name], but this story is set later in the nineteenth century than her novels. Other comps are Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly and Conjure Women by Afia Atakora.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
While this query letter reads smoothly, I felt a little jarred out of the story by the overt diagnosis of what Susannah is experiencing, which feels like it is drawing upon a modern frame of reference rather than keeping us more immersed in her story from her perspective.
There’s a tricky balance to strike here. On the one hand the summary shouldn’t just be some kind of stream of Susannah’s voice as if she’s really living in 1863 and you’re transcribing her thoughts, but I also worry that phrases like “eyes are opened to the racism” feel a bit ahistorical to Susannah’s world and feels like a very modern frame applied backwards. Is there a way to keep us a bit more immersed in how Susannah is experiencing the plot? How would she phrase it?
Also, be careful with vague phrases like “home and family,” “do what she believes is right,” and ” her family rejects the child,” which feel like missed opportunities to describe what’s happening with more vivid specificity. It’s not a matter of adding drastically more words, but rather just swapping out what’s imprecise for more specific phrasing that’s more individualized.
Also, I don’t know the author’s background or what went into the construction of the novel so please take my perspective with all appropriate grains of salt, but given the sensitivity of the issues in the novel and a plot that feels like it could veer into problematic white savior tropes, prior to seeking publication I would encourage seeking feedback from a sensitivity reader or other readers who can weigh in to ensure everything is handled with the care and sensitivity it deserves.
Here’s my redline.
Dear [agent],
[Lead with the personalization to tip off the agent that you researched them individually]
Susannah is a young white woman living in Detroit during the American Civil War. She believes her proper sphere is taking care of home and family [missed opportunity to be more specific about what her home and family is like]
. That’s, and it’s everything she longs for. On New Year’s Eve — the night before the Emancipation Proclamationcomes intotakes effect — she finds a hungry five-year-old black orphan, Noah, hiding in her stable.TheHe’s hungrychildand has been bitten by a feral dog. Susannah does what comes naturally to her — she helpsthe little boyhim. However, although she continues to do what she believes is right [Be more specific about what she’s doing here], her family rejects the child [Be more specific. How do they “reject” him?], and her beau withdraws his offer of marriage.As her eyes are opened to the racism that’s been around her all along [This feels like a modern diagnosis rather than keeping us connected to how Susannah is experiencing this in the moment], Susannah learns that loving Noah and providing him with a comfortable home is not enough [I don’t understand, what exactly does she learn and why is it not enough? Be more specific about what’s happening in the story]. She
mustfight for Noah’s rights and his safety at every turn — from confronting the local school district [Confronting them about what?] to defending him from a rioting white mob [Defending him how? What does she do here?]. She loves Noah, and feels more fulfilled than she ever has in her life before. When Noah chooses to live as part of the black community rather than as her son, she’s devastated, but sees it’s best for him. Now aware of racism [Again feels framed in a bit of an ahistorical way to me], sheconcludes that restricting her sphere to home and family is unjustifiable[“unjustifiable” doesn’t fee like the right word choice, but in any case I think just show what she does and we can infer the motives?]. Sheresolves to continue helping in the fight for emancipation and racial equality.Proper Spheres is a 90,000-word work of literary historical fiction. It’s inspired by the Detroit race riot that occurred in March, 1863 after a man the newspapers described as a ‘negro’ was convicted of sexually assaulting a white girl. It’s my first novel
, told from the points of view of Susannah, Joshua (a black man who escaped slavery in Virginia), and William (a white Irish immigrant)[Don’t think we need the POVs in the query].My style is similar to your client, [author name], but this story is set later in the nineteenth century than her novels. Other comps areIt will appeal to readers of Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly and Conjure Women by Afia Atakora.Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
Thanks again to Zena!
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Art: Steel engraving The City of Detroit (from Canada Shore) from a study by A. C. Warren, engraved by R. Hinshelwood
Dave Hammond says
Dear Agent:
I am sending you this query seeking representation for my completed first novel, Millie’s Razor, an 89,000-word anti-heroine thriller – think of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but instead of the snows of Sweden, it’s the green hills and suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama. My anti-heroine is unable to fit into society in any traditional way, so Stephen King’s Carrie is a good comp as well (minus the supernatural ingredient).
We would all like a guardian angel to watch over us – to protect us from a world full of bad people – even though we might be bad people ourselves. But what if this guardian angel is willing to make our problems disappear without regard to right and wrong? The Gierharts are a wealthy Alabama family of high achievers in sports, business, and medicine, and their guardian angel is their daughter and their little sister. Her name is Millie, and she has been underestimated her whole life. There is no limit to what she will do to help her family. No limit.
Millie is mostly ignored as she watches her parents and two older brothers lead their day-to-day lives, looking for any way to help them. She saves her mother, Nancy, from a knife-wielding drug addict and burns down the business of a hated rival for her beloved brother, Tip. Millie silences a litigious widow threatening her oldest brother, Wagner, a brilliant surgeon. She abruptly terminates an affair unworthy of her father, Preston, whom she blindly admires. Millie places in her crosshairs anyone who stands in the way of her family’s success and happiness, with the police always one step behind. No one suspects Millie because they see only her limitations.
My most recent award is through The Alabama Writer’s Cooperative, winning first place in the 2020 Writing Competition for First Chapter of a Novel for Millie’s Razor.
As per your submission guidelines, I have included the first chapter of Millie’s Razor.
I look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Sincerely,
David Hammond
205-531-7920
Neil Larkins says
I believe you need to place this in the ‘”Nominate Your Query for a Critique on the Blog” section as mentioned at the top of this page. I don’t think Nathan will be able to critique it from here because this section is not set up that way.
Neil Larkins says
Nathan, yesterday I was about to comment here that I have two queries to critique and then I reread your post. I only have one. The other was a rewrite of one you critiqued a few months ago. For weeks I’d slaved over a hot keyboard to redo it (not just edit…a complete overhaul) and was pretty proud of the results. Then to my horror, and embarrassment, after reading your critique here I realized mine contained a major error…I’d actually missed the theme of my own story! So I’ll be a bit longer on that one. The other one I’ve never submitted and will post it in a day or so. That is, I will if I don’t realize I’ve done the same with this query as with the first one! That being the case, I may have to give up writing to preserve my sanity.