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 vampyr14, whose query is below.
Dear Agent,
I am seeking representation for Standing Too Close, an 82,000 word contemporary YA novel that will appeal to readers who enjoyed books like The Boy Who Stole Houses by C.G. Drews, Far From the Tree by Robin Bennway, Stick by Andrew Smith or Invincible Summer by Hannah Moskowitz.
Seventeen-year-old Blue Lannigan believes in exactly one thing: his two younger brothers deserve more than the crappy apartment and abusive, drunken mother they’re stuck with. And when he comes home to find one brother bruised and bleeding (again), the other cowering in terror (again) and their mother drunk off her ass, blaming all three of them for her tanked singing career (again), Blue decides waiting until he’s 18 to leave is no longer an option.
Deciding to hole up in an empty house at the lake until Blue can figure out what to do next, things get more complicated when the owner of the house arrives unexpectedly. Especially when Blue realizes the unconscious woman they’ve tied up on the couch isn’t a stranger after all, but someone who could give him just what he’s looking for.
After avoiding reality and playing house, a scene at the grocery store lands him in handcuffs and his brothers with a social worker. Add to that losing his job and being stuck in a group home he hates, and Blue’s sole purpose becomes finding his brothers and getting them out of whatever hellhole they’re in. Blue’s hopes unravel, and betrayal rips his heart in two as he tries to reconcile the role he plays in his brothers’ lives while trying to figure out his own.
Full of forbidden romance and the kind of hurt only family can cause, this book reaches to the heart of anyone who has struggled with abusive parents and foster care while also reminding us that we can walk away from the past we’ve survived even if the present doesn’t look the way we imagined it.
I have published four YA novels with a small press, and my short stories have appeared in Halfway Down The Stairs, A Fly in Amber, Daily Flash Anthology, The Barrier Islands Review, Everyday Fiction, Death Rattle, Kissed Anthology, Just Me Anthology, Drastic Measures, Cutlass & Musket and Residential Aliens, among others. I participate in writing blog Operation Awesome, offering weekly advice for writers as agony aunt O’Abby.
Per your submission guidelines, you will find the first XXX chapters and a synopsis below.
Regards,
This query gets off to a reasonably strong start. I thought there were a few minor missed opportunities to weave in more specificity, but I liked how the paragraph finished with a clearly articulated decision. The reader is focused around the key choice Blue makes in the novel.
But in the second paragraph of the plot description, things go off the rails and descend into chaos. There isn’t enough information to orient us around what Blue actually does in the novel, and instead we get oblique references to plot elements we don’t have the context to understand, as if the author has forgotten we haven’t actually read the novel yet.
Don’t worry about spoilers in a query letter. Just be clear about what’s happening.
Specificity is everything.
Here’s my redline:
Dear Agent,
[Insert personalized tidbit about the agent to show that you researched them individually]
I am seeking representation for Standing Too Close, an 82,000 word contemporary YA novel that will appeal to readers who enjoyed books like The Boy Who Stole Houses by C.G. Drews, Far From the Tree by Robin Bennway, Stick by Andrew Smith or Invincible Summer by Hannah Moskowitz.
Seventeen-year-old Blue Lannigan believes in exactly one thing: his two younger brothers deserve more than the crappy apartment [Missed opportunity to weave in more specific voice, e.g. “flea-bitten apartment,” “crumbling apartment”] and abusive, drunken mother [Another missed opportunity to say the same thing with more individuality] they’re stuck with.
And wWhen he comes home to find one brother bruised and bleeding(again), the other cowering in terror(again)and their mother drunk off her ass, blamingall three ofthem for her tanked singing career (again), Blue decides waiting until he’s 18 to leave is no longer an option. [Good focusing around the choice, though the first two “agains” feel heavy-handed to me when those dynamics have already been established]
Deciding[Awkward verb usage] Blue decides to hole up in an empty house at the lake untilBluehe can figure out what to do next, things get more complicated when the owner of the house arrives unexpectedly [Be more specific. What actually happens that makes it complicated?]. Especially when Blue realizes the unconscious woman they’ve tied up on the couch [Say what now? Where did this come from? Who is “they?”] isn’t a stranger after all, but someone who could give him just what he’s looking for. [Convoluted, vague, confusing sentence. Who is this “someone” and what specifically are they offering Blue?]After avoiding reality and playing house [I don’t understand what this is referring to], a scene at the grocery store [Way too vague] lands him in handcuffs and his brothers with a social worker. [Now I’m completely confused. What actually happens here?] Add to that losing his job [What job?] and being stuck in a group home he hates, and Blue’s sole purpose becomes [Clunky writing] finding his brothers and getting them out of whatever hellhole they’re in. Blue’s hopes unravel, and betrayal rips his heart in two as he tries to reconcile the role he plays in his brothers’ lives while trying to figure out his own [Way too vague. Be more specific about what’s actually happening and what very specifically Blue needs to do, not what the events mean].
Full of forbidden romance and the kind of hurt only family can cause, this book reaches to the heart of anyone who has struggled with abusive parents and foster care while also reminding us that we can walk away from the past we’ve survived even if the present doesn’t look the way we imagined it.[Anything you want the agent to know in terms of theme should be woven into the plot description itself. This also just feels pretty heavy-handed. Agents don’t really care about lessons, they just want to know if the book is good or not]I have published four YA novels with a small press [I would name the small press], and my short stories have appeared in Halfway Down The Stairs, A Fly in Amber, Daily Flash Anthology, The Barrier Islands Review, Everyday Fiction, Death Rattle, Kissed Anthology, Just Me Anthology, Drastic Measures, Cutlass & Musket and Residential Aliens, among others. [This is a long list, pare back to the most essential] I participate in writing blog Operation Awesome, offering weekly advice for writers as agony aunt O’Abby.
Per your submission guidelines, you will find the first XXX chapters and a synopsis below.
Regards,
Thanks again to vampyr14!
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Art: Cottage with lake and mountains by August Peters
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Probably also make it a bit shorter. In a few places, rather than being more specific, I would remove the confusing bits – like the “stranger” tied up on the couch.