Stick the landing (query critique)

If you’d like to nominate your own page or query for a public critique, kindly post them here in the discussion forums:

• Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog
• Nominate Your Query for a Critique on the Blog

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 shaelynzeitz, whose query is below.

Dear Agent,

Frankie June, a 12-year-old rock-and-roll enthusiast, loves adventures in the Cantamar forest. She and her best friends Nora and Ben spend every free second collecting treasures in the bramble and etching words in their tree trunk clubhouse. But when Frankie finds out Nora is moving far away, she fears how she and Ben will survive without their rock-of-a-friend who defends them from the school bully, Sammy.

But Sammy is not all Frankie needs to survive after Nora is gone. Frankie’s pack-rat Dad brings home a mysterious thrift store painting of a woman. She resembles the witch who lived in the town hundreds of years before, and she was rumored to disappear children. Frankie soon notices shifts and changes in the painting each time she looks at it. She begins to have nightmares and mysterious etched words begin appearing in the clubhouse. Just when Frankie can’t bear the creepiness any longer, Sammy disappears from Cantamar and appears in the painting in Frankie’s house.

Determined to save her bully from death (because she knows that pain all too well after the strange disappearance of her own mother years before), Frankie vows to uncover the mystery of the painting and bring Sammy home. As she and Ben uncover more about the painting, spooky things begin to happen, threatening everything. The rescue. Family. Ben’s life.

THERE’S A WITCH ON MY WALL is a 20,000-word middle grade horror novel, written in verse, for readers who enjoy poetry and the spookier things in life. This book will pique the interest of readers who love the atmospheric horror of Katherine Arden’s SMALL SPACES and the fast-paced verse of Dusti Bowling’s THE CANYON’S EDGE.

I was a mentee in the 2019 SCBWI Nevada Mentorship Program, where I worked on a middle grade prose novel. When I’m not writing, I work as an instructional designer in the corporate sector, chase around my two young children and puppy, and soak up as many writing podcasts as I can.

Thank you for your consideration.

This query gets off to a reasonably strong start. While more specificity and voice would punch it up a bit, I didn’t have a hard time wrapping my head around the plot, and there are some clever details that bring the setting to life.

But the end of the plot description is a bit of a faceplant. It feels like the author just kind of flailed into a messy collapse:

As she and Ben uncover more about the painting, spooky things begin to happen, threatening everything. The rescue. Family. Ben’s life.

“Spooky things begin to happen” is about as flat and un-spooky as it gets, and “threatening everything” could mean literally almost anything (so it functionally ends up meaning very little). Even with the clarification “The rescue. Family. Ben’s life.” I wasn’t any closer to feeling intrigued and excited about the ending.

You gotta stick the landing. The last line of the plot description is almost as important as the first line because it should give the agent the sense that the novel is headed to an engaging climax.

Don’t worry about spoilers. You don’t have to tell the agent how the novel ends, but be very specific and precise about what the protagonist has to do and what’s at stake as they head toward the finish line.

Here’s my redline:

Dear Agent,

[Insert personalized tidbit about the agent to show that you researched them individually]

Frankie June, a 12-year-old rock-and-roll enthusiast, loves adventures in the Cantamar forest ever since her mother’s strange disappearance a few years ago [Missed opportunity to weave in more voice/specificity about the nature of the adventures to create a more vivid opening line]. She and her best friends Nora and Ben spend every free second collecting treasures in the bramble and etching words in their tree trunk clubhouse [Better specificity, though “words” is vague]. But when Frankie finds out Nora is moving far away [Be more specific], she fears how she and Ben will survive without their rock-of-a-friend who defendsed them from the school bully, Sammy.

But Sammy is not all Frankie needs to survive after Nora is gone [This feels a bit repetitive]. Frankie’s pack-rat Dad brings home a mysterious thrift store painting of a woman. She who resembles the a witch who lived in the town hundreds of years before ago, and she who was rumored to make children disappear children [Not a fan of “disappear” as a verb unless it’s the KGB in a spy novel. Be more specific what the witch is doing]. Frankie soon notices shifts and changes [Avoid repeating synonyms] in the painting each time she looks at it. She begins to have nightmares, and mysterious etched words begin appearing appear in the clubhouse. Just when Frankie can’t bear the creepiness any longer, Sammy disappears from Cantamar and appears in the painting in Frankie’s house.

Determined to save her bully from death (because she knows that pain all too well after the strange disappearance of her own mother years before) [This feels a bit smushed in here], Frankie vows to uncover the mystery of the painting and bring Sammy home. As she and Ben uncover more about the painting [Be more specific], spooky things begin to happen [Be more specific], threatening everything [Be more specific]. The rescue. Family. Ben’s life. [I don’t understand what these three sentences are referring to]

THERE’S A WITCH ON MY WALL is a 20,000-word middle grade horror novel, written in verse, for readers who enjoy poetry and the spookier things in life [I wouldn’t limit it like this]. This book It will pique the interest of readers who love the atmospheric horror of Katherine Arden’s SMALL SPACES and the fast-paced verse of Dusti Bowling’s THE CANYON’S EDGE.

I was a mentee in the 2019 SCBWI Nevada Mentorship Program, where I worked on a middle grade prose novel. When I’m not writing, I work as an instructional designer in the corporate sector, chase around my two young children and puppy, and soak up as many writing podcasts as I can.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thanks again to shaelynzeitz!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Art: Carl Blechen – Waldweg bei Spandau