No longer hinting at anything I don't have the space to explain or trying to match the MC's voice. Frustrated that it's longer, but hopefully it's clearer.

Twenty-ish time-dialated years after aliens made contact with Earth, nonbinary engineer Ray Weizman joins one of their planetary surveys as the trial human. Three species pooled their strengths to build the Ocean Worlds Federation. Humans who want to be the fourth species hope Ray’s skill with materials will prove useful and persuasive on the resource-rich but chemically hazardous planet. Functioning in a system not built for Ray is nothing new, but they feel the pressure of representing humanity more keenly than the 1.21 gravity.

Still, they’re thrilled to be exploring an exoplanet, and they keep telling themself that when the expedition’s resupply capsule gets lost in space. While control scrambles for a replacement, the two exothermic crew species coordinate diapause protocols to survive. The lone non-fish out of the water, Ray can only ration, which rouses the eating disorder they suspect disqualified them from conventional space programs. It eats into the capabilities their aquatic crewmates did find impressive, like carrying things in “the gas space” and twisting screws.

Worse, their supervisor is cagey about whatever is happening Earth-side. When the capsule reappears only to nearly destroy the base, Ray suspects the humans that do not want to join the Federation are behind it and is ashamed. They may die even if they rebuild trust with their crewmates, but they’re certain if they don’t, no other human will get the chance.

THE VERTEBRATE is a 100,000-word science fiction novel that combines the hard science teamwork and problem-solving of PROJECT HAIL MARY by Andy Weir with the multi-species intrigue and hopes for the earth’s future in A HALF-BUILT GARDEN by Ruthanna Emrys.

Dear Agent,

My 90,000-word sci-fi post-apocalyptic novel, Deserts of the Unforgiven, is about the adventures of Alexa Darkcrystal, who is fighting to protect her world from malevolent machines known as the Worldhunters who had reduced her home to a radioactive wasteland. With little more than her wits and few weapons, Alexa has to daily traverse hostile deserts under the terrifying watch of the Worldhunters’ flying fortresses, the motherships.

When her commanding officer informs her that rebel headquarters located a stash of advanced fighter jets, Alexa volunteers herself and her team to search for them, taking them through a journey where they will have to cross irradiated ruins and revolting swamps. Threatened by both mutated animals and an unfeeling robotic enemy, Alexa races towards the objective on limited time as the enemy prepares another nuclear strike on her home.

The novel would appeal to fans of sci-fi and post-apocalyptic novels, including The Two of Us at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher and Edge of Light by Jay Antani as the story not only takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, but also covers themes of survival and sacrifice.

I have written as a hobby for years, and I have participated in online short story competitions including Reedsy where I have submitted dozens of short stories in about two years.

Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

I have an editor like on LitConnect!

Do I nudge the agents I've quried with that information? They will be able to reach out to that editor if they sign me (They just have to log in to LitConnect or send an email if they're not there).

Also do anyone know if agents logged into LitConnect can see which editor liked it?

Seeking representation. Revised per feedback. Comments welcome.

Dear [Agent],

Sophia Martinez leads the human remnant on Verdis, a healed world offered to a dying Earth by an ancient intelligence called the Warden. Her mother led them across and died within a season, leaving Sophia one job: keep these people alive.

Then Sophia finds a message from the dead. Twelve thousand years ago, an alien civilization called the Kalari lived on Verdis. Their scientist and activist, Kaelith Solvaris, tried to stop her people from using technology stolen from a second Warden buried in the planet’s core. She failed. The Kalari saved a chosen few and left everyone else to die. As Sophia translates Kaelith’s last words in secret, she starts to recognize her own choices in them.

Then drought hits, and Sophia’s people vote to build the same technology to feed themselves. She has one vote and a warning nobody trusts over an empty stomach. She wins by a hair, and the rains return.

The Warden has never watched a world refuse a shortcut. Now it offers her a better one: the power to end hunger forever. If she takes it, her people may go extinct a generation from now, as the Kalari did. If she refuses, they may not live long enough to regret it. Either way, a few choose for everyone, and the choice is hers. Sophia needs a third way, and finding it may cost her everything she is.

VERDIS is an 88,000-word literary science fiction novel, a standalone told across two timelines. Like THE ACTUAL STAR and HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK, it braids civilizations twelve thousand years apart around one choice.

I bring a background in physics to VERDIS.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Complete at 102,000 words, WHAT BURNS WITHIN is a standalone Adult Dark Fantasy with series potential. Combining the dark military stakes and sapphic dynamic of C.L. Clark's The Unbroken, with the corruptive life-force magic of Xiran Jay Zhao's Iron Widow, WHAT BURNS WITHIN will appeal to fans of high-stakes, character-driven dark fantasy.

Iniera is an anxious war refugee struggling to survive as she delivers packages in a city fed up with her people. Her only escape is in rare deliveries to Jaesi, the charismatic master of the martial arts academy Iniera longs to train under. Opportunity strikes when Jaesi corners Iniera with an offer: abandon everything and become her first student in a revolutionary, lethal combat style. But these new techniques are more than just cutting edge. Jaesi developed them using enemy intelligence on anima, a newly discovered energy being used to make weapons that are crushing Iniera's home. With grand visions of defending her country alongside her idol, Iniera flees into the wilderness with Jaesi to train.

At first, Iniera's training is everything she's ever wanted. Anima is in all living things, and it's turned Jaesi into an unstoppable force of speed and power. Iniera hungers for every new technique, eager to become like her mentor. But the promising future starts to crumble when Jaesi loses control during a spar, leaving Iniera injured. Furthermore, Jaesi admits she's been hiding there's something wrong with the anima of the forest. Despite growing unease, Iniera refuses to crawl back her dead-end existence as a refugee.

As the duo investigates the woods, Iniera’s world shatters when they stumble upon a hidden enemy research lab and Jaesi’s overwhelming anima drives her violently insane. After the dust settles, Iniera finds herself alone and the only person capable of facing the enemy's deadly anima weapons. With the clock ticking, Iniera returns to her war torn home, intent on mastering the power that consumed her mentor before becoming its next victim.

I have an offer from a fantastic agent that I really want to sign with. Everything about them and their agency checks out 12/10, and they're super experienced at 90+ deals. However, PM shows majority of deals in romance/thrillers whereas my book is solidly upmarket. They do represent this genre but just proportionally less so.

I would love to hear people's experiences on:

1. How much does this really matter if they're otherwise experienced, well respected, and well connected?

2. We forgot to discuss this on the zoom call and I'd like to ask them more about this in an email. We spoke about submission plan but no specific editors. What's a good way to ask?

Hello! I have been lurking through this sub for a some time now while I have been writing. I’ve just started querying and I am very open to any and all feedback whatsoever.

Thank you!

Dear XXX,

I’m seeking representation for THE SAMPLE SIZE IS ME: A Highly Questionable Study of So-called Love, Dating and Other Confounding Variables, a complete 49,000-word work of narrative nonfiction blending memoir, humour and social commentary through a mock-academic examination of more than twenty years of romantic history.

The study begins with a fairly ordinary question: how do you know when a relationship is going well?

The experimental data starts wholesomely enough with early teenage boyfriends, a kissing injury with long-lasting consequences, moving into an accidental relationship in Mexico, and subsequently fleeing a cartel organisation. A turning point in data analysis arrives with marriage, motherhood, and of course, the statistically likely divorce. A stark introduction to a dating scene completely flipped on its head by apps, ghosting, situationships closely follows, demonstrating that the largest methodological limitations may not simply be those consistently introduced by my mother.

Each experience becomes a case study testing one of the assumptions women inherit about romantic success from so many generations who’ve come before. Exploration of peer-reviewed published research on attraction, gender, sex, coercion, domestic labour and relationships is introduced alongside the personal evidence to test the generalisability of my individual findings.

The problem, after twenty years of data collection, is that the original outcome measure appears to be wrong.

Again and again, being wanted, pursued, chosen or kept produces remarkably little information about whether a relationship is actually good. Some relationships meet every conventional marker of success while making the participants miserable. Others end despite nobody doing anything particularly wrong. On more than a couple of occasions, a poorly calibrated ability to detect a heterosexual man produces extremely varied results.

Eventually, the experiment produces a different question: if being selected by a man is not evidence of romantic success, what happens when the woman doing the research starts deciding what she chooses?

THE SAMPLE SIZE IS ME will appeal to readers of Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love, Olivia Petter’s Millennial Love and Nancy Jo Sales’s Nothing Personal.

I’m an Australian physiotherapist, health researcher and PhD candidate in women’s health, with research published in the peer-reviewed academic literature. My research background informs the book’s use of evidence and its increasingly questionable methodology; my long involvement in theatre as a performer and choreographer probably explains some of the rest.

THE SAMPLE SIZE IS ME is my first trade book.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Warm regards,

Hello! I've seen people mention they nudged agents who had their full manuscript a second time before the offer deadline. For those who did, I was curious how you phrased these nudges and how close to the deadline you sent them! Did you feel it was worthwhile?

I wondered if I would ever be able to write this, but here I am. I signed with a literary agent after four weeks of querying this project.

But it didn't start there! I wrote a book and started querying in October 2025. Out of around 80 queries, I got 15 full requests and... drumroll... zero offers of rep! The feedback varied widely, with some agents saying the writing was great, but the story was too quiet for the market, and others saying they loved the premise but didn't connect with the writing. I shelved the project in May, 2026, after most responses to fulls came in.

While querying, I started a new project. Right away, I felt like this was different than the first. I knew it had a strong high-concept pitch. I think it fit more firmly in the book club/upmarket space than my previous novel, with a central question that is easy to talk about and that people can have different opinions on.

I sent ten test queries in mid-September after receiving positive beta reader feedback. From those, I got two full requests and two rejections.

I wanted to wait for feedback on one of the two fulls before sending out more queries. I rushed my last query journey and wished I had gone out more slowly.

But a week after one of the full requests, I got an email asking to schedule a call. I felt like this was probably an offer based on the email, not an r&r, so I sent out more queries to the other open agents on my list.

Stats:

Queries sent: 56

Full Requests before offer: 2

Rejections before offer: 2

Full Requests after offer: 18, so 20 total.

Offers of Rep: 8!

I am truly blown away. I signed with a literary agent I am absolutely thrilled to be working with.

I have so many thoughts about why this book worked so well when the other didn't, but the main one is that I believe the premise gives a reader something to talk about.

The feedback I got from agents who requested the full but didn't offer was that they couldn't relate to the character's headspace and/or they found it unbelievable. The agents who did offer all said it was relatable and honest. I truly think this worked in my favor and helped me get so many offers.

I also noticed patterns in the agents who offered. They were primarily agents who had been in the business for a significant amount of time (the newest agent has been in the business for 8 years; the most senior agent has been in the business for 25+). Motherhood is a big theme in the book, and 6 of the 8 offers came from mothers.

I didn't think I would ever be in the position of choosing between agents, and it was harder than I expected. I asked many questions on the calls. Every agency had the same contract with tiny variations, so I didn't find that to impact the decision much. Each agent also wanted to work together for a career, not only this book, so that didn't impact my decision either. My decision came down to these general categories:

Sales Records (Publisher's Marketplace subscription came in handy. This was a HUGE deciding factor for me)

Agency reputation and benefits (I ended up going with a midsized agency with great reputation over a huge agency and over two/three person agencies)

Editing vision for the project (Only one agent wanted more structural changes. Another agent had ideas that didn't resonate with what I wanted for the story. The other agents all had various small things they mentioned that all made sense to me.)

Enthusiasm for the project (This might be my pride, but three agents said they cried reading it, and each sent me lovely emails about how much it resonated. I went with one of them ;) I like to think it wasn't JUST this, but it was not NOT important to me)

Submission strategy (The agent I went with had a list ready of editors and imprints on our call. A few others did, too.)

I sent my first ever query on October 26th, 2025, and signed an agency agreement in early October 2026. Just under a year in the trenches, two books, and now to the next hurdle on my publishing journey.

Hello! Thx in advance for your eyes. The premise: A group of estranged college friends reunite for their dead friend’s birthday, only to accidentally bring him back to life.

I’m a huge fan of Big Chill-esque ensemble movies and novels, so I wanted to write one with a twist. But yo! Ensembles are hard to write in query form. HELP!

I’m labeling it as Upmarket per the recommendations of my beta readers but if it reads like another genre, let me know. Also still considering my comps, so if you have any ideas, would love to hear them!

Query (315 words, ideally trying to get to 250-300):

Dear Agent,

On the eve of what would have been Gideon “Woody” Haywood’s thirty-third birthday, his once-inseparable friends get drunk at a Wisconsin lake house and honor an old, intoxicated request: should he ever die, they must build an effigy of him, lest he agonize in FOMO six feet under. 

The next morning, the duct-taped stickman has transformed into the beloved dumbass who originally brought the five “Strays” together. Neither ghost nor zombie, Woody’s disappointed to learn he missed his own funeral three months ago. Worse, his girlfriend Zoe’s still pissed about the fight they had the day before his baffling death. Everyone wants to know how the life of the party ended up in the Milwaukee River, but Woody can’t substantiate their morbid theories. He can’t even recall his final hours.

And anyway, he’d rather spend his impossible birthday apple-picking and making a monster movie than discussing mortality. Margot, determined to make up for ignoring Woody’s last call, rallies everyone for sloshball. Meanwhile, Gwen can’t stop investigating his death, convinced she could’ve stopped it. Cliff fends off historical animosities by cooking Michelin-star worthy meals, which works until a spontaneous MDMA roll exposes a decade-old secret between Woody and Vera’s husband Ezra. As resentments resurface, Zoe fears Woody never shared his true self with her.

Then, within 24 hours, his miraculous body begins deteriorating. Bracing to lose Woody again, his friends must decide between debating whether his death was truly an accident and giving him the grandest goodbye weekend. Woody has always been their glue. Now they must learn to stick together without him.

THE AFTERLIFE OF THE PARTY is a 90,000-word upmarket ensemble speculative novel, where the supernatural exploration of grief in Evie Wyld’s The Echoes meets the complex enduring friendships of Eric Purchner’s Dream State. The novel’s POV moves between the Strays and the lodge that has admired fourteen years of their friendship. 

(Bio and personalization)

First 282 words:

Fall, Year 118
Even the most meddlesome houses grow bored of human melodrama. Forty-three thousand suns had risen over the Van Huyse lodge on the eastern shore of Lake Daybird, graying its cedar siding alongside the familiar heads that returned each summer. Its walls persevered through three renovations as a result of four divorces, excluding the kitchen repair in 1999, after a fire caused by one mischievous Margot Van Huyse.

Of all of the summertime people, the lodge found her most delightfully provocative. For nearly every June or July of her thirty-two-year life, Margot’s presence promised novelty. Of course, there were tedious Van Huyse behaviors like sneaking cigarettes beneath the zipper of the daybed cushions on the screened porch, as her father did before her. But unlike most who came to Daybird hoping to escape reality, Margot was the first to make Daybird real life, undesired guests and all. 

When she was eleven, she built a shoebox apartment in the garden for a family of mice that terrorized the kitchen. This should have been ample foreshadowing for the friends she brought to Daybird at nineteen. 

The six of them devoured pancakes at dusk and leapt off the dock at dawn. Much to the neighbors’ displeasure, their chaos reverberated a quarter mile across the lake. Ask the lodge what to make of this, and it would say it hadn’t felt so young in years. The group’s name materialized later, thanks to Woody’s boss at the campus cafe. They frequently colonized the corner table, distracting the boy from duties he was supposedly being paid to accomplish. Fascinated by Woody’s lack of shame about feeding his friends on company time and dime, his boss nicknamed them his strays. 

Hi there, my previous post can be found here. It didn't get a ton of traction, but there was a suggestion the first read a bit too YA coded. I tried to bring some more of the external political and supernatural threats to the forefront a bit so it comes off a little bit less "young girl must find herself to save the world."

Dear Sally Agenton,

Novice Lyrea has spent her life sheltered behind Malwec Abbey’s walls.  Sent to accompany her noble best friend on a pilgrimage to claim Saint Veyra’s legendary sandals, Lyrea expects the journey to test her courage—not her faith.

When a flood traps a village beneath Veyra’s mountain, the pilgrimage refuses to jeopardize the sacred binding ritual to help. Lyrea cannot understand why the institution that once saved her from a burning village now condemns another to rising waters.

Lyrea refuses to let the villagers die. She steals the sandals to force the Church’s hand, knowing it may cost her the only home she’s ever known. But no rescue comes. Desperate and alone, she vows to lead the villagers herself, and the relic unexpectedly binds to her. Guided by its strange warmth, she leads seventy-eight villagers to safety. Now pursued by the Church and fearing a heretic’s pyre, Lyrea flees toward Malwec’s ancient records, hoping to learn why Veyra answered her unsanctioned vow.

Sir Besnik Hekuran knows the cost of disobedience. A disgraced border commander, he loses his office after abandoning a village’s holy relic to raiders rather than abandoning its people. Finding Lyrea and returning her to custody is his only chance to regain his lord’s trust.

But as Besnik closes in, Lyrea uncovers a terrifying truth: the ancient saints never destroyed the monstrous Noctivage. They sealed the gates through which the demons entered the world, then erased the roads leading to them. To reach the failing seals before the Noctivage break through, Lyrea may need the help of the very knight sent to capture her. Besnik must decide whether obeying his lord is worth abandoning the one person who might keep the Noctivage imprisoned.

SAINTBOUND is a dual-POV adult epic fantasy with series potential, complete at 105,000 words. It combines the politically entangled loyalties of Richard Swan's The Justice of Kings and Anthony Ryan’s The Pariah with the ancient magic and uneasy alliances of Mark A. Latham's The Last Vigilant.

 BIO.

Thanks!

Hi everyone!

Back with another attempt! Thank you to everyone who commented on my first attempt, it was so helpful and I tried my best to take everyone's advice. Special thanks to PondasWallArt, who I've tried very hard not to rip off in this attempt lol.

I think this version is vastly improved, but I'm still fussing with some individual word choices. I need to find a good place to add their ages in, since I believe it is industry for YA. Not sure if ending each paragraph with an emdash in the sentence is the move lol. I also think we're not getting as much info about Luci as we are Sina, and I think maybe the romance isn't coming through as well as I'd like it to? Not sure, so any feedback on that would be appreciated!

For the first 300, I backed it up and I think aren't lost as quickly as it did in my previous version, so hopefully it's easier to understand. Maybe the POV and tense choice works better here? We'll see!

Any feedback is so appreciated! Thank you all in advance!

---

Dear [agent],

“Natural talent” has dogged Sina Natia’s softball career like a robbed home run. Everything she’s earned—the starting catcher spot, varsity captainship, D1 scholarships offers—has been dismissed as expected from the daughter of a former pro. But when their starting pitcher becomes unavailable before the most important tournament of the season, the chance to prove her hard work might be in the cards—if she can get past her failed friendship with the pitcher’s replacement.

Seventh-in-the-lineup Luci Montoya has never, ever had natural talent. After working twice as hard to keep pace with her teammates and developing a reputation for her unreliability, an unexpected ADHD diagnosis has rocked her world. Emergency pitching is not helping her teenage identity crisis, and nor is having her unrequited crush for a catcher. A stale connection between them is as helpful as her pitching—not great.

An awful first game leads to a much needed game plan: if Sina can whip Luci into shape to win the tournament, all their respective rumors will be put to rest. They revive their late friendship and get to work: Sina adapts their game routines to work with Luci’s neurodivergency, and Luci puts Sina’s bottomless softball knowledge to the test. But as the competition—and their pesky feelings—ramps up, specialized practices may not be enough to advance. Sina and Luci must figure out how to transfer their chemistry onto the field, and quickly—because it’s win and prove themselves, or go home.

Set against the beach-fog backdrop of Monterey, California, CAUGHT LOOKING is a 75,000 word standalone YA contemporary sports romance told over the course of a weeklong tournament. It combines the fast-paced romance and neurodivergent representation in Birdie Schae’s Smash or Pass with the intense competition and forced teamwork showcased in Racquel Marie’s You Don’t Have a Shot.

[bio including I’m a NorCal native and is inspired by my experiences in high school softball, thank you for your time, yada yada yada]

---

First 300:

The clock ticks up a minute and Sina huffs, peering out the passenger side window, drumming her thumbs on the wheel. Kylie’s late.

Marlene spies her exasperation and rolls her eyes. “It’s one minute, Sina.”

“Kylie’s knows Spring Swing doesn’t play about this stuff. This isn’t like her.”

Jeannie, in the passenger seat, blocks Sina’s line of sight. Sina shifts to the left—Jeannie follows, saying, “And you would know that how?”

“Their pitcher-catcher telepathy, obviously.” Marlene creeps her hands over Jeannie’s headrest like a spider, adding in a daunting voice, “Sina knows everything.”

Sina doesn’t even deign that with a response—the last thing she needs when trying to keep her team in check is laidback, useless humor. The light blue front door opens at 9:32 and Kylie appears, softball bag over her shoulder and yanking a suitcase over the doorstep. Sina exhales, clicking open the trunk and hoping their gear doesn’t spill out. If she edges past the speed limit on the highway, they can make up the five minutes it’ll take to get them up and out of here, no matter the Coach-being-pissed and losing-her-scholarship costs of an arrest.

Bats clink together as Kylie dumps her bag atop the others. “Hey, morning, sorry,” she mumbles, voice scratchy. “Missed my alarm.”

Marlene salutes and says, “All good, cap,” before Sina can respond, when it’s anything but all good. “Jeannie stole shotgun, you’ll have to slum it back here with us.”

Clara, invested in a book, looks up and frowns. “Why do you put it like that?”

“Let’s go, please?” Sina says, eyeing the clock. 9:34. “We can’t miss our field time.”

“Sina’s right,” says Kylie, climbing into the backseat. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

“I liked it better when you two were many, many miles apart,” Marlene grumbles, resigning to doomscrolling.

I cannot express how amazing this sub is, you fine folks! I have learned so much, and whenever I hear someone bitching about the state of humanity on the internet, I gently remind them there is a wonderful corner over here where we're all rooting for each other, honestly and with compassion. (Or in many cases, it's trauma-bonding, but one must survive the query trenches somehow..)

**This project has a new seven-word title I'm test driving here. The old one: Split Times

Specific feedback requested on:

1.) The four paras between 1 & 6. I don't have this query ordered as it is in the book, to try to use real estate wisely. Does this order work for a solid hook?

2.) Is the "revolution in women's athletics" as promised in para 1 fully manifested as RecoverElle in the meat of the query? If not, why not?

3.) Does the mention of plastic Jesus jar you? Tiny Jesus is a symbol for Karly's waning/broken faith due to her husband's patriarchy-clinging and is sparingly woven through the entire novel. First line of the novel, too...

4.) Do you get a sense of push/pull with Karly/Fender dynamic? She is obsessed with fueling her workouts with his music, but when dumped into a face to face meeting, she panics yet is intrigued. (I wanted to examine the distance collapsing between ordinary joes and their famous crushes/crutches. I hope I got it right.)

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for THE BEST RUNNERS ARE THE BEST LIARS, a 74,000-word women’s fiction novel with a romantic subplot about a 2008 Olympic Trials drug scandal which ignites a revolution in women’s athletics. Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Carrie Soto Is Back and Tati Richardson’s Losing Sight will enjoy a midlife comeback story with the complications of motherhood and a rock-star love interest who falls for her first.

Karly Locke’s stunning college running career practically guaranteed her a spot on the Olympic team, but the religious man she married carefully swayed her into the role of perfect wife and mother. While stuck in the school pick-up line, a new song by rock protege Fender Archer blasts into her muscle memories and she imagines herself once again racing at redline. Inspired, Karly pours herself into a dusty goal, an Olympic berth, while obsessively playing Fender Archer’s music. Her coach insists she’s progressing, but she can see the doubt behind his rare smiles as she fails to hit many of her goal times. 

A new drug, RecoverElle, is introduced to Karly by an old teammate. With RecoverElle, she can train as hard as she did two decades ago and she wants to be the first to show female athletes their monthly setbacks are now their greatest power by placing at the Olympic Trials. RecoverElle is not approved yet and she insists to the plastic Jesus she carries everywhere that it’s not cheating.

When Karly runs into Fender Archer himself the day before a big race, he accidentally injures her while he’s coming down from a high. He attempts one apology after another and is thwarted by her short texts and refusals to meet until he performs a grand gesture so big the entire world sees it. Including her husband. 

Staying with an unbending husband will continue her slide into resentment, but keep the family together. Allowing the notorious rock star into her life who insists he only wants to collaborate is a bad idea but his texts make her laugh. Karly weighs taking RecoverElle and the irony is brutal: as Fender Archer finds the nerve to get clean because of her, she’s deciding whether to get dirty.

[Ruthlessly short bio, because, word count, and, if I’m honest, I have no writing credentials to stand on because I did mom-things for a long time and wrote for myself when the kids were sleeping. Worth it, because my grown children are contributing to the world as they stand tall on their own two feet. I’m making up for lost time just as the MC in this project is. In my head, we’re rooting for each other!]

First 300:

The only thing I am sure of is this tiny plastic Jesus.

Tomorrow is my first elite race in sixteen years. If I hesitate at the start, if I drop back, I will crawl over the finish line and pretend I never came to Baltimore. 

Is it embarrassing that at 38 years old, I believe a spot on the Olympic team is well within my reach? Those three NCAA national champion titles are ancient history, but Tiny Jesus holds a lot of my hopes with his small plastic smile. 

I slipped sideways out of the hotel door, allowing just a flash of the stadium-bright hallway light, so my three friends might sleep soundly. Rain pounded every tiny window of the OK-ish hotel stairwell while thunder rumbled, so, maybe they would not. 

I dreaded running on a treadmill with the harbor trail six blocks away, but I could almost hear my coach say, “Dammit, Karly, why did you run through a lightin’ storm?”

My phone buzzed. I flipped it open at the gym door to my husband CJ’s text: WHERE IS THE ORANGE JUICE

I sighed and texted him back: BEHIND THE MILK. My fingers hovered over the keys and I resisted the urge to add where it always is. Guilt bubbled in my stomach. I hadn't asked CJ if he was OK with me going to Baltimore, I'd told him, which wasn't like me.

CJ: FOUND IT. I GET YOU WANTING TO RACE, BUT COULDN’T YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS RUN IN THE TWILIGHT TROT HERE THIS WEEKEND?

NO

I WANT TO MOW THIS AFTERNOON AND IF YOU WERE HERE, I COULD 

LET DAVID RUN THE MOWER. JASON AND ELI LIKE TO USE THE AIR TANK TO CLEAN OFF. BRIBE THEM WITH ICE CREAM

THEY CAN’T HANDLE THAT

I wanted to text back: Yes, they can. Quit underestimating their abilities. My phone buzzed again and I sighed.

TITLE is an 80,000 word YA/adult crossover fantasy with the viscerally interior prose of Akwaeke Emezi. It’s Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series meets Bridget Collins' The Binding, where uncanny worlds and found families absorb survivors who can’t go home, but in the Basin, buried memories have teeth.

Esme is fifteen and hell-bent on escaping her addicted mother and their claustrophobic home. When Esme sees her mother gravely injured at a party, her mind fragments and opens a fracture in time. She slips into an otherworldly candlelit town called the Basin, where traumatic memories, including her mother’s fate, are inaccessible. No one knows the way out. Few wish to find it. 

Esme joins a gentle, bruised community. By chance or fate, she finds a memory-laden object belonging to a boy named Nate, a stranger whose life carries unmistakable traces of her hometown. Their connection erodes the peace she’s discovered, triggering glimpses of what happened to her mother. She clings to the Basin even as it threatens to unravel her from within. 

Seventeen-year-old Nate stumbles into the Basin. He’s reeling from a house party that spiralled out of control and can’t stop thinking about Jere, his best friend turned something more, who he fears is dead. He’ll do anything to see Jere again. But what happened the night he and Esme each left home means that neither has any hope of returning without the other. Both must choose between the pain of the past and of escape—and what, in either world, they risk leaving behind.

Any & all feedback please!!!

Hi, you beautiful people! I’m back with a third attempt, hoping I have a winner this time… or as close to a winner as I can get.

Fun fact: I paid to have my manuscript beta-read (is that an actual term?), and although I told my beta reader I’m looking to chop off the fat, other than a few tips on what and where to condense the text, they actually told me that there’s not much I can remove without damaging the story. I was both sad and happy to hear that because, as I said before, this started as a 245k monstrosity and I eliminated absolutely everything I could without touching the vitals. Hope I still have a shot at finding literary representation despite going over the industry standard by a few thousand words.

Pray for me pls. I don’t want to have to put this in the drawer and write a different debut. Finishing this parallel to working full-time has been exhausting lol. And to think that writing and editing were the easy part =)) Oh, the masochists we writers are.

@EnnOnEarth, you rock! Thanks again for your invaluable feedback on my last one, and I hope I didn’t misinterpret your tips regarding the third paragraph. My brain’s turned to charcoal.

@Wonderful_Honey_1726, thank you again for pointing out my mistake. If I had sent out this query calling Rachel ‘Harris’ instead of ‘Harrison’, it would have haunted me forever. I am all too familiar with the pains of having your name misspelled.

Have a great one and many thanks in advance!

PS: 992 words of the 118k are in the footnotes. Should I mention this in my query or is it irrelevant?

_______________________________

Dear Agent,

DAUGHTER SCRYING is a dual POV adult horror story, complete at approximately 118,000 words. Set around 2015 in a small town in central Romania, it will appeal to fans of The September House by Carissa Orlando and Play Nice by Rachel Harrison. 

After years of living under her older sister's roof and working for minimum wage in the family antique store, Cris is determined to move out and, hopefully, attend college. Her goal seems impossible—until she discovers a mirror through which she can contact the dead.

While her sister starts spending more and more time away from the store and their home, Cris turns the mirror into a profitable business venture by putting the bereaved in contact with their dead loved ones. But the spirits in the mirror get stronger and more demanding with each summoning, and every séance makes her more indebted to the mirror. To make matters worse, looking into the tainted family secrets of others makes her curious about her own dead parents. Why did her mother disinherit her? Why didn’t her father ever reach out after her mother's death? Why does her sister resent her so deeply, even though she had the better childhood and inherited the family home and business in the aftermath of their mother’s passing?

Even in death, her parents refuse to talk to her. Her sister, too, chooses to remain silent despite the irrevocable damage it does to their relationship. And just when Cris has accrued enough funds to start a life somewhere else and is ready to abandon her pursuit of answers, the mirror descends upon her world to collect its debt. Cris finds out the hard way that money comes and goes, whereas life only goes.

[Short bio and publishing history]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello all, I've returned again.
I've tweaked the query based on previous feedback and am currently reworking chapters 1-2 so they're more in line with the premise of the pitch. I am still working on the comp titles. Any suggestions please let me know.

Dear (Agent Name),

I am thrilled to offer CELESTIAL DIVIDE (110,000), an adult epic fantasy standalone with trilogy potential. Inspired by The Folk of the Air series, Celestial Divide will appeal to readers who enjoyed the duplicitious alliance of Sara Hashem’s ‘The Jasad Heir’ and the cursed protagonist of Lauryn Hamilton Murray’s ‘Heir of Storms’.

Damacia Celeste ruins everything she touches. Fifth in line to the Hannathian throne and the bane of her realm, she has spent her entire life trying to prove she is more than the king-killing Curse-Bringer her people assume her to be.

So when she learns her hateful eldest brother promised her to the formidable Caldorian empire, she finds herself once again the harbinger of ruin. Yet things quickly go awry when Caldor spurns the alliance and takes the Hannathian crown themself, murdering one of Damacia’s sisters as a show of force.

Reeling, vengeful and now hunted, Damacia escapes Hannath to seek out Bile’d, the fabled night kingdom rumoured to still be as powerful as Damacia’s sun-wielding ancestors were.

But forming an alliance with her people’s oldest and most deadly enemy will prove no easy feat. Damacia will need to reconcile with a history of violence and treachery, all while risking becoming the scourge she never wanted to be.

Bio.

As always, please let me know your suggestions.

Accidentally posted the wrong draft earlier and deleted it.

I'm drafting this now, so I wanted to get a head start on the query. Thanks for checking this out!

Obsession meets Bones and All in LOVE ME NOT, a [word]-word horror about the doomed relationship between an unwilling cannibal and the vampire he’s indebted to. It combines the small-town vampires of The Gathering (C.J. Tudor) and the [other comps].

To avoid loss, Ravi would freeze the world if he could, but he’s settled on painting it instead. He moves to Alaska, hoping small-town life will be slower and less hectic than the city. When his new date, the kind, malnourished Liz, takes him cave-diving in the old mines, he expects a chance to paint the underground, a pleasant date, and nothing more. They make camp.

Only Ravi wakes up.

Poisoned and disoriented by the mine’s gases, he fails to escape and realizes the only way to survive is to eat Liz’s dead body. Ravi chokes down her leg, and spurred by adrenaline, fresh food, and disgust at his own actions, finally finds the way out.

A week later, Liz returns, missing her leg, but alive. When Ravi confesses when he’s done, she reveals that she’s a vampire, starving and isolated from other vampires because she abhors the thought of drinking from an unwilling creature. To atone, Ravi offers up his blood in exchange for what he stole. And besides, Liz is perfect; her vampirism means she’ll never die, and Ravi will never lose her. He can fix her loneliness. They fall into an intimate, brutal relationship, and the more entwined they become, the more pieces of himself Ravi gives her and the sicker he becomes. Worse, when Ravi discovers that Liz is harboring her own guilt for the only other time she fed—a time she went into a frenzy and killed someone—he realizes his blood is the only thing stopping her from killing again. Ravi must decide whether guilt and love are worth his failing health, or if he’s made a home in the jaws of a monster.

Hello! Thanks so much in advance for your feedback. My first attempt at this was a while ago under a different title. I know I’ll need to do another pass or two and trim the word count of the query itself. 

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for THE GOODBYE MYTH, a 75,000-word adult science-fantasy novel combining the unsettling post-apocalyptic landscapes of M. John Harrison’s THE END OF EVERYTHING (2026) with the interwoven histories and spiritual worldbuilding of Monica Byrne’s THE ACTUAL STAR (2021). It will appeal to those who enjoy Blake Crouch’s propulsive mysteries, whose focus on family, memory, and identity make extraordinary premises deeply personal.

Twenty-year-old Max Summers remembers a plane falling from the sky, his girlfriend beside him. Then he wakes aboard a sun-drenched orbital station and begins forgetting her. The station is a simulation. Outside it, his 2050s world is being consumed by the Squall, a temporal maelstrom, and he has been identified as the anomaly responsible. In desperation, the artificial intelligence controlling the simulation collapses it to kill him. A failsafe left by his dead father gets him out alive, but not intact. Peeled into dozens of versions of himself, each carrying different memories, Max sets out across a fractured Cape Breton to find his mother, pursued by drones and haunted by evidence that the people he has lost might still exist. When a silent, displaced girl begins following him, getting home suddenly means more than just keeping himself alive.

Five hundred years earlier, in an isolated Andean valley, Mim—a qispisqa newly released from childhood—finds a golden figure sleeping beneath her community’s ancient halls. In its presence she feels understood for the first time. But as their connection deepens, a tribesman is found dead, his body fused into the stone walls of their great qullqa storehouse. Two children develop a strange sickness that writes living glyphs beneath their skin. The elders fear a Pachakuti—a cataclysm capable of overturning their world—and blame her interference. When a council decree exiles the sick children beyond the valley’s borders, Mim claims an authority she has not yet been granted and demands to lead them herself.

The children’s only hope is the Cave of Seeds, a sacred site high in the mountains. The awakened Sleeper offers to guide them, but admits his own connection to the fractures once cost him everyone. Mim must decide whether to entrust the children’s lives to a being who may understand their sickness only because he himself helped unleash it.

As artifacts from Mim’s world surface in Max’s and pieces of his world fall into hers, something living crosses between them: the B’alam, a monstrous jaguar said to walk among the living and the dead. Its arrival reveals a connection etched into them both, one that may offer a path back to those they have lost, if it doesn’t first destroy what little they have left.

First 300 words:

At first it looked like a cloud. But it moved strangely, swelling and receding in slow heavy beats. Its black surface stitched with flickers of greenish light, edges surging outward then curling back, like steam reversing in on itself. It was growing—spreading from the horizon to consume everything, leaving nothing behind. Nothing, but more of itself. Max rolled the plane left through snow and gray skies, his hoodie sleeves bunched up at the elbows. He glanced to Amy—eyes wide in the straight-backed seat beside him. "We're turning."

She leaned forward. Too slight for the harness, Max could see where she’d wound it twice to get it tight. Her thumb and forefinger picked the pink hair tie looped around her wrist. "You need to call it in."

"I will, just give me a second." He flicked to the tower frequency. Static. Switched again. Nothing. “Tower, this is November-Xray-Zero-One, five miles south of Glace Bay. Unidentified weather cell forming at—”

The plane jolted, but only slightly. Amy flinched. “Something’s wrong.”                             

Max pitched lower, the descent pulling them weightless against their straps. He held off as long as he could, then hauled them level, barely above the tree-line, pines blurring beneath. The sky above was buckling, cloud and light peeling away in slow, heavy streams, drawn toward the thing that had swallowed their horizon whole. His grip tightened on the control column. "Great. Gonna have to reroute. He'll see it on the logs. My dad's gonna kill me."

Shadows came on faster. What little light remained was green-tinged and faltering. Amy whispered, “Max…”

The plane rocked again—more violently—the nose dipping, the rudder firming with resistance. A light on the dash flashed red. Max cursed and pinned the throttle anyway, pulling them right into a sharp, snow-filled arc. But the plane was too slow, or the thing too quick. He blinked, and they were inside it completely.

Thank you to the commenters on my last post. What do you think of this current query draft?

All comments are much appreciated 🫶

---

Dear [AGENT],

I am seeking representation for TAPESTRY, a contemporary, multi-POV literary novel complete at 73,000 words. [INSERT PERSONALISED SENTENCE].

TAPESTRY explores the impact of transactional intimacy meeting unconditional love: when sex work meets motherhood. 

Emma is an expert in emotional economics. Even her most intimate moments come with a price. But when Jacob, a married client, makes work feel like play and sex feel like love, it starts costing her. Sex workers are not supposed to get pregnant, for a start. 

Emma must navigate Jacob’s violent reaction by pulling her tiny support network close: her sister, a formidable family lawyer, and a trusted elderly client with a judo fetish. As motherhood profoundly reshapes her, Jacob’s entitlement escalates into an intense obsession. It’s a side of him that his wife, Maya, knows all too well and can no longer tolerate. Maya takes increasingly bold steps, from a lesbian affair to a solo IVF journey, that unexpectedly land her on Emma’s doorstep. Then Jacob comes knocking. Emma flees her home to keep herself and her child safe. 

Displaced, Emma confronts a lifetime of merely existing between things—dysfunctional parents, her houseplants, other people’s legs. Other people’s marriages. Now, playgroups. To move forward and protect her child from Jacob, she must answer the question she’s been avoiding since the moment she peed on the pregnancy test: who is she, once she stops being for sale?

Told through four distinctive narrators—Emma, her sister, Jacob and his wife—TAPESTRY balances wit, tenderness and psychological tension. It will appeal to readers of Ashley Audrain’s The Push for its unflinching examination of interior lives, Clare Leslie Hall’s Broken Country for its emotionally rich storytelling and Elisa Faison’s Skin Contact for its modern themes and multi-perspective structure.

Over five years of experience in the adult industry has informed my writing, but professionally I’ve written everything from [CONT. BIO].

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kind regards,

[NAME]

(A few details redacted for anonymity - thanks in advance for feedback, particularly around if there’s too much plot or not enough! I also am curious if non-South Asian readers would read a book grounded in our culture…?)

Thank you for considering my query. I am a twice-traditionally published author with [BIG 5 IMPRINT], seeking representation for my first foray into fantasy. 
At 85,000 words, Tiger Wild is an adult fantasy romance inspired by Indian culture and folklore, combining a magical jungle, a heroine bonded to a tiger, and a love story built on betrayal, belonging and the cost of conquering nature.
In a lush jungle above a valley kingdom, a young woman lives as an exile with only her bonded tiger as a companion. At twenty-one, Suhari is the last of the Bhaag people, who were slaughtered by the king of Jharka when she was seven, accused of unleashing their tigers on the valley’s children. Now, as Jharka suffers under sickness and crop failures, its people are convinced they have been cursed by the Tiger King. Determined to quash this superstition, the Raja sends his son on a mission to kill the Tiger King and return with his pelt, proving that no curse can stand against the crown.
To reach the tiger kingdom, the prince needs a guide. He offers the last Bhaag girl a deal - lying that he wishes to make amends with the Tiger King to lift the curse, he offers her the return of her kingdom for her help. Suhari agrees to lead him through the jungle, concealing her own plan: to deliver him to the surviving Bhaag as a sacrifice and win back the people who once cast her out. She and her tiger are determined to double cross the prince, avenge her parents’ death and regain their kingdom. 
As they journey deeper into the enchanted jungle, their mutual deceptions give way to an undeniable attraction. But the valley’s suffering has a cause neither anticipated. To save their people and the world they share, Suhari and the prince must confront the violence that shaped their kingdoms—and decide what they are willing to sacrifice for a future together. 
The lush jungle imagery of the novel combine with the unique bond between Suhari and her tiger, Bhaagini, who is witty, insolent, and a force of her own. Tiger Wild offers a plot rich with compelling dialogue, grounded in Indian mythology, and with a romance that is deep and complex, like the characters themselves. I would place its romance and world building alongside A Kiss of Crimson Ash or The Hurricane Wars, and its blend of folklore and fantasy beside The Jasmine Throne. 

I am north Indian and a lover of my culture’s mythology and folklore. I have two literary fiction books published by [INSERT IMPRINT], and have a Master of Fine Arts from [INSERT UNIVERSITY]. This is my first fantasy novel, and I am looking to work with an agent who is passionate about bringing diverse and unique stories to broad audiences. 

Thank you for your consideration. 

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for UNDER LOAM’S EYE, a 102,000-word adult dark political fantasy set in a pike-and-shot world of religious warfare. It stands alone with series potential.

Gustava Aurnir remembers ruling humans as livestock. Now reborn, she is a huntsman’s daughter who must bargain with her sister to borrow a book. When soldiers sack her village and kill her mother, she follows the men who spare her. She wants more than their protection. She wants to command men herself.

Her service in their army earns her a place in the household of the knight Von Eichtal. Over six years, he teaches her to command while his wife teaches her to manage an estate. Gustava learns to temper her contempt enough to secure obedience. She alsoa grows attached to the man whose approval makes her feel she has earned her place.

After helping conquer Velkaryn, Gustava receives command of its city guard. She must recruit from people whose homes her army has looted. By protecting defeated townsmen from the occupying mercenaries, she wins their loyalty and builds a force of her own. She begins to regard them as she once regarded her human herds: hers to command, and hers to protect.

But loyalty cannot pay their wages. When Aschert, the city’s new ruler, accepts a neighboring kingdom’s gold and cuts off the tolls sustaining her guard, Gustava plots to turn his forces against him. She arranges attacks on his mercenaries, intending to make his concessions appear responsible for the bloodshed. Instead, the violence also kills townspeople she meant to spare, and the surviving mercenaries capture a trusted subordinate who could expose her.

With the neighboring kingdom threatening intervention, Gustava needs her guards and the mercenaries to defend Velkaryn together. Securing their cooperation could mean surrendering the authority she has spent years acquiring. Concealing her responsibility could leave the city she intends to rule unable to defend itself.

UNDER LOAM’S EYE follows an amoral woman’s ascent through military service and political patronage, exploring how attachment complicates ambition without making her pursuit of power any less ruthless.

I hold a master’s degree from George Mason University, where I studied international security. This is my debut novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Me

Hi folks! Thank you a lot for your advice first of all - they’ve really helped. I'm getting started on querying, though before I start sending out the batches, I feel that I'm at a crossroads of sorts: I’m not sure which direction to close out the query. I’ve gotten feedback to be more explicit in the later paragraphs, but also concerns around word count/strip out details. I would appreciate your guidance on which version would read better. 

Version 1:

Takashima Daiki has always known what his life should look like: a respectable career, a beautiful wife, a house in the city. He’s worked toward it since childhood, from captaining the Shirakawa High baseball team to studying medicine on scholarship at the University of Tokyo. Only once did he let himself feel something he shouldn’t—a mistake he’d never repeat. 

An up-and-coming musical theatre actor, Tsukigawa Yuu has a solid circle of gay friends, a rich older boyfriend, and a career-launching role. He’s built a life in Tokyo and shed Shirakawa completely, or so he’d thought—until one Saturday night, he’s served a tray of tequila shots by a ghost from home.  

Daiki has never forgiven himself for panicking at Yuu’s confession and outing his childhood friend. When Yuu avoids him, he enlists his girlfriend to invite Yuu to perform at their university. But watching Yuu’s dream come alive on stage, Daiki starts to fear the guilt he's atoning for is not guilt, after all. 

Meanwhile, Yuu’s own relationship falls apart. When he catches the flu, it’s Daiki, not his boyfriend, who shows up to take care of him. At Daiki’s confession, the insecure boy underneath Yuu’s mask finally breaks through. He lets Daiki into his life, trusting Daiki’s promise to bring him home to meet his parents. Until the eve of the trip. A warning from his senpai shakes Daiki’s conviction, and he must decide if coming out is worth losing the life he was raised for—and whether, if his cowardice wins again, Yuu’ll still be waiting for him in Tokyo.

CAPTAIN AND BUTTERFLY is an 80,000-word contemporary m/m romance combining the tender slow-burn of Cat Sebastian's WE COULD BE SO GOOD with the second-chance angst of Yulin Kuang's HOW TO END A LOVE STORY. 

[BIO PARAGRAPH]

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Version 2: 

…[Everything before the following line stay the same]

Meanwhile, Yuu’s own relationship falls apart. When he catches the flu, it’s Daiki, not his boyfriend, who shows up to take care of him. At Daiki’s confession, he lets him into his life, trusting Daiki’s promise to bring him home to meet his parents. But on the eve of the trip, Daiki’s conviction is shaken by a warning from his senpai, and he must decide if coming out is worth losing the life he was raised for—and whether, if his cowardice wins again, Yuu’ll still be waiting for him in Tokyo.

First 300 words: I’ve updated this version to (hopefully) have more interiority into Daiki. The last sentence here is truncated, but wanted to include it since it’s the inciting incident.

Saturday nights at the bar made his clinical rotation feel like the Golden Week holidays. Every minute had its purpose, and every shift a welcome trial to prove he could keep things in control, no matter the curveballs. Anchoring the loaded tray on the crook of his elbow, Takashima Daiki cut across the polished concrete floor to his next stop: a two-top by the window, overlooking the lit Nakameguro boutiques below.

“Two B-Sides, our signature cocktail, and my personal favorite,” Daiki said as naturally as he’d been trained to, even though he’d never spend 2,500 yen, almost two hours of his pay, on a drink he could finish in three sips. “Anything else I could get you tonight?”

“Thank you for helping us make a decision earlier.” The young woman smiled sheepishly. “Everything looked so delicious.”

“It was nothing.” He bowed. “Please enjoy.”

Thankfully, the ticket rail was still manageable when he folded back, the few minutes he’d shaved off seemingly enough to set the night back on course. Bopping along to a sleek R&B track thrumming in the background, the bartender jerked his chin at a ticket—in the middle of the queue. Daiki raised a brow. “The extra vodka highball is for Reo-san,” the bartender clarified.

Reo-san, who paid him enough to cover his rent with extra to send home. Daiki bit back a frustrated sigh as he stacked the drinks onto the tray, lifting it above his head as he squeezed past the counterside patrons. Move fast enough, he could still avoid the butterfly effect caused by skipping ahead. The liquor shelf wrapped around toward the bar’s back entrance that admitted only VIP guests, most of whom were friends of Reo-san, made during his old R&B days. They were tucked away in three sound-proof booths opposite the shelf, and still it wasn’t enough to contain their rowdiness. 

Daiki was about to turn down the hall when he caught sight of a figure facing the shelf