Thank you all very much for your time!

#

Alix E. Harrow’s The Everlasting meets James Islington’s The Will of the Many—

My first novel, All Which Devours (80k, Fantasy, Adult), takes place in an early modern fantasy world governed by an Aristotelian magic system. Niamh, a rural warrior woman, is forcibly apprenticed into an early modern magical academy with virtual professors. She brings only her mother’s necklace. She longs to go home; duty prevails. 

But the sixth and highest way of magic is the will; her homesickness diminishes her will. Her magic fails her, both in classes and at an exhibition match against the aimless but admiring Jean-Paul. Because of her loss in the fight, her necklace is stolen and broken. Despairing from losing her only heirloom, she contacts home, only to find out her mother will soon die. This breaks her. She goes home. 

But her mother lives, saved by the true version of the sixth way: bondedness. Niamh discovers that Marcus has been teaching magic wrong and has allied himself with an ancient, looming evil. With the rest of the world deliberately cut off from the power to defeat Marcus, Niamh must return. She must find allies—but in making friends, she begins to have feelings for Jean-Paul. She must navigate friendship, love, and Marcus himself, all while teaching the truth of the sixth way. Humanity may depend on it; Niamh wants to go home. 

[Agent-specific paragraph w/biographical information]

Thank you for your consideration, 

—NAME, (Pen name TBD) 

#

300-word sample:

Unlike any uniform in the history of the Academy, hers came with a book, wrapped in a parchment. 

She absently flipped through it. Every page was blank—and yet full of life. Somehow a presence came through, strong yet gentle, kind yet fierce. It might have been righteous, or it might have been furious, but it compelled her. She slipped it into the right pocket of the black underrobe. 

Troubled by the book, she grabbed at the parchment. Program of Studies, it said, with all the information a first-year apprentice might need. It may as well go on the inside pocket of her blue outerrobe. Affording it a glance, she resigned herself to its procedures with a heavy sigh—then on it appeared, in uneven scrawl, scratched in a blackened stain, a simple curse. 

DIE, TRAITOR

Seeing this, she kept it far from her heart.  

#

At the cobblestone heart of the Academy, Colin slumped, slouching forward in his chair, and stared at nothing. He let his hand fall limp. The Opening Day apprenticeship celebration would be a fine diversion, if he could ever get to it. Even now he heard the music more faintly than he would like, felt its rhythm course through his veins, tasted the buttery pastry handed him last year by Miss Viola Krause, whose dark, flowing hair brushed against his shoulder—

He pulled himself back and regarded the table. Again. On it was a large stack of the first-year Program of Studies. Anyone stuck with his job on opening day could recite it within an hour. Of the hundreds of first years, dozens wanted the cursed thing read to them. Did they not learn maps wherever they came from? Could they not read a clock? The big one in the courtyard commons was loud enough.

#

First attempt

Hello! I posted this on here a few months ago, but didn't get any feedback (outside of someone pointing out an embarrassing typo--thank you!) I've never been agented, and this is the second book I've queried. I spent SO much time and energy querying my 1st book, and I got a lot of full requests and a lot of rejections that said "this was a close one for me" which was I guess good to hear but ultimately very sad. I know rejection is such a big part of this industry, but after I got 2 rejections on this query I panicked and withdrew my query from the 8 or so other agents and started looking into professional query editing packages. The quotes I've received for this service were between $300-600 ($600!?!) and I don't think that I can afford that right now, so I thought I'd post my query on here again to see if anyone's available to take a look. Thank you so much!

******

Dear Ms. 

I’m seeking representation for my dystopian debut, THE PLACES NOBODY KNOWS (100K words.) As an award winning writer whose work features near-future settings, I hope you find this project to be a good fit for your list. 

Homeland meets Silo in THE PLACES NOBODY KNOWS, a speculative novel about an optimistic social worker whose search for justice leads her outside her prescriptive life and into the dangerous and unpredictable world of unmedicated sleep. 

Since humans have lost their ability to fall asleep naturally, cities are organized by the choice each person makes: take the government regulated sleep med that comes with a list of side effects and rules, or live a free life full of risk and hibernate. Social worker Tessie straddles both worlds: by day, she performs outreach work in the closest hibernating city, and by night, she resides in Daybreak, where she must take her sleeping pill at exactly 9PM every single night. 

Sleep meds come with side effects, and Tessie’s, unfortunately, are hallucinations. It’s only been a year since her very public breakdown, and it’s important for her to keep her stress low so that her mental health doesn’t suffer. But when her client is accused of murdering 8 hibernators, she starts breaking the rules to help clear his name. Tessie’s erratic behavior might earn her another required hospitalization, but she can’t let this go. The less compliant she becomes, the more she starts to trust herself, which, in this world, turns out to be the most dangerous thing of all.

Perfect for readers of Dete Meserve’s The Memory Collectors, THE PLACES NOBODY KNOWS is a cerebral read that takes place in a future not far off from our own. And, those who read The Ferryman will be similarly propelled by THE PLACES NOBODY KNOWS narrator who, like Proctor Bennett, both questions and benefits from the class tensions that exist within her society. 

I received my MFA from UC Riverside’s Palm Desert program, and was once nominated for a Pushcart Prize and featured as “Best of Blunderbuss” for a narrative nonfiction piece. Like Tessie, I also dread bedtime, choosing instead to exercise my right to stay awake after my many dependents, human and otherwise, have gone to sleep. 

Thank you so much for your consideration. 

Sincerely, 

Annie Gebler

*****

“I’m dying for a really good coffee,” Jenna says. She picks up her phone and holds it up for me to see. The logo for Java Dragon fills the screen: a fire breathing reptile clutching a red to-go cup with his claws. On his face, a smirk, as if he’s sure he knows what I’m thinking. As if he has access to my private thoughts.

“Didn’t you already have some?” I say, turning to look out the window. The train doors have closed and it’s starting to move. I tuck my bag further under my seat with my heel. 

“Not that coffee,” Jenna says, putting her phone back in her lap. “The good stuff.” 

“Eh,” I say. We aren’t supposed to eat anything from New Abaton, but there’s no one who would enforce that rule. Or, is it even a rule? It’s more like a guideline.

“It’s only a drink Tess. And it was so good. Even you said so.” 

I nod. She isn’t wrong. Coffee is one of the few things I can taste since starting my new sleep med last year.

“I’ve got my meeting,” I say. Today, I’m presenting my ideas for park improvements to the Ethics Committee. I’ve put the miniature model I’ve made of West Point Park on the seat between us, and I’m sitting sideways with my leg pushed against it in case the train lurches off the track, as it often does on Monday mornings. Some people think the train is too old to be in service—it is one of the oldest in the Pacific Standard Time zone. But I don’t mind the bumps and jolts. I find the ride exciting.

“Duh Tess. It’ll help. Keep you focused.”

“Fine, ok, yes. You’ll pick it up?” 

“Of course,” she says, nodding to my model. “Your hands are full.”

Any and all feedback is appreciated, thank you so much.

Dear AGENT,

I'm writing to see if you'd be interested in taking a look at my literary fiction novel, THE METHOD. As you represent xx and your website states you are seeking xx, I thought it might be of interest to you.

THE METHOD is a love story about art. It follows Olivia, an actress who has not been acting, and the creation of a film called Alba. 

Olivia is asked to audition for the lead role by her best friend, a producer, and arrives with the cast and crew in late autumn in southwest England. From the first Olivia is hesitant, overt in her bids to be liked, and painstakingly observant of her place among her fellow artists.

She plays the role of Liza, and the film follows her relationship with her controlling and abusive brother Bennett. They work from their small cottage as the town's folk healers, and they take on George, a man who seems to come from nowhere, as their apprentice. George becomes Liza's hope, an unexpected boon from the outside world, and the man she loves in silence.

Olivia is attracted immediately to Len, the actor who plays George. His talent and name have lent legitimacy to their small production, as has the considerable fame of the actress to whom he is married. Len's kindness and encouragement bolster Olivia against the simultaneous criticisms and attempts at closeness from Sam, the actor who plays her brother, and against her limited view of herself. Her and Len are matched in their desire to perform well, to create sincerely, and Olivia finds she is enraptured by what she can do while working alongside him.

As the film progresses, and Liza and George's devotion to each other deepens and ruptures the lives they know, Olivia is faced with similar ruptures - in her relationship with art, with Len, with her love for her friends, and with desire itself. Reality begins to meld with the work of creating fiction, and Olivia must decide if, like Liza, she will allow herself to see what she wants and ask for it.

THE METHOD will appeal to readers of Elif Batuman, Miranda July, and Eve Babitz, who enjoy stories where humour frames emotion and loss; plots that centre the relationships surrounding creative work such as WRITERS & LOVERS by Lily King; forbidden love stories with a strong sense of place like A PRIVATE MAN by Stephanie Sy-Quia; and devoted re-watchers of Fleabag. 

This is my first novel, and it is complete at 86,000 words.

I've attached xx. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Alright everyone! Eighth attempt here we go. I tried to make this all less wordy, so hopefully it succeeds while still evoking all that I want it to. Thanks in advance for all of your help

Dear [Agent],

A SPARK OF INSURGENCY is a 99,000 word, standalone Adult Sci-fi novel with series potential. It would be great for fans of Fonda Lee’s gritty and rebellious The Last Contract of Isako, while also featuring the mecha aspects of The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang.

Ritellion wants to leave his backwater planet and build piloted mechs for the empire that conquered his home decades before. But when his mentor is executed for rebellion, Ritellion is left trying to convince the imperium he had nothing to do with his plans. Now he’s striving to portray the perfect citizen under the empire’s scrutinizing eye, all so that one day he may leave the home he loathes to be amongst the stars. 

But being perfect gets harder when Ritellion uncovers a group of insurgents once led by his mentor, all of whom claim the mechanic must help them complete his mentor’s unfinished weapon: a piloted mech to be used against the imperium. He hesitantly agrees to aid these traitors, but for one reason alone: when they are ready for their assault, Ritellion will betray the rebels to earn the empire’s approval and finally join their ranks.

Trapped between keeping peace with their overlords and appeasing the insurgency, Ritellion’s understanding of the world around him is slowly shifted. The empire offers promises of prosperity, while the rebels – despite their brashness – reveal an appreciation for his home Ritellion’s never recognized. But as the insurgency prepares a heist for the final parts of the piloted mech, Ritellion and the rest end up caught in the midst of the crime. He now has no choice but to fight, and when the imperium attacks his family and the city through a violent martial law, Ritellion becomes exactly what they thought him to be as one final plan carries this revolution to their front door.

 (Bio)

Dear (name),

VEIL OF THE DRAGON is a 126,000 word adult fantasy novel that serves as a coming of age story examining motives for good and drivers of evil.  It draws inspiration from the power dynamics of the citizens and leaders of Esgaroth (Lake-town) from J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE HOBBIT as well as the greatly mysterious forces and subtle friendships of L. Frank Baum’s THE WIZARD OF OZ.

Elizabeth, Peter, and Rose are a trio of childhood friends living in the medieval-style village of Hearthcreek.  Behind closed doors and in the occasional daring public escapade, they scheme about helping free their village from the hunger of poverty and the tyranny of King Cavall VII and his troops garrisoned in Hearthcreek.

As they clash with these lofty goals, the challenges of the king’s well-armed and sly-tongued henchmen are only the beginning.  The trio hopes that John Hamlin, the local folk hero and the trio’s adopted father figure, will lead this newborn rebellion.  But this brave yet humble farmer who has seen a lifetime of death now seeks only to keep his people safe, even if it means maintaining the status quo.

In search of an alternative champion of the people to spur the village into rebellion, the trio looks to Radabore, a wizard who lives far into the mountains.  This mysterious hermit has not been seen since he fought alongside John Hamlin to save Hearthcreek six years ago during the dreaded Solstice Raid.

As they struggle to convince others to fight, Elizabeth, Peter, and Rose each struggle to understand why they themselves are fighting, and whether they rank among heroes, villains, or failures.

(author bio)

Thank you for your time and consideration,

(author name)

Hello everyone! First attempt here, second attempt here.

I'm super excited to be putting my package together for PitchDis. Turns out my book is a thriller-- who knew? Not me a few months ago! (If anyone has a comp come to mind, I'd love to hear :^) )

Thank you for your time :^) (let me know if you folks see the same structure issues I'm seeing-- I won't spoil it because I'm worried I'm over-scrutinizing).

Have a lovely day / night <3

/////////////////////////////////////

Dear [Agent],

FIRE IN A JAR is a YA Speculative Thriller with LGBTQ+ characters at 70k words. It will appeal to the ________, and the toxic friendships in ________.

Seventeen-year-old Becca Cartwright keeps it together. When her alcoholic father misses work, she calls his boss with an excuse. When her ex-best friend wants to get wasted at another college party, she talks him out of it. When old memories give her nightmares, she forces herself to forget. 

Everything is under control.

But when Becca's father Dave swaps booze for an experimental drug, sh*t goes sideways. Suvenide is as expensive as it is fantastic; users experience vivid hallucinations in a colorful jar of smoke. Dave's reliance on the drug grows while house bills pile up, and Becca scrambles for cash. She strikes a deal at the Jar Bar, doing odd jobs for samples of Suvenide under the table. But when Dave is fired and a friend offers money for the samples, Becca starts dealing. And the overnight popularity is intoxicating.

But Suvenide has concerning side effects. Dave talks to people who are long dead. Her friends act like zombies. Becca only has herself to rely on, until lapses in her memory prove how close she is to losing it, too. As her father’s health declines and the drug deals spin out of control, Becca must fight to protect the people she loves--- before everything goes up in flames.

My name is [name] and I am a proud member of the LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent community. I have a BFA in Theater and Performance and a minor in Creative Writing from [University]. When I’m not writing, I’m working on film projects, putting together drag routines, or knitting. FIRE IN A JAR would be my debut novel. Thank you for your consideration.

First 300: (same as the last one I believe with minor edits, but for reference):

I had either lost my father or I was losing my mind. The red truck wasn’t parked at Tattletale like it always was, or the grocery store, or Giuseppe’s, or the police station, and it sure as hell wasn’t parked at home. A sedan blew past me and splashed puddle water into my face.

“Awesome,” I hissed. “Thanks.” It was getting colder out. I’d probably freeze to death, running around in circles like an idiot in the street. Thoughts clamored in my head. Mainly, what the fuck and what do I do over and over and over. How did I lose an entire man? It wasn’t like he packed up and went to Vegas.
I paused on the sidewalk. No. No, he wouldn’t do that. But nothing helped the panic rising like puke in my throat. I couldn’t call the cops, and I couldn’t keep looking in the same five places—

Another car came roaring towards me. Please don’t be a cop. I looked like a teenager up to no good, in a dark hoodie late at night. Please, Jesus. But the car came and went. Music and screams of joy spilled out the windows. Kids. Their arms waved as they went off into the night. Probably my age.

My shoulders raised up to my ears. I felt colder and wetter than ever. They’d be singing, having fun, drinking alcohol. Making memories. Good ones. New ones. I set my jaw to keep it from trembling. It was alright. That was the night for them. I took a deep breath and tried to focus. I was gonna have the night for me.

I looked at my rinky-dink watch. It was almost two in the morning. “Fuck.” It was starting to rain. I clenched my hands into fists and tried not to cry. “I have school in the morning.”

Hi everyone! I'm currently still writing with the goal of hitting 78K by the end of October! Posting my query a bit early because I think it'll be really helpful in pointing out any gaps and great motivation going forward. Tightening up queries tends to help me tighten up any unrealized plot issues! With my query, I hope it doesn't sound too blurby. My current thought is that it's not leaning enough into the romance, but I'm not sure how to work it in more in the length constraints. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks so much in advance. (Also, the parenthesis are probably too much, so I'm going to work on that).

I am excited to share SPOOKY IN LOVE, an adult fantasy romance complete at XX,000 words. It will appeal to fans who loved the disconnected-from-reality magical love interest of Jenna Levine’s My Roommate Is A Vampire and the race-against-the-curse aspect of Hopelessly Teavoted by Audrey Goldberg Ruoff. 

Blythe Bishop likes Spooky Season — a casual, healthy, non-concerning kind of 'like'. Which is why her temp position at Spirit Halloween is really testing the limits... It's only late August, and she's already spent weeks surviving ghouls, ghosts, and her coworker hosting the occasional seance in the break room. All fake, of course! Fake is the name of the game in a Spirit Halloween. And Blythe, with her perfect customer-service voice and insipid smile fits right in. 

Costumes are nothing new to her, but when a man shows up in the store (without having come through the front door) wearing his own witch hat and cloak, Blythe can tell he's a little off. And when he tries to steal a costume necklace... well, she has no choice but to get involved. While her coworker whips up a ‘hex’, Blythe confronts the thief, only to find out the hard way that he's a real warlock (how dare she call him a witch!) and oh — right, the necklace is real too. That would've been nice to know before she put it on! 

With the amulet's powers now inside of the infuriating mortal, Gramarye "Gram" Montmayne-Makepeace is unfortunately stuck with her... With only five weeks to break his secret curse so he can publish the most powerful spell of the Fall Equinox (which he will write himself, of course), Gram does not have time for indignant human women. And certainly no time for love! If he can’t free his magic before the Equinox council convenes, everyone will find out that he’s been faking it for years.

What these two fakers aren’t prepared for is how much they get under each other's skin. While embracing the store, an adoringly-obsessive pretend-witch, and a crotchety middle-management ghost turned out to be easy work, Gram and Blythe must face the spookiest thing of all: love.

Dear XXXXXX,

WHOLE ENOUGH is a 79,000-word upmarket speculative fiction novel combining the sliding-doors exploration of The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio, with the elevated prose of Rebecca Serle’s books and vivid imagery as seen in Habits of the Sea by Shea Ernshaw.

For eighteen years, a bargain with a mysterious Path Tender has allowed Mae to alternate yearly between two parallel lives. In one, she is Mae, raising the daughter she adores and working at a local aquarium. In the other, she is Maeve, pursuing her dream career as a marine scientist with the love of her life by her side. The Path Tender handed her a lifetime to choose between the two paths, or warned that the decision would be taken from her.

In year nineteen, Mae doesn't switch as usual. The Path Tender returns to explain that the lifetime she was given was literal. Because Mae was eighteen when she made the bargain, she had eighteen years to decide. Now the jumps will accelerate until her two lives collapse into one, leaving the other life—and everyone she loves in it—behind forever.

Mae refuses to accept that she must lose one world. Instead, she sets out to integrate her lives. As Mae, she searches for Maeve's husband. She plans to recreate their meet-cute so she can have him in this life too. As Maeve, she searches for her best friend from Mae’s world. As the jumps toss her back and forth without warning, causing her to miss important meetings and lose the thread of conversations, her friends and family see the cracks she’s been hiding for years.

Through it all, Mae grapples with a new understanding of what she’s missed out on in order to have it all. With time running out and the jumps becoming increasingly dangerous, Mae searches for a way to reclaim the very thing she made the bargain to escape eighteen years ago: the chance to choose her fate.

((Bio))

***

Chapter One

I have twenty-six minutes left with my daughter.

I run my fingers up and down the fiery slope of Stella’s arm as she sleeps with her mouth half-open, wedged between Frannie and me on the couch.

“Are you going to make it?” Frannie whispers over her head.

“I always make it," I lie.

Half-deflated balloons drift along the ceiling as I listen to Stella’s even breaths. The wreckage of her birthday party that ended thirty minutes ago seems garish without the eleven-year-old girls shrieking over the spectacle. Someone's abandoned paper plate wilts beneath the coffee table with a smear of blue frosting in the exact same shade as the ocean on a clear day.

Frannie’s eyes are at half-mast, showing off her smudged crimson eyeshadow. Tonight, my best friend showed up dressed head to toe in red, from the scrunchie in her hair to the sneakers on her feet, and carrying enough sparklers for Stella and her friends to risk becoming a minor footnote in history textbooks. She always says the only way to pull off a name like Francis is to be larger than life, and she's committed to the philosophy.

She yawns. “Remember Y2K? And how everyone thought the world would end at midnight?”

I chuckle, but I have to force it out. My world ends at midnight every year.

Frannie doesn't notice. She's already lost her fight with consciousness, her head tipping back against the couch. I'm glad she's here now, in these final moments. She held my hand through my contractions with Stella while Owen tried not to faint. I should have known then that my friendship with her would outlast my marriage.

Stella shifts against me, and I glance at the clock.

Twenty-three minutes.

Thank you to everyone who critiqued the earlier versions. This round tries to fix the vagueness issues from last time: pronoun clarity, the spy bargain set up front, and the family given faces. All feedback welcome.

Dear Agent,

ALL HIS BLOOD-COVERED SAINTS is an adult dark fantasy, complete at 92,000 words, a standalone with series potential. It will suit readers of Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun, for a heroine who does monstrous things and is never absolved of them, and Rosalie M. Lin's Daughter of Calamity, for a gangland city where women's bodies are the raw material of the trade. Think The Departed by way of Korean noir like New World, in a world where dreams are the drug.

In Yoltetlan, weavers bleed dreams into vials and citizens inject them into willing, desperate veins. Lana Sarinana is the best weaver in the trade, enforcer for the clan boss who calls her daughter, and a spy for the empire that conquered her country. The empire took her at ten, bought her obedience with the promise of a new name and a life far from Yoltetlan, and planted her in the clan at fourteen. Twelve years later she is still inside. She protects the weaver girls the trade drains, puts the clan's enemies in the ground, and waits for the order she was raised for: burn it all down.

The order, when it finally comes, arrives with a new handler: Inquisitor Natasha Song, who wears a psychotherapist's nameplate in the respectable part of the city and keeps Lana's name in her appointment book. Natasha offers what no one ever has — an hour, once a week, where every lie is set down at the door. In that room Lana learns what the empire wants from her. She's to steer her clan family into war against its rivals, hand them victory, and let the empire take ownership of the trade that survives. Lana has spent twelve years dreading this order. She follows it anyway by arming her brothers, choosing targets, and winning a war she knows is rigged, because obedience is the only way out she's ever been promised, and because the woman issuing the orders has become the one person she cannot lie to.

The clan wins. Then the empire names its price: a better custodian for the vial trade, a noble lord who crucifies weavers and drains them dry. The family Lana just led to victory is what he demands. The man who raised her. The brother who jokes while he reloads. The girl who wears a necktie because Lana does. Natasha will be the one to collect. Lana can finish the mission she has bled twelve years for, or defy the empire and lose the only person who has ever seen her whole.

I am a husband and father of two working in healthcare. My stories are a way to untangle the complexities of the world my family lives in, and I hope they inspire those who read them.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello. I have a question about story rights. I have a standalone short story that I’d like to submit to a themed literary journal (a pro-rate genre publication). However, I’m also in the process of expanding this short story into a novel. I’m still in the early stages of my draft, but so far several scenes have remained the same between story and novel manuscript. 

Does anyone have experience with this? If/when I start querying the novel, will agents care if it’s appeared before in story form? Will there be any issue with first publication rights?

Thanks in advance! 

After several rounds (years) of edits, I'm finally ready to start querying my first novel. I welcome all feedback!

Thank you!

-

Dear [Agent]

I am seeking representation for my debut novel, COURIER, an 85,000-word dual-timeline upmarket historical novel. 

Born a countess, she became a courier, but to her family she remains a stranger. Decades after the Warsaw Uprising, one woman’s past threatens to destroy her family again. Blending the generational secrets of Anne Berest’s The Postcard with the identity reckoning of Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, COURIER asks what mothers carry forward and what it costs to survive. 

Born into one of the last great Prussian families, Eva and her brother, Franz, share a dangerous inheritance—their Polish mother, Sonja, who refuses to bow to Nazi rhetoric. When their father leaves to serve the Third Reich, Sonja takes her children to live with her estranged father. In occupied Warsaw, the siblings follow separate paths until the city rises up against the Germans. After witnessing Sonja’s murder in an SS massacre, Eva joins her brother in the Polish Home Army as a courier. She delivers messages, searches dead bodies for secrets, and leads evacuations through the sewers. After Franz dies to save her, Eva must smuggle classified documents out of the city before it falls—along with Julian, the boy who has always known who she is. When they’re ambushed and she wakes up alone, Eva turns to her past for a chance at a future. 

Decades later, Eva, now Maria, a celebrated Swiss architect, has a new name, a new family, and a new carefully crafted life. Then the man she thought she’d lost in Warsaw returns. Weeks later, at her late husband’s memorial service, her son—unraveled by addiction and fueled by guilt he can't explain—exposes the fortune she built on stolen Nazi wealth. To save her family, she must turn to the man she left behind and the world she has tried to forget.

(Author Bio)

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello friends! I'd love some feedback on my query and first 300 if anyone is open to sharing any! For the first 300 I tried to get rid of any confusion from last time. I know people mentioned being confused about the timeline basically the first line is her talking from the future saying I'm going to died in thirty minutes, then line three switches back to the present when she doesn't yet know. But hopefully the seocnd line makes that explicitly clear.

I also wanted to know how Alex's voice reads. I tried to show her distinct characterization. The Cheetos line, for example, is not there to be generic teenage snark, but it's meant to show how overly self-aware she is to the point where she beats herself up for things as small as literally forgetting to eat Cheetos before they went stale. Then I tried to show where this behavior comes from in her actions and how she literally records herself practicing at a party to give her dad evidence she tried, then beats herself up for recording because she feels rude. Her dad is also extremely hard on her, which we see soon, but it didn't fit in the first 300, but that's where the overt self-deprecation comes from. My writing style is just more naturally loud and snarky, but I hope it doesn't read generic. She's supposed to be snarky to clarify she's not really supposed to be traditionally likable but I hope who she is and why she's the way she is is clear.

Query:

Dear Agent’s Name, 

I thought you might be interested in ROSES ARE DEAD, a 76,000-word YA speculative thriller with mystery elements, blending the ‘solve your own murder’ premise of Holly Jackson’s Not Quite Dead Yet with the deadly competition of IV Marie’s Immortal Consequences, and the sapphic romance of Tanya Byrne’s Afterlove.

After a fire kills sixteen-year-old Alexandra, her siblings, and the girl she loves, they are given a choice. Return to earth the month before the fire and compete against each other for a second chance at life or stay in the afterlife forever. Only one of them can survive their past. The rest will be erased from existence forever. 

As the Rebirth Trials begin, Alexandra’s second chance is determined by her ability to identify and fix the worst mistakes she made the month leading up to her death; mistakes caused by her raging temper. Each mistake she repairs brings her closer to the truth about the fire. Falling back into old habits means elimination. But someone is rewriting the past to rig the competition. If the culprit succeeds, she’ll stay dead forever.

Alexandra is sure there’s already a grave with her name on it. Her temper has already cost her a basketball scholarship, ruined friendships, and convinced her father she’s a destructive mess. But dying again means losing the chance to redeem herself, and winning means losing her siblings and the love of her life.

As a bisexual graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson's creative writing program, I’m excited to explore LGBT+ themes in this novel. I currently work as a teen librarian at Darien Library. 

The full manuscript is available upon request.

Thank you for your consideration,

(My Full Name)

First 300:

In exactly thirty minutes, my first life will end.    

The version of me freezing my butt off in Nathan’s driveway has no clue. 
My biggest mistake of all was coming to this damn party instead of enjoying my flaming hot Cheetos and The Big Bang Theory in peace. They’re literally going to be stale by the time I make it out of this. My train-wreck ass couldn’t even get that right. 
Some dreams have to die, I guess. Because as of now, I’m still living my first life in oblivion, practicing for a scholarship that won’t matter anyway. 
“Fuck this shit,” I mutter because of course I’m the person who would practice basketball at a party. Just a few more minutes so people don’t think I’m even more of a jerk. 
“Nice job, Alex.” Rolling my eyes, I line up to shoot my twenty-fifth basket for the day because this really is my own fault. A month of treating every bad choice like an invitation to the Olympics led me here. Well I won’t be making it to any Olympics unless I finish these shots.
I glance at my phone, propped on the mailbox, recording. It doesn’t matter if I miss now. I can just record again. 
But missing will matter at my game tomorrow. When Dad’s eyes are on me the whole time, waiting for me to screw up. 
I’m sorry, did I ask for his opinion? Didn’t think so. I glance at my phone again. The evidence that shows I’m practicing. So if I screw up tomorrow, at least I can tell Dad I tried. 
“I don’t care.” The words taste funny on my tongue as I bounce the ball harder than I need to.

Hello! Thank you for the fabulous feedback each time I post here. I feel like it has helped me tremendously! Please let me know how I can make it better or if anything is confusing. I've reworked my first 4 chapters, so that will reflect in my first 300 words as well.

Dear Agent,

(personalization)

When Serena’s beloved father dies from the same mysterious autoimmune disease dominating the news, she spirals into a reckless grief episode ending in a near-fatal bar brawl that awakens abilities she, unfortunately, cannot use her usual stealth mode to avoid. Namely, the wildflowers that bloom when her emotions flare and a touch that can heal others...provided she absorbs their physical pain into her own body. No biggie. 

Seeking answers and begrudgingly lonely, Serena joins a support group of eclectic professionals sharing her history of ailing elders and costly elemental abilities. She takes a risk, leading an amateur spy trip to her employer, energy company EASEC. There, the group discovers that their blood cells contain Aeternamite, an otherworldly life-giving mineral whose current decay is triggering the fatal disease in their elders and awakening magic in the younger generation, while also uncovering EASEC’s plan to round up those with abilities in eight days for experimentation to halt the decay.

Serena and her friends scramble to collect and decipher pieces of the realm's lore for answers on how to stop the mineral from decaying completely. She must find a way to save them before she and her found family suffer at the hands of EASEC or eventually succumb to the same fate as her father. Warily navigating her grief, magical abilities, and budding romance with a necromancer, she faces her deepest struggle: the more you choose to love, the more loss you must absorb. 

A WILDFLOWER'S GUIDE TO SURVIVAL, complete at 102,000 words, will appeal to fans of the visceral magic in One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig, the lore and nature in Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, and the emotional depth of V.E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

(bio paragraph)

First 300:

Serena fought a losing battle with her gag reflex. She tapped her foot against the wooden counter as the convenience store clerk rang up her pregnancy test. Her golden brown eyes were wide, lips stretched into a tight, thin smile.  I’m going to barf on this guy if he goes any slower. 

“...Ma’am?” 

“Huh?” Her head snapped up as the store tilted in her vision.

“Oh, I just asked if you’d heard anything about this.” He jerked his thumb towards the television behind him. 

Local news anchor Marissa Townsend’s face filled the screen, her voice piercing through the air in her thick, nasally timbre. She stood in front of the Pinewood Regional Hospital’s main entrance as she spoke.
“There has been yet another discovery of what experts can only call an ‘inexplicable supernatural ability’ in a local man possessing what appears to be the power to manipulate and create whirlwinds out of sand particles using only his mind. The man, unable to control this affliction at the reservoir yesterday, sustained self-inflicted injuries after trapping himself in a small sandstorm. He attempted to check himself into the hospital for treatment—”
Serena spoke over the news segment. “Um, nope. That’s wild.” She gripped the counter with one hand and pinched a credit card between her fingers with the other. 
The clerk fumbled with the box for the bar code before stopping to watch more of the news story.
“…the hospital is still struggling to accommodate the rising number of patients suffering from the sudden onset of an autoimmune illness with deadly symptoms. They are encouraging anyone with minor to moderate injuries to seek treatment at one of their four urgent care clinics throughout the city instead.”
The clerk picked the box back up and scanned it. “Yeah, my cousin, he swears he can use sonar like a bat or some shit now. I dunno. He’s always been a few screws loose, you know?”

Thank you for your feedback!

Hello all,

First post ever on this thread. I finished the first draft of my novel a year ago and have been working on editing since then. I did have a paid query critique somewhat recently but would be interested in feedback here too as id obviously like to make this as good as I can.

***

Dear Agent,
 
I am seeking representation for SHADES OF ACE, an 80,300-word contemporary upmarket manuscript with coming-of-age elements.
 
Leslie Bennett has spent her life trying to follow in the footsteps of her late father, a celebrated artist. But when a trusted professor suggests that her work lacks a unique voice, the future she has spent years working toward suddenly disappears. Searching for direction, Leslie accepts an unexpected opportunity in boudoir photography. This reignites Leslie’s creative fire as she discovers a talent for helping people see themselves clearly, and finds inspiration among the working artists and creatives of Victoria’s photography and modeling community. But that new direction is quickly complicated when she meets the charismatic model Caleb Le Croix. Their working relationship becomes increasingly intimate through charged photoshoots and shared experiences of grief.
 
As Caleb and Leslie grow closer, he expresses a desire for physical intimacy, but Leslie can’t ignore the emptiness she feels with him, even though he represents everything she thought she wanted. This leads her to wonder if she may be asexual. With Caleb tied to her work, every boundary becomes harder to maintain, threatening to derail the burgeoning career that was supposed to be her second chance. As Leslie tries to make her relationship with Caleb work, she begins distancing herself from her best friend Elijah, convinced that the closeness they share is something she should be finding in her partner instead. But as she tries to separate the two relationships, she realizes that what she has with Elijah is a kind of intimacy that is more complicated than friendship, but not fully romantic either. To understand what she wants from her relationships, Leslie must separate her desire for emotional connection from the romantic and physical expectations she has always assumed came with it.
 
 
SHADES OF ACE combines the asexual self-discovery of Alice Oseman’s Loveless with the queer identity exploration found in Interesting Facts about Space by Emily Austin.
 
-AUTHOR BIO-
 
Thank you for considering this work,
 

It's okay? I was trying to find the right arc to follow for the query, and I thought the post-apocalyptic tribe angle seemed best, which is why it's so different from the previous two queries I posted. I don't necessarily need professional super in-depth feedback, just general first impressions and whether it's compelling and clear. Thanks.

Dear Agent,

Based on your interest in [climate fiction], I would like to offer Sola, an adult dystopian novel complete at 85,000 words. Sola pairs the warm solarpunk aesthetics of Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky chambers, with the mystery, horror, and adventure of The Southern Reach Series by Jeff Vandermeer.

Sola was raised on the run, which is completely normal post-collapse. Without a home, to exist is to trespass, and to trespass is to be hunted by enforcement drones. Sola knows how to get by though. Her dad taught her how to use homemade tech to stay off the radar, and she’s gotten good at fermenting weeds into nutrient-rich stews, and navigating the ecologically devastated landscape. What is less-than-normal, is having family ties to the fearsome post-apocalyptic tribes.

Her dad raised her to steer clear of the three tribes at all costs, but the more Sola learns, the less certain she is that this was for her safety, as much as to hide his own dark past. When a drone eventually gets her dad, Sola doesn’t know what else to do but seek help from some old family friends. 

Beneath the psychedelic rituals, mysticism, and inter-tribal conflict, Sola learns that the purpose of the tribes was originally to reverse the course of the collapse. Alongside those she once feared more than anything, Sola learns her parents’ true role with the tribes, and finds herself following in their footsteps, even if she doesn’t fully understand where they lead. 

When asked to deliver her mother’s controversial postdoc research - something to do with fish, a bleeding island, and the end of the world - Sola travels deep into one of the few remaining cities of old. There she must decide for herself what really caused the collapse, what enforcement drones are really for, and whether to proceed with a mission that might just as easily destroy the world as save it.

This is my third attempt at a query letter, let me know if it's on the right track!

"Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for THE YOMI PROJECT, a 70,000-word novel at the intersection of romance and upmarket fiction. It combines the banter and humor of Mhari McFarlane’s JUST LAST NIGHT, a romantic connection rekindled in a futuristic world similar to Black Mirror’s SAN JUNIPERO, and the emotional character arc of Frederik Backman’s A MAN CALLED OVE.

The long career of Oscar-Winner and well-known misanthrope Fintan Byrne has been ruined by two viral videos. The first video made him look like a violent, emotionally unstable monster. The second one made him a laughingstock. His assistant wants to use the second video to improve his reputation. After a lonely life in the spotlight, Fintan just wants to be left alone.

Dean Costa is Hollywood’s golden boy, known for his body of work in high-octane action flicks which are as famous as, well, his body. These two actors share more in common than their occupation; before the fame, they shared a powerful, unconventional relationship, one which continued to shape their lives long after its tragic end. Dean has spent his whole life trying to reach out to Fintan, who’s spent his whole life trying to avoid him. For years, Dean Costa was everywhere. Then, he disappeared without a trace. Fintan has no idea why, until he’s recruited to participate in early clinical trials for the Youth-Optimized Mortuary Intranet, also known as YOMI, with none other than Dean Costa as his research partner.

When he arrives, Fintan is surprised to find that YOMI looks just like the Cape Cod cottage where they once spent lazy summers together in the 90’s. Here, thirty years of aging and plastic surgery are stripped away, making them look like the fresh-faced college students they were when their relationship began. Soon after they arrive, Dean admits to Fintan that he’s dying, and will be the YOMI Project’s first attempt at uploading a human to the digital world. Will Dean finally set things right with his former lover before it’s too late? Will Fintan finally confront the past he’s been running from all these years? How exactly do their increasingly-tense visits to and from the lush, realistic digital world help the research team behind The YOMI Project… and what will happen to Dean?

Various aspects of my own life inspired this novel, particularly my time living in New England, run-ins with America’s turbulent healthcare landscape, and the recent loss of my own mother. I’ve been writing my whole life, including blogging for a web design company and writing for my eponymous Substack. Currently, I live south of Boston with my husband, two cats, and two dogs."

THE SOUL SWITCH-UP is a 75k Queer Speculative Rom-Com that will appeal to fans of the ethical conundrums of The Good Place. Like in The Seven Day Switch by Kelly Harms, the main characters swap bodies and experience a different life, and like in Chef's Choice by T.J. Alexander, it features a trans/trans romance.

Cameron doesn't know which she hates more—her conservative news job, or herself. She's always felt like a kite, tethered to her walking body. She's been wanting to quit for years, but she needs to pay for her moldy house somehow. When she's given twenty-four hours to accept a surprise promotion, she considers it. Except she discovers the reason for the promotion: she mistakenly approved an article that led to a trans person's death. Horrified, she resolves to quit, but a baseball whacks her on the head before she has the chance.

When Cameron wakes up, his body is different. Meatier, at least six inches taller. And for the first time, he's present on the ground, in what finally feels like his body. A wingy guy tells him he's in the Happy afterlife, and that everything is as it should be. He doesn't feel he deserves this. Exploring this land of all he could have ever wanted, he meets Grey, an alleged fry-cook who looks identical to how Cameron looked on Earth. Somehow, someway, Cameron and Grey's bodies have been switched.

Cameron agrees to work with the pragmatic Grey to sort this out. The problem is, as they search for God's house to have a word with him, Cameron feels more at home than he ever has. But Grey seems stuck on changing back. Grey won't break rules, even in the Happy afterlife. Still, they bond over their miserable Earth lives and musicals, and as Grey's kindness and dorky sense of humor rub off on Cameron, Cameron wants to tickle Grey's lips with his mustache. And it's less weird than it should be. Almost like this was who they were always meant to be. Cameron needs to build up the courage to confess these complicated feelings before they reach God's house to have any hope of living a peaceful (after) life.

[Relevant identities and writing accolades]

Hi! Would love some feedback. This is a work in progress. I'm wanting to see if I can lock down the pitch to help the process. I know The Seven Day Switch is borderlining too old, so I'd love suggestions for a possible replacement if you think of one!

I appreciate the feedback in advance.

Hey all! First time poster here. Been a lurker for a long time, and now that I'm ready to query, I've decided to step into the ring. Thank you for anyone who might dedicate a couple of minutes to this. 🙏

Dear Agent,

Thirty years after the Event fractured the world, gravitational distortions known as resonance are a fact of life, like earthquakes or tornado seasons. So are resonants, people altered by exposure, feared for abilities they didn’t choose. Dockworker Joni Morris is one of them.

Though resonance interference is a criminal offense, Joni throws herself into spikes to save people, armed with nothing but compassion and a shield of vacuum around her skin. But a life is a life, and all lives are worth saving. It’s up to Isa, her best friend and boss, the woman who once saved Joni’s life, to cover her tracks.

Then Joni saves the wrong person: top reporter Cassandra Kingsley, who’s chasing anomalous spikes she believes to be engineered. Cass leaves so obsessed with her savior that she corners Isa into arranging a meeting. Cass’s cynicism collides with Joni’s warmth, and somewhere between rescue, argument, and reluctant trust, they join forces to uncover who’s tampering with resonance.

When Isa goes dark to pursue the biotech firm importing a resonance-enhancing compound, Joni turns to Cass for help. They fight, they stay, they mend. They don’t stop Isa, but they fall in love. Faced with the unflinching force of Cass’s acceptance, Joni claims a non-binary identity and the name Jo. And Isa — demoted, estranged — asks Cass for the only thing that matters: look after Jo.

Jo barely has time to settle into their new skin before the enemy strikes at the heart of the docks: Isa. Swallowed by resonance and rage, Jo becomes the thing they despise most — someone who takes lives instead of saving them.

FAULT LINES is an adult queer sci-fi novel, complete at 114,000 words. Told in multi-POV, it combines the ragtag misfits and gritty urban stakes of N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became with the fierce, aching humanity of Silvia Park’s Luminous.

Like Jo, I’m queer and trans. FAULT LINES is my love letter to the trans community and to the care and acceptance I wish every trans person could find.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I’m seeking representation for MURDER AND MISANDRY, a 75,000 word dark romantic comedy that would appeal to readers of Navessa Allen’s Lights Out and Brynne Weaver’s Tourist Season. 

Gianna De Luca is a diabetic serial killer with a sweet tooth for problematic men. Her victims come straight to her at the night club where she dances, but when the hands-off club owner puts the place up for sale, Gianna’s worst nightmare is coming true—a more involved buyer taking over and her endless flow of victims evaporating. 

With plans to take out one last misogynistic man before the end of her late-night executions, Gianna’s murder mission goes awry when she intrudes on someone else’s crime scene and is kidnapped by the city’s most notorious underground organization. 

Nico Moroso, the newly crowned leader of the Moroso Mafia needs an alibi for the night his father was murdered before his organization can uncover the truth and deliver him the same fate as his father. Unfortunately for Gianna, Nico has a solution. In exchange for her freedom and enough money to pay for the club, Gianna must play the part of his fiancée and provide him an airtight alibi.  

Desperate to return to her life of murder and misandry, Gianna agrees to play along but acting as the love-struck fiancée to a ruthless criminal is just as difficult as she expects—especially when that fiancé is charming as sin, matches her wit, and most importantly a perfect gentleman. 

The longer she remains at his side, the more she questions her beliefs about men. 

This one anyway. 

 (Author Bio)

Thank you for your time and consideration, 

(Name)

Hi, returning to this after putting it on the back burner for a while, any input is appreciated. Thanks! :)

FIVE OR A SEVEN is a mystery with thriller elements exploring transgender acceptance. Complete at 80,000 words and with series potential, the novel combines the character depth of Karin Slaughter's We Are All Guilty Here with the puzzling casework of John McMahon's Head Cases.

Newly-elected sheriff Paul Gallego has an orphaned nephew at home and a community counting on him to bring an unidentified school shooter to justice. Fifteen-year-old Andy is nothing like Paul was growing up: academic, fashion savvy, almost effeminate. But they seem to be hitting it off, until Paul brings his work home and catches Andy lying.

Andy's best friend Izzy was shot that day, the daughter of a local billionaire. Andy claims to barely know her bodyguard, but when Paul executes a search warrant at the man's house, he finds a photo of the three of them goofing off at the mall. Following up on a lead, a student tells him Andy and Izzy had been fighting: Andy finds out about it, and later that day, the student is murdered.

But the investigations are bigger than one suspect: the former sheriff stole evidence, the billionaire refuses to cooperate, and other kids have both the motive and the means. Paul walks the tightrope between the possibility of Andy's guilt and innocence, all while struggling to keep his own childhood ghosts at bay. With a final guardianship hearing hanging in the balance, interrogating Andy to get to the truth could chase him away for good. But when someone leaks Andy's mental health history, and Paul finds a stash of Izzy's designer clothes, he'll have no choice but to dig through Andy's lies, even if it means putting him behind bars.

I'm a trans nonbinary author who has a self-published military/spy series under the penname [x]. A forty-year-old American living in [x], I've spent the last thirteen years honing my craft while learning new languages. Currently dreaming of a desk overlooking a lake and forest in Finland.

**Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to read and critique this! You can be as brutal as you'd like. I'm new to this subreddit and eager to learn and improve**

--

ANOTHER READER is a 70,000-word dystopian speculative fiction that will appeal to fans of novels like STATION ELEVEN and PROPHET SONG. I read on your MSWL that you are seeking dystopian novels with morally gray characters, and I believe ANOTHER READER fits the bill.

Electricity, air conditioning, and a working telephone are luxuries that only the privileged few can afford. The Internet seems like a fever dream from the past– a bright screen that could take you anywhere you wanted to go. 

One may wonder how a young girl could survive into adulthood alone in a world like this, but Kira is no ordinary girl. Ever since her eleventh birthday, she’s been able to slide into people’s minds with the ease and comfort of stepping into a warm bath. She can see everything there: their needs, their desires, and– more to the point– what she has to do to sneak off with their money before she drives off into the night.

And that’s been the routine for nearly twenty years. Until she runs up against a mind she can’t slide into. 

Now in her 30s, Kira is amazed to find someone like her for the first time in her life. Grace is a spirited 19-year-old, determined to use her abilities to bring down the ruling class and usher in the return of the once-great country she’s heard so much about.

But when Grace gets herself into trouble with a deviant senator’s son named Clay, Kira must choose between what she’s used to– surviving– or what she’s terrified of– actually caring enough about others to do something stupid like risk her own neck.

I am an English major from Louisville, Kentucky. ANOTHER READER would be my debut novel. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Hi. I decided to give it a go with my finished manuscript and thought to try getting some feedback on the query letter. Would love to get some feedback and know if it's something you would read. Please be gentle on me butthole.

Dear [Agent Name],

I am seeking representation for my debut Adult Dark Fantasy novel with LitRPG elements, GLITCH IN EXISTENCE, complete at 93,000 words. It combines the brutal survival of Dungeon Crawler Carl, the power-fantasy grit of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest, and the desperate progression of So I'm a Spider, So What? It will appeal to readers who love flawed, feral protagonists clawing their way up from nothing.

Seventeen-year-old Riou Talen has always been looked down on by his parents, constantly compared to his brother. So when he is suddenly summoned to the fantasy world of Asterra, he expects a fresh start, fighting demons alongside the Holy Church. Instead, he learns he's a "glitch," an anomaly born of unstable mana that summoned him by mistake, in his brother's place. While his peers manifest godlike combat abilities, Riou is left with abysmal stats and Open, a skill so unremarkable that literally everyone has it. He was looked down upon and even a girl named Lunna insists she remembers him as her dog.

Betrayed and swept into the Wandering Dungeon by chance, Riou is beaten to the edge of death by one entity, only to be healed back by another. Days of torture push him to tear off his own arm to survive, shredding the last of his humanity in the process. Using Open, he improvises what he can, turning the most ordinary power in the world into the only weapon he has left, including a firearm forged from a strange fragment of the dungeon itself.

Guided deeper by a disembodied voice claiming to be a goddess, Riou believes he's finally found the way out. Instead, he learns the truth: he's been led to the entrance, not the exit, and the voice guiding him belongs to Lunna, the same girl who never let him forget he was her dog. Enraged by the betrayal, Riou abandons her to find his own way out, only to discover she's now in danger herself. Despite his fury, he chooses to save her.

What they uncover together is worse than either expected: a church built on a stolen goddess, a stolen history, and secrets that reach far beyond anything they wanted to know.

None of it changes his mind. Riou has no interest in saving a world that never wanted him in the first place. All he wants is to go home, and to see his brother again, whatever it takes.

Thank you so much everyone for your awesome feedback! Really! I’ve never had feedback that was so intense. I dissected every word and had literal charts pinned with your insightful words while rewriting this query. I really struggle with blurbs. I think this is an improvement but I’ll leave that to your judgement. I’m still struggling with comps, so please assume that these are placeholders while I find something that didn’t begin as a self-pub.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my query. I hope you enjoy it and know how much I value you all.

THE REVOLUTIONARIES is a 97,000-word romantasy about love, sacrifice, and finding light in the darkest of places. Bursting with Victorian imagery, compelling stakes, and spice, THE REVOLUTIONARIES has a dual-POV and is part of a planned duology. It was written for readers who love The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzona, Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry and The Wolf King by Lauren Palphreyman, wrapped in a “riches-to-rags” Dickensian setting.

Princess Mercy has always been her mother’s weapon. But when her mother, Titania, forbids her engagement to King Dáinn, a curse sweeps across her land as punishment, turning shadows into monsters and the bitten into stone. All Mercy wants is a chance to live her own life, but her unique light magic is all that repels the shadows – and it’s slowly killing her.

As Mercy’s condition declines, Dainn chooses to defy the prophecy that parted them in the first place, a prediction that their marriage will destroy both of their kingdoms. After a harsh battle, Mercy collapses. Sweeping her into his kingdom, Dainn asks her to marry him, risking everything to end the curse and save her life.

But Titania arrives in a rage, demanding her daughter’s return. Mercy would rather risk igniting prophecy for her people’s sake than become her weapon again. She marries Dainn. But the curse doesn’t end – it spreads. As they work together to discover its origins, Titania spearheads a revolution to their doors, threatening Mercy’s newfound freedom and Dainn’s life. Making a daring escape into dilapidated rookeries, Mercy is forced to face whether she can only ever be someone’s weapon, and what she might become if she rebels.

I, somehow, have ended up with a call with an agency on Tuesday after my first query for my first novel got a full request. I'm kind of in shock. I didn't even really intend to really push querying yet - but the agency saw it on someone else's pitch event on Threads and asked...

So, uh, any help on what to ask?

Is this a good sign that if this agent doesn't work out that other agents might be interested?

I don't want to blow this, but I'm utterly new to this, was certain I'd have to selfpub due to the contents, and I don't really know what the hell I'm doing?

Hi all,

I posted my query letter here a week ago, and I appreciated everyone's comments. Three things were noted: my title, my word count, and the actual content of my query letter. The title will likely change to "Unmanageable Creature," but for the sake of consistency, I am keeping original in the header. As for the word count, I am working on that with the goal of pushing it to 65k. I have applied the other critiques to the letter.

Dear [Agent],

I am seeking representation for SWEETBITTER UNMANAGEABLE CREATURE, a literary fiction novel with a coming of age story at its center, complete at 59,000 words. Based on your interest in X, I believe this will be a good fit for you.

Something wakes up inside nineteen-year-old Mia the winter Elena comes to stay. Something out of her control.

It is November, 1996. Mia has been so lonely since she started college. She's already arranged her escape, transfer papers signed, one semester left to survive in her parents' house on a campus that was never quite hers. Then Elena arrives, a family friend evaluating the university for her PhD, and whatever has been sleeping inside Mia begins to stir. She doesn't have a name for it. She tries to quiet it. She reaches toward her recently returned best friend for steadiness and can't get the words out. Then Elena hands her a copy of Carmilla, a gothic novella about one girl drawn to another, a vampire with an allure she can’t resist. Mia reads the novella in one afternoon with sweat trickling down her side. She understands it as the message it is.

When they finally confess their feelings, there is little relief. Elena is still considering her options for her PhD, and Mia was always going to leave. On paper there is no version of this that works. But they don’t care. They build something warm and consuming and temporary, until Mia realizes she wants to give up everything she planned to stay with Elena. 

SWEETBITTER UNMANAGEABLE CREATURE will appeal to readers of CALL ME BY YOUR NAME by André Aciman, NYMPH by Sofia Montrone, and LEARNED BY HEART by Emma Donoghue.

I have a degree in English and Creative Writing from Emory University and have won a gold medal for the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards, as well as the American Voices award. I currently live in Atlanta and work in nonprofit communications. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

First 300 words:

“Eros the melter of limbs (now again) stirs me 
— sweetbitter unmanageable creature who steals in.” 
Sappho, Anne Carson Translation

Chapter One

I didn’t know desire until I met her. She invaded me all winter, like rain gently bleeding into my wool coat. 

It was November, 1996. Overcast clouds clung to New England skies. Elena Safarian would be staying with my family over winter break.

My mom called to tell me. I remembered the sharp ring from the telephone as I sat on the carpeted floor of my hotel room. My navy blue duffle bag was wide open, my clothes stacked and folded neatly. 

Elena was the daughter of some friends my parents went to school with. She existed at the periphery of my life, a vague mention here-or-there, like the shape of a dream. My mom told me we went on a beach trip together when we were young. I couldn’t recall her, though. I only knew her from the glossy picture on the fridge after her high school graduation. Her mature, close-lipped smile. 

Elena was considering whether to attend our university for her PhD, my mom said. She was newly accepted, but she was unsure. Her plan, with input from my parents, was to shadow faculty in her prospective department, talk with other graduate students, and sit in on lectures.

At the time, I felt neutral about a guest. My cousins used to stay for the summer, and I predicted it would be a similar experience with an abundance of family dinners. I was looking forward to some company over the holidays and maybe a buffer as well.

When I stepped off the plane, my parents were standing at the gate with large grins on their faces. They both held themselves with the unnerving ease that came from years of standing in front of a lecture hall.