Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Query Check, STARWIND Version

...it's that time again. >_<  Much as I'd love to say otherwise, the query check is nothing new to this blog.  But I know I need feedback to get even a little bit closer to a query that actually works, so here I am again, with my current query letter for STARWIND.  I'd appreciate any advice y'all can give me.

Thank you.


Dear [Awesome Agent]:

Kris Ibarazaki is the rides shotgun as navigator of the Starwind, an interplanar spaceship. She and the crew are competing in a race between worlds – a high-speed journey across the multiverse. The goal is simple: the ship that gathers the rare items the race’s founders want and gets back first, wins. There are few rules, and their opponents have even fewer scruples, but Kris thinks they’ve got an excellent chance, especially with her plan to steal a gravity engine right out of a moving train.

But they’ll need more than just plans and luck and a little bit of crazy. Jobs have been scarce, and the crew is low on funds. They’ll only make enough to keep flying if the Starwind finishes first. The race will take them from ancient ruins trapped with lightning to a world eaten through by predatory beasts to the last broken remains of a collapsed universe, so there are plenty of ways for things to go horribly wrong.

Kris believes they can do it, and she’s dead-set on making it happen. But she doesn’t know about the Awakened, a secretive group that will do anything – including killing racers and destroying their ships – to make sure nobody finishes the race. And the Awakened have waited until now to make their move, so Kris definitely doesn’t know that one of them is on the Starwind’s crew.

Part “Guardians of the Galaxy”, part “The Amazing Race”, STARWIND is a 107,000-word adult science fantasy novel with series potential. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.


Sincerely,

Mason T. Matchak

12 comments:

  1. You covered what's needed in the chapters. From the queries I've seen (and seen critiqued,) I'd say the first line needs to establish more of her character. But solid start there, Mason.

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    1. Thank you. It's hard to get across Kris's character when I need to cover that, the fact that there's the rest of the crew, and the setting of the ship all in the first paragraph, but I'll see what I can do. >_<

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  2. The excitement comes across wonderful in the query - so 10 pts on voice. The rest is really solid too. Like Alex, my only thought is that first sentence. That needs to be a grabber and the verb 'is' doesn't pack the punch. Good luck!!!

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    1. I changed "is the navigator" to "rides shotgun as navigator" and the whole query letter just became a lot more awesome. ^_^ Thank you for catching that 'is', I really needed to fix that.

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  3. My ears perked when I got to the part about the Awakened. Is the conflict between Kris and the Awakened something that sparks action at the beginning of the story? If so, I don't think it would hurt to start the query there. Otherwise, good luck with both the book and querying:)

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    1. Nope - the Awakened don't make themselves known until midway through the story; everything and everyone is about the race until then. But it's a threat they never expected when they already had enough to worry about, which is why I structured the query letter that way.

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  4. Because I know you're an awesome writer, I know there's an awesome book here ;)

    My suggestions: lose the second paragraph. Or morph it in with the first. I stopped and stumbled a few times when I was reading it, and then I was reading how it was written and not what it was about. If you decide to morph it (I think you should!) definitely keep the good stuff like the low funds and the different planets they encounter - all the obstacles.

    Bring it home with the Awakened (I'm with Quanie, you had me here). THIS is your strong point. Your story of an "all odds against them race" just became something more, something a new reader may find interesting.

    Can't wait to see the revisions!

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    1. D'aww, thanks. ^_^ I'm not going to post another query review entry, as that's kind of a lot to ask my readers. But I like your advice, so I rearranged the second paragraph to this:

      "The race will take them from ancient ruins trapped with lightning to a world eaten through by predatory beasts to the last broken remains of a collapsed universe, so there are plenty of ways for things to go horribly wrong. But they need more than just plans and luck and a little bit of crazy – they need to win. Jobs have been scarce, and the crew is low on funds. They’ll only make enough to keep flying if the Starwind finishes first."

      Hopefully that will work better. (I'm not going to edit it into the entry, as that's a bit much; the earlier change was just a few words.)

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  5. For the most part, I like it. I'm not keen on certain sentences, such as ", so there are plenty of ways for things to go horribly wrong". It seems like that should be a given, and I'd cut it all together. The first part of that sentence is also a bit hard to follow after the second to. "The race will take them from ancient ruins trapped with lightning to a world eaten through by predatory beasts to the last broken remains of a collapsed universe" -> I'm not sure if the predatory beasts ate the world down to the last broken remains of a collapsed universe, or if the last broken remains of a collapsed universe is another stop on their path. I don't know the grammar rules, so maybe adding commas between each stop is grammatically incorrect, but it might help alleviate my confusion.

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    1. Thank you. I've reworked it a little bit - I took out the "horribly wrong" phrase, as it felt off in the query even if it's something that keeps coming up in the book. I also did a little more rearranging of words. Hopefully it'll work.

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  6. I like that you give us a good feel for how your book is going to go. I think you need the part that motivates your character to come forward a bit. Lead with the motivation which will help us care (this it the part where they need a reason to even enter the race which i'm assuming is super expensive and super risky).

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    1. Thanks. ^_^ I have swapped around the order of some stuff in the query since this entry, and I think it does read a lot better now. But I wanted to make sure I got the book's premise in there as early as I could, since it's not exactly a common one.

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