Get ready for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, just a few weeks away. While Israel's initial song was disqualified for being too political, their second entry has also been painstakingly scrutinized despite many of the songs in the competition carrying similar hidden political messages.

The MS Nautica cruise ship arrived in Bermuda on Saturday [Sept 14] and a ceremonial welcome reception and plaque exchange was held. A Government spokesperson said, “The MS Nautica arrived in Bermuda on Saturday, September 14, with 626 passengers on its inaugural voyage. It was scheduled to dock in St. George’s first, followed by Hamilton, […]

The Bermuda Diabetes Centre and the island’s tourism community recently came together to help a teenage visitor make a return trip to the island after a previous visit was cut short due to a health scare. A spokesperson said, “A recent visit to Bermuda that took a heartbreaking turn for a young traveler has transformed […]

The cruise ship ‘MS Silver Shadow’ recently visited the island, and a look at the ship in the St. Georges Harbour is below. To see more of our cruise ship coverage, click here. Related Stories Photos & Video: MS Insignia In St. George’s Photos: Pride & Breakaway Ships In Dockyard Photos & Video: Cruise Ship […]

The Sixth Sense super-yacht — a 242-foot long motor yacht launched by Amels in 2019 that can accommodate 12 guests and 19 crew members — recently visited the island, stopping in the east end. Related Stories Video: Superyachts Invited To Bermuda Bermuda Called A Superyacht “Playground” $100 Million Superyacht “Rock.It” Visits Island 295-Ft Superyacht “Nero” […]

Osud České pirátské strany, která v několika volbách za sebou dostala výprask, je příkladem selhání progresivistického politického modelu. Když pak nedávno premiér Petr Fiala vyhodil z vlády Ivana Bartoše za nezvládnutou digitalizaci stavebního řízení, prezentovali se Piráti sérií emotivních a dětinských prohlášení. Uraženě opustili koaliční kabinet a naivně si myslí, že je to zachrání před dalším propadem. Za předsedu si teď zvolili Zdeňka Hřiba, kterého Pražané v pozici náměstka a předtím primátora hlavního města skutečně nemusí.

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming visionOS 2.2 update to developers for testing purposes, with the beta coming a little over a week after the first visionOS 2.2 beta.


visionOS 2.2 can be installed by going to the Software Update section of the Settings app on the Vision Pro and opting into Beta Updates.

The visionOS 2.2 update adds a new feature for the Mac Virtual Display option, allowing it to be set to Wide and Ultrawide. The Ultrawide setting is equivalent to two 4K displays side-by-side, and it is a notable improvement over the current Mac Virtual Display that's available in visionOS 2.1.

The Mac Virtual Display allows the Vision Pro to be connected to a Mac with the Vision Pro serving as the display for the machine. The virtual Mac desktop works just like a standard desktop with an external display, but Vision Pro does not support multiple displays. As a solution, Apple has added the option for a wider display to maximize space.

So Apple isn't fighting for diversity. They're doing exactly what they appear to be doing: they're trying to keep wages down and keep their workers compliant by importing labor from abroad.This isn't about diversity. It's about exploitation. It always is Continue reading →

Fly, новое видео группы STRANGER VISION, доступно для просмотра ниже. Эта песня взята из альбома FAUST Act I: Prelude To Darkness, выпущенного восьмого ноября:
#Stranger_Vision #StrangerVision #PowerMetal #Power_Metal
Видео: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lacVqguYOA

I’ve been following the press and social media coverage of Apple’s pricey new Vision Pro Augmented Reality headset, which now totals hundreds of stories and thousands of comments and I’ve noticed one idea missing from all of them: what would Steve (Jobs) say?  Steve would call the Vision Pro a “hobby,” just as he did with the original Apple TV. You know I’m correct about this. And the fact that Apple hasn’t gone for the H-word and no other writers are suggesting it is the topic of this column, not the Vision Pro, itself. It would appear that nobody at Apple has the balls to call the Vision Pro a hobby, which is to say it is not expected to make a profit for the […]

 REVISION #1

Question: When comping a series, does the 3-year rule apply to the most recent installment or to the first?  What if the series hasn't been concluded yet? 

You want to use comps that are as close to the specs of your book as you can. That means using the first book of any series because yours is the first book in your series. And you want that first book to have been pubbed recently, no earlier than 2018 and 2019 is better.

If you're banging your head against the wall on a comp search, you're doing it right. 

Dear Query Shark,

Three years ago, Aman once had an entire barn full of horses he loved.  Unfortunately for them, the Düzen were desperate for food.

Three years ago, Düzen soldiers invaded Aman's village, slaughtering the animals he had been entrusted with.   

Let's put this sentence about the Düzen soldiers in the first paragraph, then start the next paragraph where there's a shift in time.

Thus:

Three years ago, Aman once had an entire barn full of horses he loved.  Unfortunately for them, the Düzen were desperate for food.  Düzen soldiers invaded Aman's village, slaughtering the animals he had been entrusted with.

 New paragraph here for shift in time.

Now in his early twenties, Aman serves in the Corthiaks' heavy cavalry, hiding his guilt, grief, and self-loathing from his fellow soldiers.  His only source of hope, the one horse he has left, is old and inexperienced with combat—far from an ideal war horse.   

I stumbled over source of hope here because we don't have any sense of what Aman wants. You've described how he is now, but not what he wants.

Surrounded by hardened warriors and their younger, better-trained steeds, (some of whom aren't even horses,) Aman can't help but wonder if he or his horse really belong here.

I am intrigued by a cavalry that doesn't have horses, that's a nice detail to include. 

The Düzen have a new king, named Karib, and he wants peace with the Corthiaks.   

And here is where I lose the thread of the plot. 

Aman is sent to recount the story of his village to Karib, but he didn't take his last horse into war so that he could forgive the Düzen.  

After all, Karib believes that animal welfare means nothing in times of human suffering.  He and his soldiers would kill this horse in a heartbeat, along with anything else that isn't human.  

 Well, the Düzen should all burn in hell of course BUT you've set them up here. In the first paragraph, they slaughtered horses for food. Understandable but yucky. But here they are simply equicidal maniacs and that's a whole different bucket of entrails.

If Karib wants peace, what's standing in his way? What does Aman need to do?

Whether from a negotiator's seat or a war saddle, Aman must show Karib that animals are worth more than their weight on a butcher's scale. 

or what? The or what is what's at stake, and that's what you need here. 

 One will have him face difficult questions about the value of animal life and the ethics of eating meat, but the other will pit him against hordes of infantry that outnumber the Corthiaks forty to one, volleys of arrows that darken the skies, and rideable, venomous, twenty-foot carnivorous lizards.   

This sentence is 49 words long. That means it's got too much information in it for your reader to absorb easily.  Let's cut it down to two or three shorter sentences for easier understanding. 

 One will have him face difficult questions about the value of animal life and the ethics of eating meat.

One what? It's not clear who/what you mean. 

 Nothing is more off-putting in an otherwise good query than the idea the book is some message driven polemic. No one reads novels to hear about the ethics of eating meat. They read novels for the story.

but The other will pit him against hordes of infantry that outnumber the Corthiaks forty to one, volleys of arrows that darken the skies, and rideable, venomous, twenty-foot carnivorous lizards.   

This is an odd choice in that they don't seem to be alternatives. You can philosophize about eating meat while you battle lizards. There doesn't seem to be an either/or here, and that's what you need. 

Either way, he cannot hope to succeed without his fellow cavalrymen, and the horse who has carried him all this way.

CURSORIAL is an 82,000-word work of adult fantasy. You can add here: It explores themes of the ethics of eating plants etc.  

You can mention themes here (rather than above). I know I've said in earlier QS posts that you don't need them, and you don't BUT it can help elevate the query beyond plot points and characters.

It will appeal to fans of The Masquerade (by Seth Dickinson) 

When you list comps in a query, the first thing I do is look at the books on Amazon. The Masquerade appears to be the name of the series, not the first book. And the first book, The Traitor Baru Cormorant, was pubbed in 2016.   You need to use titles of books, not series. Sales figures are by book, and that's what we look at.  And of course, the book is too old to be an effective comp.

 But the description of the book is utterly compelling. 

Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up and see red sails on the horizon.

The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. They will conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She'll swallow her hate, join the Masquerade, and claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free.

To test her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.

 If I saw that in a query I'd fall all over myself to request the full.

The closer you can come to this vivid writing, the better.

and The Unbroken (by C. L. Clark).

 Don't put parentheses around the author's names.

I've seen a lot of that recently. There's probably some query advice that says to do so, but don't. 

I'm an equestrian, and an absolute geek for natural history, paleontology, medieval warfare, power metal music, and the color green. This is a terrific bio. It's the most vivid thing in the query. That tells me you're holding back in the query, maybe trying to be all serious and business like. Businesslike does not mean flat. Vivify!

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 I don't have a sense of the plot there that would compel me to request a full.

What does Aman want?

What does Karib want?

What's getting in the way of each of them getting it?

What choices do they face?  What sacrifices will be required?

Don't get lost in the weeds with lizards and vegans.

Focus on the plot. 

 ******

Original query

Question: I realize my comp titles are rather old, but I find them to be the best representatives of the emotional tone of this story. I've literally had beta readers tell me that they can't think of comp titles, so I went with my gut on this one. Is it a dealbreaker that the most recent comp title is almost 20 years old now?

REVISION #1

Dear Query Shark,

I am writing to you seeking representation for my 122,000-word adult fantasy novel THE CROSSOVER.

This is better than the 137K you had the first time, but paring down to under 120K is a good idea.

The last thing you want is an agent seeing the word count and swiping left without reading another word.

When ELENORE and BENAIAH

don't cap character names.

 inadvertently stumble across a portal to another world.

 Elenore just wants to gather evidence of their strange discovery to prove it to her university colleagues.

None of this matters, not really.

The story starts when they arrive in Swordlandia.

Let's refocus to make that clear.

Driven by her curiosity, she

Eleanora and Ben find a portal and of course, they want to see where it leads.

She leads Ben, her horse, and her dog through the portal.

Not to pick nits but did you notice the dog is never mentioned again?

Having your dog with you in a strange land would be comforting, no?

And does the dog get superpowers too?

They pop popping out in an entirely different universe.

This is a big moment in the query. Making it a separate short sentence gives it power and drama.

You want to stay in Elenore's point of view here, so let's revise this:

Two sword-bearing forces arrive with one obvious goal:

They're met by two, separate sword-bearing forces.

Let's add separate here so the reader doesn't think these are two platoons of the same company.

capture the strangers from another world.

We don't really need to know what the SBFs want. They're not the important antagonist.

 Elenore is captured by the king's brigade, and Ben is captured by the resistance movement. against the king.

Let your reader do some of the work here. If you say resistance movement, the reader will fill in that they're resisting the King. 

From their captors inform them that they learn that when they entered the portal, they passed through “the pathways” and  coming through the portal developed gave them abilities  that allow them to wield energy from the space between worlds.

Out of desperation to

Desperate to reunite and return home, Elenore and Ben accept separate, yet similar deals.

So, you learn you have superpowers. What's the first thing you want to do?

Give them up and go home?

Really?

Cause if you told me I had superpowers, I'd want to know what they were, and how I could use them to do fun stuff, like fly (Sharknado!), or eat ice cream without sacrificing my svelte sharkly silhouette, or get the world to quit using the phrase safety deposit box (it's safe deposit box, and yes this is a hill I will die on.)

But here you have her using her abilities (still unspecified) to do something that she doesn't have a stake in. Why would she do it?

When we're puzzled by why a character acts in what seems to be an illogical or unrealistic way, we're NOT engaged.  You want your readers to engage, to care what happens to Elenore (and the dog!!!)

Elenore agrees to use her new abilities to help the king recapture the same city where Ben is held, and Ben agrees to use his powers to aid in the movement  resistance and to dethrone the king who captured Elenore.

These two characters don't seem to have much depth or personality.

It's ESSENTIAL that your characters be interesting and right now they seem lacking in imagination or sense of adventure.

 As part of the deal, Elenore gains a vast understanding of the nature of time, reality, and mortality from the space between worlds.

Well, that's nice but what can she DO?

 Despite that knowledge, she doesn’t realize the danger they are in.

Of course not. What's the fun of that.

VICTORIA, Elenore’s mentor,

wait, what?
Who the heck is Victoria?

And WHERE is she? As in which side of the portal.

Introducing a main character this late in the game is confusing.

has no idea that she is fated to inadvertently catalyze the end of the universe, causing it to be wiped from existence layer by layer. 

Ho hum.

If a character is fated for something they don't have any choice in the matter.

The essence of a good story is what choices the characters face and what path they choose.

Ben’s captor, the leader of the resistance movement against the king, might be the only one with information on how to prevent the destruction of the universe and has no intentions of sharing it. Unaware of their larger role, Elenore and Ben are sure their hardships will come to an end if they can manage to avoid manipulation and survive long enough to see the deal through, but it is only a matter of time before Victoria finds a way to seize power from the king, setting the unraveling of the universe into motion.

Ok, who's the antagonist here?

You've got (as you did in the first version) too much going on.

You don't need as much world building as you think.

You need to focus on Elenore. She seems to be the main character.

What does she want?

Make sure what she wants makes sense to us the reader.

You're in an alien world with superpowers! What would you want to do?

Then give us a sense of the dilemma she faces

There must be some sort of conflict or there's no plot.

You do need more three-dimensional characters and we must have a better sense of choices and stakes.

The style, tone, and characters of THE CROSSOVER will appeal to readers of are most comparable to A.K. Larkwood’s The Unspoken Name meets and Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library.

Here's the description of The Unspoken Name

What if you knew how and when you will die?

Csorwe does—she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice.

But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard's loyal sword. Topple an empire and help him reclaim his seat of power.

But Csorwe will soon learn—gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

Notice there is almost NO world building.

There's one sentence of set up.

The choices the main character faces are clear, as are the stakes.

All in fewer than 100 words.

This is your goal.

You have 380 in the query.

It is intended to be the first installment of a series that I hope will span 3-5 books.

It can stand alone but I envision it as the start of a series

new paragraph for personalization

(Insert personalization here).

I am querying you because you like kale and I like rabbits (or whatever.)

Thank you for your consideration,

Focus.

Pare down the events and increase character development.

There are a million portal stories in my inbox.

Show me (don't tell me) how yours is better, faster, more enticing.

I'd start with the dog.

That's interesting.

******

Initial query

Question/Concern:

I have been submitting queries to agents since May of 2022 and have only received kind rejections so far. I have decided to blame this on my query letter for now, and so I come to you with my struggle after reading the archives. I have a complex first installment of a fantasy series in progress, and it seems impossible to include the necessary information in a concise manner. I have left many important characters unmentioned, and I have failed to include the aspect of my plot that involves the protagonist's impending trek through the infinite layers of an infinite universe in a war of fate and freewill. In addition to that, I feel that some of the appealing aspects of my book, like the presence of ghosts and alternate timelines, alternating chapter perspectives, intricate arcs, and relatable societal problems can't be included without getting to a 1200 word query letter.

Dear Query Shark,

 I am writing to seek representation for THE CROSSOVER, which is a 137,000-word new adult, fantasy fiction novel.

For starters, your word count is high. 137K is an auto-pass for many agents.

Your category, new adult, is one that you might see referenced on Goodreads etc., but isn't all that useful for queries. New Adult started as a way to categorize books for readers above the YA age range (that tops out at 18.)

All too quickly it morphed into porn light. Think 50 Shades of Grey.

Now it's trying to make a comeback but in a query you want to use the most solid description you can. Your book is fantasy. You don't need to say fiction, cause fantasy is not non-fiction. (Current events not withstanding.)

And fiction novel is an instant pass for a lot of us.

So: The Crossover (137,000 words) is fantasy.

Except when you start with this, it just gives agents permission to pass without reading another word.  That's why I suggest you put this at the close of the query, NO MATTER WHAT.

(Personalize for agent here).

Personalization goes below as well. So many writers botch this up that it's just safer not to lead with it.

Comps go at the end too.

And you can NOT use Stephen King as a comp. He is in a category by himself. People read his books just cause he wrote them.  You don't have that advantage yet.

THE CROSSOVER is most comparable to Stephen King’s newest novel Fairy Tale mixed with Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone.

Shadow and Bone was first pubbed in 2013. It's too old to be an effective comp.

ELENORE (23), a curiosity-driven student of science,

This is not a police blotter, or a newspaper article. Don't put the ages in parenthesis.

and BENAIAH (Ben, 22), her grumbly companion with a heart of gold,

heart of gold is a cliche.

Agents are looking for things that are fresh and new.

inadvertently stumble across a portal to another world on their rental property in Indiana.

Elenore’s desire to prove their discovery compels them to enter the undulating void despite a vague, menacing message found graffitied on their wall promising death to Ben should they go.

What?

What does prove their discovery mean?

Also, try this without all the modifiers.

Elenore’s desire to prove their discovery compels them to enter the undulating void despite a vague, menacing message found graffitied on their wall promising death to Ben should they go.

A lot easier to understand without all the descriptors.

Over-modifying is a common flaw in early work.

Watch for it, and pluck out everything you don't need.

And you don't need anywhere near as much filigree as you think.

After entering the portal and becoming separated by the sword-bearing forces in the Kingdom of Corva, Elenore and Ben are informed that when they entered the portal, they passed through “the pathways” and developed abilities.

This sentence is 35 words long.

That means you've got too much information for your reader to readily absorb.

Short form work like a query usually means you want short sentences.

Other people have some abilities, but allegedly, none can wield the pathways like those that walk through time.

The construction of this sentence seems to convey that pathways walk through time.

My guess is that's not what you mean.

An easy fix is just to change out that for who.

Other people have some abilities, but allegedly, none can wield the pathways like those who walk through time.

According to the warring rulers, Elenore and Ben are potentially the most powerful in the kingdom. Out of desperation, Elenore and Ben accept similar deals by agreeing to help in the conflict that envelopes the kingdom in exchange for help returning home.

At this point I'm utterly befuddled.

Unbeknownst to Elenore, Victoria, her mentor and advisor to the misguided King Gael, has a vicious ambition to seize power. Despite the knowledge Elenore gains on her journey, she doesn’t realize the danger they are in. Opal, the scheming, untrustworthy leader of the resistance movement that captured Ben, is the only one who understands the extent of the danger they are in, and she intends to use the knowledge to bargain for her life when Elenore and the king invade the city she holds. Meanwhile, Victoria  has no idea her antagonistic actions will eventually lead to the collapse of the infinite layers in their cyclical universe. Even worse, Elenore, Ben, a dog, and several other friends are the only ones that stand a chance of altering fate enough to prevent it. They must decide between risking their lives for a foreign universe or living with the guilt of doing nothing to prevent its demise.

There's so much information here it's impossible to follow.

In a query you don't need anywhere near this much detail.

 What you need is:

What does the main character want?

What's blocking them from getting it?

What choices do they face?

What's at stake with those choices?

That's all you need.

I have been writing for as long as I can remember.

This may be true. It's not useful to say so in a query.

The ideas that shaped this novel often surfaced in the night, causing me to leap out of bed and take notes on a post-it stuck to a book next to my bed.

Also not useful in the query.

Now, as a 25-year-old high school English teacher with a Bachelor of Arts in English Education, I finally had the tools to sit down and finish it.

Also not useful

The manuscript is complete and ready for review.

I hope so, cause if you're querying an unfinished book, its an automatic pass.

In other words, no need to  state the obvious.

And review means something else. You're submitting your ms for consideration. But you still don't need to say so.

Agents do not generally care about how long you've loved to write or your process.

 I truly appreciate you taking the time to read my query,

Don't sound like I'm doing you a favor here.

I'm not.

I'm reading your query with the idea of becoming extremely wealthy by the sweat of your brow.

and I look forward to the possibility of hearing from you. 

Yea, my colleagues are notorious for no response means no which I find highly objectionable.

But let's not give them leave to do that by acknowledging it. Let them sauté in their own shame.

Thank you for your consideration, 

Unfortunately you've got a novel that has all the aspects of every other portal fantasy, and nothing that makes it distinctly your own.

That's the challenge to all writers. Fresh and new doesn't mean stories we've never seen. It means a different take or a different approach.

First Blood is essentially a fresh look at Beowulf.

Clueless is a new way to tell the story in Emma.

Every Jack Reacher novel is a Western, really: A stranger comes to town, shakes things up, then leaves.

A Western with no horses, no six-guns, no cattle rustlers. In other words, a fresh take.

So the problem here isn't the query. It's the novel.

Time to think about what you can change to put your own distinct spin on a portal fantasy.

 Think about what prompted you to write this. What do you want to say that hasn't been said before. 

As for your question: The problem is not lack of detail. It's too much detail. Agents don't expect to know everything about the book from the query. The query is the introduction, a brief taste of the meal that is the book.

You need to pare down here, but also figure out what makes your book distinctive, and get that on the page.

Revision #1

Dear Query Shark:

Lily Carter has hid her singing voice away for years for fear of rejection.

Lily Carter has hidden, not hid.

These kinds of mistakes can fell your query before you know it.

If grammar and syntax aren't your forte, it's ok. It's not a sign of bad writing, or low character.

Just recognize that it's a stumbling block and make friends with Miss Picklepuss, the copy editor from hell. She'll help you remove these gremlins. It might cost some money, but this is something you do want to invest in.

Her best friend (now ex-best friend)

you don't need both of these.

Your reader will intuit that they were once best friends if she's now the ex-best friend.

Watch for this kind of over-writing.

made it clear she should never sing in public if she can help it.

Suggest taking this last part out just to give the sentence more drama.

So Lily sings only when she's sure no one else can hear her. Imagine her embarrassment when the new kid in town catches her in the act.

Imagine her embarrassment takes us out of the narrative.

You're telling, not showing.

Avoid that.

She's embarrassed.

But embarrassed is such a tepid word for the plot point that's driving the narrative.

Here's a good place to get out the Thesaurus and dig around for more vivid words.

mortified

humiliated

(and there are others, take your pick)

Already at odds with Jack Sutton after an encounter with him at school, Lily expects nothing but scorn from him.

Again, pare out what you don't need.

This is the meat and tater tots of revising. Early drafts are almost always too long. Pare out everything you don't need.

But instead of making fun of her, he compliments her, throwing all her preconceived notions about what a terrible singer she is into question. 

It's NOT a preconceived notion, is it? It's what someone told her (someone with some sort of malevolent agenda it sounds like.)

Internal conflicts in a query are huge red flag. It tells me you don't have a handle on the plot, and the full manuscript may not hold together very well. Again, here's where Miss Picklepuss can be of great value.

Suddenly, the aggravating yet undeniably charming Jack keeps is popping up all over the place. At school, at church, and then there’s the real icing on the cake. It turns out that Jack is the brother of her new best friend.

Do we need to know any of this?

This next sentence connects to the previous one more directly.

With a musical background himself and a dogged belief that Lily has talent, Jack makes it his mission to get Lily back on the horse. Or the stage, so to speak.

Consider:

Jack has a musical background himself, and seems to think Lily has talent.

He makes it his mission to get Lily back on stage.

There's a LOT to be said for starting your sentences with the subject, not burying it in a clause.

As Lily spends more time with Jack and his spirited sister Cat, a self-consciousness Lily didn't even realize she had developed begins to mend.

She didn't realize she was self-conscious about her singing?

Are you serious here? That just doesn't make sense unless Lily is blindingly un-self aware.

She's literally stopped singing outside of the shower.

She even gets up the courage to enter the high school talent show thanks to a little prodding from Jack and his agreement to help her prepare for the show. When Jack starts giving her singing lessons, Lily slowly begins believing in herself again.  

But Lily has a few obstacles to overcome. Like that pesky stage fright thing. Or the ex-best friend who unexpectedly resurfaces and tries to sabotage Lily’s chances. Or the growing feelings she’s developing for her best friend’s brother. Lily must rely on her friends, her family, and her new-found confidence in order to get ready for talent show day.

You've got a lot of stuff going on here, but not very much plot.

What's the problem here?

Lily has been told she shouldn't sing in public.

What problem does that create?

Then Jack comes along and tells her she does have a singing voice.

What problem does that solve?

TAKE A DEEP BREATH is a young adult novel complete at 60,000 words

You don't need to say it's complete.

That's assumed.

And this just doesn't feel YA to me. There's no sense of Lily or Jack learning to navigate in the real world. There's no real romantic element.

that portrays the sarcastic, yet vulnerable Lily along with her lovable family and kindhearted friends.

Sarcastic?

Not in these pages she isn't.

A story of personal growth with a touch of romance, this novel is similar to Maybe This Time by Kasie West or Eyes on Me by Rachel Harris.

I am a small town Minnesota gal, where a person can go from wearing a sweatshirt and wool socks one day to a tank top and sandals the next. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

you've got a lot of concept but not enough story.

You need more plot on the page. The problem Lily faces, and the choices to solve, and what's at stake.

It will help if we see those things for Jack too.

You've only got 60K here so you've a got a LOT of room to add more depth.

******

Original query

This query is a completely revised one from the one I started with as that one got me a couple of partial requests, but nothing serious. Now, since I've started using this query, I haven't even gotten a nibble. 

In the first  53 words you have two problems that could lead to an immediate pass.

While agents aren't actively looking for reasons to pass if you give them two in short order, that's what's going to happen.

My first query was succinct but a bit commercial in my opinion. So I tried to offer a quirkier approach with this one.

 A bit commercial isn't a bad thing. Agents are looking for things they can sell (ie commercial).

 I did beef up my bio after reading your archives. 

141 words is about 100 too many. See notes below. An extensive bio doesn't make up for problems in the query so lets focus on that.

You also stated in the archives that queries should have at least 2 comps. Is it okay to comp an author instead like I did?  

 No, see notes below

Dear Query Shark:

People are creatures of habit. They take the same route to school every day, they buy the same brand of soap they always do, and they listen to the same radio station, day in and day out. And they also sit at the same school desk every morning in first period English class.

When I read this, I have no idea if you're querying for fiction or non-fiction.

That's a big problem when agents are getting dozens of queries a week.

Big problem = pass.

It's more effective to start with the character's name and what problem she faces

At least, that’s what Lily Carter used to do.

Consider instead:

People are creatures of habit.

Lily Carter is a creature of habit.

They take the same route to school every day, they buy the same brand of soap they always do, and they listen to the same radio station, day in and day out.

She takes the same route to school every day, buys the same brand of soap, listens to the same radio station, day in and day you.

 And they also sit at the same school desk every morning in first period English class.

And sit at the same desk every morning in first period English.

But when you revise like this the real problem becomes very clear.

You're describing someone who doesn't sound very interesting. In fact, she sounds dull as dishwater.

That's DEATH in a query, particularly in YA.

Death = pass.

Now, if there's a reason Lily is so methodical in her daily life, that would give her some depth.

Is this how she feels safe?

Did she read Gustave Flaubert and take his advice to heart: "Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."

Let's give Lily some context here.

 Until Jack Sutton just waltzed in and stole it right out from under her. The gentlemanly thing to do would have been to give it back. Instead, he refused to acknowledge her rightful claim of dibs and in the process managed to ruffle her feathers, push her buttons, flip her lid, and get her goat. If you know what I mean.

Because he sat in her chair?

Does this seem like a very intense reaction to something that's essentially not important?  It's not like he said her mum wears army boots.

So, Jack is the last person on earth that Lily wants witnessing her humiliating attempt at singing.

There's no connection here between Jack stealing her seat in English class and witnessing her humiliating attempt at singing.

How is it that Jack is in her life at all?

Lily has been very careful to keep her voice under wraps after receiving rejection at the hands of a close friend.

What was Lily trying to do that a close friend rejected her?

Specifics are much more compelling than generalities.

You don't want to be awash in too much detail, but you need more than you have here.

Surprisingly though, Jack challenges her belief of mediocrity. 

What he actually does is challenge her belief that her singing is mediocre.

You need razor sharp, precise sentences in a query.

He actually begins to make her question a lot of things. Like the idea that the talent show is out of her league. Maybe, it's not. Maybe, she could even win it.

Although there is the small matter of that pesky stage fright thing…

So far, there's nothing interesting about Lily, and she sounds rather like a basket case. This is a HUGE problem in YA that is character driven.

As Lily gets closer to Jack and his spirited sister Cat, a self-consciousness Lily didn't even realize she had developed begins to mend. Thanks to a little prodding from her new friends, Lily signs up for the talent show. 

 What does Jack see in Lily that he's investing time and emotional support in her?

But someone from Lily's past is determined to see her fail. 

This is absolutely out of left field. With no context it's like a big ink blot on the page.

Let's give the antagonist some more page time.

Lily must rely on her friends, her family, and her new-found confidence in order to overcome the obstacles in her way. 

What obstacles? I thought there was an antagonist trying to thwart her.

Take a Deep Breath is a young adult novel complete at 60,000 words that portrays the sarcastic, yet vulnerable Lily along with her lovable family and kindhearted friends. A story of personal growth with a touch of romance, this novel will appeal to fans of Kasie West.

You need to use titles, not authors. Those titles need to be recent, no earlier than 2019.

Your bio is 141 words. Given a query should be 250-300 you've spent a larger percentage of your word count on your bio and not your book.

I am a small town Minnesota gal, where a person can go from wearing a sweatshirt and wool socks one day to a t-shirt and sandals the next. With a penchant for staying in every night with my two cats and a DVD collection to rival a Blockbuster store (are there any of those in existence anymore?) one might be tempted to call me an introvert. If it weren't for my extroverted husband, I just might be. Kudos to him for getting me out of my comfort zone and making friends with the outside world. Who knew I would enjoy things like pickleball and Korean BBQ? (not at the same time, for heaven's sake). This is my first novel and

 I'm looking to team up with an agent who can help an eager, wide-eyed newcomer navigate the ropes of the literary world.

This kind of statement is counter-productive.

Agents see this as code for needy and naive.  Even if you are these things, they're not something you'd put in your bio.  Remember a query is also about the agent assessing if you're someone they want to work with. Someone who clearly will need a lot of hand holding is less likely to get a nod. Just leave this kind of statement out.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

This does not have enough edge to be YA.

It sounds middle grade to me.

There's no sense of Lily coming to terms with the larger world, or figuring out her place in it.

It's all character development and very light on plot.

There's not enough story on the page.

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During the early reign of King Charles III (Charles the Simple) in West Francia, the area was besieged by Viking invasions, while the memory of the previous and frequent Saracen incursions was still fresh in the minds of the general populace. The Saracens were Muslim - mostly Berbers from Africa – and had only let up on the Franks because they’d been pushed back by the Vikings. The local nobles were left largely to fend the Vikings off on their own.

In Paladins of the West Kingdom, players assume the role of these unnamed nobles (most likely Dukes), working to keep the region safe and spread their faith (historically: Christianity).  I really enjoy this theme, and in fact, playing the game nurtured my interest in the historical kingdom of West Francia.  That’s why I can tell you that while the rulebook notes that the King lends his Paladins to the nobles to aid them in their quest, I’m giving all the credit for the loan to the designers, Shem Phillips and S J MacDonald.  Paladins are a fictional group of knights in French lore (think of them as similar to the Knights of the Round Table in British lore),  or alternatively, a translation of the Frankish royal title of Palatine Count, which was a noble that focused mostly on judicial and governing matters and was not known as a knight.

I’ve won a few and lost a few games of Paladins. It’s a worker placement game that incorporates card drafting.  At the beginning of every round, players draw the next three Paladin cards in their deck and choose one to play for the round, one to put back on top of their Paladin deck to draw during the next round, and one to put at the bottom of their Paladin deck. Each Paladin boosts faith, influence, or strength (usually more than one of these), and also provides a special benefit. If you’ve got players prone to analysis paralysis, this is where they may get stalled, especially in the first few rounds. After Paladins are selected and put into play, workers for the round are selected by each player and put into their personal resource supply. You have many stations on your player board to place your workers during the round,  and when you do so, your moves are independent and walled off from your opponents (they cannot tamper with your player board or placement of your workers on it). However, there is one area on the general board (the King’s Favour card area) where you can also place your workers and those spots are competitive. Also contributing to player interaction – some of the stations on your player board where you place workers allow you to move resources (monks and outposts) from your player board to the main board, consuming a competitive spot that provides a placement reward. And all the resource cards on display around the main board – the townsfolk you can hire, the walls you can build, the outsiders you can attack or convert, the tavern cards you draw workers from, and the suspicion cards you gain $$$ from, are all lucrative items for which players must compete. So we’ve got a good mix of independent action and player interaction in Paladins.  There are not a lot of opportunities for  “take that” behavior in this game, other than perhaps timing your draw of suspicion cards to trigger an inquisition when you know your opponents will suffer a penalty and be forced to take on more debt.

Giving the game more intellectual weight, worker placement on your board and the actions workers trigger often have additional requirements beyond number and types (i.e., colors) of workers. The actions triggered by worker placement may be constrained by your strength, faith, or influence level. And some spots or actions triggered by placing workers in those spots require money or provisions. All of these prerequisites can be gained as rewards from prior actions triggered by various worker placement, so much of the game is finding the most efficient ways to obtain prerequisites associated with the series of actions you’d like to take as the game progresses. I worried this decision making would be a weak point for analysis paralysis (I’m a pretty good candidate for testing potential AP, as I’m prone to it) and while there can be a bit of that during the game, nothing excessive was logged during our plays.  

The artists (Shem Phillips on graphic design and Mihajlo Dimitrievski on illustrations) have printed helpful indicators next to each placement location on boards and cards to identify any prerequisites as well as rewards. It’s an example of how the designers have worked with the artists to layer meaningful game information into the layers of artwork. In fact, all of the symbols implemented across the game components are really quite helpful. Bonus: once you familiarize yourself with them in one of the West Kingdom games, you’ll have learned them for the entire series as the artists reuse the same symbols in all three titles.

Beyond the iconography, the illustrations and other artwork are lovely. As with the iconography, the same style of artwork is implemented across the entire series and it carries the theme well. There was a good mix of cisgender representation, but not a lot of racial diversity, especially as would be suggested by the historical setting of the game (for example, Berbers in the area had skin tones ranging from light to to dark brown).

The components for Paladins of the West Kingdom are well made.

There are wooden meeples, an assortment of foldable boards constructed from cardboard, and various plastic coated card decks. We found the rulebook to be clear and direct, and there weren’t any items we had to look up online. It would have been nice if the designers included a player aid in the components, but I was able to compensate for the oversight by downloading a detailed player aid another user uploaded to the forums on BoardGameGeek.com.

Paladins of the West Kingdom is my favorite game of the West Kingdom series. All of the worker types and available actions make sense within the context of the theme, the mechanisms (worker placement, card drafting) integrate tightly with the scoring system to provide opportunities for building a victory point engine, and the game is complex and interesting yet still accessible for new players. The game is also a great value at its price point (approx $50) given you’ll get dozens of multiplayer games in before even a hint of same-o same-o creeps in. Many games with comparable replayability and complexity are double the price of Paladins. There’s also a solo play mode, which provides an additional way to explore the game.

-------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
Players: 1-4 (We played with 2)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 2 hours per game
Game type: card drafting, worker placement
Retail Price: $50

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

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