LIVE CRITIQUE TIME!

Welcome back to our live critique blog series. Today, we're critiquing the pitch paragraphs of an author's query letter. As usual, find the unedited version first followed by the query with our comments and suggestions in red to follow. And, if you have any suggestions you'd like to add, please do so in the comments. 

Eleven-year-old Alexander Sighs hates being the middle child. His mother spends most of her time with his youngest sister teaching her the art of beauty pageants, while his father spends his time with his older brother teaching him little league jousting and sword fighting. His family never notices when he’s there, so he decides to teach them a lesson and run away from home. His original preparations get botched when he captures two leprechauns.

Alexander is convinced to join them on a quest to find unicorns that were stolen by the evil King. It'd be just like running away only better because he's promised an exciting adventure, fraught with danger. Unfortunately, leprechauns take that promise seriously. They get unexpected help from the evil king's daughter--a witch. While she helps Alexander escape one near-death experience after another, he is surprised to find himself on the King's most wanted list for helping her run away. If Alexander fails to retrieve the unicorns, leprechauns and all they stand for will cease to exist. But if he succeeds, his own existence might come to an end.
ALEXANDER is a 40,000-word MG standalone fantasy novel, with sequel possibilities.


 
 
Eleven-year-old Alexander Sighs hates being the middle child. – This is a great opening line. It shows an ordinary problem, but gets straight to the conflict and tells us a lot about Alexander pretty quickly, and kids will sympathize with his plight – His mother spends most of her time with his youngest sister teaching her the art of beauty pageants, while his father spends his time with his older brother teaching him little league jousting and sword fighting. – This sounds such fun! You have used “spends … time” twice in the sentence, however, so consider revising to avoid the repetition. – His family never notices when he’s there, so he decides to teach them a lesson and run away from home. – You could delete “from home” as this will be clear to the reader. Also, could you add more voice here? Perhaps: “His family never notices him, and now Alexander’s done. Over it. His only option: teach them all a lesson and run away.” Or similar. – His original preparations get botched when he captures two leprechauns. – This last sentence seems a little sudden and lacks detail. First: what are his “original preparations”? Are they important? And second: How does he 1) encounter leprechauns and 2) capture them? Perhaps some more detail here would help show the reader more about the leprechauns: where Alexander was, if they met by chance, what he did to capture them, are leprechauns normally found out and about, and why did he capture them rather than running away from them.

Alexander is convinced – Passive; try “They convince Alexander…” – to join them on a quest to find unicorns that were – perhaps delete “that were” for smoother flow – stolen by the evil King. – If the unicorns were stolen, wouldn’t the King still have them? Why do they need to find them? Did the unicorns belong to the leprechauns? Why are they looking for them? Is all this happening in the real world where Alexander lives or does Alexander live in a magical place where leprechauns and evil kings and unicorns are pretty normal? – It'd be just like running away only better because he's promised an exciting adventure, fraught with danger. Unfortunately, leprechauns take that promise seriously. – Are these details all necessary? Alex’s motives for joining the quest are pretty obvious, and it seems obvious that the leprechauns are going to hold him to his promise. Instead, maybe include more about why this matters. Why did the evil King take the unicorns, who did he steal them from, and what are the consequences for whatever magical place he took them from? You don’t have to answer all of those questions, but this is where you can add some all important stakes, beyond stating simply that they want to get the unicorns back. – They get unexpected help from the evil King's daughter-- – use an em-dash here rather than two hyphens – a witch. While she helps Alexander escape one near-death experience after another, he is – contract: “he’s” – surprised to find himself on the King's most wanted list for helping her run away – How is this surprising? Perhaps all you really need is “he finds himself on the King’s most wanted list…” –. If Alexander fails to retrieve the unicorns, leprechauns and all they stand for will cease to exist. But if he succeeds, his own existence might come to an end. – You’ve got clear stakes here, but perhaps try to make them more compelling. If he fails, things will go badly for the leprechauns and all the nebulous, generic things they stand for. If he succeeds, he dies. Alexander better have a darned good reason to be risking his life to save the leprechauns. Clear, specific stakes: why does any of this matter to Alexander?
 
ALEXANDER – Perhaps it's best to use the whole title here – is a 40,000-word MG standalone fantasy novel, with sequel possibilities. – There’s nothing really wrong with “sequel possibilities,” but the typical phrase is “series potential.” Using the industry standard lingo shows you’ve done your homework. Could you also add something with comp. titles here? Such as "...that will appeal to fans of XXX and XXX"? 


QUERY CRITIQUE OVERVIEW... 
 
So in general, a solid query needs to answer 4 questions to work well and pique an agent’s interest. This technique might provide a different way of thinking about what you need to include in your query (and what you don’t).

• Who’s your main character? = Alexander, an 11-year-old middle child. Lonely, feels ignored and left out.

 

• What does he want? = Attention from his family, at first. Then it shifts, and becomes a bit unclear. Is he in it for the adventure? Magic? Because it’s the Right Thing? To save the world? Because he’s finally found a place where he matters? If you nail down what he really wants, that will help focus your query.

 

• What’s stopping him from getting what he wants? = Well, that depends a bit on what he wants. Presumably in the beginning it’s his family and their attention, although he may be a bit at fault too for not communicating his own needs. And later the King is definitely getting in the way of the quest goal.

 

• What happens if he fails? = This is where the query needs most focus. If he fails, it sounds like he lives and goes back to his normal life. Things aren’t so good for the leprechauns, but we don’t know enough about them to care. We also don’t know if Alexander cares about them at this point. So, perhaps ask why would a reader want Alexander to succeed? There has to be more to the story so really look at making this clearer in the query.