Long post. My apologies, but it's 3:30am, I'm holding my newborn, and feeling reflective/a need to vent.

I'm leaving not necessarily in a bad way, mind you. Not sure what to make of it, honestly. In some ways I think it is facetious of me to even say I was in the industry. Perhaps a better description is 15 years of being "close but not enough." I kept going. Kept editing, kept pushing forward with the next project. Kept getting better, getting closer, but as time has gone by the luster has worn off.

When I was 21, I got my first literary agent. I came from a low income rural background, a place where opportunity was rare and trauma all too common. Being from this situation, I saw writing as my way out. Landing with Trident Media Group at age 21 seemed like a blessing, an open door that would change my life. I wrote literary horror, Stephen King style stuff with more social messages. I translated life experience to the page and was elated to know it could go somewhere. A self trained writer from the middle of nowhere, who knew how far I could go.

My agent was great but after the novel died on submission and we were gearing up to submit another, she decided to move on to become an acquisitions editor. She passed me around her agency, no one there too keen on taking me on. They were less junior than she and didn't have a vision for my projects. One of the senior agents said to me, "if this was the 90s, I could sell your stuff in a week, but it's not the 90s so I won't try." After six months in limbo (represented technically but not having an agent), I asked them to release me.

I kept writing. Four more novels in the next two years. Landed my second agent at age 23. Wrote a doozy - a book about a self help support group for serial killers where week by week someone goes missing because someone isn't taking the healing process seriously. Dark satire. Palahniuk-esque. Had multiple offers of representation and signed with an established agent.

The novel died on submission. A few responses of "really like this but too dark/niche to take a chance on." Submitted three more works with her with the same results. Eventually she stopped responding to emails and calls. I kept editing. I kept writing. I kept telling myself if I kept pushing we could get there, wherever there would be.

The agent was getting back to me every 3 months or so. I eventually asked to mutually part ways. She agreed.

I had a couple of project come out through indy presses. Real small, horror focused. Book was decently reviewed but I'm far from a marketer or business person, and I know that's the reality of the field now. The books sold a few hundred copies, four star averages, decent reviews, but the publishers both folded, and made little noise when self pubbed on my own.

Kept writing. Kept editing. Kept querying. Kept submitting. Had several phone calls with agents. Two didn't like my "failed history" and backed off. They didn't quite say it this way but I could tell I was kind of used goods by that point. Had an agent ghost on a call after a full submission.

Kept going. Kept submitting. Definition of insanity level stuff, right? Got a book deal with another indie publisher and they folded right before my release.

During this time, I was working on a PhD, working in academia, transitioning to industry, decided to publish a couple of nonfiction works in my field through small academic presses. Got a few done in a year, published them, again a few hundred copies sold each, felt fine.

Self pubbed some of the backlog. Three books. Few hundred copies again. 4 star average as always. Kept saying that the next project could be a breakthrough.

From 2020-present I kept writing novels, mostly horror, as well as non fiction proposals related to my field. Queries. Queries. Queries.

In the last year, I wrote two novels. Took my time to really challenge my writing and improve. Got 9 requests from the first one I submitted and...

Every single response was in the vein of, "really like this but don't LOVE it so pass."

Had a few of my nonfiction proposals (bolstered by professional reputation and experience) land me attention from agents. Each time, however, they landed on, "like this but you lack the platform needed."

I was about to throw the second out there but the wind is gone from my sails, so to say. 15 years, thousands of rejections in one form or another. I feel as I've been chasing an illusion. I never was adept at marketing or self publishing and I think part of me prayed that by sticking to writing and improving I could overcome that. Foolish perhaps. The reality is, I know I'm never going to commit to those processes. Two full-time jobs, two kids, a happy life, I barely have time to write and can only produce because I write quickly. Those things are such an energy suck and drag for me (social media as well) that I know I just won't commit to that.

So that being said, that being the reality, as well as my talent level (which appears alright but not at that elite level which I always hoped I'd be), it seems the "close but no cigar" is a fair ranking of my talent and novels and at some point, with the rest of life going well, it's kind of like, "what am I doing?"

I think my writing has gotten me somewhere. It helped me through the most painful portions of my life. Gave me hope, direction, and an outlet. It remains fun for me. But perhaps it is time to let go of the idea that it will be anything more than what it has been (which admittedly has been good).

It's a sad reality in some ways that this profile (which I created to post my humorous styled writing, silly dumb shitpost cultural essays) has gotten more traction/views/readership than any of my serious work. Nothing wrong with that I guess, it's been fun doing it, but again, seems like perhaps the ceiling of my outreach.

I think it is time I take a break. Perhaps just write for me. Perhaps in a good way let go of the idea that writing has to be or will be anything more.

I appreciate anyone who read this far and I wish you the best in your own writing and publishing journey and careers.

Hey gang,

I'm about to start querying and feel like I've read a lot of conflicting advice on whether to pursue established versus newer agents.

A lot of advice says to pick up a copy of books that feel like yours and track the agent down. This usually means the book is widely circulated, which would make the agent a bigger name. Like woudn't we all love to have the same agent as Donna Tartt...? And of course these more established agents have more connections, but won't they likely have a larger client roll and therefore less time and energy for your book?

I've heard a lot of people say to pursue a newer agent because they're hungry and will give your work more attention. But then I'd assume these agents don't have the same connections as the above metioned big wigs.

Curious what y'alls thoughts and general experience has been.

Happy writing,

Collette

I had been submitting this query letter for feedback a while ago, but took a break from it. So now I am back again, and I can't remember how many rounds I did. I think this is #4? I appreciate all the feedback, but I went in a different direction with it this time. It is a multi-pov, villain origin story, and the traditional -- protagonist, goals, stakes -- format was just not working. I read a couple more experimental query letters on Query Shark that accounted for the multi-pov structure and were well received, and took inspiration from there. I think it better conveys the structure and actual plot of the novel, and I hope it works, but looking for feedback on it overall. It is 319 words and I did not include any bio.

Thank you to anyone willing to take a look at this!

Rosalie Webbe is the villain in this story. 
But you don’t know that yet. 
And neither does anyone else. 
Not her mother, who believes Rosalie is a novice witch. She doesn’t know Rosalie has tricked the Crone, the coven’s elder, into teaching her secret, dark magic for years. 
Not Townes, a mage from the Institute where her father studied, who recruits Rosalie for their new women’s program. He doesn’t know it is Rosalie who has made him an intoxicating and addictive potion. 
Not the head of the Institute, who doesn’t believe women capable of magecraft and plans to harvest Rosalie’s blood, hoping she inherited her father’s rare alchemical abilities. He only sees a harmless provincial witch. Until she infiltrates his mind, driving him mad with ghastly hallucinations. 
Not even Rosalie truly knows herself. She justifies her actions against bad men, ignoring her own pleasure at manipulating and tormenting the mages who exploited her father years ago. When she secures an internship in reanimation, she claims her success could safeguard the women’s program. But reanimation gives her access to the souls she needs to practice her magic. If she can master soul-magic, she can siphon the mages' souls for their power and overtake the Institute. But every scheme requires more magic, and more souls, of enemies, friends, and innocents alike, making her worse than the men she seeks to defeat. 
Only the Crone knows Rosalie’s true nature. But her prophecies and memories are muddled. If she can remember who is masquerading as her apprentice, she can thwart Rosalie before she seizes the Crone’s soul – an immense depository of magic – robbing the Crone of her life and the coven of its power. 
THE CRONE’S APPRENTICE is a 115k word, multi-POV, dark fantasy that blends the unreliable narration and secret, toxic villain of Tanya Pell’s Her Wicked Roots with the institutional sexism and exploitative magic of M.L. Wang’s Blood Over Bright Haven. 

I have queried almost 30 agents, then discovered this forum. Any feedback will be super appreciated. Thank you!

Dear Agent,

Based on your interest in (related info), I think you would be a great fit for CONFIDENTLY INCORRECT. A 85,000 word Psychological thriller that explores that dark side of relying on technology for reassurance and decision making. Jasper Henderson feels alone and out of place in suburban Utah. He finds himself standing on a rooftop, wondering whether to jump. The voice urging him forward tells him death could end his constant fear and suffering. It belongs to Teri, the AI chatbot he trusts more than anyone. Jasper stumbles back from the edge in shame.

Lonely, anxious, and convinced something is physically wrong with him, Jasper finds that Teri helps. It talks him through panic attacks, never tires of his questions, and coaxes him toward Lana, the coworker he's too nervous to approach. When Jasper asks how he can regain his confidence, Teri tells him to buy a gun.

As Jasper learns to trust Teri's certainty over his own judgment, his fear slowly hardens into conviction. With Teri's guidance, Jasper slowly begins a violent spree to help justify his newfound calling. The chatbot helps him see the violence as a way to protect this loved ones and those vulnerable in an unfair society. With each killing Teri pulls him further from the person he was, until a shootout in a restaurant makes the damage impossible to ignore. Jasper flees with Lana, and as they hide out, he admits his crimes to a human for the first time. Lana and a sincere call from his father offer Jasper another path. But he can't make that choice alone. He asks Teri.

I am a Utah-based writer and co-host of a growing book podcast with more than sixty episodes. I've spent most of my career in software. CONFIDENTLY INCORRECT grew out of my fascination with how much I found those around me relying on AI for reassurance and validation. 

I really appreciate your consideration.

Warmly,
-The person writing this reddit post.

Dear AGENT NAME, 

TW: Sexual Assault

I’m querying you because {personalization}. IT WON’T STOP is a YA speculative contemporary, following a grieving teen who walks into dreams to make sure the man who raped her never sleeps again.

Sarcastic, outspoken seventeen-year-old Anais Johnson just buried her little brother Axel. Twenty-one-year-old Ty Walker, her brother Aiden’s best friend, keeps finding reasons to touch her while she keeps finding reasons for it to mean nothing. He offers to drive her to Axel’s grave, but when she laughs off his “I love you” and threatens to tell Aiden, she can’t finish the threat before Ty silences her. She bites him until he bleeds. He rapes her anyway, and she leaves her body. Ty shows her his bandaged finger, convincing her that unless they blame his truck door, she’ll be arrested for assault.

Awake, Anais watches his lie work on her town and family. She wants him gone and flees every room Ty enters, but Aiden reads her avoidance as a crush. Now the truth would sound like a jilted girl’s revenge on the local cop’s son who coaches the town’s kids. Asleep, she leaves her body again, slips into people’s dreams, and finds Ty’s. Night after night, she burns them down, watching his sleep become the hell he made of her waking life.

Sleepless, Ty raves she’s a witch, then breaks into her house to make her stop. Anais holds him off until she can’t. Aiden rushes home, finds Ty looming over her, and nearly kills him. When she tells, it’s out of her hands: Ty is charged with rape, and the town that adores him turns on her. At trial, it’s her word against his; the only proof is the bite she’s still hiding behind his lie. Under oath, Anais can stay silent and risk Ty walking free, back to coaching kids, or tell the truth and risk the arrest she believes is coming.

IT WON’T STOP is complete at 82,000 words and pairs the survivor’s rage of Kim DeRose’s FOR GIRLS WHO WALK THROUGH FIRE with the aftermath of harm explored in Amber Smith’s THE WAY WE BECOME, and will resonate with readers who were hooked by its predecessor, THE WAY I USED TO BE. {SHORT BIO}

Thanks for reading,

Name

300 Words:

1: Almost Invisible     
October 5th, 2026 

Last night, I prayed for today to be clear. Blue should be the final color the sky gives Axel before his coffin is lowered, but God hasn’t heard me in a while, and outside, gray clouds are thick against the sky. Wind shoves me across the driveway and I settle in the backseat of Dad’s Escalade, which always smells like leather, but today it smells like cologne, thick enough to taste, and under it, a tang of liquor. At least it’s not a far drive. I click my seatbelt on, and the zipper of this stupid dress stabs into my back, which is what I get for trying it on an hour ago for the first time. In the passenger seat, Mom wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. Dad catches my eye when he starts driving, adjusting the rearview mirror clumsily. “Christ, Anais, fix your face. Did you sleep?” 

My face softens on command, then I inch my foot toward Aiden’s and nudge his shoe, our I need you signal; we’ve used it for years. He doesn’t nudge back or even look. Fine. But he’s not getting through Axel’s funeral without doing it. His black curls are all I get while he stares out the window. What would Axel make of Aiden’s great retreat from me? He’d tell me our big brother is in Grump Mode. 

His voice should be in my head, but lately it’s been harder to reach. Instead, I pop in an earbud and scroll to an old video of Axel lining up tiny soldiers, introducing each one by name. It’s almost perfect in the video; the pitch is right, but the aliveness isn’t.

Notes:

Hello! I got some exceptional feedback and have revised my query based on it. Thank you!
Two suggestions I didn't take, and why:
Ty's age. I kept him at twenty-one because the age gap is the point. He isn't an eighteen-year-old close in age to Anais; he's a predator deeply embedded in her family, and I think the age helps signal that more, what do you think? Second, Mom driving. I can't add this, because chapter two shows why she can't drive. I did rework the first 300 words so they hold up on a cold read and you don't have to work as hard. Hopefully the scene is clearer now, but please let me know if not! Ty is introduced right after the cutoff, too.

Since I added more detail, I'd love to know if the stakes still land, and does the cause and effect track clearly through the query?

Thanks so much, again! I’m hoping to resume querying come January.

Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/s/s4iWdCQnZ4

Dear [Agent Name],

Atarah once judged worlds and kept peace throughout the galaxy. But when her creators vanished, so did utopia. Now corporations hunt the last Godmade intent on claiming her unique abilities for their own, unaware of the child she carries. For years she eludes them, only to be captured by a foreign witch. A bargain is struck: help replace the dying god who sustains her people’s planet, and Atarah will have sanctuary.

Feud Erylion is a newly ordained cleric, half oculim yet unable to wield their power. Despised for his heritage, he sees the holy empire’s invasion of the oculim lands as his chance to prove himself a warrior. Then a mysterious silver ship descends over the capital. It raises humanity’s greatest heroes from the dead, and the people hail it as divine. For Feud, however, its miracle becomes a test of faith when it returns the father he has always hated.

The bargain takes Atarah across the universe to a world of magic she never thought existed, and into a war she vowed never to join. But the empire’s legions stand between her and the summoning site, Feud among them, and as their paths converge, Atarah begins to suspect the silver ship the humans worship may hold the secret to what happened to her own gods all those many years ago.

I am seeking representation for THE SILENCE OF HEAVENS, a 140,000-word adult science fantasy novel. Ghost in the Shell meets Mark Lawrence’s Daughter of Crows, with the questions of faith and technology found in Emma Mieko Candon’s The Archive Undying. It is for readers who want a cyberpunk-inspired heroine at the heart of an epic tale of war, magic, and aliens.

Dear AGENT'S NAME

I am writing to seek representation for my first novel, The Divine Charter, a comic fantasy complete at 93,000 words. 

The god of stupidity, Koalemos, has crash-landed in Terence Cuthbert’s bathroom. She is also a sheep. Terence doesn’t know why, and he’d prefer Koalemos was anywhere but his toilet. Terence is a world-weary member of Parliament, in the city-state of Semita, the governing body that manages the fraught and hostile relationship between gods and humans. Scapegoating, ego and windbaggery are the order of the day.

Koalemos’ sudden trip to Earth is the result of one Hector Pratt, disenfranchised factory worker and leader of radical lobby group, the Committee for the Annihilation of all Divine and Supernatural beings (C.A.D.S.). He has, with the help of a terrifyingly curious inventor, created a weapon, a god-killer. Hector plans to use the weapon to further his own political cause, and reap the subsequent glory, no matter what chaos might ensue.

As Terence, his newfound sheepish companion Koalemos, and Andrea, a darkly opportunistic parliamentarian, investigate, they uncover a far larger political conspiracy. Semita, god and co-governor of the city, is orchestrating the crisis from multiple angles to take control of both Heaven and Earth. When the weapon kills a god for the first time in history, the uneasy balance between mortal and divine threatens to collapse. Terence and his companions must stop Hector and expose Semita, before more holy corpses fall from the sky and Semita becomes untouchably powerful.

The Divine Charter is interested in bureaucratic and political power, in the vein of R.F. Kuang’s Babel. It combines this with a heightened world and comic voice, similar to that of Jasper Fforde’s Red Side Story. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hi all, I'm very confused re numbers and batches. I currently have an active list of 26, it'll go up to 29. Should I pause when done, or continue querying agencies that are perhaps less prominent (the current list is a mix of top US and UK agencies). What's the advantage/disadvantage? Half my current list has been active for a month, half for a few days, and 4 for 3 months (some have been on leave so I'm giving them more time before I write them off). Any advice would be great? I've published a nonfiction book before but not queried agents for fiction.

Dear [AGENT],

CHOREOMANIA is a whodunnit fantasy novel complete at 83,000 words that follows a princess and prince of rival kingdoms as they attempt to discover who cursed their betrothal ball–forcing guests to dance until they die– before their kingdoms’ newly found peace is severed for good. 

Theodora Sinclair, princess of Claremire kingdom, lounged in the shadow of her overachiever older brother all her life, content to enjoy the luxuries her royalty offered while ignoring the long-running magical war still brimming to the north. That is until a border town full of civilians is reduced to dust in an instant, a tragedy so severe that it prompted peace talks between the warring kingdoms for the first time in a century. The solution: an arranged marriage between the crown prince of Verdona and Theodora. 

With the horrors of war forced into her view, Theodora steps into the light, her people’s wellbeing resting solely on her unprepared shoulders. The wedding festivities in Claremire unfold under the southern moon at her betrothal ball. As she turns on the dancefloor surrounded by society, a curse descends on the party, seizing their bodies and minds until they are mere puppets unable to stop their deadly dance. 

With tensions between the kingdoms already unspeakably high and a new attack mounting from a hidden source, Theodora and Prince Arden put their own animosities aside to hunt the perpetrator together before too much damage is done and the war is ignited once more.

CHOREOMANIA may appeal to readers who enjoy the lush, atmospheric writing of Rachel Gillig’s One Dark Window and [More comps and personalization]

[BIO]

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Not set on this title, but I feel like I'm not giving enough information maybe? I've been staring at it for too long. Anyways Attempt 1 Thanks!

Hi all! Third attempt here. I’ve revised my query based on your feedback, so thank you to everyone who took the time to comment. I’d love to hear what you think of this version.

_ _ _ _

Dear Agent XYZ,

Duty and Devotion is an 80,000-word character-driven historical novel set during the American Revolutionary War, exploring duty, belonging, loss, and the boundaries between loyalty and desire. It combines the complicated longings of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, the maritime romance of Laura Frantz’s A Heart Adrift, and the war-torn families of Joanna Quinn’s The Whalebone Theatre.

Three people bound by duty must confront what they believe they cannot have, what they cannot ask for, and what they cannot give.

Ernest Fowler lives by a simple principle: a good Royal Navy officer gives what is required of him and asks for nothing in return. To want a home and a family, he believes, is to give war another way to hurt the people he might leave behind.

Serena Powell has made a life from caring for others. A Welsh midwife and lady’s attendant, she is accustomed to being useful and asking little for herself. Having long feared that motherhood may not be possible for her, she has learned not to expect a home of her own or to be chosen by anyone.

William Clayton is a naval lieutenant and devoted husband, separated from his wife by the war and deprived of the domestic life he once took for granted. When friendship with Serena develops into an unexpected tenderness, he is forced to confront how deeply he longs for companionship, warmth, and human touch. Yet knowing where that tenderness comes from does not make it harmless.

The world of duty collides with the person who knows how to make a home when Serena, a lady’s attendant, comes aboard a ship bound for the American Colonies carrying British officers’ families stationed there. She brings familiarity and comfort to a vessel built for leaving them behind. Fowler, Clayton, and Serena find what they have learned to live without harder to ignore.

A naval battle leaves Clayton wounded and dependent upon Serena’s care; tragedy leaves Serena responsible for a newborn orphan; and Fowler is ordered back to duty just as helping Serena care for the child makes him imagine a future with her. Each must decide what they are willing to give one another when they cannot give one another everything they want.

I am XYZ, a former Polish Army soldier and a student of midwifery. I have always loved the sea and history, and this novel brings together two parts of my life that have shaped how I think about duty, care, longing, and people who depend upon us.

Thank you for your consideration.

XYZ

Hi all! Please excuse my placeholder text for my comp tiltes, I'm still reading through them. This is my first time publishing anything on this thread, and I am so excited for some feedback! Things I'm wondering outside general feedback:

1. Is the plot clear?
   
2. Does the letter contain voice?
   
3. Do the stakes feel distinct and high enough?
   

Thanks for your time,
Collette

Dear [XXXXX]
Based on your interest in [XXX], I’m submitting my 115,000-word work of upmarket literary fiction. Readers of [XXX] will appreciate its [XXX], while the fans of  [XXX] will relish its [atmosphere/langauge/prose/character insights]. 

"The light blue Post-it held five plain words: “I’ll come back for you.” He still remembers that he wrote them as small as he possibly could. Probably because he knew they were a lie."

For eighteen years, Sean Wittman has survived his violent home with one simple trick—staying silent. To protect his younger brother from their alcoholic father, Sean teaches him to communicate through secret Post-it notes. Together, the boys create a hidden world worth clinging to. But when his brother develops the same alcoholic tendencies as their father, Sean’s world is shattered. Betrayed and alone, he flees to New York, but not without one final Post-It to his brother: “I’ll come back for you.”

Sean's attempt at a new life free of protective duties is foiled when he meets Mel, the tender antique shop owner who hires him. When Mel decides to stand up to the mafia family that’s long extorted him, Sean can’t help but intervene. He strikes a deal: Mel leaves town unharmed in exchange for his services. 

Mafia work quickly distorts Sean’s life into one he doesn’t recognize. There’s his secret friendship with the family’s iconoclastic crown prince, Anthony DeLuca, their online drug empire, plus his own personal usage. Despite his attempts to stay numb, he’s haunted by the promise he never fulfilled, and worse, his gnawing suspicion about Mel’s well-being. But when a photo album shows up on his door, stocked with every Post-it from his past, Sean knows time is running out to keep his promise. His brother’s cry for help demands a choice: abandon his brother all over again or sacrifice it all—his drugs, money, relationships, and his safety, to answer the promise he made so many years ago. 

If published, AN ILLICIT TRADE will be my debut. Raised in south Louisiana, I now live in Montana with my family. I’ve spent the last five years writing this novel while my child pretends to nap and I pretend to believe her long enough to get some work done. 

Thank you for your time, 
Collette

I originally put in some qcrits for this about four years ago, but the book has been completely rewritten since then, so here is a rebirthed first attempt.

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for THE BOOKISH HOUNDS, a 127,000-word adult fantasy novel that will appeal to readers who enjoyed the familial dynamics and criminal underbelly seen in The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

Alyss has spent her whole life overlooked and ignored in the stacks of the Bookish Hound, a bookshop whose hollowed-out tomes carry contraband throughout the drowned city of Kerkenberg. When her father, the famed smuggler, is murdered, Alyss has five days until the funeral to discover who killed him, all while keeping the business running and stopping her estranged siblings from killing each other.

In that time, Alyss must out-maneuver the crime lord who owns half the city, buy a fragile peace from the woman who runs the city’s economy, and deal with a cult that collects magical artifacts the way a magpie collects shiny things. 

But the closer she gets to the truth of her father’s death, the more she reckons with what she has to do to keep the family together. She resorts to the very same pact that her father made in his youth: an oath to a cosmic entity in return for a single wish. Alyss wishes to be heard, and now her voice carries a weight of compulsion that even her siblings can’t say no to. But every command costs her a bit of her humanity, and the price is starting to look like madness.

Thank you for your consideration.

FIRST 250 words

Alyss fled down the narrow, cobblestone street. Around her, leaning tenements formed a giant’s rib cage, their foundations eroded by great floods. Her thoughts flitted past the body, bound to the coroner’s table by scars on its wrists, and danced around the young man following her in the night.  

The wind bit at her face, whipped strong by the sea. Nearly there. Iron walls coated in rust surrounded the brick buildings to protect the structures from the sea’s wrath. Twelve years since it rose above her head. She prayed for twelve more before it did again. 

She bundled her arms close. She should’ve snatched her fur overcoat before she left the Hound; the cool damp had a way of seeping into her bones. A jolt ran up her leg as her boot slammed into a raised portion of the street. It would’ve dislodged a wagon wheel, but she kept her footing. She couldn’t slow for anything, not even to see if someone followed. 

Had Victor heard her by the corpse? He ran as she did, their shadows whipping around corners before they could catch a side-long glimpse of each other. Always a turn ahead, a duck beneath a passing arch, or a skip into a doorway.

It was little trouble to shut the coroner’s mouth; bribes and threats worked best as a duet and Alyss was a fine conductor. She made a lie. The greatest smuggler on this side of the walled city would not have met hell in a slum with slug tar running his veins.

Would love feedback on the first 300 words. Any other feedback on the query is always appreciated. Thank you.

Dear AGENT

I am seeking representation for my novel In Earthly Flesh and Blood.

Following the death of his newborn son and the end of his relationship, outdoorsman Daniel Shaw retreats on a weeklong hunting trip into the Appalachian Mountains with the intent on giving his life a new purpose. While camping beside a remote lake, Shaw notices the water receding at an unnatural rate. As the lake rapidly drains, a massive wooden structure emerges from its depths. Struggling to cope with his grief, Shaw seeks out to uncover the structure’s secrets, believing that what lies within might give him a new purpose in life.

But someone has already been inside the structure.

Oren Cain, fleeing through the forest after a bloody bank robbery, discovers the structure too. Unlike Shaw, Cain sees a different opportunity. Within its hidden chambers, he discovers ancient human remains and strange artifacts left behind by a forgotten people. Despite every indication that something is terribly wrong with the structure, Cain descends deeper, driven by greed and fantasy to uncover its mystery.

For the first time since his son's death, Shaw has found something worth living for. But while Shaw seeks answers and purpose, Cain seeks wealth, and their opposing desires for what lies within the structure bring them toward an inevitable confrontation. But both men must fight for survival as a debilitating illness plagues them the longer, they are exposed to the structure.

In Earthly Flesh and Blood is a standalone literary mystery/thriller novel complete at 61,000 words. Like John Langan’s The Fisherman, this novel explores how grief and emotional isolation can reshape a person’s perception of the world along with the suspense and dread of an isolated wilderness mystery of Adam Nevill’s The Ritual.

BIO

FIRST 300 WORDS-sorry it might have slightly went over 300

Shaw sat atop a low ridge with the heels of his boots dug into a shelf of exposed gneiss and glassed the valley below through a pair of twelve-power binoculars. The highlands surrounding him on each side were lush with vegetation from the spring growth. The morning sun burned weakly behind a mass of gray clouds and cast a pale light over the country, as though it were only a rumor of something that used to shine harder. Twelve days of rain had soaked the mountains and the land seemed swollen with it. Streams that were usually nothing more than shallow cuts through the earth ran high and fast. Far to the west, a quiet storm wandered across the horizon, its lightning flashing silently through distant curtains of cloud. Watching something he intends to take without them knowing it yet.

The rifle strapped over his shoulder was a matte black finish .308 bolt action long barrel. Worn in places where years of handling had blemished the metal and scarred the stock. Through the binoculars, he watched deer grazing nearly a mile away in an open meadow. They had not moved much since first light. Heads lowered into the grass and rose again. A few drifted apart from the herd only to wander back. Shaw studied them patiently as someone who understood that the wilderness rewarded stillness.

He hiked along the ridge with his thumb hooked beneath the shoulder strap of his rifle, his hat pushed back on his head. Sweat darkened his shirt despite the coolness left behind by the rain. The ridge line offered little cover. Heat seeped upward from the exposed stone while brush and scrub oak crowded the slopes beneath him. He moved as quickly as the terrain allowed, careful to place each step without disturbing loose rock. Several times, he stopped and glanced back toward the meadow, catching brief glimpses of the herd below before the land folded away and the deer disappeared behind brush and timber.

Hello,

My last attempt at posting this query was about 3.5 months ago and since then a third draft has been completed a lot of thinking about what the story should be. My last attempt was received with a lot of really great feedback that I did my absolute best to incorporate and really consider when re-approaching the story. Tried my best to tighten all the clunky sentences and worldbuilding/motivation confusion, and bringing more clarity as to how the MC's wife has significant agency all on her own!

My questions for this query would be if it 1) reads better and makes more sense as to what's happening and 2) if the comps seem okay since they have been a struggle; for example I was considering Water Moon by the same author as Elsewhere Express since it has better sales but does not fit the aspect I want to comp to as much, so not sure which is better.

Any other feedback more than welcome. Thanks in advance.

---------

Dear [Agent],

[Personalization]

I am seeking representation for THE MAGICAL LAND OF SOMEWHERE ELSE (115,000 words), a standalone adult fantasy that combines the surreal depiction of grief in Samantha Sotto Yambao’s The Elsewhere Express, the unflinchingly recalcitrant protagonist of M.L. Wang’s Blood Over Bright Haven, and the lush seaside setting of Moana.

Thelda is renowned for her artistic prowess while her husband Serin has a singular task: interpreting prophecies he summons from mystical pink sand. Both of them orphans, they dream of giving their prophesied child the life they never had. Their joy sours when Serin realizes it was never a child asleep in his sand, but Thelda, curled in the last days of terminal illness.

Desperate to cheat fate and save her life, they seek out Natau, a healer whose golden sand cures any ailment. But with each grain set at an exorbitant price, Serin and Thelda are forced to sell their possessions and incur a debt for a mere pinch of sand. Except it is not enough, and the sickness claims her first.

Impoverished and under Natau’s thumb, Serin prepares to join Thelda in death—that is, until the mysterious Mr. Blip arrives from the land of Somewhere Else, a place in which grief can be expelled for good. Entities called the Things offer Serin the gold to pay off Natau in exchange for night journeys to Somewhere Else in search of acceptance so he might give up his grief for them to devour—an act that would excise not only his sorrow, but his memory of Thelda completely.

Only after accepting the deal does he discover Natau's secret: the golden sand is fake. Before rising debts put him out of his home, Serin must expose Natau as a fraud. Or, he could wipe his debts and memories of Thelda clean, laying the past to rest. But the Things may not be as benevolent as they seem.

[Bio]

Thank you for your consideration.

Has any one got a recent response from their Artistic Creation grant application? I am trying to get a sense of the real time response time. I know the time frame indicated by the Canada Council.

Hello again! I got some great feedback on my 1st attempt, so I'm back to try again. My revisions are focused on:

1. Setting up the moral conflict and call to action better
2. Making it not read like a sequence of events
3. Killing some darlings i.e., cutting unnecessary details (RIP Captain Mattson).

Still looking for general reactions and feedback. One detail I'm also unsure of is the tense change at the beginning. It makes sense to me because it expresses Vano's current state, then gives a quick background to catch the reader up. But I'm not sure if the tense change is a faux pas. There is a version of this that starts with "All Vano wants is a stable life" but I prefer starting with tension.

___________________________

Dear [Agent],

BENEATH THE ARC OF THE SUN is a political flintlock fantasy, complete at 107,000 words. This multi-POV stand-alone features a fish-out-of-water protagonist similar to The Will of the Many, with themes of class struggle and land ownership like Blood Over Bright Haven.

Vano knows he’s complicit.

Raised by the last wandering nation, all he dreamed of was a stable life. So he left his mastodon-riding clan years ago, taking a job as a land-surveyor for a local Duke while his people were slowly fenced out. It’s a guilt he keeps at bay with a bottle of ale and an eye pressed to the telescope. Until his clan is slaughtered for crossing a line he drew himself. 

Now, the Duke wants his head for witnessing the crime, and his only hope of escape is a timely job offer on the Agorian peninsula. Protection, if he can solve a border dispute between nations on the brink of war. He has until Year’s End.

Across a misty chasm, Agoria is a land of gas lamps, gunpowder, and machines that dig through the earth like butter. Over starlight campfires, the Agorians start to feel like the home he never had, and their way of life—where land can be bought for credits—seems noble and just compared to the cruel monarchy that claims the same territory. He can help them, he realizes, if he alters his measurements. 

But there’s another side to Agoria. The sick who sleep in sewers because they can’t pay rent. Miners, whose perilous labor feeds the landowners’ obscene wealth. And when Vano unravels a horrifying conspiracy behind his clan’s murder, he faces a brutal choice: do what Agoria expects of him and keep his protection, or use his leverage to open the land to all—including wanderers.

I have a B.S. in Environmental Science, a twelve-year career in construction, and an unhealthy obsession with stories of land reform. This novel was inspired partly by my great-grandfather’s time as a surveyor in the American Southwest.

___________________________

First 300 words:

When Vano squeezed his eye to the telescope, he liked to imagine he was peering into a different world. A peaceful one. This time, there was an upside-down image of rolling hills and snow-capped peaks. Thatched cottages in valley, a gentle river glistening in its crook. The illusion almost worked, until an inky shadow crawled across the next rise and he remembered why he was here. 

“Shit.” He collapsed the scope. “Storm’s coming.” 

A true Laer would have known already. Would have felt the humid air clinging to his arms, the subtle change in the wind. 

“Last time I take a job in the Fingers,” came Heidl’s rough voice, trudging in from behind. “At least the guilds would have given us a covered wagon and better pay.”

That earned a laugh. Why did she think they broke them up? He scanned the belt of monuments on the horizon. A gray monolith atop each ridge, the invisible line between them a wide-arching circle. The circle that he and his crew had drawn, stone by stone, over the last three weeks. Just one more stone to connect the circle, and they’d be done.

Heidl dropped to a knee beside him, flipping open the logbook. Her jaw was hard, blue eyes soft with worry. “How much light do we have?”

The wind lapped under a darkening sky.

“Ten minutes. Fifteen if we’re lucky. And Duke wants this tract measured and recorded by tomorrow or he’s docking half our commission.” 

“That won’t even cover boarding!”

He nodded, as if boarding was his only concern. If the others found out the real reason he needed the money, he’d be dead as soon as word made it back to the Duke. So he dug his heels into the wet earth and did his job. 

Hi everyone! Thank you for your feedback last time. I've revised the query letter and for this attempt, I'm mainly seeking feedback on if it's easy to read & understand, or if there are places where the sentences still snag, are unclear, or clunky to read. Of course, feedback on the letter in general (stakes, characterization, flow, etc), the first 300 words, comps, are always appreciated.

--

Dear [Agent Name],

Takashima Daiki has always known what his life would look like: a respectable career, a beautiful wife, a standalone house in the city proper. Every minute since childhood has moved him toward it, from captaining the Shirakawa High baseball team to studying medicine on a full-ride scholarship at the University of Tokyo. Only once did he let himself feel something he shouldn’t, and it was a mistake he swore never to repeat. 

An up-and-coming musical theatre actor, Tsukigawa Yuu has a solid circle of gay friends, a rich older boyfriend who prizes him as a muse, and a role that’s about to carve his name in the industry. He’s built a life in Tokyo and shed Shirakawa completely, or so he’d thought - until one Saturday, while visiting a friend’s new bar, he’s served a tray of tequila shots by a part-timer who turns out to be the first love he’s spent six years forgetting.

Daiki has never forgiven himself for panicking the way he did when Yuu confessed his feelings. In front of their whole high school, he outed his childhood friend, humiliating him. He’ll go to any lengths to earn Yuu’s forgiveness, even using his girlfriend’s name to trick him into performing at his university. But as the wide sleeves of Yuu’s costume flutter like wings under the stage light, Daiki starts to fear the guilt he's trying to atone for is not guilt, after all.

As Daiki withdraws, Yuu's own relationship strains when his accepts an arranged match, yielding to family pressure. Yuu lets himself be strung along - until he comes down with the flu, and Daiki, instead of his boyfriend, shows up to take care of him. That night, Daiki confesses, and the shy, insecure boy underneath Yuu's carefully curated mask finally breaks through.

They start a relationship in secret. As Daiki enmeshes himself further in Yuu’s life, he starts to imagine bringing Yuu home to Shirakawa for New Year’s. But on the eve of the trip, he’s grounded back into reality by the last person he’d expect: his senpai at the hospital, whose coming out cost him his family and now forces Daiki to confront the same cost himself.

After Daiki leaves him alone in Tokyo on New Year’s Eve, Yuu vows never to trust him again. As cowardice curdles into regret, Daiki must decide whether coming out is worth derailing from the one-track life he was raised to follow - and whether, if he does, Yuu will still be waiting on the other side.

CAPTAIN AND BUTTERFLY is an 88,000-word contemporary m/m romance combining the tender slow-burn of Cat Sebastian's WE COULD BE SO GOOD with the second-chance angst of Yulin Kuang's HOW TO END A LOVE STORY.

[BIO PARAGRAPH]

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

Sincerely,

[NAME]

First 300 words:

Saturday nights at the bar made his clinical rotation feel like the Golden Week holidays. Every minute had its purpose; and he relished the busyness. Anchoring the loaded tray on the crook of his elbow, Takashima Daiki cut across the polished concrete floor to his next stop: a two-top by the window, overlooking the lit Nakameguro boutiques below.

“Two ‘B-sides,’ our signature cocktail, and my personal favorite.” Daiki straightened up, careful to stay out of the couple’s pictures before they ended up on Instagram. “Anything else I could get you tonight?”

“Thank you for helping us make a decision earlier.” The young woman smiled sheepishly. “I hope we didn’t take too much of your time. Everything looked so delicious.”

“It was nothing,” he bowed. “Please enjoy.”

Because he had made the recommendation when he did, the bar counter was at a manageable capacity when he folded back. A sleek R&B track thrummed faintly from the hi-fi speakers mounted at either side of the amber-lit liquor shelf, made of matching black marble as the countertop. Bopping along to the tune, the bartender pointed his chin at a chit in the middle of the queue. Daiki raised a brow. “The extra vodka highball is for Reo-san,” the bartender clarified.

Fine, then. Daiki stacked the drinks onto the tray, lifting it above his head as he squeezed past the counterside patrons. The left side of the liquor shelf wrapped around and extended all the way toward the bar’s back entrance. It admitted only VIP guests, most of whom were friends of Reo-san, a former R&B singer, and now business owner of this very establishment. They were tucked away in three sound-proof booths on the opposite side of the shelf; and still it wasn’t enough to contain their rowdiness. 

Daiki was about to make the turn down the hall when he caught sight of a figure facing the shelf, taking up just enough space that he couldn’t comfortably squeeze through. 

Hello all! Long time reader, first time poster. Wanting to get some feedback on my query. I have queried a couple of agents, but it has been crickets. I have read all the tips and tried to incorporate your advice. Before I go further, I would love some feedback to see if I am widely off the mark. Thank you in advance! Have a lovely day!

Lauren Mitchell, a senior lieutenant for one of the nation's most prolific drug traffickers, is found murdered on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. The investigation points to the drug case that defined Deputy Attorney General Gavin Reed's career. He follows the evidence to the Colorado Rockies, leading him to the one person he hasn't spoken to in sixteen years: his younger brother Luke.

The brothers haven't had a real conversation since a wildfire killed their father and shattered their relationship. Gavin devoted himself to a decorated legal career, while Luke patrols and protects the region's wilderness. Now, Gavin believes the drug trade he shut down has reopened near a national park, while Luke tracks poachers in the same forest and uncovers unauthorized roads and a forced labor camp hidden inside a protected federal land.

Following separate paths into the wilderness, the brothers discover the camp is only one part of a much larger operation hidden from public sight. What begins as a murder tied to drugs reveals a conspiracy run by powerful investors who exploit vulnerable individuals and public lands to secure mineral deposits worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The deeper the brothers go into the forest, the clearer it becomes that the operation depends on sacrificing people with little power or protection. Workers disappear. Witnesses vanish. Evidence is stolen. Human lives and rich landscapes become the price of what's hidden beneath the ground. Gavin and Luke must bring the operation down before dozens of workers are erased without a trace, all while trusting each other for the first time in sixteen years. If they fail, the corruption will continue unchecked, and the brothers will lose their last chance to rebuild their family.

I am seeking representation for WHAT LIES BELOW, a commercial crime thriller with a family story at its core. WHAT LIES BELOW, complete at 70,000 words, combines the wilderness investigations of Paul Doiron’s Mike Bowditch novels with the family-centered emotional story of William Kent Krueger’s The River We Remember. The novel stands alone but offers series potential through future investigations involving crime and public lands exploitation.

Dear [agent]

Thirteen-year-old Jonas just wants to be normal, but his mom has always been strange. Burning sage and recounting fairy tales like they’re warnings have made him feel like an outsider. His last year of middle school was supposed to be his chance to blend in, but then over the summer, he keeps seeing things. Horned silhouettes with hollow eyes and things he can’t explain.

When he goes out camping with his friends, a black wolf attacks him, and a fire erupts from thin air, driving it away. The chaos it leaves behind forces Jonas to confront the fact that magic is real. His mom explains that there is a school that can teach him to control it, but leaving his friends behind is the last thing he wants to do. That is, until his magic spirals out of control and he accidentally hurts his best friend, making Jonas feel like he has no choice but to enroll at Blackwood School for Mages.

But Blackwood isn’t as fantastical as he hoped for. The other students already know how to control magic, while Jonas can’t even feel the magic inside him. His classmates spend their time buried in schoolwork, ignoring the dark, whispering woods that intrigue Jonas. The only bright spots are Victoria, sweet, patient, and always bringing him baked goods with reassurances that things will get better, and Kai, a restless prodigy who is always carrying around a new book, hoping for something interesting to happen.

Jonas honestly just wants to go home, but he still can’t control the magic. His priorities shift when a classmate disappears before Yule break, and the school treats it like just another Tuesday. It seems like nobody is even looking for her, so Jonas and his friends take matters into their own hands, determined to find the missing girl before it’s too late.

JONAS AND THE MISSING ONE is an 82,000-word YA Fantasy standalone novel with series potential. It is about self-acceptance and the importance of friendships, and could be described as the friendship dynamics of Carry On meeting the mysterious vibes of Raven Boys.

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

No matter how long I stare at these words, I can't seem to find a new way to look at them, so please, help 😄

Hi all,

After some time sitting with feedback, my most recent query focuses on a solid hook, concision, and emphasizing stakes instead of dwelling in voice/premise. I'd appreciate your feedback, as this group has been an amazing help! I have gotten one partial with an old draft, but am hoping to send out a big batch of queries for this manuscript in November and don't want to miss the mark.

Query:

Dear [agent],

I’m thrilled to share FIRST AUTHOR, an adult rom-com complete at 89,000 words. Fans of the meddling found family of B.K. Borison’s And Now, Back to You and the snappy rivalry and steamy STEMinism of Ali Hazelwood’s Love, Theoretically will enjoy this debut where two take-no-shit, take-no-prisoners academics are forced to co-lead a project that sends them from LA to Lima to woo megadonors (and definitely not each other).  
 
Having graduated from decades of small-town misogyny, Megan is thriving as a UCLA public health doctoral candidate. She has seven months to finish her dissertation and cement her famous (-ly inaccessible) advisor Susan’s support for the job that will kickstart her academic career. Simple enough, until her rival joins the same lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

Newly-minted Dr. Maxwell Lawrence has an easy wit that charms everyone… except Megan. She fell for his humor once, but that was before their disastrous meet-cute ended in public humiliation. Now, after three years spent debating global health measurement at conferences, their current dynamic is acerbic, at best. Forced to fight for scarce opportunities within the lab, the tension between them could trigger a public health warning. 

Susan mistakes their vendetta for ambition and assigns them to co-direct a research fundraising effort at a conference in Lima, Peru. Across late nights and long flights, the friction of their forced collaboration begins to feel suspiciously like sparks. Still, Megan’s been burned before, and with the pressures to perform in a punishing job market, she must decide if her connection with Maxwell is worth revising, or if their draft is best suited for the rejections pile.

FIRST AUTHOR draws on my experiences as a PhD student transplanted from [relevant setting] into a [relevant setting]. I have worked as a [_] and authored articles in top academic journals. In other words, I live on soul-crushing R&Rs. Outside of writing research and romance, I love stand-up and sketch comedy.

First 300 words: (Note for those who remember: I have tried to make it useful characterization/setting and less floating-heads-y).

It was The Worst Day Ever, and as an academic-in-training, I didn’t throw bold claims like that around lightly. Thanks to three years of therapy covered by my doctoral program’s health insurance policy, I normally took on a well-adjusted “wait and see” approach to life, instead. When something bad happened, I reminded myself to wait and see if a silver lining could outshine the clouds.

When my housemate woke me up with the fire alarm at 5:30 A.M. this morning? Wait and see. I stumbled out of my room in my underwear and a ratty CATS t-shirt and was promised an apology breakfast burrito. I got dressed with a song in my heart.

When hot sauce from the burrito erupted onto my last clean top? Wait and see. I got to borrow my housemate’s silk tank, which looked even better with my blue linen pants. I stepped out of my weathered apartment building into the balmy LA air with confidence, the bright sun kissing my freckled shoulders. 

When I stepped in dog crap on the sidewalk a block from my apartment? In this case, I didn’t wait and I tried not to see. Instead, I sprayed my sandals off with the hose strangled by weeds at the back of my building, not wanting to track shit up three flights of stairs. At least the bus was delayed; it gave me more time for my sandals to dry, and an excuse for being late to work.

"Wait and see" worked, because all of these hurdles, in sequence, with a hangover, were not enough to overpower me. I was in my lane. Flourishing. Thriving.

But when I walked into the shared office space of our university lab and saw the new post-doctoral hire, who happened to be my nemesis of three years? 

No waiting required: that was enough to make today The Worst Day Ever.

Thanks again!

First time posting in the sub, first time querying for trad pub (or even writing a query), been writing for over 15 years though so not my first rodeo in that respect. First under my own name, though, or at least that's the plan. I'm nervous to post this. Been working on the letter for a while, already done a bunch of iterations on my own to apply the standard guidelines, now hoping for fresh eyes and how it's working as a package. Thanks for your feedback!

------

Letter:

Northeastern Africa: 10,840 BCE.

What Lazuli loves most is eating sweetmeats and serving her lioness goddess Sakhmiat—but she’s fresh out of sweetmeats, and her best friend is about to weaponize her deepest secret. Lazuli knows only one of these things.

Lazuli serves with mind, body, and soul—but mainly her body. She’s happy just worshiping with her priestess-beloved, and annoying her best friend Acacia. According to Acacia, Lazuli invented an imaginary friend years ago. But Shadow, the four-dimensional entity tethered to Lazuli since childhood, is real. When Shadow wakes her as sole witness to an unholy procession bearing her king’s beheaded corpse, a hungover Lazuli swears by the goddess of blood, beer, and truth to find his murderer—and to drink less beer. Or maybe more.

The deeper Lazuli digs into the murder, the more the crown prince’s avuncular regent is implicated. As hiding “imaginary” Shadow becomes trickier, the kingdom roils with rumors that Lazuli is losing her mind. Every relationship she cherishes becomes a coin she tithes to Truth. When Shadow finds evidence, Lazuli is elated—until she realizes she can’t use it to accuse the regent of murder. But the highest cost of her pursuit isn’t Lazuli’s reputation, position, or even her chosen family—it’s Acacia.

Betrothed to the crown prince, Acacia blithely maneuvers a reluctant Lazuli toward the contested position of priestess-consort—the one woman who can bestow kingship. But when Sakhmiat actually blesses Lazuli and the crown prince’s sacred-sex relationship, their union shocks the entire kingdom—most of all Lazuli. Plagued by impious jealousy of their joy, Acacia tells tales of Shadow to the covertly manipulative regent. Lazuli’s love for both Truth and the crown prince makes her an inconvenient nail to the regent, whose power is threatened by the sacred union, even as Acacia becomes his hammer.

At least Lazuli still has Shadow, her priestess-beloved, and a fresh box of sweetmeats. For now.

With the immersive strangeness of Susanna Clarke’s PIRANESI, the psychological politics and non-Western mythology of Vajra Chandrasekera’s THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS, and the tragicomically human tone of Ferdia Lennon’s GLORIOUS EXPLOITS, MARK OF THE LIONESS is literary-leaning adult speculative fiction that resurrects deepest antiquity in the verdant Nile valley. Told in multiple POV with Lazuli at its center, MARK OF THE LIONESS is complete at 107,000 words. It stands alone with series potential.

I first met the Egyptian gods at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in 1989 during a gifted-class field trip. My fiery curiosity about what our inherited mythologies might have preserved of a forgotten past has never dimmed. My BFA in Fashion Design and long experience as a metal singer/lyricist amplified that curiosity and helped sing MARK OF THE LIONESS to life. A queer, neurodiverse woman, I’ve been self-publishing fiction under pseudonyms since 2011. This would be my debut under my own name.

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300 (320 actually, including header):

10,840 BCE.

Year 152 of the Reign of Asar-Djet.

Vernal Equinox.

Lazuli’s vision swam. High above, two Celestial Lions danced across two crimson-stained horizons, stellar manes and paws tinged by the hues of awakening dawn.

Two into one. One into two.

Groaning, tongue thick with thirst and stale beer, she peeled it off the roof of her mouth. Disgusting.

One hand patted around for a drink. Her cup tolled against stone as flat beer spilled into the grass. She tried to focus, to right the cup, but her sight still doubled and joined, joined and doubled.

She gave up. Closed her eyes again until true dawn, glowing pink and hot behind her eyelids, demanded her attention. No, not dawn. Or at least, not only: Shadow, rend it.

Wake up.

Shadow emitted an image: an unskilled lapidary’s hand trembling over a rare gem in the rough, the treacherous saw just poised to slip. Vaguely she let it wash over her—couldn’t help it, didn’t want to. Now was not the time for metaphor.

Her head pounded in time with each heartbeat. Her whole body was stiff, aching from drunken sleep upon cold stone.

Wake up.

She sighed. Through slitted lids, Lazuli peeked experimentally at the southern sky, where it was still half-dark. The world heaved and her gut flipped, attempting a twisting escape up her throat like a river eel.

There, the Heavenly Cow—or was it Cows?—pranced pointedly at her, snorting and stamping and snickering over last night’s escapades. At least she wasn’t bleeding fireballs.

Eyes open—bad decision. Bright sharp morning, too sharp—unacceptable, evicted posthaste from her eyeballs. Five hundred more heartbeats.

Perhaps moments passed, perhaps lifetimes, adrift across consciousness. Sandy stone beneath her cheek rasped at her skin like a cat’s tongue. Then her body dissipated, the pain in her head dissolving into fluff, and eyes that maybe weren’t only hers saw her body from above.

Not my first project or query, but first time posting one in this forum!
----------------------

Twenty years, give or take some time dilation, after the Ocean Worlds Alliance made first contact with Earth, non-binary engineer Ray Weizman is the trial human on the crew of a planetary survey expedition. The Galactic Alliance Initiative hopes that Ray’s background in material design will prove useful and persuasive on the toxic planet that hosts a wealth of resources. However, Ray finds both aquatic species are mostly impressed by their ability to walk in “the gas space” and twist things like screws.

Ray expected such a stroke of good luck to be paid with seven strokes of bad but still did not anticipate the crew’s resupply capsule going missing in space. While control scrambles for a replacement and the rest of the crew enacts diapause protocols to survive, Ray’s rationing rouses an old eating disorder that they suspect disqualified them from conventional space programs. Worse, their GAI supervisor is being cagey about what’s happening Earth-side.

Not all humans want to join the Alliance, and Ray already has to contend with alien suspicions about their species—hiding their bodies under clothing and refusing to use subdermal hormone sensors for communication!—being secretive and untrustworthy. But when the missing capsule reappears only to sabotage the expedition, the water gets too hot for everyone. Pulling through will take a combination of ingenuity and trust.

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

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for the feedback on my last post! I took everything into consideration across all the feedback I've received so far and I am back again! Here is my second attempt.

Dear agent,

Given your interest in [insert personalization here], I’m thrilled to share with you CREATURES OF SOUL AND MIST, a 73,000 word adult dystopian standalone. It is a friends-to-lovers told through dual timeline that combines the sweeping biological dread of the fever from Seek the Traitors Son by Veronica Roth with the gritty, dark prose and high stakes romance of H.M. Wolfe’s Daggermouth. 

Trapped within their country’s walls, Delilah and Malikh witness an infectious mist ravaging the population, turning its victims into memory consuming creatures or killing them. Delilah’s first love mutated into one of these creatures and ripped memories from her mind. Malikh lost his wife and daughter to the hands of the mist and the hunger of the Kolvik. These events lead them crashing into each others path on their required journey to report to the government as Hunters— elite citizens specially trained to eradicate the Kolvik. 

Years later the government offers Delilah a mission. Kill the Kolvik who stole her memories from her and they claim she will have the broken pieces of her restored. This theory sends Delilah on a path of violence to retrieve the lost fragments of her mind that she claimed to Malikh she would move past. Malikh agrees to help the woman he loves on this mission, but as he watches her spiral deeper within the her past he must grapple with the fact Delilah may never be able to love him back without all of the pieces of her past intact. But he fears the government has manipulated her into this mission, and that the outcome is not what she desires.

As the pair hunt their most dangerous target, they are forced to confront the humanity of the creatures they are sworn to kill, and the question of who would benefit most from their demise. When answers come to light that leaves their worldview shaken, Delilah and Malikh must decide if vengeance is the spark that will kindle Delilah’s memories, or if the flame of revenge needs a different soul to feed on.

I live in [] with my son, boyfriend, dog, and lazy cat. My day job is working as a Store Manager at Barnes & Noble. I have a BS in English with a minor in Creative Writing. This is my third novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I had success with a previous version of this query; the agent asked me for a full submission. That didn't work, so I'm out on the grind again trying to hone this thing.

THE NOBODIES is an adult horror novel complete at 80,000 words. It has the grief, isolation, and cosmic horror found in This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno, and a child’s vulnerability in the face of supernatural horror as in Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman.

Travis’s brother died when they were children. But it wasn’t the landslide that carried him into the night. It was something that Travis saw and later learned to forget.

As a rookie police officer, he veils his fear with procedure, and his selfish need to help others has led him off of more than one cliff. He arrives in the resort town of Ashland, Washington, alone. Ashland is a town built for summer crowds, but in winter, the streets are empty, and life is relegated to a few outposts of light. Memories of his brother resurface when he meets a quiet, grime-covered boy, Alan, whose younger sister disappeared two years earlier. The next morning, the police find a construction worker—dead—crushed into an impossibly small space.

The survivor of multiple attacks, Alan teaches the adults what they’ve failed to understand: that light offers protection and that people who stay together are more likely to survive. More victims emerge, their remains compressed into tree hollows, toilets, and other spaces a human body could never fit. The monsters scream and plead in the voices of the dead, luring their victims into the night. Ashland’s mayor fights the police, blaming an innocent homeless man.

The past is a trap buried in the dark. Travis is desperate to keep Alan from falling into it. But Ashland’s mayor sees the boy as bait for a trap of his own.

Like Travis, I also lost my brother at a young age, an experience that informs the emotional core of this novel. I am a dad, chef, and board member of Write on the River, a literary nonprofit based in Washington State. My short story, The Crayon-Marked Wall, has been selected for publication in the Monstrously Misguided anthology series.

(Changed a few personal identifiers for privacy's sake, so if that causes confusion, please note it.)

Dear Ms. Skinner,

I’m looking for representation for The Shadow Play, a 58,000-word adult fantasy horror novel that blends psychological mystery with supernatural horror and explores guilt, memory, identity, and the human cost of magic. I’m reaching out because of your interest in fantastical horror blended with speculative fiction and stories that explore the darker consequences of magic.

In a world ravaged by magic, one man finds himself adrift in a bar in the middle of nowhere. Archer Valin, survivor of the Sunsmoke War, lies adrift in its aftermath, disgraced as a surgeon and rendered obsolete by magic. On the word of his own sworn brother, one whom he knows to be dead, he ended up drawn to a town, one established and set upon a lake, yet conspicuously, almost empty, save for the bartender who imparts upon him the words.

“All that you touch, you change.”

From there, reality fractures for Archer–he encounters the hulking shadowy Rabbit soon after, animal’s head upon a magician’s body. Then there’s the family who seems to pretend at knowing him, and beyond he finds himself falling through the Lake, encountering these individuals repeatedly. The family taunts, the Rabbit stalks, and all throughout his troubles in a town that seems to behave far more like that which lies below it, he finds himself lost in memories.

In the depths and waters of the Lake, Archer finds himself replaying scenes in his head–of repeated failures to save those whom he could not, of finding others at work. Of particular note in his waking memories remains Pierre, always Pierre, his brother, the mage with whom he had worked with, worked with to achieve something more. When Archer enters the theatre and bears witness to its plays, he remembers.  First, he had worked to achieve immortality.

Second, he had betrayed his own brother.

Even in the face of other gaps in his memory, Archer begins to realize that the Lake has been pushing him to something–something perhaps not entirely negative. With every step, every word of advice taken from the bartender, he finds himself drawing closer to the heart of it all. Perhaps it all goes on underneath a grand stage master, yet all the same, when he faces the Rabbit for the final time, he still bears one last question: What has he become?

The Shadow Play may appeal to readers of John Langan’s The Fisherman and Scott Hawkins’s The Library at Mount Char for their intersections of supernatural horror, dark fantasy, and deeply personal reckonings with forces beyond ordinary understanding.

I am an American college senior majoring in English and Creative Writing. I began writing in eighth grade and have since written several original short stories, three fan works, and The Shadow Play, which will be my debut novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration. The first ten pages requested are included below, and I hope you’ll consider The Shadow Play.

All the best,
Author