My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Jay Elwood Seymour (---.neo.res.rr.com)
Date: 07-25-08 12:42
Okay, I here it is. Gimme your opinions.
It's been sent to 30 agents as of today.
- (4) no's
- (1) i'm pregnant and take any submissions
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Jay Elwood Seymour
(address)
(phone number)
jayelwoodseymour@gmail.com
Dear ____ _____,
What would you do with divine power literally at your fingertips?
Elijah Egan's world is torn apart when his twin brother Emerson is killed late at night on the dark streets of Coventry. Seeking meaning and purpose to the world, he meets a man named Dr. Malum who offers to reveal the most ancient and guarded secrets of the universe. But Dr. Malum is not just any man; he's an Angel.
The Angelic Dr. Malum gives Elijah the opportunity to join an ancient secret society known as The Angelic Heritage, where he will learn to achieve and control divine ability along side his best friend Christian and seven other chosen teenagers. He will train with ArchAngels who protect the innocent, meet Demons who roam the underground, and find the clues that will lead him to his brother's killer as well as discover the dark and mysterious truth behind that Angels’ longest kept secrets. Who will prevail in a war between the Angels of faith and the Angels or reason?
THE FOUR CROWN PRINCES is complete at around 90,000 words. It is the first book of THE ANGELIC HERITAGE trilogy. It is a fantasy novel with a mystery twist meant for ages fourteen and up. Although religion is addressed in this tale of Angels, this is not a Christian or religious novel, but is a story meant for people of all walks of life.
Thank you for your consideration and time. A complete manuscript of The Angelic Heritage: The Four Crown Princes is available upon request.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards,
Jay Elwood Seymour
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Matt Austin (---.dynamic.mts.net)
Date: 07-25-08 12:57
Interesting...
Pretty good, and professional looking.
The hook could probably be shortened up a bit, maybe have the fact that Dr.Malum is an angel mentioned in the first or second sentence.
I don't think you have to mention it isn't a religious novel. I didn't sense it was before you mentioned it.
Good job,
I can't wait to play the video game!!
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Jay Elwood Seymour (---.neo.res.rr.com)
Date: 07-25-08 13:08
The only reason I mention that is because several of the agents I have queried have said that they DON'T take Christian material and I don't want to alienate myself from a good agent because they might think my book is Christian, when in fact it is quite secular. Religion is a very big theme in the books, it simply tells it from a third person perspective. Every character has their own view of religion and faith, which is explored and no one character is given more credit than another.
When I first wrote the book, religion was non-existent, but I found it hard to exclude it in a book about Angels. After the three years it took to outline, now religion is one of the main themes.
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Matt Austin (---.dynamic.mts.net)
Date: 07-25-08 13:15
Makes sense, I stand corrected...
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Debra Storky (---.proxy.aol.com)
Date: 07-25-08 13:47
I'm confused. If you sent it to 30 agents as of today, why are you posting it for critique?
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Jay Elwood Seymour (---.neo.res.rr.com)
Date: 07-25-08 14:05
Just wanna know everyone's opinion. I'm confident in it and just wanted to see what everyone else thought.
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: d. Leroy (63.123.69.---)
Date: 07-25-08 14:23
Jay,
Here are my thoughts and opinions. First off, it ain't bad. I think it sounds interesting.
A couple of things:
I'm not a fan of starting a query with a question. They typically, just irritate me, which yours did.
You could shorten this quite a bit. Using your first line as an example:
"Elijah Egan's world is torn apart when his twin brother is killed. Seeking meaning and purpose to the world, he meets an Angel named Dr. Malum."
That's not great, but you see what I'm saying, you could cut out a lot, it's wordy right now.
You also need to take a look at your punctuation, you could use a few commas in there, for instance, "...along side his best friend (comma),Christian, and seven others..."
In your last paragraph, you could remove "complete at around". I would remove "with a mystery twist" also, it sounds cheesy.
Again, just my opinions.
Good luck with this,
d.
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Jay Elwood Seymour (---.neo.res.rr.com)
Date: 07-25-08 14:27
Thank you, that is exactly what I am looking for. Constructive criticism.
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Dave S (159.119.201.---)
Date: 07-25-08 15:08
Hi Jay,
I subscribe to the school of thought that insists queries be consise, without a hint of over-writing or wordiness. That being said, I found your query to contain far too much detail, not to mention incorrect puncuation, which will almost certainly result in a form rejection.
The good news is I think your query has all of the right elements. It just needs to be condensed. Check it out:
What would you do with divine power literally at your fingertips?
Elijah Egan's world is torn apart when his twin brother Emerson is killed on the dark streets of Coventry. Seeking enlightenment, he meets Dr. Malum, an angel who offers to reveal the most guarded secrets of the universe.
Dr. Malum proposes for Elijah to join an ancient secret society known as The Angelic Heritage, where he will learn to achieve divine ability along side his best friend, Christian, and seven other chosen teenagers. He will learn the secrets of the ArchAngels, who protect the innocent, meet Demons who roam the underground, and find the clues that will lead him to his brother's killer.
THE FOUR CROWN PRINCES is a 90,000- word fantasy novel with a mystery twist meant for ages fourteen and up.
Thank you for your consideration.
Kind Regards,
Jay Elwood Seymour
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Joe Zeff (---.lsanca.dsl-w.verizon.net)
Date: 07-25-08 15:16
I, OTOH, saw it as a Christian novel, just like Narnia. Of course, not being christian myself, I may be more sensitive to that then most people are. I also agree about taking out "completed," and suggest that you remove the part about it being part of a trilogy as well. Your first book must stand on its own. If it sells well, your readers will be pleasantly surprised by the "sequel," and the third will make them Very Happy Indeed.
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Jay Elwood Seymour (---.neo.res.rr.com)
Date: 07-25-08 15:18
Thanks, in fact, my original query looked very similar to that, but once I saw a bunch of agents who said they wanted "dark books", I felt that i had to throw that word in :-p (which yes, my book is quite dark at times).
Anywho, thank you loads! I can definitely see how the few little things you've done improves it a lot. I have about 20 more agents that I copied down information for that I haven't send queries too. Plus, I'm sure there will be many more after them.
Thanks again!
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Jay Elwood Seymour (---.neo.res.rr.com)
Date: 07-25-08 15:21
Joe Zeff, yes I agree with you. I do want it to be explicit that it is NOT a Christian novel. I'm in NO WAY against Christian's reading the book, I just want to impress that it is not meant specifically for Christians, but for anyone of any religious background or lack thereof.
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Jay Elwood Seymour (---.neo.res.rr.com)
Date: 07-25-08 15:29
Okay, I've made some tweaks and I'm very happy with what the outcome is (now with correct punctuation and a lot less wordy!).
Thanks to everyone for your input.
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Re: My Query Letter For Your Critque |
Author: Lance Ng (220.255.7.---)
Date: 07-28-08 08:38
Jay,
I spotted 5-6 grammatical errors just taking a casual read thru'; 2 of which was the wrong use of present tense instead of past tense in your second sentence "Elijah Egan's world is torn apart when his twin brother Emerson is killed late at night on the dark streets of Coventry."
Agents/Publishers form a very bad image straight away when they spot such things. After all, you are wanting to be a writer, so how can the language and editing be weak?
And Dave made a pretty good edit of your query letter. Short and straight forward. Too many aspiring writers think they must impress with linguistic acrobatics or fanciful language to "impress" the agent of their writing ability in their query letter.
Cheers,
Lance
Renaissance Publishing
www.renaissance.sg
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