Dear [Agent],
Seventeen-year-old Victoria Tauber leads dual lives in dual worlds, sewn together with the thread of dreams.
Victoria “Vic” von Tauber has royal parents, a magic sword, and a loyal band of teenage monster-hunters. All that’s missing is her best friend Simon, who vanished two years ago. Still grieving his absence, Vic vows to bring him home after receiving a letter from the monstrous Beast of Shadows. Its offer is deceptively simple: prove her skill by hunting it to the ends of the fantastic Otherwise, and it will tell her how to find Simon.
Meanwhile, in suburban Chicago, Victoria "Tori" Tauber dreams of herself as fantasy heroine Vic, but struggles to talk to anyone at high school. Sick of being an anxious recluse, Tori pushes herself to befriend new girl Marcy at the start of junior year.
Though Vic stalks the Beast and Tori battles social anxiety, their paths become increasingly intertwined. Vic wonders at her dreams of suburbia as she grows closer to new hunter Marcia. Tori uncovers traces of her old friend Simon, who has vanished from memory in the waking world. Both grapple with the realization that they are lesbians, head over heels for Marcy/Marcia. And as the year goes by, both discover that the alternate versions of themselves they see in their dreams are all too real.
Two Victorias face two choices. Play it safe in the closet, or listen to Marcy’s careful hints and ask her out? And when Vic learns that the Simon she seeks is none other than Tori's old friend, kidnapped by the Beast of Shadows, the two must choose again. Dismiss their other selves as fantasy, or work together to send Simon home?
I am thrilled to present A WIN FOR VICTORIA, a 97,000 word standalone fantasy with series potential, for your consideration. It would be ideal for readers who enjoyed the haunting dreams of H. E. Edgmon’s Godly Heathens and the slow-building mystery of Ryan La Sala’s Reverie, as well as fans of the dual-world narrative of Omori.
I channeled the joy and enlightenment of realizing I was part of the LGBT community into the creation of this story. When not stealing every available moment to write, I can be found testing flight hardware at [College University] or giving dramatic readings of Beowulf at parties.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Seventeen-year-old Victoria Tauber leads dual lives in dual worlds, sewn together with the thread of dreams.
Victoria “Vic” von Tauber has royal parents, a magic sword, and a loyal band of teenage monster-hunters. All that’s missing is her best friend Simon, who vanished two years ago. Still grieving his absence, Vic vows to bring him home after receiving a letter from the monstrous Beast of Shadows. Its offer is deceptively simple: prove her skill by hunting it to the ends of the fantastic Otherwise, and it will tell her how to find Simon.
Meanwhile, in suburban Chicago, Victoria "Tori" Tauber dreams of herself as fantasy heroine Vic, but struggles to talk to anyone at high school. Sick of being an anxious recluse, Tori pushes herself to befriend new girl Marcy at the start of junior year.
Though Vic stalks the Beast and Tori battles social anxiety, their paths become increasingly intertwined. Vic wonders at her dreams of suburbia as she grows closer to new hunter Marcia. Tori uncovers traces of her old friend Simon, who has vanished from memory in the waking world. Both grapple with the realization that they are lesbians, head over heels for Marcy/Marcia. And as the year goes by, both discover that the alternate versions of themselves they see in their dreams are all too real.
Two Victorias face two choices. Play it safe in the closet, or listen to Marcy’s careful hints and ask her out? And when Vic learns that the Simon she seeks is none other than Tori's old friend, kidnapped by the Beast of Shadows, the two must choose again. Dismiss their other selves as fantasy, or work together to send Simon home?
I am thrilled to present A WIN FOR VICTORIA, a 97,000 word standalone fantasy with series potential, for your consideration. It would be ideal for readers who enjoyed the haunting dreams of H. E. Edgmon’s Godly Heathens and the slow-building mystery of Ryan La Sala’s Reverie, as well as fans of the dual-world narrative of Omori.
I channeled the joy and enlightenment of realizing I was part of the LGBT community into the creation of this story. When not stealing every available moment to write, I can be found testing flight hardware at [College University] or giving dramatic readings of Beowulf at parties.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Notes
This is well done. It's at least 100 words longer than the generally accepted standard length of a query, so I've taken the liberty of cutting to about 300 words:
Seventeen-year-old Victoria Tauber leads dual lives in dual worlds, sewn together with the thread of dreams.
Victoria “Vic” von Tauber has royal parents, a magic sword, and a loyal band of teenage monster-hunters. All that’s missing is her best friend Simon, who vanished two years ago. Still grieving, Vic vows to bring Simon home after learning the monstrous Beast of Shadows kidnapped him.
Meanwhile, in suburban Chicago, Victoria "Tori" Tauber dreams of herself as fantasy heroine Vic, but struggles to make any friends in school. Sick of being an anxious recluse, Tori pushes herself to befriend new girl Marcy at the start of junior year.
Though Vic stalks the Beast and Tori battles social anxiety, their paths become intertwined. Vic wonders at her dreams of suburbia as she grows closer to new hunter Marcia. Tori uncovers traces of her old friend Simon, who has vanished from memory in the waking world. Both grapple with the realization that they are lesbians, head over heels for Marcy/Marcia. And both discover that the alternate versions of themselves they see in their dreams are all too real.
Two Victorias face two choices. Play it safe in the closet, or listen to Marcy’s hints and ask her out? And when Vic learns that the Simon she seeks is none other than Tori's old friend, the two must choose again. Dismiss their other selves as fantasy, or work together to bring Simon home?
I am thrilled to present A WIN FOR VICTORIA, a 97,000 word standalone fantasy with series potential, for your consideration. It would be ideal for readers who enjoyed the haunting dreams of H. E. Edgmon’s Godly Heathens and the slow-building mystery of Ryan La Sala’s Reverie.
I channeled the joy and enlightenment of realizing I was part of the LGBT community into the creation of this story.
Victoria “Vic” von Tauber has royal parents, a magic sword, and a loyal band of teenage monster-hunters. All that’s missing is her best friend Simon, who vanished two years ago. Still grieving, Vic vows to bring Simon home after learning the monstrous Beast of Shadows kidnapped him.
Meanwhile, in suburban Chicago, Victoria "Tori" Tauber dreams of herself as fantasy heroine Vic, but struggles to make any friends in school. Sick of being an anxious recluse, Tori pushes herself to befriend new girl Marcy at the start of junior year.
Though Vic stalks the Beast and Tori battles social anxiety, their paths become intertwined. Vic wonders at her dreams of suburbia as she grows closer to new hunter Marcia. Tori uncovers traces of her old friend Simon, who has vanished from memory in the waking world. Both grapple with the realization that they are lesbians, head over heels for Marcy/Marcia. And both discover that the alternate versions of themselves they see in their dreams are all too real.
Two Victorias face two choices. Play it safe in the closet, or listen to Marcy’s hints and ask her out? And when Vic learns that the Simon she seeks is none other than Tori's old friend, the two must choose again. Dismiss their other selves as fantasy, or work together to bring Simon home?
I am thrilled to present A WIN FOR VICTORIA, a 97,000 word standalone fantasy with series potential, for your consideration. It would be ideal for readers who enjoyed the haunting dreams of H. E. Edgmon’s Godly Heathens and the slow-building mystery of Ryan La Sala’s Reverie.
I channeled the joy and enlightenment of realizing I was part of the LGBT community into the creation of this story.
Thank you for your consideration.
Now if you want to get it down closer to 250, you might find a way to leave Simon out of the query. In fact, as Simon is missing in both worlds, he's not exactly a main character. Maybe we should drop him from the book! Replace him with Marcy/Marcia, the new hunter who gets kidnapped, and the old friend who moves away. I wasn't a fan of the Simon "vanished from memory in the waking world" part, anyway.
Of course that would be a radical change, and a lot of work, and would probably cut your word count, but at 97,000, you can afford to lose a lot of words. Just thinking out loud here, ignore me.
4 comments:
Nice job author.
I'm a bit confused with the Simon bit since he's introduced as Vic's friend, but later it sounds like he's Tori's. He can be both but the girls are all duplicated and it sounds like he isn't?
anyways, good luck
Thank you!
Simon is a tricky character to describe in a short query: the "twist" of this book is that, even though the Beast of Shadows kidnapped Simon, which is foreshadowed to the reader and eventually learned by Vic, the Simon the Beast kidnapped is the Simon from the real world, Tori's friend. Thus there is only one Simon, and Vic's memories of her Simon are false memories, which she also discovers just before the climax.
"The Simon she seeks is none other than Tori's old friend, kidnapped by the Beast of Shadows" is my attempt to boil that down to 17 words. I'll be tinkering with this to hopefully make it clearer.
Dear Evil Editor,
Thank you for the second critique. I promise not to let "this is well done" go to my head.
I'll work on cutting the query (and manuscript) down to something more reasonable, however I don't think removing Simon would work especially well. He is a load-bearing character in many ways that don't show up well in a short query, and a massive rewrite to somehow combine him with Marcy would give me a book quite a bit worse than if I had started over with a completely new idea.
I specifically told you to ignore my suggestion about eliminating Simon.
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