WIP Diagnostic: Is This Working? A Closer Look at a Middle Grade Query

Critique By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

WIP Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and we diagnose it on the site. It’s part critique, part example, and designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.

If you're interested in submitting to WIP Diagnostics, please check out these guidelines.

Submissions currently in the queue: Three

Please Note: As of today, critique slots are booked through July 4.

This week’s questions:

1. Have I solved the problems of the first draft?

2. I know the current query letter still doesn't give a good sense of how the whole world fits together. To give background: There are no authors. Everyone is a book character (whether they know it or not) and the only thing that exists outside of books is the meta-data library realm (a gigantic ramshackle library dimension that houses all the books of the world, and is policed by warrior monk librarians.) The meta-data library doesn't become a feature until the final act. Does it need to be mentioned in the query letter?

Market/Genre: YA Query

On to the diagnosis…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com