Beta Reader Group discussion
Covers, Blurbs, 1st Line, Query
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Help With a Query | Fantasy/Horror
Just to add:-The novel is written in multiple POVs. Each chapter heading names the POV character speaking
-This is a modern (sort of futuristic) setting
-Some residents can use magic, others use weapons
-There's an academy focused on training students how to use magic or weapons depending on their specialties
-A lot of people are killed with a lot of blood
I LOVE LOVE LOVE your character names.Anyway, I like that you introduce us to Sasame's objective. However, the part about what happens to Sasame during the story needs to be more specific. What is the "different way" in which the friends are protecting the city? Is this referring to the group of people mentioned in the next paragraph? If so, I would delete the "different way" sentence at the end of paragraph 2. If it's referring to someone else, I'd clarify it.
"Unknowing of" is an unusual phrase, but it's probably fine. I like the description of the Eradication Squad.
First paragraph: "Normal" should be "normally". Also, I would think about changing "city...tries" to "people...try". Optional.
Overall, you give excellent information here. It could be structured a bit better. If I were an agent, I'd look forward to reading your sample, though. :)
Thank you! Like I said, this was the hardest thing aside from writing the novel itself.The last sentence in paragraph 2 refers to the names listed in paragraph 3. They aren't a part of Sasame's organization and have no idea that it exists.
This felt more like a character and world backstory or synopsis than a query. I'm not really seeing your unique spin here either. Everything is really generic right now.A query needs these:
A hook to draw in the reader.
Who is the mc?
What do they want?
What stands in their way?
What happens if they fail?
I would recommend checking out query shark if you haven't.
There are about 4 MCs but Sasame is the main MC.Each one wants something different:
-Sasame wants to be normal, but the leader of the organization owns her. If she goes against orders, she dies.
-Nevin and Fang want to be heroes. Well, Nevin wanted to at first but Fang decided to join out of boredom. They find out that fighting the inhuman monsters isn't as fun as they thought...and a lot of people die.
A query only needs to focus on your main mc. You don't need to mention the others even if they get their own pov in your novel. if you feel they must be mentioned, just don't name drop them and weave them in through Sasame's pov.
Revision:Thirty years after a deadly virus turned hundreds of residents into flesh-hungry, mutated monsters, the citizens of Caara Island still tries to live as normal as possible.
Seventeen-year-old Sasame Kai wishes she was just a normal teenager, but the life of a huntress is all she knows. Like most working for a secret organization hell-bent on producing a stronger antidote against the creatures’ toxic bites, Sasame has one main mission: hunt down the residents with immunity and return them to The Organization for research. To do this, she is assigned to attend the city’s fighting and magic training academy to seek out those on the list. It’s an easy mission for her until she meets a group of friends that win her over. Luckily, none of them are immunity carriers, but they will be in danger if The Organization finds out Sasame is protecting them.
Sasame now battles following her orders to appease her handlers and keeping her new friends out of the spotlight of her superiors.
The new version is a huge improvement, but I think you still need to mention what the friends do that makes them need protection.
How's this:Luckily, none of them are immunity carriers, but The Organization has strict rules against personal friendships, especially when they get too close to uncovering the truth.
That's better. What about them murdering the monsters? Does that play heavily into the rest of the plot, esp. the first act? Can you at least hint at it?You also might want to add a concluding paragraph about the details of the book (word count, age category, genre).
No, it's not a heavy plot point. It's more like a subplot. Sasame only encounters the creatures twice herself, but the other characters fight them (they are in a military group, she's more in a secret agent type group).I'll add the other paragraph in when/if I send this off.
For seventeen-year-old Sasame Kai, being an immunity huntress is all she knows. Her city is pretending to live in peace while ignoring the flesh-hungry, mutated monsters created by a virus thirty years ago living on the other side of a large wall.Like most working for a secret organization hell-bent on producing a stronger antidote against the creatures’ toxic bites, Sasame has one main mission: hunt down the residents with immunity and return them to The Organization for research. To do this, she is assigned to attend the city’s training academy to seek out the teens on the list. It’s an easy mission for her; until she meets a group of friends that make her feel wanted. Luckily, none of them are immunity carriers, but The Organization has strict rules against personal friendships, especially when those friends get too close to uncovering the truth.
Sasame now battles helping the city clear out the creatures that threaten their lives and keeping her new friends out of the spotlight of her superiors.
Welcome to Caara Island is the first book of a projected two-part series. A YA Urban Fantasy and Horror novel complete at 67,000 words.
Thanks Natasha, I'm going to have to think about how to end it the query without giving away too much
I agree with everything Natasha has said. She's given you some great advice. I wouldn't worry about giving too much away in the query. I had the same reservation, but really your goal is to show the agent you know how to tell a story. You don't want to give them the ending, but you can give more away than you think you can.I would also suggest using shorter, more simple sentences. I think you're trying to pack too much info in one sentence and the meaning gets a bit fuzzy. Concise sentences that get to the point make for a cleaner, easier read.
Maybe I should just self-publish and save what little sanity I have left
OMG, I feel your pain. I've seriously been working on my query for months! I've been through hundreds of revisions and keep thinking I'm not going to query because my query sucks. But I feel like I'm getting there and you can, too!
I, too, crammed too much into sentences and made them long and wiggly. My crit partners made me shorten them and it really helped, but it was hard b/c I needed to figure out how to say some things differently.
One thing I keep seeing here is something called the "sweet spot" of pitches being 100 to 150 words. I had not heard that before getting on Goodreads. I asked an agent/editor this question and she had not heard it before either. She said most pitches she reads are between 150 to 250 word for a total query length of 250 to 350 words. I think you're less than 170 right now. Maybe allow yourself a little breathing room and see what you can do with more words ...
With every revision, I lose more and more voice. I should just send an outline and be done with it. Or pay someone for a book cover and self-publish through Amazon like hundreds of other people.
And I really don't want to just focus on one character, because it's not about just one character. She only tells part of the story. She's cold hearted. She kills people. She uses their trust against them and watches their blood drain from them: all because she's following orders. The only thing that makes her second guess her superiors is when they start targeting her new friends...the ones that make her feel less like a murderer and more like a normal teen.But there's Nevin, who only wants to be a hero and to show he's worthy to his girlfriend's father who hates him. He's incompetent but has a big heart.
And Fang, who is hot-headed at times and lazy when he's needed he's there. He has to watch two different people die right in front of him and there's nothing he can do but retaliate. He may or may not die trying to save the life of the girl he cares for (who cares for another boy)
And Ashley who's father is the main coordinator for the military group Nevin and Fang joins (and Nevin's gf). She finds out one of her friends died, nearly dies herself, and it's all because of a man she has trusted her entire life (not her father, but her father's right-hand man so to speak)
Sasame doesn't even show up while Nevin, Fang, and Ashley are having their issues, but the entire story is connected and flows together in order of events.
But I can't list Nevin, Fang, Ashley, and Sasame in a query because it gets confusing.
Five main POVs...but I may get rid of her chapters which will shorten the book by 4,400 words.I gave one other character chapters (two chapters) but it's so I could put Fang in a deadly situation without him seeing it coming and Nevin or Ashley wasn't around so they couldn't have seen it...
It makes sense in my head but my head is quite messed up. I'm really done with it all and ready to just burn it and dance on the ashes
Wow, yeah five points of view is tough!
Elisa, plenty of us have been there. *virtual hug*. If you want to self-publish, go for it. But if you still want to go the traditional route, you can do it! Try taking a break. Go for a walk, or read a little, or eat some junk food. (If you're not into to that, you can try health food that tastes good.) Then, come back to it.
Elisa wrote: "And I really don't want to just focus on one character, because it's not about just one character. She only tells part of the story. She's cold hearted. She kills people. She uses their trust again..."I would say this is your pitch _right here_. It's amusing to me the feedback I've seen when people get frustrated and say "this is my story!". THAT is what agents/publishers want to hear. I suggest you take this as your new starting point and polish it instead. I found it compelling and interesting, not to mention the crystal clear different POVs.
My two cents regarding the length of the blurb/query: it needs to be exactly as long as it takes to interest an agent/publisher and not one word longer or shorter. Your challenge is finding where that point is and having only the words necessary to get a request for the MS, because that's the only point of the query. You will never get a book deal on a query, only on your MS, but if you never get asked for the MS you will never get the book deal. Since agents/publishers troll through 100's of queries _each week_ they will only finish reading one that grabs them off the bat. I've read some agents will quickly look at how long the paragraphs are and if they are big blocks then you have the first couple of sentences of the first paragraph to hook them, else they have already decided against you.
As for self-publishing, your blurb _still_ has to stand out among all the other gazillion that are published (self and traditional) every year. If you can't write a blurb to inspire an agent, why would you think an uninspiring blurb will get you a reader? The problem is the exact same, except agents know to read between the lines and most buyers don't. So, long winded way of saying, don't give up on this process, you need it no matter your way forward.
One last shot and I'm taking a napSeventeen-year-old Sasame Kai is anything but normal. She’s an immunity huntress. Her main mission: hunt down the residents with immunity and return them to The Organization for research. The goal: produce a stronger antidote against a thirty-year virus that turns humans into mutated, tentacle-tongued monsters.
To do this, she’s assigned to attend the city’s training academy to find any student on her list of immunity carriers. It’s an easy mission for her; until she meets a boy named Konan and his friends. They make her feel normal as if she’s one of them. There’s one problem, Sasame’s agency has strict rules against personal relationships, especially when she's trying to hide her true identity.
Sasame can forget about being loyal to her agency if she wants to become the next target. She could turn her back on her new friends, and Konan, but they will die by her own hands to prove her loyalty. She has to make a choice. She can turn her back on her friends and help the agency with the antidote, or sacrifice everything for them.
Didja have a chance to read my comment yet?
Keith wrote: "Elisa wrote: "And I really don't want to just focus on one character, because it's not about just one character. She only tells part of the story. She's cold hearted. She kills people. She uses the..."So should I mention the other POVs? They are just as important (in my mind) because they fill in the holes that Sasame can't. It would be different if _I_ was the narrator but I'm not. I just don't want people getting weirded out that I named 4 other people
Keith wrote: "Didja have a chance to read my comment yet?"I read it after I posted...sorry, this screen was already open
Cimone wrote: "Elisa, plenty of us have been there. *virtual hug*. If you want to self-publish, go for it. But if you still want to go the traditional route, you can do it! Try taking a break. Go for a walk, or r..."I think I need to eat, I've been up since 3:40am and haven't eaten yet. Maybe I'm just cranky lol
Let's see if this works. Also, I'm thinking about changing the name from Welcome to Caara Island to Immunity.Seventeen-year-old Sasame Kai is anything but normal. She’s an immunity huntress. She's cold hearted, a product of her training. She kills people for her agency. She’s the reason so many have had their blood drained from their bodies—all because she's following orders. The goal: produce a stronger antidote against the mutation virus.
Sasame gets a new assignment to attend the city’s fighting and magic academy. Her objective: seek out the students with the viral immunity. The mission itself is easy until she meets a boy named Konan and his friends. Despite her efforts, she can’t avoid the connection. She feels normal with them. There’s one problem, Sasame’s agency has strict rules against personal relationships, especially when those friends get too close.
She could choose her friends—if she wants to be the next victim of the blood draining machine. Or she could prove her loyalty to her handlers by slicing the throats of Konan and his buddies.
Except this doesn't tell us the multiple POVs, I think it reads better.Though it's well written, to me it lacks energy. I think this is more energetic:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Really, I think that comment just needs some polishing.
BTW, assuming there is no overlap (it's so simple I have to imagine there is), "Immunity" sounds a lot more informative than your other title.
I'm trying to follow too many rules...I have zero idea, none whatsoever on how to make that rant of mine into a query that won't get thrown in the trash after they see all the "family reunion" names.
You are so lost in the forest you can barely see the leaves, let alone the trees. I get it! I spend a lot of time there. I've started hanging out here because it helps drag me away from the leaves so I can start to see trees and forest (too much imagery?) of my own work.If you don't make it clear you have a lot of POVs in your query you may get agents to ask for the MS and then be turned off. And the agents that might be interested in seeing how you handle the POVs never know to ask.
There is only one rule for queries: get a request for a MS. Anything that keeps you from getting that request is bad, anything that helps get it is good. The challenge for us is to figure out what elements are good vs bad. Thus, the deluge of advice from well meaning people such as myself.
I've read a lot about querying and can distil it down to this basic phrase: you can only please some of the people, some of the time. Don't worry about pleasing people who aren't going to want to represent you, that's a waste of effort. You want to have a blurb that lets an agent (and, later, publisher (and later still, the reader)) quickly (ideally instantly) know you have something unique. Then their question becomes 'do I want to represent this uniqueness?' The answer in the majority (possibly all) cases is 'no', but if they know what's unique about your story they know what the hook would be to lure in editors and then readers.
If you write a blurb that reads like every other blurb out there, no matter how successful those others, then you get lost in the sea of sameness. Your blurb needs to stand out and the best way to do so is to convey what's unique about your story. Based on what I've read on this thread, you are unique because you have multiple POVs so the reader can see a spectrum of viewpoints. Showing so many POVs can allow the reader to choose their own hero and villain, which will no doubt appeal to a slice of the reading demographic. Is that slice large enough to make money? That's why agents and publishers get paid.
You may get turned down after the agent/publisher reads the MS, but you can't get a home run if you don't cross each base, so you need to ensure that your blurb is enticing enough to get a read, so you can knock it out of the park as they read it.
I hope this helps in some way. I really do know what you're going through, there are a lot of us doing exactly the same thing. Maybe you just need to do something else for a while, something completely unrelated to this story you have, to get some distance. Then come back and reread this thread (and the several others very much like it, I've commented on a number of them) and see if the distance gives some clarity.
Good luck!
And don't give up!
I took 6 years off, I think it's time I do this or it'll never happen. My fiance wants kids (eww) and I'm trying to do something other than being barefoot and pregnant in the heat of the south making french toast for the rugrats.I was planning to focus on Sasame, she's the blunt of the story. Without her, there wouldn't be much to go on. Her spotlight covers a good 60% while the others fill in the rest.
So my plan was to add a line at the bottom letting the agent know there is more than one voice in my head.
Something like:
Immunity is an Urban Fantasy novel complete at 67,000 words told in multiple points of views.
Or something like that.
Also, I did a quick check and didn't find any books (other than medical) titled Immunity so I might be good there. EDIT: I take that back, I found some :(
PS
I'm not trying to be bitchy, I'm just easily irritated when things go wrong. Sorry if I come off cold.
We adopted, so no need for the physical 'distortions' to have a family, though we tried the conventional way a number of years. It took me a while to view parenthood as anything other than 'eww', but now find I really like my 'monkey boy' (he is 12). Of course, there is a certain element of us parents wanting non-parents to get suckered into the experience ;-)If 'Immunity' appears to be in the clear for a novel, I say go for it, I think it is a lot more catchy than the other.
Not trying to be mean, but with 67K words and 60% focused on one character, you might not have the space to clearly devote to your 5 other view points. I know you don't want to hear this, but you may want to seriously consider condensing your POVs down to 2, possibly 3, so the reader can really get into and experience the varied POVs. I have a novel I've written with 3 first-person POVs (close to 80K), all about equally distributed, but have had plenty of complaints. I'm working with someone that has a sweeping historical tragic romance who has, I think, more (third-person) POVs than you (but she's at 120K). Anyway, something to tuck in the back of your mind.
If you can wait until the end of next week for feedback (I have one queued up now), I'm happy to read what you have and see if I can offer something more concrete. From my personal experience it's often difficult to identify the parts that stand out to a disinterested party when we love and cherish every single phrase we worked so long and hard to polish. PM me for my email address if you're interested.
And, don't forget, you get to do this all over again with the synopsis!
Yeah, I'm going to have to rewrite most of this or add some more chapters. More than likely I'll add some more chapters. I'll PM you for the email address and send it over in a few days, I'm going to see if I can't beef if up a bit. Maybe I can find some plot holes or something.
As for the parenthood thing, I'm far too twisted to be raising a baby lol.
I'm far too twisted to be raising a baby lol. Hey, if I can produce a contributing member of society, so can you! ;-)
Have you had anyone else read what you have yet? I've had over a dozen so far. If you haven't had anyone else read it, perhaps how is a good time to get some input. You shouldn't be obsessing about a query until you have it as good as you and as many free betas as you can find (I've paid for about half of mine) have gone over it several times.
BTW, since I done my first few novels, I've adopted the strategy of working on the synopsis and blurb _first_ before I even start writing. That way I don't have my mind clouded with all my (hopefully) clever prose and can focus on what I feel makes my story unique or interesting. If you are considering a substantial rewrite, perhaps you should take a further step back and work on a synopsis first.
BTW2: be sure to keep copies of your work before you start on substantial rewrites! In the cloud! You don't want to lose those, even if it serves as nothing more than a look back to see how far you came when you finally get published.
I've had a few go over it and did some minor adjustments. Someone else has it in their queue right now. I still need more opinions, though.
I agree with Keith that your "rant" about the other point of view characters had a lot of voice and some good stuff. Below I fiddled with it a bit to maybe help you see how you might use it for a pitch. I needs work, but it might help you look at your pitch in a slightly different way. I'm not saying use all the name of the character. I suggest limited to three, but make them personable and show us how Sasame bonds with them ... and then she has to make this awful choice ...Seventeen-year-old Nevin, though incompetent, wants to be hero and save his city from the virus-inflicted monsters living outside the wall. His buddy, Fang, is hot-head and lazy, but if his friends need him, he’s there. And Ashley …
And there’s Seventeen-year-old Sasame Kai. She’s a cold-blooded killer who earns people’s trust then kills them and drains their blood—all because she’s following orders from people trying to produce an antidote for the Virus.
But when Sasame forms real friendships with her marks, she has to make a choice: save her friends and become a target herself—or prove her loyalty to her bosses by slicing the throats of her friends.
Don't give up!
After this, I'm done for real. I'm just going to polish this and submit to agents. The worst they can say is no.Sasame Kai is seventeen years old living in a city protected by a great wall from flesh hungry mutations. She was recruited by an agency hell-bent on finding a stronger antidote against a thirty-year-old virus. Her main mission: hunt down those with the viral immunity and deliver them to the agency.
Then one day, she meets Konan, a boy that makes her cold heart melt. Her agency has strict rules against personal relationships, but something about Konan keeps her wanting to know more.
Maybe she could just walk away, leave this boy behind and continue her mission to help save the city. Or maybe she could find out what it's like to be a normal teenager with friends. Well, as normal as you can get in a city surrounded by monsters. Her agency won't let her go that easily.
I think you need to mention what happens when they are delivered to the agency.
I love it, Elisa. I say knock'em dead (not literally).Edited to add: "and deliver them to the agency for research"? Or something similar, maybe?
She was recruited at a young age by an agency hell-bent on finding a stronger antidote against a thirty-year-old virus. Her main mission: hunt down those with the viral immunity and deliver them to the blood extraction center.
Hi Everyone,What an interesting post. Elisa, don't give-up! You've been given excellent advice by the other readers. However, there are rules about writing that distinguish better writers from the mediocre. Your latest draft contains redundant words and clichés. You must expunge them! For example:
Her main mission, should just be her mission.
'Then one day' is a cliché, and is also superfluous. Delete it.
'Seventeen years old' could just be 'seventeen'.
And so on. Go back over your draft and try to strip out any words that can be deleted without losing style or meaning.
Best wishes
Okay...for some reason I keep coming back even though I said I'm done. I'm entering one of those pitch contests today at 4 pm EST. I have an hour and a half to submit. So here we go again. Seventeen-year-old Sasame Kai, a girl whose loyalty is divided between her humanity and the organization determined to it suppress it. She was recruited at a young age by an agency hell-bent on finding a stronger antidote against a thirty-year-old mutation virus. She spends her day hunting down her peers that carry the immunity strain.
Her heart grows colder with every mission, but in her mind, she's doing her city a favor. The more missions she completes, the closer her agency gets to their goal. She's the top in her sector and she plans to keep it that way.
Things changed when she meets Konan, a boy that makes her cold heart melt. Her agency has strict rules against personal relationships, but something about Konan keeps her wanting to know more.
Maybe she could just walk away, leave this boy behind and continue her mission to help save the city. Or maybe she could find out what it's like to care for someone other than herself, be a normal teenager with friends. Well, as normal as she can get in a city surrounded by flesh hungry monsters. But her agency won't let her go that easily. Her loyalty will be put to the test in more ways than she's prepared to handle.
Well, given the time I guess I'm too late to matter. A small thing, "Kai, is a". I'm not sure that 'hell bent' is necessarily a useful adjective, perhaps 'determined' is better. I still think you need to make it clear that Kai recruits people who then die giving up their blood (this raises the stakes).Generally, I think your final paragraph should be questions rather than statements. And the 'flesh hungry monsters' shouldn't be at the very end, they should feature near the beginning.
On the whole, though, I think you're getting the hang of this thing.
Thirty years after a deadly virus turned hundreds of residents into flesh-hungry, mutated monsters, the city of Caara Island still tries to live as normal as possible.
Like most of the teenagers and young adults working for a secret organization hell-bent on producing a stronger antidote against the creatures’ toxic bites, 17-year-old Sasame Kai has one main mission: hunt down the residents with immunity and return them to The Organization for research. During this, she meets a group of friends who help protect their city in a different way.
Nevin Rockiest along with his buddies Fang and Dante, and his long-time girlfriend Ashley Sonnie join the Eradication Squad to fight and destroy the creatures that threaten their homes. Unknowing of Sasame’s secret missions, they befriend her as one of their own after she is ordered to research them by her handlers.
Sasame now battles following her orders appease her handlers and keeping her new friends out of the spotlight of her superiors.