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Covers, Blurbs, 1st Line, Query > 5 Months and No Requests— Query Letter thoughts?

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message 1: by Lee (new)

Lee Riley | 49 comments I'm in the query trenches as well. I've been doing the five questions I learned from Gina Denny.
Who is our protag? Lilibeth
What is her goal? I don't know. Is it being married and getting her first kiss? Is it falling in love?
What is in her way? I'm guessing royal family drama. It feels more implied.
What is she willing to do for it? Deal with the drama.
What happens if she doesn't achieve her goal? I don't know. She doesn't get her first kiss and he goes back to philandering?

Your second and third paragraph is one sentence. I'm not an agent, but it might mean there are a lot of paragraphs that can get a reader to fatigue quicker.
I don't know about the comps, but a quick Google search says the upper limit of most novels within the genre is 90k words. With this being a debut novel, going above the standard 'can' be seen as not reading within your genre and might not understand the conventions. This piece of advice I've seen from every agent from TikTok to YT to Instragram.

On the side of the coin, if the writing is similar to the book, you could have a really strong voice.

Good luck in the trenches.


message 2: by Olive (new)

Olive  Sensei  | 25 comments Hi Lee, thank you for the response— I don’t know what you mean about the third and second paragraphs?


message 3: by Lee (new)

Lee Riley | 49 comments The second and third paragraphs of the blurb section. Sorry, I wasn't clear. Each paragraph is only a single sentence. It could hint at long run-on sentences that might lead to reader fatigue.


message 4: by Olive (new)

Olive  Sensei  | 25 comments Ok thank you for the advice.


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