May Pass Or Pages Entry 5

It's feedback reveal time for Pass or Pages, the query contest run at here Operation Awesome. We hope you'll find tips to benefit your own work and query letters. Copious thanks to our agent panel for taking the time to critique these entries. We give obeisance to all authors, especially those who participated in this round of Pass or Pages. The only path to success is by trying, the surest path to failure is to not try. Bravo to those entered.

Entry 5: LIFE, DEATH, AND HIGH SCHOOL

Query:

16-year-old Olivia’s fate[WA1] hangs on the beeps and blips of a heart monitor.[LO1] Her best friend detaches [WA2], her boyfriend Dylan gets needy [WA3], but all she can think about is a little boy in a coma and the brake pedal she didn’t have time to hit.[LC1]

While Olivia attempts to magical-think the boy alive, [LO2] Dylan’s obsession with Olivia grows. When she breaks up with him, he knows exactly what the problem is. Or, rather, who. A pillow is so easy to hold over a little boy’s face. [WA4][LO3]

LIFE, DEATH, AND HIGH SCHOOL [LC2]is a contemporary young adult novel complete at 55,000 words. It is told through multiple POVs in a multimedia journal format, including audio [WA5], written, and graphic entries. This novel might appeal to fans of Jennifer Mathieu’s THE TRUTH ABOUT ALICE and Amber Smith’s THE WAY I USED TO BE.[LO4]

Thank you for your time and consideration. [WA6]



**********

Whitley's Notes:
[WA1]: What is meant by “fate”? What happens if he dies? (e.g., She can’t forgive herself? Or she goes to jail for manslaughter?)
[WA2]: This bit feels out of place, since the best friend is never named and isn’t included in the rest of the query.
[WA3]: There’s a big leap from needy to obsessed and willing to kill. Is this obsession a major plotline? Or just plot point?
[WA4]: I need more here. I don’t have a clear sense of what this story is going to be. Is it the “magical thinking” leading up Dylan trying to kill (or actualy killing) the little boy? Or is it the aftermath… and if so, what IS the aftermath?
[WA5]: By audio, do you mean audio transcriptios? Or actual audio readers would have to listen to?
[WA6]: Overall, this query needs more focus. I need to have a stronger sense of what, exactly, this book is tackling.


Laura's Notes:
[LC1]: This opening is confusing. Is Olivia the one with the heart monitor, or the little boy? Introduce the situation more clearly.
[LC2]: When the title appeared, I immediately thought, “Wait…that’s it?” I have the whole story right here. Where’s the suspense, intrigue, mystery? I would stop reading here, quite befuddled.



Lorin's Notes:
[LO1]: The suggestion here is that it’s her heart monitor, rather than another person’s. It feels a bit disorienting to get to the end of the paragraph and find out it’s really her “victim’s” monitor. Might establish the fact of her accident earlier on. E.g., “After a devastating accident, 16-year-old Olivia’s fact…” etc.
[LO2]: I’m afraid this suggests a rather inert character in Olivia, since you haven’t presented a real driving goal for her. Obviously, her scenes can’t be built around her thinking and wishing, so what is she doing during the narrative? What goal is she trying to reach, and how does that move her through the story?
[LO3]: I’d love to know if Dylan actually kills the boy and Olivia’s quest is to prove he did it, or if she somehow gets wind of his plan and her quest is to stop him. Certainly a compelling detail.
[LO4]: I’m intrigued by the multimedia format, but I’d love for the query to suggest a narrative scope that will make those elements organic and necessary. Not quite seeing that here, unfortunately.

First 250 words

Dear Officer Jones:

Please let me state again for the record that I do not believe it is right to force me to hand over these journals. I promised my students I wouldn’t read them, and for you, I’ve broken that promise. I hope you find it was worth it.

I selected entries that I thought were the most relevant to this case. One per week, that’s all they were assigned. It’s poetry, all of it. I hope you see that.


Sincerely,

Helen Bhattacharya[LO1]

WEEK ONE: MONDAY

JENNA

My best friend died last night. [LO2] Not in the technical sense, not in the actual sense, but she’ll never again be the Olivia I grew up with. In that way, she’s gone. Dead. Something new might take her place or maybe not. I don’t know.[LO3]

I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to write about it. I don’t want to think. I just want to not. It’s been the only thing in the world since last night, the only think[LC1], and I need to stop. I’ve never been so happy to come to school.[LO4]

I guess I should write about our school, because I don’t want to write about the other thing. I need to practice describing things, anyway. Mr. Mintz says the scene descriptions in my one-act need more detail. So Laura Dixon High School is really old, like 1800s old.[LO5]



**********

Whitley's Notes:
N/A

Laura's Notes:
[LC1]: I’d stop right here with the spelling error. There is mostly telling in this opening (and not telling, as this narrator doesn’t want to talk about it. Why would I continue listening?) going on, and a quick glance shows it continues in this vein. A narrator avoiding the topic/mystery/intrigue can be done in a more clever, showing way without the narrator declaring they don’t want to talk about it.


Lorin's Notes:
[LO1]: I’m not sure you’re served by having an adult voice open the narrative.  You might present the entries without the context and reveal that they’re part of an ongoing class assignment later on in the piece.
[LO2]: Compelling line.
[LO3]: It doesn’t feel reasonable to me that Jenna would have this perspective, which takes such a long view, the night after the accident. Instead of being so abstract/philosophical, I wonder if you might weave in more concrete detail about the accident itself here. Even if you don’t want to lay out the specifics because of a big narrative reveal to come, you might still start building world, characters, and conflict(s) here.
[LO4]: Is it likely she’d be in school the day after her best friend was involved in such an accident?
[LO5]: I’m afraid this might come across as a bit author-driven rather than character-driven. If she’s going to describe something, would the school itself be her first choice, or would she home in on some element of her classroom--the mood of it, post-accident, perhaps? Or some aspect of her friends/other students? Even though she doesn’t want to think about the accident, I would think the fact of it would permeate everything. It also seems to me that you have an opportunity to build in some mystery/intrigue around the circumstances of the accident. Perhaps intimate that there are questions still to be answered. Build some tension between what Jenna believes about it and what others seem to fit. We need more here to draw us into the book and prompt us to turn pages.

Results:

Whitley: PASS 
Laura: PASS
Lorin: PASS 

May Pass Or Pages Entry 4

It's feedback reveal time for Pass or Pages, the query contest run at here Operation Awesome. We hope you'll find tips to benefit your own work and query letters. Copious thanks to our agent panel for taking the time to critique these entries. We give obeisance to all authors, especially those who participated in this round of Pass or Pages. The only path to success is by trying, the surest path to failure is to not try. Bravo to those entered.

Entry 4: THE EDGE OF HAPPINESS

Query:

After her mother dies and her sister runs away with a drug addict [WA1], the only company sixteen-year -old Annabelle has is paper, a pen, and the deep recesses of her creative mind. But then she meets Peter. Ten years her senior, he’s her newfound muse.[LO1] Peter is handing out swing dance fliers at a park. She’s captivated by the way he carries himself, swinging around a charcoal lamppost, smile brighter than the sun. To Annabelle, it’s like he can fly. [WA2] Soon, he coerces her into a world full of kindness, swing dancing, and his strict Christianity. Awed by his apparently unbridled joy, Annabelle believes that if she could be like him, maybe she could be happy too.[LC1]

Writing stories [WA3] about Peter becomes her obsession. [LO2] She ignores the pain when her sister, Jane, comes home starving and filthy; when Jane falls for Jude, Peter’s depressed younger brother, and Jude becomes estranged from his own religion; and when Peter finds out about Jude’s struggles only to ignore them. Annabelle doesn’t notice. She can’t. She’s in another world. [WA4][LO3]

That is, until Jane and Jude convince Annabelle to run away with them. As they vandalize the house of Jane’s abusive ex-boyfriend, partake in a perspective-altering trip to the beach, and are forever changed by a deadly night on the train tracks, Annabelle begins to leave her obsession with Peter behind and realizes happiness isn’t some man who seems that way. [WA5][LO4]

Maybe happiness is something else.

THE EDGE OF HAPPINESS is a completed 56,000 word YA contemporary that will appeal to fans of Stephen Chbosky’s THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, Rachel Cohn’s YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME, and Adam Silvera’s MORE HAPPY THAN NOT. Readers will identify with its shy, relatable narrator and the dark situations she faces.



**********

Whitley's Notes:
[WA1]: Is the drug addict important information? Can’t you just say “runs away.”
[WA2]: These three sentences need to be cut down and condensed into one.
[WA3]: What kind of stories is she writing? About things he’s done? About things she thinks he could do? Completely fantastical things? Also, is she only writing stories about him? Or is she spending time with him too? It’s not clear to me, and they could take the story in vastly different directions.
[WA4]: If Annabelle isn’t noticing these plot points, then I’m not sure what the plot is. 
[WA5]: Again, this is a very reactionary pitch. I don’t know what Annabelle is doing, just what others are doing around her.

Laura's Notes:
[LC1]: I’m not hooked. The extraneous information about Peter and Annabelle’s feelings toward him could be presented in the novel. In a query, it’s time to present the conflict of the novel. I would stop here.


Lorin's Notes:
[LO1]: These details feel a bit overly specific and are alluded to in the next sentences.
[LO2]: Does she do this in service to a greater end? Does she hope to have them published, to get somewhere in particular with them?
[LO3]: Assuming she’s the protagonist and central viewpoint character, I have a question about a) how the dramatic action and conflicts will reach me, as a reader, and b) whether it’s the best choice to cast your main character into an inert/passive role of ignoring the world around her.
[LO4]: Without a sense of Annabelle being the driving force of the novel, whose desires promise to carry us somewhere compelling as readers, I would have to pass on this.

First 250 words:

The first time I met Happiness, I was at the park[LC1][LO1]. It was summer, and my day had been filled with the usual ritual: walking downtown, past the little antique shops and old brick buildings, searching for something to spark my imagination. Then, I’d walk to the small grass area dubbed “Hudsonville Grand Park” where I would write. I wrote a lot. Especially during the summer, when the tediousness of high school lectures and mediocre grades and wearing all black, lipstick included, to scare off any form of socialization faded into bright pink workout shorts [WA1] and time. [LO2] Time to write. Time to create.[LC2]

Today’s creation was Blake Metal from the record store down the street. His last name wasn’t really “Metal” but Schwartz. People from our high school just called him Metal because that’s what he listened to. The noise skyrocketed out of his headphones whenever he slept in the back of our chemistry class, shoulder length brown hair falling past his lip ring and onto a bare, pencil-less desk. He was the type of tall, misfit, lanky guy that got stoned every day and claimed to know every good song that was put on a record. “Music elitists,” my sister would call them.[LO3]

This morning while I walked by the record store, I saw him opening up the blinds. He had a black eye. Dark green and purple, swollen, it seemed too colorful to have been an accident. He had to have gotten it from a fight. [WA2][LO4]



**********

Whitley's Notes:
[WA1]: This doesn’t work for me on a couple levels. (1) all black = loner is an old and overdone stereotype. And (2) this leave me with no sense of Annabelle’s actual identity
[WA2]: Overall, these first 250 words feel like info dump. We know what Annabelle does in the summer. We know Blake’s background. But we don’t have a sense of scene (other than “park”), and we don’t know who/what Happiness is.


Laura's Notes:
[LC1]: Not interested in this sentence. Emotions personified feel cliché. For all I know, Happiness could be the name of a dog, or a hippie next door neighbor, or the nickname of a child.
[LC2]: I’d stop reading here. The voice sounds more nostalgic – an adult looking back on a time as a teenager, rather than the voice of a teenager. The YA audience can spot this instantly. Perhaps this is more suited for adult, where the nostalgic voice is accepted.


Lorin's Notes:
[LO1]: Promising opening.
[LO2]: I know what you mean to suggest here, but this feels a bit labored.
[LO3]: This feels like an awful lot of detail for someone who may not be an important figure in the story (based on the query). Also, this exposition keeps us at a distance from a specific setting and time. You’re describing his general attributes and behavior, not bringing us into a single moment of interaction between Metal and Annabelle.
[LO4]: It seems as though you’re making a promise with the opening line that you don’t fulfill in the paragraphs that follow. I’d suggest really honing this and getting us to her interaction with Peter much sooner.  I’d also be much more interested in the piece if we found Annabelle engaged in some compelling activity right away. We could use a bit more pressure on her, and on the story, to urge us along in the narrative. I feel like I know much more about Metal than I do about Annabelle, and were the opposite the case, it might be easier for any potential reader (agent, editor, etc.) to be borne into the piece.

Results:

Whitley: PASS 
Laura: PASS
Lorin: PASS 

May Pass Or Pages Entry 3

It's feedback reveal time for Pass or Pages, the query contest run at here Operation Awesome. We hope you'll find tips to benefit your own work and query letters. Copious thanks to our agent panel for taking the time to critique these entries. We give obeisance to all authors, especially those who participated in this round of Pass or Pages. The only path to success is by trying, the surest path to failure is to not try. Bravo to those entered.

Entry 3: LIKE BIRDS UNDER THE CITY SKY

Query:

I am seeking representation for a[LC1] Like Birds Under the City Sky, a 52,000 word [WA1], contemporary [WA2] young adult novel, which blends elements of literary fiction [WA3]  with cyberpunk thriller and appeals to readers who enjoy Valiant, Wire Walker, and Agents of Shield.

Fearing Micah’s [LO1] fanatic mother will convince him homosexulity[LC2] is a sin, Charlie, an 18-year-old hacker, declines his acceptance to MIT.[LC3][LO2] Hoping to financially support Micah and himself, Charlie takes a research and development job he was offered by government contractor who served in the air-force with his father. Micah plans to move in with Charlie as soon as he can get away from his mother, but once Charlie leaves, Micah doesn’t hear from him. Fearing Charlie never loved him, Micah begins to fall for his mother’s doctrine.[LC4][WA4][LO3]

Instead of developing technology for a government contractor, Charlie finds himself cut off from the outside world, using his inventions [WA5] to kill. He tries to resist “The Boss,” but is tortured until he complies. Eventually, he manages to escape and find Micah. [LO4]

Together, the two boys head for New York City, where they hide among the millions of people already living there [WA6]. Finally away from his parent’s influence, Micah is free to make his own decisions about what his faith is and who he loves [WA7] while Charlie attempts to virtually scrub his identity from electronic records. They need to take stop Charlie’s former employer from hunting them, but as homeless teens with no supportive family, they have very few resources to work with.[LO5]



**********

Whitley's Notes:
[WA1]: This is quite a low word count for a book that includes sci-fi and thriller elements
[WA2]: I feel like this should be called “speculative” or “realistic sci-fi”. Contemporary always gives me entirely realistic vibes 
[WA3]: Maybe “contemporary romance” instead of “literary fition”?
[WA4]: Because you’re trying to introduce two protagonists and plotlines at once, this paragraph feels very muddled. Instead, I’d use one paragraph for Charlie only, and one for Micah only.
[WA5]: Wait, is he an inventor? Or a hacker? These stand out in my mind as two different things, so I’m stuggling to ground myself in what kind of work Charlie would be doing.
[WA6]: The second half of this sentence feels unnecessary
[WA7]: But by going to NYC, Micah already made the latter choice, didn’t he? 


Laura's Notes:
[LC1]: Whoops!
[LC2]: Spelling error.
[LC3]: This sentence is confusing. Is Micah’s mother convincing Micah or Charlie? And why would someone’s mother’s ability to convince someone homosexuality is a sin be a factor into declining an acceptance at MIT?
[LC4]: I’ll admit, I continued reading the query to make more sense of it, but I couldn’t. Who is telling this story? Micah or Charlie? I would stop here.


Lorin's Notes:
[LO1]: Friend? Boyfriend?
[LO2]: I’m not sure I get how these are connected ideas. Also, this motivation feels a bit vague and arbitrary. He doesn’t really know this will be a problem but is willing to make a major life decision based on his assumption, it seems.
[LO3]: Given his concern for Micah, why wouldn’t Charlie take him along?
[LO4]: This feels like such a different story and genre than what you presented above, and it’s treated in such a glancing way. You might reorganize all of this and give the more dramatic aspects more breathing room on the page.
[LO5]: From my perspective, it feels as though this is the real purpose of the story—their efforts to stop Charlie’s employee from doing something awful, beyond just hunting them. Might develop this aspect more fully and consolidate the relationship ones.

First 250 words:

The decaying burgers and broken glass are putrid briars keeping me from the dumpster’s treasure. The stench makes me want to puke, but defeat is an old enemy to whom I refuse to yield.[LC1][LO1]

Months on the street have left my clothing tattered. I’m bleeding from a dozen scratches, but I can’t think about bacteria. I just have to keep digging and filling my totes with items Charlie and I can use, eat or sell.

It isn’t an ideal way to survive, and certainly not a sanitary one, but it it’s better than letting my parents make me be someone I’m not. It’s better than seeing Charlie in government custody.[LO2] It’s a life where I’m accepted, even if it is by people I would have avoided in my old life.

A flash of neon catches my eye. I edge closer to it, gingerly moving fast-food wrappings until I can reach the fabric. I pull, discovering a heavy sweatshirt covered in blue and green triangles. I have no need for such an item now, but it will be a blessing if Charlie and I are still hiding in the city when winter freezes the North East.[LO3]

I place the sweatshirt in my bag along with a mug that promised coffee was the source of all happiness, a TV remote and a hair dryer. I doubt the last two items function, but Charlie will deconstruct them and use them for parts. He always seems to need more wires, circuits and plastic. [WA1][LO4]



**********

Whitley's Notes:
[WA1]: Is the story told in a now/then fashion? If it’s told chronologically and this is the beginning, then the query feels entirely like back story. The pitch should be centered in the story’s “now”.


Laura's Notes:
[LC1]: While utilizing the senses to capture a reader’s attention and hook them into the story is generally a good thing (when not overdone), shocking the reader with vomit lines at the very beginning can be a huge turn-off. I would stop here.


Lorin's Notes:
[LO1]: Voice feels a bit stiff to pull me into the piece. Might you reframe it more fully around what Micah wants instead of what’s standing in his way? Something specific and unexpected? That might coax us into the story more effectively.
[LO2]: Isn’t he eighteen?
[LO3]: I’m afraid this all feels a bit remote and objective. I want to FEEL more of Micah’s character emerging on the page. Would love more emotion and intent from him.
[LO4]: I wonder if you might try reworking this so that Micah and Charlie are in the scene, working together to find something of specific importance to them? I’d love to experience their relationship and rapport right away, and I think the scene would be livelier if rendered with more dialogue, observable action, and tension, rather than just exposition, which feels a bit low-key.

Results:

Whitley: PASS 
Laura: PASS
Lorin: PASS