After reading through 200 queries for The Writers Voice competition I got a good idea of what works. And why mine wasn't.
When I read Rachel's post about the
Query Roundtable I was thrilled.
Many of the other talented writers in the competition, especially the winners, had very tight queries focusing on the main characters and the main plot. Mine was kind of all over the place with minor characters and subplots.
So I've rewritten my query (let's call it draft 347). I focused it on my two main POV characters. I tried to show a bit of their personalities and give the main conflict. It pretty much killed me to not talk about the rest, but I guess that's query writing, and I still pretty much suck at it.
Tell me what you think. And I'll do the same for you.
Take 2: (5/23)
Fifteen year-old
Ana doesn’t realize the men trying to kidnap her are actually demons trying to
collect on a lucrative bounty set by Hell. And Tam, that sexy new guy? He’s a
bounty hunter too.
Ana Owen is one
crazy secret away from sewing herself into a straitjacket. First, there was the
perfect boy from her recurring dreams. He waltzes into reality to play out her
dream in the flesh. He kisses her right in front of her boyfriend, effectively
ruining her life. Sorry, I thought I was
dream-cheating is the most crazy-pathetic excuse ever.
Then there were
the rotten-egg smelling men who were weirdly obsessed with her eyes, one green,
one hazel. These would-be kidnappers recoil in agony at her touch—one guy even
breaks out into boils. Ana has no idea what is wrong with her
What she really needs
is someone to talk to, someone with answers. Enter Tam, charming and confident he
swoops in to save the day when more attackers show up. But Ana can’t shake the
feeling Tam knows more than he’s letting on.
Ana discovers
her kidnappers are demons. But no one seems to know why Hell would be
interested in her, or why the demons would react so violently to her touch. She
must figure out what is going on before the demons succeed in dragging her down
to Hell.
BLOODFRUIT is a
95,000 YA urban fantasy that combines a retelling of the Sumerian myth of
Inana’s descent into the underworld and PARADISE LOST to create a world where a teenage girl’s
blood holds the key to creating bodies for an army of the Damned.
NEW Query:
Fifteen year-old
Ana doesn’t know her blood can create bodies for the Damned. Or that the sexy
new guy is a bounty hunter for Hell. And she’s
his bounty.
Ana turns to her
“journal” when she needs to think. She scribbles her thoughts onto smooth stones
using multicolored sharpies, and casts them into the Pacific so no one will be
able to read her thoughts. Which is probably a good thing because she’d
probably be locked up in a mental ward if she left entries like these lying
around:
Someone
is trying to kidnap me, but they can’t actually touch me.
What am I?
I
might know what it feels like to die.
What
does it mean to have a soulmate?
Ana just wants
someone to talk to, someone with answers. But she never imagined anyone would
find the stones and write her back.
So when Tam
shows up to save the day giving off the vibe that he knows more about her
would-be kidnappers than he’ll admit, Ana is suspicious. She doesn’t know if
she can trust him, and tosses a stone into the sea with a single question: Who
is Tam?
Tam thought his
bounty-hunting days were over, but then he heard the whispers about this new
job. Very lucrative, with the added mystery of being the only No-Kill bounty
Hell has ever issued. Tam’s curiosity is peaked. Besides he needs the gold. He
just has to find this girl before the horde of demons who are also after the
bounty get to her.
Ana turns to Tam
for answers, but discovers he has secrets of his own. She must figure out what
is going on, and find a way to stop the demons before they succeed in dragging
her down to Hell.