Apr 20, 2009

QUERY- VAMPIRES RULE

Seventeen-year-old Jack Creed is unhappy as a vampire. He would give anything to have his old life back. After a werewolf attack, it seems he's gotten his wish. He's human again. Now his problems really begin.

His high school english teacher is the head werewolf; the girl he's seriously crushing on is a hunter with secrets; his brother can't make up his mind if he should welcome Jack home or stake him through the heart to be on the safe side. Then Jack starts to regain some of his vampire powers. Also, he's developing new werewolf powers.

Jack just wants to be normal. He wants to graduate from high school and leave the werewolf killing to others, but everyone he knows is in danger. In the end Jack will have to make a hard choice between what he wants, what's good for him, and what is good for the people he loves.

Vampires Rule is complete at 73,000 words.

4 comments:

The Screaming Guppy said...

You're missing genre - YA I assume?

Overall, this query isn't working for me at all, but I can't really give a way to fix it.

It seems too simple - there's nothing catchy about the writing and the topic sounds like the same old thing to me.

It's so vague. I have no details to latch onto, no spark to grab my attention. What makes your book unique? Pull out the little things that give it flavor.

Also, watch for stuff like the last two sentences of the second paragraph - they both end with the words "powers." Since a query letter is so short, you want to avoid anything that sounds repetitious.

I assume you intend to put in a polite closing as well.

Sorry, I don't know how helpful this. Good luck.

PurpleClover said...

Overall I think the storyline can work. But the query needs to be revamped. ;)

It seems messy and the word choice is poor. Try narrowing it down to five sentences without them being run ons.

For the first line "unhappy as a vampire"...that needs to be cut. Vampires aren't necessarily unhappy. Maybe unruly or malicious or something other than "unhappy". Plus you used it as a simile when he really IS a vampire so he's not "as" a vampire...he is one. Maybe if you added "gets" to the end it would make more sense. Now as far as the werewolf bite turning him human...umm that isn't true now he's a werewolf/vampire hybrid (according to the rest). So right there you've told me the story doesn't make sense. You may need to edit the story before the query. Here is my suggestion on how to improve the paragraph:

Jack Creed is a miserable vampire that wishes he could just be a normal teenager again. But after a werewolf bite he realizes things are just beginning to unravel.

I'm not going to rewrite your query for you, but I just summed your whole paragraph up in two sentences that I think flow a bit better. I really think you need to join a writer's critique group to look over your manuscript before you start to form a query. I think the story is a good one...just needs work.

Alex Green said...

But you didn't say "unhappy as a vampire" as a simile, so don't worry about altering that part.

Word Ver: fangst

PurpleClover said...

hmm...good point. I finally had to re-read the opening line because I thought for sure it was a simile. But it wasn't. I apologize for that. Maybe replace "as" with "being".

But that line makes way more sense to me. :) Thanks for the clarification. And yes...you can leave it...just forget I said anything about vampires not being "unhappy" and what not. lol.