Query Revision 2: HOUND IN BLOOD AND BLACK

Click here to read the original query.
Click here to read the first revision.

Dear Agent,

Kumari is a wrangler; a poacher and a gambler who catches zombies and fights them against one another as gladiators. All she wanted to do was live and die without becoming a monster. In a broken Earth populated by undead, slavers, drought and greed, this isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Kumari’s simple life changes from one of survival to something much more complicated when she wins a girl in a risky gamble – a child-slave desperate to find something to live for in the world Kumari has forsaken – and is forced to kill her closet friend when he is bitten by an undead. When running to a new city in hopes of escaping her pain causes more problems than it solves, Kumari faces the loss of the only thing worth living for when she is infected by a zombie bite: her humanity.

HOUND IN BLOOD AND BLACK, complete at approximately 100,000 words, is science fiction/horror. Kumari’s story explores a new kind of future where existing isn’t just about running from and killing zombies, but fighting them against each other in gladiatorial combat – the only way left for mankind to prove to themselves that they aren’t the real monsters.

In January 2009, my short story Savage was published in Monstrous: 20 Tales of Giant Creature Terror by Permuted Press. Recently, Savage was republished in the April 2009 issue of the Apex online magazine.

Thank you for your consideration,

E. Anderson
http://thescreamingguppy.blogspot.com/

Show and Tell

One challenge many of us face is telling our readers what happens instead of showing them what happens. This can impact our manuscripts and our queries, and not in the way we want...

Sarah Garrigues has a great post on her blog addressing this subject, click here to read it. She does a great job of exploring writing that is character-driven vs. plot driven, and she has many links to other resources to further explore this important topic.

Oh, one more thing...submit more queries! I know they are out there...