Jun 16, 2010

Query- Crucible of Silver (revision 2)

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

Thank you all for your comments. I am still trying to find the right take on this story, what's important, and what isn't and battling the line between too little and too much.

Silver squirrel has come to his end. “God!” he cries out. “I want to live! I said I was willing to face death, but you’ve shown me to be a coward. I want to be proud, but you make me ashamed. I’m angry, but you would make me forgive. I tried to live by faith, but now I fear I will die.”

Silver’s facing predators, bitter cold and embitterment inside, and all because the squirrel leaders burned down his home due to some forgotten blight. Now, all he can do, is forgive them.

He’s come a long way from his humble beginnings under a stump. He was timid and immature. Now, he’s just ruined, but he’s learned how to forgive and how to love. It was a refining fire, of sorts, that got him here. If somehow he survives, perhaps he’ll yet be ready for a special kind of destiny.

Crucible of Silver is a coming of age story for older m/g and up, completed at 70,000 words.

QUERY - SPYRE REVISION 1

Click here to read the original query.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I wish I'd found this site 4 months ago.

Some of you said that you'd like me to add more to the synopsis part of the query. I feel that "less is more" when it comes to a query's synopsis. That way, it garners more interest from prospective agents. I thought that going into more detail would be reserved for a full-paged synopsis. So I'm a little conflicted on that part of the query. However, I've added another paragraph (it's in italics) to see how that works.

I'm certainly open to more constructive criticism since I've sent out multiple versions of this query to over 50 agents and have received 27 rejections and only 1 request to see more pages. Thanks again for you help and let me know what you think:


There was no way for Alex Laxa to know that asking out a girl could land him in so much trouble. When Alex, a shy and uninspired waylei dealer, chases after a beautiful doctor to ask her out, he had no idea that he'd be thrust on a harrowing journey across the Volero System that could ultimately decide the fate of billions.

Alex finds himself a witness to two men assaulting the doctor and instinctively rushes in to help. Moments later, both men lie dead while he and his new companion, Lara Warren, have become fugitives. They discover that Lara stumbled upon the name of a project called Shepherd while researching her father's past. It's a name so secret that her employer, The Company, tries to mind-wipe both of them for learning of its existence. Now they must run for their lives, clueless as to why the very knowledge of this project would be worth killing them for.

Alex learns that Shepherd is a covert initiative to acquire the planet Spyre by annihilating its inhabitants. Only a select few are aware that this world holds the key to controlling the Volero System. Now he and his friends must save the Spyreans and prevent The Company from gaining indomitable power. SPYRE, a science fiction adventure, is complete at over 88,000 words.

Thank you for your time and patience in reading about my work. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,