It wasn't the critique suggestions, they were terrific. It was my own experience of writing.
I cannot be succinct. I just can't.
Okay, that last paragraph was pretty succinct. So I can do it if I really need to.
So, here's the query letter with the first edits suggested by one of the incredibly generous participants of WriteOnCon (and FYI .. in real life one should never query a WIP, but they let you do it on WriteOnCon as long as you put WIP or Work In Progress in the subject line of your thread):
Dear Ninja Agent,
When an international cyber-attack disrupts power and
communication, bookish 13-year-old Lena Ladimer decides to chronicle the events
in her own small rural neighborhood in Gibeon, Connecticut. Armed with her great-grandfather’s 1947 Thin
Paper Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, paper and pencils, she tries to distance
herself from events by writing about them.
She begins to be drawn into the community as they work together to cope
with the outages, but everything changes when her father is killed.
Lena decides to set off to New Reading to exact revenge on
her dad’s killer. She enlists the help
of her best friend, neighbor Gus Lennon and two others, but does not reveal the
real reason for the twenty-mile journey.
Instead, she tells them she wants to make sure her father has been
properly buried. They all have their own reasons for wanting to go, and when
the others finally find out Lena’s intentions, a startling connection to her
father’s killer is revealed.
The real trouble, though, is brewing back in Gibeon as the
unsuspecting neighbors welcome a stranger who seems willing and able to help
them. Lena and Gus realize that help is the last thing on her mind when they
discover that she has instructions to do whatever it takes to destroy their
community—and they will do whatever it takes to save it
Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead is a 15,000/50,000
word work in progress.
Thank you,
Ninja Agent, for taking the time to read my query and for your involvement in
WriteOnCon.com. Attention from an
industry professional is thrilling and appreciated!
Best Regards,
Me
I choose not to put the original on this post. It's on the YA thread over on WriteOnCom.
Too bad they don't have a genre called "Pseudo Literary Blather." The Ninja Agents would be all over me like a cheap suit.
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