Dear Ms. Lessa:
Presiding over a dead Student’s second chance opportunity didn’t seem that difficult. She’d assumed convincing someone to prevent a school shooting and the murder of six freshmen would be straightforward. But she’d overlooked the Student’s flaws: selfish, unlikable and the cause of those deaths. She’d overlooked that she had not been granted a second chance to live. Fifteen, barefoot and desperate to escape the afterlife, she’d been willing to overlook the role’s complexities. Anything, after all, sounded better than sulking for all eternity over a life she can’t remember.
She returns to the living world instantly attached to those in jeopardy of dying. Helplessly, she watches the week spin out of control in a kaleidoscope of rumors, fights, jealousy, rivalry, and romance. The Student refuses to make amends. But it’s Miss Perpetual Bystander, Grace Hewitt’s ambivalence towards wrongdoing (and blatant denial about her feelings for the reckless Will Pendergrass, who clearly adores her) that most infuriates the narrator.
By the time this amnesiac protagonist realizes she’s presiding over the last week of her life, it’s too late to save everyone involved.
Until its deadly climax, THE BEAUTY OF DESTRUCTION conceals the identities of the narrator meant to protect them, the Student meant to save them, and the kid who brings the gun that destroys them all. In the vein of LOVELY BONES meets NINETEEN MINUTES, THE BEAUTY OF DESTRUCTION is complete at 110,000 words.
For the past twelve years I have taught middle school English. In addition, I have experience as a corporate freelance writer and a few expository publications for, most notably, THE ENGLISH JOURNAL.
Thank you for considering representing my work.
This query has a common problem: the plot is so complex it’s hard to put it into one page. Which makes the query very hard to understand. An author must always find ways to make the intricacies of her plot sound simple. In this case, the main complication is the lack of names and identities, and the use of words that get confusing. That first sentence is completely incomprehensible to me. I have no idea what on earth you’re talking about. Why is she “presiding over” something? Is she going back to life? Is she a ghost? I can’t tell a whole lot from this query.
As much as I love a clever punchline, sometimes a story requires a more straightforward introduction. Like “She doesn’t know who she is, who her friends are, who she can trust. She doesn’t know anything about her life, really, except the fact that she’s dead. And now she has the chance to help prevent it. Which sounds a lot easier said than done. She thought everyone would want to prevent a school shooting, but…” so on and so forth. Instead of complicating things, find one way to call your character, use simple words and let your story speak for itself.
But, before you query, make sure these same problems don’t appear in your manuscript. Sometimes people do have trouble writing a query, and the manuscript is so much better than what is conveyed in the query. But, more often than not, a confusing query mirrors a confusing manuscript. That is most certainly what an agent thinks. So make sure that’s not the case.
Oh, and name your genre! That’s the first step to showing you really know what you’re talking about.
Thanks for sending your query. Hope that helps!
If you want to have your query analyzed here, send it to gabrielalessacarvalho@gmail.com with the subject line QUERY WEDNESDAY.
Given the setting, I’d assume this is YA, but it’s VERY long for YA. The thing that most concerns me, though, is the promise that the identites of the main players are concealed until the end. If the book is half as confusing as the query, I don’t even want to try to figure it out. All the inidentified “she’s” has my head spinning.
Try writing the query without concealing ANY details. Use names, describe one MC and what s/he wants, what stands in his/her way, what will happen if s/he fails, etc. The way it’s written, the query sounds like there is possibly a guardian angel trying to get someone to prevent a Columbine-like shooting… but no one else really wants much. Is the guardian angel the MC? The book should be about the MC trying to get what s/he wants.