My writing career has been taking a really circuitous path over the last couple of years, and unfortunately, there's still no end in sight. As such, I've been working on a new project and new query and would love to hear your thoughts.
Content warnings: mass shootings and suicidal ideation
Dear [Agent]:
It’s been five years since Roxy’s life fractured into Before and After, since her then-fourteen-year-old attempted suicide by cop. This is the lie they told, at least, to hide an even fouler truth, and now the weight has fractured them. She and her husband have divorced, she and her son have relocated, and they never, ever speak about that day, their very worst.
Until her son, who’s now a sophomore at the university, shows up on her townhouse’s doorstep on the eve of winter solstice. He was meant to spend the break in California with his father, but apparently, plans changed; now he’ll be going to an all-night party called The Longest Dark. Roxy’s suspicious of this change—her son’s a classic introvert and not spontaneous at all—but though she questions him at length, she can’t get Nathan to confess.
Roxy’s suspicions are confirmed when she discovers that her gun safe has been opened (broken into?) and her guns have disappeared. She tails him to the party venue, a vast entertainment complex floating, dreamlike, on a lake. Mid-search, a vision seizes her, and Roxy sees the party venue through the would-be shooter’s eyes. When shots break out and others flee, she stays behind to find her son, using her visions as a guide. But doubts creep in as time runs out. What if her son is not the shooter and these visions aren’t a gift? What if she’ll have to watch him die?
THE LONGEST DARK, not yet complete, is psychological suspense with complex mother-son dynamics and a speculative twist. I hope to find an agent who embraces the proposal and would like to have a say in how the manuscript takes shape.
I’m the author of four novels for discerning middle graders (read: they didn't sell that well): THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING (Putnam, 2015), DON’T VOTE FOR ME (Sourcebooks, 2015), EARTH TO DAD (Capstone, 2018), and THE MULTIPLYING MYSTERIES OF MOUNT TEN (Bloomsbury, 2019). I’m also the creator of #PitchMe, a curated pitch event that has allowed me to connect with editors at St. Martin’s Press and Sourcebooks, among several others.
Thank you for your time and especially your consideration.
I know I'm committing a faux pas by querying a manuscript that I haven't finished yet, but if I've earned anything as a four-time published author, I've decided I've earned this.
2 comments:
Hi Krista! Big fan of your blog!
This reads as well written and I can definitely tell you're a published author from the query alone. A lot of the ideas come through clearly, but there are a few little issues.
The first paragraph is quite confusing. I had to go back and re-read it and I still don't fully understand, which you definitely don't want an agent to have to do. You say five years since then-fourteen year old Roxy tried to commit suicide, but then you go on to say that she has a husband (who she's also had enough time to divorce) and now her son is a sophomore.
'This is the lie they told' ... interesting! But it goes nowhere within the query and sort of just gets lost by the end. What is the relevance of the first paragraph? It reads like it could be an entirely different story than the rest of the query.
Also, you say Nathan shows up at the townhouse steps. Is that where Roxy is? But isn't he going to the Longest Dark party?
Looks very promising! Good luck with this project!
Thank you for these thoughts, Anon! I really appreciate your taking the time to leave such a thoughtful comment.
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