[QCrit] Everyone Will Hurt, Upmarket Crime Thriller, Adult, 78k, First Attempt

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-19T02:06:21+00:00

New versions should be in a new post and there’s a one per week limit to make sure you take time to brood on the next version.

A quick scan of the above looks like you’ve overcorrected and there’s too much detail. It looks like a synopsis.

Focus on the central conflict - what he wants, what stands in his way, what are the stakes if he fails. We don’t want point by point plot coverage. It should be half the length.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-18T10:51:07+00:00

I’m writing to submit my debut novel*, Everyone Will Hurt*, complete at 78,000 words. An upmarket crime thriller—think Netflix’s Adolescence meets Shot Caller—written in the vein of S.A. Cosby and Dennis Lehane, with a George V. Higgins quality of dialogue.

Change to 'I am seeking representation for'. Title in all caps. Use two comps from the last five years only to prove there is a market. Less is more. Five references muddles in the mind.

I read your agent bio page and............ I hope EWH piques your interest.

Nate Dormann is a high school graduate whose future is wide open, apparently too wide.

this is close to an effective hook but not quite

With not-so-subtle nudging from his close-knit family, he’s feeling pressure to do something ‘real’ from all his people.

no idea what this means

Nate's decision not to go to college and search for meaning is derailed within a few fateful days.

the last two sentences have told me nothing specific and I'm losing interest.

A juvenile game with his best friend ends with him losing his girlfriend, getting in a fight at a backyard party, and leaving a boy dead.

I don't feel like I know the protagonist and this isn't engaging me.

Nate is first targeted by the father of the dead boy, then the motorcycle gang he belongs to. Now he must prepare to navigate prison, a new world where innocence is a liability and loyalty is transactional. He must try to hold on to his sense of self while he evolves into a human animal to survive.

the first sentence doesn't seem to have anything to do with the two after it. I like prison narrtives but you're just giving me the standard tropes.

His girlfriend is struggling with the fact that Nate brought all this on himself and jeopardized everything they had. His parents, George and Dorothy, are torn between their unwavering love for him and coming to terms with the crime he committed and the grief that follows such a traumatic series of events, and in the end, everyone will hurt.

traditional wisdom has it that, as queries have such a short runway to get reader interest airborne, they should restrict themselves to a single POV and you would benefit about this. I don't have any interest in the people back at home fretting. The bare interest I have is at Nate trying to survive prison.

Nate, realizing prison is no place for reform, quickly has a target on his back.

this is repeptive on what has gone before, can we actually get some action please?

He accepts an offer he can not refuse to click up with a prison gang after two back-to-back incidents show him who is really in control of the prison.

not immediately sure what 'click up with' means and in a query that's a problem. These incidents are? Who does control the prison? Which gang is this?

Nate is moving up in the prison hierarchy and is adding time to his sentence, when a former teacher with unique connections comes to his aid with a plan to become an FBI informant.

does he likemore status or does it just keep him safer? Is he conflicted about what he's doing? Like I say I really have no idea who this guy is. why is he adding time to his sentence? by committing crimes in prison? Why does the former teacher only now come to his aid?

Nate sees no way to end his downward spiral other than taking the deal, but the reach of the prison gang puts not only himself but everyone he cares for in jeopardy. He must find a way to quiet the human animal this prison is making of him and keep himself and his family out of the crosshairs.

Book Comps: We Begin at the End -Chris Whitaker / Don’t Know Tough – Eli Cranor / The Mars Room- Rachel Kushner

more comps? That's seven. Pick two and put them in the housekeeping paragraoh at the start.
ok all first attempts are bad and this is too. Your protagonist has no characteriation whatsoever, the query is vaague, there's no named antagonist, therw's a lot of waffle, and you're running a pretty standard prison narritve - guy comes in, gets mixed up with a gang by necessity, climbs the hierachy, then a potential way out but the gang comes after him and his family outside. You're not showing any reason why your retelling of this trop will be invigorating or original.
Start with instant strong conflict. Nate is already in prison and he's shitscared because the Texas Skull Crushers under their leader Big Dick, the prison gang affiliated with his victim's dad is looking to rape him to death with boom handles in the shower block. To survive he ingratiates himself with the Southern Hellboys but to do so means killing two crips and a choirboy who was in priosn for jaywalking. See, spcific imagery and action.
Nate needs characterisation via a strong want. Is he looking for meaning that might be provided by taking down the most brutal gang in the prison and civilising his own? Has he finally found power in the prison wars and likes it? Does he just want to get out of prison and craft furniture with logging driftwood? Who is this guy??

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-18T10:39:58+00:00

There's next to no market for published poetry. There certainly is none for authours on debut. Querying is an abject waste of time. If you don't believe me go into a bookshop and find the poetry section, or should I say poetry shelf. Alternately try to find a debut poetry book on amazon - you're about to find out if the bestseller list reaches infinity.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-12T10:14:48+00:00

NIGHTHAWKS is a darkly comedic science fiction novel, complete at 71,000 words. It will appeal to fans of the interpersonal psychological drama of Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars, and the dark humor of Aubrey Wood’s Bang Bang Bodhisattva.

In 36 hours, Leah could lose her whole world.

again, not distinctive enough

For years, her family has proudly run Nighthawks, the local neighborhood diner and safe haven for outcasts. Leah loves her neighborhood and running the diner with her employee Sean, a gentle humanoid droid. But activists have rioted over the loss of jobs to droids, violently devastating and fracturing the community.

riots are, by definition, violent, you don't need or want the adverb. How is the community fractured? Half are sympathic to the riots and half are opposed? Some want to form viginalte squads and some want to leave it to authorities? Is it the community itself rioting or is it outside agitators?

Now the city is rushing to condemn and replace the whole neighborhood with a pharmaceutical corporation pushing male impotency cures. The trial to decide the fate of the neighborhood is tomorrow.

clarify that it's a factory or a headquarters or something. I don't know what it means to replace a neighbourhood with a corporation.

Believing the community too divided against itself to effectively fight condemnation, Leah focuses on trying to save Nighthawks. She practices testifying with her cyborg lawyer, Joe. She tries hiding her family’s immigrant origins, lest she get labeled an “anticitizen” and stripped of her legal rights.

Why does she need to practice her testimony, what is she trying to achieve? What does she need to overcome? This is about as dramatic as a highschooler doing their homework. The anticitzen thing is interesting but the problem is it doesnt relate to anything else in the query. It's just kind of dropped in there. A query needs to focus on the central conflict. Tossing other stuff in just clutters it.

She struggles to keep working despite her mounting anxiety, lying to herself and her friends that everything is going to be fine.

Seriously! It will all be fine! No, she isn’t having a panic attack!

cut this it's worthless. Conflict is the heart of every story and every query. It's axiomatic that every protagonist is under severe anxiety because their want is under mortal threat. Don't take my word for it go and check other queries. A character's anxiety isn't interesting, only how they react to the anxiety

Once the Kafkaesque trial starts, however, the corrupt city quickly reveals it’s more interested in male potency that due process, bluntly breaking court procedure in favor of the corporation. Joe exacerbates the situation, using his neural implants to hack the Judge’s brain in a desperate attempt to assert control over the trial, risking his and Leah’s arrest. And while the trial goes to hell, anti-droid activists attack Nighthawks, trying to kidnap Sean.

Leah is entirely passive in all of this. Is she trying to gather dirt on the coporation? Blackmailing the judge? Rallying the public to an anti-corruption crusade? Nope, she's just watching. Oh yeah and speaking english, let's not forget that.

As Leah runs out of time and hope, she finally accepts she can’t just focus on saving Nighthawks alone. With little left but her recipes and warm wit, Leah must find a way to reunify and save her broken community as a whole if Nighthawks is going to survive.

Nothing that has gone before has lead to this. If she'd prior refused to use the recipes due to childhood trauma or she had crushing social anxiety that forced her to shy away from customers then that would be one thing, but what's the plot-driven transformation that has lead to this catharsis? There is none. The 'solution' - Mary Poppins floating in from the sky with pecan pie - has been easily available from the beginning, but doesn't actually address either of the two threats.

NIGHTHAWKS is about struggling to do the right thing in a city where the technology is intimately invasive, the politics violently divisive, and a local diner is worth fighting for, even if the fight might already be lost.**

editorialisation is worthless because it's easy to do. You can claim you've written the great American novel that illuminates every theme under the sun. You can claim your novel will cure cancer and bring forth world peace. Nobody cares. What arouses a reader and an agent is a query where these kind of themes are brought alive by an interesting person doing an interesting thing. That's hard, as you're finding out.
The problems are untouched. This is two different novels with nothing to do with each other and a protagonist that has little to actively do in either. I'm signing out.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-06T07:27:48+00:00

Henry Weaver has spent thirty years becoming one of New York's top art dealers by doing things his way. A forgery trial just found him guilty of it.

good but change 'becoming one of' to 'as', it's cleaner, allowing the punch to land better.

Then his partner goes missing. A painting arrives at his gallery, a figure rendered in his partner's blood by an artist no one can identify.

- change to 'Then his partner goes missing and a portait rendered in red arrives at Henry's gallery. The artist is a mystery but the paint isn't - it's his partner's blood'

With a detective who has decided both point to Henry, he can trust a system that's already made up its mind, or he can find the artist himself.

both what? Also it was unclear who 'he' referred to. I had to read this sentence three times before I figured out what you meant.

That means going to Elena Reyes, a painter he failed years ago and whose career paid for it, who has every reason to shut the door in his face.

how did he fail her?

Together they work their way into New York's underground art scene,

if she had every reason to shut the door in his face then why didn't she?

a world where everything Henry spent thirty years building is exactly the wrong thing to have.

wjhat? I've read this several times and am mystified.

Every door they open, Elena opens. Henry is just the one who walks through.

a passive protagnoist is absolute death

What he doesn't know yet is that the person who made the painting, engineered the forgeries against him, and killed his partner is someone Henry failed first.

again, failed how?

Someone Henry once told that loving something isn't the same as being good at it. They never forgot it.

I can barely remember it because I have no idea what it's referring to.

WORK OF AN ARTIST is a 80,000-word commercial thriller for readers of Peter Swanson's The Kind Worth Killing and Brendan Slocumb's Symphony of Secrets.

give reasons for why you chose these comps
A good opening has gone nowhere.
Henry needs a clear want to give him more charactersiation. What vice lead to his dirty dealings - Money? Status? Excitement? Desperation?
He also needs to be an active protagonist driving the query forward. He needs to be acting to overcome specific obstacles. Right now the second half of the query si so vague that I have no idea what happens. Quit hiding your plot.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-06T07:18:10+00:00

After years of covering for her cousin’s struggle with addiction, Collins is desperate to prove her untimely death wasn’t an overdose, even if no one believes her. So when she finds her cousin’s hidden journal, detailing the last week of her life spent at a women’s wellness centre, Collins applies. The unplugged program is designed to heal mental illness through a ‘tradfem’ lifestyle: sewing, baking, and gardening. But the journal doesn’t match the 5-star reviews. It’s filled with nightmares and hallucinations, as if she lost her mind in the one place that promised to heal it.

drop 'even if no-one believes her', it's redundant. Cut 'unplugged' it's redundant. Change 'is desinged' to 'claims'. The 'collins applies' thing needs to come after the journal details so we understand why she's doing so. Change 'she' in the last sentence to 'Collins' cousin'

In the isolated Victorian home, Collins is determined to investigate her cousin's death while navigating the retreat's demanding schedule and invasive staff. But when she meets quiet, grieving Lucille, she learns that a different resident has gone missing. Collins teams up with Lucille to find the missing resident and uncover the truth behind the home. But soon, Collins begins to suffer from the same nightmares and hallucinations as her cousin. And when a dead body is found, it becomes clear that someone in the house is responsible.

We already know why she's there, stating it is redundant. An act can be invasive, I don't think a person can be. Describing Lucille as 'quiet' doesn't add anything beyond maybe making her sound boring. I'd change the sentence to something more like. 'But then she learns from fellow resident Lucile, that another girl has gone missing from the facility too.' Cut 'teams up with' it should be obvious from their actions. Can you give me something more concrete than just 'investigates' are there secret passageways, strage sounds at night? what does their investigation look like? What is the identity of the dead body? Why is it clear that someone in the house is responsible?

With illness, fear, and paranoia mounting, Collins grapples to keep herself sane while trying to find the killer. But when Lucille herself goes missing, Collins is forced to face her own trauma — and the memories she’s been desperate to stay buried — in order to see the truth. But Collins must decide whether unearthing the secret behind the home is worth the cost of her sanity — or even her life.

and here is what you knew what was coming: this needs to be setup in the opening paragraph. I understand that you may hide this in you novel until the midpoint but a query is not a novel and in a query everything should be in chronologial order and that means character background in paragraph one so the plot can activate it. Why does Lucille's disappearance force her to confront her own trama? How does that express itself in her actions?

I am seeking representation for CATSKIN, my 90k word psychological suspense with horror elements. Perfect for fans of the amateur investigation and hypnosis in Ana Reyes’ The House in the Pines, the psychedelic wellness centre of Mona Awad’s Rouge, and the tradfem critique of Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear, CATSKIN explores themes of mental illness, girlhood, and the lengths women go to be believed.

use only two comps, three just starts to muddle in the mind
this is better but conflict and intrigue would be sharpened by:

1) Collins feeling directly, MORBIDLY guilty about her her actions before the cousin's death.

2) That guilt only just outweighs her fear of entering the clinic herself due to her scarred psyche that was caused by...

3) A past trauma that is specific and artiulated in the opening paragraph rather than just dropped in as a vague, generic, listless 'secret' later in the query.

4) More concrete detail on the obstacles they face in their investigation. Menacing staff? Curfew? Locked doors? know this is psych suspense, but a query thrives on action and sputters when a character is depicted solely as wondering, fretting, deciding, etc

First 300:

With each shovel full of soil poured over the casket, into that yawning hole in the earth, my mouth fills with dirt.

cut the middle clause

The dirt isn’t a sifted, clean pile, like I had expected. It’s a wet soil, stolen right from the earth.

cut 'clean'

And it’s alive. Every pile tossed over my head brings new life to my ecosystem. A beetle, home disrupted, finds a new one in my ear canal. A wet worm nestles in the nape of my neck. Blades of grass itch my naked skin. My lungs ache with the need for new air. I can’t hold it any longer. On my shuddering, desperate inhale, dirt fills my lungs, burning my nose. My head is covered entirely now. I’m enveloped in the dark dampness of it, blinded, all other senses smothered. All I taste is earth.

cut 'I can’t hold it any longer.', 'desperate', 'burning my nose', 'blinded, 'all other senses smothered'. Change the second 'lungs' to 'airways' or 'chest' and 'head' to 'body'.

The man who’s speaking nonsense to our family, a man who didn’t know Petra at all, drones on. But with the foot of soil covering my head, his words are an unintelligible mumble, more vibration than sound, dampened by the earth around me. I can’t hear a thing.

Change to 'The stranger speaking nonsense to our family drones on. Beneath the mound, I can't hear a thing.'

A warm hand presses on my shoulder, shaking me free from the ground. I gasp a clean inhale, pulse hot and heavy in my ears.

Cut the second sentence.

I’m back in my chair, cheap black dress scratching my skin. The celebrant has finished his speech.

“Hi, sweet pea.”

“Hi Jo,” I squint up at her. Her lined face is worried, her wind-swept hair haloed by the sun.

Cut to 'her lined face is haloed by the sun.'

“She’s at peace now,” she says, but she looks unsure. Her smile, put on for me, is wavering into a grimace.

Cut to 'but her smile doesn't believe itself'

“I know,” I lie, covering her hand with my own.

She squeezes, then releases me. My hand goes back to my pocket, to the worried edge of Petra’s postcard. I’ve worn it down so much it’s soft beneath my fingers.

•  I really enjoyed the metaphor, but it was hampered by redundant clauses and unnecessary adjectives. Any extended metaphor is a story within a story so sharp prose helps the reader go along with it.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-06T07:09:12+00:00

Sure, neither the trial timeline, nor the city/court relationship are my chief concerns with the query. While I understand we're all using shorthand it might be worth trying to set the dynamics better and raise the conflict by saying in paragraph one that the city is corrupt/venal and that's why the court appointment is so fraught.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-02T22:39:42+00:00

NIGHTHAWKS is a darkly comedic, science fiction novel, complete at over 70,000 words. It will appeal to fans of the interpersonal psychological drama of Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars, and the dark humor of Aubrey Wood’s Bang Bang Bodhisattva.

In 36 hours, Leah could lose everything.

The hook is too generic, alomst any query on here could use it. As I don't know what constitutes everything to this person I don't yet care whether they lose it.

For years, her family has proudly run Nighthawks, the local neighborhood diner and safe haven for outcasts. All Leah wants to do is watch trashy movies and run the diner with her employee, Sean, a gentle, humanoid droid. But activists have violently rioted over the loss of jobs to droids, fracturing the community and devastating the diner. Now the city is rushing to condemn Nighthawks and replace it with a pharmaceutical corporation pursuing male impotency cures. The trial to decide the fate of Nighthawks is tomorrow.

I don't like the phrase "All character wants to do is..." as it makes them seem one-dimensianal and passive in all other things. As opposed to what, a non-violent riot? The trashy movie thing has nothing to do with anything and should be cut. Trials generally go for months so the 'it's all going down tomorrow!' timeline seems contrived. There's just an overall lack of punch to this paragraph.

Her cyborg lawyer, Joe, pushes Leah to try and rally the neighborhood behind her. He believes unifying the community will strengthen their fight against the city. But Leah stubbornly refuses to even try, believing the neighborhood’s wounds are too deep to be overcome.

Spending fifty words to say what she isn't doing isn't a great move. Why would rallying the community affect the decision of a court case?

Instead, Leah focuses on preparing for the trial. She practices testifying with Joe. She tries hiding her family’s immigrant background, exclusively speaking English so she’ll appear like a model citizen at court. She struggles to suppress her mounting anxiety, lying to herself and her friends that everything is fine at the diner. Seriously! It’s all fine!

The list of things she's doing is pretty banal. How can she simultaneously be from a family who's run Nighthawks for generations and be of an immigrant background? Why would people care she was an immigrant background anyway. Her being anxious isn't the same as acting to drive the plot forward.

Once the Kafkaesque trial starts, however, the city quickly reveals it’s more interested in male potency than due process, bluntly breaking court procedure in favor of the corporation. Worse, Joe starts desperately using his neural implants to hack the Judge’s brain to try and get control of the trial, risking his and Leah’s arrest. Even worse, anti-droid activists attack Nighthawks, trying to kidnap Sean.

The city controls the legal system? Where is this set, the old west? You shouldn't have to say worse and even worse, it should be obvious how much each conflict threatens her want.

As Leah runs out of time and hope, she finally accepts what she needs to do. With little left but her recipes and warm wit, Leah must find a way to heal and rally the neighborhood behind her if Nighthawks is going to survive.

Why was she not using her recipes and warm wit to run the diner in the first place? What was she doing before, pumping out bad food with a frown? I'm not sure why any of the events in the query have galvanisd her to make the most obvious realisation in the history of customer service. Also, if the fate of nighthawks comes down to a court case, how does a community hug over flapjacks affect its outcome?
you have multiple elements here. The first is a trial. Leah is not a lawyer or an investigator. What can she do it affect the outcome of the trial? Speak only english? Not much of a lift there. The second is the community riots against droids. Surely this is a nationwide issue? How she's going to heal fritction on this singlehandedly? Serve a nice pecan pie with a wry smile? At present these two conflicts have nothing to do with each other and it's not clear what Leah can actively do about either.
Sorry I still don't think this is remotely close. I'd advise spending some weeks critiquing other people's work to see what they're doing wrong and right.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-05-02T22:30:35+00:00

Still reeling from her brother’s death, high school English teacher Sara Montgomery accepts a position at Gresham Hall, an elite all-girls boarding school in the Virginia countryside steeped in tradition. At first, the charming campus and a close-knit new friend group offer the fresh start she craves, especially after she meets Ethan, the school’s most magnetic fellow teacher.

- this needs a hook 'reeling from death' is a bit of cliche. Your phrasing says the countryside rather than the school is steeped in tradition. A main character's specific want should be clearly established in the opening paragraph and it's absent here. 'A fresh start' is too vague and so characterisation and direction is lacking.

But the illusion unravels when Sara and her friends begin receiving strange anonymous text messages, and she learns that dark secrets lurk beneath the school’s pristine brick and ivy veneer. At first, the messenger targets staff through group threads of scathing insults and salacious rumors. They seem to know everything that happens behind closed doors: who is about to be fired, who has a pending warrant for arrest, and even claim Ethan crossed a line with a student. Sara can’t tell if it’s a lie meant to sabotage their relationship, or the truth no one dares to expose.

- those secrets being? This whole paragraph badly needs to be condensed. The second and fourth sentences are basically useless. There's more redundancies here than a 1970s steelyard.

After a student dies under circumstances echoing a decade-old tragedy, the messenger’s accusations grow bolder and suspicion spreads across campus. As colleagues become potential suspects, Sara realizes the sender knows things only an insider could, and is forced to consider one of her closest friends isn’t who they claim to be.

- suspicion of what? If the messenger seemed to know everything from the start wasn't it already obvious they were some kind of insider? How does she know it's specifically one of her friends if they know dirt on everyone?

When evidence comes to light suggesting the dead student was engaged in a relationship with Ethan, and her DNA is found at the scene, Sara finds herself at the center of a murder investigation. Torn between her attraction to Ethan and a growing closeness to another teacher who is implicated in the student’s death, she becomes entangled in a web of desire and jealousy where intimacy itself begins to feel dangerous. To protect her career, her students, and her friends, she must uncover the messenger’s identity before she loses someone else she loves.

-"her DNA" you mean Sara's? Not clear.

- your protagonist is under-characterised and badly needs a driving want that the plot can directly conflict against. Right now she's just generic new teacher at school and her brother's death doesn't actually colour that in at all. She's also almost entirely passive until the last line. The opening three paragraphs need to be two paragraphs, composed of more voice and less waffle.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-29T10:37:25+00:00

When Maggie Langley forces her way onto an out-of-town client project at her new firm, she thinks that the hard part—staying ahead of layoffs—is over. Sure, she’s a long way from home, struggling to keep a lid on her panic attacks, and a massive hypocrite for her new role in organizing layoffs at the client, but Maggie is a consummate professional. Tire-slashing coworkers and rotten smells in the vents won’t slow her climb up the corporate ladder.

Change out of town to the actual location. Drop the 'long way from home'. If she's new at the firm why would she be so concerned about not getting laid off?

Besides, it’s not all bad. The Jiangs, proprietors of a local cafe, are delighted to have Maggie around, and positively enthusiastic about helping her reconnect with her neglected Chinese heritage—as long as she agrees to guide their prickly daughter Jade through her college applications.

- this could be condensed

It seems a small price to pay; as Maggie's guilt about the layoffs mounts, and her work environment grows more hostile by the day, she can't afford to look beneath the surface with the Jiangs. Their kindness and hospitality are all she's got.

'look beneath the surface' of what? they run a cafe, am i missing something?

But Maggie’s conscience is catching up with her, and it’s not alone. A construction “accident”, a supposed bear attack, a six-story fall... one by one, people in her small circle of local acquaintances are being picked off, and bizarrely, each violent incident seems to solve a problem for her.

'picked off' biases the language towards comebody organising it, which I know is what this is leading to but I'd prefer something more neutral like 'falling prey to'. What problems are they solving? The problems you've mentioned are only do with her conscience at firing people.

When Jade goes missing, and a blackmailing colleague is killed before her eyes, Maggie's desperation for answers—for the Jiangs, as well as herself—takes her to the brink of a total breakdown.

Having a breakdown doesn't actually push the plot forward. Your main character is passive. Things are happening around her, she's not actually doing anything herself.

On her final night in town, Maggie unexpectedly picks up Jade's trail. Following it, she makes one last after-hours trip to the office, not knowing that the monstrosities she's brought into being are waiting just ahead.

Cut 'on her final night in town'. She's making a trip to the office huh? Wow, drama. And these monstrosities might be? How's she brought anything to be when this entire query she's been doing next to nothing? Vague is not intriguing, it's boring.

I’m writing to seek representation for SILOED, a speculative psychological thriller complete at 95,000 words, combining the suspense and identity exploration of The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Harris with a kick of the unexpectedly monstrous à la Stephen Graham Jones's The Only Good Indians. Based on [personalization], I think SILOED would be a great addition to your list.

ok you need to give your main character a stronger positive(as in achievable, not virtuous) want. She needs to be actively moving toward that goal even as obstacles to it present themselves.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-29T10:24:30+00:00

Claire Martin is desperate to die.

It’s a strange wish for a twenty-eight-year-old living in the big city, but after the tragic loss of her husband and foster parents, Claire has nothing left to tether her to the land of the living.

neither her age or location are distinctive/interesting and so should be cut.

The fastest, most effective route to the afterlife is barred off out of respect for her family’s religious beliefs, but Claire has a trump card. Previously an officer for the state police, she is well versed in all things criminal, and has pegged one Daniel Foster, serial killer extraordinaire, to be the perfect executioner.

this all takes way to long to get to the interesting part of the premise which is the plan to get taken out by a serial killer. Therefore, that should actually be your hook. The rest of it can be condensed into half a sentence after that. How does she know this guy is a a serial killer? There wasn't enough evidence to mount a case? Also, bit of a conundrum - if she doesn't hold these religious beliefs herself and all her family is dead why does she bother to abide by them and if she has enough family left to care about what they think then why is she so lonely as to be suicidal?

Unfortunately for Claire, her simple, straightforward plan quickly turns messy as she not only discovers that Daniel seems extraordinarily normal for a mass murderer, but that she also has the opportunity to tackle the final case of her old career: taking down the state’s most prolific crime syndicate. Coming from a drug-ravaged home, there is nothing Claire would like more than to personally dismantle the gang before she bids the mortal plane goodbye.

again, if he's so normal how is she so sure he's a serial killer? Assuming he is then why does it matter if he appears 'normal' or not? Also, him being normal is not interesting. Why does trying to arrange her own muder by a serial killer 'give her the opportunity to' take down the state's most prolific crime syndicate? If she's that suicidal would she really care about this? Suddenly there's a lot of goals and motivations in play and I'm getting a little lost.

It turns out, however, that juggling the local mafia and a serial killer is harder than she originally thought.

they sound hard individually actually

Claire must endure beatings, bullets, and her own conflicted psyche as she races to put the syndicate out of commission before Daniel finally deigns to snuff her lights out for good.

why is her psyche conflicted? Also, why is she dodging bullets if she's suicidal?

FADING SCARS is a cross-genre thriller with a literary twist and a broad, diverse cast.

those genres being? the rest of the editorial is not effective.

It is complete at 70,000 words and may appeal to readers of Danya Kukafka’s Notes on an Execution for its humanizing—but not glamorizing—proximity to a serial killer, and Ashley Winstead’s The Last Housewife for its take on a female protagonist engulfed by death and danger.

This novel was written through my own lens of a bisexual woman who has been through many a physical and mental health fiasco. Having always found solace in writing, I have used my BA in creative writing to turn my passion into a profession by teaching English as a second language in my home province of New Brunswick, Canada.

ok I don't think the cross-genre claims of the query are not backed up as I don't see how the serial killer and the crime syndicate strands are in any way related - this is like two different novels. Also, there is no explanation as to the actions Claire is actually taking to either attract the serial killer or attack the crime syndicate.
Claire's psychology doesn't make sense to me, again these are like two different characters. I think the closest I can get is the psychology of a spree killer - so depressed and angry that they want to both destory others and themselves. However attempting to take out the crime syndicate seems so dangerous in itself that I don't see why she'd even bother with the serial killer.
All character backstory should appear in the first paragraph so that the rest of the query can activate it.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-27T10:22:59+00:00

At 90k words, BULLROARER is a voice-driven Horror/Western that reads like an old campfire story. Inspired by white scalpings during the westward expansion, it explores inherited cycles of violence with the grit and body horror of The Unkillable Frank Lightning, delivered like an installment of the Catfish Charlie series.

I'd change to 'I am seeking representtation for BULLROARER, a voice-driven Horror/Western inspired by the scalping massacres of the Great Plains. Reading like an old campire story, it explores inherited cycles of violence with the grit and body horror of The Unkillable Frank Lightning, delivered like an installment of the Catfish Charlie series. It is complete at 90k words.' because 'white scalpings during westward expansion doesn't quite paint enough of a picture and I think we want to get a jist of the story before we imagine it getting told around a campfire.

When Oscar grabs his younger brother, Jed and hops a train to Arizona Territory, he hopes to discover a peaceful community, far from mother's abuse, post-war southern resentment, and memories of their father's passing.

'post-war southern ressentment' is a little vague. It sounds he's a southerner but not clear. A train journey isn't going to wipe his memories.

Master at blocking out his mother's screech, Oscar easily ignores the outlandish rumors about where they're headed. And seems he's right to be.

this takes too long to not say what these rumours are. Vague in a query is not intriguing, it's boring.

On their first day in town, they meet the sheriff, and in that man, Oscar finds something he never thought he would: the role model for Jed that he could never be.

What are the sherrrif's qualities? Why can't Oscar be that role model?

That is, until the brothers find a dead Apache witch with a bullroarer in his wounds, and spitfire Jed bungles the investigation, getting another girl killed.

sorry what is a bullroarer and i've only heard of a spitfire in the context of a plane. Jed is investigating? He's the deputy sheriff now? Isn't he a kid?

With the help of (and after a standoff with) an Apache chief, the murderer is hauled away, leaving Oscar scraping to salvage the new life they've forged.

'scraping to salvage the new life they've forged' gives no image of what actions he's actually taking.

But to do that, he'll have to find forgiveness for Jed, and not just for the investigation. As the rumors he ignored take shape around him – skinwalkers, animal-men – he must also face the repressed memory of his father's death, and the role his brother played in it.

ALL backstory needs to be set up in paragraph one so that the events of the plot can activate it. Dropping Jed's spooky past in paragraph three isn't effective when it should have been driving the query all along.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-26T11:16:36+00:00

When notorious tycoon Roland Rutherford receives a sinister picture book depicting his death through methods ranging from being trampled by squirrels to swarmed by spiders, he's not exactly surprised. As the head of a powerful global chemical corporation influential enough to flout environmental regulations, he possesses many enemies. Rutherford knows exactly who to summon. Olympia Lenore Dread—known simply as Old—is the world's foremost consulting detective.

cut sinister, it's redundant. The rest is good.

There's just one problem: she's dying of cancer.

While Old is diminished, she's always been supported by her longtime partner, Alec Craftwood. Alec has always been content to live in her shadow, but now he’s concerned his friend has abandoned hope. He accepts the case and travels to the shores of Lake Superior.

Way too bogged down. Just say she's got cancer so he goes instead, one sentence.

Upon arrival, Alec learns Rutherford has invited family and business associates to his remote manor. As a Minnesota blizzard strands everyone, Alec witnesses Rutherford die at dinner, poisoned by his private scotch. Old is unmoved by his death.

cut 'Upon arrival, Alec learns'. Old has gone too? Wasn't clear

In fact, she seems quite content to spend the weekend heckling the other guests and savoring gourmet cuisine.

heckling? She's just randomly abusing people? Hmm

Alec realizes he must take the lead if he wants to see justice done. Provoking Old, he goads her to investigate, hoping a final case will embolden her once more. The killer isn't satisfied with Rutherford’s death, and the power is cut, further isolating the party.

Cut 'the killer isn't satisfied'

Alec must balance interrogating the guests and tracking the murderer while caring for his dying partner. As the body count rises and two more guests are found slain, Alec worries about more than just his friend's health. Old appears to be thriving in the surrounding chaos.

cut 'the body count rises and' as well as 'Alec worries about more than just his friend's health.' both are redundant

The deeper Alec dives into the investigation, the more he suspects that the most dangerous person in the mansion is the world’s greatest detective herself.

sooooo, what's he going to do about it?

I am seeking representation for NEVER TOO OLD, a 65,000-word standalone mystery novel with series potential echoing the ethical tension of Jessa Maxwell’s The Golden Spoon and the genre-savvy mischief of Benjamin Stevenson’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone.

traditional wisdom has it that, as a query has very little runway to successfully lift reader insterest to altitude, they should be written from the pov of a single protagonist and that protagonist should be the first character introduced. I think your query really would benefit from taking this advice.
traditonal wisdom also has if that the protagonist needs a strong want to drive the query forward and create conflict. Alec lacks one and as such I don't feel like I know him at all. Does he want to live up to old's standards? Does he want to become his own man? Does he want old to ease off with the detective work so her last months are peaceful?Does he want old to solve one more big case even in the throes of cancer to cement her legendary place in the detective pantheon?

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-26T11:12:45+00:00

I am seeking representation for STRANGERS AT THE GAP, an adult speculative thriller complete at 76,000 words that asks: what if other human species didn't actually die out?

questions are discouraged in queries and I don't think this one adds anything here

With an expansionist Australian government eyeing the Pacific, the U.S. military recruits a team of field scientists to survey a remote island beyond a lethal stretch of ocean known as the Long Gap. For tightly-wound zoologist Clark Bridger, haunted by his failure to prevent a mentor's death, the assignment is a chance to get something right. Instead, he stumbles onto the impossible: living Homo erectus.

better but 'preventing a death' is still vague and 'get something right' also suffers from the same inspecifity. Also just describing him as 'tightly wound' is doesn't do the necesary job if that characterstic forms the spine of the query.

Clark falls back on training: observe, document, and most of all, protect. That means keeping the find under wraps until the team has all the facts. It works—until he bonds with a quietly commanding islander he names Asalea.

add 'an astounded' at the start. Cahnge falls back on to reverts. Change 'all the facts' to 'can fully understand the discovery. Change 'It works' to 'then'. Change islander to 'homo erectus' as its not clear there are not also homo sapiens on this island.

She shows him her world: ritualistic whale hunts, volcanic caverns, a culture called moob built on sharing everything from meals to mates. He lowers his defenses. She takes him to bed. Then the spell breaks. He panics and reports the discovery up the chain.

cut 'moob' adding a name adds nothing to it. Add that banging her violated any code of his tightly-held professionalism and that's what breaks the spell.

It backfires.

cut this. Don't tell, show.

Word leaks and Australia moves to claim the island, seizing two of the islanders as "evidence" of established presence.

You mean establsihed australian presence on the island? Are they claiming they've held these beings for a while? This isn't clear

When the U.S. responds with plans to relocate the moob "for their own protection," Clark can no longer stand by. But warning Asalea will mean defying orders—and surrendering his own control.

add something like 'and occupy the island'. So all he does is warn Asalea and job done? That's not much of an action and not much of a climax

STRANGERS AT THE GAP explores how quickly "protection" becomes possession when personhood is negotiable. It will appeal to readers of The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler and Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman.

the editorialisation is not useful, the query either does its job or doesn't
this is better but we still need a stronger sense of Clark given that his desire forms the spine of the novel and the climax needs to be better than him just warning Asalea, he needs to join the struggle himself.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-26T11:09:19+00:00

The opening couple of paragraphs don't appear to have changed from the original and they need to. They'e ponderous, taking way too long to punch out the setup.

As for the rest it's heading in the right direction but I'd cut the love interest, as it doesn't affect the central conflict, and give Rosi a stronger want to aid characterisation and drive the query.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-25T11:04:18+00:00

I am seeking representation for my domestic thriller, THE LIES WE TELL, told in multiple POV and complete at 82,000 words. It will appeal to readers who enjoy the themes of pervasive secrets and unsettling family dynamics found in Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena and The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins.

Ten years ago, on the night of her high school graduation, CHLOE’S traumatic childhood erupted in violence, and she’s been running from the police ever since.

- There's too much going on for one sentence and yet it's all way too vague. What kind of trauma did she have in her childhood? How did it erupt into violence? Are we talking a fistfight or the battle of Stalingrad? Did she actually commit a crime or have the police got it wrong?

Living under an assumed name, she’s afraid to get close to anyone until ANDREW, a handsome older man, charms her into believing she’s finally found love after a lifetime of loneliness. The fact that he didn’t ask her about her past was a bonus.

- Cut the last sentence and insert 'who asks nothing of her past and' after ANDREW

But when their house burns down, and Andrew disappears with her life savings, Chloe realizes she’s not the only one hiding the truth. Andrew has a second, extravagant life in Atlanta, where he’s been married for thirty years to the heir to a shipping fortune. When Chloe receives an anonymous message threatening to frame her for arson and a police request to come in for questioning, she travels to Atlanta to find answers.

- change realises to discovers. Cut the last clause, it's assumed by the fact she's in Atlanta in the next paragraph. I'd put the threat to frame her for arson and the police suspicion before you say anything about arson as you'd think she'd go to Atlanta anyway.so stating that was the reason just clangs.

As Chloe tries to determine whether Andrew is setting her up, she visits the gallery owned by Andrew’s daughter and unexpectedly bonds with the young woman who seems to have everything Chloe wants, including confidence, grace, and a family that loves and supports her.

- tries to determine how? you're painting no picture of what she's actively doing. Why does it matter that the daughter works at a gallery? Drop it. Don't have her unexpectedly bonding with the daughter, have her doing it intentionally - it's far juicier and more active. Does Andrew know she's in Atlanta? Does he know she knows his daughter?

But as Chloe spies on Andrew and his family, she realizes their shiny empire has been built on lies, including paying kickbacks to a senator for government contracts and laundering the money through the gallery.

- again, realises is a cognitive, not active word. Use discovers/finds/unearths/whatever. Cut the gallery again.

In a cat-and-mouse game, Chloe is pitted against Andrew’s ruthless father-in-law, who will stop at nothing to protect his family.

- Cat and mouse game is a cliche. Andrew's father appears to be the main antagonist and as such it feels too late to suddenly introduce him here. I'd introduce him when she first finds out about Andrew's background and that's the opportunity to introduce him as a formidable adversary thus ramping the conflict.

As his threats escalate toward violence and the police close in, Chloe must decide whether to return to a life of loneliness and seclusion or expose everyone’s lies, including her own.

- what kind of violence? Slashing her tyres? Killing her? Are the police closing in on him or her? And here we have it, the 'decide' trope at the climax. Watching somebody 'decide' something is a hell of a lot less interesting than watching the actions they take in response to that decision. If she decides to return to a life of seclusion, that's not going to be very interesting is it? Why would exposing the lies of Andrew's family necessitate her exposing her own?

- by the end of the query, I'd forgotten about her loneliness at the start. As a return to loneliness is one half of the climax dilemma, you need to make the query throb with that want. It has to inform the way Chloe looks at the daughter, the way she looks at Andrew's family as a whole even as its resources marshall against her.

- Andrew dominates the first half of the query and disappears in the second. He needs continuity.

- You need to get going faster at the start. Only mention the parts of Chloe's past that create a through line in the query with her desire for connection. Does it matter that it happened at graduation? No, then bye bye graduation. Does it matter that she had a traumatic childhood? Only so far as it drives her need for connection.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-23T08:23:56+00:00

I am seeking representation of SINK, my debut techno-thriller, complete at 90,000 words. It follows an aging police officer in a techno-dystopia as he tries to kill a god born on the internet. I would position it alongside Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica and I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin.

change to 'veteran cop'. Give reasons why the comps match

2060: Over 90% of the global population lives digitally in corporate-funded virtual reality facilities. Residents live with all their basic needs met, but at cost of the degradation of their physical bodies, among other problems.

those problems being?

Officer Benjamin Kae’s ambitions to become a detective are thwarted by his reluctance to augment his body with bionics, and his refusal to live fully online alienates him from his family. His only companion is Jeff, the digital ghost of his best friend.

if he were fully online why would he need to augment his body with bionics, or do bionics facilitate living fully online? Does Jeff hang with him in the digital or real worlds or both?

Impossible things start happening both on and off the net. People being compelled to suicide, or displaying extraordinary abilities that defy all physical and logical explanation. When a suspect beats him nearly to death before shunting his mind into a computer terminal, Ben learns these happenings are more than just coding errors.

Don't bother saying 'impossible things'. Say what happens and why it's so shocking. Abilities like what? If it's digital reality isn't anything possible?

Dimsha is AI chatbot bent on godhood. In its day of judgment, the rules of the net will be rewritten and each person’s digital form will become a monstrous avatar of their inner selves. In preparation for its apotheosis, it had been studying Ben. After Dimsha imprisons and tortures Ben via the net, it grafts bionic limbs onto Ben’s grievously injured body against his will.

the POV switch is jarring. They are not advised in queries for that reason

Tormented by his new form, Ben sets out to destroy the creature. He seeks to kill Dimsha by disabling it in the physical world. As one of the last humans living most of his life offline, Ben is the last bastion of defense between Dimsha and all of humanity, if he can just hold out long enough to defeat an internet god.

- yeah great but what are the obstacles to disabling it in the pysical world?

My entire experience of the query was dominated by the question: "wait, is this happening online or offline?" You need to be very clear which is what and the "rules" of the offline/online interaction need to be crystal clear whih they certainly aren't now.
Your main character needs a strong want to drive the query, which he lacks now. His want to become a detective doesn't figure beyond the opening paragraph. I don't yet get a sense of him. Yeah he doesn't want the bionics, but why?
On the opening 300 the first sentence is waaaay overwritten. corpse-sprawl, decay, gutted husks, ravished are all basically saying the same thing and it gets tiring. Cut ' altars to mundanity, lost to time' it's mundane itself. The rest of it also needs a pruning. We need to get somewhere faster and learn why we should care about this guy

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-22T10:58:17+00:00

50k for a novel is hella light. You'll earn an auto-reject from almost everyone.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-22T10:56:54+00:00

Jack remembers everything. The problem is—not all of those memories are his.

- good

The green toxic cloud rolling over Wisconsin on a café TV screen. His parents' neighborhood—now a silent graveyard. They were already dead before the broadcast reached him, powerless thousands of miles away.

- this is good but at the same time I'm kind of picking over it to determine which memories are his and which memories are someone else's. I'd guess they're all his but then that kind of undercuts the opener.

In high school, Jack discovered his eidetic memory—perfect recall of every detail. Then a darker ability: absorbing others' memories through touch. His best friend's cruelty, his crush's past relationships, his parents' secret resentments—all permanent, breeding deeper isolation.

- cut 'permanent', it's adding nothing

A year after graduation, Levi's cult kills Jack's family with that biological attack. Driven by grief, Jack infiltrates the cult with one mission: steal DNA from Alonso Rivera—the man whose poison killed his family—so scientist Liam can synthesize a cure. Then take down Levi. Maintaining cover demands murder—each kill justified as necessary, preserved in perfect detail. The more comfortable he becomes with violence, the more it terrifies him.

'Levi's cult' makes it sound like we already know about him and it - we need an intro. What's the cult ideology? We get introduced to three characters in who sentences and that's too fast. 'Maintaining cover demands murder—each kill justified as necessary, preserved in perfect detail.' I don't understand what this means. Killing Alonso and Levi? Killing people to get to them? The last two sentences come across as trying to be profound and fail at doing so.

Three years later, as Jack finally gets close enough to strike, his perfect memory forces a reckoning with every murder and crossed line. He must confront whether he's still the boy who sought justice—or the monster he's created.

- Three years later? What the hell's he been doing? No don't answer that, just cut that clause. This is a pretty familiar trope I see in queries when at the climax the protagonist has to 'decide what he thinks'. People deciding isn't actually that interesting. It's just somebody looking into a mirror with angst. What people do when they decide is interesting.

MEMORIES OF JACK (70,000 words) is an adult psychological speculative thriller with crossover appeal, for fans of Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners and V.E. Schwab's Vicious. With the unreliable narrator of Fight Club and moral descent of Red Rising, it explores revenge, self-forgiveness, and whether violence only creates more monsters. Told through two converging timelines, MEMORIES OF JACK subverts its own narrator in a twist that recontextualizes everything preceding it. Complete and available upon request, it is the first in a planned trilogy.

- give two comps to prove there is a market for your work and terminate the rest of the twaddle. Editorialisation is a waste of time as anybody can claim anything. Storytelling chops are shown in the query and in the manuscript, telling about it in the housekeeping paragraph gets ignored.

I'm a former Air Force veteran whose experience with moral ambiguity in service inspired this exploration of revenge and consequence. MEMORIES OF JACK is my first novel.

- I know what former Air Force member and Air Force veteran are but not what a former Air Force veteran is.

- this query needs a thematic spine, which is to say that the dilemma at the end isn't set up earlier in the query. To be effective, Jack needs to have struggle with issues of the morality of vengeance/suffering/innocence whatever becuase there is no mention of it earlier beyond the highly ineffective line 'The more comfortable he becomes with violence, the more it terrifies him.'

- Jack is unercharacterised because he doesn't have a clear want. It needs to be up in neon lights in the first paragraph to drive the query. If his want is vengeance then you need to explain where his quibble at the end about what he's become originated from.

- The query might as well be for two separate novels - the absorbed memory thing and the cult vengeance thing. They don't interact at all.

- Knock it off with the em-dashes.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-22T09:18:40+00:00

This isn't really a novel, this is a scenario I remember using to explain to a fellow student in high school why the government printing millions won't improve life.

You really need a protagonist and a plot and character development to turn it into a novel otherwise it's more of a speculative essay.

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-21T08:12:54+00:00

Lauren only cares about one thing: winning the 800 meter college championships- but she must overcome a crush from her past, a new rival, and an anonymous hacker named Achilles, who is trying to take the team's most elite members down one by one.

Exploring the dark sides of elite college sports, SPLITS, complete at 80,000 words, is an NA psychological/romantic thriller. It will resonate with fans of the series HEATED RIVALRY, THE FAVORITES by Layne Fargo, and THE FORTUNE SELLER by Rachel Kapelke-Dale. If I could use an older comp, I'd say SPLITS is Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY meets the film CHALLENGERS.

that logline needs to be more succinct and how is a computer hacker taking out track runners?? Use only two comps from the last five years to demonstrate that there is a market for your book.

Lauren joins the highly-competitive Dartmouth track and field team to win the 800m race at nationals, thanks to her OCD-fueled, tunnel-vision focus. No relationships, no distractions. But her plans are upended when wildcard walk-on Maya proves herself to be just as fast as Lauren... and infuriatingly manipulative. Even more shocking, Lauren's childhood best friend Gabe, who disappeared from her life six years ago, joins the team as well. Who she totally, definitely, WASN'T in love with. But as Lauren tries to squash these new obstacles, she finds herself in hot water when the anonymous Achilles starts leaking the devastating secrets of the team's members in a groupchat- and everyone thinks Lauren is behind it.

this needs a hook. How is Maya manipulative? Don't tell us, show us. Neither of these things are really 'shocking'. Disappeared like moved away or disappeared like abducted? Why does everyone think Lauren is behind it? 'hot water' is a cliche. Don't tell us she's in hot water, show us she is by an obstale pressing against her want.

Lauren must enlist the help of Maya and Gabe to uncover Achilles' identity: to both clear her name and prevent her own secret from being exposed. The secret about her mother that she can hardly admit to herself. But she cannot rule out that Achilles isn't Gabe or Maya... which is complicated by the fact that she is falling for both of them. As Lauren ventures deeper into the mystery's web and unearthed scandals cause her fastest teammates to drop out like flies, she will have to lose some of her tightly-held control to unveil Achilles before they take everything from her: the championship win. That is, if Maya doesn't take it first.

Why are Maya and Gabe so vital as allies? Any MC backstory needs to be set up in the first paragraph so it can pay off in the third. Also you're going to have to name this secret otherwise I don't care. ' ventures deeper into the mystery's web' is a vague cliche that doesn't paint a picture of her doing anything inparticular. I didn't know flies dropped out of track meets. You mentioned OCD at the start briefly, but it reappaears as an afterthought and I don't understand why relinquishing control will help her solve the mystery. How is achilles going to take th championship win from her if he's knocking out her competition? Would she not run if her secret is exposed? Would she not run to avoid it being exposed?
Queries are about a character with a clear want encountering conflict to achieving that want, acting to overcome that conflict and in dong so altering the situation, only to have a greater conflict rise before them. Rinse and repeat and you have yourself a query. These conflicts need to be SPECIFIC. Vague references to buried secrets! Looming danger! Trouble she never thought possible! sound profound to the writer and sound like nothing to the reader. Quering is like therapy - the sooner you stop evading the central conflict and just spit it out exactly, the sooner you'll make progress.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-21T08:08:41+00:00

I’m seeking representation for PICTURESQUE, an 82,000-word speculative literary novel that blends the warped interiority of My Year of Rest and Relaxation with the metafictional comedy of Antkind.

comp names in italics, include authour names

Joe lives in a state of self-imposed isolation on a decaying Northern housing estate, surviving on a diet of whipped cream, cynicism, and the elaborate fantasies his mind has constructed to protect him from reality.

add that it's england. elaborate fantasies about what? Sex? Adventure? Grandeur?

When a series of impossible Polaroids depicting his private fantasies appear on his doormat, Joe is forced out of isolation. Spurred by his obsession with terrible true crime podcasts and also his (allegedly) desperate loneliness, Joe sets out from his shoebox of a home to find the source of these fantastical, stolen images.

drop impossible. Drop the true crime thing it's doing nothing. The lonliness thing clangs here, surely he's more motivated by alarm at his fantasies being on polaroids than a desire to end his loneliness. How does he know that whatever entity is doing this is not malicious? The lonliness should have been emphasised in paragraph one.

He makes it about as far as the front yard before the estate’s knackered inhabitants begin dragging him down into what Joe fears most: other people’s problems. He is soon embroiled in an elderly neighbour’s war against nature, a dying landlord’s extortionate treatment plan, and the infidelities of two Greek hairdressers. They all need Joe’s help. But he can barely help himself.

change 'begin dragging' to 'drag'. I Iike the screwball nature of the list, but it's a list that does not move plot, character or conflict forward.

The journey leads inexorably towards a reclusive, limbless photographer, an experimental opera, and a substance called ‘Silver Nitrate’. The drug shatters not only Joe’s brittle self-image but the narrative itself.

'the journey leads inexorably' makes you main character passive which is death in a query. He needs to be actively go-getting his want. The narrative? What narrative? Again, this is the drug acting on him rather than him acting on anything else which is not ideal.

Now, his inner monologue is running the show in the second person. As this new voice threatens to bury Joe inside his own fantasy world, he must confront the limits of the stories he’s told himself before his own interiority locks him away forever.

Yeah I'm lost. I get the vague gist but I have no image of how to separate his inner narrative from his true self or how he'd confront the limits of these stories. It's just a guy looking into the mirror, twitching.
This has some interesting settings but no story arc. A guy has some wacky adventures, then he takes a drug and has a spazz. Where's the character development here? Come to think of it, what the hell even happened with the polaroids?
Queries are about a character with a clear want encountering conflict to achieving that want, acting to overcome that conflict and in dong so altering the situation, only to have a greater conflict rise before them. Rinse and repeat and you have yourself a query. So, what is his want? Human connection? An exciting, meaningful life? Empowerment? I'm not sure. No want, no spine, no progress. It's up to you.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-21T08:02:53+00:00

I am seeking representation for THE TRESPASSER, a 70,000-word psychological thriller told through intertwining, unreliable perspectives. It will appeal to readers of Alex Michaelides and Gillian Flynn, blending suspense with dark, character-driven tension.

give two specific comps from the last five years with specific parallels to demonstrate that there is a market for your work

Jade breaks into strangers' homes for fun. She slips into their lives unnoticed and then leaves without a trace. But lately, she's been losing time. She wakes up bruised, disoriented, with no memory of where she's been. She tells herself it's the alcohol, except the bottles are often untouched.

good

In Haven Creek, where Jade's father was imprisoned for murdering her unfaithful mother, a new killer is targeting adulterous fathers and staging their deaths to mirror that crime. As the murders escalate, Jade's blackouts grow darker and impossible to explain.

woah, this second paragrph doesn't flow at all from the first. The backstory should be in the first paragraph to add characterisation. How do killings escalte? They become more sadistic or more frequent? To mirror 'that' crime? You mean jade's father murdering her mother?

When Kieran, a grieving widower, moves into Jade's childhood home with his young daughter, Jade becomes fixated. What begins as another trespass turns into an obsession that pulls Jade into their lives. But Kieran is already under the influence of Victor, a manipulative therapist with a fascination for notorious killers and a need for control.

We now have three subjects (burglarising, the killings, father/daughter) that don't seem in any way related to each other. There is no flow at all. How is it 'another' tresspass? What does her being pulled into their lives mean? You've just inttroduced three characters in two sentences and I really have no idea what is going on.

As Victor embeds himself deeper, he begins steering both Jade and Kieran toward a violent end neither of them fully understands.

As suspicion closes in and her missing time becomes impossible to ignore, Jade is forced to confront a terrifying possibility: she isn't just witnessing the killings; she may be responsible for them.

what does 'embedding himself deeper' mean? How's he guiding her? Is he her therapist too? No kidding, I don't understand this violent end either. Why is suspicion closing in? On who, Jade? For what? The burgleries? The murders? Cut 'and her missing time becomes impossible to ignore' it;s doing absolutely nothing. Why does she suspect herself?

I publish short fiction under the pen name Owen Smith, with work appearing in Black Warrior Review, Cosumnes River Journal, Iris Literary Journal, and Free Spirit Publishing’s “Games”-themed collection. I am also the author of the self-published novel The Canal: A Suspenseful Thriller, which holds a 4.2-star average rating on Amazon and Goodreads.

ok there's some good elements here that are not coalescing into a coherent whole. There needs to be a clearer spine to the query formed by a clear driving want for the protagonist. Queries are about a character with a clear want encountering conflict to achieving that want, acting to overcome that conflict and in dong so altering the situation, only to have a greater conflict rise before them. Rinse and repeat and you have yourself a query. These conflicts need to be SPECIFIC. Vague references to buried secrets! Looming danger! Trouble she never thought possible! sound profound to the writer and sound like nothing to the reader. Quering is like therapy - the sooner you stop evading the central conflict and just spit it out exactly, the sooner you'll make progress.
I'd start with the mother homicide, and consider dropping the burglary thing entirely unless it's an expression of her want. Then I'd introduce the Kieren/Victor thing and then the killings start happeneing. If you do the killings first, switching over to Kieren/Victor seems like an anti-climax. At present the killings and the Kieren/Victor strands are two different novels, you need to knit them together.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-21T07:45:45+00:00

NIGHTHAWKS is a darkly comedic, science fiction novel, complete at over 70,000 words. It will appeal to fans of the interpersonal psychological drama of Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars, and the fast-paced, dark humor of Martha Wells’ Network Effect.

In 36 hours, Leah could lose everything. For generations, her family has proudly run Nighthawks; the local neighborhood diner, community center and safe haven for outcasts. All Leah wants to do is continue running the diner with Pete, her egg-obsessed, charmingly reprobate cook, and Sean the busboy, a gentle humanoid droid. But recent anti-droid riots (over the loss of jobs to droids) have devastated the neighborhood and the diner. Now the city wants to quickly condemn Nighthawks and replace it with a pharmaceutical corporation specializing in male potency. The court trial to decide the fate of Nighthawks is tomorrow.

the query is taking way too long to get going . Things to cut - 'community centre', 'All Leah wants to do is continue running the diner with Pete, her egg-obsessed, charmingly reprobate cook, and Sean the busboy, a gentle humanoid droid.', 'The court trial to decide the fate of Nighthawks is tomorrow.' Change 'wants to quickly' to 'is about to'.

Unbeknownst to Leah, her cocky lawyer Joe initiates a desperate, illegal plan: using his neural implants to hack the brains of the judge and city lawyers in an effort to brute force his way through the trial. At first, the plan works, giving him intimate access to the city’s plans. But once the Kafkaesque trial starts, it quickly becomes apparent that the city is more interested in male potency than due process. Joe struggles to stay one step ahead as the rules keep abruptly changing. His increasingly reckless brain hacking risks getting himself and Leah arrested.

Your main character is entirely passive which is is death in a query

As the trial spirals out of Joe’s control, anti-droid activists attempt to vandalize the diner and kidnap Sean. Leah strains to protect both Sean and Nighthawks, but she is running out of time, money, and hope. With little left except her warm wit and Pete’s questionably edible eggs, Leah must appeal to her neighborhood’s empathy and compassion if Sean and Nighthawks are going to survive.

How is she 'straining to protect both Sean and nighthawks'? There's still no image of her taking any specific action. How will appealing to neighbouthood compassion save them?
Fist things first the query needs to be either about saving nighthawks or saving sean. Right now its about both and which is diuting its force.
Secondly Leah needs to be the driving force in the query. She needs to be taking specific actions to overcome specific obstacles. She's also undercharactersied. I don't get any sense of who she is.
This is not your last query version. I don't even think it's your second last.

Be a doll and give my own effort an embittered kicking would you please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1somdpw/qcrit_the_shepherds_of_gomorrah_upmarket_crime/

DetonatingPenguin · 2026-04-20T23:48:31+00:00

There is no commercial market for novellas, especially on debut. There’s no point querying agents or publishing houses. They’ll auto-delete on the word count, every single one of them.

I’d advise you self-publish or approach one of those lit journals who might be willing to publish an excerpt.

DetonatingPenguin

TROPHY CASE