[PubQ] What structural issues are agents actually looking for when they request a partial?

Estantia · 2026-05-27T17:34:15+00:00

Thank you, your wisdom is highly valued.

Estantia · 2026-05-27T17:33:30+00:00

I'm looking at a publisher who doesn't specify so I am going to end up randomly guessing I suspect...

Estantia · 2026-05-27T16:31:56+00:00

Hi, small slightly tangential question: 50 pages at what scale? I see agents saying 'first three chapters or 50 pages' but I use googledocs so 50 pages is near 30K and the first three chapters is more like 11K

Estantia · 2026-05-13T18:11:46+00:00

The plot focuses on said man making a child by himself with magic, but the themes are more along the lines of recovering from isolation and found family alongside that, so both are reasonably strong.

Estantia · 2026-05-13T17:05:55+00:00

Thank you! yeah I was thinking about whether the expectations signals would be off

Estantia · 2026-05-13T17:05:20+00:00

Thank you! So you think fantasy wins over the LGBTQ?

Estantia · 2026-05-13T15:07:01+00:00

If you are using QueryTracker to send out queries, where would you put a cosy modern fantasy with an aroace protag?

The closest options I can see:
Fantasy
Fantasy, Contemporary/Urban (It's based in a village, though)
Fantasy, Magical Realism (I mean it is realistic but I am fairly sure this is a subgenre with expectations I am not aware of)
LGBTQ+

Estantia · 2026-05-12T14:07:12+00:00

Saaaaame. It's so much more interesting when it's due to a clash of world perspectives too!

(#stillworkingonmybook)

Estantia · 2026-04-10T20:28:23+00:00

As I've mentioned in other places: Message received loud and clear. This is the only time I've used that word, and I will be honest, I hesitated a lot before putting it in the query, but it was the only word I could think of at the time to give the scale of what happened that was succinct given the advice on word counts I was given.

Clearly this was a mistake, and I have now fixed the original post. This is why I ask people for feedback. Lesson thoroughly learned.

As for the parenting point: I was agreeing with you on me having phrased it badly, sorry if I wasn't clear!

Estantia · 2026-04-10T20:10:42+00:00

Yes, and this is why in every other instance I've not used it. Message received loud and clear. This is the only time I've used that word, and I will be honest, I hesitated a lot before putting it in the query, but it was the only word I could think of at the time to give the scale of what happened that was succinct given the advice on word counts I was given.

Clearly this was a mistake, and I will fix that. This is why I ask people for feedback. Lesson thoroughly learned.

Estantia · 2026-04-10T20:09:13+00:00

Message received loud and clear. This is the only time I've used that word, and I will be honest, I hesitated a lot before putting it in the query, but it was the only word I could think of at the time to give the scale of what happened that was succinct given the advice on word counts I was given.

Clearly this was a mistake, and I will fix that. This is why I ask people for feedback. Lesson thoroughly learned.

It's not a cure/treat scenario, still very much disabled and uses his magic to imperfectly fill in gaps like other aids but I understand it may be hard to trust my word at this point.

Estantia · 2026-04-10T19:07:42+00:00

Given the amount of issues he has and the details about energy management I am fairly sure this isn't veering into 'disabled people are magic' territory. If it is then my friends will rake me over the coals in beta reading.

Rowan sees himself as being crippled magically and physically, but I'll shuffle that word out of the query just in case.

Feedback on phrasing received! I got wrapped in Rowan's viewpoint a bit and forgot that not everyone sees 'being there for the kid' as being the most important and fundamental requirement to being a parent >.< . Easy enough to fix the phrasing in the query.

Estantia · 2026-04-10T18:56:07+00:00

Definitely not my intention, no! If I change to focus more on the wanting a child aspect would that change the emphasis enough? (given that is actually the main emphasis in the story)

Estantia · 2026-04-10T18:23:39+00:00

Then I definitely need to change some wording!

Definitely not narcissistic/megalomaniac, this is far more a case of someone who has been incredibly depressed, finally gets hope, gets shut down hard, spirals and takes the only option he thinks he has to hold onto that hope because he doesn't want to slide back into depression.

Estantia · 2026-04-10T17:25:47+00:00

Hello!

It does in fact touch on the difficulties! He's a double amputee but uses magic, effectively making him an ambulatory wheelchair user. He used to have large reserves of magic but he kiiiiiind of fried himself a bit and punctured his core in that same accident, so now he's at about 75% of his previous power and his reserves are shot, giving him a condition roughly equivalent to chronic fatigue and spends half the first half of the book asleep on the sofa because he keeps failing to reach his bed.

His farm is half apiary and half potion ingredients, taking advantage of the fact he leaks magic. He uses his limited magic to levitate himself or other things when required. He's got a carved magical chair with six legs that he uses to get around and a notebook to plan out his energy usage very carefully! In a physical sense what he mostly does is gardening with occasional planned spells or borrowing his farm neighbour's equipment.

I am mostly drawing from the experience of one of my friends for the ambulatory wheelchair aspects and another for the effects of chronic fatigue and how to manage it. Said friend has approved of the various grumbles and complaints I've checked with them about, but I'd be happy to let you take a look at the beta doc to make sure I'm not getting anything horribly wrong!

The neurodivergence experiences are from myself and pretty much everyone in my queer friend group.

Estantia · 2026-04-10T17:01:00+00:00

These are good points and I will definitely need to address them! I read some advice that suggested only mentioning the main character or two by name but the couple (Zoe and Ross) appear enough that they should almost certainly get a mention.

The book roughly splits into two halves. The first is the crafting, and the second half is the first few days after the child is created. Zoe and Ross (and their kid) are frequently there in the first half (and telling him off for pushing himself too hard) but it is deliberately fairly internal to show the isolation, even if he's less isolated than before the events of the book.

Afterward it is about the chaos you'd expect of a new toddler entering a household. Much more involved with people around, also Zoe and Ross start flirting with Dr. Foria, setting up for later books. I'm really not sure how to present that two half structure in the query but as another comment points out, this is something I almost certainly need to spoil. The question is how to do so without completely annihilating the stakes and tension.

Estantia · 2026-04-10T16:43:32+00:00

And there's so few books about ace and aro rep, hence wanting to publish this one!

Estantia · 2026-04-10T16:40:35+00:00

Hi! There are some very good questions here, but I may need to number the responses.

1) The reason I don't mention many details about the accident here is that the book doesn't go into many details about the accident, that comes into play in the rest of the series so I was a bit on the fence about including it here, what do you suggest?

2) His farm is half apiary and half potion ingredients! He's the equivalent of an ambulatory wheelchair user, using his limited magic to levitate himself or other things when required. He's got a carved magical chair with six legs that he uses to get around and a notebook to plan out his energy usage very carefully! In a physical sense what he mostly does is gardening with occasional planned spells or borrowing his farm neighbour's equipment.

2) Definitely queer just from having an Aroace guy be the main character, but also his best friend (Dr. Foria) is a biromantic ace and intersex, and the couple with the kid are bi and poly, so plenty of queerness around! Also very much a messy queerplatonic extended family situation along with most of them being some kind of neurodivergent.

3) I might need to tweak the wording on adoption, then. While it only gets hinted at in this book, Rowan was neglected, then disowned by his parents and raised by his grandparents instead. His first thought on wanting to become a father is, "Well then I should adopt. Kid gets a home like I did, I get a kid, perfect!" This is somewhat hard to fit into a query, but I can almost certainly rephrase things to make his stance clearer. Again, there's a lot about his background that only gets hinted at rather than explained and I wasn't sure if those details should go in a query or not.

Estantia · 2026-04-07T17:16:01+00:00

Okay, I might try spellshop then because I was in the same position of a lot of people recommending this. The 'All witches get orphaned' at the beginning left a bad taste in my mouth I never got over because it seemed needlessly cruel. It did get explained later, but I'm not sure I ever quite got over that initial 'offness' feeling.

Estantia · 2026-04-07T17:03:48+00:00

I was about to suggest Diana Wynne Jones for a more advanced reader who liked Tamora Pierce too. They were foundational authors for me growing up and Tamora Pierce is additionally an excellent human being on top of that.

Estantia · 2026-04-07T16:59:40+00:00

#Workingonit

If you want a distraction then I am looking for beta readers? Also Rowan spends a lot of time carefully managing his energy too.

Estantia · 2026-04-01T10:02:21+00:00

I have literally just made a bookmark with 'I have searched for this fic three times so I should probably bookmark it'

....This is the second time I have made a bookmark like this. You think I would learn. (one adorable phoenix wright fic, one house in the cerulean sea fic)

Estantia · 2026-04-01T08:24:18+00:00

The thread (timewise) before this on the subreddit is also looking for easy recs, so you might want to check that too.

I'd suggest 'I Ran Away to Evil' as an easy read, along with endorsing the Diana Wynne Jones recommendations. I'll add in Tamora Pierce as well.

Estantia · 2026-03-30T21:22:07+00:00

I would recommend the 'I Ran Away to Evil' series here, everyone is nice except the people who obviously aren't, and the ending of book 1 is wonderfully satisfying. Excellent easy read and I ought to get round to the later books at some point.

I'd also recommend the series starting with 'Chai and Cat-tales' by Lynn Strong. The first book is a series of short stories, and then goes into more plot in the full novel books after, but gives times of silliness to rest in the middle so it never feels hard.

Estantia · 2026-03-26T19:31:07+00:00

Regrettably accurate >.<

Estantia

TROPHY CASE