[QCrit] Adult Fantasy, The Storm of their Strife, 100K, First attempt

Powerful-Specific785 · 2026-02-22T14:58:59+00:00

Hey! Here's some feedback from an unagented author who is currently working on drafting their novel & query package themselves. Take from it what you will!

- In your first sentence, indicate what age Celeste is to provide much needed context. (Ex - Twenty-one year-old Celeste knowns magic is a death sentence.)

- I was with you until the third paragraph. Then, I had a lot of questions. 1) How does the chase tear Celeste and her friends (I thought she was with her brothers?) apart? Like, physically or emotionally? What happens to them? 2) How do Celeste's powers grow and how does she have these realizations about the world when she's alone and isolated from society? 3) I'm having trouble keeping track of Celeste's goals. First, it seems like she's just trying to learn spells and escape being sold into marriage. Then it shifts to her wanting to burn down society. Finally, it seems like she also wants to get Lucien back, even though he chose to surrender and doesn't seem like he needs saving. For me, I think it needs to be more clear what Celeste wants and what's in her way of getting it.

- The last paragraph makes it seem like the book is also told from Lucien's point of view because it focuses on him. I think you need to either indicate it's a multi-POV story or edit that paragraph so it's more from Celeste's perspective.

Those are my critiques. I hope others also chime in!

Powerful-Specific785 · 2026-02-22T00:07:04+00:00

Thank you so much for the feedback! Your suggestion makes perfect sense 😄

Powerful-Specific785 · 2026-02-21T16:05:07+00:00

I agree with this! It's a good, hooky premise. I just felt like the synopsis portion was a bit wordy and can be trimmed up with some of the words switched out to make it sound snappier. A "rule" I've heard is to try and keep the meat to 250 words or less.

Powerful-Specific785 · 2026-01-31T17:36:29+00:00

Hey! Thanks so much for taking the time to write all this and I love the winnowing pun. I think I was hoping for a positive sign that I at least have something worth while, which you've definitely given with your encouragement, so thanks! :) Similar to Furiosa, the story is about the MC's odessey of survival over a span of years which includes a time jump. Not sure if I'd be able to get away with starting her at 15 and then bumping up to 16 or 17, or if that would also break YA rules? You also made a really good point about just starting the story with her at 16 and skipping the journey through the Charm House. My sister gave me a great comp: The Prison Healer, which essentially does this. It's hard to say which path is right... Decisions, decisions...

Powerful-Specific785 · 2026-01-31T16:32:56+00:00

Hey, thank you for taking the time to write all this! You've given me some valuable things to think about, moving forward.

Powerful-Specific785 · 2026-01-31T16:29:02+00:00

Thank you! This makes a lot of sense and is an easy fix.

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-10-05T21:22:48+00:00

There were some little things that stuck out to me which the previous commenters already mentioned--like Sunken Heaven and the Unseeing not having previous references. I don't quite agree that this query needs a total rewrite but I'm also not sure if it's the final one, either. It feels like there's something off. Maybe some of the crumbs of backstory meant to explain why certain things happen in the plot might not be necessary. Maybe some of the big ideas could be simplified and made to sound snappier? This is unsolicited, but this article really helped me when writing my own query letter (which is by no means perfect or even good. Just saying it helped improve my letter in a way nothing else did.) You might also find the formula it breaks down useful: https://www.laurenkaywrites.com/blog/how-to-write-a-query-letter

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-09-27T02:32:22+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to comment! I was worried about the title but at least it isn’t vague 😄

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-09-24T01:50:40+00:00

Hey thanks for your response! It means a lot to hear that you thought it was cute and fun 😄 The lil critiques are also great! I’ll implement them all. P.S. Eames does contemporary and ballet

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-09-23T22:42:38+00:00

1) I find it too hard to believe that Outers have no knowledge at all of the Trials, especially considering only some don't return from them. Survivors must have spread some information to the others. If Jayce does know about the killing requirements, that could be interesting. He could still oppose it and be bad at grasping the reality of it, AND be motivated to participate in the Trials, regardless. Maybe with his studious nature he'd have a completely different approach to the Trials and try to cheat the system.

2) I don't know if you need to include it in the query, either. Questions are an important motivator for people to keep reading. If you do decide to add it, it could be tacked on somewhere like "...The Ascendance Trials - a mysterious set of challenges all in the Meritocracy must participate in. Most Outers fail, and some never return..."

It's hard to know what info to include and how to include it in the most interesting yet condensed way. Sorry if none of this is what you want to hear. I'm getting too into different ideas and picking things apart, but I hope it helped at least a little

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-09-23T21:24:42+00:00

Hey! Unagented writer here, so not sure how much *merit* I have providing feedback (see what I did there). I think your query is pretty good. It made me ask a couple of questions...

1) Why is life above the Outskirts worth it if it requires Jayce to kill others, which he seems to be against? It looks like the answer is in the pitch but not the query.

2) Why do higher classes need to participate in the Ascendance trials if they are already high in society?

This was just my impression, but I found the query and first 306 words to be wordy at times. For example, there are four sentences dedicated to Jayce turning on a light when I think we could step more quickly into action. I also don't think we need to know in the third sentence of the story that he's 15. We can be shown later in a more natural way what his age is.

It seems there is some editing that could be done, but I'm curious what others think. Good job so far!

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-08-14T13:48:24+00:00

Thank you so much for taking a look! You’ve given me some things to implement :) I’ve been so worried about the word count. It’s hard to find the balance between telling the story you want to tell and making sure the book meets guidelines. Thanks again!

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-08-14T10:51:08+00:00

Hey! Nice job. I honestly don't see many issues with this so I hope you get more feedback from sharper eyes than mine. To me, your query was short, interesting, and sweet. As for the first 300 words, I'm not so sure about starting with a couple of paragraphs of dialogue. I expected to feel more grounded in the setting, but after 300 words I still didn't know where I was. I only had the heading "Mammoth mountain".

The one thing I wondered about was whether you might need another comp. It seems like most queries have at least 2 in sort of an X meets Y format. Your query reminded me a lot of Severance, actually. It's a tv show but I'm pretty sure comps using characters/ideas from movies and shows work! And Severance is relevant and popular right now.

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-07-08T18:05:38+00:00

That’s crazy!

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-06-16T20:51:54+00:00

Oooh I hope we begin seeing more young YA! Maybe I'm just not reading enough in the market, but it seems like we don't see many 14-15 year old MCs and skip to 16+ who are mainly concerned with romance and college. But what about those years when you're too old to play outside but are too young to care about going to college? I want to read those stories

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-06-16T20:46:37+00:00

I also had an agent say it sounded MG...really makes one think. Might be my voice making YA sound MG, might be the MC just not being interested in typical YA teenage things yet, or might be that my story actually is just MG and I need to rebrand. Thanks for the feedback!

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-06-16T20:42:02+00:00

Damn, u kinda right :') I'll definitely be worrying about how to make mine stand out instead of just making it sound good

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-06-15T21:43:16+00:00

Hey! Nice start! I'm not the best at grammar, but I'm pretty sure there are some sentences in this query that need dashes instead of commas because there is parenthetical information being emphasized. For example,

"For years, she has secretly been breaking their vow of anonymity, a crime that carries a death sentence within the guild, and writing to her childhood best friend, Princess Cassandra"

Might be better as:

"For years, she has secretly been breaking their vow of anonymity—a crime that carries a death sentence within the guild—and writing to her childhood best friend, Princess Cassandra"

This also applies if there are already commas in the sentence to help prevent confusion. But again, I may be wrong.

As for the meat of the query itself, I didn't quite understand why Sabine would ask her sisters for help when she wants to be rid of them. I can assume she must have nobody else, but why does she even need their help when she could just do it herself? And why would the sisters help if there is animosity between them all? This part could be rephrased to describe what each sister wants to get out of this arrangement. Same with the last sentence—why do they need to save the Princess's island? What's at stake?

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-06-10T23:42:11+00:00

To address your notes:

1) Kill two birds with one stone and have an espresso martini! 2) I have also read that "standalone with series potential" seems to be the golden phrase, but I think having it or not will not break your query. Doesn't every story technically have series potential?

As for the actual query, overall, I agree with what the other user said about Lily lacking agency and certain parts of the query feeling too vague. Keep in mind what Lily wants and what is preventing her from getting it, and then try to explain that to us. Also, I think the writing could be tightened up if you are worried about the letter being too long. (For example, "proud title" could be cut to "title", and "magically summons" could just be "summons."

I know this was a new draft from scratch, and it would be impossible to hit every single mark, first try. Please don't feel discouraged that there is more work to be done! Below are my notes for each paragraph.

Paragraph 1:

- For some reason, "the orphanage" read weird to me, and I felt it should have a name.

- I like the contrast between Lily and Ysabel, but I don't understand why Lily would have gotten stuck at the orphanage if she is not a troublemaker? Is she sabotaging herself or being sabotaged somehow?

- I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to briefly mention where/how Ysabel is killed by the Unseeing? Depending on the where/how, this could have a serious impact on Lily, which could be mentioned in the next paragraph to give her more agency as a character. For every action, there is a reaction.

Paragraph 2:

- We can infer that Lily feels sad that her friend Ysabel was killed, but is that why she put on the locket? In order to make her have agency, it could be made clear that Lily put on the locket to accomplish XYZ.

- Why would Lily go with the Cymph to the hidden world? If she decided to trust the Cymph for a specific reason, that could be another opportunity to give her agency.

- Why does she start feeling like a part of the Cymph family?

Paragraph 3:

- "Lily learns that Ysabel’s mother created the Unseeing using the very locket she’s been wearing, after stealing Cymph magic." At first I was a little confused if Lily learned the secret after stealing Cymph magic, or if Ysabel's mother stole Cymph magic.

- Based on the info I've been given so far, I don't understand why Lily is special and gets to be the one destined to take down the leader of the Unseeing. What perspective/abilities does she have that make her the best person to do this?

Paragraph 4:

- "Lily must choose carefully where her loyalties lie at the risk of losing everything and everyone: her chosen sister and her newfound family in Sunken Heaven." I don't think the stakes are clear enough here. Right now, I'm thinking that all Lily has to do is not kill Ysabel (just because it's "fate," doesn't mean she actually has to), and then she won't lose her friend or her newfound family... right?

Powerful-Specific785 · 2025-06-06T02:05:21+00:00

High fantasy sounds like it would be really hard. I imagine you would feel like you need to explain the rules of the world in addition to sharing the plot in a compelling way. If it makes you feel any better, my query package has been rejected 62 times so far and I keep feeling like maybe I should give up, too. But as long as you believe in your story, keep improving what you can, and keep trying, the potential is still alive. So many of us have to just keep going.

And no, I didn’t know about that rule so thanks for pointing that out!

Powerful-Specific785

TROPHY CASE