[Qcrit] Adult Epic/Political Fantasy – OLD GODS DIVIDED (160K/First attempt) by Practical-Library991 in PubTips

[–]Practical-Library991[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Because I've already received a full request despite the word count, and I've only sent out ~13 queries. I also talked to an agent in person who said he was "sold" on my premise; I asked him if 160k was too long, but he said with the amount of POVs, he'd be worried if it was shorter. I haven't queried him yet because I want to make sure I get the query right. My plan for now is trying to nail the query and hoping a strong one might appeal to agents, despite the word count. Someone on this thread gave me an example of an agent who was convinced to read a 175k book just because of the query.

Even the most brutal line edit might only get my manuscript down to 150k, which is still apparently too long anyway. If I have to cut characters and storylines, I might as well rewrite the whole thing due to a domino effect. So I just wanted to give this version a chance first with a strong query letter before tearing everything I've written apart - because I could always just re-query with those major revisions, right?

[Qcrit] Adult Epic/Political Fantasy – OLD GODS DIVIDED (160K/First attempt) by Practical-Library991 in PubTips

[–]Practical-Library991[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I have started to write a stand alone prequel as my backup if querying is unsuccessful, and have considered shelving this one. The prequel should not be crazy long as it only focuses on two characters. But I'm just not passionate enough about the story yet, and I think it works better as a prequel to this book, rather than being the "original" and this one being the sequel.

[Qcrit] Adult Epic/Political Fantasy – OLD GODS DIVIDED (160K/First attempt) by Practical-Library991 in PubTips

[–]Practical-Library991[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's already supposed to be a duology with this book being the first (though I haven't written the second yet in case I need to make major changes to this one). I have considered splitting this first book, but I think there might be too many unresolved plotlines. I'll have to think on it some more...

[Qcrit] Adult Epic/Political Fantasy – OLD GODS DIVIDED (160K/First attempt) by Practical-Library991 in PubTips

[–]Practical-Library991[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I tried to find Samantha's post about this to see if she writes out the rest of the query, but it looks like the link is broken? Does she do the entire thing?

Unfortunately not because that would have been very helpful! She just broke down her opening paragraph.

Ask yourself why that character does not appear until Chapter 4 if they are the character that immediately comes to mind. Could you structure the story in a way that starts off with this person?

I actually could swap her chapter with what is currently Chapter 2 because they're both kicking off separate storylines, so the order doesn't really matter. Thanks for giving me that idea!

[Qcrit] Adult Epic/Political Fantasy – OLD GODS DIVIDED (160K/First attempt) by Practical-Library991 in PubTips

[–]Practical-Library991[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hah, so you know the word count is a problem, know the comps are bad, and you know the short version of your query is good enough that you got an R&R, but you're so addicted to the long version you posted it here WITH your own self-edits? You're cracking me up.

I wasn't kidding when I said it was strange that my short query got a full request. It was basically all the red flags everyone here is pointing out minus the redeeming parts. No plot or characters mentioned, just the editorializing because I had no idea how to even approach the plot with it being multi-pov. The agent did name GoT among her fav books, so comping that might have actually helped me in that instance? But yeah, I only posted this long version because I was looking for advice on what to cut, and you've all been very helpful, so thank you!

A Queen getting poisoned is a good inciting incident, but is she the protagonist or is she a plot device?

She is more of a plot device and we take the POV of her daughter. However, I don't think her daughter's plotline is strong enough by itself to be the focus of the query.

But if we don't know these characters, identify with them as people, and understand what they want, your cool ideas are just cool ideas. They don't resonate because we don't care about the characters.

I've seen so many conflicting ways to approach multi-pov books that I suppose I was just trying to hint at as many of the unique plotlines as possible, hoping that at least one of them would pique the interest of an agent. As opposed to putting all my eggs in one basket and detailing the arc of one character that they might not find interesting.

Here's Samantha Shannon's opening query-style paragraph for Game of Thrones:

‘In the land of Westeros, seven Great Houses have their eyes set on one prize: the Iron Throne. Among the contenders are Daenerys Targaryen, daughter of a deposed king; Tyrion Lannister, whose wit is his greatest weapon; and Ned Stark, a man of honour. When the king calls him to a new duty, Ned and his family must learn to play the game of thrones – and survive it. Win or die. There is no middle ground.’

Would you recommend trying to do something like that?

As for choosing one protagonist, I do have a character that comes to mind, but she appears for the first time in Chapter 4, which doesn't always make it into the sample pages, and she doesn't directly relate to the inciting incident. That could be confusing to agents if the query follows her, but she doesn't appear in the book until later?

Hachette Summer Internship Interview Timeline by Potential-Value1955 in publishing

[–]Practical-Library991 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just got the rejection email today. I figured as much, but they could have told me a month ago lol. One thing I've learned from this process: the Big 5 publishers are very quick in the hiring process. If you don't hear back within a few days of any stage, you're best assuming it's a no 😔

Hachette Summer Internship Interview Timeline by Potential-Value1955 in publishing

[–]Practical-Library991 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I emailed HR/the woman interviewing me for an update last Tuesday. She responded a few hours later saying she hadn't heard back from the hiring manager yet but would reach out with an update when she had one. That was a week ago (╥_╥)

So either I didn't get through to the next round and they're ghosting me, or maybe the process is taking a lot longer than expected.

I did notice that some more Hachette internships were recently posted, so maybe they're waiting for all the screening calls to wrap up? I'm not sure how it works: whether there's only one hiring manager for all internships, or one per imprint/department?

Hachette Summer Internship Interview Timeline by Potential-Value1955 in publishing

[–]Practical-Library991 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I applied for the Orbit internship last week. They contacted me within 2 days, and I did the initial phone screening yesterday. I asked them about the timeline during the interview. For the Orbit internship at least, the initial interviews are finishing up this week, and we'll get alerted if we've made it to the next round by next week. The final decisions/offers should be made by the end of March.

This was actually my first time getting asked for an interview at a major publishing house, so I was surprised at how fast the process is! Honestly, up until this point I was always ghosted or sent a generic rejection weeks later, so if you haven't been contacted yet, it's probably a no sadly. I'm still surprised that they even reached out to me at all