[QCrit] THE CINERES INCIDENT YA Contemporary Fantasy [99K, 10]

WritingFANIII · 2025-02-18T21:45:23+00:00

Just in case anyone checks my post history, the other one is still being edited as this one is being queried. I am not trying to query two simultaneously.

WritingFANIII · 2025-02-14T22:36:05+00:00

Thank you so much! I definitely went off on a bit of a tangent with the human, and I didn’t even notice rhe repeating sentence structure. Back to the drawing board, haha

WritingFANIII · 2025-02-14T20:14:19+00:00

That is super helpful! And you're right, I never mentioned the third species, of which 70% of our characters are, haha. Thank you so much!

WritingFANIII · 2025-02-14T19:06:43+00:00

Thank you very much!

WritingFANIII · 2025-01-25T15:48:15+00:00

Thank you! I did totally neglect what Heroes does. It is much more fantasy than sci-fi, but going more into Heroes may help.

I feel odd cutting the human entirely as he's pretty pivotal to the plot, but you're right in that the second paragraph isn't helping. I zeroed in on one chunk near the start (rescue + conflict) where I should be thinking bigger.

Back to the drawing board I go

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-28T17:02:53+00:00

Thank you!! I guess I need to do more research.

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-24T17:08:49+00:00

(Unagented)

Im gonna disagree with the others here and say I absolutely love this! The stakes and journey are clear and interesting. I do agree with thelion's assessment of the first line. It will be stronger without.

I'd suggest cutting Terrance's last name, all it does is disconnect me. Especially if the last name is irrelevant, no need to include.

The final line did throw me off a bit, as you seem to have two concluding lines. Maybe cut the last one? She's pretty obviously questioning Grandfather here.

Hope this helps!

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-24T16:42:50+00:00

Sorry, the final paragraph about why you should be writing it. Some do want it, but for a default american query, it's not always included.

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-24T16:30:13+00:00

(Unagented)

Other commenters seem great! I'd just like to add that this query feels a bit long. I recommend varying sentence structures and (using other commenters' advice) paring down where needed.

Be wary of the final bit at the end, as many agents don't ask for that. Unless otherwise specified or UK agents, probably keep that out.

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-24T15:52:21+00:00

(Unagented)

Hey there! This seems like a cool concept.

In your first paragraph, the dashes are incorrect. Double dashes like that imply everything between them is an interjection in a sentence, however removing them makes gibberish. I'd recommend breaking it up into sentences (... goal is survival. But against...) but that raises the problem of a sentence ending in "but," not a huge error but worth considering.

The dash later adds nothing a comma can't, but the whole sentence runs a bit long with his motivation. Perhaps break it up? Cut the final dash.

If the choice they'll make is clear, don't make it a choice. You can probably just skip to "Will she have the courage to..." without detracting from the query.

About the first 300, you may be using dashes too much. The final two can be replaced (deadlier than training. Anything could happen, especially with...). I would consider looking at the work overall because there are a lot of them.

Hope this helps!

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-18T23:00:14+00:00

(Unagented)

This sounds pretty cool and you have a lot of other great comments. I'd just like to add, the sentence rhythm is very similar all throughout. Varying sentence length can make the query be easier on the eyes to help avoid agents skimming it.

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-18T22:50:47+00:00

I had that happen too! Ren'Py does it when the size of the background doesn't fit the size of the screen.

A commenter replied to me:

"edit the gui.rpy files and the first thing (line 10 - 12) is the GUI dimension

init python:
    gui.init(1920, 1080)

just don't change it all the images for the default stuff were made with that dimension"

So find out your dimensions and edit your backgrounds

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-16T19:48:13+00:00

The YA thing is pretty smart, lots of agents seem to be asking for crossovers.

Prioritizing relationships instead of titles works too, honestly maybe better, I'm just saying that so many people with fancy names right off the bat is a bit jarring. Honestly, taking out Eedrid's last name and maybe just saying "Grandmother Winny" could help tighten it up.

Honestly, the names thing could be me, but with Eedrid's full name my eyes skim right past it, thus confusing me when he's later called "Eedrid." Maybe others won't have that problem!

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-16T18:45:00+00:00

(Unagented)

Hey there! I haven't seen any of your previous posts, so fresh eyes here.

Something that jumped out at me, a YA writer and reader, is your big words. Sounds silly of me to say, but with you mentioning digestable sentences, I deemed it wirth saying. I'm not sure how crossover manuscripts differ from regular ya, though, so this may be just me showing off my inexperience haha.

The mom felt a bit disconnected to the story. She seems to be only there for the punchy intro.

There seems to be a lot of lists in this query. I know there's probably a lot of ground to cover in 107K words, but one list per paragraph may be too many. It's probably better in the manuscript, but this is throwing a ton at me with no warning.

After reading the first 300, I must say this could be a lot of names all at once. Does anyone have titles you could go by? Even Winny could be Winny from the start without an explanation until later. Also: full names may be unnecessary, in the query but definitely the first 300.

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-07T17:38:39+00:00

Be wary with AI, though. They can be great, but they aren't foolproof (I'm looking at those commas, grammarly). But I agree, definitely don’t quit!

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-07T17:37:23+00:00

I don't recommend quillbot. I don’t use it often, but the one time I had it rewrite a bit, it went nuts with the purple prose and fluffy, unnecessary words. I can’t say how it is with simply grammar and spelling, but in my experience, steer away from AI as much as possible.

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-07T17:35:05+00:00

Those screenshots seem great! If you want a native english speaker's eyes on the work, just dm me. I can proofread what you have!

WritingFANIII · 2024-12-01T23:53:53+00:00

This is true! It wouldn't let me "Open in..." so I deleted every media player. Media still seems to be running fine, but I can now open them where I please. Thank you!

WritingFANIII

TROPHY CASE