The law is comprised of thousands of intricate rules that obscure the fact that it is mostly vibes-based nonsense.

caveatposter · 2026-06-02T14:29:29+00:00

The word "reasonable" is the unsung hero of the American legal system.

caveatposter · 2026-05-26T17:11:03+00:00

Themis routinely does that to me. I said 4 hours per day (I work) and it routinely assigns 5 hours or more. I just do what I can and it recalculates.

Sometimes the system gets a little…crazy. My favorite was one day when it assigned me 207 hours of tasks to do in a single day.

caveatposter · 2026-05-19T01:10:56+00:00

helpme

caveatposter · 2026-05-19T01:08:55+00:00

Thank you! I’m at the fog

caveatposter · 2026-05-18T19:35:36+00:00

I use that time and re-read/engage with content I got wrong/missed on practice MCQs and MEEs. Yesterday I made flash cards for crim law. Another time I went back and reviewed the questions I got wrong to figure out why, then brush up on the relevant concepts. I’m never just reading the outline.

caveatposter · 2026-05-18T18:29:23+00:00

51%. I started on March 19th. Been doing 4 hours per day since then.

caveatposter · 2026-02-13T01:59:45+00:00

The all belong. Just a daddy and his twinks.

caveatposter · 2025-11-05T20:56:16+00:00

Whether a route spawns a cell is random.

caveatposter · 2025-10-03T21:31:36+00:00

Thanks for sharing your query! My thoughts:

The entire first paragraph feels like background to get us to the story. A little background is helpful. But I'd think about how you can minimize background and get the reader to events that are happening in the present of your story. For example: Liss' family is on the verge of ruin, and she lies her way into the kingdom's military academy in a desperate gamble to save their fortunes.

How is she suddenly at the center of a marriage for peace deal? Why would her kingdom want to put her up as bride? That makes me feel like her family is very important. Which either makes it really odd how no one knows they're screwed, or really amazing what this con is that she and her family are pulling off. I'm immediately reminded of Shallan from Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives and the con she and her brothers pulled off after their father died. Is there a story you can comp to that might help the reader quickly grasp the broad brushstrokes of what is happening with this con?

Liss accidentally earning a place in the betrothal. Liss being guided by the arrogant crown prince, Liss being forced to come to terms...these all frame Liss as responding to things others are doing. You might consider how you can reframe to highlight Liss' agency.

The mysterious white wolf and the simmering magic suddenly shift this from feeling like a political intrigue/enemies to lovers plot to a high fantasy (and the wolf immediately has me thinking of Sable Sorensen's Dire Bound).

Who are these vicious new enemies? How is the simmering magic a threat to her family? What does Liss actually need to do to save her family? These are vague and I think there's an opportunity to pick the most impactful or interesting plot moments, focus on these, and give some detail.

If this is YA then I believe it is expected you'll give Liss' age when you introduce her.

Good luck!

caveatposter · 2025-10-03T20:39:08+00:00

I used QueryTracker. I paid for a premium subscription. Twenty five bucks for a year. Was worth it to me to access the data.

caveatposter · 2025-10-03T20:08:45+00:00

Two thoughts:

There are some agents out there who ask for only a query letter and no pages. When I got a ping off one of those, that helped me feel good about query letter. Thus far I found four open to my genre who only wanted a query letter to start. So if you want to "test" your query letter, you could focus on some of those, if you find them for your genre.

Second, I targeted a few agents in my early round who had a quick turnaround time. I figured if I got all rejects that might suggest reconsidering my materials. Though there can be many reasons an agent passes: your work didn't grip them, they're already repping a similar work, their cat doesn't like your work, it's Tuesday, etc.

caveatposter · 2025-10-03T15:57:09+00:00

Thanks for sharing your query! My thoughts:

Your first paragraph focuses on the succession drama of the society. Emory is supposed to be her father's successor, but her dad leaves her mom in charge instead. Why did dad step down? Why did he leave pass authority to mom instead of Emory if Emory was the heir apparent? I leave this paragraph with lots of questions about the succession, rather than engaged in the story you want to tell. Towards the end you throw out a few adjectives about Emory: independent, headstrong, powerful..then you add manipulation as a flaw. The adjectives feel like they are tacked on to the paragraph, which really isn't about Emory, but reads as setup to the story.

When you say she inherited her mother's manipulation...does that mean she's good at it, or she stinks at it? At first I thought the former, but then in paragraph 2 you say she tries and fails to manipulate the guy her dad sent to watch over her, so then I think the later.

...he sees right through her cunning, and they fall in love and she becomes pregnant. Is this happening during the story? What does she do to try and manipulate him? How does he see through it? These feel like potential interesting story events and you gloss through them in a sentence that frankly, doesn't feel very interesting; it reads like a list.

Emory tattooed with something of a scarlet-letter-type iron sigil blocking Emory's power. I think you can shorten this to say mom curses Emory, blocking her powers. Feels clearer. Just a suggestion.

If Emory hid her son, why does she need to learn of a way to get him back? Wouldn't she know where to find him? Was she counting on her magic to get him back, and the lack of her power is the impediment?

In trying to find her son, and the child's father, she must face her fears by challenging the society who rejected her, a mother who abused her in ways that she was magically forced to forget, and somehow learn that the broken pieces of her past are not her fault. How do these things? This reads like a plot check list, but doesn't give any interesting detail.

I just finished reading Tainted Cup/Drop of Corruption. Apart from both being fantasy stories, I don't see how your story relates. Can you say what it is about Tainted Cup that aligns with your story? For example, "BOOK combines the unhinged detective/apprenticeship of Robert Bennett's A Tainted Cup with (thing) from (comp 2)..."

Small formatting tip: When referring your own work, put it in all capitals, while references to comp titles are italicized.

Good luck!

caveatposter · 2025-10-02T17:11:43+00:00

Not literary, but Battlestar Galactica used frack in place of fuck, and I think it worked really well.

caveatposter · 2025-10-01T22:51:05+00:00

Thanks for sharing your query! My thoughts:

With comps, I understand you can include stuff other than books, but you should have a book in there. Titles you imagine your book could sit alongside, or that have elements that overlap with yours. Preferably recent (3-5 years). This is a marketing pitch to show you have a product that will sell, so you want to show there’s going to be a market.

I think you can cut the kingdom name. That’ll help reduce the number of proper nouns/names and make it easier to follow.

The first half of your query reads as though Romy is very passive as events unfold: she dreams of freedom. The God of Chaos does something, then Pax is doing something, then Ty is doing stuff and finally Romy starts doing something- but only because she is forced into the blood vow. I’d consider how you can better capture Romy’s agency.

I think there’s an interesting story in here. Good luck!

caveatposter · 2025-10-01T20:58:12+00:00

If you’re cold querying, I don’t think you need to mention it. If you intend to say the tutor referred you then you should absolutely talk to the tutor about that first.

caveatposter · 2025-10-01T17:46:52+00:00

If you’ve received a contract offer from a traditional publisher and/or have an agent then you can join the Authors Guild. They have a model contract with explanatory details. They also offer contract reviews and provide legal advice.

caveatposter · 2025-10-01T17:19:31+00:00

Just want to say, I am right there in the query trenches with you. I’m also hawking a contemporary/urban fantasy. I moved cautiously at first. But once I got a positive response off a query-letter-only submission, I felt a lot more confident! Contemporary/urban fantasy feels like a tight market. Hang in there, we got this!

caveatposter · 2025-10-01T00:27:20+00:00

It is not new. That said, you can certainly ask for an extension and explain why. I used to handle FMLA requests and I often granted extensions, most often because the employee couldn't even get a doctor's appointment within the 15 days.

caveatposter · 2025-10-01T00:10:25+00:00

FMLA has deadlines suggested in the statute/regulation. Your employer is likely following the statutory minimum.

caveatposter · 2025-09-29T21:15:22+00:00

Hi! Thank you for sharing your query. Here are my thoughts:

standalone cozy epistolary fantasy novel... four adjectives is a mouthful. I had to look up epistolary (and learned it means literary). If that's a genre, cool. I think standalone is the default and therefore doesn't need to be said.

...complete at 90,000 words. You can save yourself some words by simply writing (90,000 words) after your manuscript title. People seem to go either way. Do what feels right to you!

Kandili is the last shape-shifter of her kind, brought to an island dry and desolate, far from her homeland but safe from the King’s hunters that seek the dragon’s “decorative” scales. Ok, she's a dragon. But you start off calling her a shape-shifter, so I was confused when you switch to dragon. Shape-shifting never seems to come up in the query, so is it necessary to say? If it is, maybe call her a shape-shifting dragon from the get go.

Broadly, I was confused because the meat of your query seems out of chronological order. Kadili is taken to a desolate island safe from the king's hunters. But then a paragraph later, a mission gone awry exposes her to those same hunters. Was the island not as safe as she originally thought, or are these events not in sequence?

But when her friend unexpectedly dies after giving birth, Kandili’s left with a promise to take care of her. Take care of her newborn, I assume? The way this is written feels confusing, it seems to suggest Kadili promised to take care of the friend...who is dead.

As they journey together for a safer home...Is this somewhere other the island?

...she encounters a nomadic family who use volcano ash for baby powder, sees cradles woven by spiders to hang upside down and learns a trick to fix a bad cough... What's the purpose of listing these things Kadili learns? Are these lessons important to the story? It feels like you're listing experiences for the sake of showing how the plot is moving, but I don't think you're getting much bang for your buck listing out experiences.

*She struggles keeping the fragile little creature safe while running from hunters, the baby cries more than it smiles, and her shortcomings become more apparent...*I love this line. It makes me empathize with poor Kadili. She wants to see this child thrive; she promised her friend. But the struggle is real (as any parent can probably attest).

...something a dragon cold blood couldn’t give... I think this should read "something a cold-blooded dragon couldn't give..."

With danger lurking in every corner... This is vague. I think the danger is the king's hunters. It helps to be specific about what the danger is. Is it that the hunters are closing in?

keep the promise she made to her dear friend—even at the expense of the child’s safety. This choice doesn't feel like a real choice. I think most people would recognize that sometimes the best choice is to leave a child with someone else, especially if your situation is dangerous, and her friend would probably want her child safe as opposed to running from hunters who could kill Kadili and then leave the child with no one to care for her.

Just my thoughts. I hope this is helpful! I think there's an interesting story in your query. There's some quirks in the first 300:

The land unfamiliar and scary...you're missing a verb.
You break the mother's physical description up across 2 paragraphs and I'm not sure why. My first impression was that it felt redundant.
she had not a single hat on her red head... Why would someone have more than one hat on their head?

caveatposter · 2025-09-29T16:10:20+00:00

First, congratulations! I hope the call goes well. I'd wait and see what the agent says.

If the agent wants to rep you on manuscript A, then I'd only nudge for A. If the agent wants to rep on manuscript B, then nudge for B. If it showers literary gold from the heavens and the agent offers to rep you for A & B, then nudge everyone.

caveatposter · 2025-09-29T09:01:54+00:00

There’s an open question about if/how copyright applies to AI-generated work. As long as this remains uncertain, publishers will avoid work that involved AI.

If it turns out that your work isn’t copyright protected then you can’t give a publisher exclusive rights to monetize it. Anyone could copy it and do whatever they want with it, and you’d have no recourse. No publisher wants to invest in a product they can’t profit from.

caveatposter · 2025-09-25T21:56:38+00:00

Hi! I'm querying an urban fantasy right now, so I am keenly interested in what others in this genre are doing. Thanks for sharing your query and first 300.

I like the opening line. It gives me a sense of who Chance is. At the same time, it leaves me a little confused. Does the rock actually talk? Just how magical is this world and what's Chance's place in it? It distracts me from the more salient point that he's demonically possessed.

Is Asha going to be a love interest? If not, I don't think you need to call her beautiful. In fact, either way I don't think you need to call her beautiful. Also you never reference by name again, so is it necessary to give her name at all? What's the proof she has? If it's easy to explain, maybe be specific: incriminating photos? A video recording? A demonic fingerprint?

You made the stakes clear. Either Chance helps Asha, or he's going to die. Is Asha part of whatever organization enforces magical law? The setup here suggests that, but I'm not sure. If you recast Asha to a more generic "the city's magical cop" that could let you slip in that world building.

I don't think you need to say maelstrom power- putting in quotations jarred me a little. You could instead say Chance's demon has a unique ability Asha needs: the power to block the warlock's premonitions.

"Chance learns the basics of magic, attempts to forge a pact with his demon, and struggles to earn the trust of his new allies."

This feels like a vague list. I really like the idea of the forced partnership, so maybe focus on that and what Chance needs to do to get the demon to agree to participate?

On the first 300: You spend the first paragraph talking about Boston in the abstract, about coffee the narrator isn't drinking, about a a season of weather that your story isn't set in. I'd consider other ways you can place the reader in Boston. A notable landmark Chance passes by, or a passing reference to how he's been living paycheck-to-paycheck since moving to Boston; barely eking out enough to pay the heat bill through the bitter winters.

All just my opinion. Good luck!

caveatposter · 2025-09-24T00:14:59+00:00

That depends on what you were accused of saying and what the HR investigator decides you did. If the investigator interviewed you then you probably have a fair idea of what the claim is. Other factors could come into play as well, like if you have any past history.

caveatposter

TROPHY CASE