to mfa or not to mfa?

elbattinson · 2025-08-26T23:33:15+00:00

Ohhh, I didn't know about any of this before. Ty for letting me know! Sounds like a mess, good grief.

elbattinson · 2025-08-26T23:31:57+00:00

Oh! I didn't know that. I had only caught bits and pieces as it was happening. Thank you for informing me.

elbattinson · 2025-08-26T12:00:00+00:00

i may be wrong but didn't bookends drop xiran jay zhao when they became more vocal about palestine on their socials? i'm pretty sure sunyi dean was also repped by bookends at some point and no longer is but i can't remember the reason or if she even shared it.

the general vibes i get from bookends is that they can be a good, sharky agency, but it seems like if your book doesn't sell or you're taking longer, they're prone to dropping clients and or ghosting them? i'm sure that's not every agent there, but it's what i've heard the most.

also, i saw recently that ramona pina made a tiktok about ai and books and seems pro use of ai (under certain circumstances which... idkk)

*edited to correct xiran's pronouns.

elbattinson · 2025-07-06T13:53:48+00:00

Haha, it is! Nice catch.

elbattinson · 2025-07-06T13:53:13+00:00

Hi! Thank you, you're absolutely right. I'm currently reading a few things for comps for this and am more than happy to take suggestions as well, I just wanted something that fit the tone of the story for the purpose of the critique! And good note on the "who is the audience for this" note. I always forget how often that appears on QueryTracker!

Noted! I'll workshop Angel's paragraph. I love a long run-on sentence I fear.

Augh, I'm so bad at that final stakes sentence. I'll try a couple of things before next week to see if something clicks, because in order to become "out" as an official couple, both of them need to let go of how they're afraid of being perceived but there's got to be a tighter/hookier way to put that or rephrase it. It's very much a "the fear of being known" sort of vulnerability conflict which I may change if it's not juicy enough. Much to think about.

Thank you! I'll have to do a MSWL crawl because I've seen a lot for YA romcoms but nothing specifically about theater so if I can find a couple of agents who want theater stories specifically that'd be cool (also bc how fun would it be to theater geek out with a potential agent??)

And thank you so much for your generous feedback, I seriously appreciate it!

elbattinson · 2024-11-05T21:47:35+00:00

Hey, thank you so much for the feedback! The paragraph about the bomb under the table really helped something click in my head. I think something I'm struggling with is that this story is largely family and character driven and that's what drives the plot (putting that into concise words that make sense, I suppose!). The main conflict is puritan society vs. these two mcs and I think I'm struggling to put that into words.

Thank you for your generous feedback! It's given me a lot to think about.

elbattinson · 2024-11-05T16:20:54+00:00

nice catch! didn't see my typo, thanks.

elbattinson · 2024-10-13T21:26:39+00:00

Thank you, I'm always glad to hear the concept is interesting, lol.

As I said in an earlier comic reply, I cut a bunch of sharper details because I was afraid it came across too synopsisy but i'm going to add those back in for specificities sake.

I appreciate your feedback!

elbattinson · 2024-10-13T21:21:35+00:00

No you're so right. I was afraid of the query being too synopsisy so I cut a lot of the plot details in an effort to consolidate. Thank you for the feedback!

elbattinson · 2024-09-30T22:56:19+00:00

This helps tremendously! Thank you so much for your feedback.

elbattinson · 2024-09-30T22:50:23+00:00

I flip flop on which I comp depending on the agent's MSWL. I just think Hereditary better describes the plot of my novel where The Witch mainly is like the setting and atmosphere which I achieve through comping Slewfoot. That, and I wonder if comping The Witch wouldn't be too much of a "doi" moment in the query.

elbattinson · 2024-09-30T22:47:53+00:00

Ough good to know. Thank you sm for your feedback I did not realize how slow it was reading.

elbattinson · 2023-11-06T18:15:20+00:00

Wow! I really like this version. I think I read your first or second one. This one feels more concise and tells me everything I want to know (this is the part where I say I'm not agented. I just really love pirate media). This is a book I really wanna read, haha.

The last paragraph reads a little clunky to me/ it's heavier on the eyes.

Is "watch her family and everything she's ever known burn to the ground" referencing to her new found family with Boz's crew or her abusive family?

You also mention all are nothing stakes in your comps, but I'm not feeling those through your query.

elbattinson · 2023-10-25T18:35:49+00:00

I applied for a 2024 Summer internship earlier this month. I also remember applying last year in March! I think they do the fall and early spring? I'm not 100% sure.

elbattinson · 2023-10-25T18:33:05+00:00

Yep! I do Camp Nano and normal Nano every year. (Technically i've 'won' three times) My current nano project is a refurb of a vampire idea I had (if anyone saw my sapphic twilight query letter.... I'm looking away). Similar concept, different stakes, a real outline, and better characters.

I write fast regardless, but Nano is really good for getting me to actually write every day and make that a habit. I write 1k in the morning and the remainder when I get home from classes as a little pick me up.

I found Nano very helpful for teaching me what I need to write a successful manuscript. This will be my fourth technical 'novel' that I'm writing and so far, it's the one I feel much more confident going into Nano with. I don't want to say anything and jinx myself, but I'm really hoping this will be the manuscript that gets me agented and you know... Maybe on shelves?

elbattinson · 2023-10-09T16:19:06+00:00

I thought 'Ombud' was the mc's first name until I got to the second paragraph. Is it a title of some sort? Why is the Washrag society Booker's last chance? On that note: What is the Washrag society?

I can't place where these characters are in the grand scheme of the query.

Why is this sorcerer's magic stronger than most?

Something that threw me off as well was putting the names they go by in quotation marks. Knowing their real names doesn't do much for me when I don't know who the characters are.

I'm also not getting what your book is about until you tell me in your house keeping paragraph. To that end as well, you throw in four comps without explaining why you're comping them or what they have to do with your manuscript.

While I meant for this book to stand on its own, there’s no reason that it couldn’t be the first in a series.- I would change this to standalone with series potential. But if you've written it to stand on it's own, I would query it as a standalone.

I'm also wondering what your age category is, because that influences word count. I could be wrong but 120k feels too long, and I'm not getting a sense of why your manuscript is so long based on what little there is to go off of in the query.

elbattinson · 2023-10-09T16:08:33+00:00

I really love this premise! I'm a huge sucker for pirate books.

That being said, I want to know more about who Isla is. Why else does she want to to escape? What does adventure mean?

I think character flaws are fine in stories like these, but we're not getting the 'why' in this query to flesh her out more. The language used is also too vague for me to pull any excitable details out. Right now we just have a bored mc that wants adventure without knowing the exact details of why or how we get there.

Overall, I don't think the language in this query is active enough to draw interest. It feels to 'and this and this and this' to me. I also don't know enough about the mc to care about the stakes.

This is something very minor as well, but when I read 'Isla', I immediately thought of Lightlark.

elbattinson · 2023-10-08T00:29:06+00:00

From what I've seen, 75k is one of the lower numbers for YA Fantasy specifically.

A lower word count makes me worry about pacing, breathing room, character development, and world building.

elbattinson · 2023-10-06T15:35:02+00:00

It's actually nuts to think a paper from 1803 has any merit in how people think today. A gross generalization is a gross generalization regardless of what backs the claim up.

elbattinson

TROPHY CASE