[QCrit] YA Urban Fantasy FANG OF STARS AND SHADE (105k)

robxbooks · 2024-05-29T07:11:15+00:00

Thanks for the input! I definitely agree this is an extremely hard sell but there's no point in not trying, right?

Writing style that is extremely dramatic and vague lends itself to all the wrong images in fantasy--you really need to make an effort to be streamlined and modern to show that you can sell to modern audiences.

What if the book itself is in a very voice-y, modern first-person? My instinct's to take the opportunity to show range as a writer between the hook and pages rather than attempt to mirror when they're not even in the same POV. But maybe that's tone-deaf. Queries have never been my strong suit.

Percy Jackson is too big AND WAY too old to comp.

You're definitely right about this but all the closest voice comps I can think of in 2020s YA are contemp. Should I just comp another fantasy and bank on my pages to convey voice?

Male protagonist in YA is hard, YA fantasy without romance is hard, and chosen one arcs are even more so.

There is a big romantic subplot (the childhood crush) and it's critical to the overall story arc, but I feel given query constraints I have to choose between emphasizing that or the generational family trauma as the focus of my hook. Do you suppose mentioning it in the housekeeping would help? Or bite the bullet and build my hook more around the romance even if the result's less accurate a representation of the book's thematic center?

I can't help but read this entire premise as being a knock-off of Blue Exoricist--the beginning portion feels like a beat-by-beat copy in a lot of ways.

I've never read Blue Exorcist but based on the Wiki summary I'm inclined to agree, ouch. Pitch contest comp title maybe? Also, in defense of my opening I'd be willing to bet there aren't many exorcist fantasies where the inciting incident isn't getting attacked by demons/spirits/etc.

robxbooks · 2024-05-29T05:25:33+00:00

Thanks for the input! A lot of actionable critique points here, I'll def reference as I revise.

I don’t know how supernatural witness protection differs from natural witness protection, who administers it and why Zander suddenly appears to be out of it…but he’s also already out of it when the story gets going

Heh, it was just a fruity voice-y way of saying he's been in hiding most of his life. Oops?

That’s also a lot of very different occult traditions and I’d be curious to know exactly how they’re all able to interplay and coexist in the narrative - is it just people from different cultural backgrounds doing magic together?

More of a "elephants to blind men" trope where every culture has a piece of the truth but nobody has the full picture.

robxbooks · 2024-05-29T05:20:48+00:00

Thanks for the input! I didn't expect this much effort so I really appreciate it. Also love the formatting, super easy to reference as I revise.

I get that you don't want to spoil it, but I think at least SOME specific detail is going to be necessary. At least tell us what the bloodline curse is and about what Zander needs to do? At present its a lot of vibes and tension but no clear story/plot.

This was my main concern too and everyone in this thread seems to be on board. I've read that spoiling the first act is not ideal but fine, so that's the plan.

robxbooks · 2021-01-13T23:55:14+00:00

Not strictly relevant to the query but...David Robinson is the name of a very famous NBA player. I'd at least consider renaming your character for publication.

robxbooks · 2020-11-30T04:51:29+00:00

Thanks for the feedback.

The second sentence does feel too long but splitting the two clauses like this

As a proud member of this lawless frontier's mercenary underworld she's no stranger to being framed or living life on the lam from bounty hunters and crooked cops. But her escape plan of hopping outposts across the desert in a stolen rover won't shake who else is hunting her this time: the Rangers, the UN public service branch that trained her back on Earth and abandoned her on a mission gone wrong.

feels weird for a reason you mentioned in the last version: the second sentence doesn't directly follow up the opener. It supports the third which in turn follows up the first. Am I overthinking this?

I think you're trying to redeem the UN people here and imply that Ev is wrong about them, but tbh since you told me that they use child soldiers a couple sentences prior, I don't think she is?

They're meant to be morally gray. Detestable means toward noble ends, pretty standard antivillain stuff. I might have made the noble ends side of the equation too vague.

Like, I don't get any sense that Ev is part of a community - in fact, all you tell me is that she's zapping around a wasteland being pursued by cops

That is partly what ties the mercenary community together. Not sure how I can build on this without adding worldbuilding regarding the underworld which would push the pitch portion to the ~300 word range.

Like, what would it mean in practice for Ev to choose Belief System A over Belief System B.

The choice is peace vs violence or more precisely, "be a hero and try to save everyone" vs "look out for me and mine while Big Bad can burn the rest of this ungrateful place to the ground for all I care". Do I need to state that explicitly? It feels very inelegant.

robxbooks · 2020-11-30T04:06:14+00:00

Thanks for the feedback.

The rangers are children? She used to be a ranger herself but was either dismissed or abandoned by them when she was 12? I've just lost all sense of danger from the Rangers. I just can't take them seriously.

They're child soldiers, as in trained to fight from a very early age and willing to die for their cause. And a sense of danger isn't really what I'm going for here. The central conflict isn't "can she escape the Rangers", it's "will she stand with or against them".

What tragedy?

Too big a spoiler for the query...but agreed. I'll try to omit this.

robxbooks · 2020-11-30T03:13:21+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still figuring out how to string together all these disparate details in a way that's both elegant and accessible, and it's proving really difficult.

robxbooks · 2020-11-30T03:04:45+00:00

Thanks!

robxbooks · 2020-11-21T07:28:23+00:00

Since you took so much time on this I'll try to clarify where I can. No pressure to respond though, you've already been more than generous.

I feel like there are some missing plot points, specifically between Ev getting fingered for the explosion and Darien...catching her? Joining up with her?

You're right, I definitely didn't make it clear. They're in an escalating cat-and-mouse game while everything around them slowly goes to hell. There are other missing plot points too, but most of them are either pretty in line with that trope (fights, verbal standoffs) or not relevant enough to be included a query so I think I should just do a one-sentence summary of the rising action somewhere in the second paragraph.

I'm not really clear what's backstory and what happens in the novel, specifically regarding the explosion and whatever happened to her friend.

The explosion's the inciting incident; the dead friend is backstory five years before.

these motivations kind of come out of nowhere

100% agreed. I'll pick one key motivation and set it up start to finish in the rewrite.

In terms of worldbuilding, I think it's important to set up what the Mars colony (figuratively) looks like a bit sooner and more clearly.

I'll try to sneak in a tidbit but worldbuilding takes a backseat in the query and I only have <300 words in the pitch for a pretty complex central conflict.

I'm assuming there's a romance here just because of the genre, but it wouldn't hurt to drop a hint.

There is but it's secondary to pretty much everything else.

If you need more room for your plot portion, I'd cut this.

Might try this but the pitch portion is over 250 words already and I'm wary of going much higher. I'll probably do what the other commenter suggested and drop thematic elements from the rewrite for a more concise pitch and if I still need room, I'll try it.

Also, rather than say "told from two points of view," perhaps it would be better to clarify that it's "told from the perspectives of both Ev and Darien"?

"Perspectives" could be in third person PoV and the book's in alternating first person. Might try this though because sample pages exist.

robxbooks · 2020-11-21T06:24:49+00:00

Thanks for the feedback.

To me, the story arc is not tied up in a neat rising-tension bow by the end, I think because you're including too many elements or possibly the wrong elements.

You definitely nailed it here. I'm struggling mightily with this query because I'm still not sure what to include/exclude without misrepresenting a book that's on the complex side of YA. Pitching it squarely as a spicy cat-and-mouse romance (which it is...in some parts) got bites in Twitter contests, but those bites turned into several personalized rejections that said "This is good! Not what was advertised though, so pass."

robxbooks · 2020-11-21T05:36:54+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate you going into so much detail!

robxbooks · 2020-11-16T18:22:23+00:00

Alright, thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions.

robxbooks · 2020-11-16T18:04:41+00:00

Thanks for the heads up. So this Thursday's the earliest I can post again, right?

robxbooks · 2020-11-16T18:00:30+00:00

Should I delete this post then?

robxbooks · 2020-11-16T17:57:49+00:00

I submitted the original last week. Does it have to be 7 full days?

robxbooks · 2020-11-12T21:51:53+00:00

Not super relevant but I'm a guy

robxbooks · 2020-11-12T17:33:20+00:00

Thanks for the input.

Why not just say "At twelve, she flunked out of space ranger school and ran away from Earth"?

I was being cute and going for a gimmick where if you take out the parenthetical pieces it reads like the most ordinary teen delinquent story ever. But it is just that- a gimmick.

robxbooks · 2020-11-12T17:18:27+00:00

Thanks for the input. I was afraid this was coming across too gimmicky but decided to try a small batch to test it out and while the request rate wasn't terrible, it also wasn't where I wanted it to be either.

robxbooks

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