I LOVE being a mentor for PitchWars. BUT there is one bad part - having to choose just one manuscript to mentor when there are so many with so much potential.
And so, wanting to give something back to those who chose Mindy McGinnis and myself as one of the mentor teams to submit to, we decided to offer first page and query critiques on our blogs. Our decision to do this via our blogs, rather than a private email, is so that (hopefully!) everyone can learn a little bit from this feedback.
QUERY
When sixteen-year-old Inya’s parents divorce, the only way to save the mother she loves is to destroy the father who abandoned her. This sentence is too vague to have any effect. How specifically does she save the mother she loves? How specifically does she destroy her father?
As next in line to rule her country, Inya Sorstrand is well schooled in secrets and intrigue. Again, specifics are better. What sort of secrets and intrigue? But her plotting goes terribly wrong when she defies and humiliates her powerful father, Lord Orwen. Still not specific enough. What plotting are you talking about? How does it go wrong? How does she defy and humiliate her father? It's the difference between: "I had the worst day ever today" and "My breakfast was burnt, my dog got hit by a car, I was late to school, forgot my homework, missed lunch, got dumped by my boyfriend, and cried so hard my eyes swelled closed." Which of those sentences gives you a better sense of that person's day? With his subjects rioting in the streets, he’s enraged by disloyalty at home and disinherits Inya for his mistress’s unborn child. Okay, why are his subjects rioting in the street - is it related to Inya humiliating her father? Also the "for his" construct doesn't work for me. I had to read it twice. Maybe instead, "disinherits Inya with the intention of making his mistress's unborn child next in line to the throne.
Banished to the slums with her equally defiant mother, Inya sheds her old identity and learns to survive the mean streets with help from a pack of misfits. Would love to know more about these misfits... but okay as is. But when the riots turn violent, riots already sort of implies violence. Maybe call them protests? the whole city is caught between rebel firebombs and Orwen’s tyrannical justice. With her mother, her new friends, and her own life threatened on every side, Inya must bring her father down and she has just the weapon to do it: the very secrets and intrigue she learned at his knee. Again would be helpful to know what these secrets are. Also how does dad not see this coming? But using her secrets risks revealing her true identity and if her father doesn’t string her up for treason, the rebels, thirsty for privileged blood, just might do it for him.Great final sentence - very clearly lays out what's at stake.
THE STATUE SAYS SPRING is an 82,000 YA historical fantasy set in an invented non-magical world (think Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’strilogy or Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The False Prince). Good comps! No bio paragraph?
When sixteen-year-old Inya’s parents divorce, the only way to save the mother she loves is to destroy the father who abandoned her. This sentence is too vague to have any effect. How specifically does she save the mother she loves? How specifically does she destroy her father?
As next in line to rule her country, Inya Sorstrand is well schooled in secrets and intrigue. Again, specifics are better. What sort of secrets and intrigue? But her plotting goes terribly wrong when she defies and humiliates her powerful father, Lord Orwen. Still not specific enough. What plotting are you talking about? How does it go wrong? How does she defy and humiliate her father? It's the difference between: "I had the worst day ever today" and "My breakfast was burnt, my dog got hit by a car, I was late to school, forgot my homework, missed lunch, got dumped by my boyfriend, and cried so hard my eyes swelled closed." Which of those sentences gives you a better sense of that person's day? With his subjects rioting in the streets, he’s enraged by disloyalty at home and disinherits Inya for his mistress’s unborn child. Okay, why are his subjects rioting in the street - is it related to Inya humiliating her father? Also the "for his" construct doesn't work for me. I had to read it twice. Maybe instead, "disinherits Inya with the intention of making his mistress's unborn child next in line to the throne.
Banished to the slums with her equally defiant mother, Inya sheds her old identity and learns to survive the mean streets with help from a pack of misfits. Would love to know more about these misfits... but okay as is. But when the riots turn violent, riots already sort of implies violence. Maybe call them protests? the whole city is caught between rebel firebombs and Orwen’s tyrannical justice. With her mother, her new friends, and her own life threatened on every side, Inya must bring her father down and she has just the weapon to do it: the very secrets and intrigue she learned at his knee. Again would be helpful to know what these secrets are. Also how does dad not see this coming? But using her secrets risks revealing her true identity and if her father doesn’t string her up for treason, the rebels, thirsty for privileged blood, just might do it for him.Great final sentence - very clearly lays out what's at stake.
THE STATUE SAYS SPRING is an 82,000 YA historical fantasy set in an invented non-magical world (think Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’strilogy or Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The False Prince). Good comps! No bio paragraph?
First page:
The pillory not sure if this a word most peopel would be familiar with was always mobbed in the day. If Inya wanted to help Papa Gregor, she had to sneak off after curfew. Stopping only to collect her bag of supplies, what supplies? coat, and eyeglasses, she tiptoed past her mother—asleep at last—down to the kitchen door, and out into the night.
The Brimmen sea wind was an icy slap to the face so she pulled her long, lank hair over her ears. If it's windy wouldn't that just blow her hair around? It didn’t help. Why was it so cold tonight, of all nights? It was mid-September, but it felt like February, and Papa Gregor was in the pillory—his head and hands locked in a wooden frame—with only a thin shirt for warmth. He’d be frozen half to death and powerless even to scratch his nose.
“Ikshik,” Inya cursed as she scurried past the Basilica's blood-red gates. Maybe he was frozen to death. Her own hands were already numb. Cursing again, she blew on her tingling fingers, and sped up. Gregor Hansa had always been there for her and she loved him dearly, like a grandfather. He’d smuggled her salacious books, not sure if salacious is the best word choice here. are these x-rated books we're talking about? I mean that's cool and open-minded, but doesn't exactly say grandfatherly taught her to ride boy-fashion, praised every accomplishment in her sixteen years of life. Inya knew he was innocent, she knew he’d never turn traitor. Innocent of what specifically? By all rights, she should already be wrapping him in a blanket. But her mother had guessed she’d sneak out, and sat up in her room to stop her.
Passing the barracks, Inya slowed to a creep and hugged the shadows. Thunder rumbled, the clouds broke and rain fell hard, stinging skin and echoing off cobblestone. In the distance, the Basilica bell rang: clang, clang, clang, clang. Four o’clock, later than she’d hoped. Then the bell rang once more. Five o’clock! Ikshik! Curfew ended at six. She’d never find the courage to help Papa Gregor with an angry mob watching, not when they’d already stoned a poor woman to death for defending her pilloried husband. Overall the writing here is good, although there are a few parts where I'd like a bit more detail.
