PitchWars Critique - SCARLET'S MOON

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.

And for anyone out there looking for personalized feedback, I also offer manuscript critique services which you can find more out about here.  

QUERY

Word count 55,601 Okay, so while it is nice to have this information at the top, it's better to include it as part of a sentence. For example: SCARLET'S MOON, a young adult supernatural novel, is complete at 55,000 words.
Little Red Riding Hood is all grown up and hungry for blood in this smart and sassy retelling with vampires. Okay, I like the retelling and that you've mixed vampires in. But I think we need just a little bit more here. Is she herself a vampire. Always be as specific as possible.
What if there was more to the story of Little Red Riding Hood than anyone knew? What if the wolf was not a random attack, but carefully planned? Generally speaking hypothetical questions are a big no-no in queries. 
Scarlet Ryder faces danger, intrigue and her own past in Scarlet's Moon, the first in the Blood-Cloak series. I'd cut this entire sentence. It's too vague. As a young child, Scarlet's family was killed, leaving her an orphan in Victorian England. A week before her 21st birthday, WOH! 21 is too old for YA! Can you age her down? 17. Even 18 would probably be okay. Scarlet learns a deep and frightening secret about her family that sets her on the path to her destiny as a vampire queen. You need to tell us the secret or not mention it. This is not the time to be coy. The last thing the werewolves want is Scarlet alive to bring order to the chaos of the vampire clans. Huh? Where are these werewolves suddenly coming from? Scarlet finds herself drawn into the hidden world of vampires, espionage, murder, and the ancient war between the vampires and werewolves. On top of it all, Scarlet is juggling new romances and her adoptive father is hot on the trail of Jack the Ripper, adding to her fear and uncertainty. Okay, this is all over the place. You mention Scarlet becoming a vampire queen, then a war with werewolves, and then a romance and adoptive father and Jack the Ripper. What you don't mention is how all of this ties together.
Supernatural suspense, mystery, romance, and a little historical fiction await in this fractured fairy tale re-imagined. No. Pick a genre. Were would this fit on the shelf. I'd say historical fantasy. Or fairy-tale retelling.
Ashley L. Hunt has been published in eight anthologies, including Forgotten Places, Devil's Armory, Barbarian Crowns, For The Love of Leelah, JEApers Creepers, Caleuche Chronicles, 13 Bites Vol. III, and Plan 559 From Outer Space Mk. II. Good bio! 
The complete manuscript is available upon request; the first chapter is enclosed to be read at your leisure. Not sure about the "read at your leisure" thing - agents are not reading at their leisure - it's their job. This comes off a little snotty, although I  don't think that's your intention. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Chapter 1. The Road to Grandmother's House

 Dead leaves scrambled over the old forest road, scraping across the hard dirt like fingernails desperate to escape from a coffin. This first sentence seems to be trying too hard. I'd pick either the scrambling over the forest road bit or the fingernails across the coffin, but both feels like too much. Young Scarlet Ryder skipped among those leaves, stomping on the strays and kicking her sturdy boots through the piles where they gathered. The bold eight year old girl had lived in the small village near the woods all her life. Despite the whispers of her neighbors and the tales from the other children, she had never been afraid of the shortcut to the town on the other side. She enjoyed traversing the old wood road alone. Good character introduction. Has fairy tale feel, but is distant - doesn't make me really care about Scarlet.
 

On that particular autumn day, Scarlet was on a quest of significant importance. A quest that would change her entire life forever. She had been charged to deliver a basket of honey cakes to her grandmother. But is it really that important to deliver honey cakes?

"Scarlet, Listen to me. This is important,” her mother insisted as she tied the girl’s red wool hood, "Go directly to your grandmothers and under no circumstances are you to go anywhere else. Stay on the path. "


"I shan't mother. I know the way," Scarlet promised, "I won't leave the path. " I feel like if you are doing a retelling of a fairy tale you really need to do quite a bit of remixing and reimagining to make it feel fresh and new. This feels like it hews just a bit too closely to the original.


And she didn't... until she found the flowers. Small white, vibrant flowers like the ones her grandmother loved dearly, the flowers Grandmother always gathered. There was a small clump growing just off the path. Without the slightest hesitation, Scarlet stepped into the still green grass and gathered great handfuls of these white flowers. Just a way to eliminate wordiness.


"Well, well, well, little one. What brings such a small child into the wood alone?" an unfamiliar voice queried. Scarlet shot straight up looking for the source of this question.


A man was standing a stone’s throw away, leaning by a tree. He had broad shoulders and flaming eyes. Eyes like a wolf... dark, menacing, and ravenous. The unknown man circled Scarlet. Curiously, he never came within the ring of flowers Rather he edged around patch closely. His gleaming teeth brought a shiver to Scarlet's spine. Yet his smile remained friendly.

Instinctively, Scarlet retreated into the middle of the flower patch. The stranger’s menacing eyes shone darkly in the artificial twilight beneath the trees. Their eyes locked. An eerie stillness fell over the forest. Time seemed to stop, and all Scarlet could hear was her own breath. The distant cry of a bird broke the spell and Scarlet bolted, her feet flying for the road that now seemed miles away. Hard, pounding footfalls told the young girl she was pursued. Wide-eyed and panting, Scarlet ran down the road, too afraid to look back. Cloak billowing out behind her, lungs burning, and her poor little legs begging for a rest, Scarlet saw the most welcome sight she could imagine: Grandmother’s house at the end of town. With an extra burst of speed born of desperation, Scarlet flew to the wooden house. She ran through the heavy door, thumping it closed behind her, locking the scary man outside. Only to find
herself in a much more horrific scenario. Nice action here. It definitely picks up nicely! 

 In the waking world, a door slammed two floors below, jarring twenty year old Scarlet awake. She pushed aside her delicate white curtains and looked out the dark window to the muddy, cobble stoned streets of London. And nice cut from past Scarlet to present Scarlet. 

PitchWars Critique - CHAOS: AFTER MONSTERS, BEFORE HEROES

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.

And for anyone out there looking for personalized feedback, I also offer manuscript critique services which you can find more out about here.  

Dear mentor,

For years, Lesa has spoken with no one but her violent father. Okay, this is interesting but I think it needs more. First her age. As simple as: For years, sixteen year old Lesa has spoken... My other problem is that it seems impossible that she's spoken with no one else and I think you need to fill in a bit more details bc this is an odd situation. Do they live in the middle of nowhere? Does he forbid her from leaving the house? Does she leave the house but stay on mute unless she's speaking to her father? Be more specific. Every day, he reiterates that she must never leave him. Lesa knows her father’s temper is driven by loneliness and fears comma here her own loneliness will make her just like him. Violent, smothering, and unloved. Okay, you could cut some of this and instead focus on the questions I mentioned above. Simply, "Lesa fears she will become like her father: violent, smothering, and unloved."

Then, at seventeen, Lesa becomes an “Outcast,” one of hundreds of people to spontaneously acquire a superpower. Lesa renames herself Chaos, hoping to distance herself from her father. But it isn’t long until Chaos accidentally kills a man with her new power. WOAH! I feel like you skipped a lot of details here! So suddenly she's talking to other people, I assume? And what specifically is her superpower - I feel like that's a really important detail that you just skip over. And HOW does she accidentally kill a man?

Chaos believes her only chance at redemption is to find her mother, who left years ago. If Chaos can convince her mother to love her, then she won’t be lonely like her father anymore. But traveling is dangerous. Outcasts are hated by the public, hunted down by researchers, and easy to identify on sight. To go means risking of capture and life-long experimentation. I know what you mean by life-long experimentation but it reads here as if she will be forced to do the experiments, not be the subject of them. Not to go means having no way to prove she isn’t a monster. Hmm... I'm not really grabbed by this dilemma, probably because I am not sold on the whole "finding her mother will bring redemption" plot point. 

CHAOS: AFTER MONSTERS, BEFORE HEROES is a YA speculative fiction novel with 75,000 words. It will appeal to readers of Marie Lu’s The Young Elites and fans of X-Men. Good although Young Elites kinda is like X-Men already... I wonder if another comp might work better.

I hold a BA in writing and have short fiction published in Literary Orphans and Strangelet journal. Thank you for your time and consideration. Nice!

First Page

The girl touched her head to the chair's high back and hissed when the icy metal touched a bit of bare scalp. Her skin was raw where she'd torn out some of her hair that morning. The girl glanced past the concrete walls to the bleary orange ground lights that lit her feet. Seeing the lights, she tried to imagine the sun. She'd only ever seen its halo behind tall black buildings. Okay, I feel like you are throwing a lot of details but I can't quite see where this girl is. I also feel like you could linger a bit more on the detail about the raw scalp and how that happened. Overall, I'm not sure this is a first paragraph that would really grab me. There's good specific details but it hops around so much I can't really focus on one thing. Also, "the girl" feels so distant. Is there a reason not to name her? 

A guard came in through the door. He observed the girl without speaking. Yet, she heard his voice: At least she isn't trying to gouge out her own eyes. The words matched the whispery chatter that had fogged her mind since it happened. She squeezed her eyes shut, felt her irises humming against her eyelids. This last sentence is really nice!

The guard stuck a cigarette between his lips and flicked his lighter three times before the flame sprung. The smell of gas livened the air. He retrieved a clipboard from the wall. The girl heard his unspoken voice again as he estimated her height and weight and age. Then, the guard peered down to write, is she watching him - can she see him? Can we get some mental picture of what he looks like? and a picture showed in the girl's mind of herself as the guard had seen her. She had the look of someone small. Her hair was scraggly, ripped. The colors in her irises swirled: purple and pink flecked with gold. This feels like a cheat - her seeing how she looks through his eyes. Almost like a character looking in mirror on first page which is generally a cliche and thus a no-no.

The girl snapped her face away. She didn't like the look of herself, how he saw her. But the picture showed in her mind whether she looked at him or not. She tried to adjust her expression. Yet no matter how she widened or narrowed her eyes, the guard saw a girl who wanted to kill him and couldn't. Why does he think she wants to kill him?

But that wasn't what she wanted. It wasn't. It wasn't.

"What's your name?" the guard asked. His voice echoed aloud, startling her. When she didn't answer, the guard approached and kicked her chair over. Her head struck the floor. The pain was hot and sudden and turned the voices in her mind into woozy murmurs. Then, the guard kneeled so close that his voice--his thoughts--screeched like a mechanical bird. I think you need to be more firmly in the girl's POV. Even though it's not first person, we are still experiencing the story through her eyes in this bit here, but there are points where it seems to be swing toward the guard. Let us into her head a bit more and even more importantly - her feelings! Is she scared? Desperate? Numb? Otherwise, I think the pacing is good and overall you chose a good place to start you story.

PitchWars Critique - AETHERIAN

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.

And for anyone out there looking for personalized feedback, I also offer manuscript critique services which you can find more out about here.  

Query

Dear Kate,

Genna Burnstaff is good at being tough. I think you're going for a voice thing here, but with it being the first sentence of the query it just reads as a mistake. She's survived four older brothers and being the weird kid with grandparents for parents. She can take a soccer ball to the face and come back fighting. She doesn't scare easy – but she's scared of whatever is causing her dreams. Okay, I think this is a good set-up, but it could be a lot tighter. First I'd get rid of that first sentence. Maybe start instead with: Genna Burnstaff has survived four older brothers who {insert specific horrifying and hilarious detail here}. She's made it through being the weird kid at {insert specific occasion here} with {specific detail here about grandparents - gray haired, stoop backed, hard of hearing} grandparents for parents. She can even take a soccer back to the face and come back fighting. In short, she doesn't scare easy and she certainly isn't afraid of a couple bad dreams. Except... she kinda is.

It starts with Hal, showing up after years of absentee fatherhood, planning to move her up to New York with him and his new bride. Okay, I think you need to tie the dreams in since that's where you left us in the last paragraph. Something like: The dreams begin when her absentee father, Hal, shows up with his new bride and insists on relocating Ginna to New York. Hal maybe something about how he's a stranger to her? Or something more specific about why she can't handle him? and the snobby private school he sends her to are more than she wants to handle. But And instead of but might work better here. then there's Thera. She can't call NYC another world, anymore, because Thera actually is one. Okay, this whole Thera transition is NOT working for me. I would not put it in this paragraph but try to work it in below when you talk about the dreams.

After Genna begins experiencing traumatic episodes that leave her physically damaged What exactly does physically damaged mean? Be more specific - let me see and imagine the damage? Is she black and blue? Does she have broken bones? Bleeding? Missing eyes? and screaming in her sleep, her brothers reluctantly explain the family trait: a pull to another world that she can neither resist nor control. A pull to another world is not a family trait. I'd reword this. Submerged in new and different world? Missing word here?, Genna finds herself in a war to hold on to the girl in the mirror and to survive the unwanted gifts in her blood. This last bit is mush. What does it mean to hold onto the girl in the mirror? What are the unwanted gifts in her blood and what specifically must she survive? I honestly feel like you wasted way too much time in the first paragraph and then rushed this one which really feels like the meat of your plot.

AETHERIAN is a blend of epic and contemporary fantasy, intended for a YA audience. It is complete at 116,000 words. It would appeal to fans of {insert title of similar YA book published within last five years} and {insert title of another similar YA book}

I am a first-time novelist with an English degree, a couple of Philosophy degrees and a CV full of disreputable jobs (like 'bookseller' and 'writing consultant') to my name.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

First Page

I didn't want to look in the book. Waking up was bad enough without that. This doesn't grab me. I don't know what book she is talking about much less why she doesn't want to look. I don't know why waking up is bad. I'd cut.

The 7:00 am sunlight was weak and gray and yet somehow still too much for my sleep-starved eyes. I leaned on the vanity table – one of Granna's landmarks I don't know if this is the best word here that this room was female territory – and took in the damage.

My eyes were so red-rimmed and dark-shadowed that their odd gray-brown color looked just brown. That felt like a robbery. My weird eyes were my favorite. I glanced up reflexively at the picture in the corner of the mirror. The lovely face laughed back at me, elegant in the artistic black-and-white shot. Apparently I got my eyes from her. A main character looking in a mirror as a way to describe him or herself is a cliche that it's better to avoid. Is the color of the MC's eyes really something you want on the first page? Is this the thing that grabs a reader and makes them want to keep reading?

Not that I would know. That picture was all I'd ever seen of my dead mother. This is good stuff! Tell me more about this!

My gaze wandered down to the little brown Moleskine book on the cluttered surface in front of me. It wasn't one of the pretty diaries Granna bought for me. The things I wrote didn't seem to belong in one of those. It was plain and battered and ordinary, which felt right. You have to tell me more. I'm just not getting enough detail to draw me into the world of the story.

I didn't want to look. Look at what? The moleskin book?

So I got dressed, reminding myself that Blake the Genius had brought Jonathan White home from football practice last night, on top of everybody else. What does this mean, "On top of everybody else"? Physically on top? Or in addition to all the other people Blake brought home? Also who is Blake and who is Jonathan? With all the brothers mysteriously mysterious how? home this weekend, that meant Jon would be sleeping on the couch why? does he not have a room? Where is he home from? and that meant I wasn't about to wander out there in my PJ's. My dark-coppery hair – too dark for red, too red for brown again, the color of her hair - like her eyes - is not something that makes me think "wow tell me more" – was tangled and impossible, so I wrangled it into a ponytail and hoped for the best. My too-pale skin already looked sickly with the early morning and interrupted sleep, so it wasn't like I was going to be winning any awards today anyway.

I glanced at the clock – 7:15. I didn't have long. Closing my eyes I took a single even breath. When I listened I could already hear Granna creating masterpieces in the kitchen.

My eyes turned back to the brown book. I didn't want to open it. I didn't – but I couldn't not look. It had been happening too much lately. I needed to see if there were more words.

I flipped it open quickly, like ripping a Band-Aid, and glanced through the pages, looking for new scribbles. My stomach sank. The page I'd numbered 43 had been blank yesterday. Today it wasn't.

He warned me – I knew – God help me, I knew. But I loved him. And now . . . such a burden of blood. I pray you can forgive me.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Dammit. Like that wasn't cryptic or melodramatic or anything. Who the crap writes that? My breath wasn't steady. I did, was the answer. I wrote that crap.

Not that I ever remembered it. But the leaky pen I intentionally kept next to the book had left its telltale smear on my middle finger, so it had to be me. My fists clenched and unclenched instinctively. Okay, this is interesting. She's writing something at night and it's creepy and she doesn't remember doing it. But you spend the whole page teasing this reveal - but you don't give enough details or hints to draw me in. And why tease anyway? This is the good stuff. Lead with it. Have her fling back the covers and immediately go to the book.

PitchWars Critique - ETERNITY THEN

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 this feedback.

And for anyone out there looking for personalized feedback, I also offer manuscript critique services which you can find more out about here.  

Dear Ms. Whatsit,

Boston, 1913, is rife with ghosts, and fifteen-year-old Tessa Ward is one of them. Great first sentence! After she and her brother Jack are killed in a car accident in 2005, they are catapulted back in time to spend their afterlives in the Progressive Era. Hmm... okay, I feel like there needs to be some reason for this. It feels really random and makes me worry that the worldbuilding will not make sense. Death isn’t always the bummer that Tessa thought it would be, How is death not a bummer, specifically? but she’s convinced that 1913 isn’t her final resting place. Why? She makes it her mission to find out what comes next and take her afterlife into her own hands. Specifically how?

At seventeen, Sylvia Howland develops the ability to speak to the dead. She befriends Tessa, who pushes her to break the norms of her native time: kiss a boy first, “haunt” a house, and say what's on her mind. I feel like "say what's on her mind" feels a bit anti-climatic after the house "haunting a house" thing, which honestly feels like something that would also break norms today. Her new friendship provides a welcome distraction from strife at home what sort of strife?, but Sylvia is soon plagued by frightening hallucinations and psychic powers she cannot control. What specifically happens here? Afraid her family will have her institutionalized if she comes clean, comes clean about what? the powers or hallucinations? Sylvia keeps her new abilities to herself even as they threaten her sanity.

United by circumstance, Sylvia and Tessa push each other’s buttons and push each other forward. But as they grow closer, Tessa’s relationship with her brother deteriorates. Dissatisfied with his ghostly existence, Jack finds a way to get his life back, but it means taking someone else’s. Tessa doesn’t want to lose her brother, the only connection to her old life, but instead of but feels like this should be "and she is also unnerved..." she is unnerved by the dark implications of murder. She turns to Sylvia, and the two work together to find a way to stop Jack through supernatural means. Sylvia is determined to help her friend, but while uncontrolled, her mystical powers threaten all three of their souls. Threaten all three souls how specifically? What is at stake? If it all goes wrong they'll end up in hell?

ETERNITY THEN is a 89,000-word young adult historical fantasy with a potential for sequels I would either say "a sequel" or "series potential" if your intention is to have more than two. I have a master’s degree in publishing and writing from Emerson College, and I currently work as an assistant editor for American Art Collector and American Fine Art Magazine.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Tessa never thought there would be fog. Not that she spent a whole lot of time contemplating it, but fog seemed like a cliché. It was an all-consuming, impenetrable miasma, and she was completely alone. I don't think this is a strong beginning. I don't know who Tessa is or where she is. All I know is that there's fog and it's unexpected, which is frankly not all that interesting.

She and her older brother Jack had been driving back from their dad’s in the suburbs on a clear, cold-for-April day, and then bam! Fog. I think you should slow down here and let the story breath a little more. It feels like you want to rush into the action but it'd be better to set the scene. I like the driving back from dad's and cold for April day. Give me more. Is the radio on? Are they chatting? Arguing? Is the car nice or a beater? Is the traffic heavy or light?

The car had disappeared completely. No longer strapped into the passenger seat, Tessa stood, isolated by the gray. She groped around in the nothingness, hoping to get a sense of where she was, but the thick haze didn’t abate. “Jack!” she yelled. Her voice didn’t sound like her own. It was muffled and warbling, like she had yelled from underwater, only bubbles coming out. She tried again, “Jack! Jack, where are you?” This time, the sound came out a little more…solid. I want to get a little closer to Tessa - even w third person you can let the reader into her head and how she's feeling. Is she shaking? Does her stomach hurt? Does she feel panicked?

But there was still no Jack. Just fog.

She tried to steady herself and ran through the circumstances in her mind. They were merging onto the highway and an eighteen-wheeler in front of them had lost control, spinning out. It hit the passenger’s side of the car first. Woh! This is a pivotal moment. Again, slow down, really bring us into the moment. There was no way she had survived. How does she immediately know this? But maybe Jack had.

She gave it one more shot, screeching his name into the void. “Jack!”

And then, he came barreling out of nowhere. Literally. He hadn’t been anywhere one second and then the next he was right there, grasping her arms so tight that it should have hurt, but it didn’t.

“Tess.” There were tears in his wild, desperate eyes and streaming down his face. “Tessa, I’m so sorry,” he said, burying his face in her shoulder. “It was all my fault.” The brother reads as really young here. Again, it'd be nice to have a sense of who he is before this so we know if this is totally out of character for him or not.

Tessa didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t even bring herself to return the embrace. She just hung there in his arms while he sobbed against her. “I wonder who will tell Mom and Dad,” she said finally. I like this bit. Would be nice to have her imagine the scene.

PitchWars Critique - THE POWER OF DANIEL MURPHY

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. 

And for anyone out there looking for personalized feedback, I also offer manuscript critique services which you can find more out about here.  

Query

Dear Pitch Wars Mentor,

All that high school freshman Daniel Murphy wants is to be normal, but normal seems impossible—he looks nothing like the rest of his family, and he’s the class bully’s biggest target. I'd consider breaking this up into a few sentences. Maybe after impossible put a period. On your your feels weird here. His? Or Everyone gets a superpower on their fifteenth birthday, you get a superpower; Again, I'd suggest a period here. Daniel hopes his will make him amazing could you be more specific? give us an idea of the superpowers handed out and which ones specifically he'd like to give and/or avoid?, but inexplicably, he gets no power at all, so it’s off to Kimberly’s School for Weakly Gifted Children. Paragraph break here maybe? Before he goes there, his high school librarian gives him a secret book with a map to follow to get to The Doctor, this chunk feels unnecessarily wordy. Maybe just "a secret book that will help lead him to The Doctor the only person who can give him a power. A few days at Kimberly’s school prove that he’s not going to get a power there, so just as the school dean’s about to get what he needs from Daniel to bring his dead son back—which may be what the dean had in mind all along when he admitted Daniel to the school—Daniel escapes with his only two friends. Woh! Say what now? Is the School supposed to help get kids their powers? And why does the Dean think Daniel can bring his son back from the dead? 

Daniel needs to find The Doctor to get a power and thus become normal, and he’s got his friends with him. Colin is a tree that can’t speak but can run and make food, and Lenore is a telepath. Okay, maybe introduce the friends before you get into the thing w the Dean and running away. The map in that book will guide their cross-country trip. But the dean needed Daniel’s help to bring back his dead son, Marcus, You already said this already in the above paragraph. You don't have a lot of space in a query - don't use some of it up repeating yourself! Also I still don't understand how Daniel can help bring back Marcus. and even though the dean and his parents thinks powers are undignified and shouldn't be used, they enlist a man made of dirt, a woman with fatal hands, and a 30-man strike team to try to make sure a few lowly teenagers don’t ruin their best chance to be a family again. Who's chance to be a family again? Daniel's parents and the Dean? Those plans will be ruined if Daniel gets a power and Marcus isn’t involved. I don't understand what the plans are or how they would be ruined and why Marcus needs to be involved with Daniel getting a superpower. Also this paragraph makes this story feel like it's more about the Dean and Daniel's parents and what's at stake for them, then about Daniel and what's at stake for him. 

I am a copy editor and have worked for two of the largest newspaper publishers in the country. You don't want to specifically name them?

THE POWER OF DANIEL MURPHY is a 103,000-word YA sci-fi novel. Some comps would be nice here. ie: It would appeal to fans of X and Y.  

Sincerely,

First page:

The red marquee lights above the power booth flashed 1:00 faintly in his goggles. 1AM? Or PM? I wonder if this sentence might have more punch with a POV inserted? ie: Daniel squinted at the flashing marquee lights...

“One minute,” Daniel said intensely into his word-muffling mask He's wearing goggles that also cover his mouth? I'm having trouble picturing this. But the sound that escaped it died in the soundproof plastic booth he was sitting in. 

“Fifty-seven seconds,” he said, watching them tick down. “Maybe I’ll get the power of flight, and it’ll be so strong that I break these straps and fly out of this disgusting seat.”

His cells buzzed with the energy of that genetic trigger. What genetic trigger? Something big was about to happen.

Fifty seconds.

“I’m going to be so amazing,” he resolved. “Everyone will beg me to help them.”

He’d been waiting for this since he could remember. And after today, nobody--not even Marie Tyler--would ever mess with him again.

“What is taking so long?” he yelled. Forty more agonizing seconds until he became amazing--and until he could again breathe normal air, not the stale, nasty stuff in that decrepit mask. The whole sweaty, beat-up power protection setup--from the mask to the boots--would come off and he'd have the power to shoot firebolts, or teleport, or do some other phenomenal thing.


“Generations ago, under threat of imminent attack, our ancestors were afraid. Would weapons be enough? What more could we do to protect ourselves?

The best minds of the day gathered and called for an era of superheroes--of making every human being a scientific marvel. And so it began.”

Are these last two paragraphs meant to be a flashback or a manual or something like that? It isn't clear. The concept is interesting though. I also like that you're starting the story with Daniel getting his change - right in the middle of the action. The voice, however, feels a little immature to me. More middle grade than young adult. Depending on what happens in the story, you might want to consider aging your MC down a few years.

-----

PitchWars Critique - THE RED THREAD OF FATE

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. 

And for anyone out there looking for personalized feedback, I also offer manuscript critique services which you can find more out about here.  

Dear Mentor,

Seventeen-year-old Juniper Knox is no stranger to visions. After all, she’s descended from a long line of ancient Seers. Yeah, but having ancestors who are seers means that THEY'RE no strangers to visions - it doesn't mean that she knows anything abou them. But unlike her ancestors, June’s not going to sit idly by while her loved ones are in danger or when adventure awaits. This is too vague. What danger are you specifically talking about? What adventure are you specifically talking about? I'd cut this line. And there’s a whole lot of adventure waiting when June accidentally conjures the ghost of a girl with an identical birthmark to hers. Okay, I like this about conjuring the ghost... but why is the identical birthmark important? 

I put a paragraph break in here. Having a ghost tagging along for the ride for what ride? is bad enough, but when that ghost and June’s actions what actions? attract the attention of the Fates, and they are??? things get really complicated. Now June has one chance to save everyone she loves save them from what specifically?: find the Fates’ missing tools, the rod, the spool and the scissors why are these important? did June loose them? Why does she have to find them?. If June fails, the Fates will raise the dead comma disrupting the balance of life and death okay but what does disrupting the balance of life and death mean to June specifically? And to those she loves? Does raising the dead mean there are zombies walking around? What specifically is happening here?. But if she succeeds, she might finally prove she is the hero of her story. Who said she wasn't the hero of her story? If you're going to end with this line then you need to set it up at the beginning that Juniper is a loser or someone afraid to rock the boat or that she's always the person tagging along and never the hero. Otherwise this sort of comes out of nowhere. Is this book really about Juniper proving she's the hero of her story? Or is there something else at stake here?

THE RED THREAD OF FATE is a standalone YA fantasy complete at 95,000 words with series potential. This novel will appeal to fans of Tera Lynn Childs’ SWEET VENOM and Audrey Colthurt’s OF FIRE AND STARS. Great! Good comps.

I’m a published playwright and have had seven plays produced across the country since 2008. In addition, I’ve won four awards at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and have been a contributing writer for Smock Alley Theater and the Gaiety School of Acting in Ireland. Awesome bio!

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, 

As you can see, most of my comments her want more details and more specificity. This is really key in queries, while being brief you always want to hit on as many specific details as possible because just like on the page that's what helps us buy into the world of your story.

FIRST PAGE

            I didn’t mean to do it.

            Really, I didn’t. This is grabby, but a little too vague too get me with both hands.

            Okay, maybe I did mean to steal the case file from my mom's office and maybe I intended to use my Affinity No idea what this is. to help my parents, and myself, just a little bit. I think a punctuation change could make this a bit punchier and funnier too. I'd put a period after parents. Then make "And myself" it's own sentence. And then "Just a little bit" it's own sentence as well. Paragraph break after that. 

            The disappearance of Jessica Obderon was the case. The case that got my parents into detective work and had plagued them for years. And maybe I wasn’t thinking so clearly because I finally identified the girl who’d been haunting my dreams for months. Okay, woh. Slllooowww down. You are throwing so much at me all at once and it's too much. Maybe just tell us about the case and how it's plagued her parents. Let the reader know (and care!) what's going on with that before getting into the whole dream thing. As a reader you want to sink into a story, you want to feel like the author has everything under control and is going to give you all the facts as needed in due time.  

            What I did not mean to do was somehow, accidentally, unintentionally conjure a ghost in the backyard. This is funny and the line is great, but again you are just throwing so much at the reader that I don't know what to focus on.

            That had never been the plan. That was a mistake.

            Leading up to this panicked moment was a series of impatience, fear, and bouts of insomnia This sentence reads a bit awkwardly to me. Since my eighteenth birthday, I’d been having a recurring dream about the same girl.

            The dream never changed.

            My eyes are forced open by a slice of light cutting across the room. A streak of yellow splitting the still black of the night. I stare up, witnessing a shadow elongate along the smooth ceiling. It slithers amongst the grooves, growing as the figure approaches. My body twitches like my muscles are foreign and I’m trying to figure out how fingers move. The urge to scream crackles in my throat and I want to call out. Then the face of a young woman fills my vision.

            Her dark hair is ruffled like she’d slept with hairspray in it, her smile tense with preoccupation. Her grey eyes are glassy, the crinkles beside them revealing her stress. She is rather beautiful with her heart shaped face and thin cheeks, hardly my older than myself. I no longer want to cry. Out of everything on this page, the dream is the part I like the least. It's the only part where I'm not going, "oooh tell me more about that." But that response might partially be due to having so many things on this first page, that my the time I get to the dream I'm a little burned out. Overall, the writing here is good. The voice is fun and has lots of potential. I'd slow this way down. Let it breathe a little more on the page. I think there's often this feeling that a first page needs to be a juggling act with a hundred balls and all of them on fire - just to grab and hold the readers attention. But you really don't. There's a good story in here - give the reader more than little glimpses of it and tell it in that great voice - and your readers will want more.