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YA Novel - Analyzing Liza

Posted: May 13th, 2014, 4:46 pm
by paullla7
Hi! I've sent this query about 20 times but didn't have a bite yet.
I'm not sure if it is because the query is not well written or if the story doesn't seem good enough... I've rewritten it so many times I can't really tell if it's good or not anymore. Can you help? I would love to hear your comments! Thank you so much!

(itaics) I don’t believe in unicorns, but if someone told me there was one right behind me, I would sure as hell turn around. Even if just to tell them afterwards “That’s a cow, you idiot.” Liza McCarthy

Liza McCarthy never imagined she’d get any more excitement out of a doctor’s office than thumbing through tattered old gossip magazines. But when a god-like creature (and by that, I mean really freaking hot!) suddenly "materializes" in the room, it’s hard for Liza to keep her heart from skipping a beat, let alone her jaw from cracking the marble floor.
Completely entranced and slightly obsessed, she hastily schedules an appointment with the alluring 40 year old. She steps into his office break dancing on cloud nine, only to trip and fall flat on her ass when she sets her gaze upon a white version of Al Roker. Realizing she’s booked the wrong psychiatrist, she tries to save face by faking a phobia on the spot and ends up getting stuck with the overly caring doctor, while also starting therapy with the godly Dr. Fife.
With the wildly misguided help of her outlandish group of friends, Liza will attempt the mother of all juggling acts (bear in mind, she is a very uncoordinated girl): two shrinks, a bogus fear and the "accidental" stalking of the man of her dreams.

ANALYZING LIZA is an irreverent and fresh Young Adult novel about lying your way through therapy - which you didn’t even need in the first place - and discovering that reality is sometimes far wilder than your wildest dreams.

I am 29 year old advertising copywriter by day, an aspiring author by night and a radio comedy writer in my spare time. “Analyzing Liza” is my first novel. It is complete at 45,000 words.

Re: YA Novel - Analyzing Liza

Posted: May 27th, 2014, 11:11 am
by klbritt
My first impressions of your query are that it doesn't appear to be a YA novel. If you want it to be young adult, the main characters need to be under 18, and having Liza's crush be a 40s-something psychologist seems a little stalker/scary-ish. Perhaps this is more of a NA (New Adult) book (18-25ish)??? The second thing that stands out is how jumpy the query is. It goes from a quote from your MC, then skips to 3rd person with 1st person interjections - the flow just isn't there.

The story seems upbeat and catchy, which is great. Rule of thumb for queries is they are almost 90% written in 3rd person. Your very first sentence is what an agent will read and determine if they want to read more, it has to be great. And not just great, but REALLY great. Also, you want to include Liza's age in the opening sentence as well.

Good luck, I'd give it another go and resubmit here for more advice :)

~Kristie