Query"POPULATION DECLINED"

[epullins]

I will do what i can to critique others but i am not sure how much help i will be because i just had my query tore apart and in my mind it was good lol. If someone can please give me their input on what they think and what improvements could be made it would be helpful. Thanks in advance,

Dear (Agent’s name)

I am seeking representation for my suspense novel POPULATION DECLINED complete at 79,500 words. Abby Devereaux finds herself entranced by the recent chain of catastrophic events gripping the nation. Soon after her fiancé Darrell Porter, a statistician for the US census Bureau, finds himself in the center of it all and he is in for a quite a ride with many unexpected twists and turns.
Abby Devereaux’s fixation with a sudden string of calamities, occurring across the nation, begins with a bizarre helicopter crash occurring in New Orleans where she resides. She decides to plan a last minute retreat to Boston for the weekend with her fiancé. Darrell Porter spends his vacation obsessing over the recently discovered national census discrepancies. The Census Bureau is reporting false population totals and Darrell intends to find out why. Their weekend vacation quickly goes awry when the confidential governmental documents that contained the accurate census data go missing from Darrell’s laptop and they witness an entire apartment complex perish from carbon monoxide inhalation, which they later discovered was intentional.

The mishaps of their vacation cause tension between the two of them and they choose to return home to New Orleans separately. Darrell is led to believe that his fiancé died in a plane crash while commuting back home. He soon finds himself the latest target of the government when his train was deliberately derailed because of his recent revelation of their concealed lies. He continues to uncover the mysteries behind the government’s schemes and he soon finds Abby is not really dead. The government will stop at nothing to prevent him from exposing their deception and the plot thickens as he quickly discovers that his close friend and colleague, Byron, along with his fiancée are behind it all.

The full manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your time and consideration.

[Emily J]

I will do what i can to critique others but i am not sure how much help i will be because i just had my query tore apart and in my mind it was good lol. If someone can please give me their input on what they think and what improvements could be made it would be helpful. Thanks in advance,

Dear (Agent’s name)

I am seeking representation for my suspense novel POPULATION DECLINED complete at 79,500 words. I like this info at the end, but that's just my preference! Might want to exclude "complete" since that should be a given and you don't want to give the impression that you just completed it Abby Devereaux finds herself entranced odd word choice here, entranced by catastrophy? is she evil or malicious in some way? by the recent chain of catastrophic events gripping the nation. <-- bit vague, what events? aliens? terrorists? a hamster uprising?? Soon after i would put a comma here, but also soon after what? those events? her fiancé Darrell Porter, a statistician for the US census Bureau, feels like too many imbedded descriptive clauses, "her fiance, Darrell Porter, a statistician..." finds himself in the center of it indefinite pronoun, the center of what?? all and he is in for a quite a ride with many unexpected twists and turns. <-- this is telling not showing, what twists and turns? also twists and turns is a bit cliched

Abby Devereaux’s fixation with a sudden string of calamities, these calamities? you have mentioned them already occurring across the nation, begins with a bizarre what makes it bizarre? helicopter crash occurring in New Orleans where she resides. She decides to plan a last minute retreat to Boston for the weekend with her fiancé. <-- this sentence comes out of nowhere is the vacation related to the helicopter crash?? Darrell Porter odd shift back to Darrell and calling it "his" vacation rather than their spends his vacation obsessing over the recently discovered national census discrepancies. The Census Bureau is reporting false population totals and Darrell intends to find out why. Their weekend vacation quickly goes awry when the confidential comma governmental documents that contained the accurate census data go missing from Darrell’s laptop and they witness an entire apartment complex perish from carbon monoxide inhalation, which they later discovered discover was intentional.

The mishaps of their vacation cause tension between the two of them again telling rather than showing, why? goes Darrell want to go to the police and Abby disagrees? one blames the other for something?? and they choose to return home to New Orleans separately. Darrell is led to believe "led to believe" is passive and lacking force that his fiancé fiancee i believe died in a plane crash while commuting back home. He soon finds himself but he already found himself at the center of something else? how many places can he lose himself that he must continually find himself again? the latest target of the government when his train was is? tense issues again deliberately derailed because of his recent revelation of their concealed lies. <-- end of this sentence feels stilted He continues to uncover the mysteries behind the government’s schemes what mysteries?? what schemes? and he soon finds Abby is not really dead. The government will stop at nothing to prevent him from exposing their its maybe? deception and the plot thickens ack no!! no please avoid this cliche as he quickly discovers that his close friend and colleague, Byron, along with his fiancée are behind it all. <-- throwing this name in at the end has no impact to the reader as we have no sense of Byron, his fiancee or his relationship to your protagonists

The full manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your time and consideration.

I haven't reviewed any queries in awhile so I apologize if I am a bit rusty.

The premise of a conspiracy type thriller definitely appeals to me, I thoroughly enjoyed The Pelican Brief. But I think your query is focusing a bit too much on the step by step plot rather than giving us the overall story. It feels a bit more like a synopsis than a query. And you don't give us enough of the meat of the conspiracy, what calamities are happening, why is the census info so important? Because I really want to know!

You seem to have two main protagonists, and I'm not sure they are both presented in a balanced way here. There is some switching in one paragraph between Abby and Darrell and then Abby is not dead, but yet we don't get her point of view again, which I found odd. I think you should either focus on one or the other, or find a better way of distinguishing between them and why each of their story lines is unique and integral to the story.

One final note, be careful of your tenses. You are writing in present tense, but i think you were slipping into the past now and again.

That's just my opinion for what it's worth! Good luck querying!

[epullins]

emily, thanks your critque was very helful and you pretty much said the same thing that two other crituqers said. So with that being said I do believe I have a starting point for revision and I believe I know what is wrong and what can be improved. I thank you for the CC and time. I will submit my revised query as i have finished it.

[epullins]

This is the revision of my original query (its just the synopsis which was my main problem) any thoughts please? I appreciate the feed back.


In New Orleans an unpiloted helicopter crashes into a lower class neighborhood… An entire housing authority building in inner city Boston dies from carbon monoxide poisoning… A building mysteriously topples in the suburbs of Detroit, killing dozens of citizens. The nation is shaken by a chain of tragedies occurring just days apart, taking many lives.

Darrell Porter, a statistician for the US Census Bureau, accidentally stumbles upon a major discrepancy in the recent nation census. His job is to ensure the population figures are accurate but when he finds the recent published data differ drastically from the totals he came up with, things get weird. The governmental documents that proved the census reporting’s were falsified go missing from his laptop. Then Darrell’s fiancée Abby Devereaux gets on a plane headed back to New Orleans from their vacation and it goes down. Darrell believes that Abby’s death is the first of many strikes by the government. Darrell juggles trying to stay alive while uncovering a government conspiracy that could destroy a nation. He must take a gamble and trust the FBI as he discovers it is a multiple agency scandal and not limited to the US Census Bureau. He has no one else to turn to and he is forced with a dilemma. Can he trust them or will it be his demise?

[Emily J]

This is the revision of my original query (its just the synopsis which was my main problem) any thoughts please? I appreciate the feed back.


In New Orleans comma an unpiloted helicopter crashes into a lower hyphen here? class neighborhood… maybe a comma instead of ellipses? I must admit I hate those three little dots! An entire housing authority building the building doesn't die, the residents do, rephrase maybe? in inner city Boston dies from carbon monoxide poisoning… A building mysteriously topples in the suburbs of Detroit, killing dozens of citizens. The nation is shaken by a chain of tragedies occurring just days apart, taking many lives. <-- the last clause, "taking many lives" is not the best way to end the paragraph, weak plus feels redundant after "killing dozens"

Darrell Porter, a statistician for the US Census Bureau, accidentally stumbles upon a major discrepancy in the recent nation census. His job is to ensure the population figures are accurate but when he finds the recent published data differ drastically from the totals he came up with, things get weird. <-- not bad, but could we find something punchier than "things get weird"? The governmental documents that proved the census reporting’s reports? were falsified comma? go missing from his laptop. Then Darrell’s fiancée comma Abby Devereaux comma gets on a plane headed back to New Orleans from their vacation and it goes down. Darrell believes that Abby’s death is the first of many strikes by the government. <-- and he's sad right? lacks any emotional impact, embittered? seeks to avenge her or uncover the truth behind her death? any of that motivation important? Darrell juggles trying to stay alive while uncovering a government conspiracy that could destroy a nation. <-- not Zimbabwe right? can we be more specific? He must take a gamble and trust the FBI as he discovers it is a multiple agency scandal and not limited to the US Census Bureau. He has no one else to turn to and he is forced with a dilemma. Can he trust them or will it indefinite pronoun!! be his demise? <-- the ending feels anti-climatic, also be wary of ending (or starting) a query with a question

I think this is a huge improvement over your first query. You have definitely winnowed down to what is important and focusing on one POV really makes the query feel more coherent. Also by starting with the specifics of the attack I can really feel the urgency and the peril more clearly as the reader.

Aside from my embedded remarks, I feel like you need to tie Abby's "death" in with the plot better. Maybe Darrell was the real target? Or something like that. Right now it's the only part of the query that doesn't feel like it has a purpose. Perhaps you can make the concept that her death was "the first of many strikes by the government" clearer? Not sure, but it's the only plot thread I'm not quite grasping here.

But overall nice work!

[epullins]

Emily, thanks for the feedback. Now before I start revising I have a few questions for you. I do agree with doing away with the ellipses (it was just starting point) but I was "ify" about them from the beginning so I will definitely throw those out. This was a bit long and I did get some advice from another critiquer on a separte forum and felt that in order to shorten the synopsis some I could do something like this....... “A chain of tragedies strikes the nation. New Orleans, a helicopter crashes into a low class neighborhood. Boston, all residents of a housing authority’s inner-city building die to carbon monoxide poisoning. Detroit, a suburban building topples to the ground, killing dozens of citizens.”...... Do you feel by these revisions it takes away some of the visuals (such as inner city, Suburbs) making it harder to place yourself in the scene of it all? Also as you can see in his revisions he felt stating "occuring days apart" was needless. I included that because on another crituqe someone pointed out that I needed to specify what made these calamites any different than the ones that occur through out the year? So do you agree that this is not needed or do you feel that it gives some clarification as to why these tragedies are so important?
I agree with rehrasing "an entire aprtment building dies" that is a dangling modifer, I will definitely need to correct that. On another note "things get weird" is sort of weak but my intention was to inform that after he discovered the discrepancy his live began to take a turn for the worse meaning the government is after him to quiet him from revealing his discovery (Abby being the culprit of them even knowing he found out). So I guess i'll have to think of something more catching and less simple.
Now my dillema here is that my mini synopsis is already too long (at 225 words appx) and it needs to be less. You feel I should make an emotional connection when Darrell founds out about Abby's supposed death. I would need to omit something to have room to fit these in. Any suggestions? The other critiquer feels it is important to breifely introduce Abby prior to mentioning her death. How do you feel about that? You said I should calirfy the phrase (Darrell believes that Abby’s death is the first of many strikes by the government) I intended to say that was the governments way of catching Darrell's attention was to kill his fiancee (or so he thinks) since they could not catch him. They strike at him many times there after but her death was the first of them. Should I calrify this in the Mini Synopsis some way? Last question you said that I shouldnt end the synopsis with a question I was told that makes it catchy and leaves the reader wanting to answer the question by reading further.

I know I just asked a whole lot of questions but I am just trying to get some POV on others critiques so I am not so torn on which way to go. Thanks so much for the help

[Emily J]

Emily, thanks for the feedback. Now before I start revising I have a few questions for you. I do agree with doing away with the ellipses (it was just starting point) but I was "ify" about them from the beginning so I will definitely throw those out. This was a bit long and I did get some advice from another critiquer on a separte forum and felt that in order to shorten the synopsis some I could do something like this....... “A chain of tragedies strikes the nation. New Orleans, a helicopter crashes into a low class neighborhood. Boston, all residents of a housing authority’s inner-city building die to carbon monoxide poisoning. Detroit, a suburban building topples to the ground, killing dozens of citizens.”...... Do you feel by these revisions it takes away some of the visuals (such as inner city, Suburbs) making it harder to place yourself in the scene of it all? Also as you can see in his revisions he felt stating "occuring days apart" was needless. I included that because on another crituqe someone pointed out that I needed to specify what made these calamites any different than the ones that occur through out the year? So do you agree that this is not needed or do you feel that it gives some clarification as to why these tragedies are so important?
I agree with rehrasing "an entire aprtment building dies" that is a dangling modifer, I will definitely need to correct that. On another note "things get weird" is sort of weak but my intention was to inform that after he discovered the discrepancy his live began to take a turn for the worse meaning the government is after him to quiet him from revealing his discovery (Abby being the culprit of them even knowing he found out). So I guess i'll have to think of something more catching and less simple.
Now my dillema here is that my mini synopsis is already too long (at 225 words appx) and it needs to be less. You feel I should make an emotional connection when Darrell founds out about Abby's supposed death. I would need to omit something to have room to fit these in. Any suggestions? The other critiquer feels it is important to breifely introduce Abby prior to mentioning her death. How do you feel about that? You said I should calirfy the phrase (Darrell believes that Abby’s death is the first of many strikes by the government) I intended to say that was the governments way of catching Darrell's attention was to kill his fiancee (or so he thinks) since they could not catch him. They strike at him many times there after but her death was the first of them. Should I calrify this in the Mini Synopsis some way? Last question you said that I shouldnt end the synopsis with a question I was told that makes it catchy and leaves the reader wanting to answer the question by reading further.

I know I just asked a whole lot of questions but I am just trying to get some POV on others critiques so I am not so torn on which way to go. Thanks so much for the help

I should warn you, first of all, I truly have a hatred of ellipses. Mostly because they are misused SO often (really I shouldn't blame the three innocent little dots). I think your suggestion would work, but you could say "In New Orleans, a helicopter -" and be grammatically okay. I don't feel like those revisions take away from the visuals at all. As far as the "occurring days apart," bit, I think you need something that shows that these events are part of a larger conspiracy. Mentioning that they occur days apart helps create the sense of interconnectedness, that these are not just random accidents. So for the conspiracy element to work I think you need to tie them together in some way. And honestly, those calamities could be tied a bit tighter to your query as a whole. Though I find they create a good, dramatic opening.

One point of information, the "an entire apartment building dies" isn't actually a dangling modifier. At least as far as I understand them. I believe it’s just a misplaced modifier, not the dangly kind.

And with regards to the Abby question, obviously I haven't read your book, so all I can do is give you my best opinion based upon my limited knowledge of your story and characters. That caveat being stated at the start, I don't think you necessarily have to describe an emotional impact, but the death needs to be there for a reason. Right now it feels like an aside, and we aren't really given why the death is important, how or even if it affects Darrell etc etc. Whether or not it needs to be included, whether or not we need to drop Abby's name at all or if simply the label Darrell's fiancee will suffice, I don't know. Only you can decide that (in my head I just sounded a little like Smokey the Bear).

So, long story short, I think you have to answer these questions. I can give you my opinion, to take or leave as you like, but you know your story, you know what is crucial, what is integral. Your query needs to express this succinctly and hopefully in an interesting, attention grabbing way. It sounds like you might be getting a lot of feedback or conflicting feedback and you aren’t sure what to do with the critiques. It doesn’t mean you need to take or incorporate everything reviewers tell you (myself included haha). Obviously, the query is up to your discretion, and the decisions are yours to make!