Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Here is version 2, folks. Enjoy.

Dear Agent,

The fallen angels will stop at nothing to get to seventeen-year-old Ava Monroe, even if that means possessing one of her friends, blackmailing her, invading her dreams, and crashing her prom.

When a group of blood thirsty angels learn of Ava's identity, they attack her but retreat when they are ambushed by the heavenly guardians. The guardians: Barak and his three sidekicks take Ava to their leader where she learns that she is a direct descendent of Eve, her special bloodline creates a key that opens the gates to Eden every hundred years. It is the guardians job to protect Ava and keep her safe at all costs that includes: enrolling sexy Barak into Ava's private school to become her personal body guard, not allowing Ava outside of the house unless it's to school, not allowing her to tell anyone about her heritage, and establishing crappy guidelines that will help her succeed in her mission to open the gates to Eden a.k.a. more dictating rules from the guardians.

Ava refuses to go to Eden until after she graduates allowing the fallen to make multiple attacks on her life. But, they found the perfect way to sway Ava to their side; they have kidnapped her BFF Erica. Now Ava has two choices: to join the fallen angels and save her friend or join the guardians, risk Erica’s life and save all of mankind.

KEY OF EDEN is a 70,000 word YA paranormal romance. It is the joint effort of Stacey Hays and Jennifer Nichols. We are members of SCBWI and contributing authors to the blog Our Pages Aren’t Numbered.

Thank you for your time.

geogstacey wrote:Dear Agent,

We are pleased to submit for consideration our young adult paranormal romance KEY OF EDEN. In this 70,000 word tale of violence, miracles, and romance, seventeen-year-old Ava Monroe must defeat the fallen angels before the world is destroyed and the forces of the apocalypse are unleashed. Move this to the bottom, you're pitching before your pitch.

When she Ava Monroe is attacked by a group of blood thirsty angels called the fallen, she is rescued by Barak and his three heavenly--sidekicks, the guardians. They ambush the ungodly creatures What ungodly creature? and send them tucking tail and licking their wounds Is this literal or figurative? and are these bad angels?. Ava learns that she is the key to Eden and the catalyst for defeating the fallen and their attempt to regain power over mankind—what does that even mean? Yes, what does that even mean? We need to know if you want us to read this, and how does she find out she's the Key to Eden? What happens during her attack? Who does she learn it from? What does she have to do to beat them? Don't try to be mysterious.

Dodging the steroid driven jock that is stocking her, evading her guidance councilor’s suspicious questions, obeying the rules of the guardian dictatorship (she doesn’t mind if the rules involves exile with the Sexy Barak), and passing the SAT’s—leaves Ava little time for much else. But, when Ava’s BFF (more like sister from another mother) Generally, if you feel the need to put it in parentheses, you don't need it. Erica is captured by the fallen she has two choices: to join the fallen angels and save her friend or join the guardians and save all of mankind. Wow, character soup. You go from totally focusing on Eva to introducing four extra characters in one paragraph. Who is Barak? Why do we need to know about him? Is he the love interest? Is her an angel? We know nothing about him but his name. Is he so essential to the plot we need him in the query? I don't think you need to mention the jock or counselor. Because we don't know what these two sides goals are in detail, what they're like, etc, the choice she has to make between them and the fallen has no impact.

This is where you squish in what you had up top and combine it below with what you have so it look more like this: KEY OF EDEN is a YA paranormal romance complete at 70,000 words. Both Stacey Hayes and Jennifer Nichols are members of SCWBI, and contribute to the blog Our Pages Aren't Numbered. Don't forget to link the blog.

KEY OF EDEN was the joint effort ofStacey Hays and Jennifer Nichols. We are cousins-turned-writing-partners.Not necessary. We are both from the Bowling Green area, members of SCBWI and contributing authors to the blog Our Pages Aren’t Numbered.

We would be happy to send you the manuscript upon request. Thank you for your time.

I hope this helps. Queries are hard, but you'll get the hang of it. Just remember, agents are not your readers, if you try to be mysterious with them, they'll probably say no. They've already seen everything in the book--pun intended--so you need to lay it all out there and show what's different about yours.

CV

also, stalking her not stocking her. Unless she belongs on a shelf next to a can of peas.

^ and counselor. And there's no need to capitalise 'Sexy'. Spelling errors are huge red flags for agents.

I cleaned it up a bit. Check it out.

Better, but I still don't understand the choice. Why is the world in danger? Everything about her ability sounds pretty cool, she gets to go to Eden? That's awesome! Why does she have to go to Eden?

CV