'The Eyes Have It' urban fantasy query - Revised 11/9/12

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Tom Mullin
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'The Eyes Have It' urban fantasy query - Revised 11/9/12

Post by Tom Mullin » October 23rd, 2012, 3:35 pm

My novel is as ready as it's going to be. Time to send out queries. Please help me with some feedback.

Thank you.

Dear (agent name here):

Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins does not expect to start seeing things with his new contact lenses. At first, he catches glimpses of shapes at the edges of his vision: Maggots. A single eight-inch ghostly maggot clings to each unknowing human host.

Timmins’ eyes adjust. The shapes linger longer: Figures. They’re not human.

After the attack, obedient Timmins follows his routine and returns to school to recruit help. These familiarities are further disrupted by the arrival of the attractive new girl, evolving tenuous teen love triangles and surfacing emotions in friends and classmates.

Timmins welcomes this new dalliance, but the complexities that develop soon mirror his daily difficulties of continual bullying by classmates and warring parental divorce issues at home.

Also, an escalating cast of villains still come for the contact lenses to appease the needs of their evil mistress.

Timmins must break out of his shell to take on all these demons… literal or not… or else the creatures will destroy him to get the precious contact lenses.

THE EYES HAVE IT is an 85,000 word young adult urban fantasy novel. This is my first novel and I am submitting it to multiple agents.

add personalized stuff here (if I follow their blog or whatever - delete as necessary).

Thank you,

Thomas E. Mullin
Last edited by Tom Mullin on November 9th, 2012, 12:41 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' YA urban fantasy query

Post by klbritt » October 24th, 2012, 4:42 pm

My first impression of your query is that it is way too long. You have written your query almost like bullet points, which is not something an agent would want to read. This almost reads more like an outline for a synopsis.
Tom Mullin wrote:Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins does not expect to start seeing things with his new contact lenses. At first, he catches glimpses of shapes at the edges of his vision: Maggots. A single eight-inch ghostly maggot clings to each unknowing human host. [I'm confused right away in this first paragraph. Is Paul blind? Or just getting new contacts? I'm assuming he's not blind, but that's how this sentence comes across.]

Timmins’ eyes adjust. The shapes linger longer: Figures. They’re not human. [Intriguing, but it just sticks out. Find a way to join it with the first paragraph.]

After the attack, obedient Timmins follows his routine and returns to school to recruit help. [Why? Do other people know about what he sees?]These familiarities are further disrupted by the arrival of the attractive new girl, evolving tenuous teen love triangles and surfacing emotions in friends and classmates. [What's her name? What role does the girl play? If she's important, she needs to be named in the query and defined.]

Timmins welcomes this new dalliance, but the complexities that develop soon mirror his daily difficulties of continual bullying by classmates and warring parental divorce issues at home. [Confused - what complexities? You've left me totally lost]

Also, an escalating cast of villains still come for the contact lenses to appease the needs of their evil mistress. [Evil mistress? Good to mention her, but again, we want to see what her role is in the novel.]

Timmins must break out of his shell to take on all these demons… literal or not… or else the creatures will destroy him to get the precious contact lenses.

THE EYES HAVE IT is an 85,000 word young adult urban fantasy novel. This is my first novel and I am submitting it to multiple agents.

add personalized stuff here (if I follow their blog or whatever - delete as necessary).

Thank you,

Thomas E. Mullin
Okay - the premise sounds interesting, but your query needs work. My suggestions really were just my thoughts typed out. I suggest digging deeper into your novel and getting to the heart of what your story is about. You tell us a lot about what happens, but it feels like you're just listing off the bullet points. I'd love to see an updated query.
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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' YA urban fantasy query

Post by Tom Mullin » October 24th, 2012, 8:29 pm

Hey Kristie:

Thanks for your thoughts on my query.

I’m going to hold off my comments in hopes that I get additional feedback.

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' YA urban fantasy query

Post by wilderness » October 27th, 2012, 6:50 pm

Hi,

I think you may have a cool premise but it's kind of getting buried in your query. I think you should be a lot more clear about what the contact lenses are, what Timmins saw, and who is coming to get them. How does this affect the fate of the world? If you want to mention the school bits, then you need to tie them in with the rest of the plot. How do these things relate to each other? Finally, if this is young adult, more than just mentioning school shenanigans, you probably want to write the query with a youthful voice.

Hope that helps. If you're not familiar with Query Shark, I'd start there. Read hundreds of queries. Good luck!
Tom Mullin wrote:
Dear (agent name here):

Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins does not expect to start seeing things with his new contact lenses. At first, he catches glimpses of shapes at the edges of his vision: Maggots. A single eight-inch ghostly maggot clings to each unknowing human host. I can't picture the part about the human host. I was thinking he's seeing wriggling spots on the edge of his vision.

Timmins’ eyes adjust. The shapes linger longer: Figures. They’re not human. I'm still confused. I think you should conserve your space in the query and directly say what Timmins sees without the bit about his eyes adjusting. Also I'm confused why you refer to him by his last name as opposed to first name? Last names might make sense for adult suspense or thriller but seems odd for YA

After the attack,[what attack?] obedient Timmins follows his routine and returns to school to recruit help. These familiarities [odd phrasing] are further disrupted by the arrival of the attractive new girl, evolving tenuous teen love triangles and surfacing emotions in friends and classmates. This last part is vague. Basically Timmins gets a crush? Who are these other people? Don't over-generalize what happens. Specificity is key, but also I'm not sure this is relevant.

Timmins welcomes this new dalliance, but the complexities that develop soon mirror his daily difficulties of continual bullying by classmates and warring parental divorce issues at home. I'm not getting how this is related to his magical contact lenses?

Also, an escalating cast of villains still come for the contact lenses to appease the needs of their evil mistress. Again, this is vague. Who comes for the contact lenses? I think you're trying to hold too much back, and I'm really not getting what the plot is.

Timmins must break out of his shell to take on all these demons… literal or not… or else the creatures will destroy him to get the precious contact lenses.

THE EYES HAVE IT is an 85,000 word young adult urban fantasy novel. This is my first novel and I am submitting it to multiple agents. A few agencies do specify to say it's a multiple submission, but most will assume it. You never have to mention this is your first novel.

add personalized stuff here (if I follow their blog or whatever - delete as necessary).

Thank you,

Thomas E. Mullin

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' YA urban fantasy query

Post by Tom Mullin » October 28th, 2012, 12:26 am

Hi wilderness:

Thank you for your comments.

I do read/have read Query Shark.

I am currently revising my query and I’ll post it again once I’m happy with the changes.

My ‘vagueness’ is me trying to hold back details to entice the reader and make them wonder about what’s going on. A lot of the questions you and Kristie ask are what you should be asking. (It might be too general. I concede that.)

Also, I tried not to get overlong in explaining stuff. Nathan posted once where the average query he got was between 200-300 words. I want to be concise and not long-winded.

The plot of this novel is like an early episode of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. The school bits are relevant to the basic plot in that as the group of friends investigates what Timmins sees, all that new girl/teen love triangle/bullying stuff surfaces and makes things difficult going forward and changes things at the end.

I don’t want to give the ending away or tell all the details in the query. Query Shark makes that very clear. It’s not supposed to be a synopsis.

I labeled it ‘YA urban fantasy’ because Timmins is sixteen years old as the main character. It’s really ‘action/adventure’ akin to a comic book more than anything. If it’s not YA, it’s the next level up (whatever that is). If I labeled it wrong, that’s easily fixed. This would cover your issues with ‘voice’ and calling Timmins by last name only.

Anyone else: feel free to put your two cents in.

Thanks.

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' (YA?) urban fantasy query - Revised

Post by Tom Mullin » October 30th, 2012, 1:29 pm

Here is my revised query with more details. Let me know if this entices you enough (moreso than the last one)...

The meat of it is 252 words - only two more than Query Shark recommends.

Thanks.

Dear (agent name here):

Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins does not expect to start seeing things with his new contact lenses. At first, he sees a single eight-inch ghostly maggot that clings to each unknowing human host.

Timmins’ eyes adjust with his introduction to this hidden mystical world. The formerly fleeting shapes linger longer. In addition to the maggots, he sees figures no one else can see. They’re not human.

After he’s attacked by a gremlin duo from Japanese mythology consisting of a tengu and a kappa, obedient Timmins follows his routine and returns to school to recruit help from long-time brainy female friend Shay. Timmins’ parents offer no assistance as they are enmeshed in a joint-custody battle over Timmins and his younger brothers.

An attractive new girl named Nadine arrives at school. The evolving tenuous teen love triangles between her and the guys disrupt things further as the group of friends investigates Timmins’ eye issues on their own.

Timmins welcomes this new dalliance with Nadine, but complexities develop as bully Rob wants Nadine also and emotions for Timmins surface in Shay.

An escalating cast of powerful villains still come for the contact lenses to appease the needs of their evil mistress Catherine. The magical contact lenses were meant for her purposes. She wants them back.

Timmins must break out of his shell to take on all these demons… literal or not… or else the creatures will destroy him to get the precious contact lenses.

THE EYES HAVE IT is an 85,000 word young adult urban fantasy novel.

add personalized stuff here (if I follow their blog or whatever - delete as necessary).

Thank you,

Thomas E. Mullin

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' (YA?) urban fantasy query - Revised

Post by writersink » November 1st, 2012, 4:03 pm

Tom Mullin wrote:Here is my revised query with more details. Let me know if this entices you enough (moreso than the last one)...

The meat of it is 252 words - only two more than Query Shark recommends.

Thanks.

Dear (agent name here):

Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins does not expect to start seeing things with his new contact lenses. The whole point of contact lenses is that they help you see things. This needs to be worded better. I think you can condense this, and the next sentence down into one. "Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins does not expect to see maggots clinging to unknowing human hosts with his new contact lenses." (Or an even SHORTER version of that :D) At first, he sees a single eight-inch ghostly maggot that clings to each unknowing human host.

Timmins’ eyes adjust with his introduction to this hidden mystical world. The maggots equate to an entire mystical world? The formerly fleeting shapes linger longer. In addition to the maggots, he sees inhuman figures no one else can see. They’re not human.

After he’s attacked by a gremlin Like the film? duo from Japanese mythology consisting of a tengu and a kappa, obedient Timmins follows his routine and returns to school Maybe word this better? I'm not sure what you mean to recruit help from long-time brainy female friend Shay Why does he need someone with brains?. Timmins’ parents offer no assistance as they are enmeshed in a joint-custody battle over Timmins and his younger brothers. That sentence feels like an add on for back story. Focus on what's interesting here.

An attractive new girl named Nadine arrives at school. The evolving tenuous teen love triangles between her and the guys disrupt things further I would consider getting rid of this. It's back story. as the group of friends investigates Timmins’ eye issues on their own. What group of friends? I thought it was just him and this other smart girl.

Timmins welcomes this new dalliance with Nadine, but complexities develop as bully Rob wants Nadine also and emotions for Timmins surface in Shay. Cut this. This is all back storyWho is Shay? Oh no wait... there's so many characters here right now. It's really confusing. What does this have to do with his contacts? Ignore all the subplots and focus on the fantasy element here - I assume that's your main plot.[/color]

An escalating cast of powerful villains still come for the contact lenses to appease the needs of their evil mistress Catherine. The magical contact lenses were meant for her purposes. She wants them back.

Okay, I think you've introduced WAY too many characters here. It's pretty much character soup right now. You've only got 250 words. Which of these characters is important? (I would recommend just talking about your MC and the villain.)

Timmins must break out of his shell to take on all these demons… literal or not… or else the creatures will destroy him to get the precious contact lenses.

I don't understand why he doesn't just give them the contact lenses? Why does he need to keep them? Surely he came just pop over to the Optician and get new ones?

THE EYES HAVE IT nice name :) is an 85,000 word young adult urban fantasy novel.

add personalized stuff here (if I follow their blog or whatever - delete as necessary).

Thank you,

Thomas E. Mullin

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' (YA?) urban fantasy query - Revised

Post by Tom Mullin » November 4th, 2012, 1:08 am

It’s a delicate balance to supply details yet remain enticing without giving the whole story away. Every version of this query makes sense to me, so I like getting varying points of view on it to see what it lacks.

I am not going to revise it to meet every question or comment posed in response. It doesn't need that.

The difficult part is trying to mesh what you all call ‘backstory’ or ‘subplot’ in this query with the fantasy elements of the main plot. To me, it’s all ‘the main plot' but I know how it ends...

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' urban fantasy query - Revised 11/9/12

Post by Tom Mullin » November 9th, 2012, 12:28 am

I think this query is getting better with every iteration. ‘Thank you’ to those who commented above. The latest version is below at 250 words total (before the ‘personalized’ part). Tell me what you think.

Dear (agent name here):

Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins’ new contact lenses cause him to see a single eight-inch ghostly maggot clinging to each unknowing human host. As his eyes adjust, his vision also reveals inhuman figures no one else can see.

Timmins’ introduction to the hidden mystical world is cemented when he survives an attack by a duo from Japanese mythology consisting of a tengu and a kappa.

The outcast teen recruits help from the smartest person he knows: long-time female friend Shay. Both of them have difficulties trying to fit in against bullying at school.

An attractive new girl arrives in Timmins’ class. Nadine sets off distracting tenuous teen love triangles when unrequited feelings for Timmins surface in Shay.

The urgency of the contact lens situation is lost on Timmins. Instead of going back to geeky glasses, Timmins unknowingly pits himself against escalating villianous forces. The Japanese duo attacks again. Their second failure sics the enchanter on Timmins.

The monstrous shape-changer has plans in place whether the enchanter succeeds or not. This battle-hardened warrior is more than ready to present Timmins’ head to his evil mistress Catherine. She will not stand for further failures to retrieve her property from a simple teenager. Catherine can pluck the lenses she needs from the boy’s eyes herself.

Timmins must break out of his shell to take on all these demons… literal or not… or else the creatures will destroy him to get the precious contact lenses.

THE EYES HAVE IT is an 85,000 word urban fantasy novel.

add personalized stuff here (if I follow their blog or whatever - delete as necessary).

Thank you,

Thomas E. Mullin

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' urban fantasy query - Revised 11/9/12

Post by LurkingVirologist » November 27th, 2012, 12:31 am

Getting better, but I still feel like you are info-dumping in the query. Aside from the issues of clarity/confusion mentioned above, my first thought would be "I wonder if the whole book is info-dumpy," which is not an impression you probably want to make.

The maggots make a good hook, both for their symbolism and basic squik factor, but you could probably condense the supernatural elements into something a bit more flowing: "...ghostly maggots clinging to their human hosts and strange figures at the edge of his vision. After being attacked by a pair of <insert adjective> Japanese gremlins, Timmins..." Or something like that. Less bullet-pointy, more narrative.

Same goes for the love triangle and the villains. Those situations both create stakes for the MC, but the details may not be terribly relevant in the query letter itself. Don't bother trying to cover the whole plot, just a couple of the juicy bits. Break it down to three mini-paragraphs:

1) ghost world
2) love triangle
3) somebody wants to pluck his freakin' eyes out!

Try to streamline your verbiage as part of converting it to a paragraph form. For example, "both of them have difficulties trying to fit in against bullying at school" can probably be replaced with the descriptor "fellow outcast," or something equally terse, which saves you about 12 words and gives you more opportunity to work in your voice.

Sounds like you've got an interesting story here.
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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' urban fantasy query - Revised 11/9/12

Post by Tom Mullin » November 27th, 2012, 3:24 pm

Thanks for your input LurkingVirologist.

I'll take your thoughts into consideration to make my query less of an info dump, but still remain enticing.

This is a difficult balance to be sure as my earlier versions get the 'you're too vague' criticism when I try to be cagey with the plot.

As I said in an earlier post here: all that teen drama stuff is relevant to the main plot. How much of it needs to be present in the query is for me to decide in revision.

I feel that if I cut parts of the plot from the query as it is now, I'll get wordy on other less relevant parts. Is it worth it to be that succinct for 250 words (or less)? I don't know.

My voice in the novel is very terse. Readers have told me that. I think it comes off in the query and pretty much anything I write (see the first version of this query or these posts for example). That's 'bullet-pointy' to you, but it's just the way I write.

Lots to think about.

Thanks.

Anybody else: feel free to offer your comments. (Somebody tell me, "You nailed it. This is great." Heh.)

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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' urban fantasy query - Revised 11/9/12

Post by Shipple » December 22nd, 2012, 1:49 pm

Hi Tom, I owe you a critique on your query since you left me a helpful comment on mine.
Tom Mullin wrote: Dear (agent name here):

Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins’ new contact lenses cause him to see a single eight-inch ghostly maggot clinging to each unknowing human host. As his eyes adjust, his vision also reveals inhuman figures no one else can see. I think this part is greatly improved. We get a much better sense of the set up now.

Timmins’ introduction to the hidden mystical world is cemented when he survives an attack by a duo from Japanese mythology consisting of a tengu and a kappa. I have no idea what a tengu or kappa are and can't imagine many agents will either. If you just call them a mythological Japanese duo, I actually think that's more clear.

The outcast teen recruits help from the smartest person he knows: long-time female friend Shay. Both of them have difficulties trying to fit in against bullying at school. Good! Now you're introducing Shay & I get why she's here.

An attractive new girl arrives in Timmins’ class. Nadine sets off distracting tenuous teen love triangles when unrequited feelings for Timmins surface in Shay. I'm sorry, but "tenuous teen love triangles" just does not sound natural to me. I get a lot of your other word choices, as unusual as they can be, but that phrase just sounds much more contrived to me.

The urgency of the contact lens situation is lost on Timmins. I'm a bit confused by this. How would going back to geeky glasses help with the urgency of the contact lenses, and I thought he was doing something. He was getting help from Shay & not ignoring the situation. This paragraph is giving me some conflicting information. Instead of going back to geeky glasses, Timmins unknowingly pits himself against escalating villianous forces. The Japanese duo attacks again. Their second failure sics the enchanter on Timmins. But now we have our obvious villian, which is great. Although I'm still not sure what connection they have to the maggots.

The monstrous shape-changer has plans in place whether the enchanter succeeds or not. This battle-hardened warrior is more than ready to present Timmins’ head to his evil mistress Catherine. She will not stand for further failures to retrieve her property from a simple teenager. Catherine can pluck the lenses she needs from the boy’s eyes herself. Ok, I think this is important & maybe should be mentioned a bit earlier, so we aren't as confused as to what these contact lenses mean in the context of your book.

Timmins must break out of his shell to take on all these demons… literal or not… What do you mean literal or not? I thought there were literal maggots. I think I'd nix this phrase myself.or else the creatures will destroy him to get the precious contact lenses.

THE EYES HAVE IT is an 85,000 word urban fantasy novel. Great title! And I've heard the title can really jumpstart interest.

add personalized stuff here (if I follow their blog or whatever - delete as necessary).

Thank you,

Thomas E. Mullin
Hi Tom, it definitely sounds like an interesting premise & I think your writing style will have an appeal to some in the YA market. Obviously everything I said is purely my own opinion & you can discount it if you want.

Good luck!
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Re: 'The Eyes Have It' urban fantasy query - Revised 11/9/12

Post by Marc Ezra » January 29th, 2014, 4:56 am

Hi, I'm new here and I see that you have an urban fantasy on your hands. From what I've read, you're battling that damned vague monster. I love to read queries within my own genre, so let's get started, hopefully I can help. My comments will be in read and my edits will be in blue.
Tom Mullin wrote:I think this query is getting better with every iteration. ‘Thank you’ to those who commented above. The latest version is below at 250 words total (before the ‘personalized’ part). Tell me what you think.

Dear (agent name here):

Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins’ new contact lenses cause him to see a single eight-inch ghostly maggot clinging to each unknowing human host. As his eyes adjust, his vision also reveals inhuman figures no one else can see. This is not a terribly compelling hook simply because it could be worded better. And it seems these "ghostly maggots" aren't elaborated on in your query. That usually means your query can survive without it. Try this: Sixteen-year-old Paul Timmins can finally see with his new contact lenses. But now he sees what no one else can, inhuman figures and eight-inch ghostly maggots clinging to unknowing human hosts

Timmins’ introduction to the hidden mystical world is cemented when he survives an attack by a duo from Japanese mythology consisting of a tengu and a kappa. The bold needs to be elaborated on. What exactly is this duo? Show us, not tell us. It especially doesn't help if the agent has to google what the hell a "tengu" and a "kappa" is. Remember, your agent of choice knows NOTHING about your novel or world, you have to explain every detail.

The outcast teen recruits help from the smartest person he knows: long-time female friend Shay. Both of them have difficulties trying to fit in against bullying at school.this can easily be: Timmins needs help, so he calls on the smartest person he knows, long time friend and fellow bully victim, Shay.

lump this with the last paragraphBut when the hot new girl, Nadine, arrives in their class showing an interest in Timmins, jealousy and some hidden feelings arises in Shay. An attractive new girl arrives in Timmins’ class. Nadine sets off distracting tenuous teen love triangles when unrequited feelings for Timmins surface in Shay.

The urgency of the contact lens situation is lost on Timmins. Instead of going back to geeky glasses, Timmins unknowingly pits himself against escalating villianous forces. The Japanese duo attacks again. Their second failure sics the enchanter on Timmins. I simply have no clue what any of this means. You need to elaborate. What exactly is this "situation" and why is it urgent? Why does this Japanese duo attack again? Why did they attack in the first place? Who exactly is the enchanter?Remember, your agent knows nothing.

The monstrous shape-changer who is this now?has planswhat plans? in place whether the enchanter succeeds or not. This battle-hardened warrior is more than ready to present Timmins’ head to his evil mistress Catherine Sheremove the bold whowill not stand fordelete further failures to retrieve her property from a simple teenager. Catherine can pluck the lenses she needs from the boy’s eyes herself.

Timmins must break out of his shell mhm. What shell now?to take on all these demons… literal or not… just don't do thisor else the creatures will destroy him to get the precious contact lenses.

THE EYES HAVE IT is an 85,000 word urban fantasy novel.

add personalized stuff here (if I follow their blog or whatever - delete as necessary).

Thank you,

Thomas E. Mullin
I do really like your premise and admire that fact that, as an urban fantasy writer, you create a concept all your own instead of feeding off the overdone vampire/werewolf thing. Your problem is definitely vagueness. You have to realize that none of us, even your all-knowing/powerful agent, can read your mind. You have to tell us everything that's going on and do it in a way that entices us to want to read more. Also, you bring up "Shay" and "Nadine" once. Do they have anything to do with the plot, or is the love triangle just another problem for your protag to deal with? You have to tell us this. If they can help, tell how. And you seem to refer to your protag by his last name--is this because of the voice of your novel? Does everyone else refer to him this way? If not, cut it.

I hope I helped! Best of luck on killing your query monster!

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