Query - Supernatural Thriller for Adults

Share your blood sweat tears query for feedback and lend your hard-won expertise to others
Post Reply
CFraser
Posts: 8
Joined: January 14th, 2013, 4:52 pm
Contact:

Query - Supernatural Thriller for Adults

Post by CFraser » January 16th, 2013, 11:28 am

Hi, I'm looking for some feedback on my blurb (or what I like to call a "written teaser trailer") for a yet untitled (three years and still no title definitive title...) adult supernatural thriller.


"An Angel with no memory. An ex soldier who can't let go. A patient at a mental health facility.

When Mary preaches the end of the world, she is quickly sanctioned. Years pass and she is adopted by a family who harbor old secrets, causing what she thinks is a relapse in her psychosis.

Gary is an ex-special forces operative, dishonourably discharged for shooting his wife in suspicious circumstances. Now he is tasked by Her Majesty's Paranormal Counter Insurgency Unit with catching a Serial Murder who has a penchant of mutilating his or her victims and leaving them in religious poses, dubbed the "Crucifix Killer".

On Christmas Eve, John Simmons receives an unexpected visitor at the end of his midnight mass; a man, burnt and cracked from an unknown fire, with a mind shattered and vacant. Taken in by John and his wife, the young man soon demonstrates abilities no human could possibly possess, leading him down a road that seems to be spiraling out of control.

Unforeseen circumstances forces these three individuals together as something from the shadows watches and waits."

All feedback welcome! Thanks!

calsea
Posts: 3
Joined: January 18th, 2013, 8:33 am
Contact:

Re: Query - Supernatural Thriller for Adults

Post by calsea » January 19th, 2013, 9:32 am

I found this disjointed and was confused. At first I thought Mary was the Angel, and realized at the end you were going in reverse order of the opening list. I suggest reformatting - something like this maybe:


A mentally ill patient: When Mary preaches the end of the world, she is quickly sanctioned. Years pass and she is adopted by a family who harbor old secrets, causing what she thinks is a relapse in her psychosis.

An ex-soldier haunted by his past: Gary is an ex-special forces operative, dishonourably discharged for shooting his wife in suspicious circumstances. Now he is tasked by Her Majesty's Paranormal Counter Insurgency Unit with catching a Serial Murder who has a penchant of mutilating his or her victims and leaving them in religious poses, dubbed the "Crucifix Killer".

An Angel with no memory: On Christmas Eve, John Simmons receives an unexpected visitor at the end of his midnight mass; a man, burnt and cracked from an unknown fire, with a mind shattered and vacant. Taken in by John and his wife, the young man soon demonstrates abilities no human could possibly possess, leading him down a road that seems to be spiraling out of control.

I would also make the descriptions parallel - eg start each with 'When ...

Finally, the last sentence is too vague for me -- what are the circumstance, what is something -- You might want to take a look at the trailers for the movie Crash -- "Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption." from IMDB.com

Now that I ripped your blurb apart -- I think your characters are interesting, and wonder how they will interact. Good luck with this.
BTW: Titles are hard.

nol_c
Posts: 2
Joined: January 22nd, 2013, 8:28 pm
Contact:

Re: Query - Supernatural Thriller for Adults

Post by nol_c » January 22nd, 2013, 8:46 pm

Hi. I think you have some great ideas here, but I think the overall query needs some polishing and clarification. I've put my comments below in red-hope they help!
CFraser wrote:Hi, I'm looking for some feedback on my blurb (or what I like to call a "written teaser trailer") for a yet untitled (three years and still no title definitive title...) adult supernatural thriller.


"An Angel with no memory. An ex soldier who can't let go. A patient at a mental health facility.This is so vague, it's meaningless. What is the central conflict in your story? I would state it clearly and put it here.

When Mary preaches the end of the world, she is quickly sanctionedsubstitute 'quickly sanctioned' for exactly what happened to her. Was she locked up in an assylum? Forced to take meds? Separated from society?. Years pass and she is adopted by a family who harbor old secrets, causing what she thinks is a relapse in her psychosis.This sentence is too vague. What are the old secrets? Why does this make Mary think she has relapsed?

Gary is an ex-special forces operative, dishonourably discharged for shooting his wife in suspicious circumstances.Again, this is too vague. What were the suspicious circumstances? Now he is tasked by Her Majesty's Paranormal Counter Insurgency Unit with catching a Serial Murder who has a penchant of mutilating his or her victims and leaving them in religious poses, dubbed the "Crucifix Killer".This is good. I might focus the whole query around this sentence.

On Christmas Eve, John Simmons receives an unexpected visitor at the end of his midnight mass; a man, burnt and cracked from an unknown fire, with a mind shattered and vacant. Taken in by John and his wife, the young man soon demonstrates abilities no human could possibly possess, leading him down a road that seems to be spiraling out of control.What are his special abilites?

Unforeseen circumstances forces these three individuals together as something from the shadows watches and waits."It's not clear if the 3rd person is John Simmons or the burnt man.

All feedback welcome! Thanks!
As you can probably tell from my comments, I'm intrigued (which is good). I'm also confused (which is not so good). I have also written a story with multiple main characters and struggled with how to squeeze them all into the query. I finally picked the main character most crucial to the story, and focused on her, leaving the other main character to the synopsis. Not sure if that is the right approach but you might want to play with centering your query around one character. Also, the main thing you want to do in your query is intrigue the agent with your brilliant plot, but after reading this query, I'm still not sure what the plot is. I suspect it centers around the hunt for the "Crucifix Killer' (really cool name, btw) so I would recommend starting there.

shahidjee
Posts: 1
Joined: January 23rd, 2013, 6:54 am
Contact:

Re: Query - Supernatural Thriller for Adults

Post by shahidjee » January 23rd, 2013, 6:56 am

Cecily Delahay is a Gifted harpist, a musician who possesses the ability to bring seven clockwork hummingbirds to life when she performs. And she's found herself a musical patron, the Duke of Fairfax, after only one audition. The Duke seems like the perfect patron at first – wealthy, well connected, and in possession of a fine mustache. But Cecily soon learns that the Duke's patronage comes with its own set of difficulties, and she finds herself inadvertently involved in his distressingly eccentric affairs.

CFraser
Posts: 8
Joined: January 14th, 2013, 4:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Query - Supernatural Thriller for Adults

Post by CFraser » February 8th, 2013, 10:06 am

Thanks for the feedback; will draft up another in the near future. Shah, I think you may have posted in the wrong thread :)

Theresa_B
Posts: 6
Joined: April 24th, 2013, 4:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Query - Supernatural Thriller for Adults

Post by Theresa_B » April 24th, 2013, 5:04 pm

I found the query very confusing. Like Calsea, I thought Mary was the angel. I didn't realize the first line had the characters listed in reverse order. I also have no clue as to what the plot actually is.

I'd consider rethinking how you introduce the characters, also, add in more info about the plot and why these three are drawn together. What is the conflict of the story? What is the threat of the thing that watches and waits?

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests