Query critique 10/21/21

Offer up your page (or query) for Nathan's critique on the blog.
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Nathan Bransford
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Joined: December 4th, 2009, 11:17 pm
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Query critique 10/21/21

Post by Nathan Bransford » October 18th, 2021, 12:09 pm

Want to see how your editing approach compares to mine?

Below is the query up for critique on the blog on Thursday. Feel free to chime in with comments, create your own redline (please note the "font colour" button above the posting box, which looks like a drop of ink), and otherwise offer feedback. When offering your feedback, please please remember to be polite and constructive. In order to leave a comment you will need to register an account in the Forums, which should be self-explanatory.

I'll be back with my own post on the blog and we'll literally be able to compare notes.

If you'd like to enter a query for a future Query Critique, please do so here.

Dear [Agent name]

I've seen several books you have represented and you indicate that you welcome memoir. Following is a query for my double memoir, The Last Time You Fall: Three Weeks When Love Meant Everything and Acceptance Meant More. This is a double memoir, so also features the words of Teresa, told in vignettes and reminiscences by "Me" or "Her."
It began amid a critical period in my life, September, 1964 at a college dance where I met a cute, blonde Coed. After a rocky start - I was smitten by her looks and smile; she loathed me - we became an item. From there our lives intertwined and traveled in parallel while we attended classes, wrangled precious time together, and learned about love and acceptance. Love, because we wanted it. Acceptance, because we needed it, especially Teresa. Born handicapped by cerebral palsy, she'd craved it all her life.
Yet we were very different. I originated from a lower-middle class family, while Teresa was from money and privilege. Our one commonality was that we each loved art, music and dance. We did have similar goals: we both wanted to escape our restricted lives growing up: I aspired to be an architect; Teresa to become a Special Education teacher. There were contrasts: I was naïve in many ways; she disarmingly street smart, savvy - and charming. She was crippled - her word - and I didn't care; I fell totally in love with everything about her. She felt the same about me and gave her best advice to polish the "sterling character" she said I had.
All this was out in the open to us both and by week three I was ready to ask her to marry me.
Yet everything was not as it seemed. My life had started to coalesce, while Teresa's life shredded as threats of expulsion crushed in on her. Teresa hid this deterioration from me and then abruptly cut off our relationship. She timidly confessed that her words and actions had all been a lie, that she'd merely played with me in response to a dare from dormmates. Besides, she was promised to another.
What happened after that, what I did and most importantly, what she almost did and why is the rest of the story.

This work is complete at 81,600 words.

Thank you for considering this. Profile for me under separate cover.

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