Query critique 10/29/20

Offer up your page (or query) for Nathan's critique on the blog.
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Nathan Bransford
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Query critique 10/29/20

Post by Nathan Bransford » October 26th, 2020, 12:14 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 {amazing agent person},

Beyond the Rings of Imagination is a 76,000 word young adult space opera with romantic elements. The story mixes the seedy underbelly of space life seen in Firefly, with the drug culture of Breaking Bad, and the culture shock and romance in Save the Last Dance. It will appeal to the readers of Sharon Shinn and Maria V. Snyder.

Sixteen-year-old Shara Bransford dreams of studying exovirology to stop otherworld contaminates from endangering Earth, but after rejection from her dream university and her mother’s death, Shara must live on her father’s mining ship in the rings of Saturn. Spacers often discriminate against Earthers, who lack skin the mutations which protect against radiation, and Shara’s skin resembles her mother’s, more peachy than green.

A rust fungus has infested the ship’s arboretum. Eradicating the fungus without harming the plants will help her family grow the food they need while enhancing her next application to her dream university. Despite her Earther status, Shara finagles an interview with a professor to discuss her project and discovers the fungus is the main ingredient in the system’s most addictive drug. Her stepmother is growing the rust on purpose. Shara’s research proposal angers the Feldichi Drug Cartel. They retaliate with a bomb that breaches the ship’s hull, kills Shara’s grandfather and gravely injures her father. To save her father’s life and free her family from Feldichi control, Shara must abandon her educational aspirations. Only her imagination, gumption, and willingness to push science into the future can combat the cartel poisoning the entire solar system.

I would be happy to send you the complete manuscript upon your request. Thank you for your time and consideration,
Heidi Wainer

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