Any and all feedback is appreciated, thank you so much.

Dear AGENT,

I'm writing to see if you'd be interested in taking a look at my literary fiction novel, THE METHOD. As you represent xx and your website states you are seeking xx, I thought it might be of interest to you.

THE METHOD is a love story about art. It follows Olivia, an actress who has not been acting, and the creation of a film called Alba. 

Olivia is asked to audition for the lead role by her best friend, a producer, and arrives with the cast and crew in late autumn in southwest England. From the first Olivia is hesitant, overt in her bids to be liked, and painstakingly observant of her place among her fellow artists.

She plays the role of Liza, and the film follows her relationship with her controlling and abusive brother Bennett. They work from their small cottage as the town's folk healers, and they take on George, a man who seems to come from nowhere, as their apprentice. George becomes Liza's hope, an unexpected boon from the outside world, and the man she loves in silence.

Olivia is attracted immediately to Len, the actor who plays George. His talent and name have lent legitimacy to their small production, as has the considerable fame of the actress to whom he is married. Len's kindness and encouragement bolster Olivia against the simultaneous criticisms and attempts at closeness from Sam, the actor who plays her brother, and against her limited view of herself. Her and Len are matched in their desire to perform well, to create sincerely, and Olivia finds she is enraptured by what she can do while working alongside him.

As the film progresses, and Liza and George's devotion to each other deepens and ruptures the lives they know, Olivia is faced with similar ruptures - in her relationship with art, with Len, with her love for her friends, and with desire itself. Reality begins to meld with the work of creating fiction, and Olivia must decide if, like Liza, she will allow herself to see what she wants and ask for it.

THE METHOD will appeal to readers of Elif Batuman, Miranda July, and Eve Babitz, who enjoy stories where humour frames emotion and loss; plots that centre the relationships surrounding creative work such as WRITERS & LOVERS by Lily King; forbidden love stories with a strong sense of place like A PRIVATE MAN by Stephanie Sy-Quia; and devoted re-watchers of Fleabag. 

This is my first novel, and it is complete at 86,000 words.

I've attached xx. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you to BC and Yevdokiya for your help last time! I’ll be honest, I’m in an awful headspace right now. Some stuff happened that really triggered my insecurities, and I can’t help but feel pathetic for struggling so much with this. I know it’s not a race, though, and I’m so, so, so incredibly grateful for the support I’ve found here. I’m glad we can all keep trying our best together.

But that’s enough of my pity party. Any comments or critiques on my latest attempt would be appreciated!

TW for mentions of suicide.

Dear [agent],

Given your interest in [this], I’m presenting STRINGS OF FAETE, a standalone YA LGBTQIA+ contemporary fantasy novel with series potential. Complete at 96,000 words, it combines the bubbly, magical fae companion of F.T. Lukens’ Otherworldly with the themes of self-acceptance and mental health found in Mason Deaver’s I Wish You All the Best.

Sixteen-year-old Tatsuki Allen's beautiful dreams make him miserable. Each night filled with faeries and love makes each day with his unaccepting, homophobic father harder. After his friends discover him attempting suicide, Tatsuki is forced to move to America to live with his estranged mother and half-brother. When he’s accidentally knocked down the stairs at school, he’s saved by Winter Araenum, a boy who seems straight out of his dreams. They're strangers, yet Tatsuki can’t shake the feeling they’ve met before. He vows to befriend him.

Tatsuki strives to bond with his family and Winter but, hindered by cultural differences, fails to connect. He resolves to end his life, but is driven by an otherworldly urge to create a ring of stones first. By entering the ring, Tatsuki gains magical powers, including the ability to see Áine, a faerie who’s as friendly as she is manipulative. She’s been sent alone to rescue fae trapped in the human realm by her queen’s rival, and she implores Tatsuki, as the only awakened reincarnated fae around, for his help.

Longing for acceptance, Tatsuki agrees to rescue fae whose despair has twisted them into monsters. In return, Áine will take him to her realm, where he’ll revert to his past self. He might meet his past lover, but he’ll have to sacrifice his personality, body, and any chance of finding acceptance as himself. Between fighting a floating head in the bathroom of Target, connecting with Winter over their shared tastes in movies, and learning his dad lied about his mother abandoning him as an infant, Tatsuki has to decide who deserves to live more: his past or current self.

I’m a bisexual and demisexual high school English teacher who cares deeply about teens seeing themselves represented in literature. As my book deals with themes of depression and suicidal ideation, I had a therapist review it for sensitivity. I recently won a short story contest and was published in the April 2026 issue of Lavender Rising.

Thank you for your consideration,

[Name]

My previous attempt can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Querying/comments/1vulbja/query_strings_of_faete_ya_lgbtqia_contemporary/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=post_embed&utm_term=1&utm_content=1

Since you are looking for more [Genre/Theme], I would love to offer you SOLBORN: a space opera complete at 72,000 words. Imprisoned for massacring the noble family responsible for his wife’s murder, Alexander has accepted that he’ll die behind bars—until an imprisoned princess proves the mother he mourned is alive and marked for execution. SOLBORN combines the intense, character-driven stakes of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising with the raw emotional grief and family-driven secrets of Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory. It is a standalone with sequel potential.

Ex-Navy Vice-Commander Alexander dei Tharsicus is content to rot forever in the Solar Empire’s most secure prison for the slaughter of the noble family, children included, that had his wife murdered. But when he meets fellow inmate Selene dei Solvator, the Imperial Princess and second-in-line to the throne, imprisoned for plotting against her father, he doesn’t trust a word she says—until she shows him proof that his supposedly dead mother is still alive and marked for execution.

Selene’s bribed guards and powerful allies can get Alexander to his mother, but only if he puts his military expertise behind her coup to depose her father. Alexander engineers a way to overwhelm the prison’s reinforced barrier, allowing them to escape and reunite with his close friend from the Navy. To extract his mother’s location from the one person who has it, they stage a fake ransom exchange and kidnap Selene’s brother, the Imperial Heir. But as a fail-safe to bait Alexander back into his revenge cycle in case he is captured, the Heir manipulates the only surviving child of Alexander’s massacre into murdering his uncle and aunt.

While Alexander resists the urge for revenge to focus on finding his mother, the Heir weaponises his past to plant a seed of doubt in his friend’s mind. Having already betrayed Alexander once before out of envy, the Heir convinces him that Alexander is still that same man who murders children without a second thought. Terrified he’s right and always believing he never deserved Alexander’s forgiveness, the friend alerts the Empire to their location. Ambushed by Imperial ships, Alexander and Selene scramble to escape, leaving the Heir and the friend behind in the chaos. Quickly intercepted and forced to crash-land on a desolate moon, Selene’s impatience and belief in the mission’s failure turn her against Alexander as she looks to strike a deal with her father to end their rebellion. Aware that any moment could be his mother’s last, Alexander must decide if he can allow himself to slow down and reconcile with Selene or risk facing the Empire alone.

Hey everyone!

Thanks so much for the feedback so far! I decided to dial down the scope of the query and present just one POV in the blurb (went with the hooky POV instead of Gwen's). The last version was trying to pitch the entire novel in one go. Now I kept it to only 1/4th of the story. Also made sure both comps are from the past 5 years, and decided to put a little personality into the bio.

Dear Agent,

Aidan Soenksen meets the love of his life at her funeral. Gwen Laswell is no more than a cold body and a name, yet she’s defined his life. Aidan has been many things: the child suffering from Alzheimer’s, the prodigy violinist who put his hometown Ildred on the map, and finally, Gwen’s lover and the serial killer who made her his final victim. That’s what the world claims, at least. But no one here knows that Aidan lives backward in time. For him, this is the first day out of prison since he was born there as an old man. He’s yet to know Gwen. Yet to live in the proud seaside town of Ildred, Massachusetts, where he’s welcomed with unbridled hate.

Aidan knows tonight they will imprison him. Has heard about it all his life. But when he’s poisoned and loses consciousness, he wakes yesterday with no memory of it. Nancy Gallagher, a failed violinist who claims to be Gwen’s best friend and Aidan’s only ally, offers him a solution: on Gwen’s funeral she will make a gap in his memory to leave an opening in time to catch the real killer. One day no one knows the truth of—neither in the future nor the past. In exchange, Nancy wants Aidan to uncover the killer’s identity in the past and smuggle it across time to her.

But Aidan refuses Nancy. He goes rogue and studies the aftermath of Gwen’s murder to save her two days ago and rewrite history. Although history promises the love of his life who’ll keep forgetting him one day at a time. In an emotionally deprived existence like his, even such a doomed connection sounds like salvation. One that might be worth every crime now that his punishment has already been served.

SEASONS OF ATONEMENT (107,000 words) is a multi-POV upmarket speculative mystery with elements of romance. It combines the reverse-chronology murder mystery of Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister and the nonlinear exploration of grief in Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel.

I hold a degree in journalism and film, and when I’m not picking apart my pages, I edit footage as a videographer and editor for a sports nutrition company in Budapest, Hungary. The bigger the arms, the better writing. Obviously.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
[Author]

Back at about version. To see how this works. Currently using fake names to keep AI off. Any opinions or suggestions will be appreciated

Dear Agent,

Nash can’t stop fighting a losing war. Not now. Not while his sister is still alive. It doesn’t matter that he should have died like the millions of others bitten by the Toju. Or that neon-green veins streak his eyes. She’s the only family he has left.

People aboard his refugee space colony believe he’s immune to the bite. They're wrong. When he’s alone, in the quiet of his room, the Toju whisper: Give in, brother. And they say things. Things he doesn’t want to hear. Refuses to hear. Because the ruling Porter family he fights for took him in, gave him a home. Even his best friend John’s a Porter. 

No, Nash can’t look back—not at the night he lost his family, or the day he drove a knife through his friend–turned-Toju, or any of the failures that followed. But the voices get louder. And it feels like they’re there with him, comforting him. Worse, part of him—the scary part—is starting to enjoy the violence.

He needs to stop the war. So he’ll do the one thing he fears most: connect to the hive-mind and go behind enemy lines.

Then they call: Come home.

Now, giving in feels so right. Because he'll have a family again. A home. Everything he's always wanted—except his sister. And if anyone—Toju, human, or otherwise—harms his sister they will die.

Complete at 110,000 words, THE TOJU WARS is a multi-pov, dark space opera with horror elements, combining the corrupt leadership of Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh and the morally gray characters of These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs, alongside the psychological/body horror reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing. 

<<bio>>

The feedback has been amazing. (And thank you for answering my random questions!)

Given your interest in X. Told in dual POV, HEARTWORK is a 79,000-word annoyance-to-lovers romcom that combines the meta romance of Iman Hariri-Kia’s Female Fantasy, the heartfelt search for magic in B.K. Borison’s First-Time Caller, and the comedic dating gauntlet of Netflix’s Voicemails for Isabelle.

Love is twenty-five-year-old Sky Belova’s religion, and she dreams of turning her romance-inspired art into a future her Russian-immigrant parents can no longer label a phase. Accidentally going viral standing up for romance novels to a handsome stranger shouldn’t interfere with her (career-making!) arts residency in the Hamptons. Except it turns out he’s the owner’s son who also lives on the premises. With her family, her new neighbor Archer Callahan, and half the internet treating her ideals as fantasy, Sky bets Archer she can prove they’re not impractical—finding a happily ever after by filtering potential suitors through romance’s favorite tropes.

Archer accepts on one condition. If she fails, Sky publicly endorses his hookup app and turns virality into signups. After twenty-eight years of experiencing his parents’ marriage of convenience drive his brothers to opposing sides, the grumpy founder is set on building a fortune promoting noncommitment.

However, instead of “I told you so”, Archer soothes Sky’s dating disasters and encourages the rose-colored mentality she’s spent her life defending. Their feud transforms into fun banter and actual feelings that freak Archer out enough to sabotage what they have by using Sky's private dating life as social media fodder. As he attempts to orchestrate second chance into her next trope, Archer’s mission to right his wrongs could lead him to deprogram the core belief of his business. While Sky must choose between the stories that shaped her personal and artistic identity…or accept that real love doesn’t follow a narrative.

Hi! I’m sharing a query letter draft to Reddit (the past two times were in PT) for this project. I plan to post my 500-word synopsis in the coming days as well since my goal is to start my outreach to agents mid-Sept. Also, I’ll be specifically disclosing my BIPOC identity in the official query letter.

-

Good morning AGENT,

I am excited to present my adventure of an upper middle grade contemporary novel set against metropolitan Boston, ALICE IS ALMOST EVERYTHING, complete at 45,000 words. It is as a love letter to the BIPOC parentified eldest daughter but will appeal to fans of the overachieving mindset centered in Keeping Pace by Laurie Morrison, the alive-and-breathing city landscape and sister love of A Duet for Home by Karina Yan Glaser and heavy realities of parentification The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman by Gennifer Childenko features.

I trust you will enjoy this book and we would work well together because [PERSONALIZATION].

14-year-old Alice thinks she’s invincible — and there’s no better time to prove it than the summer before she starts high school.

When her Mom and Dad immerse themselves in legal battles over their divorce, Alice is assigned a series of responsibilities: keeping the house afloat, watching her two younger sisters and caring for her middle school graduation gift in the form of a bright red betta fish named Flash.

In Alice’s mind, as long as she keeps everything running smoothly as the newly appointed household manager, the world won’t fall apart. But then her parents break the news that they have spent too much money on their endless visits in court, leaving Alice’s hard-earned spot at McIntyre Preparatory Academy on the line.

Alice channels her signature tenacity into ensuring she gets to attend the Cambridge high school and quickly learns that 14-year-old logic can't solve adult problems. As her Beacon Hill household runs low on Windex and high on her mother’s grief, Alice’s perfect and careful hold on her responsibilities shatters. She must learn — even if it’s the hard way — that she deserves to be a kid fresh out of middle school and surviving the summer means risking letting her parents be parents.

I am a national K-12 education journalist, the parentified eldest daughter of divorce and a BIPOC woman who proudly considers Boston the shape of her heart on a map — all complexities included, and ALICE IS ALMOST EVERYTHING keeps that heartbeat going.

Thanks for your time and consideration!

Here we go again. 😊

Dear Agent,

I am excited to offer you Jouet, my 80,000-word upmarket speculative fiction novel. It reinterprets the tragic opera La Traviata, with a twist of Ex Machina and Companion. Jouet will appeal to readers who enjoy explorations of human relationships through AI perspectives, blending the poignancy of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun with the tense sexual dynamics of Sierra Greer’s Annie Bot. It is a standalone with series potential that retells other operatic storylines in the same world.

1. As Foli Corporation’s first Jouet—a synthetic human plaything—Leela provides pleasure to the elite. During forty-four-hour shifts of private sessions and decadent parties, she never fails to deliver, despite a possessive patron’s habit of giving her intoxicants that subtly damage her. She endures and enjoys, as designed, yearning only for more time to rest and read the old novels that fascinate her. One evening, a new patron, Lord Alferen, surprises her with genuine concern—yet soon after, her strained system malfunctions to the point of breakdown.

Permanently weakened, Leela fears Foli Corporation will end her existence. But Alferen visits, introducing her to human-created music; she adores it even more than non-algorithmic books. She delights in teaching herself piano and composing her own music, reveling in the promise of a future with him.

Leela's joy is cut short when she meets Foli Corporation’s leader, the sadistic Lord Fermand, and learns he is Alferen’s estranged father. The revelation that Alferen is studying her to launch synthetic humans as artists and romantic companions devastates her. Her distress deepens at Fermand’s plan to sell copies of the earlier Leela to her possessive patron. She is desperate to prevent their creation, sparing them the cycle of overuse, intoxication, and collapse. Anguished, she attempts to bargain with Fermand, ready to sacrifice her artistic aspirations and return to her patron to save her copies. Yet even as she offers her corporation’s leader pleasure in a bid to sway him, she has no idea whether Fermand’s word can be trusted. If this is a cruel ploy to punish his defiant son and wayward Jouet, she could be giving up her chance at happiness and accelerating her final breakdown, only for her copies to be sold anyway.

I worked as a classical soprano for twelve years. Violetta (La Traviata) was my favorite role. These days, I sing with my guitar or ukulele instead of an orchestra.

Thank you for your consideration.

Hello! I've changed the name of my book and characters from another post, so take those with a grain of salt for right now. I've gotten a couple of rejections in the query trenches so far and I've tweaked my letter AGAIN again, so I'd love some feedback one more time. What is missing? What isn't hitting? I've revised based on the most current feedback.

(personalization)

Serena likes people deep down; she swears. For her, human interactions always feel like the loud city crosswalks of her childhood: stressful and overstimulating. As long as she’s got her father, the mountain trails of her home in Pinewood Falls, Colorado, and a shallow fling, she survives just fine in stealth mode, thank you. 

When her father dies from the same mysterious autoimmune disease that’s been dominating the news, her reckless grief spiral ends in a bar brawl that almost takes her life, awakening magical abilities within her she, unfortunately, cannot avoid. 

Desperate for answers and begrudgingly lonely, she accepts an invitation from a long lost childhood friend to attend a support meeting for people like her. There, she meets a group of eclectic professionals who share in her newfound elemental abilities and history of ailing elder family members. She learns that, though they all have a unique magical ability, each comes with a steep cost. For Serena, she can heal others’ injuries, but only if she absorbs their physical pain into her own body.

She warily navigates these budding relationships, including an unexpected romantic connection with a necromancer, and together, they uncover the otherworldly mystery of their ancestral heritage. An amateur spy trip to Serena’s employer, energy company EASEC, reveals they have harvested Aeternamite, a life-giving mineral tethered to their blood, from another realm. Now the mineral is dying, and with only eight days until they are rounded up by EASEC for experimentation to try and fix it, Evera scrambles to collect and decipher pieces of the realm's lore for answers on how to stop the mineral’s rot.

Forfeiting her safety response of emotional distance, Serena chooses the vulnerable position of trusting her new friends, even in the face of more loss and the revelation that their elemental abilities and the deadly disease are connected and perhaps, inevitable for them all.

A WILDFLOWER'S GUIDE TO SURVIVAL, complete at 105,000 words, will appeal to fans of the visceral magic in ONE DARK WINDOW by Rachel Gillig, the lore in EMILY WILDE'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett, and the emotional depth of V.E. Schwab's THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE.

(bio)

Thank you for your time and feedback!

I have sent out 20 queries so far, but decided I neeeded to make changes to my author bio paragraph for future queries. The old bio was quite generic. I wanted to tie in some answers to the usual question of "Why are you the right person to write this novel?" I would love to get feedback on the complete letter:

Dear [Agent],

THOUSAND WINTERS GONE: RISEN is a 92,000-word adult dark fantasy. [Personalization line explaining why I believe this novel may be a strong fit for your list.]

Cassia is an ancient vampire bound by a hated yet unbreakable oath: remain hidden from her twin brother, Septimus, and kill him if he risks the exposure of their kind to the mortal world. Well, that’s just wonderful. Unfortunately, going against Sept is more like a death sentence.

Septimus has been in hibernation for over two thousand years. You know him as Jesus Christ. Now he has risen in an uncontrolled rage. Cassia joins forces with her brother’s four remaining followers, praying they can restore his sanity before the oath forces her hand. She loves Septimus, but she may have to decide whether to save her brother or save the mortals from his wrath.

This is a stand-alone novel with series potential. The story shares the mythic treatment of vampirism and religious legend of Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff, while its sardonic supernatural fantasy with horror elements places it alongside The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey.

I have had a lifelong infatuation with classic monsters, from my homemade Dracula costume at six years old to obsessively checking out the vivid orange Crestwood House Monsters books from my elementary school library. I’ve spent over 30 years as a metal musician, so when I’m not writing, you can usually find me playing guitar.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
[Name & contact info]

Thank you to BC and everyone else who has helped me! I did my best to incorporate all the advice I got last time, but as usual, I’m worried about my pacing. I’m also worried about clarity, as I feel I’ve been in an endless sparring match between word count and details. I’m wondering if I should make it more obvious that Winter is someone Tatsuki knew in his past life. That’s a dramatic irony situation that Tatsuki hasn’t figured out by the book’s end, so maybe it’s fine to keep it vague?

Any advice or comments would be appreciated! I’ll link my previous attempt at the end, just in case it’s helpful.

TW for mentions of suicide

Dear [agent],

Given your interest in [this], I’m presenting STRINGS OF FAETE, a standalone YA LGBTQIA+ contemporary fantasy novel with series potential. Complete at 96,000 words, it combines the bubbly, magical fae companion of F.T. Lukens’ Otherworldly with the themes of self-acceptance and mental health found in Mason Deaver’s I Wish You All the Best.

Sixteen-year-old Tatsuki Allen's beautiful dreams make him miserable. Each night filled with faeries and love makes each day with his unaccepting, homophobic father harder. After getting caught attempting suicide, Tatsuki is forced to move to America to live with his estranged mother and half-brother. Isolated from all he knows, he struggles to adapt. When a boisterous classmate knocks him down the stairs, he’s saved by Winter Araenum, a boy who seems straight out of his dreams. They're strangers, yet Tatsuki can’t shake the feeling they’ve met before. He vows to befriend him.

While striving to bond with his family and Winter, Tatsuki fights an otherworldly call from the woods, tempting him to revisit suicide. When his every effort ends in disaster, from injuring Winter to burning a gift for his mom, Tatsuki heeds the woods’ call. Instead of death, he meets Áine, a chipper but tactless faerie on a covert mission. She's seeking support to save her queen from a rival ruler, and Tatsuki, as a reincarnated fae, can help.

Longing for acceptance, Tatsuki agrees to a bargain: help rescue fae who have warped into monsters and now plague the human world, and, in return, gain his dream life…literally. But going to the fae realm means becoming his past self, sacrificing his personality, body, and any chance of connecting with his family or Winter. Staying human means forsaking guaranteed acceptance and the love of his dreams. Between fighting a floating head in a Target bathroom and fending off a fox-snake in Winter’s cousin's pool, Tatsuki must decide what it is he truly wants.

I’m a bisexual and demisexual high school English teacher who cares deeply about teens seeing themselves represented in literature. As my book deals with themes of depression and suicidal ideation, I had a therapist review it for sensitivity. I recently won a short story contest and was published in the April 2026 issue of Lavender Rising.

Thank you for your consideration,

[Name]

Previous attempt:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Querying/comments/1vjytv2/query_strings_of_faete_ya_lgbtqia_contemporary/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=post_embed&utm_term=1&utm_content=1

Back again with another attempt! Thanks so much for your help last time BC!

Dear [agent],

[personalization if applicable]

COURT SHIP is a dual POV sapphic sports romance complete at 80,000 words. Fans of the rivals-to-lovers arc featured in Kate Cochrane’s Wake Up, Nat and Darcy, the snarky humor from Ashley Herring Blake’s Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, and the basketball setting of Samantha Saldivar’s Play You For It will think this is a slam dunk.

WNBA player Dani Nichols’s endorsement deals dried up years ago, after Seven Sandstrom’s careless soundbite publicly branded Dani a team-hopping mercenary. When her brother’s mental health declines, Dani uproots her life to help him. But to maintain her sole source of income, she must join the local team — the Minnesota Pride, led by Seven. Incensed when Seven questions why she signed, Dani insults the team and threatens to replace Seven in the starting lineup. 

Aging hometown hero Seven blames herself for the Pride’s recent losing streak. But Dani’s disrespectful attitude activates Seven’s competitive side and her desire to protect her beloved team. Convinced that Dani will poison the locker room, Seven vows to send her packing. She’ll annoy her humorless new teammate into requesting a trade with a barrage of practical jokes. Instead, Dani returns fire, launching their prank war.

After discovering a mogul’s plan to buy and gut the Pride, Seven and Dani agree to stop their feud and strike a deal. They’ll attract a better buyer and bolster Dani’s market value with a championship run. Through trust exercises, charity events, and coaching sessions with a shy rookie, the quirky team gets past Dani’s defenses, and so does Seven. When a night out leads to a surprisingly tender hookup, Dani must decide if she can trust the woman who burned her. And by falling for her biggest competitor, Seven could sacrifice her heart — and the future of her beloved team.

I write stories that give queer women the happily ever afters we deserve. I hold a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from [college]. I live in [place] with three cats, one fiancé, and a closet full of Breanna Stewart jerseys. 

Sincerely,
[name]

Hello everyone, thanks so much again for all the previous feedback. This is my third attempt:

Since you are looking for more [Genre/Theme], I would love to offer you SOLBORN: a space opera complete at 72,000 words. Imprisoned for massacring the noble family responsible for his wife’s murder, Alexander has accepted that he’ll die behind bars—until an imprisoned princess proves the mother he mourned is alive and marked for execution. SOLBORN combines the intense, character-driven stakes of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising with the raw emotional grief and family-driven secrets of Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory. It is a standalone with sequel potential.

Ex-Navy Vice-Commander Alexander dei Tharsicus is content to rot forever in Fort Stygian, the Solar Empire’s most secure prison, for the alleged slaughter of the entire noble family that had his wife murdered. But when he meets fellow inmate Selene dei Solvator, the Imperial Princess and second-in-line to the throne, imprisoned for plotting against her father, he doesn’t trust a word she says—until she shows him proof that his long-dead mother is still alive.

Selene’s bribed guards and powerful allies can get Alexander to his mother, but only if he puts his military expertise behind her coup. Alexander engineers a way to overwhelm Fort Stygian’s reinforced barrier, allowing them to escape and reunite with his two closest friends from the Navy. To extract his mother’s location from the one person who has it, they stage a fake ransom exchange and kidnap Selene’s brother, the Imperial Heir. But as a fail-safe before he is captured, the Heir manipulates the only surviving child of Alexander’s massacre into murdering Alexander’s uncle and aunt.

While Alexander resists the urge for revenge to focus on finding his mother, the Heir weaponises his past to convince the friend Alexander had already forgiven once—for a previous betrayal in the Navy—that Alexander’s still that same man who murders children without a second thought. Terrified the Heir is right, the friend alerts the Empire to their location. Ambushed by Imperial ships, Alexander and the others scramble to escape, leaving the Heir and the traitor behind in the chaos. Quickly intercepted and forced to crash-land on a desolate moon, Alexander must rein in Selene’s reckless ambition before her refusal to further delay her coup destroys the only path to his mother.

Okayyy, tried to triple-quadruple check that the last few issues were tweaked, so hoping this one runs pretty close to ready... MS is still undergoing beta round #2 to see if those changes are working better (I'm estimating for 3 rounds, though that depends on feedback). You'll see I did change to mystery-thriller because I think BC is right that it's probably a suitable categorization.

-------------------------

One-line pitch: Collegiate figure skater Thalia spent the past month spreading rumors of her ex’s death, but when she finds him actually dying in the rink locker-room, she weaponizes an anonymous social media account to ensure she’s not blamed for the murder. 

Dear Agent, 

At 87,000 words, my mystery-thriller FLY! features a competitive figure skater hunting down her hockey ex-boyfriend's killer. It blends the absurdity and internet sleuthing of LM Chilton’s *Don't Swipe Right*, the self-sabotaging grief of Gloria Chao’s *The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club*, and a rogue online gossip account, found in *Gossip Girl*.  

When Thalia Greenwich’s Riverglades University figure skating team leader mandates dating a hockey player for “team bonding purposes,” she doesn’t realize what a liability he’ll be. Darryl, the smelly philandering boyfriend she acquires, is soon forced into the witness protection program for his testimony against the creators of black-market performance enhancers. To protect him (and save face), Thalia’s been telling everyone he’s dead ever since. Then Darryl has the audacity to show up at her rink and actually die.  

Worse still, Thalia is the one to find him gasping his last word: “Poison.” Thalia is traumatized by the memory and needs extensive therapy she can’t really afford—not with dorm rent, skating sessions, and competition fees to pay for. But what really vexes her is several anonymous letters she receives with photos of her in public and threats to frame her if she continues to insist it was murder, not suicide. Her envisioned college experience of team camaraderie and reconnecting with her elder brother, who’s just moved back to Florida, did not include becoming collateral damage for her ex’s mistakes.   

Vengeful and sleep-deprived, Thalia doubles down with her own plan: anonymously publicize the evidence she uncovers about Darryl’s death and expose suspects’ motives via a social media account until she (ideally) teases out the murderer. But Thalia learns the killer has begun acting on their warnings by feeding the cops misleading information about her admittedly tenuous relationship with Darryl. As she resorts to more unethical and desperate methods such as planting audio-recording devices in the locker room, her tactics increasingly have unintended repercussions, souring her team leader’s reputation and jeopardizing her brother’s new career. However, Thalia would rather be killed in her pursuit than spend a lifetime confined to a cell with no ice to skate on.  

Hello! I've changed the name of my book and characters from another post, so take those with a grain of salt for right now. I've gotten a couple of rejections in the query trenches so far and I've tweaked my letter again, so I'd love some feedback. What is missing? What isn't hitting?

Dear Agent,

(personalization)

To Serena Sparrow, human interactions are like the loud city crosswalks of her childhood: stressful, overstimulating, and avoidable if you know where to look. As long as she’s got her father, the forest trails in the mountain town where they now live, and the occasional shallow fling, she can survive just fine, thank you. 

When her father dies from the same mysterious autoimmune disease that’s been dominating the news, she launches into a destructive grief spiral that almost takes her life, resulting in magical abilities she, unfortunately, cannot avoid, like the wildflowers that bloom when her emotions flare. 

Desperate for answers and begrudgingly lonely, she accepts an invitation from a long lost childhood friend to attend a support meeting for people like her. There, she meets a group of eclectic professionals who share in her newfound elemental abilities and ailing elder family members. She learns that, though they each have a unique magical ability, it comes at a steep cost; for Serena, she can heal others’ injuries, but only if she absorbs their physical pain into her own body.

She warily navigates these budding relationships, including an unexpected romantic connection with a necromancer, to uncover the otherworldly mystery of their bloodline and ancestral heritage. It is discovered that her employer, energy company RAESTOR, has harvested Anemite, a mineral tethered to their blood, from another realm. Now the mineral is dying, and with only eight days until they are rounded up by RAESTOR for experimentation as an effort to fix it, Serena and her friends scramble to collect and decipher pieces of the realm's lore for a way to stop the mineral’s rot.

Serena must sacrifice the safety of emotional distance for the messy uncertainty of being perceived, trusting her new friends despite the risk of more loss and the revelation that their elemental abilities and the deadly autoimmune disease are connected and perhaps, inevitable for them all. 

A WILDFLOWER'S GUIDE TO SURVIVAL, complete at 105,000 words, will appeal to fans of the visceral magic in ONE DARK WINDOW by Rachel Gillig, the lore in EMILY WILDE'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett, and the emotional depth of V.E. Schwab's THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE.

(bio paragraph)

Thank you for reading!

Dear [Agent Name],

[Personalization] I am excited to present THE TOXIC TIDE, an Adult Fantasy Thriller complete at 85,000 words. Told in dual POV, it combines the technical underwater tension of The Girl Beneath the Sea by Andrew Mayne with the high-stakes, tactical chess match friction of The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake, making it perfect for fans of high-stakes forced proximity and secret identities. THE TOXIC TIDE is a standalone novel with series potential.

Twenty-four-year-old Kye Aphrodite will do anything to protect her hidden mermaid colony off the coast of California. But when an unmapped salvage vessel releases a cloud of tracking chemicals directly over her family's underwater sanctuary, Kye panics. Her vocal frequencies spike into a defensive sonic scream, shattering the ship’s hull and driving the vessel onto a jagged reef. When the Coast Guard tasks her environmental agency with monitoring the fallout, her boss assigns Kye as the liaison to the civilian salvage team because the wreck sits directly in her research zone. There, she is forced to partner with the lead expert: Dillon Yusei, a suspected mermaid hunter. 

What Dillon doesn't know is that his own father secretly orchestrated the unauthorized trap.  The forced partnership turns cutthroat when they realize the wrecked vessel is leaking a toxic chemical weapon designed specifically to eradicate mermaids. For Dillon, securing the volatile ghost ship is his one shot to salvage his family's crumbling maritime legacy and prove he is more than just his father's shadow.

To save her people, Kye must dive directly into the contaminated waters alongside Dillon, matching his aggressive salvage tactics while preventing her own skin from reacting to the anti-marine toxins. For Kye, the stakes are existential; the spill will wipe out her hidden colony within seventy-two hours. But when a section of the wreckage collapses underwater, Kye faces a devastating choice: let Dillon drown to protect her secret, or use her biological abilities to save his life and expose her true nature to a man born to hunt her.

I am a marketing professional with a HubSpot Social Media certification, currently building targeted digital campaigns for a real estate agency. Alongside my writing, I look forward to leveraging this platform-building expertise to connect with the online "Romantasy" and "Eco-Thriller" communities on BookTok and Bookstagram. I live in New Hampshire, where I spend my time researching marine salvage and exploring the Lakes Region with my husband and our dog.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Hello! I've been editing this query on my own, and since this is my first time querying, I'm very stuck. I've been told to stay within 30-50% of my book, but a huge plot point of my novel takes place near the end (Nick is offered an art scholarship and has to leave to France for 3 years before he comes back and they are reunited again). I don't want it to come across as getting caught is the only thing at stake, but I also don't want to be too vague either. I would love some feedback on where I should go with this. Thank you so much!

***

Dear [Agent],

I am thrilled to submit my Adult Contemporary M/M Romance, To: You, complete at 82,000 words, which works as a standalone with series potential. My novel is full of yearning, witty banter, and two men trying not to fall for each other, but failing beautifully, all within a high-heat, dual POV, and time-spanning college romance. It also carries the deep emotional growth of Alexis Hall's London Calling series and the lingering second-chance intensity of Casey McQuiston's The Pairing.

Two years after a steamy but awkward bathroom encounter at their high school graduation party, Ren Sanders freezes as Nick Sommers walks into his college literature class, like a ghost he can't exorcise. Ren has spent two years trying to convince himself that night meant nothing, but the moment Nick sits down three seats ahead of him, he forgets how to breathe like a normal person. Desperately, he tries to bury the memory, but Nick unravels him in a matter of weeks, drawing out the fierce temper and chaotic emotions that Ren has never revealed to anyone else. Wanting Nick was supposed to have an expiration date. It didn't.

Beneath the polished golden-boy image forced into him by his demanding parents, Nick hides a witty, playful humor that he reserves solely for Ren—the only person who ever asked, so sweetly, for the real him. Where the rest of the world demands perfection, Nick shows up for Ren's flaws, seeing everything from the enormous collection of unread books to his inexplicable hatred for vegetables. Whether he is dancing with him on the beach when everything feels too heavy, or surprising him on spontaneous trips so Ren never has to be alone in his own head, he simply stays. Slowly, a private sanctuary forms in Nick's apartment above an old bookstore, and Ren realizes that love isn't something he has to survive; it's something he gets to keep.

But a love built in secret is fragile. When Ren's closest friend inadvertently uncovers their relationship, panic triggers Ren's deepest trauma: the memory of his aunt, cast out and rejected for loving who she loved. Terrified of a world he considers too dangerous to live in openly, Ren pushes Nick away, choosing the safety of isolation over the risk of being seen. However, running can only protect his heart for so long. With a ticking countdown to a life-altering shift approaching and a heartbreaking separation threatening to part them by an ocean, Ren must find the courage to stand up for their love before their story becomes nothing more than an unfinished sentence.

[Bio]

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Here we go.

Dear Agent,

I am excited to offer you Jouet, my 79,000-word literary science fiction novel. It reinterprets the tragic opera La Traviata with twists of Ex Machina and Companion. Jouet will appeal to readers who enjoy explorations of human relationships through AI perspectives, blending the poignancy of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun with the tense sexual dynamics of Sierra Greer’s Annie Bot. It is a standalone with series potential that reinterprets operatic storylines in the same world.

1. As the first Jouet—a synthetic human plaything—Leela provides pleasure to the elite of Foli Corporation. For forty-four-hour work phases of private sessions and decadent parties, she never fails to deliver. She even enjoys herself, as designed, but she longs for more time to rest and read the human-created novels she adores. Soon after a new patron, Lord Alferen, shows genuine concern, her overloaded system malfunctions—she collapses.

Severely weakened, Leela must recuperate. Her inability to perform her function crushes her as much as the prospect of shutdown terrifies her. Yet when Alferen visits, sharing emotional intimacy and human-created music, she awakens to previously unimagined passions. She delights in teaching herself to play piano and compose her own music, reveling in Alferen’s tender encouragement and her newfound inspiration.

Leela's joy is cut short when she meets Foli Corporation’s leader, Fermand, and learns that he is Alferen’s estranged father. She is dismayed to discover that Alferen is studying her to create more advanced synthetic humans for a rival corporation, yet she still loves him. The revelation that Fermand intends to make copies of her to perform her old function disturbs her more profoundly. After her recent evolution, she is desperate to preserve her individuality and prevent her copies from being made, sparing them from the existence she knows all too well.

Anguished, Leela bargains with Fermand: she will sacrifice the creatively fulfilling future Alferen planned for her and resume her old function herself. She seals the deal with her body. Yet she remains unsure whether Fermand’s agreement is sincere, or a sadistic ploy to punish his defiant son and wayward Jouet. If the latter, she has sacrificed all she has grown to love and accelerated her final breakdown, only to be copied anyway.

I worked as a classical soprano for twelve years. Violetta (La Traviata) was my favorite role. These days, I sing with my guitar or ukulele instead of an orchestra.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you to everyone for your feedback!

Told in dual POV, HEARTWORK is a 79,000-word annoyance-to-lovers romcom that combines the meta romance of Iman Hariri-Kia’s Female Fantasy, the heartfelt search for magic in B.K. Borison’s First-Time Caller, and the comedic dating gauntlet of Netflix’s Voicemails for Isabelle. Given your interest in X

Love is Sky Belova’s religion, and she dreams of turning her romance-inspired art into a future her Russian immigrant parents can no longer label a phase. Her summer residency is her big break, so going viral for defending the validity of romance novels to a handsome stranger is simply an embarrassing detour…until arriving at the arts residency and discovering he’s the owner’s son who also lives on the premises.

Sky seizes the chance to wipe the smirk off Archer Callahan’s face and prove to everyone in her life she isn’t living in a fantasy world, betting that she’ll get her happily ever after by filtering potential suitors through her favorite tropes. After watching love hurt his family the entirety of his twenty-eight years, the grumpy hookup app founder built a fortune wagering against the scam we call commitment. So Archer only accepts if, upon failing, Sky publicly endorses his anti-romance app, turning virality into signups.

Except instead of “I told you so”, Archer soothes Sky’s dating disasters and even encourages the rose-colored mentality she’s spent her life defending. After their feud transforms into fun banter and five-chili-pepper-level attraction, Sky learns that while his support was genuine, Archer’s been using her private dating life as social media fodder. Though he tries to win her back by orchestrating second chance into Sky’s next trope, after finally choosing herself over the opinions and expectations of those around her, she must decide if Archer belongs in her happy ending.

ALT STAKES: Though Archer tries to win her back by orchestrating second chance into her next trope, Sky must decide whether the love stories she shaped her identity—and portfolio—around belong in real life or were only meant to exist in fiction.

NOTE: I tried following the dual POV structure, though the first sentence in the second (Archer’s) paragraph made the first (Sky’s) paragraph too long. I felt like it could work in the second because it’s the inciting incident, and not only about Sky.

FIRST 500:

Only One Coffee 

When two people are forced—by circumstance, caffeine shortages, fate, or an overworked barista—to accidentally share a coffee order, resulting in escalating tension and at least one prolonged stare over a cardboard cup sleeve. 

Often manifests through variations of the classic one bed trope (also known as one room, one horse, one tent, etc.).

Visual markers include lipstick on a plastic lid, steam rising into the air, and a pair of oversized sunglasses.

See Wayne Thiebaud. 

Sky 

 
Two thoughts hit me at once: first, this is the last time I follow my best friend’s advice, which has previously included shroom-infused face lotion. The second is that I might be having a heart attack. 
All the blood in my body just rushed to my perpetually swoony organ, so I’ll have to circle back to the first thought later. Thump. So many thumps. 
I’m at one of those places where the line—more of a cluster, really—is the main attraction. Where the sure-to-be-subpar coffee, made to feel exclusive with a $15 price tag is almost beside the point. However, no one in the shop’s too-sceney-for-eight-in-the-morning collective manages to pull focus from the man responsible for my coronary. 
A woman in enormous black Céline sunnies bumps into me on her way out, gripping her matcha like it’s more human baby than seafoam green liquid. God bless her. She jostled me out of my stupor. 
Re: my first thought. If a café could have an affiliate link in bio, this one would. Admittedly, the ceramic mugs lining the floating oak shelves below a minimalist black menu board are very aesthetically pleasing. 
“Piccolo!” a barista calls out.
I roll the sleeve of my flowy dress in case the counter is dirty and reach for the cup. A masculine hand lands on it at the same time, causing mine to awkwardly entwine with his. My eyes move slowly upward, along the slightly wrinkled, beige linen sleeve of the man’s shirt until they rest on a very tan face about six or seven inches above my own. 
The din of the coffee shop fades, my heart stuttering. Is this—could this be what I think it is?
He’s devastating. Attractive in the sort of way that suggests he knows it. The type to have Monica slash Blonde from Surf Lodge and Lauren slash Brunette from Gurney’s in his contacts. 
I should stop staring. 
“I believe this is my drink,” he—the he—says, grinning lopsidedly and revealing a dimple on his left cheek.
“I believe this is my drink,” I correct him pleasantly, silently commanding myself to be cool.
It’s hard enough locating the silky ristretto shot topped with steamed microfoam in Manhattan, let alone East Hampton. Typical. The more you want something, the more the universe insists on hiding it in the very last rack of a sample sale. 
“You sure about that?” 
My head tilts. Who’s condescending over coffee? Like, imagine gatekeeping bean water. “Pretty sure, yeah. Fifteen minutes is a long wait, but not long enough for me to forget my order.”

Thank you BC-Writes for always giving such comprehensive feedback. Thank you for the other people who've chimed in as well. I've reworked my manuscript and my query for close to a month now so I'm looking for feedback again before I send one off to an agent.

Thanks again!

Dear Agent,
(Personalization)

I’m excited to share THE KNIGHT’S RESOLVE, a YA Fantasy standalone with series potential complete at 96,000 words. THE KNIGHT’S RESOLVE has the court intrigue of Brigid Kemmerer’s Defy the Night series with a magic system reminiscent of Lynette Noni’s The Prison Healer.

Sixteen-year-old Adriana Flores is cursed. Since the age of twelve, Adri has been doomed to be hated and violently attacked by anyone she speaks with three times. With her family as her safe haven and years of hatred never giving any answers, all Adri wants is to be left alone. But one day Adri’s parents are touched by the curse and grow violent. 
While trying to run from them, Adri accidentally stumbles into the kingdom of Euphoria. There, Adri finds that she looks exactly like Euphoria’s princess, who has gone missing in the wake of death threats from the Order of the Black Lily. And the order would rather see the kingdom crumble than see a queen continue to rule. 
 In Euphoria, Adri is mistaken for the princess by the palace chamberlain and given an offer she can’t refuse---play the princess’s part in exchange for safety from those that would come to hate her. Adri accepts, and finds that if she doesn’t share her real name, her curse no longer has any effect. When the only obstacle to conversation is awkwardness and not death Adri can finally lead a normal life.  But the princess is still missing, the only clue being that she was searching for an ancient talisman that can break any curse.
When Adri searches for the cursebreaker she must face the source of her curse, and a destiny that will change her life forever.

(Bio)

Thank you

Passing as a human on land, mermaid KYE APHRODITE is desperate to protect her hidden colony off California. When an unmapped salvage vessel, the Valkyrie, leaks chemicals over her underwater sanctuary, Kye’s panicked sonic scream shatters the ship’s hull, grounding it on a reef in her research zone. Assigned as environmental liaison, Kye must partner with lead salvager DILLON YUSEI, who secretly hunts mermaids for sport. When Dillon attempts to bypass safety protocols, Kye uses historical environmental precedent to block the lift and assess the toxic spill before it wipes out her colony in 72 hours.

The stakes skyrocket when Dillon discovers the sunken vessel belongs to his family and covertly transported chemical weapons designed to eradicate mermaids. As toxins leak into the reef, their rivalry yields to an uneasy truce. Kye sends a distress text to her colony, per protocol, starting an evacuation that goes unanswered..

When wreckage collapses underwater, Kye reveals her mermaid nature to save Dillon. During a harrowing ascent, Dillon battles his instinct to destroy or exploit her, realizing he now owes a life debt to the creature he was raised to hunt. Trapped overnight in the lab under a strict deadline to analyze the chemicals, Dillon’s defenses crumble as Kye repeatedly defies his monster profile, turning their high-stakes tension into physical intimacy. Through a records search, Dillon uncovers a hidden connection: Kye's mother was allegedly the mermaid who killed his mother, prompting his father's retaliatory explosion 17 years earlier—Kye barely survived as a child.

The arrival of Dillon's ruthless father, TALION YUSEI, tests their fragile truce as Dillon ignores Kye to avoid contradicting his father, leaving Kye unsure of where he stands. While Talion pushes to entomb the wreck on the seafloor, Dillon covertly blacks out dive cameras and uses an ROV to steal the ship's black box, protecting his family's secrets.

After securing the Valkyrie onto a barge, Talion ignores safety protocols and triggers a catastrophic chemical reaction. Kye removes her protective mask to secure the decontamination bay—saving both men and earning a second life debt from Dillon—but suffers severe toxin poisoning. Still reeling from the case file discovery hours earlier, a conflicted Dillon exploits her disoriented state to confirm her secrets before rushing her to medical.

Locked away and fighting for her life, Kye must forcibly suppress her body's rapid cellular regeneration so Talion and the medical staff do not discover her non-human nature. Meanwhile, a badly burned Dillon leaves her side to bring the volatile chemical fire under control so the barge can finally make port. Back on shore, a recovering Kye fakes unconsciousness to escape into a waiting ambulance.

Talion corners his son, revealing he knows Kye is a mermaid. Reviewing the stolen black box footage in isolation, Dillon uncovers the ultimate dual truth: proof his father ordered the chemical deployment, and footage revealing Kye’s desperate scream sank the ship to evade capture. With the sanctuary ecologically decimated, Dillon is left holding the footage while Kye’s colony faces an uncertain future.