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Seventeen-year-old Micah Oliver doesn’t have time to get involved why doesn’t she have time? Use this opportunity to let us know something about her. with one boy, let alone two. But when the McAlister twins move to town, that’s exactly what happens. I felt like the last half of this sentence let me down. Like you went with the too obvious choice. Maybe instead, try something that gives us a hint of what’s going to happen while staying away from cliches like “her life will change forever.”
Logan’s lost three months of memories, and while no one will tell him what happened the night he lost those memories, it was bad enough to move his family across the country. But the secret Logan can’t remember is the one Luke can’t forget. And Luke doesn’t want Logan to remember – the truth of what really happened the night Logan’s girlfriend died would destroy them both. There’s a lot of info and innuendo here, but I feel like it lacks punch and emotion. I’m going to take a stab at a rewrite:
Logan remembers nothing about the night his girlfriend died. Not even his twin brother, Luke, will tell him what happened, but it was terrible enough for his family to uproot and move clear across the country.
The secret Logan can’t remember is the one Luke will never forget. [maybe something about him meeting/falling for Micah] Luke prays [or something more appropriate to his character] Logan never regains those memories, because the truth of that night would destroy his family. But when Logan’s memories start to return, Luke knows it’s time to face the truth – even if it means losing Micah in the process.
Micah, Logan, and Luke are about to learn there’s only so far you can run before the truth catches up with you.
RECLAIMED is a contemporary young-adult novel, complete at 82,000 words, and told from alternating points of view of the three teens.
This sounds really interesting, but I’m still a little confused about how Micah fits in. Right now, she just kinda feels like a prop.
Also, I wanted to point out that three POVs is hard to sell in YA right now. I’m not saying it can’t be done or that you won’t do it, I just want to let you know you’re fighting an uphill battle – so you can be prepared for that.
Readers, please add your comments and suggestions down below!
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Wow, this was a good query! But it does need work. I agree COMPLETELY with… oh gosh, everything Sarah said. So this will be me, repeating everything like a freak.
WAIT! I think there is one thing new that I have to contribute :) After reading this query, it was kind of like, “Okay.” It didn’t stick with me, and it was because the stakes were not really enforced into me. The reader does not know what there is to lose because we don’t know HOW horrible the ‘secret’ is. It doesn’t work to just say ‘Oh, it’s really horrible, believe me.’ I’ve heard at least one agent say that, if it calls for it, one should ‘spoil’ the book in the query. It was this agent’s pet peeve to blatantly tease.
We cannot connect or feel the depth of this situation until we really know the situation. I think you really can HINT at the secret, like one small little thing where the agent goes “Holy crap, wait, does that mean what I think it does?”
I hope I helped! Take my crit with a grain of salt :) Good luck!
And the 3 POV really seems a bit of a problem to me — Micah does seem INCREDIBLY thrown in, almost as if she is not part of the story at all.
I agree. Micah seems like a side prop and not an MC. From the query, I get the feeling that the story is really about Luke and Logan. Also, 3 POVs does sound difficult to maintain and maybe a little confusing for the reader.
The original query does have some good hooks in it like the girlfriend dying and only one of the twins remembers, etc.
I guess what I’m saying is I agree with Sarah. For the record, this is the first time I’ve completely agreed with her. :D
Yeah and if she is the side prop, why start the query with her? You wouldn’t; so who the heck is Micah and why does she fall for both twins? We don’t know anything about her which is a problem because we need to connect with her.
Was she an old friend from the past and part of the death of Logan’s girlfriend? What exactly is her purpose? Also a sort of love triangle was brewing, but it totally died after that first paragraph which confused me.
I’m finding the relationships among the three MCs to be confusing. It seems Micah and Luke are dating, but from the first paragraph she is “involved” with both twins. As said by others, we also don’t know anything about Micah.
Also, aside from the publication difficulties of having three POVs, I’m having trouble picturing how this will work with one of the brothers holding the secrets that move the story forward. I’d suggest either trying to show how the three POVs work in the query or maybe reducing it to only two of the characters.
I’m confused – is Micah the girlfriend who died? I suggest starting with the paragraph about the twins. I think it’s really intriguing that one of them is keeping a secret from the other since usually twins are so close. Have you read Her Fearful Symmetry? It also focuses on the secrets hidden between twins. It could end up being a good comp for you, although it is adult lit. I think having two POV’s, especially if they’re twins hiding things from each other, sounds very cool for your story. I can’t see how Micah’s POV fits in here. To me, the conflict between the brothers is the meat of your story.
I thought that she might have been the girl who died, too.
The plot is interesting, however with more detail, I believe we will have a better understanding of the stakes and stresses of each character.
I think there is some great potential in this story. I rarely see a 3-person POV in a YA novel. I do want a little more information, though. There’s a lot of sentences that are very general, but there’s not enough meat in them.
Good luck!
I think focusing on the two brothers is a better way to go because that conflict seems to be the heart of the story… Micah’s involvement is secondary, a catalyst for exposing the secrets, right? Good luck!
I am intrigued by your first line, which seems a switch from the usual –wanting– to have two guys interested. It makes me want to keep reading. And my reaction to that was: Ah… twins. I want to know more.
I do feel like it might help to have a bit more of a transition as to who Logan is. Feels a bit out of the blue at the moment. I do like that “the secret Logan can’t remember is the one Luke can’t forget” and now I want to know what that secret is. Not sure how I feel about the last line there, though, it didn’t really move me forward… like I didn’t actually want to know what the secret was yet.
The problem I have with the last paragraph is that I feel that this has been Logan and Luke’s story, and I have very little idea of what part Micah actually plays in this story. At this point, I’m wondering if she actually needs to be mentioned in the query, or if there is something else at stake that I missed.
This query did interest me, though I’m not one to normally read contemporary stories. Good luck. :-)
I think Sarah has a lot of good suggestions for reworking. I especially like her suggestion to tell us a little more about Micah in the very beginning. I also agree that we need a stronger sense of her throughout, especially as we lose her when you discuss the two boys. Can you weave her into this part a little more? Until the part where you mention Luke losing Micah, I wasn’t sure which brother she was in a relationship with, though from the beginning, it sounds like she is torn between the two. Clarifying her relationship with them and developing her a little more would improve the query, I think. Good luck!
I really like the first paragraph. It’s strong, funny, and grabbed my attention.
The change of view in the second paragraph confused me. I wouldn’t recommend doing that. I would just stick with Micah and draw us in that way.
Good job!
I agree with Sara’s feedback, and insert a few of my own questions. Why has Logan lost the memories? Why won’t anyone tell him? And more importantly, why will Luke lose Micah? How does she (he?) play into the twin’s story and why is s/he so valuable to them? If selling three POV’s is hard enough, then you need to make them all intrinsic to the pitch. Micah is barely explained in the opening, and is only casually mentioned in the end, yet it seems like this relationship is the fundamental part of the premise. Build on that.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
I agree that Micah either needs to be fleshed out or cut from the pitch. And I think we need to know what will happen if Logan remembers, right now we just know its something bad. Is it “that makes me sad” bad? Or “the black hole opens up and swallows the entire planet” bad?