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Seventeen year-old Vanessa perceives herself as ugly, especially since her former friend Joy has screamed that insult at her for the past two years. Full of pain over her parents’ rejection, being bullied and having no friends Vanessa numbs herself by drinking at weekend parties. This is the only time she feels good about herself.
Unfortunately this heavy drinking lowers her self-restraint and she invites the wrong person into her life, Adam. Deal is, their relationship must remain a secret. This is not your average love triangle.
It’s only when Vanessa meets Travis that she begins to see that someone actually cares about her, that she doesn’t need to hide behind the guise of alcohol or some secret relationship. That is until Vanessa sees a cell phone video starring her, one that shows her being assaulted by three classmates. This video has her question everything, especially since the video tape was edited to look like she was a willing participant. Even worse, the video is sent to everyone in school.
With a few unlikely allies by her side, Vanessa takes over her own life and makes a stand against her attackers.
UGLY, a contemporary YA novel of 45,000 words, is an account and aftermath in the struggle against bullying and sexual exploitation as seen from three points of view: the victim, the bully, and a new friend.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Best Regards,
——————
Seventeen year-old Vanessa perceives herself as ugly, especially since her former friend Joy has screamed that insult at her for the past two years. Full of pain over her parents’ rejection how did they reject her? I think this is too vague to have real impact, being bullied and having no friends, (add comma) Vanessa numbs herself by drinking at weekend parties I’m not sure why but I don’t like the phrase “by drinking at weekend parties.” I feel like there’s a stronger way you can get this across that doesn’t make it sound recreational. This is the only time she feels good about herself.
Unfortunately this heavy drinking lowers her self-restraint and Thanks to alcohol demolishing her self-restraint, she invites the wrong person into her life, Adam. Deal is, their relationship must remain a secret. Adam demands their relationship remains secret. This is not your average love triangle. (It’s not a love triangle at all, yet.)
It’s only when Vanessa meets Travis that she begins to see that someone actually cares about her, that she doesn’t need to hide behind the guise of alcohol or some secret relationship. That is until Vanessa sees a cell phone video starring her, one that shows her being assaulted by three classmates. This video has her question everything, especially since the video tape was edited to look like she was a willing participant. Even worse, the video is sent to everyone in school. This paragraph needs work; it feels kind of clunky. Let me take a stab at it:
When Vanessa meets [short description] Travis, she begins to believe she’s someone worth caring about. He’s helping her pull away from her dependency on alcohol and Adam when [something voice-y and non-cliche to say shit hits the fan]. A cell phone video of three classmates assaulting her is sent to everyone in school. It’s been edited so that she looks like a willing participant.
(My question is; was she with-it enough to know that this had happened or is the video a shock to her? If the latter, you might want to hint at this – like say something about blackouts – in the previous paragraph. If the former, make it clear)
With a few unlikely allies by her side, Vanessa takes over control of her own life and makes a stand against her attackers.
UGLY, a contemporary YA novel of 45,000 words this is short enough to be worrisome to an agent, is an account and aftermath in of the struggle against bullying and sexual exploitation as seen from three points of view: the victim, the bully, and a new friend. reading this query, I’m not sure who the bully is. Is it Joy? If so, clarify. If not, I don’t think you need her name in the query.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Reading over this a second time, I feel like the story really begins when the video surfaces. I’m not sure how the pseudo-relationship with Adam comes back around (unless he’s one of the attackers) so you may want to cut that out of the query completely, because right now it’s just kind of confusing the story.
With all the (probably incorrect) assumptions I’m making about your story, here’s how I’d write this query:
1st paragraph: Introduce Vanessa, similarly to how you’ve done here, but more succinct. Also, let us know something positive about her, even if it’s in a negative light. Like how her downward spiral has made her abandon her love of dance (which she used to be good at). We need something that makes her more than the sum of what other people have done to her.
2nd paragraph: Alcohol abuse, destructive relationships, blackouts. End it with the hope travis brings.
3rd paragraph: video surfaces. “With a few unlikely allies” statement.
Hope that helps!
Readers, please add your comments and suggestions down below!
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This one is especially interesting to me because I’m also querying a story where an explicit video going viral and shaking up a teenage girl’s life.
There are too many elements. There’s bullying, low self esteem, teenage binge drinking, distant parents, sexual assault, a humiliating video, and a user boyfriend. All these elements may appear in the book, but the query feels overloaded with “issues.”
You want us to care about Vanessa, but we won’t if this feels like a “very special episode” story.
Par it down to three of the problems at the most. And what are the stakes here? Is she so overwhelmed she’s considering suicide? Are her attackers pressuring her to play along and not go to the police? Are they messing with her head and making her think she might have been willing? Are they threatening her with further violence if she doesn’t stay silent?
Yes, I agree; it does read like a list of teen issues.
But I’m ok with not having the stakes spelled out for me. I think the implied stakes of a sex tape made public in high school (especially when the person is working on overcoming alcoholism) is enough for me.
Though, now that I’ve read your comments I would like a little more about what she does to make a stand. Is she trying to get the attackers arrested? Is she trying to clear her reputation? The tone is enough to tell me that she’s not thinking about physically harming her attackers, but that’s all I know about what she’s going to do. A lot of the query is about what’s done to her – by her parents, Adam, alcohol, the attackers – but what does she do?
I agree with Sara and Susan on all points with this one. Just a bit too much going on in the query. It’s hard, I know, because all of those are important to the plot. However, it isn’t necessary to show the whole plot in a query. That is what a synopsis is for.
Good start, just needs better focus.
This sounds like an interesting book. But as everyone else has suggested, the query would benefit a lot by paring it down.
I’d pick one theme–low self esteem, drinking, rape, cell phone video–and roll with it. All of them sound interesting and compelling, so I think whatever best describes the main thrust of the book would be great.
It’s really cool that you’re doing three POV!
This sounds really interesting. I especially love the fact that you’re telling it from three very different point of views- great idea! I agree with everyone else that it reads a bit busy and you could benefit from focusing your attention on the primary problem at hand- her drinking, the incident and the video- as others have pointed out. Great work, keep at it!
I like the topic here, and this story seems very real, which I also like. In a world full of fantasy and paranormal queries (my own query included!), it’s nice to read something new and fresh every now and then. I would imagine it’s nice for an agent, too ;)
Mentioning the love triangle early confused me, too. I wouldn’t mention Joy at all since she doesn’t seem a crucial part of the story.
It seems to me you have five main points going here in this query, but they are all jumbled and not well organized (just my opinion!). It seems they all need a paragraph of their own.
1. Vanessa struggles from her parents’ neglect and being bullied at school.
2. She eases this pain by drinking and dating the wrong guy.
3. Then she meets Adam, who slowly pulls her from her haze and rebellious spiral.
4. A video circulates of her being sexually assaulted, but edited to portray her as a willing participant.
5. This sends Vanessa over the edge- but in a good way this time. With Adam’s help, she makes a stand against her attackers.
I think your premise is great, and important. I write edgy contemporary issue books, too, so this is right up my ally.
I do agree with what everyone else has said. It needs to be streamlined a bit.
You have a good start, but with a little work, it could be a great query. Good luck!
Thank you all for such wonderful advice! I truly appreciate all of your thoughts and will continue to work on my query. I think you are all correct about pairing things down, it’s just so hard to figure out what is really necessary but I think I have a little more of an idea now.
Keep writing!