Mmmm . . . sounds like just my thing!

Yes!

"We long to be consumed by love"---> powerful! And oh, those covers!!!!

Really enjoyed these snippets of Victorian poetry. I always loved Robert and Elizabeth Browning. "How do I love thee, let me count the ways . . . " Your books sound very intriguing.

In paragraph one, the protag is Sakura. She has less than a year to live. Bummer. Sad. Awful. Never mentioned again.

In paragraph two, the protag is Kazuki, and he's looking for an old friend. The old friend is not Sakura. Suspecting character soup, I begin to detach from your story.

In the third paragraph, it looks like you haven't decided who the protagonist is.

Decide. And if the story has two protags, you should still write the query as if it had one.

Your first few sentences sent me off to read the news and check out Facebook etc. I came back to read the blue parts.

Seems like you have some good ideas but why is your plot so thick with physical maladies? Are they rolling around in wheelchairs, or what? Why are the characters impaired / dying of old injuries? What does that add? It might be really cool in the book but in the query it seems like an illogical literary gimmick used to solve plot problems that aren't really solved anyway, like why she takes a demon home, and why would he want to stay there.

How many unconscious scenes do you have? I fear the plot frequently advances while the protagonist is dreaming, delirious, comatose, in a drug-induced fog, or confronting bad news or danger with a swoon.

Author, please consider changing your title. It sounds to me like either a dictionary or literary fiction, not YA paranormal romance.

The plot sounds like you want to write sensitive literary fiction but are addicted to anime/manga. (I mean that in a good way.) Literary paranormal YA will probably be a tough sell.

If the book isn't written in a literary style, make that clearer in the query. If it is, consider dumping the paranormal elements and making Kazuki an exchange student son of her father's friend with a fiancee back home and the family corporation on the line or something.

Out of curiosity, what kind of demon is Kazuki? oni? akuma? something out of western catholic or buddhist tradition?

Those fake plots are awesome :-)

Thanks for the feedback. The novel has gotten great reception from beta readers, but the query has become the bane of my existence. In an earlier version, I more clearly noted that Sakura is dying because her heart and lungs are failing after she was repeatedly stabbed as a child. Her parents died when she was 10, her adopted father when she was 14. In Japan, one can legally live alone at 14 and as she had no family left and has plenty of money, she choose to do so.

I'd also more clearly noted that he was wounded by his brother who has turned against him. His wound heels quickly, he just doesn't want to go home until his father returns to talk some sense into his brother. She is 18, he is a few hundred years old but looks like someone in their early 20s. She does know he is a demon. Some of my beta readers also had the same initial reaction to the word "demon", presuming he would be bad. Would it help to call him a yokai instead, just to get away from the preconcieved notion of the word "demon"?

It is primarily a romance. The focus is Sakura and Kazuki's meeting and their growing relationship. The primarily dangers are Sakura's health, as she is getting closer to the end of her time. The stuff in the demon realm doesn't come into play until the latter half of the novel, so crits of the earlier version suggested dropping it.

Would certainly love some ideas on what I should and shouldn't focus on. If it helps, here are three earlier versions of this query from a critique thread at Nathan Bransford's forums: first I let others see, revision 1, and revision 2.

AlaskaRavenclaw: I did the para 1, her, para 2, him, format because it was generally the one recommended for romances, but I suspect that is being considered old school now. If I had to pick one main character, then I'd say this is Sakura's story.

Anon: There are no unconscious scenes. :-P Kazuki's wound is temporary, so could probably be dropped. Sakura's health is more relevant and affects much of the story, including her letting him stay.

This screams CLAMP (anime/manga) plot to me.

The romance with the demon leaves me meh. Either he's the same age as her adoptive father, which is a bit creepy, or he's one of those "hundreds of years old but appears 18" types, which I see way too often in fanfic and forum rpgs.

If his injury is temporary and doesn't have much effect on the story, I'd say yes, by all means drop it from the query.

Would it help to call him a yokai instead, just to get away from the preconcieved notion of the word "demon"?

Hm... I'd say no, mostly because I don't know that most agents and editors you submit your query to would necessarily know what "yokai" are, so they might be put off by the unfamiliar word. (I do know what yokai are myself, but I'm not sure it's common knowledge even among fantasy readers.) I'm not sure what word would fit well, though, if you don't want to use "demon"... you could go with circumlocutions like "supernatural being", but there might be no better alternative than sticking with "demon" and trusting your readers to infer that demons aren't necessarily evil in the world of your novel...

de·mon/ˈdēmən/Noun: 1.An evil spirit or devil, esp. one thought to possess a person or act as a tormentor in hell.
2.A cruel, evil, or destructive person or thing.

Kaz doesn't sound like a demon.

I lost focus. Friend of the family, wounded, dying Sakura. Lots of loose ends/details I couldn't wade through. What bothers me is there is no story in the query.

This reads like you hated writing it. I think you owe the agent(s) more than unrelated noise on the page.

Find the thread. You've been beating this around for a while. Without a solid query you can't get this manuscript off the ground.

Unless you change your attitude toward the query and organize it to acceptable form there isn't a lot of hope this will ever see the light of day.

Take the advice you've been given is my best comment.

Hi Collectonian, my 2c: you have an appealing concept and world.

I do think demon has too much baggage. Yokai, however, would need defining. Can you try "shapeshifter" or something descriptive of who he is instead?

Nothing wrong with including the latter half of the novel in the query. Queries are supposed to have more than set up anyway. You might need it to show the stakes (now she's in love she wants to live after all?).

Eighteen-year-old Sakura Takeshi is dying. In the years since she was brutally attacked as a child, she'd known her heart and lungs would fail before she reached adulthood. She thought she'd come to terms with it: now an orphan, she lives alone and keeps others at arms length.

Until Kazuki knocks on her door. The 500-year-old shapeshifter has fled the spirit realm to avoid his homicidal brother. After agreeing to let him stay for a few days, Sakura is surprised at how quickly Kazuki becomes a part of her life.

Third para needs, as EE said, to focus on what Sakura has to do and the stakes for her (not Kazuki). Should include some peril but more importantly, emotion.

Set in Hokkaido, Japan, AISURU is a 60,000 word young adult paranormal romance. Thank for your time and consideration,

P.S. meant to add if you leave the father's friend bit out of the query, you don't raise so many creepiness questions

I like Aika's version. Maybe:

Eighteen-year-old Sakura Takeshi is dying. In the years since she was brutally attacked as a child, she'd known her heart and lungs would fail before she reached adulthood. She thought she'd come to terms with it: now an orphan, she lives alone and keeps others at arms length. Until Kazuki drops into her garden out of thin air.

Kazuki, a 500-year-old prince of another realm, may not be human but his injuries draw Sakura's sympathy and his will to live challenges her complacency. But, just as she's learning to live and love, political turmoil in his world demand his return.[might want more detail here]

Sakura,...

(realizes he's in danger and follows)
(wants to help and follows)
(is kidnapped, used as a hostage, and must free herself and him to rescue the kingdom from his homicidal brother)
....

Keep the focus on Sakura and fill in the details. Try to keep her proactive. Good luck with this.

Your description of the book here is much better than the query because it is more specific. It sounds like it might be really good, actually.

In the original Roman context demons were a class of low-level deities. In medieval Christian doctrine everything is part of a great cosmic war between good and evil so demons were rewritten as agents of Satan, roughly the equal but bad-guy opposite of angels. Thus the word acquired its 'evil' connotation. Using 'demon' in your query didn't make it clear what sort of entity you were talking about because the word has no particular meaning in a Japanese mythologial context.

I would use an appropriate term from the mythology that inspired the work and add a few words to explain the character is a Japanese demi-god, or whatever seems most appropriate. Another common ploy is to use the Latin 'daemon' spelling, which will signal to some readers that you're talking about the Roman sort of entity, not the Christian one. An agent who specializes in fantasy might understand that. However, some people will just think you can't spell and be more confused than ever.

Actually, here's a question, out of curiosity: How do you actually refer to Kazuki in the novel? Do you call him a demon? A yokai? Or is there another term you use?

I'm still not convinced that calling him a "demon" is that much of a problem; "demons" may be universally evil in Christian doctrine, but non-evil demons aren't uncommon in fantasy, and it's presumably agents familiar with fantasy and paranormal literature to whom you'll be targeting this. Still, if you want to avoid the baggage of "demon", again, you could avoid it by just calling him a "supernatural being" or something of that ilk. (Aika's wording works if he is a shapeshifter, but nothing in your query indicates that this is the case.)

"Yokai" could work if you immediately define it—you can just on his first mention say "Kazuki, a prince of the yokai—supernatural beings inhabiting the spirit realm" (or something like that). Though honestly, from your description, he doesn't sound much like a yokai either in the traditional sense, so calling him a "yokai" might confuse readers who do know what yokai are.

I also don't have a problem with "demon," because I don't see much of an alternative in English to mean a morally neutral supernatural creature. I always thought "yokai" was closer to "monster" or "ghost," but I only took one semester of Japanese in college and visited for a couple of weeks of sightseeing.

The girl-lives-with-demon-and-they-fall-in-love plot is popular in shoujo manga, and to me this sounds like a "Black Bird-meets-1 Litre of Tears," but I think it's fresh enough to Western audiences to work. But I also vote to change the title. Why don't you play on Sakura's name (I'm sure there are a bunch of sayings or puns for cherry blossoms), or include some reference to the supernatural?

Your critique of this synopsis was very insightful. If I ever get to writing a synopsis, I'll have to keep your tips in mind.

Is Rina dating Andreas Vollenweider?

I am confused about the plot. Rina remembers nothing of her old life? Fine. Was she on the ship? If not, why mention it?

What happened to make her forget her identity?

EE, if you think Rina being taken in by a Canadian is bad, imagine what would happen to her if she was taken in by a Californian or New Yorker.

Before you write your synopsis, please spend some time learning the care and feeding of the humble sentence.

By taking Rina to visit the children’s ward in the local hospital Linx teaches her to have compassion for mankind, she begins to fall for him.

Rina is better prepared and clings to her arm before she could fall.

While distracted by her part in the destruction, one of her sisters attempts to kill her by pushing her off the cliff.

If you reread each of the above sentences and they still sounded fine to you, consider take a class.

lol-- I mean consider TAKING a class.

We both should.

You know, I very much liked your idea of a siren who is capable of influencing others while not knowing she could. On a side note, I'm kind of curious how she found out about this talent? Did she experiment on Lynx's dog?

But I do like the idea, the influence and healing part. This is a good start, just needs to be tightened up. I just am a little muddled by the cliffs and fears and all the sisters. Wait. Is this about a harem?

I thought the same thing as AK, but pulled out totally different sentences--and looking back, I notice many of them need work just to be correct, let alone elegant. Grammar will damn this submission no matter how good your synopsis gets. Take the class and scour the manuscript first.

Can she remember whether the coastguard was yelling at the captain of the cruise ship to get back onboard?

So she has autobiographical AND procedural amnesia? If you have no idea of the meaning of that sentence, please do more research.

I think the author has an interesting idea which didn't translate well on a synopsis. I know it's hard to cram a whole manuscript into a page or two. My advice is to read a book on the subject or take a class. And read all the questions posted here and do answer them. Don't ignore them. By no means am I a synopsis guru, so this is all very helpful.

I'm not convinced. Rina's story is that she must cease to be an evil siren; ie she must learn that it's for her to control men's sexual urges, not for them? Quite the story for our times. Not.

This isn't ready. I'm worried the ms repeats the problems we see in the synopsis.

Missing fundamentals. Roll up the sleeves, cover the ground.

The premise isn't in question (except for U-Know-Whu-Old-What's-His-Muttonchops).

snarky comments need a spell-check: "feraturing"?


other than that, amusing and informative as always.

Thanks. Fixed. I knew a typo would slip past me one of these years.

Other than that, a grammar check would have shown your failure to capitalize the first word of both your sentences.

EE, you forgot to hiss.

You are writing like a madwoman! So excited and proud for you! Can’t wait to read it all.

Thanks, Kelley. This one has my favorite male character in it. I wish I could be more like him. You’ll have to read the book and see what you think!

Thank you Robin!

I have 2 out of 4 so I just grabbed the Parallelogram series. Thanks!!

Thank you for the links! (: Even though I couldn’t get them.
Anyway, I just entered the giveaway. It’s been three days into it, and there are already 8 pages of entries. 19 days to go. Meh.