Just Call Me Sydney Bristow

According to Abner, I am on the wrong career path; instead of publishing, I ought to be in the espionage business. Here is a girl, he says, who is fluent in three languages and conversant in a handful of others, jumps out of perfectly good airplanes and scuba dives for fun, knows martial arts, fencing, and horseback riding, who can also behave properly at formal social functions (thanks to cotillion). On top of that, who would suspect the cute little Asian girl with hipster glasses and a bowler hat of being a spy? Certainly not our enemies! Uncle Sam would snap me up in a second, Abner claims.

Ah, but you see, Abner, Uncle Sam has already had me on the radar for a long time. I can’t count the number of times the FBI, the CIA, and the military have tried to recruit me (mostly for my language abilities). Unfortunately I am chronically uninterested in working for the government as bureaucracy and I don’t mesh very well. I love my country, don’t get me wrong, but my love of books and stories far outweighs my patriotism. Besides, I think being a skydiving pirate would be far more fun.

Although a diplomatic passport does sound tempting, considering JJ’s Law (in which the world conspires to prevent JJ from having a pleasant flying experience…EVER).

However, despite incentives to the contrary, I do think publishing is the right business for me, even if reading queries does give me a horrific headache.

More liveblogging of queries!

1) The logical, intuitive leaps between the actions the protagonist takes and conclusions he draws make absolutely no sense. The synopsis does not make things any more clear.
2) Cute premise for a middle-grade but absolutely no details about it.
3) Ugh, I hate Dan Brown for making pseudo-religious thrillers so popular. This one doesn’t even pretend to be different from THE DA VINCI CODE.
4) I think this is actually a partial we requested, but I’m not sure as the author did not follow directions (we request a copy of the original query + synopsis + 1st 50 pages). Still, will give it a read.
5) Opening of the query is great…the rest is not.
6) I don’t care about you; I want to know what your book is about. Alas, you choose to ramble on about what your book does instead of what happens.
7) Vague. Vague, vague, vague.
8 ) Impressive credentials but the story isn’t really resonating with me. El Jefe prefers novels that are more epic in scope.
9) Query for a thriller that might not be “high concept” enough for El Jefe, but I find it intriguing. Request.
10) Referral from a client but I’m not sure El Jefe would take it on. Still, a referral from a client. Request.
11) An editor requested this manuscript. The query is full of specific details and the premise is good. A tad too long for middle grade, but that can probably be revised. Request.
12) Collection of short stories. No and no and no.
13) I’m almost positive one of El Jefe’s clients wrote a book exactly like this.
14) Romantic suspense. Doesn’t sound bad, but again, see earlier comments about “epic in scope” and “high concept.”
15) Query makes absolutely no sense, mostly because of horrendously awkward figurative language.
16) A “surprising conclusion” is no incentive for me to request you, especially when the rest of the query is so bland as to be boring.
17) Yet another drug-ring busting thriller.
18) I’ve already read this query and already rejected it.
19) I am sick of novels involving ex-military/ex-cops as the protagonist.
20) Yes, environmental thrillers are indeed timely, but there needs to be a good story attached too.
21) Plague of Vagueness.
22) Summer of Sam rip-off.
23) Ethnic family saga, but nothing about it entices me.
24) Nathan Bransford would hate this query: it opens with seven rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions don’t bother me, but nothing about this supernatural suspense stands out.
25) Nonfiction query for people suffering from mid-life crises. Eh.
26) I am confused; why would a Spanish gentlemen be living in an English colony?
27) Fluffed up praise for you book that contradicts what the query implies = fail.
28) Huh, interesting mystery involving a family saga and gay themes. Request.
29) Lots of writing accolades but query is too vague for me to request.
30) “Return to nature” nonfiction query. Not for El Jefe.
31) Query addressed to a “Dear Sir/Madam” and written in the first person as the story’s protagonist…who is a dog.
32) A compendium of old family letters with an illegible photocopy of a letter. No.
33) Novel that really wants to be a self-help book.
34) I think I just have a nonfiction blind spot.
35) Bildungsroman that really reads like a memoir. No.