Author | Joseph L. Selby

QUERY: JEHOVAH’S HITLIST (another draft)

In September ’10, I made a first draft of a query for Jehovah’s Hitlist. It’s a rule peoples, never go with your first draft. Of anything. Not your novel. Not your query. So I’ve written a few drafts of JH (and will be doing one more) so it’s time to put the nose to the grindstone and get a quality query.

…of course, I suck at queries, so I need your help! Read the below. Help me make it better. PLLLEEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEEEE!!!!!!

Jehovah knows a secret. On Sundays when they parachute down the charity box, he can see where they open the sky to make the drop. First one to the box gets the best charity: ration bars, medicine, ammunition, and what all. Jehovah gets himself real leather boots meant for the Hanged Man with a list of five names stuffed inside.

It lists five people who can lead him up above. He must find them and kill them or the Hanged Man says he will destroy Missouri Avenue. That ain’t a threat to take lightly. When the folk on Alaska Avenue betrayed the Hanged Man to the deputies, he pulled himself out the noose and leveled the entire block. He’ll do the same again lest Jehovah does what he’s told. Go up above and deliver a note for the Hanged Man. Do that and all is forgotten.

That’s the dream of everyone in the Nation. Escape the jackals and the marginalized, the spikers and the snake oil addicts to the platform city above. That was Jehovah’s mama’s dream. She sold him and his brothers to buy her way up and here the Hanged Man was giving him the opportunity. All he need do is kill five people and don’t look back. Leave it all behind, friends and family, violence and vice. But at the end of all things when the waters have risen and humanity has fled to the sky above, all one has left is family.

JEHOVAH’S HITLIST (or DOWN BELOW THE UP ABOVE) is a completed 94,000-word adult, dystopian science fiction.

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4 responses to “QUERY: JEHOVAH’S HITLIST (another draft)”

  1. Livia

    Congratulations on approaching the query stage! This sounds like an interesting story with good conflict. My main problem with it, going into it with no knowledge of your novel, is that I'm having a hard time getting a sense of what's going on. I know you're probably trying to be careful not to put too much world building details in here, but I don't feel like I have enough. Reading your first paragraph, I'm wondering what kind of world this is. What the charity box? Who is the hanged man? What is below, and what is above? I get the sense that below is somewhat worse than above, but it's all somewhat nebulous. It's a lot of questions, but I think you can solve it by just giving two or three sentences in the beginning so that we at least know where we are and what's going on.
    I have similar difficulties with the second paragraph. Who are the folks on Alaska Avenue? And you can probably condense the last two paragraphs to make room for the setting details.
    The bottom line is, the voice is nice, and the writing is nice, and I think you're doing that well, but you may be sacrificing clarity for style. A good exercise would be to sit someone down in person who doesn't know anything about the story and try to talk out the query to them. You will naturally find yourself filling in details that they need to know, parts where their eyes go blank or they look confused.

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  2. Joseph L. Selby

    Very good points! Thank you, Livia.

    Reply
  3. Rusty Webb

    Joseph – I think Livia is spot on. I, of course, no nothing about the novel, as I'm hit and miss about stopping by to visit your blog, if you've laid out details here before I've either forgotten or not read them. But from the query alone I am intrigued, which is great, but also confused, which probably isn't what you want.

    Explain a bit more about the larger world earlier on, consider carefully if the information you did provide is really the most important things I need to know about your story.

    Um, I don't know what else, I generally not capable of being more specific than "just be better", which is of no help at all. I'm not a very good person at helping with this sort of thing. But since I'm having similar struggles with my two page synopsis of my novel I'm trying hard to help.

    Good luck.

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  4. Joseph L. Selby

    Grrr, so I've been all thankful for everyone's comments and witty about the difficulties I've been having and blah blah blah. I've lost the post three times now, so here is the revised draft. Thank you for your participation.

    Every Sunday, the platform city parachutes down a box full of charity: ration bars, medicine, ammunition, and what all. Jehovah knows a secret. He can see where they open the sky to make the drop. First one to the box gets the best charity. This week he gets himself a pair of boots made of real leather, and he only has to kill one person to get them. But those boots were meant for the Hanged Man. Hidden inside is a list of names that can lead a person up to the platform city.

    Jehovah killed the man that was supposed to go up above. Now the Hanged Man says Jehovah must follow the list, find the last name, Abeni Dayo, and kill her. That ain't a threat to take lightly. The Hanged Man is in charge of the Nation's deputies, and he has technology left over from the Old Country that can level whole buildings.

    Ecological catastrophes and global pandemics have driven those with means to platform cities in the sky. Those without are left in refugee cities built below. The giant lamps of the array turn the sky yellow, and walls that protect them from risen oceans make for a gray horizon. Abandoned and forgotten by those above, they drown instead in a sea of their own violence.

    JEHOVAH'S HITLIST (or DOWN BELOW THE UP ABOVE) is a completed 92,000-word adult, dystopian science fiction. This will be my first novel publication. Kristin previously requested my full manuscript for THE TRIAD SOCIETY.

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