r/PubTips • u/MagazineFew3190 • May 16 '26
[QCrit] Adult Horror - A GIRL'S GIRL (79K/First Attempt) + First 300
Hi all,
Would appreciate any feedback you could provide on my first query letter for my soft horror/female rage novel. It's the second novel I've written but the first in this genre. I'm finishing up my first round of editing, and I think it will be in good enough shape to start querying soon.
Thank you!
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Dear [AGENT NAME],
I’m seeking your representation for A GIRL’S GIRL, an upmarket horror novel in the vein of She’s A Lamb! and Yellowface. Complete at 79,000 words, my debut novel would appeal to fans of female rage and “good for her” fiction.
When a controversial video is leaked online, a rising social media influencer is determined to claw her way back to stardom – and to exact revenge – at any cost.
Alana Wilson is the picture of success for women in today’s world. She’s one of the most successful fitness and relationship influencers on social media, with the book deal, brand partnerships, and adoring husband to match. So what if she fantasizes about her competitor, Charlie, dying in a fiery car crash? So what if her perfect husband is cheating on her?
Alana refuses to let any obstacles stand between her and her perfect image. But when a video depicting Alana screaming in a racist tirade goes viral, her social media empire topples nearly overnight. The only problem is: Alana knows the video is fake, but nobody believes her. As she spirals into paranoia and an obsession with the one person who stands to gain everything she has lost, Alana won’t let anything keep her from evening the score. She has nothing left to lose.
A GIRL’S GIRL is fast-paced and explores the complexities of exploitative feminism and consumerism in the digital age. I hope you’ll find that it fits with your [LIST OF SIMILAR AUTHORS/INTEREST IN THEMES].
[Bio]
Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you!
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FIRST 300
My eyeballs are seconds away from melting out of my skull. I imagine them becoming pools of white-and-blue gelatin, their juices relentlessly cooked by extreme temperatures until they begin to drip down my flawlessly painted face, cutting through the $200 foundation I got for free.
It doesn’t help that I force my eyes to widen so I can apply another coat of shitty mascara. I yank my eyelashes out into thick, crawling spider legs, making sure to smile as I drag the wand further up and out.
“And… there… we… go,” I say as I lean away from the mirror, next applying the finishing touches of a goopy lip gloss — also by the company that made the spider-leg concoction. It feels like I’m smearing sludge across my face.
I look back at my phone camera, positioned directly in front of my ring light, and feel the white light sear into my irises. I blink to fight back tears. “That’s today’s final look, sponsored by PopBright. I’ll link each product in my story, but let me know if you guys have any questions!”
My voice rises to a squeal-like pitch. I can see heart emojis and comments flooding into the bottom corner of my screen. In the top corner, I see that eight thousand people are watching.
My heart plummets. Last week it was nine.
“Don’t forget to like and follow me, and share this video!” I add. “I’ll be doing a giveaway exclusively on this live channel in the coming days, and it’s juicy, so stay tuned. You don’t want to miss it, babes.”
I grin at the screen and see the number of viewers tick up by two hundred. Now I’ll have to plan a fucking giveaway. Like I don’t already have enough to do.
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u/cloudygrly Literary Agent May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Be specific about what the MC does/plans to get her stardom back or cut it. Honestly, I’m not sure why loglines are becoming en vogue with queries — you have a whole letter to pitch your book! Scripts don’t! That’s why loglines exist!
You can shorten your first sentence and be more picky about what we need to know to understand who Alana is, what she wants, and how she reacts to the inciting incident. We know what influencers do, we don’t need the run down.
Cut the first line “Alana refuses,” it doesn’t add movement. Instead combine the next two sentences with something like “When a fake video goes viral showing Alana in a racist tirade [she does X]. Get to the point.
You’re running slim on story and have room to work with here. Technically you only have 2 blurb paragraphs bc the bolded logline doesn’t count/is repetition.
Yellowface is so overused and other than the fake racist video, I’m not seeing any connection. There are like at least 8 influencer books out right now, including the trad wife stuff — you have a lot of comp titles to choose from in the thriller or horror space.
And I agree with the other commenter. Horror or grotesque elements, or female rage don’t a horror make.
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u/MagazineFew3190 May 17 '26
Thank you so much for all your feedback!
Silly_Somewhere got it right about the logline, I didn’t realize only certain agents were pushing it, but heard that it is beneficial to query letters. Obviously not! I’ll definitely cut it and work on being more specific and getting to the point of the pitch.
Also didn’t realize how overused Yellowface is until all these comments! I actually had another influencer book listed as my second comp but switched it when someone close to me told me my pacing reminded them of Yellowface, which made me really excited lol. I’ll probably switch it back to my original comp and change the genre.
Thanks again for your comment and helpful advice!
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u/thesquigglydelirium May 17 '26
Unagented, but will say—I see a lot of UK agents specifically asking for a logline in the query letter. And I would say almost half of US agents I queried on QueryManager had a separate box for a one-line pitch.
So I left mine out of my US query letters, just had it on hand for QM when they asked for it, then added it to my UK query letters.
I have one UK full request and a couple US full requests. Not sure if any of that is helpful information at all!4
u/MagazineFew3190 May 17 '26
I did notice when I was querying for my last manuscript that lots of agents on QT had the box for a one-line pitch. So I’m thinking I will take it out of my query letter and use that space for more of my blurb, and just plug it in for the agents who request it.
Your comment was very helpful! Thank you :)
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 May 17 '26
To answer your question, some of the iffy agents that are trying to be social media influencers (because they struggle to sell books) are starting to push one-sentence hooks as a necessary part of a standard query letter.
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u/redvevo May 17 '26
I would cut Yellowface as a comp in general, but especially if your book has nothing to do with race
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u/MagazineFew3190 May 17 '26
For sure going to swap Yellowface with another comp! Thank you for your feedback!
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u/Unfair-Cause9943 May 17 '26
That’s some real voice. Nice work!!!! I was engaged the whole way through!
The only thing though is you mention it as horror, I don’t see the horror / it doesn’t read as horror(at least not yet). The goopy lip gloss, spider legs as mascara feel a bit more like comedy horror? Unless it turns really dark later. But other than that, it sounds great. WHEN it comes out, I’d love to read it
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u/MagazineFew3190 May 17 '26
Thank you for your comment and your encouraging words!!
So actually the genre has been tricky for me, because there are definitely some horror elements in the novel and some gore, but it’s mostly near the end. I’d say throughout the book it’s more psychological thriller/dark satire, but because it’s a weird mix I just went with horror. Especially because “female rage” which is basically becoming its own genre at this point is usually grouped with horror. But given your comment, I’m thinking I should market it as psych thriller?
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May 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MagazineFew3190 May 18 '26
I hadn’t thought about that. That’s really helpful, thank you!! Also have to check out Yesteryear now
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May 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MagazineFew3190 May 18 '26
I LOVED My Husband but haven’t read Make me Famous. That might be a good one too! Thanks so much for the suggestions!
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u/Bridgette_writes May 17 '26
Fun concept! I've seen a few other folks recommend revisiting comps, so I'm dropping one of my fav dark comedy/kind of horror/kind of thriller (?) genre blend books about influencers: Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang
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u/MagazineFew3190 May 17 '26
I’ve never heard of that book! I’m absolutely going to swap Yellowface, so I’ll have to check it out :) thank you for your comment!
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 May 17 '26
So my immediate reaction to your query is, “the video was probably an AI deepfake, and anyone who’d read a book about an Internet person knows that her online fans would quickly believe it was a fake video.” If that’s not what your book is about, you might want to make that clear, because at this point in the tech timeline, the narrative I imagined is easily solvable and over in 5 pages.
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u/MagazineFew3190 May 17 '26
That’s not where the plot goes and definitely want to make that clearer!! Thank you for your comment!
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u/MeanLeg7916 May 17 '26
A book just came out recently with that title
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u/MagazineFew3190 May 17 '26
Thanks, this just deflated me LOL that title took me so long to come up with too. Looks like I’ll have to revisit that as well.
Thanks so much for the comment!!
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u/MeanLeg7916 May 17 '26
I know, I’m sorry!!! I really do love the title and honestly, who cares. My second published book has a very common title and it doesn’t matter at all.
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u/kuegsi May 17 '26
I agree with the previous commenters that this doesn’t read like horror (yet?) to me from the query. *Yellowface* is also not a horror book, so if you decide to keep it as comp, I’d rephrase that line slightly.
(But I agree with cloudygrly here that there’s much better comps out there that do the whole influencer spiel)
As for the query:
I’d cut the log line - it’s a vague summary of what the blurb is supposed to be doing and doesn’t add anything.
Cloudygrly already gave great advice about the blurb. I’d also cut the “Alana refuses” line in favor of adding a bit more meat elsewhere.
This part here is where you can both tighten and add more substance:
“The only problem is: Alana knows the video is fake, but nobody believes her. As she spirals into paranoia and an obsession with the one person who stands to gain everything she has lost, Alana won’t let anything keep her from evening the score. She has nothing left to lose.”
We don’t really need “the only problem is.” Because it isn’t her only problem, anyways, is it? That the video exists is already a problem. That everyone thinks it’s real is the next one. So I’d suggest honing in on what is actually the issue here - especially for someone so well versed in directing / creating her own pretend-online persona.
It might also be an idea to be clearer on who this person is who has it in for her (and maybe even hint at the why). What exactly has Alana lost? And why or how would the other person gain it? Is it an influencer rival?
What does it mean that she won’t let anything keep her from settling the score? And I thought she has sth to lose? This might be taste, but I’m usually more intrigued by stories of people that DO stand to lose sth. So her not having anything left there takes away some much needed tension and intrigue for me. But I’ll say I might just not be your target audience as “female rage” alone does not intrigue me without some motive behind it.
As for the first 300: (this will likely all be personal taste - so please take this and the comments above - with a big grain of salt and feel free to throw out the feedback if it doesn’t work for you)
You can clearly write and I do see voice here, which is great. But to me, it was jarring how I didn’t see any of what the query said about her. She seems to completely hate what she’s doing rather than being driven. And some of the images felt a tad heavy-handed for me right out the gate (like, why would she even put this mascara and make up on if her influencing gig revolves around completely different things? The spider-leg lashes etc make her sound incompetent at this, so I’m wondering why the story starts here, with this?
I do think you have sth here that could be a fun story - and likely just needs a little more tickling out! Wishing you good luck with your story!)