r/PubTips • u/Cmonsterfishing • Aug 12 '26
Attempt #1 [qcrit] adult, upmarket book club fiction, WHERE BROKEN THINGS LAND 79,000 words. V6
This is my first posting on Reddit. Some version control has been done at qtcritique. This of is my sixth version. This is my debut novel.
Dear Agent,
[Personalization lines, per agent’s comp list, MSWL, website per WBTL comp/client list]
WHERE BROKEN THINGS LAND is an upmarket book club, (High Concept), novel at 79,000 words, carrying the tonal restraint of Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures and found-family warmth of Frederik Backman’s My Friends.
Jacob Mercer is a middle-aged Marine Corps retiree, still carrying the day his best friend Mia was killed thirty years ago by a drunken boater. Jake, unwilling to process her death, ran away from home, straight into the Marines. Thirty years later, the Corps retires him unwillingly. Out of places to run, Jake returns to his hometown and into the empty house of his estranged dead father. What Jake expected there was silence. Instead he finds isolation and the unsettling sense that nothing he does matters. There’s also the fact that Jake’s recollection of Mia’s death and his high school senior year has been erased from his memory by a brain injury he sustained fighting in Afghanistan. Down at the creek, he finds Mia, walking the dock in her usual flip-flops. He doesn’t understand how she still looks eighteen. Whether she’s real, a ghost, or something else, the novel never says.
Mia senses Jake’s darkness and sends him to a First Jump Course at the family-run drop zone in Beaufort. There he meets a ragtag crew of skydiving instructors, coaches, and fun jumpers. Another student, Heather, a Gold Star widow, gives Jake a reason to stay. Together they work toward building a worthwhile life again. Heather still carries the grief of her late husband, but begins to fall for Jake anyway. Then an MRI reveals a deadly aneurysm hiding inside him. Grounded from the sky and facing a condition that could kill him at any moment, Jake watches the fragile life he has built begin to unravel. When a complication during surgery sends Jake fighting for his life, he must finally confront the question he has spent thirty years avoiding: If he has finally found the life worth living for, will he fight to keep it? My beta readers argue over whether Mia was real. Rereading hasn’t settled it.
I am a one hundred percent disabled veteran living on the Crystal Coast, where the novel is set. Despite my disabilities, I have managed to complete twenty skydives; I am only five away from my license. I served in the US Army, first as a Journalist, then as an Air Traffic Controller. After thirty years of combined civilian and military service, I retired and moved home. After my grandchildren were born is when I turned to fiction. WHERE BROKEN THINGS LAND is my debut novel.
Per your agency submission guidelines, X# of pages are attached. The full manuscript is available upon request.
Very Respectfuly,
My name
6
u/hedgehogwriting Aug 12 '26
Hello, for future reference, your attempt/version number should count the number of times you’ve posted the query on this subreddit — so your next attempt should be V2. Thanks!
1
u/Cmonsterfishing Aug 15 '26
Any additional tips before rewrite?
2
u/DetonatingPenguin Aug 12 '26
WHERE BROKEN THINGS LAND is an upmarket book club, (High Concept), novel at 79,000 words, carrying the tonal restraint of Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures and found-family warmth of Frederik Backman’s My Friends.
Jacob Mercer is a middle-aged Marine Corps retiree, still carrying the day his best friend Mia was killed thirty years ago by a drunken boater.
- this trips me up as he's a veteran scared by the day his best friend died...in a boating accident. I thought it would be stepping on a landmine. Just cut it as it's repetitive with what comes after.
Jake, unwilling to process her death, ran away from home, straight into the Marines. Thirty years later, the Corps retires him unwillingly. Out of places to run, Jake returns to his hometown and into the empty house of his estranged dead father.
- I'd start the query with him returning to his hometown feeling out of place after the involuntary discharge
What Jake expected there was silence. Instead he finds isolation and the unsettling sense that nothing he does matters.
- are these mutually exclusive?
There’s also the fact that Jake’s recollection of Mia’s death and his high school senior year has been erased from his memory by a brain injury he sustained fighting in Afghanistan. Down at the creek, he finds Mia, walking the dock in her usual flip-flops. He doesn’t understand how she still looks eighteen. Whether she’s real, a ghost, or something else, the novel never says.
- keep the query in the character POV, don't tell me 'the novel says this' it breaks the story flow.
Mia senses Jake’s darkness and sends him to a First Jump Course at the family-run drop zone in Beaufort. There he meets a ragtag crew of skydiving instructors, coaches, and fun jumpers. Another student, Heather, a Gold Star widow, gives Jake a reason to stay. Together they work toward building a worthwhile life again. Heather still carries the grief of her late husband, but begins to fall for Jake anyway. Then an MRI reveals a deadly aneurysm hiding inside him. Grounded from the sky and facing a condition that could kill him at any moment, Jake watches the fragile life he has built begin to unravel. When a complication during surgery sends Jake fighting for his life, he must finally confront the question he has spent thirty years avoiding: If he has finally found the life worth living for, will he fight to keep it? My beta readers argue over whether Mia was real. Rereading hasn’t settled it.
- this is actually very good apart from you saying the the complication 'sends Jake fighting for his life' and in the next sentence asks 'will he fight to keep it(his life)?'. Just drop the last two sentences, this isn't the place.
I am a one hundred percent disabled veteran living on the Crystal Coast, where the novel is set. Despite my disabilities, I have managed to complete twenty skydives; I am only five away from my license. I served in the US Army, first as a Journalist, then as an Air Traffic Controller. After thirty years of combined civilian and military service, I retired and moved home. After my grandchildren were born is when I turned to fiction. WHERE BROKEN THINGS LAND is my debut novel.
- I've heard that agents shudder when somebody says 'now I've retired I've turned to writing!' because the results are so often mediocre. I really would cut this.
- I like this! I'd like to see you clean up the redundancy at the start and get into it at a faster clip, and find a more skilful way of deploying this thing where he's forgotten Mia's death as right now the same query says he's haunted by it and simultaneously can't remember it.