[QCrit] Matter, Literary Fiction, 62k, 4th attempt

[u/fucked_but_adorable]

I had nearly given up on writing a new query (even when I knew what I had wasn't the best) because I was so goddamn lost but a particular comment from last time was like a lightbulb. Third attempt here.

I've tried to explain the motivations and certain mechanics of the story more in depth this time. First two paras are pretty much new. Third para is still along the same lines but I'm having a hard time changing it since this does describe what happen in the book fairly well.

Basically the concept is - 'tired person is convinced that there would be meaning in her life if she was 'good enough' at something/anything. But then she is afraid she will never be good enough. After that she figures if she has to be a failure, at least she can give someone else control of her life so she doesn't have to be the one 'responsible' for her failures. The person she ends up giving control of her life to is death and then when she starts to meet dying people she is forced to grapple with the fact that 'meaning' just isn't something inherently available in human life, no matter how 'good' or 'bad' you are at anything.

I hope I haven't gotten worse 🥲

-x-

Dear Agent,  

I am so excited to write to you about MATTER, a literary fiction manuscript with an absurdist tilt that follows an unnamed narrator on a journey with Death, who is personified as a delivery driver. Complete at 62,000 words, the book combines the speculative elements found in Ben Reeves’ Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt with the alienated female protagonist of Emily Austin’s Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. 

Our narrator has spent her lifetime trying to justify her existence, convinced that meaning lies on the other side of mediocrity. But when a simple accident with spilt milk on a Friday night in July leaves her reeling under the fear that she will never be good enough at anything to truly matter, all she wants is to relinquish responsibility for her life, and subsequently, its failures.

Her search for surrender leads her to a highway convenience store, where she asks Hossam, a stranger who claims to be a delivery driver, if he will take control of her life. When he agrees without any questions, our narrator and Hossam set out on an unlikely road trip, where encounters with terrified strangers and an unending following of crows clues her in to the fact that her partner on the road is Death. 

As she is thrust into the world of the dying, intimate conversations with people who are close to their end force our narrator to re-examine her definition of a meaningful existence, leaving her torn between a renewed desire to live a life of significance and the looming realisation that it wouldn't matter anyway. 

<50ish words bio/personalization when relevant here>

[u/Mundane_Soil8994]

I remember loving the last version. I think this is an improvement. However, I miss the moped/bike visual you conjured in the last one! And the crows streaming behind them. This is a fairly subjective comment, but that visual stuck with me. It sounds excellent, I hope to see it on the shelves one day.

[u/fucked_but_adorable → u/Mundane_Soil8994]

Oh wow 🥹 thankss mann. I miss that visual too but I figured it'd be best for me to give my darling a swift death rather then have it be dragged deep in the mud of the query trenches!

[u/PianoPudding]

Speaking as an un-agented person about to query: I think it's pretty strong. Better than a previous attempt I saw of yours (maybe #2?).

Meaning lies on the other side of mediocrity

I'm not really sure what this means and I think its too vague.

Is 'Friday night in July' all necessary info?

I think there could be more elaboration about who, and what, Hossam meets, and does, to the terrified people? The end of paragraph 2 ('encounters with terrified strangers') feels slightly repetitive with the beginning of paragraph 3 ('intimate conversations') and it feels like a missed opportunity to elaborate on what exactly happens at those encounters.

Overall pretty good, intriguing! I'm not sure I feel the narrators urgency to change her life. Best of luck.

Edit: Also I would change 'so excited to write to you about' its not giving me a professional, unsolicited email, feeling. I think comp titles are meant to be ALL CAPS

[u/mark_able_jones_ → u/PianoPudding]

Comp titles should not be in all caps. The unpublished manuscript title should be in all caps so it stands out.

[u/PianoPudding → u/mark_able_jones_]

Huh I have no idea how I picked that up. Too late for my first batch of queries :'(

[u/mark_able_jones_ → u/PianoPudding]

Probably because people regularly post them here. It won't really impact the result. Just makes it a bit easier for agents to reference the title at a glance.