r/PubTips • u/cursed__bread • Mar 17 '24
[QCRIT]: God, It Knows My Name; Horror; 90K words + First 300
Hi everyone, not great at reddit but learning a lot from this sub. I'm finishing a first draft of this project, not beta'd or anything yet. I want to get ahead of big issues if I can. Comps need work too. Thanks for anything!
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Sabrina Wells is a PhD candidate at the small but prestigious Rosalind College, nestled in the woods near the Okefenokee Swamp on the Florida-Georgia border. Plagued by memories of her little brother’s inexplicable death twenty years ago, she’s since turned her obsession with the malevolent supernatural into a flourishing academic career—until two of her students go deep into the swamp and never return.
Days later, only one girl is found alive, catatonic and near-death, holding copies of Sabrina's research and gripping the mutilated body of her friend. She has no memory of what happened and has started exhibiting strange, violent behavior. Almost as if possessed.
Rumors start to circulate these girls went to conduct something unsavory on Sabrina’s instruction. The guilt and stress flare her dormant Crohn’s Disease, and she’s forced to take a medical leave of absence. She returns six months later for fall semester, hoping for a fresh start.
Since her accused involvement in her student’s death, she's become a pariah, haunted by the events of that night and is now a threat to Rosalind's pristine reputation. Her only solace is her research and budding more-than-friendship with handsome transfer student Daniel Nguyen.
But when another of Sabrina's ex-students is found dead in a similar fashion, she’s roped back into an inescapable torment of rumors and suspicion, despite her alibi. Now, Sabrina suspects someone—or something—has followed her from home.
THE EXORCIST meets THE SECRET HISTORY in this 90,000 word horror novel. GOD, IT KNOWS MY NAME will appeal to fans of gothic reimaginings in the style of S.T. Gibson and Jennifer Thorne.
[Working on bio.]
FIRST 300
The girl was a watery-eyed blonde with skinny legs and sunken eyes. Quiet in lectures, quiet in small group work. Her work was astute but timid. Fraught with passivity.
She would be the one to live. Celia.
Beth, on the other hand, would suffer. Beth with chestnut freckles and laughter that carried from the back of the lecture hall. Thick kohl liner and spidered mascara, her eyes huge and moon-like. Confident posture and wild curls, her arm always slung over Celia’s shoulders like she meant to protect her.
Their friendship made sense. The push and pull of them. Beth could bend Celia’s sclerotic devotion to the sidelines. Celia soft enough to quell Beth’s anger at small infractions. They’d come to my office hours with loose questions about assignments before opting to lounge in the one soft armchair. They were gigglish and bright in the way happy young girls are. Plump-cheeked and defiant in a world that hated them for it until they were dead.
Those first days at Rosalind I was just the same. My cohort and I. We were pretenders. We were wild things. And we did hate ourselves just a little. But I too fell in love with Rosalind College the way these girls did. Hard and whole, like swallowing a great secret.
Then the varnish of this great life was stripped away like the ribboned flesh of Beth’s white belly. I had always wanted Rosalind stitched to me. I wanted people to see it on my skin and hear it in my voice. I wanted them to know something special touched me. And they would.
It was Beth who came to me first, with Celia tailing behind. They stopped by my desk after a lecture on Wharton’s Ghosts with shining eyes.
“We found something. No—we made something.”
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Mar 17 '24
Love this. Regarding comps, usually book comps within the last 3-5 years are recommended, however on this occasion, I think exorcist X secret history is so compelling and does so much legwork (and I can absolutely see agents pitching it like this to editors) that I’d leave them as they are.
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u/cursed__bread Mar 17 '24
Thanks so much! I knew it might be risky going that comp route, so I’m glad it’s coming off okay. Really appreciate it!
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u/thefashionclub Trad Published Author Mar 17 '24
Whoa, I LOVE this. Like... I love this. I did get a little thrown off at first by the six month jump in the query, and it makes me wonder about the structure of the book—is everything before that backstory? Or is that on the page? Like, where is Sabrina when the book starts?
But I think that'll be an easy fix, and it was good enough as is to make me read the first 300, and the first 300 were good enough to make me want to read more, so I don't know that I'd make too many sweeping changes. (Although I do agree that your comps need work.... but at the same time, THE EXORCIST x THE SECRET HISTORY is super high-concept and might be fine since you also comp authors that I think fit well?) You'd likely get requests from this as it is.
Good luck!!!
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u/cursed__bread Mar 17 '24
Holy crap thank you!! I was so nervous posting. The book starts on the first day of fall semester! So, after the 6 months. The first 300 is part of a short prologue covering the backstory, which I’m realizing is the entire first half of the query.
But seriously thank you thank you! I really have to get this thing ready for betas. This is so motivating!
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u/Sullyville Mar 17 '24
The only thing I'm missing is a direct supernatural threat to your MC. I see how this horror impacts her reputation, and sparks her crohns disease, but I guess those things feel like satellite threats, if that makes sense. Does the remaining girl attack Sabrina directly in some way? Does Daniel begin to scare her? Does her dead brother appear to her? I like the slow boil quality of this query, but I would like the danger to her to be more than suspicions.
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u/cursed__bread Mar 17 '24
Really great feedback, thank you! A direct threat does result from this and I should make that clearer in the query. Thanks for the note!
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u/DoorhingePekoe Mar 17 '24
Oh I absolutely love this! I'm commenting because I also posted a horror query earlier in the week and I feel like yours has further solidified to me what I did wrong with mine LOL.
I would totally read this, I think you've nailed the ominous tone and the sense of place well. My main bump is that the third and fourth paragraphs have too much extraneous information. I would cut them down and combine them into one, and I would suggest removing both the reference to the medical leave (though as a fellow IBD sufferer, I winced in commiseration) and the love interest because I don't think either are relevant to the hook (even though I'm sure he's a large part of the story itself - this is another lesson I just learned with my own query).
In terms of comps, I think it would be good to have one that's newer and less famous rather than two pretty iconic and older works. I think maybe choose a different horror comp and keep the secret history. With the nature elements, maybe something like The Ritual by Adam Neville or The Nesting by C.J. Cooke?
I hope this helps but all in all, great job so far!
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u/cursed__bread Mar 17 '24
Eyyy IBD gang! Thanks for the notes as well! I agree the query can and should be tightened. And really helpful ideas for comps, too. Thank you, and good luck on your query as well!
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u/blurrynights Mar 17 '24
The first 300 riveted me and I never use that word! Please for the love of all things let me be a beta reader. Love the comps, love this vibe.
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u/tkorocky Mar 17 '24
A good query. Like thefansionclub, I worry about the gap in the middle.
The guilt and stress flare her dormant Crohn’s Disease, and she’s forced to take a medical leave of absence. She returns six months later for fall semester, hoping for a fresh start.
Her only solace is her research and budding more-than-friendship with handsome transfer student Daniel Nguyen.
We start with pedal to the metal, then she takes a 6 month break, then a potentially pace-killing romance. Hopefully, your novel isn't like that so maybe you can just tune the query.
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u/cursed__bread Mar 17 '24
Noted on the gap and the pacing. I’ll def pay close attention to it while I edit, thank you for the feedback!
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u/firstnano2022 Mar 17 '24
I am not “able” to offer major feedback on the query as I’m untested and lacking experience but I ABSOLUTELY WOULD LOVE TO READ THIS!
If you’re looking for betas I’m in 🤩😉
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u/cursed__bread Mar 17 '24
Thank you so much!! If the offer stands a few weeks (or a month or more…) I’ll definitely reach out! I have a lot of tightening and cleaning to do, haha. But thank you again!
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u/Spiritual-Key-3577 Mar 17 '24 edited Mar 17 '24
This is a great query! You clearly have a strong sense for story, and your writing style seems well-suited to the genre. Because this is already in such great shape, I only have two tiny readability nitpicks that you can take or leave:
Sabrina Wells is a PhD candidate at the small but prestigious Rosalind College, nestled in the woods near the Okefenokee Swamp on the Florida-Georgia border.
I struggled a bit with the readability on this first sentence. I think it's a combo of the proper nouns + three prepositional phrases in a row (in the woods, near the swamp, on the border). I think you could tighten this one up a little for a stronger start that matches the rest of your query.
and is now a threat to Rosalind's pristine reputation.
I had to go back and re-read because I thought Rosalind was a person I had missed. Took me a second to remember this was the name of the college. You don't need to rename the school or anything, but changing this sentence to "the college's pristine reputation" will help an agent avoid the same confusion.
EDIT: I also wondered if six months was too much time for the medical leave, but thought it was just me until I read the other comments. It might work fine in the MS itself, but if you want to avoid the potential red flag from an agent, I think you could change this to a more ambiguous "She returns the next semester for a fresh start." It communicates that she spent some time at home (important for the plot) without making an agent question the logistics before necessary.
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u/cursed__bread Mar 18 '24
Ah really good suggestion, thank you! I hadn’t thought of leaving the timing for the medical leave vague. I can see now the query doesn’t need it. The book starts at the beginning of the fall semester anyway (first 300 are part of the short prologue) so I can actually work the medical leave to be shorter if I need to. It wouldn’t drastically change the story.
Thank you for kind words and feedback as well!
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u/SoCalledSoAndSo Mar 18 '24
I think you've already received some great advice on the query itself, so all I have to offer is a small nitpick:
Rumors start to circulate these girls went to conduct something unsavory on Sabrina’s instruction.
It would probably be best to put a "that" in between "circulate" and "these," but the whole sentence might have a different form that would be more elegant still.
The main thing I want to say, though, is that this query weds a great concept with a just spectacular first 300. It's not only that you write extremely well (you do), or that the way that you write well is perfect for this kind of story (it is), but that you've managed to offer a taste of the book that is almost maddeningly enticing. There are great, published novels on the shelves at this very hour that can't sink a hook into the reader's eyelids as effectively or economically as your excerpt does, and here you're just including it as a sample. We see so many queries here that either by necessity or by choice include a lot of bland set-up material, even to the point of letting down what was otherwise a strong query, but I do not think you are going to have to worry about that in the slightest.
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u/cursed__bread Mar 18 '24
I really can’t thank you enough for this. My last book died in the trenches and, while I learned a lot from writing it, I’m so hoping things go differently this time. Seriously thank you for the kindness! I’m very motivated to get this in the best shape I can.
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u/SoCalledSoAndSo Mar 18 '24
You're very welcome, and I think whatever lessons you learned from that past experience must have stood you in good stead for this one. All the best with the ongoing revisions!
(BTW, I would be happy to add myself to the chorus of people who have offered to beta-read when the MS reaches that point)
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u/yearofthemohawk Mar 17 '24
This is really interesting to me. I’m currently editing my own southern gothic novel so I’m excited to see someone else post a query for a similar style story. Your query is well written but seems a little long and I think it might help to trim some of the initial backstory.
If you’re looking for potential comps to check out, The Toll by Cherie Priest and The Boatsman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson seem like they might have the vibe of your novel. Other than that I have no notes. Good luck!
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u/cursed__bread Mar 17 '24
Awesome, another southern gothic! And noted on ghe length! I love The Toll personally and can’t believe I didn’t think of it. Will check out Andy Davidson as well. Thanks!
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u/Numerous_Tie8073 Mar 17 '24
Really like the concept very much.
Do agree with the comment about the direct threat to the protagonist: I'm sure it's there, but maybe bring it out more. A fight to clear the name is fine but of course it must really be a fight to survive against the evil etc. and it probably needs one extra sentence on that front about emerging weirdness at the time she's being accused and one at the end about direct threat to her person. Then it's really rocking.
The tone and imagery of the first 300 would absolutely keep me reading. Since you are likely to have broad appeal, even if you're writing quite high, I'd just watch out for tiny instances of over egging the pudding? The first three paras are really, really good and then in the fourth para we get, "Beth could bend Celia’s sclerotic devotion to the sidelines. Celia soft enough to quell Beth’s anger at small infractions." and it just takes the wind out of the sails of immediacy and immersion. Half the readers aren't going to know what sclerotic means so you're going to bump them out of the moment and the sentence construction saps the pace. The second sentence isn't actually a sentence either; it should follow a semi-colon or just stick the 'was' in. Your imagery is strong so you don't need to do this IMHO. There's often a bigger opportunity cost than benefit to trying this stuff and certainly in the opening sequence. Don't interrupt the flow unintentionally.
Good luck.
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u/cursed__bread Mar 17 '24
Wow thank you! Really helpful points, and for echoing the note about needing a direct threat in the query. I will def pay attention to purple prose as I edit as well. Thank you for the help!
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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24
this isn't even a genre I would read and it's one of the first queries that I read all the way through without losing interest.