Susan Velazquez

watching bridgerton and there's a recurring thing of "being caught alone = scandal so we must marry to save your honor" and i just thought of something i'd love for my #mswl

(Thread)

thinking about this tweet again and i'd really love something like this for my #mswl Doesn't have to be set in the 90s or about a hair salon but a story about 3 sisters taking over their mother's shop and wrestling with family legacy and following their individual dreams

I have another thread with my #mswl pinned on my profile so you can review that but generally speaking I am open to fantasy and romantasy right now!

in rom-coms, i really love hijinks. i love fake dating but i love mistaken identity, i love the dancing around declarations of love like in this clip. i want to be like "oh boy oh boy how are these rascals gonna get out of this one"

also a romance trope i find that i really, really hate especially in heterosexual dynamics is the MMC "taking care" of the FMC but it's really just him bossing her around and taking control of her life even if it's doing something ostensibly nice like cleaning their room

i never want a romance to feel like the rom-com parody in how i met your mother where the antagonist is clearly a jerk and you're kind of just checking your watch waiting for the MC to realize that. i need villains to have nuance.

especially for romance, i am super picky about antagonists, if any. i've read 1000s of romance novels. when i see a jerk ex or the romantic false lead is an arrogant ass, i'm like "dump them! block them! take them straight to jail!"

i really *do not* want anything sci-fi this time around. i don't want robots, i don't want aliens, i don't want otherworldly planets. my idea of SF this time is like groundhog day or the seven year slip--it's basically magic.

for examples of things i could do: fleabag, my mad fat diary, you're the worst, i may destroy you, sorry for your loss by jessie ann foley, turtles all the way down by john green. i definitely *do not* want a version of a little life by hanya yanagihara

to clarify, i don't mind characters who are dealing with loss or depression or anxiety, or are coming to terms with something in their past. i just really do not want stories to center around a particular traumatic incident

for this submission round of queries, i really *do not* want anything dealing with abuse/trauma as the focus of the plot. i don't want to read about an abusive relationship, sexual abuse, school shootings, etc. i just don't have the emotional bandwidth right now

i think this is b/c i have watched so many detective/cop shows (castle/law & order:svu/brooklyn 99/the wire/etc) and it's just an area that i prefer in a visual medium vs in novel form. sorry rick castle, i love ur show but i would have hated the nikki heat books

i am just not into anything that features police/special agent/FBI/law enforcement characters especially in modern settings. however i *can* do a historical/magical sherlock holmes style "detective of manners". (con't)

this may be the christian evangelical upbringing still in me but i can't get into angel/seraphim/etc stories. Demons and devils, I'm good with. For whatever reason, I see angel stories and suddenly i'm like "hmmm idk why does but this feels blasphemous"

i don't mind a fantasy set up where there's secretly been a magical world operating alongside ours this whole time but there's a portal of some sort, i just can't do it

i really hate portal fantasies. i'm sorry, i grew up reading a lot of fan fic that had the set up with "and then the tv/book/whatever began to glow and i was suddenly pulled into this fantasy world." i just cant do it anymore :(

i've been open to queries for about 2 weeks for the first time in 2 years (phew) and here's some random things i am noticing about myself to help with my #mswl for #amquerying writers

I'm leaning pretty light-hearted these days but I'm not necessarily opposed to darker twinged series. But please no being dark and brutal for the sake of being dark and brutal! I want stories to feel hopeful #MSWL

My #mswl gets pretty detailed into what I am looking for but generally speaking, I'm drawn to characters first & foremost in a story. I want to fall in love with them, I want to feel like they're my best friend, I want to call them up and yell at them for their bad decisions.

I am ONLY looking for YA/New Adult/Adult stories in romance, rom-coms, romantasy, upmarket/book club fiction, and women's fiction. OK to cross into the magical side of speculative (time travel, time slip, parallel universe stories a la THE SEVEN YEAR SLIP by Ashley Poston)