6. Adult F. Retelling of a popular story that I unfortunately just have no interest in. Writing didn't grab me, so pass. #tenqueries

5. MG contemporary. Charming, but just not the kind of book I represent. Pass. #tenqueries

4. YA SF. Don't love the writing. If every line is a new paragraph, you do not have enough variation in your sentence and paragraph structure. Giving short sentences their own paragraph ~for effect~ only works when used sparingly, not every other line. Pass. #tenqueries

3. YA horror. I'm not the best person for small-town-America horror--I'm looking for more unique settings and some crossover with other genres. I wouldn't be a good fit for this. Pass. #tenqueries

2. Adult F. I would have been really into this pitch if the protagonist had ended up with her rival 😍 Sadly it was not so, and the rest wasn't quite working for me either, so pass. #tenqueries

1. YA SF, but the voice reads much more middle grade to me. Also the premise doesn't feel new enough. Pass. #tenqueries

10. YA F. Neat premise, but overwrought writing. I love voicey language that evokes the time period of its setting, but it's easy to take it too far if you're not careful. This is why reading extensively within your genre is important! Pass. #tenqueries

9. Adult F. A four-sentence query letter that gives me no specifics about the story, not even a character name. Synopsis is equally vague. Guys, you've got to give me something to connect with!! Pass. #tenqueries

8. Adult UF. Nothing wrong with this query, but nothing about it grabs me, either. It doesn't give me any reason to care about the protag. In the pages, some of the worldbuilding and vocab choices have questionable optics, so this is a pass for multiple reasons. #tenqueries

7. Adult F, though I would have called it YA. I LOVE the pitch, but sadly the prose just isn't there for me. It's always hard with queries like this, but I can't take it on if I don't love the writing, so sadly I have to pass. #tenqueries

6. Adult F. Almost passed on this as the vague, brief query letter did not capture me at all, but the sample pages had such an incredible voice that I ended up requesting more! #tenqueries

5. YA F. The tone of the sample pages is completely different from the tone of the query letter, resulting in very mixed signals about how I'm meant to feel about the protagonist. This one's just not working for me. Pass. #tenqueries

4. NA F. There's potential here in both premise and writing, but it's not quite where it needs to be. Lots of interruptions in the story to explain things instead of building information organically into the narrative. Pass. #tenqueries

3. YA F. Query hits a lot of my buttons, and the writing is snappy and compelling. Intrigued by the worldbuilding. Request! #tenqueries

2. YA F. Query tells me more about the worldbuilding than the characters. Sample pages had potential and I might have requested more with a query that gave me a better sense of the story, but unfortunately I don't know what's going on so this is a pass. #tenqueries

1. YA F. Cool premise, but the writing is only fine and I'm not comfortable with the cavalier attitude towards sexual harassment in the sample pages. Pass. #tenqueries

They may appear somewhat vague, as #tenqueries is designed not to call out anyone, but instead to shed some light on what makes a successful query for me, and offer tips as to how authors can improve their query game.

Soooo...this query is interesting...I have no idea who the main character is by the first few pages. I don’t even know her name, and all I know is it’s a “she”. No idea what she’s doing where she is, and I know more about the people she’s watching than I do her...#tenqueries

I’m really not a fan of alternate timelines manuscripts. To me, it’s very, VERY difficult to write two time lines where one is way in the past (over 100 years ago) and the other is in the present. Why are we even connecting the two? I don’t get it...#tenqueries

What does your character want to do? What’s their goal? What’s their drive? Establishing this immediately makes them relatable AND immediately ups the tension because we now need to know how they get from point A to point B in order to get what they want. #tenqueries