Since February I have been querying my young adult murder mystery manuscript called The Final Chapter. It’s set in a fictional small-town near Philly and takes place primarily at an indie bookstore during Halloween. The main character, Emmie, and her friends team up to solve who killed a bookstore patron, Bette. Emmie was the last person to serve her food and it’s known that Emmie doesn’t get along with Bette, so she needs to clear her name before she’s accused of the crime, or worse, she’s the next victim. I pitch it as queer Nancy Drew.
I’ve had more interest from agents than the past couple times I queried, but I’m still waiting to receive an offer of representation. I did get a full request from an agent and a couple partial requests, but when I got a no on my only full, I decided to take a step back and see what I could do to make my manuscript even better.
I enlisted the help of some of my close author friends and received some really helpful feedback: the opening chapters of my manuscript were too slow. The murder didn’t happen until after page 50, which sometimes is okay, but after re-reading my story, I saw what my friends pointed out. It needed more action.
So I withdrew my pending queries and started the painstaking editing process. And boy did I edit. I chopped out a lot of my darlings, as they say. It was 79,000 words and now, after all the edits it is 74,000, which is a respectable length for a YA book. I asked my author friends to take a look at the beginning chapters again and they agreed, it’s at a much faster pace and draws you in right away. Success!
I have a couple of pending queries now from a pitch contest, but I’m going to wait to go back into the querying trenches full force until January. I’m taking December to go over the whole manuscript one more time, plus most agents are closed until the new year. Once I start sending out queries, I’ll get back to drafting my adult sapphic romance book that had to be put aside during my edits.
We will see what happens this go around, but I’m feeling really positive about my edited pages. Crossing fingers someone else will love this book as much as me.
Diane Billas 