Hi all!
I've written a 64,000 word middle grade novel. It's already gone through a few rounds of beta readers, critique partners, and revisions and I'm now out on query (have been for about three months now). But the response from agents has been lukewarm and slow, so I'm thinking maybe this final version of the manuscript could benefit from another set of eyes/opinions/some additional revision. I think it's as good as I can make it...by myself. I think it's totally possible I'm blind to some pacing, plotting, structure issues and the ending, in my opinion, might be weak.
If you're in a similar boat, I'd love to read your manuscript too and give each other a fresh, birds-eye view on our stories! Even if you're not in a similar boat, if you love middle grade, specifically some of the comp titles I posted below, let's be friends!
Query, for those interested: :]
Eleven-year-old Shayde Alistair is desperate to figure out what his thing is—you know, that thing everyone knows you’re good at? Is it trombone? (No, definitely not, been there, tried that.) Is it baseball? (No, that’s his best friend, Patrick’s, thing.) On Halloween night, Shayde tries out costume design (unfortunately, also not his thing) and finds out, instead, that he can see real ghosts, in the spirit…and that maybe he’s not the only one.
Making friends with his next-door neighbor, elderly widower Mr. Henry, and his rescue dog Shadow, Shayde tries to use his newly discovered talent to bring back the dead, namely the late and greatly missed Mrs. Henry. A few new ghostly companions—a local all-star Olympic athlete, a lightening-struck 1980s teen lifeguard, and a prim and prickly Victorian socialite—join the search to find the missing Mrs. Henry. But when a crowd of the ghosts Shayde recently helped release start terrorizing the town, and family pets go suspiciously missing, Shayde starts asking questions about the town, and his family’s own dark history, that nobody wants answered.
Complete at 64,000 words, The Phantoms of Potter’s Field is a middle grade novel with series potential. It would appeal to readers who enjoyed Knight Ghost by Cornelia Funke, The Year of Shadows by Claire Legrand, or Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. I imagine it to be a middle grade sibling to the YA novels Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake and The Archived by Victoria Schwab. Similar to The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage, Shayde lives in a quirky town with a quirky family, but unlike many recent ghost stories, my ghosts are fully developed secondary characters who would rather crack jokes and help sixth graders study for spelling quizzes than participate in blood-and-gore hauntings.
I've written a 64,000 word middle grade novel. It's already gone through a few rounds of beta readers, critique partners, and revisions and I'm now out on query (have been for about three months now). But the response from agents has been lukewarm and slow, so I'm thinking maybe this final version of the manuscript could benefit from another set of eyes/opinions/some additional revision. I think it's as good as I can make it...by myself. I think it's totally possible I'm blind to some pacing, plotting, structure issues and the ending, in my opinion, might be weak.
If you're in a similar boat, I'd love to read your manuscript too and give each other a fresh, birds-eye view on our stories! Even if you're not in a similar boat, if you love middle grade, specifically some of the comp titles I posted below, let's be friends!
Query, for those interested: :]
Eleven-year-old Shayde Alistair is desperate to figure out what his thing is—you know, that thing everyone knows you’re good at? Is it trombone? (No, definitely not, been there, tried that.) Is it baseball? (No, that’s his best friend, Patrick’s, thing.) On Halloween night, Shayde tries out costume design (unfortunately, also not his thing) and finds out, instead, that he can see real ghosts, in the spirit…and that maybe he’s not the only one.
Making friends with his next-door neighbor, elderly widower Mr. Henry, and his rescue dog Shadow, Shayde tries to use his newly discovered talent to bring back the dead, namely the late and greatly missed Mrs. Henry. A few new ghostly companions—a local all-star Olympic athlete, a lightening-struck 1980s teen lifeguard, and a prim and prickly Victorian socialite—join the search to find the missing Mrs. Henry. But when a crowd of the ghosts Shayde recently helped release start terrorizing the town, and family pets go suspiciously missing, Shayde starts asking questions about the town, and his family’s own dark history, that nobody wants answered.
Complete at 64,000 words, The Phantoms of Potter’s Field is a middle grade novel with series potential. It would appeal to readers who enjoyed Knight Ghost by Cornelia Funke, The Year of Shadows by Claire Legrand, or Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. I imagine it to be a middle grade sibling to the YA novels Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake and The Archived by Victoria Schwab. Similar to The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage, Shayde lives in a quirky town with a quirky family, but unlike many recent ghost stories, my ghosts are fully developed secondary characters who would rather crack jokes and help sixth graders study for spelling quizzes than participate in blood-and-gore hauntings.
