Meh. Most 'successful queries' have love interests, theft (etc), swearing (as one means toward 'voice'), and so on. Put another way, sex and violence--drugs, swearing, etc.
Not ... concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere. Or the scale of time for Earth to form, stable ecosystems to develop, and the unprecedented rate of disaster that is currently unfolding.
I've watched the successful queries. They seem to often involve violence, or sex, or other basic human drives. Period. "All the feels" as some people say. AND this makes sense. For God's sake, look at the tropes. Death of parent. Death of child. Death, death, death. Not science.
I have no wish to derail the thread so will take whatever knocks come along after this post without responding unless specifically asked to do so--but a story in which a young protagonist experiences Earth History? People have no idea what to do with that. "But what does he "want?"' they say.
"A girl" seems to be an easily-accepted answer. Alternatively, overthrowing something. Violence. Knowledge? Not so much. 'Too passive.' The brain uses more energy than any other human organ--why in God's name do we not celebrate our brain power? We can solve climate change right now.
You've pointed at the successful queries, which for sure I've followed. I'll pick a random 'successful' query--without looking first, I'll say page 22, number 20 on that sticky. I bet it has at least one of the points I called out.
~~patty checks~~
Yep, sex (romance) and drugs (antidepressants) in that one.
Trust me, I am not surprised to be correct.
I am glad people succeed, but these factors seem to be commonalities in successful queries. Basic human drives. We 'understand' them. 'Truthiness' Colbert called it.
Show me a successful query that doesn't have at least one of them. Sex, violence, drugs, swearing.