[QCrit] MR. GREEN – New Adult Upmarket Thriller – 97k words (First Attempt)
Hi! First time posting here.
I think it'd be best if you read my query first and see my notes later.
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Query: Dear [Agent],
“What would happen to my novel if I died before finishing it?”
Some writers try not to think about this question. Others face it head-on. In my 97,000-word debut thriller novel MR. GREEN, top English student Diana Silva meets an author who wishes he’d prepared better.
In Brazil, returning to her apartment one night, Diana becomes the sole witness to a fatal hit-and-run. The victim’s dying act isn’t to call for help, but to press a smartphone and password into her hands. On it, she discovers three things: the man’s name was Matthew Greig, he was a world-famous (yet incognito) English author publishing under the pseudonym Richard L. Green online, and he left a simple request: if anything ever happened to him, someone should continue his work. The smartphone contains all the information his successor could need.
Diana’s old-sealed passion for English writing is reignited. She secretly takes on the role of Mr. Green, a paper she enjoys at first, but the deeper she dives into Greig’s unpublished material, the more dangerous it becomes. Soon, she realizes someone is watching her, and that Matthew Greig didn’t die in an accident that night: he was murdered because of the story he was telling.
Diana finds herself in a hunt against her new pursuers, who will do anything to stop her from releasing Mr. Green’s final and greatest book. With the help of Gabriel Cavalcante, her "acquaintance" from Computer Science, she’ll learn that, for better or for worse, no one can stay hidden for long in our current digital world.
For this novel, I seek your representation. For comparative titles, Verity (Colleen Hoover) shares a similar opening with my work, although The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins) or Yellowface (R. F. Kuang) are stronger comparisons.
I myself am [name], an engineer from Brazil with a lifelong writing passion. My inspiration for this novel, in fact, came while I wrote a different novel and asked myself this query’s opening question. The answer became MR. GREEN, an upmarket thriller that explores merit, technology and legacy (and as a computer engineer, I assure you all of its technological details are accurate and realistic).
[Optional paragraph I sometimes include] I'd also like to clarify that yes, my novel is set in Brazil and Matthew Greig's books are in English, but the story does not revolve solely around Brazil nor does it limit potential readers from other countries (it's in English, after all; I wrote it with the American and English public in mind).
Thank you for your time and consideration. Warm regards from Brazil
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So, the first point I'm worried about is the language: I'm from Brazil and an ESL author.
In my first draft the story took place in the USA, but I've been told there could be many interesting twists if it happened in Brazil instead (and I really liked how it turned out). But in your opinion, does that make the story more interesting? Less? And does the optional paragraph (about language) in the query clears up what's happening? Should I always include it?
As for my credentials, I have none yet (as an author), so I included that paragraph about "writting passion" and my credentials as an engineer. Should I drop it?
And of course, what about the story itself? Does it have a good hook? Is it confusing somewhere?
Thanks for any input.