#query feedback

[silverfiligree3]

HELLO I am set loose from the writing sideblog to ask mutuals if they would be willing to read a short summary of my novel? It's part of what I'll be submitting to agents and I'd love to get some feedback! I'm looking for what questions it leaves you with/if there's any confusion as to wording, etc. There's a lot I need to leave out based on the format and I want to see what someone who hasn't read the actual story thinks!

[cwritesfiction]

I am about halfway or 40k words into my first novel’s sixth rewrite.

That's awesome progress!! And oh man, rewrites.

Under No Illusions, my YA novel on sub, went through two major rewrites - one before querying and one before going out to editors. Both times was a case of knowing, objectively, that the changes would make things better but UGH why is everything so much work fine fine FINE i'm doing it.

[metaphorfordeath]

Writing updates: I am now teetering on the precipice of finished with just a couple smudges to buff out in my query packet. Synopses are brutally difficult to write, query letter comparatively easy. I want to do maybe one more pass on the MS but at this point I think I'm mostly blind to any mistakes it has, and Corinne was very thorough, so I'm calling it done and polished.

Non-novel stuff: I just finished a new short story that I'm submitting now, plus keep your eyes peeled for another story coming in God's Cruel Joke on 9/6!

[elitheaceofalltrades]

Not all men

But it's always a man.

And everyone,

Man, woman, human,

Has a story to tell.

How many songs have been sung,

How many books and poems written,

How many tales have been told,

For all who hear and see to relate to.

Violence, betrayal, heartbreak.

Look how many chose the beast.

Not safe.

Not safe.

Never safe.

Look how many millions agree.

I love men,

I do,

I love their smiles and their laughs and their smell.

But men don't love each other.

For how can you love a friend,

But not trust them alone with your daughter.

How can you love a friend,

Yet say nothing when they choose violence.

How can you love a friend,

Yet not act when they head down the wrong path.

How can you call that love?

There is no love without trust,

No love in silence,

No love in watching a friend destroy themselves and others.

Love is not limited to romance,

Philia - from the greeks,

Brothers, comrades, friends

"to want good for him, for his own sake"

There is no good in hatred.

Nor in harm nor bigotry.

Don't you want good for him?

Him - Your brother, your friend?

Men don't you want better for one another?

Maybe not all men,

But what about you?

[leejeongz]

Maybe don’t write for a group where you don’t see them all in that way then because is sooo obvious 😭

maybe don’t read them then 😟

[comfy-vember]

is there a discord for the event ?

No, there isn't, but do you think it's something I should consider for next year? I've never used discord, and am curious what purpose a discord group for a writing event could serve.

I will warn though that I doubt I would have time to moderate it, as I'm the only person throwing the party. ^^'

[mostlyyourlysander]

Dadsander on the alert

He is quite so young... I do hope he fits in well around the others.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

....honestly i think part of the reason i don't give readers the version of my manuscript i intend to Query is because at that stage i absolutely cannot stomach the idea of making more revisions based on feedback lol

[herbertwest]

I was getting excited to edit my book, and then I remembered that I still need to fix my query letter and my enthusiasm kind of dried up

[aurorawest]

Just got THE DUMBEST form letter query rejection I've ever received.

[geriatricmachineshed]

God I hate writing query letters. Getting feedback for them is definitely the worst part- I feel like everytime I go to anywhere online for advice or critique, everyone’s so harsh and demeaning. I don’t know, man. It makes it hard to keep up the fight.

[percysheliey]

reddit isn’t evil who knew not me

[changes]

New: Search operators for better searching!

We hear you, and we share your frustrations: it’s hard to find a specific post. You know it has a particular tag or phrase, and it was posted on this date, or at least, within a specific year. But you can't find it!

So, today, we’re excited to announce that you can use ✨ advanced search operators ✨ in the search bar now! You can now say potato from:staff year:2021 to easily enjoy that video of a potato being microwaved again.

Before we jump into the details, a couple of caveats to note:

These search operators are only available in the main Tumblr search bar. They don’t work in the search bar in individual blogs.

The search operators only work on posts created in 2017 or later.

OK! Let’s go explore these operators!

Exact phrase match

When you surround your query with regular double quotes (not curly quotes), it will match posts with that exact phrase in the post's text content, or that exact phrase as a tag.

For example, "chappell roan is roan of arc" matches posts with that exact phrase in the content, and also matches posts that have the exact tag #chappell roan is roan of arc.

Match operator

By default, the query matches the post on either the text or the tags.

You can use match:text to specify you want to search the post content, or match:tags to search the post tags. For example:

sword world match:text looks for posts with the words "sword" and "world" in the post content.

sword world match:tags looks for posts with the words "sword" and "world" in the post tags.

From operator

Use from:blog or from:@​blog to find only posts by a particular blog.

For example, halloween from:staff finds all posts by @staff that has the word "halloween" in the post content or tags.

Year operator

Use year:YYYY to find posts from a particular year.

For example, halloween year:2019 finds all posts from 2019 that has the word "halloween" in the post content or tags.

Date operator

Use date:YYYY-MM-DD to find posts from a particular date.

For example, halloween date:2019-10-08 finds all posts created on October 8, 2019 that has the word "halloween" in the post content or tags.

All together

You can combine all the tools above to form even more specific queries:

Congrats! You’re now a Tumblr search wizard! 🪄

Other syntax

As a reminder, you can already search by a tag, or by multiple tags:

Prefixing your query with # performs a tag search — that is, it will find posts with that exact tag. For example, #star wars will only return posts with the #star wars tag.

You can search for multiple tags at at time. For example, #star wars #art will find posts that are tagged with both the tag #star wars and the tag #art.

You can combine this with the new operators to find what you are looking for!

A guide on how to use the new operators has also been added to our Search and Filtering Basics Guide.

Tumblr Patio support

The enhanced syntax makes Tumblr Patio even more powerful. You can now open multiple search columns each with different fine-tuned queries that use the syntax above to get you customized feeds.

Feedback

We’d love to hear what you think! Please share your feedback in the replies and reblogs of this post, or by reaching out to Tumblr Support.

[authortoberecognized]

    WRITER’S FORUM

                    WEBSITES HELPFUL TO WRITERS This is a series of posts which, I think, will be beneficial to writers. But first, I would like to include my usual warning about using websites. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH. Whenever you check a website you are, in my opinion and I talk from experience, being put on a list for sale. So, expect the possibility of being bombarded by…

[ramblinganthropologist]

Hooray, another form rejection.

I can't do anything with that.

[pangur-and-grim]

Will you provide a postmortem on what happened between announcing your insanity and publishing?

oh sure! here's a rough breakdown:

June - July 2022 - wrote the first draft, 62k words

July - December 2022 - edited the book extensively

January - May 2023 - queried agents about the book + did more rewrites, bringing it to 70k

May 2023 - after receiving 70+ explicit rejections (and a ton of non-responses), Handspun Literary accepted me as a client

May - June 2023 - even more rewrites based on my agent’s critique, upping the wordcount to 75k

July 2023 - July 2024 - the book got shopped to different publishers. Titan Books ended up purchasing it

December 2024 - May 2025 - more rewrites based on my editor's feedback. the book grew to 90k words

May 2025 - Feb 2026 - ???????

Feb 2026 - the publishing date!