More Agents, More Queries

I submitted The Ultimate Evil to four more literary agencies yesterday. It is now with five agencies. I have submitted to a total of seven, but two have already replied with rejections.

You know how sometimes when you query an agent, they will send you an e-mail two minutes later that basically says, "Hey, we got your query!"? Like I said, two minutes later. But I'm super confused about something. When I submitted yesterday, on a Saturday, I got one of those letters, but four hours after I sent my query. For all you who find out all the scams, this is a reputable agency. Andrea Brown Literary. So, do they have those e-mails sent out on a timer on weekends, or did this agent look at my query on a Saturday and send me this as a "hey, I may be interested in your work" type deal? I don't know, so I'm not reading anything into it.

Speaking of reading, I finished my second round of edits in Khaladin. Even though I took away a lot (as I can get wordy) I added about 1,000 more words. There's more to be done and I'm thinking about getting a Beta reader for it. Not the whole thing, only part. See, with my Beta reads, I like to see the mistakes people find and then correct them and find them on my own throughout the rest of the manuscript. That way I'll learn. Unfortunately, AW is down right now (which stinks!) so I can't post that I need a Beta reader. I do need to go back and see how many chapters I want read before I put that post up though. That way I can get the word count. Khaladin has twenty-eight chapters, but is only 33K. But I know if I just say I need the first ten chapters read and don't put down any word count, people aren't going to want to read it. At least, that's the pattern I've seen.

I'm over halfway done with my first round of edits in Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! Those are going really well and when I finish them, I'll send the manuscript to a friend of mine who has offered to read it. He said he wanted to read something of mine that did not contain unicorns, and this new story doesn't even mention them. I think he's happy about that. I am too. The last thing I want to become known as is "The Unicorn Writer" though I can't not write about unicorns. I love them too much. :D

OK, I Need Your Help

My new story, titled Khaladin, is a story about a girl named Judy. Her aunt's horse, Penny, ends up giving birth to a unicorn foal. Well, technically, he's a half unicorn. Long story short, they try to keep him a secret, but the baddie finds out and kidnaps Khaladin. In trying to find more unicorns, said baddie tortures Khaladin.

Here's my problem. The age group I'm targeting is upper middle grade. I don't want anything real gory and gross, like Khaladin lying there dripping in blood. But I would like something that appeals to both sexes. Most girls don't tend to like a lot of blood and guys are like, "Yes, blood!" I'm somewhere in the middle. But do any of you have any suggestions on how to do this scene? Yes, it will be told from either Khaladin's or baddie's point of view.

PS: If you are a member of http://www.absolutewrite.com/ (aka AW) you can go to the children's section and read one chapter that I posted of this story. Also, I have a thread about the torture topic in The Sanbox titled, Unicorn Help......Again.