[Famed for educating the real Prince Charles of England and the fictional Tomb Raider Lara Croft, Gordonstoun School is now home to 14 year-old American Jack Gordon.]

**I would cut the above reference. The book is about Jack not so much the school, Prince Charles and Lora Croft. It only confuses things right off.**

I’d start here:

When Jack is shipped off to boarding school in the north of Scotland, he knows he doesn’t belong. His teachers assume he is smart and sporty like dear old dad, a Gordonstoun Old Boy, and the students expect him to be popular like his big sister Lizzy, the campus Queen. But Jack is more of a gamer and a slacker than a scholar and an athlete and he figures he has about a one in a gazillion chance of being cool.

**Here, is where I get a bit lost. Did Jack join the Recycling Committee, or was it forced on him like detention? We don’t need to know all of the details to that, actually, I don’t know that we need to know anything about the committee other than the Captain. Will the captain be the antagonist? If so, name him or her then it could continue something like this…

The minute he steps foot on campus, Jack has a problem. Well, if he’s being honest, Jack has a lot of problems. But his biggest is thanks to some compromising photos featuring Jack, his friends, and a bottle of Scotch whisky. (Enter antagonist’s name here), the Captain of Recycling, has been able to blackmail Jack and his friends into bootlegging alcohol around campus pretty much all year, right under the headmaster’s nose, using innocent- looking recycled plastic bottles.

When Jack gets promoted to rum runner status, he starts handling real booze, not just empty bottles, and that means certain expulsion if he gets caught. Then the headmaster gets a lead on the operation. Jack and his friends know if they don’t find a way out of this mess they’ll be saying goodbye to Gordonstoun faster than you can say haggis.

Hope that helps GOOD LUCK!

Famed for educating the real Prince Charles of England and the fictional Tomb Raider Lara Croft, Gordonstoun School is now home to 14 year-old American Jack Gordon.

When Jack is shipped off to boarding school in the north of Scotland, he knows he doesn't belong. His teachers assume he is smart and sporty like dear old dad, a Gordonstoun Old Boy, and the students expect him to be popular like his big sister Lizzy, the campus Queen. But Jack is more of a gamer and a slacker than a scholar and an athlete and he figures he has about a one in a gazillion chance of being cool.

The minute he steps foot on campus, Jack has a problem. Well, if he’s being honest, Jack has a lot of problems. But if he’s prioritizing, the Recycling Committee is definitely his biggest problem.

At first, the assignments are innocent enough—washing and drying empty plastic bottles and taking them to the Recycling Center. But thanks to some compromising photos featuring Jack, his friends, and a bottle of Scotch whisky, the mysterious Captain of Recycling has been able to blackmail Jack and his friends into bootlegging alcohol around campus pretty much all year, right under the headmaster’s nose, using innocent- looking recycled plastic bottles.

When Jack gets promoted to rum runner status, he starts handling real booze, not just empty bottles, and that means certain expulsion if he gets caught. Then the headmaster gets a lead on the operation. Jack and his friends know if they don’t find a way out of this mess they’ll be saying goodbye to Gordonstoun faster than you can say haggis.

I'll start with a superficial — my eyes just really want to skim right over this. Yes, it's kind of long for a query, but that can be worked around. I think you want to split some of your giant paragraphs into smaller ones — the white space I think will make it easier for a reader's eyes to stay interested.

As for the plot — wow, there is a LOT going on here. If I had to pick what might be the most interesting idea to me, I'd go with the student-run alcohol distribution ring, and the worry that Jack's participation in it (even if it's unwilling) may get him kicked out of the school his family helped to found.

But other clearly have thought otherwise, and that should be a clear indication to you that there's too much being told here.

What's the one line pitch for this story? Know that, then expand on it in minor increments, rather than throwing everything at the query and seeing what sticks.

Another thought — if you want to concentrate on Jack's "gift" for finding the perfect song for every situation, you might try using a lot more song titles in your query. It might come off as gimmicky, but a very wise stripper once sang, "You gotta have a gimmick." You try this a bit in the second to last paragraph with "he’s going to be saying Goodbye to You and to Gordonstoun School," so see what it feels like to do it throughout. Especially if it's a theme that's carried through the novel, it might be worth playing with here.

I hope J. and K. will come back and share a revised query!

Too much specific detail, and not enough about the goal.

I also don't get the part about watching 21 seasons and 444 episodes of the Simpsons and how it is supposed teach him everything he needs to know in school. I like the pop culture reference and am thinking it is added for humor, but it kinda missed the mark.

Though I do like the headmaster's motto, "We don’t expect you to be good at everything, although one thing would be nice." It made me chuckle.

Also, the query has SO much information in it, but not what I wanted. The setting caught my interest–I've never been to a boarding school, and certainly not one in Scotland–but after that it suddenly becomes a "your typical high school story where the main character doesn't quite fit in" book with little to no nods to the fact that they're at boarding school or Scotland. Could we get a bit more of the feel of how different this place is–more than a reference to haggis? Does the fact that Jack's ancestors built the place somehow come into play? Since what I've got in my head when you say "Scotland" is all the cliches, and you didn't take those away and supply something new, I've got Jack wearing a kilt, going to school in a gloomy castle on a hillside overlooking a military tattoo.

Queries are so tricky and I think you have the right idea about trying to insert voice in with little details. This just wasn't quite tight enough to me–perhaps they weren't the right details this go-round.

Basically, I wasn't hooked. The alcohol distribution thing felt tacked on, when it should probably have more emphasis (if it is, in fact, the Problem).

My advice is to simplify this. Who is Jack? What's his problem? What does he want? How does he get it? That will tell the agent about your story.

I'm also wondering if Jack's "gifts" are instincts or magical powers. I can't tell. I think if this is a boarding school drama/saga like Gossip Girls you still need the plot to pop out of the query. You need the OMG factor here, what makes it different, what makes Jack special.

Queries are usually one page, and I'm thinking this would be much longer than that.

If I was an agent I would worry that the novel was overwritten based on the query and the reported word count. I like the idea of a boarding school story but from what I know of YA, there are scads of them, which means they're popular but also means your book must rise above to get noticed.

Good luck…it's a cool premise and your lives certainly lend themselves to writing a story such as this.