Evil Editor's Blog, page 108

Buy This Book; Cure a Disease

As usual, Evil Editor will soon be donating his services to the Brenda Novak Auction, which begins May 1. 

Auction site link.


Among my offerings is the following:

_________________________________________
Your Book (up to 100,000 words) Edited by EVIL EDITOR

Last year's winner of this item had the good fortune to quickly land an agent who quickly sold the book to Sourcebooks, and despite the publishing industry's reputation for dragging their feet, the book comes out tomorrow.

Of course declaring that last year's auction winner has had the book published should increase the final take this year, but think how much more it would increase if Ms. Novak could declare that the book made the bestseller lists! Dare I think we could be talking six figures?

Sure, you can help cure Diabetes by bidding on Evil Editor this year, but that would make a significant dent in your bank account if you somehow won. And only one person can win an item. But thousands of people can buy the book, making it a huge success and driving this year's bids into the stratosphere.

Here's a link to the book's Amazon page.

You can also get it at your favorite bookstore. You can request it at your library if you prefer not to buy it. You can buy gift copies for your friends and relatives. I foresee not only Diabetes, but all diseases being cured as a result of the minions' generosity. Also, you'll probably like the book.

Also, it should be pointed out that the book's query came through here before being sent to agents, and we have no queries in the queue at present, so what are you waiting for?

Disclaimer: Evil Editor has no stake, financially or otherwise, in the success of Shooting Stars.

Evil Editor Classics

Author/publisher-related terms that aren't in the dictionary, but should be.


Adulagency--the act of informing an agent that you chose her because you love her clients' books, even though you never heard of the agent or her clients--Evil Editor

Bioverload--the irresistible compulsion to tell one's life story in a business letter to a complete stranger--Evil Editor

Blogtrophy: A decline in an author's writing skills proportional to the amount of time spent reading blogs--blogless_troll

Ejacugiggle: Orally, or nasally, spewing a beverage on to computer hardware in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.--blogless_troll

Fraudspew: Falsely claiming to have ejacugiggled in order to gain the acceptance of one's peers--blogless_troll

Hara-Query: The act of writing a query so bad that it kills your chances of getting a request for a partial.--Bunnygirl

Laxnix: a rejection stamped or written on your original query--Anonymous

Micropubglow: The pride felt upon discovering that one of your continuations made it into Novel Deviations--Evil Editor

Optimisappointment: The disconnect between the initial enthusiasm a writer feels upon submitting a work for critique and the soul shredding contempt the work receives once people read it--blogless_troll

Plotvomit: A query writing technique in which an author spews a multitude of random, irrelevant, and often pointless plot lines into a query, in the hopes an agent or editor will welcome the author’s artistic brilliance in lieu of a story--blogless_troll

Pomposify: To make a work of fiction more literary by adding “: A Novel” to its title--blogless_troll

Pseudohook: An engaging, attention-grabbing first sentence having no apparent connection to the remainder of the query or story--blogless_troll

Spagtacular: Describing a manuscript which, whatever else is wrong with it, the spelling, punctuation, and grammar are just fine. Can also be used ironically to mean the complete opposite--150

Uniqueryism: The belief that the person to whom you're sending your query has not seen ten identical queries in the past 24 hours--Evil Editor

Face-Lift 1196

Guess the Plot

Get to Know You

1. Alex can't stop thinking about Clara, the hot girl in his creative writing class, and how cool her short stories are. Will he blow off his special lady friends for her, or keep imagining what kissing Clara might be like as he kisses them?

2. Annika's biological father has decided he wants to get to know her. So he forces her to come to New York City and work in his bar. If this isn't the way to start a loving relationship, what is?

3. A psychopath stalks and murders attractive young women in Loudoun County, Virginia. His victims’ bodies are found dressed in high fashion and staged in provocative poses with notes: “Got to know you.” FBI profiler Sally MacRae takes the case. She leaves notes for him: “Getting to know you.” Sally gets closer to him as he gets closer to her. Then she discovers she has DID and she is him.

4. Albert has all the time in the world to get to know his new friends. His perfect, pretty friends who never contradict him and are always pleasantly silent. It takes a while to find these friends and bring them to his home. But taxidermy makes it all worthwhile in the end.

5. When my father strayed from his wife, I was the result. Around town in polite society I was the unholy bastard. In the bars, I was my pa's get. After twenty years of isolation, I'm the recipient of my father's estate. His children invited me to a party. They call the event a Get to Know You soiree. Hilarity ensues.

6. He's pleased to meet you. He hopes you guessed his name. He's Lucifer, and in this epic retelling of the Rolling Stones song, this fallen angel would like to get to know you. Yes, YOU!

7. Cara had no idea what would happen when she had too much Purple Drank at the unsupervised party with the varsity football players, but she never expected to learn Parcheesi. Or, the finer strategy necessary to win at Risk. Also, campfire songs and mugs of cocoa.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Annika Fitzpatrick gets an email [from Danica Patrick, threatening a lawsuit] in the middle of her graduation from high school and finds her worst nightmare has come true: her father wants to spend more time with her.

In my completed 80,000 word YA contemporary manuscript, Get to Know You, Annika a self professed musical theater nerd, is forced to spend the summer after graduation with her absent biological father in New York City working at the music venue he owns and, much to Annika’s embarrassment, named after her. [She's forced to do this? Was that a threatening email? I'm surprised it wasn't a tweet:

_____________________________________________

Hey, Babe. Pack your crap and move to NYC and work for me in my nightclub or I'll ruin you. Love, Dad (Biological). #GetToKnowYou
_____________________________________________

She insists on being called Annie, in an attempt to hide her ties to her father, the boss, and hopefully make friends with her co-workers, especially Theo. The gorgeous and talented musician who’s [is] a fixture at the bar with his family band that’s on the verge of making it big. [The bar? The "venue" dad named after Annika is a bar? Coulda been worse; he coulda named a whorehouse after her.] [Or are you saying it's a club that has a bar in it? In which case aren't Annika and Theo a bit young to be hanging out at the bar?] But Theo has things he’s hiding too, like his plans to leave the band and his feelings for Annika. When Theo surprises Annika by kissing her shortly after her arrival, [Not sure how he has feelings for her already if she just got there, but it doesn't sound like he's hiding them.] then quickly changing his tune, Annika must decide if being Theo’s friend is worth risking her heart. This novel is one part Anna and the French Kiss with a dash of Pitch Perfect, mixed with sexy rock bands instead of acapella.

I’ve always been a storyteller, first through theater and preforming [performing] arts, but I also know how to spread the word when I’m passionate about something from years of working in fashion PR in New York. I am a member of SCBWI and this is my first novel.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my manuscript. I look forward to hearing from you.


Notes

It doesn't seem like a "family band" would be a fixture at a club that features sexy rock bands.

It does seem like a musical theater nerd would relish the opportunity to spend a summer in NYC.

Also, wouldn't it be better for the story if dad owned an off-Broadway theater instead of a bar, or if Annika were a self-professed rock music nerd?

I'm not reading 80,000 words to find out if Annika decides it's worth being friends with a guy who kissed her once and then changed his tune. It sounds like a trivial matter. Less trivial would be if she falls in love with him and he wants her to come with him on tour, but dad forbids it. Or she auditions for a part in a Broadway musical, gets it, but dad insists she wait tables and Theo wants her to be his roadie.

Possibly the decision to be friends with Theo happens early, and you decided that was enough. It wasn't. We want to know what's preventing Annika from getting what she wants (be that a career in theater, an escape from dad or a torrid affair with Theo) and what she plans to do about it.

Things it wouldn't be hard to work in: what Annika does at dad's place; what Theo plans to do after leaving the band (Quit music? Go solo?).

Face-Lift 1195

Guess the Plot

Callie's Revolution

1. 1678. Jacques Callie has been working on a machine that will provide perpetual motion while creating endless piles of gold. All he has to do is balance the wheels, cogs, gears, humours and the spheres and he'll be set. That's what the owls tell him, anyway.

2. Bored with Victorian morals, Callie heads west in 1916 and gets involved in the Mexican Revolution. She rides with General Pershing's troops on the fastest horse in Mexico, on a mission to capture Pancho Villa. Also, movie star Lillian Gish.

3. When Lassie reaches that age of maturity when ED commercials make too much sense and low "T" is a problem, she decides to strap on a set and go to war. Screw Timmy, it's a call to arms, even if she only has legs. It's time for a revolution, a Callie's...uh-oh, never mind.

4. Tired of her parent's meddling, Callie hatches a plan to live with her gay BFF, Zak, until graduation. Then Daddy Dearest decides he's not paying for college, so Callie begins a youth outrage movement by taking him to court.

5. Callie, procrastinator extraordinaire, is chosen during the Harvesting as a divergent..I mean…dissonant revolution leader, believed to the be the right one to lead the nation toward the New Order of Enlightenment and Life (N.O.E.L). But can this indolent teen inspire the crowds when she has no motivation to run a comb through her hair?

6. Will Callie's Bible class believe that Jesus has been visiting her every Tuesday night bearing nachos and telling funny stories? If not, she'll take over the pulpit, and make the whole church believe with the robe He left behind.



Original Version

The idea--place a somewhat naïve young female journalist into the macho, dangerous maelstrom of the Mexican Revolution in 1916. Then watch what happens. [But since it's always best to experiment on animals first, we start by placing a bunny in a cage with six hungry wolves.]

Callie’s Revolution is a parallel story of political and social revolution, and the personal revolution of an adventurous young woman.

Through her eyes we ride with General John J. Pershing’s troops into the Chihuahuan desert, go with Callie into a dark cave hideout, face to face with Pancho Villa, fly in a Jenny Curtis biplane with ace pilot, Casey Wilde, and watch Callie and Casey fall for each other. [I realize the book is already written, but with a little tweaking you can dump ace pilot Casey Wilde and have Callie fall for Pancho Villa. Here's a photo of Villa and Pershing, chumming it up in 1914:



The way I see it, Callie's in love with Pancho, but in her position as a journalist she's covering Pershing, who falls in love with her. This gives Pershing's mission to ride into Mexico and capture Pancho a romantic motive. He doesn't care about following orders or stopping Pancho's raids; he just wants to eliminate his competition. Callie spends the entire mission trying to talk Pershing into letting Pancho escape (It's like in The Princess Bride when Buttercup agrees to marry Humperdinck if he'll let Westley live. Very romantic.), and when Pershing refuses, she rides ahead to warn Pancho (she has the fastest horse in Mexico). Which explains how Pancho did escape.]

We follow her into the heart of Mexico, [Who is this "we" you keep mentioning? I'm more interested in what Callie does than in what "we" do.] where she is seduced by the alluring sensations of an exotic culture, is awakened to her sexuality, and undergoes a stirring encounter with the mystery of the pyramids at Teotihuacan.

Then, into the nascent Hollywood movie colony with D.W. Griffith and the Gish sisters, the nightmarish experience of filming in the midst of World War 1, [Better title: Bride of Zelig.] and a brief, and nearly deadly reunion with Casey.

We fall into her delirium as she is pulled down to the brink of death by the raging Influenza epidemic.

Callie is tested time and again and survives, with her Colt 45, the fastest pony in Mexico, and a relentless desire to live an impassioned life. She is no saint, and constantly wavers between desire and morality

A Native American connection is alluded to during her illness, and is fully revealed near the conclusion--she is half Comanche, by a mother she never knew.

With her long black tresses and amazing ability with a horse and a pistol, Callie Masterson is a new kind of heroine--utterly feminine, compassionate, and fierce. She grows and changes in huge leaps because of her curiosity about life and her inborn courage. She is strong, gutsy and resourceful, but it is perhaps it is her compassion that will speak most fervently to the modern reader. [If her compassion speaks most fervently, you might want to include an example thereof, rather than listing all these adjectives (feminine, compassionate, fierce, curious, courageous, strong, gutsy, resourceful, compassionate again, horse-savvy, gun-loving, black-tressed.]

Callie is a trailblazer, pure and simple, who demands rights that women would not fully achieve for another fifty years. She straddles two different worlds in 1916: her past is Victorian morality, her future, Twentieth Century emancipation. She leaps into her destiny on the fastest horse in Mexico [Yes, her horse is fast. We got it.] and never looks back. [Another paragraph just describing Callie. If you show us what she's like, we'll be more intrigued than if you tell us.]


Notes

It feels like you're describing a biography of a fictional character, except that it all takes place in a five-year period. I think you should focus the entire query on whatever most drives the plot. That could be the mission to Mexico, during which Callie earns respect as an adventuress/journalist, or it could be the romance with the ace pilot or it could be the remarkable compassion she shows when she resists shooting Pershing's sexist troops. Right now it comes across as just a list of lists. Tell us a story.

The Gish sisters and the flu and the allusion to a Native American connection are eating space you need to make us care enough about Callie to want to read the book.

Success Story

Phoenix reports that Deadly Dozen, a multi-author boxed set of 12 mystery/thriller books she manages in her position as managing director at Steel Magnolia Press has reached #13 on the New York Times e-book-only bestseller list.

A visit to Amazon reveals that the Kindle version of the entire set is currently on sale for $0.99. What the--?

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1194 has pos...

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1194 has posted a revision in the comments there, and awaits your reaction.

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1188 has pos...

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1188 has posted a revision in the comments there, and awaits your reaction.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Mysteries and Cemeteries

1. For hundreds of years, people have been reading mysteries, and for hundreds of years, those people have been eventually dying. Coincidence . . . Or curse? This book unravels the mystery of this strange correlation once and for all.

2. Tamara likes to wander through the local cemetery while her husband cavorts with their whore neighbor. But lately Tamara's realized that something beneath the soil is not resting in peace. Could it be . . . ZOMBIES?!

3. Tanya is beyond bored with the life she's chosen as a taxidermist, something her bohemian, Voodoo-practicing mother warned her about. But hilarity ensues when she tries to learn the old ways of her ancestry and finds she has little talent for controlling the dead.

4. When a gravedigger notices the names of the "fictitious" murder victims from the Inspector Jones mysteries he's been reading, on the new headstones in his cemetery, he asks one too many questions. Now he's on the run, and hoping he won't be the victim in the next Inspector Jones book.

5. Detective Bungle has made a remarkable discovery: Everyone in the Eternal Rest cemetery is dead! Now it's up to him to learn the truth: Is there a murderer on the loose? Or is this all part of some bizarre ritual?

6. When all the flowers and other grave decor goes missing, everyone interred in Shadyside is miffed. Dr. Skull is elected as chief inspector by his peers and lurches off in search of culprits. Meanwhile, Tansy Ragwort arranges the slightly wilted roses Bob Murphy gave her and wonders if he'll pop the question tonight.



Original Version

Dear Agent:

When ace homicide detective Bob Bungle discovers that everyone in the Eternal Rest cemetery is dead, he knows two things: there must be a crazed serial killer on the loose, and he won't need to stop at the florist shop to bring his wife flowers tonight. Bungle has one clue: the killer is an anal organization freak, having taken the trouble of labeling each corpse, putting their names and dates of death on stone tablets like butterflies in a display box.

In an obvious effort to taunt Bungle, the killer also buried each of his victims under several feet of earth. Bungle hires a night work crew to dig up the bodies and bust open the boxes in which the killer concealed them. Unfortunately, most of the victims have been dead several decades, leaving behind little or no forensic evidence, like when a body is burned and the ashes are thrown into sulfuric acid, but not that bad.

Bob Bungle specializes in digging into cold cases, and this one's spent ages buried in the homicide vaults like pirate booty. But when Bungle discovers that Eternal Rest isn't the only killing field, that they're spread all over town like Starbucks but without WiFi, he realizes he may finally be in over his head.

Mysteries and Cemeteries is the fifth in a series of unpublished Bob Bungle mysteries. Thank you.


[Oops! That wasn't the real query. That was a fake query I wrote as part of a 2010 writing exercise in which the task was to choose a random Face-Lift and write a query based on one of the fake plots. Here's the real query, from 2007:]


Dear Agent/Editor

Tamara Godfrey likes to wander the local cemetery. [As does Evil Editor, though I'm guessing Tamara doesn't do it in the nude.] It’s a great place to think when trying to get away from the problems of her life – like the job that is giving her high anxiety and the obvious and growing attraction between her husband and the whore next door. ["Whore" is such a strong word. Can't we just call her "the bitch next door who gives her bastard husband blowjobs"?]

But soon, Tamara realizes something in the graveyard is very wrong. Some things beneath the soil are not resting in peace. [It's zombies. It's been a while, but once again we have zombies.] Every night she wanders the graveyard, [Every night? Whether you suspect there are zombies about or not, it's best to limit your graveyard wandering. Either your brains will be eaten or people will talk.] reading the tombstones, hoping for a clue as to who it is that haunts her nights. [What kind of clue is she expecting to find on a tombstone? An epitaph reading, 


Someone else knows exactly what she might find, and they are determined to stop her before she manages to solve the mystery she didn’t know existed. [We don't even know it exists. What's the mystery?] And her husband and the whore may be conspiring in more than just the bedroom. [Why am I getting the impression you wrote this book as therapy after your husband ran off with your neighbor?]

Mysteries and Cemeteries is a 92,000 word mystery set in a lonely town on the windy shores of Lake Superior.

Thank you for your time,


Notes

Better title: The Whore Next Door. Or tell the story in 1st person, and call it My Disgusting Husband and his Fucking Whore. Be sure to send them a copy.

Is the neighbor an actual prostitute? Or is she just having an affair with Mr. Godfrey? Either way, I'd call her something other than "the whore" in the query letter.

If this is a murder mystery, I'd be interested in knowing who the victim is, who's accused, and who else had motives. It sounds more like a horror novel the way it's described. Possibly some additional detail in that last plot paragraph would do the trick.


Selected Comments

Bernita said...The heroine comes across in the query as excessively passive in the Gothic style.


Anonymous said...This sounds like enough plot for a good short story but I'm afraid unless there's more to it than you describe here, the novel version might have a lot of redundant night wandering and husband loathing scenes, giving you a very slow pace. Plus it seems to be taking itself awful seriously for something so thin on significance.


Two Write Hands said...Maybe "the whore" isn't used for name-calling, guys. Maybe she's using it as she would "the butcher next door"--you know it's about occupation, not character.


Evil Editor said...Even if the woman is employed in a legal Nevada brothel, I'm sure she doesn't refer to herself as a whore. If your character was a goat farmer you wouldn't refer to him in your query letter as someone who murders kids.


150 said...More information please! Plot details! Events! Cause/effects and motivations! Also, could you please make a distinction on the "whore" use? I'd like to see either "prostitute next door"--which lends for madcap brothel capers and a heart of gold--or "slut next door"--which lends for dirty comedy and an excuse for Tamara to pursue the hot gravedigger. I'm guessing you chose it because it rhymes with "next door", but that's not so clever that it's worth sacrificing clarity.


AmyB said...Author, I agree with the others. We need more details. Also, the beginning sounds slow, and seems to lack an inciting incident. I'm not going to have much patience for a novel that opens with the protagonist wandering aimlessly around a cemetery, night after night. Hopefully something actually happens while she's out there.


Anonymous said...The cheating husband plotline and the suspicious cemetery plotline don't seem to be connected at all. Probably they are in the book. You need to put that info in the query letter, and also how her job mixes in with all of these things. Tamara just seems to suffer and wander. She needs to be stronger to be appealing as a main character.


whoever said...EE, thanks for "the treatment". A little mocking is good for a writer's ego, LOL.

To clarify, "whore" is used because that is what Tamara constantly calls this woman, until the chip comes off Tamara's shoulder anyway, and I guess I was trying to stay in her voice a little bit. The neighbour is not an actual whore though. So I'll tone it down a bit.

I can see where I have to add more details. When I see it in the cold light of the blog, I realize I haven't really given enough of the story.

Thank everyone for your time in reading and commenting.


blogless_troll said...You gotta change the title. I counted only one cemetery and one mystery, so that would make it Mystery and Cemetery, which, frankly, sounds retarded. You wrote 92,000 words. You can drum up three or four more good ones. Make a list of titles. And not just five or six. I'm talking 50, 100. Don't think about it. Just write shit down until something sounds good. Then write 50 more. That's a few hundred words, which is probably less than your daily word count during the months you spent writing the damn thing. That is all.


Beth said...In this query, we have a husband who's screwing around with the broad next door, and a wife who wanders graveyard at night looking for she-doesn't-know-what.

Need more story.


pjd said...Maybe it's just me, but if you are worried about your husband's growing attraction to the woman next door, I wouldn't think wandering the graveyard every night is the way to shore up your relationship. Maybe his eye wanders because he can never find his wife after sundown? That would put a crimp in my marriage, I would think.

Not much else to add to other people's comments.


writtenwyrdd said...If the woman next door is planning to kill your main character, you need to tell us. You also need to tell us what's up with the cemetery. DO we have zombies or not? Undead needs a mention in a query letter. You spring the undead on someone and you've misled them about the genre. I don't think that will win you points.

I felt like you were trying to hold back the good stuff, and that's not the way to get a request for a partial. The audience for this letter wants to get a general idea of the entire book, including the main plot, the main characters, and the general ending. I imagine you can fudge on these things somewhat, but you cannot leave them all entirely out and just discuss the set up.

Sounds like it's gothic, based on what you shared. And your main character came across as a wimpy little passive creature who probably deserves to get munched by zombies. I suspect that this is not the case at all, so perhaps you might look at concrete things that she does in the story for the revision of the letter.

Good luck with the revisions.


BuffySquirrel said...Whore, slut...anyone got a pejorative name for the (apparently) cheating husband?


jjdebenedictis said...Skanking slime-dog crap-weasel, of course.


phoenix said...Well, Buffy, EE inferred you might just be calling him "dead"! Can't get more perjorative than that. I agree, though, that if the author wanted to call the neighbor a whore to keep in the MC's voice, then we should get the language the MC uses when she thinks about her husband.

Carefully read this sentence again, author: "Every night she wanders the graveyard, reading the tombstones, hoping for a clue as to who it is that haunts her nights." You have a logic loop here. If she's wandering at night, then whoever it is isn't haunting her nights any longer, are they? Or are they haunting her in the cemetery where she's doing her wandering?

You sound like you have an idea where to go with this query now. Would love to see your revision when you're ready to post it!

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

The Ituri Project

1. Tammy Ituri is nice, but she's the ugliest girl in school, which makes her perfect for Tina Winston's term project in fashion merchandising class. But as the makeover progresses, Tina realizes nothing is working. Should she admit defeat and accept a "C" in the class, or will blue hair dye, false eyelashes, and a sequined tube-top save the day?

2. Jim Knife wants to retire with a bang: introducing the miracle vaccine developed by his company. But as employees of the company begin mysteriously disappearing, it's up to a lowly college intern to discover the truth about . . . The Ituri Project.

3. Picking on the junior-most capable CPA, Jason Barlow's accounting firm sends him to Africa to sort out the financial mess at an uplift project he considers a worthless waste of money. That is, until he's been there a few weeks and gotten to know the Ituri. But now the backing company agrees with his earlier assessment and wants to pull the plug.

4. Psychic Rod Mayhem can read the future, a talent that puts him at the top of the heap of international arms dealers. But peace breaks out in war-torn Ituri. Is this his chance to reconcile with his ex-lover Glenda Goode, head of the Ituri food bank?

5. Scientists Jack and Imelda Ituri drill through the Antarctic ice cap -- straight into a pocket of Mesozoic soil. Ancient spores sprout in the lab, producing gigantic parasititic brain-sucking amoebas. They'll quickly destroy humanity if 14 year old Jamelda Ituri can't kill her parisitized Zombie-ized parents before they escape to Australia.

6. Ugandan land owner Hema Lendu and Democratic Republic of the Congo strongman Ernest Wamba vie for the Rainforest Cafe Franchise. But Ituri pygmies have other ideas as they successfully mount their own media blitz and land a spot on American Idol.



Original Version
Dear Agent:

What if the world’s most powerful company held the secret to its most powerful cure?

[Three possibilities:

1. The company guides the cure through the painstakingly slow patent and FDA approval processes. Hundreds of thousands die.

2. Insider trading by the company's employees alerts the world that something's up, and manufacturers of less-effective cures sabotage the project. Millions die.

3. The CEO realizes that the product will eliminate all disease, putting them out of business, and thus terminates all research and production. Billions die.]

That question lies at the heart of my novel, THE ITURI PROJECT, a thriller about an intern who stumbles upon a dark secret at America’s largest company. [Exxon-Mobil has the secret to the world's most powerful cure?]

Brian McAllister is struggling to prove himself in a cutthroat jungle. Only months away from earning a degree, he’s counting on his internship at API to land a job after graduation. That’s when he uncovers a simple mistake buried in the company’s paperwork. [A Pakistani researcher's report that said, The drug is toxic, lethal, and could wipe out humanity if released, was translated as The drug will cure all disease.] But as he digs deeper, the world outside Brian’s cubicle begins to crumble.

That’s because Jim Knife, API’s star CEO, has just announced his retirement – sending shockwaves through boardrooms everywhere. As power players [Will Spoon and Les Fork] begin to maneuver for Knife’s position, the chief executive quietly orchestrates his greatest achievement yet – [A spork that actually works.] a revolutionary new vaccine worth billions. Knife plans to launch the vaccine and topple API’s competitors, but another employee – Daniel Kamat – threatens to blow it all by going public first. [How does that blow it all? If the vaccine is better than anything else, does it matter when it goes public? Are you saying Kamat is coming out with his own better vaccine?]

Meanwhile, Brian’s search soon leads to a disturbing discovery – illegal payments authorized by a top API executive to dozens of employees. [There's nothing illegal about paying your employees. It's not paying them that causes problems.] When those employees begin to disappear, Brian goes head-to-head against the powerful API in an effort to save his life and discover the truth behind the Ituri Project. [What better way for this lowly intern to land a job after graduation than to bring down the company he's interning at?] [You might want to mention what the Ituri Project is before mentioning that someone is seeking the truth behind it.]I have a degree in English Literature, and have spent the past seven years working with executives at two Fortune 100 firms. [Now that I've been fired, I'm blowing the whistle on them. Revenge shall be mine!] Most of the market knowledge and business insight described in this book was learned during that time.

THE ITURI PROJECT is approximately 90,000 words in length. May I send you the completed manuscript? I’ve enclosed a self-addressed, stamped envelope for your reply.

Sincerely,


Notes

How does this intern seem to have access to more information than anyone else in the company? What does this vaccine do? What is Kamat threatening to do, exactly? What is the simple mistake Brian stumbles upon? A few answers in the query would mean fewer questions arising.

When you say employees who received illegal payments disappear, I think they were paid to disappear. Am I supposed to think they're dead? Does Brian think his life's in danger because he received one of these payments? That seems a logical conclusion to reach, though I suspect it's not your intended reason.


Selected Comments

dave conifer said...I really like your story, author. The rosy-cheeked intern stumbling across the "error" is intriguing to me. If I were you I'd stay with that a little more in the query.

Instead, you keep "walking up the ladder": now this guy is retiring, NOw they have a great vaccine, etc. Does the great vaccine derive somehow from the mistake that rosy found? Does that mean it's less great than people think?

I guess I feel like I don't know what the climax is here. I thought that finding the error was the major plot point but it's mentioned once and disappears. In my opinion it was the most exciting part of the story.

Also, EE is right. How does an employee "going public" negate the successful result of hundreds of millions of research dollars which found a great drug? In this industry, everybody knows way ahead of any announcements when a company has a blockbuster in the pipeline. What does "going public" mean anyway? If he granted an interview and said "I'm a minion at this company that has a great vaccine coming out," the reporter would say "Yeah, that was already leaked twenty times before."

I think this is a really good one.


Anonymous said...Internships in "big companies" and a bachelor's degree in English seem like obtuse preparation for writing about cutting edge science. When I read that I'm even more concerned that the sketchy approach to the science in the letter will prevail in the manuscript. I don't think this kind of plot can work if you don't get the science or economics right. You need to include enough specifics to make it clear that you're talking about a vaccine for a real disease and tell what problem is motivating all these murders etc.

Anonymous said...There are tons and tons of people with non-science backgrounds in companies like API. I haven't read this story, of course, but I'm guessing that the rosy-cheeked intern is one of those.

Most of the hair-sprayed, glib talkers from the big pharmaceutical companies have never even seen a test tube. This premise could work.


shannon said...I always think it's best to avoid rhetorical questions, at least when starting a query out. You see what EE did, and this is pretty much what a lot of people do in their heads when they read rhetorical questions. It sets you up for an argumentative reader - and slush pile readers (like me [cue evil laugh]) get pretty snarky when they read this kind of thing in the opening line.

Slick Tommy T said...Thanks to everyone who has responded here about my query for The Ituri Project. I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions (even the sarcasm - when it's well deserved). I'll take all of this into consideration for my revised letter. Hope you all have a very happy holiday and a great 2007!


Dave said...I really liked the "gigantic parasititic brain-sucking amoebas"

As for the story, I think the query has to focus on one person and not a plethora of people.

API as the company name: API stands for American Petroleum Institute for anyone working in petroleum, oil, gasoline or energy business. You might consider changing the names.

shelby said...Good luck with this. I'd read it. But drop the part about the literature degree and the experience with working for big companies. That really doesn't matter if the writing isn't there.


xiqay said...I got tired of reading it.

The set-up question isn't interesting. The largest company holds the secret to its most powerful cure?
What are you really trying to say here? A powerful new cure is in the hands of a large company only interested in profits-right?

Brian the intern discovers a mistake in the paperwork. He digs deeper. Why? Why doesn't he call the mistake to his supervisor's attention? That's what interns do, isn't it.

The question has been asked-how does Kamat's going public screw up the plan by Knife to launch the vaccine? Does it just mean that Kama will get credit instead of Knife? That has no effect on Brian.

I'm guessing that both lowly intern Brian and Kamat have discovered that the great vaccine isn't going to work the way Knife thinks. And the illegal payments have something to do with how the company got great results.

But if that's it, none of this story makes sense. Because I think there would have to be some (semi) independent study of the vaccine before FDA approval. (This is in America, right?)

Tell me I'm wrong about the story.

The story sounds like David and Goliath--but we need to be clear who Goliath is. Is it Knife? Kamat? The top API officials?

Face-Lift 1194

Guess the Plot

Noah's Ark

1. Earth was destroyed centuries ago, and thousands of people bought their way onto Noah's Ark, which is taking them who knows where. Sort of. Actually, the Ark is a game set on a simulated Earth, and if you lose in the game, it's game over in the real world too. Shoulda read the fine print.

2. When Noah closed the hatch before the dinosaurs boarded, God was pissed. A simple three-hour tour--A three hour tour!--turned into...well, you know the tale. What's unknown was God's plan to use dinos as population control. Now look at the mess were in. It's all Noah's fault.

3. New scientific evidence has been uncovered that confirms the historical "flood" story was more than Biblical fiction, and that while Noah had two of every creature, he reluctantly brought seven brides for his son Shem, and his six brothers.

4. Unashamed of his fetish for dressing as a furry cartoon character and having anonymous Comic-Con sex, Noah maxes out his credit cards to open the Noah's Ark nightclub, bringing down the wrath of PETA, fundamentalist Christians, and Russell Crowe in one fell swoop.

5. Writer Johnathan Springman's autistic son Noah features prominently in his columns for the New York Sun. When Noah begins talking about his collection of animals, Springman decides to investigate. That's when he finds the warehouse full of bodies. Now what?



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Seventeen year old Victoria Fischman desperately regrets buying her way into the Noah's Ark. [The Noah's Ark?] 

The exclusive simulated excursion becomes a lethal game when an unanticipated attack wipes out half of the students in the area. [Not clear to me whether people have been wiped out in the game or for real.] If Victoria dies here, it’s game over for her in the real world. [Not clear if you're saying she actually dies if her character in the game dies. Sounds like it, but who would sign on for that game?] Same thing goes for her missing younger sister and best friend, and ten thousand other students. Guilt-ridden for getting her sister and friend into this, Victoria is determined to do anything to find and escape with them.

To escape, Victoria has to defeat invading alien Commanders in a cybernetic Earth, [Unsure what a cybernetic Earth was, I looked up cybernetic, which means "pertaining to communications in animals and machines." Still don't know what a cybernetic Earth is. I'm guessing a virtual Earth?] modelled after the real one that was destroyed centuries ago. Putting down her strong need for self-sufficiency to team up with military-trained Liam Ignatius, she becomes one of the strongest fighters by slaying hostilities [Hostiles?] to gain Experience Points and Levels. [Is it game over in the real world for those she slays?]

But an impossible Quest arrives, and she realizes that individual strength isn't everything when she's forced to work with Anna Drew, leader of the other survivors. [The other survivors besides her and Liam?] Her conscience screams for her to inform the others when the charismatic and cunning Anna sacrifices a few followers for information. [By "the others" do you mean Anna's other followers?] [From whom does Anna want information? If it's from a neutral party, they would want valuables, not the sacrifice of her followers. If it's from the enemy, how can she trust the information is legit?]

Now Victoria has to decide if that’s worth upsetting the solidarity of the survivors, as the fall of the town would lead to their annihilation. [The town? This is set in a town? I thought we were on a spaceship. Is the town on a planet? Is it a sim-town?] [You haven't connected upsetting the solidarity of the survivors with the fall of the town. To whom is the town in danger of falling?]

NOAH'S ARK is my debut. It is an 80,000 word YA novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kind regards


Notes

Is Noah's Ark a computer game? If so, why can't players just turn off their computers if they want to quit?

How does Victoria know it's game over in the real world if she dies in the game? Where, exactly, are the people who are playing the game?

I don't find any of this clear.You need to ground us in the situation: When Martian colonist Victoria talks her sister and best friend into playing Noah's Ark, a computer game set on a simulated planet Earth, she has no idea Noah's Ark makes The Hunger Games look like Candyland. THEY'RE ALL GONNA DIE! FOR REALSIES!

Unfortunately, once I have that setup, even though what happens in the game is far more exciting than what happens in the real world, I'm more interested in what happens in the real world than in the game. Go figure.

If the vast majority of the book involves gaining Experience Points and Levels, I'm thinking the type of person this would appeal to is the type who would rather be playing their own games than reading about other people's games.

It sounds like you have an adventure story that might be exciting in its own right, but that you decided the story would be better if were happening on a game board rather than in real life. True, the stakes are higher than in a game of Risk, but even if I knew the winner got to kill the losers I wouldn't want to read a novel about a game of Risk. Your query needs to clearly tell us what's going on, and if most of what's going on is set in the real world, focus the query on that, rather than on the game.