Evil Editor's Blog, page 116

Feedback Request

I probably should shut the blog down till after New Year's, as we get fewer visitors and fewer comments. But some people are waiting for feedback, namely the authors of revised versions of Face-Lift 1173 and Face-Lift 1175, not to mention the author of the original version of Face-Lift 1176.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Angel's Wings

1. When the California Angels baseball team unveil their new uniforms, which include actual wings, opposing managers complain that this will give them an unfair advantage. Later, when it's revealed that the Angels can't actually fly, and that the cumbersome wings give them a huge disadvantage, the objections are withdrawn.

2. Competition in Buffalo's hot wing industry is hot. Maybe too hot. That's what Angel learns when he comes into work and finds his manager head-first in the hot sauce. Angel needs to solve the crime but his chicken disguise won't keep him hidden for long.

3. If Zeke can save one more innocent person from temptation, he can fulfill his basic training as a guardian angel and earn his wings. Too bad new charge Amanda Jeffries is not making this one easy.

4. It's 1942, and Angel Rodriguez is determined to enlist in the US Air Force and become a bomber pilot. There's just one hang-up: he's only ten.

5. Archaeologist Hensley Carpenter unearths a fossilized set of wings near Bethlehem, setting off a theological battle between religious fundamentalists who say it proves angels exist and environmental fundamentalists who say it proves giant condors once inhabited the Middle East.

6. Angel-in-training Serissa uses her spare time to investigate how she died, and learns that she and her angel mentor were involved in a web of betrayal. Did the Big Kahuna know about this, or is He slipping in His old age?



Original Version

Dear Mr. Editor,

Life sucks. Death isn't much better. Fifteen year old Serissa Williams knows that first hand. [Shouldn't that have been "Life sucked."?] After dying, Serissa awakes in the afterlife and is presented with two choices: spend the rest of eternity doing nothing, [Is this choice heaven or hell?] or recieve [i before e except after c.] an Imprint and become an angel. [Do we need "receive an Imprint and"? I don't even know what it means.] She picks the wings and becomes an Angel-In-Training. [Typical schedule of Angel-in-Training:

7AM - 8AM: Grooming the wings of commissioned angels
8 AM - 10 AM: Harp lessons
10:00 - 10:15 AM: Morning break
10:15 - Noon: Glee club
Noon - 1 PM: Lunch (angel hair with diavolo sauce)
1 PM - 3 PM: Flying lessons
3 PM - 3:15 PM: Afternoon break
3:15 - 5 PM: Praising God (who tries to remain humble)
5 - 7 PM: Dinner (babyback ribs, Cherry Garcia--hey, it's heaven, after all)
7 - 8 PM: Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune
8 - 10 PM: Acting lessons for appearances in films featuring angels
10 -11 PM: Polishing commissioned Angels' halos]

Assisted by her dark and sexy mentor Kieran-- an angel with attitude-- [God appreciates attitude--but not too much attitude. You saw what happened to Satan.] she begins to learn the ropes of being an angel all the while trying to figure out how she died in the first place. Soon, the threads of memories begin to unravel and she discovers that her death and Kieran's past are deeply intertwined in a web of love, betrayal, pain and death. [If the threads of memories unravel, I wouldn't expect her to discover anything. Use "untangle" if you insist on the thread metaphor. Or just say the memories return.]

Angel's Wings is a YA Romance Fantasy novel of 50,421 words. This is my first novel and it would be a great honor to me if you would consider it for publishing. [Drop that sentence.] I recently started a blog as well which has some samples of writing already up. It's petranova.livejournal.com. [And those two.]

Thank you for your time.


Notes

Your plot, which was all one paragraph until I broke it up with my angel-in-training schedule should be broken into two paragraphs there. And you'll still have room for a third paragraph to tell us what happens after Serissa regains her memories, which I assume is the book's main plot thread.

I'm not crazy about the opening sentences. You might consider opening: Fifteen year old Serissa Williams awakes in the afterlife and is presented with two choices: spend the rest of eternity lounging around doing nothing, or become an angel.

Of course you could change "doing nothing" to something that sounds a bit less boring. If doing nothing and being an angel are the only choices, there'd be billions of angels, unless angel boot camp is a real killer. If the choice were between angel and explorer of the universe or angel and bridge player, it would be a tougher decision.


Selected Comments

Wilkins MacQueen said...If this is your first run at the query I want to commend you. You avoided a lot of snags and I liked the overview/snapshot.

Having said that, I'd love it if you engaged me more in the characters and plot. I'd like to be swept along with the mc and the dark guy. More passion in the writing, some intrigue between them.

I think if you follow EE's suggestions (ok orders) and can crank it up a notch, well who knows. A little more energy is what I'd like. More show and less tell.

Need to connect to your mc in a stronger way and need more complications with Mr. Sexy.


Anonymous said...Shouldn't that have been "Life sucked?" Why? As a general observation, albeit with observational bias, isn't present tense OK?


Evil Editor said...Present tense is standard for a query. If the narrator is speaking in general terms (saying life sucks for everyone), present is fine here. However, if she's saying that her life sucked and now she's not crazy about the afterlife either, I think past tense for her past life is less confusing. Obviously she wouldn't say My childhood sucks . . . and my adulthood sucks too.

Note that I recommended dumping the opening anyway.


Anonymous said...Life sucked. Past tense because she's dead and past tense kind of drives that home. Gives me a sense of where the mc is in time. Present tense misleads because she's dead. Her life sucked. Won't matter if the opening is changed.


Anonymous said...Disagree completely, but you're right: It doesn't matter.


BuffySquirrel said...When the anonymice start disagreeing with each other, it's enough to make you fetch the traps. Get usernames people!  More details, author. Specifically about what happens.


Chelsea P. said...I was thinking the "Life sucks" was more a general statement, not particular to Serissa:

"Everybody knows that life sucks. But for Serissa Williams, death isn't much better."

Just my take on it. I totally understand the other interpretation, though.


Evil Editor said...I don't think it's wrong to use present tense. Most of the queries on this site are written entirely in present tense. But it's also not wrong to put backstory in past tense and then pick up the plot in present.

For instance, If the plot is:

When Bill was fourteen he killed a man. Now thirty, he confesses his crime to his fiancee.

This could also be written:

When Bill is fourteen he kills a man. At the age of thirty he confesses his crime to his fiancee.


In my opinion, the latter version is fine if Bill kills the man in the prologue or the early chapters. But if the book opens when Bill is thirty, and we see the confession but not the killing, I would use the first version, putting the killing in the past tense.

In the query, there's no evidence that the book begins while Serissa is alive and that we witness her life sucking.

I could see a query opening: I died three weeks ago. This is what happened.

I couldn't see one opening: I die. Three weeks later I decide to tell what happened.

In any case, actual problems with tenses in the book are far more worrisome than whether the plot is summarized in the preferred query tense. Just ask all the agents who rejected Harry Potter because the query began in past tense.


AlaskaRavenclaw said...Dear writer, this sounds like half the books in Barnes and Noble's TEEN section.

Now is that a bad thing?

For someone trying to break in, yes. Because those books are already written, and publishers have a long roster of authors who will write more of them on request. Publishers are looking for the Next Big Thing.

Here's the thing about breaking in: You don't have to be as good as what's already out there. You have to be better.

It's kind of like the Olympics.

So what makes this book different? What makes it stand out?


Anonymous said...10 -11 PM: Polishing other Angels' halos...Uh huh. That's the trouble with boarding school...


Anonymous said...Here's the thing about breaking in: You don't have to be as good as what's already out there. You have to be better.

Well, unless you're fortunate enough to be riding the coat-tails of a fad like HP or Twilight, in which case you don't even need to be as good.

Or you're good enough to sit in the middle of the mid-list and bring in a modest income from readers who just want more of the same and are none too fussy so long as the cover looks good.


vkw said...I think this is well-written but I don't think it's much of a query.
Here's the story as I read it: (I'm easily bored and tend to skim . . .so maybe I missed something).

15 year old girl becomes an angel.

She goes to school. As the song "hot for the teacher" resonates through her head, (because her angel teacher is hot), she begins to have memories. Memories of being alive and in love and in peril with hunky teacher.

So what? What happens? Is that it?

The plot is: Angel Sirrisa remembers her past life with hunky angel teacher through disjointed memories of love, lust, betrayal and eventual death. She's 15 so that makes it YA novel and she's an angel so that makes it a fantasy. Since it is a romance, we know there is a happy ending.

But we really didn't know that there wasn't going to be a happy ending, and we really didn't know anything interesting happens at all because the purpose, the conflict, the plot is not mentioned.


arhooley said...Since YA isn't my thing I can't say I'd want to read the book; but it seems to me you've done everything necessary to get a request for pages.


Botched said...Rats! I was looking forward to giant condors....


Chelsea P. said...I think you've got quite the nice set-up here. I do agree that you could add another paragraph with a hint more about what happens, but you don't need much. Also, I think you could use "YA paranormal romance."


batgirl said...What, everyone focusses their pickiness on suck vs sucked, and no one mentions that rounding up your wordcount to the nearest hundred is better than giving it exactly? The rationale is that every word processing program has a different way of measuring wordcount, and typesetters have a totally different way, so the exactness doesn't help.

Face-Lift 1176

Guess the Plot

A Crimson Stain

1. GV Black knew his world was coming to an end. The wunderkind of the dental superheroes was aging and ill. A disease was upon him and eventually it would turn him to worm food. If only he could remember the name of the cure; the unspoken, dental "F" word. If he doesn't invoke the cure he will die and his legacy shall always contain . . . A Crimson Stain.

2. Nothing hurts business at a brothel like a crimson stain on the sheets, especially when it's the result of one of the girls having her throat ripped out and her body left in pieces. Now it's up to Wayward Russell to figure out if the place is haunted, and if so, by what.

3. Vivacious duchesse Louise la Fontaine is mad for the gallant dandy Louis la Vaux. But he's the bastard son of the prince, and the King has forbidden him to marry. Can she use her wiles to convince the King to change his mind?

4. When meek housewife Holly finds a stain on the collar of her husband's dress shirt, she immediately recognizes the crimson lipstick of the bimbo next door. Drama, tears, and midlife soul-searching ensue.

5. When DJ Shazam enters his apartment he learns two things. First, he should have stayed in Aruba. Second, the body in his bathtub is going to leave...A Crimson Stain.

6. Crimson McStainian is a professional pimple-popper, leaving calling cards on the faces of bathroom mirrors. Business is booming until Acne McFacecleaner moves into town. His own self-worth threatened, Crimson must either find new meaning in life, or stain the streets with crimson from more than just bad acne.




Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

London, 1860. Wayward Russell has spent his entire life running from monsters. Ghosts, demons, werebeasts—he knows about all of them, the creatures hiding in the shadows and watching for their next victim. Every night he draws protective wards around his room, every day he moves on to a new place, [Every day? Moving is a pain if you do it every few years, and a guy who moves every day has long since run out of friends he can ask to help him move.] [If protective wards work, why does he have to move?] constantly looking over his shoulder to try and escape the horrors he knows are there. [If you're trying to set a scene in which monsters exist, you're overdoing it. I'm starting to think the monsters aren't there and Wayward is nuts.]

Then one night he meets Jenny, a young prostitute at Madam’s Cat knocking shop. [Is that where you take your cat to get it knocked up?] There is something haunting Madam Cat’s, and Jenny wants Wayward’s help in getting rid of it. But Wayward has made a career out of never sticking his neck out for anyone, [So why does Jenny go to him for help?] so he sends Jenny away with a bagged exorcism and instructions not to bother him again. Wayward thinks that’s the end of it—until a week later, he’s dragged into Madam Cat’s and told that Jenny’s dead, [What? Jenny was the only character I liked.] her throat ripped out and her body left in pieces. The fiery Madam Cat demands that Wayward fix the mess he’s created, and, shaken by Jenny’s violent death, Wayward reluctantly agrees. [Have you considered having Madam Cat's throat get ripped out and Jenny, who of course has a heart of gold, seeking Wayward's help?]

But his investigation reveals something far more dangerous than the simple haunting he expected. There’s something else in the brothel, something that creaks the floorboards in empty rooms and makes lamps explode, something that tears the girls’ clothes in the night and leaves bloody claw marks on the walls. [Lemme get this straight. Jenny has her throat ripped out and her body left in pieces, but it's only when Wayward hears creaking floorboards and sees torn clothing that he realizes this is far more dangerous than a simple haunting? This list is stuff I would expect if it is a simple haunting.] Something old and wild and vicious that greatly resents being interfered with. Creatures like this are exactly why Wayward never gets involved, but this time he has no choice—Madam Cat won’t let him leave until her house is safe, and she has enough thugs to make his life very unpleasant if things don’t work out to her satisfaction. And Jenny’s ghost has returned, terrorising Wayward every night and insisting he save the other girls from what killed her. [Does she tell him what that was?]

For once in his life, Wayward may end up doing the right thing, but will it cost him the very safety and anonymity he has worked so hard to protect?

A CRIMSON STAIN is historical fantasy of 60,000 words. Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

The protective wards and bagged exorcism hint that Wayward has useful knowledge, but you haven't convinced me he's any more qualified to handle this than the thugs are. If he hails from a family of ghostbusters you might mention that when you introduce him. Introducing him as someone who's been living in fear of monsters his whole life leaves us wondering why anyone consults him in such matters. Who is he?

The list of things that prove this isn't a simple haunting needs to be shorter and scarier.

This is mostly setup. One paragraph setting up the situation (Lily-livered Wayward Russell has been charged with investigating strange goings-on and murder in Madam Cat's brothel) would leave more space to tell us what his plan is and what goes wrong when he puts it into action.

Face-Lift 1175

Guess the Plot

Captain Henry's High-Flying Haberdashery

1. Captain Henry has horrible business sense. His first two shops closed in the red. Who knew an underwater pet store that didn't sell fish or a restaurant that served raw brains wouldn't fly? Henry borrowed money from the mafia to finance his next gig. He knows he has nailed it this time. Wing-walker's headwear today, and cement galoshes tomorrow.

2. Captain Henry is looking for an angle to make his haberdashery successful. Realizing that nomadic tribesmen don't have ready access to fine men's clothing, he rigs his shop for flight. Hey, if Mohammad won't come to the haberdashery . . .

3. When dashing Captain Henry visits the small rural hamlet, the folk are captivated by his urbane wit and charm, and tales of his wondrous Haberdashery. They don't associate him with the spate of mysterious disappearances. Like everybody else, they're just in awe of the amazingly soft leather jackets he tailors for the creme of Society.

4. Hank buys a secondhand hat store. The inventory comes from the deceased left at the county morgue. The store curses the hats--when a buyer dons a hat, the dead person’s spirit takes control of the wearer’s mind and completes the deceased’s unfinished business.

5. When orphan Divel is sold to Captain Henry for a silver coin, he expects to at last have a chance at decent clothes and a good place to live. But the flamboyant Captain isn't a tailor; he's a pimp, with the most demanding clientele in all of Outer Gabloosh. Now Divel just has to find a supply of fresh, cross-dressing gnomes. He's gonna earn those clothes.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor and co.,

Prince Leo is engaged to be married. His fiancee is Princess Isabeau, a beautiful young woman with an alarming fondness for pointy objects. Their marriage will mean peace and prosperity for their two kingdoms. There's just one problem with the arrangement: Leo doesn't love his bride-to-be. [Actually, that makes two problems, the first being the ice pick she keep under her pillow.]

Desperate, Leo flees the palace, disguises himself as a commoner, and finds work aboard Captain Henry's High-Flying Haberdashery. As part of the airborne shop's crew, Leo flies from one town to another, buying, selling, and seeing the world beyond the palace walls for the first time in his life. Along the way he befriends not only his crew mates but also the nomadic tribes of rovers who wander the kingdom. [No need to call them both "nomadic" and "rovers."] [Also, if the shop flies from town to town, when do they have time to befriend these roving tribes? In fact, has it occurred to Captain Henry that these tribes are nomadic because they're trying to escape the haberdashery that keeps landing in their midst trying to sell them fezzes? I can see landing your haberdashery near a nomadic tribe once, figuring they would find it convenient not to have to go into town to buy pants. But when they see you flying in a week later they're thinking, WTF? We bought these pants just to get rid of these assholes and they're back already? It's like this charity that was phoning me every day so I finally thought, Maybe if I give them money they'll give me some peace. So I sent them a check and they started phoning twice as often. Luckily I have caller ID. My point being, Leo doesn't have time to befriend the tribesmen unless the haberdashers drop in on them so often they develop a seething hatred of all haberdashers.]

The rovers are valuable business partners [How so?] and invaluable friends to the crew, [Wait, didn't I just quash that argument?] so when their encampments are destroyed in a series of suspicious fires, the haberdashers vow to find and stop the arsonist. [I've bought into detectives who were blind, deaf, missing limbs, paralyzed, and even Belgian. But haberdasher detectives? Come on, man!] It soon becomes clear that keeping their promise will force the haberdashers to risk their own lives- unless Leo is willing to sacrifice his new-found freedom to pull some royal strings.

Meanwhile, Leo's fiancee is hunting him, determined to marry him and gain control of his kingdom by any means necessary.

CAPTAIN HENRY'S HIGH-FLYING HABERDASHERY is a 73,000-word YA fantasy novel. [There's been no hint that this was YA. You should mention Leo's age when introducing him.] My fiction and poetry have appeared in local publications, most recently in the young adult-oriented newspaper Teen Ink.

Included in this submission are things that I would include but am not going to right now because reasons. Thank you for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,


Notes

How old is Isabeau? Her determination to gain control of Leo's kingdom by any means necessary suggests she's older than I would expect for a key character in YA. Why is this YA? The flying shop suggests steampunk.

A series about crime-solving haberdashers would be cool. And I would expect it to be funny. And based on the title and the amount of time devoted to the haberdashery, maybe that's what we have. But based on how the query opens and closes, the Leo/Isabeau story is the main plot, and not so funny. If Leo is the main character, we need to focus on him; all he does is join the crew of a flying haberdashery. Is he active in solving the crimes or does he merely pull some royal strings, thereby allowing others to solve the crimes? Does Leo want to continue being a flying haberdasher because he has friends and freedom and is pretty good at selling pants, or is he just trying to avoid marrying Isabeau? If the latter, he's just stalling. What's his ultimate plan to accomplish his ultimate goal?

I realize the book is already written, but if it doesn't fly, consider dumping Leo and Isabeau and writing about Captain Henry's High-Flying Haberdashery and Detective Agency. They're not only great detectives, they're always dressed impeccably. You can fill lots of space describing fabrics and wardrobes the way the Nero Wolfe books talk about food and the John Rain books talk about single malt whiskies.

Face-Lift 1174

Guess the Plot

The Cobweb Tree

1. No Grandma! You can't make a Christmas tree out of fake cobwebs from Halloween! But Grandma did, and strung it with lights, and Jake and Alyssa loved their grandma's cobweb tree until it started eating stuff. Now it's trying to eat them.

2. The sun shines bright
And the winds blow free
And Charlotte nests safe
In The Cobweb Tree

Then the sky turns dark
And the air sooty
Tiny Charlotte coughs
In The Cobweb Tree

Poor Charlotte takes wing
Flies to new safety
And at night she cries
For her Cobweb Tree.

3. Wanda is the coven's newest Wiccan candidate. To prove her mettle she must raise awareness and funds. She tried a bake sale and a warlock walk to no avail. The town's founding father's have taken notice and built bonfires at Wanda's newest idea. Hilarity and death ensue when Wanda starts her own "gifts to the poor" Cobweb Tree.

4. Katie is thrilled when Finn asks her out, but not so thrilled when he abandons her deep in the forest where the first person she meets tries to put her to work for his credit agency. She escapes, but can she also escape the mysterious and unmentionable . . . cobweb tree?


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor (may your shark's grin never blunt)

Sixteen[-]year-old Katie Harrison has had only one thing on her mind for the past two weeks: new boy Finn O’Malley. The most exciting thing ever to happen in her chocolate-fuelled, [fueled] bookworm life, he’s mysterious as a cat—tall and dark and utterly gorgeous. Katie is sure he’s interested in her, and when he asks her to meet his family, it seems that all her fantasies are coming true. What she didn’t expect was for Finn to tell her that he and his family are actually sidhe—wild, magical beings from an other [another] world. [Is it really necessary to tell us she didn't expect this? No one would expect this. And if it happened, who would believe it? Reminds me of the time when Get Smart and The Man from Uncle were popular shows and I phoned one of my classmates I had a crush on and told her I was a spy and needed her help on my next mission. She not only didn't buy it and agree to help me save the world, she also gave me a wide berth for the rest of my college career.] And none of her fantasies included Finn abandoning her in the never-ending sidhe forests to save his own skin.

The sidhe otherworld is treacherous and secretive, full of unwritten rules and protocol that Katie has no idea how to handle. Just introducing herself is dangerous, as she discovers when she accidentally binds herself into the thrall of the druid Cahal. Katie can’t believe that Finn would desert her like this, [Already said; see last sentence of previous paragraph.] but [and] in the end, only blind chance saves her from a lifetime of slavery. With no sign of Finn and no food, no toilet paper or hand sanitizer, just rain and trees and creatures that howl in the night, Katie is desperate to get home. Too scared to trust anyone after Cahal, the only thing she can think to do is to try and get to the edge of the forest. So she starts walking. 

But the forest is full of dangers, and a growing number of creatures are curious about Katie’s involvement with Cahal, who, she discovers, was far more than just an ordinary druid. [Considering how little is known about the druids by us, not to mention Katie, how can she tell if a druid is ordinary or not? It's like a spaceship from another galaxy lands on Earth, and when the first being exits we immediately declare it no ordinary space alien.] Her connection with him puts her at the heart of a massive network of curses, promises, debts and secrets; and all of the people involved are now looking to Katie to write off their debts, fulfil their favours and tally up their credit. [Cahal is no ordinary druid; he manages a payday loan agency.] Katie’s never so much as killed a spider before, but in the forest, weakness is something to be exploited and ignorance is no excuse. No one believes her protests of ignorance; bluffing her way through the business transactions complicates everything; being kind only creates more problems, and things start getting bloody very quickly. With werewolves, ghosts and sidhe hunters on her trail, and the threat of dysentery, mortal injury and starvation, Katie's going to have to learn fast if she wants to live to see tomorrow, never mind get home in one piece. 

THE COBWEB TREE is a YA fantasy novel of 75,000 words. Thank you for your time and consideration. 


Notes

Finn has too big a role in the query. He's here only to explain how Katie ends up in the forest. 

Bad enough that Katie Harrison's secret crush turned out to be sidhe; now he's abandoned her in the treacherous sidhe forests to save his own skin. Seeking a way out, she meets Cahal, the sidhe equivalent of VISA, who wants to enslave her as his collections officer. Katie escapes, but now everyone in the forest is after her to write off their debts, and if she can't bluff her way through a few business transactions, she may not live to see tomorrow, much less her home and family.

That's your setup, and it leaves plenty of room to tell us what happens. What's Katie's plan? What goes wrong? What's her new plan? Does she have an ally? Make sure you're telling a cohesive story, not just listing a few random things that happen. One thing leads to another. Cause and effect.

2013 Face-Lift Awards

3.

A Not-so-Quiet Hostage






 2.

A Cuckoo by the Window






1.

Tears of the Phoenix

2013 Face-Lift Awards

Okay, so queries aren't coming in at half the rate they used to, and EE is phoning it in most of the time. We still have to honor the year's best, if only to have something to post. Here are the nominees:

A Not-so-Quiet Hostage

Tears of the Phoenix

A Cuckoo by the Window


Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Face-Lift 1173

Guess the Plot

On the Way to Santa Fe

1. Benny's boss asks him to send a shipment of "product" to Santa Fe, NM. Unfortunately, the dyslexic Benny sends it to Santa Fe, MN. Now Benny's on the run from the feds, rival mobs, and his own crew. Will he make it to Minnesota, or will he perish...On the Way to Santa Fe?

2. Free-wheelin', beer-lovin', good-lookin' Joe Ditman makes ends meet with odd jobs in Milwaukee. When he inherits the multi-million dollar estate of his long-lost uncle, he heads south to collect. But On the Way to Santa Fe, he meets a sexy angel who changes his heart.

3. Lights in the New Mexico sky can only mean one thing... Sadly, nothing to do with hallucinogens this time. On the way to the state's capital, Cory and Rob are captured by aliens who promptly return them after appropriating all their recreational substances. But time dilation means 1969 is long gone and our boys are out of date. And worse still, their supplier is nowhere to be found.

4. When blood is found in Daniel Bristol's trailer outside Denver he becomes a suspect in the disappearance of a local girl. To stay one step ahead of the law he heads for Santa Fe, New Mexico, 400 miles away. Kind of a road trip designed to make him look guilty as hell. Also, a wily coyote.

5. A scrappy group of Dionne Warwick impersonators prepare for the biggest talent showcase of the year. Hilarity ensues when they entrust their travel arrangements to dim-witted Candida Splendida, and their simple trip becomes a wild adventure of hitching rides with drunk clowns and tap-dancing nuns.

6. Mallory's dog ran away, her fiancé left her for her younger sister, and she just lost her job. Trading her last $78 for a one way bus ticket, Mal finds the last thing she was looking for...On the Way to Santa Fe.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Two quarreling brothers, one missing girl, [one missing verb,] and a family secret that could kill all three. I believe my psychological suspense manuscript ON THE WAY TO SANTA FE (72,000 words) will interest you [Maybe, but I'm not going to Santa Fe to read it.] as it balances the fast-paced plotting of a thriller with the introspection of a literary mystery. [Is a literary mystery something like Who really wrote Shakespeare's plays? Or is it a murder mystery by someone who writes better than all those hack mystery writers who somehow keep getting published?] [I realize thrillers, mysteries, and psychological suspense will probably all be shelved in the same section, but I prefer that you name one genre (say, thriller) and then show that there's psychological suspense and a mystery in your plot description.] [Also, the fact that your title rhymes has started that San Jose song running through my head, which is not something you want to be responsible for. What's wrong with Albuquerque?]

Daniel Bristol is twenty-two, shy, and likes nothing better than sketching the mountains behind his trailer in Golden, Colorado. [That's because mountains are among the easiest things to sketch:]


He dislikes nothing more than his antagonizing brother. To say Dolan makes life difficult for Daniel is as much an understatement as saying a jackrabbit is prey to a coyote. [Calling "a jackrabbit is prey to a coyote" an understatement is an overstatement. I'd call it a fact.] [On the other hand, thinking, Evil Editor will be miffed by my use of an animal analogy to help him understand what I mean by the word 'understatement'" is an understatement.] [Also, the analogy should be roadrunner is prey to a coyote.]

When Dolan claims responsibility for the disappearance of a local girl, Daniel assumes it's another cruel prank, but changes his opinion after finding blood in the trailer and a detective at his doorstep. Daniel wants to cooperate with the police, but he can't. He knows his brother. [That statement does not clear up what you meant by he can't cooperate with the police.] The only way out [Out of what? Is Daniel a suspect? If Dolan claimed responsibility, why isn't Dolan the one being grilled?] is to stay one step ahead of the Law, unravel Dolan's motive, and find the young woman before it's too late.

Unbeknownst to him, Dolan harbors a dark secret that will drag them deep into the mountains of New Mexico. [Are they on foot? Golden is hundreds of miles from Santa Fe.] Facing the unspoken truth will require an unending reservoir of courage - something Daniel lacks. [Either it doesn't require unending courage, or Daniel doesn't lack unending courage, or someone else (someone with unending courage) should be the main character.] Failure will damn the girl's fate and leave him broken . . . wondering what happened ON THE WAY TO SANTA FE.

I appreciate your consideration and look forward to being ridiculed in public.

Sincerely,


Notes

This becomes progressively more vague. Phrases like "harbors a dark secret," "the unspoken truth," and "damn the girl's fate" may sound good on the back cover when you're trying to entice someone to buy the book, but agents and editors aren't going to read your manuscript to find out what you're talking about. They want to know who's the main character and what's his situation. Then what's his goal and how does he plan to achieve it? Then what goes wrong, and what will happen if he can't overcome it? Be specific. Make it sound thrilling and suspenseful, but don't let on that there's anything literary about it.

Feedback Request

A new version of New Beginning1020 (scroll down) is now in the comments there, awaiting your reaction.

Also, we need a couple more fake plots for On the Way to Santa Fe.

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1172 has posted a new version of the query there, and awaits your comments.