Evil Editor's Blog, page 145

Feedback Request

The author of the query featured in Face-Lift 1101 has submitted a new revision, which you'll find in the comments there.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Star Child

1. Susan's had a rough pregnancy so far, and the worst may be yet to come. How will she handle learning that her precious newborn is a ball of flaming hydrogen and helium?

2. Jessie can usually see things coming, but she never anticipated the elderly woman arriving on her doorstep on her 21st birthday asking if she's "come into the family magic yet." Seems her birth parents weren't exactly what she thought.

3. High school student Jenna Baker is proclaimed to be the prophesied Star Child, destined to lead the Aurian Empire to peace. But not so fast! Fellow student Matthew Sparks is also proclaimed to be the Star Child. Suddenly the two are on the brink of a war that could destroy an empire and cause them to miss several days of school.

4. Annabelle thought being born the same day a star fell was a good omen--until the other children who share her birthday start vanishing. Now Annabelle must rescue the others before the sun goes nova.

5. With more gold stars than all of her second grade classmates combined, Jessica becomes trapped in an alternate reality where chewing gum is encouraged and wrong answers rewarded. Will it all go down on her permanent record?

6. When Sol donates Earth to the Stellar Soccer League, Maryanne’s life is shaken to pieces. With the aid of a giant plasmaphone, can she convince the kindly Rigel to boot them back to Sol?


Original Version

When sixteen-year-old Jenna Baker stumbles upon another world, and is heralded as the awaited chosen one, it all seems too good to be true—and it is. [Meaning it isn't good or it isn't true?]

Snooping in the bedroom of top student and social outcast Matthew Sparks, Jenna discovers a key that unlocks the world of Auria, where the Magus of the Empire convinces her that she is the anticipated Star Child. [We're moving awfully fast here. Is this a literal key? Into what does she insert it? What's she doing alone in Matthew's bedroom?] Accompanied by a cocky elven prince and an Ahani warrior woman, Jenna journeys for the whispers of an ancient riddle that will lead her home [Home to her high school or home to her Aurian nation? Also, what do you mean by "journeys for the whispers"?] and mend the rifts between nations.

But when Jenna learns the Magus is from her world too, ["Her world" meaning Earth?] and is using her to conquer the last free peoples for the Empire, she questions whether she is really the one Auria has waited for. When Matthew attempts to rescue Jenna and is proclaimed the Star Child by the Magus’ enemies, the two find themselves on the brink of a war that could destroy everything and leave them trapped in Auria forever.

[Aurian Leader 1: The long-awaited Star Child has finally appeared to us. She shall bring us peace evermore.

Aurian Leader 2: The Star Child is here, true, and peace is upon us, but it's not a she, it's a he, and he appeared to us.

Aurian Leader 1: BullSHIT! Your Star Child is clearly a fraud.

Aurian Leader 2: We shall settle this in the manner of our ancestors: all-out war.]

Star Child is a young adult fantasy, complete at 72,000 words. I have drawn on my background in archaeology and linguistics to create a world of cultural, linguistic, and political depth. Polynesian myth weaves through the book, as well as shadows of Roman, Hittite, and Mesopotamian culture. [If anything will convince a teenager to pick up a book, it's the idea of learning about Hittite culture.] I am currently working on the sequel.

My story “X” was published in the literary magazine Y as their 2007 fiction contest winner. I also won the Z fiction contest in 2000, and my non-fiction is online at A. I joined the collective of B [Whoa. If you're part of the Borg collective, put that in the first paragraph. It's a major selling point.] in 2008 and currently work in literary acquisitions and marketing. [In addition, my C and D are E, F and G, and H will be I in J when K Ls.]

Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.


Notes

Aren't these kids a little old to be the Star Child? Maybe it should be the Star Adolescent.

On the other hand, aren't they a little young to be leading armies in war?

What does the Magus do besides tell Jenna she's the chosen one? Does he tell her to journey with an elf and an Amazon? Where and why? Shouldn't he stay with her?

Is Auria a planet? A galaxy? A video game?


Selected Comments

Blogger Matt Heppe said...

I love high fantasy, but if I see the word "elf" or "elven" one more time...

Seriously, you can have some mystical, magical, long lived race in your novel, but don't call them elves. I see the word elf and I think "Tolkein rip-off" and I am already prejudiced against you. You now have the task of convincing me that I'm wrong.

Just my opinion. I'm sure there are plenty of elf-lovers out there who disagree.


chelsea said...Yeah. Because Tolkien invented elves. Just like Rowling invented wizards. Also, Jenna finds the entrance to Auria in a bedroom, so this MUST be a Narnia rip off! OFF WITH HER HEAD!!!!


150 said...You could cut this: "top student and social outcast" by saying this: "nerd". Also, to set up the conflict it might help to add another label: "sixteen-year-old cheerleader Jenna Baker," or mathlete or prom queen or actress or fellow nerd or whatever.


Phoenix said...The pattern and pacing of the query is good. Now it just needs the right details plugged in.

Here's where I had questions (not including the ones EE notes):

Are "top student and social outcast" the most relevant things about Matthew?

What is the Star Child chosen for? If it's mending that rift after answering the riddle, then I think that mending the rift should be the first consequence of answering the riddle and being led home should be the second.

Does it matter for the query that the Magus is from her world (like the Wizard of Oz was from Kansas, too)?

I think if you delete everything in the "Star Child is" paragraph after "72,000 words", you'll have a little more breathing room to ground the story for the reader.

To be honest, given the details of the story in this query, I think that if the tone in EE's GTP were carried over into the actual novel, it would make for a more accessible, less "standard fare" high fantasy. As it is, what's the real hook in your tale? You'll want to play that up a bit.


Dominique said...I'm interested in how Matthew followed her. Did he already know about the key or did he find it after she got transported into Auroria. I'd like to hear a bit more about him in the query.

Still, sounds good. I'd bite.


chelsea said...I really like the premise of a false chosen one, and that the Magus is manipulating Jenna to take over the empire. I also like the inclusion of archeology and linguistics. However, I don't think we need to know the Magus is from Earth unless we get more information on why that is relevant. Someone from Auria could (theoretically) want to take over the empire too.

I also had a problem with, "Jenna journeys for the whispers of an ancient riddle that will lead her home." Not only is it very vague, it also makes me wonder why Jenna wants to return home right after she's been convinced she's the chosen one.


Rachel said...The first two paragraphs feel pretty cliche, but I like what comes after that. Going into another world, being declared a prophesied hero, and questing with fun characters can be done well, but has been done a lot. Is there some other way to put it?

Based on what I've seen around here, I'd delete most of the stuff about including mythology, etc. The essential stuff is: wordcount, genre, audience, series potential. Maybe mention drawing on mythology, but shorten it.

I've always liked the idea of popping into another world on the bad guy's side, but never really seen it done. My various versions are still in my head.

I'd argue that elves are accepted with approximately the same mythical status as dwarves and flying horses, only less rooted in classical (ie, Greek) myths. Oh, and a whole lot more popular, due to LOTR and Santa.

A little more on Matthew would be nice.

All in all, sounds fun!


pacatrue said...Is there any way to work all the world-building you say you've done into the query? Perhaps because I'm a pseudo-linguist living in Hawaii, your discussion of Polynesian myth and language struck me as very different in the YA publishing world and possibly a strong pull. However, none of that uniqueness is in the story you are telling. Give us a better picture of the world you've built by showing it.


Amanda said...Thank you everyone from your comments. I really appreciated the advice and learned a lot, but also had a good laugh at my own expense. :)

Not sure if this is the right place to put it but I have rewritten my query to be less confusing and more to-the-point...I hope. Here it is:

~*~*~*~

I am seeking representation for my 72,000-word young adult fantasy novel Star Child.

When sixteen-year-old Jenna Baker snoops in classmate Matthew Sparks’ bedroom, she hopes to unravel the truth about his strange behavior and absences from school. What she finds is a key that unlocks a doorway in the woods to the parallel world of Auria, a landscape of harpies, phoenixes, and an Empire determined to expand at any cost.

Mistaken for a rebel and kidnapped, Jenna loses the key and her way home, until the ruler of the Empire offers her a deal—piece together an ancient riddle to find another key and become the awaited Star Child, a figure destined to convince the rebels to unite under the banner of the Empire.

But Jenna discovers the Magus has his own agenda—abandoned in Auria as a child, he's ready to exact revenge on both worlds. When Matthew attempts to rescue Jenna and is proclaimed the Star Child by the rebels, the classmates find themselves on opposite sides of a war that could leave them trapped in Auria forever.

I have been previously published in the literary magazine x as their 2007 fiction contest winner. I also won the x fiction contest in 2000. My BA in Archaeology and Linguistics inspired Star Child and Auria draws on Polynesian and Mesopotamian myths.

Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.


Dave F. said...The second version is much, much better.

I would open with the line "I am seeking representation for Star Child, a 72,000-word young adult fantasy."It says the same thing and puts the Title of the story first.

The fourth paragraph bothers me in that it talks about Jenna and Matthew at the same time. It's like there is a sentence missing from the middle of it. That might just be me and not you.

BTW, you could do without "in the woods" in the second paragraph.

You called him merely a "ruler" in the third paragraph and "Magus" in the fourth paragraph. Plus you referred to "empire" in the second paragraph. That's a teeny, tiny bit like 3 names for the same thing. So here's my suggestion (and it IS just a suggestion. There's a number of other minions who are truly spectacular at queries, so wait for them to comment too.) In the second paragraph, say "and a magician determined to expand his empire at any cost" and then in the third paragraph replace "ruler of the Empire" with "magician." And in the fourth paragraph, just replace Magus with Magician.



Matt Heppe said...Far superior to the original version. Well done.

I like that you mentioned other traditional fantasy creatures in this version. (I'm the anti-elf guy. And yes, Tolkien did "invent" the modern notion of elf found in fantasy literature today--much supported by Dungeons and Dragons).

If elves were going to be your only fantasy creature, my objections would be greater. They are easier to swallow (yum) in a world populated by traditional fantasy creatures drawn from a variety of mythologies.


Ruth said...Much, much better! My only suggestion would be:
"Mistaken for a rebel and kidnapped, Jenna loses the key and her way home, until the Magus, ruler of the Empire, offers her a deal"... just to explain who the Magus is when you bring him up later. Other than that, this reads like a really good query to me.

...Although I'd be really interested in reading more about the Mesopotamian/Polynesian aspects of the world, too. But it's hard to know how you'd work that into your query, and your query's already good enough that I wouldn't suggest changing it. It's good you do bring it up, though, as that definitely shows a "unique" aspect of your story!

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Chasing the Goddess

1. Lady Cynthia Whitmore is the only person who can free the goddess of night from the orb in which she's been imprisoned for a thousand years. But the god of day wants the goddess in the orb, and he's willing to smite Cynthia to stop her.

2. Born into a long line of deities, trainee Goddess Tracey decides that a life of unknowableness and smiting isn't for her. She runs away to follow her dream, pursued by an assortment of gods, demi-gods, demons, imps, pixies and other supernatural beings sent by the junior God School to bring her back.

3. When the Midvale Book Club and Wiccan Circle miss a syllable in their incantation to the earth mother, the ladies reach the wrong deity and accidentally set loose Shiva, goddess of destruction. Can they appease the goddess before she smites them all?

4. Unaware of the true cause of Harvey Widget's disappearance, his girlfriend Pruddy Jones follows a trail of clues that will ultimately lead her to the supernatural lair of Machina, goddess of the Roboti, a sect of engineers "destined" to replace all humans with unbreakable mechanical puppets. Will Pruddy be their next victim?

5. Former veterinarian Waldo Sullivan discovers the true reason dogs chase cars: religion. Automobiles have all the qualities the ancient Prophecy told canines to expect in the Chosen One, the goddess who would liberate them. But no one takes Waldo seriously. Not even Maddy, the most sympathetic nurse at the asylum.

6. Tired of dating losers Ares and Hephaestus, Aphrodite decides to try her luck on a multi-myth version of The Bachelorette. Will Odin hang himself after she refuses his proposal? Will she sleep with Gilgamesh?



Original Version

(Proper Salutation):

Lady Cynthia Whitmore touched a goddess when she was eleven years old. To Cynthia it was just a pretty orb, but by picking it up, she became the goddess of night’s chosen to free her from the orb, restore her kingdom and to free her people from a curse. [You've lost me. What exactly did she become by picking up the orb? Is there a word missing after "night's," something like "savior" or "lackey"?] [Once Cynthia frees the goddess of night from the orb, why can't the goddess restore her own kingdom and free her people from the curse? Surely she's better equipped to handle this than Lady Cynthia Whitmore.] But the god of day struggled to capture her and will smite anyone to keep the goddess encased in the tiny prison. [What does the god of day gain by having the goddess of night in an orb? Is it always daytime as long as she's imprisoned?] [Also, smite? Who says smite these days? We do sometimes say smitten, but smite and smote are out. Smut, of course, is always in.]

For a thousand years, the goddess’s followers and the fay have waited for Cynthia and watched over her after she found the orb. No one bothered to tell Cynthia of her fate until she was twenty-three. [No one bothered? That makes it sound like there was no reason not to tell her, they just kept letting it slide . . . for twelve years. They wait a thousand years for Cynthia to come along, and then they can't be bothered to tell her who she is?

Fay 1: At last we have the power to free our goddess.

Fay 2: Hey, she's been in the orb a thousand years; another decade won't kill her.]

She discovers that, Marcan, her childhood tutor and current guardian[,] is a fay. Anthony, her mentor at the university[,] is a follower of the goddess [When your mentor at the university tells you he's a follower of a goddess who has been imprisoned in an orb for a thousand years, it's time to slowly back out of the room. And the university.] and Irial, his best friend is another fay who has been watching her from the shadows.

If those secrets were not enough, Cynthia learns of the curse that has plagued Anthony for centuries. A curse that makes him long for her blood, [How can he have been plagued for centuries by a curse that makes him long for Cynthia's blood, when she's only 23?] [Also, what do you mean, "makes him long for her blood"? Does he want to drink it?] made worse by the fact that he’s fallen in love with her. [In the early weeks of a relationship it's always a bit awkward informing your sweetie that you long to drink her blood.] He’s not the only one for Irial has also come to love her in the years he’s been watching her. [They're both smitten.] [It's creepy enough when a fifty-year-old guy chases after a 23-year-old; these guys are centuries old and trying to hook up with one. Aren't there any immortal fay women available?] [Also creepy: finding out supernatural beings have been watching you. Does she wonder if they can turn invisible and watch her in the shower or watch her when she invites a guy in after a date?] Marcan worries about keeping the peace between them until they fulfill their mission.

All three men must wrestle with these issues while ensuring Cynthia makes it safely to the goddess’ temple in order to free her. The god of day is on their trail to stop them either by killing Cynthia or taking back the orb. [They've had the power to free the goddess for twelve years. It's their own fault if the god of day stops them now.]

My fantasy novel, Chasing the Goddess, is complete at 118,000 words. This is the first of a trilogy, but can stand on its own.

I have a Masters in Library Science and currently work in an academic library.

Thank you for your time.

Thanks,


Notes

Is the orb in the temple? Does the god of day know where the temple is? Why didn't he just go get the orb years (or centuries) ago?

Can't we give the god of day and the goddess of night names? When you read stories about Greek and Norse gods they go by their names, not what they're gods of.

It's almost all setup. The plot, which you gloss over in two sentences, is that Cynthia has a mission to free the goddess, Someone wants to stop her while others want to help her. And if she fails . . . What? What will change once the goddess is free? The world has gotten along without her for a thousand years. Now suddenly she must be released from the orb? Maybe we're better off with the goddess in the orb. Did you ever think of that?

Where does the chasing come in? The goddess is in the orb. The orb is in the temple. It's not like she's on the run.

Start over, give us three sentences of setup and six about the mission and the stakes, and make sure all your sentences are clear.


  .









 Orb scene from Woody Allen's Sleeper

Selected Comments

Matthew said...This query mildly intrigued me, which I suppose is the best you can do when it's all backstory.

Follow EE's advice and come back to us with the rewrite. My suggestion is to focus on Cynthia and show us how she feels about all of this. Mitigate the number of questions your query raises--If you can't answer it within the 250 words, avoid it.

Is this the same Cynthia that slept with a horse in a New Beginning from awhile back?


vkw said...Wow - does this critique sound familiar. Seems like all of EE's minions make similar mistakes - that must be our greatest weakness that the evil minions can smite us with.

Here's the dilemma - I write from the beginning to the end, I am going to tell you the backstory so you dear agent can grasp the plot and the excitement of this story by osmosis. (I'm not saying you did this author but I certainly did and your query had similar concerns to my query)

The query is mildly intriguing. I have no good advice to give but to wish you very good luck.


Evil Editor said...Read this blog, start to finish, including all reader comments. That's where osmosis comes in.


Anonymous said...EE - reading 560 plus face lifts is not osmosis that is called vicarious learning. "Learning", like in working only without pay. . . .

Okay I'm done whining. I have been reading them and I'm learning and making progress - slowly.

the idea of an osmosis pill, however, is quite tempting, better yet a mind reading agent would be cool.


Anonymous said...Seems to incorporate numerous popular plot elements which means the prose needs to be especially awesome for the query to stand out, since the competition seems to be very crowded with vampires, chosen ones, and various gods-on-earth.

At least you resisted the temptation to put in a werewolf and teenagers with wands.


Tracey S. Rosenberg said...EE, in the first paragraph, 'chosen' is a noun.

Evil Editor said...Noun or not it's not a sentence. The part after "chosen" needs to modify something. It can modify chosen if chosen isn't a noun, but then we need a noun (savior?). If chosen is a noun, the rest of the sentence needs something else to modify. Something like "with the responsibility" or "obligated" or "bound by Fay law." "Chosen" can't play both roles.


Dave F. said...I'm having trouble with time and age here. Marcan, Anthony and Irial are ancient and Cynthia is a college student who was perfectly normal until she touched the ORB at 12 years old. But nothing happened to Cynthia until she hit age 23 years old.

Let me repeat two words: nothing happens. A twelve-year old fondling an orb is not exciting. A 900 year old fondling a twelve year old is Lolita with a bad case of wrinkles.

If the story doesn't begin with something more exciting that happens after her 23rd birthday, I'm not sure I want to read it. Perhaps this is a preemptive strike on the "first" of a series and an unfair preemptive attack. But when I first read "Harry Potter" I had the same thought. Why are we starting with a baby? And my point being that if you don't write a compelling story after that opening chapter with the 12 year old and the orb, the book might be all backstory and not interesting enough to stand on its own.

I realize that what I've just said is unfair because I only have the query and I'm judging the book. But that's the only part of the story you describe in the query, the backstory. What happens after Cynthia is told she is the chosen one. I mean what really happens not the truly predictable reaction of "No I'm not." and "You're all crazy." How does the revelation change her life? What new skills and attitudes must she learn? Does her college life change? Does she stay on Earth (in Normal Nebraska) or go off to some other world of the Fay or Fey? That's the story you need to describe in the query.


vkw said...Dave may have a good point here. If nothing happens between 12 and 23, then the heroine should just find the orb at 23 and be done with it.

Or perhaps it is the prelude, that starts out little cindy found this orb and little did she know . . . . .

Now 12 years later, evil and good forces come to head because something has happened that will allow cindy to set the goddess free.

I want to know why anyone wants to set the goddess of night free. . . if everything has been just fine without her - why bother.

and why can't cindy just hand over the orb to all three of the men and promise to marry the one that survives?


Dominique said...I feel as though you've sort of overwritten the query. Try saying the same things in a simpler manner, maybe with fewer $3 words. Add a little more voice.

It sounds like you have an interesting story on your hands -- albeit a long one. You just have to make sure that comes through in the query.


Eric P. said..."Orb" is such a goofy word. Orb. Orb. Orb. Orb. Orb. Orb. I can't get past it.

Which may be just as well, because it appears that if I got past it I'd have to say, "Oh, not another story where a girl finds out she's the Chosen [One], has to go on a quest for the battle between light and darkness, and a vampire falls in love with her!"

Your story isn't really that much of a cliche, you say? Fair enough. Use your query letter to show (not tell!) us why, exactly, it's different and better.


Anonymous said...Orb isn't an odd word for anyone who knows Latin. The Pope issues a yearly message titled: Urbi et Orbi -- translated -- "To the City and the World." It is the Papal address and blessing on Easter and Christmas.


Xiexie said...The "chosen" (cos I read as a noun too) issue could be solved as follows:

...she became the goddess of night’s Chosen, the one to free the goddess from the orb, restore her kingdom and to free her people from a curse.

I don't know Dave. Seeing that this is to be part of a trilogy there are probably events when everyone comes outta the woodwork when she's twenty-three.

There's more backstory there too, I'm sure. I do agree that the eleven-year-old thing doesn't necessarily need to be in the query unless it's handled like this:

Fay, fairies, imps, pixies, vampires and sh!t have begun to reveal themselves to Tracey. She finds that they're her best friend, mentor, teacher, the high school janitor, the crazy lady in front of the old Woody's building, etc. Little did she know that at 11 when she touched that dark orb in the Goddess of Night's temple, she charged herself as the Goddess's Chosen, the one to [refer to my suggestion above]...

Am I making sense?


writtenwyrdd said...Finding the orb years before the action starts makes it prolog fodder, and we all know how much people "say" they hate prologs.

Overall, too many elements are introduced in this query for me. Makes my brain hurt trying to keep track, and it does seem to be mostly backstory.

I think you need to pare down to your elevator pitch (a one sentence description of what happens in the book) and work from there. If it's about a girl who saves "the world"--whatever that world is-- you focus on her, not on trying to explain the entire mileau you've created.

This sounds like it might be a good story, but you need to sell it, give us an emotional hook.


Jeb said...Speaking of osmosis, they likely don't teach the correct use of commas in Library school, but a librarian has presumably opened a book or two over the years and thus could have absorbed the basics.


L Violet said...I'm with Jeb. When I was a librarian (children's, academic, and public library reference librarian), I kept being shocked at the number of librarians who were lousy at punctuation and grammar, were not especially literate, didn't read much, and generally brought shame to the profession. I blame it on library schools shifting to "information management."

Everybody doesn't have to be good at everything, but a librarian should know enough to use a reference source to check punctuation before presenting writing to the public.

I haven't been telling agents I'm a librarian (retired, now) in the bio para of my queries. (Except for the children's story queries I sent around, because being a children's librarian gave me tremendous experience with selecting and "field testing" kids' books.) Should I have been? I didn't think it had anything to do with my writing qualifications.


Sephina said...I figured this would get posted while I was on vacation. I honestly thought I was adding elements to the query letter that I was learning about from reading past face-lifts. But I can see from the comments what I need to fix, which is what I needed. I had come to roadblock while writing the query letter and needed the feedback to get me moving again. So thank you for your comments.

And I do use reference books to help with grammar. I'm just a little slow when it comes to commas.

Thanks again!

Query Writing Exercise

The queries aren't exactly rolling in, so it's time for some queries for books that don't exist.

1. Go to this site and generate one number from 1 to 1102.

2. Search this blog for the Face-Lift with that number.

3. Choose one of the fake plots. Don't use the real plot, but do use the real title.

4. Pretend you wrote that book, and write a query letter that's sure to entice an agent.

5. Send it as a comment to this post.

6. Notice how much easier it is to write a query for a fake book.

Face-Lift 1102

Guess the Plot

Lady Champion

1. In the true spirit of "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog," pure-bred Chihuahua Lady overcomes three bungling dognappers, two maltese rivals and one frighteningly bad hair day to win Best in Show at Westminster.

2. In the highly competitive world of cross-dressing pageantry, the crown for the Lady Champion event is the most sought-after of all. Will joyous tears of victory finally streak the cheeks of drag-queen Red Blushing at the crowning ceremony? All that stands in his way is his 5 o'clock shadow, and the fact that competition doesn't even begin until 4:30.

3. 12-year-old Saylor is determined to prove that her puggle Lady is every bit as good as those snooty purebreds. At the dog show she learns that hard work and determination are worthless when all you have is a mutt. Now Saylor's out for revenge.

4. Khameleon loses every writing contest she enters. So she decides to ruin the publishing industry. She hacks into computers throughout publishing. She replaces sentence termination with commas, comma splicing her way to chaos. She’s the Comma Comma Khameleon and her sentences must be terminated at all cost. Also a talking thesaurus.

5. A librarian is dragged two miles beneath the Earth's surface, where she is expected to battle a champion twice her size. At stake: whether humans with no magical powers should be slaves of the gods. Also, a Voltaire-tutored Fari idealist.


Original Version

Whether fighting opponents or shelving books, librarian Luke Liddell loves fairytales and hates not knowing the story. So it’s irritating when her plans get changed [What's irritating is when he turns into a she.] without notice: From teaching martial arts at a Nashville community center to staring down a leather-pants-clad king two miles beneath Britain. [I don't see enough connection between loving fairy tales and being irritated by a change in plans. In fact, I would expect someone who loves fairy tales to be thrilled at the opportunity to fight a leather-clad king instead of teaching a class.] The good news? Her parents were wrong; Luke wasn’t crazy for saying she had a fairy prince for a friend till age 12. The bad news? She’s been brought to the Under to fight as King Ethain’s Champion. [I'd like more connection between these two events if you're using the good news/bad news line. Is it the fairy prince who's brought her to the Under? Consider: The good news: I won a car. The bad news: It's a 1971 Ford Pinto. Versus: The good news: I won a car. The bad news: They were out of cheese danish at the bakery. Show how the bad news event is related to the good news event. Or just provide the info without the good/bad.]

For a world-class martial artist who trained Marines but couldn’t trust the military enough to enlist, swearing as anybody’s Champion is a problem…until she realizes why Ethain’s heirdom to the High Throne is at stake: He doesn’t believe humans should be slaves. And in much of the Under—where Olympian gods are Fari (humans keep getting that wrong), [Possibly because they have no idea what it means.] human geniuses visit after faking their own deaths, [Huh?] and every fairytale has a hidden angle—a lack of kharis magic condemns you to slavery. [Those with kharis magic are considered charismatic.] [Should I know what kharis magic is?]

Luke’s passionate about justice and equality; fealty to the Voltaire-tutored Fari idealist who dragged her here could be just the chance she’s waited for—to fight for someone she trusts to do the right thing. After all, if you can’t trust a monarch trying to turn his kingdom into a democracy, who can you trust? [A United States Marine. Semper fi.] Not to mention that Ethain’s beauty nearly sends her blind when he smiles, or that she’s had dreams about him since her first night here. [How long has she been here?]

But becoming his Champion will bring its own problems: Figuring out how to defeat an undefeated Champion twice Luke’s size and 30 times her age—and then figuring out how to survive the price of victory. [Anyone over the age of 3 should be able to defeat someone 30 times her age. Just kick over his walker.]

LADY CHAMPION is a 110,000-word fantasy-romance, first in the 3-book KING’S CHAMPION series (330,000 words). [That's a lot of words. ] I’m a medicine/law (MD-JD) student two years from graduation, with a degree in English. [Shouldn't someone in med and/or law school be too busy to write 330,000 words?] I’ve won awards for both poetry and prose in SCOPE, and written fiction and essays while devouring mythology, classics, fantasy, and martial arts for three decades.

I would be happy to send you the complete manuscript. Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

Can you be more specific about how she got to the Under than she was dragged there?

Between the time she was 12 and the time she became a librarian, has she seen her fairy prince friend?

I want more of the story. Here's the setup: A librarian is dragged to the Under where she must defeat Borgo the Disemboweler in hand to hand combat in order to keep Ethain on the throne. Otherwise humans will be enslaved. Now, what happens? There's gotta be more than that in 110,000 words.

Get rid of Luke's parents and kharis and Voltaire and just tell the story.

Feedback Request

The query featured in Face-Lift 1098 has been revised. The new version is in the comments there, awaiting your input.

Feedback Request

A new version of the query featured in Face-Lift 1101 is now posted in the comments there, awaiting your input.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Beast of Burden

1. I work for Burden and Son Refrigeration Ltd., moving coolers all day. The "and Son" is almost funny. The son moves his coffee cup around his desk all day as he instructs us, the beasts, on what needs to go where. He is eighteen, I am nearly thirty. He dines on pickled eggs all day and blames his dog for his own farts.

2. Kat's new boyfriend carries a terrible burden: he's a werewolf. Kat has her own burden: a phobia of dogs. Their families hate each other. It's Romeo and Juliet, only with werewolves.

3. Loki escaped Ragnarok through a technicality. When the Beast of Revelations shows up on his doorstep, he's determined to prevent the apocalypse by addicting the Beast to freedom.

4. Eddie Pringle, convicted of petty theft, faces a choice: six months in juvenile detention, or being a roadie for the next Rolling Stones tour. Hilarity ensues.

5. Morris's camel, Al, is his only companion as he faces off against marauding hordes, killer insects, desert heat and an irate ex-wife. As water runs low and supplies dwindle, will Morris have to eat his faithful friend Al, his trusted . . . Beast of Burden?

6. A blind man receives a guide dog as a gift from one of his two sons. This leads to jealousy and fighting between the brothers, but when the dog leads his master into one precarious situation after another, the jealous son begins to question what the dog was really trained for.



Original Version

Dear Glorious, Omniscient Agent or Editor,

Ever since Kat Baset slapped popular jock, Malcolm Kennett, for grabbing her butt at a seventh grade dance she has been cast out and ridiculed as a loser. [Seventh grade is what, twelve years old? What sport do the jocks play? Tag?] Subject to name calling and various pranks from the “it crowd,” Kat just wants to scratch through her last year of high school and get the hell out of Dodge- otherwise known as Alpine Ridge, Colorado.

First day senior year: total disaster. Malcolm tosses Kat’s book bag into the boy’s [boys'] locker room just minutes before her first class starts. With a burst of courage and her nose plugged, Kat storms in the midst of sweaty socks and half-dressed jocks. She is taunted and teased by the usual suspects, but one boy comes to her rescue. Her hero is new kid in town, Remi Gere, the same sweet hunk with whom Kat happened to share the best day of summer vacation. The unexpected rematch ["Rematch" doesn't mean that. "Connection"? "Encounter"?] with Remi catapults the two teens into a friendship and proves to be the needed distraction from Kat’s personal hell in the hallways of Alpine Ridge High.

While their relationship buds, Kat learns her new love interest bears a supernatural secret. Remi Gere is a werewolf. [How does she learn this? Surely she would never believe anyone who told her.] [When you're describing a book you've written, it's usually a mistake to wait until paragraph three to mention that one of your main characters is a werewolf. Suddenly it's a completely different book. In one book Remi beats Malcolm up after school, and in the other he rips Malcolm's throat out.] Head over heels for him, Kat wonders if she will be able to handle the heat and overcome her greatest fears- falling in love and her phobia of dogs. [I'm guessing she's afraid of dogs, not of her phobia of dogs?] [You find out your boyfriend's a werewolf, and your first concern is whether you can get over your fear of dogs?]

Knowing the burden of harboring such a secret, Kat opens up to Remi and shares a little mystic of her own. [I would say she shares a secret of her own, not a little mystic.] The amulet around Kat’s neck contains the powers of her personal beast, a mountain lion- the very thing Remi and his family of wolves hates. [In case anyone's interested, my personal beast is the proboscis monkey.]
[Needless to say, I'm highly annoyed that there are no were-proboscis monkey books or movies.]

As if being a teenager wasn’t difficult enough.

Toss out the iambic pentameter, poison and dagger and throw in the daily tortures of teenage humiliation and some Weres, BEAST OF BURDEN is a 64,000 word YA paranormal, akin to Romeo and Juliet. [Every book is akin to Romeo and Juliet if you're allowed to toss out a few things and throw in a few others.] [For instance, toss out the star-crossed lovers and the feuding families, throw in a cannibalistic serial killer and a green female FBI agent, and The Silence of the Lambs is a thriller akin to Romeo and Juliet.] [Just for laughs, minions may submit their own "akin to R and J" examples as comments. One per customer, please.] It explores the journey of young love pitted against the adversity of prejudice [Prejudice against werewolves? This is the third book we've done in about a year that dealt with werewolf prejudice, the others being Hybreed Rising and Wolves and Walls. How come we don't have any books dealing with weredingo prejudice?] and long-harbored fears.

This is my first novel. I thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


Notes

Can Kat turn into a mountain lion? If so, say so. If not, what does the amulet do for her?

It's the first day of school and the first class hasn't yet started, yet the locker room is full of sweaty half-dressed boys? Even if this school has athletic practices before school on the first day of school, the boys should be dressed and gone if their first classes start in a few minutes.


Selected Comments

Adventures in Children's Publishing said...Yes, EE, in seventh grade there *are* jocks, but why are we wasting a whole paragraph there? Unless it is to set up up for the "scratch" pun? (At least I hope that was intentional and answers EE's question about whether Kat (ha, ha) really does turn into a mountain lion! Just insert "long-time nemesis" or something into the 2nd graph along with a mention of the setting, and you can ditch the whole 1st graph to get us to the story faster. (Hopefully, you don't start the story in seventh grade, right?)

Nose plugged? Really?

And "storms in the midst of sweaty socks and half-dressed jocks." Really?

Does the relationship bud? Or bloom? Cliche either way.

Also, what are the rules for this world? If the amulet governs the shape-shifting, then Kat's magic is external. Does Remi also wear an amulet? If so, that might explain why the two kids don't smell the dog and cat on each other. Otherwise, I hope you explain this somewhere in the book. On the other hand, handled subtly, having the two of them recognize each other as weres on some level might explain away the seeming coincidence of their reunion. At least as it reads so far in the query, that seems a little pat.

Good luck with this!


Marissa Doyle said...Number 6 was delightfully evil.

Hmm. Toss out Romeo and the monk, add shoes, and Bridget Jones's Diary is chick-lit akin to R and J?

Yes to everything EE said (not sure why she would have been ostracized for defending herself against what is for all intents sexual harassment. In my kids' middle school, she'd have no problems and the jock would get a suspension.) This query felt sort of inside-out--I think the author needs to lead with (or at least move up) the supernatural elements, otherwise they jar when you get to them because you've already built up a different picture of the story.

And watch your word use and narrative. "The journey of young love pitted against the adversity of prejudice and long-harbored fears" verges on incomprehensibility. Keep it clean and simple.

Good luck!!


150 said...Oh yeah, there are seventh-grade jocks. There are jocks as early as second grade. They look a little funny standing beside fully-grown jocks but there's little doubt what they're going to become.


Sarah from Hawthorne said...

Take out the flowery language and epic love story, add in some computers, guns, and a lot of "Whoas", and The Matrix is a lot like Romeo + Juliet.

Author, I agree that the structure of the query needs work. Personally, I would recommend leading with the info that Kat can turn into a mountain lion and use that as your explanation why she's unpopular, i.e.: "High school is hell, especially when you've got a secret as big as Kat's."

But I really like the voice that comes through. I would want to read your book based on this.


Matthew said...You might want to avoid cliche lines like "Get out of dodge" and "As if being a teenager wasn't difficult enough"

Maybe you could lead off with Kat's amulet powers instead of the werewolf guy. If you start off with a teen in love with a werewolf, people might write it off as a Twilight clone.

I won't lie. I was hoping for a story about oxen...I don't know why. I just like them, I guess.


pulp said...Some agents don't care about language if they think the project will sell, and if they want to pre-edit your MS. Some agents care very much about language and will toss you out on your virtual ear for instances of illiteracy.

You've misused several words in this query. Your dictionary will be helpful to you.


Anonymous said...Does Kat's amulet allow her to become a mountain lion, or something? If not... "Hey, Remi, there's a bit of problem... we can't really be together because I have a necklace with this animal you don't really like on it. Sorry."


vkw said...I don't believe a 7th grader would be osterized for life for slapping a jock that had it coming. Teenagers have memories that are 2.5 seconds - long ask any high school or junior high school teenager or parent.

She probably was never popular and never will be. Had nothing to with the slap.

Why is her greatest fear falling in love? Just because I love dogs and have three of them, does not mean I am going to love a man that changes into a supernatural being at every full moon who can and has ripped out people's throats. I would ditch the "afraid of dogs" and tell us why she's afraid of love instead.


150 said...Also, I don't believe a 7th grader would be osterized for life for slapping a jock that had it coming.

*hysterical laughter*


Anonymous said...If Kat can change into a mountain lion, she should devour Malcolm in that form. That takes care of that problem.


chelsea said...I have no problem believing an unpopular girl gets ostracized for slapping a popular boy. He could've done much worse and the outcome would still be the same in a lot of cases.

However, I agree that we don't need that much information about him in the query. A single line or two will probably be sufficient. Maybe something to the effect of, "When Kat Baset slaps all-star quarterback (or whatever) Malcolm Kennett, the only boy who comes to her defense is sweet but strange Remi." Obviously my version could use some work, but it contains all the elements of your set-up in one sentence.

It sounds like you have the pieces for something really interesting here, and I'd definitely like to know what happens next.


Steve Wright said...

Toss out all of the characters and the plot, throw in the searching light of Reason and the ever-elusive shifting essence of Meaning, and Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a dissertation akin to Romeo and Juliet.

I think we do need to know, right up front, that this is a paranormal thing - as things stand, there's all this stuff about high school, and then it's "oh, by the way, did I mention my characters are werewolves and werecougars?" You need to deal that particular card face up.

The misused words are a bad sign - but catching things like that is why we put up queries on blogs like this... and, actually, once we're out of the high-school stuff, the stakes and the essential conflict of the story are laid out pretty neatly. I'm not getting any sense of the resolution, though - can a teenaged werewolf and a werecougar with a dog phobia find true happiness in the world of today? Or is it going to be a downer ending?

(As an aside, are American high schools really as bad as all these queries make out? I mean, I remember my own schooldays, and they weren't exactly fun - but these books make the upper grades sound like the court of the Medicis. Surely it can't be all drama all the time... can it?)


Dave F. said...At first I thought this was a teen angst story about dating and popularity. Then Richard Gere became a werewolf (sorry Remi Gere) and I though it was a story like TWILIGHT or those Teen Vampire shows on TV. That's still OK. Then all of a sudden Kitty Kat Basket became an anthropomorphic lion and I thought Furries but that has such a negative sexual connotation that I drew back from it. Then I remembered UNDERWORLD with the fights between Vampires and Lycans -- like I cared, yeah, uh-huh, woo-hoo!

There's a couple ways to go with this. First would be to write the query with both as outcasts that find true love and then battle their parents. The second would be to cast the story as how Werewolves versus were-lions ended their centuries long war with the help of two kids falling in love. (The big question is puppies or kittens or both and is the couple registered at Macy's or Bloomingdales? And does happily-ever-after spell veterinary college and animal husbandry?)

There might be the third but I feel way too bad and guilty for picking on the poor author this way and having fun over a dish of spaghetti and a good glass of wine.

I think the query has to start something like:
When exceptional young teens with secret backgrounds, one a werewolf and the other a were-lion, discover each other the first day of Senior year, love blooms.
or perhaps,
The age long battle between were-lions and were-wolves comes to a climax when girl meets boy and falls in love.
or perhaps
Kat didn't believe in love at first sight until she met Remi but that was before she discovered he's a werewolf and she has to admit that she's a were-lion, his blood enemy sworn to kill all werewolfs.


Robin S. said...I have a daughter who's a senior in high school.(And I had one before her, now in college overseas.) High school sucks. Most of the teachers suck. (A very few are amazing and wonderful.) Most of the kids are people you don't want to know later - which works out well, since you won't know them later, if you plan on moving on and having a life. It's a crap time. (And this is in one of the top 10 counties in the country, in terms of average household income.)

Anyway, author, I really like this line you wrote: Kat just wants to scratch through her last year of high school and get the hell out of Dodge- otherwise known as Alpine Ridge, Colorado.

You need to work on your query, apparently, but you've got a lot of good stuff in here as well, and YA is selling like hotcakes, so have at it, and best of luck!


Jeb said...YA is indeed selling like - probably better than - hotcakes. When I judged the Crime Writers of Canada YA award 6-ish years ago, there were only 12 books nominated. This year there were over 30. It's a booming field, especially in the paranormals, although, with adolescent attention spans, that fad might be dust before any books bought now see print.


Anonymous said..."Toss out the swords and long dramatic speeches, toss in a stubborn sailor and giant white whale and..."

I can't believe there weren't more of those.

As for the query: too many cliches as noted. I also had a big problem with the 7th grade slap that seemed well deserved branding her for life (5 years later???). If anything that girl would have been respected/feared or respected/thought cool. Outside of the YA film cliches, it shouldn't surprise anyone that not all jocks like each other...in fact some immensely dislike each other. For anyone the slap offended, there would have been a number that it would have endeared....c'mon, especially in 7th grade.

Then there was the "new boy" cliche and their amazing meeting during the summer. What's this, Grease meets I was a teenage werewolf?


*rachel* said...
Is it just me, or have we seen a lot of novels about middle school outcasts recently?

The 7th grade slap wouldn't doom her for all that long; she'd be a loner for her own reasons. Also, nobody has gym class on the first day of school--even the first week, sometimes. It could be different if, say, it's boys' swimming/track/whatever getting changed after pre-school practice; some sports (or at least marching band) start in the summer.

Is high school such a sea of drama and hormones? Yeah, probably. I can be pretty oblivious sometimes (I like to think of it as sensible), so I missed most of it.

ACP's comment about amulet vs. nature really stuck with me. That point may get passed over in the query, but it'll ring hollow in the full.

This query is a mixed bag: some good bits, some confusing. I like the Dodge bit, as well as the bit about scratching. Pay attention to the comments and send us your revision when it's done.

------
Take out the balcony. Keep the daggers, poison, torches, romance, poetry, dying for someone you love, and death bringing peace to warring families. Surprisingly enough, R and J has a lot in common with the Bible.


Angie said...You guys are terrible, but I guess the author set him/herself up for saying it was akin to R and J.


Author said...Revision:

Subject to name calling and various pranks from the “it crowd,” Kat Baset just wants to scratch through her last year of high school and get out of Dodge- otherwise known as Alpine Ridge, Colorado. But high school is hell, especially when you harbor a secret like Kat Baset's.

Around Kat’s neck is an amulet that conceals her inner beast- a mountain lion. Equipped with the power of tiger’s eye and her grandmother’s magic, no one- or no thing- will ever have to know that limp noodle Kat is a stealth fierce beast. She’s killed before, and with the help of her amulet, she hopes to never kill again.

Even when Kat is continuously pushed to her limits by popular jock, Malcolm Kennett, her killing instincts are kept in check. Kat’s restraint may come from within, or by chance her hippie grandma’s magic really does work. Or maybe Kat’s strength comes in the form of new found friend, Remi Gere, whom she finds is just the right distraction from her personal battles in the hallways of Alpine Ridge High.

Just when it seems Kat may survive senior year, and actually have one of those things other girls call boyfriends, she discovers Remi bears his own supernatural secret. Remi Gere is a werewolf. The irony: she’s afraid of canines, especially the wolf variety. The tragedy: her father was killed by a werewolf.

Oh, yes, there’s a centuries long feud between the species. So it comes as no surprise that grandma threw in a little extra masking magic to ensure Kat would never experience the pain of knowing when she was in the presence of those god forsaken beasts. And it’s no wonder grandma’s claws were out when Remi showed up on their doorstep to take Kat on their first date.

Now head over heels for Remi, Kat knows she will have to overcome her fears and go against everything her family believes in to find happiness. But if she decides to plunge into forbidden love, she will first have to make a giant leap of faith and reveal her secret to Remi.

BEAST OF BURDEN is a 64,000 word YA paranormal, a slice of hell called high school accompanied by the joys and pains of first love. And it just may explain why some people fight like cats and dogs.

This is my first novel. I thank you for your time and consideration.


Tom said...Just a question, Kat's worst enemy is male, right? I sorta thought girls were usually other girl's worst enemies, their barbs cut deeper. Why would Malcolm bother? Is he secretly in love with her?


Dave F. said...That sounds so much better. I always seem to see too many words and I might reduce it to this because I think you lose some of the tension that you create. So think about this version:

Subject to name calling and various pranks from the “it crowd,” Kat Baset just wants to scratch through her last year of high school {...}. But high school is hell, especially when you harbor a secret {...}.

Around Kat’s neck is an amulet that conceals her inner beast- a mountain lion. {...} She’s killed before, and with the help of her amulet, she hopes to never kill again.

{...} Kat’s restraint {...} comes in the form of new found boyfriend, Remi Gere, whom she finds is just the right distraction from her personal battles in the hallways of Alpine Ridge High.

Just when it seems Kat may survive senior year, {...} she discovers Remi {...} Gere is a werewolf. {...} Her father was killed by a werewolf.

{...}

Now head over heels for Remi, Kat knows she will have to overcome her fears and go against everything her family believes in to find happiness. But if she decides to plunge into forbidden love, she will first have to make a giant leap of faith and reveal her secret to Remi.

And then the boilerplate stuff about the word count, genre and thanks.

I'd love to see a version where you open with the fights between cats and dogs because that lightens the tone. It's really sets up the entire story and it's a shame it comes at the end rather than the beginning. I Can't think of a non-cheesy way to open with that line about cats and dogs without looking silly.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

The Dinosaur Diaries

1. Monday: run, run, run, roar, roar, eat. Tuesday: run, run, run, roar, roar, eat. Wednesday: run, run, run, roar, roar, eat. Thursday: Bit cold today.

2. When her abusive husband Jimmy leaves town for a work project, Stormy uses the oven to hatch some dinosaur eggs. But does she have time before Jimmy gets back to train her allosauruses to kill him?

3. Ty Rex finds a time machine and travels to modern New York City determined to make good, but the youngster finds that it isn't easy being a forty-foot monster in a human city.

4. When the Jonas Brothers do a revival album of Enrico Caruso's Biggest Hits, newly licensed detective Patty James suspects foul play. Can a twenty-something save face while rescuing a boy band from the evil machinations of the Dinosaur Daddies from Planet Aendestick?

5. First it was sky lizards taking over New York, now a school of velociraptors are swimming up the Thames, eating everyone in sight -- everyone except Bruce Gupta, bicycle rickshaw guy. When his load of tourists are gobbled mid-ride, he speeds toward Parliament, knowing that only he can save the world.

6. Undergraduate intern Takota Jones gets a spectacular new hair color and matching tattoos and discovers her bosses are older than King Tut -- actual fossils! Using her connection to the corporate iphone network, this skinny rebel promptly takes control of America's Largest Bank and has her best year ever driving it off a cliff.


Original Version

Dear Agent:

What happens when a lonely 18 year-old newlywed uses Indian magic to hatch out dinosaur eggs in her oven?

Stormy Marks is just 18 when she runs away from her abusive home to live with Jimmy, a young man visiting California with his brothers. After a quick Reno marriage, she finds herself living in a trailer in a bleak Montana compound with the abusive Jimmy. [She "finds herself" living . . . ? Did she run away to live with Jimmy, not realizing he lived in a bleak Montana compound?] After he gives her some dinosaur eggs, Jimmy leaves to work on a distant job. [Later, babe, I got a construction job lined up in Amsterdam.] [Some abusive husbands apologize with flowers. Others with dinosaur eggs.]

Desperately lonely, haunted by strange dreams, Stormy confides in her neighbor Susanna Black Fox, a Crow lady. She gives Stormy some medicine dags [That's Crow for peyote buttons.] and tells her to try the oven for the eggs. [I'd go with the frying pan, but either way, I like my eggs fresher than 150 million years old.]
To her surprise, Stormy soon has four baby Allosaurus fragilis running around her home. [Can you litter-train an Allosaurus? Because in a few weeks you're gonna need a litter box the size of a swimming pool.] Susanna's grandson Paul arrives from college, and Stormy quickly falls for the gentle giant.

But what will happen when the greedy, dangerous Jimmy returns? Will he sell the dinosaurs--or worse? [How does one go about selling an allosaurus? The classifieds? Wait, I know. Ebay.


Told in the form of Stormy's diary entries,

[April 14th

I named the allosauruses today: Big Al, Killer, Tiny, and Kowalski. Tiny's the big one. Killer's the one who ate Susanna's herd of cattle. Gotta get the roofing company out here to repair the hole where Tiny's head went out. Maybe I should keep them outdoors now that they're all three times as tall as the trailer.

April 15th

Suzanna gave me some more of her medicine dags. Suddenly I don't care that while I was at the grocery store the kids ate the trailer.]

"The Dinosaur Diaries" is complete at 80,000 words. May I send you some of it?

Thank you for your time.


Notes

Abusive family and husband versus dinosaurs. Hard to tell if this is for adults or boys, if it's litfic or slapstick. So tell us.

If you have four carnosaurs in your trailer, are you really gonna worry that your husband might sell them? Is she unaware that they will eventually be Godzilla?


Selected Comments

Moth said...For an out there plot like this it's really important to get the tone of the MS across. If it's as dry and serious as this query reads then I would consider reworking my manuscript, and if it's supposed to be more farcical or comedic then get that into the query. Bronto. Uh, I mean Pronto.


BuffySquirrel said...Sorry, EE, you can't sell livestock on eBay! but lol, the listing was funny.

Stormy seems like a victim of circumstance--she jumps out of the frying pan into the fire with Jimmy, she "finds herself" in a trailer, she is surprised when the dinosaur eggs hatch. Maybe she needs to be more proactive, in the query if not in the novel? Even if a protagonist lacks agency at the beginning, they ought to develop some before the end, as this isn't litfic (ducks).


AC said...I'm with EE--I think the hardest-to-believe part about this is that the query makes it sound like what Stormy is most worried bout is that evil Jimmy is going to come back and sell the allosaurs. That would not be my biggest worry if I had four prehistoric dinos running around.

Might help also if you included something brief in the query about how fast these things grow up, just to get her problems into perspective. If allosaurs remain gecko-sized for a few years or something, that might make the greedy-Jimmy angle more pressing.


Evil Editor said...Having hatched from an egg no larger than a basketball, the creatures would be small for a while. It takes about 15 years to reach full maturity (35 - 40 feet). At the age of two it would be about seven feet tall.


Anonymous said...oh boy, I hate to say it because I'm sure I might hear this one day about my query and story: But seriously what is this story about? There's just so many conflicting things going on here that it just doesn't make any sense to me. Sorry, maybe it's just the query.


Anonymous said...This could work, or it might not. Can't tell. If there's no dinosaur on page 1, I would suggest revising because that'll probably either be the hook that sells the project to readers or the strange mid-book twist that throws everyone off.


150 said...I'm left with a wide variety of questions, including: Where did Jimmy Nogoodnik get his hands on dinosaur eggs? Petrified or nonpetrified? What does Mama Black Fox have to gain by hatching them? What makes her think four vicious carnivores will make Stormy's life any better? Why does Stormy keep them? Wouldn't Jimmy, upon discovering his trailer full of reptilian monsters, shoot first and try to sell them later? Why is this in diary format? What genre are you going for? Aren't question lists fun?

If you mean Native American, say that. Indians are from India.


Wes said...The majority of "Native Americans", as you call them, call themselves Indians. Go to pueblos and reservations and see that. You can see an example of this by going to a Navajo website http://www.discovernavajo.com/, and click on the link Indian Country.


150 said...wes: That's true, but in a query all I have to go on is a word on a piece of paper. If it says "Indian" my mind goes straight to India, whereas "Native American" or "American Indian" or a specific tribal name can't be misconstrued. It's about making sure the reader understands the first time around. If the first use of "Indian" came within about three words of the name Susanna Black Crow, there'd be context to clear it up, but here it's paired with magic, which could come from either culture. I'm easily confused--don't make me guess at ambiguous terms!


Dave F. said...As for Indians, a cigar store indian carved from wood is not a cigar store Native American. Sorry. On that point I'm not PC.

But what worries me more about this query is that it doesn't let me know about Stormy Marks' struggle. Why did she run away with an abusive boyfriend? Why did she take up drugs? What does she want in life? And what happens between her and gentle giant Paul? I hope it's love and self-respect.

Is that the story I'm going to read?

Otherwise it becomes sci-fi silliness with dinosaurs. Not that I object to sci-fi silliness with dinos but if that's the case, then make the query funny. Maybe they can have a barbecue - dino burgers and allo-sausages.


Evil Editor said...Why did she take up drugs?

The query says nothing about drugs. I joked that medicine dags was Crow for peyote, but a. I know nothing about the Crow language, and b. I think we can safely assume this was a typo that should have said medicine bags.


Dave F. said...I know nothing about the Crow language, Oh, OK. Sorry about that. My bad. Let me present excuses: I was reading the B and W on the comments page and I'm sometimes literal enough to believe a Crow dags could be slang for drugs. I've had a bad few days with a company that doesn't understand customer service. It's cold out.


wendy said...Okay, here’s my two cents which may be exactly what you’ll find it is worth...You've have a really good line in this:

"Desperate(ly), lonely,(and) haunted by strange dreams, Stormy confides in her neighbor Susanna Black Fox, a Crow lady."

( ) = suggestions, no more.

To me the "voice” in the query letter (and even the story content) suggests your target audience is somewhere between the ages of 8 and 12. If that is not your intent (and with an abusive marriage setting the scene I would hope it is not!) then you may need to change your intent or go volunteer some time in the lunchroom of your local high school for a year or so.

If you do decide to shift your intent then you already have the makings of a good daughter-father coming of age conflict. If you decide to go this way you may also want to reconsider the word “abusive”.

Overall, I think your ideas sound like fun, and I might read on…after the loose ends are tied up, of course.

Oh, and 150…I just can’t help but wonder what Strunk might have to say about terms such as Native American or African American. You’re a fan of his work, right? ;) My copy is from 1959 so it doesn't address the question. But! I think that Section II, Part 12 sums up my above argument nicely: "Use definite, specific, concrete language." Strunk to the rescue! :P


chelsea said...If we're playing the name game, I'd like the final word. I'm not going to get it, but I'd like it.

My guess is Native Americans/American Indians would actually prefer to be referred to by their individual tribe names, but assuming (and being proven correct) that most non-Indians are too lazy or apathetic to learn said tribe names, they've settled for being called American Indian.

If you think about it, Native American isn't any more respectful of their roots than American Indian, since "America" is the name of a dude that came to the country they already lived on. Ya dig?


chelsea said...Am I to believe the Crow woman knows how to hatch dinosaurs simply because she's American Indian? This concept feels culturally insensitive: The magical, cure all Indian!

Is there more to this than I'm getting?

I don't think you need to say that Stormy came from an abusive home. The abusive situation with Jimmy is enough to fuel the plot forward, and the fact that she was in a previous abusive home feels like unnecessary back story for the query.

I don't understand why Stormy's biggest concern is that Jimmy will take her dinosaurs. What kind of super human is he? They're dinosaurs. And if they regard Stormy as their mother, good luck getting anyone to take them from her.

I felt I needed more info about several things:

Where in the world did Jimmy get those eggs?

Stormy just puts the eggs in the oven and they hatch? That's it?

Paul shows up, almost as a side note, in the query, but I imagine he's an important character in the book, so I feel like the query should reflect that.

Jimmy is just gone for most of the novel?

What does Stormy plan to do with the dinosaurs? Or does she even have a plan? She sounds like someone who just lets things happen: Jimmy goes away but she just sits and waits for him. Dinosaurs hatch and she just waits for them to be taken away.

You have a really interesting premise here, but the convenient inclusion of the Crow woman just happening to know how to hatch the eggs, and Stormy's extreme passivity are curbing my interest.


Khazar-khum said...Yes, it was supposed to say Medicine Bag. I didn't catch that until today. :-(

I loove all the other GTPs and EE is great, as usual.

There is a very complicated saga behind this one, so hang on.

I actually had an agent for this, who subsequently took off to have a sex-change. The head of the agency refused to help me, and the whole mess put me off writing for years.

Naturally, a year after the agency fiasco, I was forwarded a letter from someone at Warner's who wanted it for YA. By then, of course, the window of opportunity was closed.

What should be in the query is that Jimmy and his brothers are fossil poachers. Everyone even peripherally involved in paleontology worries about poachers.

I will get the opening to EE so the voice is apparent. I originally had it in WordStar, so conversion is going to be interesting.

The people I know from various rezzes call themselves "Indian" or whatever tribe they are, ie Pima, Comanche, Acoma, etc.


Anonymous said...I like the idea of three dinosaurs running around the trailer park as much as the next person but the query isn't your only problem.

I named the allosauruses today: Big Al, Killer, Tiny, and Kowalski. Tiny's the big one. Killer's the one who ate Susanna's herd of cattle. Gotta get the roofing company out here to repair the hole where Tiny's head went out. Maybe I should keep them outdoors now that they're all three times as tall as the trailer.

The copied text= yawn. You've chosen to tell not show. And no mater what you write, all the characters motivation needs to be realistic: like when she names the dinos. Seems to me she'd do it before they ate the heard of cattle, some crazy timing, like after they hatched.

I read this book about some crazy woman who kept her horse in the house- house broke it and everything. They had to reinforce the floor because the horse weighed 1300lbs. If you want readers to suspend disbelief past the first sentence, then you need to do research: how fast dinos grow, the load capacity of the floor in a mobile home with and w/out a permanent foundation, because by the time it's big enough to put a hole through the roof, the floor would have been long gone. Do you know how much a cow is worth? No. A small heard of cattle is to the cost? No, then you should look it up. The query suggests the conflict is with the abuse, but our character has plenty of conflict to worry about. Like everyone has said, the boy friend is the least of her worries. Now the pending felony for destruction of property over x dollar amount (Think cattle herd) or the lack of floor in house those are problems to worry about. Except our main character gets high on medicine bags so she doesn't have to deal- can you get high off a medicine bag? And since the dinos carry so much of the story they need some personality- a lot more than the little, big, one and the one who ate the heard.

This could be really funny, right now it's just boring and misses the mark with everything.


BuffySquirrel said...Telling EE that his asides are boring isn't very polite :). Or do you not understand how the blog works yet?


December/Stacia said...Wow, Susanna Black Fox is like the worst neighbor ever. If my female neighbor was being abused by her husband, and the husband left her some dinosaur eggs and took off, I'd be helping her escape him and go somewhere safe, not encouraging her to hatch the eggs and be stuck with four allosauruses running around. Seriously.

Also, why wouldn't Stormy call, like, the Smithsonian people? Or Spielberg? I think scientists and natural hstorians etc. would be pretty high on my list; how would I know how to care for baby dinosaurs?

Aside from that, I agree with the other comments. This feels a little unfocused. The basic idea could be really cute, but is it women's fiction, sci-fi, or comedy? It sounds like comedy but the tone and voice of the query are so serious. Once we know, I think the query will make more sense.

Oh, and Anon 2:19, the comments in blue text ("I named the allosauruses today...", etc.) are not part of the query. They're EE's additions. The writer of the query did not write them.


chelsea said...No no no! Don't tell Anon the obvious. It's so much more hilarious when someone makes an ass of himself based on faulty assumptions.

I think the fossil-poaching thing should be up front in the query because it sounds really interesting. Maybe something like,

"When 18 year old Stormy falls in love with Jimmy, she has no idea he's a fossil poaching trailer honky who uses women as punching bags."

The fossil-poaching was definitely the clue I was missing in the query. From there, everything that follows makes more sense. It explains the eggs and it explains Jimmy's prolonged absence.

Are the medicine bags for Stormy's bruises, or are they somehow applied to the dino eggs?


Robin S. said...Hey, KK,

I feel for you about that agent hassle early on. Yowza, that would hurt, being almost there, and then, not!

What's the age range for your novel?


Beth said...Is the story about dinosaur eggs hatching, or is it about her relationships? Not that you can't have both, I suppose, but it seems like two, very disparate plotlines to try and merge. I can't tell if this is meant to be serious or satirical.

It does, however, bring back fond memories of one of my favorite childhood books, The Shy Stegasaurus of Cricket Creek.

EE, the diary entries (and the EBay listing) were a hoot!

Face-Lift 1101

Guess the Plot

Cave of Secrets

1. 49-year-old virgin and spelunker Bernard Longhard finally gets a date. Wow, has he ever been caving in the wrong places!

2. A trio of wiccans--Larry Lotter, Donald Deasley and Permione Wranger--discover the Cave of Secrets on the outskirts of Bogsmeade whilst hunting the nefarious You-Knew-Whom. Unfortunately, Catman got there first. Will there be room for brooms once the Catmobile gets parked? Also, unicorns, werewolves and giants unite against the humans.

3. Exploring a cave, aspiring marine biologist Paige Watson discovers a makeshift submarine. Is it a forgotten remnant from some war? Or could it be the secret weapon of supervillain Turtleman?

4. It's a cave, and it has secrets, and that's all I'm gonna tell you in my query, but all is revealed in the book. Presumably.

5. Goblins, orcs, and dwarves all know
Where the naughty children go
The ones who won't go right to bed
Or hit their sisters in the head
The ones who never eat their greens
And will not keep their bedroom clean.

They'll come at night, they'll come by day
To take the horrid ones away
Off to the secret cave they go
Where there are children you may know
Ellen, David, Mary Jean
Jayden, Robert, LaTyrene.

All were naughty,all were bad
They drove their folks and teachers mad
But now they toil, far away
And never get a chance to play
Or dance beneath the happy sun
Jumping up and down for fun.

So listen children, don't be bad
Or make your Mom and Daddy mad
Always be good and nice and kind
Else one day you just might find
Goblins have come to get you, so
Off to their secret cave you go.




Original Version

Evil Editor,

If it really is a submarine, they’ve found more than just adventure. [We don't need this sentence. Save it till we know what "it" is and who "they" are.]

Paige Watson – a cross between Nancy Drew and a young Stephanie Plum – is thirteen when her dad lands a summer fellowship in the Caribbean. Other girls might balk at leaving home for that long. That’s another thing she can’t stand about them. [Another thing? What was the first thing?] [Also, I don't recall Stephanie Plum ever leaving Trenton, New Jersey.] Marine biology ranks way over friends. Cruz Rivera lives on the island of Culebra, and snorkels all summer. [I would start a new paragraph with Cruz. Or move him to sentence 2 in this paragraph.] When they meet on the reef, he knows they’ll hit it off. He’s wrong. Even adrift in the Atlantic, clinging to the same boogie board, she’s the queen of awkward silences and he’s an idiot. ["Idiot" isn't the best word. We want a semi-endearing word for the "hero," like flake, screwball, misfit, kook . . .]

Between the perils of Puerto Rico’s coast and a makeshift submarine deep in a cave, whatever they have – and it’s not friendship – actually clicks. [You just said he was wrong to believe they would hit it off. Now you say they click.] Why would anyone need a secret sub? The only path from the cave leads to a Fish and Wildlife guy, who’s definitely not interested in the turtles he pretends. [He pretends turtles? How about: not as interested in turtles as he pretends.] [Also, if you can't convince a thirteen-year-old you're interested in turtles, you're not trying hard enough.] When the tide changes, gun barrels are flashing and the undertow’s far worse than they expected. [Whoa, I missed it. When did Blue Lagoon turn into Thunderball?]

CAVE OF SECRETS is a story about trusting once again, [That Fish and Wildlife guy wasn't really interested in turtles. I just know it. I'll never trust another human being.] [Unless he proves me wrong by showing me he actually is interested in turtles.] a middle grade adventure at 22,000 words. I’m a member of the SCBWI and several critique groups. I've published a few medical papers in the past, but now write middle grade adventure and fantasy.

I do appreciate your time,


Notes

Not clear how this is about trusting again. If you just tell the story, including the part where she loses trust, we'll get it.

Each sentence should follow logically from the previous one. Too many of these don't, especially in the "Between the perils" paragraph.

Just tell us what happens. While spending summer on the Caribbean island Culebra, 13-year-old Paige Watson meets Cruz Rivera while snorkeling. Together they stumble on a makeshift submarine in a cave. And?

The Nancy Drew/Stephanie Plum reference made me think comedic mystery. This sounds more like thriller. Admittedly the line between mystery and thriller may blur a bit in the middle grade set. Are the kids trying to solve a crime or save the world? Is Turtleman a common criminal? An evil overlord? An eccentric inventor? Less setup/more plot.

GTP #5: Khazar-khum.