Evil Editor's Blog, page 157

Face-Lift 1075

Guess the Plot

The Loving Man’s Home

1. Photographer Mackenzie McWallis gained unprecedented access to the home of Evil Editor and compiled this coffee table book of full-color photographs. Includes vivid macro close-ups of the most interesting stains.

2. The bank has just informed Ernie Wilson, Cookietree's most famous ladies man, he's about to lose his bachelor pad. That home equity loan he took out to pay for a lifetime supply of Viagra was probably a mistake. Could this be the end of . . . The Loving Man's Home?

3. Marie's grandmother, with whom she lives, doesn't like the fact that Marie spends her weekends in the home of an accused pedophile. But hey, sometimes children have to learn the hard way.

4. A patriarch's guide to taking over the headship of your family. Includes instructions for getting your wife to obey, homeschooling, filling your quiver, and how to talk to those pesky folks from Child Protective Services.

5. The first how-to guide for househusbands doesn't really contain any new information, but it's written in a very manly style, with lots of football references.

6. Henry's psychologist has diagnosed him with objectum sexuality. Henry thinks the man is blowing things way out of proportion. His house isn't an object, and Henry can feel that it loves him back. And a magnificent Victorian two-level? Who wouldn't love that?





Original Version

“The Loving Man’s Home”

Marie Miller is simply your typical young girl of the 1970s, an avid basketball player who is just looking for a new, fresh start with her mother and grandparents after her father’s death. After moving from West Chester, Pennsylvania to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania soon after the funeral, she finds life even more distressing than it must be for girls her age. [What is her age?] She has a boyfriend who she’d known for quite some time through participating in the Chester County Science Team, and she has befriended the man from up the street, Mr. Morgan Lieberman. An accused pedophile and obviously hostile elderly man, Marie finds grace and peace through befriending the wealthy retired doctor, with whom she finds it best at her duty to help this crippled old gentlemen in his household chores during her weekends. [There's so much wrong with that sentence I don't know where to begin. But why begin at all when it's quickly becoming clear that I'll be advising you to start the whole query over from scratch?] She knows her friends find it a little wacky and her grandmother stubbornly believes that all of the pedophile rumors are true, but she still makes it a requirement for herself to help this poor old man, that she somehow feels sorry for in her heart.

But what Marie doesn’t know is the history of Morgan Lieberman—the tragedy in his life from thirty years before that kept him isolated from the world and expunged his faith in God. Marie doesn’t know of the conversations between him and his wife that go on in his house when he is alone there at night—with a wife who is long gone, who killed herself with five sharp stabs to the waist of her body in May of 1949 [You gotta admire the persistence of anyone who's been stabbed four times and still manages to go for a fifth.] due to her depression over the fact that she could not bear her husband a child. Marie doesn’t know any of this— [Yes, you've said that already.] and while her mother and grandparents do, [How can her mother and grandparents know about conversations that go on in his house when he is alone there?] she is untold and begins having dreams. Dreams of a young handsome man living up the street from her who is married to a lovely young woman, and then the woman turns to blood before Marie’s dreaming eyes. Marie finds herself being lured into Mr. Lieberman’s backyard and she hears pounds from below the ground—she believes she hears voices calling her from beneath the frigid surface of the ground in his backyard—human voices, human fists pounding for help. [Are we still in the dream?] She is confused, and while she becomes more craven and hesitant towards taking any steps towards the house at all over time, she finds herself putting the pieces together about what is exactly going on in the Lieberman household—and on the property itself. When her friends start disappearing, she seems to be lured to Morgan Lieberman’s house right away—she knows he wasn’t guilty of anything anyone in the neighborhood accused him of being guilty of—but she knows the man is murdering her friends [She knows the guy is murdering her friends, so she goes over there right away? For what? To tell him he has to stop or she'll rat him out to the cops?] —it’s only been children that have been disappearing, anyways. Does Marie know that this man is actually guilty [You just said she knows he is murdering her friends.] and has killed multiple numbers of teenagers, or is there something strange going on behind the scenes…something…out of “love”?


Notes

This reads like a really wordy voice-over for a horror movie trailer. It's not a query letter, as it doesn't include the genre or word count. It's too long to be the plot summary in a query letter. A synopsis would take us through the story, while this basically sets up Marie's situation. Whatever it is, it won't convince the reader that she should request the book.

If the guy isn't a pedophile but is being unjustly treated like a pariah, he probably deserves our sympathy, but no way is Marie going to be allowed to go in his house unsupervised just because she doesn't think he's a danger.

Apparently Lieberman isn't a pedophile or murderer. He's just locking all the neighborhood children in the dungeon beneath his property. What a relief.

The first thing to do is work on your writing skills, as I can tell from your word choice and repetition and awkward sentences that your book isn't ready for publication. Then you need to write a query letter, of which there are more than a thousand samples on this blog. The query should include Marie's situation, but in just two or three sentences. Something like:

After moving to Phoenixville with her mother and grandparents, 14-year-old Marie Miller befriends Morgan Lieberman, an elderly neighbor who's rumored to be a pedophile. Marie is sure Lieberman is innocent, and spends weekends helping him with his chores--until she discovers the old man has been murdering her friends and locking neighborhood children in his underground torture chamber.

Now you have plenty of room to tell us what Marie plans to do about the situation, and what goes wrong with her plan and what will happen if she can't fix things. 

All without filling up more than one page.

I recommend not mentioning that Marie's mother and grandparents know she's spending her free time in Lieberman's house.





Also, don't include the dreams. Focus on Marie's situation and what she does.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

The Appren- tices

1. In Rothshire Village, young girls are sent to the witches' castle when they reach puberty. Those that are found not to be witches are killed. When Gwendolyn and Heather find out they are indeed witches, they jump for joy. But their BFF Yvonne is not a witch. Can G and H pool their power to overcome the old hags who run the castle and save Yvonne?

2. A normal student comes down with a fever and faints. When she comes to, she has mysteriously become one of Merlin IV's apprentices in Avalon, which has returned to the planet. Hilarity ensues.

3. Amber, first year law clerk. Dave, lone African-American TA in the Math department. Shanni, resident at St. Cecelia's Hospital for women. Chuck, sou chef. One apartment building. The lives and loves of... the Apprentices.

4. A group of ten rowdy steamfitting apprentices are accidentally locked in a workshop on their job site overnight. During the night they discover that one is an anti-union operative and another is a cultist. Who will convert whom? Can Dave get enough sleep to work the early shift next morning?

5. Bold, cold and mean, Kurt and Morgan have guns and know how to use them--or they will when they've finished their training. Then an anthrax attack takes out all the MI5 regulars; Buckingham Palace is bombed; and 253 Members of Parliament are taken hostage. Hilarity ensues as the apprentices set out to save the day.

6. Alvin and Garth are idle trainee plumbers who are about to lose their jobs. When a time machine appears from the distant future they find out that they are needed to save the world from sewage outfall by inventing a new kind of toilet. Follow their hilarious journeys backwards and forwards through time visiting bathrooms of the ancient and modern worlds.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor:

After man almost destroyed our own planet, what will the returned land of Avalon do with the rumors of wars? Prepare their citizens with the apprenticeship program.

Jancey, an extremely "normal" student didn't know what she would do with her life. [I'm not sure why "normal" is in quotation marks. Sometimes that's done to indicate not normal. However, I'm guessing that she is normal, which leads me to wonder if one can be extremely normal. "Extremely" suggests there are few like her. Michael Phelps swims extremely fast: there are few who are his equal. But if there are few who are as normal as Jancey, this suggests that she isn't normal. The following graph should illustrate my point.


Normalness of Stuff

Note that the biggest section is "normal." That's because for stuff to be considered normal, there has to be plenty of it. But if I were to create a graph showing the normalness of normalness, the biggest section would be the "extremely normal" section, because by definition, being normal to the extreme is what makes something normal. 

Normalness of Normalness
In short, to indicate that things or people are normal, just call them normal.]

Her skills were limited and she was not very talented. [No need to make both of those points.] Her best friend, Sarah, is a fashionable cook. [I'm not sure if that means she cooks fashionable food or dresses fashionably while stirring the soup.] Her enemy, Joseph, is the perfect gentleman. ["Enemy" is a strong word. In what way is he her enemy?] Suddenly, after fainting over a fever, she is caught up with magic, and become's the apprentice of Merlin the IV (the king's head wizard). [You don't need an apostrophe in "becomes," and whattaya mean she "becomes" Merlin's apprentice? She's suddenly his apprentice, with no explanation?] She is going to have to survive the magic program to achieve her dream [What is her dream? You said she didn't know what to do with her life, which suggests she doesn't know what her dream is.] and learn the destiny of her fellow kingdom. [Her fellow kingdom?]

Thank you with all the apperication [Anagram: appreciation.] of the "The Apprentices" [Anagram: apperication.] Manuscript [Whether "appreciation" or "apperication," the sentence doesn't make sense.]


Notes

Okay, fess up, you're Jack, age 14, who sent in one of the writing exercise scenes Sunday, right? Congrats on writing a book. If it gets published everyone else here will hate you, so instead of writing a query, work on improving the book.

A lot of errors, and not enough story. Is Jancey a normal student in Avalon or in the almost destroyed world? Are Joseph and Sarah in the book after Jancey becomes the apprentice? If not, they don't need to be in the query. If so, give them a bigger role in the query.

All we know about the story is that a girl becomes Merlin IV's apprentice. You need about ten sentences, each of which adds information and follows logically from the previous sentence. I assume the main plot is the Merlin section, so concentrate the query on that

We need to know how long the book is (in words) and who would want to read it (children, adults, teens).

If anyone reaches the conclusion that my graphs are in some way flawed, best to keep that to yourself rather than admit that you put much thought into the matter.


Selected Comments

Dave F. said...The "normal" distribution is hysterical and deserves an award from something like the Annals of Improbable Mathematics. It's as much fun as the Periodic Table of Rejected Elements. This will be my nominee for Best Facelift of the year. However, the ghost of Carl Friedrich Gauss might rise up tonight and throttle you in your sleep. BBWWaaaahaaaaaaa


writtenwyrdd said...Okay, he-who-is-maybe-the-14-year-old-Jack, this query does have a lot of very distracting errors and misusage of words. These mark you as either a non-native speaker of English or as someone the agent might not want to read due to lack of writing skills.

Other than that, there's not a lot of story here, and what there is is confusing.

What I think is happening is you are falling into the trap of not wanting to give away too much. However, in this particular instance, you do want to share the story so you can convince someone to read it and sell it. So consider giving us more about what the problem with having magic is, what your protagonist's dream for her life is, and explain how she resolves this conflict and the problem of the story.


Whirlochre said...I'm with everyone so far. There's not much to go on here, apart from a consistency of errors and a vague notion of what might be happening plotwise, and since you omit to include details of story length and intended audience, I have to conclude you haven't done your homework on queries.
Conclusion — ver 2.0 has to be better.

As for the bell curve, I once discovered a dish on the menu of a very fine curry house whose overall heat was described as 'extra medium'.


Tracey S. Rosenberg said...I have the horrible feeling that if this query letter were fleshed out enough to show the plot, it would also show that Jancey's middle names are Mary Sue. 'Normal average person is suddenly dropped into King Arthur's court/the faery lands/Middle-Earth/Hogwarts/a Washington town where there are h0tt vampires etc.' plots so frequently are.


December/Stacia said...Yeah, I have to agree with everyone else re the query. It sounds to me like this is your story:

Fourteen-year-old Jancey collapses with Dengue fever during chemistry class one day, and it changes her whole life.

Jancey wakes up in King Arthur's court, apprenticed to Merlin--one of only ten (or whatever) apprentices participating in an intense--and deadly--training program.
To get home Jancey must learn magic--real magic--like she's never seen before. To learn that magic she must survive not just the dangerous tasks ahead and the rigors and confusions of fifth-century life, but the wrath of her fellow apprentices.

Which stinks, but you get the idea.


Anonymous said...Boiled down to its essential elements, it's a lot like Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court...but for grade schoolers.


wendy said...This is not the 14 yr. old Jack!

Whoa! Missed this one. I've been very busy, so I haven't been joining in much lately.

Unless I figure out a new form of torture (he's immune to my current arsenal)we probably will not see words from Jack-age-14 again. In fact he considered the exercise itself to be torture. Too bad, though, I think he shows promise.

And yes, he really is 14,turned it on July 22.


Dave F. said...

Wendy,
Tell Jack to take if from a true brain, it's better to write at 14 and suffer than to have a boss demand you take "remedial" writing to learn to write up your scientific research.


JB Keyser said...Nay, I'm JB Keyser, age seventeen, female. Who, by the way, thought that Jack's writing blew mine to becoming bad stock.
Sorry, first time writing a summer for my book so I'm glad you dissected it for me. I need people who think more than I do to look at my summaries.

It's a Young Adult Novel and it's going to be the first of two books. How long it is will be when my friend stops chopping down on my grammar mistakes. So until then, It's about 10,963 words.

Definition of normal; would probably be extremely normal. Jancey is pretty much a talentless bum that gets talent injected into her without realizing it. And since it's from her perspective everyone else would think she's got magic which is the best talent in the world, but she can't see herself as talented.

Jancey in the first book is about sixteen and ends about eighteen.

Sarah and Joseph are before but I don't jump into them until really much after. I was thinking of skipping most of school so I gave you the last day toi start with so the reader can go on to the more interesting part.

Even if you guys all hate me I'll still be on the website. Thanks EE.

writtenwyrdd said...Hey, JB, it's not about hating you. The minions want to assist you to improve the query. At a little over 10K this is not a novel, it's a novellette. But do keep on learning the craft of writing and of writing synopses or query letters (which are entirely different things.) Best wishes on the journey.


sylvia said...It certainly is NOT about hating you! It's about a weak query - which unfortunately is what you have written. The paragraph you put in the comments here already says ten times more than your query did (which is where it is important). Personally, I'd love to see you rewrite this, taking the comments on board and including more details about the plot line.

Forget the cast of characters and focus on the story (I had the same issue). Ask your friend to check the grammar (query is as important as the novel!) and then post it here.

I would love to see it.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Stoned

1. The special seeds from Amsterdam that Dane ordered to save his gardening business from ruin will earn him a fortune, if only he can keep the cops away and stop his partner Craig from smoking most of the crop. Oh, and escape the heavies that Ted "The Shiv" has sent to kill him.
2. Alexander Weiss has been charged with a difficult task: find a husband for Medusa's sister, who has a bad habit of turning her suitors into stone. Hilarity ensues when Alex falls for the bachelorette himself.
3. When the wizard Greybeard bequeaths the fabled Gravel of the King to the brave young halfling Mojo, no one anticipates the effect these magical elf stones will have on his smaller physiology. Only two things are certain: they're going to need a lot of munchies and this is going to be the grooviest quest Medium Earth has ever seen.

4. Spaced-out toker Floyd T. Droop drops his entire stash of class A drugs when a bunch of equally out-there cops raid a neighbouring apartment searching for potato chips. With only the spirits of 1,584 dead Navajo Indians to guide him, will he ever make it back under his bean bag?

5. Melody Harker finds the alcoholic satyr Silenus stumbling around the dandelions in her window box. She takes him in, sobers him up and gives him back to Dionysus, who (also drunk almost to incoherence) gives her the Midas Touch in return. Unfortunately, he's afraid of what a sudden influx of gold will do to the modern economy and substitutes igneous rock. Now she's afraid everything she touches will be taken for granite.

6. When bumbling politician, Mike McMichaels, argues for the legalization of marijuana and is successful, he doesn't realize his campaign slogan--"Getting stoned: Not as bad as it seems"--was misinterpreted until he's found guilty of fraud and positioned against a wall for some old-fashioned punishment.


Original Version

Dear EE,

I am seeking representation for Stoned, a 65,000 word satire.

Alexander Weiss's morning routine is interrupted when a whale is dropped on his head. The twelve Olympians have returned after a much needed vacation, [Having studied mythology thirty years ago, I'll save the minions the trouble of Googling the Twelve Olympians. They are: Zeus, his wife . . . um . . . Mrs. Zeus . . . Michael Phelps, Sauron, Hemingway, Aquaman, three of The Fantastic Four (sorry, Mr. Fantastic, but stretchability doesn't cut it as an Olympian power), and the Beatles (without Ringo).] and he just happened to be caught in the crossfire of one of their squabbles. [They settle their squabbles by hurling whales? Have they considered rock, paper, scissors?] [You're probably thinking rock, paper, scissors is too mundane for Olympians; not if it's the Rock of Gibraltar, the Sunday Times, and the fabled Scissors of Endor.]
Dying should have been easy, but when Alex crosses into the Underworld, he manages to insult Athena, goddess of wisdom. [If she's so wise, what's she doing in the Underworld?] To make amends, Alex is forced into a simple task -- find a husband for a girl named Euryale. Unbeknownst to Alex, the bachelorette is like her sister, Medusa, and has [snakes on her head, which tends to be a big turn-off to guys. Also, she has] the annoying habit of turning her suitors to stone. After amassing a hefty collection of new statues, Alex falls for her and proposes. [When the minister says, "You may kiss the bride," I'm gonna have second thoughts about marrying a woman with snakes on her head.]

A happy ending should have come posthaste, but in the celebrations, Alex bests Ares in a javelin contest and things become tense. [I bought the flying whale and the woman with the snakes on her head, but a dead guy beating the god of war in a javelin contest? Only if it was a javelin catching contest.] Fortunately, Ares is a good sport, so when he announces his intent to wage war, he gives Alex a week's time to raise an army in response. After all, there is no glory in beating down an unprepared mortal. [When you're the god of war, is there even glory in beating down a prepared mortal? I wouldn't expect Tiger Woods to do a victory dance after beating Stephen Hawking at golf, even if Hawking's been practicing all week.]

Now, Alex will need the cunning of Odysseus and the strength of Hercules if he is to survive Ares' wrath, rescue his bride, [From . . . ?] and not piss off the remaining Olympians that still find his antics entertaining.

I am a chaplain, [Are chaplains allowed to say "piss off"?] have an M. Div., [Cleverly abbreviated so we won't realize you mean you have a Moroccan divan. Reminds me of the time I put on my resume that I had a Ph.D. from Brown. When they called me on it I said, "Oh that. I meant I have a Phoenician doorknob that was delivered by UPS.] and am well read in Greek Mythology. Stoned is my first novel. [Unpublished my first novel is. Why are we talking like Yoda?]

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

Notes
I didn't see the movie Snakes on a Plane, but it would have been cool if it turned out the pilot was Medusa.

Is Alex seeking Euryale's bride among the dead, or in the mortal world or among immortals?

It sounds entertaining, but I'd like the stakes spelled out better. The stakes are that Alex's bride needs rescuing, and that he can find happiness in the underworld only by defeating Ares. These antics of Alex that the gods find entertaining don't impress me as stakes in a war.

If you're dead and in the Underworld, does it really matter if you lose a war to the god of war?

The title will undoubtedly suggest that the book is about characters under the influence. The first plot sentence may suggest that the book was written by someone under the influence. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Selected Comments

Megoblocks said...Thanks for the feedback. Just a quick clarification for plot (I had left this portion out to try and trim the query) directed at "I bought the flying whale and the woman with the snakes on her head, but a dead guy beating the god of war in a javelin contest? Only if it was a javelin catching contest."

Alex only wins because the gods are using him to get back at one another. The long-short of it being, the contest was rigged by Aphrodite to both humiliate Ares (for going against her wishes) and to set up her revenge on Athena (subplot).

Hope that makes sense.


Evil Editor said...Women. You just can't trust 'em.


fairyhedgehog said...I thought this was an interesting query which reminded me a bit of Tom Holt. I'd like to read the book.

I enjoyed the Guess The Plots, especially: "this is going to be the grooviest quest Medium Earth has ever seen", and your comments were hysterical, EE.


writtenwyrdd said...Sounds like it could be good, but the letter is seriously not selling the story. I'd work on keeping the lighthearted tone (unless the book isn't a farce/comedy) and clarify what the stakes are, as EE says. The reason Alex is going through all this garbage has to be good.

It might be that you should trim the 'preamble' before the proposal. It sort of sounds like the story's just getting started when he gets married.


Dave F. said...Well up until this morning I would have said that the plot was too contrived. BUT forget that, the stupidest man in the world just tried to sell the senate seat of the first African American elected president. Hell and damnation!

Bring on this story, a good glass of wine and some stinky cheese...

You got two hooks - one for each of the two paragraphs. That's one too many.

I'd start with Dying should have been easy, but when Alex crosses into the Underworld, he ... he becomes the play toy of the Olympian Gods.

You have to find a way to make the reader care about bored and childish Olympians. Clash of the Titans did it by telling the love story of Perseus and Andromeda. Alexander Weiss falling in love with (what's her name? Oleaginous?) Euryale is something of human interest.

Just like throwing spitballs and pulling pigtails is childish, throwing whales and stoning lovers is childish (but wonderfully god-like behavior). Even Shatner and Star Trek treated the Olympians as spoiled brats. No one wants to giggle at them. They want to giggle at the guy who's trying to win the heart of the girl he's been smitten with, or the girl he hates to much that it's really true love, or the reformed hooker with a heart of gold, or maybe Lena Horne and Zak Efron as the new Adam and Eve.

So rummage around in those 60K words and find the human side of the plot. Then write the query.


Kings Falcon said...I kept losing track of whether the Alex is alive or dead because you refer to him as a mortal.

As EE says, if you are dead, what happens if you lose the war with Ares? Is he exempt from the stone powers because he's dead?
If the other gods are manipulating Alex, this is probably something we need to know in the query.

Why not start with:

Even dead, Alexander Weiss can't catch a break. The twelve Olympian gods have returned after a much needed vacation, and Alex is swept up in their squabbles. After dodging Athena's schemes to turn him into a statue for her garden, he marries Medusa's sister. But the wedding feast is visited by Discord. Through Aphrodite's machinations and manipulations, Alex bests Ares in a javelin contest.

****

Now tell me what happens next.

This could definately be something I'd like.


beth said...Dear EE,

I am seeking representation for Stoned, a 65,000 word satire.

Alexander Weiss's morning routine iw interrupted when a whale is dropped on his head. [great first sentence]

[I found all the rest of this query intriguing--but I did think the plot was about Alex falling in love. If this is not your entire story, then just cut this short--get to the point: After marrying Medusa's sister..."]

A happy ending should have come posthaste, but... [When I read this, I stopped: you mean the love angle wasn't the whole story? I need a sense of what the entire, essential plot is--I start off thinking it's all romance and a love story with these characters, then it ends up being a war story with Ares--which one is the actual plot?]


Megoblocks said...Few more answers that might help in understand what goes on and maybe refine this more:

"As EE says, if you are dead, what happens if you lose the war with Ares?" Being dead/immortal doesn't mean you are immune from revenge. Near the start, Athena chains Alex to Prometheus's rock (complete with liver eating eagle) to prove this very point. This concept then carries over to Ares, as well as any other Olympians that need to give incentive. Also, by the time the war starts, Alex is head over heels with his wife, but alas, Ares has kidnapped her. So if Alex loses the war, he loses Euryale too.

"Is he exempt from the stone powers because he's dead?" Yes. Perk of being dead :)

Generally speaking, the manuscript is divided in two (it just worked out that way) where the first half is finding a suitor for Euryale, ending with marriage and the insulting of Ares. The second half is the war, where Alex must defend himself and rescue his kidnapped bride.

So overall, it is a love story where Alex starts alone, finds an unlikely lover, is seperated from her and must then get her back. The conflict with Ares is the source of their seperation and lack of eternal bliss.

Hope that helps. Thanks again for the feedback.


Kings Falcon said..."So overall, it is a love story where Alex starts alone, finds an unlikely lover, is separated from her and must then get her back. The conflict with Ares is the source of their separation and lack of eternal bliss."

Okay, so focus on that. It's not so much that he's in a war with Ares but he has to battle Ares to get the love of his life back.


So, maybe:

Alexander Weiss never expected to find his true love after death. Or that the girl would be Medusa's sister. Or that he'd become the Olympian gods' plaything. But there are just some afterlifes that aren't worth dying for.

Through Aphrodite's machinations and manipulations, Alex bests Ares in a javelin contest. In retribution for the humiliation, Ares kidnaps Alex's new bride and promises to make Prometheus's suffering look like a day at the spa compared to what he'll do to Alex. Alex will need the cunning of Odysseus and the strength of Hercules if he is to survive Ares' wrath, rescue his bride, and not piss off the remaining Olympians that still find his antics entertaining.

###

Does that get closer to the tone and gist of the novel?


Anonymous said...EE's words in blue were hilarious and the actual author's query piqued my interest. (I'm a myth lover from way back and the Greek ones are really greek to me.) So heed the advice of the wiser minions and please post your revised attempt. Oh, I'm rotten at the query trough, but I would like to know what kind of whale is dropped on Alex's head. Please, please, please make it sperm!!!


BuffySquirrel said...What's being satirised?


Whirlochre said...I think the query needs tightening up along the lines suggested, but as soon as I read it, I sensed the germ of potential.

This one will stand or fall on the way you balance the serious research of the Greek myths with the satirical poke and play at their expense. Err too far on the side of acccuracy and you'll end up with something clever/dull. Err too far on the side of satire and the myths will fall apart. Get it right, and it sounds like a stack of fun — especially if Euryale gets to sing.


Megoblocks said..."I would like to know what kind of whale is dropped on Alex's head. Please, please, please make it sperm" Actually its an orca (aka killer whale). Thought that was a little more clever.

"Does that get closer to the tone and gist of the novel?" Yeah. I'll be tweaking all of it after I sit on it for a while and post for more feedback. Thanks :)


December/Stacia said...Ditto King's Falcon's suggestions re the wording; cut to the chase and tell us what the story is.

I have to admit, though, that fun as this sounds (and it does sound like it could be a hoot) I'm a bit worried about the wordcount. 65k seems awfully short for a plot this intricate, and it's short for adult fiction. That doesn't make this an impossible sale or anything, but it did raise my eyebrows.


pacatrue said...At a minimum, your marketing tag line is set. Everybody must get stoned.

rjaye said...Having a strong interest in Greek mythology, I would definitely read this. Though having the Roman spelling of Heracles does irk me a little bit, but that might just be me. :D


Megoblocks said..."Heracles does irk me a little bit" Glad you saw that, since it now bothers me a lot. Consider it fixed :)


talpianna said...Considering the brevity, have you considered working this into a YA novel, like Nancy Springer's DUSSSIE and Esther Friesner's TEMPING FATE? (By the way, neither of those is misspelled.)


Megoblocks said...Just wanted to update if anyone makes it back this way, I revamped the query based on all of this and used it for my pitch for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Currently made it through to the quarterfinals :) Can't thank you all enough for the invaluable feedback.

Face-Lift 1074 (and post # 6000)

Guess the Plot

The Apocalypse Arcade

1. After a catastrophe, Rick Henderson, his son Jimmy, and their faithful Pit Bull Bosco load their supplies into a shopping basket and set off in search of a new Walmart.

2. When Jez decides to put his last quarter in the dusty looking game in the corner, little does he realize that not only is it his last quarter, it's everyone's last quarter...

3. Robbie and his friends find a cool new gaming arcade at the mall. It's called The Apocalypse and the games are totally awesome – the kids get to be bombers, arsonists and murderers. But when the events in the games start happening all over town, can Robbie and his big sister Raven figure out how to stop it?
4. Elvis Zimmerman is skipping school, hanging out at the mall, bored but hey, it beats being in school. He drops a few quarters into the new game machine and finds himself faced with a choice between "Natural Disasters", "Meteor Impact", "Zombie Plague" and "Global Thermonuclear War." He picks choice 3 and pushes the 'Start' button. Outside in the Food Court, the screaming starts.

5. As an alien race is making good on its threat to destroy humanity, the run-down video arcade on Main Street unexpectedly reopens. Coincidence? Halley Maxwell doesn't know, but she must find out before the aliens take over Earth and she has to go live on the moon.

6. When Jenna discovers that everyone on Earth is a character in a video game called Sim-Planet, being played by a teenaged entity light years away, she tries to warn us that we must keep doing interesting stuff or the entity will grow bored and shut us down. But most of us decide to drop everything and just worship the entity.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,
It’s the end of the world as we know it – but seventeen-year-old Halley Maxwell feels anything but fine. An alien species is making good on its decades-old threat to destroy humanity, and what’s worse, the apocalypse is scheduled to happen on Halley’s eighteenth birthday. [It's comforting to know that when aliens come to destroy humanity, they'll be benevolent enough to provide us with a schedule of events.] All Halley wants is to graduate high school, move away from her middle-of-nowhere town, and begin her real life alongside Ham, her best friend, roommate, and partner-in-cynicism. Unfortunately, the aliens failed to take Halley’s plans into account when they formulated their own itinerary for annihilating the human race. [I think the opening works better if you start with sentence 3.]
Then ["Then" isn't a good word to use unless you've told us something that just happened. So far you've just provided the situation.] Halley meets Andrew Stanton, a sixty-something British scientist, who’s more accomplished at punning and inventing crazy stories than even Halley herself. Halley can’t figure out why Andrew is wasting his time in August, Texas… until he offers her a slot among twenty thousand other people selected to colonize the moon and escape the apocalypse. Why is Andrew giving Halley this opportunity, when so many other people deserve it more? Why is everyone, from Halley’s estranged father to the ditziest girl in the history of high school, trying to stop her from going? And what’s the significance of the sudden reopening of the run-down video arcade on Main Street? [Lists of questions quickly become boring. Drop the first question.] Halley must answer these questions before the shuttle leaves for the moon or the aliens take over Earth, whichever comes first. [Not clear why she must answer these questions. Or why, if she needs the answers, she doesn't just ask Andrew and her father and the ditzy girl and the arcade manager.]
THE APOCALYPSE ARCADE is a 96,000-word YA alternate history novel. It is set in a near future Space Age that branched off from our reality in 1986, when the Challenger mission, instead of ending in disaster, made contact with an alien species.

[Astronauts: What the!? Uh, greetings. Welcome to our solar system.

Aliens: Thanks. We're here to destroy humanity. But we're not barbarians; we'll give you a couple decades to get your affairs in order.]

This manuscript functions as a stand-alone novel but is planned as the first book of a trilogy. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,


Notes

I'm intrigued by the fact that the reopening of the video arcade is significant.

Getting twenty thousand people off of Earth is going to require a lot of lift-offs. For them and the food and water etc. they'll need on the moon. How much time do they have? Also, are they aware that when you're on the moon you can't breathe?

If the goal of the aliens is to destroy humanity, and they've made it to Earth, are we really safe on the moon?

Is there a reason the Challenger crew makes first contact, as opposed to the crew of a space mission in 2025?

You can do without "alongside Ham, her best friend, roommate, and partner-in-cynicism." Ham isn't mentioned in the plot (Is Ham among the everyone trying to stop Hallie from going to the moon?), and the phrase just makes me wonder why a high school student has a roommate and whether Ham is a male or female.

Face-Lift 1073

Guess the Plot

School of Secrets

1. At a new private high school, the art teacher lectures about counterfeiting and the science teacher lectures about blowing up bank vaults. 13-year-old CJ and his classmate Ian discover that their new school is actually an educational experiment to identify and train future government agents. And suddenly school doesn't suck.

2. The curriculum? Unknown. The teachers? Masked and hooded. Yet somehow Dwayne's parents think it's the perfect boarding school for their son. Dwayne disagrees...until he finds that he's being trained to be a ninja/spy at the . . .  School of Secrets.

3. 1664. It's been nearly two years since Moliere's subversive "School for Wives" premiered. Alain Montremart longs for that kind of Royal patronage. What better way to get Royal attention than to write a play about King Louis XIV's gay brother, and then threaten to produce it if the money isn't forthcoming?

4. In Jack's new school, teachers take attendance and just watch the students. Other students whisper but won't talk to Jack. He takes a test and gets a zero. The teacher won't tell him the answers or explain the questions. So Jack blows up the school.

5. Belinda Little, Seattle nature photographer, becomes alarmed as she witnesses strange mass gatherings of animals -- troops of apes in the treetops, pounces of prowling cats, murders of crows in downtown parks. While scuba diving in Puget Sound she discovers a shiver of sharks guarding an underwater laboratory, and swims straight into a deadly . . . School of Secrets.

6. 17-year-old Natanyu is one of the 100 chosen scholars who must memorize the list of thousands upon thousands of Secrets of Suppuppa. Most of the Secrets are just silly gossip about people long dead. But there's one secret in the list that somebody will kill to preserve. And the fate of the Kingdom of Suppuppa could hang in the balance.

7. Ever had that dream where you find yourself in class and everything seems normal until you realize you're totally naked? Charlie has no idea what his teacher's name is or even what subject he's supposed to be learning. Not only does he not have the answers to the pop quiz, he doesn't even know what the questions are. And nobody will tell him a goddamned thing.

8. Mr. Seng, the principal, is a Cambodian war criminal. Ms. Frost, the guidance counselor, was a hooker/drug kingpin for 32 years. The kids know all this, of course, and don't care. But is there a plot afoot to rig the election for homecoming queen?



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Nerdy thirteen-year-old CJ will do anything to get out of PE – including taking the entrance exam for the Holmes Academy, a new private high school opening in his area. Smart as he is, CJ is surprised to be offered a full scholarship to the elite school, where he won’t be the only brainiac in his class. The first day CJ is shocked to discover that the only kid he knows at Holmes is Ian Childers, a class trouble-maker that CJ avoids at all costs. But only weeks after the Holmes Academy opens, Secret Service agents with ear pieces and black suits start hanging around and a student disappears.  [Delete the word "But"; it suggests that this sentence is somehow related to the previous one. Then start a new paragraph with "Only."] Why do only CJ and Ian seem to notice? [You don't need that sentence. It suggests that everyone except them is in on it.] Putting aside their differences to investigate, they combine Ian’s computer skills with CJ’s determination to find the truth. When CJ learns that Ian hacked his way into the school by altering the entrance exam results, their new trust is threatened. Then, a sudden glimpse into Ian’s life convinces CJ that breaking the rules to get a spot at Holmes was justified, just this once. [This is a subplot we can do without in the query.]

Together CJ and Ian investigate their classmate’s disappearance [Yes, that was stated in the previous paragraph.] and accidentally uncover two secrets. First, their missing classmate has joined the Witness Protection Program, and her new identity is about to be sold to the criminals who want her dead. [If they are purposefully investigating their classmate's disappearance, I don't see how you can call uncovering this secret accidental. It's like saying I was trying to bake a chocolate cake and I accidentally ended up with . . . a chocolate cake. Uncovering information is the whole point of investigating.] [Also, don't they wait until after the witness testifies against the criminals to give her a new identity and send her to Arkansas?] Second, there is a secret about the Academy that no student is supposed to learn – that it’s actually an educational experiment to identify and train future government agents. No wonder the art teacher is so interested in counterfeiting and the science teacher can lecture for hours about blowing up bank vaults! [It sounds more like an educational experiment to train future criminals.] But just as the truth about the missing student starts spilling out, Ian’s older brother accidentally triggers a fight with a dangerous drug dealer. Now CJ and Ian must avoid the drug dealer while hacking into the FBI server to find their missing classmate’s new Witness Protection Program identity and warn her. Risking their own lives, [Spoiler alert.] the boys save their classmate and Ian’s brother, all while protecting the secret of the Holmes Academy.

I am seeking representation for School of Secrets, a novel for middle graders. Complete at 40,000 words, the story explores unlikely friendships as two boys break free from their past reputations.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.


Notes

I'd focus on the missing classmate and leave Ian's brother and the drug dealer out of the query.

When you discover that someone has been placed in witness protection, is it a good idea to keep digging for more information?

The identity and location of the classmate is supposedly not easy to learn. Yet one of the few people trusted with the information is selling it? And the evidence that he/she is selling it is sitting somewhere for CJ to discover it? Are they selling it on Craigslist?

Should we assume the girl's entire family is in witness protection? Surely they wouldn't ship one thirteen-year-old girl off to Idaho to make a new life for herself.

It's too long, but once we get rid of the subplots it should be about right.

Did you consider a main plot in which the students discover they're being trained for a specific mission? Possibly a mission in which they're being used for nefarious purposes and they turn the tables on their teachers/trainers? Or a plot in which a student goes missing after the students have been through a lot of training, and they use their skills for the rescue? It seems a 13-year-old with no training would be in over his head.

New Beginning 973

Norma shuffled down the steps onto the tarmac, throat twitching at the plane fumes. Heat waves shimmered ahead, and the iridescent blue sky dwarfed everything on the flat landscape.   She unbuttoned her jacket and fished for her sunglasses. A pair of girls pushed past her, a rucksack bumping her elbow. Her sunglasses cluttered to the ground, but they continued in their stride without a backwards glance. Surely they hadn’t boarded the plane on that freezing morning wearing those shorts and sandals? No, they were probably organized enough to have changed on board.   Brian's gaze followed their tanned legs. Norma slid her sunglasses on, and frowned. It was probably not their foresight he was admiring.   "Pull your tongue back in, dearest, people might trip," she sneered.   Brian ignored her.   Norma mopped her forehead and marched towards the terminal. Overdressed, overweight and already over this damn trip. 

"Are these your bags, ma'am?"

Norma turned to the attendant who had spoken, in the process catching her foot on the edge of Brian's wayward tongue and nearly falling face-first.

"For God's sake, Brian, I said pull it back in!"

"Thawy."

The attendant finished counting and held out a hand. "Twenty-four bags at fifty dollars each comes to twelve hundred dollars, ma'am."

"I paid the bag fee when we checked in in Chicago!"

"Sorry, ma'am, that was the transport fee; this is the reacquisition fee."

Fuming, Norma pulled out her checkbook, knowing she didn't have enough in her account to cover this. Overpacked, overdrawn, and already over any attraction she used to feel for Brian and his absurdly long tongue.


Opening: anon......Continuation: JRMosher

While we wait...

...for fake plots for the titles in the Query Queue, below are two revised queries; the authors would like your feedback.

Face-Lift 1071 Revisited

Thanks so very much for your comments and those of your minions re the query letter for my debut literary novel, THE GONE (Face-Lift 1071). I’ve noted at least one revised query on your site. I hope this means I’m allowed to resend mine for further comment. If not, well, slap my ass and call me Charlie. With the idea that less is more, the below is a stripped-down version. But if the less is too much less, or the more, superfluous, please lash me with your acid tongue. Thanks again.

Dear EE:
When their apartment building is sold out from under them and they’re faced with eviction, a cohesive band of neighbors find themselves in emotional freefall as they scramble to find new homes in a city they can no longer afford.
Rent control will soon be history. The competition for housing in a rapidly gentrifying city is fierce. And no one is more impacted by the ticking clock than professional bedtime story reader, Lee Granger. If he scores new digs, he’ll be down to a diet of Ramen and toast. If he’s forced to leave town, he’ll be severing deep ties to his turf, relationships and singular work.
Then he meets Arlo, soon to be homeless as well and poised to move on. As intimacy grows between the men, Arlo understandably steers clear of attachment, while Lee copes with the implication the new friendship has for his sexual identity. But the two are helplessly drawn to each other, with little time left before launching into uncertain, and possibly separate, futures.
As an urban dweller, and having myself weathered a no-fault eviction, I bring to THE GONE an insider’s view of what it’s like to unexpectedly lose one’s home in a financially challenging time and face the repercussions of imposed decisions. (brief writing credits bio here).
THE GONE is complete at 134, 000 words. Thanks for taking the time to review my query.
Kind Regards,

Face-Lift 1061 Revisited

Thank you very much for trashing my terrible query several months ago (Face-Lift 1061). It really made me realize how little about the actual book I'd conveyed. I ended up scrapping most of the query and starting over. Finally, I have finished a version that may actually convey the conflict of the story. History has shown that I'm far too close to the story to be able to tell, however, so I would appreciate if you would also maim this new version and tell me whether it's crap. For one, I'm pretty sure it's too long, but I can't tell what to cut without making it a confusing mess like the last one.

Dear Evil Editor,
When an alien girl is stranded in a foreign land, she joins the military, intending to desert for home when the army marches north. She doesn't expect to become a Host's only engineer or to find herself questioning where she belongs while waiting on a spoiled harem in the shadow of a waking volcano.
Querrl's physical deformities have always made her feel an outcast, even among her loving family. An accident sweeps her downriver, into the middle of a war for resources between a tribal nation and an advanced civilization that has invented writing, domesticated animals, and black-powder guns. Her deformity lets her pass as a different caste, one of the non-fertile drudges, so the Julagnan, her new caretakers, do not send her to join their females in the mountain city of Alvita. They throw her in with a group of enemy war-orphans instead. The orphans treat her like an outsider, and the Julagnan offer her an education, but siding with the violent, arrogant Julagnan still feels wrong.
As Querrl grows to adulthood, out of place and unhappy, she plots to return home and take the Julagnan's advanced skills with her. When their army assembles to invade the country south of her birth nation, she enlists, planning to desert and ride north alone. But suddenly, Querrl finds herself actually fighting a war, and a Julagnan faction that claims Alvita sits on a sleeping volcano wants her aid in staging a coup. She just wants to go home, and she thinks she's willing to take any route to get there. But as she gains responsibilities and friends and realizes that people might need her help to even survive, she finds that loyalties aren't always easy to decide.
The Waking Mountain is a work of low-tech science fiction with a fantasy feel. It is complete at 109,305 words.

New Beginning 972

If Finn stared at the vegetables on his plate long enough, maybe laser beams would shoot out of his eyes and blast those disgusting things into smithereens. It had never happened before, but it was still more likely than him putting them into his mouth.

His mother was bustling around, getting ready to go out. ‘Hurry and finish your lunch, you haven’t even touched your salad.’

‘Don't like it.’

‘You haven't even tried it.’

‘Don’t need to taste it to know I don't Iike it.’

She sighed and hurried out of the room.

Finn passed a piece of capsicum to the cat. She ate stinky cat food, but still turned her nose up at vegetables. Didn't that say how revolting they were? As his mother came back into the room, Finn folded his arms.

‘Oh, we’re going to be late,’ she sighed, and collected his plate. ‘You can have these for dinner. You’ll make yourself sick if you don’t eat your greens.’

‘I’ll make myself sick if I do.’

His mother sighed, and bustled some more.

Finn thought of the super powers he'd need to make his life bearable. The laser eyes, of course, for vaporizing vegetables. A freeze ray to stop his mother's aimless bustling. The ability to talk to girls without breaking out in hives. The resolve to move out of his mother's basement. OK, that last one wasn't technically a super power, but it felt just as unlikely as being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

"Come dear," his mother said. "You promised to drop me at mah-jongg on your way to the comic convention."

Finn gave one last hard look at the pile of arugula on his plate, sighed, and got up.


Opening: Jo-ann S......Continuation: anon.