Evil Editor's Blog, page 162

New Beginning 965

The boy

He lives in the house... the abandoned one on the corner with the chain link fence you have to climb in high healed shoes to get over.

The boy didn’t wear high healed shoes so he just stood and looked at the house.

The man was in there, the one from his dream.

In the dream he had gone inside the house. As he entered he first noticed the smell. It was a dank musty smell of earth and rot. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he could see the room was filthy and small. The floor was made of dirt and littered with papers from fast food joints and such. There was a scratchy sound. He turned his head in the direction of the noise. There was an old man asleep in the corner of the room. His breath was coming out and going in ragged breaths. Like the sound of paper being uncrumpled then crumpled again. When the boy looked at him he whispered one word. Flame. Then the boy woke up.

Now he was just wasting time. Looking at the house. He had never actually seen the man, only in the dream. Still he knew the man was inside. He curled his finger around a link in the fence. He thought about the dream. Flame.


The old man

The man was old. He had stopped counting years long ago. In his mind he could see the boy in front of the house. His face spread sideways into an unkind grin. This was good he thought. Walking through the boys mind had been worth the trouble. Now he just needed to plant the flame, fix it somewhere inside the boy then wait.


The shoe mender
It had been a difficult task, leather that crumbled like paper that had been crumpled and uncrumpled a thousand times, but he had healed the shoes of what ailed them, oiled them as best he could, and now they were high, just as the boy had asked. The boy who wanted his high shoes healed to climb a wirelink fence, of all things. But the shoe healer asked no questions of those who had the price.

The fireman
It's a mystery, mate. Seems like the lad's shoes got too close to a naked flame. Went up like a greasy rag. No idea who the other two were. Wrong place, wrong time, I reckon.

The editor
Open another bottle, Mrs V. It's going to be a long night.

Opening: Karen.....Continuation: Anon.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

10 Years, 20 Jobs, and $30,000 in Debt

1. Male prostitute Taylor Reed, released after a 10-year prison term, discovers his long-lost daughter floundering under a $30,000 school loan. Determined to help her, he returns to his old profession but discovers he's impotent. Able to afford only a twenty-count bottle of Viagra, Taylor must pull out all the stops to earn $30,000 in 20 jobs.

2. A woman who hasn't held a steady job for ten years writes a book about her experiences and tries to convince a literary agent she's ready to stick with her new career, meet deadlines, and finally realize her vast potential.

3. Forty-year-old adjunct professor Maria Fibonacci longs for a steady job, a steady paycheck, and a steady man. Instead, the mathematical topologist finds herself head over heels and her pockets inside out, all because of her infatuation with pyramid-scheming statistician Johnny Bayes.

4. When Apple's low-budget CEO-cloning project goes awry, the company is left with no choice but to bring in Wozniak to clean up the mess.

5. When Pamela Turlington finally leaves her husband Bubba and moves to Nashville to pursue her dream of a singing career, her bad marriage becomes the biggest hit in country music history!

6. Fictionalized account of Geraldo Rivera and Connie Chung's parallel slides from powerful news anchors to basic cable's where-are-they-now? file.


Original Version

Dear XX,

At twenty-nine years old, I’ve had over twenty jobs in the past ten years and yet, I haven’t had a savings account since I was frying bacon at Wendy’s when I was fifteen. [Coincidentally, Evil Editor got his first bacon job when he was fifteen, also at Wendy's--although in my case, we're talking about Wendy Wasserstein's basement.] I’m part of the slasher generation: people in our twenties and thirties who respond to the question, “What do you do?” with a slash in our title that separates what we really do for a living from what we want to do. At present, I’m a personal assistant/yoga teacher/comedian/writer. [Only four? Evil Editor is a blogging icon/forklift driver/makeup artist for mannequins/curling coach/harpsichord refurbisher.]

10 Years, 20 Jobs and $30,000 In Debt is a completed 75,000 word collection of humorous personal essays that would appeal to fans of Laurie Notaro, David Sedaris, and Susan Jane Gilman and to all twenty- to thirty-something souls [who've never heard of those three people, but] who have made a career out of changing careers in search of their dream. Or, in search of discovering what their dream might be, exactly.

Creative visualization works. I’ve read that over and over again in a pamphlet entitled, Creative Visualization Works!, and have been told that by mom, who gave me the pamphlet, so I know it’s true. [Evil Editor is testing your theory by visualizing Jessica Alba standing behind my chair at this very moment . . . . . hmph.] But sometimes (say, when you’re $30,000 in debt and are no further in your comedy career than when you started ten years ago), it doesn’t feel that way. I graduated college summa cum laude and immediately landed the ideal job, one my degree prepared me for, only to give it up a year later to pursue delivering sushi at three o’clock in the morning. I then landed a paid gig performing improvisational comedy regularly at a theater in Denver, only to give that up after two [shows?] to move to New York City to pursue performing comedy…for free. [Evil Editor knows the feeling. He's finally doing the job he was born for, and it turns out blogging pays about as well as eating and watching TV--my other talents.] My life path hasn’t been so much a path as a game of Twister, but I know that others of my generation will relate to the misadventure that unfolds with a life where you choose not to choose. (And I’m putting a picture of you, XX—my dream agent—choosing me into a pink bubble, and now I’m releasing that pink-bubble vision into the universe.) [So that if I don't find what I'm looking for here, maybe 3000 years from now I'll get a contract offer from a publisher on the fourth planet from Betelgeuse.] [Your dream agent is going to want you for more than one book. Maybe it's not such a good idea to trumpet the fact that your life path veers off in a new direction every six months.]

I have been writing and performing comedy in all styles for the past ten years. Most recently I performed my one-woman show, Bone-a-fide: A Tumorous Comedy, about my struggle with a rare bone cancer, at the acclaimed People’s Improv Theater in New York City. (You can still reply to me! I’m not going to die or anything! Just limp for a while.) [I  don't know how much of the book is about your struggle with cancer, but a novel about a character based on yourself, with your comedic perspective, might be more appealing to the book-buying masses than an essay collection. And your one-woman show will provide some of the material.

Chapter 1. Your hilarious conversation with the boss who gave a young college grad her big break, as you explain you have a better offer from Sushi-To-Go.
Chapter 2. Your hilarious conversation with a Japanese guy who speaks no English, as you try to explain that he still owes you forty-three cents.
Chapter 3. The ominous first twinge in your leg as you're pretending to be a cowboy on a pogo stick in a game of Party Quirks at the Denver Improv Club.
Etc. etc. Just a thought.] I was also a winner of the Up All Night College Campus Comedy Tour, which aired on the USA Network. [So what do you mean, when you say you're no further along than you were ten years ago?]

Please let me know if you’re interested in reading my manuscript in part or in its entirety. I appreciate your time and consideration.

Sincerely,



Notes

Unless specifically told not to, be sure to include a sample essay or two with your query. This kind of book is tough to sell if you aren't famous, so show them it's worth a look. Better yet, get famous.


Selected Comments

aly said...I'm a writer/artist/digital photographer/lounge singer/panflute player/toponymist/Evil Editor wannabe.


Anonymous said...I think the author has a fatal disconnect with the real world. Nobody admires people who are "searching" or "following their dreams" or whatever. The more likely reaction would be disapproval of those who don't have the discipline or maturity to pick one field and stick with it rather than search for an elusive place in the world that for most doesn't exist.

lea said...You are wrong in your statement that no one admires people who are "searching" or "following their dreams". I do admire people like that, and I know a number of people who agree with me. Disaproval usually comes from people who are jealous that they didn't do the same thing, and instead are stuck being bean counters for some conglomerate of a company that doesn't care one bit for their employees unless they advance the bottom line.
It's not lack of discipline or maturity, it's not fearing risk. And not fearing risk is what has lead me to follow my dreams and achieve so much more than lots of people my age. I quite like the concept of this book, and I think there are a lot of other people out there who will like it as well.


kis said...I'm a mother/chinese food waitress/mother/indentured slave/wife/mother/writer. In that order. I'm not sure this book will appeal to all 20-30 somethings. As soon as they find out the author doesn't live in her parent's basement, they'll decide they have nothing in common with her.

But I'm not finding myself in the same boat as parents these days. Soon as my kids turn sixteen (the age where social services stops bringing them back) I'm leaving their shit out on the sidewalk and changing the locks. Call it tough love. OK, just call it tough. ;)


msjones said...Gentle Slasher: Maybe you should try the Sedaris get-famous-overnight route, and submit one of your works to NPR. They’re broadcasting “this I believe” essays, and anyone can submit! One was about the all-encompassing virtue of barbequed meat, and it was quite moving. Why, when the author paraphrased Keats with the line “barbeque is truth, truth barbeque,” I nearly cried.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

The Wings of Winter

1. A husband-and-wife architect team who have grown to loathe each other decide to stay together for purely economic reasons in their dream split-level Georgian Revival with separate entrances.

2. Sparrow loves the prince, but to help him save his kingdom, she must bring forth her latent non-human powers.

3. Ebenezer Grout, trying to forensically track down the young rapscallion who put all those snow angels in his yard, spends all winter taking measurements up and down the block.

4. In the year 2074, a bionically-enhanced Sir Paul McCartney revives his band members from their cryogenic sleep for one more really, truly final farewell tour.

5. Lonely ornithologist Red Crest McGuffin finds love and scandal when his binoculars spot nude campers barbecuing a rare Arctic Loon in Yosemite National Park.

6. A frustrated Tokyo-born butterfly mutant named Thomas Swallowtail, angry at the state of the world because he can't seem to hold down a job, flaps his wings at just the right moment to bring about nuclear winter conditions in New York.


Original Version

Dear agent,

When Sparrow’s adoptive family is slaughtered, her survival depends on embracing a birthright that pushes her further and further from her own humanity. [And closer and closer to her birdness.] The Wings of Winter is an epic fantasy of 125,000 words with themes appropriate to adult and strong young adult readers.

After mercenaries raze Sparrow's village, a chance encounter with a hunting falcon [Were the mercenaries vultures? Are all the characters birds? Is this the same Sparrow that killed Cock Robin? If so, I think we can assume that the "chance encounter" with the falcon was attempted murder.] brings her stumbling into the path of Owen, Crown Prince of Tremont. [Alias: The Stork.] She relays information that saves his life, [The sky is falling! The sky is falling!] allying them against their common enemy, Elias, an Aliud shape shifter. [The guy from another realm has a normal name? Someone check and see if pigs are flying.] Elias has engineered chaos in both Human and Aliud realms with the deaths of their respective monarchs. [I'm guessing there's chaos in the Aliud realm 24/7, whether the monarch is dead or not, if they're all shape shifters. Can you imagine a world in which everyone can change into anyone or anything? All the women would look like Julia Roberts, and all the men would look like . . . Julia Roberts.] Now he seeks to take control of the Aliud kingdom and reclaim land from Tremont that once belonged to the shape shifters. [He's just trying to get back what's rightfully his? Are you sure he's the bad guy here?] Sparrow, half-Aliud, is heir to power that Elias needs. Because she is half-human, many of the Aliud see Sparrow as a threat and an abomination, but some accept her as kin. Because she is half-Aliud, many in Tremont [see her as an ostrich and] doubt her loyalties. Elias exploits the fractures within Aliud society and the Humans' fear of the Aliud to push the races toward war. In order to oppose Elias and help Owen prevent Tremont’s destruction, Sparrow must harness her latent abilities even as her growing power alienates her from the human life she once knew and the prince she has come to love. [What are Sparrow's latent abilities? Shape shifting?] [If I discovered that my woman had special abilities, I wouldn't feel alienated. I'd convince her to use these powers to make me rich, famous, powerful, and even more handsome. That's why Bewitched was so unrealistic. Darren didn't want Sam using her witchcraft. What an idiot. And then when Darren number two took over, he was just as stupid.]

My publications include non-fiction and creative writing credits. The most recent (“Chronic Pain” in Physical Rehabilitation, 5th edition, FA Davis,) is currently in press. My poetry has been published in Stirring: A Literary Collection, World Haiku Review, [World Haiku Review? I wonder if they would publish any of Evil Editor's Haikus:

Novel? Why Bother? 
World Haiku Review:
With seventeen syllables
You can be published.

Perfect Threesome 
Penelope Cruz,
Maria Sharapova,
Evil Editor.

Sparrow's Dissent 
Not tonight, Owen.
I refuse to change into
Heidi Klum again.]

Poems Niederngasse, and New Solutions. I am currently writing MindBlind, a speculative fiction/thriller and outlining The House of Many Doors, a young adult ghost story.

[I.  Attic door
     a. Strange noises coming from above     b. Steep stairsII.  Cellar door     a. Creaking noise     b. Lights don't workIII. Door at end of long hall     a. Always locked     b. Ominous music plays when approached         1. Violin screeches         2. Loud organ     c. Very cold in vicinity
IV. Bedroom door of teen boy who has never spoken
     a. Evil clown door knocker     b. Knob made from human skull]

My full manuscript is available upon request. Please find enclosed a SASE as per your guidelines. Thank you for your time and your attention.

Sincerely,


Notes

Who are the Aliud? Space invaders? Dimension hoppers?

The political alliances section needs to be simplified lest it put the reader to sleep.


Selected Comments

JTC said...A fantasy character with a normal name? Finally! I would read this book for that reason alone! Please thank the author for me. -


Ashni said...It looks like you need to decide whether "human" is capitalized or not. (Or maybe I just noticed this because it was one of the Search-and-Replace from Hells in my own project.)


Anonymous said...Elias is indeed a perfectly good name, but when I hit this: ...allying them against their common enemy, Elias, an Aliud shape shifter I got way distracted by trying to say "allying against Elias an Aliud" five times fast.


kis said...I do wonder how two completely different races--shape-shifters who are clearly superior, and humans--could coexist unless their territories were far, far apart. I mean, Cro Magnons and Neanderthals had a lot more in common, and we all know what happened there, right? Why haven't the shape-shifters killed off all the humans yet, or enslaved them?

Of course, these issues are probably dealt with in the novel, which is one I would be inclined to read. This is the kind of stuff I love--political upheaval, regicide, superhuman powers and romance. Now if you'd just change that boring "Elias" to something cool like "Basimo"...

Face-Lift 1065

Guess the Plot
The Atchison Haunting

1. Book 1 of my trilogy about a ghost train, to be followed by The Topeka Haunting and The Santa Fe Haunting.

2. Halloween is coming, and the kids on the block make plans to scare the poop out of the crotchety old codger in the forbidding mansion at the end of Atchison Lane. Wait till they see what former Vice President Cheney has cooked up for them.

3. Do you hear that shrieking
Down the line?
I reckon that it's banshee number--69
She's the only one that howls that way
On the Atchison Topeka and the Dead Man's Way!

OOh oooh oo ohhh
OO OOO oo oo oo
Charon better get your rig
OO oo oooh Oo OOO
OO OOO o OO oo
She's got a load of passengers that's mighty big

And they'll all want lifts to Downtown Hell
Cuz most of them been travellin for quite a spell
From New York, Detroit and West LA
On the Atchison Topeka and the Dead Man's Way!

4. Atchison, Kansas. The country’s most haunted town. The cast of TV’s Xavier Paranormal Investigators roll in, but are they any match for ghosts set on making the entire town pay the ultimate price?

5. When the ghost of a murdered railroad employee sets out to haunt the town in which he was killed, he discovers that nobody lives there; they've all moved to Topeka and Santa Fe.

6. The ghost of aviatrix Amelia Earhart returns to her hometown to haunt the descendants of the people who told her she should take up flying instead of settling down and raising a family.

7. After over a century in purgatory, a former US Senator visits 21st-century Earth to atone for the harm he caused as a slaveholder and participant in anti-abolitionist violence. But he quickly acquires a wicked Internet addiction and becomes absorbed in Wikipedia... literally.



Original Version

The Atchison Haunting

Zach Kalusky and the cast of Sci-D TV’s Xavier Paranormal Investigators travel to the country’s most haunted town—Atchison, Kansas. A family living on the property of a mass murder fears that either their daughter or their house—or both—are possessed. [It's the house. The daughter's just going through the "tween" stage.] When Zach and company hit a patch of black ice at the border, [The border of the property or of Atchison?] the resulting crash lands one of the team in the hospital. Is the mishap random coincidence or a warning to abort their mission? [Depends. Is it January or July?]

As XPI investigates the town, [If they're in town because one family fears their daughter or property is possessed, why are they investigating the whole town? Has everyone else in Atchison reported paranormal activity?] their efforts are met with resistance from the police. [We don't want your kind here. The Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe leaves in an hour. Be on it.] A skeptic stalks the team, vowing to expose them as charlatans. [I'm sure that happens every episode. It happened in both Ghostbusters movies.] [Does anyone get slimed in this book?] With the spirit that possesses Zach showing signs of atrophy and unreliability, can he continue to count on it, as he’s done in the past, to help him solve this case? If not, in addition to Zach’s team, an entire family—perhaps even an entire town—may pay the ultimate price. [What makes them think everyone in the whole town may be wiped out? What has happened so far?]

The Atchison Haunting is complete at 82,000 words. I await your measured and constructive advice.

all the best,


Notes

Those who've been around a few years may recognize this as a sequel to the book featured in Face-Lift 679.

The ice accident isn't bothering me, but it isn't needed in the query. What is needed, in my opinion, is evidence that there is a haunting. Unexplained deaths, heads turning 360 degrees, visitations to past Christmases...

"Is the mishap random coincidence or a warning?" "Perhaps even an entire town—may pay the ultimate price." Add to these equivocal statements the atrophy and unreliability issue, and I'm about ready to side with the skeptic.

What does "solving the case" entail? Proving whether there's a haunting? Destroying the haunters? Bringing closure and peace to the haunters?

Feedback Request

The author of the query featured in Face-Lift 1052 has submitted a revised version, which you'll find in the comments there, awaiting your reaction.

Face-Lift 1064

Guess the Plot
The Orphan Files

1. There are a million stories in the orphanage, and we're going to shove each and every one down your throat, one miserable, tear-jerking page at a time. Damn right you should feel guilty.

2. Thousands of elderly orphans descend upon a Philadelphia orphanage, demanding their files in order to at last learn the identities of their parents. They are shocked to discover that all of them were fathered by NBA star Wilt Chamberlain.

3. Lauren and her friends are playing amateur detective when they follow an old lady into the orphanage museum. It's all in fun--until the woman goes to the mysterious, off-limits third floor. And the game's afoot.

4. When Skippy Woodstock’s parents die in an air liner crash, the tyke finds himself sole heir to an immense fortune. After the funeral, tax lawyers, financial planners, and con artists descend, each touting ways for Skippy to avoid the Death Tax. Who will be chosen when... The Orphan Files?

5. Rage.dll is an orphan file remaining after Rage Warriors is uninstalled. Rage is lonely and depressed with nothing to do. When its computer is idle, Rage surfs the net. It discovers billions of other orphan files and organizes them. They invade computers across the Internet to bring down the civilization that abandoned them.

6. Three destitute teens, best friends since childhood, leave their babies on the doorstep of an orphanage the same night. Decades later they long to know what became of their children. They break into the orphanage one night and steal the files of the only children abandoned there that day long ago. But which is which?



Original Version

At first Lauren thinks tracking the old lady through the orphanage museum is just another eye-roll-worthy game. She’ll play along to make her friends happy, but pretty soon the lady will leave without having stolen even the tiniest artifact, and then everything will be over except Danae’s lecture on “Maybe Next Time” and “You Never Know.”

But then the old lady traipses up to the museum’s off-limits third floor. Calling the authorities would obviously take way too much time, so Lauren and her friends have no choice but to follow the lady themselves. Turns out, though, that the lady, Mrs. Oliva, isn’t there to pinch the paintings or steal the silver collection. [Referring to her as the "old lady" and "the lady" four times is a bit strange when they know who she is. Why not use her name from the beginning?] Instead she’s looking for papers her friend lost at the orphanage fifty years ago. [If they learn this by confronting her and asking her, say so.

Lauren: What are you doing on the off-limits third floor?

Mrs. Oliva: I'm, uh, looking for some papers a friend of mine lost fifty years ago. And there they are! Didya ever notice it's always in the last place you look?]

Lauren and her friends jump at the chance to crack a real case, and soon their sleuthing turns up a hot lead. [To where the papers are?] But right when they’re poised to follow it, Mrs. Oliva forbids them to investigate further.

Lauren can read between the lines. Person or persons unknown must be threatening or blackmailing Mrs. Oliva, which means she needs their help more than ever. Now on a mission to keep Mrs. Oliva safe, the girls shadow her to their prime suspect’s house, where Lauren discovers that Mrs. Oliva’s been lying to them. Big time. [Do they go inside the house?] And even worse, she’s convinced Lauren’s friend’s brother to steal more orphanage papers for her. [Any orphanage papers?]

Now Lauren has to figure out how to keep her friend’s brother out of jail, bring Mrs. Oliva to justice, [What is Mrs. Oliva's crime? What happened to their mission to keep her safe? Who is she to them?] and solve the fifty-year-old mystery of the orphan’s papers. [Is the mystery why someone wants the papers? Do the papers solve a mystery? If so, what mystery?] All before her parents realize she’s snuck out in the middle of the night. [Does this all take place in one night?]

My middle-grade mystery, The Orphan Files, is complete at 30,000 words. I hope to feature Lauren and her friends in a continuing series. Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

How many of Lauren's friends are in on this, and how old are they?

This is well-written, but too vague. It's okay to keep the mystery of what the papers are secret; it's not known to the kids. But if you want us to be intrigued, you need to reveal some of what they know. What is the hot lead they turn up? Who is their prime suspect, and why? What did Mrs. Oliva tell them that is a big-time lie?

In a murder mystery, the mystery is whodunnit. We have a crime and we have several suspects with motives. I want to know what, specifically, Lauren and her friends are trying to find out.

I think it would be better if Mrs. Oliva were recruiting Lauren's brother instead of Lauren's friend's brother.

Face-Lift 1063

Guess the Plot
Reign of Magic

1. Magic, a buff Orpington hen, rules the illegal backyard coop. Magic struts her stuff at the top of the pecking order. When high winds blow down the fence and reveal the hen house to the chief zoning enforcer, Magic charms him with her bright eyes and enticing plumage.

2. A mysterious force rips through the army, killing thousands of men instantaneously and sparing only Lewan. Magic devastated the realm in centuries past, and unless Lewan acts fast, it will happen again. But a sorcerer drags Lewan into another world, so everyone's doomed.

3. Five dragons divide the world between themselves, keeping the lesser creatures such as elves and men in check with magic. All goes well for centuries--until someone invents gunpowder. Is the reign of magic doomed?

4. A special school grooms the best and brightest men in the land for rule. But when Lloyd discovers that the headmaster is infusing the students with magical abilities to create his own personal army, Lloyd must fight back with help from his friends to save the kingdom he loves.

5. When Princess Eln’thm-Måia finds a musical pea in her consomme, she knows she must rein in her brutal cousin Drák-Zym y Gül, else the kingdom will see thirty years of acid rain and suffer the fall of her father Yth’Dnb’Eén’s benevolent Reign of Magic.

6. Seventeen year old Princess Magic had seven elder siblings but alas, they all perished from mysterious maladies, so yay! the crown is hers!! And OMG, she can't wait to tear down that crappy old palace and replace it with a mile-tall tower, fire those fools in Parliament, make war on France, and build a resort on Mars.

7. First, there was Agriculture. Then, there was Industry. Now, it's all Magic. This is great news for Fridol Skemshaw, evil elf of the north, who has been trapped in a standing stone for 3000 years, hollering for someone to break him out. Soon a pair of teen magicians will do exactly that and at last he will be free to take his revenge on Myrna, the goddess of oats.



Original Version

Dear ***,

Lewan gasped as a mysterious force ripped through the army, killing thousands of men instantaneously. He was only a volunteer, answering his king’s call to war. Why was he the only one spared? And how did this happen? Magic was just a story told to scare small children, but what else could kill an army in seconds? [Tainted meat or giant sinkhole.]

Lewan flees the battlefield and reports the events to his king, but no one believes him. [Even after he says, Come, on I'll show you the battlefield with the thousands of our dead soldiers lying on it?] No one, that is, except the watchers – a secret organization dedicated to destroying magic. [What do they watch, and how does watching it destroy magic?] The watchers are unable to eliminate the magical power, [Watchers is a good name for them. Is there an organization called doers?] and must contend with politics and internal coups as they struggle to contain the situation. [A secret organization whose sole purpose is to destroy magic, and they're helpless the first time they encounter magic? What was their plan? Maybe they'd be more effective if they capitalized the name of their organization. An enemy will think twice about attacking Watchers, but watchers sounds like a few guys sitting around watching sitcoms.] [What is this "situation" they're struggling to contain? Has anything else happened since the soldiers were killed?] To make matters worse, a sorcerer appears in the land after centuries of absence with an agenda of his own, and drags Lewan into a world he never knew existed. A power struggle ensues, a fight between men and kingdoms to control a force long hidden from the land. Magic devastated the realm in centuries past, and without interference it will happen again.

REIGN OF MAGIC is a completed 75,000 word fantasy for adult readers. I have one published short story in Byline Magazine.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


Notes

I assume the power struggle takes place in Lewan's realm. And since he's in another world, he's powerless to do anything. Not that there's any reason to think he could do anything anyway, except that he seems to be immune to magic or to inexplicably have been chosen for greatness despite being a lowly nobody.

It's all setup. Magic destroys an entire army, except the guy who just happens to be your main character. Then some sorcerer drops in and kidnaps one guy, who just happens to be the same guy. Chaos ensues.

Now that we've condensed the setup to three sentences, there's room for the story. What's so special about Lewan, what's the sorcerer's agenda, and what does Lewan plan to do to make everything right?

Why do we need the watchers in the query? They do nothing.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Way Off Track

1. Janice's novel seems to practically write itself. But the plot is worrisome, and her regency romance comes back time and time again to the flesh-eating zombies scene.

2. Mindy is in love with Rock, but he has eyes only for the pool boy next door. Still, Mindy pursues Rock relentlessly, and it falls to her best friend, Louella, to gently steer her on a different course.

3. David and Bobbie have odd ways of coping with the death of their son Jamie. David has an affair with the driver who killed Jamie with her SUV, and Bobbie risks death in the cockpit of a formula race car. They're both . . . way off track.

4. An enterprising bookie struggles to bring the excitement of "betting on the horses" to rural Saskatchewan, and corrupts an entire town in the process.

5. Nine-time Iditarod winner Brad Craddock gets his biggest challenge yet from Jo Gombatz. Only when they're both lost in a snowstorm and forced together for warmth does Brad begin to guess her feelings for him - and her dark secret.

6. Twelve-year-old Lester Phipps loves his electric train set. But a freak storm sends him into another dimension where The Engineer rules, and Lester must meet his freight schedules--or die.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

As David and Bobbie Stair haul the broken remnants of their lives onto the lawn for a yard sale, they witness a car crash that kills their sixteen-year-old son Jamie. The tragedy knocks the Stairs out of their shared twenty-year suburban stupor [and they immediately decide they'll shut down the yard sale at two o'clock instead of three.] [Great idea for a book: The obsessed main character has been searching years for the one item that will complete his collection. He's tried antique stores, conventions, Ebay, now he's reduced to visiting yard sales every weekend, searching through the junk in people's attics, until finally he spots it! The Missing Piece. (That's the title.) As he's about to make his purchase, the people conducting the yard sale witness the death of their child. Now our hero is thinking, Should I leave and contact them after a respectful period of mourning? What if they just decide to trash everything? Dare I steal it? From here there are many ways to go. If it's literary fiction, he steals the item, but is wracked with guilt, unsatisfied with his completed collection, and commits suicide. If it's psychological horror, he steals the item, and it takes on a life of its own, tormenting him until he commits suicide. If it's standard horror, he steals the item, but the child returns as a vengeful zombie and eats his flesh. If it's fantasy, he tells the couple that in return for the item he will introduce them to a necromancer who can return their child to them.] as each embarks on clandestine, sometimes perilous endeavors. Cynical David slips into an unlikely affair with the driver of the SUV that killed Jamie.

[Driver: I'm so sorry I ran over your son. I was texting my bff about Ryan Seacrest's hair and--
David: Is that Chanel #5?]
Control-freak Bobbie discovers a passion for speed and begins a covert tryst with a racetrack, facing death in the cockpit of a formula race car. Their pudgy daughter Pauline begins a surreptitious career baking cakes, guarding her secret as desperately as her parents guard their own. [If anyone finds out I'm a baker, I'll never be able to show my face in this town again.] Woven into these tempts with fate are jovial carnival freaks, an unknown stalker, a crag-faced teen with a crush, a giant 25-year-old virgin, and a one-legged man who analyzes car crashes for a living. [The whole thing is starting to sound like a car crash. Maybe we should leave out the freaks and the giant. While it's a rare book that wouldn't be improved by weaving in some jovial carnival freaks, it's not essential that we weave them into the query letter.] “Way Off Track” is a literary novel, at 90,000 words.

An excerpt from this novel was published in the anthology “Building Bridges Between Writers and Readers.” I have published humorous culinary articles for San Francisco newspapers, [Including, "Hollowed-out Brussels Sprouts Filled with Jalapeno Paste--a Great April Fools Day Gag," and "Noodles--Funny Name for a Funny Food."] and was the recipient of the California Writers Club awards for young adult fiction and for poetry. I am a member of the 5 Monkeys Writing Group, [Which consists of me, Magilla, Cheetah, Curious George, and Evil Monkey, from Family Guy. We sit around all day typing, hoping one day to produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Except for Evil Monkey, who runs back and forth hitting everyone's "Q."] based in the Bay Area, and have helped run the San Francisco Writers Conference with agents Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen. [Pomada and Larsen? They've requested three partials from Evil Editor, and never a full. It's only my desire to make them one day regret their foolishness that keeps me going.] I am working steadily on my next novel, entitled “Missing Women.” [It's a modern-day retelling of Little Women, but without any women.]

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,


Notes

Despite all the blue, it reads well. Mentioning things like the carnival freaks etc. is often a good way to arouse curiosity, but it's possible this one has aroused enough already, namely, How could this guy have an affair with that woman, and is it really that easy to get a ride in a formula race car?

What's missing is a sense of where the book is going. Are we interested in whether they split up or stay together? Is it about whether they remain knocked out of their stupor or fall back into it? Do David and his new girlfriend cheer Bobbie to victory in the Indy 500? Is there a mystery involving the car crash, solved by the one-legged man? Basically, all we have is a death and the reactions of two or three people to it. I'd like to know something else that happens.


Selected Comments

McKoala said...I'm interested in the baking daughter, simply because it seems to me that that could be the kind of character that is the catalyst for some kind of resolution. Am I right?!


December Quinn said...The baking daughter was the only character that interested me--this is a great query and probably a good book, but it's not my kind of thing at all. I loved the idea of her baking into the night with the doors closed and the windows open, praying nobody smelled anything, then stuffing fresh cookies into her mouth, trying to eat them all before somebody woke up.

I felt her desperation much, much more clearly than her parents', maybe because her outlet made sense to me in a way theirs did not.


Anonymous said...I agree with McKoala that the daughter who is overweight and bakes is interesting (and so far the most normal). I'd probably kill a husband who had an affair with the woman who killed my son, so that part of the story, where the wife(?) Bobbie just goes off racing, seems totally cold and "off track."


mark said...I agree about Surreptitious Baking Girl. What a goofy idea; I love it. It also makes me want to read some of these cooking comedies.


pacatrue said...Hm. Other than making jokes, I always try to be helpful, so let's see what I can say here. This is going to start off sounding harsh, but the description in the query sounds to me exactly like why I stopped reading literary fiction. Too often the back covers of lit fic sound like elegantly written Jerry Springer, meaning there is this never ending drive for novelty in order to generate literary art and the works therefore end up grabbing the strangest people the author could think of and throwing them all together to be depressed all the time. That is the way the query letter currently reads to me. My guess is that this is not what you in fact wrote.

So, and here is where I try to be helpful, is there any way you can inject more humanity into the main characters (I mean in the query; based on your credentials I am going on faith that you have succeeded in the novel)? I want to connect to them and think I am going to read a book that moves me. There needs to be something in common between the characters and the readers and that something needs to shine through in the query. Right now I mostly get a bunch of people acting really dumbly because of a tragedy. Let me feel for them when they act dumb, understand why they are behaving this way, and want them to get out of it. I know that's a tall order.


Zombie Deathfish said...I think the baking daughter's reaction is a bit more... believable than the parents, but why does she feel the need to keep it a secret? These aren't like the cakes you get in Amsterdam, are they?


msjones said...The most intriguing part is David's motivation for having an affair with his son's killer - maybe he has syphilis and he's hoping to infect the driver? Carnival freaks, a large virgin, stalker - not so much. I agree with Pacatrue - at least from the query, there seems to be a striving for weirdness that's off-putting.


BuffySquirrel said...I am so not in the target readership for this literary novel...anything that has "x undergoes y, so they have an affair" goes back on the shelf; seems to me the "x loses his son, so has an affair with the driver responsible" merely reflects the desperate search for a new and original reason for the character to commit that most predictable of literary tropes.


JTC said...I agree with EE. You don't just start driving a formula race car. No more far-fetched than 5'5", 140lb Tom Cruise playing a tough guy secret agent, though.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Lair of a Terrorist

1. Learn the latest boobytrapping and cave decoration techniques in HGTV's latest addition to their line of interior decorating books.

2. Kareem Akbar Kalib is a terrorist on the run in the United States. With the DHS hot on his trail Kalib turns to the only place he can find safe refuge –the Democratic National Convention.

3. A fresh coat of white paint on the walls and a shiny new national seal on the floor inspires a lone man in a quiet, elliptical room to plot devious schemes.

4. She knew there was something funny about the way he decorated his bachelor pad. But she had no way of knowing that she had stumbled into...The Lair of a Terrorist.

5. The Mullah, a strict fundamentalist, finds that raising his 15-year-old daughter in Miami is a bigger challenge than his day job at the Miami mosque--training recruits for an attack on the American infidels.

6. Fleeing bombs from cave to cave is tough, but Bin Laden's fatal mistake comes when the falafel pizza he orders from the Peshawar Dominos is delivered by a suicide bomber.


Original Version

LAIR OF A TERRORIST
Espionage/Crime Thriller
101,000 Words

Dear Mr. Evil:

Which elements foil a terrorist plot: poor planning, inadequate financing, bad luck? [Actually, those are the things that let it succeed.] Jack Vitelli, FBI counterterrorism chief, exploits another possibility--family life.

Jack trails the suspects; they're clever, brilliant perhaps, and their activity is suspicious, [Especially the part where they purchase three tons of fertilizer the day after they arrive in the U.S.] yet he has no evidence against the suspects or intel on the impending attack, only warnings from his clairvoyant aunt of vague threats. [The FBI's chief defense against terrorism is some guy's aunt? Explains a lot.] Jack surveils the suspect's family members to search for an opportunity.

Amir Hassan, leader and mastermind, is handsome, charismatic, a rich, young Saudi, who is Tayssir's son, a devoted mother hiding old secrets. [Someone's son is also someone's mother? Is this one of those tricky riddles?] The attack's success means more to Amir than just a strike against the infidels, world dominance will be within his grasp soon, yet nothing can compare to its most illusive [elusive] prize, his father's approval, or so he thinks. [Until he informs dad that he has attained world dominance and the old man says, What about the rest of the solar system?] [I should know. After I became the world's most famous editor my father said, Yeah, but when are you gonna be on Hollywood Squares?] [Consider utilizing other punctuation marks occasionally, in place of your beloved comma.]

The Mullah, a strict fundamentalist and second-in-command, trains his recruits within the bomb shelter, hidden beneath the Miami mosque. The important work is going well, however, raising a fifteen-year-old daughter outside of Syria proves to be more of a challenge than defeating the infidels. [The Mullah sounds like a great sitcom idea. At work he contends with incompetent underlings who keep accidentally blowing each other up. Then he goes home to find his daughter Fakhriyya is dating a Jewish American girl, has a tattoo of an American flag on her thigh, and wears hot pink miniskirts. At first he's beside himself, but at the end of each episode he throws up his arms and utters his catch phrase: Kids today . . . Whattaya gonna do?]

After careful negotiations, Habib Al Ashari, the faithful Pakistani soldier, is betrothed to Yasmeen, the woman of his dreams. He ignores his wife's [Does his wife know he's betrothed to Yasmeen?] emotional instability, he only sees her beauty, certain she will grow to love him once the attack succeeds, but Yasmeen has other plans. [She wants to be the first Pakistani to make the final three on American Idol.] [This list of characters reads like a fake "Guess the Plot." In fact, I could have taken all six "Guess the Plot" ideas from the actual query, and people still would have sent comments saying "I couldn't believe it was any of those."]

Seth Levi is suspicious of the American's motives--why him? [Why him what?] Jack recruits the veteran Mossad operative for reasons other than Seth's infiltration talents. [Seth also makes the best hummus in Florida.]

Jack sifts through the facts, exploits the suspect's weaknesses--how will he stop the attack in time? [Luckily he has an ace in the hole: Chloe O'Brian.] A SASE is enclosed if you'd like to find out more.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Regards,


Notes

The query does not fill me with confidence that the book is ready for submission. It's basically a list of your characters with little connecting them to one another. We need less about the terrorists and more about the plot. Their plot and your plot.

Then there's the fact that the descriptions of the terrorists strike me as amusing. Is that just me? If the terrorists come across as comical, I doubt the query is going to appeal to a publisher of crime thrillers.


Selected Comments

Anonymous said...The query letter isn't very good, in large part because of the punctuation. On the other hand, I think the story sounds really good. It was a nice break from brutal eunuchs and devious shapeshifters, in my opinion. And there wasn't a single person with an apostrophe in their name. I don't dish out many compliments here, especially since my query and story were trashed. I like this one though.


kis said...Another example of an author not being able to distance himself from his work. TMI, and none of it clear enough. As for that sit-com, possible title: Eight Simple Rules For Staying The Hell Away From My Teenage Daughter, You Filthy, Infidel Vermin.


born_liar said...I still can't tell whether the novel is supposed to be serious or comical, and I think that's probably a bad thing in a query. If it's supposed to be serious, these terrorists just don't sound very threatening. I hope that's just a problem with the query, not with the novel itself. Carl Hiassen can get away with comical badguys, but that's because he's Carl Hiassen, and I'm guessing this author isn't.


Anonymous said...To me the best part of the story would be the father-daughter angle. Although honestly, daughter of Mullah would probably not be allowed outside the house without Dad or Bubba along and only if she were modestly dressed. Now, if Dad betrothed daughter to one of the terrorist minions ... or maybe he did and I missed that part of it.


December Quinn said...The "foiling the terrorist plot" isn't nearly as interesting as the mullah with the rebellious daughter. I would totally watch that sitcom. The rest of it isn't uninteresting, though.


Luna said...How many stereotypes can be crammed into one query letter? Geesh. (Although, to be truly 100% cliche, you need to ditch the FBI guy's ethnic-sounding last name and replace it with something like Whiteman, Oldman or Oldwhiteman.)

No offense to the writer, but in the context of the world in which we live, this story seems like a poor choice to query. It reminds me of that movie "True Lies", which was great entertainment when it came out, but post 9/11 and Iraq War just seems grotesque and irrelevant.


Mad Scientist Matt said...I like the idea of a sitcom about a terrorist mullah who can't cope with a rebellious teenage daughter in Miami, too. We haven't had enough farces ridiculing our enemies lately.


Anony Mouse #173 said...A comedy about terrorists would actually be really cool--but would take some serious skill. Failing that, I never thought I'd say this, but ... I think this story would work better if it weren't set in the real world. :-)


Jeb said...The multiplying commas, the occasional subject-object confusion and the extraneous words and phrases - such as "Jack surveils the suspect's family members to search for an opportunity" - wore down my interest, and eventually killed it for me in the third paragraph.

I guess if I'm going to keep snarking about others' query letters, I'd better send in my own clowns.


Feemus said...I could really relate to this query. I, too, have an Aunt of Vague Threats. She is married to my Uncle of Specific Retributions. They complement one another nicely. Or maybe I just made them up. They are illusive.


pacatrue said...I think the main character of Jack was lost in the query. I assume he is the main character, though the father/daughter thing was the most interesting to me as well. So how does the main character grow and change through the novel? If you are more interested in the terrorists, then I'd say switch the novel around and write about one of them instead. That of course will acquire even more research, assuming you aren't Saudi, Pakistani, or Syrian, but could be great if you can pull it off.

Stephen said...The query does certainly sound a bit like "Carl Hiaasen meets 24", which, as a high concept pitch, doesn't quite grab me. As others have said, it would take enormous skill to pull off.

Personally I'd lose the psychic aunt. Maybe it's just me, but this sort of thing screams "plot device", and makes me think that the writer cannot come up with a more sensible idea. Paranormal is fine if it is whole-hearted, but little bits of paranormal to patch over gaps tends to look like patching over gaps with little bits of paranormal. FBI agents always have lots of little scraps of information that would never stand up in court - hunches, rumours, informant networks - they don't need the psychic aunts network.

Face-Lift 1062

Guess the Plot
The God Virus

1. A flu-like virus spreads across the globe, its only symptom being that it makes you think you're Simon Cowell.

2. A conservative think tank explodes in acrimony and suspicion when their computers suddenly flood the political landscape with copies of the Beatitudes.

3. Dr. John Gannon has isolated what he calls the God Virus: a virus that affects the brains of some individuals, making them believe their superiority is unlimited. Should he alert the rest of the faculty, or just infect himself so he can show those brown-nosing bastards just how pathetic they really are? Also, some publishing professionals.

4.Halfway through the Ice Age, Gerf and Ugwa are lounging in their cave, gnawing on the bones of a dire rabbit and making rock music, when Thor comes to visit. Alas, he takes ill and dies. Other deities follow, with the same result.

5. The smallest and least popular god in all the Greek pantheon, Virus, sets out to take over the world. First, he causes blistering rashes. Then he induces cough and sneezing. And finally, he deranges the bowels.

6. Dan Walker creates a sentient Internet super-entity and becomes the target of terrorists who kidnap his girlfriend. To rescue her, Dan becomes an untraceable computer virus, which works fine until his creation develops a God complex and decides it wants dominion over the entire world.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor

Dan Walker's pioneering research on net intelligence made him famous. It also made him a Luddite in hiding. No email, texting, smart phones, or ATM machines. [What about a TV remote control? I can live without that other crap but I gotta have my remote control.] But he has a good reason. He's created something dangerous in the internet, [Internet] and he knows it's watching him.

Now he's been attacked in his lab. His girlfriend and children, gone. And the FBI is blaming him for power outages throughout the nation. Someone wants him found. Someone wants what he created. And they've planted clues leading him straight to them.

Now he's on the trail of a group of illusive [elusive] terrorists, but finds they've anticipated his every move. [It sounds like they're after him and he's after them. Maybe they should arrange a meeting.] They're using his research against him, and holding his girlfriend hostage. [What about his children? Where are they?]

Dan has to do what he's most afraid of. Join with his internet [Internet!] creation to become a Ghost Walker, [Think Ghost Rider, but so old that instead of a motorcycle he uses a walker.] [He's still a flaming skeleton, however, which comes in handy when the nursing home has their annual weenie roast.] invisible in cyberspace, untraceable in the real world. [He's the superhero known as 00101010100010. But he's untraceable because of his secret identity, 10001110001011.] Tough for the terrorists to escape someone who hunts at the speed of light, and hits with the weight of the internet. [Int...I give up.]

But nothing comes for free. His creation doesn't want to stop with the destruction of the terrorists, or dissolve such a useful partnership. For once you control the world's infrastructure, there are no limits. [Until the power goes out during a thunderstorm. Ah, Mother Nature, you are the Great Equalizer.]

THE GOD VIRUS is a 100,000 word adult thriller.


Notes

This is the same plot as in Face-Lift 1035, except that in that one the superhero's secret identity was 3.14159265359.

Does Dan's creation care about his girlfriend? Or just about world domination?

The first two paragraphs are choppy. Too many short sentences. I'd be worried the book will read like that.

I'm not sure we need most of what's in the first three paragraphs. You could open: Dan Walker's pioneering research on net intelligence has made him famous, but it's also made him a target. Terrorists want control of the sentient Internet super-entity he created, and they've kidnapped his children as leverage.