Evil Editor's Blog, page 17

A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake p...

 A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake plots.

https://evileditor.blogspot.com/p/query-queue_7.html

Your Manuscript Edited by Evil Editor!!!

Some of you may remember the Brenda Novak Auction for Juvenile Diabetes, wherein people could bid on lots of cool stuff, much of it of particular interest to writers. Evil Editor annually donated the editing of someone's book, and over the years brought in more than $20,000 for a very good cause.

Another organization (Literary Agents of Change) is holding a similar type auction in June. Their goal is to make becoming a literary agent more accessible to under-represented people. You can read about them here. These links aren't working the normal way for me. You may have to return to this page the long way.

Here's the auction page.

And Evil Editor's item:

 https://givebutter.com/c/MsVK8X/auction/items/455367

The starting bid on my item is rather high (Donors did not set the price), but this same offering brought in well above that in the Brenda Novak Auction every year, one time going over $4000. There are lots of other critiques available from literary agents, authors, and editors. I'll remind you when bidding opens. (6/10)

5-20-24

 5-20-24

Face-Lift 1458

 

Guess the Plot

Moonlight Disco

1. This comprehensive biography of Elon Musk includes a stunning interview where the zillionaire lays out his grand plan for humanity: use SpaceX to cover the moon with mirrors, then live-stream on X  as millions of Neuralink-implanted partiers are driven by their autonomous Teslas to a midnight dance in the desert. Because only one of his many companies is Boring, and, well ... because he can.

2. When her plan to fund her college education by selling stars fails, Rhode comes up with a better idea: posing as a deity to scam people out of money. She calls herself Moon Goddess. Her popularity skyrockets, her face gets plastered over the Internet, and who cares about college? Also: Disco.

3. Disco is dead, but having an undead revival. It's safer for the Weres and the Vamps to have a dance-off than the usual bloodletting boiling over into the daylight world. So, sequins, bell bottoms, and chest hair, with a side order of Romeo/Juliet romance. And there's still plenty of bloodshed.

4. Former dance king Freddy "Phantom" Lichten overhears what he thinks is the code phrase to get him into a new underground club. Further misunderstandings leave him as a courier on the run from hostile government agents, the mob, and an ex-girlfriend The fate of a few countries rides on a  successful delivery. He was told there might be dancing along the way.

5. Some werewolves celebrate the full moon by gathering in stadiums and dancing to disco versions of "Werewolves of London," "Hungry Like the Wolf," and "Mama Werewolf." But people would rather read about my werewolves, the ones that go on killing sprees in nursing homes.

Original Version

Dear [First Name Last Name], [More common: Dear Title (Ms., Mr.) Last Name]

I am seeking representation for MOONLIGHT DISCO, an 80000 word sapphic young adult contemporary fantasy novel inspired by the Japanese folklore [folk tale] The Tale of Princess Kaguya. It combines the ambitious heroine of If You Could See The Sun by Ann Liang and the [reason] of [title] by [author]. [Princess Kaguya is an ambitious heroine, so I see no reason to add a comp title based solely on its having that same feature.] [That many adjectives in a row should be separated by commas. Better yet, get rid of some of them: ...an 80,000-word, young adult retelling of the Japanese folk tale...  [Putting this paragraph after the plot summary would be better.]

Sixteen-year-old Rhode Ouyang catches stars to sell each summer to fund her future college expenses. However, this summer’s star sales is [are?] a total failure as her middle-aged buyers no longer want a star from a no name teen. [They want a star from a star.] Rhode also gets chastised by Sei, her childhood friend and fellow star catcher, for attempting to sell hand painted stars to drive up the price tag. The greatest source of her stress comes when she’s forced to pay back Sei’s dad for freeing the rabbits he captured.  [Okay, I've tried to be patient but you're losing me. Whattaya mean, she catches stars? The stars up in the sky, the ones that are giant balls of fire bigger than 300,000 Earths? Even if a star were a mile away instead of 20 trillion miles away, and the size of a bird, I don't see how Rhode catches them. Can she fly? If she can catch them, and she can sell them for enough to pay for a college education, wouldn't everybody be catching them? If hand-painting the stars drives up the price, wouldn't everyone hand-paint them? Or is she hand-painting rocks to look like stars?Easier than that would be to buy some cat's-eye marbles, which are pretty cheap and look kind of like stars and wouldn't need to be painted if she just used the yellow ones.]

 [All my comments could be avoided if you change "stars" to "starfish."]

When Rhode wakes up with her hair turned white, she has an idea: instead of worrying about finding a summer job, she’ll pose as the Moon Princess, the village deity. With help from other villagers, Rhode begins selling self-dubbed “moon blessed” stars to tourists for hundreds of dollars. [This is almost as bad as Trump selling Bibles.] [How many stars would I have to buy to get a degree from Rhode University?] For a price tag of thirty dollars per person, she’ll include fortune telling and photo opportunities. Even malformed stars can sell for one hundred dollars if they come from her hand. Not everyone is enthused about Rhode’s fame, one of whom is Sei. Rhode agrees to compete with her for who’ll earn the most money from selling stars. [Not a fair fight: Rhode's stars are moon-blessed.] The loser must pay the winner and do whatever they are told to do. [That's vague. What do they want each other to do? Is this where the "sapphic" part comes in?]

Except, it’s easier to fantasize about wealth and success than it is to achieve it. As Rhode’s popularity skyrockets, her face gets plastered over the Internet, gaining clout but also recognition. [You make it sound like recognition is a bad thing. It would lead to more sales. Plus, she'd be like Sybil the Soothsayer in the movie Network, with her own segment on the number one rated TV show.] Rhode must make sure she doesn’t get outed as a fraud or she’ll end up paying back the money and even be sent to juvie. [Any tourist trap worth its salt is gonna be crawling with hucksters selling overpriced souvenirs. When the tourists get home, they either display their junk, or they toss it. They don't take the huckster to court, because admitting they fell for the sales pitch would be humiliating.]

[bio here]

Thank you for your consideration.

Notes

It sounds like Rhode's moon-blessed stars brought in enough to pay for the rabbits, which, for some reason, was her greatest source of stress. Main problem solved.

Somehow, a contemporary novel involving college expenses and summer jobs and the Internet doesn't jibe with a village deity known as the Moon Princess.

Such details as the rabbits, the white hair, the malformed stars, the fortune telling and photo opportunities aren't moving the plot forward. In a description of an 80,000-word book, the price Rhode can get for a malformed star is trivial.

I'm not sure who's going to out Rhode as a fraud. The villagers helped her sell her moon-blessed stars to tourists. That makes them co-conspirators in the fraud, if there is a fraud, which I've already pointed out there isn't. When I went to New Orleans, there was a guy on the street who had painted himself gray, and he would stand still pretending he was a statue. Tourists would walk up to him and then suddenly he'd move. It was pretty cool, and the tourists would throw money in his bucket. I doubt he was taken to court because he wasn't really a statue. Tourists would consider the Moon Goddess part of the experience, and buying a moon-blessed star would be like paying admission to an amusement. No one was forced to buy one.

Anyway, even if we accept the catching and selling stars part, which we must because it's something that happens in this fantastical world, I still don't find the stakes believable. She's not going to juvi, she's becoming a celebrity who doesn't even need college because she's rich, rich rich!

Start over. Possibly focus more on how Rhode learns (too late?) that her friendship with Sei is more important than money and rabbits. If that's what happens.

Feedback Request

 

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1456 would like feedback on the following version of the query.

17-year-old Dulani is stuck in hell, and it’s his own fault. Desperate to escape a broken home, he flees into an alternate world that manifests humanity’s myths—from dazzling El Dorado to gorgeous Elysium. Greatness and power he’s coveted, now his to claim. But he overlooked that there's always a catch. Everything, mainly demons, wants him dead. He must now think as fast as he can run from death, alone—until he meets Milliana, a girl with a chip on her shoulder. 

 

16-year-old Milliana’s brain is too big a target for the bullets flying around her neighborhood. It’s not the sort of excitement she craves, so she escapes into a realm only “Visitors” like her can enter. She finally feels safe—until her soul starts attracting hyper-persistent demons that want it. While hiding, she encounters a young man as dog-tired as she is. Dulani’s reticent, but a good listener and (almost) as smart. Since they can’t run or hide forever, she suggests a daring idea: use the enhanced abilities and mysterious powers that come with being Visitors and fight back.  

 

They trap and kill a demon leader, whose death purifies some of the realm so it’s slightly less hostile. At last, a breakthrough. But the demons won’t rest until they have a Visitor soul so they can cross over to Earth and devour humanity. Dulani appreciates getting to control his fate for once, while Milliana relishes a challenge for her intellect. But as they learn more about the realm, and each other, fighting back could mean playing into the hands of gods more sinister than mere demons.   

MEMORANDUM (90,000 words) is a YA fantasy standalone with series potential. It combines the otherworldly danger in L.L. McKinney’s Nightmare-Verse trilogy, the grief-processing in Jessica Kara’s DON’T ASK IF I’M OKAY, and the tense adventure of Marc J. Gregson's SKY'S END.  

Like Dulani, I’m Black, and I channel my experiences with “othering” into his and the cast’s stories. As a Research Assistant with a MS in Engineering, I find new solutions to strange problems while shouldering a lot of responsibility—just like the heroes of this story. 

 

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

----
One question: How should I position this story/concept less as a “portal fantasy” and more “beleaguered young adults fighting against treacherous powers that be?”

Notes
You reduced the portal factor (in the query) somewhat by leaving out the part about flipping a magical coin to cross over. Based on your statement "she escapes into a realm only “Visitors” like her can enter," you don't need a portal to reach the realm, you just need the "it" factor. What have these kids got that allows them to . . . Visit?
If that doesn't address your concern, you could say MEMORANDUM (90,000 words) is a fantasy standalone with series potential, in which two beleaguered young adults fight against treacherous powers with the fate of humanity on the line. That seems a bit over the top.
Here's a shorter version of your plot summary:

Desperate to escape a broken home, 17-year-old Dulani enters an alternate world that manifests humanity’s myths—from dazzling El Dorado to gorgeous Elysium. Dulani appreciates controlling his fate for a change--but there's more to mythology than just beauty, love, and honor, as he discovers when he finds himself fleeing demons that want him dead. 

 

The bullets flying around her neighborhood aren't the sort of excitement 16-year-old Milliana craves, so she escapes into a realm only “Visitors” like her can enter. Here, she finally feels safe—until her soul starts attracting hyper-persistent demons that need it in order to cross to Earth and devour humanity. While hiding from the demons, Melliana encounters a young man as dog-tired as she is: Dulani. 

The two teens can’t run or hide forever, but they can use the enhanced abilities and mysterious powers that come with being Visitors to fight back. They trap and kill a demon leader, whose death slightly purifies the realm. At last, a hopeful breakthrough. But as they learn more about the realm, and each other, they realize fighting back could be playing into the hands of gods more sinister than mere demons.

If you want to focus more on the fight against treacherous powers, you could combine the first two paragraphs something like this:

Desperate to escape broken homes, 17-year-old Dulani and 16-year-old Milliana escape to an alternate world that manifests humanity’s myths—from dazzling El Dorado to gorgeous Elysium. But there's more to mythology than beauty, love, and honor, as the teens discover when they find themselves fleeing demons that need their souls in order to cross to Earth and devour humanity. 

That gives you two paragraphs instead of one to talk about their plan and what's at stake.

A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake p...

 A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake plots.

Face-Lift 1457

Guess the Plot

Shame of Kings

1. Shame (that's Sha-me, two syllables) leaves his hometown to become a body double to royalty. After 6 assassination attempts, he decides he'd be safer killing the royal he's doubling for, taking his place, and hiring a body double.

2. Shame! Shame upon your name! Shame upon your family! Shame upon your country! And most of all shame upon your king who let one such as you live. These words echo across the world before it all ends. The book, I mean, not the world.

3. While His Majesty writes (average) poetry, rides horses (badly), and dallies in the harem with the women, the Prime Minister and the Chief Eunuch vie for the job of running the country.

4. King Carlos, of Florida's Calusa tribe, shamefully sends his son across the Gulf of Mexico to King Montezuma of the Aztec Empire. His mission: convince Montezuma to come to Florida and help fight off the Spanish Armada. Montezuma shamefully refuses.

5. Scandal reigns over Europe when it's discovered that King Philippe of Belgium and King Frederik X of Denmark shared a hotel room at the last G7 meeting.

6. If you took all the crap kings of England got away with just because they were kings, it wouldn't amount to half of what popes have pulled. But that doesn't mean England shouldn't be ashamed. Historian Henry Lockwood's latest book will set the record straight . . . but someone will stop at nothing to keep it from being published.

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Greetings from Southwest Florida, [Thanks. And condolences.]

Prince Sinapa of Florida’s mighty Calusa tribe is devastated when his father, King Carlos, does not appoint him to lead their defense against the fleet of Spanish warships approaching from Cuba. Instead, the King sends Sinapa across the Gulf of Mexico to try to convince Aztec Emperor Montezuma to join the Calusas and drive the Spaniards from their common waters. 
Sinapa: Our canoes are no match for Spanish warships. We need your mighty navy to help drive the Spanish from our common waters.
Montezuma: We have no navy, and we have no common waters. But since you've come so far I can give you a good price on some slightly used canoes.
Sinapa departs on the risky mission, filled with shame at not being chosen to lead the fight against the Spaniards. [Aren't there any potential allies closer than the Aztecs? Like the Creeks? Or the Portuguese? How's Sinapa getting to the Aztec empire, canoe? Horse? Horse in canoe? Does he have a Calusa - Aztec translator?]

Complete at 95,000 words, SHAME OF KINGS is novel about the fierce Calusa tribe that dominated southwest Florida in the 16th century. [Wait, that's it? Is there a plot? What happens? Does he make it to the halls of Montezuma? Does Montezuma drop everything and head for Florida, leaving his empire vulnerable to a sneak attack from the south? Does Sinapa fall in love with an Aztec woman, settle down in Tenochtitlan, and never return to Florida? Or does he return a year later with thousands of Aztec warriors only to find the Spanish decided Florida was a dump and went back to Cuba?] They never gave in to Spanish Conquistadors and were one of the last Native American tribes to survive in the face of European colonialism.

My story would appeal to readers drawn to the multigenerational Florida history of A LAND REMEMBERED by Patrick D. Smith and the epic, far-reaching themes in the works of James Michener.
 
I have an MA in English Language Arts Education and have been teaching for 18 years. Before teaching, I was a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Air Force and wrote articles for national and international newspapers.

I would be happy to discuss my book with you.

Notes
I comment on the details of your story as if I have any knowledge about the period of history, but only because I suspect that the agent you query will have even less knowledge than I do. I mean, have you looked at the photographs of literary agents on their websites? They mostly look like they just got out of high school and got a C- in the only history course they took.
Is this a novel about the tribe or about a specific person/event? I don't get the impression this is a far-reaching multi-generational epic. It sounds like the story of Sinapa's quest to find an ally and make it back before his people are all wiped out by conquistadors and smallpox. If it's a story about Sinapa, we need more info about what happens to him. Ten sentences covering his goal, his plan, the obstacles he overcomes, what's at stake if he fails/succeeds. 
If it's a far-reaching story about the tribe, it seems like what happens in Florida while Sinapa is gone should get more attention in the query than Sinapa's shame at being sent on a fool's errand. Either way, your query needs to summarize the story. 
Did whoever King Carlos appointed to lead the defense do a good job?  
How does a Native American king have a Spanish name?
I suspect King Carlos sent Sinapa to Mexico because he didn't want his only son dying in the coming battle. I also suspect Sinapa wouldn't get ten miles off the coast of Florida before his canoe got destroyed by a Spanish galleon or a hurricane or a whale. 

Face-Lift 1456

Guess the Plot

Memorandum

1. Two teens enter a parallel realm to escape their violent lives, only to discover their new world is more like Dante's Inferno than Alice's Wonderland. Apparently they didn't get the memo, the one about the demons who want their souls. 

2. Paul Johansen finds a memorandum on his desk, telling him he'll have to work through the weekend. Fuming, he tosses it in the wastebasket, setting in motion a series of events that will lead to three murders and the derailment of a train carrying nuclear waste through Chicago.

3. Memory has been stored in The Library for as long as AJ has known. However, when he finds a discrepancy between two records, he makes a search for the original. Which is stored in the underground vault known as . . . Memorandum!

4. Secretary Jean's new boss (assigned by corporate headquarters) is a terrible manager, but fortunately only communicates by memorandums, which Jean fixes up before sending them. When the boss turns up dead, can the entire branch office get rid of the body and fake his continued existence while leaving Jean in charge?

5. Knowing her boyfriend Brent will not take it well in person, Jackie informs him that she's breaking up with him in a State Department memorandum that mistakenly gets sent to everyone in the department . . . except Brent. Hilarity ensues.

6. Hoping to foster a reputation as the most upscale agency in New York, literary agent Harper Montgomery replaces form rejection slips with form rejection memorandums.

Original Version

MEMORANDUM (90,000 words) is a YA contemporary fantasy standalone with series potential following underprivileged POVs. It combines the otherworldly danger in L.L. McKinney’s Nightmare-Verse trilogy, the grief-processing in Jessica Kara’s DON’T ASK IF I’M OKAY, and the tense adventure of Marc J. Gregson's SKY'S END. [I'd put this paragraph after the plot summary.]

 

17-year-old Dulani longs to escape a broken home. So when mysterious visions promise a way out, he’s desperate enough to try. Flipping a strange coin, Dulani enters a parallel realm that manifests humanity’s myths—from dazzling El Dorado to gorgeous Elysium. He’s always coveted such greatness and art, but dreams become nightmares when demons hound him like fresh meat. [Demons hound fresh meat?] Outrunning [Running from] death is a worse life than his old one, but he’s got to suck it up and adapt because he’s alone—until he meets a firecracker with a chip on her shoulder. [Once I know I'm in a world where there's magic and humanity's myths are manifested, it's not a huge leap to imagine there are sentient firecrackers. Sentient swords are particularly common in fantasy. And what about Lumière, Cogsworth, Chip, Mrs. Potts, and Babette from the film Beauty and the Beast? Or that precious ring of power? Call her a teenager.] [If you say "until he meets Milliana, a teenager with a chip on her shoulder," we'll be sure, in the following paragraph, that Dulani is the young man Milliana meets.

 

16-year-old Milliana’s brain is too big of a target for the bullets flying around in her neighborhood. So, she escapes into a world only “Visitors” like her can enter. [Does she get there by flipping a strange coin?] It’s nice to be special, not so when souls like hers attract [She finally feels safe--until her soul starts attracting] hyper-persistent demons that want it. While hiding, she soon encounters a young man as dog-tired as her. He’s reticent, but a good listener and (almost) as smart as her. [Grammar police here. That should be "as dog-tired as she (is)" and "as smart as she (is)."] ["Her" would be okay if you said "he was (almost) as smart as her hamster."] Since they can’t run or hide forever, she suggests a daring idea: fight back. 

 

They trap and kill a leading demon, and it’s a rush of power for two people unused to it. But the demons won’t rest until they break free and devour Earth. With every Visitor in danger, it’s hunt or be hunted. [Seems like it's hunt and be hunted.] Dulani is all business, while Milliana relishes a challenge for her intellect. But as they learn more about the realm, and each other, trying to make the most of their situation could mean endangering everyone else.  [When you're stuck in a world crawling with demons who want to steal your souls and devour Earth, your plan needs to be more specific than "Let's make the most of our situation."] [This paragraph is pretty vague. What's a leading demon? A demon leader? A prominent demon? What are the demons trying to break free from? What does being "all business" mean? If every Visitor is already in danger (sentence 3) why should D & M worry that making the most of their situation (whatever that entails) will endanger everyone?

 

Like Dulani, I’m Black, and I channel my experiences with “othering” into his and the cast’s stories. As a Research Assistant with a MS in Engineering, I find new solutions to strange problems while shouldering a lot of responsibility—just like the heroes of this story. 

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Author's note: The title MEMORANDUM comes from the main characters using concepts like memory as sources of power while fighting back against a thought experiment they were tricked into at their lowest. [Wait, there is an actual alternate world with demons, right? It's not that the kids believe this because they've been tricked into participating in a thought experiment? That would be a different query (and possibly a cooler story.)] 

Notes
It's hard to believe the vast number of demons it would take to devour Earth could be defeated by two teenagers. We need something about their powers in the query, preferably something more specific than they use concepts like memory as sources of power. 
Apparently Milliana is the smarter of the two main characters. This will please female readers, who want to see someone like themselves solving the puzzles. Which is why Milliana maybe should be the Black character, to please the Black readers who want to see the Black character solving problems requiring intellect. Dulani's the muscle.
This assumes, of course, that you're set on having male and female / Black and White MCs. And that the work required to make such a change would be worth it.

A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake ...

  

A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake plots.

https://evileditor.blogspot.com/p/que...

Two titles in the query queue need your amusing fake pl...

  

Two titles in the query queue need your amusing fake plots.

https://evileditor.blogspot.com/p/que...