Evil Editor's Blog, page 409

Guess the Title

Religious Book Edition

The book descriptions below were excerpted from the Barnes and Noble web site. Below each description are six titles, one of which is the book's actual title, and five of which were created by the Evil Minions. Which titles are real?

Answers at bottom of post


1. With the Bible in hand, the author sets off to spend a year attempting to follow the innumerous laws of Scripture in order to achieve the supposed claim of fundamentalists who say the Bible should be taken literall...

Success Story

Rich Ochoa reports that as a result of advice/shredding he received on Face-Lift 323 he reworked his query, changed his title (to One Way Ticket to Anywhere), and has landed a good agent. No doubt I'll be reporting the book's publication at a future date.

Twitter Tweeters

If you're on Twitter and you have followers who are aspiring authors, you might consider tweeting about the dearth of query letters awaiting critique at Evil Editor's blog.

Cartoon 470

Caption: Evil Editor
Your caption on the next cartoon! Link in sidebar.

Writing Exercise Results . . .

. . . are in the posts below. The task was to write a scene in which you pitch a novel to Evil Editor while employing numerous bad analogies.

Bad Analogy Pitch Session 7

"Hi Evil Editor," the aspiring author said, his voice squeaking like the brakes on a '73 Plymouth Fury I once owned. "I know your time is valuable, so I'm gonna cut to the chase like a Bowie knife through a lamb spleen. I've written a novel I think you'll find as riveting as a Native American on a skyscraper I-beam. It opens with a fireworks display of ennui, progresses through a flash flood of pathos, and closes in a tsunami of tuna and salami sandwiches. Think cocaine on steroids."

"Interest...

Bad Analogy Pitch Session 6

I made a beeline for him like a bee makes a line for whatever. He sat in his chair, which was as tiny as Miss Snark's heart and made him on the chair look like a fat guy's paunch when he's wearing tight pants and a short shirt. Speaking of which, he was—double whammy. But after today we'd only call and email, so best get a move on and bag me an editor—tag and release, like they do with polar bears.

"Four minutes, 34 seconds."

I smiled big and sat. "Well, my manuscript is like a fish in the Arct...

Bad Analogy Pitch Session 5

My novel is a masterpiece, like a Picasso painting except it's like he used words instead of colors and punctuation instead of lines. Oh, and I wrote it, not him.

The plot races forward like a cheetah going after a wounded gazelle, except this has nothing to do with animals, it's about people and ghosts. But the ghosts aren't your standard ghosts at all. Instead of having spooky ghosts that scare you like a trip to the dentist, these ghosts are trapped souls that are in a roach motel but they ...

Bad Analogy Pitch Session 4

"Mr. Editor. I've written a great fantasy novel I think will interest you. The main character, Todd, is an eighteen year old boy who is really hot, like if Brad Pitt married Russell Crowe and they had kids – except that they can't really do that because they're two peas in the same pod, if you know what I mean. Anyway, he meets this princess from another world, but they flee the castle to escape a wizard who's way evil, like the Grinch on meth with more magic than a bag of tricks.

"So the two ...

Bad Analogy Pitch Session 3

"Fresh doyo-no-ushinohi for lunch, delicious," EE mumbled. Dirk, resplendent in madras shorts, Ed Hardy shirt and clogs, jumped up and down in the elevator like a game show contestant.

"It's YOU," he shrieked. "My novel is a love story. Not that anyone dies of a fatal disease and inspires Al Gore but a best-times and worst-times sort of... without songs like Les Miserables. A real father and son story in a post-nuclear wasteland without blood, violence and shark's jaws like the Chicken Little ...