Evil Editor's Blog, page 50

New Beginning 1069

Victor wanted to knock over the bone china dolls, the Frozen CD, and the thick blue candles that stank like sulfur. But his mentor, Mia Mathew, had spent all day arranging the offerings in front of the shrine. Biting a lip wobblier than his hands, Victor stacked Tarot cards next to the wooden offertory box. Most kids didn’t have shrines on the outskirts of Prague. They didn’t scream like a weenus if a tabby cat jumped onto an offertory box. Victor sure did, though.

He dropped the cards and fell onto his butt, scraping his palms on the stone floor. The tabby blinked big yellow eyes, belly swollen with kittens—or worms. Victor hoped she couldn’t smell fear. He was pretty sure he reeked.

Rain plip-pliped and pine trees brushed against the shrine’s domed roof. Victor almost didn’t want to breathe, afraid the smallest noise would set the cat off. When she didn’t talk, he stood, wiping his hands on his sweatpants. “Go, kitty,” Victor grumbled, shooing the tabby.

She hissed. In the evening light Victor could see incisions, crusty with scabs, under her fluffed-up fur. “You’re hurt. Um, I don’t like cats. But I’ll help.” He reached out to grab her, and other cats crept from the woods—calicos, black ones, more tabbies, ones so white they were beacons in the grass.

"Thing is, sweetie," said the cats (kinda CHORUS), "believe that humankind got any kind of dominion over felinekind and you become — immediately — a hapless phantom at the mercy of forces you can never hope to control. My advice? Shop only for supremely sugary SUGAR MICE at your supremely SUPER CLOSE sugar mice retailin' OUTLET."

The non-cats fell silent. Did some yoga. Mandala. Stuff.

It is as if some global cataclysm of change unleashed is THE ONLY THING gonna happen next.

Thankfully, in chapter 3 — musical bras!


Opening: Zombie Boy Bones.....Continuation: Whirlochre


Notes

P1: The fact that there's only one CD leads me to believe that there aren't so many candles and dolls that it would take anyone all day to arrange them. I could arrange that stuff in twenty minutes, tops.

I don't think wobbly is a good word to describe lips or hands. It's more for something with balance problems than just shaking movement.

Is this Victor's shrine? Why does he have it? If most kids don't have shrines, how can it be said that most kids don't scream if a cat jumps on an offertory box? I don't think there's enough data to state this. I think most kids would scream like a weenus. Whatever that is.

P3: Plip-plipped. Wait, he thought the cat might talk?

P4: It seems more likely, when he reaches out to grab the hissing cat, that his attention would be on the cat, who will undoubtedly try to scratch or bite him, than on the woods, from which other cats are creeping out.


Presumably this is the same book as in New Beginning 1067, but the opening to a different chapter, which might explain why we're assumed to already know Victor's age and what's going on with the shrine?

Feedback Request

Revision of Face-Lift 1288: The Feast of Masks, previous revision posted 5/7/17
---

In legend, dragons could accomplish anything with their magic if they possessed the right treasure.

Mercenary Tali Adilrein no longer trains to use dragon magic.  However, she still recognizes that Shimmer, a girl she rescues [rescued] from kidnappers, is a powerful "dragon treasure."

Tali hires on as Shimmer's bodyguard.  She thinks she'll be defending [the girl] against a corrupt mage, the kind she once might have become.

She's wrong.

An ancient dragon is working through unwitting pawns to capture Shimmer.  It influences the thoughts and actions of some.  Others carry artifacts enchanted to serve its will.

To defeat the dragon and protect Shimmer, Tali will need more than her skills as a mercenary.  She will need her own dragon magic and Shimmer's aid--even if it destroys them both.


Notes

It feels a bit sparse, but possibly only because of the short paragraphs. "She's wrong" would be okay as a separate paragraph if it were a momentous claim, but I already inferred she was wrong when you said "She thinks..." So I'd just tack "She's wrong" on the end of the previous paragraph.

You could also combine the first two paragraphs. Which then might sound better if it went ...no longer uses dragon magic, but she still...

If it's dragons that need dragon treasures to become all-powerful, why does Tali think she'll be defending Shimmer from a mage rather than a dragon?

"Her skills as a mercenary" is pretty vague. We already know she's a mercenary. What mercenary skills are we talking about? Fighting skills? Tracking skills? Camouflage?

Apparently you didn't like Ston3h3ng3's suggestion that you open with To fight (or defeat) a dragon, Tali will have to become a dragon. It would be a good 1-sentence paragraph to draw us in.

Face-Lift 1354

Guess the Plot

The Trouble with Larry

1. Larry is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. What's not to like?

2. There's always trouble. Some of it happens with Larry. Some of it happens without Larry. This is the trouble that happens with Larry. And sharks.

3. When Doug the Unyielding lets Larry move into his castle, he has no idea Larry plans to give the place a complete makeover. Absurdity ensues. Also, a chess-playing dragon.

4. Larry Sommers, a sixty-one-year-old paunchy, married, disgruntled chemistry professor can't figure out why twenty-year-old Ellie has fallen in love with him. Maybe his wife can tell him as she's signing their divorce papers. 

5. Larry inherited a very hairy problem. The very merry fairy from the prairie cursed him with a problem most glaring. He may tarry, for being quite wary, but until he locates his uncle most visionary, Larry will stay most scary.

6. An update of the classic 1955 Alfred Hitchcock film, with a corpse named Larry instead of Harry and taking place in Connecticut instead of Vermont, and one of the couples is homosexual, and the other is a vampire and a werewolf, and of course the year is 2017.

7. He hates going to the barber and only bathes once a week. It wouldn’t be a problem except Larry is worth north of a hundred million. His potential heirs decide there is only one thing to do: kill him. The trouble is that Larry is also a werewolf.


 
Original Version

'My name is Laranius, son of Lavernius' said the lich in the slightly-faded green robe. 'But everyone calls me Larry.' And with that, Larry moves into the domicile of Doug the Unyielding. [Usually you have to do more than tell him your name if you want Doug the Unyielding to surrender his guest room.]

Larry has a secret weapon of sorts: a magic bag that has [contains] everything he needs [to . . . give the castle a complete makeover? Or whatever his goal is]. Hairpins? Of course. Ballistae? Right here. Cow skull--bucrania, says Larry, [ ("bucrania," Larry calls it) ] for decorating the outer walls of the castle? Absolutely.

Larry also has many skills, such as defeating--well, not exactly defeating, but at least outplaying-- the local dragon in a game of [at] chess, redecorating the castle grounds, and dating [--according to] the halfling cook, who informs Doug that Larry knows [--doing] 'what ladies like'. [Best of all, Larry can use his magic to . . . ?]

But one question remains: what happens if Larry's bag happens to spill open? [If you leave that question to the average unimaginative literary agent, they'll probably guess that the cow skull and ballistae will get hung up on each other and won't fall out, but there'll be a few hairpins on the floor. Better to just reveal some of the chaos that results.]

The Trouble with Larry is a fantasy romp that will appeal to lovers of the absurd and bizarre. May I send Larry to you? 

Thank you[.]


Notes

You've given this the right tone, but you can do so while also summarizing the plot. Is Larry there to perform a service for Doug or for his own motives? Either way, fill us in. Is there a "trouble with Larry" up until the time his bag spills open? Can you take the story up to the point where something's at stake, and tell us what that is?

This doesn't sound like an homage to The Trouble with Harry, which may not matter, though it's somewhat like choosing a title such as What About Rob? or Life of Ryan or Larry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Feedback Request

The author of the opening featured in New Beginning 1067 has placed a revised version in the comments there, and would like your opinion.

Feedback Request

The author of the book whose opening was featured in New Beginning 1062 would like feedback on the following revision:


I stand in the meadow as a heartbeat echoes in my head. Beat by beat, it pounds to the wild rhythm of fear. People lie. Words deceive. A heartbeat is different. If I listen carefully I can always discover the truth. The truth this heart speaks is simple: everyone, no matter their race, gender, or species is afraid to die.

Down at my feet, the Arctic hare squirms, but it’s pinned by the steel-tipped javelin, jutting out of its gut. I kneel beside it and extract my spear. Blood, dark as oil, gushes out and stains the white snow. Despite the stench, I smell the scent of berries from its mouth, the fresh blackberries I used to lure [it] out in the open. The rabbit’s eagerness for a quick meal was its weakness. Uncontrollable emotions and desires will always leave me vulnerable, a lesson I learned as a twelve-year-old girl.

I brush a strand of hair out of my face before taking the creature in my hands and snapping its neck. That sound used to startle me. Even the thought of hunting made me sick. But soon the grumbling in my stomach outweighed my squeamishness and I gained a new hobby.


Notes

I would condense this to something like:

I stand in the meadow as a heartbeat echoes in my head, pounding to the wild rhythm of fear. At my feet, the Arctic hare squirms, but it’s pinned by the steel-tipped javelin jutting out of its gut. I kneel beside it and extract my spear. Blood, dark as oil, gushes out and stains the white snow. I brush a strand of hair out of my face before taking the creature in my hands and snapping its neck. That sound used to startle me, but the grumbling in my stomach always outweighed my squeamishness.


Of course you can argue that I left out vital information. There were some nitpicky things I didn't buy, and it was easy to avoid saying them. For instance:
The heartbeat of a hare doesn't allow her to generalize about everyone in every species. Some species probably don't even know death is a thing. Millions of humans commit suicide; presumably some of them welcome death. 
Any smell strong enough to be called a stench should drown out the smell of a blackberry in the mouth of a hare. 
If hunting for your food is a hobby, then I guess going to the grocery store is a hobby.
She seems to blame the hare's uncontrollable emotions and desires for its death, when for all she knows the hare was as hungry as she was. It would be cool if, just as she picked up the hare, a giant picked her up and said, "Ha, you fell into my trap, so eager for a quick meal you didn't notice that that's a mechanical hare," and ate her. (If that's what happens, you've got a winner.)

New Beginning 1068

"Elizabeth? Elizabeth! Where are you?" Mama sang from downstairs. I giggled, backing deeper beneath the bed. She won't find me here!

Just then, my door creaked open, and I heard her slippers sliding on the hardwood floor. When she walked in front of me, I covered my mouth to keep from giggling.

"Ellie? Oh my, where could that girl be?" Her laughter filled my room with joy, giving me another reason to bite down my chuckles. I squeezed my Mr. Sheep toy, holding my breath as she stood motionless. Does she know I'm here?

Mama slowly bent down until her curly locks were brushing against my rug. She peeked under the bed and smiled when she spotted me. "Found you, princess. C'mon, it's time for bed."

Her arms stretched towards me, making me back further and shake my head. "But I don't wanna!"

She smiled playfully. "Hm, I see. Then, I guess you don't want to say goodnight to your friends either? I bet they'll be real lonely sleeping in the dark without you."

"Oh, no!" Mama's right! I have to protect them from the monsters. I'm not tired yet, but that's okay. They need me.

As I started to crawl toward Mama, Mr. Sheep struggled to break free from my grasp. "I'm not getting in bed with Farmer Brown again," he said. "That guy's a pervert."


Opening: Natanne Norman.....Continuation: jcwrites

Feedback Request

The author of the book most recently featured here would like feedback on the following revision.


Hello. Because you represent New Adult, I'd like to offer for your consideration SUMMER, 1992, a love story that comes in at 89,000 words.

It's 1992 and 18-year-old singer/songwriter Angel Carlton has her life all figured out. She plans to go to college in Nashville, get a record deal, and finally get over Damon, her brilliant and elusive muse of three years. But first, she'll be spending a long-dreamed-about, unsupervised summer at her family's beach house near Ocean City, Marylandwhere she first met Damon. Her Dad has one rule: no drugs in the house. Not a problem for the straight-edge girl.

When Angel meets up with Damon again, she spends all her time with him in an attempt to fulfill her secret mission, to keep him away from his druggie friends andsave him from drug-fueled self-destruction.Though she's promised herself to keep their relationship platonic, the more time they spend together, the more she finds herself attracted to him, inspiring some of her bestsongs.

After falling in love with Damon again, drug paraphernalia is discovered in the house right before an all-important open mic, leading to a disastrous performance.By the end of the summer, Angel's world is turned upside-down, and shehas to decide between her heart and her dreams.

The story, told in diary format, alternates between 1992 and the present. The main character, now middle-aged, types up her journal from the summer of 1992 and shares it with her sixteen-year-old daughter, who has never heard of "Damon," curious to see if she can guess what it hides.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


[BTW - The story is definitely not inspirational, and I can't believe you don't know what a pot bowl is, and/or that you didn't immediately Google it. ;-) I mean, you. You Googled "Please allow me to introduce..." I liked your gif of the bowl smoking though. Also, I finished your book, "Why You Don't Got Published (Vol 1)" and loved it. Thanks again for tearing up my query.]


Notes

For some reason the space between words and sentences has disappeared in numerous places. Maybe that was an email thing.

The main change from the last version is that paragraph 4 is a condensed version, which is a good thing, but it has problems. For starters, the way it reads, the drug paraphernalia falls in love with Damon. Changing After falling in love to after Angel falls in love is one possible fix. Also, you could spell out how the discovery of drug paraphernalia leads to a disastrous open-mic performance. I can infer that Angel suspects Damon's been doing drugs in her house when she wasn't there, except that you claim she's been spending all her time with him.

I just Googled pot bowl, and found nothing. Possibly what you and your friends refer to as a pot bowl is known as something else in most places. Common drug paraphernalia would be a small pipe, a bong, rolling papers, a hookah, or DVDs of Tron, Fantasia, 2001, and Rocky Horror. Now that the term is out of the query, I recommend removing it from the book as well, as your readers will be disappointed when they try Googling it.

New Beginning 1067

Victor sat beside the tomb and decided no good gravedigger was afraid of the dark. As cold mud seeped through his sweatpants, he flicked his Spiderman flashlight on and off, passing its yellow beam over the headstones in Old Jewish Cemetery. He figured it was a good test of bravery—see if he could stand the dark for a whole ten seconds.

Prague creeped him out at night, especially when it rained. Shadows stretched from glowing lanterns. Gothic buildings looked like monsters under the cloudy sky. Victor felt better when he saw other people nearby, struggling with umbrellas or hurrying for shelter. He stood, flicked on his torch, and braced a boot against the shovel. They’d probably call him a grave robber. But he wasn’t stealing bodies, he was adding more.

“Carol,” he called softly, blinking rain out of his eyes. Hoisting his backpack off the ground and onto his shoulders, Victor sought his spirit animal—the polar bear he alone could see. Bark scraped his scarred cheek as he slunk between the trees, hoping no one noticed him.

He spotted Carol on the grass, sticking her muzzle into a bag of Doritos.

"What are you doing?" he demanded. 

Carol looked up at him. "Hey, hey, hey, Boo Boo," she said, "look what I found in this pickanick basket!" 

Opening: Zombie Boy Bones.....Continuation: khazar-khum

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1352 would like your opinion of the revision below.


Hello. Because you represent New Adult, I'd like to offer SUMMER, 1992 for your consideration, a love story that comes in at 89,000 words. [Move "for your consideration" after "offer."]

It's 1992 and 18-year-old singer/songwriter Angel Carlton has her life all figured out. She plans to go to college in Nashville, get a record deal, and finally get over Damon, her brilliant and elusive muse of three years. But first, she'll be spending a long-dreamed-about, unsupervised summer after graduation [Not clear why you didn't get rid of this. It's summer, she's 18, and she's ready to start college. We can figure out that it's after graduation. In fact, I'd get rid of "long-dreamed-about" too. It's not important.] at her family's beach house near Ocean City, Maryland[,] where she first met Damon. Her Dad has one rule: no drugs in the house. Not a problem for the straight[-]edge girl.

But because of an answered prayer, Angel believes that God has sent her to the beach to save Damon from drug-fueled self destruction before the summer's end. [As you referred to the beach summer as "long-dreamed-about," one could assume it's a vacation she planned without God's help. I mean, if Damon needs saving, God's not gonna tell Angel to go to Ocean Beach eight months from now to save him. God's gonna say, Get your ass to Ocean Beach right now.] If successful, she'll become a star; if not, she fears she may never write another song without him to continuously break her heart. [I kinda expected you to say "without him to inspire her." So she wants him to continuously break her heart?] [You know, I think I'd just drop this whole paragraph. The query's too long, and everything in this paragraph leads to questions you don't have room to answer.]

When Angel meets up with Damon again, she spends all her time with him in an attempt to keep him away from his druggie friends and fulfill her secret mission [save him from drug-fueled self-destruction]. [Obviously that change assumes you've dropped the previous paragraph.] Though she vows to keep their relationship platonic, the more he pokes holes in her surprisingly tenuous faith, the more she finds herself attracted to him, inspiring plenty of [some of her best] songs. Will she be able to [Can she] resist his influence the whole summer and remain just friends? [Is he trying to influence her to do drugs or go beyond platonic or both? Has she told him no, and if so, is he still trying to influence her?] Will she still want to?

Meanwhile, Angel's mother suspects the unapproved-of reunion and starts inviting "adult supervision." [I know it's not how it goes, but it would be more concise if it read "Angel's parents suspect the unapproved-of reunion and drop in unexpectedly." I don't know what you mean by sending in "adult supervision." But I can't imagine getting a phone call from someone I know asking me to drive to Ocean City, Maryland and drop in on their kid and search the place for drugs and unapproved boyfriends.] One unwelcome guest discovers a mysterious pot-smoking bowl in the house that no one is claiming, breaking Mr. Carlton's one rule. This puts Angel's music career dreams put in jeopardy, but after a disastrous open mic performance and falling back in love with Damon, will she still want it? If the bowl is Damon's, has Angel failed in her mission? Will she be forced to choose between her heart and her dreams or will Angel figure out the truth [The truth about whose pot-smoking bowl it was? Has Angel been letting people stay in the house when she wasn't there?] before her future goes up in mind-altering smoke?

The story, told in diary format, alternates between 1992 and the present. The main character, now middle-aged, types up her journal from the summer of 1992 and shares it with her sixteen-year-old daughter, who has never heard of "Damon," curious to see if she can guess what it hides without being told. [It would be pretty easy to guess if she were told.] 

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

The query mentions God, faith, prayer . . . plus Angel, Damon . . . and the previous version told of a cross that was a direct channel to God. But you haven't said anything about the inspirational genre. Would those into religious novels like this or hate it? If the former, you might want to focus on agents who handle inspirational books, and mention the genre in the query.

I'd rather the query stuck with Angel and Damon, and left mom and her spies out. Let Angel discover the pot-smoking bowl in the query. What is a pot-smoking bowl? You fill a bowl with weed and everyone leans over it and takes deep breaths? Or . . . 

Feedback Request

The author of the query most recently seen here would like feedback on the following version:


When a paranormal police officer spares three criminal kids, twelve-year-old Victor becomes her apprentice, charged with keeping the world’s weird creatures in line. As he explores his mentor’s home with his spirit bear, who’s ruder than Victor thinks spirits should be, he opens a door that says DO NOT ENTER. Behind it he discovers things as odd as they are amazing—and even more dangerous. After getting scolded, Victor vows to become better at helping and less good at causing trouble.

He rescues an injured witch named Hugo. By sheltering him from the White Man, a kidnapper with a strange brand on his body, Victor puts his teammates in danger. He has no idea what the White Man’s the Devil brand means. Until him [he] and his friends are [each] marked as [with] one of the Major Arcana Tarot cards. As if dealing with nocturnal zombies and a vengeful fairy army wasn’t hard enough, Victor accidentally creates a thunderstorm and starts detecting lies. [That he starts detecting lies isn't worth mentioning, as it raises questions you don't have room to answer.] 

The White Man needs the Tarot cards’ power in order to teach Hugo Apocalypse, a spell that would alter the world as they know it. If other paranormal officers find out Hugo’s card lets him reshape reality, Victor knows they’ll eliminate the witch. [How is it that Victor and the White Man know Hugo can reshape reality (whatever that means) but no one else knows?] Victor likes Hugo—maybe even likes likes him. To protect him from their enemies and allies, he’ll have to hide Hugo’s true nature and defeat the White Man. But if he can’t rein in his new powers, the Tarot card’s magic will [could] kill him before Apocalypse does.


Notes

P1: This reads like it's Victor who's charged with keeping the world’s weird creatures in line. I assume it's the paranormal police officer--though it seems more like a job for the head of an organization than for one officer. This episode with the spirit bear and the Do Not Enter room is taking up a lot of space just to explain why Victor is going to be a conscientious worker. We don't need it. You can just let us assume he chooses that over going to jail. This is not an improvement over the opening paragraph I suggested.

P2. It's a rare person who would see Tarot card brands on a few people's skin and note that they are specifically Major Arcana Tarot cards. Most people, including those who know major from minor, would just say Tarot card.