Evil Editor's Blog, page 71

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1281 has posted a new version in the comments there and invites your feedback.

Eight Days of Halloween Films Dredged Up from the Vault

#8

Eight Days of Halloween Films Dredged Up from the Vault

#7

Face-Lift 1283

Guess the Plot

The Graveyard Festival

1. All the dead 70s rock stars try to recreate The Woodstock Festival. Simon Cowell, Britney Spears and Aretha appear.

2. Thana sleeps in graveyards. Why not, there's plenty of peace and quiet there. Or at least there was until this damn traveling carnival set up shop. Oh well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. 

3. Vampires, demons, and witches join forces to change their image. They collect Christmas toys for poor children, take kids on trips to Disneyland, and raise funds to fight childhood diseases. And every month on the thirteenth, they hold a graveyard marshmallow and weenie roast. But everybody is not pleased. The League of Paranormal Publishers hires slayers to brutalize the undead until they return to their scary ways. 

4. Dancing under the full moon was so romantic. It was fun to see everyone in their antique clothes and old-time hairstyles. Not everyone held it together until the break of dawn, but some were so fresh and vibrant ... and sex under the stars was exquisite. Too bad I have to spend the whole next day re-burying everyone.

5. Elijah was a real bastard! Cheap, arrogant, and petty. Everyone in town had a grievance. When he finally died, the town decided it was time to celebrate and decided to dance on his grave. They weren't ready for what would follow.

6. It's time for Halloween! All the kids in the cemetery will gather for a festive, fun night of scaring teenagers, making a racket, and screwing up paranormal investigators' equipment.


Original Version

Sixteen-year-old Thana sleeps in graveyards [In different graveyards? Does she have parents? Because if she were my daughter, I'd want her sleeping in the closest graveyard, not some randomly chosen graveyard across town.] and crafts surreal dreams for those who want them. [Does she craft them in the graveyard? While sleeping? That's kind of what it sounds like you're saying. If that's not it, maybe we don't need to know where she sleeps in sentence one.] The dreams she creates are so vivid and detailed that they may as well be real. [When I'm having that dream where I'm being tortured by Borgo the Disemboweler, no matter how vivid it is, I never wake and think it may as well have been real.] For the inhabitants of the town nearby, Thana’s dreams are drugs. [I have lots of questions, and you don't have room to answer them, but here goes: Does she sell the dreams? Does she have to be present while the recipient is sleeping? If I go to her at noon and say I want to have a surreal dream tonight,  does she cast a spell? Give me a potion? Does she put together the entire "plot" of the dream while I wait, or just cause me to have a dream whose plot she knows nothing about? Can I tell her what I want to dream about? How long does it take her to create a dream for me?]

When the Graveyard Festival arrives in her cemetery [By "her cemetery" do you mean the one she always sleeps in or the one she happens to be sleeping in that night?] in the middle of the night, Thana meets Jonathan, a mysterious boy with tattoos he can bring to life. [Is that like in The Illustrated Man, which would be similar to Thana's dream creation, or is it more like the snake tattoo will bite you if you get too close?] By sunrise, Thana is a member of the traveling carnival that moves from cemetery to cemetery. [How's the attendance at these middle-of-the-night carnivals in cemeteries? Do they put up posters so the locals know the festival's in town?] Her dream-crafting abilities do what the Festival does best: catering to every whimsical fancy one may have. [My whimsical fantasy in the middle of the night is getting some sleep, which is why I bought a house next to the quietest place in town, the cemetery. And now there's a frigging carnival going on?]

But the Graveyard Festival isn’t just a carnival—its members guard the gates to the land of the dead, and something has gotten past them. Jonathan believes Thana is the key to returning the demon back to where it belongs, but as her dreams turn to nightmares that come to life, Thana can’t control her devilish creations. 

Something ruthless is within her, and is dying to get out.

THE GRAVEYARD FESTIVAL is a young adult fantasy novel complete at 69,000 words. I believe it will appeal to lovers of Erin Morgenstern’s THE NIGHT CIRCUS and the dark magic of SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES[i].[/i] [An odd failed attempt to italicize a period?] {You forgot to include The Graveyard Book.]

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

If your book is similar to The Night Circus, which is pretty low on plot, this isn't bad. But it sounds like it's mostly setup for the escaped demon story, which is barely (and vaguely) mentioned. If you condense the setup to something like:

16-year-old Thana has the power to create vivid dreams for those who want them. When the Graveyard Festival--a traveling carnival that caters to every whimsical fancy one may have--comes to town and sets up in the local cemetery, it's a perfect match. They want her talent, and she wants to get out of her podunk little town.

...you'll have extra room to tell us about Jonathan and what the demon is doing and how they plan to send the demon back and what goes wrong and what will happen if they fail. In other words, your story.

Eight Days of Halloween Films Dredged Up from the Vault

# 6

Feedback Request

The author of the query featured in Face-Lift 1279 would like your feedback on the revision below.



To Arek Pa’Gorin, the phrase ‘like night and day’ holds extra meaning - by day he is prince of the kingdom and at night he is an assassin.

When eight-year-old Prince Arek witnesses his parents’ murders and is safeguarded by a magical spell, his mind is fragmented. From that day on, when Prince Arek falls asleep, the assassin Rykter wakes. And neither is aware of the other. [So Rykter's mind occupies Arek's body? Because it would be hard for someone in an eight-year-old body to be a successful assassin for very long. Wouldn't anyone notice the prince leaving his bedroom and slinking around with a dagger? I assume he assassinates people in their sleep, but sooner or later someone'll wake up when he enters their room, and overpowering a little kid would be easy.]

Nine years later, [If we're gonna jump ahead nine years anyway, why not have the parents get killed when Arek is fifteen? It's easier to buy a fifteen-year-old assassin. If he simply must be eight, I recommend not revealing his age in the query. Does anything crucial happen while Arek is eight or nine years old besides his parents' deaths?] Lord Regent Zander sees his rule coming to an end as Prince Arek nears his eighteenth birthday. He devises a plan to lengthen his reign indefinitely, which includes hiring an assassin to kill the Prince. The assassin Rykter, carrying his vampiric Blood Blade, goes to the royal chambers to kill the Prince, but the room is empty but oddly familiar. When Rykter removes his mask in front of a mirror, he and Prince Arek come face to face for the first time. [Does this mask just appear on Arek's face when he falls asleep? And for nine years he's never removed it to look at his face? How does he know the face in the mirror is Arek's? I assume Rykter doesn't assassinate someone every night; does he have friends, hobbies, a life? Is there an all-night bowling alley in the village?]

Unable to accuse the Lord Regent without outing himself as an assassin, Prince Arek flees. Pursued by mercenaries and mutated creatures, he must reach sanctuary. But he cannot run from Rykter. Prince Arek must face his dark side, because along the way he uncovers a secret - he carries the key to humanity’s salvation, or its destruction.

THE BLOOD BLADE is an 81,000 word YA Fantasy with crossover potential that will appeal to fans of Melina Marchetta’s The Lumatere Series as well as Brent Weeks’ Night Angel Trilogy. The story can stand on its own, but is intended as a series.


Notes

It's better. You don't have to address my issues, which are plot-related rather than query-related, if you feel it's unlikely they'll be issues with the agent. 

Eight Days of Halloween Films Dredged Up from the Vault

#5

Synopsis 46

Synopsis of Not Another Child (Query in previous post)


Somewhere in modern day Canada, an imprisoned child feels abandoned.

An infamous paedophile is being released from prison. To avoid demonstrators he is flown to Ottawa airport where he is killed by a sniper bullet. Janice Williams, head of the RCMP Sex Crime Division is assigned to a task force where [when] evidence shows that the killer is an insider.

Janice surfs the deep web to find a pedophile, “stchris”, who she is hunting and has kidnapped four children and killed three, the fourth is still missing. [Was that supposed to be a sentence?]

Janice’s friend Laura Lamour plays the part of a victim in a Coast Guard training exercise and is an expert in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for emergency workers. She is Janice’s anchor. [Nice insertion of maritime terminology for the woman who had a part in a Coast Guard training exercise, but I don't see this exercise as a vital part of the plot description.]

A few more pedophiles are murdered in different locations across the country. This brings a lot of attention to the issue of child abuse and the public begin to lobby for harsher laws. [No one cares about the abused kids, but when the abusers get murdered there's an uproar.] 

Janice’s squad identifies the “stchris”  [Anagram: Christ's] killer and heads to Sudbury, Ontario. The priest is found murdered [What priest?] and the child is rescued. [Is this the imprisoned child who felt abandoned in modern-day Canada? I assume we're getting back to that kid at some point.] 

Janice returns to Ottawa and briefs the task force that there are more than twenty-five murdered pedophiles. [Reminds me of the old lawyer joke. What do you call 25 murdered pedophiles? A good start.]  Janice, Kilgour and Forbes go over case files to look for clues and decide to set a trap. [You toss out the names Kilgour and Forbes as if we know who they are.]  The killer avoids the trap and kills a pedophile under police surveillance [Killer avoiding your trap: embarrassing. Killer killing someone while avoiding your trap: priceless.]

Janice relives the trauma of her own abuse and how she rose above it.

On a northern Quebec reservation, a small child is raped and beaten and left to die but is found and hospitalized while the rapist is arrested. Laura responds to the reserve to counsel the affected responders and the community members.

Janice’s team follow up leads with passenger lists [Passengers of what?] while also planning a raid for an individual that wants to have sex with a twelve-year-old. The planned take down becomes rough but thanks to the skills of a new recruit, two men are taken into custody.

Laura learns about the Residential School system from one of the Elders which might explain the violence and abuse with her people. The Elder tells Laura that she will fight for the innocent.

One of Janice’s team accuses her of suppressing information and that the passenger list clearly identified Laura Amour as the killer. [It's so much easier to capture killers in Canada where they're identified as killers on passenger lists.]  [Also, is her last name Lamour or Amour?] Janice asks both her teammates [to give her?] until morning to convince Laura to turn herself in. Janice meets Laura and realizes that Laura will not stop her crusade.

Janice and Kilgour attend the trail [trial] for Lapointe, the abuser from the Reserve to protect him from Laura. However she is in Victoria B.C. hunting an international child pornographer. [Just because you can't convince a killer to turn herself in doesn't mean you have to let her travel across the country.]

The government caves into [in to] public pressure for tougher legislation and penalties.

After the trial, Janice and Kilgour transport Lapointe to the airport in Val-d’or, Quebec for his flight to Montreal. Using insider information, Laura is ready when the flight lands in Montreal and is able to kill Lapointe and avoid capture. Janice and Kilgour are suspended for their failure [utter incompetence]. The Minister puts Forbes in charge and tells him to ensure that Laura does not make it to trial. [The Minister?]

Laura calls Janice and Forbes’s people are able to track the call to her apartment. [You screwed up when you made that phone call Laura. We never would have thought to look for you at . . . your apartment.] Forbes has the elite anti-terrorist group assault Laura’s Montreal apartment. [But even they allow her to escape capture.]

Laura plans to escape to the U.S. with the help of a First Nation Reserve cigarette smuggler. To avoid detection, the entire reserve launches their boats from the reserve towards the U.S. border, however through deductive reasoning; Forbes predicts where they will make landfall and enters U.S. airspace. [She's on a boat heading for land so he enters air space? I assume if the reserve is sending dozens of boats, and Laura is on one of them, they're sending them to different locations, so that Forbes won't know where to wait. He deduces which boat she's on?] 

After arriving on the U.S. soil, she is confronted by Forbes, Janice and Kilgour. Forbes reveals that the government wishes her dead, something he refuses to do and offers future cooperation. [What? Cooperation in killing pedophiles?]

Epilogue

Janice has spent months on a Caribbean island rejuvenating but is ready to resume the hunt, possibly in Europe. [What hunt?]


Notes

I recommend submitting to agents who don't require a synopsis. 

Failing that, get rid of anything that isn't essential so you can provide more detail about  what is essential. 

If Laura is still free at the end of the book, maybe she should be the main character.  Readers are more likely to sympathize with a woman who murders pedophiles than with a woman who tries to stop her. You won't even need Janice. A series of books about a vigilante killer of pedophiles would be . . . 

Hmm, a Googling of "vigilante killer of pedophiles novel" reveals there are a few such books already. But they probably aren't about Canadian vigilante killers of pedophiles.

Face-Lift 1282

Guess the Plot

Not Another Child

1. Police officer Janice is supposed to help bring down a serial killer of pedophiles, but she's torn. Sure, a commendation would be nice, but if she holds off a few weeks on capturing the killer, he'll have time to send a few more abusers to hell. Maybe it's time to go on vacation.

2. Ogard is a troll and Malfeasia, his wife, is the wicked witch of the forest. Ogard comes home late on a Friday as Mallie is stuffing one of the neighbor's boys into the oven. Ogard attacks her and she casts spells in all directions. Several forest folk die in the chaos. But prosecutors take Mallie's side and send Ogard to the slammer where he becomes the star linebacker on the prison football team.

3. When Clarissa's daughter is murdered, she starts the Not Another Child foundation. Donations pour in. When her daughter comes home, very much alive, will she announce the good news--or make sure the donations don't stop?

4. Nineteen kids, and counting. Nineteen! Sure, the TV show money helps pay some of the bills, but do you have any idea how much these kids eat? I can't even remember half their friggin' names. I swear, if he comes near me with that thing again, I'm cutting it off. Well ... maybe one more.

5. When a two-month-old infant is left on a pawn broker's doorstep, the over 5,000 members of the American Pawnbrokers' Association decide to raise this one as their own. Now Faust must prove he's the baby's daddy before Lucifer finds out he's got competition in the used souls market.

6. Youtube was made for movie trailers, instructions on making the MS Word bullets and numbering feature work, and Russian hood-cam footage, not your "cute" baby videos. A hard-hitting, wide-ranging look at the explosion of sickening terabytes of giggling kids, fighting kids, singing kids, etc. that is slowly destroying the Internet.

7. After hearing that his wife would like to have another child to add to their twenty children, Dillon goes to outlandish lengths to avoid both his wife and the wedding bed.

8. This nonfiction expose of the U.S. educational system comprises a series of first-person accounts of elementary school teachers. It focuses on the growth of average classroom size from 2 children per classroom in 1900 to an anticipated 67 in 2020, and the heretofore undocumented stress this uncontrollable increase has on teachers.


Original Version

Dear Agent,

I would like to submit my thriller novel, NOT ANOTHER CHILD, complete at 84,000 words for your consideration. It is the story of Canadian Police Officer, [No need to capitalize a person's occupation. True, I capitalize "Editor," but that's because it's my last name.] Janice [Jones?], who is assigned to a task force to hunt down and capture a killer. The killer has targeted a well-documented and abhorrent pedophile as he is released from prison. Evidence points to someone in the justice system and the kill rate is growing. [This isn't clear. Are you saying a serial killer who's been killing at an ever-increasing rate has declared his/her intention to kill a specific pedophile as he is released from prison? Or are you saying someone killed a pedophile as he was being released from prison, and that killer has since gone on to kill more people? Seems a bit stupid to announce the time and place of your next murder, so I'd normally assume the latter. But the tense of the 3rd sentence (has targeted as he is released, rather than targeted as he was released) suggests the opposite.] [I'd be interested to know if the other murder victims were also pedophiles.]

Abused as a child, Janice has overcome the trauma but it has left its mark. [In fact, it's left quite a few marks.] She is obsessed with stopping the abuse of children. She has always believed in the Law but admits that the killer’s solution is more decisive and permanent. The abuse victims never have to worry about a repeat assault. When the killer leaves Janice a note with the latest victim, Janice realizes that the killer is close to her. [Geographically close, or it's someone she knows? What's in the note?] She will need to keep her head on a swivel, to figure who she can trust and where the killer will strike next. [Keeping her head on a swivel might keep the killer from sneaking up on her, but I don't see how it will tell her whom to trust or where the killer will strike next.] 

Recently retired as a Deputy Fire Chief, I have experience with PTSD, multi-agency task forces, arson investigations and Coroner’s Inquests and have drawn on this experience to develop my story.

Thank you for your time and consideration,


Notes

A lot of setup, but not much plot.

Not sure if this is your story, but . . .

Canadian police officer Janice Jones is assigned to a task force hunting a serial killer who, thus far, has targeted only pedophiles. A victim herself, Janice is obsessed with stopping the abuse of children. She has always believed in the Law but admits that the killer’s solution is more decisive and permanent.

When the killer leaves Janice a note with the latest victim, a note referencing Janice's childhood  trauma, she realizes she may be dealing with someone she knows, possibly someone in the justice system.


That leaves you plenty of room to tell us how Janice plans to capture the killer, what goes wrong, what will happen if plan B fails, how she deals with her dilemma.

If that isn't your story, well . . . maybe it should be.

Eight Days of Halloween Films Dredged Up from the Vault

# 4 Ghost Stories