Evil Editor's Blog, page 77

Face-Lift 1266

Guess the Plot

One Day I Will

1. ...finish that goddamn novel I started for Nanowrimo five years ago, because I always liked that one character but could never quite find the right plot to fit, and now I think I have finally found one that will work.

2. Morton is five. You're five. Right now, Mommy is reading you a book about Morton's mommy telling him he'll do all kinds of cool and big things someday. It feels like you're going to be stuck at five forever. Yes, it's metafiction for the kid lit crowd.

3. Faye has a loveless marriage, hates her friends, and works at Kmart. Understandably, she's suicidal. Then she remembers her longtime dream of becoming a published author and starts working on a novel. If that doesn't push her over the edge, nothing will.

4. ...be a big movie star. Or a professional golfer. Or president. Or at least rich. Or popular. But not today. Today I'm just gonna surf the Internet for cat videos.

5. ...find a husband and start a family. That's what Marion's been telling herself for two decades as she's climbed the corporate ladder while working twelve-hour days. Is it too late?



Original Version

Dear Mr. Evil Editor:

Please consider representing my 70,000-word Women‘s Fiction book [, title]. I’ve researched your agency through Writer’s Market and saw [see] that you handle women’s and literary fiction. [I'd dump this paragraph, put the word count with the title in the next paragraph and change "a mainstream novel" in the next paragraph to "women's fiction."]

One Day I Will is a mainstream novel in a similar vein to Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar or the movie The Good Girl. It is the story of a young woman who must find a way to correct the mistakes she has made in order to improve her life and to save herself from a path of irreversible decline. [I'd move this paragraph to the end. It's general. We're much more interested in the specifics in your plot summary. Also, when you compare your book to Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar or the movie The Good Girl, all I think is: Suicidal poet and romantic comedy actress Jennifer Anniston. If you must compare to something, choose one, preferably a book.]

Faye Harris, a neurotic but cynical and sharp-tongued woman, witnesses a horrific car accident that nearly kills four teenagers. This catalyst leads Faye to question the course of her own life. [Those four teenagers nearly died; I never should have majored in English.] She realizes that it’s been ten years since she graduated high school. Back then she was eagerly ready for anything. Anything but how her life turned out. The bad choices she made over the last decade plague her: marrying young, forgoing college, and relinquishing her dream of being a published novelist. [Aha! So this is autobiographical.] [You have to be a novelist before you can be a published novelist. Has she written a novel?] Her indecision has left her poor, unsuccessful, and complacent. [Bad decisions aren't indecision.]

She now struggles through a loveless marriage to Aaron, the insecure and jealous type, whose idea of a good time is a night of binge drinking and video games. She suffers at a menial and hellish retail job at Kmart, unappreciated by her bitter and chain-smoking boss Mary. The friends she has she hates: her next-door neighbors Matt and Nikki Sweeney, their epic, drunken fights worthy of the show Cops. [If nothing else, reading an entire book about this miserable dispirited woman is sure to make anyone feel better about their own life.] Plus, she feels alienated from her family: her shallow mother Jaclyn and her drug-addled brother Zack--the closest person Faye has to a confidant. 

Faye becomes desperate to find meaning in her life again. She returns to night school and bonds with a fellow classmate who later breaks her heart. Eventually she falls into a suicidal depression [I'm starting to fall into a suicidal depression. Maybe some binge drinking and video games will cheer me up.] and endeavors the cathartic task of finally writing her novel. [Uh oh. I was hoping for at least a mildly uplifting ending, but this is looking bad.] But if she can’t find a way to set things right, [What things?] she will lose herself forever and be doomed to live and die in her small, sheltered town and within her dismal marriage. [Please don't kill yourself. Many of the Evil Minions have been where you are. Tell her, people.]

Set against the backdrop of rural Maryland, One Day I Will explores the strength found in following one’s dreams and in the redemptive powers of art. Female readers will especially enjoy this book and relate to Faye’s universal hardship of a marriage gone bad and of finding love again after years of numbness. [Females who can relate to a marriage gone bad are those who've been in a marriage gone bad. Not a small number, but hardly universal.]

Thank you for your consideration.



Notes

The whole query is about how miserable Faye's life is. You can do that in one paragraph. I can do it in one sentence (After a decade of bad decisions, Faye Harris now struggles through  a loveless marriage and a hellish retail job at Kmart, friendless and alienated from her family.) but you shouldn't try that at home. 

Condensing the misery leaves room to show us how the book explores the strength found in following one’s dreams and in the redemptive powers of art and finding love again after years of numbness. Was the night school classmate an example of finding love again? Or is there a new love you haven't mentioned? Because that first fling didn't exactly turn out well. Is writing her novel an example of the redemptive powers of art? In what way? What's the novel about? Does she try to get it published? If so, how can that possibly make her any less depressed than she already is?

Writing a novel while also holding down a job is going to take a lot of time. She's in a suicidal depression now. I hope she gets some help to get her over the low points.

Maybe it should be called literary fiction. Do you have a story? In which things happen? Basically, a woman tries to find meaning in life by writing a novel? Unless there are some major events you haven't mentioned, I think you need to focus more on what it is Faye has to set right and how she plans to do that. 

Help Wanted

Dear Evil Editor,

The thing about the guess-the-plots is that there are a lot of gems that get missed, since they're not the plot the query is about. This one is from Face-Lift 1222, Kidblog:

Eight-year-old Ricky starts a blog dealing with life at Fontana Elementary school. Tough tests, tough teachers, Tough-Luck Bobby (Maria likes Finn). Meanwhile, mommyblogger Cindy Sharon starts a blog about raising her home-schooled genderneutral child Moon as a vaccine free, gluten free, and religion free vegan. Everything's fine until Ricky and Moon email each other.

I thought this one would be a pretty cool MG novel if the characters were aged up a bit. (Say, from eight to eleven/twelve.) Thing is, realistic fiction is not my forte. So, if the blog readers have any suggestions for a plot I'd be really thankful.

Sincerely,
Minion #621

Q & A

Hey Evil--

Instead of just query letters for novels, maybe you should request that people float their writing ideas in general past the Minions. Got an idea for a story, book, screenplay, Nanovel? Give it a query and send it out for the minions to chomp on. Maybe it will get more material incoming.

Not sure if you mean people should write the query letters for works they haven't finished (or even started), in order to get feedback on the concept rather than the query letter, while also getting feedback on what would be a rough draft of the query letter assuming the book turns out the way they currently envision it--in which case they would be sending standard query letters, or if you mean they should just lay out the concept (not in query-letter format) to get our opinions on how they can improve it or whether they should even bother trying.
I'm okay with either. Anyone who wants input from EE and his minions about anything you're writing or considering writing or have no intention of writing, don't be shy. 

EE is not responsible for anything that happens to anyone as a result of this policy. 

Face-Lift 1265

Guess the Plot

A Byte of Happiness

1. R2D2 and C3PO finally consummate their forbidden love, now that droid marriage is legal on Endor.

2. The adventures of Carl, the Carnivorous Computer.

3. 7 bits was not enough, so Meka-R17 goes on a quest to the Citadel of Code to finally achieve a full byte of happiness. 

4. Lonely Gerald Haney constructs a robot he hopes to mass-market as a nanny, chef, or ???? As he's preparing to meet with investors, his beloved cat dies. His tears fall on a porous surface of Prototype 2.0, a chemical reaction takes place, and suddenly 2.0 is begging Gerald not to duplicate or sell her.

5. When Esmerelda sneaks into her brother's room to find out why he's so obsessed with his old computer from 1998, she gets sucked into the monitor, and ends up trapped in one of his games. Will her brother make her stay, or help her bring home a hidden treasure?

6. Harry Cuza has nearly broken the code for hacking the Bank of Romania database. He only needs one more character, but with 256 choices, he's afraid the wrong value will bring Interpol to his door. Instead it brings the Vampire Apocalypse.

7. As the only woman in her software engineering department, Morgan gets no respect from her coworkers or her boss. Well, except Roger. How can she justify bringing down the company with a sexual harassment lawsuit when she can barely keep her clothes on when Roger's around?  



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

In 1998, with Internet technologies gaining momentum, Morgan Turner discovers that her recently acquired electrical engineering degree is enough to get her unexpectedly reassigned to a software department on her first day of work. [What department was she originally assigned to? Did they hire her not knowing she had this degree?]

She is the only female engineer in the entire department, and her new coworkers’ reactions range from apathetic to hostile regarding her lack of programming knowledge and, not that they would admit it, her gender. [Being apathetic about her gender is a good thing, right?] Her oppressive boss, Dave, makes it clear from her first day that he views her as the team’s secretary, which forces her to fight for every scrap of technical work she gets. [No one wants her there, and it's not even her field, and presumably the department she was originally hired by needs her. Whose decision was it that she should be reassigned?] One of the established software architects, Roger, becomes her advocate, and what begins as a mentorship evolves into a deeper connection.

Morgan is determined to be accepted in her male-dominated team, and to keep her clothes on around Roger. If she succumbs to temptation, she might find her promising career [You haven't made her career sound at all promising.] over before it even begins. [The first rule of the software department is: You don't take your clothes off around Roger. The second rule of the software department is: You don't take your clothes off around Roger.]

A BYTE OF HAPPINESS is a completed, fun, [If you want us to know it's fun, show is in your plot summary.] coming of age, [What age is Morgan "coming of"? She's already an adult. Does the book begin when she's a kid? Even if it does, I wouldn't call it this unless you show the arc of her growth in the query.] 108,000 word women’s fiction novel. It will appeal to fans of Sophia Kinsella [Sophie. Not knowing how the author you're comparing your book to spells her name may suggest that you've never actually read her books.] and Jennifer Weiner, while adding the comical, collegial interactions reminiscent of The Office. [If the book is comical, showing it with an amusing event or a lighter tone is better than mentioning a TV show.] It features a strong female protagonist in a STEM field. [You've shown us this; no need to tell us. Though you could make the "strong" part more obvious. She does fight for work and she's determined and she resists, but I worry that Roger will be instrumental in her success. What does she accomplish through her strength?] Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


Notes

It's well-written, but it's not exactly compelling. All you've done is describe the situation Morgan finds herself in at the beginning (I assume) of the book. We want to know some of the important things that happen. Aka the plot. Do you have a story to tell? 

What's Morgan's main goal? To change the mindset of the company so other women don't experience what she has? To gain the acceptance of the men in her department? To punish the sexists who are making her miserable? What's her plan for achieving her main goal? What goes wrong? Does she have a Plan B? What will happen if that fails?

Condense your entire summary into one three-sentence paragraph (possibly starting with the first sentence of my Guess the Plot). That'll leave room for two more paragraphs telling us what happens in your book.

Pluto!!

This image of Pluto you've probably seen by now.



But thanks to relatively primitive technology known as the magnifying glass, I've been able to take a closer look at the photograph. Specifically I zoomed in on the rectangular area marked below.



What I found looks like more than the expected rock formations and desert tundras.


In fact, using a microscope set on low power, I managed to get the following shot from near the center of the previous shot:

Looks like some kind of crystal formations.



This next one was on medium power:



And on high power:






I photographed this image, then blew up the section in the upper right corner:






Another zoom into that upper right corner, plus photo enhancement, revealed:

What's Trending Now

Sometimes I look at what's trending on Twitter and think, how can THAT be trending? I never heard of it. For instance, right now Anoop Soni is trending. So I click on it and apparently he's an Indian celebrity who is being mocked for some reason, except I don't get any of the jokes. Which makes me realize American tweets make as little sense to the rest of the world as theirs do to us. Still it's fun to imagine what the joke is.


5H4L1N ‏@SickBamboo  15m15 minutes agoAnoop Soni is the new Alok Nath today.0 retweets1 favoriteReply Retweet Favorite1FollowMoreBabu Bhaiya ‏@Shahrcasm  17m17 minutes agoWhat do you call an Irritating Anoop Soni ? Anoob Soni !!Asawari Dharap ‏@me_luminescent  26m26 minutes agoOnce Anoop Soni walked in to a bar.......... during shooting of crime patrol.Tushar ‏@Tushar3004  37m37 minutes ago@thisiskrishna @coolfunnytshirt anoop soni's odometer snapshot that memorable day View photo0 retweets0 favoritesReply Retweet FavoriteFollowMorePiyush ‏@PJ_CRACKER  44m44 minutes agoAnoop soni likes to walk in the rains coz he likes walking.0 retweets1 favoriteReply Retweet Favorite1FollowMoreAnup Soni ‏@Anupsonicp  53m53 minutes ago:-) RT"@faiyaz29: When .@Anupsonicp takes his dog for a walk..his dog sits on the bench and Anoop Soni walks.[image error]

Book Sale

The queries and openings aren't exactly rolling in, which means this blog is on its last legs, which means I gotta get rid of the excess books on my shelves. So I've reduced the prices of most of the books in the Evil Editor Bookstore by about $5.00. Not that big a deal on the big color books, but considering that the shipping costs are included in the prices, the less expensive books  (Novel Deviations, Why You Don't Get Published, Evil Editor Teaches School) are now ultra-affordable.

Because shipping is included, these prices are good in US only.



Also, good news for those who don't wish to pay the high cost of Evil Editor's graphic novel Schliegelman Saves the Universe. It's now available as an ebook for your iPad. That's how Blurb, who printed the books, describes it, but I have no trouble viewing it on my desk computer screen, so it's probably viewable on any device. You pay $2.99 in the bookstore and I send you the code or link or whatever it is to let you read it on your screen.

New Beginning 1028

Inside her first clubhouse, Lacy Dawn glanced over fifth grade spelling words for tomorrow’s quiz at school. She already knew all the words in the textbook and most others in any human language.

Nothing’s more important than an education.

The clubhouse was a cardboard box in the front yard that her grandmother's new refrigerator had occupied until an hour before. Her father brought it home for her to play in.

The nicest thing he's ever done.

Faith lay beside her with a hand over the words and split fingers to cheat as they were called off. She lived in the next house up the hollow. Every other Wednesday for the last two months, the supervised child psychologist came to their school, pulled her out of class, and evaluated suspected learning disabilities. Lacy Dawn underlined a word with a fingernail.

All she needs is a little motivation.

Before they had crawled in, Lacy Dawn tapped the upper corner of the box with a flashlight and proclaimed, "The place of all things possible -- especially you passing the fifth grade so we'll be together in the sixth."

Please concentrate, Faith. Try this one.

"Armadillo."

"A, R, M, … A … D, I, L, D, O," Faith demonstrated her intellect.

"That's weak. This is a bonus word so you’ll get extra points. Come on."

Lacy Dawn nodded and looked for a new word.

I’ll trick her by going out of order – a word she can't turn into another punch line.

But something had changed.

Faith began rattling off the vocabulary words: "pianist," "Uranus," "mainstream," while Lacy Dawn did her best to make them funny: P, E, N, I, S . . . . Y, O, U, R,   A, N, U, S . . .  W, A, N, K, C, H, E, E, S, E.

They stopped.

"We've switched bodies," said Faith. "Hey! Now I can pass math!"

Lacy Dawn nodded. She suddenly saw her future. Now she was dumb enough for the boys to like her.


Opening: Robert Eggleton.....Continuation: Khazar-khum

Feedback Request

Dear EE,

Thanks so much for the review. It’s enlightening (and unsettling) to see the assumptions I made for the reader in the name of brevity. Of course you would think Hayworth escaped with the girl that moment in the mail truck. Of course you would wonder why the girl didn’t just grab the money and jump on an airplane…and on. Some things still don’t work; the eight year old daughter (and grandparents) while crucial to the story are too complicated for the query. The search for the safe combination (and discovery of sex traffickers names and numbers along with policemen and politicians)—too complicated. Already it seems too long; I’m just hoping you will be good enough to tell me if the intro still sounds like “some far-fetched events contrived by the author just to get the characters together”.

THE MAILMAN (Working title, as there’s another story by that name I’ve learned). 64, 000 words. My background is advertising, not sex trafficking. (Yes, I’ve put attractive women in ads and commercials but they were always clothed.) I’ve researched sex trafficking quite thoroughly, with particular interest in the psychology that invades the girls’ minds—most of the time, but not always.



Ex-Marine MP Trevor Hayworth is subbing as a postal carrier in San Diego and struggling to make ends meet. While he’s delivering the mail, a pretty young woman begs him to come into the house, where she reveals massive bruises up and down her back. She says she was taken from her family in San Salvador seven years previously and sold to sex traffickers. Now she’s being kept in the house by a sex trafficking boss, who makes her wear an ankle monitor so he can watch her when he steps out. She noticed Hayworth’s Marine tattoo previously and hopes he is the one to help her escape and drive her to Tucson, where she’s learned her parents now live. [I'm getting the impression the mail is regularly delivered to the front door of this house. Are we in the 1950s? Isn't there a mailbox out by the street?]  Hayworth wants to call the police. Alarmed, she says she is illegal and they will send her back to San Salvador where she will die and, besides, her captor is friends with a top policeman and provides him with young girls. Then the girl’s captor walks in. 

The man orders Hayworth out of his house, insisting things are not what they seem. Hayworth finishes his route, all the while thinking about the girl’s back and her palpable fear and asking himself the question: “When are you going to learn you can’t fix things?” [It seems like he'd be asking himself, "How can you do nothing when this girl begged you for help?"]

Instead of going home after work, Hayworth drives to the girl’s house. Under the cover of darkness, he scrapes paint off a basement window and sees the girl naked and chained to a wall. [Which looks bad until he remembers that the captor said things are not what they seem.] He stops reminding himself he gave up playing hero and goes back to his pickup for tools.

Hours later, Hayworth and the [naked] girl are on the run, leaving behind a dead man, an empty safe, and their old lives. [As far as the girl is concerned, she left behind her old life seven years ago, not hours ago.] Chasing them are sex trafficking thugs, corrupt cops, and a newspaper reporter who moonlights as a contract killer. Everyone wants the money and no one wants them alive. 


Notes

Why doesn't the captor chain the girl in the basement when he steps out? The ankle bracelet won't keep her from running out to the street when she sees a taxi approaching and getting a ride to a shelter or  . . . Tucson.

Assuming the reporter is chasing her as a contract killer, who hired him? If the sex trafficking thugs hired him, why are they chasing her? Usually when you hire a contract killer it's because you don't want to be around when the killing takes place. As the contract killer knows about the money, was he told that the money was his fee? A smart contract killer isn't going to agree to terms that state he must kill someone in return for which he gets to keep whatever money she has on her. She might have ditched the money by the time he kills her, or he'd be worried there never was any money, and the thugs tricked him into doing their dirty work for nothing.  

If everything actually is as it seems, maybe the girl should yell to the mailman from a window, asking for help. Getting him to come into the house and showing him her bruises and ankle bracelet and the captor coming in and trying to sell the vague explanation that all is not as it seems, and then apparently hoping the mailman won't alert the authorities to what he's seen . . .

The first paragraph has too much info. Something like this would suffice, even if it's not exactly what happens:

While working as a postal carrier in San Diego, Ex-Marine MP Trevor Hayworth hears a woman calling to him from a second-story window. She begs him for rescue from the sex trafficker holding her captive. Before Trevor can respond, the girl is yanked away from the window and the shade is drawn.

Hayworth finishes his route, all the while thinking about the girl’s palpable fear . . .  

New Beginning 1027

My last day among the Sangi stank of trouble, even before the Acursa came. Ossilan and I downed a small dragon on the coast during our shift. Mer captains took a second one, close to Beach City. We held a joint bonfire celebration that night, attended by the gray-skinned Sangi of the wood—my adopted people—and by landwalking merfolk, who could turn tail to legs.

One of Jaire's friends added a log to our fire, raising sparks. Lord Grat Theldier cursed, brushed sparks from his tunic. Raising his head, he sniffed the wind. I sensed it too. Something in the air felt off, thicker. Like gathering magic. The celebrating throng trailed off their noise and looked north. Something was coming. I glanced at the sky and saw what looked like a hurtling, spiraling star coming our direction.

Lord Grat Theldier stood. "Move away from the fires."

The crowd broke apart; merfolk dashing for water and Sangi moving up the hill toward the trees. I joined the back of the Sangi throng. The great light swooped over our heads, making our shadows grow long, and slammed into the ground with a boom that shook the earth and echoed off the cliffs. A mer baby gave a shriek of terror that cut off with a splash.

I took a calming breath, drew Denara, and turned to face the light. There at the fire where I'd sat with Jaire stood the Acursa.

I circled warily, Denara before me in a two-handed grip. I could hear the crunch of twigs as the Sangi behind me found positions in the shadow-shrouded trees. They would not help with this, nor would the merfolk who watched from the shallows near the shore. This enemy had come for me, and me alone.

Behind the light, a portal opened and a dragon emerged, taller and uglier than those seen earlier in the day. It took two tentative steps toward me and stopped, sniffing the air and wrinkling its snout in disgust. “What the hell are you burning?” it said. “And put down that stick.”

“This is Denara!” I shouted, brandishing it menacingly. “It is a mighty weapon!”

“It’s a stick,” the dragon said. “Put it down and get over here.”

“I will draw no closer to the Acursa!” I cried.

“Acura,” the dragon said. “It’s an Acura. And seriously, did you kids build a marijuana bonfire? Where's your camp counselor?"

I looked around me. Lord Grat Theldier and the others had vanished, perhaps for good. The dragon rose taller, and its voice deepened dangerously. “Get in the car!” it roared.

Terrified in the face of its fury, I had no choice but to lower Denara and comply with the dragon’s command. “Fine,” I muttered. “But on the way home, can we stop for snacks?”


Opening: Rebecca Kellogg.....Continuation: Joe Mosher