Evil Editor's Blog, page 99

Face-Lift 1208

Guess the Plot

Not Fully Human

1. Okay, okay, not at all human. It's a dog. But those cute expressions and the thoughts I feel certain he's thinking have convinced me he's just like you or me. Like the way he stares at me when I'm eating, as if he's looking into my very soul. He's always there for me when I need a friend, unlike my cheating bastard husband. I mean, which one is really the animal?

2. Sixteen year old Hunter has never truly belonged in her Colorado High School. So when fae prince Jukuluyuh appears to tell her she's really, half-fae, she gets as bored of this goddamned plot as everyone else and shoots his pansy ass.

3. Genetically altered with Neanderthal DNA and kept in a holding center with other human/Neanderthals, Mea escapes and vows to help all Neanderthalia have equality with the humans who buy and sell them.

4. Sharee longs to shed her gills and tail to be able to walk on dry land like a regular girl, but then wouldn't life be dull if she could no longer lure ships onto rocks and watch sailors drown. What to do?

5. Ethiel, a half human, half demon hybrid has stayed too long in the human world and is losing her powers. She planned to return to the netherworld months ago to rest and recharge, but she did the dumbest thing a hybrid could ever do. She fell in love. Now with that foolishness over, she heads home, but when she reaches the gates, all the guards see is a human. She consults the inter-world hag, who tells her love is changing her DNA and if she doesn't gain access to the netherworld soon she will--horrors!--become completely human.

6. It's another day in the life of a cyborg everyone thinks is human. Watch him bathe out of boredom, try to eat, admire human women, sort of smoke a cigarette, and parkour with ease around DUMBO. Until he meets Jeanette. What's love? Do they feel it?



Original Version

Genetically altered with Neanderthal DNA to correct multiple life threatening defects, Mea Gifford is faster, stronger, and has heightened sensory perceptions. [NFW.]

Two years ago, a plague linked to genetic engineering led to violent unrest. To quell the violence, all NFH were made wards in Holding Centers. [As you have yet to mention anything with the initials NFH, I'm forced to visit AcronymFinder.com, where the most likely candidate is Neighbors from Hell. Although, based on the first paragraph, I'm inclined to go with Neanderthal-Female Hybrid.]

Mea and Carrie Mathews, her friend and fellow NFH look after each other at the Ardmore Holding Center  [AHC]. So when Carrie discovers management’s plan to sell Mea on the black market, they escape to Paradise Valley, Texas.

Expecting a short stay, Mea is unprepared to find friends, a budding romance, [But should she tell her new crush that she's a Neanderthal? Or should she risk that he'll find out from someone else? If this is her dilemma, I can suggest a better title: I married a Neanderthal.] and a job she loves [as a wooly mammoth rancher].

Everything is perfect, except Paradise has a missing teen problem, and that is a problem she can’t ignore. [Is Mea a teen?]

Brashly pursuing leads, Mea triggers a deadly game of cat and mouse which results in her capture and torture [Apparently she was the mouse.] when she interrupts the plans of her creator, Dr. Sean Adams and the Assistant Director of the Ardmore Holding Center, Dr. Dianne Meyers to experiment on and sell NFH. [Is there a big market for pet Neanderthals?] [The one place they escape to just happens to be the place from which the mad scientists are kidnapping Neanderthals to sell to . . . those who want Neanderthals?]

Pushed to her limits and with her abilities suppressed, Mea fights not only to free herself and the teens, but to stop Dr. Adams from covering his tracks by killing everyone in Paradise. [All of which would be easier for Mea if they hadn't captured her and suppressed her abilities. Is she imprisoned? How can she fight to do anything?]

NOT FULLY HUMAN, a Young Adult novel set in an alternate universe in a timeframe slightly ahead of our own. The novel is complete at 78,000 words.


Notes

It sounds like Mea could have found a better place to escape to than Paradise, which seems to be where Adams hangs out. Is he there because Paradise is where all the escaped NFHs go? If so, they need a witness protection-type system that sends each escapee to a different remote place, not a valley they can congregate in. Apparently, the speed, strength and sensory perception that Neanderthal DNA gives NFHs also gives them Neanderthal intelligence.

DNA experimentation goes on in our universe and in our time. What is it about this book that requires an alternate universe/time setting?

We need Mea's age and why she chose Paradise to escape to. Also, who buys NFHs on the black market, and why do they want them? As slaves to do the housework? As soldiers to help take over the world?

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Cartoons for Super-Intellectuals

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COPS!

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SexToons II

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SexToons I





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Jesus Christ!





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Face-Lift 1207

Guess the Plot

If Only You Knew

1. The autobiography of a thermometer that has seen far too many openings.
2. Ostracized for throwing up on a basketball player, Melissa vows to get revenge on all of her high school classmates by creating an app that they must all pay for.

3. I could tell you things. Things so secret you’d simply lie down on the floor and die. But I’m not the kind to talk. When people tell me a secret, you can bet the farm it’ll go to the grave with me. By the way… could you loosen these ropes a bit? They’re cutting off my circulation. Wait… what’re you doing with that branding iron? No, wait. I’ll talk. I’ll tell you anything you wanna know. All you gotta do is ask. I don’t hold back. I say tell everyone everything, and it’ll all work out in the end. We’re all friends here, right? Wait…

4. In a peer-review, only you came through
But don’t misconstrue the Phillips-head screw
And why only you can get cheese fondue
To pass on through to the Kung Fu kazoo
Only me and you… and a dog named Boo.
If only you knew how new was the gnu
Then you, too, could chew the glue with a shrew.
In Kalamazoo, I threw him a shoe,
But Boo’s in a stew, and mooed in my brew.

5. If only Dolly the sheep knew how to spell. Then she could have effectively pointed out the murderer of nearly half the herd. With only rams left, it was up to Dolly and her littermate, Polly, to solve the crime. With blood pouring out of her entrails, Dolly tried to spell ewe, but...
6. ...what EE has used his slush manuscripts for. Will they continue to get stacked around his bathroom and thrust into his fireplace, or will he find one that tickles his fancy? Not recommended for readers with moral codes, or weak stomachs. 

Original Version
Seventeen-year-old Melissa Stratten’s classmates won’t stop whispering about the time she puked on a senior basketball player.
[Pssst! Remember the time Melissa Stratten puked on the basketball player?Yeah. What was that, cafeteria chili?I think it was hot dogs and beans.I bet he was sorry he wore white pants that day.Anyway, what else you wanna whisper about?Nothing, let's keep whispering about this pivotal, overriding event in our school's history.]
So when her best friend Jack suggests they create an app based on school rumors, an ostracized Melissa desperately wants revenge on her classmates. [This is the plot of Carrie, except instead of killing people and burning down the school she creates an app.] "Chaos" anonymously gives everyone at school access to the hottest dirt. [She was thrilled with her accomplishment until she installed the app on he iPhone and discovered 90% of it was devoted to the time she puked on the basketball player.] Every student’s personal secrets are spun into one giant microblog; [Opposite of giant microblog: tiny megablog.] Chaos is school gossip taken to the extreme. Melissa wants Chaos to be so epic students will pay for it, and she can put her coding experience on college applications. [Among my passions and extracurricular activities are basketball and competitive eating. I also wrote the code for an app that allowed me to exact revenge on all my classmates.]
Then Melissa finds out Jack wants to use Chaos to publish a sex tape of a teacher with a student. If she goes along with Jack, the student’s reputation will be ruined -- just like Melissa’s. [Actually, the student's reputation will be enhanced if the teacher was Ms. Sommers. Or that hunky chemistry teacher.]
But, the more Melissa pushes Jack to kill Chaos, the more paranoid and threatening he becomes, planting drugs in her locker and pinning the entire app, and the video, on her. Melissa has to stop Jack before she ends up expelled, or else she can kiss her college dreams goodbye. [Stopping Jack would seem secondary to getting rid of the teacher who's having sex with a student.]
IF ONLY YOU KNEW, is a 60,000 word YA contemporary novel.  It will appeal to fans of ABC Family’s Revenge for it's theme of betrayal and The Social Network for it's  intellectual property battle.  Thank you for your consideration.  The complete manuscript is available upon request. 


Notes

High school kids have a reputation for being self-centered, but your heroine's dilemma should be whether to ruin the teacher by posting the video or by bringing the evidence to the principal or the school board, and she chooses the latter to protect the reputation of her classmate (presumably one of the classmates she wanted revenge on). Possibly this is how the story goes, but by stressing Melissa's motivation to keep from being expelled and ignoring the teacher's villainy, the query doesn't make Melissa a particularly sympathetic character.

A teacher is having sex with a student but the other students won't stop whispering about the time someone threw up on a basketball player? This just sounds like two different schools, high school and sixth grade.

I'm not sure how you mean the title, but unless "only you" is supposed to mean you and no one else, If You Only Knew removes the ambiguity.

Ostracization for throwing up would last only until someone spills soda on the front of his pants. I think Melissa needs to do something more humiliating.

Does Melissa have access to all her classmates' personal secrets? Or are the rumors to be provided by the classmates themselves? 

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1182 has posted a revision in the comments there, and awaits your input.

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