Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

The Last Remain- ing Light

1. Huddled around the last, dim, electric bulb as the power slowly fades away, the townspeople of Kennebunk, Maine realize that maybe renewable energy would have been a good idea back in the 80s.

2. Orphan Caroline Light has to defeat erotic vampires, a school yard bully, and two handsome but disdainful wizards, in order to claim her inheritance.

3. Shipwrecked in the desert, Paula is befriended by an unusually intelligent camel who guides her to "civilization"--a land swarming with zombies.

4. Tilly Fluppy is confused. Should she light her last remaining match and smoke her first cigarette? Or should she just forget smoking and save that match for the gasoline-soaked bodies of her schoolmates?

5. Marooned on a deserted island with only the contents of the duty free trolley for sustenance, the group from Nicotine Anonymous eye each other warily. Who will triumph and get his hands on that one last match?

6. Lotty Pearl thought seven hundred candles would make her bedroom look more romantic. When the fire blew out the last transformer, her house cast a romantic light over the whole town.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Paula wakes up in the middle of the desert without food or water and her only memory is of the tragic shipwreck that dumped her ashore. [They say desert shipwrecks are the worst kind.]


She is immediately befriended by an unusually intelligent camel, [From what I've heard, that's an oxymoron. By which I mean camels are morons.] [Any camel that knows which end the food goes in and which end it comes out is an unusually intelligent camel.] and with his guidance she sets off to find civilization. A blistering journey across the desert places her in a foreign land hostile to both her country and gender; using her plain looks and foreign stature to her advantage, she disguises herself as a teenage male. [Not sure what foreign stature means.]

Taking up work as a contract mercenary, [You're lost, hungry, sunburned, and penniless. Solution: become a contract mercenary?] Paula discovers that all is not well in the land. The undead [Also known as the alive.] walk freely in certain, ever expanding unholy plots and a vault full of secret, dangerous artifacts turns up missing. [If the book has zombies, can we not call them zombies? Do you know how long the minions have to wait between zombie books? Only to have you call them "the undead?"] [Calling zombies "the undead" is like calling werewolves "the unbald."] Paula's proximity to the crime places her under the local Sheik's suspicion, but when a Djinn offers to sell her a magic amulet that matches a ring and dagger she found, she knows that someone has singled her out. [I don't see the connection between what comes before the "but" and what comes after it.] [Also, just because you were in the proximity doesn't mean you could have carried off a four-ton vault. And if you did carry it off, you wouldn't be in the proximity anymore.]

But why? Together with a politically estranged caravan guard and two old friends, [Old friends? From her past? What are they doing here?] Paula sets off to follow a series of clues embedded into the amulet, ring and dagger, all the while filling in the gaps in her memory. Her two friends, one a pirate and the other a musketeer, inform her that she is an orphan, for instance, but they offer no explanation as to why she can speak every language she encounters, instantly. [It's the universal translator. Hasn't she ever watched Star Trek?] Or why she is the only one who can truly kill the undead things lurking throughout the land.

Paula's adventure climaxes in an ancient temple, under which lies a giant crystal maze. [I never saw the Lara Croft movies. This isn't the plot to one of those, is it?] At the apex of the maze, she discovers a vital clue to her past, unveiling her as nothing less than the daughter of an ancient goddess of war--the magical artifacts she'd found were drawn to her, to be used in a glorious resurrection. [No goddess would let her daughter be friends with a pirate.]

But when the Djinn appears, wielding the stolen artifacts, he offers Paula an ultimatum. Become a mortal vessel for his dark god, or die…[I'm guessing she finds a third option.] [Is she mortal? She's the daughter of an ancient goddess. How long has she been around?]

This novel, The Last Remaining Light, is complete at 100,000 words. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely Yours,


Notes

Well, it's all plot, and while a lot of plot isn't always a bad thing, this sounds crazier than it probably is. I'd cut out the camel and the mercenary job, and redo the plot description concentrating on the artifacts.

I can't tell whether it's fantasy (magic amulet), adventure (pirate), horror (zombies), children's (talking camel), mystery (embedded clues), litfic (the title), or inspirational (glorious resurrection). Agents and editors want to know whom you see as your audience. Possibly everyone. But in trying to show the book's appeal to everyone, you may clutter the query with junk that doesn't work.


Selected Comments

Novelust said...I get it. A sort of Twelfth Night meets Laybrinth meets Aladdin meets Diablo thing. *blink*


HawkOwl said...I'd guess it's a children's book. It sounds like it could be completely fabulous, but most likely isn't. The query doesn't inspire confidence. However, if I were an agent, I'd read the first couple pages and see if it's well-written.


pookel said...This sounds like a fun B-movie. Don't know how it would work as a book. It also sounds a LOT like a Nanowrimo novel. Pirates? Oh yeah. Not that there's anything wrong with Nanowrimo novels, it just sounds like this one needs another few edits to turn into a real plot.


acd said...Oh, wow. This query is packed with awesome elements that make absolutely no sense together.

I think you might have the same problem on this query that I did on mine, author: wanting to sell it on cool points. Cool points are--well, cool--but you need to sell the book on its story. I suggest taking a good look at what the story is about. It's not about zombies and intelligent camels and pirates, although those are awesome. It's about Paula learning where she came from. If she goes about this via the artifacts, then take EE's advice and focus the query on those.

I'd read it if you could convince me that it makes sense. I'm willing to beta it, if you need; my email is in my blog. Good luck!


whitemouse said...Author, your love of sparkly-awesome plot ideas seems to be getting in the way of you putting together a coherent and believable plot. I see a list of events in this query, but I don't see how they could possibly lead from one to the next in a logical fashion. In fact, the sheer density of cliched or desperately unlikely events makes me think I'd never be able to suspend my sense of disbelief while reading this book.

I hope the book itself makes more sense than is implied here, because your query makes it sound like seven kinds of crazy.

I'd recommend really thinking out cause and effect for all the major plot points in your novel, and then rewriting the query to stress how one thing leads to another. Currently, I can't follow what's going on.


Evil Minion 213.34 said...Heheh. That was my query. I'm famous now.

This version is really, really dated now. Six versions later, I define the plot and leave all the weird details out, and it reads like a semi-coherent fantasy query.


Cathy Writes Romance said...This story requires imagination, and you have it, along with determination. One thing I've heard published authors say over-and-over is to not let others critique you out of your story. Don't remove the edges, which include something as imaginative as a magic camel.
Evil Editor is right in that you need to make your query letter emphasize your imagination and the characters in this story and then reapproach the query. Repost, please.

It's a charming idea that needs to be promoted better in the query.


MaryKaye said...I assumed at the top of the query that Paula was from our world, and became increasingly puzzled with the plot summary until I finally realized that she (probably) wasn't. You might want to address this somehow--or maybe I'm the only one who was confused by it.


Anonymous said...All I'd really like to know is what, if any, connection there is between the story and its title - I can't parse that out of the query at all.


writtenwyrdd said...I agree with hawkowl, it sounds like it could be completely fabulous, but probably isn't. (Well said!)
One problem, as EE points out, is that the elements describe about every genre out there. This gives me the sense of Terry Pratchett's wacky comedic books about Discworld. If that's what you are aiming for, author, go for it. But if you aren't aiming for comedy, perhaps consider whether the elements you have in mind actually bring something to the quest for her memories and the 'glorious resurrection'.

BTW, "glorious resurrection" - Ech. Perhaps a new term?


Mazement said...Re: Plot #4. There's a variation on this dilemma at the end of the movie "Heathers". The solution is to light the schoolmates with the match and then light the cigarette with the schoolmates.


HawkOwl said...Why couldn't you just light the corpses and then use the same match to light the cigarette? Or vice-versa?


Anonymous said...Way too little challenge in that; you see, the classmates weren't corpses when they were lit on fire. They were chattering gasoline-drenched teenagers. The trick was to let the explosion light the cigarette.


Anonymous said...Corpses? Such a lack of PC-ness. The term is "pulse challenged," people!