Face-Lift 1560

Guess the Plot

The Skyward Sea

1. When the sea is accidentally lifted into the sky, it's up to one guy to put things right, but first he'll have to contend with land sharks and mutant sea creatures. Also, zombies.

2. Atlantis and LGBTQA+ mermen/maids in a Hamlet-esque plot with a dash of Macbeth and a sprinkle of Apollo 13.

3. Global warming happened, and sea levels rose, and everyone's feet got wet. The icebergs melted, and the water rose to our waists. Everything we thought would happen has happened, but now it's up to our necks and somehow it keeps getting worse. It's not just climate change, it's . . . glub glub glub.

4.  Apparently the earth has sprung a leak and nobody knows where all the water is coming from. Now it's up to Mario the plumber to find and fix the problem before we all become extras in a remake of the worst Kevin Costner film.

Original Version

Dear [agent],

I am seeking representation for THE SKYWARD SEA, a high fantasy complete at 115,000 words. 

A young artist cheats the blood pact protecting his island, accidentally lifts the sea into the sky, and crosses a mutant-infested seafloor to reverse the catastrophe – only to choose between saving his home and reclaiming the family stolen from him. [This paragraph isn't needed, as it's all repeated below.]

It will appeal to readers of Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang, Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup, and The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. I saw that you’re interested and [TOPIC] and thought it might be a fit for you. [This paragraph could be tacked onto the first sentence, or placed after the plot summary.]

Orran Rast doesn’t want to inherit his late mother’s blood pact. He’d rather be scamming tourists with inkmancy, the ancestral magic [tattoos] he’s supposed to hide from the Eternal Order. But his bloodline is the only thing keeping his uncle’s zombies away from his Order-controlled island home.

When Orran cheats the pact, he triggers a magical cataclysm that lifts the sea into the sky, leaving behind twisted sea creatures that now hunt in the open air. [I see two problems here. 1. The sea cannot be lifted into the sky. 2, The only sea creature that can hunt in the open air is Aquaman.]

Orran crosses the exposed seabed to bargain with his sorcerous uncle, Keltzus, in hopes of reversing the catastrophe. With land sharks and flying squid ahead of him and the Eternal Order’s inquisitors on his tail, Orran will need more than trickery to survive. He’ll need to break the inkmancer’s taboo against using blood to fuel magic.  [The decision to walk hundreds of miles through muck and seaweed and rotting fish, with a trillion tons of water floating above him that could surrender to gravity at any moment, just to get to his uncle, who has zombie bodyguards, seems ill-advised.]

But when Orran uncovers the massacre that scarred his family, he’ll need to make a choice: he can save his island, or sacrifice it to resurrect the mother he lost. [I recently read a book in which a guy resurrected his mother, and . .. . let's just say your guy should save his island.]

I am a Toronto-based writer with 3,000+ published news stories as a professional journalist. My fiction blends the snappy prose of my reporting career with the world- and character-building I love in everything from Star Wars and the MCU to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Moana, the Locke & Key comics, Dungeons & Dragons and video games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Mass Effect 2.m [A list with more than three items becomes boring. And having already listed three comp titles, there's little value to also listing games and movies and comics.]

THE SKYWARD SEA is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

There's too much stuff here (which might be okay if it were billed as a comedy with comp titles by Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett). Just when one thing is brought up that I'd like more information about, we switch to another topic. Questions that might occur to the reader:

What is the blood pact, and what constitutes cheating it?

Why would someone with magic powers use them just to scam tourists? There's way more money in scamming the government.

Who declared that inkmancy should be hidden from the Eternal Order?

His uncle "has" zombies? Why?

How could zombies get to his island home? Are they swimming zombies?

If the sea were lifted into the sky, wouldn't the sea creatures be lifted with it?

Do all the vessels on the sea get lifted or do they fall to the seabed after it rises through them?

If the catastrophe is reversed, does all the water just drop onto whatever's beneath it, crushing them?

Why can't Orran save his home and resurrect his mother?

Whose blood does Orran plan to use to fuel his inkmancy?

Is the sea constantly above the seabed, or does it move, like clouds? I ask because I wouldn't want to wake up one morning in Iowa and find an ocean hovering over me. There'd be mass hysteria.

Am I saying you need to answer all these questions in the query? YES! Wait, NO! I'm saying if you don't mention the tourists and the zombies and the flying squid, the agent might not be wondering whether you've thought all this stuff through. Unless, at the beginning of the query, you put a disclaimer saying, Before you ask, the answer to all your questions is: Magic.

Usually we expect our hero to solve a problem the villain caused before we all die. But here our hero is the one who caused the problem, and his uncle is the one who's gonna solve it. 

Surely the uncle, on the other side of the sea, has noticed that the sea is in the sky, and will probably have fixed it, long before Orran finishes slogging through muck for months to get to him. 

Orran's goal seems to be to get back the family he lost, but he spends most of the book thinking his goal is to fix his blunder. At least Dorothy and Frodo believed getting to Emerald City and Mount Doom would let them accomplish their goals.

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1559 would like feedback on the following version of the query.

 Dear XXX

I am seeking representation for The Black Bear Inn, an 85,000-word mystery set on Minnesota’s rugged North Shore. For readers who enjoy Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera and None of This is True by Lisa Jewell, this novel combines atmospheric small-town suspicion, a framed protagonist, and a media-driven investigation.

Out of options, self-proclaimed city girl Adeline Sinclair reluctantly returns to her family cabin on Lake Superior, accepting a job at the Black Bear Inn. For the first time in her life, she’s accepted into a friend group thanks to her charming manager, Val Grant, but her fresh start is threatened when a stack of photos and [No need to mention photos if you don't say what they depict.] a note addressed to Val arrives at the Inn: Stay out of it. [Maybe that message should be in all caps.] Val is cagey when pressed for answers, and days later, Val goes missing. Adeline turns to Val’s boyfriend for comfort, unable to deny her feelings for him. [It seems to me Val's boyfriend is more likely to need comforting than Val's employee.] When Val’s body washes up on shore with suspicious injuries, and a photo of Adeline kissing Val’s boyfriend surfaces online, the community accuses Adeline of Val’s murder. 

Once again, Adeline’s left alone, grappling with guilt. Desperate to clear her name, she [joins forces with Jackson Thorne,} follows the clues Val unknowingly left behind, confronting Jackson Thorne, a guest at the Inn: a true crime podcaster [who'd been] working with Val to uncover crimes against women on the North Shore. Adeline joins forces with Jackson, and together they discover another woman has vanished, just as the police are closing in on Adeline. Now a formal suspect, she [Adeline realizes she’s being framed by the one person who’s claimed to believe her. But can she prove it] must uncover what Val was about to expose before the police arrest her--and before the killer can silence her?—a killer would do anything to silence the missing woman who turns up dead—before she’s arrested for a crime she didn’t commit. Adeline discovers she’s being framed by the one person who’s claimed to believe her, but who will believe an outsider? 

(Bio)

Thank you for your time and consideration! I would be delighted to provide you with the full manuscript upon request. 

Notes

It's better now, with more specific information. 

I'm not convinced Adeline would be unable to deny her feelings for Val's boyfriend at this point. It undoubtedly makes sense in the book, but as this is a mystery, it might be better to leave the romantic angle out of the query.]

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1558 would like feedback on the following version of the query letter:

Dear [agent],

 

Please consider my debut novel: HUNGERS ENTWINED. 90k words. Literary Suspense. Ten intimate, slow-burn character studies explore the sources and consequences of the hungers in our souls. Intricately woven into the backdrop of a sophisticated spy thriller, rapidly unfolding across four intense days.

 

Simone surveils her assets from her secret perch, high above the symphony crowd. She knows them all so well. Months of intricate planning and impeccable grooming have allowed Simone to exploit their true hungers. Mere pawns to be played [pushed? Moved? Promoted?] in the greatest heist of her storied career. Her last ride. It all ends tonight. [Is she a chess player or a cowboy?] 

 

The final scene lays out [lies?] clearly before her eyes. Her deft manipulations have revealed which strings to pull, and when. To wit:

 

• Laurie’s hunger for earth justice has driven her to invent TAMAR, a miraculous cure for global warming [process that transforms deadly greenhouse gases into life-giving water];
• which has fanned Peter’s hunger for entrepreneurial fame, hoping that TAMAR may catapult his startup to untold riches;
• which has tickled Jade’s hunger for erotic adventure, enticing her to pry the secrets of TAMAR from Peter’s gullible patent attorney;
• which has triggered Neil’s hunger for warped redemption, sacrificing his Pentagon career to weaponize TAMAR for a clandestine sale to the Russians;
• which has fueled Jenny’s hunger for revenge, burning her husband Peter, while counter-selling the malevolent TAMAR to the Chinese.

Simone’s orchestration of this complex web of deceit, betrayal, seduction, greed, and blackmail has culminated in a superpower bidding war, for which she stands to claim the ultimate prize. If all goes according to plan tonight, she will win her grand final escapade, hang up her spurs, and ride off into the sunset, with sweet Jade’s loving arms wrapped around her torso.

 

If all goes according to plan.

 

Simone’s perspective is interwoven with the nine remaining portraits to present a rich tapestry, in which each character wrestles with the conflicts spawned by their own hungers. Evoking the eloquently entwined renderings [That's your opinion; let the agent form her own opinion about your renderings.] in Emily St. John Mandel's The Glass Hotel; the time-layered multi-point-of-view reveals of Liz Moore's The God of the Woods; and the exciting international intrigue of Daniel Silva's The Collector.

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

It's a big improvement. 

I don't think you need Jade in the query. Seducing a gullible patent attorney isn't likely to satisfy anyone's hunger for erotic adventure. And Simone, who considers the other characters her "assets," doesn't need anyone's arms wrapped around her torso. (I assume Jade is not the "ultimate prize.") Plus, it's a stretch to say without explanation that Jade's seduction of this attorney triggered Neil to commit treason.

In the beginning you say the character studies are woven into a spy thriller. At the end you say they're woven into s tapestry. That's a lot of weaving, especially combined with the entwining of the renderings and the title.

It seems odd that Jenny has access to TAMAR and connections with the Chinese. There's no room here to explain, so it might be better to leave Jenny out of the query too. In the book you have plenty of room to explain the connections. In the query, you don't want the agent assuming there are no reasonable explanations, just to get out of reading your book.

Face-Lift 1559

 

Guess the Plot

The Black Bear Inn

1. When she got hired to work at the Black Bear Inn, Adeline didn't expect the manager of the place to get murdered. Nor did she expect to be the prime suspect. Now she's trying to frame the guy in cabin 4, and let him worry about it..

2. Yes, there are talking bears, well.philosophizing bears but it is aimed at adults, not children, and is as quotable as Friedrich Nietzsche.

3. Snowed in at The Black Bear Inn, seven strangers find themselves trapped with a killer when a guest is found murdered. With phones dead, a relaxing retreat becomes a fight for survival. Also, an actual black bear.

4. With a limited number of caves available for bear hibernations, two women open a bear hotel in Wyoming to address the bear housing shortage. Their venture is a financial success, and they sell out to Google for a billion dollars. An American success story.

Original Version

Dear XXX

I am seeking representation for The Black Bear Inn, an 85,000-word mystery set on Minnesota’s rugged North Shore. For readers who enjoy Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera and None of This is True by Lisa Jewell, this novel combines atmospheric small-town suspicion, a framed protagonist, and a media-driven investigation.

After a failed engagement and career in teaching, Adeline Sinclair has no choice but to leave the city and move into her estranged parents’ cabin on Lake Superior,  [Why can't she move in with one of her parents while she looks for a new job? There have to be places where even terrible teachers can get jobs. For instance, Arkansas.] only to become the prime suspect in her friend’s murder. 

When Adeline reluctantly takes a job [Doing what?] at The Black Bear Inn, [Did she apply for this job? If so, why is she reluctant to take it?] she’s charmed by outgoing manager Val Grant, who introduces Adeline to her circle. But there’s a catch—Val insists on playing matchmaker. Newly single,  Adeline is hesitant for more reasons than one, but she’s tired of being lonely. [If she's newly single, she hasn't been lonely long enough to be tired of it. She's still in the "Thank God I didn't marry that asshole" phase.] [When you say "there's a catch," it sounds like Val will introduce Adeline to her circle only if Adeline agrees to start dating Val's friends. Or is getting the job what's dependent on letting Val be matchmaker? My guess is it's a downside rather than a catch.] Their new friendship suffers when a threatening note addressed to Val arrives at the Inn: Stay out of it. Adeline suspects the mysterious guest in cabin four, who hasn’t paid the Inn a dime and won’t show their face. [I don't see why Adeline would suspect anyone. Does Adeline even know what the "it" is that Val is told to stay out of? And why would this note cause the Adeline / Val friendship to suffer?] [Also, how did the mysterious guest get into cabin 4 without showing their face?] Val refuses to explain why she’s protecting [supporting?] them, and days later, Val is found dead. [What was the cause of death?]

The community Adeline built turns on her after an intimate photo of her and Val’s boyfriend surfaces online. [She built a community? I assume we're talking about Val's "circle," to whom Adeline was just introduced right before their friendship suffered. I guess more time is passing between events than it seemed like.] Things only get worse when Adeline is seen wearing the necklace Val had on the night she died, with no explanation. [Adeline has no explanation for how Val's necklace got around her neck?] Desperate to clear her name, Adeline follows the mysterious guest staying in cabin four: Jackson Thorne, a true crime podcaster. When she finally finds him, [If she's following him, she doesn't have to find him. He's right up ahead. She confronts him.] she learns Jackson and Val struck a secret deal before her death. [What is the deal? Let me stay here for free and I'll plug the inn on my podcast?] As suspicion tightens and another woman disappears, Adeline realizes Val’s murder is only the beginning. To prove her innocence, she must uncover what Val was about to expose—before the killer decides Adeline knows too much. [If she uncovers what Val was about to expose, the killer will definitely decide she knows too much. It might be nice if we were given a hint as to what the crime being exposed is.]

(Bio) 

Notes

It may be more a thriller than a mystery. Are there several suspects, each with their own motive for murdering Val? What is Adeline's supposed motive? Jealousy? The necklace? Is she suspected by the police, or just her community? What happened with the media-driven investigation?

There's too much backstory. We don't need to know about Adeline's parents or the matchmaker aspect. We need to know what's going on. Here's an opening: 

Addie's having a rough month. First she lost her job teaching kindergarten, then her fiancé broke off their engagement, and now . . . now she's being framed for murder. The victim: Val, Addie's new boss at the Black Bear Inn, where Addie reluctantly took a job because, hey, she's got bills to pay. 

When a media-driven investigation turns up damning evidence, Val's friends all accuse Addie of the murder. Addie's pretty sure she didn't do it; she suspects the reclusive guy who's been staying in cabin 4. So she confronts him. He claims to be a true-crime podcaster, investigating a series of murders and disappearances in the area.

That leaves room to tell us what happens next. Is Adeline arrested? Does the missing woman turn up dead? Do Adeline and Jackson work together to unmask the killer? Does Jackson have a list of suspects who wanted Val dead? 

Face-Lift 1558

Guess the Plot

A Study of Hungers

1. This gastronomic history starts with paleolithic cannibalism, heads through a vegan quagmire of foraging, and returns to the variegated tastes altered by microplastics. You'll never look at food the same way again.

2. So you thought the free food samples at Costco were merely to tempt purchase behavior? Not hardly! Hidden cameras secretly record each shopper in a massive A.I. psychological experiment to exert mind control through manipulating the hungers of unsuspecting patrons so Costco can conquer the world!!

3. In a futuristic society where biological hunger is cured, citizens are legally required to develop absurd obsessions to fuel the economy. Professional "Craver" Arthur Pringle accidentally develops a passion for collecting dust, sparking a satirical revolution against a government desperate to keep everyone insatiably wanting absolutely nothing.

4. Ten main characters, each with their own hunger. One wants fame, others want money or sex, revenge, power, justice, etc. Their stories all converge. Also, global warming.

Original Version

Dear [agent], 

Please consider my debut novel: A STUDY OF HUNGERS. 90k words. Literary Suspense. Ten intimate, slow-burn character studies explore the sources and consequences of the hungers in our souls. Intricately woven into the backdrop of a sophisticated spy thriller, rapidly unfolding across four intense days.

 

Laurie’s hunger for earth justice drives her passionate quest to invent TAMAR, a miraculous cure for global warming. But she needs bête noir Peter to bring her creation from the lab to the world stage. Peter embraces the challenge, as TAMAR could catapult his startup to untold riches, feeding his hunger for entrepreneurial fame. Unless he fails to divine Simone’s treacherous game to weaponize TAMAR.

 

Simone’s hunger for manipulative conquest drives her instigation of a superpower bidding war for the corrupted TAMAR. But first, she must steal Laurie’s patent secrets. For this, Simone leans in on her tender alliance with Jade, whose hunger for erotic adventure is a perfect fit for their brazen blackmail of Peter’s gullible patent attorney, Eric. 

 

Yet exploiting Eric’s hunger for illusory fantasies is only step 1. Simone’s masterful double betrayal of Peter concludes with a duplicitous con of his beloved wife, Jenny. Through Simone’s dark bargain, Jenny’s hunger for revenge ultimately exposes the malevolent TAMAR, and the fate of the world, to Jenny’s true nemesis, her own father. [The fate of the world is in the hands of Jenny's father? He's the only character you haven't named. One minute he's a side character who's only in the book because his daughter married some advertising executive. The next minute he's Ernst Blofeld, and Simone, who I thought was the evil overlord, is just Oddjob.]

 

As each new protagonist is unwittingly drawn ever deeper into the rapidly tangling web, the swirl races toward dramatic conclusion at the symphony’s opening night gala. [Not sure what the "swirl" is. Should they be drawn into a whirlpool instead of a web?] Who may rise or fall shifts precariously with every turn. [Every turn of the page?] Each character must wrestle with the conflicts spawned by their own hungers.

 

Written to evoke the eloquently entwined renderings in Emily St. John Mandel's The Glass Hotel; [I asked Google what "eloquently entwined renderings" meant; it replied "intricately connected narratives." Not bad, but you can't use it because AI came up with it, and agents don't want anything AI, including queries.] the time-layered multi-point-of-view reveals of Liz Moore's The God of the Woods; and the exciting international intrigue of Daniel Silva's The Collector.

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

Thank you for conservatively limiting the query to only the most important characters: Laurie, Peter, Simone, Jade, Eric, Jenny, Jenny's father, and, I assume, the symphony's conductor.

When you mention the hungers of our souls, I expect less specific hungers than earth justice, entrepreneurial fame, manipulative conquest, erotic adventure, illusory fantasies. 

I'm not crazy about focusing on everyone's "hunger." Naming each character and their hunger seems like an attempt to justify your title, which I'm also not crazy about, as it sounds like an academic treatise.

Everyone has their own goal or agenda, but it may be better to focus on this as a thriller. And two or three named characters is sufficient for the query.

Here's a general idea:

When Laurie invented TAMAR, a miraculous solution to global warming, she thought she was saving the planet. She didn't expect so many people in her orbit to want a piece of the action, from the publicist to the patent attorney to anonymous investors. And then there's Simone, who wants to steal Laurie's patent secrets and weaponize TAMAR in her quest for world domination.

When Laurie realizes that in the wrong hands TAMAR is more likely to destroy the planet than save it . . . 

Well, I don't know what she does, but you can tell us how she plans to save us all from Simone. Or Jenny's father. I'd go with Simone. You might also want to work in a more specific description of what TAMAR is/does.

Possibly this won't be an accurate description of your book, but if it gets an agent to read it, they'll be so captivated by your prose that they won't even remember your query.

Face-Lift 1557

Guess the Plot

The Secret Team

1. Murdock Finch's company has gone down a few too many rabbit holes of corporate espionage. When he's assigned to a new team, he can't figure out who else is on it, where it meets, or what it does. Consequently he hasn't been to any meetings or done any work for three months and is still getting paid. Should he listen to his paranoia or just enjoy it?

2. After winning the Super Bowl, the Seattle Seahawks are preparing to attend a victory parade. when they're told they must beat one more team to be league champions, a team of mask-wearing players whose identity will not be revealed.

3. A witch, a werewolf, and a vampire walk into a bar team up to save their country from a murderous conspiracy, in hopes that they'll become famous and the country will stop hating them. They do become famous.

Original Version

Dear [AGENT], 

 I’m seeking representation for my debut novel THE SECRET TEAM: CADAVERS AND CONSPIRACIES, a 173k word YA Fantasy/Mystery with series potential. [You don't see a lot of novels with colons in the title. Is that the name of the series and the title of book 1? Also, at 173,000 words, it's already a series. Consider the number of trees that will have to die to get your book printed. Think about the agent's reaction. She has the option of spending two weeks reading your book while falling behind on her other tasks, or of just cutting and pasting an email rejection that says it's not right for her list, but it's a subjective business, and someone else may feel differently. Which would you choose?] It will appeal to readers who enjoy high fantasy trappings applied to a modern setting like The Last Dragonslayer by Patricia C. Wrede, [The Last Dragonslayer was written by Jasper Fforde, and is recommended for a somewhat younger audience than you're aiming for.] and an engaging mystery story with fantastical elements like Voyage of the Damned by Frances White. 

The year is 1994 in the country of Narthix, where gods, magic, and monsters are mundane facets of everyday life. Enter Maire Samaras, a goth seventeen-year-old studying divine magic as a cleric of the goddess of secrets, shadows, and mysteries. Maire wants nothing more than to become a career adventurer and reap every ounce of fame, glory, and prestige that comes with the title. To this end, she convinces her mother (an only semi-retired adventurer) to let her tag along with her on a mission to defeat a rogue mage attacking their neighbors. But Maire remains restless even after the mage is successfully disarmed and in custody, especially after a sweep of the crime scene turns up a dagger with an unknown symbol stamped into the blade. [I found this photo of a dagger with an unknown symbol on the blade. I'm pretty sure that's the manufacturer's logo.]

Maire’s convinced there must be a wider plot at play here. If she can solve it before anyone else, then she’ll finally have enough notoriety to apply to an adventurer’s guild. [We solve mysteries and puzzles. Plots, we . . . expose? Crush?]

 Maire’s plan has two glaring weak points. Firstly, adventuring without a license is illegal. Secondly, Narthix is a religiously conservative country that hates and fears the paranormal, [You said that in Narthix, gods, magic, and monsters are mundane facets of everyday life. People usually don't hate and fear mundane facets of their everyday lives.] and Maire is secretly a dhampir (half vampire and half human). If she’s caught while investigating, being thrown in jail is hardly the worst thing that could happen to her. The only people she trusts to assist with her investigation are her two closest friends: a fast-mouthed prodigy witch and a werewolf with plenty of book smarts to back up his strength. [Why are these three living in Narthix? Shouldn't they have moved to Canada?] But all of Maire’s plans get severely complicated when the three of them cross paths with a young paladin who belongs to a monster-hunting cult, because this chance meeting results in an incredibly shaky alliance. The paladin may be haughty, blunt, and self-righteous, but she’s chasing the exact same lead they are. Working together, the four of them start to piece together the existence of a murderous conspiracy lurking beneath Narthix’s capital city. But the more they learn, the more Maire’s forced to ask herself: is chasing personal glory really worth risking her life over?

BIO

Thank you for your consideration.

Notes

Why would Maire's mother let her tag along on a mission, knowing it's illegal, and Maire could be punished with worse than jail. I assume mom knows Maire is half vampire, as that would be pretty hard to hide from your mom, even for a goth teen. Sleeping in a coffin would be a dead giveaway.

Are dhampirs, witches, and werewolves considered monsters? Because this monster-hunting paladin seems to have hit the motherlode. 

This is mostly setup. We know where, when, who, but we don't know what happens. If it started something like:

Maire Samaras, a seventeen-year-old dhampir (half vampire, half human) studying divine magic, wants nothing more than to become a famous adventurer. But first she'll have to earn her way into an adventurer's guild. So she teams up with her closest friends, a fast-mouthed witch and a brainy werewolf. Together they set out to bust a murderous conspiracy lurking beneath the capital city.

. . . you'd have room to tell us what the conspirators are up to, how the heroes plan to stop them, what goes wrong, what crucial decision they must make, what will happen if they fail. All while keeping under 300 words. 

Help Wanted

A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake plots.

https://evileditor.blogspot.com/p/query-queue_7.html

Face-Lift 1556

Guess the Plot

Shell Game

1. What to do when you're dying of boredom on a desert island? Those seashells are good for more than clothing and dinner plates, and bring new interest to the concept of strip poker, or would if Sam and Lisette hadn't drawn a do-not-cross line down the center of said island. Maybe there hadn't been enough rum.

2. A company that researches genetic history of families is using DNA they collect to create clones (shells) which demons use as vessels in their nefarious plan to put one of their own in the White House. Which will be an improvement.

3. Gambling addicted Bob stops on the sidewalk where a guy invites him to guess which shell the pea is under. If he's right he wins a dollar. If he's wrong he loses a dollar. Six hours later, Bob is down 47,000 bucks. 

4. Thanks to global warming, the Cayman Islands shell company that launders the Mafia's ill-gotten gains has gone underwater. In other words, it's sleeping with the fishes.

5. When an American customer at Chez Louis in Paris orders escargot, the chef is horrified to find there are none. Thinking fast, he opens a box of shell-shaped pasta and fills some of them with red grapes. He won't know the difference, he thinks. He's American.

 

Original Version

I am seeking representation for my debut novel, SHELL GAME, a complete adult thriller with speculative elements, at 90,000 words, and told in dual, alternating POVs. It will appeal to fans of high-stakes corporate conspiracy and intricate plotting, such as Joseph Finder’s corporate thrillers and Daniel Suarez’s fusion of tech and speculative elements.

[You can probably get by with this as an opening paragraph:]

I am seeking representation for SHELL GAME, a 90,000-word thriller with speculative elements. It will appeal to fans of  Joseph Finder’s corporate thrillers and Daniel Suarez’s fusions of tech and speculative elements.

Joseph Grant, Senior Vice President at the world’s most powerful social media company, Speculo, has built his career on weaponizing human hatred. [Ah, it's Elon Musk. And he's gonna be annoyed that you made him only a vice president.] Once a nerdy Black Gay kid from Chicago, he is now a kingmaker, running the "Shells" program: an AI-driven social media influencer network that leverages people’s deepest prejudices to manipulate their behavior and secure the upcoming presidential election for Speculo’s founder, Simon Crowley. [ Ah, it's Trump.] [Or Simon Cowell.]

But Joseph’s perfectly constructed life shatters when his close friend, geneticist Aileen Jepson, is murdered on company grounds. A cryptic note left by Aileen sends Joseph on an off-the-books investigation that quickly reveals the horrifying truth: the Shells are not just actors. Speculo is using Aileen's Family Finders DNA database to genetically engineer clones, who are being used as vessels—Shells—for demons with a sinister, ancient agenda. [This is The Omen times 10.] [I sent my DNA to one of those places. Now I gotta worry that someone who looks like me and has my DNA is gonna destroy humanity and I'm gonna get the blame?] 

Meanwhile, Detective Susan Thomas is only one closed case away from achieving the highest homicide clearance rate in Chicago Police history. [12%.] She views the Speculo murder as simply the case that will get her record. [She won't be happy when she sets the record by pinning the murder on me, only to find out it was a demon in an Evil Editor shell.] But to the CPD brass, desperate to manage a PR disaster over police brutality, Susan, an Afro-Latina cop with a spotless record, is the perfect face for their new reality TV show, Windy City Blues. Now, Susan must solve the biggest case of her career while navigating the scrutiny and narrative control of her own department’s media machine. [This has morphed from a corporate thriller to a political thriller to a supernatural thriller to a situation comedy.]

As Election Day looms, Joseph must decide if his newfound redemption [realizes that is worth sacrificing  to destroy the demonic world he unknowingly created [, he must sacrifice everything he built.] [Then he decides the country couldn't be in any worse shape if it were being run by demons.] Simultaneously, Susan must confront whether solving a murder for the camera is [it's] worth trading a meaningful career in law enforcement for the eternal allure of reality TV stardom. 

SHELL GAME has been workshopped at the San Francisco Creative Writing Institute. By day, I work as a political organizer and lobbyist, and when I’m not writing, I can be found at wine tastings and exploring new cities.  [This paragraph won't sway the agent one way or another, and the query's pretty long, so . . . ]

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Notes

A well-written query and an intriguing premise. Did you consider dumping Speculo, focusing on Family Finders, and making the low-level geneticist who discovers what's being done with DNA at the company your heroine? She'd be a more sympathetic character than a guy who can't decide whether it's worth letting demons take over the world as long as he's still employed. 

The competition to close the most cases and the reality TV show probably don't need to be in the query. 

One main character is dealing with a demonic world, while the other is investigating a murder. If you can connect these two plots it would help. There's no indication here that Susan and Joseph cooperate on any aspect of either mission.

Chicago homicide detectives generally work in pairs to manage the high volume of work, such as tracking leads, interviewing, and evidence processing. While they are typically assigned partners, they may work with a broader team of investigators. I got that from Google. You probably address it in the book by giving her a partner or saying Susan is so good she doesn't need a partner or this case is so open & shut the CPD doesn't assign her one. 

Google also informs me that there are some business entities known as Speculo. They don't say whether any of them is in business with demons.