Saturday, April 29, 2006

Face-Lift 3

Guess the Plot

The Amateur's Guide to Killer Sex

1. You heard of the birds and the bees, right? Well, just get a swarm of killer bees, a flock of vultures, and let nature take its course.

2. Five female adult movie director's have been murdered in Tennessee already. Can the Tennessee Serial Killer Unit get the killer before he gets his next victim?

3. College students Bob and Billy decide to create a snuff film, using an unsuspecting coed as the victim. Too bad for them the coed they picked is a vampire.

4. Freed by the death of her repressive mother, 50-something Janice pursues her dream of being a rock and roll groupie and sets her sights on Jerry Lee Lewis. But are they both too long in the tooth for backstage swiving?

5. The Amateur, one of the world's top three most wanted hit-men, begins taunting his investigators with a series of grisly, explicit videotapes.

6. Doofus Worthington thinks he's going out on a blind date. But really, his arch-enemy Tiffany Bland has set him up with Las Vegas' notorious slasher prostitute, Pussy Whipped.


Original Version

Catching a killer has never been so much fun--or so deadly. [After reading the entire letter, I see how it's fun; I see nothing about how it's deadly.]

Paramour Productions adult video director, Kimber Patello has it all, almost--a life in the big city and a job she loves. The only thing missing is red-hot sex with a gorgeous guy. All work and no play make Kimber a dull woman. [A bored woman, maybe; no one wants to read about a dull woman.] That is until Shadow Fallico shows up in the guise of work partner and ends up in her bed instead [Instead of what? He is her work partner, right?].

As a member of The Tennessee Serial Killer Unit, [Lame name. Sounds like a military company composed of hillbilly serial killers. The Dirty Dozen, starring Hannibal Lecter, Jethro Bodine . . .] Shadow Fallico wants nothing more than to nail the guy responsible for the grisly murders of five female adult movie director's. [A serial killer who targets only female adult film directors? The age of specialization has gone too far.][Wait a minute, five female adult movie directors? Six, counting Kimber? In Tennessee?] He's no movie executive, [We know that; he's a member of the TSK Unit. Tsk tsk.] but since his screw up led to the death of the last victim and the perp's escape [Shouldn't this guy have been demoted to school crossing guard by now?], Shadow will do anything to keep Kimber Patello, the next target, alive. [He knows she's the next target? Oh, right, she's the only female adult movie director left in the world.] Even if he must pretend to be an adult moviemaker and drag the sexually repressed [Okay, I bought the scientist turning into a wolverine-in-heat in the last query, but a sexually repressed adult filmmaker? Come on!] creator out from behind her camera and put her in front of it.

When Kimber's boss assigns them a special project filming an amateur's guide to sex, it gives Shadow the break he needs to get closer to his charge. A small budget forces them to use her attic for the steamy scenes [What, her bedroom was too pricey?] and Shadow's more than willing to fill the role of actor if she will be his co-star. [Ah, this explains why she loves her job.] Can Shadow keep his guard up when his mind is filled with hot sex and Kimber, the woman of his dreams? [He'll do anything to keep her alive, even star with her in an adult film? This guy is the ultimate self-sacrificing hero.]

The Amateur's Guide to Killer Sex [Catchy title, but won't readers think the book is a guide? Actually, it might sell like hotcakes if they do.] is a 70,000 word erotic romantic suspense. Currently, I have four novels and three short stories with DiskUs Publishing and Forbidden Publications. In 2001, I received honorable mention in the Writer's Digest Writing Competition [Evil Editor congratulates you, but your real editor won't be as impressed with this one.] and graduated from The Long Ridge Writers Group.

I look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


Revised Version

Catching a killer has never been so much fun.

Paramour Productions adult video director Kimber Patello has the big city life she wants, and a job she loves. All that's missing is red-hot sex with a gorgeous guy. That is, until Shadow Fallico shows up in the guise of work partner, and ends up in her bed.

A member of The Tennessee Serial Killer Task Force, Shadow wants nothing more than to nail the guy responsible for the grisly murders of five female adult movie directors. His screw-up led to the death of the last victim and the perp's escape; now Shadow vows to keep Kimber, the next target, alive--even if it means dragging her out from behind her camera and putting her in front of it.

When Kimber's boss assigns them a special project filming an amateur's guide to sex, it gives Shadow the break he needs to stay close to his charge. A small budget forces them to use her home for the steamy scenes and Shadow is more than willing to fill the role of actor if she will be his co-star. But can Shadow keep his guard up when his mind is on Kimber, the woman of his dreams?

Not For Amateurs is a 70,000-word erotic romantic suspense. May I send you the complete manuscript? Currently, I have four novels and three short stories with DiskUs Publishing and Forbidden Publications. I am a graduate of The Long Ridge Writers Group.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


Notes

Another possible title: Who Is Killing the Great Female Porno Film Directors of Tennessee?

It's not clear why Kimber is safer from a serial killer if she's in front of the camera rather than behind it. It's not clear why the cop can't simply tell Kimber she's the next target, rather than posing as a colleague. It's not clear why Paramour Productions, one of the biggest names in adult films (they manage to pay Kimber's salary, anyway), has stooped to producing a film whose budget is so low the director has to perform in the film in her own attic. The answers to these questions are in the book, no doubt, but an editor may feel there are just too many holes here. And Evil Editor is in no position to fill in those holes.

The appeal of a romance to a reader, I would think, lies in putting herself in the place of the heroine as she deals with the romantic conflict. Sorry to sound Evil, but resolving the heroine's conflict of sexual repression by having her get laid in the attic while someone films her for a nationally distributed xxx video that will no doubt be all over the Internet in about three hours may thrill only a limited number of readers. Now, if Kimber were a sexually repressed cop in California, and all the male porn stars at Paramour were being killed, so she took a secretarial position at the company to investigate on the sly, got the hots for porn star Rod Driver, and on the very day the killer was planning to go after Rod, his co-star didn't show up, and he coyly suggested that Kimber step in, we might have something. Now were talking about a believable plot.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmm...I like your wrap up about the sexually repressed cops, but I wonder that a male porn star would be a good hero. After all. It's a romance, so the hero would have to be monogamous or at least sorta kinda. Maybe if he were another cop or something pretending to be a male porn star and they both hooked up without knowing about the other...
Evil? I'm getting the feeling your evil quotient is not quite full. You're being too helpful and nice. Did you have your venom shot today?

Evil Editor said...

Nice? Nice? And here I was worried I'd finally gone too far, left the poor author in tears.

Anonymous said...

Tears? C'mon now...this is a business, and tough skin is a must-have. Now I've got alligator hide, but I'm still wondering about you. (BTW this is fun. Thanks Tawny)

Evil Editor said...

It's a romance, so the hero would have to be monogamous.

Not that E.E. claims to be an expert, but it was described as an erotic romance. Some of which (I'm told) even involve threesomes. No one in a threesome is monogamous. Rod can become monogamous afterwards. Like Julia Roberts, in Pretty Woman. That was a romance, right? Suddenly, Evil Editor has decided to cut this comment short and daydream about Julia Roberts.

Anonymous said...

ok...you've got me there. Yes, some erotic romance is...er, different. Maybe that's why it falls under the heading of alternative erotica. Ah...not that'd I'd know, of course. But mainstream erotic romance is one on one. And now you've got me wondering if it should have a mainstream fiction subclassification like Rice's Beauty trilogy, an erotic romance classification or that new word...romantica. Was it Kathryn Falk who coined that one? I can't remember. Probably to many bon-bons. :)

Daisy Bateman said...

I can't believe you didn't comment on the line about "nail[ing] the killer". Hehehe.