Saturday, June 03, 2006

Face-Lift 49


Guess the Plot

The Island and the Bell

1. Unless someone finds the magic bell, Bunny Island will sink into the sea. Juliana sets off on a hunt through fairyland to save her home.

2. Following a plane crash at sea, lone survivor Bob has only a silent bell, found in the wreckage of the plane, to keep him company.

3. A self-declared apostle sets out to end his daughter's hedonistic ways, using a strange book he's created that he believes will bring about the apocalypse.

4. A really dull title on her first novel ruins an aspiring author’s chances of publishing anything. Ever.

5. Buffett: Flip-flops and margaritas. Scarlett: Lace and mint juleps. Was there any hope for these star-crossed lovers?

6. Millicent falls in love with the bell ringer after hearing his tunes. But what will her parents say, when she tells them she's marrying a hunchback?


Original Version

Dear Literary Agent,

I am seeking representation on my novel, THE ISLAND AND THE BELL, a story of sex, nihilism, and city planning in the modern South and Midwest. [City planning? Evil Editor congratulates you on your advanced degree in city planning, but your insistence on working it into a story of sex and nihilism is going too far.] [That's like saying, My book features hard-drinking men, hard-loving women, and an exhaustive look inside the sheet rock industry.]

Wren Crenshaw [Wren? His parents named him Wren? What were their names, Loon and Dodo?] is a twenty-four year old flake, eschewing every responsibility but the immediate tragedies doled out to him. Disappearing after college graduation, [Apparently he didn't eschew every responsibility, or he wouldn't have graduated.] he obsessively searches for meaning in history and a sense of place in the ever-increasing suburban sprawl. He abandons his fiancé

[Fiancée: Whattaya mean you can't go through with it? The wedding's next week! 300 people are coming!
Wren: I know, I'm sorry. But I need to take some time to search for meaning in history and a sense of place in the ever-increasing suburban sprawl.
Fiancée: Bastard! You did that last week! ]

and family to eke out a hand to mouth existence in Kansas City, regressing into drinking with high school kids and sleeping with an underage girl. [Ah, the truth comes out. Suburban sprawl = jail bait.]

THE ISLAND AND THE BELL details Wren Crenshaw's illicit relationship with the teenage Kali Newway, connecting their two different families on the verge of disintegration in two separate cities. While the Crenshaw family struggles with autism, suicide, and meth addiction, the Newway family fights a bitter divorce on the heels of cosmetic surgery, adultery, and religious mania. The two families' stories reveal the motivations of the two young lovers, with a cast of characters caught up in the waves of unfeeling that work against them. [I was with you up until the comma.]

Wren lives with a lot of guilt: His older brother sits in a psychiatric hospital, and his sister struggles to escape a mean existence dealing pot and speed while living under a cloud of rape and abuse. [Sounds more like baggage or burdens than guilt--unless he's responsible for all of it.] And he thinks if he loves hard enough he can reform and repair the broken pieces of his life through the tenuous relationship he's started.

However, young Kali Newway doesn't want to be saved. She wants unrestrained hedonism, involving hard drugs and a dangerous love-triangle involving a violent political activist. [She's everything a man could want in a woman; no wonder Wren dumped his fiancée.] Only Kali's father sees what his daughter has become. On a mad spiritual crusade as a contemporary self-declared apostle, Dan Newway sets out to stop his daughter and everyone like her, using a strange book he's created that he believes will bring about the apocalypse. [If this nutcase is the only person who sees what she's become, everyone else in the book must be living on Mars.]

Tweakers, [?] hipsters, losers, and fanatics, every character wants to discover the depths of what individuals feel for the others they encounter. [Lost you again, after that last comma.] Part realistic novel, part fantasy, ISLAND AND THE BELL interweaves, in 120,000 words, subplots involving each family's undoing with an account of city development in Arkansas and Missouri. [Again with the city development? It's like saying, My book interweaves spiritual awakening, shattered lives, and lawnmower instruction manuals.] [City planning my be part of the book, but I'd leave it out of the query.] [In fact, get it out of the book, too.] The manuscript is available upon request. An SASE is enclosed for your reply. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,


Revised Version

Dear Literary Agent,

Wren Crenshaw, twenty-four, college grad, has fled his fiancée and a dysfunctional family struggling with autism, suicide, and meth addiction. Teenager Kali Newway, having fled her own dysfunctional family (adultery, bitter divorce and religious mania) meets Wren in Kansas City, and the two forge a tenuous relationship.

Wren lives with a lot of guilt, and he thinks if he loves hard enough he can reform and repair the broken pieces of his life. However, young Kali doesn't want to be reformed. She wants unrestrained hedonism, hard drugs and a dangerous love-triangle involving a violent political activist. As Wren tries to save Kali through love, her father, on a mad spiritual crusade as a self-declared apostle, sets out to stop her using a strange book he's created that he believes will bring about the apocalypse.

THE ISLAND AND THE BELL, a 120,000-word novel of sex and nihilism in the modern South and Midwest, interweaves Wren and Kali's story with subplots depicting the disintegration of their families. The manuscript is available upon request. An SASE is enclosed for your reply. Thank you.

Sincerely,


Notes

It's not clear from the query whether the disintegrating families or the Wren-Kali relationship, or the father's crusade is the main plot thread. Or, for that matter, the city planning. EE has assumed it to be Wren-Kali. If he's wrong, then the focus of the query should be changed.

The title is boring, and we can't even guess at what it means. With the polar bear tattoo we could make an assumption. At least tell the Minions what island, what bell, so we can tell you whether the title is reasonable. Maybe the title needs a third thing, like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This could be The Runaway, the Apostle, and the City Planner. No, wait, The Runaway, the Apostle, and Sharks! Don't worry if there aren't any sharks, you can write some in. There isn't a character in this book your readers wouldn't enjoy seeing get eaten by sharks.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why would anyone want to read such a revoltingly depressing story? Though maybe the city planning part lightens things up.

Anonymous said...

Um...I am intrigued by the "cloud of rape." What kind of umbrella does one use under a rape cloud?

Stephen Newton said...

EE, I want to thank everyone who offered suggestions or asked to read a sample of my work. I want to calrify that my comment referred to your Face-Lift XIII for my fiction query and that I am not the author of the car part book. Self-Publishing editor, Dick Margulis offered to read the first chapter and sent his comments pro bono. They were very helpful and I feel better equipped to continue sending the newly revised query.

Anonymous said...

"Revoltingly depressing story" describes every piece of "fine" literature that was foisted on me in Jr. High and High School by English departments that labored under the impression that depressing story = great and timeless writing. High school kids shouldn't be forced to read "In Cold Blood." They really shouldn't.

Not that I was a reading slacker. I chose Shakespeare, Moby Dick, and a great deal of Jules Verne and Dickens to read on my own.

Anonymous said...

It sounds like this novel rambles all over the place - and that heavy-duty word count doesn't allay my suspicions at all.

Also, Wren isn't a very sympathetic character, in that he sounds like someone who just needs to be smacked and told to grow up. Why does he leave his fiance and start living a trainwreck of an existence? Just so a literary novel can be perpetrated? Unless his family's mental illness problems affect him also, I don't see why Wren would do this.

It's difficult for a reader to care about a character who does stupid things for no reason; exasperation sets in, rather than empathy. Wren needs to have a very good reason for behaving the way he does, or you're going to lose your readers.

If he does have a good reason for it, that fact is not coming across in your query letter, and I think you really want it to.

Evil Editor said...

You're assuming, Share Girl, that anyone who has trouble condensing a novel into two paragraphs must have a crappy novel. Not necessarily.

And if it's the extra workload on agents and editors that concerns you, that's been asked and answered. Search this blog for the phrase "aren't you afraid".

Stacia said...

Hmmm...am I the only one who thinks that the "two young lovers"'s relationship sounds an awful lot like statutory rape?

The relationship could be handled very well in the book, but the wording in the query turns me off.

Anonymous said...

Oh, EE, I think the whole "city planning" thing was meant to be clever and ironic.

Anonymous said...

"having fled her own disfunctional family (adultery, bitter divorce and religious mania)" sounds to me a little too cynical for the polished query(like: and here's this family's set of dysfunctions).

Oh, and you missed off "cosmetic surgery".

Anonymous said...

I'm quite sure the city planning stuff is in there, because if you planned your cities better, none of this stuff would happen. I mean, since all the crime happens in slums, why would you build low income housing? If you don't want prostitution, or drug use, you simply avoid building cheap motels or skid rows. Hello? It's all very clear.

Evil Editor said...

Oh, and you missed off "cosmetic surgery".

Yes, nothing proves a family's disfunctional like one of them undergoing a nose job.

Anonymous said...

OK - Chalk it up to one too many grammar debates on other forums, but speed reading the modified query I was sure that Kali's father was a self-declared apostrophe...

Anonymous said...

EE puts a question mark after tweakers. I'd put it after hipsters. What is a hipster?

Is it the root word for hippies? I remember the 60's and was often mistaken for being a hippie myself--due to a fondness for muslin blouses, bell bottom jeans and long straight hair. I was not a hippie, though--didn't have the karmic resonance of a flower child. Is this the reference here?

Or does hipster relate now to the hip-hop nation?

What--or who--is a hipster in 2006? Really, I'm curious.

Anonymous said...

My thanks to the unofficial urban translation council.

Anonymous said...

I mean, since all the crime happens in slums, why would you build low income housing?

So that people with low incomes have some place to live besides the streets. If you want a real job or want to get a better one, it helps to have an address.

If you don't want prostitution, or drug use, you simply avoid building cheap motels or skid rows. Hello? It's all very clear.

You, who? How is this to be avoided without expensive and intrusive micromanagement from the government? To say, "All right, you can build your motel here, but only if you spend this much, make it chic, charge $X per night, and only allow certain people in," is unacceptably high on the micromanagement scale. That sounds rather Marxist -- or how Iraq ran under Hussein. Is that really what we want?

City planning is a complex and organic thing that can help alleviate certain problems, such as urban decay or suburban sprawl, but it can't cure everything.

What I really want to know is how it figures into this novel. Is the main character butting heads with city hall over some decision that affects some property he owns? Is city planning a metaphor for the MC's life? Has an intrusive government agency refused to allow him to build a skid row no-tell motel? Or did the author just throw it in there because the juxtaposition sounded funny?

Anonymous said...

writerious,
clearly you don't get tongue-in-cheek!