Face-Lift 51

Guess the Plot

The Demon Tamer

1. A Demon Tamer, a runaway slave girl and some secretive dwarfs take on a powerful shaman and an entire army of hellish monsters.

2. A horror author accidentally writes a demon to life. His only chance of saving the world is to write a sequel that destroys the demon. Can he find an agent and get a book contract before the demon drags him to the bowels of Hell?

3. High school sociology teacher Paul Reston tries to get through to his inner-city charges, while also battling his own crack addiction.

4. Disgruntled manticore-mucker Janie runs away from the Cirque Obscure, taking one of the sideshows with her. . . and endangering her entire kingdom.

5. Chelsea comes from a long line of horse whisperers, but when she is propelled into an alternate universe she becomes . . . the demon tamer.

6. As his hellion-offspring ravage congregations for sport, aging demon Bartizub faces up to his wild past and vows to set them a sober example.


Original Version

Sixteen years ago, Thorn, printmaster’s son, saw his father [printmaster] die in a plague that devastated the colony of Otter Rock in the Mistlands, and watched in horror as demons from the Sun Islands ravaged his father’s shop. Ten years ago, escaping the dull Highlands where his mother [printmaster's wife] had taken her children, Thorn returned to the Mistlands as a Demon Tamer, living as a loner on the outskirts of the Sun Islander colony and the Mistlander village. In those ten years, Thorn’s dream of taking up his famous father’s profession has proved as elusive [as the proverbial snark?] [as hair on the lady parts of the tanorexic fame-whores of Hollywood?] as the mysterious forest people of the Mistlands. [If you can't learn to run a printing press in ten years, it's time to look for another career.] Now his father’s former apprentice has returned to Otter Rock with a promise of a new life. [Of course, if the apprentice does all the work, Thorn doesn't need any talent. The apprentice is like an editor, working his butt off, and Thorn can be like a publisher, sitting back and raking in the dough.] [Instead of wasting ten years trying to figure out how to ink a press, Thorn should have staged a reality show called The Apprentice. He could have saved himself nine years of frustration and low self-esteem.] Just as Thorn’s dreams seem within his grasp, he finds himself an unwilling pawn in a political game between the governor from the Sun Islands and the most powerful shaman in the Mistlands. [That's the way it always happens for Evil Editor, too. The moment something good happens, like my dentist finds no cavities, or a manuscript comes in with no SASE, saving me the trouble of looking at it, I suddenly find myself a pawn between political leaders and the forces of evil.] Condemned to death for witchcraft that was not of his doing, Thorn narrowly escapes execution, and with the help of the former apprentice, a runaway slave girl, and the secretive little people of the forest, the Demon Tamer [Demon Tamer is one of the few occupations that get to be capitalized, along with First Lady and Evil Editor.] battles a jealous shaman's magic and an army of hellish monsters unleashed in the struggle for control of the Mistlands. [Then, with the Mistlands safe at last, Thorn sells his father's shop to a European conglomerate and retires to the Netherlands Antilles with the runaway slave girl.]

I am the author of over 30 books for the school and library market, [Sold books? You wanna take over this gig?] including collections of vintage ghost stories and horror stories which I edited and wrote introductions for. I am a Fellow with the (State) Writing Project at (Unnamed) University, and have presented at National Writing Project conferences.

If my book interests you, I can send you the entire manuscript or sample chapters and a synopsis at your request. You may reach me at (contact information) or you may use the enclosed SASE. Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Notes

I don't believe a revised version would be much different, though you might do some paragraphing in the plot section, and explain why Thorn is a pawn--is it because of his demon-taming skills, or the explosive pamphlets put out by his print shop, or neither? You might also mention whether the result of winning his battles for control of the Mistlands leads to his becoming a hotshot, or getting the girl, or making the world safe for democracy.