Face-Lift 78

Guess the Plot

Above the Shimmering Sky

1. A backyard chef glimpses a murder in his neighbor's house through the smoke and haze of his Weber grill.

2. Jaws meets Wolfen in this story of a fledgling private eye drawn into the murky worlds of Internet security and an extinct human race.

3. As trials begin on a new sub-orbital passenger jet, two rival test pilots fall in love. Can they keep their budding romance from their husbands?

4. All life below the shimmering locusts' exoskeletons could cease to exist if Jack and Jill do not get up the hill fast enough with DDT, and expose the sun--above the shimmering sky.

5. Three desperate men and a love-starved camel set off on an impossible quest beneath the burning sands of a world turned upside-down.

6. Dustin, a sardine who feels trapped in his school, builds a capsule to help him become the first sardine to fly above the shimmering sky.


Original Version

Dear Ms. Speltagnet,

What if, on a calm day near the beach, a friend's death and police suspicion raised a carnival-house mirror to separate a new life from your old? [What if we start this query with the second sentence?] What if your other friends and coworkers remained precisely whom you'd thought them to be—but with agendas askew, their focus suddenly obscure? [I meant the third sentence.] Would it mean you had fallen into a new world, beyond the looking-glass? Or…could you have simply missed the truth all along? [You're blaming this on me?]

Owen Tremaine, 28-year-old founder of a small software company in Corpus Christi, Texas, has spent the last year trying to reinvent himself as a private investigator. But he never expected to need his new skills quite so badly. When his past reaches out to pull him back, the stakes include not only his own life and the lives of those he loves but also the fate of a missing 12-year-old girl, the future of personal security on the Internet, and the hopes of a supposedly extinct people. [The fate of Cro-Magnon Man rests in his hands.] The story encompasses cutting-edge software development, implications of recent anti-terror legislation, and a unique interpretation of local Native American history. In ABOVE THE SHIMMERING SKY (102,000 words), JAWS meets THE NET…via WOLFEN. [Jaws? Are there sharks? You haven't mentioned any sharks. Sharks would definitely improve this book. So would a wolfman. Is there a wolfman?] [If there's a wolfman in a book, it should be stated clearly, up front; it's sure to be a major selling point, and you don't want it getting lost in all the boring personal security, implications of legislation, and software development crap.] [In fact, here's what I recommend: keep the sharks and the wolfman--make it two wolfmen, in fact--dump the software/private eye guy, and add some zombies, a brutal eunuch, a few ruthless vigilante sorcerers, and the Pooka of Leinster.] [You're probably thinking, But that would make it a completely different book! Exactly!]

Technical elements of the plot are based on my nearly two decades of professional software development experience, ranging from several startups to Dell Computers and a telemedicine project for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. I have been visiting Corpus Christi for years, and have fallen in love with the area. My professional writing experience to date has been business-related, including advertising copy, press releases, technical documentation and one privately published "how-to" book (ghost-written very quickly for a client who had inadvertently shown the title in an infomercial). I have a second novel (PAGAN SECTS) in progress. [Change the title to Pagan Sex, and you'll quintuple your sales.]

I found your listiings at AgentQuery.com and PublishersMarket.com, "Googled" your agency, and thought I might introduce myself. I see this project as commercial suspense with an underlying element of the supernatural (think Dean Koontz, though I make no claims as to quality). [Meaning it's not necessarily as good as Koontz? Or not necessarily as bad?]

Please let me know if you would like to see the manuscript, or a portion thereof. I also have a two-page synopsis available.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,


Notes

Not for the first time, we're given no plot to work with. Here's what I actually recommend. Start with these two sentences:

Owen Tremaine, 28-year-old founder of a small software company in Corpus Christi, Texas, has spent the last year trying to reinvent himself as a private investigator. But he never expected to need his new skills so badly.

Now comes the part you aren't going to like: tell us what happened! What requires the use of his new skills? Is the missing girl his case? Is there a villain trying to destroy the Internet? Is there a seemingly insurmountable obstacle Owen must overcome to save the world? After you tell us the main things that happen in the book, if there's still some space, you can list a few boring things the book encompasses, and add:

Technical elements of the plot are based on my nearly two decades of professional software development experience, ranging from several startups, to Dell Computers, to a telemedicine project for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

But leave out the parts about Jaws and Wolfen and Dean Koontz.