Face-Lift 186

Guess the Plot

H.I.M. Jr.

1. Having drunk half the bottle of Champagne before the ceremony, celebrity ship-christener Holly Moly screws up the naming of the H.M.S. Juliet.

2. Howard Igsworth Mann, Jr. has left his life as a stock-broker for the big-time--dancing on the Las Vegas strip. Everybody thinks he's gone crazy, but they don't know what he's hiding from.

3. H.I.M. Sr. and H.E.R. document the early years of their adorable toddler.

4. Diane just knows her boss Harold Ignatius Mason Jr. is embezzling funds from the company, and to prove it she follows him around, wearing a burkha so he won't recognize her.

5. Madison and Ruby, the least popular girls at Hoover Middle School, use their science and computer skills to create dates for the Spring Fling dance.

6. Humanoid Industrial Mechanism looks around the deserted lab. The real humans are on lunch break. It's the perfect time to tinker around with the spare parts.


Original Version

Dear Mr. Evil:

Sometimes the devil wears Prada…and sometimes he sports a loud tie featuring scampering raccoons. [And sometimes he wears a blue suit, gold vest, and pince-nez.] If he’s Harold I. Mason, Jr., head of Boston’s venerable Animal Protection Agency (APA), you’ll recognize him by his movie-star looks, corny animal-themed jokes, and egregious behavior.

H.I.M. Jr., a workplace romp, is narrated by idealistic Diane Salvi, [A name I came up with by anagramming my two favorite people ever, Elvis and Diana.] recently out of Wellesley via working-class Staten Island. Diane arrives at APA in the wake of a sex scandal involving her and a client at Boston’s hottest ad agency. [Is she recently out of Wellesley, or the hot ad agency? Presumably you would work somewhere a while before getting involved in a sex scandal.] She’s brimming with enthusiasm for her new job as Communications Director [She directs communications between dogs and cats.] and smitten with her boss, Hal, but soon learns that he’s Brad Pitt on the outside, Enron’s Ken Lay inside. [Which she decides is better than the reverse, especially now that Lay is a rotting corpse.] APA’s Boston Brahmin board members [Is everyone familiar with that term?] like Jockey Leeth [Jockey? Who would name their child after underwear?] and Bunky Mulhouser think he walks on water, while his staff wishes he’d drown. He finally goes too far, inveigling innocent secretary and single mom Kaitlynne into a sordid affair, paying a hack friend with agency funds to write a vanity publication with his name on it, embezzling money to purchase high-end electronics and lavish vacations, and worse…much worse. [Much worse? Are we talking murder? Treason? Maybe instead of telling us about his affair and his skimming funds from the coffers, you should tell us the heavy stuff, so we'll want to read about his comeuppance.]

Diane and her reporter roommate Genie set out to dig up some dirt on Hal. In a zany Lucy-and-Ethel scheme, they tail him to Colorado, Diane hidden beneath a burkha, where they discover the shocking secret that leads to his downfall. [He runs a fur trapping business on the side.] [Did you just say they discovered his secret beneath her burkha?] Along the way, Diane gets swept into a hot-and-heavy romance with Hal’s charming ne’er-do-well son. [Is this a romance novel? I assume you'd have said so, but you haven't categorized it as anything other than a romp. No doubt when deciding which agent or editor to query, you first looked for one who handles romps, but coming up empty, you chose one who handles . . . what?]

If there’s a zeitgeist issue of the moment, my money’s on bad bosses. [If you're in the query stage, you need a Zeitgeist issue of two years from now, not the moment.] It’s the perfect time for a fun read in which the good guys (or gals) wreak vengeance on a conniving, philandering, good -for-nothing boss who deserves no less.

Enclosed are three sample pages. I would be pleased to submit the full manuscript at your request.

Thank you for your consideration.


Revised Version

Dear Mr. Evil:

Sometimes the devil wears Prada … and sometimes, when he's Harold I. Mason, Jr., head of Boston’s venerable Animal Protection Agency, he sports a loud tie featuring scampering raccoons.

H.I.M. Jr., a workplace romp, is narrated by idealistic Diane Salvi, recently out of Wellesley via working-class Staten Island. Diane arrives at APA brimming with enthusiasm for her new job as Communications Director and smitten with her boss, Hal. But she soon comes to suspect that Hal is a serial killer.

Diane and her reporter roommate Genie set out to get the goods on Hal. In a zany Lucy-and-Ethel scheme, they tail him to Colorado--Diane hidden beneath a burkha--and discover the shocking secret that leads to his downfall. Along the way, Diane gets swept into a hot-and-heavy romance with Hal’s charming ne’er-do-well son.

There's never a bad time for a fun read in which the good guys (or gals) wreak vengeance on a conniving, philandering, good-for-nothing boss who deserves no less. I would be pleased to submit the full manuscript at your request. Thank you for your consideration.


Notes

Not thrilled with the title. It doesn't tell me what to expect in the way of plot or genre.

I'm less interested in what I removed than I am in the zany scheme and the vengeance. Now that it's shorter maybe you can expand a bit on the good stuff. And if it's not a romance, we probably don't need to know about Hal’s charming ne’er-do-well son.