Face-Lift 191

Guess the Plot

Technical Virgins

1. Brad was too busy training to be a surgeon to think about romance. But now that he's found Lori, he wants to be a chef.

2. The girls at Miss Fipps's School for Young Ladies have a gift for geek - and they're forming their own corporation. The boys at Wooster Academy can't wait for the IPO.

3. Vestal Electronics has posted record lows this quarter. Can a new battery-powered device bring prosperity to the company?

4. Marcy had never even seen a capacitor before the earthquake. Now she and her sister Emmaline must fix the communications systems of Little Pooble on Hemp before another temblor sends the village hurtling into a newly-formed volcano.

5. A snatched-from-the-headlines tale that examines the reasons Bob, like all Microsoft technicians, remains unmarried and a virgin at the age of 35.

6. Shy sociologist John Blake is hired by Stanford University to tutor two sexy unfrozen cave women on the modern world. Hilarity ensues.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

I am seeking representation for my completed 90,000-word romance novel, Technical Virgins.

[He: Are you a virgin?
She: Well, not technically.

She: Are you a virgin?
He: Technically? Yes.]

Similar in style and humor to the work of Sandra Hill or Jennifer Crusie, [Is that according to you, according to your friends, or according to Sandra Hill and Jennifer Crusie?] Technical Virgins concerns two surgeons-in-training who have been too busy/distracted/emotionally whacked to have a normal romantic life – but that is about to change.

Brad Berkowitz may be an artist in the kitchen, but his work as a surgical intern is less than stellar. [Owing to his insistence on using a meat cleaver when a scalpel is called for.] Lori Ketchum, a year ahead of Brad in the program, knows Brad won’t be allowed to pass to the next phase of residency if he doesn’t shape up fast. She wants to help Brad improve his surgical skills in time to save his career, but it isn’t easy with eighty-hour work-weeks and the well-intentioned meddling of family and friends. [I was going to make a crack about the idiocy of working 80 hours a week, until I realized I'm spending 80 hours a week on this blog.] That Brad seems to care far more about cooking her the perfect meal than succeeding as a doctor doesn’t help either, [And his patients aren't too crazy about it.] nor does the fact that when they are together, career is the last thing on their minds.

I am uniquely qualified to write this story, as I

--am a surgeon who trained at a busy community hospital, just like my protagonists, [Has anyone else noticed that people who are trained as surgeons try their hand at writing far more often than people trained as writers try their hands at surgery? Why is that?] [I mean, I've watched enough episodes of House to be able to do a tracheotomy or minor brain surgery, yet I've never done so--though I did try sticking a needle in my neighbor's eye after seeing it done on House last week.]

--share many of my hero’s obsessions and interests, kinky and otherwise,

--was a virgin for longer than I care to admit.

[Those aren't the qualifications of a novelist; they're the qualifications of a serial killer doctor.]

This is my first novel, but I have several e-zine and print-zine publications to my credit. I would be delighted to forward sample chapters or a synopsis, at your request.

Best,


Notes

Brad should be drummed out of med school now, before he kills someone. Lori should dump him and marry a writer and support his artistic endeavors. She'll never be happy with this underachieving loser, I don't care if he can make a decent soufflé. Now there's a novel people would read.

I would drop the Crusie/Hill bit and the last two "qualifications," and use the space to explain why Lori wants to help Brad (besides his hunky bod), and maybe what their meddling friends and relatives are doing.