Monday, September 25, 2006

Face-Lift 198


Guess the Plot

Amethyst

1. When the Smith triplets were born, their parents were expecting twins. Little Pearl and Ruby had no trouble in school, but Amethyst spent her childhood in speech therapy.

2. A girl born at midnight on the cusp of Aquarius and Pisces realizes that in her hands, her birth stone has the power to heal... even to restore life.

3. Magical gems are a dime a dozen in Caer Columbine. When a young page boy finds a rare, normal amethyst, the kingdom erupts as everyone tries to get their hands on the precious stone.

4. The theft of the ancient Amethyst was the darkest hour in the history of Perdonia. So far. Now the prosperous nation is in danger of being enslaved by demons.

5. This generational saga follows a clan of violet-eyed romance heroines from the Scottish Highlands to Boston's High Society.

6. They ruined her life with an unpronounceable name. Now Amethyst Themister is out for revenge on her parents, Thumbelina and Thurmondsly Themister.


Original Version

Dear Secret Agent,

I met Other Secret Agent at Secret Conference in August, [What is this, a query letter from Tonto?] and he said that you might be interested in my work. [Of course he was probably just trying to get rid of me, but . . . ] (Good news, since I was planning to query you!) Enclosed is this first chapter of Amethyst, the 100,000 word first novel in my fantasy series.

Reclusive Grace O'Toole never expected to find herself crammed in a closet with outgoing Daniel Larke, eavesdropping on her father's killers. [Why not? Because she's reclusive? Because she's claustrophobic? Or because no one in the world would ever expect this? If the latter, it seems kind of obvious that Grace never expected it, and not worth mentioning.] But that's what happens when a mysterious letter lures them both to room 309 at Maurland Institute. [The letter said,

Dear Grace,

Come to room 309 at Maurland Institute. Get into the closet. You should find the experience highly enlightening.

P.S. You may bring a friend.]

Now, Grace has a chance to win back her family's honor [By doing what?] and end the disgrace that's hung over her for most of her life--her father's failure to keep Perdonia's most valued artifact from thieves. But this theft wasn't about the ancient Amethyst at all, they find out, and as Grace and Daniel hunt for the thieves' real plans, [They're not so much hunting for plans as investigating the thieves' true objective.] they discover a conspiracy that will plunge their prosperous nation into slavery under a demonic regime... unless something is done to stop it.

I'm a member of two critique groups, one in my community and one online, have attended several writing workshops, seminars, classes, and conferences, and I also read your blog. (In case you're wondering, my username is "Username.") [Insofar as anyone can join or attend or read these things, it might be better to devote the space to your book, assuming you can think of something else to say about it.] If you're interested in seeing a partial or my completed manuscript, please let me know. I also have synopses of the other titles in the series, and a sample chapter of the second book[, Diamond, in which demonic slavers force Grace and Daniel to continually watch movies starring Lou Diamond Phillips.]

Thanks for your time!


Notes

Except for the word "demonic," it doesn't sound like a fantasy at all. It wouldn't hurt to emphasize and expand on the fantastical elements if you're selling a fantasy.

It seems odd that thieves would steal the amethyst and then do nothing for most of Grace's life, and then spring their plot. What have they been waiting for?

16 comments:

Dave Fragments said...

"Caer Columbine" oh that's such a bad name. Not so much for the obvious reason, but for the fact that Columbina, Archelino and Pantalone are the three characters in the Commedia Del Arte. Unless a novel is a grand farce, you shouldn't name anything with those three names. Columbina helps the innamorata (lovers) usually named with the same name like Flavio and Flavia, Ottavio and Ottavia, Daniel and Daniela, Oscar and Ocarina, or something like that.

You can see these characters in English as Punch and Judy. In the film The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman casts his everyman family - Jof (Joseph), Mia (Mary) and their babe-in-arms - as the players in a traveling show. They do Archelino and Columbina and their act for the townspeople is interupted by Flagellants. They escape the plague (Death).

This is all just FYI.

Anonymous said...

You're criticizing a place-name from one of the made-up plots?

And wouldn't it be a bad name more because of the shooting than because of it's similarity to a figure from the Commedia del Arte? Doesn't the one (mass murder) have a lot more visceral impact for an American readership than the other (stock figure from centuries old drama)?

also, innamorata is singular. Innamorati is the plural. Just FYI.

sed...
tela inter Martia quantum Chaonias aquila veniente columb(in)as?

Anonymous said...

Thank you for critiquing my query!

Kathleen said...

I guess Hollywood should never have cast Joe Pantoliano in any movies either. Unless the movie was a grand farce, I suppose.

Dave Fragments said...

No, I didn't say what you thought you read. It wasn't a criticism, more of a comment.

I said - That's such a bad name NOT SO MUCH FOR THE OBVIOUS REASON, BUT
(I know about the massacre)
It's not a name that lends itself to mystery but it is a name that dsescribes farce. There is a historical background to most names.

Uh, innamorata means pair not single. There is one couple, the innamorata.

Anonymous said...

"the golden compass" by phillip pullman (first in the "his dark materials" series) starts out with the heroine hiding in a closet with her daemon/familiar just as someone tries to poison her father.

not saying it's not coincidental, but seeing as pullman's books are well-regarded and quite successful, and factoring in the likelihood that a fantasy agent reads fantasy...

it's a bit like opening a novel with thirteen dwarves and a wizard stopping by for tea. not quite like, but somewhat.

incidentally, the heroine spends quite a bit of time trying to keep an artifact/heirloom out of the hands of an evil society that want to use it for some nefarious purpose.

PJD said...

I highly enjoyed fake plot #1, much better than mine (no, I'm not telling). Beautifully done. You must have raised a small child with a lisp. (I mean the child had a lisp, not that you raised... oh, never mind.) [Of course, #1 has the obvious plot hole that they should have just nicknamed her Amy.]

Anonymous said...

Damn, I was hoping fo #2.

The actual query for the real plot was a lot less interesting than the summary.

Anonymous said...

#1 is pure genius and very funny.

The story line for this one doesn't do much for me. I didn't get a sense that I wanted to read further. -JTC

Anonymous said...

I never read "The Golden Compass," so this is definitely coincidence. Well, my query needs work, I now see, so I'll have to get busy. Just from the little bit here about the book, though, I can tell you that my plot is very different. The Amethyst is already stolen; the protagonist isn't trying to keep it from the bad guys. Thanks, though, for bringing this to my attention. I can see that I have a lot of work to do in bringing out the more exciting aspects of my book. (Did I mention that there are zombies? Maybe I should put that in.)

Anonymous said...

Now that I know it has zombies, I may read further. -JTC

Anonymous said...

Zombies? How many? Are any of the shark-zombies? Because that would absolutely get your book sold.

Anonymous said...

Reclusive Grace O'Toole never expected to find herself crammed in a closet with outgoing Daniel Larke, eavesdropping on her father's killers. But that's what happens when a mysterious letter lures them both to room 309 at Maurland Institute.

This is the set-up for your fantasy. It sounds like a murder mystery. I have no idea how old reclusive Grace is. I have no idea how Grace & Daniel get from room 309 into the closet. I have no idea what the Maurland Institute is. So I'm not interested at this point.

Now, Grace has a chance to win back her family's honor and end the disgrace that's hung over her for most of her life--her father's failure to keep Perdonia's most valued artifact from thieves. But this theft wasn't about the ancient Amethyst at all, they find out, and as Grace and Daniel hunt for the thieves' real plans, they discover a conspiracy that will plunge their prosperous nation into slavery under a demonic regime... unless something is done to stop it.

they find out. they discover.
This makes it boring. It removes the action one step (or more).

Who will be enslaved? Who is at risk and why does Grace care, other than wanting to clear her father's name?

You might have a story here, but it's not coming through.

Good luck.

(And forgive the minions side-tracked on their own interests.)

Anonymous said...

nope, the couple is the innamorati. Flavio is the innamorato. Flavia is the innamorata. Together they are the innamorati.

I don't think I did misread you: you said that it was a bad name because of it's association with the Commedia del Arte. I think that's slightly silly.

Yes, of course, all names have a history. Should we not name a character, say, Judy? Because of the association with Punch and Judy? Or George (no, not not so much for the obvious reason but...) because of the Hanoverian monarchy. Or....wait, I'm not gonna be able to top Kathleen's Joey Pants comparison.

Columbine/Columbina is just too damned common to necessarily put people in mind of a particular brand of Early Modern popular entertainment. I'm pretty sure that if you said columbina to an Italian they'd be more likely to think of the flying rats that infest Venice than of the faciliating maid.

Now when Sterne names a character Yorick, well, that sticks out. No one/nothing else is called Yorick. But Columbine (until the Colorado thing) is common as dirt and not that many people are hard wired to think about the Commedia del Freakin' Arte.

Anonymous said...

Tonto. LOL!!!!

Dave Fragments said...

Tiny Tim,
OK, you're right in many ways.
But rather than naming the hero of your mystery or detective novel Punch, or the hero of a comedy Oedipus, choose a name with some background.

Remember the town is named in a fake plot. I'm not even sure that Ireland or Scotland has a Columbine, Columbus, Columbo, Columb, or whatever it translates into the language.

Would you set an international mystery in Intercourse or Blue Balls Pennsylvania? Both places exist. How about setting a spy tale in Wierton WV?

OR how about a romance in Duck Creek Utah? or Akron Ohio? Not that odd places don't work, but if you set a love story about a prostitute in Paris or Los Angeles, you have a background to a particular story. Can you imagine Irma in LA and Vivian in Paris? How about Eliza in PAris, Vivian in London and Irma plucking escargot the hard way in LA?

Picking a name - character or city - is a chance to build depth into a story, to pull the reader to your side.