Guess the Plot
Watermen
1. Epic primeval battles rage as Airmen, Firemen and Earthmen seek dominion over the planet. Meanwhile, Watermen keep a low profile and successfully maintain a posture of neutrality throughout, and so prevail. Plus an epilogue regarding Light vs Darkness, and a cameo appearance by Aquaman.
2. Three mermaids come ashore when their cove is invaded by Watermen from the deep. The mermaids rent a cottage in exchange for pearls and soon they've charmed everyone, but when people start disappearing from the beaches the mermaids realize they must return to the sea and vanquish the . . . Watermen.
3. In the year 8920, peace reigns. Thanks to global warming, the entire planet is underwater except for Land World, a theme park in Nepal. Man himself has evolved, and now consists of 100% water. When the salt water men go to war with the fresh water men, dolphins refuse to take sides, knowing they soon will rule Earth at last.
4. By 2070 fresh water is in short supply everywhere on earth. But Mars is even drier. The water Mafia are scheming to suck up Lake Michigan and zap it into Machine H2X, to be smuggled onto the next transport and removed from earth forever.
5. Karl Alexander is the ultimate stud: 6'2", 190, bench presses 1200 pounds, loves to cook. Now all the ladies on LoveNest are eager to meet him. But how will he tell them that he's really the guy who shuts off the tap when they're late on the water bill?
6. In a town where dragons guard the only water supply, Chray risks life and limb every day to procure water for the people. Hey, it's a living. Except, now Chray has fallen for the mayor. Is it time to look for a safer line of work, one that doesn't involve fire-breathing monsters?
Original Version
Dear Agent Anyone:
I am seeking representation for my fantasy novel, Watermen, complete at 64,000 words.
Water is life. In the desert town of Gray, the only source of water is a series of underground lakes guarded by fearsome dragons. [It's Dune, but with dragons instead of worms. I can see desert towns in Dune; the whole planet's a desert. But why do your characters live in a desert?
Mayor: We need to move somewhere where we won't be bothered by others. A new settlement. But where? Anybody got a suggestion?
Townsperson: How about in the middle of the desert?
Mayor: There's no water in the desert, idiot. Water is life.
Townsperson: No, air is life. Take away a man's water, he will continue breathing air. Take away his air, he will quickly lose interest in drinking water. Besides, the place I have in mind has water.
Mayor: You mean an oasis?
Townsperson: No, an underground lake guarded by fearsome dragons.
Mayor: Anybody else got a suggestion?]
Chray and her fellow devil-bird riders evade, distract, and battle dragons every day in order to bring water to their village. It's a good system, [Yeah, great system.] Chray thinks--she's saving lives every day, and earning a quick ticket to an afterlife that will be much more comfortable than her earthly one. But a recent spate of deaths makes her wonder how much longer the system can last.
After an injured dragon drags her far out into the desert, [So that's why they call them dragons.] she chooses to set off on a gruelling trek in hopes of finding a better way of life, [For herself or her people?] rather than return to a doomed status quo. The place she finds is lush, rich...and completely bewildering. No one has ever heard of Gray. There are no devil-birds. And they think dragons are extinct. She's lost and alone, and her only skills are useless.
Then dragons start appearing along the river for the first time in four hundred years. Someone has to stop them. Chray's spent a lifetime brashly risking death for the sake of others, but no one here trusts her. [When your town is overrun by dragons, and someone offers to get rid of them, screw trust issues. Just pay her whatever she's asking.] She can't protect the river towns and save Gray at the same time. [The other watermen can save Gray. The river settlements need . . . Waterwoman! Yes, Waterwoman, the superhero with the power to cause neap tides, to ruin hardwood floors, and to make toilets overflow.] And the handsome young mayor is giving her the strange feeling that she might not want to move on to heaven quite so quickly.... [Is this the mayor of Gray or the mayor where she is now? Does she have any idea how to get back to Gray?]
I have enclosed a few sample pages and would be pleased to provide a synopsis and sample chapters at your request; the manuscript is also available electronically. I have enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope for your reply. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Notes
I don't like Gray and Chray sounding so alike. When I got to "No one has ever heard of Gray," I couldn't remember ever hearing of it myself. I thought it was a character. Change it to Milwaukee. Is Chray pronounced Kray or Tray?
How can Chray help with the dragons in a place that has no devil-birds?
You wouldn't think a bird that's already carrying a person could carry very much water. Water's really heavy. Experiment: Hold a bucket of water in each hand and stretch your arms out parallel to the ground. How long can you last? Now imagine you're doing it while riding a bird and fighting a dragon. Don't spill any.
The title makes me think all of the watermen are important characters. How much of the book takes place after Chray is separated from the other watermen?
Are the watermen the people who get water? Obviously they aren't all men. They're waterpeople. Wait! Water Bodies! There's your title.
21 comments:
This reminded me of a joke that Jonathan Winters told years ago. It seems Dr Frankenstein instead of making his monster 6 foot tall, made thousands of little franken-men six inches tall. Then he unleashes them on the unsuspecting world seeking, seeking, seeking something. The hapless Fool-Hero says: Dr Frankenstein, what are these little men looking for? And Dr Frankenstein replies: "Little Women, you fool!"
Sign me: Auntie-Pasto.
I liked the premise, but, as EE pointed out, if there's not a good reason for the town to be located in the desert, it'll probably sound contrived. And I liked the first part of the query, but then it sputtered out. I was expecting the river folk to blame Chray for the arrival of the dragons. If I was river folk, that's what I'd do anyway. Maybe if you clear up the ending of the query instead of being mysterious about what happens. The handsome mayor part kind of came out of nowhere.
Also, I'm no query expert, but I don't think you need to tell the agent your MS is available electronically. It's like saying your paragraphs are comprised of sentences.
Wait...I live in a desert town. It'd make less sense in a fantasy, unless everyone there was suffering from asthma & needed clear, dry air.
You can set the thing in a desert, but people will ask why they are living there when a better place is close by. I can think of a few plausible reasons: the people were driven there by a more powerful group, they mine/harvest/gather something that can't be found elsewhere, it was originally a prison colony that has since evolved.
Is Chray pronounced 'Sherry'?
I think plot three should be made into a book. Everything else can go.
- JustABand
www.undergroundunrest.com/blog
I think this sounds kind of fun, and the query was easy to follow. I'm always skeptical of fantasy stories, though, where people live in some isolated place and have no idea who their neighbors are and what's around them. I hope the book includes a really good reason why no one has ever gone exploring before now.
It's brutal, but an isolated community living hand-to-mouth, which is what this sounds like, can't usually afford to risk young women on tasks like fighting dragons. They have to have babies, and take care of babies, and do whatever the women's work is. All PC-ness aside, there needs to be a very good reason why Chray's life is being staked. Also, why IS it called WaterMEN?
You wouldn't think a bird that's already carrying a person could carry very much water.
Depends on how it's carried.
Eight pints of beer is pretty heavy but I can carry it home from the pub on a Friday night. And a curry.
This description really sounded silly. I'm sure your story is far better than that; perhaps give us something that shows it, like the plot?
One thing that bugged me...why call the water source an underground lake? Where water comes to the surface, it's a spring or oasis or river, not an underground lake.
A quick few answers before I start work!
-Pronounced: ~Tray
-The spring dried, and the only other water they found was underground
-How and why they're in the desert is the thrust of the last third of the book
-The other town's not very close, that's why it took a dragon (and half a death march) to get her there
-Water trumps babies (that's a secret subplot)
-I looked up how much birds could carry compared to wingspan and basically decided to fudge it in the name of fantasy. Huzzah!
-Title's crap, but I got nothing else :P
All suggestions warmly welcomed :)
Er... are you sure it's not a nonfiction book about Atlanta?
I think Dune meets the Dragon Riders of Pern, but it sounds interesting nevertheless.
Water trumps babies.
Only women can have babies. Men can fetch water. A viable birthrate requires many women, but not many men.
What is the point of spelling a name in a fantasy novel Chray if it's supposed to be pronounced Tray? And who would know that? Do you also have a character named Smeerp which is pronounced Rabbit?
Hi buffy! I guess my rationale is different: kids aren't much good if you can't feed them. Given that about four out of a dozen of the devil riders are women, and there are a good many town women, what would it take for you to find this a believable scenario?
Hmm. This sounds oddly like a story I'm working on right now. I also think female dragon riders could work, if you justified them well enough. Much worse historical inaccuracies have taken place in fantasy books before.
Wait, how does "historical inaccuracy" ever go along with "fantasy book"?
'Cause you know, the word "fantasy" sorta implies inaccuracies.
A viable birthrate requires many women, but not many men.
In theory perhaps, but in practice: you need to see some of the "men" who live round our way before making such sweeping generalisations.
You could maybe get away saying the people of this village have been in the desert their whole lives, know nothing else, and their people go back hundreds or thousands of years in the desert. Or maybe you're already doing that. But I think, as a reader, I could buy it if you made that possibility the only one for these people, rather than try to "make" it plausible. Don't know if that makes sense. And anyway, that's more of a plot issue than one with the query. But I think this has potential. Good luck!
Many Fantasy writers I know go out of their way to maintain historical accuracy, insofar as possible, within their writing. They're pretty scornful of badly-imagined medieval-type societies, etc. World-building is an important part of Fantasy, and it's considered better to build a world that works.
Hence many of these writers own books like Cathedral, Forge & Waterwheel, which give them an insight into how medieval settlements worked.
Author, you've succeeded in convincing me that the town badly needs the water. What you haven't succeeded in convincing me of is why it's women going to get it.
All I really need is a few words explaining, as you have here, that your protag is only one woman among, predominantly, men. Maybe their situation really is so bad that there aren't many men left. But the men would go first!
So something like, "As one of the nimblest in her village, Chray etc etc etc", because there's a woman's advantage in being light and having a low center of gravity, would that give the right impression? Or at least keep from raising eyebrows? There's also an element of who was available to train when they started this whole flying-bird nonsense, but that seems like too much backstory for a query....
Definitely is a problem keeping a balance between TMI and too little. For me, just one line indicating that there's a good reason for her endangering herself is fine--others may not need that much :).
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