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Guess the Plot

Dreaming Dark

1. There is a town in north Ontario. Meredith, who thought she was perfectly normal, lives there, but she just discovered that she's the last member of an ancient race and she has the power to control mankind's dreams. Now some guy from a different ancient race who also can control dreams has moved to town. Will he leave her helpless, helpless helpless?

2. Ice swami Ned Frankel informs Tina the reason she always dreams of being lost in sinister dark places is because Alaska's winters are no good for her -- she needs more light. So she packs everything vital onto her dogsled and takes off for Florida -- a difficult and dangerous journey that would be impossible if not for moose meat and the love of Hank Jones, the most debonair vagabond in the Arctic.

3. Kimmy Takuto raises horses for the blind, a challenging occupation at best, but when the loan on her ranch comes due she must refinance or lose everything. Her only hope is cowboy Sam Chukchee's idea: win the Kentucky Derby on her best horse, Dreaming Dark. With Sam's help, Kimmy must face her fear of riding and transform herself into a world class jockey in two months, or return to life as a waitress.

4. Joaquin Dark could never focus in class since he kept daydreaming about his own handyman shop called "Tall, Dark and Handy." One day, a magic 2x4 pulls him into a world where doors creak and cabinets won’t close right. He soon realizes that only he can save this world!

5. The horrendous evil Emperor, dreaming avaricious of power, has malicious stolen the ’s off the ends of adverbs! Searching frantic for one last to save the day and thwart the horrendous evil Emperor, Ann miraculous finds the very last one on the book’s cover.

6. Nothing can escape from a black hole. Or so scientists believe until the quantum readers on board Probe XL36 send back signals from Andromeda - after being catapulted into the enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Meredith is convinced she's a normal seventeen year-old, until dark, terrifying, and unbearably beautiful Eirich moves into her nothern [Never good to spell a word wrong in sentence one.] Ontario town. ["Unbearably" is a word I'd expect to see with something bad, not beauty. "Irresistibly" is more like it (though having read ahead, I note that Meredith both resists and bears him).]

The problem with Eirich's arrival is that whenever they touch - which isn't nearly as often as Meredith would like - he fills her with a strange and tempting feeling of power. [I feel we're missing a step. Plenty of people move into my town, but I don't touch them. Why are Meredith and Eirich touching?] Meredith can't even figure out why she gets these feelings, let alone explain them to anyone. [I can explain them in one word: "Hormones."] So when her best friend Ally falls hard for Eirich, Meredith decides it would be best to stay away from both of them, choosing to spend time at her sister Val's old hangout rather than admitting that something really, really strange is happening.

But something really [really] strange is happening and the new hangout makes it stranger. [Stranger than really really strange? Meaning, really really really strange?] [Is the new hangout the same place you just referred to as the old hangout?] The cottage that Meredith thought belonged to Val's friend actually belongs to Meredith, [If you want to spend time in what you believe is your sister's friend's cottage, you would ask permission of your sister's friend, who would say, "That's not my cottage." Yet Meredith goes there still believing it belongs to her sister's friend?] and it was left to her by her mother with the promise that it comes with magical protection. Meredith learns that she's so far from normal, she's supernatural: the last member of an ancient race with the power to control and create dreams. Worse, Eirich needs Meredith's powers to revive his own ancient race, [How does she learn all this stuff?] [The last members of two different ancient races are both in a town in north Ontario? Could be a coincidence, but if the last member of a third ancient race shows up . . . ] the dark counterpart to Meredith's, and he's kidnapped Ally to get to her.

So Meredith is left with a choice: does she preserve the dreams of mankind and, more importantly, rescue her best friend, or does she succumb to the beautiful Eirich and fill herself with the power she's always longed for? [Save mankind or join forces with an evil kidnapper? Can't decide; better flip a coin.] [She's always longed for great power?]

DREAMING DARK is a work of YA urban fantasy, complete at 57 000 words.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

As Meredith has the hots for Eirich, it seems he should have no trouble getting to her, even without resorting to kidnapping her friend.

Ally has fallen for Eirich, so she's probably willing to go anywhere with him. Why kidnap her when you can just suggest going to a romantic cabin in the woods?

If Meredith made it to age seventeen without even realizing she had the power to control dreams, how is she suddenly going to figure out how to do it?

I think we should have an example of what it means to control dreams. How is this power useful? It's hard to know what the stakes are without knowing what happens if Meredith fiddles with people's dreams.

You claim she can preserve the dreams of mankind. That's a lot of dreams. Does that mean she can control the dreams of millions of people at the same time? Also, stating that rescuing her friend is more important than preserving the dreams of mankind makes it seem that preserving our dreams isn't that big a deal.

Whattaya mean, "ancient race?" Babylonians? Aliens from another galaxy?

I think you should throw out the mother and sister and cottage and just focus on Meredith and Eirich. Tell us what happens if Meredith sides with Eirich and what happens if she doesn't. Make it sound like a difficult choice.