Face-Lift 779

Guess the plot

God's Play

1. Hermes wants a new theater production in his honor--there hasn't been one for over 1,000 years. He bribes a muse to inspire rap artist Suu-Yuu with Greek fantasies and hires on as a roadie. Odin, Thor, and Zeus want in on the action. Storms ensue.

2. God’s greatest desire was to write a play. He’s created his perfect cast of characters coupled with enough strife to last a few millennia. Dress rehearsal was a disaster, but opening night ends with nary a hitch. The real action will come after God reads Evil Editor’s scathing review.

3. Sister Melba Peter thought she had it bad when the other nuns would make up words during their weekly Scrabble game. But that's before the Almighty himself shows up for a round or two and starts creating actual things represented by the words. Can Sister Mel fwelge this eueuro?

4. To get revenge on the mortals who imprisoned them, a race of insane gods plan to cleanse and repopulate the world. Standing in their way: seventeen-year-old Rachell. But will she find time to save the world when her father insists she slop the pigs first?

5. Mike can't believe that being hit by a meteorite has given him godlike powers. Now his wife Megan has triple-E breasts, his house is 1800 rooms, and everything he touches turns to gold . . . which kind of defeats the point of giving Megan humongous knockers.

6. George Callaghan is a seminary student struggling with doubt, forever tantalizingly close to the experience of God he craves, only to be unfulfilled. Eventually he comes to the conclusion that God is playing hide and seek. What's alarming is that God's next game may well be marbles--with the planets.


Original Version

Being a god isn’t all roses and virgin sacrifices.

For the Creator Gods, a race of insane immortals trapped behind a wall of ice, divinity stopped being fun a long time ago. To get revenge on the mortals who imprisoned them, the Creators plan to remake the world in their own image. Step one: cleanse the other “impure” races. [Wrong. Step one: get out from behind this damn wall of ice.]



[Ten ways gods can get out from behind a wall of ice (having confirmed that there's no door in the wall):

1. Melt the wall. Actually, just melt an opening big enough to crawl through. Should be a piece of cake for a god of fire.
2. Fly over the wall. All you need is one god who can fly over the wall and go get a rope ladder.
3. Walk around the end of the wall. You don't even have to be a god for this one, and it's so obvious.
4. Break the wall down. Is Thor one of the gods? Because his hammer could turn the wall into ice cubes. Lightning bolts would also work.
5. Global warming. When you're immortal, waiting until ice no longer exists is like a human waiting until his eyes reopen while in the process of blinking.
6. Tunnel under the wall. There's always a god of the underworld. How do you think they get to the underworld?
7. You've heard of a human pyramid? How about a god pyramid? And if you don't have enough gods to reach to the top of the wall . . .
8. Grappling hook. The god on top of the pyramid tosses the hook over the wall.
9. Travel in a straight line away from the wall. Once you've circumnavigated the globe, Voila! You're on the other side of the wall.
10. Magic. Turn the wall into a staircase. Turn a seagull into a helicopter. You're gods, for Christ's sake.]

Step two: repopulate with new and better breeds—twisted creatures that literally live on fear.

The only thing that stands in their way [besides that infuriating wall of ice] is Rachell aehl-Darenn, the seventeen-year-old heir to a dying race of non-human sorcerers [Assuming there's a good reason the gods couldn't get out from behind the wall for years or millenia, how is it they're suddenly not behind the wall?] Her grandfather was once crown prince in the conquered land of Amor Dal, but Rachell can only find time to plot against the human usurpers after she's slopped her father's pigs. All her life, Rachell has been trying to prove she's worthy of her grandfather's love despite being a half-human bastard. But when the Creators’ twisted children invade her homeland, Rachell must bridge the gap between her people and the humans she despises, [The only humans in the book are evil usurpers, and the main character despises humans. You do realize that if this book gets published your main audience is going to be humans, right?] even if that means serving the Emperor who enslaved her race.

Because things are never simple when the gods come out to play…

GOD’S PLAY is a 120,000-word completed fantasy novel set in a world of tattooed slave sorcerers, drug-addicted dragon riders, and one-eyed gods. [Your description of the world sounds more exciting than your description of the plot.] I’m an award-winning journalist and newspaper editor, and a piece of mine was published in [REDACTED].

I’m querying you because you've nurtured some incredible talent [AGENT SPECIFICS GO HERE]

Thanks for your consideration,


Notes

Based on the plot, I would expect the first word of your title to be either Gods or Gods'. Why is it God's?

Why is this pig-slopping teenager the only obstacle facing the gods? What can she do, and how does it involve serving the emperor? The gods are out from behind the wall and plan to destroy the world. Rachell wants to save the world so Gramps will like her. That's the setup. Now we need a few specifics on what happens.