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Guess the Plot

Invisible Romeo

1. Mercutio scores an invisibility potion on the tough streets of Verona. He offers the concoction to Romeo so he can sneak into the Capulet home undetected. Once inside, he learns secrets that could finally bring down the family enemy; however this would mean betraying Juliet.

2. Carmen has finally met the boy of her dreams. As it happens, he's invisible. Also, a vampire. When Carmen gets trapped in a school fire, she fears no one can save her . . . unless . . . can a vampire go out in the daytime if he's invisible?

3. In the two years since her failed suicide attempt, Julia has put her life back on track. When she finds love in a new boy, her last boyfriend--the successful side of the suicide pact--comes back to haunt her and make her his forever.

4. Fiona is lonely and miserable at the dorms her freshman year. With no friends or family, she's stuck there over Christmas vacation. Making things worse, the dorms are supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a student who hung himself in the lobby. Fiona doesn't believe it...until the strange love letters start appearing on her pillows.

5. Romeo seems like Juliet's dream come true. He's handsome, charming, and he calls her "my precious." But at the wedding ceremony, he slips the Ring onto his own finger instead of hers, and suddenly Juliet is facing an . . . Invisible Romeo.

6. Anna's ability to time travel lands her in Shakespeare's home town and she begins to manipulate the writing of Romeo and Juliet. Soon Juliet is the antagonist and hates Romeo so much that he's considered "invisible".



Original Version

Carmen is an ordinary girl living your average everyday life...[My average everyday life? Lemme give you an idea of my average everyday day:

8 AM -- 5 PM: Playing basketball with balled-up query letters, putting up with Mrs. V's crap and burning manuscripts.

5:30 -- 5:35: Arrive home, inhale a few breaths from a tank containing pure oxygen mixed with the scent of cotton candy.

5:35 -- 6:00: Strip naked and work out on the balance beam.

6:00 -- 7:30: Continue long-term project of digging a secret tunnel under my house, connecting the lounge to the conservatory.

7:30 -- 8:00: Wheel of Fortune.

8:00 -- 9:00: Phone calls to Bruce Willis, Snoop Dogg, Tiger Woods and Lady Gaga to give them advice.

9:00 -- 10:00: Mud wrestling with my pet anaconda.

10:00 -- Bedtime: 8 pints of Cherry Garcia.]

that is until she meets the boy of her dreams. Mychel is a vampire--an invisible vampire--[The only time you can see him is when he's standing in front of a mirror.] and has been tormented for the past two centuries by a crazy stalker named Muriah who is of the same species. [And believe me, stalking someone who's invisible ain't easy.] One day Mychel crosses paths with Carmen, nearly running into her and exposing his existence. [I can't tell if he exposed himself or nearly exposed himself.] After that one day, a fascination grows within him about this small but seemingly strong girl. Muriah isn't too happy about this though, in fact she is outright appalled that the guy she is convinced will marry him [Marry him? Who's him?] is making googly eyes at a human. Per usual routine, Muriah tries to black male and brown nose Mychel into marrying her, [Unless that's a clever way of saying she gets Mike Tyson to force him to marry her, you mean "blackmail." And get rid of the brown-nose part, as the rest of this sentence doesn't describe anything related to brown-nosing.] by threatening the life of the girl he seems smitten with--Carmen. Eventually, Carmen finds out about Mychel and Muriah, and Muriah's worrisome antics become more persistent [Is threatening the life of the girl Mychel is smitten with a "worrisome antic"?] as she fruitlessly tries to persuade Mychel.

Then one day, while Carmen is at school, her worst fear is realized, she is trapped in a burning building with no way out. Being a hopeless [incurable?] Pyrophobiac [Why is that capitalized?] trapped in a chem lab fire, she begins to worry [believes] that it's all over and that since it is daytime, Mychel won't be able to do anything to save her. [Then she realizes that all chem labs are well-stocked with fire extinguishers and have sprinkler systems, and that the fire department is just up the road.] From his home, Mychel sees the smoke at the school and recognizes the area immediately. [That's . . . the chem lab! And Carmen has chemistry third period!] Fearing for Carmen's safety and unconcerned of [for] himself, he races to the school to search for her. Little does he know that this is Muriah's doing and Carmen won't be safe until he agrees to marry her.

Invisible Romeo is a 10,719 word, unfinished fantasy novel. [Apparently you ran into a case of writer's block and decided to work on your query letter while waiting for inspiration to strike? Not the worst idea--if this plot description covers what will eventually be the entire book--but if it covers only the 10,000 words you've written so far, that's not good, as the query should summarize a larger portion of the book.]


Notes

A 200+ year-old guy smitten with a high school girl? Shall we assume he was 17 when he became a vampire, and that he hasn't aged physically or emotionally since then, or shall we just go, "Ewwwwwww"?

I guess it doesn't matter if he looks like an old man, as he's invisible. But I don't understand what Carmen sees in him. Ba dum ching.

It's not clear why Carmen is thinking Mychel won't be able to do anything to save me, when there's been no mention that they have any sort of relationship. She should be wondering if her chemistry teacher will save her, not some guy she barely knows and who isn't in the school. All we know is that she recently found out that he exists. It's also not clear why Mike is smitten when his only contact with Carmen was almost running into her. Does he follow her around? If so, Muriah isn't the only stalker in the book.