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Guess the Plot

Nausicaa

1. Nancy is about to learn that not every naked man emerging from the woods is Odysseus in disguise.

2. The career of Nausia Jackson was in the ditch until she added a few more letters to her name and got a taller hairdo. Three promotions and a whirlwind romance later, she adds more letters to the name, further boosts her height with platform shoes --and is soon the Republican presidential candidate in 2016.

3. With their sun on the verge of going nova, the people of the doomed planet Nausicaa must choose twenty representatives to be sent into space in hopes of finding a new life elsewhere in the galaxy. Will they use a lottery or will the fighting among the artist, politician, and military factions lead to all-out war?

4. Captives on the Gohr prison planet Lycus IV set sail across the southern ocean, coming to shore on an island they dub Nausicaa. They declare their intention to start a new civilization, but soon realize this would have been a lot easier if they'd brought along some women.

5. Nausicaa's motto is No stranger to danger. She's made it her mission to rescue witches from the executioner, but who is going to save her, now that her fellow freedom fighters are about to go to war with the oppressive government, and she's lost her memory? If only she could find the man of her dreams...

6. The latest designer drug, Nausicaa, isn't addictive and actually improves the user's senses rather than dulling them. Now it's up to Vince Lowery and his Drug Enforcement Agency team to come up with a reason the drug should be declared illegal so that people aren't too happy.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Nausicaa is an underground freedom fighter who's helped rescue countless accused witches from public execution by a corrupt and brutal government. [It seems to me that long before the number of accused witches you've rescued from public execution became countless, the government would either figure out how to rescue-proof their executions or make them private.] No stranger to danger, Nausicaa's always been glad to put the mission first. But now she's got a new mission—saving her own arse.

Unable to remember much of the past five weeks, she's plagued by headaches and bed rest and a psych who assigns her pointless homework. [I wouldn't include bed rest, which is one of my favorite restorative therapies, on a list of plagues. It's like saying, She's plagued by gout, annoying co-workers, and her three-week summer vacation in Hawaii.] Her bosses have ordered a fellow agent to tail her wherever she goes. And she's wondering just who the hell she can trust. She needs her memories back. Now.

Her only lead is a man with angry blue-black eyes, whose face she can picture in exact detail, but whom she swears she's never met. [How can she swear this if she can't remember the past five weeks?] She has no idea where to find him, [Has she looked in the maze of tunnels outside the compound?] but she knows she's got to try. Turning deserter doesn't feel good, but she's all out of better ideas.

In the maze of tunnels outside the compound, Nausicaa finds the man from her dream, [I predicted this, despite the fact that I had no idea there even was a compound, as no compound has been mentioned.] and learns how she lost her memory. It can be restored, but the price is great—learning the ugly truth about the organisation she's called home for the past six years. [This makes it sound like she is told her memories can be restored, but there's a catch: she'll learn the truth. Instead of "It can be restored," just say He restores her memory (or whatever happens).][Did she know this truth before she lost her memories?]

Tempted as she is to wallow in her newfound misery, Nausicaa's out of time. The battle against the government is heating up, and she and her new dubious allies are planning their last stand. It's a fight only the wiliest fighters will survive. Nausicaa doesn't expect to be one of them, but she's not going down easy. [Why doesn't deserting feel good now that she knows the ugly truth?]

NAUSICAA is a science-fiction/action novel complete at 84,000 words.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Kind regards,


Notes

Is the compound the home of the organization she's called home for six years? Because it's hard to believe you could live in a compound for six years and not know the ugly truth about it. Don't her bosses trust her enough to tell her the ugly truth? More importantly, don't you trust us enough to tell us the ugly truth? This ugly truth sounds like a key motivator of the main character. What is it?

The only science fiction slant I can see is that maybe her memories were taken away by a memory-stealing technology. With the executing of accused witches giving the plot a low-tech medieval feel, you might want to stress the scientific aspect.

I'd get rid of the witches. She's a freedom fighter, she lost her memories, she seeks out dream man and discovers the ugly truth, which is X, and she must now decide whose side she's on or whatever.