Face-Lift 1071

Guess the Plot

The Gone

1. We hear plenty about the experiences of teenaged mothers-- but this haunting, gritty non-fiction narrative chronicles the trials and tribulations of six teenaged fathers. 

2. A personalized review of your 401K and pension plan over the last decade.

3. Keeping a vow they made 45 years ago, six zoned-out stoners meet on Fisherman's Wharf and provide meandering accounts of their lives, loves, and drug experiences.

4. Professional bedtime story reader Lee Vipond suddenly finds his home gone when a real estate speculator buys his apartment building and evicts him.

5. Felipe, Hambone and Lucas all join Occupy San Bernardino, figuring they'll meet girls, score some pot, play drums, and camp in the park. Everything is fine, until some lady from TV interviews Hambone. Now Lucas's dad wants to know why he isn't in class, Baby Smiley wants to know why Felipe is with that gringa, and Hambone's mother has no idea who the hell he is.

6. In the darkened pantry of the old Moore house, naught but shadows and cobwebs can be found. The cupboards sit hollow on the walls, vacant as eyesockets in a rotted skull. The refrigerator ... also empty! Am I the only one who goes food shopping around here?!?

7. After a 3 day binge in celebration of the first request for her novel by an actual famous literary agent, Janice wakes up, has 6 cups of coffee, and prepares to email the manuscript. OMG. What happened? Some evil drunk went wild and replaced the file with X-rated smut.

8. In a post-apocalyptic world, three quarters of the world's population die from the go-away bombs of the Go-Away War. Their spirits remain in other dimensions. They see into the remaining real world but can only interact with each other. They quarrel then form into factions which make war on each other.

Original Version

Dear EE:

As a post-dotcom tale of working-class tenants caught in the crosshairs of real estate speculation, my debut literary novel THE GONE explores a topic woefully ignored in fiction. [Considering the vast quantity of fiction published every year, I don't see how anyone can know that a topic has been ignored. If anyone does know, it's probably the person to whom you're writing, so there's no need to state it.]

Ex-gardener Lee Vipond reads bedtime stories by the hour to pampered adults. [By the hour? If I'm reading you a bedtime story and you're still awake after ten minutes, I'm turning on the audiobook and going downstairs to watch The Daily Show.] His upstairs lifer girlfriend, Jane, puts herself through acupuncture school slinging hooch at the neighborhood dive, while her mumblecore teenaged son, Shaun, holes up with his formerly-homeless boyfriend, the obsequious Cody. [We once did a writing exercise whose challenge was to write a 250-word piece of fiction that used the words "Acupuncture," "hooch," "mumblecore," "obsequious," "upstairs," and "homeless." No one could do it. And you managed it in one sentence.] And everyone’s favorite abuela, Mrs. Padilla, manages a derelict corner store. [I don't see "derelict" as a good adjective to apply to a store. "Abuela" should be italicized to alert those who of us who don't know the meaning that we might need to use a foreign-language dictionary. My research reveals that "mumblecore" is a film genre. And I don't see that any of these words is improving the query. Never give me the choice between looking something up or moving on to another query.] But when their apartment building is sold out from under them and they’re faced with eviction, this cohesive band of neighbors find themselves in emotional freefall as they scramble to find new homes in a city they can no longer afford.

No one appears more impacted by the ticking clock than Lee. Accustomed to merely cracking storybooks in the bedrooms of strangers, urgency and need now place him between the sheets of “big tipper” clients. Meanwhile, he struggles to keep his unraveling neighbor family intact in the only true home he’s ever known, or be forced to leave town in a diasporic flight. ["Diasporic" seems a bit overboard to me. Like calling a dozen deaths from West Nile Virus a Holocaust.] Then he meets Arlo, and the growing intimacy between the two men triggers a seismic shift at the core of Lee’s identity, finally propelling him toward his uncertain future. [It seems to me that the loss of his home has already propelled him toward an uncertain future, while his new relationship might make his future a bit less uncertain, especially if Arlo has a stable life. Unfortunately, we don't know, as you tell us nothing about him, even though he seems to be the main force for change.]

As an urban dweller, and having myself weathered a no-fault eviction, I bring to THE GONE an insider’s view of what it’s like to unexpectedly lose one’s home in a financially challenging time. Not an uncommon modern story, I’ve yet to find this wrenching experience of loss and discovery given voice in literature. [With the possible exception of almost everything written by Charles Dickens. Also, The House of Sand and Fog.]

THE GONE is complete at 134, 000 words. Thanks for taking the time to review my query.

Kind Regards,


Notes

If Lee is your main character, focus on him. We don't need a tidbit of information about each of his neighbors. Just refer to his neighbors as his neighbors. The long paragraph could be condensed to something like:

When their apartment building is sold out from under them and they’re faced with eviction, a cohesive band of neighbors find themselves in emotional freefall as they scramble to find new homes in a city they can no longer afford. No one is more impacted by the ticking clock than professional bedtime story reader Lee Vipond.

Now you have plenty of room to tell us about Arlo and what happens after he shows up and after the evictions.

Few people will want to read an entire book about a character whose last name is Vipond. Come up with a better name. I suggest you choose from among Granger, Charles and Bandicoot.