The Devil's Daughter
1. Kelly Osbourne spends her days torturing souls at her father's command, but what she really wants is to be a reality TV star in America. When she gets asked to join the cast of Dancing with the Stars, will she break ties with the old man?
2. Don has been searching for the daughter of the devil himself. He's been searching for an angel in white. He's been waiting for a woman who's a little of both. But when he tries to feel her when there's no one in sight, there's hell to pay.
3. The Time Traveler's Wife has been foolin' around. But proving it is going to require the DNA test from Hell.
4. Lucia Satania has been having strange urges. She suddenly wants to be honest, compassionate, and helpful! What's happening to her? If she doesn't do something extra evil soon, she'll lose her status as the evilest girl in school.
5. The Devil knocks up some woman while possessing the body of some hot guy. The pregnant woman, shunned by her Amish family, finds herself in a New Jersey walk-up, surrounded by a group of devil worshippers waiting for her foretold daughter to be born. Also, a priest who throws himself out of any handy window at the first sign of demon possession, but always manages to survive.
6. Abby feeds and cares for orphaned and injured wildlife. A state wildlife agent arrests her because she lacks a license which she can’t get because of a prior conviction from her wild youth. Before her court date, she abducts the agent, cuts him up, and feeds him to her bear friends. Detective Dale Lincoln follows wild bears to collect evidence from their feces but then falls in love with Abby. It’s unbearable.
7. Hi! My Name is Allemortis. I like warm nights by the fire, walks by the lava, and holding hands while watching explosions. You're any male of age who isn't afraid to try new things. My place is really easy to get to--I'm sure you've been told to come here lotsa times! LOL! CYA!
Original Version
Lucia Satania leads the perfect life. All of her frenemies loathe and adore her, her teachers fear her, and creating mischief is as easy as breathing. She’s growing eviler by the day-- as is to be expected of the devil’s daughter.
But since her sixteenth birthday she has been having these strange… urges. She suddenly wants to be honest, compassionate, and helpful even (shudder). [even (shudder) helpful]. The other day she helped an elderly woman walk across the street, as opposed to letting her get run over like she should have. What was she thinking? [Helping an elderly woman cross the street is awfully cliche and boring for your example. Besides, she can't know the woman would have been run over without her help. Also, gleefully letting an elderly woman get run over is a different level of evil from the "creating mischief" mentioned in the first paragraph. The tone seems a bit light if we're supposed to think that up to now she's been taking delight in witnessing people's deaths. If you keep the street-crossing example, I'd remove the "as opposed to..." phrase. Or switch to something like, Why, just the other day she went to the salon to have her horns polished, and didn't even park in a handicapped space!]
Now she’s losing her status as the evilest girl in school, [Is this a school for evil kids?] her mother wants to disown her and her priorities are all messed up. Lucia must do something extra evil to get back in everyone’s bad graces, [If she attends a school for the evil, doing something extra evil would probably get her in everyone's good graces. If it's not a school for the evil, why hasn't she been expelled?] but her risky plan unearths a secret from her mother’s past that just might change the game forever. [Vague. If necessary I can live with only knowing Lucia's plan or only knowing Mom's secret, but you have to give us something.]
The devil's daughter is a ya fantasy complete at 70,000 words.
Notes
This is all setup until you get to the risky plan, about which you reveal nothing. How about starting:
Lucia Satania is the devil's daughter, but she isn't even the evilest girl in her school! Not anymore. Ever since her sixteenth birthday, Lucia has been having these strange… urges. She suddenly wants to be honest, compassionate, and (shudder) helpful. The other day she stayed after school and cleaned all the blackboards without even being asked! (How could she have known those math problems were supposed to stay up?)
With her mother threatening to disown her, Lucia knows she must do something extra evil to win back her reputation.
That leaves plenty of room to fill us in on how Lucia deals with her situation.
7 comments:
Truthfully, if I were an agent, I'd request pages. If I later found out that you were the kind of cranky writer who would refuse to discuss changing a character's over-the-top name, I could always reject later.
I like the set-up. I like the voice, with the caveats EE mentioned. I'd just hope the missing story elements were in the actual pages.
But I'm not an agent, so my approval doesn't do you much good. There probably does need to be more about what actually happens in the story, and yeah, you do need to think outside the box a little. Has anyone here ever actually helped an old (non-blind) lady across the street? Try to relate the good-vs-evil example a little more to teenagers' real lives.
And it would particularly be interesting to hear what evil things kids at Hellgate High actually get up to, and what her nefarious plan is.
In re the character's name, I don't have a problem with Lucia, which means "light". But what's the deal with Satania? Why isn't her last name Satan?
(Btw, the high school in Missoula, Montana, is actually called Hellgate. When I was in the town many years, ago, the front door of the school was topped with a stained glass window that spelled out HELLGATE. I can only hope it still is.)
I kind of do love "All of her frenemies loathe and adore her".
Alaska:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Hellgate+High+School,+South+Higgins+Avenue,+Missoula,+MT,+United+States&aq=2&oq=high+school&sll=46.855261,-114.026413&sspn=0.198857,0.469322&vpsrc=6&gl=ca&ie=UTF8&hq=Hellgate+High+School,+South+Higgins+Avenue,+Missoula,+MT,+United+States&ll=46.862034,-113.997013&spn=0.001561,0.003667&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=46.862034,-113.997013&panoid=F387gFJ0UkUkEwK1IYLNfQ&cbp=12,30.78,,0,-12.9
(If link doesn't work, just drop "Hellgate High School, South Higgins Avenue, Missoula, MT, United States" into google maps)
Concept is great. Name is over-the-top. EE is right. "as opposed to letting her get run over like she should have" is incredibly clunky.
If you use bad graces to mean good graces, should you also call her life perfect?
I helped an old lady across the street once. She gave me a sweetie. I think I was eight.
So not the market for this kind of story, so I say nothing about that.
Reminds me a lot of the game Disgaea 3, which takes place at Evil Academy--a school for demons. Honor students at Evil Academy are horrible delinquents by human standards, while upstanding students are considered "delinquents" at Evil Academy.
One day, honor student Mao reads a superhero comic. He's then convinced that the only way for him to defeat the Overlord of the Netherworld (his dad) and take over is to become a hero himself. Which means he has to be "good."
The antagonist is a "delinquent" who sees Mao's efforts to become a hero as a threat to her position as the school's top delinquent. Throw a self-proclaimed human "hero" into the mix, mayhem and hilarity ensue, good ole' isometric fun is had by all.
So yeah, the whole bizarro-world evil school thing has been done before. Being evil to be "good" is just a premise, not a plot. So you might want to make sure there's more to the actual plot of your story than just that.
Oh yeah, and the name's definitely gotta go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy,_the_Daughter_of_the_Devil
Hello author, I agree with Alaska Ravenclaw - I would request pages (in that I'm excited to read more).
I loved the first paragraph: the frenemies line, the last line. At this point, I like your writing style and I feel like you have a unique idea. Some of the other comments have pointed out that this is not the first time this premise has been used, but I've never read anything like it, and I frequent a library a few times a month :)
So she turns sixteen and starts feeling helpful. How does this connect to her mother's secret? Or does it? If the devil is the dad, then who is the mother? Or is the devil the mom? What is the 'game' that will 'change forever'? -these are the questions I had while reading your query. Like AR, I wonder about what kind of school she attends.
I love the idea of turning teenage rebellion topsy-turvy, and the stakes seem high because no self-respecting daughter of the devil would ever want to be the good girl. I would like to see what EE says about your rewrite, should you attempt it. Good luck.
-Sarah C
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