Why you don't get published.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Fake Query #3
Face-Lift 552, GTP #6
Jane Doe remembers turning the cut-glass knob of the wooden shop door. She remembers walking into the old Victorian converted to a thrift store in Spruce Hill, Colorado. Before that, there is nothing.
The ladies at Daughters of Mercy Secondhand are used to helping lost souls, and they quickly find a volunteer to drive Jane to the state mental hospital in Pueblo. There, a sharp-eyed security guard sees that the woman on Jane's driver's liscense isn't Jane. The woman, Yolanda King, only bears a resemblance to the amnesia patient. Jane feels she should have known she wasn't Yolanda, but when she looks in the mirror, she is shocked to see a total stranger.
Doctor Ben Shelby takes on jane as a client, pro bono. The doctor doubts this is a genuine case of retrograde amnesia and suspects that Jane has stolen Yolanda's identity and is faking the illness to avoid prosecution for some crime. A preliminary police investigation seems to confirm this- the real Yolanda King was found dead under suspicious circumstances. When Jane tells the police she doesn't remember meeting Yolanda, Shelby decides to get to the bottom of this certain murder.
Then a strange anomaly on Jane's MRI scan prompts the doctor to look a little closer. What he first takes to be a double image turns out to be more than a simple medical man like Shelby ever bargained for.
It will take all the doctor's skill to pry open the door Jane envisions in her mind. It will take all her determination to hold it shut. She doesn't know what will happen when it opens, but she senses it- and she's terrified.
The Amnesia Door is a 100,000 word psychological thriller about a woman who loses her mind and finds someone else's. Thanks for your consideration.
--AA
Notes
These queries for nonexistent books seem better than the ones we get for actual books. I'm thinking everyone should do this exercise and then write the book in their query.
S.J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep is a psychological thriller involving amnesia, and well worth your time.
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5 comments:
That's enticing, AA! Hold out for a great movie deal, I can totally see this on a big screen :)
Thanks. I'll have to look for that book.
LOL at the "I'm thinking everyone should do this exercise and then write the book in their query."--because I have been seriously considering writing the book after I sent in a fake query!
Kind of funny how encapsulating an idea in 300 words or less makes it seem plausible.
Re: The Amnesia Door--I'm strangely intrigued by the MRI. Does she have 2 brains? A door-shaped malformation in her amygdala? And, will Doctor Ben stick a crayon up Jane's nose to wedge the door open a la Homer Simpson? If so, Jane has reason to be scared.
"I'm thinking everyone should do this exercise and then write the book in their query."
It's actually pretty fun. After all the encouragement I got for the fake vampire one, I started drafting. I've decided it's a buddy comedy.
Veronica- I was thinking maybe there was a superimposed shadow of another brain on her real brain. That's as far as I got with it. At the end I was hinting that the dead woman's mind was somehow "picked up" by Jane's brain. Either she had something to do with the death, or she was there at the time.
I'm not sure I'd actually write this because there are quite a few emotional triggers for me. However, it may be a good form of therapy. I don't know.
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