Roadside Attractions
1. When ace detective Zack Martinez is called to investigate a body found near Interstate 10, he knows one thing: all those buzzards must be here for a reason.
2. He was standing on the shoulder of the northbound interstate, handsome and rugged, with his thumb outstretched and a smile in his bright blue eyes. She was going the other way, white dress and red hair dancing in the wind of passing vehicles. The attraction was immediate, intense, undeniable … but could it survive crossing eight lanes of high-speed traffic?
3. Mrs. Lovette's Roadside Attractions is the best bar and grill off highway 666, with a sympathetic bartender who tells outrageous local ghost stories. Until, that is, the health inspector arrives to find out what's in the Mystery Meat Special. Fortunately, he stops at the barbershop next door first.
4. After Amanda's boyfriend dumps her in the middle of their romantic road trip, she has a choice to make. Go home or take advantage of all the roadside attractions, namely the bars and motels and truck stops along I-95. Time for an adventure.
5. For over 70 years people have stopped at the MacDonald family of Nevada's little roadside gift shop to eat at the 'best burger joint in the galaxy' and pay a few bucks to see the 'alien mummy'. It's great, until the day the aliens show up to claim their son's body. Will the MacDonalds cede possession of their prize attraction without a fight?
5. For over 70 years people have stopped at the MacDonald family of Nevada's little roadside gift shop to eat at the 'best burger joint in the galaxy' and pay a few bucks to see the 'alien mummy'. It's great, until the day the aliens show up to claim their son's body. Will the MacDonalds cede possession of their prize attraction without a fight?
6. Julia has always walked the same roadway to school. To the side, there is always someone new selling a new thing. After she gets her allowance, a new attraction has caught her eye. Too bad she has also caught its eye.
Original Version
Dear Evil Editor,
Amanda’s romantic road trip becomes a celibate single’s tour after her boyfriend dumps her. She envisions miles of loneliness with only sarcasm and liquor to keep her warm. Audacious isn’t a self-descriptor, but she’s off and running. [Not sure what that sentence is saying, but it seems contradictory to the previous sentence. Is it saying she never considered herself audacious, but now she's gonna prove herself wrong? Would "adventurous" be a better word?] [Were they in her car or her boyfriend's?]
On the road, Amanda realizes the difference between lonely and alone. She squirms less while dining solo and unapologetically builds blazing campfires for one. All this independence doesn’t go unnoticed. She’s befriended by a group of men out for one last hurrah. [This sounds like the men all befriended her at once. Which may be the case, but if it's not, change "group" to "string."] [Also, I don't know that men out for a last hurrah are specifically drawn to independence in a woman. Unless "independence" means aloneness.]
Old-Amanda would’ve relinquished her singlehood with the first husky hello. ["Singlehood" meaning solitariness, rather than marital status, I assume.] But old-Amanda was stuffed in the trunk somewhere along I-95. [So she has the car. That she was building campfires had me wondering if she was walking and hitchhiking.] Even so, it’s hard to ignore her thumping, especially when two of the men want more than a single night.
It’s one thing to allow them in her bed, [or her sleeping bag] but her heart, well that’s another matter.
ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS is women’s fiction at 87,000 words.
Thank you for your consideration,
Notes
So her boyfriend dumps her and she decides she's not gonna let that jerk ruin her road trip, and the plot is basically a string of events as she drives the Interstate, most of them involving men chasing a last hurrah? That's a typical format for a road trip novel and there's nothing wrong with it, but perhaps some specific examples of her encounters (the funniest, the worst, the most appealing...) would give us a better idea if we want to read about this trip. We want to know there's more than bars and motels. We want to know what really goes on at South of the Border.
There's some good stuff here, and I mostly nitpicked, but do throw in some sexy details and hint at the attempted murder.
Amanda’s romantic road trip becomes a celibate single’s tour after her boyfriend dumps her. She envisions miles of loneliness with only sarcasm and liquor to keep her warm. Audacious isn’t a self-descriptor, but she’s off and running. [Not sure what that sentence is saying, but it seems contradictory to the previous sentence. Is it saying she never considered herself audacious, but now she's gonna prove herself wrong? Would "adventurous" be a better word?] [Were they in her car or her boyfriend's?]
On the road, Amanda realizes the difference between lonely and alone. She squirms less while dining solo and unapologetically builds blazing campfires for one. All this independence doesn’t go unnoticed. She’s befriended by a group of men out for one last hurrah. [This sounds like the men all befriended her at once. Which may be the case, but if it's not, change "group" to "string."] [Also, I don't know that men out for a last hurrah are specifically drawn to independence in a woman. Unless "independence" means aloneness.]
Old-Amanda would’ve relinquished her singlehood with the first husky hello. ["Singlehood" meaning solitariness, rather than marital status, I assume.] But old-Amanda was stuffed in the trunk somewhere along I-95. [So she has the car. That she was building campfires had me wondering if she was walking and hitchhiking.] Even so, it’s hard to ignore her thumping, especially when two of the men want more than a single night.
It’s one thing to allow them in her bed, [or her sleeping bag] but her heart, well that’s another matter.
ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS is women’s fiction at 87,000 words.
Thank you for your consideration,
Notes
So her boyfriend dumps her and she decides she's not gonna let that jerk ruin her road trip, and the plot is basically a string of events as she drives the Interstate, most of them involving men chasing a last hurrah? That's a typical format for a road trip novel and there's nothing wrong with it, but perhaps some specific examples of her encounters (the funniest, the worst, the most appealing...) would give us a better idea if we want to read about this trip. We want to know there's more than bars and motels. We want to know what really goes on at South of the Border.
There's some good stuff here, and I mostly nitpicked, but do throw in some sexy details and hint at the attempted murder.
1 comment:
So is her primary personal conflict that she doesn't believe she can be independent and married? Or that she can't be independent and in a relationship? (Neither idea makes any sense to me, but I've seen people that believe that so....) I'm also not understanding how building a blazing campfire for one is a symbol of independence and not just an invitation to predators and a waste of fuel (that's probably just the conservationist camper in me talking). I'm also getting a mixed vision of the type of person she is when you say she's celibate in the first paragraph and are talking about men wanting more than a single night in the last.
It might help to the know the time of year if she's forced to do a lot of outdoor camping.
It's probably too much to ask for her being literally locked in a trunk at some point, but I'd probably enjoy the story more if she were
Post a Comment