Face-Lift 1424

Guess the Plot

The Reanimates

1. Louisa wants to bring her long-dead mother back to life but her state has outlawed the reanimation procedure. When Louisa tries to go to another state she's captured and thrown in a prison bunker. Can she escape, get to an out-of-state reanimation clinic, & revive her mom before anti-reanimation fanatics hunt her down?

2. Sean Tompsy thinks the job offer is to re-boot some cartoon series so old he's never heard of it. But the location for his job is an old graveyard and involves more decaying flesh than film. At least there's good health care, and great death benefits.

3. If the enemy of your enemy hates you and their enemies are also your enemies and the enemies of those enemies are simply more enemies, you may be doing something wrong. Of course, you only need corpses to make a few hundred thousand friends.

4. Vintage cartoon characters Mikey, Dunwald, Goopy and Plato finally make their return to the screen, but this time as the undead, thanks to the machinations of their original creator, Dalt Winzey, newly unfrozen from cryogenic storage. A roman à clef with fictional characterizations cleverly designed to avoid potential litigation. 

5. From Frankenstein to Re-Animator, fictional characters have long been fascinated by the idea of reanimating the dead. But Virgil Weeds knows something those idiots didn't, and he's gonna build an army of reanimates to take over the world. You'll see, just as soon as he's released from the psych ward. 

6. When the dead start coming to life, it's not clear if they're gonna be zombies like in The Walking Dead, or good people who just smell bad. Either way, we can't have them walking among us, so it's open season on anyone you think might be one of them. 

7. A love triangle gone wrong leaves a beaten corpse lying next to a pile of empty spinach cans. A shotgun-wielding psycho with a speech impediment screams "Wabbit season!" before opening fire in a pet store. Savage attacks on campers by something smarter -- and deadlier -- than the average bear. Homicide detective Zack Martinez knows two things: 1) animated characters from the 70's are back with a vengeance, and 2) he could have avoided it all if he had just taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Fifteen-year-old Louisa Fern won’t have to grieve her mother’s suicide for much longer. Or wonder why her mother would leave her at just seven years old. If she can only make it through another three years, she will finally get her answers and a second chance to prove she is worth staying alive for. That is until her state’s authoritarian government [So this is Florida?] suddenly outlaws the reanimation procedure that brings the dead back to life. [Does the procedure take 3 years, or do have to be 18 to request the procedure?]

Giving up on reanimating her mother will never be an option for Louisa. When she discovers the procedure is still permitted in the next state over, she makes a run for it despite the fact that crossing state lines is illegal. She should have known she would get caught [because pushing her mother's corpse down the Interstate in a wheelbarrow is kind of conspicuous.] but that doesn’t prevent her from putting up a fight—one that lands her in a government-run bunker resembling a prison. Except, it’s not a prison and she’s apparently [supposedly] there for her own protection. But if that’s the case, then why are there armed soldiers everywhere she looks? And why will no one tell her how long she has to stay or let her contact anyone on the outside? Most importantly, why in the world [And what] does she need protection [from]?

Louisa’s questions only multiply but she can’t lose focus now. The solution seems simple: Do whatever it takes to get the hell out of the bunker and find a better way to cross state lines. But it won’t be that easy, [That easy? It sounds impossible to me. I assume they didn't put her in an underground prison bunker, and then give her free rein to wander around the grounds above the bunker.] especially after she learns she’s not the person she thought she was her entire life. [She's actually the reanimated Princess Diana.] [Not clear why it would be "especially" hard to escape and cross state lines now that she knows who she really is.] [Also, who is she?] To make matters worse, each obstacle Louisa comes up against only makes it more apparent that she’s not in the bunker for protection. With her life now in danger, [Why is her life now in danger?] Louisa begins to rethink everything she thought she knew about reanimation, herself, and her mother’s suicide. [It wasn't suicide. It was . . . murder!]

One thing is certain. If she has any hopes of getting her mother back, she must make it out before it’s too late. [When will it be too late? When they kill her? If they want her dead, why haven't they killed her already?]

THE REANIMATES is a work of YA speculative fiction, complete at 90,000 words. It combines the raw and honest look at love and loss of Emily X.R. Pan’s THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER with the speculative sci-fi elements found in Stefanie Gaither’s FALLS THE SHADOW. I look forward to writing further books in the series [including one set twenty years in the future where Donald Trump's followers reanimate his corpse and he gets elected president again and destroys America again.]

I have had two personal essays related to my own experiences with mother loss and suicide published in the literary journals HEAL (Humans Evolving through Art and Literature) and Halfway Down the Stairs. When I’m not working as a freelance news and content writer, I can be found on the beach with my wife and dog.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Notes

Even if she makes it across the state line, won't she still have to wait three years? 

What does she need to bring to the reanimation center? The body? (Has it been cryogenically frozen?) Some DNA? (Would the person created from the mother's DNA have the mother's memories of why she committed suicide?)

Here's a shorter version of your plot description, one that might not inspire the reader to ask a lot of questions you don't have room to answer in the query:  

Louisa Fern has long wondered why her mother committed suicide when Louisa was just seven years old. She thinks she'll soon have a chance to ask her--until her state’s authoritarian government suddenly outlaws the reanimation procedure that brings the dead back to life.

When she discovers the procedure is still permitted in the next state over, Louisa makes an unsuccessful run for it, and ends up imprisoned in a state-run bunker, supposedly for her own protection. But why will no one tell her how long she has to stay? Or what she needs protection from?

As her questions multiply, Louisa begins to rethink everything she thought she knew about reanimation, herself, and her mother’s suicide. One thing is certain. If she has any hope of getting her mother back, she must escape from the bunker before [something more specific than "it's too late."]

That's short enough that you can add a little something I left out that you mistakenly think is vital.

Not sure I like the title. Are "the reanimates" characters in the book who've been reanimated? Perhaps The [adjective: troublesome? desperate?] Reanimation of Louisa Fern's Mother.

As you call this a look at love and loss, I assume it's not intended as a satirical look at abortion rights, but the "procedure" being recently outlawed in some states is bound to give the reader that idea. If you don't want that, calling it a process instead of a procedure might help. Or not.