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Guess the Plot

 

Kannagi

1. An historical look at Japanese female shamanism from ancient times to the present.

2. The Sisters of the Unwavering Faith has been around as long as Kannagi can remember. Always the same look and behavior. When she is invited to join the group, she finds things that can chill the soul. Can she escape?

3. After Kannagi finally leaves her unemployed, philandering, loser of a husband, he is executed by the government. So she performs her wifely duty and burns down the entire city.

4. The kids from Jumanji stumble upon another game, a computer game called Kannagi, which they can play on their computers from their homes with no human contact. They become addicted and never leave their parents' basements until, many decades later, they are carried out in caskets.

5. When a dog named Kannagi crosses the border from South Korea to North Korea, and finds its way to Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader is so taken with the mutt that he abandons his nuclear arsenal and proclaims his nation a democracy.

6. The Hindu god Kannagi, the Peacemaker, takes on Shiva, the Destroyer, in an epic battle. At stake: the number of arms each will have and who gets to ride the sacred elephant. 

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor

Kannagi is an #ownvoices feminist retelling of Tamil Nadu’s most famous epic, the Silappadhikaaram. [The title alone is epic.] Complete at 75000 words, it will appeal to readers of Madeline Miller’s Circe and Vaishnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi. [If this query is being sent somewhere other than India, the reader is likely to think Tamil Nadu is the author. Not that that will matter, I guess.]

Sometime in the 14th century, Kannagi starts a fire that ends up razing the city of Madurai to the ground. Religion calls it an act of God and her, a goddess. [Here in the 21st century we call it an act of arson, and her, a terrorist.] 

Myth attributes it to wifely duty and celebrates her as a beacon of chastity. [Burning a whole city to the ground is wifely duty?] [There's already a myth about this? It just happened two sentences ago.]

Every version of this story ends the same way: Kannagi burns Madurai down to avenge her husband’s death. [Okay, this clears up one point. She didn't accidentally burn down the city when she tossed a cigarette butt out the window of her horse cart. She intentionally burned the city down because someone in the city is responsible for her husband's death.] But in a society where a woman’s standing is determined by her husband’s and where widowhood leaves you a pariah, Kannagi’s motives cannot be limited to grief or wifely duty. [I moved some of that to the next paragraph. Here's the problem. You start with the plot, (sort of) as expected, but then you interrupt it by bringing in the myth, and "every version of this story," which could be worked in before or after the plot summary. For instance, sentence 1: Kannagi is a 75,000-word feminist retelling of Ilango Adigal’s epic, Silappadhikaaram, in which a woman burns the city of Madurai to the ground to avenge her husband's death.]

A merchant’s daughter in Puhar, Kannagi is raised with one goal and one goal only: marriage. But when [her husband,] Kovalan leaves her for another, she has to learn an entirely new way of life with her lady-in-waiting and confidant, Veni. [A merchant's daughter has a lady-in-waiting?] Kovalan eventually comes back, begging for another chance. He is penniless thanks to his philandering, but in Puhar, [where a woman’s standing is determined by her husband’s,] a penniless husband is better than none at all. [Not this husband.]

When Kannagi finally decides to leave Kovalan, [See? She agreed with me.] they have moved to Madurai -the capital city of a rival kingdom- for a fresh start. Married in name only, the two form a fragile alliance to regain wealth so they can move back home. Meanwhile, Kannagi finds community in a group of women all spurned by society, where she learns the strange ways in which women find agency under oppression. 

Kovalan’s attempts at business keep failing, so Kannagi gives him her last piece of jewellery to pawn for capital. [What is her last piece, the Hope Diamond? Her wedding ring isn't gonna bring in enough to start a business that brings them wealth.] Her one shot at going back home and regaining her social status is lost forever when Kovalan is executed, following a court scandal. [How does this loser get within five miles of the court?]

Through all of this, the indignation that simmers just beneath the surface, informing her every decision is what gives away Kannagi’s motive: Rage. [Rage that results in a last-episode-of- Game-of-Thrones-Daenerys moment, as Kannagi razes the city of Madurai to the ground.]

With themes of sisterhood, feminine rage and sapphic pining, Kannagi is an exploration of, and a rebellion against the censorship of women, their feelings and motivations, under the veils of chastity.

I work in computer science, writing code when I'm not writing fiction. Kannagi is my first novel, although I have experience in technical documentation and social media copywriting. Complete at 75,000 words, it will appeal to readers of Madeline Miller’s Circe and Vaishnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi.

Notes

"Every version of this story ends the same way: Kannagi burns Madurai down to avenge her husband’s death." So there are several retellings of this story? No need to tell us how your story is the same as every version; how is it different? Is it because it's feminist? Seems like every version would be somewhat feminist if they all involve oppressed women and revenge.

I've attempted to reorganize your information (red words moved elsewhere or eliminated), to get the story, which begins: A merchant’s daughter in Puhar . . .  up front. If you take it apart and put it back together, feel free to resubmit.

Normally when I think of retellings, I think of moving a story set in olden times to the present day. It seems you've moved the original from the 5th century to the 14th. How many

get-rich-quick schemes were available to Kovalan in the 14th century?

Not that I'm saying you should do something so radical as set it in present day, but women are still oppressed today, and, in some places, dependent on their husband's social status. All you'd have to do is change Kannagi's lady-in-waiting to her BFF.