Face-Lift 1456

Guess the Plot

Memorandum

1. Two teens enter a parallel realm to escape their violent lives, only to discover their new world is more like Dante's Inferno than Alice's Wonderland. Apparently they didn't get the memo, the one about the demons who want their souls. 

2. Paul Johansen finds a memorandum on his desk, telling him he'll have to work through the weekend. Fuming, he tosses it in the wastebasket, setting in motion a series of events that will lead to three murders and the derailment of a train carrying nuclear waste through Chicago.

3. Memory has been stored in The Library for as long as AJ has known. However, when he finds a discrepancy between two records, he makes a search for the original. Which is stored in the underground vault known as . . . Memorandum!

4. Secretary Jean's new boss (assigned by corporate headquarters) is a terrible manager, but fortunately only communicates by memorandums, which Jean fixes up before sending them. When the boss turns up dead, can the entire branch office get rid of the body and fake his continued existence while leaving Jean in charge?

5. Knowing her boyfriend Brent will not take it well in person, Jackie informs him that she's breaking up with him in a State Department memorandum that mistakenly gets sent to everyone in the department . . . except Brent. Hilarity ensues.

6. Hoping to foster a reputation as the most upscale agency in New York, literary agent Harper Montgomery replaces form rejection slips with form rejection memorandums.

Original Version

MEMORANDUM (90,000 words) is a YA contemporary fantasy standalone with series potential following underprivileged POVs. It combines the otherworldly danger in L.L. McKinney’s Nightmare-Verse trilogy, the grief-processing in Jessica Kara’s DON’T ASK IF I’M OKAY, and the tense adventure of Marc J. Gregson's SKY'S END. [I'd put this paragraph after the plot summary.]

 

17-year-old Dulani longs to escape a broken home. So when mysterious visions promise a way out, he’s desperate enough to try. Flipping a strange coin, Dulani enters a parallel realm that manifests humanity’s myths—from dazzling El Dorado to gorgeous Elysium. He’s always coveted such greatness and art, but dreams become nightmares when demons hound him like fresh meat. [Demons hound fresh meat?] Outrunning [Running from] death is a worse life than his old one, but he’s got to suck it up and adapt because he’s alone—until he meets a firecracker with a chip on her shoulder. [Once I know I'm in a world where there's magic and humanity's myths are manifested, it's not a huge leap to imagine there are sentient firecrackers. Sentient swords are particularly common in fantasy. And what about Lumière, Cogsworth, Chip, Mrs. Potts, and Babette from the film Beauty and the Beast? Or that precious ring of power? Call her a teenager.] [If you say "until he meets Milliana, a teenager with a chip on her shoulder," we'll be sure, in the following paragraph, that Dulani is the young man Milliana meets.

 

16-year-old Milliana’s brain is too big of a target for the bullets flying around in her neighborhood. So, she escapes into a world only “Visitors” like her can enter. [Does she get there by flipping a strange coin?] It’s nice to be special, not so when souls like hers attract [She finally feels safe--until her soul starts attracting] hyper-persistent demons that want it. While hiding, she soon encounters a young man as dog-tired as her. He’s reticent, but a good listener and (almost) as smart as her. [Grammar police here. That should be "as dog-tired as she (is)" and "as smart as she (is)."] ["Her" would be okay if you said "he was (almost) as smart as her hamster."] Since they can’t run or hide forever, she suggests a daring idea: fight back. 

 

They trap and kill a leading demon, and it’s a rush of power for two people unused to it. But the demons won’t rest until they break free and devour Earth. With every Visitor in danger, it’s hunt or be hunted. [Seems like it's hunt and be hunted.] Dulani is all business, while Milliana relishes a challenge for her intellect. But as they learn more about the realm, and each other, trying to make the most of their situation could mean endangering everyone else.  [When you're stuck in a world crawling with demons who want to steal your souls and devour Earth, your plan needs to be more specific than "Let's make the most of our situation."] [This paragraph is pretty vague. What's a leading demon? A demon leader? A prominent demon? What are the demons trying to break free from? What does being "all business" mean? If every Visitor is already in danger (sentence 3) why should D & M worry that making the most of their situation (whatever that entails) will endanger everyone?

 

Like Dulani, I’m Black, and I channel my experiences with “othering” into his and the cast’s stories. As a Research Assistant with a MS in Engineering, I find new solutions to strange problems while shouldering a lot of responsibility—just like the heroes of this story. 

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Author's note: The title MEMORANDUM comes from the main characters using concepts like memory as sources of power while fighting back against a thought experiment they were tricked into at their lowest. [Wait, there is an actual alternate world with demons, right? It's not that the kids believe this because they've been tricked into participating in a thought experiment? That would be a different query (and possibly a cooler story.)] 

Notes

It's hard to believe the vast number of demons it would take to devour Earth could be defeated by two teenagers. We need something about their powers in the query, preferably something more specific than they use concepts like memory as sources of power. 

Apparently Milliana is the smarter of the two main characters. This will please female readers, who want to see someone like themselves solving the puzzles. Which is why Milliana maybe should be the Black character, to please the Black readers who want to see the Black character solving problems requiring intellect. Dulani's the muscle.

This assumes, of course, that you're set on having male and female / Black and White MCs. And that the work required to make such a change would be worth it.