A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake plots.

https://evileditor.blogspot.com/p/query-queue_7.html

Face-Lift 1534

Guess the Plot

We the Brazen

1. Ever-expanding robot hive mind Izkssisst runs out of materials for their next generation in a rocky asteroid belt. They resort to using brass, which leads to a splintering of the commune. Can we new Tissizks branch off on our own, or do we truly wish to be a part of the them?

2. When Clam gets tasked with cooking for a diplomat, she has no idea he'll turn out to be a young child. On the bright side, it means she'll only have to make pizza and chicken fingers.

3. It takes a lot of gall to march into the governor's mansion, take paintings off the walls, and burn them, but that's what the new tri delta pledges have to do. It's hazing, 2025-style.

 

Original Version

WE THE BRAZEN is a high fantasy standalone with series potential, complete at 76K words. Fans of Deeplight by Frances Hardinge may enjoy the focus on friendship and the underwater setting.

Clam swore she would kill the next master she could get her hands on, [She must've been really steamed. Get it? Steamed clam.] and they heard her. [Not thrilled with "Clam" as the name of a main character, though I'll allow that it's better than "Lobster."] [Who is this "they" that heard her? The masters?] For twenty years she was condemned to kitchen work, never to serve an Exalted again. [Is serving an Exalted a cushy job? Because I think I'd rather work in a kitchen than serve some highbrow snob who considers himself exalted. Are the Exalted masters?] ["Condemned" is a pretty strong word for kitchen work, a job millions of people choose, and billions do in their own homes. Judge: I find you guilty as charged, and condemn you to 20 years as a personal chef.]

When she’s put to work under a young, disabled diplomat named Asran, she begins to suspect she was sent to him because of her threat, not despite it. Her home is a eugenicist dystopia, [Do you mean Asran's home? She was sent to him, right? I assume she works in his kitchen.] and does not take kindly to people like Asran. [Meaning disabled diplomats?] As much as she wants to make good on her promise, she's unwilling to kill a sweet child. [If "they" want Asran gone or dead, why don't they just banish or kill him?] [Wait, Asran is a child? And a diplomat?]

Her suspicions only deepen when she’s sent an unsigned letter that instructs her to give him foods he’s deathly allergic to. She must try to keep him and herself alive in a hostile world, and find out [identify? expose?] Asran’s would-be-murderer before they can finish the job. [If they were willing to finish the job, they would have done it already, instead of trying to get Clam to do it.]

___________ is [I am] a first reader for The Colored Lens and has [have] an affinity for the strange and the fantastic. They are [I am] autistic like Asran, and enjoy staying up too late talking to their [my] friends.

Notes

Does this sweet child, Asran, have parents? If so, I think they would be interested in finding whoever sent the letter. Why is Clam the one investigating?

If I want Asran to eat deadly food, I think I'd sneak it into his food myself, rather than tell someone else to do it, which leaves a a paper trail.

I'm not clear on what the eugenicist dystopia is. Is that Clam's homeland? The home she lived in before she was sent to Asran's home? Is she working in Asran's home, even though the people in this home don't take kindly to people like him?

My problems are with the plot, as much as the query, unless the query is giving me the wrong ideas about the plot, in which case you need to clarify the plot points I brought up.

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1518 would like feedback on the follwong version of the query.

Dear Evil Editor,

ADAM & EVE is an adult 99,000-word LGBTQ+ thriller set in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, complete at 99,000 words. Combining the style of Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson with the speculative themes [evocative] of My Murder by Katie Williams, ADAM & EVE will appeal to fans of the dark humour in AppleTV’S Severance.

42 year-old solicitor Cat Cowan goes home [to Scotland] for the first time in a decade—but only for the sperm. She thinks pricey artificial insemination from the controversial specialists at The Clinic will fill the hole her ex-girlfriend left behind.

Cat’s thrilled when The Clinic delivers, but at the 6 week scan a whistle-blowing nurse tells her she received IVF instead of IUI.

No sperm; just an embryo. [Move this sentence to the end of the previous paragraph.]

Someone else’s embryo.

Devastated, [Enraged?] Cat takes a blood test and launches an investigation. She tracks down the offending clinician’s ex-wife, Tasha. With a shared enemy, they grow close as they dig into The Clinic’s sordid history: eugenics, questionable practices, exploiting a devastated population after a disastrous chemical spill that caused miscarriages, birth defects and cancer. And, after Tasha’s son hacks their servers, historic footage of strange tests performed on two children: [they called] Adam and Eve.

The footage is so old Adam and Eve must be adults by now, but there’s no trace of them. The investigation pivots to exposing embryo theft—The Clinic has an airtight retention policy that suggests they kept and raised two babies for developmental study—but before Cat and Tasha can expose them, Tasha’s son disappears. [is found dead. Or is he? Tasha's adamant the body in the morgue isn't her son.]

Then they find him dead on the beach. It’s ruled an accidental drowning, but Tasha’s adamant it isn’t him: he had braces as a child, and the teeth are wrong even if the rest of him matches.

Cat’s convinced he was killed because they’re close to exposing The Clinic, but Tasha won’t budge: her son is missing, not dead, and who—or what—ever is in the morgue, it’s not him.

As they search for Tasha’s son and confront the growing evidence that The Clinic isn’t just selectively implanting embryos, it’s cloning them, Cat realises the real question isn’t whose baby she has [is] inside her.

It’s who’s in there at all [what's inside her]. [The options being someone else's embryo/ baby or the clone of someone else's embryo/ baby, right?]

Notes

This is a big improvement, but is longer than ideal. Maybe that won't matter, but getting rid of the red words wouldn't hurt. 

Feedback Request

 The author of the book featured most recently here would like feedback on the following version of the query.

Public defender Shukari does a lot between [has many responsibilities, from] hunting plant-monsters and [to] investigating dark magic in eco-cities. It’s tough, but she believes everyone deserves safety and justice. Now, if only she could find a cure for a spell that has trapped numerous civilians in their own, fossilizing bodies, her parents included. Without a cure, death is certain. And though her leads keep hitting dead ends, Shukari refuses to give up.

So when she finally tracks [down] a [the] culprit, she’s overjoyed. Her target? Crime lord Tyris, notorious for his lethal magic weapons, including a [the] prototype behind her loved ones' condition. The [Her] plan[:] becomes strike key operations until his little kingdom collapses. Maybe then he'll talk cures. But Shukari soon crashes into a major hurdle: Tyris shook a lot of hands. Partners cover his tracks, traitors look the other way, and his empire fights back. As losses pile [up] and time runs short, Shukari makes a desperate play.

She steals the prototype. Pity it, too, [Sadly, it] doesn’t have the answer she seeks. The sensible thing, then, would be to destroy it before Tyris can make final versions. Instead, she plans [offers] a trade he can’t resist: give her a cure and he gets his weapon back. Neither side plans on giving the other what they want, so it’s down to who can trick whom. But [And] if Shukari can’t outwit a [the] master dealmaker, she’ll be handing over [saving] the lives of countless people.  

Notes

I think this is what you're after. Good luck.

Face-Lift 1533

Guess the Plot

Love Entombed

1. When Yondell's fiancé disappears, she searches high and low, until she finally finds him . . . in his coffin. Luckily, he's a vampire, so he's not dead. He's undead.

2. Maurice and Heather are convicted of adultery. Their sentence: being buried alive. Pretty harsh, but at least they're buried in the same casket.

3. Collier and Bertoll thought it would be romantic to make love in a cave. Then a landslide blocks the entrance, trapping them in darkness. And what's that growling?

4. Rumpelle has had it with her husband's nagging, so she tells him his Valentine's Day gift is buried in the woods behind their house. Little does he know, as he tries to unearth it, that he's digging his own grave.

Original Version

I’m pleased to submit Love Entombed, a 93,000-word Gothic novel with a dual timeline, where passionate love and dark family secrets converge in the wilds of northeast Florida. [I googled a map of northeast Florida. The only things converging there are so many highways and beaches and cities it looks like a giant spider web. Change your setting to the wilds of Borneo.] The story will appeal to readers who enjoyed the lush, shadowy atmosphere of Mexican Gothic as well as fans of the rich prose and obsessive love found in Dowry of Blood. (Some fans perhaps will be reminded of the cult, 1960s soap opera—Dark Shadows.) [Most people who were watching soap operas 60 years ago are now 90+ years old.] 

In the main timeline, twenty-eight-year-old Yondelle Dixon returns to her family’s home, where her estranged father, Gilbert, is caretaker of the El Fuente mansion. [Is this mansion her family's home?] She reconnects with her father who is in hospice. [How can he be in hospice and still be caretaker of this mansion?] Yondelle insists that Gilbert reveal why their family is bound to the El Fuente and why her fiancé, Ambrose El Fuente, mysteriously disappeared. Yondelle agrees to take the Vow to serve the El Fuente, in exchange for the information she desires. [I can't imagine her agreeing to that, unless she's not planning to keep her end of the bargain.] Unfortunately, her father dies before revealing the answers, so Yondelle must unravel the mystery herself. Since Ambrose disappeared, whispers plague Yondelle, and they’ve only grown stronger since her return. [The strength of a whisper is limited by the fact that it quickly becomes talking, as shown by this depiction of the range of human voices:

You can do without that sentence anyway, as it's not clear who, if anyone, is whispering.]

Yondelle enjoys the support given by her cousin Reina, with whom she shares a shotgun-style house on the estate. It’s eventually revealed that Yondelle gave birth to Ambrose’s son, and Reina passed him off as her own, since Yondelle was too young and heartbroken to raise a child.

Led by Nadira, a sea witch and housekeeper of the mansion, Yondelle realizes that she is the reincarnation of Ambrose’s wife from the 1500s. [When you called her a sea witch, I immediately thought of Sea Witch in Popeye, who had a vulture familiar, but then I Googled it and discovered she was called Sea Hag, not Sea Witch. Another example of why the internet is so valuable in modern times.] [If I'm in the mansion where my father is the caretaker, and the housekeeper pulls me aside to tell me I'm the reincarnation of a woman who lived 500 years ago, I'm slowly backing out of the building.] Whispers lead her to discover Ambrose, one of the Undead, in a sealed coffin under the chapel. [Pssst, Yonny....look in the coffin under the chapel.] Ambrose is one of the Royal Vampyre, second in line to the throne of the El Fuente dynasty. He has waited for Yondelle to reincarnate for five hundred years. [Wait, Ambrose, her fiancé, goes missing from wherever they were living, so she travels to this mansion in Florida to ask her dying father why Ambrose went missing, as if he would know, and it turns out Ambrose is right there, sealed in a coffin under the chapel, and has been, for 500 years?] [If he's been in that coffin for 500 years, how did he get Yondelle pregnant? Is their son 500 years old? Or does Ambrose come out of the "sealed" coffin at night?] [When she opens the coffin and finds her fiancé, the guy whose son she gave birth to, does she recognize him? I think if I'm her, and I open a coffin that's been sealed for 500 years, and the body in there opens his eyes and says Hi, Honey, I'm running like hell.]

A conclave of Royal Vampyre Houses meets on the El Fuente estate. Yondelle is desperate to conceal her son, since being in the line of succession is dangerous. Despite Yondelle’s best efforts, Van is discovered. A battle ensues. In the end, [Spoiler alert.] Van is saved. Ambrose and Yondelle are reunited. [The guy waits 500 years to get back with his wife, only to find she's been sleeping around . . . with his son?] [Since Ambrose is 2nd in line to the throne, Van is 3rd, which makes me wonder why anyone's trying to kill Van.]

Thank you for your consideration.

Notes

It's a bit confusing, which explains why I probably got some of the facts wrong. It's undoubtedly less so in the book, but we don't want any of that in the query. Fewer characters would help. We probably don't need Nadira or Reina in the query. The first plot paragraph could be shortened to:

Twenty-eight-year-old Yondelle Dixon returns to her family’s home, to ask her estranged, dying father, Gilbert, why their family has long been bound to the El Fuente family. Yondelle's fiancé, Ambrose El Fuente, has recently disappeared. Unfortunately, her father dies before revealing the truth, so Yondelle must unravel the mystery herself.

When her investigation reveals that Ambrose, one of the Undead, lies in a sealed coffin under the chapel, and that she is the reincarnation of Ambrose's wife from the 1500s, she's in disbelief--until she opens the coffin. 

Something like that provides more room to clarify what's going on and who's who.

I don't see why Yondell is quizzing her father about why her family is bound to the El Fuentes, when she's agreed to marry one of them.