New titles in the query queue need your amusing fake plots. https://evileditor.blogspot.com/p/query-queue_7.html

help wanted

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

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

Happy Valentine's Day

 

Face-Lift 1554

Guess the Plot

Resurgence

1. An ancient supernatural power that was thought to have been lost is back. So of course the government is planning to use it to oppress society. 

2. Zombies! Need I say more?

3. Centuries ago, the Black Plague killed half of the world. Now it's returned to finish the job, and it's up to one biochemist named Bruce to save us all.

Original Version

Dear agent,

I am seeking representation for my debut sci-fi/fantasy novel Mythos of Kento: Resurgence, an 85,000-word story for readers of Star Wars: Light of the Jedi and Dune, in which siblings Zeph and Kyra Thunstar—descendants of an ancient warrior group called Kento—inherit Energy, the long-gone supernatural power the world no longer believes exists. [It kind of sounds like you're saying Zeph and Kyra are characters in Dune. Maybe move your comp titles to the end of the query.] Their inheritance, however, comes at dear personal cost.

Discovery of the mythical stone Jenasite triggers a covert government plan to train soldiers in the ancient power of Energy, a force not seen since the Kento warriors of old [ruled the world. (or whatever)]. [You already told us what Energy is, two sentences ago.] The Triad Emperors, leaders of the planet, seek to utilize military force to exert increasingly authoritarian rule over society. [It sounds more like they seek to utilize supernatural power.]

After civil unrest sparks an assassination of government delegates, siblings Zeph and Kyra Thunstar, descendants of ancient Kento, [We already know their last name, that they're siblings, and that they're descendants of ancient Kento, having learned all of this four sentences ago.] are pulled into an emergency response group seeking to ease the dissent. With the help of their friend and unofficial government informant Rytel Gamnar [anagram: martyr angel], they discover the dark connection between the assassinations and the Emperors’ exploitation of Energy. Disgusted by the Emperors’ corruption, Zeph and Kyra seek the knowledge and power of their ancestors to make a stand against the Triad’s oppressive rule.  [You said at the beginning that Zeph and Kyra inherited Energy. But here you're saying the government has Energy, presumably because they found a mythical stone. And Zeph and Kyra are still seeking it. Do they need to also find a mythical stone? Either way, by the time they find Energy, the soldiers will all be trained in it, and our heroes will be outmanned.] [Three of the last four sentences have people seeking. Maybe one or two could be planning or wanting or hoping.] 

Resurgence is the first in the Mythos of Kento series – I am currently on draft 2 of the follow-up Retribution which picks up directly where Resurgence leaves off.

I live in New Jersey with my wife, two kids, and two dogs. I’ve worked for the past fourteen years as a Finance & Analytics professional. My hobbies include running, snowboarding, skateboarding, reading, and amateur stand-up comedy.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Notes

There's not room in a query to say the same things twice. Whether you put the information in an introductory paragraph or in the plot summary is up to you. 

What is the personal cost the inheritance of Energy brings to Zeph and Kyra?

At the end of the query, Zeph and Kyra don't even have Energy. If we're to have any hope for them, they need to get it. If the 2nd and third paragraphs were combined into something like:

With the Triad Emperors, leaders of the planet, utilizing military force to exert increasingly authoritarian rule over society, civil unrest sparks an assassination of government delegates. Zeph and Kyra, recruited to an emergency response team trying to suppress the dissent, uncover evidence of the Emperors’ corruption, and resolve to make a stand against the Triad’s oppressive rule. But to take on the government, they'll need to harness Energy, the long-lost power of their ancestors.

. . . you'll have room to tell us how they acquire Energy and how they plan to use it. This also avoids the agent asking annoying questions like, How are two people with Energy going to defeat an army of soldiers who also have Energy?

Kento is a pretty common Japanese name. A Japanese reader would react to an ancient warrior group called Kento as an American reader would to an ancient warrior group called Bob.

Face-Lift 1553

Guess the Plot

Fathers, Sons and Their Holy Ghosts

1. Phil ran away from home to escape his conservative father, and never looked back. Three decades later, Phil's son runs away from home to escape Phil, who has become his own father. Also, the ghosts of murdered people.

2, John Paul's father was the foremost scholar on the Catholic Saints before dying in a plane crash. Now the ghosts of said saints have found him and want him to set his father's speculative research straight.

3. When a parallel universe, with its own Holy Trinity, collides with our universe, we end up with six beings who are also one. A Holy Sexternity. But it's hard enough to keep three in line. Six is chaos, and leads to galactic war.

Original Version

In 2002, Phil Walsh, former Sixties hippy now businessman, [He was always a businessman, but now his business is legal] accepts an executive promotion which requires relocating his happy California family to his hometown, Chicago. In 1970, Phil had run away to escape his oppressive and conservative father, a World War II veteran and Chicago cop. He vowed never to return. The Generation Gap between the two remains open.

After moving, Phil’s life comes full circle when his own son runs away in an attempt to return to California. Phil’s pursuit of success and wealth might destroy his cherished family just as his own youthful commitment to the Sixties upended his boyhood family.

His family in turmoil, Phil questions why he moved back, and at the same time, wonders why he left in the first place. Were the Sixties relevant, or just another fad like disco in the Seventies? [You're comparing an entire decade to a dance craze. It's like asking, Is world hunger relevant, or just a fad like avocado toast?]  And worse, has he become the father he ran away from?

Phil’s runaway son stays with his grandfather [His grandfather, meaning Phil's father? Or Phil's son's mother's father? Is Phil's son's mother even in the book? Any confusion caused by referring to Phil and his father and his son and his son's grandfather might be diminished by giving Phil's son a name.] [But don't make the grandfather Phil senior and Phil Phil Jr, and Phil's son Phil III.] [Or do, and switch the setting from Chicago to Philadelphia.] and discovers him living a life reflective of the liberal causes Phil once supported. [A Chicago ex-cop isn't gonna move to California and become a liberal. Make him a Chicago ex-bartender.] When the grandfather suddenly dies, it is up to the son to show Phil the impact the Sixties had on his own father; and in so doing, he reunites three generations of his family. [One of whom is dead.] [If it was the sixties that had an impact on Phil's father, you'd think Phil would have noticed this was happening, and not run away in 1970. Unless. . .  Did the sixties impact dad in the nineties?]

Fathers, Sons and Their Holy Ghosts is an 84,000-word family saga flashing back to Beatlemania and the tumultuous Sixties. The assassinations of John Kennedy and John Lennon…Their Holy Ghosts…are presented as symmetrical milestones defining both generations.  

Readers of Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane and Commonwealth by Ann Patchett will enjoy this novel.

After a successful business career during which I took time off to study creative writing at The University of Iowa, University of Chicago, and Arizona State University, I completed this novel and had it copyedited. My life experiences as the son of a World War II veteran and the younger brother of a Sixties hippy inspired me to write my debut novel. [So, you are Phil and Phil's son.]

Notes

Does Phil's father know Phil ended up in California? Does he move close to where Phil lives? Does Phil know his father's in Cal. when he decides to move to Chicago? Has Phil's son been in contact with Phil's father? I can't tell if these people are like ships passing in the night, or if everyone's in touch with everyone, at least by phone. Surely Phil's mother would want contact with Phil and Phil's son.

I guess it's not unusual for literary fiction to be character-based, with minimal plot, but does something happen in this book besides people moving back and forth and Phil's son's dead grandfather somehow being reunited with his descendants? Was there a specific event that turned Phil's father around? 

Maybe it would be better if the  generations finally were actually united, arranged by Phil's son before the grandfather died, so Phil gets to see the change in his father, rather than hears about it second-hand when his son tells him that he and Grandpa spent all their time together smoking weed while listening to the Doors and the Dead.