The 8th Annual Oscar Awards Guess the Plot Quiz (Prep)

Each year we play Guess the Plot with the Best Picture nominees. To prepare for the quiz, I need you to submit fake plots for any or all of the titles below. I will use the Internet to come up with the real plots. Once we have at least four fakes for each title, the quiz will be posted.

Her
Gravity  
Nebraska
Philomina
Captain Phillips
12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
Dallas Buyers Club
The Wolf of Wall Street

Face-Lift 1180

Guess the Plot

The Queen of Steel and Fire

1. Once again the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, and once again it's up to a sixteen-year-old girl to save us all. This time her name is Claire, but by the time it's all over you'll be calling her . . . The Queen of Steel and Fire.

2. Karoleena is stuck making a costume out of dusty feathers and fast food wrappers because the other queens have taken all the fun props. But wait, the construction site across the street has a burning torch and pieces of steel no one needs. Karoleena is going to rule the catwalk.

3. Fierce, independent Catherine Mc Bride has inherited her father's railroad and awesome power. Handsome, crafty Roger Boline has a stake in coal and admires her caboose. Will they be able to join forces against the sinister trestle cartel, or will their lives be a trainwreck?

4. Forced to marry the aging King Trunglow, Princess Letitia is furious. Vowing to never bear an heir, she flees to the edges of her new kingdom. When her erstwhile husband and her distraught father are slain attempting to find her, the recalcitrant bride accepts her new reign. Odd how any job is more tolerable if you aren't married to a geezer.

5. Alexander "Alex" Owens, a welder at a Pittsburgh steel mill who lives with his dog Gigi in a converted whorehouse, works nights at Mawby's Bar and Grille which holds a nightly burlesque. It's a plum gig--until the night three of his coworkers accidentally drop in.

6. Queenie Flourtnoy is Fire Robinson’s blues singer until she falls for Steel Sanders and sings for his bluegrass band. Fire is furious and says “I’ll kill ‘em both”. Then cops find Queenie decapitated and Steel with a .40 cal bullet in his heart. Hot detective Mary McRae is determined to nail Fire this time. Will she get Fire or will she be singing the defeated detective blues?


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Your agency’s representation of many fresh works with strong female protagonists is one of the primary reasons that I am writing to you. I’ve also followed your blog for several years, and I’ve always found your advice and insights very helpful and interesting. [It's a fine line between flattery and sucking up. The thicker you lay it on, the closer to the end of the query you should put it.] As I see that you accept fantasy queries, and that you currently represent several writers in the young adult fantasy genre, [If you're talking about the same material you called "fresh works" in sentence 1, let's move on. Opening with a whole paragraph about why you chose to write to this person would be called burying the lead if you were a newspaper reporter.] [If the job "newspaper reporter" still existed.] I would like to submit my novel, The Queen of Steel and Fire, for your consideration.

After her father’s sudden death, sixteen year old princess Claire Erinn is about to become the first female ruler of Keldaren. But when Claire learns that the king was poisoned, she begins to unravel the vast conspiracy closing in around her. [At this point I would expect her to "suspect" the conspiracy rather than to "unravel" it.] After Death herself attacks Claire during an assassination attempt, [Who is attempting to assassinate whom?] enemies begin to arise on all fronts…even from within her own family. [If both Death and someone else were attempting to kill Claire at the same time, I'm wondering how she's still alive. They wouldn't call Death Death if she screwed up her missions.] Unprepared to rule, Claire must fight to save both her kingdom and her life. When war erupts, the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, as Claire’s enemies turn to sorcery, and the dark power behind the conspiracy is unveiled. [When the fate of the world hangs in the balance, there's gotta be a better hope than a sixteen-year-old who isn't even prepared to rule one lousy kingdom.]

The Queen of Steel and Fire is the first volume of a planned series. Although this is the first novel that I have written, I have previously written short stories, some of which have been published in The Peninsula Pulse, a local news and literary magazine. The manuscript is complete and is 96,000 words. May I send you sample pages for review? Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,


Notes

I would drop the whole first paragraph. The last paragraph can do without the second sentence, and you can drop any two of the last three sentences.

That leaves the plot paragraph,which would be okay if this were the voice-over of a five-sentence movie trailer or the back cover copy, but I would like more information. How does this teenager plan to defeat conspirators, sorcerers, a "dark power," and Death herself? The Fantastic Four couldn't win this battle.

What do all these enemies want? To rule Keldaren? How can the fate of the entire world depend on whether Claire Erinn, who isn't prepared to rule, rules Keldaren? Why doesn't she go hang out at the mall and let everyone else fight it out? Perhaps if we know why Keldaren is so special, and if you reveal who's behind the conspiracy and what super powers Claire possesses . . .

The title suggests the steampunk genre. Or does steampunk have to be iron instead of steel? In any case, if Claire has a magic sword that shoots fire, say so.

Become a Contributor

Although The History of the World in Tweets is as comprehensive as anyone could reasonably expect, there are a few years between 10,000 BC and 2013 AD that are unrepresented in the book. Here's your chance to get your name on the "Acknowledgements" page.

Get a copy of the book (now only $1.99), choose a year that has no tweet, look up all the events that happened that year, and choose one you can make a funny comment about. It's easy if you can find an event involving Münster, Boris Godunov or Flemish people. Event + comment must be tweet-size, of course.

Because the book is digital, I can easily slip your contribution into its proper place, and all future copies will include you. Naturally you'll want to buy another copy to see your name on the acknowledgements page. You may even want to buy several copies to give to your friends and relatives.

Plus, when you query your current work-in-progress, you'll have something impressive to put in your credits for a change, namely: My work appears in The History of the World in Tweets. Doesn't that sound better than "I posted an article about strip mining on my blog "Bloomington Today" once."?

Of course all contributions must be deemed worthy of inclusion by EE, who has already rejected dozens of his own tweets, so don't get your hopes up, but at least for once you'll get your e-jection the same day you submit instead of three months later. Plus I may post the unchosen ones on the blog some day when I have nothing else to post, which, lately, is most days.

Overseas Customers . . .

As the Square Market has yet to open outside the US, I have created a temporary Paypal button for each of the 2 new items in the EE store. You may click on "overseas purchases" in the sidebar, opening a page on which you may buy either book through Paypal. You'll be given a chance to pay with your Paypal account, or to click that you don't have one, which opens a window allowing you to use your credit card.

The price is higher on Evil Editor Strips Again, because of the expensive overseas shipping. As The History of the World in Tweets is digital, the price is the same $1.99. If you are overseas and there's something else in the Evil Editor Store that you want, let me know and I'll create a Paypal button for that.

Strip 3.01

Click strip to enlarge.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Trials of a Mathematician

1. Liza Hewson is blessed -- or plagued -- by a genius for math. She has done the calculations, and concluded that she will be happier living single. But she didn't factor in artist Guy D'Amboise, the "variable" who spoils her formula for a life of blissful spinsterhood.

2. When Earth’s computer overlords prohibit humans from practicing mathematics, few mourn the loss of the arcane discipline. Then one brave teacher starts a clandestine math club. Armed with ancient slide rules, pencils, and graph paper, Martin Streck and his misfit students fight to reclaim numbers for humankind, one equation at a time.

3. The story of probability theory, as discovered by Octavius Aesop, whose brilliant dice trials revealed that some little ivory cubes produce random results, while, strangely, others do not. Plus, his wife's discovery of a wee garden elf who can be persuaded to influence falling coins and dice.

4. Herkimer B. Wallaby isn't any great shakes as a defense attorney. His clients keep getting sentenced to death. Fortunately they always win their appeals when they point out that their court-appointed attorney was incompetent. Herk doesn't care. His main worry is that someone will find out that he never actually went to law school, although he does have a Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics.

5. Exponentially. That’s how mathematician Candace Burke’s troubles have increased since she discovered that her landlord is the King of Faerie…and infatuated with her. It turns out that fairies crave logic as much as humans crave magic. But who’d have guessed King Aurun’s appetite for mathematical proof could be so voracious?

6. A math teacher finds her chosen career unsatisfying, and goes looking for a new start as an epidemiologist. But does she have the language skills to compose a cover letter that will get her into a top public health school? Also, a cholera outbreak.
 

Original Version

Some of you may have noticed this request among the comments recently:

I am currently preparing a statement of purpose for admission to a graduate program. It's sort of stunning how much this feels like writing a query letter. So, do you think people might be interested in reviewing it since we're a touch low on submissions at the moment? I could make up a title for the GTP part... :)

As it happens, we have zero queries and zero openings (hint, hint) waiting in the queues, so here's the "query letter."


Dear Evil Editor and Minions:

In reviewing my materials, I am sure it did not escape your notice that I have a Ph.D. in Mathematics. [However, even though I am, as I said, sure that my Ph.D. in Mathematics did not escape your notice, allow me to emphasize the fact that I have a Ph.D. in Mathematics, just in case it did escape your notice.] I love math for its complexity and challenge. Nothing compares to sifting through information that seems only loosely related and finally finding the common thread. [That sounds more like what Sherlock Holmes does than math.] Unfortunately, math itself does not fill me with burning questions that I am compelled to answer. [I simply cannot convince myself to care what the square root of 6889 is.] So, by the time I finished my degree, I knew that a career as an academic mathematician was not for me. [Thus I am seeking another field in which I can sift through information that seems only loosely related and finally find the common thread.] The natural alternative was to focus on teaching, and I did so for some time. But after a few years, it became clear that teaching math does not share the same kind of challenges that math itself does. [For instance, it require me to spend eight hours a day in a room with people who wish I would die.] I began to search for a career that would exercise my analytical skills, ignite my curiosity, and have some real practical value. [Thus, please accept my application for the position of literary agent.]

First, I defined some of my interests (e.g. AIDS research and intervention) [Those are your interests? Now I feel kind of shallow, as I would have said watching television and watching sports...on television.] [I can't tell if you mean AIDS research and AIDS intervention, or if plain old intervention is a field all by itself. In what way do you intervene?] and then I interviewed people in those fields about their work and how someone with my experiences and education would fit in. [Mathematicians never fit in anywhere. Sad but true.] Public health and epidemiology came up repeatedly. I didn’t know much about either, but the more I learned, the more enthusiastic I became. Not only are the problems being solved important, but the solutions themselves are often amazing. For example, I read about John Snow determining in the 1850’s that an outbreak of Cholera originated from a single public pump and I thought “I want to be able to do that!” [That's nothing compared to the problems Charlie has solved on Numb3rs. I recommend that you drop John Snow and stress your desire to be like Charlie.] I also want to know more about how the methods of epidemiology might be applied to things that are not actual diseases: [The field labeled "Things that are not actual diseases" is rather broad. If that were one of the categories on the $25,000 Pyramid, you'd never get your partner to say it.] the spread of drugs and violence, the proliferation of computer viruses, and well, who doesn’t want to know how those youtube videos go viral? [I don't.] [Also, your desire to learn how they go viral probably isn't a selling point.]

I find the program at UNTHSC particularly appealing because of the emphasis on methods. After attending a preview day and speaking with some of the faculty, I feel confident that, once I complete my degree, I will have the tools needed to handle all kinds of problems in epidemiology, no matter my ultimate focus. [At which point I will finally realize that epidemiology is not the field for me and become a celebrity chef.]

I am looking forward to applying my experience and education in starting a new and exciting career. Thank you for your time and consideration,


Notes

I know nothing about statements of purpose, but perhaps some of the minions have experience with them. Off hand, I'd say you could shorten this to something like:

I'm the kind of person who is capable of spending eight years going after a math PhD only to realize math just doesn't do it for me, so now I'd like to fill one of the highly sought-after spots in your degree program for a few years because it can't be any more life-sapping than teaching high school math.


If it's common for mathematicians to go into epidemiology, then I see no reason to devote so much of this to your math degree. Everyone who applies will have a reasonable math background, whether they studied chemistry or statistics or biology.

If it's not so common, then I still don't think I'd open with the math stuff, as it seems to me that your enthusiasm for epidemiology is more important to stress than your lack of enthusiasm for the career you've just abandoned.


Selected Comments

AlaskaRavenclaw said...I think spending all the time talking about your math degree makes you sound unfocused. Try rewriting your letter without mentioning the math degree at all. Just talk about your interest and how interested in it you are.

(Maybe leave out the John Snow story, which is so proverbial in the public health field as to be a cliche.)

After you've written about your *new* interest, go back and decide how much attention to give to your old interest. My suggestion is one sentence absolute max, and be sure not to sound as if you're making excuses.


Anonymous said...This is all wrong. Do not squander a single word on the deficits of mathematics or your life as a mathematician. It just makes you sound like a grumbler. Also, a bit pompous. Going on to say you're clueless about epidemiology does nothing to redeem you. Especially because you say you don't want to work on academic mathematics any more but then express excitement about analyzing the spread of videos, etc. Which sure sounds like the jabbering of an academic mathematician to someone with a public health background.

Epidemiology isn't about math, it's about the life and death of actual people. John Snow's achievement with cholera involved a lot of field work listening to people to find out about their behavior, plus the mapping of water sources and households with ill people. Difficult calculations were not needed.

Get more info. You need to be very clear about the ways medical research types and pharmaceutical companies currently use mathematicians. And decide if you still want to be the math guy, or if you want to work with people and develop new expertise that may involve stepping away from the computer. Then start over.


Zella said...I agree with AlaskaRC and Anonymous that your focus should be on epidemiology, not mathematics.

However, your degree and teaching experience do set you apart from other applicants, so use this to your advantage. A PhD demonstrates that you have the initiative and persistence to see a large project through from proposal to completion. Teaching requires thorough planning, strong communication skills, and flexibility.

Present your PhD and teaching experience as strengths, not liabilities. For examples of how to do this, I'd recommend reading _"So What Are You Going to Do with That?": Finding Careers Outside Academia_, by Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius.


Ryoryo said...Great advice everyone. I felt that I needed to somehow address my math degree because I'm sure it is quite unusual for a PhD in meth to end up pursuing a degree in public health. Sounds like I've taken the wrong tack on that, so I'll definitely have to rethink.

I didn't realize that the John Snow story was so proverbial -- I had not heard it before and just happened across it and found it to be very inspiring, whether it involved complicated mathematical computations or not.

It sound like I am definitely giving th wrong impression with this, so I'm glad I had y'all look at it.

Thanks for being willing to do something a little different, EE!


ril said...I'm sure it is quite unusual for a PhD in meth to end up pursuing a degree in public health.

I'm sure it is, but, uh, congratulations on pursuing your interests...


BuffySquirrel said...I think someone with a PhD in meth would have difficulty pursuing anything....


pacatrue said...I just wrote a 7 paragraph response and lost it.

Short version: Focus on going forward. Be positive. Talk about how you will use your math skills to advance epidemiology in specific ways. Mention concrete ideas. Talk about who specifically you want to work with in their department. (If it's just close to home, hide that fact.) Specific, specific, positive, positive, research, research. If you don't want to use your math skills in epidemilogy, mention it on one sentence and move on. They only care about your life if it excites them about your chances of doing great epidemiology.

If you'd like to discuss more, you can email me at my name at yahoo.


AlaskaRC said...Picture yourself at the receiving end of this communique. What you really want to know is how well the student is going to fit into the program, and how likely s/he is to go on to contribute to the field.


Min Yin said...If what you are really excited about is discovering and applying ever-better mathematical models, there are a lot of possible fields in addition to epidemiology -- finance, artificial intelligence, astronomy, actuarial science, and meteorology spring to mind (at least from my layperson's perspective). You may want to consider which aspects of your modeling expertise are especially relevant to epidemiology and how you could potentially make a difference in that field, thus eventually bringing glory to your chosen university. Good luck.


Xenith said...Other than the last paragraph, it seems a little too chatty. Also that you'd rather be working in IT or marketing. People change fields all the time--I did science (maths/IT) first time around, now its humanities (history)--so there's no need to apologise for it (which it sounds like you're doing)


Ryoryo said...More great comments. I can see that my focus was way off. I just got the impression from reading other statements of purpose that background was the place to start. Also, I'm more interested in epidemiology than apparently this "query" makes it sound.

And come now, if I really had a degree in meth, I'm sure I'd be somewhere entirely different today.


Adele said...I get this: "I've got this degree that I don't quite know what to do with because I tried this and it didn't work out and so I couldn't think of anything else to do except teach and that's a bust so now I figure I might as well try your program." Might be true, but won't get your foot in the door.

My suggestion: Anthropomorphize this program into a desired member of the opposite sex, and then try to get it to date you.

Would you drone on about your past dating problems? I hope not. Would you dispiritedly say something along the lines of "I don't really know where I'm going or what my future is going to be like or why I want to date you, but there it is." I hope not.

Focus on the positive. Focus on what's special about this institution, this program. Focus on why you're excited about the possibilities that will open up before you as a result of this relationship. Focus on the special attributes (ie, your math Ph.D.) that will make you an ideal student in their program.

Point out that the groundwork you've put in - the interviews, the career day, speaking with the profs.

Don't mention failures, indecision, or any other negatives. If you get an interview they'll ask you, and that's when you focus on the positives again "Teaching gave me so many great opportunities to pass on the love of mathematics, but now I need something more..."


Sylvia said...Would you drone on about your past dating problems? Would you dispiritedly say something along the lines of "I don't really know where I'm going or what my future is going to be like or why I want to date you, but there it is."  I've dated that guy.

Editor Slashes Book Price to Prove Point

In discussing with a well-known agent the optimum price for a digital copy of The History of the World in Tweets, I contended that a couple bucks would do, and was advised to make it $1.99. I argued that my minions, unlike average people, are not so simple-minded as to fall for that old ploy, making the price a penny less than a whole dollar multiple because $1.99 sounds like a lot less than $2.00. (About a dollar less.) Heck I just went to Amazon and found a book priced at $111.98. Do they really think someone who would have balked at a $112.00 price tag on a book is gonna say, "$111.98? What a bargain."?

The agent said companies wouldn't use this ploy if it didn't work, and I said, "Yeah? Let's try a little experiment. I'll price the book at $2.06 for three days and then I'll price it at $1.99 for three days and I'll bet you $5000 that it doesn't sell any better when I drop the price."

The agent said, "$5000 is too much to bet on something so trivial."

I said, "Okay, lets make it $4999.99," and we shook on it.

So, I've now lowered the price to $1.99. I realize this makes those of you who already paid $2.06 feel like chumps, but obviously if I'd told you in advance that the price would be slashed in three days, you would have waited, and the experiment's data would have been corrupted.

Anyway, ignore everything you just read, and focus on this: Evil Editor's new book, The History of the World in Tweets is available for $1.99.

Just click BOOK STORE in the sidebar.

Synopsis 40

Guess the Plot

Thoughts of Forever

1. A philosopher has a revolutionary idea to stop aging: To think is to be, so all he needs are Thoughts of Forever. Now if he can just escape the evil government agents and reach Tahiti with his hot blond assistant, he'll have it made!

2. Deep in the wilds of ... some western state or other that recently legalized the recreational use of marijuana, a dude meditates on stuff that totally weirds out a dude’s brains. Like ... how high is up? Or ... when’s the end of forever? ... Or ...

3. Seventeen-year-old Kyle has never considered suicide--until he meets Cory. Together they discuss the idea that death is like entering an eternal dream. They make a suicide pact but Kyle goes through with it and Cory doesn't. It was all a trick by Cory who turns out to be Kyle's evil imaginary friend.

4. Twelve-year-old Jenny's classmates call her "Forever" because once she starts talking, she goes on and on forever. At the suggestion of her favorite teacher, she tries expressing herself through writing instead. But when Jenny loses her backpack at the mall, a desperate literary agent happens upon her diary. Soon the chatty seventh-grader finds herself the bestselling author of a memoir filled with the . . . Thoughts of Forever.

5. Johnny Dupa experiments with old adages. He's already stapled a piece of jelly toast to the back of a cat, and tossed them both in the air. Now Johnny's contemplating eternity. If an hour with his girlfriend seems like a moment, and a moment with his hand on a lit kitchen burner seems like forever--what if he does both at the same time? Hilarity ensues.

6. The wait at the Emergency Room. The span of time it takes water to boil. The excruciating delay between sugar plum dreaming and waking Christmas morning. All of these exceed the length of her last marriage, but Kim K. Is determined to be a bride again. This time, on network TV with her new reality show: Thoughts of Forever.


Original Version

SYNOPSES: [Synopsis]

Kyle is a junior in high school with a wonderful girlfriend, a pesky yet loveable little sister, and parents that care deeply about their children. On his seventeenth birthday, [A quick scan down the page reveals that there's no paragraphing. This leads me to fear that the book has no paragraphing. This leads me to scrap this and move on to something that does have paragraphing. Wait, am I seriously that petty?] Kyle goes out to dinner with his family. After being seated, his little sister, Kim, asks to go to the restroom by herself, rather than being escorted by a parent. After some teasing about being so worried, their Kim’s mother Cherri reluctantly agrees to let her go. While searching for the bathroom Kim is kidnapped, and a witness immediately calls the authorities. It is while the police are questioning the woman who reported the crime that a gunshot is heard outside, and the family loses their beloved Kim. [The family vow never to patronize this restaurant again.] [Unless it's to order takeout, because hey, the ribs are to die for.] After the funeral a few days later, Kyle notices tension rising between his parents, causing him to shut down emotionally. This creates a barrier between him and his girlfriend, Elle, which she cannot break through. Cherri and her husband, Evan, continue to fight at home, and issues over responsibility of Kim’s death [Is it Cherri's fault for relenting and letting Kim go to bathroom alone? Or Evan's fault for mocking Cherri's caution until she finally gave in? Normally I'd blame Evan, but Cherri spells her name with an "i."] [Then again, Evan married a woman who spells Cherri with an "i."] and emotional vacancy drive the wedge further and further between the two. Kyle’s frustration mounts, and it is evident to everybody in his social circle. Elle is deeply affected by his sudden lack of affection and perpetual coldness, and she ends things with him. It is only shortly after this that Cherri and her husband, Evan, decide to split for the time being. In a fit of tears, Kyle hops in his car and carelessly weaves through the streets until he reaches Kim’s grave, where he goes to calm down and experience some solace with thoughts of his sister who loved him so dearly. Here Kyle meets a fellow teenager, Cory, who talks with Kyle briefly, and provides some comfort. After parting here, Kyle returns home and gets his first full night’s sleep since before all of the tragedy. Evan soon comes back to visit with Kyle and see how he is holding up, only to be shut out by his son. Kyle walks outside to clear his head where he meets Cory again, and they talk. They quickly become best friends, and Cory acts as a confidante as well as an advice giver. With Cory’s help, Kyle gets the nerve to talk to Elle again, only to be rejected. Kyle’s parents approach him with talks of a finalized divorce days later, and he again walks outside in hopes of finding Cory, who always seems to be around outside when Kyle needs it. This time Cory has a dark look in his eye, one caused by a harrowing pain that Kyle felt he could understand. Together they discuss life, and how much better everything is when they’re asleep. They fall in love with the prospect of dreams, of an escape from their realities. After a few talks of their affinity with dreams, Cory asks Kyle how often he contemplates suicide, to which Kyle reports never. Yet the idea does not put Kyle off, instead he envisions it as entering an eternal dream. Together they make a pact, and hang themselves in Kyle’s room. After not hearing from their son in over 24 hours, Evan and Cherri barge into his room only to see their son hanging in the center of the room, eyes fixated on the empty noose in front of him.


Notes

Hard to buy a guy leaving a restaurant with a hostage, and when the cops show up, presumably a few minutes later, the guy is still right outside with his hostage. And then he decides to fire a gun just in case the cops are too stupid to look around outside. Maybe he was raping Kim but you didn't include that because it would make the book seem like a downer?

Most people who read books as their escape from reality don't want to read about a family that goes through the violent death of one child, a divorce, and the suicide of their other child.

Paragraphing would make this 100% better, but it would still need a lot of work. Unfortunately, while I would prefer that it be a lot shorter, (I'd get rid of Elle for starters) there's no telling how long a synopsis should be. It should be however long the editor wants it to be. My advice is to peddle your book to someone who doesn't want a synopsis.

The lengthy section between the kidnapping and the suicide talk has a listy quality. As if you could just stick "And then" in front of every sentence. Better to choose the most important events and elaborate on them in layers than to list as many events as possible.

If Kyle somehow felt responsible for Kim's (mostly accidental) death, there'd a more interesting family dynamic. Feeling like he's to blame, and/or like his parents feel he's to blame, leading to suicide. The only connection between Kim's death and Kyle's is that Cory might not have entered the scene without Kim's death. You've made Kyle's suicide sound more like an experiment to find out if death leads to eternal dreaming than a reaction to what's happened to his family.

Who was doing the teasing? I assume the father, as he and Cherri argued about responsibility. Was Kyle joining in?

Book Trailer

Click here to watch the trailer for The History of the World in Tweets.

New Books from Evil Editor

1. The History of the World in Tweets

I was planning to publish this in print, but it looks better in color, and color would have cost more than I was willing to charge for a 106-page book, so I decided to go for e-book, except formatting an ebook requires more time or money than I cared to invest, so I'm emailing you a pdf copy readable on your computer, tablet, or Kindle. As I don't have to pay a book printer, I'm able to sell at the rock-bottom price of $2.06. Sure, I could just give it away, but then everyone would order a copy, and I would spend all my time emailing it to people who didn't really want it except that it's free.

2. Evil Editor Strips Again

Somehow I was able to come up with a second collection of comic strips featuring the world's most famous editor. Just as big and just as funny as the first. If you have to ask the price you can't afford it, but I'm selling it at my cost, which is a lot lower than I could find anywhere else. This one includes Evil Editor's Graphic Novelette!



Also, I've removed the "store" from the Evil Editor empire, and opened one in the Square Market. You can go there by clicking "BOOK STORE" in the sidebar. Square is a company started by the guy who came up with Twitter. You may have encountered their product for accepting credit cards (by attaching a "square" device to an ipad or iphone) if you spend money at Starbucks or farmers markets or with cab drivers, hairdressers, prostitutes, etc. Square takes less of a cut than their competitors, including the one I've been using. I've added shipping costs (to US addresses) to the prices of the books.

To celebrate the opening of the new store, I'm attempting to unload some of the older books that are gathering dust on my shelves by not adding a shipping charge into the price of Novel Deviations or Why You Don't Get Published. Plus, if you buy all three Novel Deviations books or both Why You Don't Get Published books, you get them for $7.50 each.

If you want books shipped outside the US, email me first. Square Market isn't available outside the US yet, but we can work out something with Paypal or my old shopping cart partner, CCNow.

Face-Lift 1179

Guess the Plot

Ordinary

1. A vampire, mummy, zombie, werewolf, and alien walk into a dive bar. No one seems to care. Then the loneliest, most ordinary teen girl on the planet walks in and all hell breaks loose.

2. Ever notice how many movies, books, games, plays start with a normal, ordinary day? Everyone is going along, minding their own business, when suddenly an Orc comes running through, machine gunning the place. Wait--that was right outside the gym just now. And all Jason wanted this time was to pass Algebra.

3. Violet is in her fourth year at Miss Sadinity's School of Sorcery. Alex is in his fifth year, and doesn't even know she exists. Sixth-year Gretchen says she can fix that. Will she--or will Violet be stuck looking--Ordinary?

4. Jane Plane had always thought of herself as a cartoon that was quite ordinary: pretty, but flat to the point of two-dimensionality. Then her artist took a class in 3-D multimedia technology. Whoa! Move over, Lady Gaga!

5. Someone--or something--is preying on the local citizenry, and it's up to a team of werewolves to stop it. The last thing they need is some totally ordinary high school junior like Charlie Hawthorne elbowing into their pack, but when push comes to shove, guess who saves the town's ass?

6. Dan is born under a sign that prophesies greatness in all endeavors. Through high school, he wins every contest and receives every award. But Dan craves to be like everybody else. So he runs away . . . and accidentally breaks the marathon record. He takes a night job in a greasy spoon and wins an international chef award. He hides deep in the mountains and stumbles on Coronado’s seven cities of gold. Can Dan ever be ordinary?

7. In Ordinary, Oklahoma everyone lives in peace and harmony, with good will toward men. Unless of course, you're a woman. Because in Ordinary, women are hunted for sport. And that busload of nuns that had engine trouble is doomed, unless CJ McGillicutty gets there first.

8. John Smith, is an ordinary man. He is a married, white, middle-manager with 2.2 kids and can't decide if he should spend Christmas Eve or Christmas Day with his in-laws. He's not even sure if he should take his tree down before New Years or after. His life choices are in flux and a quandary. Then his wife asks for a divorce. Hilarity ensues.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

There is nothing special about Charlie Hawthorne. [I'm hooked. I must read on to find out the most fascinating thing about Charlie, namely why she's the main character of a novel.]

Keeping up her grades should be the hardest part of junior year, but when her best friend Melissa starts to experience strange recurring dreams and superhuman senses, Charlie knows that she can’t let her face this alone. [The part before the "but" has little to do with the part after. Instead of "hardest part" you need something like "main focus" or "sole objective,"] She throws herself into the problem the best way that she knows how: by finding out as much as she can. [She's totally ordinary, but when the chips are down she swings into action by ferreting out information like a ferret ferrets out whatever it is ferrets ferret out. She's the superhero known as the . . . Research Assistant.]

With the help of an old book and her own knowledge of myths and legends [Google], [not to mention the fact that Melissa is suddenly ordering depilatories by the gallon,] Charlie discovers that her friend has become a werewolf. She’s not the only one—there are three others, all turned by the same person and for the same purpose.

Connor, local engineering student and born werewolf, wants nothing to do with Charlie, but Melissa is part of the team he has assembled to protect the town from supernatural threats. Something is preying on the citizens of Elks Glade and three people are already dead, with more to come if the wolves don’t stop it. [Because nothing helps townspeople feel safe and secure in their neighborhood like knowing there's a pack of werewolves roaming the streets.] [Though I suppose it's better than knowing George Zimmerman is out there.] [You might change "stop" to "prevent" so no one thinks you mean the wolves are doing the killing.]

He thinks that Charlie is just in the way, but she stubbornly elbows her way into the pack. [This reminds me of that fifteen-year-old girl who demanded to go along with SEAL Team 6 when they took out bin Laden. As I recall, they threw her out of the helicopter over the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.] When the threat comes close to home, can she prove that an ordinary human is capable of protecting her town and her family? [That would be easier to answer if I knew what the threat was. Offhand, I can't think of any supernatural threat she wouldn't be utterly worthless against.]

Ordinary is a 60,000 [page?] paranormal young adult novel that explores the challenge of believing in your own power when everyone around you seems extraordinary. [Seems extraordinary? They're werewolves!]

Thank you for your consideration.


Notes

Better ways to open the query:

1. When Charlie Hawthorne sees her best friend Melissa howling at the moon . . .
2. Charlie Hawthorne's best friend Melissa is a werewolf.
3. Something is preying on the citizens of Elks Glade . . . and it's not the werewolves.
4. This book has werewolves, but No! Don't stop reading! These are good werewolves!
5. Werewolves!

Even ordinary people can be good at something. Does Charlie have some special talent? Is it her extensive knowledge of myths and legends that lets her defeat an entity a pack of werewolves can't?

Are all werewolves good in this world? I ask because turning people into werewolves in order to reduce the amount of killing going on sounds like a plan that could backfire. Were the killings done in a way that might lead the citizens to suspect that werewolves dunnit?

Face-Lift 1178

Guess the Plot

The Impossible Treasure

1. Angelique was always told to guard her most important treasure and save it for her wedding night. But the lure of parties and a stream of luscious guys make that directive impossible.

2. A curse has robbed Shandra of her childhood memories, so she signs onto the crew of a pirate ship sailing off in search of a treasure that will grant the bearer one wish. Now she'll just have to convince the pirates to let her have the treasure.

3. Pretzels, Cheez Whiz, ground beef, chips, thirteen cases of beer, and dudes yelling at the football game on a big screen: Mitch just wants his man cave back. His mother-in-law will regret sleeping in the den when football season starts, but Mitch doesn't know--she likes football and beer too.

4. Benny Makaway is a top fund manager on Wall Street. His investors make scores of millions while he makes hundreds of thousands. Benny starts his own asset management trust. He claims high returns but puts most of the money into his Lichtenstein account. Federal prosecutors are suspicious. Will Benny make away with billions or take up residence at Leavenworth?

5. Don't open the box, the wizard said. What the hell did some guy in a costume know? It's just a prop. All those funny whispers and strange lights are just part of the toy, aren't they? Right? And--Jesus Christ, what the hell is that slimy mass over by the couch?

6. When physicist, Maxine Planke figured out the origin of the universe she decided to keep it to herself. To prove her postulation all she needs to do is hijack the mothballed shuttle, Discovery. Her plan to land the orbiter on another planet is tricky to say the least. But Maxine has a plan. To land on the Sun, she'll have to wait till dark.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Shandra knows that she had a childhood. She just can’t remember it.

After five long years of searching for the Impossible Treasure, [Does she even know the meaning of the word "impossible"? There's a reason they call it the Impossible Treasure. I wouldn't spend five minutes searching for something called the Impossible Treasure or the Nonexistent Plunder or the Imaginary Spoils.] Shandra finally has a promising lead to find the chance for one impossible wish granted. [She has a lead to find a chance. That's like calling a sign in a gas station window that says "Lottery tickets here!" a lead to find a chance for twenty million dollars. I'm always getting promotions in the mail that say WIN A NEW CAR! All you have to do is come by the showroom. And take a test drive. And you'll be entered in Toyota's nationwide contest.] The only problem is, it will force her to join yet another pirate crew, something she vowed never to do again. [Wait, you've got pirates and you waited this long to mention it? And opened with that crap about not remembering her childhood? Ye oughter be forced to walk the plank, scurvy dog.] Despite being attacked by a ship that’s somehow alive, a crew that would rather she jump ship, and other deadly pirates vying for the same treasure, Shandra is [inexplicably not dead.] determined to be free from the curse that robbed her of every memory of her past, no matter what the cost. [Even if her crew are the ones who get to the treasure first, they're not gonna waste the wish on getting her childhood memories back. They're gonna want booty. Of one kind or the other.]

But pirates and magic aren’t the only mysteries that reside on the nine seas, [Nine? Last I heard there are seven seas: Mediterranean, Caribbean, Belegaer, Sea of Helkar, Sea of Núrnen, Sea of Rhûn and Sea of Ringiland.] [Possibly you were including the Dune Sea on Tatooine and the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon, but neither contains the key ingredient of a sea, namely water.] as Shandra gets ever closer to finding the Impossible Treasure she may discover that the greatest mystery to discover is who she really is. [Better yet, she may discover that the greatest mystery to discover is to discover who she really is.] [That last plot sentence would pack more punch if she were originally looking for actual treasure but instead found who she really is. As she was already looking for who she really is, you're basically saying she was seeking her identity but she discovered it's more important to seek her identity.]

The Impossible Treasure is a Young Adult fantasy novel, complete at 58,000 words. Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

We need to know Shandra's age. I tend to think of pirates as characters in books for a younger crowd than YA.

If she's, say, sixteen, that means she's been off searching for her past since she was eleven? I don't remember much of my childhood before the age of eleven despite having never been put under a curse. Admittedly that may be because of the years I spent on meth and crack.

Also, assuming she's about sixteen, I find it hard to believe this isn't the first time she's been a crewmember of a pirate ship.

The query is wordy and vague. Perhaps a start like this would be more grabby:

When sixteen-year-old Shandra learns that a pirate ship is setting sail in search of a genie in a bottle, she's skeptical. But if the genie is real, he may be the only one who can break the curse that robbed Shandra of all her childhood memories. So she signs on to the crew.

Then tell us a cohesive story, rather than just listing a few things that happen.

Consider making Shandra thirteen and calling the book middle grade.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Outcasts of Velrune

1. In a totally unprecedented twist, it turns out that the gritty underground resistance to a feelgood totalitarian society is actually where it's at. The kickass heroine doesn't know whom to trust. And the fate of a planet hangs in the balance.

2. Kal'Ta'Rel, Herenvas, and Jolue are sentenced to hang for the murder of popular Dike Nakora. But before they can swing, the wizard KarKaChel frees them, sending them stumbling down the street. Now all they have to do is kill that pesky demon, Archy.

3. When the frontier planet of Velrune decides to clean up its act, it banishes a prostitute, a procuress, a drunk, and an infamous gambler. The four hapless Outcasts, led by the gambler, meet up with a pair of runaway lovers. The rest is history. If you can call something that happens in the future history.

4. Three Velrunian criminals are exiled to the Gohr prison planet, Lycus IV. Of course, what passes as major crime on Velrune (spitting on the sidewalk, undertipping a waiter) doesn't exactly prepare one to live among mass murderers and cannibals. Can these three plucky outcasts not only thrive, but rise to lead a revolution?

5. On a distant planet known as Velrune, humans are supposedly coexisting with Lacarna, a race of human-like beings with cat features. But the humans have enslaved the Lacarna, and a plot is afoot to wipe them out. It's up to two teens, one a human and the other a Lacarna, to prevent genocide . . . and find true love.

6. The nerds and fat kids and skaters are high school outcasts on Earth, but on Velrune it's the athletes and preppies and beautiful people who are outcast. Can Muffy and Landon show the world that there's no stigma to being being attractive and popular?


Original Version

The curse of those who slink?

My 84,000-word novel, Outcasts of Velrune, is a fantasy adventure set in its own world [We assume a book is set in its own world unless told otherwise. For instance, if your book is called The Martian Chronicles, you may tell us if it's set on Jupiter.] and features two races, Humans and Lacarna. [The first sentence of a query isn't the place to work in the number of races your novel "features." I'm sure Dan Brown's query didn't proclaim in sentence 1 that "The Da Vinci Code features one race: humans."] The Humans are like us, [We assume Humans are like us.] with the exception of a few that live for centuries. [If the only difference is that a few of them get older than we do, you're spending too much time contrasting them to us. Basically, they're us.] The Lacarna are Humanlike, [Okay, I think I've got it now. The Humans are like humans, whereas the Lacarna are Humanlike.] but have ears, tails and claws similar to cats. [Ah, the Lacarna are like the performers in Cats.] [Saying a race is Humanlike when it has ears, tails and claws like cats is like saying they're catlike but with arms, legs and heads like humans.] [Or, to get my point across more clearly, it's like saying, They're Humanlike, but with an elephant face, a giraffe neck and a stegosaurus tail.] A few Lacarna can transform into large [Humanlike] panthers. [Out of curiosity, are we going to get to some characters and a plot? If you hadn't called it a novel I'd be wondering if it's nonfiction.] Both races can learn to manipulate the spirits that exist in all living things [and are fascinated by yarn, while neither race has an interest in horticulture or Creole cooking].

The story centers on Maxwell, a 16 year old Human boy, and Evangeline, a 15 year old Lacarna girl. When Max is 6, his father is murdered by bandits. [Once you've declared Max to be 16, you might want to use past tense for the part when he's 6.] Max is raised by his god-father in a small village where he meets and befriends Evangeline. It is Max’s goal to become a Protector, like his father before him. The Protectors are the peacekeepers of Velrune. [Also known as the SS.]

It is not long on Max’s journey to join the Protectors that he learns their ideal [idea?] of peacekeeping is to enslave the Lacarna. [This is the plot of Avatar. Are the Lacarna blue?] He and Eve must both confront the ideals and rules between the races to maintain their friendship. ["Confront the ideals and rules between the races" means nothing to me. Do you mean they must endure racial prejudice?] Once Max does join them [He still joins the Protectors after learning that they're enslaving the Lacarna?] he is given a simple mission that leads him to other characters who sit on one end or the other of the Lacarna/Human issue. [I'd rather know what his mission is than that it leads to his meeting other characters.]

These other characters relay [relate?] the history of Velrune and the differences of the two races. ["They have tails and claws. We don't."] A plot by the Protectors to eliminate the Lacarna is uncovered and Max even learns that his father was in league with another Human to overthrown [overthrow] the Protector leadership.

In the end Max chooses to help set the Lacarna free and destroys the leaders of the Protectors. [He's a kid. Are his spirit-manipulating super powers stronger than the Protectors' powers?] As he and his friends set out to reorganize the Protectors [That was the problem with the Protectors: poor organization.] they are greeted by a mysterious woman who claims her kind created both races and placed them into a small section of the planet. She had been watching the two races to see if they could learn to live together. With Max’s recent actions she decides they are ready to enter into the rest of the World so opens a gap in the surrounding mountains. [Lemme get this straight. The mysterious woman has been watching to see if the two races can live together. When one race enslaves the other she's still on the fence. But when one 16-year-old kid decides to destroy a few of his own kind to impress a girl, she decides the races are compatible?] We leave Max and Eve [Maybe he should be called Adam to avoid comparisons with the biblical Max and Eve.] ready to venture into the new world as an accidental kiss brings the two closer together. [Sorry, I didn't mean to kiss you. I . . . tripped.]


Notes

We need less about the races and a stronger focus on the main characters.

These sound more like different species than races. Are they identical other than the cat features?

So the mysterious woman's people decided to try an experiment: create two races, identical except that one of them has tails and claws? To determine what? Whether claws and tails give one race an advantage? Whether people with tails can live harmoniously with tailless people? Do the Lacarna lack opposable thumbs? Because all other things being equal, it seems like those claws would have let them enslave the Humans.


Selected Comments

AlaskaRavenclaw said...This is a synopsis rather than a query. The writing is awkward in places, and the voice is too distant for us to really feel anything about the characters.


BuffySquirrel said...I hope the novel doesn't have problems similar to those in the query. As this stands, you're going to have a hard time getting anyone to ask for pages. There's just too many mistakes.

Who is the protagonist? What's their goal? What obstacles do they face? What's at stake?

Sixteen-year-old Max sets out with his Lacarna friend Evangeline to join the Protectors, an organisation entrusted with keeping the peace on their home planet of Verlune. On the way, he learns that the Protectors plan to enslave the Lacarna, a humanlike race with feline traits.

That kinda thing.


arhooley said...The Avatar similarity hit me square between the eyes, too, at this line: Both races can learn to manipulate the spirits that exist in all living things.
Author, you need to learn the fine art of writing like a writer, but not too much like a writer. Your query sounds like a not-very-good communicator talking about this weird book they just read. "So the other guys are sort of human except they have tails and claws, and they're kind of sexy, because the good guy falls in love with one of them. And he's trying to join the police force, except it turns out the police actually kill the other guys. But then in the very end, this other lady comes along who made ALL of them -- yeah, she's like a god -- and she says it was a big test to see if they could get along, and now that they can she tears down this big mountain that was keeping them from the rest of the world. But you never get to see the rest of the world, it just ends there."

I suggest you read some professional book reviews and movie reviews to get an idea of the style you're going for. Something easy yet polished.


Dave said...I wish writers wouldn't be afraid of the stories they write. This is a world of cat people, say it and let it be at that. I write stories with anthropomorphic characters in them all the time and I never apologize for the anthromorph. There's usually a reason for the anthromorph, like a deer hunter getting zapped into being a deer anthromorph and being the hunted. ANd when I sell that story to an editor, I treat the characters as perfectly normal.

Maxwell, a 16 y/o orphan and member of the Protector class on Velrune, falls in love with Eve, a feline humanoid native of the enclave. Together, they discover a plot by the Protector Class to keep the natives enslaved.

That's rather a passionless start of a sales pitch but it's a short start.


Khazar-khum said...I can't help but wonder if the Lacarna were enslaved by a few well-placed bags of catnip. Or is that what you bring on a first date?

Dave is right: Call them cat people. Don't pussyfoot around.


Anonymous said...This may be a fine book, because it all depends on the writing, but at the moment it sounds like a Mess. And why is a cat-girl named "Evangeline"? Is it set in the Forest Primeval?

Go ahead, call her C'Mell - you know you want to!!


Ink and Pixel Club said...Kill most of paragraph 1. The various abilities of the two species never come into play your query, so you don't need to mention them. Start with Max. Max wants to be a Protector like his father was. He's also friends, or maybe more than friends, with a Lacarna girl. Humans and Lacarna don't get along, so the friendship doesn't make life easy for either of them. Maybe Max believes that as a Protector, he'll be able to help the two races understand each other and ensure safety and justice for everyone. That's your starting point: Max and what he wants.

Like EE said, the order of events doesn't make sense. Max seems to uncover two possibly unrelated plots, he joins the Protectors even after he learns that they're enslaving or going to enslave the Lacarna, and the sentence about Max and Eve confronting ideals and rules feels out of place. Tell it so your readers can see how each event leads to the next.

Is the middle part of the book just Max meeting a lot of different people and talking to them about history?

Since this is a query, you probably want to leave out Max defeating the Protector leaders. Instead, lay out some reasons why Max might not choose to help the Lacarna and hint at what he's up against and how he might be able to win if he does help them. Right now, Max has tons of reasons to take down the Protectors - they're corrupt and evil, they're enslaving a race that includes his friend/potential girlfriend, his father was trying to overhtrow them, but no clear reason not to. If helping the Lacarna is a hard task or a hard decision for Max, tell us why. I also don't have a clue how Max overthrows the Protectors. You don't need to tell us exactly how he does it, but you do want to point out some assets he has that might help him to do it.

I have no idea what the mysterious woman is doing in this story. It seems like she just shows up to give the heroes a pat on the back for doing the right thing and grant them a reward which doesn't really mean anything to me. Why is it important that hey gain access to the rest of the planet, especially when I didn't know they were confined in the first place? Leave her out of the query.


Anonymous said...After reading this I have no desire to go and read the novel. It's just... not interesting, and appears worryingly devoid of, well, a real plot.

Now, perhaps the novel is pure genius and if put into production would over sell the bible in a week, I don't know. But if it is than this query is not selling it.

Characters, motivation, plot and a lot less 'world building'. Honestly, if we don't care about the characters and what they are doing then why are we going to care about their cat or not cat-ness.


Xiexie said...I agree with Dave. Own your cat-people. Explanations to fantasy/scifi agents won't be needed. They know the genre. Cat-people aren't farfetched.

Anywho, your query needs a voice. Right now it's so far removed from the story it just comes across bland and much too explanative (or explanatory? -- Are those the same word?--).

Buffy and Dave have given good examples of how the query should show us the protags, the stakes against him, the basic setup of the plot. Go in that vein.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

Supernatural Freak

1. A freak who can appear normal through supernatural powers loses those powers and chooses to move to the planet Freakoid, where freaks are normal and normal is freakish.

2. In the midst of investigating a supernatural serial killer, Robyn is hired to cure a child who is turning into a tree. Then she learns that she's the chosen one who must defeat the invincible entity known as "The Cloud." Ever have one of those days?

3. Move over, Superman! Supernatural Freak tracks down evildoers wherever they lurk, and converts them to a life of virtue and macrobiotic cooking.

4. On Halloween night, Ashley takes a shortcut through the graveyard and gets simultaneously bitten by both a vampire and a werewolf. Crap. This is going to put a crimp in her plan to snag All-American Josh Burrell as her prom date.

5. A vampire with an allergy to type O blood, a photosensitive werewolf, a wingless fairy and a ghost with anxiety disorder gather every week for group therapy from the hopelessly kind-hearted Dr. Mephistopheles.

6. High school sucks when everyone thinks you're a freak just because you can read minds. But when her lit class is taken hostage by masked gunmen, guess who's got to save the day? They won't be calling her a freak after this, right?


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

I am seeking representation for my 75000 word urban fantasy “Supernatural Freak". Think a Gothic novel by Wodehouse. [Sort of Monty Python does Wuthering Heights? I can't recommend calling it urban fantasy and then comparing it to a Gothic novel and aristocratic comedy. Even if that's what it is, the agent is interested in where it will be shelved and who will buy it, so call it a quirky urban fantasy or an edgy Gothic novel or a paranormal satire of the British upper crust.] Brought-up by a German father and a French mother, I [am lucky to be alive, and] have written a story of a heroine with a similar background.

A former editor, I currently work as a journalist for South West News, the biggest press agency in England. [One of Murdoch's puppet organizations, no doubt.] My website ___________has an average of 3000 visitors per month. [That's 100 visitors a day. I could start a site, put nothing on it except a counter, and get over 100 visitors a day. In fact, to prove it, I'm putting the site here, but don't click on it, because there's nothing there worth seeing and I don't want the counter to go up just because I linked to the site.] [Any bio stuff that you insist on including should be at the end. Get to the book while the agent is still awake.]

Young Robyn Wise leads a complicated life. For a start, no one understands her jokes. [I have the same problem, except the people who don't get my jokes often threaten to kill me.]

Secondly, she speaks the Fairy Language, a unique gift, craved by every monster living in London, which doesn't benefit her health either. [Speaking any language is unlikely to benefit one's health.] [Well, there was that time when I wished I knew how to say "I'm not an American" in Arabic.]

When honest people go mysteriously missing and high-profile criminals are murdered by a supernatural serial killer, Robyn, an established paranormal expert, starts investigating [how to stop the disappearances without disrupting the streak of murders].

It's the usual routine, or so she thinks, until she's hired to cure a child turning into a dead tree, an ominous condition she has never seen before. [This sounds like a case for House:

House: Seven-year-old child, turning into a dead tree.

Chase: They need a tree surgeon, not a doctor.

Foreman: It's probably a case of hardening of the phloem.

Thirteeen: We need to get to the root of her problem.

Taub: I'll go out on a limb and say it's not Lupus.

Cameron: I knew I should've gone into a different branch of medicine.

Wilson: If there's no cure, the kid could be carved into a marionette.

House: Screw that. I need a coat rack.]

Her concerns are confirmed by a stranger claiming to be Francis Walsingham, once counsellor of Elisabeth I. [Is this set in our time or Elizabeth's?] [What's with all these one-sentence paragraphs?]

He tells Robyn that she's the incarnation of the Cat, the leader of the Twelve Spirits created to protect Fairyland from “The Cloud”, an invincible entity which can only be banished for 120 years. [Didn't you say Robyn's background was similar to yours: you who have parents who are French and German; she who is the incarnation of the Cat?]

Now, 120 years have passed and the disappearances, the murders and the tree-child are all signs that the Fairy Kingdom is threatened again, and only she can save it.

I can be reached by email at ___________ or phone at ________. I thank you in advance for your time and attention.

Sincerely,


Notes

The child turning into a dead tree is our best character since the architect who was falling in love with her house.

If they know the Cloud appears after 120 years, and they know when it was last banished, and they know the Cat can re-banish it, why didn't they seek the Cat's help before the murders and disappearances started?

I don't see the point of mentioning Robyn's background or yours. Neither seems relevant in the query.

There are too many paragraphs. You want to fit this on one page, but if you have a dozen skipped lines between paragraphs, that won't be happening. Put the plot in two or three paragraphs.

This is all over the place. Start over and focus on one story line. Clump the supernatural occurrences into the first plot paragraph and get to the part where Robyn must save the world. And check this out.


Selected Comments

AlaskaRavenclaw said...Dang, EE, 112 hits already. You either have a ton of lurkers or some very easily entertained regulars...

It's not just that the query contains a lot of one-sentence paragraphs: each one seems to be describing a completely different story.

Where's the center of the story? What's it really about? Focus the query on that, and leave out subplots which probably (hopefully) make sense in the context of the story, but merely seem bizarre in the query.

And don't capitalize Language. Just call it Fairy, or the Fairy language.


Matthew MacNish said...I'm guessing if you didn't link to that blank blog on your blog, EE, it might not have been quite as popular, but I'll admit it, I clicked. Fun.

The biggest thing that bothered me about this query was the phrase "mysteriously missing." Do people often go missing in manners that are not mysterious? If we know what happened to them, they're not really missing.


arhooley said...Well, what if the Fairy Kingdom gets wiped out? It's not as if humans would miss them. In fact, I don't directly see a single fairy in your query.

It sounds to me like it could be a very successful book, but I think you should clear out most of your bio and add enough detail to make me care about the stakes.


Kings Falcon said...So the plot is outcast must save the world with the very skills that made her an outcast i.e. a Chosen One plot. Focus on that. Then tell me why your novel is different than every other Chosen One story out there.

If you mention a detail, i.e. speaking Fairy or saving the kids, tell me why it's relevant to the main plot. So, if you keep the reference to the fact that speaking Fairy makes her attractive to all monsters tell me why.

For the MAIN plot line, the query should focus on:
What does Robyn want?
Who is going to stop her?
Why does it matter that she suceeds i.e. what are the stakes?


Dave said...An agent has to sell the book to a publisher before the publisher accepts it and then markets it. Your ability to generate an audience belongs in one sentence or two sentences at the end of the query. Don't put the cart before the horse.

Try starting with something like this:
Robyn, an established paranormal expert, starts investigating a child turning into a tree. Fairy magic not seen on earth in over a century. She discovers that she is destined to battle the nemesis of the fairy world.

Now we need some more risks or struggles for Robyn, the Fairy world and mankind. right now, only the child has any stake we care about.

About this:
Brought-up by a German father and a French mother,
What? Your pastries are delicious but have no sense of humor?
You sing Deuscheland Uber Alles at the Follies Bergere?

EE was in fine form today.


vkw said...178 hits - I admit I clicked twice already and plan on doing it again. I am one of those easily entertained regulars.

I love the child being turned into a dead tree. Is it possible to buy that somewhere because I am too nice to actually do away with children but . . . maybe I would have the guts to turn them into a dead tree.

I am going out on a limb here and guessing it was the parents or the nanny who hexed the child and they are setting up the made up "The Cloud" to get away with it.

That's the type of quirky English humour we've grown to respect here in America.

"Young Robyn Wise leads a complicated life. For a start, no one understands her jokes." This is just odd. who cares? If leading a complicated life includes no one getting your jokes then we'll rule out you becoming a comedian and decide your life is pretty average.

Okay the language thing - I don't get why she would be in danger because she has a talent in something monsters would like to be talented in. That's like saying your character is a talented singer, an envy of all her classmates and, therefore, is in danger? Why?

Honest people go missing as opposed to the dishonest people who go missing?

The ominous condition of a child turning into a dead tree as opposed to say the less ominous concern of a child being turned into a blooming flower?

I'm just kind of having fun here with the choice of adjectives.

Mysteriously go missing
ominous tree condition
Honest people
young robyn (she's 4 or 5? maybe 20, but definately not 60, but maybe she is a "young" 60) See young doesn't have meaning. It's just a word in a query that lacks a plot.

I'm going to click on the link again. I apologize for having a bit fun with this query.


AlaskaRavenclaw said...Yeah, I was wondering if the bio was maybe a UK thing. Over here it's not really comme il faut... after all, you don't include it any other business letter:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Born in a sod shanty in North Dakota and raised by a roving wolf pack, I purchased your Champion Home Breadmaker III on July 28th, only to have it break the first time I used it.


BuffySquirrel said...And yet again I feel compelled to say, don't blame the Brits!

How does this French/German prodigy end up with a very British-sounding name?

If this is set in Tudor England, then she's not a paranormal expert. She's a witchfinder. If not, perhaps we need to know how Walsingham got to modern London, and, indeed, just how he's coping. Poor chap. I'd be more worried about getting on the wrong side of him than about these vague monsters, tbh.

What's the protagonist's goal? What are the obstacles? What's at stake? And where the heck does Wodehouse come into it?


Anonymous said...I love the turning into a tree bit, especially because of the idea that you can hire someone to cure it.

The 120 years isn't necessary to the query (and is confusing, because Francis is either more than 120 years old or has time travelled from more than 120 years ago). We only need to know The Cloud is on the loose.

This query has some fabulous and intriguing details, but rereading without the blue bits :) I think it's also one of those queries that is nearly all setup. It's difficult, because your story has two setups.

(1) Paranormal expert Robyn Wise is used to dodging the monsters living in London, who are jealous that she can speak Fairy language.

(2) A stranger claiming to be Francis Walsingham tells Robyn she's one of 12 spirits created to protect Fairyland and the only one who can save the place from an entity called The Cloud.

For actual plot, you have:

While investigating a supernatural serial killer, Robyn also gets hired to cure a child turning into a dead tree. Solving both problems can only be done by defeating The Cloud.

Maybe the query would benefit from a bit more about what's her interest in saving the Fairy Kingdom - pure altruism? Just finishing off her investigation and collecting her paycheque? Or if Fairyland goes down so does Robyn? And maybe some hint about how her tree-curing and Fairy-speaking abilities will let her save the day.


Wilkins MacQueen said...Can I assume a child turning into a tree is a long process giving her plenty of time to work on it?

I'm with EE,this is all over the place and I had tough time figuring out what the hey was going on and why would I read it. Not saying the ms isn't wonderful but I need the query to guide me a little more definitively.

I'd scrap the personal set up and the story set up and start with the story.

It's too long IMHO.

Good luck, from what I could glean it could be quite fun to read although the query had too much for my brain to sieve.

The Historian

I'm thinking of starting a new Twitter account. I'll call it The Historian.This is my avatar:

The feed would look like this (click to enlarge):

Ultimately it would be a way to promote my book The History of the World in Tweets. But would anyone buy it? Maybe it's all just a pipe dream, my getting rich by selling a copy to everyone on Twitter.

Success Story

Frequent contributor to this blog Whirlochre reports that his horror/humour work "Bank of the Dead" is yours for the taking, by which I mean the buying, but at a price so low it's like the taking.

Details here.

New Beginning 1021

August 1822

“Go away!” Kincaid shouted at Joe. There wasn’t a need to turn in the saddle and look back. He was there. The sounds of creaking leather and the clip of hooves said so. He had been there for half a day since he come trotting up with the pack mule in tow. Like he was ready to go anywhere and stay out as long as need be, the mule was loaded so.

“I said ‘Go away’,” the young man shouted again.

“Thought you said I free,” Joe replied. “Thought you said I ain’t a slave no longer. That Lerocque don’t own me, and you don’t own me.”

“I did!” Kincaid snapped.

“Then I free to ride where I want. Free to ride south like I doing. Maybe go to Santa Fe and spend some time.”

“I don’t need no mammy!” Kincaid raised his voice more. Can’t that darky see I don’t want to be around no one. That being alone and feeling the hurt was what a man needed at a time like this.

Kincaid spurred up, planning to outpace the slave, when suddenly two suspicious individuals breached the wooded trail, their faces blighted, skin hanging half off the taller one's scalp. Kincaid realized the fortuitousness of his unwelcome shadow.

With a brutal yank on the bit, Kincaid reared his horse clear around and dashed past Joe and his pack mule. Yes, when encountering the unholy zombie werewolves known to inhabit the region it was best to be accompanied on the trail by a slow man on a slow animal.

Hearing Joe's anguished cries echo through the forest Kincaid was troubled. Until he realized: Joe died a Freeman.


Opening: Wes Redfield.....Continuation: Veronica Rundell

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