Monday, August 16, 2010

Cartoon 709

Caption: M.G.E.

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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Sunday Feature 1


Q & A with Hannah Rogers,
Novice Literary Agent





Will a 500k word count impede my chances of a film deal?


Les Miserables has over 500,000 words. I haven't read it, because hello, it has over 500,000 words. But it was made into a movie and a musical, so the word count didn't hurt this Victor Hugo guy.


How would Hannah Rogers answer the commonly heard complaint that old novels (and very successful old novels) could never be published today because in this electronic world, the expectations of agents and editors are either so high, or so commercial, or so literary, or so success-oriented that a novel such as Moby Dick would be rejected as insufficiently introspective?

I, for one, wouldn't reject Moby Dick just because it's insufficiently introspective. For one thing, I don't even know what that means. But I do know I don't like authors using two consecutive "in" words. Variety is the spice of life when it comes to prefixes. I'd still reject Moby Dick, because I understand it's about killing whales, which nobody wants to read about.


The current trend in visual literature like movies and TV shows has lots of exposition explaining the backstory or the entire setup of the episode. This is usually in the form of dialogue and to use NCIS as an example is typically the explanation of how the most recent deceased subject died, what their rank or social position was, and how they might have come in contact with the latest killer, terrorist, bad guy or whatever. Should I mimic these successful shows in my fiction?

Some of my favorite TV shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance are on opposite NCIS, so I've never seen it. I will say this: Bruno Tonioli and Adam Shankman are my favorite dance judges. They're handsome and funny and I wouldn't mind getting into their pants! There, I've said it.


Is it a mistake to use a neologism in a query? I've got what I think is a great query ready to go that includes the word "werepire". Would that be confusing or do you get it right away?

A neowhat? Are you sure you didn't make that word up? Don't try to put one over on me, or I'll put you on my lists of agenttricksters and wordmakeruppers. Werepire I don't get, although backwards it spells eriperew, which is the sound this annoying bird makes outside my window every morning at six o'clock. Wait, is it a pirate that turns into an animal when the moon is full? That's my guess, a pirate that turns into a parrot!


Do you believe in the latest trend of dedicating your autobiography to a body part like Marky Mark dedicated his to his penis?


His p***s?! Are you another agenttrickster? I'm not answering until I see first-hand what Marky Mark dedicated his autobiography to.


So once I submit my manuscript and you find me a publisher, how long will it take to become published?

That depends on too many uncontrollable things to give an answer. On another subject, Have you considered making out a literary will?


For how long do you weep after writing at length to inform passionate would-be authors that their submissions have been unsuccessful, BITCH?

Whoa, Nelly! I only put the queries in my Yes pile or my No pile or my You Decide pile. Then my secretary, Gollum, gathers the piles and writes to the authors. As for your question, he's weeping pretty much every time I see him.


How many agents work at your agency?

Three: Me, myself, and I! I was hoping someone would ask that so I could say that. But since nobody did, I asked it myself. Of course there's also my unpaid intern Chelsea, but I only hired her so I'd have someone to go to lunch with when I don't have any client lunches on the calendar and also so I'd have someone to gossip with about other agents. There are a lot of other agents; some days me and Chelsea don't get any work done!


Your submission guidelines say to just send the first sentence. My question is this, should I focus more on crafting a powerful opening word, or do you like reading a powerful end to the sentence? I mean, have you ever read the first word of a novel and known right then and there it was all downhill and thrown it out?


The first word should be the main character's name if it's an interesting name like Manuel Peach. If it's a boring name, start with her occupation: Undercover caterer Jane Smith . . . The last word should be the word "murder," even if there's no murder in the book. For instance: Manuel Peach had always wondered what it would be like to imagine committing a murder. Or: Undercover caterer Jane Smith knew two things: she was in love with ace homicide detective Zack Martinez, and her corn strudel had not been used to commit murder.


If my husband offers to slip you his F***ing pizza-coated "manuscript," you had better say no if you know what's good for you. PS, How do you get your bangs to do that, Hon? That's so cute.

That's Mitch. No one touches my hair but Mitch, Hon.


Hannah Rogers is president of the Hannah Rogers Literary Agency. She regrets that she is unable to answer every question submitted, as she has six-figure contracts to negotiate.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Friday, August 13, 2010

New Beginning 776

Death is nothing, its life that scares the hell out of me. I am not afraid to die. I am actually looking forward to it. Going through the motions of life, well that’s the hard part. You would think with my current profession I would be worrying about dying all the time, but I don’t. When people keep telling you that no one wants you, you end up believing it and you could care less what happens with your own life. In karmas own fucked up way I think I’ve lasted this long because I don’t care what happens to me. So what if I die? Who is going to care? Some bureaucrat in Washington D.C.? Doubtful. I'm twenty-five and I’ve been doing this for much of my adult life. I don't remember the first six years of my life, but I can tell you that I was found by police officers in an alley in Miami Florida on a hot summer night. After that it was a blur of foster homes and juvenile centers, all of which I tried like hell to get out of each time they put me in one. I think that may be why I choose to be an assassin.

"Ah, let me stop you right there if you don't mind. Excuse me while I . . . Uh, Violet? Would you be a dear and call down to personnel? They've messed up my request for an assistant again."


Opening: Sharon R......Continuation: anon.

Cartoon 708

Caption: Angela Robbins

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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Q & A with Mrs. Varmighan


At last, your chance to get inside the head of Evil Editor's confidential assistant. Mrs. V will answer your questions about life, love, sex and Evil Editor, while giving you advice, whether you want it or not. Submit questions in the comments.

Q & A with Agent Hannah Rogers

Novice literary agent Hannah Rogers of the Hannah Rogers Literary Agency will answer your questions in this space Sunday. Don't miss this opportunity to consult one of the most photogenic agents ever to pose with a telephone on which she's closing a six-figure deal or ordering a pizza. Submit questions in advance in the comments.

Face-Lift 807


Guess the Plot

Random Halos

1. Saint Peter trips and scatters a box of newly minted halos, which promptly fall to earth. Now he must retrieve them before the media re-writes modern morality based on "obvious" heavenly approval.

2. After being exposed to uranium, six seniors develop supernatural powers and form a team of angelic heroes. But one of them decides that it's boring being a superhero when there aren't any supervillains around, and goes over to the dark side.

3. Working at Random House has always been Bone Martin's dream, and when he gets a job as a fact checker, he's in heaven. However, he quickly comes down to Earth when he uncovers the unscrupulous shenanigans of a beloved editor—and the editor targets him for elimination.

4. A series of bizarre "accidents" during the opening season of Heaven's Got Talent has detective Zack Martinez investigating the sordid world of blackmail, bribery and murder among beings who have the nerve to call themselves "Angels."

5. Forget wizards and vampires; angels are the next big thing, and Gary's musical can't miss. Unless his parents get divorced and his mom moves in and starts “helping” him with it. And she just did.

6. Zelda is a young gypsy girl moving to the big city to go to college. Her family had always assumed the "gift" had passed her over. But along with her first period comes the ability to see auras. That's when she notices the evil halos around those suit and sunglasses-wearing men who always seem to be following her around.


Original Version

WOrking Title: Random Halos

Plot - Query:

Random (or Radium) Halos, a Fantasy Young Adult MS, complete at 54,000. [Random or Radium? You don't care what the first word of your title is but it must have six letters and begin with "R"?]

The small town of Elliot Lake will never be the same again. An unexpected thunderstorm brings a group of friends closer than they could ever imagine [as they all take shelter in a phone booth]. Hiding in an old abandoned uranium mine to avoid the storm, [And I thought I was being overly cautious, locking myself in my panic room during thunderstorms.] six [high school] seniors spend the night together. [This paragraph can be condensed into one sentence: Caught in a sudden thunderstorm, six high school seniors from Elliot Lake take shelter in an abandoned uranium mine.]

Over the next few days, each experiences radical changes to one of their senses. At first, they believe only five of them have changed. All but one never considers the possibility of a sixth sense. Their senses develop into stronger supernatural powers. These powers become a necessity when dangerous events begin occurring in Elliot Lake. [This is too general. What are their powers? Strengthened senses or something beyond that? What are the dangerous events? Give examples.] [This could also be condensed to one sentence: Over the next few days, five of them gain supernatural powers, while the sixth morphs into . . . the Kraken!!]

For Zoe, learning to deal with her new superhuman sense is harder than she expected. [I don't see how she could have had any expectations for how hard it is to deal with a new superhuman sense.] At the same time, her heart is fluttering over Kraigan, the new Scottish boy in town. [Change his name to Kraken. Also, make him a Kraken.] The loyalties of friendship are tested [Explain.] and high school’s senior year never seemed so challenging. [That would be believable if one of their classmates were the Kraken.]


Alone each has a raw talent, but together Zoe and her friends can become something powerful. [A team of people with raw talents.] A group of unexpected heroes with a villain among them. [Presumably the villain is the one with the sixth sense? You might want to make more of this in the query rather than toss it in at the end as if it's an afterthought. For instance, if your villain is the Kraken, and you wait this long to mention that the Kraken is in your book, it doesn't feel like you have your priorities straight. Who's the villain, what's his/her power, and what's his/her goal?]


Notes

If you have an ensemble cast with all characters having fairly equal parts, then Zoe doesn't deserve to be singled out in the query while the other five seniors get nothing. If Zoe is the main character, focus on her earlier. Zoe and five of her friends take shelter in the mine. Zoe notices she has super taste buds, and tells her friends, only to learn that they all have super senses as well.

It seems odd that a uranium mine would have been abandoned if it still contained enough uranium to have this effect.

I don't like either form of the title.

Cartoon 707

Caption: Anon.

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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

New Beginning 775

Lydia exhaled sharply through her nose as she dropped the pencil for the third time. At least she’d had the sense to pull the sheet up over the arm of the hospital bed so the things she dropped couldn’t roll to the floor. But between the pain and the medicine and the tiredness that came from not sleeping well because people kept interrupting to make sure her muddled old body hadn’t embarked on any new forms of malfeasance it was hard to keep track of where her own hands were, let alone six colored pencils. And of course it wasn’t the pencils she was really thinking of now but the light-soaked petals of the flowers massed on the table by her bed. She wasn’t trying to draw the shape of each petal exactly, just to convey both the close profusion of the petals and the spaciousness given them by the light.

Even back in Greece, in the beginning, when she said that she took up sketching because her camera kept malfunctioning, that was only half of the truth. When it didn’t overexpose her film the camera captured the shapes of things, but it lost the space that surrounded them.

A hesitant cough brought Lydia back from her reverie. "Sorry," Lydia said, and gave a thin smile. Focus, dammit, focus. "This is so simple, really..." She turned the page back in her notebook, gripped the pencil in her trembling fist and scrawled a wavering line across the picture. "I'll make the first incision here, and--"

Terrence stared up at her from the bed. "Y'know, Doc -- I'm kind of having some second thoughts about this whole vasectomy thing..."



Opening: Joanna Hoyt.....Continuation: Anon.

Cartoon 706

Caption: M.G.E.

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Face-Lift 806

Guess the Plot

Shadow of Doubt

1. Should Carmela marry Dennis, wealthy weapons merchant, or Farley, struggling sculptor? It would be easier if she didn't think either of them could be the murderer of Bobbles, the village idiot in the sleepy hamlet of Dalsette. Will she ever be free from this . . . Shadow of Doubt?

2. A rich widower visits his niece, only to meet with a series of bizarre, near-fatal accidents. Could it be that some higher power is trying to tell him that he should redo his will, in which he leaves all his money to his nephew?

3. By night he takes human form, but by day he's a payphone. Should he tell his new crush his secret, thus jeopardizing everything? Or should he settle for a sex-only relationship and hope she's the type who loves to use the phone? It's a dilemma.

4. When Sandra exposes herself with her book, “Lying for Fun and Profit,” her editor lets slip that the book is selling due to its unintended humor. Her accountant absconds with the money and her boyfriend dumps her. Penniless, infamous and idle, she is refused employment by everyone. Except Satan.

5. When he was born his father named him 'Doubt' Lambright--they were never very close. But when he falls in love with a girl who turns out to be his first cousin, whether he's really his father's son suddenly becomes important. Oh, did I mention they're Amish?

6. Three dead actors. One missing director. And the only witness is a chimp. Homicide detective Zack Martinez knows two things: the chimp isn't talking, and there's no way he'll let the perp make a monkey out of him.


Original Version

TITLE: Shadow of Doubt

Query - Plot: [If these two lines are part of the query, get rid of them. They're wasting space.]

What happens when you fall for the one you are forbidden to love? [In my case, I sit around my home every night watching TV and wondering if Julia Roberts will ever remove the restraining order.] When destiny takes over everything you fought to control, that which was forbidden could now destroy you. [This is all too vague to have any meaning, and will presumably be restated below with specificity. Dump it.]

Erebus is a Shadow, an immortal night dweller, walking the Earth for the last century. [You don't need to be immortal to have walked the Earth for the past century. Just really old.] By day he is the occlusion of a payphone, [Say what? What does that even mean? I can only assume it's a typo and it's supposed to read: By day he is an octopus made of Play Doh. Or he's the clue gun of a peafowl.] and by night he returns to human form. [When did he ever have human form? I assumed he was this immortal night-dwelling Shadow creature when he wasn't a payphone.] He’s different than other Shadows, [which are, by day, excavations of coffee makers.] solemn when Shadows are meant to live for personal fun and satisfaction. That is, until he meets Aurora, a young law student at Cornell University, a human girl. His entire world is shaken. Human feelings he's never had, and urges he’s never understood, like wanting to have a place to live of his own, [Does he live in a phone booth in the daytime?] drive him to question everything about himself and his kind.

Prohibited by the Night Council to have a relationship with a human that involves more than just sex, Erebus is risking severe punishment to be with Aurora on a completely different level. [Even a sex-only relationship with a human can be problematic--if you're still going at it when dawn arrives and you suddenly turn into a payphone.]

When a jealous old flame, Nanny, stalks back into his life, [I could never date someone who went by the name Nanny. Although it's better than dating someone who goes by the name Mommy.] Erebus breaks the most important law set by the Shadows and reveals his secret to Aurora. [Are we talking about the secret that he's immortal or the secret that he's a payphone?] [I'm thinking if you tell your true love you're a payphone, it doesn't matter whether she believes it's true or not. She's gone.] [I'm not sure whether I'd rather my mate be immortal or a payphone. Immortality would be good because funerals are expensive. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to have a steady influx of spare change.] By telling her, he jeopardizes everything, and must protect her from Nanny and the judgement of the Night Council. [The only thing he jeopardizes is his relationship with her. No way Aurora bought his claim that he's an immortal nightcrawling payphone.] His biggest fears are realized when he sees that [Aurora has her own cell phone, and thus won't be pushing his buttons.] his desire for Aurora could destroy her, or worse, erase his own Shadow forever.

SHADOW OF DOUBT is complete at 52,000 words and falls into the category of young adult fantasy. The storyline has a unique twist [I'll say.] that goes beyond the traditional fantasy, with pure love that can conquer anything in and beyond this world.


Notes

What would happen if humans found out Shadows existed? What's the punishment for telling a human you're a blender? In other words, what's at stake?

Usually authors go with a human being as the main character if one is available. Especially when the alternative is a payphone.

Whatever the occlusion of a payphone is, the query is better off without it. We also don't need Nanny. She's a subplot.

What's the difference between a Shadow and a human at night? Besides immortality. Do they have any powers? Can they have relationships with each other? Are all Shadows occlusions of payphones, or are some occlusions of gas pumps? Are all objects Shadows? Or are there a limited number of Shadows?

In the US we spell "judgment" with one "e".

Cartoon 705

Caption: Alwyn

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Monday, August 09, 2010

New Beginning 774

Armageddon came slowly.

Imagine you are recently born, still new to this world, innocent. Feel the warm breath of your father calling you awake. Now open your eyes and realize you are alone. Everyone has left. If you hadn’t been so absorbed in your own dreams you would have noticed, but here you are.

Where do you go now?

Picture the feather of a dead dove falling. And when it finally touches ground everything is gone, even you.

This is how Armageddon washed over the planet.

There was no cataclysmic climate change. No megatsunamis, supervolcanoes, or meteorite collisions to cleanse the land of the human parasites that had for so long infested it.

There was no man-made ice-age. No glacial exodus to erase all of mankind’s mistakes.

A swarm of alien invaders did not descend from the heavens in a massive coordinated attack, exterminating life as we know it to make room for their extraterrestrial colonies.

There was no government engineered pathogen.

There were no four horsemen.

Subtle in its means, Armageddon crept over humanity, gently smothering it, leaving only the pathetic struggle of an obsessed old man.

He stared out the window at the silent streets. Even the traffic lights were black and lifeless. He had no clue where it had come from. He'd been unaware of its creeping approach. But now, now that everyone was gone and everything was silent, he knew at last: This was why no one was doing the fucking writing exercises.


Opening: JMK McMullen.....Continuation: Anon.

Cartoon 704

Caption: Evil Editor

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Saturday, August 07, 2010

Friday, August 06, 2010

Writing Exercise


The 2nd Annual "Visit to Evil Psychiatrist" Exercise

If anyone can help you get through the bitterness caused by all those rejection slips, it's Evil Psychiatrist. Your first Evil Shrink visit took place 8/9/09.

300 words max.

Deadline: Sunday, 10 AM eastern

Face-Lift 805


Guess the Plot

Heir to the Sun

1. After a lifetime of surfing (and not a single day of work), Jay's totally bummed to learn that he's next in line to drive the big ol' ball of flaming gas. Clearly there's only one thing to do: con a homeless guy into taking the job.

2. When he learns that the sun's last will and testament leaves him the entire solar system, Larry's thrilled--until he finds out the sun won't die for another five billion years. Now Larry's looking for a way to speed up the process.

3. Alan sighed as his village was vaporized under the flaming star. Aunt Agatha always said she would get him for spilling tea on her furs; now, as the edges of the will in his hand crinkle, he has to admit that he never saw this coming.

4. When his dad dies, Alph Baumer is left sole proprietor of the local newspaper, started by his great, great, grandfather. Alph moves the Sun online, but when his office gets swarmed by picketers protesting the demise of folded newspaper hats, will he cave and go back to print?

5. Alluria, more beautiful than the sun, is a priestess whose chastity must be defended at all costs by the warrior Caol’nir. Turns out the only actual threat to her chastity is Caol’nir, who desperately wants to get into her pants. Also, the usual elves, faeries and kings you find in books with characters with names like Caol’nir.

6. Jasef was raised in orbit on Helios station by his father, Dr. Akagi, pioneer of solar-energy generation via space-based collectors. Now grown and very wealthy, he wants to go to Earth and marry his fiancée, a girl he's only ever seen online. Only one problem: he never learned to walk.


Original Version

I am seeking representation for my fantasy novel, Heir to the Sun: A Chronicle of Parthalan, complete at approximately 115,000 words. Currently, there are three more Chronicles of Parthalan featuring the same characters, with the sequel nearly complete and the following two in progress.

The land of Parthalan was born when I was in middle school, and my mother refused to buy me a music box that featured a princess with long red hair. [I could have killed her. It was a lousy eight bucks.] I was distraught as only an eighth grader can be, [and so I created the fictional prison planet known as Parthalan, where inconsiderate tightwad mothers are brutally tortured to death over and over;] and since I could not own my treasure, I created a story about the princess. I named her Latera, and ended up self-publishing her story in a novel called Rise of the Deva’shi. The book was well received, [garnering dazzling reviews from my father, my BFF Darlene, and Publishers Weekly,] and I decided to continue writing about these faeries and elves that heretofore had only existed in my mind [and in my novel]. [Anyway, by the time I was in tenth grade my series had grown to six books and had brought a million dollars into the family coffers, allowing my parents to retire. And still my mom wouldn't let me have the frigging music box.] [But enough about me.]

Heir to the Sun takes place in Parthalan, a land of faeries and magic, and neighboring Tingu, which is ruled by elves. [Is everyone in the book an elf or faery, or are there people?] It follows two individuals, Caol’nir and Asherah, [As this land has elves and fairies and who knows what else, I'd identify what each character is, rather than call them individuals.] who have markedly different existences yet have a common goal: to rid Parthalan of corrupt King Lotharian. Parthalan has been ruled by Lotharian for three thousand years, [What's the standard retirement age in this place? No way would I work the same job for more than even two thousand years.] but the king has grown bored in his long reign, and feels that power is the only thing he wants. He seeks to conquer the entire realm, [Right now I'm bored, but if I had more faeries and elves to rule over I could stand to be king another three thousand years.] and to that end has struck a bargain with Ehkron, [Anagram: Honker. I mention this because I think you should call him Honker. Seriously, he could be the comic relief. He's always blowing his nose, making a honking noise.] ruler of the demons he once triumphed over, in order to raise a half-demon, half-fae army loyal only to him. [Can you really trust an army of demons you once defeated to be loyal only to you?

Lotharian: Let's let bygones be bygones. We'll make a deal, You order your army of demons to be loyal only to me. After we conquer the neighboring lands I'll be the leader of the entire realm.

Honker: And what do
I get out of this? Honk!

Lotharian: Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll discuss that after we win.

Honker: Deal. I'll go fill my boys in on my . . . er, your plan.]


Caol’nir is a warrior sworn to defend his king from harm, as well as defend the chastity of the temple priestesses. Despite the vow he has sworn to keep her chaste, [No need to repeat the terms of his vow.] Caol’nir falls deeply in love with Alluria, an orphan priestess from the east. [No man can resist a woman named Alluria.] When Alluria suspects that her temple is no longer the haven it once was, Caol’nir betrays both his king and his oath to ensure her safety. [He betrays which oath? The one to keep her chaste? How does that ensure her safety?]

Asherah was enslaved by the king’s foul plot and doomed to a life bearing demon whelps, [which can get really old in a place where people live more than three thousand years.] yet she managed to escape and flee to the elf king for aid. Now, as Asherah leads her band of freed slaves and elfin warriors back to Parthalan and free her kind, will she prevail? [That's a lousy last sentence, and not just because it isn't a sentence.]

Thank you, for both your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.


Notes

After you publish a dozen books in the Chronicles of Parthalan series and are so famous you get to do a solo panel at the World Fantasy Convention, I guarantee one of your fans will ask you how you came up with your world. That's the time and place to tell your story about the music box and how miserable your mother made your childhood.

The names are somewhat bothersome. You have two main characters, one with a Hebrew name and one whose name was formed by randomly choosing Scrabble tiles. Your king may be a lothario or lotharian, but who would give their kid that name? I don't mind Alluria because it rolls off the tongue, but it is suggestive, sort of like naming a male character Hunky. At least I managed to talk you into Honker.

Caol’nir may be a main character, but Alluria and the king are getting as much or more query space. Asherah gets two sentences of plot, but at least she does something worthy of a main character. I think the query would be better if it focused on Asherah and left Caol’nir out entirely. Slave-girl escapes and recruits army to take down corrupt king. It's Spartacus with demons.

It's not clear why you continue to set all your writings in this world you thought up when you were in eighth grade. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the world, but continuously pumping out 115,000-word books about the same characters is a lot of work. Better to wait and see if Book 1 sells before putting forth the effort. (And while you're waiting, write something completely different, possibly with a human being in it.)

Who is the heir to the sun (whatever that means)?

Cartoon 703

Caption: Whirlochre

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Thursday, August 05, 2010

New Beginning 773

Vivienne grabbed a champagne flute off a passing server's tray. The sweet rosé bubbles left a bitter aftertaste. A lick of her lips got rid of that lingering guilt, though it shouldn't have been there in the first place. She hadn't done anything yet.

The people sitting at the table near hers tittered again. Gossiping old women always provided decent blackmail material, but their clucking tongues and polite laughter brought a bitch of a migraine. They discussed scandals scandalous enough to induce foaming at the mouths of rabid bloggers. Their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren were the unfortunate victims. Wives cheating on husbands sleeping with porn stars dating failed actors, et cetera, et cetera.

It all made Vivienne's head spin. She lifted her glass to down the rest of her drink, but a hand plucked it from her fingers.

"Eavesdropping again?" Her quasi-best friend Keenan finished off her champagne with a blue-eyed wink and took the seat beside her.

"No," Vivienne replied, her head spinning faster now, like an anemometer as a hurricane approaches. "Committing . . . suicide." She tumbled off her chair, moaning.

Keenan looked at the now-empty glass in his hand, horrified. "But . . . but there was no suggestion you'd put poison in the glass!" Already he was feeling light-headed.

"Idiot," Vivienne gasped. "You . . . never heard . . . of . . . unreliable narrator?"


Opening: Hayden.....Continuation: Evil Editor