Face-Lift 1509

Guess the Plot

Keepers' Valley

1. Once you enter the Keepers' Valley, you may never return. Rebecca learns this the hard way when the Keepers chain her to the Monolith of Chained Bones.

2. In a post-apocalyptic world, an army seeking a place to conquer comes upon Keepers' Valley, so called because its residents keep the records of the pre-apocalypse world. If they can't conquer a bunch of historians, what a pathetic army they are. As usual, it's up to one woman to stop them.

3. The Finders went exploring, named exoplanets, asteroid belts, solar systems, etc, etc. But now that it's down to the nitty gritty, the Keepers own everything. That's where Joe comes in: protecting a dinky little crevice between mountains in a backwater corner of a galaxy no one else cares about.

4. Keeper settled the Hidden Ranch Valley two years after the pandemic, hopeful to find a plot of land to tend to away from the chaos of society & government. But strange things have been popping up in his valley lately. Ever the independent, Keeper keeps his secrets safe in his valley. When he meets Ayana Strongthold on one of his few trips to town, will he have the heart to let her in and risk her safety? Or will he entrench himself further in his isolation?

Original Version

Dear Agent:

KEEPERS’ VALLEY is an adult low fantasy adventure set in a quaint post-apocalyptic North America. [Rarely is anything in a post-apocalyptic world described as "quaint."] I believe this novel is a good match for your representation because (relate to agent’s MSWL or current stable)

Allie Francoeur’s courage has always outpaced her judgement. [judgment]  So, naturally, when her village is invaded, Allie allows herself to be captured.  [When soldiers invade, they don't want to drag all their captives from skirmish to skirmish. So much easier to just kill them.] The second step in her plan, where she is going to orchestrate [orchestrating] a daring escape for her people, well…that doesn’t go as anticipated.  Now held in the dormitory of the school where she used to teach young healers, Allie’s half-baked plot has landed her in a battle of wits against the invading general, Reginald Gray.  Worse, Gray believes he can use her magical gifts to aid his quest to conquer the valley she calls home.  [Her magical gifts couldn't even get her out of a school dormitory, but this guy thinks she's the key to conquering the valley? What are her magical gifts?]

As Gray strives to unravel her secrets, Allie is devising an agenda of her own.  She saved the life of the general’s second-in-command, Thomas Landen, when they were children.  She knows his heart (and his real identity), but she can’t make sense of his devotion to the silver-tongued general who controls his every move. [Obviously Thomas is an undercover agent who infiltrated the invading army and is now afraid Allie's flawed "judgment" will blow his cover before his own not-half-baked plan saves the valley.]

Allie must decide how much she can reveal about the true calling of her people to bring Thomas over to her side.  [The true calling of her people is revealed below in your note to EE; it would be nice if it were mentioned in the query.] If Allie’s judgement is right, [which it seldom is, as it's "always" outpaced by her courage,] her new alliance will be the key to ridding her home of its invaders. [Because history shows when an army invades a village populated by historians, the invaders flee if their second-in-command betrays them.] If she’s wrong, Allie will have given Thomas, and the general he serves, exactly what they need to claim the valley for their own.   

KEEPERS’ VALLEY combines the magic-entwined war setting and lost family themes of The Book of Thorns by Hester Fox with the reimagined science, anti-colonialism threads, and stomach-turning villain of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Alternately heartwarming and dark, KEEPERS’ VALLEY is complete at 118,000 words and stands alone with series potential.  

Sincerely,

[The title refers to the Valley where the story is set, and the people who live there call themselves "Keepers" because they have been tasked with preserving humanity's accomplishments from before the fall of civilization.]

Notes

My sense is that when an army invades a valley and captures people, the army's general has better things to do than engage in a battle of wits with one of the captives. They delegate battles of wits to their trusted lieutenants, who order their sergeants to kill the captives, especially if they think the captives have the power to turn them into frogs.

Most of my comments will prove irrelevant if you fill us in on the magic. As historians normally have no chance of defeating armies, if you want us to believe that's not the case, we need to know what the historians have going for them. Is Allie the only resident of the valley with magical gifts? Where would you place her on this list of people with magic powers:

Dr. Strange

Gandalf

Merlin

Elphaba

Samantha Stephens

Penn & Teller

Also, it probably seems like it would require magical gifts, but if you could trim about 20,000 words from the book . . .

Face-Lift 1508

Guess the Plot

Human Years

1. Failed potter Earnest vomits up a baby boy that starts aging so fast, he'll be older than Earnest in a few weeks. Earnest wants to show his kid the world, so he takes him on a road trip to Vegas where they get trapped in a casino.

2. The tale of a talking dog who, annoyed with his owner for always telling people his age in dog years, starts telling other dogs his owner's age in fruit fly years.

3. A multi-generational family saga about aliens who crash landed during the Renaissance and live five times longer than humans, but other than keeping that secret are pretty normal.

4. A dog and a human make a Freaky Friday level body swap, only to discover life in the other's body isn't so different.

5. A man on a spacecraft meets a woman alien that makes a home in his brain. It's an intergalactic love story for the ages.

Original Version

Dear AGENT

HUMAN YEARS, at 65,000 words, is a work of surrealist literary fiction that will appeal to readers of absurd, voice-driven, and humorous road novels that tackle existential themes [Let's put this at the end of the query, and start with paragraph 2, to avoid being rejected before the end of the first sentence.] such as Miranda July’s ALL FOURS and Melissa Broder’s DEATH VALLEY.

While his wife is away on a work trip, a failed potter vomits up a baby [Did I say start with paragraph 2? I meant paragraph 3.] and takes it on the road after discovering it’s aging rapidly with each passing day. [Stop calling the kid "it." Unless "it" is your pronoun of choice.] [If "they" is your pronoun of choice, some people will be annoyed, but not if the guy vomits up twins. And vomiting up twins is far more surreal and absurd than just vomiting up one kid.] [Wait, twins, but one is a rapidly aging baby and the other is a 100-year-old guy getting younger at the same rate. When they both turn 50, they finally look identical, and the universe explodes. Surreal.] [If that sounds better than your actual plot, you can have it for free if you dedicate the book to me.] [Also, wouldn't you take your kid to a doctor first, to see WTF is going on, and then go on a road trip?]

Earnest and his wife never wanted children. It was something they agreed on from the jump. [Exactly what I thought you meant by "never."] But the morning that his wife leaves town for the world’s biggest genetics conference, Earnest starts to hear the sound of his biological clock ticking. It’s that same night that Earnest throws up into a clay bassinet and the baby, Bud, appears. [So only vomit comes out of his mouth, but then it morphs into a baby, as opposed to the fully formed baby exiting Earnest's mouth?] [If they never wanted children, why do they have a bassinet?] The following day, Bud is already walking and talking, calling Earnest, “Dad.” Which is when Earnest and his best friend decide to take Bud on a road trip, a desperate attempt to show him as much of the world while they still can. 

Their trip spans from Santa Cruz to the Grand Canyon,  [That's a good itinerary to see the world; they can stop in Lake Havasu City to see the London Bridge, and Las Vegas for the Eiffel Tower. Of course the Grand Canyon is the highlight, but by the time they reach it the kid will be 120 years old. In human years.] with several hurdles along the way—including a confrontation between Earnest and his dead parents in a tent at Coyote Lake, [Sounds more like a confrontation at Peyote Lake.] as well as being trapped in the siren song of a Vegas casino. As Bud gets older and older, [During the trip, or during the next few weeks?] their bond grows stronger and stronger—lighting the fuse of Earnest’s impending breakdown—all while his relationship with his wife carries the weight of this secret he’s keeping from her. His son. [Is he also her son?]

My short fiction has received [Prize from respected litmag], and is forthcoming in their Fall 2025 issue. My short stories have also been published in the [litmag], [litmag], [litmag], and elsewhere. I am a Teaching Associate at [College], where I study and teach writing. This would be my debut novel. 

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

Best,

Notes

Let me start by saying you've based the whole premise of this novel on faulty science. Which was predictable if you're in a red state.

This baby was totally unexpected and unwanted, but it arrives already named? 

There's a rare rapid-aging condition known as HGPS. Maybe Bud has a mutated form of it.

When a book or movie has magic or monsters or superheroes, there's usually an explanation. Superman and Silver Surfer came from other planets, Spiderman, Flash and Hulk got powers in accidents of nature. Aquaman's father was a fish. Tom Hanks was granted his wish to be big by Zoltar. You either buy the explanation, or you don't. I'd be interested in how a father/son relationship develops if the son is aging years in days, or in whether the son's intellect keeps up with his body. But can't you just say the kid was left on the doorstep in a basket with a note saying Please take care of my child. He has HGPS, and I can't handle it? Or give mom and dad a child who gets into one of mom's genetic experiments and starts aging? In short, I want a better explanation than Bud was vomited up by a man. And there may be a good explanation in the book, but if the query leaves the agent thinking Ew, gross, they may never see the explanation. 

Whether you keep the vomit or not, I think you need to write a query that doesn't inspire questions you aren't gonna answer in the query. That might mean starting the query: When Earnest finds his son Bud is aging several years every day, he realizes time is short, and decides to take the boy on a road trip to see the world. Or at least the Grand Canyon.

Face-Lift 1507

Guess the Plot

Within These Walls

1. A group of friends gather in a lake house for a reunion. The only access road gets washed out by a flood, leaving them stranded. Then the murders start.

2. A ‘yellow wallpaper’ inspired memoir about a woman’s first year working remotely.

3. Zillionaire Melaan built a 50 foot spite fence around poor farmer Yun-li's property: the only way in or out was now over. But Yun-li's the one laughing after a 30-foot flood wipes out every other building in the city while he stays dry. Also, hydroponics.

4. Two mice live peacefully in the walls of an exterminator's home. But what happens when one gets the other pregnant and they need to relocate?

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

I am pleased to submit my complete novel, WITHIN THESE WALLS, a 90,000-word psychological suspense that blends the locked-room tension of Ruth Ware’s One by One with the dark secrets of Lucy Foley’s The Guest List, exploring how the past shapes the present — and the dangerous lengths [to which] we will go to hide from the truth. [While the term "a suspense" seems to be common in the romance field, it feels off to me, when mystery or thriller will do.]

After a year spent grieving her mother, 31 year old Emma Harris receives an invitation to a secluded lake house over Thanksgiving with her old university friends. It’s been years since they all got together, but maybe this is exactly what she needs—one weekend to laugh, reminisce, and reconnect. [Technically, she was grieving the loss of her mother.]

The first night, nostalgia flows as freely as the wine. Laughter fills the house, old wounds begin to heal, and the group starts [start?] to feel like their old selves again. It’s only on Friday that a brutal storm sweeps [through? in?], downing power lines and washing out the only accessible road to the outside world. As the claustrophobia grows, the atmosphere shifts inside the house. It starts small—a few missing phones, a few jokes taken too far. But then, the first envelope arrives. Inside is a videotape of the night before. Someone has been watching them. [Apparently the downed power lines didn't affect their ability to play a videotape, in which case I wouldn't mention them.]

The footage is damning—two of the guests sneaking out of a bedroom that doesn’t belong to them. Accusations fly like bullets. Paranoia takes hold. Old tensions resurface. Friendships that once felt unshakable begin to crack. And when one of them turns up dead, what started as a reunion turns into a fight for survival. [I assume they attempt to find where the camera is, or was, by watching the film?] [I don't think a video of two people coming out of a bedroom is enough to cause all this. Instead of listing various results, pick out the most damning and give us some details.

This weekend was never about reconnecting. The envelopes continue to arrive, and they aren’t exposing random mistakes—they’re unearthing the kind of lies that destroy lives. Long-buried grudges. Broken trust. Sins no one thought they’d have to answer for. And as the body count rises, the most terrifying realization of all sets in—whoever is sending the envelopes isn’t outside the house. They’re inside. [With the only road in washed out, that should have been obvious. I guess they all assumed the envelopes were being brought in by rowboat.] [Forget the envelopes. The realization that's terrifying should be that the killer is among them.] And they’re determined to make them pay.

By the time the weekend is over, the group is [are?] left to grapple with one crushing truth: these people aren’t who they thought they were at all.

WITHIN THESE WALLS is more than just a claustrophobic thriller. Each character brings their own complex, hungry ghosts to the lake house—feeding the paranoia that twists every glance, every whisper, every missing phone into something sinister. The novel explores how our past trauma doesn’t just haunt us—it warps our reality, twists the truth, making it impossible to know who to trust [anyone], even ourselves.

A bit about me. I've been intrigued by the darkness in the world since I can remember, filling my childhood journals with new worlds and outlandish stories. I took that enthusiasm and applied it to my studies, majoring in English Literature before spending a decade in the entertainment industry, honing my eye for storytelling and atmosphere. By day, I work in film production at Netflix, but my passion lies in crafting suspenseful, character-driven novels of my own. [With your connections, have you considered crafting suspenseful, character-driven films or screenplays of your own?]

WITHIN THESE WALLS is my debut novel, and I recently finished the first draft of my next psychological thriller, THE MIRAGE, which I've included a small blurb of below the first five pages. [Not clear whether you're talking about the first 5 pages of this book or of The Mirage. I hope you mean this book, though in your first sentence you seem to be saying you're submitting the complete novel. Maybe change "submit" to "offer"?]

Thank you for your time and consideration. May I send you the full manuscript?

Notes

The first plot paragraph suggests Emma is the main character, but she's never mentioned again. For all we know, hers was the first dead body. If she's gonna be instrumental in solving the crime, work her in.

Is every phone missing? If not, is anyone able to alert the police that there's a murderer in the house, and the body count is rising? The cops must have a boat or a helicopter available to them.

The plot summary is way longer than what most agents consider ideal. Kind of like when Netflix puts out a ten-episode adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel that could have been a two-hour movie. Here's a pared down version:

After a year spent grieving the loss of her mother, 31-year-old Emma Harris receives an invitation to a secluded lake house over Thanksgiving with her old university friends. It’s been years since they all got together, but maybe this is exactly what she needs—one weekend to laugh, reminisce, and reconnect.

The first night, nostalgia flows as freely as the wine. Laughter fills the house, and to Emma it feels like old times. Then on Friday, a brutal storm sweeps through, washing out the only road to the outside world. As claustrophobia grows, the atmosphere shifts from camaraderie to paranoia. And then, the first envelope arrives. Inside is a videotape of the night before.

The footage is damning, unearthing long-buried grudges, broken trust, the kind of lies that destroy lives. Accusations fly like bullets. Friendships that once felt unshakable begin to crack. And when one of them turns up dead, what started as a reunion becomes a fight for survival.

The material after the plot summary can be shortened too. For instance:

A bit about me. By day, I work in film production at Netflix, but my passion lies in crafting suspenseful, character-driven novels of my own. WITHIN THESE WALLS is my debut novel, and I recently finished the first draft of a second psychological thriller.

Is the videotape necessary? I would think photographs and other evidence would be better, as the person doing this had no way of knowing anything incriminating or damning would happen that would be worth taping. For that matter, they had no way of knowing the road would be washed out, preventing the post office or UPS from delivering the envelopes, but they apparently foresaw the possibility.

Whether to treat a group of people as singular or plural is open to debate. Some say it depends on whether you're in America or Britain. The rule of thumb I made up is if you were changing "the group" to a pronoun, would you change it to "it" or "they"?

Face-Lift 1506

Guess the Plot

The Blood of the Blue Lion

1. A drunk witch-doctor mumbles an “ancient folktale”: deep in the jungle lives a blue lion with diamond claws and golden blood. A senile scientist, hoping for one last discovery, believes him and goes hunting. The lion is real. The scientist tries to take a blood sample and becomes lunch.

2. Bad enough that Miri's father got her best friend Ani pregnant, now he's planning to dump Miri's beloved  mother and replace her with Ani. Think Anne Boleyn in the Ottoman Empire.

3. A lion gets trapped in a chocolate factory and eats a candy he isn't supposed to, swelling up into a massive blueberry. Then, he must fight to defend his world behind a child's wardrobe.

4. Edina is the last princess of Kolanth with the curse that destroyed the kingdom (anthropomorph Filench) a millennium ago ready to descend upon her head as soon as it finds her, or rather figures out who she is. Will misdirecting it into the Sisis jungle keep her safe, or will the local tribesmen capture it and use it to take over the world?

5. A wealthy businessman entrenched in the aristocracy keeps a dark secret. He is a lion shifter. He solves crimes in the jungle while his drunken wife is asleep.

Original Version

Dear [Agent]:

[Why this agent, if there’s a really cool reason.]

Lady Miri didn’t know that the king, her adoptive father, was preparing her for the throne.

That’s fine. Neither did he.

Then the king’s only heir dies, and a foreign warlord makes a plausible claim to the throne. Because Miri is popular with the commoners and the powerful religious authorities, the desperate king makes her the first female crown prince in centuries. Miri enthusiastically seizes her new position. She doesn’t know the king never meant her to keep it. [I assume it's the king's throne that the warlord is claiming, which doesn't seem related to the king's heir dying.] [My research reveals that "crown princess" is a thing. Calling her a female crown prince is like calling the king a male queen. Hmm, bad example. It's like calling the queen the female king.] [Also, this seems to be set at a time when kings wouldn't care what commoners thought, and even if this king did care, he'd be a pretty bad king if the commoners would prefer a foreign warlord as their ruler.] [Having read ahead and seen that the warlord/king issue doesn't get mentioned again, I think we can do without it. Also, once we abridge this paragraph, it's kind of short, but we can just tack those first two paragraphs onto the front:

Lady Miri didn’t know that the king, her adoptive father, was preparing her for the throne . . . 

and neither did he. But when his only heir dies, the desperate king makes Miri the crown princess, a position she enthusiastically seizes, not realizing the king doesn't mean for her to keep it. 
 
Ani, another young noblewoman, belongs to a despised magical race. Her dead brother was a traitor. [A character who does nothing in the query except be dead isn't needed.] at least she has [, though she does have] one thing going for her: she’s Miri’s best friend. Then [But when] her father is charged with treachery. When [and] Ani tries to defend her father [him] but ends up insulting the king, Miri’s friendship isn’t enough to save her. Exile and hard labor threaten to break her—until the king offers her an out. He’ll pardon her and her father; she just has to bear him a son. [What kind of leader sends an innocent person off to some . . . Salvadoran prison just for disagreeing with him about something?] [I may have made that paragraph confusing. I think this is sufficient:

Ani, a young noblewoman, belongs to a despised magical race, though she does have one thing going for her: she’s Miri’s best friend. But when Ani's father is charged with treachery, and she defends him by insulting the king, Miri’s friendship isn’t enough to save her. Exile and hard labor threaten to break her—until the king offers her an out. He’ll pardon her and her father . . . if she'll bear him a son.]

Miri soon discovers that Ani is pregnant with her father’s child. Worse yet, he’s ready to set aside Miri’s beloved mother and appoint Ani queen in her place. If Miri keeps silent, she will forfeit her title. If she fights to protect her mother and defeat her erstwhile friend, [Defeat Ani? Is Ani on board with becoming queen? Or just trying to stay out of the gulag?] she could lose her home, her freedom, and maybe even her life. [With her father and the best friend in charge, Miri is in danger of losing her life? Suddenly I'm rooting for the foreign warlord.] 

The heart-wrenching family dynamics of The Jasmine Throne meet the strong religious roots of The Adventures of Amina Al-Sarifi in THE BLOOD OF THE BLUE LION, an adult fantasy novel. The dual-POV novel, which loosely retells the stories of Mary Tudor and Anne Boleyn in a Classical Ottoman-inspired world, is complete at 109,000 words. It’s followed by a finished second novel of around 82,000 words. Further books in the series are possible.

I’m a cat-toting spec-fic author of mixed heritage (German, Persian, and hobbit). My short fiction has appeared in Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, The Orange & Bee, New Myths Ezine, and a number of other venues. Meanwhile, my legal briefs and memoranda have appeared next to the coffee mugs of hapless appellate judges in MA and NC.

[Why this agent, if there’s no really cool reason.] Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, 

Notes 

The only hint that this is a fantasy is the mention of a despised magical race. Apparently Ani's magical powers aren't enough to protect her father or turn the king into a toad. What can she do? A sentence like: Ani and her father could magically transport to the other side of the ocean, but Ani refuses to give up on her friendship with Miri. would give us an inkling.

My impression is that the king is a jerk, Ani's father is possibly a traitor, as was her brother, and Ani is now Miri's enemy. Does Miri want to run away with her mother, or does she have a plan for setting everything right? What would be a perfect ending, and what can she do to reach it?

 

Four titles in the query queue need your amusing fake plots.

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

Face-Lift 1505

Guess the Plot

The Maintenance Man

1. He can fix your washer, your dryer, your toilet, your fryer... but what about your marriage when he's the reason it's falling apart?

2. The presidential election is underway, and only maintenance man Cody Moore can prevent super-intelligent AI Albert from stealing the election and becoming president.

3. When your upstairs neighbor bleeds out after cutting her wrists in her bathtub, which overflows and crashes through your ceiling into your dining room during your dinner party, who ya gonna call? The Maintenance Man.

4. Being a maintenance man is boring, thankless, and lonely . . . unless, like Tom Parker, you're the maintenance man in an all-girls college dormitory, in which case you're in demand pretty much all the time.

5. Hired as maintenance man in a ritzy hotel, Chris fears that the management will one day find out she's a woman disguised as a man because the hotel pays men 40% more than women. But will her cover be blown when the hotel stages its annual "full monte" maintenance crew performance?

6. An unnamed narrator spends 500 pages figuring out how to unclog someone's plumbing a la Nicholson Baker's, "The Mezzanine".

Original Version

Dear AGENT,

THE MAINTENANCE MAN (75k words), is a near future adult scifi satire that combines the themes of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model and the dramedy of Only Murders in the Building.

All Cody Moore ever wants is a chance to work with Albert, a superintelligent AI that propelled the U.S. into its post-scarcity era and who is now a key government figure. But first, he’ll have to pass the biannual technical Assessment and this year is his fifth attempt. ["This year" could suggest it's annual, rather than twice annually. If you say "and he's already failed it four times" you avoid suggesting anything.]

So maybe that’s why Gramps willed to Cody his private investigation business. Maybe it’s time he finds a new life goal. But then in walks Dorothea, with her fiery hair and clever tongue that catches him off guard. Dorothea, with her kitchen lightbulb that doesn’t just flicker at odd hours but also spells out in Morse code: S.O.S. All signs point to a cyber attack. But that’s impossible because it’s 2240 and there are no security vulnerabilities left to exploit thanks to Albert. But what if Albert missed something, and this hacker found it? [This hacker? What hacker? Presumably a hypothetical hacker? How about "some" hacker, or "a" hacker?] Then perhaps they can teach Cody enough to finally pass the Assessment. [Who is "they"? Dorothea and this hacker? My original impression was that Dorothea's SOS was a warning about the hacker. Now I'm wondering if Dorothea and the hacker are a team. Except what would they need with a guy who can't even pass the Assessment?] [Also, I don't see why a hacker exploiting a security vulnerability that Albert missed would result in anyone teaching Cody enough to pass the Assessment. How are they even connected?] So happily Cody takes the case. [Not clear to me what "the case" is.]

And though he expects their investigation [By "their" do you mean the private investigation business? Cody and Dorothea? Cody, Dorothea and the hacker? How many experienced investigators are among them?] to shed light on Dorothea’s past, never does he imagine it will uncover truths that might undo Albert himself. All amidst a historic presidential election wherein Albert, a write-in candidate, is taking the lead in multiple states.

Notes

You've done a good job in this letter of showing the humorous tone I expect from the book, but maybe you can do this while providing a less confusing plot summary. Here are some minor things I'm not clear on:

Did Cody inherit a private investigation business with some number of employees who know how to investigate cases, or was Gramps the only investigator? Does Cody have any experience in that field?

Does passing the Assessment automatically get Cody a job working with Albert? Would he be a maintenance man? Does he have experience in that field? Is he currently a maintenance man? 

As Dorothea has a clever tongue, it seems odd that she communicates anything with a flashing light bulb.

More importantly, here are things we need to know so we'll be confident you have a story:

What is Cody's goal? To work with Albert? To prevent a cyber attack? A cyber attack on what?

Why does Dorothea come to Cody? To hire him to find or solve someone or something? To warn him of an imminent cyberattack . . . on his business? To suggest they collaborate in preventing a cyberattack? Why did she come to him over other investigators if it has nothing to do with him?

Raising the stakes by bringing in the election would be better if you've convinced us Cody is the man with the ability to save the world.

Feedback Request

 The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1500 would like feedback on the following version of the query letter.

Dear [Agent],

At twenty-four, Dal is slowly disappearing. Raised by devout Korean-American Christian parents, she was once full of ambition—but now she drifts through a dull office job, avoids her loud and eccentric neighbors, and spends her free time people-watching on the subway. Then she meets Callia, a charming artist who makes Dal feel seen for the first time in years. Their friendship becomes all-consuming, and soon Dal is obsessively molding her life—and herself—entirely around Callia.

When Dal helps direct a video project featuring Callia’s newest artwork, the final piece is stunning. But weeks later, she learns Callia has already exhibited it, claimed full credit, and erased any trace of her involvement. When Dal confronts her, Callia dismisses her feelings and ends their friendship with a devastating admission: she’s bored of Dal—and tired of pretending otherwise.

Mentally unstable and on the verge of moving back with her parents, Dal discovers a memoir written by her late grandfather. His words pull her into the turbulence of 20th-century Korea: Japanese occupation, civil war, exile. For the first time, Dal sees how inherited pain has shaped her—the silence, the need to serve, the fear of taking up space. Her grandfather’s words compel Dal to confront how she has been performing for Callia, how she has been living for others—and to ask what it might mean to finally live for herself.

My Soul a Stage is a 60,000-word upmarket novel that blends fiction and memoir to explore queer longing, emotional isolation, and generational trauma. It will resonate with fans of Min-Jin Lee’s multigenerational Pachinko, Michelle Zauner’s intimate Crying in H Mart, and James McBride’s community-driven Deacon King Kong.

The novel’s memoir sections are taken directly from my grandfather’s real, unpublished writings, which inspired me to tell this story.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

I can't imagine agents get many queries this well-written. I might change "mentally unstable" to "emotionally unsettled," to avoid conveying the impression that she's planning to shoot up an art gallery, but for all I know, she is. 

Some (but certainly not all) agents may balk at your slightly low word count. Maybe if grandfather wasn't very prolific, you could expand on his memoir with what you suspect he would have written if he hadn't been so busy trying to stay alive.

Face-Lift 1504

Guess the Plot

Take the Power Back

1. You, yes YOU, have given up enough freedom to THE MAN, corporate America, billionaires, trillionaires, earth and air and sea in global warming. It's time to acknowledge this is YOUR PLANET, clean it up, and TAKE YOUR POWER BACK.

2. New superhero The Vakum has the ability to strip away superpowers. Of course he only uses it on villains. But now they've figured out a way to reverse the process. Chaos ensues as supervillains fight over acquiring each others abilities. Meanwhile, the superheroes make popcorn and watch.

3. The city-states of the world can only exist with the Palola power source. Recently someone stole the Palola of Tsiki, the home of Fini. Will Fini find the thieves or will he have to move?

4. Scammed by a billionaire genius, penniless Shelby decides to take him down by stealing his greatest invention and proving it's junk. Which she does, but he's still a billionaire, and she's still broke.

Original Version 

TAKE THE POWER BACK (93,000 words, speculative) is an adult speculative heist novel pitting a Lupin style thief against tech billionaires. I am a traditionally-published speculative [That's the third time you've used the word "speculative already.] fiction author with a Master’s degree in [Speculative] English  literature. I am querying you because this novel resonates with [YOUR MSWL]

Shelby is a security professional struggling with catastrophizing OCD. It is a gift in her line of work – helping her hyper-focus on flaws in security systems – but a torment to her mental health. When catastrophe hits close to home and her brother begins suffering an illness that conventional medicine can’t cure, Shelby falls down the rabbit hole and becomes convinced the only treatment for her brother is a drug invented by a genius billionaire named Leader Zenden – the creator of a hyper-capitalist island utopia. [A sentence with "hyper-focus" followed by a sentence with "hyper-capitalist."] [Sorry if it seems I'm being hyper-critical.]

Shelby spends all her money to journey to Zenden’s island to buy the drug – only to learn it is a scam. She swears to take revenge, and what better way to do so than by stealing Zenden’s greatest invention yet and prove [proving] to the world that it’s a fake. [You can prove that the side panels of a Tesla fall off when you slam the doors, but that doesn't make Elon Musk a pauper. Also, unless she already has proof that the invention is fake, wouldn't it be better to show the world that his drug is a scam?] Her revenge plot soon throws her into the middle of a power struggle for Zenden’s island. Shelby encounters a tantalizing thief, an old flame with ulterior motives, and Zenden’s most ardent zealot, while fighting the pull of Zenden’s cult upon her psyche. As her heist barrels toward its own catastrophe, ["Catastrophe" is your new favorite word.] Shelby must decide who she trusts – and maybe even learn whether her brother is truly beyond saving.

TAKE THE POWER BACK is a recipe for activism about how an everywoman can [shows how one determined woman] beats the 1%. It asks big questions about who we really can rely on in times of catastrophe, saving the biggest for its audacious finale. The novel blends the timely satire of Alderman’s The Future with the mysterious, utopia-hiding-dystopia of The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton (May 2024, Sourcebooks Landmark).

This is my second novel picking apart corporate power and oppressive tech through a speculative lens; my first [NOVEL] [was a speculative hyper-catastrophe.] I have spoken as an author panelist at [LITERARY CONFERENCES] and have forthcoming pieces in [LITERARY MAGAZINES].

 Sincerely,

Notes

Is his "greatest invention" already available? If not, it would be better if she stole his greatest invention, patented it, mass-marketed it, became a billionaire, bought up his company, and squeezed him out. Or you can explain how proving one of his inventions is fake leads to his ruin. Is she somehow going to end up with his island? 

If her brother isn't beyond saving, I would expect Shelby to be looking for a drug trial that might find a cure. She can seek her revenge and struggle for power after her brother's dead. In other words, what is her revenge plot, and how will it help her brother?