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Guess the Plot

Night Terrors 

1. It's 3 am. The bathroom is down the hall. There are lego blocks scattered everywhere, a small dog that yips at everything, and a fussy infant that finally got to sleep 10 minutes ago. A two liter bottle of soda at dinner was two liters too many.

2. At ten o'clock the four-year-old got up for a glass of water. At eleven-thirty the twins needed to be changed. The TV woke me at three (five-year-old watching Sesame Street -- why is that even on this time of night?) and the phone woke me at four (which my nine-year-old answered and I'm pretty sure he just read my credit card number to a scammer.) Things finally quiet down just before dawn, when my husband stumbles in and asks how I slept. Justifiable homicide, right?

3. Everybody on planet Earth has been granted special powers. One guy, the Slasher, is using his powers to ravage the city, and it's up to Danny to stop him. But Danny's power to see the future isn't working, so he teams up with someone whose power is nullifying the power of people whose power is slashing stuff. Also, a theatrical drug lord.

4. Dahlia didn't want to be a vampire, but she wasn't exactly competent as a mortal either. At least she can still run her flower shop. (Fortunately, some flowers bloom at night.) When a guy named Seymore comes in looking for plant food, it leads to a series of misunderstandings . . . and murder. 

5. In a land of perpetual light, Jankley Palmer runs an orphanage. He rejoices in the townsfolk’s mumbled adoration until one of them discovers a spell of darkness. Experiencing night for the first time, Jankley gawps as his orphans transform into carnivorous  monsters. Jankley must learn to fight literal (and metaphorical) demons.

6. Juveniles Mark, Sam, and Tim have formed the group "Night Terrors" to participate in the junior computer programming league. But when events in their new horror game start happening in the real world, they must decide: add even more zombies or create a happy ending?

7. A recurring dream of endless December darkness in Alaska leaves Jose unable to leave his room unless it's full daylight. And then he discovers what he thinks is real might be a dream and what was a dream can become real. He must navigate history to get help from Zhuangzi and his dreams of chaos butterflies.

Original Version

Danny is a young Seattle detective with the convenient ability to see the future. [He's a precog. Like in Minority Report?] The only problem is he has to be sleep deprived for it to work. [It's worth staying awake three straight days to know in advance the final score of the Super Bowl.]

The whole human race received sleep-deprivation-fueled powers when the Gray Night came thirty years ago. [Change that to the Gray Knight, and you've got a winner. He's a Knight who wears gray armor. People always ask him, "Hey, what's with the gray armor?" and he always says, "Not everything is black and white." That's his catch phrase.] The enforcement agency Danny works for promises safety from the chaos of these unchecked powers by forcing the entire population to be monitored and regulated. [One agency is monitoring and regulating the entire human race?] But when a power-user called the Slasher begins ravaging the city, the agency is under fire from activists calling that promise a hollow excuse for a corrupt regime. [Does everyone have the same powers, or does each person have a unique power?] [If everyone has powers, why don't they get together and use their powers to eliminate this Slasher dude? The Justice League or the Avengers would have no trouble destroying one guy whose power is that he slashes stuff, so a team consisting of all humans would take him down in the blink of an eye.] 

His whole life, Danny has predicted and prevented catastrophes, [Does it really count as predicting something if you've seen the future and know it's gonna happen? Isn't that cheating?] and he’s come to believe that is the only thing he’s valuable for. [You make that sound like a bad thing. You think Superman sits around sulking because saving humans from super villains is all he's good for?] But he’s unable to predict the Slasher’s attacks [because he slept like a log last night]. To aid his investigation, Danny makes a rocky deal with an anti-government activist, hoping her nullification abilities will be able to fend the Slasher off. [Maybe she's already using her power to nullify Danny's power. That's why he can't predict the slasher's attacks.] [You may use that as your mind-blowing twist, but only if you mention me in the acknowledgements.] Along the way, an esoteric drug lord who is equal parts vicious and theatrical manipulates Danny’s witnesses and dangles out power-boosting drugs as a cure-all for Danny’s issues. The more Danny is drawn in by each person, the deeper he ends up diving into the harsh realities of the police state he’s spent much of his life supporting. [More like a police planet.] 

Too much sleep, and Danny loses the only thing he thinks he’s good for. Too little, and Danny loses his sanity. [Is it lack of sleep or using your powers that drives you insane?] Balancing the two will be more than a nightmare. 

NIGHT TERRORS is a contemporary fantasy novel of 116,000 words. It provides an emphasis on the veiled conflict between power-seeking organizations similar to Martha Wells’s The Witch King against a backdrop of governmental control in response to a catastrophe like in Blake Crouch’s Upgrade. [Is Danny's agency the power-seeking organization or the controlling government?] [If this paragraph describes the main plot, the query is devoting too much space to Danny and the Slasher. If the main focus of the book is saving the city from the Slasher, focus the query on that with the usual format:

Who's the main character, what's his goal? What's his plan to achieve this goal? 

What are the obstacles? What goes wrong?

What will happen if he fails? What decision must he make?

I am a BA in English currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from (school). My short fiction has appeared in (places). 

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Notes

I assume there's a good reason you want powers to work only when people are sleep-deprived? It seems like a random requirement.

So among the powers the Gray Night has bestowed upon people are seeing the future (but not when you really need to), nullification, and slashing stuff. Impressive. Does every human have a unique power, or are there lots of people who can see the future and lots who can slash stuff?

I suppose the reason none of the billions of superheroes have stopped the Slasher is because Danny's agency has declared that it's illegal to use your powers, even if you're using them to prevent the ravaging of a city?

Normally I'm all for throwing an esoteric, theatrical drug lord into a plot summary, but he seems unnecessary in the query. I mean, the Slasher is ravaging the city, and we're supposed to be concerned that the esoteric, theatrical drug lord wants to sell Danny some speed or whatever?

Even if, for some unexplained reason, Danny can't see the Slasher's attacks when he looks into the future, he should be able to see the results of those attacks. Like, if he notices that the dam no longer exists in the future he could predict that the Slasher is going to destroy the dam.

Usually when I think of slashing I think of a sword. Does the Slasher have a sword?

In my opinion, if everyone had super powers that required sleep deprivation, everyone would be depriving themselves of sleep. And, apparently, going insane. Of course this would be a worldwide phenomenon, whereas you are focusing on one city.