Guess the Plot
Wild Lines
1. The election was Tuesday, but some voters are still waiting in lines that extend for miles, hoping to cast votes they think might change the outcome they heard about on their i-phones.
2. When fifteen-year-old Edigailia notices wrinkles by her eyes, she panics. Is it a curse? Too much partying? Only the commoner witch Ephenero holds the answer, but Edi can't directly contact her, because royals and commoners do not mix.
3. In the post-apocalyptic world, America has fractured into numerous countries separated from one another by "lines" of wilderness patrolled by brutal, depraved monsters who destroy anyone who enters their domain. Captured by these savages and taken to their capital, one man can save the continent from being destroyed by a powerful ancient weapon . . . if he can first escape from the clutches of . . . The Emperor!
4. One year after graduating law school, Jason is overworked and under-appreciated at a top law firm. His housemate convinces him that cocaine will help him get through the rough times. One
month later Jason is unemployed and miserable, and wondering if heroin will help him get through the rough times.
5. When Earth's lines of latitude and longitude mysteriously vanish, it's up to one teenaged cartographer to prevent chaos in the shipping and travel industries.
Original Version
Dear [AGENT],
First Lieutenant Bear Blakely crosses the Lines for a living. Lawless post-apocalyptic borders surrounding the former states of the now defunct USA, these thin strings of wilderness are home to the Liners; [:] savages who rule from their captured capital of Cincinnati and devote their lives to destroying those who intrude upon their domain.
Motivated in unequal parts by patriotism and the promise of extreme hazard pay, Bear volunteers to transport technology with the potential to reunite the fractured continent. He must lead a group [squad? team?] of soldiers from Roanoke, Virginia across the verdant ruinous landscape to The Republic of Chicago, crossing through and into countries that push both his ability to survive and to lead to the limits. [I wouldn't describe a landscape as "verdant ruinous." One of those words suggests grassy meadows, and the other has me thinking war zone rubble.]
Far from both the beginning and the end of their journey, Bear and his soldiers are waylaid by Liners armed with technology beyond anything they’ve ever seen. [When you're transporting crates of slingshots to your allies, only to find your enemies have bazookas and machine guns, it's time to abandon the mission.] Captured and brought to the Liner stronghold in Cincinnati, Bear confronts the man responsible for the brutality and depravity of the monsters haunting the dark spaces between the countries: The Emperor of the Lines. [I guess that's a better title for him than Head Linesman. Actually, it sounds like a good name for that machine that calls the lines in a tennis match.] [He confronts him? That's like Batman confronting Thanos with a batarang.]
Held captive in the rich and deadly metropolis of Cincinnati, Bear learns of unexpected forces wielding an ancient biological weapon potent enough to threaten the entire continent. All he has to do is escape the city nobody ever leaves. [I don't see why that's all he has to do. Shouldn't he also have to destroy the weapon, or steal the advanced technology? Save the continent?]
Complete at 130,000 words, WILD LINES is a science-fiction thriller and is the first book in a trilogy. It combines the vehicular insanity in Mad Max, the darkly relatable protagonist's humor from The Murderbot Diaries, and the surreal horror in The Dark Tower series.
Notes
Most of what I've said is nitpicking. Possibly what I've written below is too, but here goes:
Bear has two goals. First, make it to Chicago with some sort of technology. He fails; he may get there eventually, but not with his technology. Second, escape from Cincinnati, a place no one ever leaves. Now that he's been captured, and the Liners are laughing at his obsolete technology, we don't much care if he escapes. He needs a third goal we can root for him to accomplish.
How can no one ever leave Cincinnati? What about truck drivers who deliver food and fuel? What about Liners who bring their captives to the Emperor? What about the Bengals and Reds when they have road games?
I'm thinking you can have Bear imprisoned in Cincinnati within 25,000 words. Some hints about what goes on the the next 1o5,000 might be helpful. Maybe he has a decision to make after he escapes: on to Chicago empty-handed, or back to Roanoke for more slingshots. Allso 130,00 is a lot of words. Maybe you could cut out 40,000 words worth of vehicular insanity.
In post apocalyptic America, soldiers trying to get from Virginia to Chicago are captured by savages and imprisoned in Cincinnati, never to be heard from again. That's everything I know about the plot, though I may have left out something important. Oh yeah, both sides have some "technology."
The most dangerous part of any trip in your world is crossing Lines. You seem to have them crossing lines into West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Four Lines. They could travel from VA to southern Kentucky, then go west all the way to southern Illinois. Two Lines. Takes longer, but better to be late than to never arrive because you're stuck in Cincinnati.
These Liners who "devote their lives to destroying those who intrude upon their domain" don't seem like the type to transport Bear and his crew to Cincinnati when they can just kill them.
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