Face-Lift 1514

Guess the Plot

Dearest Dad

1. I used to hate women and treat them like dirt, but after 15 years of therapy I've finally realized it was my dad's fault. Hey, wanna go on a date?

2. Mikey intended to write a thank-you letter to his father for fathers day. After it passes 60,000 words, he decides to publish it as a novel instead.

3. When twin men adopt a child, it can be confusing to the kid, especially when one dad acts like Mr. Rogers, and the other acts like a demon from hell, but the demonic one is good at faking that he's the other one.

4. Jen's father was the best man she ever knew, and she's writing a book to honor his memory. But should she leave out the times when he came home at lunch to have sex with her nanny while mom was at work? Or the murder she witnessed that he tried to tell her was a bad dream?

Original Version

Hello [So and So],

How do you rehabilitate a narcissistic incel? [That reminds me of a riddle: How many narcissistic incels does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three. One to manipulate a woman into doing it, and two to tell her she's doing it all wrong.] One answer is in this book, a completed 70,000 word autobiography, [memoir?] “Dearest Dad” (working title). It demystifies the manipulative habits, depression, and misogyny that plagued my abused mind, and details the journey to overcome them.

My mother disappeared when I was 8 and my father imposed a mortal fear on my impressionable mind through starvation and beatings. [I see why your mother left, but not why she didn't take you with her. Unless . . . are you sure she isn't buried in the woods behind the house?] He puppeteered my emotions at will and damaged my will to live. In adolescence, these hardships pushed me towards toxic groups like pyramid schemes and [assholes like] pick-up artists because they simply offered easy answers [avenues] to achieve a happy life that didn’t exist under my father's care. These groups [This], combined with my father’s treatment, taught me how to be manipulative: I used cheap psychological tricks to make friends and get dates, and I lulled men and women into opening up emotionally — making them think I was a close friend — then abandoned them. [If I'm interpreting this correctly, whenever you met someone you did not want to be friends with, you consciously decided that instead of dumping them immediately, you would, just for kicks, lull them into opening up emotionally. And then dump them. At this point, some agents will be thinking, Who would want to read this guy's autobiography? And the anwer is, only someone who hopes in the end you get your comeuppance. 

Only after starting therapy in college did I start to realize just how warped my perception of reality had been. I had discarded every compliment and kind act out of suspicion that they were manipulative tactics, and believed that I was dumber than dirt despite a blossoming academic career. Well into adulthood, at 36, and after 15 years of therapy, I finally found the courage to stand up to my father's manipulation and disown him. [Your therapist's thoughts after ten minutes in your presence: Hmm. Do I tell him to disown his father, thereby solving all his problems in one session, or do I string him along for the next fifteen years, by which time he'll have paid for my summer house in the Hamptons? Easy decision.] In turn, his missing influence freed me from a life-long conditioned silence, enabling me to document my experiences as both the abuser and the abused. Writing about them, combined with continued therapy, enabled me to fully excise all toxic traits from my personality. This concrete transition from narcissism to humility is the most important part of this book, because it shows incels how to heal, if they are so willing. [If you want to convince the person reading this query letter that you have completely transformed from narcissism to humility, it may be best not to boast that you've fully excised all toxic traits from your personality.]

Incels have extremist views and have caused at least 12 known mass killings since 2014. Self-reported surveys show that over 93% of incels have depression or anxiety. This book is my attempt to show the public how incels become indoctrinated, from a deeply personal perspective. [Is that what you're attempting to do? Because you just said your purpose was to show incels "how to heal if they are so willing." Is your audience incels or the public? ]

Readers of Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, My Life After Hate, and The Gift of Our Wounds will most immediately find kinship with this story, while readers of Understanding and Treating Incels, Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists, and The Incel Rebellion may appreciate the less clinical and more personal perspective. [You have so many comp titles, the agent is probably wondering if the incel book field has already become oversaturated. Two books that focus on the personal perspective is plenty.]  

Best regards,

Notes

Out of curiosity, did your shrink suggest it would be therapeutic to put your story in writing, and did you block out the second part of their suggestion: and then burn it? I ask because thanks to Google, people you want to date or befriend will be able to find out what you were like before you excised your toxic personality traits, and may unfairly abandon you.

Have you considered converting this into a novel? One where the incel is trying to mend his ways, but dozens of women he wronged band together to take revenge on him? The book might not sell, but the screenplay would go for six figures.