Face-Lift 1531

Guess the Plot

The Long Now: Aldin

1. After time becomes obsolete, the only thing holding reality together is causality. But Aldin plans on changing that so he can get what he wants: the heart of Minnie Mouse. Also popsicle trains.

2. When unemployed Aldin Graham realizes he can stop time, he decides to become a private detective. Weeks later, he still hasn't figured out how the ability to stop time is in any way useful in the private eye biz.

3. Sentenced to death for an unauthorized pregnancy and birth, Aldin and Claire go on the run. But can they prevent a coywolf from eating their baby?

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor:

I hope you will enjoy THE LONG NOW: ALDIN, [is] a 65,000-word adult climate fiction set one hundred years in the future about a naïve but resourceful newlywed banished with his pregnant wife to an American Southwest ravaged by desertification. [I'm not sure what ": Aldin" is doing there. It's like Dune: Paul or Casablanca: Rick.] 

 Like Dustborn (Erin Bowman), this is an odyssey across sand. It’s as grounded as The Water Knife (Paolo Bacigalupi) with a subtle hint of Western–more The Postman (David Brin) or Young Ones (Jake Paltrow) than Firefly (various authors). [Blue words are reserved for Evil Editor. The person to whom you're writing undoubtedly knows this, and will wonder who the heck you think you are, using blue words.] [Also, there's no need to offer a comp title for the fact that your book is grounded, or three comp titles for anything your book has a subtle hint of.] [Also, I'd rather you tell me all about your book before you bring up other books that I may not have read, so put this at the end of the plot summary.]

Climate change has devolved North America into a feudal version of the Wild West. Every life depends on water owned by the few, and the sentence for an unauthorized pregnancy is to wander the desert until dead. [So the Republicans are back in power.] [What does it take to get your pregnancy authorized?]

Sixteen-year-old ranch hand, Aldin, idolizes eighteen-year-old Claire. Even after Balder splits her lip at a general assembly of the ranch's workers, Claire defiantly refuses to name her baby's father. But rather than allow Balder to strike Claire with his cane, Aldin steps forward tacitly admitting fatherhood. [At which point Balder strikes both of them with his cane.] [I think you said "'idolizes" when you meant "knocked up."] [Claire: You couldn't have admitted fatherhood before Balder split my lip?] Four months after being forced off their ranch, Claire gives birth to her son in The Long Now, a real-world, eighty-foot monument to generational responsibility. ["Real world," as opposed to the fictional world in which your book is set?]

Despite their death sentence, Aldin promises his involuntary bride [Involuntary, meaning she didn't want to marry him? I don't see how or why she would be forced to get married after she's been sentenced to death.] he will stand by her and see her to safety. To keep his promise and win over his reluctant wife, Aldin battles baby-stealing coy-wolves, wife-stealing fundamentalists, soul-stealing parents—and thirst—the omnipresent predator that prowls this arid land. 

Because this manuscript won the 2021 Arizona Authors Novel contest,  two of its chapters were published in Arizona Literary Magazine. (All rights reverted to me.) This story was a finalist in the fiction category for the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. I heavily revised this manuscript after a developmental edit by Stuart Horwitz (author of Book Architecture). [An entire history of this book is far less important than a more detailed report of what happens in it.]

I've been an editor of a weekly economics blog, taught a year-long writing course, and run several critique groups. Currently, I am the founder of my local writer's group, Flagstaff Writers Connection, and one of two liaisons for the state writer’s group, Arizona Authors Assn. I volunteer for the Northern Arizona Climate Change Alliance. [These activities show a certain devotion to writing, but I think we all can agree you do them because no one else wants to do them.]

Notes

The kids were apparently sentenced to death by desert because of an unauthorized pregnancy, but it appears that sentence was reduced to a split lip, a caning, and banishment from the ranch where they work. They manage to spend four months traveling to this Long Now place without being executed. And now that the baby is born, the authorities who want to put them to death aren't even listed among the many threats you say they're facing. It feels like there's a missing piece of information. Are they constantly on the run? Or are the ranch workers the only ones who know about the pregnancy, and didn't inform the authorities?

You call this an adult book, but  your main character is sixteen. Young adults can handle books in which pregnancy and death sentences occur. And young adults are more likely to identify with teen characters. Plus, calling it YA won't deter adults from reading it.

Maybe some information about the four months between their banishment from the ranch and the birth  at the Long Now would fill some gaps.