Evil Editor

Guess the Plot

The Memory that Never Was

1. Lexi's best friend Mia died 15 years ago, but now that Lexi time travels exactly 15 years into the past every night, she's planning to go back and prevent Mia's death, even if that changes the world, like by affecting her career or causing nuclear armageddon. 

2. The epic autobiography by that guy in 50 First Dates whose memory only lasts 15 seconds. 357 pages of "Hi! I'm Tom!"

3. After getting lost in a web of lies and nearly blowing her con, Fredrica Erlich (aka June Ricks) pretends to have amnesia. Unfortunately, she then gets involved with hot Dr. January. Can she make it to the border with the diamonds before the mob catches her? Without losing January?

4. Gary McWeen begins the day searching for his car keys, which leads to a violent but somehow funny series of misadventures involving a deadly confrontation with a neighbor, a deadly confrontation with a family member, a deadly confrontation with a backyard shrub, and a sexually-charged standoff between rival circus performers. Gary handles it all with grace and pinache (and martial arts mastery), including the final, fateful realization that he has, in fact, never owned or even driven a car.

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Lexi is living her best life. She’s married to her true love, raising two beautiful children, and thriving in her dream career as a producer. The past is behind her. Except at night.

In her lucid dreams, her best friend Mia is still alive—replaying fragments of the argument they had the day she died fifteen years ago. [Is it Mia who is replaying the argument, or both of them? In other words, are they interacting, or is Lexi just observing?] [Has she been having these lucid dreams for 15 years?]

What begins as another dream turns real when Lexi wakes up months before Mia’s death.  Convinced she’s been granted another chance, she vows to protect her. [In other words, she failed to protect her 15 years ago? Details, if that's so.] But every time Lexi returns to the present, [If this is no longer a dream, but real, are you saying Lexi is not in her bed asleep but 15 years in the past? If so, how does she return to her present? By going to sleep in the past?] something has shifted: a new assistant. Her mother is married to someone else. Changes that start making her life feel suddenly fragile.

Terrified of losing everything she loves, Lexi tries to resist sleep—but sleep always comes. She must decide whether to let history repeat itself or intervene. [I assumed that things were changed in the present because Lexi intervened in the past. Did she? Or is she only now deciding whether to do so?] But after she discovers Mia was pregnant before her death, looking away is no longer an option. 

Lexi succeeds. Mis [Mia] is alive. The present feels stable. [Wait, what? Which present feels stable? Mia's or Lexi's? Is Mia alive in Lexi's present? If so, is she 15 years older?] [How did Lexi succeed? I don't need all of the details, but your query can't just say, Dorothy finds herself in a magical world called Oz and must find a way back to Kansas. She succeeds.]

Relieved, Lexi lowers her guard—until Mia’s old symptoms resurface—the ones that led to her death. [Symptoms of a disease or a life-threatening condition? That Lexi noticed, and failed to insist Mia get to a doctor?] 

Did Lexi really defy fate… or only delay the inevitable? 

 

Given your interest in [SUBJECT], I am seeking representation for THE MEMORY THAT NEVER WAS, a 50,000-word contemporary magical realism novel about memory, loss, and the lingering cost of second chances.

It will appeal to readers of Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson, and Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel—emotionally driven stories where memory, choice, and love reverberate across alternate realities and time, and where [spoiler alert] grief proves impossible to outrun.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

So, each time Lexi sleeps. she time travels to the same day 15 years ago, where she finds Mia re-enacting their argument? Is 15-years-younger Lexi also there? 

Most of my comments and questions are similar to what I'd ask about any time travel story, and there are never any good explanations. It's the nature of time travel. So you can ignore me.

You could gloss over some of the time travel paradox issues by skipping ahead to the parts you currently gloss over, namely how Lexi plans to alter history by saving Mia from whatever. For instance, start:

Lexi is married to her true love, raising two beautiful children, and thriving in her dream career as a producer. She's living her best life . . . Except at night, when she mysteriously travels back in time, always to a day months before her best friend Mia died. 

Convinced she’s being granted a chance to save Mia, Lexi . . . 

That gives you space to tell us how Mia died and how Lexi plans to prevent it and what goes wrong, etc., while avoiding some of the complications.

The story is intriguing and the query is well-written, but 50,000 words is a tough sell. As an experiment, add a word here, a sentence there until you've added 20 words (on average) to every page. That should get you to 60,000, which is also a tough sell, but not as tough.