Face-Lift 1071

Guess the Plot

The Gone

1. We hear plenty about the experiences of teenaged mothers-- but this haunting, gritty non-fiction narrative chronicles the trials and tribulations of six teenaged fathers. 

2. A personalized review of your 401K and pension plan over the last decade.

3. Keeping a vow they made 45 years ago, six zoned-out stoners meet on Fisherman's Wharf and provide meandering accounts of their lives, loves, and drug experiences.

4. Professional bedtime story reader Lee Vipond suddenly finds his home gone when a real estate speculator buys his apartment building and evicts him.

5. Felipe, Hambone and Lucas all join Occupy San Bernardino, figuring they'll meet girls, score some pot, play drums, and camp in the park. Everything is fine, until some lady from TV interviews Hambone. Now Lucas's dad wants to know why he isn't in class, Baby Smiley wants to know why Felipe is with that gringa, and Hambone's mother has no idea who the hell he is.

6. In the darkened pantry of the old Moore house, naught but shadows and cobwebs can be found. The cupboards sit hollow on the walls, vacant as eyesockets in a rotted skull. The refrigerator ... also empty! Am I the only one who goes food shopping around here?!?

7. After a 3 day binge in celebration of the first request for her novel by an actual famous literary agent, Janice wakes up, has 6 cups of coffee, and prepares to email the manuscript. OMG. What happened? Some evil drunk went wild and replaced the file with X-rated smut.

8. In a post-apocalyptic world, three quarters of the world's population die from the go-away bombs of the Go-Away War. Their spirits remain in other dimensions. They see into the remaining real world but can only interact with each other. They quarrel then form into factions which make war on each other.

Original Version

Dear EE:

As a post-dotcom tale of working-class tenants caught in the crosshairs of real estate speculation, my debut literary novel THE GONE explores a topic woefully ignored in fiction. [Considering the vast quantity of fiction published every year, I don't see how anyone can know that a topic has been ignored. If anyone does know, it's probably the person to whom you're writing, so there's no need to state it.]

Ex-gardener Lee Vipond reads bedtime stories by the hour to pampered adults. [By the hour? If I'm reading you a bedtime story and you're still awake after ten minutes, I'm turning on the audiobook and going downstairs to watch The Daily Show.] His upstairs lifer girlfriend, Jane, puts herself through acupuncture school slinging hooch at the neighborhood dive, while her mumblecore teenaged son, Shaun, holes up with his formerly-homeless boyfriend, the obsequious Cody. [We once did a writing exercise whose challenge was to write a 250-word piece of fiction that used the words "Acupuncture," "hooch," "mumblecore," "obsequious," "upstairs," and "homeless." No one could do it. And you managed it in one sentence.] And everyone’s favorite abuela, Mrs. Padilla, manages a derelict corner store. [I don't see "derelict" as a good adjective to apply to a store. "Abuela" should be italicized to alert those who of us who don't know the meaning that we might need to use a foreign-language dictionary. My research reveals that "mumblecore" is a film genre. And I don't see that any of these words is improving the query. Never give me the choice between looking something up or moving on to another query.] But when their apartment building is sold out from under them and they’re faced with eviction, this cohesive band of neighbors find themselves in emotional freefall as they scramble to find new homes in a city they can no longer afford.

No one appears more impacted by the ticking clock than Lee. Accustomed to merely cracking storybooks in the bedrooms of strangers, urgency and need now place him between the sheets of “big tipper” clients. Meanwhile, he struggles to keep his unraveling neighbor family intact in the only true home he’s ever known, or be forced to leave town in a diasporic flight. ["Diasporic" seems a bit overboard to me. Like calling a dozen deaths from West Nile Virus a Holocaust.] Then he meets Arlo, and the growing intimacy between the two men triggers a seismic shift at the core of Lee’s identity, finally propelling him toward his uncertain future. [It seems to me that the loss of his home has already propelled him toward an uncertain future, while his new relationship might make his future a bit less uncertain, especially if Arlo has a stable life. Unfortunately, we don't know, as you tell us nothing about him, even though he seems to be the main force for change.]

As an urban dweller, and having myself weathered a no-fault eviction, I bring to THE GONE an insider’s view of what it’s like to unexpectedly lose one’s home in a financially challenging time. Not an uncommon modern story, I’ve yet to find this wrenching experience of loss and discovery given voice in literature. [With the possible exception of almost everything written by Charles Dickens. Also, The House of Sand and Fog.]

THE GONE is complete at 134, 000 words. Thanks for taking the time to review my query.

Kind Regards,


Notes

If Lee is your main character, focus on him. We don't need a tidbit of information about each of his neighbors. Just refer to his neighbors as his neighbors. The long paragraph could be condensed to something like:

When their apartment building is sold out from under them and they’re faced with eviction, a cohesive band of neighbors find themselves in emotional freefall as they scramble to find new homes in a city they can no longer afford. No one is more impacted by the ticking clock than professional bedtime story reader Lee Vipond.

Now you have plenty of room to tell us about Arlo and what happens after he shows up and after the evictions.

Few people will want to read an entire book about a character whose last name is Vipond. Come up with a better name. I suggest you choose from among Granger, Charles and Bandicoot.

Face-Lift 996

Guess the Plot

Pensive

1. Evelyn has always felt secure within her own borders. But when she opens a door into a world where dreams are no more reality than her own faith, she finds herself thinking about thoughts and dreaming dreams of reality. And faith.

2. Some superheroes are strong. Some are fast. Some can fly. Gus Rodin, aka "The Thinker" is smart. Thrill as he fights evil by sitting down to contemplate.

3. He used to call her his Lucky Penny, but now that they're divorced, (due to her affair, mind you) he just calls her Ex-Pensive. Why can't he just forget about her? She's all he can think about. It's like witchcraft or something. Hang on! There was that dead goat and pentagram in the garage...

4. To think, or not to think . . . I think. When you have a 10 minute memory it's all a little fuzzy.

5. Anne has just graduated NYU with a degree in Sociology and $100,000 in student loans. There are no jobs to be had in her field of choice: social justice at a top non-profit in NYC. A gin and sex filled weekend will determine her fate: give up and go work at her uncle's accounting firm, or say screw it and be a stripper.

6. Unable to think of a good title, an author goes to a random word generator site, specifies "adjective," and is given . . . Pensive.



Original Version

Sister Evelyn of the C.G. Priori lived her life sheltered and absorbed in the understanding that the Influence would always be a dream away, protecting and securing her future. All of that changes one day and shakes up Evelyn’s fifty years of devotion with the single opening of a rusted and once sealed door, leading her past her own borders, and into a world where dreams are no more reality than her own faith. [I was about to suggest that we drop paragraph 1 and start the query with paragraph 2. Then I looked ahead and discovered that paragraph 1 is the entire plot.]

PENSIVE, a debut novel of 50,100 words, thrusts the reader into a world where thoughts are controlled by the rules of a close-minded society, and consequences are extreme for those that dare to ask what lies outside their own borders. [You keep using that word. I'm not clear on what it means.] A notable work it can be compared to would be The End of Mr. Y, by Scarlett Thomas. [I Googled The End of Mr. Y, and I agree that it's a good comparison, in that it sounds just as wacko as your book. However, compare the first paragraph of that book's plot description (on Wikipedia):

The book tells the story of Ariel Manto, a PhD student who has been researching the 19th-century writer Thomas Lumas. She finds an extremely rare copy of Lumas's novel The End of Mr. Y in a second-hand bookshop. The book is rumoured to be cursed - everyone who has read it has died not long afterwards.

. . . with your first paragraph. My point being that no matter how incomprehensible your book may be, your query needs to be clear, straightforward, and easily understood so that someone can easily be conned into reading it.]

I have a degree in psychology from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas [UMHBBT] with an emphasis on personality theory and how it affects the individual mind as well as a collection of people. [A theory should explain, not affect.] My credentials come from me taking specific courses such as: human genetics, positive psychology, developmental psychology, history and systems, statistics, experimental psychology, as well as vertebrate and invertebrate biology. [Is vertebrate and invertebrate biology one course or two? If it's one course, I imagine the course work involves dividing the blackboard in two and then the professor calls out the names of animals and the students discuss which column each one goes in. If it's two courses, that would be good for those students who have no interest in animals that have backbones but much interest in animals without backbones. Or vice versa.] [Maybe you can enlighten me. First they decided living creatures should be divided into two categories: plants and animals. Makes sense. Then someone decides animals should be divided into exactly two categories: animals that X and animals that don't X. Someone says, How about animals you might see in a cage, and animals you wouldn't? Someone else says animals that are scary and animals that aren't. Eventually someone, possibly as a joke, suggests Animals that have a backbone and animals that don't. And no one in the room has the backbone to say the idea is ridiculous? So it sells?] [Actual quote from Wikipedia's article on invertebrates: The word invertebrate comes from the word vertebrate with the prefix in- attached to it.] [Okay, now that that's out of my system, Why are you listing all these courses you took in college instead of telling us what happens in your book?]

I read on your bio that you have an interest in psychology and stories that deal with unusual views of the world. [Hey, all I meant was I loved Good Will Hunting and The Matrix.] Despite being a debut author, I feel that even without endorsements I can surprise and intrigue you with a story that not only educates, but causes the reader’s heart to race, break, and look for repair in a world driven by old science and fearsome thought.

Thank you for your time and consideration,


Notes

Start over. With a blank page, not with a page on which you've saved your favorite parts of the query. Burn any paper on which this was printed and delete it from your computer files. I'll wait.

Done? Now . . .

Set up the situation and tell us what Evelyn wants. Sister Evelyn has always felt secure thanks to the Influence (which is what?). But when X happens (preferably something better than she opens a rusty door--if there's an actual rusty door, tell us where it is.) she realizes whatever.

Now tell us what happens. Does she get to the new world outside her borders? Do the mind police come after her? Is there a villain or some obstacle to getting what she is looking for? What's her plan?

If you summarize your plot in eight or ten sentences, you might get lucky and have no room left for a paragraph about your credentials and another paragraph about your lack of credentials. You have a product to sell. Make it sound irresistible. Be sure to send us the revised version before sending it anywhere else, as we don't trust you.

Face-Lift 974

Guess the Plot

See You Soon

1. An ancient letter from France is the only clue Nell and Jack have about the fate of their long lost great-grandfather. The war was over, but Major Nelson never got on the boat home to New York. Now, these runaway teen detectives are on their way to Europe to find out why.

2. True confessions of a stalker, in the form of a series of letters sent from the prison where he is serving 18 years for disappearing his last girlfriend. Also, a bungling detective.

3. Kindergarten teacher Wendy Watts is being stalked by a former student from twenty years ago. But little does he know Ms. Watts is no Itsy Bitsy Spider... she packs a piece, and can drop a Very Hungry Caterpillar at 500 yards.

4. Soon is an exchange student from Asia who couldn't adjust to dorm life at Washington State. On his way home his plane is hijacked and lands in Kathmandu where he starts a wild adventure involving a yak, proving that education is not dependent on a set curriculum. Thin air makes him strong.

5. Joe hates saying good-bye, so he always says See you soon. But now that he's about to die of cancer, it seems kind of silly to say See you soon. But he says it anyway, to his happily married ex-lover Anne, who must now decide whether to see him soon even though he dumped her and broke her heart.

6. Leelee has been enjoying Beryl's deployment to Iraq. No fussing about the dust, no bitching over dishes in the sink, no clean-the-goddamned-cat-box-now. But when Beryl calls to say she's on her way home, can Leelee clean the place in time--or will she just have to hire the witch who lives next door? Also, a talking cat.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

After losing a baby at seventeen, now twenty-six-year-old Anne Donnelly wants nothing more than to live a simple life, free of stress and temptation. Because stress produces dreams of her baby, [and temptation produces dreams of Cherry Garcia.] dreams of tiny, pink fingers wrapped around her own. [If you drop the "because" we won't still be waiting for the subject of the sentence when the period shows up.] But her life turns upside-down when she meets Joe, a talented, reclusive musician. After an intense, whirlwind romance, he breaks her heart.

Mickey, her brother’s best friend and business partner, is there to pick up the pieces. He confesses long-held feelings for her. She finds comfort again in his devotion and calm, laid-back personality. [Whattaya mean, "again"?] Until the night she receives a phone call from Joe.

Diagnosed with cancer, his prognosis is fatal and fast. [That makes it sound like he died of a heart attack when they told him he had three weeks to live. The prognosis is death and soon. That sounds a bit harsh. Why not just call it inoperable esophageal cancer?] No matter how much she fights it, the memories of his honeyed voice and their time together come right back. His news causes the circumstances that ended their relationship to waver. [She goes from hating him for dumping her for a fourteen-year-old whore to forgiving him for dumping her for a twenty-five-year-old nurse.] [It's not the circumstances that waver. Her memory of the circumstances recedes with his news.] Though he doesn’t ask, would never ask, Anne’s left to decide whether to be with him in his dying days or stay with Mickey, her comfort, her rock. She will lose Joe. She fears losing Mickey, too. [Mick, I'm off to spend a month or two with my ex-lover. See you soon.] But can she live, soul intact, if she allows Joe to die alone?

SEE YOU SOON, a 75,000-word contemporary fiction novel, is about the people we meet, the decisions we make, and how, good or bad, they define us. [That's so vague it could apply to any novel.]


[Author's note: The title is what Joe says to Anne because he hates good-bye.]


Notes

This is a new title and new query for the same book we did in Face-Lift 901.

Maybe the reason Joe didn't ask, would never ask, is because he's phoning all of his dozens of ex-girlfriends to say good-bye, and he only wants to spend his last days with his family or with that special girlfriend, by which I mean the one he dated for three years during which they lived together and formed a true bond of love and friendship, not the one he dumped after a whirlwind romance.

Sure, losing a baby stays with you forever, but after ten years there's been some healing. I'm not sure why the baby is even in the query. Anne is living a comfortable, stress-free life with her devoted [husband?] Mickey when she gets a phone call from Joe, her ex-lover, the one who dumped her for a teenaged bimbo. Seems he's dying of cancer and wants to say good-bye. Anne will have to move fast if she wants to get to Joe's deathbed in time to drive a stake through his heart.

Face-Lift 929

Guess the Plot

Gold Valley

1. On Ashley's eleventh birthday, Mum finally gives her her own key. The first time Ashley uses it, she lets herself in--not to their grotty flat, but to Gold Valley, where every day is a carnival and coins drop from Ashley's mouth every time she speaks. But a fairy steals the key and Ashley needs to get back--with some of the loot for Mum, of course.

2. When Casey gets a reception job at Gold Valley Chinese Takeaway she thinks she’s hit it lucky; she’s getting over £6 an hour. But when she hears rumours about the other receptionists, and finds bodies in the freezer, she can’t help but wonder if she should have applied at McDonald's.

3. The economy sucks. Greg is yet another victim of corporate downsizing. Desperate to fend off impending foreclosure, he heads to Gold Valley, hoping to eliminate his financial woes. Barely a day into the valley, Greg is lost and forced to endure violent storms, swarms of hungry mosquitoes, and the affections of a lonely sasquatch. Suddenly, bankruptcy doesn't seem like such a bad option.

4. Ava, Isaac and Adam, three survivors of a bus crash in the remote mountains, stumble upon Gold Valley, a small town that Ava thinks is Eden. But when the women in town start disappearing, Isaac and Adam suspect . . . the Hungry. Can they get Ava out of town before she, too, is eaten?

5. Author Buck McClain's life takes a turn toward terror when he discovers that Gold Valley, the serial killer bestseller he wrote plagiarized was actually written by a real serial killer--who’s not happy with Buck making bucks off his back!

6. When gold plummets from a record high to a more traditional $350 an ounce, Minuteman and survivalist Will Whitbread is convinced it's just a valley, and the price will climb again. But when he tries to buy up all the krugerrands in Arizona, investors from a rival militia take it personally. Hilarity and automatic weapons fire ensue.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Ava Gunner just assumed the McCormick brothers were dead. She hadn’t seen or heard from them since the Hunger Sickness struck the population ten years ago. Since they abandoned her, and civilization crumbled. Since the dream of Eden came alive.

Now, on a bus promising to take its passengers to Eden, [This was a Star Trek episode.] [How about "destined for Eden"?] Ava finds herself once again face to face with Adam and Isaac McCormick. She got along fine without them, even learned how to shoot a gun. And judging from their scars, they managed to take care of themselves too. But despite her grudge she’s relieved that they’re together again.

After the bus crashes on a remote mountain pass in the Colorado Rockies, the survivors are forced to find a place to hide from the now nocturnal Hungry before the sun goes down. [Having read ahead and seen that you call this literary fiction, I can appreciate your desire to use the term "now-nocturnal Hungry" instead of "mutant Cannibals" or "ravenous Zombies." But if cannibals or zombies are roaming the country, maybe you should call this a thriller or a horror novel.] Waiting out the night in an abandoned cabin, it begins to dawn ["Begins to" is implied by "dawns."] on the group that they’ll be together for a while. Which means Ava, Adam, and Isaac need to resolve their issues if they want to focus on survival. [Their "issues" being that the brothers abandoned her to be eaten by the Hungry ten years ago. That's gonna be a tough one to resolve, what with the Hungry now lurking outside the cabin.]

But the three of them are stubborn.

[What you've provided so far is about the amount of plot summary a query should have. But all you've done is introduce the characters and their situation. Condense all of that into one three-sentence paragraph.] With no food or water in the cabin, it's obvious that they have to keep traveling. They stumble almost too late into Gold Valley, a well preserved town that has managed to thrive despite its isolation. They have food, whiskey, and Joshua, a leader who cares deeply for the well being of his town and shows the survivors hospitality. [Joshua is Captain Kirk. The survivors keep calling him Herbert.] As the days wear on, Ava begins to believe that Gold Valley just may be Eden.

But when female survivors start disappearing [They disappear. Or are they gradually fading away?] and Joshua sits idly by, it becomes clear to Adam and Isaac that Gold Valley and its leader are far more sinister than they appear. However, [I don't like starting consecutive sentences with "but" and "however." You could put "however" after "easy." Or start the previous sentence: After three female survivors disappear...] convincing Ava isn’t so easy, [How many women have disappeared? Does Ava have a theory as to where they've gone?] and the brothers know the survivors are running out of time to escape before Gold Valley makes her disappear too.

I am actively seeking representation [I've never understood what "actively" means when I see that. I know you've sent the query letter. Does "actively" imply you're doing other things besides sending query letters?] for my 60,000 word literary fiction novel titled GOLD VALLEY, a story of survival, sacrifice, and lost love. [Lost love? Was Ava in love with the McCormick brothers when they abandoned her to be eaten by the Hungry?] Chapters or a synopsis are available upon request.

Sincerely,


Notes

Isn't it possible the Hungry are slipping into town and taking the women, and that Gold Valley and Joshua aren't sinister?

In the Star Trek version, the people who make it to Eden get hungry and eat the fruit and die. So the difference is that in one version the people get hungry and in the other version the Hungry get the people. That probably wasn't worth the effort I put into it.

Hyphens often belong between words that, together, form what is really one word, as in well-preserved, now-nocturnal, well-being, 60,000-word.

Who or what are the Hungry? And if they're hungry, can't they find a way to seek food than hanging out in the remote Rocky Mountains hoping for a bus crash?

Face-Lift 927

Guess the Plot

Through a Glass Darkly

1. The school's science nerd hacks Kari's digital scale and livestreams the results on the Internet, launching Kari into a deadly struggle with anorexia, bulimia, cutting, and a mean stepmom.

2. Nerdy Aaron could not believe his luck! His cool new house-mates not only turned him on to the joys of substance abuse, but they actually trusted him to store the pillowcase full of weed in his room. Hilarity ensues when their house gets raided.

3. The light is out. The glass is broken. Preacher man Joss Simpson will either lose his soul or save it when he enters the mysterious mirrored portal to Dimension X. He has to build a city, an army, and save the world.

4. A gay Japanese man in his last year of law school in the US goes out for the football team and falls for the wide receiver. But will his conservative family in Japan approve? Also, other characters who see life . . . through a glass darkly.

5. At a wild party celebrating his divorce, Steve Betts falls through a second story picture window in the dark. He wakes up in the hospital to find that his wiseacre friends have left him a gift: copies of all 273 books listed on Amazon under the title "Through A Glass Darkly".

6. Kids holding a giant bar mirror across one lane of a dark mountain highway are causing causing a rash of fatal roll-over accidents by drivers trying to avoid head-on collisions (with themselves) -- until a suicidal divorcee sees her chance at escape and floors it dead ahead.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Stephen James has finally accepted himself as a gay man when he meets Grace and, one coffee later, is left torn between his undeniable attraction to men and the red-headed exception that proves the rule. [Does that mean I can't be sure I'm straight unless I find a guy who's the exception that proves the rule?] [How many coffees did it take for him to accept himself as gay?] He and Grace marry, but his confusion continues, and the marriage fails. [Too bad. But how could anyone have foreseen that?] Another year, another coffee shop, and this time it is Gabriel who has Stephen brushing up on his flirting skills. Will it be different with Gabriel, [Count on it.] or will Stephen push him away as he did Grace? [Don't take this the wrong way, but who cares?]

Higen Nishida attends law school in the United States, planning to return to Japan, the family law firm, and an arranged marriage upon graduation. [Apparently you've overreacted to my last comment by switching the query to a different book.] [Is the legal system in Japan so similar to America's that going to law school in the US prepares you to practice law in Japan? A lot of law school involves studying cases that can be cited as precedents, but not in any country.] When Gabriel encourages him to try out for the football team, [In his last year of law school? Can you make that the badminton team?] Higen finds himself more interested in scoring points with the wide receiver than in scoring points on the field. [Some gay guys do like a wide receiver. Others prefer a tight end! Ba dum ching.] Their relationship [Higen and the wide receiver?] develops over wine, poetry, and summers spent together on the Johnson family ranch, but as Higen’s time in law school nears its end, he must choose whether to meet the expectations of his family and culture or pursue his relationship with Gabriel. [Something tells me Higen isn't going to meet his family's expectations no matter what he does.] [Is Gabriel and Stephen over?]

Raven Madison and Jack Johnson slip away from a party and make love on the beach. [Third time's the charm?] [Is this Jack Johnson of the Johnson family farm?] As Jack rejoins the crowd, Raven is raped, [You'd think he'd stick around until she was ready to go back. What did he say? "This was nice, but it sounds like they're doing the limbo."?] and her injuries leave her blind. [Those are some pretty serious injuries not to have been mentioned at the same time you said she was raped, i.e. Raven is attacked, beaten and raped.] Jack stays by her side as she heals and adjusts to life as a blind woman, ["I'll hang around until you stop bumping into things. Should be good for a few laughs."] but the terrifying flashbacks brought on by his touch leave Raven wondering if her sight is the only thing she lost that night.

Complete at 117,000 words, Through a Glass Darkly is a work of literary fiction that follows the overlapping lives of Stephen, Higen, and Raven [The only names that appear in more than one of the mini-plots are Johnson and Gabriel. Yet Stephen, Higen and Raven are the ones whose lives overlap?] as they struggle to define themselves while relating to others. [Vagueness is always boring. Note how much more interesting the book sounds with a more specific wrap-up: . . . follows the overlapping lives of Stephen, Higen, and Raven as they lead an army of zombies in an invasion of the Johnson family farm.] Thank you for your time and for your consideration.

Sincerely,


Notes

There's no evidence that any one of the three main characters even knows the other two.

Is it possible to focus on one character and how that character's life overlaps with the other two, instead of doing these separate paragraphs for each character? It's hard to form an attachment for a character who merits mention in only a third of the plot summary.

Face-Lift 922

Guess the Plot

The One at the Helm

1. The one at the helm could be the self. Or it could be madness (think Mr. Hyde). Or it could be God. You, the reader, decide in this story of a woman struggling with the darkness within, who visits a psychiatrist who goads her into physical combat during the session. Also, a terrifying angel.

2. The ship is full of wheel-shaped handles: steam valves, fuel cutoffs, the ones that shut the watertight doors. So as the ship plows towards the rocks and the injured captain yells, "Turn the wheel hard to starboard!," Festus has to think for a minute.

3. It's 1793, and Captain Andrew MacDougall of HMS Relentless navigates dangerous seas as his crew dies off man by man of a mysterious illness. Then they all rise as mer-zombies and force his ship to sail to various hellholes that zombies like.

4. In a world ruled by superstition and euphemisms, seaman Treller panics on his first voyage and calls the one at the helm 'Captain.' Penalty: the plank. Picked up by a ship full of people for whom a spade is a spade, can he stop talking around the subject before they toss him back into the sea?

5. The Helm is a biker bar on the outskirts of town. Jo is a waitress there. When blue-eyed Fritz starts hanging out, Jo is smitten. She never thought she'd fall for a white supremacist, but those eyes! Could Fritz be The One?

6. Leona will need that sharp eye and rough tongue of hers to pilot her hotel franchise business through the floating minefield of corporate takeovers and executive machinations. But if stepping all over the little guy brings success, the world will be singing the praises of Leona’s hotel empire long after she's gone.


Original Version

Dear Agent:

I read on your website that you are looking for strong writing and voice in the area of literary fiction and I think you will enjoy my interpretation of magical realism.

In a story that could be described as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde meets The Alchemist, a young woman finds herself grappling with an unruly mind. Dissociating from the darker parts of self has strengthened them against her so that we open on an island with a madman in control. He is an external counterpart of the developments within. [Within what?] [It's not clear what you're talking about. What is the madman controlling? The island? Is there a real island?] When she tries to destroy him, she ends up on a locked ward with a savior of her own design, an angel (yes, an angel—a terrifying one) who is also deviant for he comes from the same deranged mind. [As the madman? As the girl?] Whatever you focus on becomes your fate, he warns, [So she immediately focuses on being a billionaire with a freezer full of Ben & Jerry's and no annoying angels hanging around.] knowing himself the embodiment [I don't know what "knowing himself the embodiment" means.] and fearing his darkening moods. But her obsessions are drawing her deeper within. [Within what?] [What are her obsessions?]

Enter Sage, the voice of wisdom who surfaces in the form of an unorthodox therapist. [In the form of? So Sage is some magical being who she thinks is a therapist?] Goading Aurora [Finally we find out the main character's name.] by poisoning a child in her office [If this doesn't send up a red flag, nothing will. Did she research the therapist's credentials?] and resurrecting a rapist from her past, the doctor draws her into physical combat with the parts she has repressed. [Physical combat, like with weapons? Fists? In the therapist's office? You decide to see a therapist, and s/he goads you into physical combat? At your first session? Is it the same session she poisoned the child at? And you're still there?] But violence begets violence and instead of defeating anything Aurora finds herself in yet another hold, another pattern, [another holding pattern,] another Catch-22. Before Sage can guide her into awareness and lead her on the path to mastering her mind, modern medicine intervenes with its bandages and drugs. Aurora resists its diagnosis and cure. Caught up in her own experiment and quest for meaning, she finds she needs the darkness. But is it as valid as light? And with the angel’s devotions becoming punishing, [I don't know what that means. You're probably starting to think I'm a moron.] is it worth her life?

A novel of antitheses, THE ONE AT THE HELM explores what it is to be human from the inside out. At 65,000 words, it is a psychological journey into madness and health, control and relinquishment; a novel that asks what brings the darkness? And must we know it to know light?

[insert bio here]

Per your guidelines the first five pages follow. I am happy to send the complete novel at your request. In the meantime, I appreciate your attention.

Sincerely,



PS In case it isn't clear where I get my title, The One at the Helm could be god, the self, one of the personae that take control when we lose it (i.e., madness), all those things that we default to when we choose to give our power away. Oh yeah, and there is that ship into which the dominant persona shoves the repressed parts in the opening.


Notes

This is a bit better than the original version, which the author replaced at the last minute, having anticipated my complaint that there was no plot. Unfortunately, there's still no plot. I can't tell if there's an island or a locked ward or an angel or a madman, or a psychiatrist's office, or actual physical combat . . . or if it's all in Aurora's mind.

Start over. Does Aurora believe she's losing her mind? Why, what events/symptoms gave her a clue? Does the therapist she goes to have a name, or just go by Sage? Is most of the book set in the therapist's office? Where else is it set?

Try telling us what happens without mentioning one single thing that isn't real. Tell it as if the reader is nine years old. I'm confident that if you do those two things, you'll have a much better query, and then we can let Phoenix refine it into a winner.

Face-Lift 873

Guess the Plot

Book’em Brooker

1. Sam Brooker, postal worker, wants to break into the librarian trade. Through a series of misunderstandings he ends up running an underground gambling ring. Also, tickets to the policemen's ball.

2. Hard-bitten cop Ed "Bookem" Brooker faces his most hackneyed, cliche-filled case yet when the corpse of the local millionaire's son turns up in a meat locker. Sassy redheaded reporter Francie Wilkes shows up every third chapter in high heels and a tight skirt.

3. Norm Brooker's encyclopedic knowledge of Hawaii Five-O fails to impress his friends or the girl he secretly loves. When Norm's hometown is hit by a rash of crimes that mirror classic episodes of his favorite show, will Norm finally get his chance to shine? Or will he find that real crime fighting isn't as easy as his TV heroes made it look?

4. Cheerleader Chrissy is failing science. When Mr Thompkins assigns them a CSI project, she knows just who to get as her partner--nerdy Danny Brooker. But rival Stacey is angling for him as well, and she's offering to date him, too! Oh, it is SO on!

5. Make the coffee, Brooker. Fetch us some donuts, Brooker. File our reports, Brooker. Sexism is one thing, but can sharp-eyed Vivian Brooker overcome the emotional frailty inherent to her gender long enough to capture a serial killer--before she becomes his next victim?

6. Book'em, Brooker. Sharpen my pencil, Brooker. Hoover the cells, polish the handcuffs, Brooker. Sexism is one thing, but can sharp-eyed Valerie Brooker turn her reputation as a 'dumb blonde' to her advantage while she gathers evidence to book her obviously crooked captain?

7. Shy but brilliant forensics student Jill Pender has a secret: an imaginary friend, hard boiled detective Buck Brooker who has gotten her through every course with honors. But joining the police means taking a psych exam. Can she give up her secret weapon? But perhaps more importantly: will Brooker let her go?



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor:

In 1973, Vivian Brooker is the first policewoman in the Cedar Falls Police Department. Chauvinistic officers in the squad are licking their chops anticipating [expecting] “Helen Reddy” to faint under the emotion [Emotional] strain of the gritty job. [Has anyone actually fainted since Victorian England?] Eager to hasten her dismissal, the officers play practical jokes and heap grunt work on her. Vivian is assigned the coffee making, donut fetching, and paperwork filing office tasks, which she must perform between freeing her desk drawers of jock straps and porn magazines. [I don't see how assigning her tasks that don't involve the emotional strain of the gritty job will hasten her dismissal. She's not gonna get fired for making bad coffee.] [Also, is it possible for a place called Cedar Falls to have so much major crime that police work is gritty?] [Also, is "gritty" the word you want? When it doesn't mean sandy, it means courageous, resolute. I get the impression you were going for tough and demanding.] [Finally, there was no Internet in 1973, so no cop would have been willing to sacrifice his porn mags just for a practical joke.]

Her first taste of criminal activity, a bank robbery in progress, leads to disaster when she is taken hostage at gun point. Vivian surprises her fellow officers by keeping a cool head and convincing the robber to free her and surrender. [So it didn't lead to disaster.] Emboldened by her demonstration of her insight into a criminal’s mind, [Most cops would have simply assumed the bank robber wanted to get away with the eighty grand he just stole, but Vivian realized he wanted to surrender and spend ten to twenty years in a prison cell with a big-armed guy named Bubba.] Vivian tells the Police Captain [of] her passion for detective work.

The Police Captain arranges for her to review a few cold case files with a veteran detective. But after days of studying the gruesome details of the victims of the Ulrich Park Murderer, Vivian’s emotion [Emotional!] stability begins to unravel. She starts making careless mistakes: misfiling papers at work, [bringing the captain a honey-dipped donut instead of a cruller,] forgetting her badge at home. She longs to retreat into the security of a strong man’s arms rather than her empty apartment. [In short, she realizes that her passion isn't for detective work, it's for Jim Rockford.]

Vivian wonders if the chauvinistic officers are right; maybe her emotional [I see my nagging finally got through to you.] frailty is inherent to her gender and a determent [detriment?] to the police force. After she receives a threatening phone call from a man claiming to be the Ulrich Park Murderer, she decides to turn in her badge.

The Police Captain convinces her to stay on the squad while the team uses her as bait to lure the murderer into a trap. But can she depend on the same men who wanted her off the police force to protect her life? [Of course she can. You think they wanna go back to making their own coffee?]

“Book’em Brooker”, a novel complete at 80,000 words, is an account of a woman’s discovery of her strengths and weaknesses, and her journey to appreciate the strengths of the men around her.

Thanks for your consideration.


Notes

So, the heroine of the book unravels when she studies the details of gory crimes, longs to retreat into the security of a strong man’s arms, wonders if her emotional frailty is inherent to her gender, and turns in her badge when she gets a threatening phone call? Who's your target audience? Chauvinistic men who want to see her fail? She doesn't sound like the kind of woman one envisions at the vanguard of the women's rights movement.

Any halfway decent detective would realize there's no way the actual Ulrich Park Murderer is gonna be phoning her. Even if he's a cop, is he really gonna be worried that she'll solve a case the department couldn't?

If your word choice and usage aren't spot-on, it will be assumed this is a problem in the book. Is it?

Face-Lift 853

Guess the Plot

The River Lethe

1. They call it that because people would like to forget about all the innocents who were dropped into it from airplanes with no parachutes and never seen again. But Victoria will never forget the atrocities that led her to flee the country, leaving her friends to the concentration camps or maybe even to be dropped from airplanes into . . . the River Lethe. With no parachutes.

2. When young Chiro and her parents accidentally wander into the spirit world, she meets the friendly water-dragon of the river Lethe. Together they defeat a witch and save her parents from being served as food.

3. Lisa Rowles has an old German map left to her by her grandfather, who told her that it led to Nazi gold. But it doesn't match modern maps. Dr. Rob Sanchez recognizes that the map's twin resides in the Vatican. Can they beat the Jesuits to . . . the River Lethe?

4. John meets a group of hippie lotus-eaters while canoeing down the river Lethe and adopts their easy living lifestyle. Which would be fine if he hadn't killed three people the week before and wasn't currently the subject of a nationwide manhunt. Amnesia can be a bitch.

5. Finneus Bigsby is a swindler, selling people his usual "health tonic" by the roadside, traveling town to town. One day he stumbles on a formula that makes people forget, and realizes that's just the medicine some people need. For starters, one sip, and you won't remember how much you just paid.

6. Planning to elope, Henry agrees to meet his sweetheart at the River Lethe. Tragically, Henry doesn't take Gertrude's lisp into account; the rendezvous is the River Lesse, and Henry loses Gertrude forever. On the brink of despair, he pioneers the practice of speech pathology.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

When the Armed Forces take control of Argentina in 1976, Victoria must choose to remain apathetic and silent or speak out against the violence that has claimed the lives of her three best friends.

Julia dies before the dictatorship can begin, fighting as a guerrilla in the northwestern provinces. Victoria and her remaining friends, Irene and Liliana, believe they are insulated from the political violence, because unlike Julia, they neither engage in nor believe in the armed struggle.

But the military makes no distinction between those with guns and those with ideas. [I, on the other hand, would much prefer to be stranded on an island with a philosopher than with a hitman.] Irene, due to her outspoken and politically active older brother, is the first of the friends to join the ranks of ‘los desaparecidos,’ those who are arrested and vanish into the military’s sinister network of secret prisons. Months later, inspired by the first anniversary of the coup, Liliana pens a scathing editorial against the junta in her underground newspaper. This editorial is equivalent to signing a death warrant and soon after its publication Liliana disappears.

With Victoria alone in the outside world, Liliana and Irene are reunited in the Navy Mechanics School, one of the dictatorship’s most notorious concentration camps. Victoria eventually accompanies her older brother into exile in Spain, unsure if she’ll ever see her friends again. Decades later, Victoria returns to a democratic Argentina still struggling with the brutal legacy of the Dirty War and the disappeared.

THE RIVER LETHE is a 91,000 word work of literary fiction. I am currently majoring in Latin American Studies at [redacted] and have spent extensive time in Argentina. This is my first novel.

Sincerely,


[Author's note, not part of query: The title refers to the Rio de la Plata, the eventual resting place of many of the disappeared, who were drugged and dumped alive from airplanes over its waters. The 'Lethe' aspect refers to how many people find it better to just forget about the things that happened during the dictatorship.]


Notes

It's a well-written query. however . . . Given a choice among four potential characters to base a story around, most authors would choose the woman who took up arms to fight with revolutionaries, or the one who risked her life by fighting oppression through an underground press or even the one who was thrown into a concentration camp for something her brother did. But you have boldly chosen the character who fled to another continent and returned only when it was safe. Does Victoria do anything noteworthy, or is she simply carried along by the tide of events like so many others? In short, why does Victoria get a book written about her, and can you work that into the query? (If there are several main characters, the first paragraph is misleading us into thinking the book is focused on Victoria.)

When you say violence "claimed the lives of" Victoria's three friends, I assume they're dead. But you say their lives had been claimed when the military took control in 1976. Later you suggest that Irene and Liliana are alive beyond that event; in fact, it's not clear from the query that they aren't alive even when Victoria returns decades later.

Face-Lift 792

Guess the Plot

Fortune Cookie

1. The art of war is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin...in bed.

2. Trying to free yourself from sex addiction by talking to stripper is like trying to lose weight by taking job at Dunkin Donuts.

3. Working at fortune cookie factory will lead to enlightenment--and the girl of your dreams.

4. You will be a best selling author, the fortune said. Ten years and 8,455 rejections later, Shiela Karski snaps and goes on an arson spree, targeting fortune cookie warehouses all over North America.

5. Korean-American fifth grader Grace Yi is tired of classmates and even teachers who lump all Asian ethnicities together. So when she's assigned to make the school's Chinese New Year Festival "authentic," she decides to make a few small changes. Hilarity ensues.

6. When champion Poodle "Fortune Cookie" disappears from her crate at the Long Beach dog show, detective Zack Martinez knows two things: the teamsters didn't steal her, and he'd better bring home some Beggin Strips for his wife's chihuahua.


Original Version

Dear ____________:

Ethan Cortier can’t get out of bed, he can’t function, and he can’t enjoy the things he used to love. The only pastime that barely interests him now is a secret sex addiction that makes him hate himself the next day. [If you can't get out of bed, sex is the perfect addiction to have.] [On the other hand, if you can't function, it's the worst.] When he meets Bianca, an aspiring pianist working as a stripper in a shady club with a shady boss, he discovers that it is easier to confess his vice to a complete stranger than a loved one. [Confessing to a woman you just met that you have a sex addiction. I may have to give that a try.] After all, there is nothing for him to lose after she’s gone.

Bianca is facing eviction and unemployment. [Apparently she's as bad at stripping as she is on the piano.] On the night they meet, they speak openly and honestly about the secrets and problems they have kept from their friends and family. [He admits he has a sex addiction and she admits she has pianist envy.] In the short time they share, they connect, listen and offer nonjudgmental advice. Though they never expect to see each other again, they do, and over the next few months, they each find themselves falling in love with the stranger who knows their worst secrets. [Eventually, the sex addict can't keep his hands off his pianist.]

I am prepared to send Fortune Cookie, my 70,000 word literary fiction upon your request. This is a multiple submission. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,


[(Not part of query): The title, Fortune Cookie, refers to the main characters picking up Chinese food one night. They miss out on the fortune cookies since the restaurant just ran out. The waiter tells the male character "You don't need dessert, she's sweet enough for you!" pointing to the female character. The bad joke indicates that the female character will bring some happiness into the male character's life.]


Notes

Better title: The Sex Addict's Pianist. Hey, if you didn't want a bunch of pianist jokes, you should have made her an organ player.

We know a few things about each of your characters, but all we know about the plot is that the characters meet, give each other advice, and fall in love. I know it's literary fiction, but doesn't anything interesting happen? Is there a villain? Does Ethan meet Tiger Woods in rehab? Does Bianca's shady boss threaten her? Does she play Carnegie Hall? Give us something.

Face-Lift 782

Guess the Plot

Jesus, Mo and Cheese Puffs

1. Jesus is a Puerto Rican immigrant living in New York. Mo is his neighbor and drinking buddy. Together they have a dream to transform the snack food industry.

2. Mo and his wife Flo pack the car with Cheese Puffs and head for sunny California so Flo can get plastic surgery from a TV doctor. Along the way they meet Angel, a homeless woman who tells them about Jesus. Will Angel renew their faith, or will they give her some Cheese Puffs and tell her to get lost?

3. Jesus and Mo are middle grade Vampyres without a care in the world . . . until their school cafeteria, trying to meet strict new healthy lunch regulations, adds garlic to the Cheese Puffs. Hilarity ensues.

4. Being Jesus means you can hate but you can't show it. Mo is God's relative but God smat him and threw him into the cheese puffs. Jesus goes back to woodworking, which he likes very much. The puffs, 12 of them, wander the desert until it rains. They melt, Jesus stays a carpenter and Mo becomes Moses.

5. Mo smokes one bowl too many, sending him on an epic crusade for Cheese Puffs. When he opens the bag of cheesy airy goodness and discovers a puff in the likeness of Christ the Savior, a moral dilemma ensues as he considers whether to sell it on eBay.

6. When Jesus Christ appears at Mo's door seeking a bed for the night, Mo is only too happy to oblige. If this doesn't get him into heaven, nothing will. But Mo regrets his hospitality the next morning when he wakes to find Jesus gone and the entire bag of Cheese Puffs eaten.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

When Flo Brown wins $40,000 from a scratch-off lottery ticket it’s vanity that propels her to agree to a cross country trip with her husband Mo. [If it's Mo's idea to take the trip, one wonders if it's Mo who's the vain one.] In no time at all, Flo packs, and is ready to go. She and Mo plan to drive from Indiana to California so she can have one of those “TV doctors" do plastic surgery on her mangled eye. It’s with this premise in mind that she and Mo pile in the car along with extra bags of cheese puffs. [Be specific: Is she looking to hire Dr. Taub on House, or the doctors on Nip & Tuck? Are they packing regular cheese puffs or the crunchy kind?]

From the get-go, their trip is anything but ordinary. Their first stop is at a bitty gas station where the clerk directs them to a favored diner. There they meet a young family with twin toddlers and a broken-down car. Mo, having been a mechanic in Vietnam offers to help. Flo goes with Kendy, the mother of the twins and her toddlers [The twins are the toddlers. Just say Flo goes with Kendy and her kids to the park. ] to the park. What Flo doesn’t know is Kendy is Mo’s granddaughter, but at this point, neither Flo nor Mo knows she exists. [So far you haven't backed up the claim that the trip is anything but ordinary. The granddaughter bit is unusual (in fact, it sounds like a one in a trillion chance), but no one knows it, and it's never mentioned again. Gas station, diner, park? Very ordinary.]

As they make their way across the highways and byways, they stumble upon a variety of situations and people that continue to stretch them in ways they couldn’t predict.

The novel weaves together both touching and funny moments. A young boy, Joey, lives with his grandparents. His mother still hasn’t come home, and it’s been six months. Joey is a Boy Scout, and when Flo and Mo hear about someone stealing their money from the plant sale, Mo agrees to help Joey’s grandpa build chicken and rabbit cages to sell instead. Joey is happy that Flo visited with his grandmother and made her smile. He tells Flo he was scared because his grandma seemed so sad lately and he feared she might want to leave too. [Touching and funny moments may work in the novel, but in the query they're boring. Normally I tell writers to be specific, but if your best specifics are diners and plant sales and chicken cages, I recommend being general until you get to the important stuff.]

In Hooker, Oklahoma, [the most popular truck stop on the Interstate,] they stumble into [Two stumbles are at least one to many.] a wake when all they wanted to do was stop at the store and buy needle and thread. The spirited shop owner, Lettie Jean, eventually lets on that the wake isn’t for a person but High Henry, a Clydesdale horse who held the honor of uniting a town.

They meet a homeless couple at the farmer market in Pasadena, Angel and Jostlin’ Jack. Flo is appalled at their hardscrabble life, but Angel assures Flo she’s happy. Angel teaches Flo about trust, faith and how to “wear the world like a loose garment.” Flo runs into Angel again at a church, and it’s after this meeting Flo wonders if Angel might actually be a real angel.

Mo and Flo discover that the trip has changed them in ways they never imagined. Flo accepts her struggle with vanity and realizes the only limitations she has are the ones she puts on herself. Mo lets go of his bitterness toward Flo's God and makes peace with losing their only son, Jimmy, who died at seventeen from complications of Down's Syndrome.

Complete at 52,000 words, the novel is available for immediate review. This is the fourth book I have written; the first three are full-length women's commercial fiction novels. I am an RN, but also have a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing. I am a member of RWA and ACFW. I would appreciate your consideration for representation. [We don't need to know about books you've written that weren't published, or about your education.]


Notes

I can see vanity being behind getting a face lift or a nose job, but do you have to be vain to get surgery on a mangled eye?

There's too much detail for a query. It should fit on one page. It also feels like a list of things that happen. Start with something like:

When Flo Brown wins $40,000 from a scratch-off lottery ticket, it’s vanity that propels her on a cross country trip with her husband Mo. She and Mo plan to drive from Indiana to California so she can have one of those “TV doctors" do plastic surgery on her mangled eye. As they make their way across the west, they stop now and then to help strangers in need, never realizing what a positive impact they're having.

Then skip down to the homeless couple, which is where your real story begins.

Usually when people are traveling cross-country they zip off the highway, gas up, grab some food, and hit the road. It seems odd that Mo and Flo meet and interact with so many people. Also, is Pasadena their destination? I assumed LA/Hollywood, but if it's one of those, stopping off in Pasadena seems odd, when it's fifteen minutes from their final destination.

Mo: Finally, after three days, we're almost there. Ten more miles.

Flo: Pull over at the next exit. I wanna go to a farmers market and talk to some homeless people.

If it's intended for the Christian book market, say so.

Face-Lift 768

Guess the Plot

Spirit Hill

1. Jed Martenson has always denied being a problem drinker, but when his pile of empty Jack Daniels bottles gets included on a map of Tennessee as a geographical feature, his family have to stage an intervention.

2. Spirit Hill's father told her she was named for the area where he proposed to her mother. He failed to tell her he promised the spirits his first born child if her mother said yes.

3. After her first child dies, Rebecca faces an uphill spiritual battle. And so does her husband Gus after Rebecca decides she'll have no more children, and ensures it by cutting Gus off for good.

4. For all of Billie's eighteen years, her mum has been trading "spiritual consolation" to Reverend Willie for gallon jugs of communion wine. Now Reverend Willie has his eye on Billie. Can she string him along long enough to get her Spirit Hill Wine business on its feet?

5. In the town of Spirit Hill, a teenage girl is unwittingly involved in a series of bank robberies and a dog grooming scam. When her parents discover she’s not been to school for three months, they file a lawsuit . . . against the school! Hilarity ensues.

6. Spirit Hill got her name from her granola-munching parents, and her necromantic ability from a two-timing gypsy. When zombies come looking for organic brains, can she save her beloved commune?


Original Version

Your Evilness:

In the spring of 1938 a baby boy dies on a remote farm in the drought-stricken province of Saskatchewan. His father, Gus, immerses himself in his daily chores, avoiding thoughts of his son's death and the part he played in it. [Namely, he caused it.] [But then, in 1938 Saskatchewan, what are you supposed to do for entertainment besides juggling babies and chainsaws.] The mother, Rebecca, loses the will to leave her bed. [I, too, have lost the will to leave my bed. That's why I've completely surrounded it with vending machines.] She wonders how Gus could walk away from the grave and back into a life that continues as usual. She can't bear to be touched, not emotionally, not physically. [If his wife never leaves her bed and can't stand to be touched, it doesn't sound like Gus has walked back into a life that continues as usual.] She swears an unspoken vow: no more babies. .As their marriage begins to crumble, and it seems the farm will fail, Gus devises a plan that might be their salvation if his wife and Fate will cooperate. [Apparently we're supposed to guess what the plan is. Let's see, it must be one of the following:

1. Drive the tractor to Saskatoon, sell it for $1000, and spend the money stocking up on Molson Golden.
2. Win the Canadian lottery (That's the part where this Fate character needs to cooperate.) and join a co-ed curling league.
3. Switch from wheat, barley and canola to poppies, coca, and hockey pucks.]

My literary novel, SPIRIT HILL, is complete at 65,000 words. I've published three short stories. Recently, I earned a post-graduate certificate in Creative Writing from the Humber School for the Creative Arts in Toronto, Canada.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours


Notes

I once told a writing class, "If your story is unbearably depressing, one way to lighten it up is to set it in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan." Is this set in Moose Jaw?

Crumbling marriages, gut-wrenching deaths, unendurable depression, and farming in deserts are standard fare in litfic. It's Gus's wacky plan to escape it all that sets this apart, at least until the plan fails miserably, the barn burns down and Becky commits suicide. What's the plan?

Face-Lift 740

Guess the Plot

The Milky Way, China Poison

1. Gillian wants to start a new life, so she takes a job with a Chinese dairy, only to discover that her company's milk contains poison. She could speak up, but in China, whistleblowers tend to die young. Maybe Gillian should have started her new life in North Korea.

2. Ten years ago, Jade fled her abusive marriage. Now she's China Poison, semiprofessional wrestler, desperate to win the big cash prize at the Milky Way rumble. But she'll have to wrestle with more than her opponents when she's reunited with the daughter she was forced to leave behind.

3. In 2065, “undesirables” have two choices: life in a brutal institution, or euthanasia, known as “China Poison.” Autistic Anne Miller and her best friend, paraplegic Jake Wilhelm, are determined to find a third option. And they do—at the end of an astonishing, history-making trip to the stars.

4. Journalist Krissa knows something is wrong with the candy bars she's been getting at the dollar store. When she uncovers the Chinese plot to dump plastics and toxins in the flavoring, she knows she's got the story of a lifetime. But will she live to tell it?

5. The broad they called China Poison was bumped off behind the Milky Way Drive-in. I figured the husband for it. Big brute with a face like a wet ham. Then somebody shoots him and the coppers find the gat—with my prints on it. I'm Nick Lugman. And I'm in a whole lotta trouble.

6. With a dead soup-kitchen chef and a trail of candy bars leading to an independent bookstore, homicide detective Zack Martinez knows two things: astrology should be shelved after alchemy, and the mutton-chopped homeless man hiding in the stacks isn't interested in memoirs.


Original Version

Dear:

Re: The Milky Way, China Poison - 38,000 word novella

The rear ender launched the large coffee over Gillian Heath and now she’s going to be late for her job interview. A position in Asia, Shenzhen, PRC. She’s trying for a new life. She couldn’t look at her son’s bedroom door, shut on the empty room anymore. Gillian received the proceeds from the sale of her house an hour ago.

The guy who smacked into her jumps out of his car to see if she’s hurt. She’s not but her silk dress and shoes are covered with coffee drops and streaks.

The man responsible for the wreck blurts out she smells wonderful. His small talk is not going well. He learned he has cancer an hour ago.

“Quit smelling me!” she spits at the moron. Gillian drives to her interview after the terse exchange of information.

Parked, she changes into her wrinkled gym clothes in the car and schlumps to Reception where she convinces the receptionist she has an appointment and isn’t delivering sandwiches.

“Nice to see you again,” Tom Wells, GM, extends his hand and grins at her. She fights off the urge to swing at him but takes the hand. It’s the moron. He’s interviewing her. [You're telling us the entire book. We don't need so much detail. Basically, Gillian is having a bad day. Tom is having a worse day.]

Gillian is running mach five into a new life trying the geographical cure. That never works for anyone and this one won’t work for her. She doesn’t know that. She jumped at the job wondering if rear end remorse had anything to do with Tom’s offer. It didn’t but she doesn’t know that either.

Gillian is running from her son’s death. Accident, call it whatever, she should have kept him safe. Her new job and China don’t work out too well as a cure.

She’s detached, dead inside until she finds out her “I don’t give a frig, Newton” veneer has the depth of cling wrap when samples from her company’s milk show high levels of melamine. Melamine poisons kids with amazing efficiency. Rage, white hot, rips her alive. First time she’s felt anything in a long time. [Finally we've reached what I assume is the main plot.]

Maybe she can honor her son’s short life somehow if she plugs the dam. If she can stop one child from dying of renal failure, she might be able to look at herself in a mirror again. She hates her life. She hates her choices more.

People disappear over internet articles in China. She can ignore the poison milk or try to stop it. Publishing photos of the Party member who poisons for profit is not a good idea. She snaps him out whoring and she’s the whore. [It's not easy to snap photos of yourself while you're whoring. Or so I hear.]

She does stuff she didn’t know she had the stomach for. She frames the major player, she ruins her company and finishes Tom’s career in one hit of the send button. Time to run. The consequences of getting her hands dirty turning off poison milk flowing down little baby throats are severe.

Tom wages a silent and secret battle. He won’t know if his cancer is gone for five lonely years. He married his career a long time ago. Boy, did he get it wrong. He can’t think about that now. He’s got to find Gillian and get her out. She’s in trouble. 1.5 billion people, he better get started

Gillian wanted to change her life not the world. The woman lost in grief and the man who has put his struggles aside to help her, find new meaning in their world, themselves and each other clawing their way out of the mess Gillian made. The Party doesn’t like foreigners causing trouble on the eve of the Olympic Games.

[Gillian: The company I work for is selling poison and calling it milk.

Party member: You're not even Chinese. Check with me after the closing ceremonies.]

Gillian succeeds in stopping the contaminated milk. Tom knew his career and company were wrecked the day he learned about the melamine. He doesn’t care, cancer has a way of straightening out priorities. He wants to live out his life – long or short with this woman but can’t ask her to share her life with him. He may not be able to make a long term commitment. He says goodbye.

Gillian doesn’t care what Tom wants. She needs him to live a complete life. [Spoiler alert.] They work it out.

I’ve been published in China (short stories for an English newspaper and an English school internet site used my stories for language learning) where I worked teaching English. In Canada I worked copywriting for radio, tv and print. I worked as the Promotion Director then Manager of two shopping centers. I wrote at an ad agency. I was hired as a writer for an American trading company in China, hence my move to the PRC. I was a member of the Alberta Romance Writers Assoc. and I now teach in Thailand.

Thank you for the time you spent reading my query, I appreciate it.

Sincerely,


Notes

Your query should fit on one page. This is more like three pages worth of material. It might pass as a synopsis of sorts, but what it feels like is a complete story. A piece of flash fiction. Actually, as a piece of flash fiction, it's not bad. For a query letter, however, try reducing the plot portion to ten or fewer sentences.

You might open with an intro that includes your title, word count etc., and states that the book is set in China on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. We don't need six or seven paragraphs about going to her job interview. The main plot seems to be:

Gillian Heath is running from her son’s death. She’s detached, dead inside--until she finds out her new employer, Shenzhen Baby Products, is poisoning kids with contaminated milk. Rage, white hot, rips her alive.

Tom Wells hired Gillian and sent her to China. When she blows the whistle on Shenzhen, he knows he has to get her out. Whistleblowers have a bad habit of disappearing in China.

One woman lost in grief and one man who has put his own struggle with cancer aside to help her, now seek new meaning in their world and each other.

Throw in a couple sentences that cover vital plot points I left out, and you have enough.


The query doesn't need flowery writing (...until she finds out her “I don’t give a frig, Newton” veneer has the depth of cling wrap...). Save that for the book. Keep the query simple and clear.

The title feels like two titles.

Face-Lift 734

Guess the Plot 

Where the Doves Fly 

1. In the sky. 

2. Johann Nowitski is an airport ramp attendant, charged with cleaning the dove entrails out of the engines. When he finds a human finger amidst the carnage, it seems murder is afoot. 

3. "Go where the doves fly," was the last thing Raymond said before leaving to liberate France from Hitler. Every day Sarah waits patiently by the fountain. Will he ever return? Will she recognize him? And what did he mean about the doves? 

4. 1980. Anna Sokolowska's career creating anti-communist paintings (you know, like doves flying into the air) is going nowhere in communist-controlled Poland. So she escapes in search of an art gallery that will show her work. Unfortunately, she escapes to East Berlin. Apparently commies and artistic genius don't mix anywhere. 

5. The Doves: a family of four who hang glide off of Mt. Riaze. When the volcano unexpectedly erupts, Mr. Dove watches his family fly from his hydroponic squash farm that had been built on the north face, which now lies in lava ashed ruins. Can he find the other three members of his family before the next bilateral moon triangulation?

6. 2098. United Nations President, Apartheid Vance, has a problem. Expecting the whole world to be at peace for the first time since stun guns were legalized, a massive celebration is planned for the upcoming millennium. However, Apartheid cannot keep a single dove alive in captivity. Is the problem zoological or an omen? 

Original Version 

Dear Evil Editor, 

When 17-year-old artist Anna Sokolowska learns the Communist regime in Poland may implement martial law, she chooses to escape to East Berlin—unwilling to let the government stifle her artistic voice, eager to use her anti-Communist paintings as a tool for change. [Shouldn't she escape to somewhere that doesn't have a communist regime? Where's she heading next, Cuba?] The one thing that she fails to consider before leaving is that her abused mother and young brother need her more than she thinks they do. 

Over the following twelve months Anna struggles against governmental corruption that has spread beyond Polish borders as she searches for an art gallery in which to showcase her set of genius anti-Communist-themed paintings. [Genius in whose opinion?] In the end, Anna must decide how she wishes to balance the harsh reality of poverty in the 1980’s with a passion for art, the Polish Solidarity movement, and her family. 

WHERE THE DOVES FLY is a literary YA at approximately 76,000 words. 

My articles and short stories have been featured in New Moon, Teen Ink, Alive, multiple e-zines, and two Creative Communications anthologies. Last year I received a YoungArts 2010 Merit Award (top 5%) and interned with [editor; redacted], and now I intern with [agent; redacted]. [Have you taken advantage of your connections?] In addition to writing and interning, I am a full-time student. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, 

Notes 

 Is she in contact with her family? What's happening with them? If we know that, we'll have a better understanding of her dilemma. Was she under the impression that only Poland's government would be bothered by her anti-communist art? Instead of concluding by telling us what Anna must decide, tell us what she decides. Perhaps she realizes that while the communist machine is too powerful to take on, she can do her own small part by starting an underground art movement. Or whatever. Give us a sense of where the story goes.

Face-Lift 727

Guess the Plot

Ballad of a Gutter Punk

1. Yeah, it's my autobiography. What do you mean, you don't like the title? Listen, I was CEO of Halliburton and Vice-President of the United States, I don't take lip from the likes of you.

2. Abandoned by her parents, her friends, even her social worker, a teen turns to drugs and prostitution. But through grit and determination she manages to turn her life around completely, getting a minimum-wage job and food stamps.

3. What do you do when you’re born in a gutter, live in a gutter and will probably die in a gutter? Well if you’re Jeffrey Einhorn, you compose the most amazing and perfect ballad ever written. A ballad that brings world peace.

4. On his 18th birthday, Faerie Prince Aureon lost all his powers. With the most recent Guide to Being Mortal in hand, he sets off to spend the year until his powers return in the human world. Chaos ensues.

5. Geoffrey thinks nothing speaks louder than words, but Prucilla takes one look at his new neon mohawk and disagrees. Will the poet's mother kick his up-and-coming behind into the gutter, or will she have a good rest home in her old age?

6. Homeless teen Charlie Coffee pulls himself up by his bootstraps and becomes the top bowler in the United States. But when he starts rolling too many gutter balls, only sports psychologist Barry Childs can keep Charlie from falling back into the gutter.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor:

Baby comes from nothing and is going nowhere. Or at least, that’s what she’s been raised to believe. [It's what she's been named to believe. Naming your baby "Baby" is like naming your dog "Dog." Doesn't show much imagination or effort.] So it comes as no surprise to Baby when, at the age of seventeen, she’s dumped unceremoniously into the gutter.

At 119,000 words, Ballad of a Gutter Punk is the tale of a troubled young woman becoming fractured and then putting herself back together again through hardship and struggle. [Think feminist retelling of the classic "Humpty Dumpty."] Baby’s story begins the day she takes her little sister Emily by the hand and they run away from their father and stepmother to their now clean-and-sober mother’s house. Emily finds a comfortable new life there. Baby doesn’t. Within a few months her mother kicks her out, sending her on a two-year roller coaster ride bouncing from one foster home or group home to the next until, disgusted, Baby runs away to her girlfriend Deonya’s house, only to find that she isn’t exactly excited to see her. The next thing Baby knows, Deonya kicks her out and she’s told by both her mom and her social worker that they don’t want her back, either. [Getting dumped by friends and family is one thing, but when your social worker tells you she's letting you go, you start to wonder if the problem is you.] Baby has become a gutter punk. [What's the difference between a gutter punk and a guttersnipe? Actually, I imagine even the gutter has a social hierarchy of its residents, something like:

hobo
guttersnipe
vagrant
gutter punk
Amy Winehouse]

And she’s quickly devoured by homeless life. Baby leaves her hometown of San Jose, California for Santa Cruz, a liberal seaside town reputed to be more tolerant of homelessness, and befriends Rowdy [Yates], a pillar of the homeless community. Rowdy promises Baby adventure and protection [on his next cattle drive], and he lives up to his promises—at first. Unfortunately, Baby doesn’t know that Rowdy’s promises come with sexual strings attached. [How naive can you get?] When he attacks her at a shelter Baby’s illusions of protection are shattered and her humanity begins to erode. Over the next few months the daily trials of homelessness wear down Baby’s resistance and she plunges headlong into her new life of drugs, prostitution, and casual sex. [And then things get really bad.] Very little remains of who she was before she fell into the gutter.

Until Baby meets him—Corey McEwen, her flawed knight-in-shining-armor—at the soup kitchen. [He recommends the minestrone.] Corey gives Baby a reason to remember who she really is, [An untouchable.] the motivation and the ability to climb out of the gutter, and he gets her pregnant the very first time they have sex. [What a guy.] Baby follows Corey out of the gutter—albeit several weeks after him [Luckily he's made it only as far as the sidewalk.] —and across the country where they set up a new life in Pennsylvania with Emily. They get minimum-wage jobs and food stamps [Not exactly a Horatio Alger story.] and begin to eke out an existence together. But it’s not enough of an existence to support the life growing inside Baby, so she and Corey make a decision to give the baby up for adoption. It is a decision that puts Baby back in touch with the grieving child inside herself, the child she has been running from for so many years.

Thank you for your consideration of Ballad of a Gutter Punk. I look forward to hearing from you soon.


Notes

When you're pregnant and destitute, making your way from balmy California to Pennsylvania doesn't seem sensible. What made them decide to do this?

Emily gives up a comfortable life with her mother to travel across the country with her destitute gutter punk sister and the homeless guy who knocked her up? How old is Emily?

We don't need this much information in a query letter. Three sentences of setup in which we learn Baby has been abandoned by everyone and has hit rock bottom. Three sentences in which she meets Cory, gets pregnant and they decide to drag Emily 3000 miles with no prospects. Then wrap it up with the happily ever after: food stamps.

People like to read about people whose lives are more exciting than their own. Baby's life is miserable and doesn't get a whole lot better. If there's something uplifting about her story, you might want to make it clear.