Face-Lift 1043

Guess the Plot

Kitty Kitty Bang Bang

1. In this graphic novel, Springfield is invaded by ferocious wildcats and all hope seems lost-- until Elmer Fudd comes to the rescue. Plus, a werecoyote.

2. Bubba Hollowell has a harmless enough hobby; he shoots cats. But now the kitties have acquired a few firearms of their own, and it's payback time.

3. When her favorite cat explodes, Ezzie is devastated. She goes after the culprit, a mad scientist who plans to take over the most brilliant minds of America using nanobots. With nothing but a disembodied cat head in her purse, can Ezzie save the world?

4. Two Russian cats eat mice that ate cheese enchanted by Rasputin - and foment a fauna-driven Revolution against punyhumans. Explosive! With psyanka.

5. Kitty had always been a girly girl, but when the family business is assassinations there is only so far a pink gun with glitter grips can go.

6. In the wild, wild west there's only one rule – whoever has the fastest gun wins. When the sinister Black Bart tries to stake a claim to Miss Kitty's cathouse, he quickly learns that no one out shoots . . . Kitty Kitty Bang Bang.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Ezzie Abacus is devastated when Zep [Anagram: Pez] the lab cat explodes. After all, Zep was the first experimental robot that Ezzie and her husband, mad scientist Conrad, ever built. But when Ezzie and Conrad collect Zep’s scattered paws and sparking wires, they discover this was no accident—this was sabotage.

Not entirely successful sabotage, though. Zep triggered his own self-destruct command when someone tried to hack into him. Ezzie and Conrad travel to the nearest chapterhouse of the Mad Scientists Local 42 for assistance, only to find the union hall infiltrated by killer robots. First Zep and now the Local 42—as Ezzie and Conrad judo-chop their way through the killer bots, they suspect something bigger than cat-enabled [cat related?] espionage is going on here. [These killer robots are pretty pathetic if they can't take out two puny humans. Have they actually ever killed anyone?]

Their suspicion naturally falls on the head of rival organization VIRAL. Victor von Steele has a knack for robotics and a long-time feud with the Local 42, and happens to be Ezzie’s former mentor and current nemesis. Ezzie and Conrad set out to find von Steele, but are taken aback when he finds them first. VIRAL is not behind the attacks, he claims, but a target of them as well. [A whole paragraph to get the wrong guy?]

While Conrad follows one lead, Ezzie reluctantly teams up with von Steele to pursue another. Together they descend into the Labyrinth, a hidden network of abandoned storage rooms and research facilities beneath New Mexico [aka Area 42]. After a battle with still-active guardian robots, Ezzie finds a fugitive mad scientist who at first seems to be the target she seeks. After a frantic chase from New Mexico to Massachusetts, Ezzie nabs her man—only to find he is not the mastermind, but a bystander who saw too much and now is on the run himself. [Another whole paragraph to get another wrong guy?]

With the information gained from her captive, Ezzie learns the true identity of the mastermind. The reclusive Dr. Lesta, founder of the Local 42, has succumbed to the burdens of his genius and become a truly mad scientist. His plan: to use a nanobot swarm to take over the most brilliant minds of America and use their intellect to further his own ends. [What are his ends?] He threatens the lives of hundreds of fellow scientists—including Conrad, now a prisoner aboard Lesta’s air fortress. Ezzie needs to get aboard that air fortress, rescue her husband, and destroy the nanobots before they can infect their targets. All she has is her old nemesis at her side and a disembodied cat head in her purse. [Is the head still operational? Now that I know it's a disembodied head, I think Ezzie should start calling it Pez.] [Can Ezzie talk to the head?

Ezzie: How the hell are we gonna get into that air fortress?

Pez: Do you have to carry perfume in your purse? I can't breathe in here. And get your thumb off my head. I told you, I don't have any candy.]

But Ezzie is a genius in her own right, and she won’t rest until Conrad is saved and Zep is avenged.

Kitty Kitty Bang Bang is a 90,000-word campy science fiction novel with elements of super-science. [I don't need to know it has elements of super-science, as I don't know nor care what that means.] My credits include story X appearing in the summer issue of small-press magazine, and numerous roleplaying game books, the most recent of which is Book Y by publishing company you might have heard of. Thank you for your time and attention.


Notes

The book sounds like fun. The plot summary is too long for a query. If you need a short synopsis this might do, but your query should have an even shorter synopsis. Something like:


Ezzie Abacus is devastated when Zep the lab cat explodes. After all, Zep was the first experimental robot that Ezzie and her husband, mad scientist Conrad, ever built. But when Ezzie and Conrad collect Zep’s scattered paws and sparking wires, they discover this was no accident—this was sabotage.

Their suspicion naturally falls on robotics expert Victor von Steele, Ezzie’s former mentor and current nemesis; so they're taken aback when he finds them first and claims he too is a victim. Ezzie reluctantly teams up with von Steele. Together they learn that Dr. Lesta, founder of Mad Scientists Local 42, has succumbed to the burdens of his genius and become a truly mad scientist. His plan: release a nanobot swarm on the most brilliant minds of America and use their intellect to start a social networking site for robots.

Lesta threatens the lives of hundreds of fellow scientists—including Conrad, now a prisoner aboard Lesta’s air fortress. Ezzie needs to get aboard that air fortress and destroy the nanobots before they can infect their targets. All she has going for her is the disembodied cat head in her purse. But Ezzie is a genius in her own right, and she won’t rest until Conrad is saved and Zep is avenged.


Not clear why the evil genius set on world domination tried to hack into the first robot Ezzie ever built. Surely there were more sophisticated robots to hack into than this cat.

Face-Lift 1035

Guess the Plot

Little Computer People

1. In Miss Halibutt’s preschool, the whiz kids program a cast-off Mark II supercomputer to investigate the global warming crisis. Also, Russian spies.

2. 111 10 010 01110 01011 100110 1100 011 0010 11 00 1101 1000110. :-) ! Hilarity ensues.

3. At Sententia, the employees are tasked with solving the most vexing problems in science. Dan's always wondered just where some of the more outlandish solutions come from, until the night he falls asleep in his office and wakes up to see the . . . little computer people.

4. Wee Willie Wallace is tired of being tossed around the wrestling ring by Amazonian women, so he hires all his friends and starts a computer repair business called the Micro Mob.

5. Gabe develops the world's first sentient computer program, and loves her like a daughter--even after she evolves into a vindictive creature with an insatiable appetite for hacking. But when she empties his bank account and liquidates his stocks, is it finally time to cut the cord?

6. Lidia always believed that computers had little German people in them. When she gets a job in IT she learns there is more truth in that then even she thought. Now she's the queen of the little computer people and must save them from the fax monster.

7. When data stored on all the world’s computers mysteriously vanishes, ace Silicon Valley sleuth Zack Martinez knows two things: One, the nefarious hacker group known as the Little Computer People are back in action. And two, he'd better get his nephew an iPad with Angry Birds installed.



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

In the middle of his living room, Gabe Erikson builds a supercomputer that sucks down teraflops like Vegas sucks down sin. [For those who aren't up on their computer lingo, computer capacity is measured in teraflops. One teraflop is equal to one trillion multiplication operations per second, or sixteen long division operations per second.] With it, he gives birth to Pi, the world’s first sentient program. She’s everything a father would want in a daughter. She’s sweet. She’s smart [if irrational]. And as far as ones and zeros go, she’s the most beautiful thing since 256 color graphics.

But as wonderful as she is, she’s not invulnerable. Within a week’s time, Pi is infected by a worm, and she mutate[s] into an ornery, vindictive creature with an insatiable appetite for hacking computers far and wide. The constant insults, Gabe could live with, and he finds her hacking cute right up until she empties his bank account and liquidates his stocks. To make matters worse, her actions have also drawn the attention of the FBI. It’s not long before they raid his home, seize his equipment, and give Gabe a crash course in interrogation. [After saying what Gabe can live with, you need a "but." For instance: The constant insults, Gabe can live with, and he finds her hacking cute, even when she empties his bank account and liquidates his stocks. But when his home is raided by the FBI, Gabe knows he's in for a fight if he wants to keep his daughter out of foster care.][If Pi had the foresight to hack into the FBI computer system she would have known they were coming and could have kept them away by hacking into their GPS systems and sending them to Bulgaria.]

Now Gabe is not only trying to keep his life and liberty free from Federal prosecution, but he’s desperate to keep his one and only daughter out of unwanted hands, no matter how spiteful and destructive she can be. [If he thinks things are bad now, wait till Pi hits the terrible twos.] [A blah wrap-up to the plot. Probably better without it,]

On the surface, LITTLE COMPUTER PEOPLE is comedy that straddles the real and the binary worlds. However, it also delves into deeper philosophical conversations about the nature of consciousness, Reality as it relates to perception, and the relationship between connected beings whose existences are universes apart. [In other words, it's a comedy but it isn't funny.] [Which probably means it'll be a megaflop.]

LITTLE COMPUTER PEOPLE is complete at 100k words. [AKA one kiloflop.]

Thank you for your time and consideration,


Notes

Any sentence that includes the words philosophical, consciousness, existences, reality, perception, relationship, and universes should be deleted unless you're trying to sell a biography of Nietzsche.

Instead of the problem being caused by a worm, Pi should go out of control when she becomes a teenager. There's a wealth of comedic material with a computer that acts like a teenaged girl. Plus you can call the book YA, which sells a lot better than science fiction. 

By my count there were only three episodes of Star Trek that didn't involve computers thinking they were better than us, so this will have to be really special.

Face-Lift 1014

Guess the Plot

I Wonder What the Title Is

1. Or as I was just saying about one of the junk cars in my yard, I Wonder Where the Title Is.

2. Shattered. The title is Shattered.

3. When Sandie MacMillian discovers she's a character in a novel, she vows to figure out the novel's title. That way she can borrow it from her local library, read it, and stay one step ahead of her pesky author.

4. When Jeff shot Renaldo outside Mark's apartment in Venice, Carlos knew it was time to date Melissa over at the bakery where she hid from sexual predators while having three-ways with strangely angelic men. Meanwhile werewolves are taking over the UK banking system while pay phones rampage through Mississippi, the President of Ecuador comes out as a lesbian gay vampire, and Chuck E Cheese is revealed to be Michael Jackson in disguise. Just another day for EE.

5. When a UFO piloted by Jerry Garcia accidentally abducts Ted and Medusa, they wind up on a journey entangling their own lives on a quantum level with stories about populist vampires and vegetarian Buddhist pirates in a book Medusa is reading, leaving Ted wondering if he's the main character. He begins to profoundly question the very existence of the Author.

6. Recently released from Bellevue, librarian Priscilla Penghas secures an entry position in Plattsburgh, NY. While restocking shelves at night, she discovers a porcupine reading books in the stacks and laughing uproariously. If she tells anyone, it’s back to Bellevue. Her belonephobia prevents her from approaching the porcupine. But she is dying to know what books he reads.



Original Version

“I Wonder What the Title Is,” [is] the story of a man in search of a plot. [Better title: I Wonder Where the Plot Is.]

Ted finds himself unwillingly transported to a blissful Utopian paradise, where he meets a stunningly beautiful woman named Medusa. Naturally all he can think of is returning to the cup of coffee he left on the porch. But seeing as he is now in Utopia, how can he win his way back home? There are no wrongs for him to right, no noble deeds to perform in order to prove his mettle, and no quests to embark on to achieve soaring heights of self-discovery via triumph over colossal odds. [Is there a better explanation of why he wants out than "naturally"?]

He is badly in need of a story line.

Fortunately, when a UFO piloted by Jerry Garcia accidentally abducts Ted and Medusa, they wind up on a journey entangling their own lives on a quantum level with stories in a “book” Medusa starts reading. Tales of populist vampires and vegetarian Buddhist pirates leave Ted wondering if he really is the main character after all. [Unless there are populist vampires and vegetarian Buddhist pirates on the UFO, I don't see why Ted would think he's the main character in the novel.] He begins to profoundly question the benevolence, nay, the very existence of the Author.

In the “novel,” Medusa reads about Camelia, who is sidetracked from an appointment she has made to become a vampire, when the ship she is visiting makes a hasty departure from the dock. The (ahem) honorable crew needed to make a swift exit in order to keep purloined chocolate below decks from the prying eyes of the port commissioner.

To pass time on their journey, Camelia picks up a book about zombies, and starts reading.

At this, Medusa gazes up from the page pleadingly, beseeching the Author not to yield to the worst of impulses by supplanting the narrative with yet another level of recursion.

But it is too late. The Author is long gone, and she succeeds merely in catching the eye of the reader, who no doubt is in agreement with her.

“I Wonder What the Title Is,” the first of the “Wonder” trilogy, is 55,000 words of fine literary meta-fiction. It’s a really cool because it has vampires, pirates, ninjas, zombies, aliens, and – Godzilla. There aren’t any helicopters or big explosions yet, [Are you suggesting the book isn't finished?] but I could add some.

Thank you for your time.


Notes

Is it just a coincidence that this arrived in my in-box on April 1?

I wouldn't mention that this is part of a trilogy. It strikes me as the type of book that seems clever the first time around, but not once the novelty wears off.

Ted "finds himself transported"? I like to see reasons things happen. Was he kidnapped? Did he fall in a rabbit hole?

I'd get Jerry Garcia out of the query and the book.

The query is too wacky. Here's a shorter version that may succeed in maintaining the voice while making the book sound like it is readable:

Ten years after kayaking through a wormhole into a Utopian paradise where he met a stunningly beautiful woman named Medusa, Ted Troob wants out. Bliss is fine for a decade or so, but Ted longs for some good old-fashioned conflict. Besides, there's no Starbucks in this place.

When a UFO piloted by vampire pirates accidentally abducts Ted and Medusa, their lives tangle on a quantum level with the novel Medusa is reading. Scenes with populist vampires and vegetarian Buddhist pirates have Ted wondering if he's the main character. He begins to profoundly question the very existence of the Author.

In her novel, Medusa reads about Camelia, who is stranded aboard a ship she is visiting when it makes a hasty departure from the dock. The (ahem) honorable crew needed to make a swift exit to keep purloined chocolate below decks from the prying eyes of the port commissioner. To pass time on her unexpected voyage, Camelia picks up a book about zombies, and starts reading.

At this, Medusa gazes up from the page pleadingly, beseeching the Author not to yield to the worst of impulses by supplanting the narrative with yet another level of recursion.

Too late. The Author is long gone, and Medusa succeeds merely in catching the eye of the reader, who no doubt is in agreement with her.

In a mere 55,000 words, I Wonder What the Title Is has vampires, pirates, ninjas, zombies, aliens . . . and Godzilla! And that's just chapter 1!

Face-Lift 599

Guess the Plot

Mercury Falls

1. Dewey Dalton loves working at the hydroelectric plant in Venus Springs almost as much as he loves his fiancée, Mary Doubleday. When Mary goes missing, Dewey sets out to find her, never suspecting that she's been transported to an alternate dimension from a portal that lies behind . . . Mercury Falls.

2. A rogue angel named Mercury has been shirking his duties because he'd rather play ping pong and make Rice Krispy treats. Can reporter Christine snap him out of it in time to help her prevent film school dropout Karl Grissom from setting the apocalypse in motion?

3. The day when gravity finally overcomes the forward motion of the planets revolving around the sun, each will obey the laws of the universe in its own time. Looking through his telescope in his second story bedroom, Jason Peterman can't help but wonder if his calculations on the anti-gravity machine were correct . . . or if he even wants them to be.

4. Workaholic thermometer salesman Jarvis Frankle's job is on the line with the new fancy digital thermometers. He embarks on a cross-country road trip to sell the last of his inventory, but when he accidentally drops his remaining thermometers into the Grand Canyon he must decide whether to go after them, or after his hiking guide, a beautiful Native American girl who makes his temperature rise.

5. As the temperature plummets bodies pile up at Research Station Alpha, but are all the casualties due to the cold? John Trent is sent undercover to find out what's going on but he dares trust no one, not even the gorgeous red-headed scientist who offers him the warmest reception.

6. A passing asteroid shower has knocked Mercury out of its orbit and it is on a collision course with Earth. NASA scientists work round the clock but they have no solutions to the impending disaster until Jeff Little comes up with an idea. But what are the chances the scientists will listen to a six-year-old?


Original Version

It's the end of the world - and Christine Temetri [Anagram: termite.] is worried about her linoleum. [Anagram: lion mule. I get it, whenever we encounter a word we don't think belongs, it's an animal anagram. Clever.]

After years of covering the antics of End Times cults for a religious news magazine, [A religious news magazine publishing years of regular reports on cults is like Time magazine publishing weekly reports on what's happening in Liechtenstein.] Christine has become rather jaded about the prospect of an imminent Apocalypse. [I can't tell if that means she expects one or doesn't expect one.] [Also: Calypso ape.]In fact, she's beginning to have some serious doubts about her faith - not to mention her career choice.

But when she is given a mysterious briefcase by a dying Israel [Israeli] general while on assignment in the Middle East, Christine begins to suspect that she is being manipulated by supernatural forces beyond her understanding. [I don't recall ever being handed a briefcase, mysterious or not, but I don't see how this would lead me to conclude I was being manipulated by supernatural forces beyond my understanding. Are you sure you didn't leave out a step?] Embarking on a journey to find the answers to her questions, [The only question I have is What's in the briefcase? Which shouldn't require a journey to answer.] she encounters a rogue angel named Mercury who informs her that the Apocalypse is near. Mercury is supposed to be helping out with the Apocalypse, but he feels that he has better things to do - like making Rice Krispy treats and playing ping-pong. [This has morphed from thriller to fantasy to farce and it's not even half over.] Fleeing divine retribution in the wake of a card trick gone horribly wrong, [I'd leave the card trick out unless you want to explain what you're talking about.] she [Christine] and Mercury happen upon an attempt to assassinate Karl Grissom, a thirty-seven year old film school dropout who has had the ill fortune to be designated as the Antichrist.

Christine and Mercury foil the assassination attempt, thereby becoming embroiled in the inscrutable politics of Armageddon. Both angels and demons, it seems, have plans for the End of the World, but neither group is much concerned with the people who actually live there. Nor is "Apocalyptic" Harold Giddings, a fundamentalist leader [Is that what he goes by? Apocalyptic? Like "Buffalo" Bill Cody or "Blackjack" John Pershing? "Apocalyptic" Harold Giddings? It just doesn't have that ring, that panache.] who is convinced that it is his destiny to publicly denounce Karl, thereby setting the Apocalypse in motion. To save the world, Christine must outsmart Harold, ["Apocalyptic" Harold] negotiate the byzantine bureaucracies of Heaven and Hell and convince the apathetic Mercury to take a stand, all the while putting up with the fantastically irritating Antichrist. [I don't mind having the Antichrist around, but I wish he'd quit chewing his ice and laughing like a braying donkey. Christ, he's annoying.] Can she do it? Just as importantly, should she? And why can't she stop thinking about her linoleum? [I'm wondering why you seem so obsessed with her linoleum.]

Mercury Falls is my first novel. It is a light-hearted, fast-paced story peppered with references to everything from Creedence Clearwater Revival to Occam's Razor. It will appeal primarily to college-educated readers in their 30s and 40s who will appreciate the pop culture references [Creedence Clearwater Revival disbanded before anyone now in their 30's and 40's had reached high school. True, their music is still popular, but why single out those in their 30's and 40's when it's those in their 50's and 60's who lived through the CCR heyday?] as well as semi-serious discussions on topics like free will, fundamentalism and global politics. [Anyone who's considering reading this manuscript at this point does not want to know there are serious aspects. What I'm saying is, if they start putting broccoli puree in ice cream, they aren't gonna proclaim it on the front of the carton.] If sufficiently pressured, I would describe it as a cross between Douglas Adams and C.S. Lewis. [Hey, you'll get no pressure from me.]

I am ______________, AKA ______________. [Assuming you're planning to sign your letter, no need to identify yourself in the body.] Most of my writing lives on my website, _______________. _____________gets over 15,000 page views per month and was a finalist for Best Humor Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards (I was crushed in the final voting by some guy who makes fun of comic strips). [I love that guy!] [But if it wasn't Evil Editor who crushed you, the awards are bogus.] I have a sizeable following of die-hard fans who are patiently waiting for this damn novel to get published so they can buy it already. [Take my word, 95% of them will patiently wait for the book to be made into a movie and will then patiently wait for it to be on network TV. The other 5% are your immediate family and a couple guys who sit in their parents' basement playing World of Warcraft all day.] I also run ______________, the most popular directory of humor blogs on the web. In my free time I am a web developer for _____________, currently working on a long-term project at Google.


Notes

Blogs are good to have if you're an author, but not good places to send editors. The one day they visit your blog will be the one day you're ranting about how crappy your server is and how you're moving to another one, so you'll be down a few days. Or it'll be the day you posted an offensive photo or spelled a lot of words wrong. And then there's the fact that if the ability to maintain a blog is evidence you can write a novel, there are about a half-billion novelists in the world.

What's in the briefcase?

Mercury Falling is a better title.

Why would an angel want to foil an attempt to assassinate the Antichrist?

Even without the blue words it's too long. Maybe you should start with Christine encountering Mercury. Everything up to then was pretty vague.