Face-Lift 968

Guess the Plot

Dandelion Teeth

1. When a love spell gone wrong shrinks Lizzie to 3 inches high she wonders how she'll ever impress hunky Brad from next door. But that's the least of her problems when she discovers the vampiric weeds in her back garden orchestrated the whole thing for one purpose...dinner!

2. Just as dandelion leaves have tiny teeth that annoy you if you lie on them naked for a while, Julia Marsh's family have kept secrets from Julia, secrets about family members Julia didn't even know existed. Which annoys Julia. See, it's an analogy.

3. A new serial killer leaves a bizarre signature - he hacks out his victims teeth and puts dandelions in the gums. As investigators waste time arguing over whether his nickname should be "dandelion mouth" or "the floral dentist," he manages to kill three more times.

4. Going to Lewanski School for Witches wasn't that hard for Megan. Dragon Handling, Wand Making, Potion Brewing--all cake. But when Mr Larch, orders them to get deadly dandelion teeth from the Troll Swamp, suddenly that nursing school all the other girls went to doesn't look so bad.

5. What's a witch to do when alien plant monsters invade, cats go on strike, and the town council condemns her condo? Create a better love potion with the help of an Egyptian zombie. Also, illicit fertilizer usage.

6. 10-year-old Lizzy loves Dandelion wine. Too bad some of the crushed dandelions get stuck in her teeth. Too bad—for her parents—that they decide to make fun of her for it. And . . . maybe they should have hidden the family axe.



Original Version

Dear EE,

23-year-old Julia Marsh gets a mysterious voice mail from her father: he must talk to her face-to-face and is catching the next plane to Chicago. When his plane crashes, Julia returns home to mourn and find out what her father thought was so important. Coming home isn’t what she expects. Instead of comforting each other, her mother turns to a friend and her younger sister keeps pushing her away. [But all] her attempts to learn why her father had to see her [questions] are met with deflections.

Julia discovers an old version of her father’s will that divides his assets between her and Amy, a girl listed as his eldest daughter. [Nothing to his wife? Easy to guess when that marriage hit the skids.] The more Julia pushes to learn about Amy, the more her mother retreats and the angrier her [younger] sister becomes.

An estranged uncle crashes the memorial service, revealing an extended family Julia’s parents worked hard to hide. Desperate to hold onto her father through memories, hers and other’s, [others'] Julia seeks out her uncle, even after her mother sends him away.

Julia learns that Amy had a fatal chromosomal disorder and died as an infant. While her death wasn’t unexpected, [It rarely is when you have a fatal disorder.] the circumstances and family stories Julia is just now hearing make her wonder if her father actually killed Amy. [That's why he wanted to talk to her face-to-face. It's unlucky to leave a murder confession on someone's voice mail.]

Pursuing the truth about a sister she never knew existed and a trying to connect with a family she never knew she had could cost Julia the only family she’s ever known.

Dandelion Teeth is a 52,000 [-word] women’s fiction novel.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

[Author's note on title: Dandelion leaves have minute teeth on the ends that you may not notice at first, but if you lay on them for any length of time (Julia is a runner who, at one point, collapses on a dandelion-filled lawn), they start to dig in, annoy you and cause pain. Much like secrets.]


Notes

This seems a bit long, so I've indicated a few lines that can go. Also, you might combine paragraphs 3 and 4.

Something feels like it almost doesn't add up. What's the chronological order of these events:

Amy is born.
Julia is born.
Parents learn Amy has chromosomal disorder and will die.
Father has will drawn up leaving all to Amy and Julia.
Amy dies as an infant.

You have two daughters--both are infants and one has a fatal disorder--and you make time to have a will drawn up splitting all your assets between the girls?

It sounds like Mom and Sis and Unc all know the big secret. Usually a small number of people are keeping a secret from everyone. Here, everyone who matters except Julia is in on the secret. Why would they tell Julia's younger sister but not Julia?

The secret is that Julia was adopted because they were afraid a second child would have the same disorder. Wait, no, they were twins. Or Julia's father isn't her biological father. Or the mother killed Amy. Or Amy isn't dead. The father wasn't on the plane when it went down. Or he was and Mom and Sis planted a bomb on the plane to keep Dad from telling Julia the secret.

Why don't you tell us the secret, and we'll tell you whether it should be in the query.

Face-Lift 843

Guess the Plot

Trial of the Heart

1. Jennifer is a family lawyer who specializes in divorce. David is a family lawyer who specializes in fathers' rights. Can they somehow overcome all odds while--oh, screw it. They hop in the sack the minute they meet and spend the rest of the book bitching about it.

2. Emily's family was killed by egotistical Conway Duke. As she fights for justice, Duke becomes seriously ill. Should she ease his suffering by forgiving him, or should she try to get his trial date moved up?

3. When a donor is found for her husband Mark, 51, Sarah is elated- until the next person on the list begs them to let her have the heart for her 13 year old son. Sarah is all set to flatly refuse, but Mark isn't. Can Sarah live with either decision? Can Mark? Can the reader, without barfing?

4. Detective Swanson says the murders were caused by the heart of Ignatius Trematode, which has been beating in a jar at the medical school for 28 years. But Prosecutor Umbridge is skeptical that a heart could poison Mrs. Trematode and cause her boyfriend to jump off a bridge . . . until Umbridge, himself, sleepwalks to the railing of that very same bridge. Then he schedules a trial and seeks the death penalty!

5. Internet scammer Joseph Nwoye falls in love with one of the rich American ladies he's been fleecing. She's sure to discover his deceptions--unless he can cover his lies by actually getting a job as CEO of the Bank of Nigeria. One man finds redemption through the love of a woman.

6. The Spleen had enough malice to commit perjury. The Kidneys were too bashful to take the stand. The Liver (“Lily”) refused to testify, even though she was the key witness. The Spine was nowhere to be seen. Only Large Intestine had the guts to speak out about what happened, at the . . . Trial of the Heart.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Emily Hennas has the power to ease a man’s suffering. Yet, that same man is responsible for murdering her family. After her husband, son and daughter are killed by a drunk driver, the egotistical Conway Duke, Emily is left alone to raise her youngest son. [While drunk drivers deserve no sympathy, we generally reserve the term "murder" for those who kill intentionally.] She moves to New York and faces the most difficult decision of her life: keep fighting for the justice her children deserves [deserve], or forgive Conway Duke for causing their deaths. [I don't think we need the first two sentences. They vaguely state what we get with more specificity later on. What we do need is an idea of what kind of justice Emily is seeking. Was there a trial? What punishment has Duke received? Surely he would have been charged with manslaughter.]

Driven by anger and survivor’s guilt, shadowed by the memory of her emotionally abusive husband, Emily engages in a legal fight hindered by an obsession for hoarding, [I don't know how a hoarding obsession hinders a legal fight, and the query is no place to explain it, so leave out the hoarding.] fears for her surviving child, and an overprotective brother. She forges an unlikely friendship with Nicholas Travane, a neighbor who at first embodies the arrogance of her dead husband. She’s attracted to Nick, but lays down unbendable rules for their friendship. Friendship is all it must be. She doesn’t want or need anything more. [Suddenly Nick remembers there's someplace else he needs to be.]

In one explosive moment, the legal battle ignites and changes course. Conway Duke becomes seriously ill, [Is that the explosive moment? Usually becoming seriously ill takes longer than one moment.] and might never face the justice for which Emily fights.

Trial of the Heart is the story of a mother’s love, a woman’s heart, and the obsession for justice. The work of women’s fiction is complete at 87,000 words. Would you be interested in seeing more?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


Notes

You mention that Emily's decision is whether to forgive Conway, which has me expecting you to come back to the idea after Conway is seriously ill. Instead it sounds more like she's worried he'll die before she gets justice.

Wouldn't it be harder to get justice once you've moved to another state?

Nicholas isn't needed in this query. Emily has no romantic interest in him, and he has nothing to do with her fight for justice. Focus on Emily and her main conflict.

In one explosive moment, the legal battle ignites and changes course. To me, this is the hook, but it needs some elaboration. What happened?

Face-Lift 818

Guess the Plot

The Burning of Issobell Key

1. The tragic story of how the first annual Pyromaniacs Anonymous meeting at Issobell Key went terribly, terribly wrong.

2. Issobell accepts fiance David's invitation to move to an island colony in his home state of Washington. But the religious sect he grew up in acts weird, all this talk of the "Burning Woman" festival. She's getting a baaad feeling.

3. Vacationing in Scotland, Lou takes an interest in the 300-year-old case of Issobell Key, who was burned as a witch. Lou tries to prove Issobell didn't commit all those murders. Not that exonerating her will bring her back to life . . . unless she really was a witch.

4. Salem-born Issobell has it tough. Saddled with illiterate parents, warts and a fondness for newt-eye soup, it was only a matter of time before the mob turned on her. As the flames rise, she wonders how life would have been different if only she'd preferred minestrone.

5. Hundreds of years ago, she was convicted of witchcraft as a teenager and burned at the stake. Now her ghost is back for revenge. The first thing she has to get used to in the American suburb where she's been reincarnated is 21st-century spelling. "Issobell"!? Now she feels like roasting someone.

6. When her neighbor in the tiny Cotswold village of Boring-on-End meets an untimely end as result of an exploding gas cooker, amateur sleuth Amelia Pettipants knows it wasn't just because Issobell made one mean curry. Or maybe it was, and someone's out for revenge . . . someone with a history of stomach problems. Which means 75% of the village are suspects.


Original Version

PLEASE be brutal! Thanks. [Sure, you say Be brutal, but later when you're in tears because I've suggested you give up this hopeless writing pipe dream and become a pole dancer in some skid row dive, how do I know you won't send your ex-con boyfriend over to teach me a little etiquette, Attica-style?] [On the other hand, how often do I get the opportunity to tell people, Be careful what you wish for?]

Dear Evil Editor,

The Scottish highlands have a rich history of magic and romance, but 26 year old Lou wasn’t looking for either when she traveled there with her best friend. Recently unemployed, Lou [Better to say "Unemployed"; if you call her "recently unemployed" we might think she is no longer unemployed. "Recently laid off" is okay, as is "recently fired." Even better, however, is to not mention her employment status at all, as it has nothing to do with the rest of the sentence or the rest of the query.] wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, [If you're gonna tell us in sentence 2 that she wasn't looking for anything in particular, there's no need to tell us in sentence 1 that she wasn't looking for magic or romance. However, I recommend keeping the romance and magic and ditching the anything, as I much prefer in particular to vague.] except perhaps some answers about her uncertain future. [You may argue that her joblessness is relevant because it's what makes her future uncertain. But I would argue that unless you can explain in the query how a vacation in Scotland is going to provide answers to her uncertain employment status, it's best to leave that out and let us believe she's just traveling.] [Some minions may now argue that maybe Lou isn't here on vacation, but is seeking a job. But I would argue that maybe you should read the next sentence before you open your big mouth.] But the past captivated her from the minute her vacation started, and Lou found herself digging for clues in a three-hundred year old murder mystery. [Queries are more interesting if they're in present tense. Like your next paragraph. Convert this one.] [Also, one could interpret that sentence to mean Lou started digging for clues the minute her vacation started.] [Also, are you sure murder was considered a crime 300 years ago in Scotland? I ask because my research into Scotland's history reveals:

14 April 1736: Efforts to quell a riot by the Captain of the City Guard in Edinburgh, Captain John Porteous, lead to six deaths. Porteous is later found guilty of murder.

7 September 1736: An Edinburgh crowd hear that Captain Porteous has been pardoned. That night they break into his cell and publicly lynch him. None of those responsible is caught.

As you see, the guy who was found guilty of murder was pardoned, and the authorities "claimed" they couldn't find anyone who was part of the lynch mob, even though the lynch mob was right there in the jailhouse.]

Mysterious dreams and bizarre coincidences begin to propel Lou [They propel her. If you tell us they propel her, we can deduce that at some point the propulsion began.] towards the fragments of truth [The truth. The truth is the truth; it doesn't come in fragments. It used to. Nowadays we have to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth because in the old days the oath was, Do you swear the testimony you're about to give contains at least a few fragments of the truth? And even the guilty could safely say yes to that.] surrounding Issobell Key, a woman condemned as a witch in the seventeenth century. [As the 17th century was 310 to 410 years ago, I'll assume you were rounding off when you said the murder trial was 300 years ago. Which is okay, though I see no harm in calling it a 320-year-old murder trial, assuming the date of the trial is known to Lou.] As Lou blindly tries to follow her intuition, [She follows. If you say she follows, we'll deduce that she tried to follow. And "blindly" isn't needed unless she's blind, as that's understood when you follow your intuition instead of your senses.] she uncovers the grisly circumstances of Issobell’s trial and conviction: witnesses claimed that she murdered her sister, nephew, and brother-in-law in cold blood. [Those are the grisly circumstances of the crime, not of the trial and conviction.] [More proof that murder wasn't a crime:

Procurator: The woman murdered three people in cold blood. We have eyewitnesses.
Assistant: I know, sir, but what can we do?
Procurator: You're right, without a law against mur--Wait, we can charge her with witchcraft!
Assistant: Ah, Old Reliable. Brilliant, sir.]

With the help of Brian, the gorgeous native tour guide, and Tammy, her skeptical best friend, [If you'd told us the best friend's name the first time you mentioned her, you could just name her now without having to repeat that she's Lou's best friend.] Lou begins to delve [She delves.] into the tragedies of the distant past. But what she learns about her own past may be enough to completely change her life. [That's pretty vague. If she learns that she was Issobell in a past life, and has been summoned here to take revenge on all the descendants of the witnesses responsible for her first death, give us a hint.]

Complete at 60,000 words, The Burning of Issobell Key blends modern and historical settings in a truly unique work of women’s fiction. [1. Everything that's unique is, by definition, truly unique. 2. If you mean no other book is identical to it, that's true, but it's true of every book. 3. If you mean something a bit less absolute, you need a word other than "unique." In any case, if you show the book's fabulosity with a compelling plot description, there's no need to declare it, so let the agent/editor decide if it's truly increduloso.]


Okay, what we've boiled this down to is something like:

The Scottish highlands have a rich history of magic and romance, but 26-year-old Lou is looking for neither when she books her vacation. Still, the past captivates her from the moment she arrives, and it's not long before Lou finds herself digging for clues in a 333-year-old murder mystery.

Mysterious dreams and bizarre coincidences propel Lou toward the truth surrounding Issobell Key, a woman condemned as a witch in the seventeenth century. Following her intuition, Lou uncovers the grisly details of Issobell’s crime: witnesses claimed that she murdered her sister, nephew, and brother-in-law in cold blood.

Complete at 60,000 words, The Burning of Issobell Key is women's fiction that blends modern and historical settings.


That won't be the complete query; first you'll want to smoothly slip in some (or all) of the following: Does Lou find info that suggests or proves Issobell was innocent? Is Lou investigating old records, or basing everything on dreams and supernatural visitations? How do you dig for clues in a 300-year-old murder in a foreign country? How does delving into this case specifically change Lou's life?

Is this a ghost story or a mystery? Is it Brian's hunkiness that makes this women's fiction? Because I don't see why women are the expected audience. Guys like grisly murders and people being burned alive almost as much as women do.

Face-Lift 815

Guess the Plot

Mental Pause

1. When "Shrink-to-the-Stars" David Cohen's yacht Mental Pause is found aflame with the good doctor and three starlets dead in the galley, homicide detective Zack Martinez knows two things: whatever Cohen was cooking up, it wasn't kosher; and Zack's wife will now insist he take her on that Caribbean cruise.

2. Susan has always been a daydreamer. One day, when off in her own world, she is startled by the realization that reality has been paused. Can she use her time-stopping powers to save the twin sister she never knew she had?

3. Hillbilly boy genius Buddy Boone tests his newly invented human catapult joyride and crash lands near a cave inhabited by old old old people who seem to be comatose -- it's the Van Winkle syndrome!!! Nothing he does wakes them, and soon he, too, is feeling very very sleepy...

4. Jared has the unique ability to kick his mind into overdrive, making the world seem to move in slow motion. Now a freshman in high-school, he decides to conquer first the sports-world, then academics, all while juggling a few girlfriends. What could possibly go wrong?

5. When Sissy's rich husband dumps her for a young babe, she's forced to pause and take stock of her life. She takes a job cleaning up blood and entrails from crime scenes. Now if she could just solve a murder, maybe that handsome cop would finally notice her.

6. Alison's new years resolution in 2024 is to watch less Tube. Not easy when Clik-It hits the surgery shelves and all her friends get implanted. Out of fashion and out of touch, Alison wonders why everyone is wearing a suit and telling the same lame jokes. The comedy turns to horror when she realizes they're all channeling late night talk show host SamG TanG! Can she turn these zombies off?



Original Version

Your Evilness,

Growing old is not for sissies, as Cecelia “Sissy” Cavanaugh is about to find out. When her husband steals her designer luggage and runs off with a younger woman who has a tight tush and perky tatas, [If the guy cared about a tight tush and titillating tatas (note added alliteration), he would have simply suggested Sissy get liposuction and a tata job. Obviously it was the designer luggage he was after.] Sissy Cavanaugh’s posh road to happiness veers off course. [Roads don't veer off course. Cars do. Roads tend to stay put. If you need a metaphor for life, you could say her Cadillac of contentment veers off course. Or her Lexus of love. Or her Mercedes of marital mirth. Any luxury car will do as long as it's alliterative. I recommend just saying her life veers off course.] She must decide whether to ask her manipulative mother-in-law for a handout or get a job. Sissy chooses the path of least resistance—a job. A job that includes cleaning crime scenes. Only she doesn’t know that part. Yet. [You don't need those last two sentences, as you never show any significance to her not knowing . . . yet.]

Instead of enjoying manicures and sipping margaritas, she’s mopping floors, scrubbing toilets and trying to balance an empty checkbook. Fearing that her country club membership will be revoked, Sissy begins to build a life that doesn’t include tee times and garden parties. [Those last two sentences say pretty much the same thing. Combine them into something that transitions into the following sentence. For instance, Having traded manicures for a mop, massages for Mr. Clean (note alliteration), Sissy rises to the top of Millie Maid, Inc., then buys out the owner.] As her career takes off, [Careers mopping floors and scrubbing toilets seldom take off. Explain.] so does her personal life. She finds herself caught between three men: her cheating husband, a wealthy widower ready for love, and a handsome cop who gives new meaning to the words hot flash. [Don't insult her intelligence by implying that she's actually considering taking back that miserable cheating slimebucket.] [Marry the rich guy, have a life-long affair with the hunk, frame the ex for a murder, and live happily ever after.]

After investigators name a close family friend as a murder suspect, Sissy is assigned to clean the crime scene. ["Listen, Sissy, you've been doing such a good job scrubbing toilets, I've decided to see how you do as crime scene technician. Your first gig is a homicide at 56 Elm Street. Apparently the guy was cut in half with a chain saw. Blood and entrails everywhere. And when he died his bowels purged themselves. Add to that the fact that the body wasn't discovered for over a week. Oh, and when the cops entered the crime scene it was so gross they all puked. They'd just come from an all-you-can-eat burrito buffet at MexiSlop. The carpet is white shag, so better bring some bleach."] When her daughter finds out, she urges Sissy to embark on a mission to find evidence and steer the investigation in another direction. Sissy finds a clue in the most unlikely place—her own home. [It's her daughter's diary, in which she confesses to being the murderer. Although that doesn't necessarily prove anything; I understand back in '63 dozens of teen girls confessed in their diaries to having committed the Kennedy assassination just to find out if their mothers were reading their diaries. Actually that would be a good conflict for this book. The mother reads the diary, discovers her daughter is the murderer. Should she let the close family friend be executed in order to avoid the loss of trust that would come with revealing she read her daughter's diary?] [And yes, you may use this idea in your book.] Armed with this new information [What new information? Oh, right, the diary.] she sets out to solve the case and comes face-to-to-face with the murderer. [Her ex-husband. Now she wants him back even more, so she can sell her story to the tabloids after he gets the needle.]

Complete at 77,000 words, Mental Pause is women’s fiction. A formerly pampered woman discovers inner strength and self-reliance while learning that crime—someone else’s— does indeed pay. [I would replace the first sentence of the query with that sentence.]

Thank you for taking the time to consider my submission,

Signed,


Notes

What's the clue she finds in her house? If you're keeping it secret because you don't want to give away who done it, note that I had no trouble guessing that anyway.

Her mission was to find evidence that would steer the investigation in another direction. Why doesn't she give the evidence to the cops instead of setting out to solve the case herself?

If you've been living the very good life, you ought to have enough assets available that you can hold out for a better job than toilet scrubber. She could probably get enough for her car and her jewelry to hire a ruthless divorce lawyer who'd see that she got the house and a healthy alimony settlement, not to mention child support.

Does solving the murder improve Sissy's financial situation or her life? Instead of telling us she's torn among three guys, did you consider focusing the query on the hunky cop as she helps him solve the case and he falls for her brilliant mind and they live happily ever after?

That all said, this has a certain appeal if you can make Sissy's rise from the ashes sound believable. Right now it sounds like she goes from inexperienced maid to CEO of a Fortune 500 company in about two weeks.

Face-Lift 795

Guess the Plot

Love Like the French

1. Hot sticky buns dripping with white sauce from a well packed sausage amidst the moans of “ooooh”, “ahhhh”, and “oo la la”; the smells and sound of Rococo delight permeating throughout the entire hall. Nobody knows food love like the French!

2. Celie La Belle has sold millions of books about her life in a little French town. But when a disgruntled ex decides to expose her as Sherry Brewster of Dayton, well, c'est la merde.

3. Dana is obsessed with romance, foreign movies, and Paris. When she gets a shot at studying abroad, she's determined to fall in love - but quickly discovers none of the French boys has any idea what a proper courtship should look like.

4. Cate's life is perfectly sensible compared with the French, who are all wack-jobs. But when she falls for the hunky Monsieur Brousseau, she learns there's a lot about the French she didn't know--like the real reason French women don't get fat.

5. Jean-Claude and Henri are both in love with Isabelle but she burns with love for Anne-Marie who is enamored of Laurent. When Isabelle organizes a surprise party for the friends, alcohol and swimming lead to tragedy and all of their lives are changed. Especially Henri because he's dead.

6. Klutzy Francophile Sally Merton has the best of all worlds until a witch puts a mix-up curse on her. Now she's eating like the English, loving like the Germans, and dressing like the Russians. Kill me now, she thinks.



Original Version

Dear Mr. / Ms. Agent,

Cate has been wearing her G-string back-to-front all day. She hasn’t felt especially uncomfortable. [You wanna know uncomfortable? I once wore my shoes front to back all day.] No more than usual anyway. But she’s had a lot on her mind lately.

It’s not just that her husband is dead. That happened two years ago. It’s mostly just the day-to-day chaos of her life. This week alone her brown-nosing colleague has been defaming her at work, her flatmate has turned her spare room into some kind of hostel, and of course, there was that sweaty indiscretion with the office mail-clerk… [We don't need to know that Cate isn't any more uncomfortable than usual, or that her husband being dead isn't what's mostly been on her mind. That's wasted space. Combine the first two paragraphs into something like:

Cate has been wearing her G-string back-to-front all day. Forgive her; she’s had a lot on her mind lately. This week alone her brown-nosing colleague has been defaming her at work, her flatmate has turned her spare room into some kind of hostel, and of course, there was that sweaty indiscretion with the office mail-clerk…

All that leaves out is the dead husband, but you tell us she has a dead husband later on.]

If only she’d gone to St. Marc earlier, Cate would have felt much better about things. [What is St Marc? A spa? A bed and breakfast? Google thinks it's a city in Haiti. Also various churches, cafes, etc. If you go to later Google pages you can find St. Marc la Blanc, St. Marc sur Mer, etc. If we know what St. Marc is, we might have some idea why going there earlier would have made her feel better about things, but that's such a vague statement, it probably wouldn't matter.] Because the French are truly nutty. In comparison, her life is downright sensible and orderly. [I'm pretty much lost. You're saying Cate would feel better about the chaos in her life if she had discovered earlier that the French are nutty?] But when a steamy affair begins with the dreamy Jerome Brousseau, Cate embraces the joys of Gallic lunacy, and learns the real reason French women don’t get fat.

Cate has a secret though, and it is a doozy. That burny feeling in her sternum is not indigestion, it is guilt. And it is something to do with her dead husband. When the residents of St. Marc find out what Cate is hiding, they begin to wonder if the British are, in fact, the crazy ones. [You might have mentioned earlier that Cate is British.]

My women’s fiction manuscript Love Like the French (85,000 words) plays upon the amusing disparity between the French and the English, when it comes to passion, fidelity and love.

I am an Arts graduate, freelance journalist and blogger in Melbourne, Australia (www.__________.blogspot.com). I am currently working on my second novel.

Thank you for considering Love Like the French. The full manuscript is available on request.

Sincerely,


Notes

What, exactly, specifically, in detail, is Cate hiding? It seems to be the whole crux of your story, assuming you have one. It's what the query should be built around. And you keep it secret?

Is Cate now living in St. Marc? Is she there on vacation?

Here's your plot as far as I can tell: British woman with chaotic life goes to St. Marc, gets romantically involved with sexy French guy, but then her secret secret comes out. And this revelation affects her life in some way. What's the secret, and what happens? You need to have a story, not just a character.

We don't need to know you're a blogger. Everyone's a blogger.

Face-Lift 574

Guess the Plot

The Truth, Chickens, and Other Things that Wonʼt Fly

1. When ray asks Emmaline to marry him, she's just about to say that'll happen when pigs fly, when she spots a flock of pigs overhead. Quickly she begins formulating a different response.

2. Jenny, a compulsive liar, found a book that listed several things that couldn't fly. Then she saw an episode of Mythbusters where they made a lead balloon. Thus inspired, she embarks on a mission to teach a bunch of chickens to fly south for the winter. Also, lie detection by skunk.

3. Jimmy Weaver worships his wife, which doesn't eggzactly sit well with Jimmy's mother, who decides to save her son from a life of eggony. Mom "hatches" a plan to murder Jimmy's wife, a "fowl" plan that just might lay an egg . . . if Jimmy learns the truth.

4. Bernadette Barnes knows she must take creative action to raise enough cash to save the farm from her banker, Elmore Bladini, and his knife-wielding thugs. She'll use voodoo, astrology, and witchcraft to stave off the seemingly inevitable, but if Bladini still refuses to refinance, is she willing to try seduction?

5. Hunky Chicken rancher Joe Fargus realizes he can get more money for organic free-range chickens. So without changing his methods, he claims his chickens are organic and free-range. The money rolls in, until beautiful federal poultry inspector Jill Charleston pays an unexpected visit to the ranch. Can Joe sweet-talk his way out of this one?

6. Finally, a book that offers a conclusive and definitive answer to the question that has haunted philosophers through the ages: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Hint: it was the chicken.


Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

If you told Billie Weaver a year ago that sheʼd be plotting the murder of her sociopathic sister-in-law, sheʼd laugh [she'd have laughed] it off as a sick joke. If you told her sheʼd be teaming up with her braless, alcoholic mother to carry out the plan, sheʼd say [she'd have said] you were certifiably insane.

But now Billieʼs mother has shown up on Billieʼs upper-middle class suburban doorstep, and claims to be dying of cancer. [Translation: isn't dying of cancer.] In her last few months on the planet [before heading for Arkhos IV, where they long ago cured cancer], sheʼs looking to make it up to Billieʼs brother, Jimmy, for rendering him mentally diminished by drinking while pregnant with him. As her first and final attempt to protect her son, she hatches a plan to rid him of his abusive, drug-addicted wife, and she needs Billie to help her. If Billie participates, sheʼll become an accessory to fraud, an accomplice to murder,

[Billie: What do you need me for? Just shoot Jimmy's wife. You're dying, so you'll never go to trial.

Mom: You think I wanna spend my last month in a prison cell when I can spend it in a hospital ward?

Billie: At least prisons have decent food and TV reception.]

and risk destroying the carefully constructed life sheʼs built for herself and her young family. If she does nothing, her too-trusting brother will be doomed to a life of misery and heartache. Can she justify taking another personʼs life if it saves another? Can she ever explain it to Jimmy, who naively worships his wife as much as he loves his sister and his mother?

Bonded together, first by their love for Jimmy, and now by their criminal activities, [In my experience, nothing brings family together like murdering an in-law.] Billie and her mother struggle to overcome years of bitterness, estrangement, and inappropriate outfits to protect Jimmy and stay out of jail.

The Truth, Chickens, and Other Things that Wonʼt Fly is a work of womenʼs fiction, complete at 74,000 words.


Notes

The first and last plot paragraphs (and title) have a humorous tone with amusing touches (braless mother, inappropriate outfits), but the middle paragraph sounds like literary fiction, what with its cancer, drug addiction, misery and heartache, mentally diminished man, abuse... I'd like to be able to tell from the query whether it's a dark book with some comic relief or a comedic book with a few dark subplots.

If the book is a comedy, try lightening up the middle paragraph by reducing it to something like:

But now Billieʼs mother has shown up on Billieʼs doorstep, saying she's ready to perform one final noble act before she dies. She plans to murder Jimmy's wife, freeing him from a lifetime of misery with an overbearing, abusive ogre. Never mind that Jimmy worships his wife, Mother knows best. Now all she needs to put her plan into action is an accomplice. And she's chosen Billie for the role.

If the book is serious, the query doesn't need to include the comic relief, as whether Mom wears a bra or dresses in style isn't relevant to the main plot. And a different title will be in order.

Face-Lift 538

Guess the Plot

The Edge of Memory

1. Irwin needs to fit another 512Mb DIMM in his Dell XPS1720 so he can run the latest version of Hellspawn on Vista. But he's reckoned without the resource sapping power of the Aero interface. Can he downgrade back to XP, or is he destined to forever be at the very edge of memory?

2. A tall, strangely-dressed man is found wandering the desert outside Palm Springs. He claims to be Charlemagne. Is he delusional, or has someone at a nearby secret research lab really broken the time barrier?

3. Willow saw her mother killed twenty years ago, when she was only three. Since then she's lived in a silent world. Now Detective Gary Hiller has been assigned to the cold case. Can he reach Willow, or is she forever doomed to exist on . . . The Edge of Memory?

4. Beatrice lost a decade of her childhood to amnesia long ago. Fortunately she was taken in by a wonderful woman. Unfortunately that woman just died. Fortunately Beatrice finds a clue to the identity of her birth mother. Unfortunately, her birth mother was murdered. Fortunately her birth father is still alive. Unfortunately, her birth father is the one who murdered her birth mother. Fortunately, he just got out of prison. Can Beatrice regain her lost memories with the help of a murderer? Or is there another murder in the offing?

5. When strangers begin appearing in Carrie Strachan's life claiming to be old friends and lovers she begins to wonder how much of what she remembers is history and how much is fantasy. Her efforts to rediscover her true past draw the attention of a serial killer with ties to a counterintelligence operation. Carries must discover who she was and why her memories are important before she becomes another victim in a government-sanctioned killing spree.

6. You know how sometimes you're watching TV and an actor or actress is in the program and they look really familiar, like you know you've seen them in something else but you can't remember if it was a movie or TV show and it's killing you so you wait for the end to get their name but the closing credits go so fast you miss it? That's what life is like every hour of every day for Piper Jones, private eye to the stars.


Original Version

Dear Prospective Agent,

My novel, THE EDGE OF MEMORY, tells the story of a woman with childhood amnesia whose search for her birth parents uncovers brutal family secrets that force her to confront a violent murderer.

Although devastated by the death of the woman who took her in thirty years ago, Beatrice Greyson's grief turns to betrayal when she finds a hidden letter from her birth mother. Leaving everything behind, Beatrice follows the railroad tracks across the Midwest in hopes of finding where she came from and what happened during the missing decade of her childhood. [It's The Wizard of Oz. The railroad tracks are the yellow brick road. The MC is trying to get back to her midwestern home.]

With the help of a charming man she meets along the way (Raymond Richter [aka "The Scarecrow"]), Beatrice discovers she was once Mallory Edgewood, missing and presumed drowned in the Missouri River at the age of twelve. Shortly after her disappearance, her father (Vincent Edgewood) beat her mother to death. [So that's why Dorothy lived with her Aunt Em.] Vincent has recently been released from prison and Beatrice must face him to recover her missing past. Her need to learn the truth will uncover darker family secrets, [Darker than the fact that her father murdered her mother?] jeopardize her budding relationship with Raymond, and leave her teetering on the brink of murder.

THE EDGE OF MEMORY (Upmarket Women's Fiction) addresses the physical and psychological impact of traumatic childhood, for which my current work as a pediatrician gives unique insight. I had several poems published in Scars Publications and in literary magazines in college. [In fact, this novel was inspired by my first published poem, which goes:

My daddy got thirty years
From a very lenient jury
For murdering my mother
And tossing me in the Missouri.]

Medical training consumed most of my time after college, but at thirty-four years old, I now have a job that allows time for both medicine and writing. [I always wondered what was taking the doctor so long while I was sitting by myself in the examination room in my underwear pretending to read Health Magazine; turns out she was working on her memoirs.]

[Reason for contacting this specific agent goes here.] THE EDGE OF MEMORY (89,000 words) would appeal to readers who enjoy the work of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve. If you'd be interested in considering my novel, I'd be glad to send the manuscript for your review. Per your agency website's guidelines, I'm including [whatever they say they like sent].

I truly appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,


Notes

How is it that Raymond has nothing better to do than join up with a woman who's following the railroad tracks across the midwest searching for information about something that happened thirty years ago?

No hint about what was in the letter? Apparently something like, Take good care of my daughter, and if she ever wants to find me, tell her I'm living near the railroad tracks in the midwest.

When fiction is declared "upmarket" does it mean it will appeal to those of means? I can see a Lexus being called an upmarket car, but what makes a book upmarket?

You could put the word count and genre in the same parentheses rather than two different sets.

Sounds like an intriguing story, though it also sounds more like some hybrid of mystery, literary fiction and suspense novel than women's fiction. You haven't made it sound like something that wouldn't appeal to men. I take it the Raymond/Beatrice relationship is a major aspect?

Face-Lift 478

Guess the Plot

Loading . . . Please Wait

1. The instant longshoreman Joe Dentmore saw the dude and the dame in the white coats running toward his forklift, he figured -- mad scientists! And how right he was! They're attempting to take over the world with the aid of a woman whose outfits scandalously fall off at critical moments. Can Joe stop them, or must he call in Team X97Z -- the zombie axemen?

2. Prayers finds herself trapped in a tower after eloping with Eagle, a reckless warrior. She is rescued by a renowned gypsy adventuress (who has finally found in Sorgaard a man worthy of her attention). Meanwhile, Eagle is betrayed by Prayers's cousin, a mercenary in the employ of Alexey Nikolayevsky, who has a secret grudge to settle against Sorgaard. Okay, okay, none of that really happens.

3. Karen is trying to break up, but apparently for Todd, this does not compute. As she rants, he whaps himself upside the head and a small door creaks open, revealing a slot. He pops out the old disk, inserts a new one, and starts reformatting his brain. This is exactly what she was talking about! His needs always come before hers!

4. Despite legions of armed military, no beans can leave the coffee warehouses of Columbia. The Sisters of Platitude are saving the world from moral decrepitude, which Dr. Gus "Chicken Face" Lombardi proved is caused by coffee (his analysis produced a chi square statistic that was significant to the .04% level). This will be the worst day of General Rodriguez's life.

5. Technophobe Lulu Nelson goes crazy when her cell phone runs completely down, her PC crashes, her power is shut off, and her boyfriend tells her he's postponing their wedding. After being accused of taking part in a vicious crime spree, Lulu is arrested. But she falls in love with her bail bondsman, who turns out to be a video game addict.

6. Washington, DC madam Scarlett D'Onofrio loves her android employees. Indistinguishable from real girls, they don't get VD, they don't sleep or eat, and they always turn in 100% of the client fees. When Genevieve locks up during a routine wireless firmware update, however, Scarlett discovers her brothel has been hacked by the KGB, who've been listening in on Washington's most sensitive conversations.


Original Version

Dear Agent,

Please consider reviewing LOADING...PLEASE WAIT (98,124 words, co-authored), cutting-edge women's fiction layered over a fantasy romantic adventure.

More simply put, LOADING is the story of two women who share two worlds, told two ways. [Even more simply put: L = 2(3W).] [I can't help noticing that every time we simplify it, it gets harder to figure out what it means.]

In the virtual world of Epoch of Epics (story told in standard narrative), [I hate it when I'm lost before the first comma.] a young noblewoman named "Prayers" (Preces) [Why is Prayers in quotation marks and Preces in parentheses? Which one is her name?] finds herself abandoned in an unfamiliar tower after eloping with Eagle, a reckless warrior who has been living in her parents’ manor. [When your job title is "warrior," it's kind of wussy to be living on your girlfriend's father's manor. Though I suppose it's nice to have the butler bring you scones and tea every morning before you head off to battle barbarians.] She is rescued by her friend Lyres, a renowned gypsy adventuress who has finally found in the itinerant Sorgaard a man worthy of her sincere attention. Meanwhile, Eagle is betrayed by Preces’ [("Prayers'")] cousin Kent, a mercenary in the employ of the powerful Duke Alexey Nikolayevsky, who has a secret grudge to settle against Sorgaard. [I'm not making a chart this time. Get rid of some of these characters.]

In the real world (story told via email exchange), "Preces" is 42-year old Beth, [Damn. Looks like I need a chart after all.

Virtual World......Standard Narrative......."Prayers"......(Preces)
Real World...........Email Exchange............."Preces".........Beth]

[Nope, didn't help.] a chatty, soft-hearted executive wife in Virginia, whose virtual lover, "Eagle," [She has a virtual lover in the real world who has the same name as her real lover in the virtual world?] is her son's best friend. Linda, a successful Los Angeles attorney and lightly cynical single mom, is "Lyres," and her virtual flirtation with "Sorgaard" has provoked an invitation to meet his creator face-to-face, behind the back of her increasingly resentful non-player fiancé. At first neatly separated, their real and virtual relationships gradually tangle, dragging Beth and Linda into confrontations with addiction, denial, obsession and each other.

Electronic relationship is a subject about which I've published several academic papers (see my Auburn University faculty webpage, linked at the very bottom of this email), and in which there is an exponentially-growing interest. According to the Pew Internet Project, 70 percent of American adult women are online; [Did that project survey real women, or virtual women (most of whom I suspect are teenage boys)?] email correspondence with friends and family, like that between Beth and Linda, is the dominant use. [Unlike American adult men, whose dominant use is porn.] While the fantasy subplot is accessible to anyone with imagination, it offers a special hook for the 6-million-and-counting female gamers worldwide; stereotypes notwithstanding, women aged 35-49 are the single largest demographic in online gaming, and fully 60 percent of college women in 2003 were regular online role-players (Nielsen/Net Ratings). [Which explains why 60 percent of college men have to settle for porn these days.] A novel about women's interactions -- online, in the real world, and in the space between -- is cutting-edge now, but headed for the mainstream as computer-mediated communication increasingly becomes the norm.

When I am not teaching Auburn undergrads or indulging my new-found passion for fiction-writing (a prequel to LOADING is outlined and the first chapter complete), I'm engrossed in raising my nine children -- three of whom, incidentally, are active gamers. [In fact, Gary plays my studly masseur, Lance plays my buff tennis instructor, and little Joey plays Brad Pitt in my current game, Sim City 9: Rule of the Amazons.] Co-author ___________, a writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and other periodicals, teaches grant-writing at UCLA. Like Beth and Linda, we met in the context of an online role-playing game and have never spoken or met face-to-face; we like to imagine our first-time meeting as an Oprah-worthy promotional event. [And it will be, when it turns out that "Linda" is actually twelve-year-old Jimmy Landry and a few of his buddies.]

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to sending you more of LOADING...PLEASE WAIT.

Sincerely,


Notes

I believe that those who are into role playing would rather role play than read about the role-playing adventures dreamed up by fictional role players. Thus if a large portion of your book is the story of Sorgaard, Eagle and the Duke (Hey, that would make a catchy song title), we're in trouble.

Your story as I see it is about Linda (whose boyfriend is jealous of the time she spends in online role playing; to keep him from blowing his top, she doesn't tell him she's going off to Montana to meet a guy she met playing Epoch of Epics), and Beth, who's in the same E of E game, but unaware that her virtual lover, whom she's actually falling for, is her kid's best friend. These are the characters people want to read about. Those who want to read about Sorgaard and "Prayers" would rather you wrote a fantasy book about Sorgaard and "Prayers."

Dump the paragraph that isn't real, rework the one that is real so that it involves us in the conflicts of the characters (perhaps a paragraph about Beth's situation, a paragraph about Linda's, and a paragraph about the obsession/addiction/entanglement), and now you won't have to waste a huge paragraph convincing us there's a market for this. Unfortunately, I suspect too much of your plot exists only in the minds of Beth and Linda, and while fascinating to them, will be no more interesting to readers than the other ten million plots unfolding in online role playing games right now.

I could be wrong about that, but if not, it's not the end of the world; you'll just need to overhaul the book so that it focuses on the real world.

Face-Lift 388

Guess the Plot

Second Time Around

1. The term leftover takes on a new meaning when food critic Vera LeBlanc dies from a bad meal. Her assistant must prove the death wasn't an accident. But first, he, too, must learn the hard way that no food dish is good . . . the second time around.

2. When Tess Malone answers her ringing phone, she's plunged back in time eight years. Will she have to live those painful years over again? Either way, she vows to learn what all the buttons on her iPhone do before pushing them again.

3. An outcast caveman who is reincarnated in New Haven, CT in the mid 1940's must fight his primitive instincts if he is ever going to become the modern president his father failed to be.

4. Alexi was born in the frozen hinterlands of Russia, where he worked hard and died in poverty. In his second life, Alexi was born in the frozen hinterlands of Norway, where he worked hard and died in poverty.

5. Gay divorcee Wesley Welsey left Harry for Barry two years ago. When he tries to recreate the magic of his first love on Bali Bali, he finds that love is lovelier and fun is funnier - the Second Time Around.

6. Rookie Nascar driver Brett Kilgore had the lead after one lap of the Daytona 500, but when veteran Bobby Joe Hitchcock's girlfriend tosses a grenade on the track, Brett realizes he may not make it a . . . Second Time Around.


Original Version

I read on AgentQuery.com that you are interested in women's fiction. I am hoping you may be interested in my novel Second Time Around (women’s fiction; 94,000 words). I invite you to review my manuscript and consider representing me.

When Tess Malone answers her ringing phone, she’s plunged backward, to a time when her life seemed much simpler. [A time when there were no telephones.] [Idea for a story: Woman picks up telephone but forgets to dial prefix; just dials 1875. Suddenly she's transported to 1875. In order to return to 2007 she must inspire a drunken Alexander Graham Bell to lay off the sauce and invent the telephone. She succeeds, but she failed to recall that the concept of zero had not yet been discovered in 1875, and the phone dial has only 1 through 9. Brilliantly, she dials 2111, planning to then use a phone to return to 2007, but when she appears in 2111, she's on a Pacific island where natives decide she's a witch, and sacrifice her to the volcano.] [I should have used that as one of the Guess the Plots; no one would have believed someone made it up.] [Someone write that up and submit it to Asimov's; we'll split the payment.] After eight years, Jim Tidwell has decided to track down and get reacquainted with the woman he kicked out of his life. With one phone call, the floodgates between the past and the present have opened. Like all floods, the havoc that ensues affects everyone. [Except people who live on houseboats.] [I don't think "opening the floodgates" is the right expression. It usually means everyone will be doing something that wasn't previously allowed. I can't tell what your flood consists of.]

In Second Time Around, Tess is given the opportunity to step back into the arms of the man she thought she loved eight long years ago. [Given the opportunity?

Jim: Tess, baby, long time no see. I know I broke your heart eight years ago, but let's face it, it was kinda your fault. Anyway, all is forgiven, and you can have me back.

Tess: Are you serious?

Jim: Well, I do have conditions.]

She hesitates, questioning his rationale for phoning her, and her rationale for letting him back into her life. But when her questions deepen, and no answers are forthcoming, Tess realizes she must revisit the past, those painful first years after the breakup, and discover why her heart has stalled. Through the reading of her journals, she comes to recognize that she’s been living her life on the fringe ever since that fateful day Jim broke things off. [The fringe of what?]

Even though she’s overcome the death of both her parents, [a brief fling with Alexander Graham Bell,] a debilitating dance with alcoholism, [You have a bout with alcoholism; you dance with the one who brung you.] and a move across the country, she now faces the most daunting choice of her life: whether to stay in the shadows, or fully embrace life and walk in the light once more [; whether to latch back onto the scum responsible for her being in the shadows for eight years, or to laugh in his face; whether to forgive him for deciding to sow his oats for eight years, always assuming he could have her back whenever he felt like it, or to invite him over for a healthy serving of arsenic casserole] .

[Jim: Tess, I was a fool. It took eight years of playing the field, making love with thousands of women, to teach me what I should have known all along: you're the only woman for me.

Tess: Are you serious?

Jim: Yeah, thousands. Hard to believe, huh?]

Second Time Around gives us a glimpse into one woman’s journey through the decisions of the heart; both the heart of the past, and the heart of the present. The novel shows a woman willing to finally stand on her own for what she wants, rather than wait on the people in her life to show her what is best for her. [Vague and wordy. What does she want, and what did the people in her life think was best for her?]

I am a member of RWA, PRO-status. This is my fifth completed (unpublished) novel. I am unmarried with a grown daughter in her junior year of college, and recently relocated from Cleveland to California.

I’d be happy to send you a complete manuscript for your review. Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Respectfully,


Notes

Frankly, the time travel and arsenic casserole scenarios sound more interesting. You've taken a lot of space just to say that Tess must decide whether she'd be happy with the total loser she thought she loved eight years ago. That situation can exist in a suspense, paranormal, historical, contemporary, or comedic romance. We want an idea of what happens in the book, not just the situation Tess finds herself in. Do they meet? Do they have jobs? What century is it? Do they go somewhere together? Is there a vampire? Surely it's more than dialogue and journal entries.