Face-Lift 1413

Guess the Plot

The Rooster Sutra

1. A serial killer who kills only occultists is targeting Tanya, an aspiring occultist who resembles a rooster. Can Tanya's Buddhist mentor, the only pacifist in the occultism industry, set aside her beliefs long enough to rescue Tanya? Also, a beatnik.

2. An illustrated collection of proverbs for children, recited in anuṣṭubh meter by a rooster named Shakuntala and his barnyard pals.

3. Bo-Jo's family has been running a chicken farm for six generations. Rather than a sweeping family saga full of passion and drama, here are the rules they've lived by. And how to cover up a murder.

4. This is not your mother's Ugly Duckling or Chicken Little. Barnyard birds are getting into it, and the other inhabitants of Old MacDonald's Farm are braying, barking, and oinking in prurient glee.

5. Tarragon is a backyard chicken and reincarnation of -- well, Sanskrit isn't easy when you're a bird. Can he convey his wisdom to the world, or will the neighbors convince his owners that the path to his next incarnation should be coq au vin? 

6. Ginger-haired Detective Gallus’s latest case is a fraternity student found dead in a rooster costume on campus. When a second student turns up dead under similar circumstances, Gallus goes undercover into the underground world of a new society known as “The Cockfighters.”

7. Studies show that 4 hours of sleeping upright yields the same benefits as lying prone for 8. Find techniques for "roosting" in this self-help sleep guide to self inducing a trance-like state and selecting a perch for you and your lovebird(s).

8. Sutras, suitors, sutures.... All Bantam knows is that when the chicken hits the fryer (i.e. his Bollywood-style wedding goes up in flames when his fiancée elopes with a Cornish hen), a rooster's gotta do what a rooster's gotta do.

9. Old Man MacDougall is fed up. His hens are hysterical, he's seeing twice the usual number of feathers around the coop, and his precious eggs have actually been hatching... The only clue: mysterious chicken scratches on the wall of the coop. The perpetrator: an ordinary-looking rooster who has discovered that attracting ladies isn't just about looks. This rooster Casanova will give his all to help his sexy hen babes escape the farm.

Original Version

Dear Ruinous Reviser:

Only one of Keket Cheshire’s teammates has died on the job, and she is resolved that that number doesn’t go up. Still, only one death is an impressive record for the only pacifist in the occultism industry, with its 40% mortality rate and sociopathic competition. [Logging and commercial fishing, the two most dangerous professions (besides occultism), have a combined mortality rate of about 1%. The US Civil War had a mortality rate of 20%.] [Is that 40% annually? Because that would wipe out the industry in short order.] 

 

During a mission gone sour, a high-school girl named Tanya Gallo is nearly killed by Keket’s slip-up. [Does this happen after Keket resolves that the number of her teammates she kills won't go up? Sure, almost killing your teammates is an improvement over killing them, but . . .] [Also, I need to look up "occultist" and find out why they get involved in so many missions that lead to death.]  . . .  [Okay, Wikipedia's List of Occultists is pretty long, but here's a sampling: Plato, Nostradamus, Sir Isaac Newton, Marquis de Sade, Arthur Conan Doyle, Adolf Hitler, Jim Morrison, David Bowie . . . Hmm, what do they all have in common? They're all dead! 100% mortality rate! Why hasn't anyone else looked into the connection between occultists and death?] Tanya is smitten, with Keket, and even moreso [more so. There seems to be some controversy over whether moreso is a word, but Blogger has underlined it in red, and that's good enough for me.] [Of course Blogger also underlines Keket in red, and my phone's auto-correct thinks Keket is kookoo.] with her profession. [Occultism is a profession? I wonder if it's hard for employment recruiters to convince people to go into a profession with a 40% mortality rate.] Occultism promises escape from a reality where Tanya is mired in poverty and powerlessness. [She has a 40% chance of escaping.] Wanting to impress Keket and become an occultist herself, Tanya seeks out tantric magic. An aging beatnik takes her on as a student and encourages her to use magic without hesitation… or concern for its consequences. [Use it to do what?] [Also, since when do high school students listen to any advice from an adult?]

 

Meanwhile, a moralizing serial killer is spring cleaning the occultism industry of anyone he deems unworthy, with Keket the only exception. [If he kills every occultist except Keket, the mortality rate of occultism will be approximately 100%.] [How do we know Keket is the only exception? Just because she hasn't been killed yet? Or has the killer informed her that she's not a target, and she believes him?] Tanya and the killer soon end up on a collision course and Keket is forced to decide: Is she willing to put her pacifism aside and her teammates at risk to clean up a mess she created, or [will she] turn a blind eye and preserve the life she worked so hard to cultivate? [Not clear how Keket created the mess. There seem to be two messes, one caused by the aging beatnik and the other by the serial killer.] 

 

THE ROOSTER SUTRA is an upmarket urban fantasy marrying Buddhist doctrine with drugs, sex, and violence [I give that marriage three weeks, tops.] from the alternating viewpoints of Tanya and Keket. It is complete at 97,000 words and will appeal to fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Dead Astronauts and N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became.

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[P.S. The title comes from roosters being a symbol of greed and desire in Buddhism, and also Tanya's hair is a red mohawk, so she looks kinda like a rooster. ]

Notes

First of all, a serial killer who's killing everyone in a certain profession should be the centerpiece of your query. Look how far it got Jack the Ripper. 

Up until the serial killer arrives, I have more questions than answers. Like what kind of missions do teams of occultists go on? Why do so many die? What did Keket do that almost killed Tanya? What is the job description of an occultist?

We know who's in your book but we don't know much of what happens. 

High school student Tanya Gallo wants to be an occultist, like her idol and mentor Keket Cheshire. Even when Kekel informs Tanya that a serial killer has been targeting occultists, Tanya still wants in. In fact she joins the team of occultists hunting the killer.

Something like that would be a way to start this off if it were what actually happens in your book, which it probably isn't, but you get the idea. 

Are all the occultists in the occultism industry in one city or even country? If not, this serial killer seems to have taken on an impossible task. Maybe we should narrow it down geographically.

The decision Kekel must make doesn't strike me as difficult. Ignore a serial killer while he continues killing and could be coming after you next, or engage temporarily in activities designed to neutralize him. I know what the Buddha would do.

Face-Lift 1412

Guess the Plot

The Wearable Wolf

1. Old Man Farragut has long had the hots for Red Riding Hood's Grandma, but she's more interested in bad boy types than a wuss like Farragut. Will he win her over when he shows up at her house in his wolf costume?

2. Susan was walking in the woods when she discovered a discarded wolf skin. Not thinking much of it she brought it home. Now some guy is knocking on her door saying he is now her husband. Can she get rid of him before he eats her out of house and home?

3. Being killed and skinned hasn't stopped Lyle from being a were or hitting on the ladies. Only now, instead of doing it in style, he's a fashion accessory. 

4. Suzee Swank -- star of the slopes and darling of the apres-ski scene -- never goes out without her signature wolf's-fur parka. Most people think it's a fashion statement, but in reality it's Suzee's sidekick, Wolfboy, who springs off her shoulders and into action whenever a criminal mastermind happens to turn up at a snowy resort or chalet -- which is surprisingly often. 

5. Joan Carson, consultant fashionista, is "The Wearable Wolf". If you can get her to dress you, admiring gasps will follow wherever you go. If you're a teenager trying to impress at the prom even though you don't have a date, or an aging star trying to recapture the adulation you can't live without, the Wearable Wolf's art is guaranteed to make your dreams come true. But -- is the lupine artist's price too high to pay?

6. While developing a nature exploration VR game, Tom Thompson becomes trapped inside his avatar, a gray wolf. What's worse, he's transported to a parallel world of talking animals, elemental fairies, and environmental exploitation, where he becomes the eco-avenger known as The Lupinator.

7. John Fourier has a problem. His invention, a wearable suit that harnesses the lunar cycle and gives humans werewolf powers, offends the actual werewolves of Boston. They've marked their territory, and it looks like there's going to be one heck of a dogfight.

8. River & Shield's fur-covered condom is designed to let your beast howl at the moon. When animal rights activist Guadalupe Blanc learns the fur isn’t synthetic, she and her ‘wolf pack’ break into the lab to free the wolves. But it seems other experiments are being conducted here...

Original Version

Dear [agent] 

I'm sending you this query for THE WEARABLE WOLF, with # of pages attached as requested by your guidelines.  I appreciate your time and effort in reviewing it. THE WEARABLE WOLF is a [paranormal thriller?] of about 115,000 words.  It is a standalone novel, although I have two more books in mind to follow it. [Lose the first two sentences, and put the other two at the end of the plot summary.] 

Graduate student John Fourier has plenty on his plate with classes in Transformations and Necroptics at an elite engineering institution.  He'd love to be able to harness the lunar cycle for small-scale practical magics, which he believes could have saved his younger sister from an early death.  But some of the city's werewolves are threatened and offended by what they see as John's meddling in their revered relationship with the Moon, and a few may be willing to kill him for it.  [Having looked ahead, I believe "John Fourier has plenty on his plate" works better as the start of the next paragraph, which lists a lot of stuff on his plate. In fact the two items on his plate in this paragraph (school and unhappy werewolves) are among the items listed in the next paragraph.]

There’s the Free City werewolf pack, who’ve transformed on the Boston Common since the Colonial era and prize their tradition above new technology.  There’s the Leominster Investment Group, who want to use John’s inventions to take power for themselves.  And then there’s the normal stressors of graduate school -- Necroptics Lab, keeping one’s advisor and one’s girlfriend happy at the same time, the varying tolerances of roommates, and finding enough to eat.  Over it all, the mysterious figure of the Laughing Dog, the goddess Coyote, watches and plays games of her own.  It’s almost enough to make one go back to architecture school, but John is a graduate student, and that means he's ready to take on any establishment to see his research through. 

I (PhD neuroscience, 1998) am a successful survivor of graduate school, and minored in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.  I have previously edited a college SFF literary magazine, published science fiction and fantasy poetry and short stories, and been an invited reader and panelist on topics lycanthropic at science-fiction conventions.  I have taught experimental design to wearable-technology engineers, practiced Aikido for decades, and several times prayed to the Moon. [I'd cut the bio down to this:

My PhD in neuroscience and my experience teaching experimental design to wearable-technology engineers brings credibility to the book's science. I have published science fiction and fantasy short stories and been an invited reader and panelist on topics lycanthropic at science-fiction conventions.]

Notes

Basically, your plot summary is a list of the obstacles your main character faces in his quest to . . . prevent early deaths while earning his degree? Rather than list obstacles, focus on the main one, which is that some werewolves don't want humans horning in on their act. That'll leave more room to tell us . . . what happens in the book. Here's a possible opening paragraph:

When John Fourier invented the "wearable wolf," a contraption that gives the wearer such werewolf powers as rapid healing and physical strength, he wanted to help people like his sister, Liz, who died too young. He had no idea his project would offend anyone, least of all the Free City werewolf pack, who've been transforming on the Boston Common since the Colonial era, and prize their tradition above new technology. And some of whom are willing to kill anyone who meddles in their revered relationship with the moon. 

Now there's room to switch to present tense and tell us about the leader of the opposition werewolves foiling John's plans by kidnapping his girlfriend and demanding he shelve his project and replace it with a wearable bat to give humans vampire powers. (Just a guess. Did I get it right?)

We do need to know what he's up against, but we also want to know what he does, what goes wrong, how he plans to deal with it.

Face-Lift 1411

Guess the Plot

Byzantine Purple

1. Turkish bare knuckle boxer Muhmat “The Byzantine” Balkan is easy on the eyes, but his new uppercut is not.

2. Competitive ballroom dancer Viorel is entranced by the moves of a street woman in a purple dress. He’s desperate to make her his partner, but first he’ll need to convince his club to accept her. And before that . . . he’ll need to find her again.

3. When strange corpses appear with purple goo in their veins, Leudora realizes that the prophesies of her family's enemy, the notorious Dalmatian Serpent, are coming true, and if she doesn't act fast, all Byzantines will be exterminated. 

4. When fashion student Cassi Folter is transported back to ancient times she's more horrified by the clothes than the sanitation. Can she revolutionize the textile industry or will wearing the wrong color land her in prison? (And can she convince the jailers that style is always possible?)

5. The Byzantine Empire was once the Roman Empire just as Istanbul was once Constantinople. So Byzantine Purple must be about the dye from snails, right? Wait, what? The modern color? Robin's history report is about to get a creative spin when her time traveling adventure was about the wrong thing.

6. Fortune hunters from all over the world have long sought "Byzantine Purple," a fabled gemstone believed to have been owned by Constantine the Great. John Niedenaker is the latest. Intrigue ensues when his team crosses paths with seekers of the Maltese Falcon and the Ark of the Covenant and they all have to sort out their quirky native interpreters, intrepid girl-reporters, arch-villains, and other stock characters. As for John, he swaps away his brunette femme fatale for a ginger and goes off to find the Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

7. Kelly Mercado, chemist for struggling paint company Adore, is sent to Istanbul by new corporate consultant Leo Ione to join an archaeological dig to find inspiration for a color that can beat rival Heritage’s “Lost Atlantis”. Corporate espionage, a game of cat and mouse in the Grand Bazaar, romance, a prince and more!

Original Version 

Dear Evil Editor, 

The blood on her hands no longer troubles Leudora. What keeps her awake at night is the chilling suspicion that her crimes might have been in vain. 

The massacre she committed a decade ago was necessary. The death of her brilliant enemy, the Dalmatian Serpent, was unfortunate but inevitable. [I know nothing about the Dalmatian Serpent, but I feel confident there was nothing unfortunate about his death. Did he die in the massacre? Because when you stage a massacre, you have no right to complain that the death of your victims was unfortunate.] [I would call the Dalmatian Serpent's death necessary, rather than inevitable. Pretty much everyone's death is inevitable. Of course you've already called the massacre necessary, but I'm not convinced that it was. For instance, if she massacred everyone in some village because she knew the Dalmatian Serpent was there, she could have avoided the massacre by asking the villagers which house the Dalmatian Serpent was holed up in. I think you'll find that history books rarely (if ever) refer to massacres as necessary.] Only through violence could Leudora save the Veil. She will live with her guilty conscience for as long as the invisible barrier that shields civilization from madness remains intact. [Shouldn't that sentence be "She lived with her guilty conscience for as long as the invisible barrier that shields civilization from madness remained intact."? She "will live" implies that she currently lives with her guilty conscience, but you said the blood on her hands no longer troubles her.] Only it is no longer so. [Aha! Reinforcing my argument.]

Whenever parts of the Veil fade, strange corpses appear with purple goo in their veins. ["Goo" sounds somewhat childish. More mature synonyms include guck, goop, and gunk.] [Also, if the Veil is an invisible barrier, how can you tell if parts of it have faded? In other words, how do you know whether the fading caused the goo or the goo caused the fading? It's like a chicken/egg thing, except it's a Veil/goo thing.] Determined to stop the Veil’s decay and justify her past actions, [You mean justify massacring that entire village? Unjustifiable.] Leudora follows the bloody trail. [Is it a bloody trail or a gooey trail?] All the evidence that she uncovers confirms her worst fears: The Serpent was right in his theories. It is Leudora’s Byzantine kin that stands [who are] behind the Veil’s degradation. [That was his theory? That his enemy was to blame? You don't have to be brilliant to blame your enemy for everything that goes wrong. ] But Leudora knows one more truth. It will not take long for her family’s political opponents to connect the same dots. When they do, they will have a perfect excuse to exterminate not only her, but all Byzantines. [Do you really need an excuse to exterminate Byzantines?] Before that happens, Leudora will [must] find a way to restore the Veil, eliminate the murderers [That one's easy: massacre them.] and bury the Serpent’s research. [You keep calling him the Serpent. It's the Dalmatian Serpent.]

A disgraced scholar with an unsavory reputation, Leudora  [Whew, for a second I thought the plot summary was done and you were starting your bio.] seeks allies and knowledge. Potential allies want her to bring them to power and overthrow the unstable government. And knowledge remains hidden in the works of her defeated enemy. The deeper she delves into the Serpent’s secrets, the more Leudora finds herself drawn to his fascinating mind and dark science. If Leudora follows in his footsteps, her own people will turn against her. If she does not, the Veil will not endure, and her own demise will become the least of her problems. [I'm more interested in what will be the worst of her problems.]

Byzantine Purple is an adult fantasy set in an alternative version of Eastern Europe, told in multiple POVs, complete at 103,000 words. The novel stands alone but is envisioned as the first book in a trilogy. It combines the conflicted protagonist of The Masquerade Series and the political intrigue of A Memory called Empire. 

Thank you for your time and consideration, 

[ The title alludes to the purple mantle traditionally worn by the Byzantine Emperors. ] [And here I thought it was the purple goo.] 

Notes

The plot summary is too long. And I find it difficult to follow, especially with all those blue words interrupting it. The connections between sentences don't seem obvious enough. I have to work to come up with guesses at how they're connected.

What are Leudora's kin doing that's causing the Veil to decay? Why don't they quit doing it? Is the solution to this threat somewhere in the Dalmatian Serpent's notes?

If I'm looking for someone to help bring me to power and overthrow the government, a disgraced scholar with an unsavory reputation won't be my first choice. I assumed Leudora was a political or military or rebel leader. Who is she?

Try the often-effective three-paragraph plot summary:

P1. Who's the main character, what's her goal, and what's her plan to achieve it.?

P2. What obstacles might prevent her from doing so, and what decision must she make to hopefully overcome the obstacles?

P3. What's at stake? What happens if she fails? What happens if she succeeds?

Limit the plot summary to ten sentences. We'll let you know if that improves it or not.

Q & A 196

What are your thoughts on writer’s retreats, workshops, and bootcamps? Commercial gimmick preying on the hopeful? Or legitimate programs?

The language on some of the websites sound like these workshops are on par with ivy league schools.  You have to pay just for the privilege of applying and then the programs run approx $4000-$5000 for 6 weeks.

Would an editor / agent be impressed that a writer was “accepted” to such a program? In your experience, do you see an elevation in quality from those who’ve attended? For example, can you always spot a ‘Clarion man’?

Do some programs carry more legitimacy than others? 

Also, can I get Evil Editor’s (and minions) thoughts on the highlighted portion below, taken from one workshop’s website?

Commercial gimmick preying on the hopeful? Or legitimate programs? As with everything from book publishers to snake oil salesmen to literary agencies to politicians, there are some of each.

$4000 a week for 6 weeks? Including room and board? I'd pay that much, skip all the classwork, and enjoy a 6-week vacation at about $100 a day. Beats staying at a luxury resort at $500 a night including only one meal, a breakfast bar with eggs that have been sitting there three hours.

Would an editor / agent be impressed that a writer was “accepted” to such a program? Only if it's an editor / agent who taught at the retreat you attended and was paid well. In your experience, do you see an elevation in quality from those who’ve attended? For example, can you always spot a ‘Clarion man’? If we're talking specifically about Clarion, that is not a commercial gimmick. It's intense and useful; I have that first-hand from a few people who attended, and the names of authors who've been on the faculty is impressive: http://clarion.ucsd.edu/clarions-distinguished-alumni-faculty/ Also, while I can't always spot a Clarion man, I can always spot a Clarion woman.

Yes some are better than others, and it makes sense to do some research.

As for what an adverb is and why you shouldn't use one, I know you've read Evil Editor's Why You Don't Get Published, vol. 2, article #4, but for those who haven't, here's a link to the original article on the EE blog: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/26791026/3559145757560460699

New Beginning 1091

Warm sunbeams touched open fields and wood fences in the village of Lambahvras. The river Pehm, sleepy in this stretch of its journey, flowed west along the southern edge of the village, sparkling in the morning rays. Spring ice; thin, clear, and delicate hugged the edges of the riverbank. In a rapid sequence of cracks, one piece broke free from the mainland and floated with the current for a few yards before becoming one with the river again. 

Up the northern slope of the riverbank, at the highest point, sat a weathered stone cottage, its windows set alight by the sun’s glow. Every sunrise, no matter the time, no matter the weather, no matter her health, Maska Rue Knottswood stepped outside her cottage’s red front door as she had done for the past seventy three years to take note of who failed to appear for Sungreet. 

 Sunlight may have brightened the scenery, but Rue still felt the spring chill in her thin-skinned hands and in the stone beneath her thin soled slippers. Her shrewd eyes noted with glee that Meadow struggled to coax her young son Thaw through the door of their house. 

It was a different story with Sky and her four boys. The oldest, Volcano, erupted from the house on a dead run, trampling the brittle grasses that had struggled to survive in the frozen yard. Thunderhead moved more slowly, brooding with his dark eyes downcast and his hands in the pockets of his worn trousers. The youngest, Whirlwind, zoomed in random circles while making odd humming noises that unsettled their two skinny goats. There was something wrong with that boy, thought Rue, although for all his oddness he seemed happy enough. But where was Downpour? It wasn't like him to be late for Sungreet. Oh, wait, there he was, stepping out from behind a newly dampened tree, hitching up his britches.

Opening: Amanda Barrett.....Continuation: JRMosher

Feedback Request

Guess the Plot 

 Domino 

1. Domino!—Is it a pizza? A board game? A bag of sugar? Super-sleuth Van Morrison claims he's solved the mystery. But will anyone listen? 

2. During a worldwide pandemic, aging superhero Carnival Cavalry tries to popularize stylish two-piece masks. 

3. Five year old Timmy Topple receives a hand-carved ebony domino for his birthday. He loves to stand it up, tip it slightly, and hear the solitary satisfying click when it falls. Next year and every year, his father promises, he will get another. So begins his quest for immortality in a story spanning centuries of (set them) ups and (knock them) downs. 

4. The fields, homes, and shops of Omendios are being destroyed by monolithic obelisks guarded by screaming apes with clubs! The people fear there are more obelisks than they can hope to defeat, but pizza deliveryman Dom Donovan knows if he can topple just one of them, the rest will follow. 

5. When a set of diamond encrusted ivory dominoes goes missing, Detective Zack Martinez knows two things. He needs to solve the case in time to get to his anniversary dinner; and if he doesn't, his marriage will collapse like a . . .  house of cards. 

 6. At the pizza chain’s masquerade ball, Alex's flirtations with Jael blossom into an office romance. She dismisses his enthusiasm for the new organic red sauce as career ambition. At their wedding, when Jael hisses and burns beneath the priest’s blessings, Alex questions how well she really knows him.

7. Sent to a military boarding school by a mother who thinks he's too fickle, Bali experiences one unfortunate event after another, leading to another, until he decides he must run away. Or maybe he should stay. If only he could make up his mind.

 

[The following is a revision of the query that appeared in Face-Lift 1381. As the book now has a different title, I figured a new Guess the Plot was in order.]

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor, 

At the military boarding school in Haldwani, India, clandestine corporal punishments from the Senior Cadets is accepted as a rite of passage by the juniors. The tall ideals of the old boys have fallen. The seniors rule with an iron-fist with strange codes that either broken or followed, [, enforcing barbaric rules designed to] destroy the juniors. ["Destroy" seems like too strong a word, considering that the seniors were presumably juniors last year, and survived to become seniors. Perhaps "break" or "humiliate"?] while the juniors have no free will. 

When fractious thirteen-year-old Bali Zutshi arrives with the new batch, no one thinks he will survive his first term. Not his House Captain, who makes him endure rigorous training for the coveted Boxing Cup he wants no part of. Not his belligerent cadet guardian, who makes him his errand mule and keeps him on a leash. Not his House Master, who passively watches him suffer from a distance. Maybe not even his single mother, who sent him here to make him a man. [She sent him here thinking he might not survive?] 

Then one day an anonymous letter blows the lid on [off] the culture of corporal punishments handed down from senior to junior under the garb [guise] of tradition. As the administration leads the investigation - [,] the Senior Cadets begin their search for the whistle-blower. Their suspicion? Bali Zutshi. Unsettled, erratic, and homesick. 

Bali has two choices. Run away from school but confirm her [his] mother’s deepest fears about his fickle nature. [Did she send him here to make him a man, or because he was too fickle? I suppose she could believe no fickle child could ever become a real man unless he spent years at a military boarding school.] Or stand up for himself, clear his name and prove that he belongs. [Belongs to what? The seniors? If he clears his name, he's still a junior and subject to being "punished."]  [If seniors doling out corporal punishment to juniors is a bad thing, then the whistleblower is on the right side of this issue. If Bali wants to prove he belongs with those who want the tradition to continue, I'd rather read your book about the whistleblower.] 

When he finds support from unexpected quarters, he begins to see the unraveling of the lost virtues of the culture that once made the school great. Greater forces are at play and Bali must connect the dots to survive the churn. Justice awaits, but the price is heavy. [This whole paragraph is vague. With a lot more specificity it might suggest Bali is finally coming around.] 

DOMINO (~89,000 words) is a coming-of-age story grounded in the harsh realities of a military boarding school in India. I survived five years in one to write this story. 

I am a Marketing Professional. This is my debut novel. I took a sabbatical to complete it. I also have a popular Instagram Page with more than 10,000 followers and growing where I post my own original short stories once a month. 

Would you like to see more of the book? 

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

Sincerely, 

[Regarding the Title: The title derives its name from how a trifling catalytic incident snowballs into a series of unfortunate events in the story.] [It snowballs like a line of dominoes.]  [The incident and it's aftermath might make for a more interesting plot summary, replacing the list of people who don't think Bali will make it.]

Notes

I don't see how this tradition could have lasted so long without the administration knowing about it, if only because some members of the administration probably attended the school.

Making the juniors train for a boxing match and run errands for you don't strike me as the extreme hazing described as "corporal punishment." It's more like the rookies on a football team being made to carry the veterans' equipment bags. Are the juniors being brutalized?

Bali is a junior at the age of 13? Does that mean they graduate at age 14? Or are there levels higher than senior? You said you went to one for five years. Was that ages 10 - 14? If Bali isn't a junior, why are the seniors bullying him? 

There are some improvements over the first version (That Bali was suspected of being the whistleblower seems important, though there was no mention of a whistleblower in Face-Lift 1381), but overall, I don't think it's better. Perhaps third time will be the charm.

Q & A 195

Are comparison titles really necessary? I understand the point of listing comparison titles in a query, but not how to identify a good one correctly. If I list a title that anyone's ever heard of the agent/ editor will roll their eyes at the audacity of comparing my work to something successful. Or they'll roll their eyes because the titles don't qualify as true comparisons -- out of date, different genre, wrong medium etc. Or their eyes will roll because the comparison title is so obscure as to be meaningless. 

And I know you're going to tell me to toddle off to a bookstore and see what all the other new, exciting, published authors in my genre are doing. 

But if I have to pull books off of the shelf and look at all the smiling faces of new authors who got published (and probably at a younger age than me), my rampant insecurity will flare up. I'll seethe with jealousy and become so discouraged that I'll scrap the project for another ten years. I'll never get a query letter sent in at this rate. 

Do I really have to include comps? And if so, how do I identify the right ones?

You've caught on admirably to the beauty of the literary agent's game plan. Asking for comps is nothing more than creating another reason to reject you. For example:

You: My book will remind you of The da Vinci Code.

Agent: I hated The da Vinci Code.

There's no need to include comps if an agent hasn't requested them. But let's assume you've decided the perfect agent for you is one who has requested comps. (This is probably an agent who demands you query using Query Manager, because they know if they send you to Query Manager you'll start filling out the form and give up halfway through and they won't have to deal with you. An agent who uses Query Manager has lots of free time for long lunches. I would use Query Manager if I were an agent.)

I don't recommend toddling to the bookstore if your purpose is to find, as comps, titles of books you haven't read. It would be embarrassing to meet your prospective agent for lunch and she says, "How did you feel when the train crashed in The Girl on the Train?" and:

You: It was so unexpected. And sad. I almost cried. 

Agent: Aha! There was no train crash in The Girl on the Train. My offer to represent you is rescinded.

When an agent asks you what titles compare with your book, they're really saying that if you've written something so original and groundbreaking that nothing like it has ever been seen before, they want nothing to do with it. 

Feedback Request

The author of the book whose query appeared in Face-Lift 1410 would like feedback on the following version of the query.

Dear Evil Editor, 

When the villagers of Lambahvras are forced to evacuate their homeland by an invasive toxic weed, they decide to take up residence in an abandoned island fortress, Carraig Runda [anagram: agrarian crud]. The villagers choose it as a place to escape the poison plants [agrarian crud] and maintain their independence from the rest of the world.  

Upon reaching it after a difficult journey, they must establish a steady food and heat source before winter freezes the lake. As they explore, they find evidence of the previous inhabitants: furnished rooms, garden ruins, glyphs. They also discover remnants of advanced technology that would make habitation here self-sustainable. [How'd that work out for the previous inhabitants?] But how to activate the mechanisms eludes them. 

Rue, the priestess of Lambahvras, believes the structure is a temple. And that a human sacrifice would awaken the gods and allow access to the power here. Her target is Petal Longseed, [sister of Pippi Longstocking and] an orphan village girl. 

Mathieu Westerhall is not one of the Lambahvras. He’s a scientist who journeyed with them from the village to the fortress. He volunteered to care for Petal when her mother was killed and superstitions ostracized her Petal. He’s come to love the gentle, studious girl like a daughter. To protect her from Rue’s religious faction, he’ll need to convince everyone that blood won’t unlock the secrets of Carraig Runda. But if not blood, then what? 

SEEDS IN SHALLOW SOIL is a 108,000 word fantasy novel. It is a standalone book with the potential to become a series. Comparison titles for this work would be Joe Hill’s The Fireman, [and] The Wicker Man (1973), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), and The Oregon Trail computer game. [Including those last two will make the reader wonder if this is a hoax query.]

Notes

Way better than the original. Now we have a story with some conflict.

Q & A 194

As word count expectations vary across genres. Do these expectations apply to the query letter? Is it somewhat expected that a query letter in fantasy, science fiction, or historical fiction will run longer than one where the setting/time is more familiar?

I certainly hope not, or books like War and Peace and the Bible would have query letters ten pages long. Devta, by Muhiyyu-d-Deen Nawaab, would have a 50-page query, which would be bad enough, but it would also be written in Urdu. 

The reason queries are supposed to be about a page has nothing to do with the length or genre; it's because that's as much as an agent or editor can bear to read. Chalk it up to short attention spans.

Q & A 193

 I have signed up for a 7 week writer’s group hosted by a published author that I am a fan of. 

There are five other students in the class and we will be critiquing each other’s work. Would EE care to offer any pearls of wisdom on how to provide feedback to writers? Of course I’ll be modeling my behavior on your examples from the blog but is there any advice you could provide explicitly?

Also, any advice on ingratiating myself to the author? I’m going for an easy A and access to her network of contacts in the publishing industry. 

The 1st thing you need to do is figure out how many of the other students think they're the smartest person in the class. Those people won't listen to your comments, except for the ones in which you praise them effusively, so start by praising them effusively, but then tell them they'll never make it as a writer because no agent will want to work with a narcissistic ass. 

The other writers will probably only respect the opinion of the published author, so agree with whatever the author says, especially if they're arguing with one of the writers. This may ingratiate you. A better way to ingratiate yourself (and get that "A") is to sign up for the author's follow-up course. 

The only way the author will give you access to their network of contacts is if you produce stellar writing. But not so stellar that the author fears you'll become more famous than they are.

Face-Lift 1410

Guess the Plot 

Seeds in Shallow Soil

1. Sacked from selling seashells at the seashore, Sue seeks to sow seeds in shallow soil. 

2. When magic and science both fail to kill the toxic weeds destroying their crops, farmers, led by a stranger in patent leather shoes,  set out on a brutal journey in search of a new home, one surrounded by a fortress that weeds can't penetrate.

3. Rose was always down on her luck. Now that she's grown, she wants to help her old friends, Iris, Holly, and Violet. But can this trio of miscreants rise above their meager surroundings? Or will they always live in the shallow end? 

4. Conman Jonas accidentally discovers he's good enough at the self-help guru shtik to thumb his nose at the feds who're giving him the eye. Unfortunately, he's good enough at it to become internationally recognized, and his long, long trail of unhappy marks want back what he bilked them out of. Plus interest.

5. Don't worry, this isn't yet another preachy allegory. It's your complete guide to the exciting world of tillandsia--plants that grow anywhere, need minimal care, and die after they flower. Which, come to think of it, pretty much makes it yet another preachy allegory.

6. Farmer Hiram sows his corn on barren, rocky soil. After years of failure, he sells his tractor, moves to Washington, and makes a seven-figure income lobbying for farm support. 

Original Version 

Dear Evil Editor, 

Nobleman Mathieu Westerhall is nobody’s idea of a hero. He’s privileged and aloof. He doesn’t venture outside of his upper crust neighborhood in the capitol [capital] if he can help it. 

Which is why he’s dismayed to be squatting in a field in the remote hamlet of Lambahvras; [Wasn't lamb bah vras the sheeps' password in Babe?] a place so small the name on the map far outsizes it’s [its] geographical area. [I assume you mean its geographical area on the map, and not its actual geographical area, because otherwise Lambahvras would have to be about two inches wide. Or the map would have to be about a mile wide, in which case it wouldn't fit in the glove compartment, even when folded up. Not that they have glove compartments in Lambahvras, I assume.] [When you think about it, every country's name would outsize it's geographical size on the map if you use a big enough font size.] [I wonder if stage coaches and hansom cabs had glove compartments. Never mind me, I'm babbling.] He’s attempting to scoop up dirt samples with one hand and keep his handkerchief pressed to his nose with the other. [If only he had a coronavirus mask.] All while avoiding scratches from a thorny, foul-smelling weed that the village innkeeper assures him is toxic.

No one mentioned this agricultural problem when the Queen assigned him the dreaded task of land survey. He was expecting quaint hospitality and platters of fresh food. [If that's what he expected, why is the task "dreaded"?] It wasn’t until the carriage driver had gone that he learned there was no food to be spared. That the town had been overrun by this stubborn weed that chokes crops and cattle alike. 

He ought to have returned at once to report this to the Royal Botanists Society. He could have returned home, filed a report, and resumed his wedding plans. But by the time his reports are [got] reviewed, the homesteads could be destroyed. 

The Lambahvrans are desperate. Desperate enough to allow a city man like him to use his fancy science equipment and interfere with their hexes. These are their homes. Their farmland. And their reservation. [Can you be more specific about the fancy scientific equipment? That Matt arrived by carriage and not car, and that he's wearing patent leather shoes, would indicate it's betweem 1820 and 1910. If we're on Earth. So I assume we're not talking about crop dusting airplanes.] 

What Mathieu doesn’t know yet is that his fancy science is going to fail. [Thus portending the rise of the first Trumpians.] And the Lambahvrans are going to leave. It’s going to be Mathieu of all people who suggests hiding out in an ancient island fortress. [Wait, what are they hiding from? The weed? That's the only threat that's been mentioned.] 

Perhaps most absurd of all, he’s going to go with them. On a hard march through the wilderness. In patent leather shoes. And that reaching this fortress -- if they can -- will only prove the first challenge. [The second will be convincing his privileged fiancée to move into an ancient island fortress with a bunch of impoverished strangers.]

SEEDS IN SHALLOW SOIL is a 108,000 word fantasy novel. It is intended to be the first novel in a series, although I designed the structure to work as a standalone book [with the potential to become a series.] 

 Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

I think you left something out. If they can't beat the weeds, why don't they just march to somewhere with good soil and no weeds? What does this island fortress offer them? Your entire plot seems to be farmers facing ruin because of weeds take up residence in an old fortress.

If most of the story takes place after they get to the fortress, you could just start with:

When the hamlet Lambahvras is overrun by toxic weeds that choke their crops and their cattle, the people embark on a long and brutal journey to an ancient island fortress. 

Then you have plenty of room to tell us what happens in your story.  

If most of the book is the journey to the fortress, tell us about the obstacles they must overcome along the way, and how they plan to overcome them. I'm assuming these obstacles are more interesting than weeds.

Either way, we need to know why they're going where they're going.

Six Books for Ten Bucks!

It's been years since anyone bought these books, so it's time to get them off my bookshelves. All six for $10 plus another $5 for shipping and packaging. While supplies last. But wait, that's not all! You also get the PDF version of Evil Editor's History of the World in Tweets, which you can read on your computer or tablet while you wait for your books to show up. 

Why You Don't Get Published, vols. 1 & 2, the funniest books about writing, and the only ones anyone has ever finished.

Novel Deviations, volumes 1, 2, and 3. 

Openings to actual books, continued

by EE and his minions.

Evil Editor Teaches School

101 hilarious writing exercises by Evil Editor

and his minions (mostly Evil Editor)

Watch the book trailers here.

To order, go to Evil Editor's Bookstore, click the box with EE's picture and "6-book special." 

Face-Lift 1409

Guess the Plot

Dreams of Ethereal Ash

1. Chimney sweep Bucky LaRue keeps dozing off on the job. Hilarity ensues. Also, a disreputable roofing contractor.

2. Ist, son of Ars, dreams of the lost third heaven where mountains of fire consumed the land and sea and sky. He finds the place and bottles some of the sparkly ash to sell to the gullible. Unfortunately, a group of rather determined men and women tell him his dreams are the key to stopping the destruction of all worlds, heavens, and hells. Is it too late to pretend he made it all up?

3. Returning to her home kingdom after a journey to the eastern islands, Eleanor finds the land covered in ash. The long-dormant volcano, Mount Hephaestus, obviously erupted in her absence. Equally obviously, Eleanor's prayers to the god Vulcan have finally been answered, and she won't have to go back to her high school ever again.

4. When TV Skincare guru Dr Ashley Seborrea wakes to find her material form stolen by demons, she longs for her regular life. How to advise the nation on the perfect popping of their pustules when she's invisible, intangible — and emitting random wails for comedic effect? A chance meeting with Butch the Insubstantial Beagle on the outer rim of the Astral Plane solidifies Ash's emerging master plan. The pair rematerialise into one another's lives, drawing the demons out of hiding. But when the great cosmic battle is over, will Butch give up his new-found passion for treating underarm acne — or will he cast Ash into the nightmare world of superstore dog feed and knobbly rubber bones till the end of time?

5. Sixteen-year-old Bennett longs to become an Imperial Knight, so he can hunt the degenerate pirates bringing terror and death upon the enemies of the empire. But first he has to summon his animal familiar, aka his ethereal, which will be difficult because he's the only person who doesn't have one (well, dead people don't have one because when you die your ethereal crumbles to ash, but that's another story), and he can't get an ethereal because he would need magic to get one and he's also the only person who doesn't have magic. If he had an ethereal it could help him get magic, but . . .  In the end, Bennett abandons his childhood dream and becomes a pirate himself and screw the empire.

6. Big trees, little tree, red trees, blue trees. Samson has been dreaming of trees for as long as he can remember. Does the new ash tree in his dreams have anything to do with the murder spree happening in his hometown? 

7. In this collection of post-apocalyptic, Mad-Max-style fairy tale mashups, Cinderella joins Hell's Angels to overthrow the monarchy, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White battle it out in a top secret cryo-lab, and the Pied Piper meets his match in Hansel and Gretel. With cameo appearances by other favorites.

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

To hunt degenerate pirates afflicting [raiding? plundering?] the islands under imperial protection and to bring death upon the enemies of the empire. [Not clear so far whether it's the islands, or the pirates afflicting the islands, that are under imperial protection. Perhaps "To hunt pirates raiding the empire's islands . . . " would address this minor point. Also, as the enemies of an empire are more likely to be countries with armies than individuals, you could go with destroy or repel rather than bring death upon. A colon after the first sentence might be better than a period.] These are the responsibilities of Imperial Knights. For sixteen-year-old Bennett, becoming a knight would fulfill his dream. 

In a society where magic is as unique as one’s own fingerprint and animal familiars called Ethereals are a part of daily life, standing out can be difficult, becoming a knight, near impossible. Especially for Bennett. Unlike everyone else, whose lives revolve around magic and their Ethereal, Bennett has neither. [A person who's unlike everyone else would "stand out."] To obtain magic, he needs to first summon his Ethereal. He can’t. What he can do is fight anyone who ridicules his malady.

On his fourth and final chance [attempt?] to summon, an attack on his home island of Sutton shatters his world. Were it an ordinary pirate raid, life would go on, but Sutton’s protectors were never prepared for a rebel invasion. The empire fails to protect its citizens, and Bennett loses everything. His misguided faith in the knights leads to his sister’s abduction, and for the first time he sees the empire as an uncaring, self-fulfilling [Self-indulgent? Self-serving?] regime.

With nowhere to go and his remaining family kidnapped by rebels, [Remaining family besides his sister?] Bennett tosses aside his childhood dream, taking on a life of piracy. Together with new friends, Bennett will devise a plan to rescue his sister [family?] while spitting in the faces of both the empire and rebellion before all-out war tears her [them?] from his grasp. [If his sister is his only remaining family member, just say sister.]

DREAMS OF ETHEREAL ASH is a 92,000-word YA fantasy appealing to readers of The Storm Crow and Dark Shores.

Thank you for your consideration.

Notes

You need an Ethereal to get magic so summoning an Ethereal apparently doesn't require magic. What does it require, and why can't Bennett do it? Because he has a malady? Is there an Ethereal somewhere waiting to be summoned by Bennett, and thinking, Come on, you moron, just say my name three times?

Now that Bennett's seen the light, why doesn't he want to join the rebels? It would give him easier access to his sister than being a pirate. True, a sixteen-year old kid would be welcomed by degenerate pirates, but not for the right reasons. Plus, his sister isn't gonna want to be a pirate, so it's either join the rebels or move to another empire.

Was Bennett on the island when the rebels attacked? What are the rebels doing with all the people they kidnapped? 

If everyone except Bennett has magic, he should know he's disqualified from becoming a knight. He'd be like Peter Parker before he became Spiderman, fighting against Doctor Strange.

Whether you need to mention Ethereals in the query depends on whether they are useful after they give you magic. You summon one, it gives you magic, and then? Abandons you? Hangs with you like a wise-cracking sidekick? 

I don't think we need everything in the first paragraph. If you started something like:

For sixteen-year-old Bennett, becoming a knight would fulfill his every dream. But in a society where magic is as common as cockroaches, becoming a knight is impossible for someone without it. Someone like Bennett. 

An attack on his home island of Sutton shatters Bennett's world. Were it an ordinary pirate raid, life would go on, but the Imperial Knights were never prepared for a rebel invasion . . . 

you might have room to provide some answers to my questions. Or to tell us what kind of magic we're talking about. Apparently the knights can't stop the rebels by creating a force field or making them all disappear or turning them into frogs. What do people use magic for?