Query, Take 5

Evie Dalton. She's a spanking new coroner with her very own death-mobile. Her first case - an old man sitting in his easy chair. Cake, right? The problem - he's frozen solid. And the dagger in his chest keeps changing colors from silver to white.
She wants to touch the dagger, but knows she shouldn't.
She really shouldn't have.


Okay, this one's completely different than my previous ones. It focuses solely on the precipitating event rather than the plot. I like it because it's quick and spunky, not to mention modelled on Misery. But I don't know that it gives enough information, and the ending seems off.

Query Take 4 =)

The water beings in Little Fish are based loosely on the Japanese Kappa myth, where changeling fairies control the water, sometimes luring women and children to stay in their world.

While conducting her first murder investigation, small town coroner Evie Dalton became mysteriously pregnant with a child of the water. As she tries to deal with this pregnancy and find out more about the being who fathered it, she discovers links to another murder in the town’s history. This death leads her to a new water being, the woman in the rain, who now wants Evie’s child, and is willing to do anything to get him.


I'm not thrilled with this, because it feels very disjointed, but I think it's getting closer to what it needs to be. I'm sure there will be a take 5 soon.

Reworked Query

When small town coroner Evie Dalton examined the body of an elderly man, found sitting in his rocking chair with a book on his lap and a dagger in his heart, she never imagined that her life was going to change completely. Then she touched the dagger in the old man’s chest, and her mind opened to the watery world his murderer came from. A strange encounter in that world left her pregnant with Little Fish, a child of the water that will have abilities beyond her imagination and control.
Now she must choose sides between the man in the lake, who could protect her and help her understand this child, or the woman in the rain, who wants to take the child from her, giving her the chance to live a normal life. As tries to deal with this pregnancy, she learns more about these creatures, and finds connections to another murder in the town’s history. Along with the deceased’s widow and the town’s sheriff, Evie embarks on a mission to discover the reason behind the deaths, and how they are linked to the fate of her child.

new and improved query

During her first day on the job, small town coroner Evie Dalton examined the mysterious death of an elderly professor. While conducting her investigation, she saw a man through the professor’s window, standing on the lake. She ran to confront this enigmatic man on the water, drawn to him in a way she couldn’t explain. Overcome by the water’s edge, Evie lost consciousness and had an extraordinary experience with him. When she surfaced from this fantasy, the sheriff was giving her mouth-to-mouth, and a bizarre sensation fluttered in her abdomen.
Now she’s pregnant and the woman in the rain desperately wants the child. As Evie tries to find out more about these water beings, and the baby growing inside of her, she discovers connections to another murder from eight years before, and along with the deceased’s widow and the town’s sheriff, Evie hunts down the reasons behind both deaths, and uncovers how they’re linked to the fate of her child.

Submissions started last night. I'm thinking of sending about 2 a day for the next few weeks, then I'm going to let them do their thing and start writing something new. Fingers crossed. I don't plan to post rejections, unless they're highly amusing, so if I don't post anything for a little while, it's okay, just wish me some more luck.

For anyone interested, here is the synopsis:
When small town coroner Evie Dalton examined the body of an elderly man, found sitting in his rocking chair with a book on his lap and a dagger in his heart, she never imagined that her life was going to change completely. Then she touched the dagger in the old man's chest, and her mind opened to the watery world his murderer came from. A strange encounter in that world left her pregnant with Little Fish, a child of the water that will have abilities beyond her imagination and control.
Now she must choose sides between the man in the lake, who could protect her and help her understand this child, or the woman in the rain, who wants to take the child from her, giving her the chance to live a normal life. As she finds out more about these creatures, she finds connections to another murder in the town's history, and along with the deceased's widow and the town's sheriff, Evie embarks on a mission to discover the reason behind the deaths, and how they are linked to the fate of her child.

This draft of Little Fish is officially finished. On the long drive for the holiday weekend, I'm going to take a red pen to it and do whatever line-editing is necessary, then next week it's submission time. Woohoo!

Not dead - just got married =)

Hey - I know I don't post on this blog very often (it's really just a way to comment non-anonymously on other blogs, but don't tell my blog that ;) but I wanted to just come on and say all is well, the book is still coming, and woohoo I got married! =)
Hope writing and life are going well for everyone else.

I didn't go back to the beginning. I'm listening to some great advice and finishing the draft. 6.4 is finished and I'm emotionally drained. Word Count - 1024.

After a few weeks off for the holidays, I started working on LF again. Over the break, I thought a lot about the direction it was heading. My main character wasn't as developed as she should have been, so I'm working to fix that. I cut the opening, which had been monster-gets-old-man. While I really liked the opening, the story isn't about the old man, it's about what happens after his body is discovered, and it needed to start with the main character. So the opening was chalked and E got her first scene. Then the dominoes started falling. The next scene had to start at a different point, so rather than just quick edits, it needed a thorough rewrite. I have a feeling much of the first chapter will be like that. Ah well.

I need to stop thinking of this as something with an end-point that needs to be in the immediate future. If rewrites take longer than a few months, that's okay. If they need to go all year, that's okay too, as long as I'm working at it consistently. Some writers take months, some take years. I'll fall somewhere in there too. And I need to allow myself to do so, to take the time this story needs. Because I like this story. I think it's fun and will be worth a read once it's finished. And if I keep plugging away at it, I will finish it.

Word count for today - 893.

HP Wars

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071204/20071204005361.html?.v=1

JK Rowling and WB sue RDR books to block publication of a Harry Potter lexicon.

Thought 1: Where do authors’ rights to/control of their own material end?
Thought 2: Why should other writers be able to make money off lexicons/compendiums of characters/worlds they didn’t create themselves?
Thought 3: Would blocking a “companion guide” like this one bleed into other areas of commentary?
Thought 4: Doesn’t JK already have more money than the queen of England? Should it matter?

new attempt at the query

Small town coroner Evie Foster has a big watery problem. After investigating the mysterious death of an elderly man, she became pregnant, but this will be no ordinary child. The father was the man in the lake, and this child will be able to control not only water, but the emotions of every person he comes into contact with, including Evie’s. Now she must choose sides between the sexy man in the lake, who could help her raise and control this child, or the old woman in the rain, who could take the problem away and leave her to live a normal life. But as she finds out more about these creatures, she starts to wonder if one or both of them was responsible for the old man’s death, and what will happen to her if she gives either of them the child they each so desperately want.

My friend Ann played with it a bit and came up with this:
While investigating a mysterious death, small town coroner Evie Foster had a strange encounter with a man in a lake. Now she’s pregnant with a child that will have abilities beyond her imagination and control. Should she trust the enigmatic father who promises to help raise the child, or the old woman in the rain who offers her a chance for a normal life? Unraveling the truth behind the murder may hold the key to her future – and to the child everyone so desperately wants.

This feels more precise, but I'm still running into a problem. Little Fish has 3 main characters, but in a single paragraph query you only have enough to stick in one, otherwise you end up with too little about too much. This one is Evie's perspective, but as Pat (http://shadows-on-the-wall.blogspot.com/) keeps pointing out, most of the investigation is coming from Mack, who's been in love with Evie since they were kids. Then there's Mrs. Packard, whose husband was a mythology teacher killed because he found out too much and tried to control one of them (not the murder investigation they're currently on - that was 8 years prior, open and shut because the killer shot himself well before questions of motive could come out). His library is where most of the research happens. I'm thinking the main storyline revolves around either Evie or Mack, but between the two, I need to figure out whose story this is.

At 1:30 this morning, I realized that the purple mug that I'd only refilled twice had actually finished off the 6 cup pot of coffee.
Pro: 1500 words written last night
Con: I couldn't actually fall asleep until 3, skipped the elliptical this morning, and am dead tired right now.

my favorite bit of last night's writing

If she just said yes, all of this would be gone and life would go back to normal. No more man in the lake, no more craziness in the fish tank. She would go back to the morgue, enjoy her afternoon coffees, practice yoga at the Y on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and watch medical dramas on television until she fell asleep. And maybe one of those Fridays, she’d take Mack up on his standing dinner and a movie invitation.
She stared at the window pain, watching the droplets gather, merge, and fall. Gather. Merge. And fall. She thought maybe that normal life would be the best thing in the world.

I did another one of those pitch/query contests. I sent the pitch to an agent (Jessica Faust over at Book Ends) and she posted her responses on her blog. So I know the pitch was jumbled – I was pretty hyped on caffeine when I wrote it, and she pointed out the confusion, but she liked it!

31. ChristineLittle FishPeter Dodge fell in love with a woman he was not sure even existed. Fifty years later she came back for him on a foggy cloud, leaving his aged body behind with a dagger in his heart. When Evie, the beautiful coroner, touches the dagger, she catches a glimpse of the watery world Peter's murderess came from, and the beings there could help her understand one of the town's long unsolved cases, if only she gives them the one thing they are fighting for, a child she'll lovingly call Little Fish.

The first line is really good and definitely grabbed me. After that though I was confused. Is the story about Peter Dodge or Evie? Is the conflict of the story Peter Dodge’s love and later death or is it Evie fighting for a child called Little Fish? I think you have some very intriguing elements here, but it feels like two different pitches. Would it be better to say something more like, “When Evie, a small-town coroner, touches the dagger in Peter Dodge’s chest she is somehow able to see the watery world Peter’s murderer came from, and the beings that help her understand one of the town’s long-unsolved cases. To do so she’ll have to give them (who them?) the one thing they are fighting for, a child she lovingly calls Little Fish . . .”? I think it needs one more line about Little Fish and why she’s so important. Otherwise, you’re right on the verge of a fantastic pitch.

I had a tough time of it yesterday. At work, I came up with an idea. It seemed a phenomenal one at the time, an extra character filled with reams of possibilities that would throw a chaotic factor into the story. Then I got home, made dinner, and sat down in the papasan to brainstorm on the new character a bit more, it's relationships with the current ones, its goals and desires.

Then I got irritated.

I didn't know what was wrong. I just kept drawing pictures of the relationships and mini-dialogue between the characters and grew more and more frustrated as less and less of it worked.

Then my wonderful cohort suggested that I go to bed. He crawled in with me and suggested that maybe the extra character didn't offer me anything more than problems and another slew of rewrites that didn't add anything to the story but another tangent, and the other characters didn't need him because they could pick up the slack.

May I just say that I have the most wonderful writing partner in the world?

Killing Writer's Block. By Writing.

When you decide to do something (write, diet, exercise), it's never about not being able to do it, but always about how much you want to do it. After my two month hiatus, I'm finally getting back into the habit of writing every day. Before, when I was writing steadily and then had to take a break for whatever reason, I missed the characters and wondered what they're up to. (Does anyone else do that, or is that just me being crazy?) But this time, after the first month, I wasn't wondering enough, and then I wasn't wondering at all, and then I wondered why I was feeling blocked. Yeah. So last week I decided to get back on the ball with it. I started reading at the beginning to reorient myself and stopped myself from editing anything other than grammar issues. On Sunday, the opening scene was nagging at me, so I let myself go back and work on that. I think that might be a weekend reward for me. Write during the week, edit on weekends. (When did editing become a reward?) But I need to try something new, and if I can push off the vampiric editor for 5 days by telling him he gets free reign on the weekend, then hell, why not.

"From Where You Dream"

After reading two posts about this book, I picked it up at Borders on my lunch break today, and though I'm only a bit into chapter three, it's already made the hampster in my head spin his little ball into a hurricane. In the past 2 months, I've moved and had a number of family issues arise that drained me and put me into such a mental funk that I couldn't concentrate on anything, let alone write anything decent. I started to worry that I'd lost my story, that it had died in its third draft, and I was going to have to scrap it and work up the nerve to start something new and just stash this one under the bed to be opened and laughed at in the years to come. Then I came to chapter three of Butler's book, and it was on yearning. A page and a half into this chapter, I suddenly knew what my story needed. Three of my four main characters knew exactly what they wanted, but the fourth was eluding me, and her loss of direction was tied intrinsically to, and thus crippling, the needs and goals of the antagonist. But Butler's chapter got me seriously thinking about what she yearned for, what she needed more than anything, the one thing, that if she got it, she could die a happy old woman, and then I realized what it was, and how the antagonist is going to use that.
So after doing a little happy dance, I started going back through her scenes and peppering them. I'm not saying the battle is over; there's still plenty more work that needs to be done, but I found her internal motivator, and that makes me a very happy writer-gal. So thanks for those posts about this book. It made my hampster get back to work.

Hello and Welcome

My work in progress is Little Fish. It's my first novel, one year in the making thus far, and in its third draft. I created this blog mainly so that I can post on other writer/agent blogs non-anonymously, but I plan to update on LF's progress as much as possible.