Wednesday, September 5, 2012

CAGI Entry #32


Title: MIRE
Genre: YA paranormal mystery
Word Ccount: 70,000

Query:

Most teens would do anything to have a celebrity parent. Diya would do anything to give hers up.

Adopted from an Indian slum as an infant by her movie star mom, she's grown up, amidst whippings and alcoholic meltdowns, into a sixteen-year-old with prematurely thick skin and a deep hatred for her abusive mom.

Seventeen-year-old Matthew grew up in a different type of family – the Seer's disciples. He guards a powerful crystal with the ability to control minds, a crystal entrusted to Matt's grandfather by his Indian Seer.

When Diya crashes her car en route to her aunt's house, Matthew hauls her out of the wreck. He's gorgeous enough to send her heart racing. But not enough for her to be oblivious to certain odd things about him, like his ability to see in the dark. Matt, on the other hand, recognizes Diya for who she is – the Seer's granddaughter. He needs her help to find the missing mind control crystal and trap a murderer.

Someone's using the crystal to force people to kill themselves and masking the murders as suicides.

Matt knows Diya is the only person who can reverse the crystal's power. But first, he has to convince her of her true identity. Being more comfortable with her loner status, Diya's not too keen to believe anyone, however hot he is. Plus, she has her own list of murder suspects. And, Matt, with his unusual abilities, is way up at the top.

But when her aunt is nearly killed, the threat hits home. Now the teens have to pool their abilities to try and outsmart the killer, before he figures out who they are and destroys them first.
  
First 250:

Most kids would do anything to have a movie star parent, but as far as Diya was concerned, having a celebrity parent was way over-rated. If she had the choice between Miranda and being stranded in a deserted island without Wi-Fi, she knew what she'd pick.

That thought echoed in her mind, as she found herself in yet another staring stand-off with her mother across the length of the humongous dining table. Miranda’s hard face rivaled the cold wooden surface of the table.

Diya took a deep breath and counted to ten, waiting for the familiar explosion. And then it came.

“You’re not going anywhere, you brat. You owe me.” Miranda's skin stretched tight over high cheekbones, courtesy of the most popular plastic surgeon in LA. Any more stretching, and it would rip right down the middle. “I want you at the benefit.”

“No.” There was no way she was spending another second here. She'd planned to leave right after school, but Miranda had stopped her in the hallway.

A line of white crept around Miranda's compressed lips, a sure sign of an impending tantrum. Diya's mouth went dry, but she forced herself to meet the woman's glare with a steady gaze. Years of verbal sparring had taught her one thing. The woman could spot a chink in your armor from a mile away.

8 comments:

  1. Really interesting concept- I love the "daughter of the movie star" characterization. I think the opening paragraph is a little too telling. You do such a good job showing the conflict in the rest of the scene that I'm not sure you need it. If you keep it (and this is totally nitpicky) I would change "what she'd choose" to "which she'd choose". I don't read widely in this genre so I could be wrong, but it seems like the Indian seer angle is fairly unique. I'm intrigued.

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  2. LOVE the first sentence. It grabbed me right away, because wouldn’t most kids love to have celebrity parents? Wait. This one doesn’t? Must. Read. On. The query itself needs to be trimmed. And I’ll admit, after reading the first sentence, I thought this was a YA contemporary and had to go back and look at the genre, so you might want to get more of the paranormal element up front. A query really shouldn’t exceed 250 words. So like I said, lots of trimming.

    Here is my generic attempt to get it down:
    Most teens would do anything to have a celebrity parent. Diya would do anything to give hers up.

    Adopted from an Indian slum as an infant by her movie star mom, she's grown up, amidst whippings and alcoholic meltdowns, into a sixteen-year-old with prematurely thick skin and a deep hatred for her abusive mom. Gorgeous seventeen-year-old Matthew grew up in a different type of family – the Seer's disciples. He guards a powerful crystal with the ability to control minds, a crystal entrusted to Matt's grandfather by his Indian Seer.

    When Diya crashes her car en route to her aunt's house, Matthew hauls her out of the wreck and recognizes Diya for who she is – the Seer's granddaughter. He needs her help to find the missing mind control crystal and trap a murderer.

    Someone's using the crystal to force people to kill themselves and masking the murders as suicides. And Matt knows Diya is the only person who can reverse the crystal's power.

    But when her aunt is nearly killed, the threat hits home. Now the teens have to pool their abilities to try and outsmart the killer, before he figures out who they are and destroys them first.

    This version has got it under 200. I’d use the extra words to build the romance aspect. Very interesting premise and unique, which is great in a heavily crowded market.

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  3. I like Jennifer's suggestions. I really liked the intro and then the paranormal/fantasy element threw me. Combining both in the first paragraph is less jarring. Very interesting premise!

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  4. Great suggestions Jennifer - you made the ones I was going to make. I really like this premise, but I agree the fantasy element struck me as odd. It seems like such a great contemp idea. Great job though!

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  5. I agree that the query needs to be trimmed. The first three paragraphs are good, but after that you lose me because you try to cram too much info into it, which is really tempting, I know! And I also agree that you can lose certain bits of the first 250 because they tell what you do a nice job showing.

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  6. Thank you. I love the suggestions. Thanks, Jennifer. I like what you did with the query.
    Truly appreciate the help.

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  7. I agree with the trimming of the query. Your writing, which I believe is pretty top notch and succinct, isn't reflected in your query. This does you a huge disservice as agents may think you would tend towards the long winded side of things in your writing as well. I received some great info about writing queries that said your query should aim to answer five questions.
    1.) What is the precipitating event?
    2.) What is the conflict that arises because of this event?
    3.)What are the complications?
    4.)What is the choice?
    5.) what are the stakes?
    I think that you've gotten some great advice from people above me that would help you get to this point. If your query answers these questions in about 300 words or less, you are golden :D I love the voice of your story and I would most def want to keep reading. Good luck!

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  8. Thanks, Jessica. Great advice. I'll definitely get to work on that query. Thanks for the encouragement, too.

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