Thursday, May 17, 2012

Team CupidsLC #11 - PHOBIC

Title: PHOBIC
Genre: YA Horror
Word Count: 70,000

Query:

Fifteen-year-old Piper Crenshaw knows her house is strange. It’s never needed repairs since it was built in the 1800’s, and the lights flicker in response to things she says. As if that's not creepy enough, it’s also the place where her mother committed murder.

To prove she’s not afraid of where she lives, Piper opens a forbidden door, which hides a staircase that leads to the ceiling. That’s when the flashbacks of the original residents from 1875 start, including a love affair between two young servants. Each vision pulls Piper deeper into not only their story, but also her house. Piper confides in her best friend, Todd, whom she's gradually falling for, but even he doesn't believe her. At least, not until her house gets axed during a prank, and the act injures Piper instead, cutting a gash the size of Texas into her stomach.

Piper realizes her house isn’t haunted—it’s alive. To sever her link to it, she must unravel the clues in the flashbacks and uncover the truth about her mother’s crime, before she becomes part of her house for good. 

First 250:

When I was six years old I found the man my mother murdered stuffed under a trap door in our kitchen. The smell gave him away.

Police swarmed the house, which—uncharacteristically—made no creaking groans of protest at having that many outsiders in it. It was almost like the house knew Mom’s secret and wanted her to get caught.

The roof above me rasps now, like it’s being racked by a fleeting storm, but I grip the clarinet in my hands and glance at the stationary leaves and blue sky outside. Another moaning rasp resounds, nearly overriding the chime from the vintage clock with its swinging pendulum. That chime tells me I have thirty minutes before school starts. Time to get going. Except no matter how creeped out I am in my house, school is the last place I want to be.

Holding my clarinet so I don’t bend its silver keys, I separate the wooden pieces, place them in the case, and snap the clasps shut. Silence clouds my parents’ room in place of the sultry tones I’d been pushing out minutes before, and I stiffen, more aware of the walls around me. They’re like people I have to make my way through, a pulsing crowd of wood that inverts depending on my movements, tilting and nosing in. When I stop to notice them, they look away; motionless, as if they didn’t know I was there. Just walls, I tell myself, feeling a presence on my back like my every move is being calculated. 

30 comments:

  1. I was sold when the ax hurt her instead. This is something I haven't seen before, would love to see what happens.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If literally all you'd posted were just those two opening lines, I would've been sold. This book just sounds too creepily awesome for words.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm so happy they let the alternates participate too! Go Phobic!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This sounds awesome. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Woohoo!! LOVE this!! The query sold me. A living house that damages the inhabitant when it's hurt?! Yes, please!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've read this manuscript and it rocks! Not many stories feature a house as one of the main characters. Go Cortney!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Woot!!!!! Go, go, go!!! (Seriously. Pee-your-panties scary.)

    ReplyDelete
  8. LOVE this idea - i love haunted houses and throw in one that's alive? Awesome

    ReplyDelete
  9. Such a cool premise! I'm totally rooting for you, Cortney!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Haunted houses are very cool! Ditto on the first two lines comment. You've got the best first two lines of the whole group. But then again, I like creepy stories like this.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oh my god, yes, yes, yes, I want to read this right now. This is *awesome*. I'm gushing because 1.) it's horror, 2.) it's YA horror and 3.) the concept is awesome and 4.) those first lines are great. Really, this whole thing is perfect.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This sounds SO creepy! I love it!

    ReplyDelete
  13. So wonderfully creepy - WELL DONE! Good luck! :D

    ReplyDelete
  14. Ahh so creepy! And the first 250 make sure we know it stays that way. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Sounds amazing! I'd love to read it.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I LOVE this. I would totally read it. Haunting, great premise. I'm sold ;o)

    ReplyDelete
  17. The whole living house and that first line - guh! Gives me the shivers! Love it.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Haunted or alive, this house sounds totally creeptastic! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Such creepy goodness here! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  20. What a great, creative twist on a haunted house story. This sounds like something I'd love to read.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I love the changes to your query. Definitely draws me in.

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  22. I normally would not pick up a horror story, but this one sounds really creepy and intriguing and really captures my interest. Great job! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Still love this premise and the opening lines....they pull me in right away! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  24. *floats through, moaning and making ghosty sounds* WOOO OOOHHH!!! Way to go! GOOOOD LUUUCK WOOOOOO.....

    ReplyDelete
  25. I STILL shudder when I read this query - and as a proud and happy teammate, I've read it a few times. ;)

    Incredible concept, beautiful writing, lady! So proud to be on your team. I'm cheering for you so hard! GO PHOBIC GO!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Loooooove this story!!!!! Go PHOBIC!!!!! :D

    ReplyDelete
  27. I vote for you! What a great concept. Looking forward to your pages.

    ReplyDelete
  28. #11 PHOBIC

    Query:

    Oooh, freaky! The bit about the mom committing murder in the house is a great hook—it makes the situation feel more personal than just a random haunted house. I really can’t find anything I would change about this query—it seems to lay out all the important beats of the story and certainly piques my interest to find out more.

    First page:

    NICE writing here! I’m feeling creeped out by the walls right along with the narrator. I really like how you work the details about the house into an otherwise normal scene with your MC practicing the clarinet. I’m also really intrigued that she refers to her parents’ room, which makes me think that her mom is not in jail…and wonder why that is.

    Normally I’d suggest starting in the present before going into a flashback, but I think that the brief flashback you begin with here is so compelling that it might be the exception to that rule.

    I’d add a comma after “six years old,” but that’s my only nitpick. Great first page!

    ReplyDelete