GENRE: contemporary magical realism
WORD COUNT: still editing/revising, don't want to make promises. Somewhere around 60-70K max.
Note: my bio paragraph is missing because it's the signature for my emails. Also missing is my "why I'm querying you" paragraph, because this is highly individual depending on the agent.
QUERY
WORD COUNT: still editing/revising, don't want to make promises. Somewhere around 60-70K max.
Note: my bio paragraph is missing because it's the signature for my emails. Also missing is my "why I'm querying you" paragraph, because this is highly individual depending on the agent.
QUERY
"The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter's Daughter" meets
FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC in this 60,000-word novel about a young woman locked away
from the world who claims to be a magical princess from an ancient Japanese
fairytale.
Katie has been trying to escape the refurbished attic of her
house for over six years. Her parents have installed bars on her single window
and deadbolts on the outside of the door. She has no computer, no television,
and no phone; a walkie-talkie is her only way to communicate with the outside
world. Her only sources of comfort are dancing to her iPod, her carefully
hidden collection of old Polaroids, and reading. Her parents, the social
workers, and her psychiatrist all say she's there for her own good. That this
way she doesn't have to be institutionalized. That her delusions are growing
worse.
But Katie knows she isn't crazy. She knows she came from
hundreds of years in the past, from a magical city on the moon, and that she
was found inside a bamboo stalk when she was a baby. She knows she's really
Princess Kaguya and that Jade the Moon Rabbit, her best friend and faithful
servant, is searching for her. She knows that a terrible darkness from the past
is coming to their small Alaskan town, bringing with it something terrible
Katie can't bring herself to remember. And she knows she has until her
seventeenth birthday to escape her prison, or she'll be trapped on earth
forever.
Then she sees a boy named Mark through her window. Katie
claims he can turn into a fox and control the dead. That Mark is her long-lost
love from centuries ago. Her heart says they belong together and they're
running out of time until the window home closes for good. But with no sign of
Jade and a sympathetic but adamant Mark denying he's ever met Katie, she begins to doubt. The darkness is
coming, Katie's desperation is growing, and as her seventeenth birthday rapidly
approaches, the truth will finally come out—is she really Princess Kaguya? Or
is her past all a delusion?
Using prose, verse, Japanese poetry, annotated interview
transcripts, pictures, playlists, and Japanese folklore, MY NAME ISN'T KATIE
tells the story of a sixteen-year-old girl who might be an alien princess trapped
in a sinister mind-game...or who may simply be a deeply psychologically
disturbed young woman.
FIRST 250(ish)
6 days, 12
hours, 41 minutes
They've let me in
the downstairs bathroom because I cut my arm on a nail sticking out of my prison
bedroom wall. The woman who claims to be my mom needs more room to
stitch me up than she can find upstairs. The attic is large but the attic
bathroom is small. The light isn't good, either.
I watch the moon
through the tiny bathroom window. A sliver of white, a soft glow against black
and the stars, so many stars. Is this the edge of the world? They're so clear.
Like diamonds.
They don't twinkle.
Only in sick cities do stars twinkle, their light battering futilely against
the smog. There's no smog here at the edge of everything. No poisonous air.
Only me and the people who say they are my parents but they're lying,
no I can't think like that, don't think and this prison this house
and the attic and the stars so bright you could read by their glow and the
light of the moon.
They won't let me
read for a long time after this. Not until they figure out if I did this to
myself on purpose this is an accident. If something I read gave me the
idea to use my pain as the key to escaping made me hurt myself.
Or maybe they think
I'm trying to call him but this is all wrong. He doesn't want blood
and a dying heartbeat, he is soft things, sweet things. Frost and snowflakes
and winter and death, yes, but mourning. Passing. Moving on. Not pain and hurt.
They don't know him, they don't understand he can't find me yet because
there's something wrong here. I think this is a trap.
But
you can't kill Death. There will always be Death.
Hello! I must say, this sounds like quite the intriguing/unique read. But, let's get down to business:
ReplyDeleteQuery: This is just a tiny note, but I'd be curious to know where your word count is. Unfortunately, agents can reject on that alone, so knowing you're in the right ballpark is nice. But I suppose as long as you're less than 100k that's usually good to go. Anyway, onto the body of the query. I really, really like your first paragraph. I think the quick sentences sound great together, and give us the necessary information. The second paragraph I'd say is pretty good too, but I feel like it may have had too many names - maybe eliminate the servant's name from the query, just to make thing simpler. Then, the third paragraph I felt like I started to get a bit confused as the stakes got higher. I felt like all the elements that come to bring together the "darkness" don't really add to the stakes and tension as they are now. Otherwise, I'm confused about how your MC knows all these things are related to the darkness, or how she knows about the darkness at all. Is it some prophecy she already heard before she was kidnapped?
250: I'm really intrigued by the way she's crossing out words in the prose. I think it's unique, and adds a new layer to the story, but I'm wondering if readers might find it annoying after a while, having to stop and start reading. Otherwise, I might put a transition word between the first and second sentences. I get how they relate, but I think it might flow better if it's clear right away that she got to go downstairs because she cut herself. But, otherwise, I am intrigued by this. It's a smaller scale inciting incident, but you can already feel the change happening in Kaguya's circumstances.
Nice work, and I wish you the best of luck with your writing.
Thanks! :D
DeleteOoh, you're right. The third paragraph needs some tightening up. I know how to tie it together, though. Which will also make it clear how Katie "knows" things - there's only 2 options. Either she really IS this immortal princess OR she's delusional and she just "knows" things because she's delusional. The darkness is literal darkness - they're in Alaska, approaching the 2 months of unending night that happens in some towns. I'll make that more clear.
Got it, transition word.
Yeah, the cross-outs are a risk but I've seen them done to great great effect before, and I really want to experiment w/ formatting with this so I gotta keep it. Especially since I've got a protagonist who's afraid of/aggressively regimenting her own thoughts.
I'm glad you like it! :D Thanks for getting back to me.
Hello, hello,
ReplyDeleteQuery: I liked the beginning of it, but I felt the need to know exactly how many years it's been - you do mention at one point that she was trapped in this prison for six years, so maybe you should start with that, because either she know the period or she doesn't. Also, I felt the first paragraph was stating the same idea in numerous sentences. For example,'She has no internet, no computer, no television, and no radio. There is no phone; only a walkie-talkie in case she needs something.' can be tightened to "No internet, no television, no radio - only a walkie-talkie in case she needs something". If you introduce the idea of her parents, but then state that they aren't really her parents, you should start with that in the first paragraph. And in the third paragraph, you've written "Katies".
But all in all, I really like the concept of it and the fact that it deals with multiple formats. I have to say, I haven't seen anything like this before, but I'm beyond intrigued to read more.
250: Ohh, the format innovations continue here too. Very, very interesting. I will have to say that I'm not a big fan of using so many short sentences in the first paragraph, but I feel the first one gives a good sense of what is going on. My only big critique is that you use a bunch of words numerous times. For example, "The attic is large but the attic bathroom is small.", where you have the same word twice in a very short sentence.
Also, "They won't let me read for a long time after this." - I didn't quite get what 'this' was and I had to reread it a bunch of times to find out.
I like the overall rhythm of your other paragraphs, especially the last one. It does paint an intriguing picture. However, I would advise, since you are taking a very different route with formatting, to maybe find some way of making the cross-outs a little easier to read (maybe a bigger font?).
So, I hope you don't mind, I saved the most intimidating for last. I suspect you're farther along in your writing career than I am in mine. I hope I can be helpful anyway.
ReplyDeleteQuery:
It seems long, like it could be tighter to attract attention quicker.
First paragraph. It's tough to see a main character that is more acted upon than acting. I suspect this is on purpose, but is unusual to read in a query. Maybe "Katie has tried to escape for...." or "Katie has survived alone for six years, locked in her room, with only her ipod, books, and carefully hidden..." The bars on the windows, locks on the doors, and list of what she doesn't have are background obscuring your story. I'd suggest you combine "The only people who..." and "They say she's there..." into one sentence to get to the plot quicker.
The second part is beautiful writing, I'm just not sure it belongs in the query. Is there an inciting incident in the story? When she sees Mark? Finding what her captors know? The white beast? There are two many details of her past. The important parts - she believes she's the Princess and her captors know it too - should stand out instead of being buried with the finding and her best friend.
I'd make the stakes clearer - Katie needs to (find the moon rabbit | warn about the fox | defeat the white beast ) or ... It gets hinted at, but it gets lost in the repeated "is she or isn't she".
That is one ambitious book, but if you could pull it off, I'd like to read it. No jack all about Japanese and other Asian myth cycles, so could be new and entertaining.
First 250
Oops, one barred window in the query, no windows in the first 250.
I get the crossed out parts of her journal entry, but I think you're going to have to limit it to small chunks of text. I got completely lost in the "this is all wrong he doesn't want blood..." passage. I wouldn't cross out the "I think my parents are trying to kill him line." From the little we can see, there is no reason for her to hide that part.
Only me and the people who say they are my parents but they're lying. The excisions are duplicates. I see you are trying to illustrate she's got problems, but we get it from one instance. It doesn't need to be repeated.
I like the "They don't twinkle..." paragraph. Nice combo of dangerous isolation and yet beautiful.
I like the sting in the tail, but I'd remove "in this life." and just leave it at you can't kill, there will always be .
I'm envious of your track record publishing. I appreciated your comments on my entry. I hope you find something helpful in my comments.
Luck
D
"The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter's Daughter" meets FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC in this 60,000-word novel about a young woman locked away from the world who claims to be a magical princess from an ancient Japanese fairytale. [Very cool! "Claims" seems weird though. "Thinks she is?"]
ReplyDeleteKatie has been trying to escape the refurbished attic of her house for over six years. Her parents have installed bars on her single window and deadbolts on the outside of the door. She has no computer, no television, and no phone; a walkie-talkie is her only way to communicate with the outside world. Her only sources of comfort are dancing to her iPod, her carefully hidden collection of old Polaroids, and reading. Her parents, the social workers, and her psychiatrist all say she's there for her own good. That this way she doesn't have to be institutionalized. That her delusions are growing worse.
But Katie knows she isn't crazy. She knows she came from hundreds of years in the past, from a magical city on the moon, and that she was found inside a bamboo stalk when she was a baby. She knows she's really Princess Kaguya and that Jade the Moon Rabbit, her best friend and faithful servant, is searching for her. She knows that a terrible darkness from the past is coming to their small Alaskan town, bringing with it something terrible Katie can't bring herself to remember. And she knows she has until her seventeenth birthday to escape her prison, or she'll be trapped on earth forever.
[Very curious whether this is going to be real or just inside her head (okay, Dumbledore, I know they can both be true)]
Then she sees a boy named Mark through her window. Katie claims [Does she tell him? When she claims, who is she telling? How does Mark get to her attic window?] he can turn into a fox and control the dead. That Mark is her long-lost love from centuries ago. Her heart says they belong together and they're running out of time until the window home closes for good. But with no sign of Jade and a sympathetic but adamant Mark denying he's ever met Katie, she begins to doubt. The darkness is coming, Katie's desperation is growing, and as her seventeenth birthday rapidly approaches, the truth will finally come out—is she really Princess Kaguya? Or is her past all a delusion? [Curious to see what happens before this date appears. Seems like it would be pretty boring to just be in the attic with Katie until this happens. Hopefully that's only up to plot point one? Might want to give us more hints for what comes later.]
Using prose, verse, Japanese poetry, annotated interview transcripts, pictures, playlists, and Japanese folklore, MY NAME ISN'T KATIE tells the story of a sixteen-year-old girl who might be an alien princess trapped in a sinister mind-game...or who may simply be a deeply psychologically disturbed young woman. [This last sentence repeats your initial hook. I like this structure better, though. Choose one.]
FIRST 250
ReplyDeleteThere is some absolutely beautiful writing here, but you need to put some more careful thought into your use of strikethroughs, and include a mention of this style in the query.
Some thoughts on this. Are you trying to get this picked up by boutique presses that are seeking experimental writing? If so, the query should reflect that, and meditate on the form (which is a huge focus for experimental writing), as well as on the story. Not sure if that's the right kind of thing to take to an agent--I think those kinds of presses take unsolicited manuscripts.
An experimental format like this asks readers to engage with the format, with the nature of telling stories, with the reasons behind your decisions to use cross-outs. Novels that use a format like this throughout successfully can be amazing and thought-provoking, but they're rare, and are not normally commercial successes. They're also completely exhausting to read, and are often read more as an intellectual exercise than as a deep dive into a good story. Think about whether you want readers to be engaging primarily with your experimental format, or engaging with your character and her story.
Personally, I find the crossouts to be very distracting. Can you find a middle ground here that keeps us in your narrator's head, without distracting us with unconventional formatting? I highly recommend The Shark Curtain, by Cris Scofield, if you'd like a look at writing that stays inside the narrator's neurologically atypical head so much that it can be slightly disorienting—but never distracting.