Oct 26, 2010

Possessed - Fourth Revision

Click here to read the original query.
Click here to read the first revision.
Click here to read the scond revision.
Click here to read the third revision.
 
Dear Agent,

Nineteen year-old Gabriel is not supposed to remember who he is or what he has done. But the White Horizon Research Center's pyschological experiment fails.

Everything that Gabriel thought was real turns out to be a product of radiation, electrodes, and drugs – including his identity as a young midshipman in the Napoleonic War.

It doesn’t help when the angry voices of the high school jocks he murdered five years ago return.

They want revenge. He hates himself for what he did to them.

Locked in a debriefing room, Gabriel and two other patients overhear the doctors make the decision to kill them and terminate their illegal project. Gabriel discovers that his troubled cousin has already escaped in a violent rage. The experiments drove her insane. They find a way out of the facility, but Gabriel`s cousin stalks them. She wants to kill them.

Gabriel will have to find a way to keep himself - and his new friends - alive without harming his cousin. But there is nothing that can save him from the afterlife. Everyone knows that there is no way out of eternal damnation for a cold blooded killer.

Possessed is a young adult supernatural thriller with a word count of 56,000 words.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration of my work.

Sincerely,

Sara Kjeldsen

12 comments:

Anonymous Author said...

Excellent. I really feel you're almost there now. You're explaining things clearly instead of talking around them, and because of that we have a real sense of what's at stake.

There are confusing pronouns in this section:

They want revenge. He hates himself for what he did to them.

Locked in a debriefing room, Gabriel and two other patients overhear the doctors make the decision to kill them and terminate their illegal project.


The third person plural changes identity too many times, esp. in that last bit.

I feel as if some of your sentences are a little choppy, but can't be sure. Read the letter aloud and see what you think... they might be fine.

Sara Flower said...

Yay! :)

I am going to take out the entire paragraph about the voices. I feel that it breaks up the energy of the query. It should take out the third person confusion as well.

Thank you.

Anonymous Author said...

You're welcome... Okay, but if you do that, then aren't you taking out your explanation that Gabriel is a murderer?

Sara Flower said...

That is true. I will take out the part about the voices, but leave in the part with him being a murderer.

Sara Flower said...

Actually...I found that placing the voices/murderer paragraph after the debriefing room paragraph makes it work better. Then there isn't the the third person confusion.

Anonymous Author said...

Yes, I think you're right. So, good luck with this. Hopefully you will get some requests. It's an interesting idea, having a protag who has killed five people-- the trick is going to be conveying enough confidence that you can make it work. I think you've done that.

Sara Flower said...

Thanks ever so. You have been a huge help!! :)

Anonymous Author said...

You're very welcome. Good luck.

Unknown said...

Unless White Horizon Research Center is a also a lock down for the criminally insane, (and if it is you need to tell us so) than I think having two (presumably high school age) murderers in one query seems just a little cramped, no matter what kind of experiments they were doing.

One solution might be to keep it a little ambiguous, instead of, "but Gabriel`s cousin stalks them. She wants to kill them." you could just say, "But someone is stalking them in the woods, evidently with intent to kill" and leave it at that, it's more suspenseful that way, not knowing who or what.

Also, another possibility is to not let on right away about the fact that the voices he's hearing in his head are actually the voices of boys that he's murdered. You could just say that he recognizes them as boys he knew from school or something. The last line then would be the first time you ever tell us outright about his crime. I kind of think that's a cool idea, of course you'd have to adjust the end alittle, but It would be a real hook, a cliffhanger.

If you don't take that advice, than i want more about these murders, or maybe it's just the word "jock" throwing me off. Why is the fact that they're jocks important when you tell us nothing else about the whole messy affair? Did he kill them all at once, sabotaging the carpool car heading to the game? Is i some sort of deliberate serial killer with a special thing for a guy in school color? Of coarse you don't have room to get all verbose about this...I don't know...Is it important that they're jocks?

Sara Flower said...

Thank you so much, Draconium. You helped me a lot. I like the suspenseful route.

Anonymous said...

There's too much use of the word 'them' that it sometimes becomes confusing. I also feel that the paragraph "They want revenge. He hates himself for what he did to them." should be joined to the one above it since it's too short.

Sara Flower said...

Yeah I see what you mean there. Thanks.