Jan 27, 2011

QUERY- LOVE DRUG

Dear X,

In the distant future, a bad boy can wreak more havoc on a good girl’s life than he ever could before.

Everything’s gone wrong for Avalea Christopher. Her Soul Mate is an imposter, her parents are ready to ship her off to shadowy authority figures, never to return, and Upper Cocaigne, the city of her birth, might be keeping its citizens on a steady diet of mind control drugs.

Avalea grew up as one of Upper Cocaigne’s sparkling jewels, the pretty girls who speak well but know little. Still, she’s armed with an unorthodox amount of curiosity and willpower—and decides she’d rather take her life into her own hands than be shuffled off into the unknown. She fakes her death and escapes to Lower Cocaigne, Upper Cocaigne’s dog-eat-dog sister city.

There she’s taken in by Felis Quinn, Crew leader and Soul Mate Imposter Extraordinaire. Despite the part he played in the destruction of her life, Avalea can’t escape lingering feelings for Felis. And though she struggles to fit in with his Crew, she finds her new freedom intoxicating—too intoxicating to give up. Only it turns out she might have to: Upper Cocaigne has put a price on her head and the most powerful Crew in Lower Cocaigne has kidnapped the children of Felis’ Crew for a chance at it. Avalea knows she can save them—if she’s willing to surrender herself, and the life she never knew she needed.

LOVE DRUG is a 98,000 word YA science fiction novel, set a thousand years into Earth’s future.


Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,

3 comments:

Jason said...

WOW! Not bad at all! There are a few small things you could change and you could tighten it up some, but not bad.

I'm sure many will chime in on which words to use, but you've a pretty compelling query here.


One question: if she faked her own death, why is their a death warrant out for her?

Ashley said...

Really good! I think it could be tightened a little. Maybe take out some unnecessary words. Otherwise, I like it and I think it sounds like a great story!

Anonymous Author said...

This is much better written than what usually shows up here. It falls down on word choice, cliches, and not quite getting the story across.

The log line that you start with never quite gets explained.

Watch out for phrases like "taken in by," which can have two different meanings. Is she helped by him, or deceived by him?

"Sister city" is actually an international friendship arrangement... look for another, perhaps darker and more evocative term.

Watch out for cliches. You've got lots of them. Look for stronger, more precise ways to say these things.

I get that the heroine has moxie, and I get that she's messing around with a guy who's no good (not clear why Soul Mate is capitalized), and I get that there might be mind control drugs involved. But I don't really get what's going on.

How are the drugs central to the plot? And who's controlling them and why? What is a Crew, and why is it capitalized? Can you unshadow those authority figures?

Try to sum the whole plot up in a sentence under 20 words long.