Jan 18, 2011

QUERY-SUPERNATURAL

Abbie Liddell takes two pills two times a day. She takes two in the morning to numb the fear. She takes two at night to sleep. She swallows them in secret.

The parapsychology institute where she lives forbids prescription medications. Prescriptions only repress psychic gifts, and the Institute doesn’t dabble in the ordinary.

Abbie should be trying to uncover her gift to communicate with the dead. But it’s just safer not to. Her ability is buried within a repressed memory of the two weeks she went missing when she was eight. And the mind buries these things for a reason. The institute’s other recruits should know.

One recruit’s gift surfaced because of an event that broke her so bad she tried to drown herself in the Mississippi river. When another recruit’s gift surfaced, he realized taking another person’s life, good or bad, changes someone. Takes something away from your soul or puts something else in. The other recruits haven’t been the same since.

But the Institute is desperate for Abbie to contact a spirit. So desperate they will perform a procedure on her in three days to crack open her gift. They don’t care if it leaves her dead.

Remembering the two weeks her mind banished from her psyche in order to protect itself sixteen years ago may leave her wanting to die. But not remembering may kill her.

SUPERNATURAL is a paranormal suspense. It is complete at 125,000 words.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

This sounds really interesting.

I am, of course, very curious about the details of the institute as well as the setting. Is it futuristic? Present-day?

This might sound strange, but it made me think of Lois Lowry's "The Giver".

Good luck :-)

Elena Solodow said...

This sounds interesting...but I don't see a major plot for the MC. What does she spend the whole of the book doing?

Anonymous said...

I like your premise. I think I would change that first sentence to just read "Takes four pills a day" to make it more concise.

The query is a bit too long ... I started skimming when I got to the fourth paragraph. I think you can skip that entire paragraph and still have the essence of your story.

One thing about the title, Kiersten White has a book coming out this summer called "Supernaturally". I would want to avoid any book title that would be similar to a book most agents/editors are aware of.

I like your voice and I think you'll get some bites off a revised query. Good luck!

Anonymous Author said...

I agree that it's too long. I was thinking everything in the first three paragraphs could be said in one or two sentences.

Side details aren't necessary, like the person trying to drown themselves. Focus on the central conflict. What is the central conflict?

Stephanie Lorée said...

Voice is good, characterization is good. Premise sounds intriguing, except I'm not sure what the story is.

That's your problem.

Cut all the backstory stuff down to 1-2 sentences to introduce the character. Then, tell me what said character does. I was interested by paragraph 1, and then I got bored, until paragraph 5 when you hinted at the story.

Also, you need to condense and not repeat. As pointed out by another commenter, saying 4 pills is more concise than 2 pills two times a day... and then repeating that she takes 2 in the morning, 2 at night... it gets redundant. Be precise. You have a limited word count. (250 or less ideally)

It's obvious you have talent and an cool setting. But in a query, I need to know what the story is about, the central conflict. What horrible things happen to Abbie and what does she do about them?

Keep going. This is good. Best of luck!

Scribbler to Scribe

TVButler said...

All these comments were extremely helpful. Thanks for the feedback!