LEGACY
YA urban fantasy
65,000 words
Query:
Allyson
has never met her father, moved more times than she’s had birthdays, and has
never had a best friend until Beth. With legendary acne and worsening asthma,
Allyson just wants to meet the father who turned her mother into a paranoid
move-across-the-nation freak, but when Allyson accidentally spits fire on
kidnappers at the mall, she starts putting the pieces together: Allyson is half
dragon. Her acne? Emerging scales. Her long time asthma? Actually a fiery
breath weapon. Through it all, Beth doesn’t bat an eyelash, admitting she’s
half troll, and trolls have an even worse reputation than dragons.
When
trolls kidnap a half-unicorn child prodigy, Beth gets blamed, and unicorns
solve their problems with murder. Allyson is determined to prove Beth’s
innocence and keep her off the unicorn chopping block, but when they search for
the kidnappers, they get a call from the last person they expected: Allyson’s
father. He works with the trolls and knows where they keep their victims, but
there’s a problem: Allyson’s father is under a mystical compulsion to keep
people from rescuing the victims. Nothing short of death can stop him. Now
Allyson has to choose: rescue the unicorn and kill the father she’s always
dreamt of, or let her best friend hang for a crime she didn’t commit.
First
page:
Muzak filled the mall, and the
place smelled like cheap plastic, fake gold and too much perfume. I stood in
front of a shop for full figured women with my only friend, Beth. “That’s
awesome,” she said, pointing at a blue jacket.
“Try it on.”
Beth shrugged. “Their clothes never
fit right. They’re a little too optimistic,” she said pointing at her chest. “I
can bench a bull, Allyson, but I’m not wining any wet T-shirt contests.”
“How do you know unless you try it
on?” I pushed her toward the window, and she stumbled forward into the foot
traffic. I must have caught her by surprise; she’s the immovable object.
Refrigerators are intimidated by Beth. She’s tall, blond, and could go
pro-roller derby diva at the drop of a hat.
Beth bumped into a guy even taller
than her. He caught her and set her back on her feet, like she weighed nothing.
My jaw dropped. There aren’t many people in the world capable of setting Beth
anywhere.
“Sorry, my friend’s overly
enthusiastic.” Beth straightened her jacket, brushing at imaginary dust.
The guy didn’t blink, he stared. He
had a lopsided face, like someone had started baking a cake but stopped halfway
through. His hair was shaved close to his head, and he wore baggy jeans, combat
boots and a dumbstruck look. He leaned into Beth and took a breath. He stood a
full head taller than her, making him easily the largest man I had ever seen.
Unicorns, dragons, and trolls. This sounds amazing. Go Team Monica!!!
ReplyDeleteThis *does* sound amazing! Definitely a fun change from the usual cast of Fantasy characters!
ReplyDeleteLove me some Unicorns!!!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, the descriptions in your 250 words are hilarious! Go Team Monica!
ReplyDeleteI love the way you give so many great descriptive details around the characters! I want to read more. Great job!!
ReplyDeleteBeth sounds fun. And I'm intrigued by your premise.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a new take on fantasy creatures. Love it!
ReplyDeleteOoo Love the query. Dragons AND Trolls? Um, yeah. Sign me up ;o)
ReplyDeleteOk, two things:
ReplyDelete1.) Your 250 words actually had me laughing out loud. ("Refrigerators are intimidated by Beth." ahahaha)
2.) I had an astonishingly similar childhood (well, um, up to a point lol). If I'd read this book when I was about 13, it would have been my best-friend book. I can already tell. This is the book I would've carried around with me everywhere and read until all the pages fell out. So, um, KUDOS.
You had me at "accidentally spits fire on kidnappers at the mall." Love this!
ReplyDeleteHa! "Refrigerators are intimidated by Beth." Ohhh, that's a keeper. Whatever you do, when this sells, do not get rid of that line.
ReplyDeleteLove this! Good luck!
I love this concept - the opening already had me laughing, I can only imagine how funny the rest of this must be! Love it!
ReplyDeleteYou had me at half-dragon but the voice in the opening just really sells it. Love!
ReplyDeleteLove the idea of a half-dragon girl. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteLove this! And I too love "Refrigerators are intimidated by Beth." Good luck!
ReplyDeleteWho doesn't wish they were part dragon? Or unicorn? :) A fun, solid voice in your opening.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I really like this opening scene. I love that the shirt is "too optimistic." I also love this line: "He had a lopsided face, like someone had started baking a cake but stopped halfway through." Good luck to you in the contest!
ReplyDeleteYour first paragraph in the query just pulled me in. LOVE it! Such a clever idea.
ReplyDeleteAn intriguing premise! And the last line of your query really hooks me. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteLove!!
ReplyDelete#11 LEGACY
ReplyDeleteQuery:
Whoa. There is so much going on in this query! I have to say that I had some trouble following all the twists, especially in the second paragraph. Also, Allyson’s transformation into half-dragon in the first paragraph seems to have nothing to do with her adventures in the second. If she uses her new powers to help save her friend, I think
that that should be in there.
In the first paragraph, Allyson is mentioned by name too often. I’d suggest breaking up the second sentence into two and replacing some “Allyson”s with “she”s: (“…freak. But when SHE…together: SHE is half dragon.)
In the second paragraph, I’d use an em-dash instead of a comma between “Bet gets blamed” and “and unicorns solve…” Also, you mention a “unicorn chopping block,” but later Beth’s in danger of hanging. Which one is their method of execution? Keep it consistent. Also, three times in this paragraph you break up a sentence with a colon, and that’s really two times too many for one paragraph. Try to vary the structure some more.
First page:
A few nits in the first couple of paragraphs: “full figured” should be hyphenated, and there’s a typo: “wining” should be “winning.” I’m also a fan of the series comma, so I’d suggest a comma after “fake gold.”
My big question here is how old the girls are, and I realize now that that’s never mentioned in the query, either. I ask because this opening reads to me more like MG than YA…and the fact that searching for her dad is a major plot point also strikes me as more MG than YA. This whole thing reminds me a bit of Helene Boudreau’s REAL MERMAIDS books, which are MG and involve a similar fantastical transformation and parent-search. So if you’re not having luck pitching this as YA, revising to MG might be something to consider.