The Writer's Voice 2015 Contest Entries! Go Team FTW!

“The Writer’s Voice” is a multi-blog, multi-agent contest hosted by Brenda Drake, Mónica Bustamante Wagner, Elizabeth Briggs, and Krista Van Dolzer. We based the contest on NBC’s singing reality show The Voice, so the four of us selected projects for our teams based on their queries and first pages and coached the talented writers who wrote them as they polished their entries.

And TODAY we get to post our team members’ finished entries on our blogs!

Twelve amazing agents are going to read these queries and first pages, then vote for their favorites on Tuesday, June 23. Each vote will count as a partial or full request depending on how many votes the entry receives. If an entry receives 1 or 2 votes, those votes will count as partial requests. If an entry receives 3 or more votes, those votes will count as full requests.

Voting will stay open until noon EDT on June 24, at which point we’ll determine which coach’s team received the most votes (and let this year’s ninja agents take a crack at the entries). That coach will win bragging rights for time immemorial, and everyone who received requests will be able to submit their materials to all the agents who voted for them. These votes represent serious interest in your project, so PLEASE DON’T ACCEPT AN OFFER OF REPRESENTATION BEFORE GIVING “THE WRITER’S VOICE” AGENTS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A COMPETING OFFER.

Our twelve amazing agents:

Caitie Flum of Liza Dawson Associates
Mollie Glick of Foundry Literary + Media

Erin Harris of Folio Literary Management

Lauren MacLeod of The Strothman Agency

Sara Megibow and Renee Nyen of kt literary

Ammi-Joan Paquette of Erin Murphy Literary Agency

Carrie Pestritto of Prospect Agency

Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency

Andrea Somberg of Harvey Klinger, Inc.

Courtney Stevenson of Pippin Properties

Caryn Wiseman of Andrea Brown Literary Agency

Without further ado, I present to you, MY AMAZING TEAM: 

Team FTW #1 A HALF-RISEN SUN (YA)

Team FTW #2 ROBOT BILLIONAIRE BOYFRIEND (YA)

Team FTW #3 GEEK CAMP (MG)

Team FTW #4 SUN AND IRON (YA)

Team FTW #5 HEARTBREAKER FOR HIRE (Adult)

Team FTW #6 THE WICKED AND THE DARK (YA)

Team FTW #7 THE HEARTBEAT HYPOTHESIS (NA)

Team FTW #8 THE FAKELORE GIRL (YA)

To read the other teams' entries, please use the following links:

#TeamCoffeehouse
#TeamFTW

#TeamTRex

#TeamMaries

Lastly, cheerleading is allowed, but only until Monday! We want to leave the comments free for the agents to vote on Tuesday. (Also, we will only allow, well, cheerleading and/or positive feedback. Please don’t critique the entries before the agents vote. On the flip side, please don’t try to convince the agents that they want to vote for one of your favorites or, you know, threaten to douse the agents in silly string if they don’t vote for your critique partner. This is a silly-string-free site.)

Happy reading!

Team FTW #1 A HALF-RISEN SUN (YA)

A HALF-RISEN SUN

YA sci-fi

71,000 words

PITCH

Sixteen-year-old Kittilyn Kite never expected the girl on her doorstep to be an interplanetary fugitive. As the heiress of a large—but crumbling—estate on the planet of Salome, Kittilyn was happy to oblige when a friend of a friend needed a place to stay. But once seventeen-year-old Lennox arrives, Kittilyn discovers she may have just invited someone very dangerous into her home.

Chipper Kittilyn and gruff Lennox do not mesh well, and at first Kittilyn can't think of a reason not to hand Lennox over to the police. If Kittilyn doesn't turn her in, she risks becoming a wanted criminal herself. But if she does give Lennox up, she could be putting an innocent girl in the hands of a corrupt government that has so often wronged Kittilyn's own family. What Kittilyn doesn't know is that Lennox may hold answers to questions about her family's past and the key to finally saving her estate from financial ruin.

A cross between Downton Abbey and Firefly, A HALF-RISEN SUN is the story of a debutante, a teenage hacker, and a dog named Milward who take on pretentious socialites, aggravating boyfriends, and the galactic government.

FIRST PAGE

I had sixteen empty rooms but nowhere to put the rain-soaked girl who stood at my front door.

            Over the past year, I had been forced to gradually sell off most of the furnishings and décor within Cherishbough Hall. The few remaining pieces included a small wrought-iron bed for myself, one piece of a sheersilk sofa set in the parlor, and a rickety wooden table in the kitchen.

            But despite my predicament, my genteel breeding did not fail me. I would figure out somewhere for my off-planet guest to sleep. Members of the Kite family were nothing if not resourceful.

            “Hello! You must be Lennox,” I said cheerily to the girl, who had yet to change her expression from anything other than a scowl. Her hair—a yellow I guessed was as bright as Salome's sun when dry but was a dour mustard color wet—clung to her face. A black stripe about two fingers thick on the right side of her hair ran from root to tip, like an outer reflection of an inner dark streak.

            “I'm Kittilyn. Of course, you probably guessed that.” I waited for Lennox to laugh, but she didn't even crack a smile. I swallowed a nervous giggle. “Please, come in and we'll get you dry in no time.”

            Lennox's shin-high boots squeaked as she entered the foyer. Her hair and clothes dripped puddles of rainwater onto the priceless, centuries-old marboleum floor.

            Inside I was cringing with each splash, but I didn't bat an eye.