Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Public Slushpile #24

TITLE: Brake Fluid, Blood and Body Bags
GENRE: YA Contemporary

No one who rides with Triss is ever in control, but calling shotgun means I get the best view of whatever chaos she’s driving straight into. When you sit up front, you share responsibility when things go wrong, but I don’t mind. I’d do anything for Triss.

Like today I’m helping her dump a body. Jackson’s body, her betting partner in their twisted game of manipulation. The only thing better than an unsupervised party where you can dance, drink and screw, is betting on who’s gonna get wasted and do something stupid. We just didn’t figure on anyone getting dead. Now, between Triss’ broken-down car, her crazy divorced parents, and the fact that we’re just a couple of dumb, broke kids who know nothing about corpse disposal, getting rid of Jackson keeps getting more complicated. Especially since I don’t know how much of it is my fault.

Sure, it wasn’t me who swung the Louisville Slugger that split his head open, but I was one of the main players at the game six months back when this whole thing started. By the end of the night, Triss won five-hundred bucks, Jackson cracked her jaw with his fist, and she stabbed him in the gut with a butter knife. It was a party. Things happen. But people aren’t like cards or poker chips. They have baggage. They get angry. They want revenge.

And now Triss and I have to clean up the mess before his parents get home.

Brake Fluid, Blood and Body Bags is a 60,000 words Contemporary YA which hops between three timelines: the present, the night Jackson died, and the party six months earlier.

62 comments:

  1. No. Unfortunately, I was thrown off by the query being in the main character's point of view.

    ReplyDelete
  2. NO

    Do not ever write a query in first person; it's a pet peeve among most agents.

    ReplyDelete
  3. NO. This didn't sound like a query to me, it sounded like a page from your manuscript in your protagonist's POV.

    ReplyDelete
  4. No. The first-person present tense makes this read like back story instead of what's to come.

    ReplyDelete
  5. NO. Agents typically don't like queries in the voice of the MC.

    ReplyDelete
  6. No. A query needs to be more descriptive of what to expect in the book. This is too much like simply a section of the book.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yes. Reservations about a story of two kids disposing of a body, but I LOVED the voice.

    ReplyDelete
  8. No. I like the info but not how it's conveyed in first person.

    ReplyDelete
  9. No.

    I am open to nontraditional approaches in conveying the pitch, but this one doesn't work for me. I get lost in the first person account here, it doesn't pull me in.

    ReplyDelete
  10. NO. I didn't mind the unconventional first person POV, but this felt like an inciting incident, not the story.

    ReplyDelete
  11. No. The query style was offputting, but more than that I was just confused about what's actually going on. Am I right that Jackson died SIX MONTHS AGO, and they're still trying to properly dispose of the body? doesn't it, you know, smell?

    ReplyDelete
  12. No. For all the reasons stated above.

    ReplyDelete
  13. No, per above, I quit reading as soon as I saw it was written in first person.

    ReplyDelete
  14. No. I didn't care for the 1st person and it was a bit much for me.

    ReplyDelete
  15. No, like others said, the first person threw me off. I thought I was reading the first chapter of your book.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Yes, despite the query letter being bad, I'd want to see the first few pages. The concept sounds good. The query letter though, is very bad, for all the above reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  17. No, this sounds like a prologue, and not one that would entice me to keep reading.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Yes, only because I like the voice. I had to stop and skim down to see if this was actually a query and not the opening of your book.

    ReplyDelete
  19. No.
    I likewise thought I was reading from the manuscript and the idea of going on a ride with such morally bankrupt characters and their idea of 'fun' is impossible to imagine.

    ReplyDelete
  20. NO, the first person POV didn't work for the query.

    ReplyDelete
  21. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  22. NO
    I couldn't get past the 1st person POV to see what the story was about

    ReplyDelete
  23. No. This is written in the voice of a character I detest almost immediately.

    ReplyDelete
  24. NO. Sounds like a cut and paste out of the manuscript.

    ReplyDelete
  25. No. Everything I've read/heard says that you can break the rules (in this case, writing it in 1st person) if you do it really well, but I don't think that's the case here; seems like you have a solid story, and I think that writing this in 3rd person will give you a better chance of success (i.e. don't get rejected one sentence in because you use the word "I.")

    ReplyDelete
  26. No. Because the query was written in first person, I spent half the time wondering if this was actually the first page (and the other half thinking that first-person queries almost never work).

    ReplyDelete
  27. No. Query didn't work for me and I had to reread to figure out Triss was a girl.
    However, I'm intrigued by the idea you could make an unlikable protag likable. The q reminds me of a dark 'weekend at bernie's' which I did not like but if you can pull off engaging a reader's sympathies for a bunch of murderous, stupid teens, go for it.

    ReplyDelete
  28. No. It read like a page from the book, not a query.

    ReplyDelete
  29. No. I think I might have liked it, but I'm in the camp that first person POV is never a good idea for a query.

    ReplyDelete
  30. No. Not a fan of the first person POV, and I couldn't see any way to make the characters likeable.

    ReplyDelete
  31. No. Never write a query from the POV of your protagonist.

    ReplyDelete
  32. No - only because this felt like the actual book rather than a query to pitch the book.

    ReplyDelete
  33. No. Don't mind the first person, but I really never cared about the protagonist and didn't see why he would go so far to help Triss.

    ReplyDelete
  34. YES. I was thrown off by the first person POV, but loved the voice and wanted to read more.

    ReplyDelete
  35. No. The premises sounds interesting, but the first person narrative doesn't work. If the voice carried through to third, maybe.

    ReplyDelete
  36. No.

    I liked the voice and the hot mess of a situation, there, but the issue with the first-person POV is that I left knowing absolutely nothing about the MC--the story seems all about Triss and the MC is superfluous to that.

    ReplyDelete
  37. YES. True, the POV threw me, but this query accomplished what it was supposed to. It told the plot. And the plot is really different. I'd want to read a few pages and see if your MC can win me over.

    ReplyDelete
  38. No.

    Sounds like a pretty gruesome story, and I don't get the impression that I'd want to read about these characters.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Yes. First person, violence and dead body aside, it sounds like an interesting tale in dark YA fiction.

    ReplyDelete
  40. YES. I really liked the voice of this though I did think Triss was female until the end and it might be a bit too adult for YA. I'd want to read it.

    ReplyDelete
  41. No. The POV just doesn't work. The voice is pretty good, but there's nothing about the plot that makes me want to read the story. Plus, you forgot the serial comma after Blood!

    ReplyDelete
  42. No- POV is uncomfortable and it feels too over the top for YA.

    ReplyDelete
  43. No.

    Hate a query from a character's POV, and this one sounds like either an airhead or a girl who needs to be smacked upside the head a few times. This is a body disposal, not a road trip. If there'd been some hook in how the guy died that'd be one thing, but it doesn't sound like any more than a bunch of drunk, stupid kids.

    ReplyDelete
  44. No. Lost me after the first paragraph.

    ReplyDelete
  45. No. The concept sounds interesting but the delivery in first person throws me off.

    ReplyDelete
  46. NO, despite the strong voice and 'helping dump a body' (which I liked), 1st person was off-putting and the conflict you left me with after a MURDER was 'will the parents find out?'

    ReplyDelete
  47. NO. Per above. Also, some of the mc's comments struck me as "adult trying to sound like a teen."

    ReplyDelete
  48. Yes. I didn't think the query itself was great, but the plot sounded really interesting to me. I'd read a bit to see if I liked it.

    ReplyDelete
  49. No.

    I thought for a second I was reading the first 250 words, not a query -- with a reformat/hook maybe but generally "badass kids being bad" isn't my thing. Also be aware: the MC of the Divergent triology is Tris, and that's the first thing I thought of when your MC mentioned Triss (which is hardly a common name).

    ReplyDelete
  50. No - the first person query throws me, and I'm also not really sure what this book is about. The three timelines make me a little nervous.

    ReplyDelete
  51. No. I'm a avid YA reader, but I think this crosses the line.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Yes. Despite the fact that it reads more like a sample than a query, that the characters sound amoral, and that my son's name is Tris (well, Tristan), the query did its job in getting me to want to read on. So it worked, despite the flaws.

    ReplyDelete
  53. No. That the author breaks the "no first-person in a query" rule makes me think he or she is inexperienced OR someone who thinks rules don't apply to him/her. Not someone I'd want to work with if I were an agent.

    ReplyDelete
  54. No. No sense of the conflict of the story and really not fit for YA.

    ReplyDelete
  55. No. The main character didn't hook me.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Yes. I love it when queries break the rules - when it works! This works, especially the first paragraph, it grabbed me, and I liked the three timelines.

    ReplyDelete
  57. No. Voice and hook is fantastic, but you need to switch it to third person. The first person is going to throw a lot of people off.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Thanks everyone for your comments. Unfortunately, due to my hard drive failing, I was unable to get online and respond to everyone else's.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Just a note, I already commented and I know judging is closed. Just wanted to point out that you refer to 'Triss' as 'she' in the first paragraph and then refer to 'his' parents at the end. Not sure whether Triss is male or female.

    ReplyDelete
  60. @ Dayspring

    Sorry, my own poor wording :) Triss is female, the 'he' was probably referring to Jackson.

    Incidentally, my MC has no name or defined gender, hence the impossibility of writing this query in 3rd person :)

    ...though I'm smacking myself in the head, 'cause I should have at least put the 'Dear Agent' line at the top to make it clearer that this wasn't just text from the story.

    ReplyDelete
  61. No, because it's almost all backstory.

    ReplyDelete