Thursday, October 1, 2009

NEEd More opinions!!! Please help!

When a grieving Allyson Hales meets the handsome, time traveling detective, Grant Pierce, her future has never been more unclear and every night,in dreams, Grant rewrites her past, changing her history. But as attraction pulls them together circumstances threaten to tear them apart forever. Ally doesn’t know Grant’s dangerous secret. He must protect her from a war between benevolent time travelers and malicious ones. By falling in love with Grant, Ally has unknowingly made herself a pawn in a very dangerous game and Grant’s love could destroy the one thing they both want most, a future together.

What do you think? Comments are very much welcome and requested! This may be my only chance in some cases to get an agent to even request a partial of my manuscript so it has to grab you and make you wonder enough to want to read the book! COMMENT away!

8 comments:

Meriall Blackwood said...

The idea of the heroine's history being rewritten is really interesting, but it's not clear exactly what is happening there -- does she know about the rewriting?

It's hard to explain in a space like this, but the flow is odd, because you have:
{MCs encounter each other}

{strange and interesting stuff about him changing her history}

{A sentence that assumes they're attracted to each other. This sentence sounds as if it follows another sentence that explains the basis for the attraction, but actually it follows a sentence that describes something that might be very disturbing to the heroine}

So I'm interested, but I don't think I quite grasp the flow of the story. I hope this is helpful.

Rissa Watkins said...

This one is much better! They only thing I would change is to drop the good in front of benevolent.

I really like it.

PS read to non-writer husband he said, "that sounds pretty good. Sounds like one of those books you would want to pick up and read"

Carolyn V. said...

Wow, you're working hard on that pitch. =)I wish I had good advice for you, but I hate doing those.

Bring it to group and we can brainstorm. =)

Michelle L. Devon said...

You're opening with a run-on sentence with way too many commas.

"When a grieving Allyson Hales meets the handsome, time traveling detective, Grant Pierce, her future has never been more unclear and every night,in dreams, Grant rewrites her past, changing her history."

should read:

When grieving Allyson Hales meets the handsome time-traveling detective Grant Pierce, her future becomes unclear. Every night, in dreams, Grant rewrites her past, changing her history, and thus her present and future.

.....

Then you start the next sentence with a 'but', which is okay 'sorta', but at the same time, in a query, you really need your best writing foot forward, and that would mean leaving out sentences that start with a conjunction.

In a query to an agent, you want to tell your secrets, the plot twists and the ending. Your goal is not so much to entice them like you would a reader, but rather to show them you've written a complete story, with a good plot, good characters, good conclusion, etc. You have to reveal the ending and all the secrets.

What you've written is good for a blurb on the back of the cover when you do get published, but it's not great for a query to an agent.

Hope this helps. If you want to stop by our writing forum at: www.accentuatewritersforum.com, I'd be happy to go over the rewrite of this with you and help you really wow! an agent with your query.

Heidi said...

I like this one so much better! It has some grammatical errors that are easily fixed. <3

stephanie said...

I agree with the first comment that the "every night, in dreams, Grant rewrites her past..." is confusing to me. Why does he rewrite her past? How does this tie in with the rest of your summary?
Overall, I like what you say here. I think it pulls you in.
Hope you're having great luck!

Melony said...

Thanks to everyone for your comments! They are greatly helpful!

Stacey said...

I'm with your friend the first sentence is too much all at once.

"When a grieving Allyson Hales meets the handsome, time traveling detective, Grant Pierce, her future has never been more unclear and every night,in dreams, Grant rewrites her past, changing her history."

It is almost as if this hook needs to be a separate paragraph (I have seen that done before and as long as the rest of the query fits on one page you can do that!).

Try something like...
"Allyson is greiving for her past. Grant Pierce shows up and her future has never been more unlcear." (I like the idea of usuing a past and present in the first paragraph to show the juxtoposition of the time, but not give it all away right here...add later that it is time travel involved. That is what I would do anyway. Can you remind me of the exact senetnce we came up with at writer's group? E-mail me your whole WIP for this and that first sentence and then I can do more.)

Or just "Allyson Hales is stuck in her grief over the past. However, when Grant Hayes shows up and forces her into the present -- not only in her shop but also in her dreams, he triggers something. Grant's presence is re-writing what she knew of her past and altering her future."

Totally just a work in progress there too...but some interesting word play ideas. Send me something!

Work In Progress, Flash...

Work In Progress, Flash...

What I'm Reading now....

What I'm Reading now....