The Real World Genres - MS Shooting Gallery
"Real World Genres Shooting Gallery" provides writers with opportunities to test market their best novels and hopefully score a contract. Agents and TV/Film reps will check in and review work during 2021. AAC will edit beforehand as needed. For Algonkian alums only.
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Exposition and End Game This select forum thread is dedicated exclusively to Algonkian alums who wish to post sell sheets of their completed commercial or literary novels, or novels-in-progress, for the purpose of showcasing them to agents and TV/Film reps. We will inform these professionals of new high-concept projects and invite them to stop by regularly during 2021. If they wish to request something immediately, or at a future date, they will either contact you directly, make a post, or else contact us. It is also possible they might wish to video conference with you. The scenarios are various, but all is casual. There is no set schedule. This is how we want …
Last reply by AgentModX, -
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COMP: Outlander meets The Mystery of Mrs. Christie. An outsider who disappeared and is reimagined. HOOK LINE; Anne Bonny escaped a hanging, built a life and left her past behind. Or so she thought. Pirate, smuggler, wife, mother and fugitive . . . Anne Bonny always sailed against the tide. SHORT PITCH: Anne Bonny, sentenced to be hanged as a pirate, escapes when her father carries her off Jamaica and marries her to a con-man named Joseph Burleigh. They build a new life on a plantation in Virginia. There Anne, always a rebel and an abolitionist, tries to adjust to a new culture: the restricted life of women in the 18th century. When hard times hit,…
Last reply by CarolBusby, -
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Author Norah Vawter Title ANNA’S ENDLESSLY COLLAPSING STAR Genre Upmarket Women’s Fiction Comps The Queen’s Gambit meets astronomy. Complete at 80,000 words, ANNA’S ENDLESSLY COLLAPSING STAR is upmarket women’s fiction in the tradition of Little Fires Everywhere and Val Brelinsky’s The Girl Who Slept with God. Hook Line Anna thought this remote observatory in the Chilean desert was her escape, but it's actually her prison: to be free, she’s got to go home, stop pretending away her traumatic childhood, and stop hating her mom for saving her life. Pitch An astronomer in a remote observatory in the Chilean desert…
Last reply by NorahVawter, -
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NOWHERE MAN, Psychological Suspense—Rosemary DiBattista Comp Titles: Laura Lippman’s I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE, Emma Cline’s THE GIRLS Hook Line: A middle-aged woman is forced to reckon with her past when the serial killer from whom she escaped more than fifty years earlier is released from prison—and she holds the evidence to put him back there. Short pitch: Allison Russo knows that older women become invisible, which is exactly how she likes it—the serial killer from whom she escaped more than fifty years earlier is out of prison and determined to track her down. In the hot summer of 1966, twelve-year-old Ally loves the Mets, Spiderman comic…
Last reply by RGD, -
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Author: Jennifer Locke DARK CISTERN is a thriller just like ICE HUNT by James Rollins only it’s inspired by Alice in Wonderland and set in Rio de Janeiro. Hook Line: The 25-year rains are bearing down on the city of Rio de Janeiro, when martial arts trainee, Olivia, witnesses a kidnapping. Haunted by her past failure to save the ones she loves, her rush to save the boy plunges her down the rabbit hole, and into a desperate war, where every turn puts her more squarely in the cross-hairs of a woman who will stop at nothing to help mother nature win, when the rain starts pouring down. Short Pitch: When troubled martial arts student, Olivia, is the on…
Last reply by JenniferLocke, -
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Hannibal Lecter meets Nurse Ratched in my debut novel, PATIENT X, of which bestselling suspense author Jenny Milchman says, “The turns of phrase just glow!” This 67,000-word suspense novel falls in the tradition of Alex Michaelides' The Silent Patient and Mark Griffin’s When Darkness Calls. When Chicago therapist Hannah Weiss is attacked by a patient at the mental hospital where she works, she’s saved by an unlikely hero, the inscrutable patient Zander Grayson. At the director’s urging, Hannah becomes Zander’s therapist in the hope that she can succeed where other therapists have not, unlocking the truth behind his conviction of involuntary manslaughter before he’s t…
Last reply by SavvyThorne, -
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'GETTING RID OF DAVION,' Book 1 of a series, (Inspired by True Events), Suspense/ Psychological Thriller, by Tiffany Washington Comps: Samantha Downing's 'HE STARTED IT' meets TV's, Tyler Perry's 'THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS' in the form of TV's, 'DEXTER' Hook Line: Following the discovery of his murderous, psychopathic, identical twin brother’s elaborate escape from a psychiatric-maximum-security-institution, over-seas, Davion Jones is forced to contend with the inner turmoil of keeping his brother’s identity, top secret, from everybody he loves. And keeping this truth from his loved ones, well let’s just say—bad idea! Pitch: In fictional Manasota, Flo…
Last reply by Tiffany Washington, -
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Author: Sheree R. Richnow Title: The Dear John Letters Genre: Women’s Fiction/Light Rom-Com Comps: Delicious, by Ruth Reichl; True to Me, by Kay Bratt; Pretty Things, by Janelle Brown; When we believed in Mermaids, by Barbara O’Neal HOOK LINE Writing the perfect Dear John Letters for other people is an easy task for a middle-aged established author — that is, until it comes to ending her own destructive relationship. PITCH Out of a personal need to call it quits with her boyfriend; and worsened by the floundering sales of her recently released book, novelist, Zara Haze needs a new distraction. Recognizing her own avo…
Last reply by Sheree Richnow, -
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Name: J. David Liss Title: The Judged Genre: Mystery Comparables: A Time to Scatter Stones, the latest in Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder Series (2019), and Boulevard, by Stephen Jay Schwartz (2009) Hook Line: Sex-addicted NYPD detective Jimmy Lombardi is outed in the courtroom where his wife is a judge. Then she is accused of murdering one of his affair partners. Now, he’s got to clear her name and find the real killer at a time when his wife doesn’t trust him and his fellow police won’t work with him. Pitch: Jimmy Lombardi is the smartest detective in Brooklyn. He’s so smart …
Last reply by JDavidLiss, -
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Name: Andrew Cowen Novel Title: I, Olympias (alternate title "Raising Alexander") Genre: Historical Women’s Fiction Comp: The Other Boleyn Girl set in Ancient Greece Hook Line: Alexander the Great famously conquered the endless plains of Persia. Compared to the noxious misogynists his mother Olympias battled back in Macedon, Alexander had it easy. Word Count: 97,000 Pitch: This book is the untold story of Alexander the Great’s mother, Olympias, an orphaned princess in 4th century BC Greece who married the ambitious and brilliant Philip of Macedon. In addition to her raising their remarkable and rambunctious son, Alex…
Last reply by Andrew Cowen,
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LGBTQ+ Psychological Fiction, Teresa A. Henderson, UNCHAINED
This is really well-written and a fascinating read, creating that sense of forbidden territory, which drives the reader to keep reading while feeling guilty for doing so. I did wonder about the age of the narrator. But more than that, what was somewhat confusing is that there are so many unnamed characters here, which is obviously a necessity since the protagonist does not know any of them but it does make things a little confusing at times. One suggestion would be to have Chris introduce by name the man who unchains the protagonist at the beginning of this, and then you can use his name.- debut
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Memoir | Adam Fout | Drug Seeking Behavior | First 500 words
As Pat said, the scene you draw here is vivid and interesting. I wonder if it wouldn't be more effective to have these characters, Fred and Jacky and Ella, converse in dialogue during the first few paragraphs so as to keep your reader "in the scene". They seem like fascinating characters, and even if some of what they say ended up being incoherent to the reader, it might be more effective at conveying what you want to reader than splitting the scene like this. They could either mention the time before, or say something that invokes the time before. And then after said dialogue, you could talk -
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New York Pre-Event Assignments - June 2021
First assignment: write your story statement. I Will Never Fall is a memoir about my 35 years of life and how I have grown and gotten through each challenge in life. Second assignment: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, the ways they react to the world around them. Antagonist: My mom, my dad, my half-brother who molested me, the bullies I faced throughout my childhood, my disease, my spending addiction, my eating disorder. Third assignment: create a breakout title. I Will Rise. -
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Remembering Janet Malcolm
Janet Malcolm and Katie Roiphe in conversation at NYU, 2012. Photo courtesy of Roiphe. In one of my last email exchanges with Janet Malcolm, in one of the darkest parts of the pandemic, she wrote to me, “I can only try to imagine the hard time you and the children are having. How can you not be stalled on writing? I wish there was something I could do to help.” Her response warmed me, elevating my state of general stagnancy into something almost socially acceptable. The idea of her in my house, helping with my son’s online schooling—his teacher was reading out “rat facts” during his daily for -
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Limited Time Deals!
Right now, Amazon is running their Kindle Daily Deals but also seven whole pages of “limited time” deals. They don’t specify for how limited these are, though my guess is that these are in preparation for Prime Day. House of Earth and Blood House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas is $2.99! We did two podcast episodes with Sarah over the pandemic and honestly, those episodes were so much fun to record. Ellen wrote a fantast -
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Tough Travelling: Fairies
Welcome intrepid adventurers to Tough Travelling with the Tough Guide to Fantasyland! That’s right, we’ve dusted it down and brought back this feature (created by Nathan of Fantasy Review Barn, revived by our friends over on Fantasy Faction, then dragged kicking and screaming to the Hive). It is a monthly feature in which we rack our brains for popular (and not so popular) examples of fantasy tropes. Tough Travelling is inspired by the informative and hilarious Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones. Fellow bloggers are absolutely welcome to join in – just make your own list, publi -
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Memoir | Adam Fout | Drug Seeking Behavior | First 500 words
@Adam Fout This is powerful and instantly draws you into the darkness that's all around. You have some vivid descriptions and characterizations. I have to preface this to say I don't write memoir.... but I would love to hear/see more of the protagonist's characterization in the opening scene. We see everyone around him/her but we still know nothing about the storyteller. About 3/4 the way through at "I wonder what they used to be like...." this takes us out of the scene - for three paragraphs the protagonist seems to be preaching - it's powerful statements and I love them - but maybe move it -
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The BLFUfer’s Guide To… THE WOOD BEE QUEEN by Edward Cox (BOOK REVIEW)
Apparently, there is an opposite to TL:DR (too long didn’t read) and it’s BLFU – Bottom Line First Up And so we bring you our new feature from our new reviewer Hil: to-the-point reviews for those of you in a hurry! The BLFUfer’s Guide To… THE WOOD BEE QUEEN by Edward Cox Ebbie Wren has a dead end job, in a dead end town and is in love with a girl who thinks he’s boring. At best. His only regular confidante is a homeless woman who dies and leaves him with an empty bag and a quest to do the impossible. Thus the story begins. The prose is beautiful and evocative, combining hints of -
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The Value of Friendship in Storytelling
You know how a realization about your storytelling can strike when you’re reading someone else? Of course you do. How about the kind of realization that makes you regret not having it sooner, so that you could have been taking advantage of it all along? You’re probably still nodding, right? Okay, how about one that’s so utterly obvious that you feel like an idiot for having never consciously utilized it before? How about a realization in regard to an aspect of human nature that is so elemental to each of us that we’ve all partaken in it since our earliest memories—one that is an essential par -
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10 New Books Coming Out This Week
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Laura Lippman, Dream Girl (William Morrow) “Lippman never stops twisting the plot into a deliciously intricate pretzel, right up to the jaw-dropping finale. This is both a beguiling look at the mysteries of authorship and a powerful #MeToo novel, but that’s only the tip of a devilishly jagged iceberg…” –Booklist Nicci French, What To Do If Someone Dies (William Morrow) “Crisply written, intelligently plotted and has plenty to say about the necessary selfishness of grief.” –The Guardian Joe -
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The Early, Wild, Exploited, and Sometimes Radical Days of the Comic Book Industry in America
The American comic book is inseparable from foreign policy, the great twentieth-century battles between capitalism and totalitarianism, and the political goals of the world’s preeminent military and cultural power. The history of the American comic book is a story of visual culture, commerce, race, and policy. These four fields are analogous to the four colors used to print comic books: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. They lie atop one another, smearing, blending, and bleeding to create a complete image. To separate them is to disassemble a coherent whole and to shatter a picture that in its -
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A Murder in Tiger Bay: How Nadifa Mohamed’s New Novel Revives a Decades-Old Tragedy
In 1952 a 29-year old Somalian man was hanged at Her Majesty’s Prison Cardiff in Wales by Britain’s best known public executioner Albert Pierrepoint. After a long drawn-out detention, a highly questionable police investigation, and a speedy trial at the Glamorgan Assizes in Swansea, Mahmood Mattan had been found guilty of murdering shopkeeper Lily Volpert in the then notorious Tiger Bay area of the Welsh capital. Despite arguments from his lawyers Mattan was refused leave to appeal by the Home Secretary. Forty-six years after Mattan’s execution, and 34 years after the death penalty was finall -
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Queer Crime Fiction: A Roundtable Discussion
I have discovered the secret to making a great roundtable: Alex Segura. If Alex is involved, or I get interested in a book by someone Alex has introduced me to, it’s a breeze to fill our imaginary table. This time I wanted to focus on the positives and negatives LGBTQ+ writers face. I’ve been thinking about it ever since we did the sex roundtable: if we rarely see any vanilla sex, then all of the other flavors are probably not being served either. Anyway, this came about because of PJ Vernon’s excellent new thriller, Bath Haus, and his enthusiastic participation at the aforementioned sex rou -
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Your Next Level Life Reader Review Event And Giveaway
Today, I am excited to announce the launch of a special reader review event with author Karen Arrington. Today, our readers are sharing their insights into her book Your Next Level Life: 7 Rules of Power, Confidence, and Opportunity for Black Women in America. You'll have the chance to find more about this book―which won an NAACP Image Award in 2020―and more about the author, Karen Arrington, herself. Join us as we celebrate this book and this inspiring author. First, here's more about the book: If you’re a Black woman in business and feeling stuck or trapped by other people’s expectations of -
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Eclipse by Celia Lake
Squee Eclipse by Celia Lake May 5, 2021 Historical: EuropeanRomanceScience Fiction/Fantasy I came to Eclipse via these two tweets shared on Twitter. It was the second one which really got me. I love a good magical school story, but the Harry Potter books never quite worked for me. Eclipse, which promised a view from the staff room of a magical school in the 1920s, sounded like my catnip. (Also, the author’s page has a content warning t
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