New Worlds, New Voices - SFF Shooting Gallery
NWNV "Shooting Gallery" provides writers with the chance to test market their best SFF 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.
22 topics in this forum
-
- 1 follower
- 0 replies
- 454 views
Exposition and End Game This select forum thread is dedicated exclusively to Algonkian alums who wish to post sell sheets of their completed SFF novels, or novels-in-progress, for the purpose of showcasing them to literary 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 this to wo…
Last reply by EditorAdmin, -
- 0 replies
- 59 views
Author: Joy Renee McKinley Title: The Radical Mage Series Title: The Dark Resistance Genre: Fantasy YA Comps: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn and A Song Below Water: A Novel by Bethany C. Morrow Hook Line: A teenage girl caught in the middle of Brooklyn’s civil unrest is forced to reckon with her newfound magical abilities and decide what her role in the underground magical uprising will be, or else all of New York City will be decimated. Pitch: 16-year-old Nia is done with being the family peacemaker, caught as she is between her father’s duty and her brother’s fury. With Brooklyn consumed by civil unrest, all Nia wants is a quiet night without si…
Last reply by Joy, -
- 0 replies
- 111 views
THE SHREWDNESS is a whodunit mystery wrapped in a post-apocalyptic conceit. Imagine the dystopian milieu of Tom Perotta's THE LEFTOVERS or Emily St John Mandel's STATION ELEVEN meets the clue-chasing of Tana French's DUBLIN MURDERS series. In a world remade by an invisible malevolence called The Shrewdness—anyone who gets farther away than ten feet from another person vanishes permanently. Now, two years after the disappearances began, humans are tethered together, solitude has become obsolete, and everyone must travel, live, and work in threes or more in order to survive. But life beats on; the setting maintains a veneer of normalcy even though the world has been r…
Last reply by AmyFeds, -
- 0 replies
- 123 views
Samantha Mineroff | Dreamscape | Slipstream/Fantasy Comps: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, Cake meets It's a Wonderful Life Hook Line: Suppose there was a society where Dream Makers, incorporeal beings responsible for giving human dreams, who must follow one main rule—never meet your dreamer. But depressed, 23-year-old Sasha Hayes, who’s recently been having nightmares, can’t accept the good dreams they create. A noxious fog interrupts them, making it nearly impossible to understand her and what kind of dreams she needs. A Dream Maker risks his existence to find out what she needs. It’s not until her last sleep cycle tha…
Last reply by Samantha, -
- 1 follower
- 0 replies
- 84 views
Name Adam Fout Novel Title Frost (70,300 words) Genre Near Future Science Fiction Comparables Glow by Tim Jordan and Dare to Know by James Kennedy Hook Line After entering a Dallas rehab in 2071 for a new drug called frost, a broken addict on his final attempt at sobriety discovers he and his friends are being drugged by the head counselor and struggles to escape with his friends (and his newfound sobriety) intact. Short Pitch Axel is addicted to frost, a drug that literally freezes users within 36 hours unless they take more. He uses to self-medicate the pain of an abusive childhood…
Last reply by Adam Fout, -
- 1 follower
- 0 replies
- 232 views
Author: A.B. Davis Title: Nightmarist (Stanchions Hollow #1) Genre: YA Fantasy/Horror Comp Titles: If the forest in the The Hazel Wood (M. Albert) had more grotesque, bloodthirsty creatures, and was being traversed by the cast of The Darkest Minds (A. Bracken) while being hunted by the killer in There's Someone Inside Your House (S. Perkins).... Hook Line: An unstable teenager, plagued by the brutal murder of his parents, must face the reality that his lucid nightmares are real creatures that must be destroyed before they consume the human world. ______________________________________________________…
Last reply by Andy Davis, -
- 0 replies
- 289 views
Title: Blood Animus Pitch: 97k scifi thriller V.E. Schwab’s VICOUS, Dark Phoenix, and John Wick. In a world where bloodlust is currency, humanity is loose change in a mercenary’s pocket. In 2039, ever since she was orphaned on the criminal infested, tropical island of Toppanga, twenty-three-year-old mercenary Alex Mercer searched for the answers to her past. After leaving the island, she’s presented with a high-risk contract that offers a different payment – information about her parents and her past. Alex and a group of assigned mercenaries must apprehend the elusive rogue soldier Maximillian Roivas. As the mission progresses, Alex feels somethi…
Last reply by KM1922, -
- 0 replies
- 241 views
Name: Laird Harrison Titles: Only the Millennia Will Cure Her Messing with the Multiverse Exotic Matter Genre: Upmarket Science Fiction Comparables : The Midnight Library by Matt Haig The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu Hook Line: Deprived of funding because of his awkwardness, physicist Pascal gets money from an unscrupulous time traveler who wants his help returning to the future. Short Pitch: On the verge of a pathbreaking discovery, brilliant physicist Pascal Rahali has neglected to publish. Socially awkward, he has lost his funding. So, he can’t ignore investor …
Last reply by Laird, -
- 1 follower
- 0 replies
- 181 views
J.T. Strand Finding Lucifer Speculative (supernatural horror) COMPS: The Hunger by Alma Katsu and You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce HOOK LINE: Tormented by nightmares, a young professor must stop a shadowy figure, who achieved immortality through cannibalistic ceremonies, before he is consumed by it. Ben is a young professor who has just moved to the countryside, while his girlfriend, Jen, is on fellowship abroad. Coping with loneliness, Ben experiences episodes of sleepwalking and sees a shadowy figure in his dreams which turns all pleasant memories into wicked ones. While up nights, he befriends raccoons by leaving them scraps of food. Sleep-depriv…
Last reply by J.T., -
- 0 replies
- 259 views
JOSH SCARALIA Book Titles: Collateral of Time; Bounty of Tarres; Dilation Effect Genre: Space Opera Comparables: A Memory Called Empire meets Red Rising Hook line: Upon completing a journey of centuries to colonize a new star system only to shockingly discover a strange human civilization has preceded them, a disillusioned and desperate young woman learns that the secret to the survival of humanity depends on joining the right side in a war fought with weapons of dark alien magic. Short Pitch: Victoria Cortez saw the four-year journey to colonize Tarres as a perfect escape from her dead-end life on Earth. How could she know that human…
Last reply by JoshScaralia, -
- 0 replies
- 361 views
Name: Gerrit Hansen Novel Title: The Power of Ancients Comparables: Throne of the Crescent Moon (Saladin Ahmed); The Poppy War (R.F. Kuang) Hook Line: Possessing power beyond far beyond his mentors, a tribal villager forsakes magic to overcome a murderous immortal by raising rival immortals long thought dead. Pitch: Maruli, a young Javan villager from the hated Jupami tribe leaves his remote jungle home to study a form of magic he hopes will help save his people from the island’s nemesis, Dahat, a member of the powerful race of Ancients that’s nearly extinct. However, the magic requires grinding up special stones that elders insist are the dead remains…
Last reply by GerritHansen, -
- 0 replies
- 309 views
Name: Cavis Adams Novel: Terror Undeleted Genre: Literary Fiction Comparables: "Version Control" (Dexter Palmer). "The Lathe Of Heaven" (Ursula K. Le Guin). Hook Line: Being kicked out of Tent City, New York, Nicco turns to an experimental tech-firm for the chance of a lifetime--to commit his mind to the good of science and to get paid of course. If only that were the story, and not one of undead terrorists rehashing their own bloody plot. From homeless to would-be savior of the world, Niko stands to lose more than he finally has, a place in this world. Pitch: Nicco finds himself habitually at his lowest, kicked o…
Last reply by Cavis Adams, -
- 0 replies
- 248 views
Name: Sarah Pierce Title: Lucid Genre: YA SciFi Comparables: Inception meets Maze Runner meets Stranger Things Hook: Trapped inside a dream, a group of international students must discover the truth about their world before a fugitive nightmare gains control of their minds. Pitch: A high security dream has broken loose. Known only as the Siren, it causes 20 people to commit mass suicide in Berlin, and before anyone can react, panic erupts across the globe. Thousands of sleepers will no longer wake, and for those left aware, every night could be their last. The most dangerous nightmare of the 21st century is out of its cage, and it’s going t…
Last reply by SarahPierce, -
- 0 replies
- 264 views
Name: Cavis Adams Novel: The Resurrection Arc Genre: Literary Fiction Comparables: The revived spirit of Total Recall meets Inception for a journey of Memento. Hook Line: Finding the strength to wrest an immortalizing technology from the enslaving hands of a world techno-giant means to die trying. For Justin, what begins as an imaginative game along a cutting-edge of role-playing plunges deeper into the real world than he ever suspected, a world turned deadly with the struggle to save all he has ever believed in, starting with the very memory of himself. Pitch: Justin has it all on the outside: wealth, status, a beau…
Last reply by Cavis Adams, -
- 0 replies
- 276 views
Name: Travis N. Travis Novel Title: HOW TO SUCCEED AT THE PEARLY GATES JOB FAIR Genre: Adult Fantasy (81,512 words) Comparables: Good Omens, Library of the Unwritten, and The Good Place Hook: A man perfectly content not dying must navigate the hell that is finding a job in the heavens while trying to save his drunk G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N. Department representative from a pre-pubescent creation god. Pitch: Religion was formally banned in the districts of heaven when a monk, a priest, and a rabbi walked into a bar and nothing funny happened. Probably for the best. Charlie Tackle is Dea…
Last reply by TravisTravis, -
- 0 replies
- 379 views
· Name: Kayla Hardy · Title: RED WIDOW · Genre: Adult Fantasy · Comparables: (TV/Cinematic)Marvel’s Black Panther meets Netflix’s Cursed (Books) Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone meets Melissa Caruso’s The Tethered Mage. · Hook: Set during a magical apartheid known as The Partitioning, where mages are divided into rigid social classes and sold off to the highest bidder, an African warrior princess must break the law and cross into foreign magical territory to hunt down a slave trader hellbent on stealing her tribe’s magic, even if it means she’ll be stranded behind enemy lines forever. · Pitch: …
Last reply by KaylaHardy, -
- 0 replies
- 332 views
Name: DeQuaina Washington Title: HELLGROUND Genre: Sci-Fi Comparables: Octavia E. Butler's Dawn meets Tom Piccirilli's The Cold Spot Hook: Beaten and betrayed, facing a life sentence in state prison, a seasoned bank robber makes a desperate break for freedom and escapes only to discover that the world he knew has suffered a devastating and hellish alien invasion, and the only option left to him is to try and save the one person he still loves. Pitch: When Mint Mallard, one of the most prolific bank robbers in the world, breaks out of prison to get revenge on the man who put him there, he quickly realizes that the world he left five yea…
Last reply by DequainaWashington, -
- 0 replies
- 295 views
STRANGE HIGHWAYS, Science Fiction- Gardner Browning Word Count: +50k, still in progress Log Line: Trekking a ghostly highway across a Void Land of hostile vagrants, mercenary Luna Briggs must save the man she loves from the death dealer he has become before he claims the power of a forgotten artificial intelligence and engineers an army of killers. Comps: Strange Highways captures the hostile journey of the Road with the techno-thrill of Robopocalypse. The Road – 2006- Cormac McCarthy. About the grueling journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has dest…
Last reply by GMBrowning, -
- 1 follower
- 0 replies
- 274 views
THE BODY ELECTRIC, Science Fiction - J. David Liss Comparables: The Strange Case of the Alchemists Daughter by Theodora Goss meets Blake Crouch’s Recursion Hook: It’s Mary Shelley vs. Thomas Edison for the fate of the world, and one scientist from the present has to decide whose side he’s on – because that side wins. Pitch: 21st Century scientist Lew Argent knows tragedy. His wife and son were electrocuted by a fallen power line. He would do anything to change what happened, but that is beyond anyone’s grasp, even a brilliant electrical engineer and physicist. Lew is drawn to his scientific hero Thomas Edison – who electrocuted dozens of anim…
Last reply by JDavidLiss, -
- 0 replies
- 356 views
Name - Shola Adedeji Title(s) - War Gods of Africa, The Hollow Glory of a Dumb Kingdom Genre - Alternate History Comps - • the “what if?” spirit of S.M. Stirling’s Black Chamber series. • the world building of Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Lions of Al Rassan. • significantly influenced by the originality of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Hook Line - It is the 1300’s, an untested and naive emissary from a technologically advanced nation in Africa, inadvertently finds himself the only one capable of preventing a genocidal war set into motion by a murderous Pope and his Imperial Roman allies at Constantinople. S…
Last reply by Shola, -
- 0 replies
- 271 views
Name: Joseph Hall Novel Title: ARKFALL (90,000 words) Genre: Adult Sci-fi Comparables: The celebrity main character of EMPRESS OF FOREVER hurled into the indifferent cyberpunk world of ALTERED CARBON. Hook: A cybernetic supermodel infiltrates the corporate underworld to exact revenge on the CEO who murdered his childhood family. Pitch: In a distant future where Earth was rendered uninhabitable, mankind now lives in helio-centric megastructures that orbit around the sun. Living on Solar Ark Terra, Vino Belissi is the solar system’s hottest cybernetic supermodel. He’s got wealth, connections, status, and his name alone is associated with…
Last reply by JAaronHall, -
- 0 replies
- 300 views
Name: Mikaela Kemsley Novel: Gods of the Fallen Genre and Comparables: Gods of the Fallen is a young adult fantasy novel that will appeal to fans of Katy Rose Pool’s There Will Come a Darkness and Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes. Hook line: After being abducted and abused by a bloodthirsty theocracy, a young woman escapes into the arctic, where she awakens a newfound, dangerous magic in a tribe of outcasts to defend herself, her best friend, and her people from a genocidal god. Pitch: Seventeen-year-old Alora has spent her life within the glass walls of a seminary, aspiring to one goal: to become a Glass Sentinel for the Church of the Fractured …
Last reply by Mikaela Kemsley,
WTF is Wrong With Stephen King?
An Algonkian Success Story
-
AAC Content Stream
-
0
Angelo Esposito - LIVING IN SAINT'S HOOD - Crime Drama
Comparables: World Gone By meets Who They Was in this 90,000 plot-driven and character-rich debut novel set in modern day New York. Hook: A gun-runner for an urban gang sets out to uncover the mystery of his best friend’s death and triggers a chain of events that jeopardizes everyone in his orbit, including him. Short Pitch: Marlon Brown is a gun-runner for the Bloods, whose best friend has been gunned down outside of the gang's established territory. Though the whisper stream comes alive with speculation about who did the deed and why, conjecture isn't enough for Marlon. He ha -
0
How To Stop Time: Don't Lose the Story in the Concept
If your book is all concept, it's all boring! First of all, I will admit to having enjoyed this book when said and done. Even though I'm about to use it as an example of what not to do, it was still a heartwarming read about love and loss and how trust can conquer fear if we let it. But... This novel is a classic case of the concept getting way, way ahead of the plot. So first, the concept: How to Stop Time revolves around a man named Tom Hazard who ages slower than normal people. He's not immortal exactly, but his body takes so long to grow old that he might as well be. B -
48
New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
The act of the story statement Shadow Baelfiyer is a thief living on Chicago’s South Side. She is plagued by dreams of a world that has magic and dragons and a family she knows to be dead. Her aunt tells her these are just dreams. However, on a daily thieving hunt Shadow runs into two strangers who make her rethink all she has known. They are from a world called Elspeth where magic roams, people transform into lions; a world where she was born, and was taken away from, where she too has magic. These strangers take Shadow on a journey to find her past, but a great threat is uncovered -
0
Books by Sylvia Day, Sophie Jordan, & More
The Queen’s Bargain The Queen’s Bargain by Anne Bishop is $1.99! This book was mentioned in a previous Hide Your Wallet and is part of the Black Jewels series. I didn’t keep up with the series as a whole, so I’m unsure how this fits in. I think it focuses on secondary characters now, but correct me I’m wrong? POWER HAS A PRICE. SO DOES LOVE. Return to the dark, sensual, and powerful world of the Black Jewels in this long-awaited new story in the New York Times bestselling fantasy saga Af -
0
Active Protagonists are a Tool of the Patriarchy
I feel like I’m committing a grievous writerly sin by even typing these words, but I must speak my truth: I would like to see more passive protagonists in fiction. While the title of this post is tongue-in-cheek, I do think that passive protagonists are unfairly maligned in part because of the unspoken association between passivity and femininity. I’ll get into why I think so a little later, but let’s discuss what “passive protagonist” means first. The importance of intent Passive protagonists are the antithesis of what we’re told makes a good story. A good story, says common wisdom, is dr -
0
Book Beat: Crafting, Middle Grade Graphic Novels, & More
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/WP/wp-content/themes/smartbitches/images/posts/hide-your-wallet.jpg Welcome to Book Beat! Book Beat aims to highlight other books that we may hear about through friends, social media, or other sources. We could see a gorgeous ad! Or find a new-to-us author on a list of underrated romances! Think of Book Beat as Teen Beat or Tiger Beat, but for books. And no staples to open to get the fold-out poster. Artie and the Wolf Moon Author: Olivia Stephens Release -
48
New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
Story Statement Jeremy Peoples must do whatever it takes to find forgiveness and make peace with the past. The Antagonist Plots the Point Stacy Ramone is a former marine, married, with one son, a flawed family man with a heightened sense of loyalty and a rapidly declining mental state. His ultimate plan was to use the money he and his wife were making by selling narcotics and stolen pharmaceuticals to buy a local bar until he is betrayed by Jeremy. Several years later, Stacy remains unseen, a dormant facet of Jeremy’s complicated and violent past, until a series of even -
0
The Review’s Review: These Were the Angels
Illustration: Liby Hays. Courtesy of Hays. Liby Hays’s Geniacs!, a graphic novel out this summer from the art book publisher Landfill Editions, takes place at a hackathon—truly inspired material for slapstick comedy, body horror, and philosophical reflection alike. This tech competition’s goal? Invent a new life-form. “People always think my ideas are dumb … but they’re purposefully so! Their failure is coded within them! It’s like when scientists artificially reanimate the cells of a dead pig’s brain. The brain becomes trapped in an infinite loop reliving the terror of its final moments. But -
48
New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
1. Story statement. Reconcile with past and find self. 2. Antagonist. Tess begins the story at a low point; anxious, consumed by memories of the past. She presents as nervous, little confidence in herself. She places too much emphasis on what people think. Dominated by internal thoughts that belittle and degrade herself. Natural people pleaser who doesn’t speak up for wants and needs, would rather keep the peace. As the story commences, we see Tess having to start making decisions albeit it small; from paying by cash or card, to directions. Midway, we start to recognize her poor decisio -
35
New York Pitch and Algonkian Pre-event Assignments - 2021
Greetings -- Attached is a first draft of Assignments 1-7 for the upcoming workshop in St. Augustine. All comments most welcome. Looking forward to meeting fellow writers and learning a lot soon. Cheers, Elizabeth EA_Nichols_PreWorkshopAssignment.docx -
0
Eight Books Based on Real Female Spies
“Few suspected women of spying, and certainly no one expected a middle-aged knitter to be surreptitiously gathering intelligence.” -Elizabeth Bentley, A Most Clever Girl While researching topics for my next novel, I stumbled across Elizabeth Bentley’s name and was gobsmacked that I’d never heard of this American spy who once ran the largest Soviet spy ring in America. Because Bentley was a female NKVD-spy-turned-FBI-informer—a combination America wasn’t quite sure what to do with—she was overshadowed both in life and after her death by Joseph McCarthy and Whittaker Chambers. In fact, Whitt -
0
How a Woman Becomes a Piece of Furniture
Gustave Caillebotte, Woman at a Dressing Table, 1873. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons My grandmother collected perfume bottles, a seeming whimsy for a woman of such plainness and ferocity. I have three of them, given to me when she was still alive. They lived in a drawer and then later, in a decorative moment, on the bookshelf, where I have since placed them higher and higher out of reach, as my daughter has attempted to climb up to play with them, a slow-moving game between us, until now they are so high up as to be out of view. I tend not to be sentimental about objects, but I at least -
48
New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
Assignment enclosed. Sanders- NYPC Final.pdf -
0
SPFBO 7 – The Sixth Quarter Final
On Wednesday, we announced our sixth trio of eliminations and revealed that this week’s two quarter-finalists from the “different” batch are SHADOWS OF IVORY by T.L. Greylock/Bryce O’Connor and WINDS OF STRIFE by U.G .Gutman. These two battle it out in our final quarterfinal of SPFBO 7 In treading a different path in fantasy fiction, our two quarter-finalists stretched our expectations of fantasy protagonists. One gave us a cruel man who finds and murders witches but considers that a mercy, even as his actions eat away at him. The other gave us a young woman gifted by position and wealth -
0
Why do women love true crime podcasts so much?
The question we have been asked more than any other in our career as pro podders is ‘why are women so obsessed with true crime?’. And the numbers do stack up, we at RedHanded have been in the criminal fixation game for nearly five years, and we still boast an audience heavily swayed in the female direction. Eighty-two percent swayed, to be exact. So, the question is worth asking, but the truth is, true crime and the commercial consumption of it is nothing new. As far back as 1888, Victorian media moguls cottoned on sharpish to how much faster they could sell their papers if they recounted the -
0
THE LAST DAYS OF HONG KONG by G. D. Penman (BOOK REVIEW)
I’VE JUST WORKED OUT THE TITLE. That’s so damn clever… The title obviously, not me. Damn I hope you gave yourself a proper pat on the back Gray. Anyway We’re off to a good start, aren’t we. You’ll have to excuse me, please, as I’m suffering from serious book hangover. The kind where… you’ve finished the book, so you stare off into space thinking about it, then your hands reach for it in an attempt to return to reading it. But there’s nothing left to read… The Last Days of Hong Kong is the third and final instalment of G. D. Penman’s Witch of Empire series (The Year of the Knife and The Wou
-
