A revision to this entry has been posted here.
Avery Mann’s biggest worry before his eleventh birthday is avoiding atomic wedgies from Max "The Wild Thing" Lovell. However, his fear of overstretched underwear vanishes when he becomes an unsuspecting pawn in a supernatural chess match between wise-guy magi, scheming witches, fiendish monsters, and storybook villains come to life. Getting dragged into an inter-dimensional conspiracy to remake the world into a twisted fantasyland throws a flying monkey wrench into his summer plans, which did not include magically bonding himself to a murderous raven or making fishy deals with Long John Silver. Worse yet, Avery's only chance to get out of this tangled web is to free the Wicked Witch of the East… from Dante's Inferno. And if he fails, his family will wake up to a different world, his newfound friends will be killed or imprisoned, and he'll never finish reading his Ultimate Spider-Man collection.
Avery Mann’s biggest worry before his eleventh birthday is avoiding atomic wedgies from Max "The Wild Thing" Lovell. However, his fear of overstretched underwear vanishes when he becomes an unsuspecting pawn in a supernatural chess match between wise-guy magi, scheming witches, fiendish monsters, and storybook villains come to life. Getting dragged into an inter-dimensional conspiracy to remake the world into a twisted fantasyland throws a flying monkey wrench into his summer plans, which did not include magically bonding himself to a murderous raven or making fishy deals with Long John Silver. Worse yet, Avery's only chance to get out of this tangled web is to free the Wicked Witch of the East… from Dante's Inferno. And if he fails, his family will wake up to a different world, his newfound friends will be killed or imprisoned, and he'll never finish reading his Ultimate Spider-Man collection.
THE UNBELIEVABLE MISADVENTURES OF AVERY MANN is a 70,000 word long middle-grade contemporary fantasy book.
I am an award-winning writer in the role-playing game industry and an active member of the SCBWI. I also have a master’s degree in Library and Information Science with a focus on children services and literature.
Hi Joseph,
ReplyDeleteSeen you on twitter, but I don't think I've read your query before.
Your story looks like a ton of fun. The first sentence is spot on - great voice. And I love the phrase "flying monkey wrench".
I'm getting that a lot of stories come to life, but it get a little confusing in the middle there. How are the stories coming to life - is he getting pulled INTO the stories or are they actually coming into his world? Is there a literal chess match? (Seems metaphorical but with everything else going on, it might be real.) How does he get magically bonded to a raven? What kinds of fishy deals?
I would kill the "worse yet' and start the "only chance" on a new paragraph since this seems to be the main stakes of the story.
Love love love the last sentence where you have high stakes followed by low, but funny stakes only important to a middle grader. I think that's perfect. However, I'm still going to ask - how are his family and friends threatened? I'm not at all clear on where we are when all this is happening or why it's all up to Avery.
So - clarify for me:
How did these storybook villains get brought to life? By who?
If they are brought into the actual world, what is the impact on the world? I think that's hinted at with the "inter-dimensional conspiracy" but it's still a little vague for me.
Why is Avery the person to fix it?
And why exactly are his family and friends at risk? Spell it out a little more.
I'm a little worried about your word count. 55K is usually the high end.
Overall - I love the sound of your story. I just want you to give me a clearer glimpse into your world. If you want to revise, you can email it to me and I'l re-post with the word "Revised" in the title.
Hi Joseph,
ReplyDeleteThis looks like an interesting story.
I think that first sentence is okay, but the second one needs to be broken down for flow. It isn't enough to make generalizations, we need some details. how do the stories come to life? Was it Avery's doing? Why is Avery the hero? A few specifics could go a long way to clear this up.
Another thing that concerns me, is that I don't get a very good feeling for what the voice in your story might be from this query. I know voice is really hard to work in, but it would really help. The reason it seems like the voice was washed out is because of word choices like "over stretched underwear" which is a somewhat bland way to describe a wedgie. I recommend looking for word choices that punch things up a bit.
Hope that helps.
I just sent in a revised version so don't worry about critiquing this one any more.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Joseph