Delerium by Susan Kaye Quinn: Launch Announcement

Technically, the debut of Susan Kaye Quinn's new Science Fiction/Future Noir series doesn't launch until tomorrow, but the links are live, and as one of Susan's critique partners, I've had the pleasure of reading the first three episodes in this serialized tale. I could go on for a while about it, but I'll just let the book speak for itself.

The Debt Collector by Susan Kaye Quinn

From the author of the bestselling Mindjack series comes a new future-noir serial, The Debt Collector. The first episode, Delirium, launches tomorrow (3/20).

What’s your life worth on the open market?

A debt collector can tell you precisely.

Lirium plays the part of the grim reaper well, with his dark trenchcoat, jackboots, and the black marks on his soul that every debt collector carries. He’s just in it for his cut, the ten percent of the life energy he collects before he transfers it on to the high potentials, the people who will make the world a better place with their brains, their work, and their lives. That hit of life energy, a bottle of vodka, and a visit from one of Madam Anastazja’s sex workers keep him alive, stable, and mostly sane… until he collects again. But when his recovery ritual is disrupted by a sex worker who isn’t what she seems, he has to choose between doing an illegal hit for a girl whose story has more holes than his soul or facing the bottle alone—a dark pit he’s not sure he’ll be able to climb out of again.

Contains mature content and themes. For YA-appropriate thrills, see Susan’s Mindjack series.

Delirium is approximately 12,000 words or 48 pages, and is one of nine episodes in the first season of The Debt Collector serial. This dark and gritty future-noir is about a world where your life-worth is tabulated on the open market and going into debt risks a lot more than your credit rating. You can find out more about the series at the Debt Collector website and facebook page. The Debt Collector newsletter is a special list just for episode releases. 

Early Praise for Delirium

 “The street-smart science of LOOPER meets the cold, just-the-facts voice of DOUBLE INDEMNITY in this edgy, future-noir thriller that will have you holding your breath, looking over your shoulder, and begging for more.” —Leigh Talbert Moore, author of The Truth About Faking, The Truth About Letting Go, and Rouge

“Do you owe more than your life is worth? No worries. A more deserving person than you can benefit from that excess life—and someone else will get paid with it. Enter the Debt Collector.” —Dianne Salerni, author of We Hear the Dead, The Caged Graves, and The Eighth Day (HarperCollins 2014)

The first three episodes of Debt Collector will be released a week apart, starting Wednesday 3/20. The remaining episodes will release every two weeks. Delirium can be found on: Amazon, Barnes&Noble, iTunes, Kobo. Or add it to your TBR on Goodreads.

Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling YA SF Mindjack series. Debt Collector is her more grown-up SF. Her steampunk fantasy romance is temporarily on hold while she madly writes episodes to keep Lirium happy. Plus she needs to leave time to play on Facebook. Susan has a lot of degrees in engineering, which come in handy when dreaming up dangerous mind powers, future dystopias, and slightly plausible steampunk inventions. Mostly she sits around in her pajamas in awe that she gets make stuff up full-time.

Storytelling

I've been beating myself up for the last couple weeks. After I finished my revisions on Running from Ruby Ridge, I spent the normal amount of time enjoying the fact that I finished a freaking novel (how long is normal again?) and then I ... stagnated.

I'd had the idea for my next book in my head for a while, but I'm the kind of writer who can only focus on one thing at a time. I know some people who work on more than one project at once, but to me, that's nuts. So anyway, while I was drafting Ruby Ridge, I could not really think about Book the Next. I mean, I did think about it, of course, but I didn't really think about it, you know what I mean?

So now I spent the last two or three weeks diddling around. I wrote some character sheets (I've never messed with that before). I wrote an outline (a really bad, really thin one). I researched the bit of real life that inspired the story. But ... it wasn't until last night that I finally realized it was okay what I was going through.

Sometimes a story needs time to solidify in your mind. I wasn't to that point yet. I think I might be now.

How do you know when you're at the point? I'm not sure, and I'm not sure it's the same for everyone, but for me, it's when scenes are coming to you while you're driving. When the story is invading your dreams. When lines of dialog spring into your mind while you're in the shower. When you have to have a notebook, or at least your phone, with you at all times because you never know when you'll be struck with inspiration.

Yeah, I'm there.

When do you know you're ready?

Summer Ross' Current Query Critiqued

Okay. Man, it's been a while since I've done one of these. I feel rusty. Please forgive me if this sucks, Summer! Anyway, today we have Summer's query again, this time with my feedback, in blue.

The letter:

Dear Agent,

A steak knife, an old ring, and a crime punishable by death all have one woman in common(--)Ebony Graves. Okay, two nitpicks right away: I would much prefer a colon to an em-dash. Em-dashes are great in manuscripts which are designed to have full support for advanced formatting, but I advise people to stay away from them in queries. If you must have them, use a double hyphen--also, and this is probably just me and my fantasy nerd card, but Ebony Graves sounds a lot like Ebony Greaves. I take it that's your character's name? At twenty-two years old, she lives in a patriarchal society that hangs women accused of crimes? first, and asks questions later. No one cares that she was trying to escape a vicious beating by her own father.

Okay. So even though this is somewhat reversed from your normal query letter's presentation (this is: inciting incident first, then a bit of world, then a bit of character) it mostly works for me. Maybe because it's a really compelling situation. I still need more about Ebony though. We know she's relatively young, we know she suffers under the thumb of a cruel and abusive father, but we don't know much about who she is.

With no other options available, Ebony requests sanctuary from the only powerful woman in town, Lady Charmaine. Her benefactor demands she become the next Jade courtesan if this whole thing is a proper title, I think both words might need to be capitalized. by competing in three challenges to save herself. In doing so, it awakens a rune magic from inside that Ebony didn’t know she had, as well as a desire for Kaige, the handsome stranger lurking throughout the manor.

This whole paragraph is pretty good. It's very specific, which is perfect. It sets the tone of a world that is clearly not our own, and it hints at a society that does not share our customs. I wonder if you might consider another precious stone, though. Jade will always sounds Asian to me.

Otherwise, the rising stakes here are good, and you are building toward a strong but succinct representation of your story.

Pitted against contestants who plot her downfall and a new magic power that threatens her body and soul, Ebony must decide if she can follow through with Lady Charmaine's demands or if her price of freedom lies in death.

And now you lose a lot of what you built in the last paragraph. Where that one is specific, this one is vague. You have to be careful, obviously, because you don't have a lot of room, and you certainly don't need to explain everything, but I do think you've got room enough to get a bit more specific here. What are the three tasks? Or at the very least, what is the first one? Who are the other contestants? Or at the least, who is the worst of them (you don't necessarily have to name the character)?

I am submitting BLOODSTONE for your consideration. It is a romantic fantasy novel. It stands complete at approximately 52,660 53,000 words and is set up for a series has series potential.

I'm very concerned about this. First of all, Fantasy novels are almost never this short. With the world building required, telling a story in a fantasy world almost always takes longer than this. If you check the submission guidelines of most Fantasy imprints (or at least those that accept unagented submissions, like Pyr, you'll see they don't even accept manuscripts under 85,000 words in length). 

Don't let that discourage you though. You could call this a novella. Or you could make Ebony younger and call it Young Adult Fantasy. All I'm saying is you need to know your market, and make your query show that you do.

My published works have been accepted by everydaypoets.com, fiction365.com, Pill Hill Press, and my local college’s Expression Magazine. I recently graduated with my BA in English from the University of Wyoming.

Thank you for your time,

Summer Ross

In summary, except for the very beginning and the very end, this query is actually quite good. You need to lead with more sense of character, and you need to close with more specifics, but otherwise you're in pretty good shape.

The word count thing isn't really meat-of-the-query type stuff, so I won't harp on it any more, but I do think you should consider changing your character's name (and maybe age). In a Fantasy novel, Ebony Graves just sounds a little too cliche for me.

That's it.

What do you all think?

Summer Ross' Current Query

Okay, finally getting back to business, here is Summer's current query.

The letter:

Dear Agent,

A steak knife, an old ring, and a crime punishable by death all have one woman in common- Ebony Graves. At twenty-two years old, she lives in a patriarchal society that hangs women first, asks questions later. No one cares that she was trying to escape a vicious beating by her own father.

With no other options available, Ebony requests sanctuary from the only powerful woman in town, Lady Charmaine. Her benefactor demands she become the next Jade courtesan by competing in three challenges to save herself. In doing so, it awakens a rune magic from inside that Ebony didn’t know she had, as well as a desire for Kaige, the handsome stranger lurking throughout the manor.

Pitted against contestants who plot her downfall and a new magic power that threatens her body and soul, Ebony must decide if she can follow through with Lady Charmaine's demands or if her price of freedom lies in death.

I am submitting BLOODSTONE for your consideration. It is a romantic fantasy novel. It stands complete at approximately 52,660 words and is set up for a series.

My published works have been accepted by everydaypoets.com, fiction365.com, Pill Hill Press, and my local college’s Expression Magazine. I recently graduated with my BA in English from the University of Wyoming.

Thank you for your time,

Summer Ross

That's it.

Please save your feedback for tomorrow, and thank Summer for sharing in the comments.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild last night. It was a fabulous, but disturbing film. To think that modern day human beings can live in such abject poverty boggles the mind a bit. I can see why the movie missed the best picture bid at the Oscars, though. It was a wonderful example of the art of film making, with some incredible cinematography, and hands down the greatest performance by a child actor I have ever seen in Quvenzhané Wallis' portrayal of Hush Puppie, but the plot was confusing, and the thematic representation of the aurochs did not work for me.

An aurochs is an extinct kind of ox from the middle ages (made somewhat famous by George Martin), not some kind of gigantic prehistoric wild boar. I realize that part was fantasy, and I'm not sure why it bothered me so much, but maybe my nerd flag was flying too high.

Anyway, in spite of a couple minor nitpicks that I only bring up because I can see why it missed best picture, it's otherwise a fabulous, moving film.

Has anyone seen it?