#SonofaPitch Query and First 250 words.
This is my entry, which is also my first post. Something to celebrate regardless of the outcome. :)
All your feedback is greatly appreciated. I'll be visiting the other entrants. Good luck, everyone!
Title: AN ISLE IN THE SKY
Genre: Historical fiction
Word count: 79,000
Query:
The year 1943 hasn’t started well for Luftwaffe ace Georg von Kirchhoff. Shot down in combat, he’s on his way home to recuperate when wound sepsis puts him in a hospital in war-torn Warsaw. Amidst the devastation, Georg is shocked to see his first love, Rachel, cleaning street rubble with a group of Jews from the ghetto. She is even more beautiful in real life than the bygone girl Georg has kept in the Sancta Sanctorum of his memory, but to his chagrin, she denies her name is Rachel and refuses to acknowledge him.
Sulamif escapes from the ghetto to the Arian side after her mother has been murdered along with three-hundred thousand Warsaw Jews. Bribing guards is easy, but everyday survival in hiding is hard. Blackmailed and denounced, Sulamif accepts help from the confused German who mistook her for a girl named Rachel.
Georg is dismayed to discover what his countrymen are doing to the Jews. No wonder Sulamif can’t be with someone who fights for Hitler. Undeterred, he pursues his new love, who makes a discovery of her own: she has become a pariah in her own land. She will have to learn to trust a German or perish with the rest of the Warsaw Jews. Georg can’t desert or stop the war, but to earn her love, he must find a way out of the war trap. One wrong move against the Nazis will not only end his life but also the life of the woman he loves.
First 250 words:
Chapter 1
Warsaw, January 7, 1943
Some memories are better left untouched.
Five years after their first encounter, Warsaw was not the city Georg von Kirchhoff remembered. A lighthearted place pre-war, she had grown cold and uninviting, greeting visitors with the eyesores of damaged buildings in place of former architectural masterpieces. Dirty snow covered the ruins in a pathetic attempt to camouflage the sweeping transformation, all in vain, for the gloomy faces of Poles said it loud and clear: welcome to the devastation of war.
The Opel Admiral limousine passed the mauled facade of what used to be a tenement building, judging by the twisted iron remains of balconies attached to the bare walls. Georg raised the collar of his overcoat. Somehow, the chilly draft found its way to his neck through the closed windows of the limousine that belonged to the Governor of Warsaw, Ludwig Fischer, who’d been kind enough to send his personal driver to bring Georg to their rendezvous at Café Adria.
The Hotel European, Enrico Marconi’s Neo-Renaissance tour de force, came into view on the right side of Cracow Suburb Street. Undamaged. An unexpected wave of unctuous pleasure rippled through Georg’s veins, warming his heart. Five years after he and Rachel had won the Junior International Ballroom competition, the European’s grand edifice stood as a monument to the Austerlitz of his youth. At least one intact place remained in Warsaw for an unrushed visit down nostalgia lane later on.
“All right, Hans, I’ve seen enough,” Georg told the driver. “Thanks for the tour. Let’s go back. You can turn right on Jerusalem Avenue.”
Hello Victor! Love your premise :)
ReplyDeleteHere are my initial thoughts/comments on your materials:
- I was a little confused in the query because I didn't catch the POV shift in the second paragraph at first. I think you need to make that clearer somehow.
- I love how your query starts. First two sentences are awesome.
- There's a little wordiness that you could omit/tighten/simplify. Things like "Sancta Sanctorum" and stuff that like only confuses and makes it harder to read.
- Simply the third paragraph of the query to make the stakes very clear. I had to reread it to understand what the stakes were.
- I didn't have any problems with your 250 words but you could omit a little detail to get us to the dialogue faster. That's probably just personal taste talking so take it with all the salt you want :)
- Watch wordiness of certain vocab choices such as "unctuous." I love fancy words too but it really sticks out as unusual and flowery.
Great premise, sounds like something I'd read! Good job and keep writing! Good luck in the contest!
Thanks, Lindsay. I have "Sancta Sanctorum" in the MS, but no one likes it in the query.
DeleteSecond para is from Salami's POV. I guess it's not clear that she's NOT Rachel after all. Back to work. :)
Hi Victor,
ReplyDeleteI like the sound of this story a lot and hope to read it when it's published.
Lindsay had some great points above, so I won't repeat those.
I agree with her on the Query paragraph two, It almost sounds like you're introducing another character's story. I would suggest reordering/modifying some of the sentences there so it is clearer that Rachel and Sulamif are, at least in Georg's mind, the same person.
Final query paragraph had a great closing line.
For the first 250:
The opening line is a solid hook.
In my opinion, I would tweak sentences 2 & 3 in the limousine paragraph. Sentence 2 is pretty short, followed by one that felt a bit long. I'm guilty of it as well, and I got flagged for this more than once by my copy editor.
After reading the query and first 250, you definitely hooked me. If Sulamif and Rachel are actually the same person, I'd be pissed if I was Georg. Five years isn't a long time for someone to completely forget you. I guess I'll have to read the book and find out!
Best of luck, Victor. Feel free to give my entry a critical eye on https://haynestown.com/books/
Thanks for the comments, Tim. You bet, I am introducing another character in the second para. The last sentence of the para explains that Georg confused Sulamif with Rachel. I guess I'm not doing a very good job. ;)
DeleteOK. So I actually got the POV change no problem in your query. My question is actually whether the story is told in dual POV. I think the query is pretty solid. I agree with cutting the Sancta bit. For me, I'd actually change the first mention of Sulamif's name in the third paragraph to Rachel. And change the "she" in "she will have to learn to trust" to Sulamif's name, thus "Sulamif will have to learn.." I also would change the last line from "the woman he loves" to "the woman he thinks he loves". Makes it more clear, to me at least, that his confusion about Sulamif being Rachel continues throughout the story.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of your words: I'd cut everything before "Warsaw was not the city.." I think this is stronger and we can figure out the rest. I'd also change "a lighthearted place pre-war" to Once a lighthearted place, she...
I agree with Tim about the second paragraph. In terms of the third paragraph, some of the words you use are a bit fluffy, including the titles. The sentence: "The Hotel European, Enrico Marconi’s Neo-Renaissance tour de force, came into view on the right side of Cracow Suburb Street." is a bit wordy and hard to get through. Also the word unctuous.
Otherwise this is a solid piece of writing and query. I think the premise is super interesting. I personally love WWII stories.
Best of Luck!
Heather
Hi, Heather!
DeleteI appreciate your comments. The story is a dual POV. I should mention it in the intro part of the query letter.
Georg confusing Sulamif for Rachel is the inciting event. It does not persist through the story, otherwise it would be a helluva confusing story. :) I see that I have to make it clear in the query.
Thanks for reading.
Victor