Young Adult / In search of a savior - opportunity submission
September 8, 2008
Dear Ms. Einstein:
I am seeking representation for my novel, a partially completed young adult horror entitled, “In search of a savior.”
This story introduces the reader to young Casey Jenkins. Casey is living in a dysfunctional family where her mother is an alcoholic and her fathers attempt to avoid her results in him overworking and staying away from home.
Casey’s boyfriend has recently broken off with her and left her devastated. After months of depression, Casey begins a friendship with the “goth freak” student now attending her school. Her relationship with Dena and her desperate need for companionship leads Casey into a world of partying, drugs, and delving into the world of witchcraft.
An innocent moment with a Ouija board opens a door to evil that Casey is unprepared for. After the mysterious death of Dena, Casey finds herself hunted relentlessly by a dark force. Casey must find a way to close the door she has opened to the other side and save herself and her family, before it is too late.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Respectfully yours,
SJ Vance, author
Sjvance57@yahoo.com
405-668-0845
Prologue
The stench of sulfur overwhelms me. I want to throw up, but I can’t take a chance of movement or sound in the darkness. My mind screams prayers for a savior in a moment that I am sure will lead to my death. The thing had stalked me for days. It had become bolder in the attempt to reach me. I know that this encounter was inevitable, but that doesn’t stop the shock and panic I feel.
My hands feel their way along the wall, trying desperately to find a way out of the musty church basement. The air is heavy and freezing cold. I have to make a conscious effort not to breathe too loudly as my lungs struggle for air. There is the sound again, like animal hooves, taking steps toward me. How does it know when I move? I try to move as soundlessly as possible, inching my way farther along the wall. The demon moves with me. I know I will never be allowed to make it up the old cement steps that lead to the church sanctuary. It would never enter there and it is my only hope of staying alive.
I try once more to get to the stairway. I take two steps and then stop to listen, but it does not follow. Two more steps and I hear no hoof sounds. I dare to take one more step, and my hand slides off the wall into nothingness; the open door that leads to the stairway! Maybe the demon is lost in the darkness; maybe it will not find its way to me. After feeling my way in the darkness of the room for what seemed like an hour, my foot strikes the stairway and I slam down hard onto the cement steps. Immediate pain signals that I have injured my knee and I feel the warm liquid of blood streaming down where my head hit. Get up! Get out!
An unearthly scream erupts behind me and I feel an icy hand grab my hair. I feel my head jerk back as I am yanked to my feet. The smell is horrific and causes my stomach to heave. I feel the force of the beast as it throws me up against the wall across the room. I attempt to pull myself up, I have to get away, I have to run. Finally, on my hands and knees, I begin to crawl to where I thought the stairway had been. The hoof noise was very close, right beside me now. I turned in the darkness and a scream broke from my throat. Two blood red eyes were face to face with me; I feel the icy hand encircle my throat.
Chapter One
“Hey! Wait up Casey!” I turned to see my friend Renata coming toward me. “What’s up, you ignoring me?”
“No, I just didn’t hear you, I guess. Sorry,” I said. I had heard her, but I was hoping to make the long walk home by myself today. Since Ryan had called it quits, in front of all his friends, I had been depressed and preferred to spend my time alone.
“So, Casey, I haven’t talked to you in a few days, you doing better?” I just shook my head no and continued to walk. “Look, I know he embarrassed you, and broke your heart all in the same second, but you need to move on. You can’t let him know his breaking up with you is doing this to you.” Renata was talking and walking fast, trying to stay up with my long-legged strides.
“Renata, Ryan and I dated for almost a year and I thought everything was going great. When he broke up with me, I felt like I would die. Now, I see him with Tasha every day. Walking with his arm around her and smiling at me when he sees me. I have to force myself to come to school, and it isn’t getting any easier for me. I don’t know what to do any more.”
Tasha stopped me by putting a hand on my arm. “Case, you know I love you. You have to get over him and get back to yourself. I have a great idea! I am going out with that new girl, Dena, and her friends tonight. Come and go with, it will be fun,” Renata said.
“I appreciate it Nata, but I just don’t feel like socializing just yet. And when did you start hanging out with the goth freak?”
Renata scowled and turned her head away from me. “She’s not bad at all Case. I have had a lot of fun with her and her friends from Gracemont High. There's a club we go to; she is kind of the popular one there. There are cute guys at the club too. Come on, please go, she won’t mind at all, in fact she told me to invite you.”
I wrinkled up my nose. “She is so weird though. You know that everyone at school makes fun of her. And what club do we have here that you can get in to?”
“Trixie’s, her mom owns it and we can get in any time we want. Everyone thinks we are college students and when they ask, we tell them we are eighteen. It’s great Casey. There are some of the cutest college boys there, and they love to dance. Come on with us, what do you say?”
“I say that I will see you Monday at school. You shouldn’t be doing this stuff Nata; you know your parents would have a fit if they knew.”
“They won’t know. They are out of town until tomorrow. I am staying the night with Dena and she said to invite you too. I have my cell on in case you change your mind.” With that, Renata turned and walked back down the street we had just come from.
I walked the rest of the way home thinking about Ryan. He had asked me out while we were still Juniors in school. We were inseparable from that moment on, or at least until two weeks ago. Ryan had been asking me for sex for almost four months. He told me he had waited long enough and that if I did not sleep with him, then I did not love him. We had a huge fight and the next morning at school, he confronted me with his friends by his side. They had watched the argument escalate and had laughed when Ryan had called me “ice princess.” I had never been so embarrassed and hurt in my life. The principal had let me leave early, thinking I was ill, but I just could not face anyone else that day.
I reached my front yard and noticed that Leann was visiting again. I hated this woman, she always brought beer with her and she and my mom would end up drunk and pass out in the living room. My plan was to go through the back door and upstairs to my room before they could spot me. The back door was unlocked and I carefully turned the knob and opened the door.
“Hi little Casey!” I was met by a very drunk Leann. She was standing by the refrigerator, holding herself up with the door. “Come here baby; give your aunt Lee Lee a hug.” I was appalled, she smelled as though she had bathed in a vat of beer. “What you wrinkling that cute little nose for? Oh, I spilled some beer on me.” She was slurring her words and stumbling toward me.
“I have to make a very important call, Leeann. I will talk to you later.” I skirted passed her and ran up the stairs. My mother called out to me, but I managed to shut the door before I had to answer back. When I was sure that she would not follow me, I sat on my bed and began to cry. Why is my life so messed up? My mom is an alcoholic and my dad would rather spend his time at his job, working long hours, than be at home with her. He seemed not to notice that he was robbing me of time with him too. Dillon, my older brother, is now at college and I can’t bother him with problems, he has to concentrate on school. I miss him. At least up until this year, we had had each other to lean on.
It had helped to have Ryan in my life during this year. Things between my parents seemed to be getting very strained and I didn’t like being here when the arguments broke out. Ryan had been the only good thing in my life, and now I didn’t have him. We had even talked about going to the same college so we could live together. He knew how I felt about premarital sex, and he had always agreed with me that we should wait.
The phone rang and I picked it up on first ring. “Hello?”
“Hi sweetie, it’s dad. What’s going on there?”
“Hi daddy, nothing really, Leeann is here again.” I said.
“Oh, I see. “Well, I am working on a project that needs to be done tomorrow, so I will be staying here tonight. Do you have any plans?”
“No. Can’t you work at home? I hate being stuck here with mom and Leeann, they are already drunk. Please, I will cook dinner and we can eat in the office, away from those two. I can even help you work on whatever your project is,” I begged.
“Uhm, what did you say honey?” He was obviously being distracted by something. I could hear voices in the background.
“Nothing, see you tomorrow.” After I hung up the phone, the tears started coming again. I lay back on my bed and covered my face with a pillow. After a while, I got up and walked to the bathroom to wash my face. My mother stumbles her way down the hallway to the bathroom door.
“Hey baby, you hungry? There are chips and stuff down there,” she points in the wrong direction. Suddenly, she bolts past me and throws up toward the toilet, missing miserably. She wretches and throws up for a good minute, gets up, stumbles to the door, and walks back in the direction of the stairs. “Be a good girl and clean that up for Mommy, will you?”
I ran back to my room and grabbed my cell phone, dialing Renata’s cell phone number. “Nata, I changed my mind. Can you pick me up in thirty minutes?”
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I like the suspense I felt and how you submersed me into the story. From the beginning I was reeled in.
“Tasha stopped me by putting a
hand on my arm. “
The next sentence that follows is someone speaking. Maybe you’d want to rearrange those sentences because I thought it was Tasha, but it was Renata.
Your dialogue could use some cleaning up, but I love your plot. It is very interesting. Your characters seem very three dimensional.
Happy writing,
JD
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First of all, you overuse the adjective “icy.” Three times in one page is too much. Try finding some other descriptors.
I felt like the chase sequence lacked immediacy. Try using shorter sentences and stronger verbs to increase the sense of momentum.
Also, I think revealing that her pursuer is a demon so quickly is a mistake. It’s much more frightening not to know what it is.
“Tasha stopped me by putting a hand on my arm.” I think you meant Renata.
Your dialog and prose could both be a little more creative. As far as prose is concerned, use some more similes and metaphors and other figures of speech to make it more interesting. For dialog, listen more to how real people talk. The characters shouldn’t sound scripted, and they do.
I’m sorry if this comes across as harsh. I think you have an interesting premise here, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
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