Ms. Einstein,
I am submitting this query letter and first chapter to you as part of your request for manuscripts through the Urbis.com writers’ website.
QUOIN OF THE REALM is a paranormal thriller set in present-time Morenek, a fictional town in western upstate New York and battleground for concealed supernatural forces. It spans three days in the life of a fourteen-year-old girl who is unable to express emotion with her face or voice, her alcoholic, formerly successful type-A-in-decline mother, and the mysterious people who have entwined themselves into their lives. Old questions are answered, and new ones asked, as this story looks back to discover the girl’s origins, reveal her hidden destiny, and offer a chance of redemption for her and her mother.
My writing credits include five short stories published in 2006 and 2007 in the literary on-line magazine, The Deepening. My short story, Treasures, was reprinted in October of 2008 by Wrong World.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Donald Willard
***
Quoin of the Realm
Chapter 1
A silver dust of moonlight settled coldly on the night, distorting shadows and casting a film noire lighting scheme over the snow-covered streets. Moderate traffic and heavy sunshine had softened the packed roads that day, but the night would brook none of it and had re-frozen the furrows into a jagged, slippery landscape of troughs and crests.
Irving crunched a path through the tire ruts, leaving his distinctive gimpy trail in the crackling snow and ice. This was a journey he made often; his trek from civilization to wilderness, from sleepy, numb town to vivified coniferous woodland, was so routine that he could’ve made it in the pitch of a moonless night if he needed to—and he had done so on many occasions. What wasn’t routine for him was the burden. The heavy sack slung over his back tugged on his shoulder, cramped the muscles of his arms and accentuated the limitations of his enfeebled leg. Irving stopped frequently, dropping his pack, to rub his achy arms with gloved hands.
"Why you stopping again, Irvy? We got to keep moving."
The other thing that wasn’t routine for Irving was a trudge through the frozen night with a companion.
"This satchel’s heavy, Trina. And I ain’t as spry as I used to be."
Trina studied his face, her gaze lingering a bit too long for comfort. Irving blushed and looked away toward the woods, their destination.
"I don’t think you were ever spry, Irvy."
His head spun around as she adjusted the blue fleece band that encircled her head, trying to keep her ears covered, and he was about to deliver a scathing reply when he saw the smile in her dark eyes. He’d never seen Trina smile with her mouth like a regular person does, but he could always see the smile in her eyes – even when others only saw cold distance. He nodded and picked up his sack again, saying nothing. She moved to help him shoulder it, and he watched from the corner of his eye as her dark curls bobbed above her head like the plants in the fish tank at the pet store. Not for the first time, Irving wondered at how beautiful she was. Why didn’t her parents see what he did?
"You got it, Irvy?" she asked as he balanced the pack on his back.
"Yeah, I got it."
"Okay. Good. Can we get into the woods now, ‘cause I don’t want no one seeing us, you know? People round here always have their noses pokin’ in everybody else’s business, and I ain’t got the energy for coming up with a good lie tonight."
"I wanna get in them trees as much as you, girlie, but I ain’t haulin’ helium balloons in here, y’know. Now just don’t get to naggin’ me, if you please."
Now it was Trina’s turn to blush. She hated when Irving called her "girlie" and he knew it, but she let it go this time. It seemed that she wanted to be away from the streets more than she wanted a fight with him tonight, as fun as those fights sometimes were. "Okay. Sorry, Irvy," she said.
As Irving trudged on he chuckled. "You must want to get away bad tonight, Trina. I can count on one hand – wearing mittens – the number of times I’ve heard you say ‘sorry’." He looked back at her, nearly toppling himself, to see her face. Her expression was flat as ever, but her eyes danced. She was laughing, Irving knew.
"Ah, I think I could haul this bag to Newfane if you smiled like that the whole way, girl- er, Trina."
She moved around to the side opposite the sack and took his arm. "Let me help you keep your feet, you old smoothy," she said. Irving laughed. Trina threw her head back and let out loud, scratchy warble, but quickly stopped as though it was not the sound she was hoping to make. Irving watched her hair bob back down around her head band, and saw the sadness return to her eyes.
"Aw, Trina, your eyes ain’t smilin’ no more," he said. "You know you don’t have to try to laugh out loud with me. You just keep smilin’ with your eyes, and that’s all old Irving needs to know. Who cares about all that silly caterwauling noise anyway?"
Trina nodded, but her frustration was still apparent to Irving. He knew that frustrated look. It was the same one she was wearing when he had first seen her at the pet store. She was new there then, having just been hired to work after school by Mr. Nance, the store manager.
#
Mr. Nance was nice. He always let Irving come in and play with the ferrets and guinea pigs, even though he knew Irving wasn’t going to buy any of them. And he was doubly nice, because in addition to his pedigreed stock, destined for kibble in crystal goblets and crocheted turtle necks, Mr. Nance often took in strays – the sad, forgotten, outcast creatures of the world – even if those strays were no more than limping old janitors who just wanted to play with animals.
Irving was drawn to the newest stray, the one with dark bobbing curls that looked like aquarium plants. He could tell right off that she was one of the outcast by the way other customers pointed at her and whispered when they thought she wasn’t looking, and by the way she heard but pretended not to. This stray, like a hungry cat, knew how to remain guarded without looking guarded as the saucer of milk was offered. And when she looked over at him – a strange, hobbling man holding a ferret – her blank expression said nothing. Yet the shout from her eyes made Irving flinch. –And again as his hand felt a sharp pain.
"Ouch! Ooh, little fuzzy, did Irving squeeze you too hard?" Irving cooed to the ferret. There was a small incision in the meaty tissue between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and he watched as a small hemisphere of red grew from it. Putting the ferret gently back into its cage, he stuck the web of flesh into his mouth, the taste of blood like the flavor sucked from a nickel, and he looked back toward the girl. He was afraid her eyes might shout at him again – also afraid they might not – but she was busy stocking a shelf with birdseed clumps shaped like bells. Her back was to him.
Irving couldn’t keep pets in his small, one-room apartment. It was in his lease. But he could circumnavigate this issue slightly by making sure some of the wild things had food during the winter months. And he often spent what little disposable income he had on seed and suet and peanut butter for his window feeder. The birds and squirrels and occasional skunk seemed to appreciate his efforts. He thought about his seed supply now, as he watched the girl stock the bells, and thought to himself that this might be a good time to replenish his larder. Besides, this new wild thing had wounds, and Irving knew about wounds. Maybe he could…
Before he realized what he was doing, Irving shambled over to the seed aisle and picked up a twenty-five pound bag from the stack next to the bell-shaped feeders. As he did, the girl turned to look at him again and he braced himself, waiting for the shouting eyes. But this time there was nothing.
The girl looked at Irving’s bum leg and asked, "Can I help you with that bag of seed, sir?"
She had asked him a question, but there was no question in her voice; it came out flat and robotic. But when Irving looked at her eyes, they were hurling question marks at him like boomerangs.
Irving, usually offended by the pity his leg often garnered him, was too befuddled by her eyes to remember to be angry. He could only stammer, "I, er, um…that is, I reckon I can handle it, miss."
"Okay," she responded flatly. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Um, are you ready to check out? I can ring that up for you."
"Uh, sure. I mean, yes, I think I’m ready to check out." He shuffled up to the counter, following the girl. He dropped the seed on the formica top and studied her as she scanned the barcode several times trying to get the machine to read the lines on the irregular bag. She was fair-skinned, but had dark eyes, and thick, dark ringlets of hair that fell just below jawline. Her face, an edge of leanness just beginning to overtake the corpulence of childhood, was a non-expressive. It never changed its countenance despite her obvious change of moods. The tightening of the muscles in her hands and forearms, and the rapid slapping of the scanning device over the barcode, indicated frustration. But her face said nothing, like a mask.
The register at last peeped acceptance of the code and the girl’s face remained as stoic as ever. But when she looked up from the merchandise at Irving, her eyes were grinning at him. He smiled back.
The girl’s eyes fired off more boomerang question marks and she seemed unsure what to do with Irving’s smile. "Um, will that be all then?"
"Yeah, that’s all for now, I guess." Irving, suddenly uncertain of himself, began studying his Timberlands.
"Well, okay. Your total is thirteen thirty-six. If that’s all, that is."
Irving fumbled for his wallet, handed her two bills, and accepted the change. He avoided her eyes. They were saying too much. They were too overpowering. As he hobbled out of the store with the seed under his arm, he thought he felt her eyes follow him out, but he didn’t dare turn around.
On his labored walk back to his apartment, Irving did some mental calculations to try and determine how long it would be before he needed to buy seed again.
#
Trina gripped Irving’s arm as they shuffle-crunched down the ruts and runnels of the old two-lane road that led them away from town. Like two foundational cards in a house of cards, they balanced one against the other, each giving support and needing support in order to remain erect. Since that first meeting in the pet store, Irving had learned to read her every nuance, and knew her moods perhaps better than she. The set of her jaw, the tilt of her head, and the ripple of muscles in the hand that squeezed his arm were all subtle indicators he could translate. They were the dull, unadorned pinfeathers, unnoticed, but whose infinitesimally small movements were integral in keeping the eagle in flight.
It was this understanding that kept Irving quiet. When she was ready, she would speak – and she would most likely say something unexpectedly deep or unimaginably silly. Either way, verbal communication would be then reinstated. It was her way. Her inability to communicate like "regular people" had caused her to build amazingly solid and solitary defenses in her short years.
Irving could wait. Patience, his closest friend and boon companion, had helped him coax many wild things out of nests and warrens and to the seed and suet of his backyard feeders. Poor old hobbled Irving, friend of the critters, but, until now, a solitary marathon runner in the human race, had a friend. He could wait.
They shuffle-crunched in silence, the still, calm and frigid air carrying only the sound of their footfalls. Their boot tracks behind them were paid out line as the currents, strong and invisible as a rip tide, carried them forward.
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the sentence starting it spans needs sorting to make its meaning clear. 3 shorter sentences. Full stop after voice. Her alcoholic mother is.. Other..people have entwined..
Old questions sentence could be disguarded.
also the first sentence needs to be a punchy introduction to the book and not the sentence you have chosen.
The shortness of a query letter belies the work which goes into producing it.
page 4 kibble?
The first chapter is slow moving. Your writing style is easy to assimilate but the connection beween your rather scanty synopsis and the events of the first chapter is not apparent.
The inability of Trina to talk of her emotion is mentioned in the ql and Irving knows about it. But there is no action on Trina’s part to show this. Perhaps you could have an incident to demonstrate it. Perhaps one of the pets gets hurt and she is sad but doesn’t say. It’s a difficult thing to demonstrate.
You write with easy brilliance but to get all this idea across it needs more content.
good query letter. short and clean. good work.
“film noire”—noir
Enjoyed the opening line. Nice.
“dropping his pack, to rub”—kill the comma
“Irving wondered at how beautiful she was”—fine, but i took exception to “wondered.” didn’t like it. could just be me. consider “marveled?” or not. up to you.
Good intro to Irving and Trina. Although, in this paragraph, “His head spun around as she adjusted the blue fleece…” I couldn’t help but notice a repetition of “head” and “eyes.” bad? not necessarily. but very noticeable.
by page 4, i’m interested, but not overly intrigued. so far, it’s two kind people (one gimpy and one pretty) scampering off to the woods. ok. i shall read on.
“the shout from her eyes”—i enjoyed this. well done.
“Her back was to him.”—i felt this information came a moment too late. maybe consider working it in to the previous line somehow. the “birdseed clumps shaped like bells” is a better way to finish the thought. in my humble opinion.
“It was in his lease.”—same thing with this line here. it feels lost. does it work? sure. but it might do better mating with the previous line.
I’m now at page 6. The writing is often tight and cozy, but I’m getting a bit restless. Could just be my short attention span. I understand that we’re getting to know the characters, but it’s all too easy, if that makes sense. There is no action beyond subtlety, and, given the opening of this tale, I find myself waiting for it to kick up a notch. Irving has a bum leg. Make him fall. or not. It’s fine. But it feels like the only real sense of tension is whether or not the girl’s eyes are going to “shout” at him again.
“It never changed its countenance despite her obvious change of moods”—her face registers nothing, yet her eyes “shout” and only moments before display “curiosity.” this reads a bit contradictory. to me. She has a flat affect but her eyes are teeming with life. hmm.
Ok. I’m out of the store. Again- excellent, tight writing, but it lumbers like Irving. I think you could convey everything you want in regards to the “store” scene in about a 1/3 less words. but if you’re in love with it, by all means keep it. just my opinion.
”foundational cards in a house of cards,”—repetition again, this time of “cards.” i don’t like it.
“They were the dull, unadorned pinfeathers, unnoticed, but whose infinitesimally small movements were integral in keeping the eagle in flight.”—beautiful line, but it almost feels like it’s trying to carry too much weight. While beautiful, it could be taken as pretentious. I’d question whether it’s even necessary here. It only acts as a means to flex its own muscles.
“Poor old hobbled Irving”—ok. I get it. Irving is a busted, bum legged janitor. to pound this into my head makes me feel as if you’re soliciting sympathy. consider earning it instead.
“They shuffle-crunched in silence, the still, calm and frigid air”—i enjoyed “shuffle-crunched,” but “still” and “calm” feel redundant.
good close.
overall-
excellent writing, interesting story.
criticisms?
don’t be afraid to hit the gas. or not. it’s up to you. always will be.
The plot outline in the query letter didn’t really hook me. I found myself more intrigues by the alcoholic, formerly successful type A in decline mother and sadly disappointed that the chapter excerpt born no mention of her or the 14 year old girl. Unless, Trina is that girl. If so that her name should be mentioned in the letter.
Why did you choose this chapter to submit? It is well written but does nothing to bolster the plot laid out in the query letter. Where and what are the supernatural forces at war in this area. If it is attention we are after we need to be jumping up and down, shouting and clapping our hands…don’t give the editor this nice little may/december illicit romance.
I kept thinking of THE HILL HAVE EYES – a series of below B horror movies. The eyes, the eyes and more eyes. His eyes looking crosswise, her eyes flashing dagger eyes. I think we need another way of expressing what is going on here – since, in reality MOST people express more with their eyes, they are after all ‘the windows to the soul’
The dialogue is good and feels natural although at times it had a characteristic southern feel that the nasal twang I remember from my youth. Also – these are simple folk and at times in the narrative really big words are used ‘vivified coniferous woodland’ and ‘corpulence’ nah – fat ass is what they would know and ‘them there scraggly pine trees’
‘film noir lighting scheme’ – film noir lighting is in and of itself a ‘scheme’ so you could drop that word.
Also I think the speaker of you first line of dialogue should be specified since up to that point we only are away of Irving being present.
Overall a sold read and it is evident you have worked this over several times. good luck with the opportunity
one minute their worried about people seeing them, the next their ‘warbling’ loudly and going arm in arm. that doesn’t make sense.
so far good language.
you could just plain leave out telling the reader a character is one way or another, and just show them being that way. (mr. biggles was nice.)
the whole ‘no expression to her face but irvy reading her eyes’ is too much, too many times. here or there is ok. i’m not sure why you fell in love with that but it’s irksome. it feels more like a device than anything.
you don’t need ‘in a house of cards’ after ‘like two foundation cards’ you can leave it at that or say ‘in a house’.
Well, the vocab and structure of your sentences felt smooth and was effective. but this beauty and the beast type story didn’t appeal to me. and you’re going to need something more than ‘Trina’s having a bad day’ to entice an agent. I’d throw in some foreshadowing or somethin…throw us a bone.
you’ve obviously worked hard on it and it shows.
This is a good starting point. The story could branch out in any number of different ways from here, so it’s not as good as it could be as far as setting the stage, but it does provide a good glimpse of the personality and quirks of the two (presumably) main characters.
I’m not sure that a flashback was really the way to go here as far as showing how the characters met. It felt a little forced, like I was pulled out of the ongoing narrative quite abruptly to see a snippet of the past and then tossed right back into it. It just doesn’t seem to fit.
I like how all your dialog is so natural. The fact that you don’t mind using vernacular and phonetic spelling to display the character’s lingual characteristics is very refreshing. New authors often seem afraid of typing dialog the way it would sound, but doing this does a lot toward establishing their unique voices.
Some of your choices for words/phrases seem a little odd or out of place. Phrases such as “gimpy trail” or “vivified coniferous woodland” or “corpulence of childhood” seem to be either silly or a little over the top. Vocabulary is not its own reward. Try not to use “big words” unless there’s a good reason to do so. I’m assuming this is an attempt at popular fiction, which means you should probably aim for a high school reading level.
As for the breaks between chapters, I suppose for a working draft a # is workable for denoting transition to the next chapter, but for a finished work the chapters (or sections) should be more clearly delineated.
In conclusion I would like to say that I enjoyed what I read, even if it were only a beginning. There’s enough character exposition and atmosphere here to make me want to read more. With the exception of the aforementioned odd phrasing and abrupt flashback sequence, this is quite good. Try to transition into/out of the flashback a bit more naturally and simplify some of the rest of the text.
If/when you finish this I’d be interested in reading/reviewing the whole work. Please let me know if you’d like more feedback in the future.
I would punch up the plot summary in your query. Try to make it come from the POV of the two protagonists in the story. Read the back cover blurbs of a few books similar in genre and make note of some of the snappy lingo they use. (Don’t make it sound like an infomercial though.) Add more interest so it seems less like a listing of events and more like a compelling read.
You are writing at a more advanced level than many aspiring authors, but I find that your focus seems to be more on words in the opening, than on story. Words are important, yes, but they shouldn’t make the reader think, “This guy is a walking thesaurus.” They should be sinking deep into the characters, and hence the story itself. Ask yourself if Irving would ever describe the night in that manner—and if the answer is yes, then you need to write it more conversationally and interoduce Irving right up front as being a sort of poetic guy with a large vocabulary.
My more immediate concern though, is Trina’s age. You say this takes place in modern times in a fictional town in upstate New York—yet you have a fourteen year old girl employed by a business and working the register. Unless she’s gained special dispensation, she cannot work “on the books” for someone other than family.
However, she comes off much, much too old for a fourteen year old girl. I understand you’re going for a flat demeanor here, but it’s my opinion that girls her age don’t make comments about not having enough energy for a confrontation (their idealistic view of right and wrong is still very strong.) Or that she would use the word “spry” in that way.
I think what might be the underlying problem is that you’re telling Trina’s story, but in Irving’s POV. What are his stakes in all this? What does he have to lose? Get inside his head a little and focus more on the storytelling—I think it will really make your writing sing :)
I hope that helps!
Very nice. The story started out really strong. I was captivated by the characters dialogue. No real critism, I want to read more. So far the plot and pacing seem to be on track but again i need more.
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