Monday, April 12, 2010

Entry 38

Title: SOUTHERN HOSTILITY
Genre: YA Dark Comedy

Devon McCauley has a secret: a crush-your-best-friend, lose-your-popularity secret. Equal parts scandalous and disastrous, Devon only sees two ways to forget it—go back to being the naïve Homecoming Queen everyone loved or leave that girl so far behind, everyone forgets she ever existed. She goes with option B.

That is, until her college’s star baseball player AJ Green tells her he knows what happened last year. He’ll keep her secret for a small price—a promise of good behavior from Devon.

Devon would rather eat off the Phi Beta fraternity house floor than let anyone know what happened to her. But she won’t be pushed around and lose some jock’s game. She vows to destroy everyone involved, and fast. Easy-to-manipulate AJ should fold like a lawn chair, but her real target is the person who tipped him off: Mark Echells. And Devon knows just the right way to deliver the blow to the All American pretty boy: by corrupting his innocent and socially inept girlfriend. The way Devon sees it, there’s more on the line this time than reputation or a few party invites—only one of them will get through this in one piece.

With sex games, deceit, and a little Jim Beam, you get a whole lotta southern hostility. SOUTHERN HOSTILITY is my 64,000 word young adult dark comedy. A full manuscript is available upon your request.

5 comments:

  1. Good voice in this query. A little wordy, but could easily be tightened up by eliminating a few words that are unneeded. Great Job!

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  2. I love premise of this - and the voice is great. Your tag line is probably the best I've seen...

    "With sex games, deceit, and a little Jim Beam, you get a whole lotta southern hostility."

    Genius

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  3. Very different than anything else I've seen in the contest. Well done.

    It is a little wordy, and I'm not sure how to tighten it without losing the voice, which is priceless. I love that your MC is malicious and proud of it. It's very refreshing after all the innocence of most YA protags.

    Best of luck to you with this.

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  4. Jamie Weiss ChiltonMay 9, 2010 at 12:51 PM

    Devon being in college will make for a tougher sell in the YA market. I think she could easily be a senior in high school, with college-age friends. Casting her as a college freshman isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, but I do think this makes the manuscript a more difficult sell.

    What is Devon's secret? I'd like at least a strong hint in the query, otherwise I'm not sure if it's going to hook me.

    Your plot seems very close to "Cruel Intentions." How can you differentiate it a bit more from the movie -- how can you give Devon's plan to corrupt Mark's girlfriend more of a unique twist?

    I like the promise of a dark comedy with a Southern flare. I'm intrigued. Nice work.

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