Name: Chelsea Archer
Genre: Young Adult
Title: An Ugly Beauty
Pitch:
Four years after her brother's death, Kali still sees his face in every hiker that has ever gone missing or died in the North Woods. Was it an accident or murder? Determined to unlock the truth, Kali enlists the help of her childhood sweetheart, Dean, and boyfriend, Lucas, determined to unearth the secrets lurking beneath the trees.
Lured into a seemingly endless cave by the very hiker they're searching for, Kali, Dean and Lucas find themselves in a forgotten world. Faced with a beautiful yet haunted king on one side and a mutated army of reformed sinners on the other, they must forge their path to the truth or risk being lost themselves.
In a world where appearance is everything and death is nothing more than a new beginning, can Kali come to terms when faced with her brother's killer or will she too disappear into the woods?
Dean Westford sat back and ran his fingers through his hair, thinking of Kali. His phone vibrated, the screen lighting up with a local news blurb. “Hiker Missing in the Northwest Woods.” Shit, he thought. Kali will be all over this.
His eyes scanned the meager details. A single female hiker missing since Thursday afternoon; moderately skilled in outdoor survival; the authorities are hopeful. Dean checked the time. Kali only lived eight minutes away from the cafe where he was sitting. He debated whether to skip hisSaturday breakfast ritual in favor of avoiding Kali until his shift at the dive shop started, but his desire to see her was just too strong.
Since her brother Eric had died four years before, all Kali had thought about was finding the truth. Each missing hiker was a clue, a link to the brother who’d disappeared for six weeks before his body had been found. Cause of death a supposed heart attack, dead less than twenty-four hours–where had he been all that time? A mystery for sure, but Kali just couldn’t let it go.
A steaming cup of coffee and a high-rise of pancakes were set gracefully onto his table.
“You looked in desperate need of your usual, love,” Marjorie said.
Dean smiled despite his mood. “Perfect timing as always.” Marjorie was an old family friend who’d been exchanging meals for chores since Dean had starting coming to Brails when he was nine.
She glanced at Dean’s phone resting on the table. “Best to leave the worrying to the professionals, eh?” She smiled and turned to another table.
She was right, as usual, but he knew Kali would never leave this alone. He thought back to all the other hikers who had gone missing over the past several years, all the ones that were never found or the ones whose bodies eventually showed up. Six deaths and eight missing hikers over the past fifteen years. Odds were that they were accidental, but that wasn’t good enough for Kali.
He leaned in, savoring the buttery aroma of fresh pancakes. He took a big bite of the fluffy wonder followed by a sip of coffee, then looked up as the bell over the door jingled. Kali walked towards him, her phone clutched tightly in her hand.
“It’s a girl this time,” she said as she leaned in and rested her palms on the table.
“So I saw.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? The forest service is mounting up a search party and we’re going to be late.”
Dean pushed his breakfast to the side, giving her room to sit down.
She sat, but she did not relax. He pried her phone from her hand and switched the screen off, setting it to the side. He took in her disheveled blonde hair, the dark circles rimming her green eyes, her frayed sweatshirt resting loosely on thin shoulders. He worried she hadn’t been taking care of herself, and wished, for the thousandth time, that she would let go of this mystery and come back to him.
“Seriously, Dean. Let’s go.”
He pulled his plate back and took another bite of his pancakes, his eyes never leaving her. “It’sSaturday, I have work, remember?”
“Isn’t the search for a missing girl more important than doing inventory at the dive shop?”
Dean leaned back, putting distance between them. He resisted the urge to shake his head, knowing it would only start a fight.
“I need this money for college, Kali. There’s no one else to pay my way, you know this. We can’t just put our lives on hold every time some hiker gets lost in the woods. They’re not Eric.”
Kali’s face flushed. “You think I don’t know that? Of course they’re not Eric, but they’re still missing and they still need our help.”
Dean’s gaze was drawn to Kali’s phone as it started vibrating, Lucas’ smug face appearing on its screen.
Kali answered, a bit too eager for Dean’s liking. “Lucas,” she exclaimed.
The relief and happiness in her voice was like a dagger in Dean’s gut. He watched her face as she listened to the pompous idiot on the other end. Her resulting grin made Dean push the rest of his breakfast away, his appetite gone.
“Okay, yeah, I’ll see you there… Yeah, me too. Bye.” She hung up and set the phone back on the table, screen down.
“What did he want?” Dean asked, trying desperately to hide the contempt in his voice and failing.
Kali raised her right eyebrow and frowned. “He was actually just calling to let me know that he’ll be joining me on the search.”
Dean swallowed, his throat clicking. “I thought he was working today.”
“He took time off.”
“Just like that, huh?”
Kali cleared her throat and fixed her gaze on the granular surface of the table. “Some people will do that Dean, when a person they care about asks for help.”
Dean leaned forward. He tucked his finger under her chin, bringing her eyes up to meet his, his frustration boiling over. “Let’s be honest here. If Lucas really cared about you he would see what I see and he would stop helping you with this crusade. It’s been four years, Kali. Four years of me watching you kill yourself and I can’t do it anymore.”
“Then don’t,” Kali said. “Lucas does care about me, he cares about what I want, Dean, and right now I want to go for a damn hike.” She stood and practically bolted for the door.
Dean clenched his teeth so hard his jaw creaked. He picked up his mug and threw back the rest of his rapidly cooling coffee. He took a deep breath, then another. It was only when he set the mug down that he realized his hands were shaking.
He exited the building half hoping Kali would still be there and half hoping she’d left. She was leaning against the bumper of his SUV, arms crossed, head bowed. He walked up to her, and placed the toes of his boots against the toes of her shoes.
“You’re an ass,” she said.
“Yeah, well, so are you.”
Kali sighed. “I’m sorry, Dean. I know you care, it’s just,” she paused and shrugged her shoulders. “Sometimes I think you care too much.”
Dean nodded his head slowly, her words threatening to undo him. “Yeah, maybe I do.” He took a calming breath, swallowing his guilt and longing. “But that doesn’t mean I'm going to let you go into those woods alone.”
Kali frowned. "I won't be alone, Lucas is coming with me."
Dean snorted. "Yeah, but you and I both know how worthless he is in the wilderness."
She peeked out at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Does that mean you’re coming along?”
“Yeah, but you owe me.”
“Two cases of beer and a pizza coming up.”
“Make it three.” It was an old joke, and Dean felt relieved to see a genuine smile cross her face.
“Thank you,” she said, leaning up and placing a chaste kiss on his cheek. She pulled away and crossed the lot to her car.
Dean watched her pull a hiking pack out of the back, all the while his cheek burning like fire.
“You’re driving,” she said, walking toward Dean’s green Ford Bronco.
He climbed nimbly into the SUV and slammed the door.
First Five Pages Writing Workshop: Jump Start Your Novel and Career
Hi Chelsea,
ReplyDeleteYour pitch really took me by surprise with the line, “Faced with a beautiful yet haunted king on one side and a mutated army of reformed sinners on the other.” I was actually so taken aback that I went back and made sure I had not clicked on a previous month’s workshop. As a reader of your first pages I am set up to expect a realistic story. If it’s going to veer into fantasy, I really think you need to make that element clear in your opening. The realistic mystery surrounding-lost-hikers-and-Kali’s-past story is going to appeal to a different reader/agent than the fantasy story about getting lost in an alternate world.
I’m glad to have the detail that Lucas is useless in the wilderness. That fact explains Dean’s usefulness. I think you should show that fact earlier in the chapter…don’t just tell us Dean’s an outdoorsman, reveal it through details—what he’s wearing. How he reads the article about the missing hiker, etc.
I’d still advise a stronger image/moment for your very first line. Perhaps some hint of the world you describe in the pitch needs to show up there, right from the outset.
Language-wise, be careful that as you’re revising you’re also editing for clarity and flow. Some sentences, like “He debated whether to skip his Saturday breakfast ritual in favor of avoiding Kali until his shift at the dive shop started, but his desire to see her was just too strong” need another polishing pass. It will help to read the final product out loud!
I think you are definitely moving in a more concrete direction with you characters in this version--just be sure you are showing a true preview of the manuscript ahead. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's curious about that forest!
Hi Chelsea,
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of things JJ said up in the last comment -- your pitch has taken me by complete surprise, it looks a lot more like fantasy than hiker-in-the-woods-go-missing kind of realistic plot. I was setting up for a mystery and ended up somewhere else. By your pitch, I even imagined something along the Faerie World. The worst thing you can do to a reader is pitch him something and get something else - so if you're working with fantasy, you have to set up the atmosphere for fantasy right away, or at least have a hint of what the reader is going to encounter later on! Dreams, blinking images, local legends about the woods (i.e) and stuff like that usually work in fantasy as a resource to enter the atmosphere.
By your pitch, I'm assuming the main character is Kali - so when you start your story with Dean, it feels a little weird as well, like you're not delivering what you have promised. Agents will always look at the query first, so you have to make sure both of them are in sync.
Your hook also needs to be a little stronger still, Dean sitting in a café still doesn't catch the reader's attention for him to keep going. I still like the version with Lucas a little better, but i'm not sure in regards of the interaction between the three of them how hard it'd be to pull off Kali not being a little unawares/stuck-up. Regarding your pages, they're a lot clearer and more polished, so you're definetly moving in the right direction!
Aha! It’s a fantasy novel! ;)
ReplyDeleteBased on your pitch, I’d say you definitely need to scrap the first chapter and replace it with something from Kali’s POV. What you have now is good writing, but it’s not where the book is going at all. Dean isn’t the main character, so unless his POV includes something as critical to the eventual story as White Walkers showing up north of the Wall, don’t start with him. The good news is that starting with Kali will allow you to hint at the fantasy element much more easily. Dean is a skeptic, so when we’re in his POV it’s hard to believe that anything weird is going on. But Kali knows! Even if she doesn’t know for sure that there are fantastical hijinks afoot, she knows it in her gut – and that gives you a good excuse to preview it to the reader. Even better, Kali has that desperate, wrenching longing to DO SOMETHING that will make it easy to hook the reader right away.
For your pitch, I need more specifics. What does “forge their path to the truth” mean – what do they specifically have to do? What does “can Kali come to terms” mean? Is there an emotional/character quirk involved in facing her brother’s killer, beyond running for her life/murdering the killer in revenge? You introduce some fantastical elements, but you’re pretty vague about them. Why is the king “beautiful yet haunted”? Is he human? Is Kali attracted to him? What on earth is a mutated army of reformed sinners? I’m intrigued, but there’s not enough information yet for me to understand the stakes.
Looking forward to seeing this very interesting world through Kali’s eyes!
You story is coming along much better. the thing about the pitch is that there are several places that threw me. First, you say she chooses to enlist the help of her childhood sweetheart along with her boyfriend. Why? There has to be a reason she picks him other than he was once her boyfriend. It didn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteThen there is a complete shocker that this is a fantasy. I didn't see that coming. I think it's fine if your story starts out in reality and moves over to fantasy once they get into the woods, but your query should be clear from the get-go that this is a fantasy. Maybe something about how too many hikers mysteriously vanish in the woods. And when her brother is one, it sets her on a quest to figure it out. With the help of some friends with hiking skills, who happen to be her past and her present boyfriends, she sets off to ... see what I mean? Just something to indicate it isn't just a plain old serial killer story, which is what your opening suggests. Also, the part about a King and a mutilated army just didn't make sense to me. It seemed to come out of nowhere. As a thought, have you tried posting your query on Evil Editor or on Agent Query Connect? Those sites can do wonders for clearing up and toning up queries.
You story is coming along much better. the thing about the pitch is that there are several places that threw me. First, you say she chooses to enlist the help of her childhood sweetheart along with her boyfriend. Why? There has to be a reason she picks him other than he was once her boyfriend. It didn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteThen there is a complete shocker that this is a fantasy. I didn't see that coming. I think it's fine if your story starts out in reality and moves over to fantasy once they get into the woods, but your query should be clear from the get-go that this is a fantasy. Maybe something about how too many hikers mysteriously vanish in the woods. And when her brother is one, it sets her on a quest to figure it out. With the help of some friends with hiking skills, who happen to be her past and her present boyfriends, she sets off to ... see what I mean? Just something to indicate it isn't just a plain old serial killer story, which is what your opening suggests. Also, the part about a King and a mutilated army just didn't make sense to me. It seemed to come out of nowhere. As a thought, have you tried posting your query on Evil Editor or on Agent Query Connect? Those sites can do wonders for clearing up and toning up queries.
Hi Chelsea,
ReplyDeleteI’m pleasantly surprised that your story is a fantasy! But as the others mentioned, we need hints of this. Even in genre, you might want to add “YA - Fantasy.” Also, I agree with the other comments that your pitch is from Kali’s perspective and Dean seems more like a side character. If you want to keep your story from Dean’s POV, rework your pitch from Dean’s angle.
Your first five pages are much stronger. I’m seeing a lot of great things here. You’ve done well in reworking the writing based on everyone’s advice. I particularly like that you have Lucas now interrupting the Dean/Kali relationship with the subtlety of a phone call. Definitely a strong, modern choice.
Now that I know your story is a fantasy, I’d like to see that element in your first five. Maybe here: “Each missing hiker was a clue, a link to the brother who’d disappeared for six weeks before his body had been found.” If you add specific clues that appear fantastical, that don’t quite fit in with the natural world, we’ll get a clearer glimpse of all that is to come.
Thank you for letting me read your work - I look forward to reading “An Ugly Beauty” in the future. :)
Tighter reworking of this chapter but I'll second (or seventh) the above comments that Dean's POV still doesn't feel like the best choice. I, too, was surprised by pitch positioning this ms as a fantasy as there are no signs of it in the opening chapter. However, my strongest difficulty with the pitch is in its tone. It feels very different from the actual book you are writing -- atmospheric versus your realistic ms style. And it's a bit abstract. "Forge a path" and "truth" are notions that could describe many stories, not just specifically and uniquely yours. In the middle sentence, you describe a "beautiful yet haunted king" but the term beautiful to me suggests the feminine (i.e., queen). And you have this wild twist on the notion of death which feels far to complex for a three-sentence pitch. So, I guess, I'd suggest more specific details, a narrower plot scope for the pitch (does not have to be a plot summary so much as a teaser to get agent/editor to ask for more) and, since this is a pretty wild genre piece, a phrase stating what it is "a contemporary YA fantasy adventure"???? or something like that might be good. More broadly, my advice at this point would be to keep writing in. Try some Kali POV. Write some scenes in the woods. See how the story takes shape. And don't be afraid to let go and try some really different approaches to this material. Thanks so much for sharing your work. Happy Writing!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you took Lucas out of the opening! He was a distraction.
ReplyDeleteI like this a lot. I like how you've added additional romantic tension between Kali and Dean. We feel for him because he's pining for her. We feel for her, because her goal is clear--find clues to her brother's death.
I do have a few points that can be cleared up easily:
It still says "authorities are hopeful." I don't know if hopeful is the right word. If there's that many missing hikers in a short amount of time, I doubt they're hopeful. Perhaps tight-lipped? Apprehensive?
Is this story told from two points of view? The pitch is in Kali's pov, but the opening is in Dean's.
I noticed the switch from the news coming via phone vs. newspaper. Not sure if the screen would've gone dark by the time the waitress brought his food. Just something to consider or address.
You wrote "odds were they were accidental." For me, this doesn't compute. That many hiker deaths doesn't seem accidental to me.
Kali also tells Dean that he cares too much. About what? In the diner, she's frustrated with him for not caring enough to ditch work and go on a search for a missing hiker. So that line doesn't compute.
These are minor points that can be cleared up easily. I wish you lots of luck!
I just went back and read the other comments, and was reminded of something else...I also didn't realize it was a fantasy! So yes, add elements of that in the opening. Perhaps something unexplained in the clues by previous hikers, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat's it! Good luck :)
Hi Chelsea,
ReplyDeleteRight off the bat, I found it a little bit jarring to read a pitch that told me that Kali was our main character and then dive into a story written in Dean's perspective. Your pov character needs to be your main character. From everything your pitch describes, it seems that this is a story that revolves around Kali so my guess is that we should be in her head.
I was also confused about your genre. If this is a book about going through a cave and entering an entirely new world, I'd shift your pitch's focus away from the realistic stuff. Presumably the meat of the story is beyond the cave, correct? I need to know more about that in the pitch.
Good luck!