Here are the rules:

If you think your book is ready for submission, our Faux Agents will give you a taste of what you're likely to meet when you submit in the real world. If you think you can grab an agent's attention with the opening of your book, post it here.

Format rules for submission:

Title:
Genre:
Short Pitch:
Link to your book:

♦ Post a maximum of 600 (+/- 5%) words from your upload.

♦ This must be the first 600 words, whether prologue or chapter 1.

♦ Posting anything other than the opening of your book will invite immediate rejection.

♦ Faux agents will read until they see something that would have made them put the manuscript down and send out a generic rejection letter.

♦ Unlike a real agent, these faux agents might tell you where -- or perhaps even why -- they stopped reading.

♦ Additionally, faux agents are free to offer constructive criticism or praise at their discretion. Authors shall remember that said criticism or praise is simply one person's opinion.

My thanks to all the participants, past and future.



Posted: 20/08/2011 15:32:16
Last Edit: 05/04/2013 23:35:11 by Jack Cerro

Title: Unforgivable
Genre: Thriller/Horror
Short Pitch: WIP
Link: None
Thread Page #: 1

“So, tell me about yourself.” Most people consider this phrase innocuous small talk. To me, it's a dagger being thrown at my throat. If I don't have a prepared backstory, I pause and fumble which evokes suspicion. If I have an over prepared backstory, I sound rehearsed which evokes the same suspicion. I wonder what it would be like to tell the truth. I mean, if I could. It must feel comforting to have a solid history where the facts never change and your experiences have shaped who you are. My experiences have definitely shaped who I am. It's just not bragging material.

This time my name is Lisa. Not very imaginative but believable and not too flashy. Lisa needs a job. I draw the line at prostitution. I will never sell my body but it is becoming harder to find an out of the way diner or motel where I can work without a social security number. No matter where I go, everyone loves to say, “So, tell me about yourself.”

The Greyhound bus I'm on has reached Prairie Mound, Montana. I bet the good people of Prairie Mound think they have secrets but they don't. In a town like Prairie Mound, the Minister is sleeping with some parishioner's wife and everyone knows it. The pillar of the community, who is most likely a local business owner, perhaps the grocer, beats the living shit out of his children. Everyone knows that, too. Someone here is stealing petty cash from an employer while still someone else is growing marijuana in the garage. I've never really left Prairie Mound. It just moves a lot and changes its name.

I step off the bus and I'm immediately hit in the face with a gust of dirt filled wind. Did I forget to mention that in Prairie Mound we're always a little dusty? The driver hands me my lone suitcase from the luggage compartment and I say, “Thank you.” He nods his head in acknowledgment. Through the smudged window of the weathered greasy spoon, I see a waitress walking swiftly with a full pot of coffee in her hand. She is undoubtedly giving “warm ups” to customers who don't want them because she has just ruined their perfect balance of cream to sugar ratio. Except for the bib-overalled row of farmers along the counter. They drink it black as God intended. I guess that her name is Shirley.

As soon as I push my way through the heavy swinging door, Shirley hollers, “Go ahead and sit anywhere, hon! I'll be right with you!” No one bothers to look up from their lunches. They don't much care for the place doubling as the bus station but they've grown tolerant of it. No point in looking at strangers, though. They're just here to use the can, grab a Coke and get back on the bus. Prairie Mound is a pass-through, not a destination. Starting today, for a girl named Lisa, Prairie Mound is home.


Posted: 20/08/2011 15:44:32

@emma Parker.
Title: Unforgivable
Genre: Thriller/Horror
Short Pitch: WIP
Link: None
Thread Page #: 1

Thanks for your submission, but this faux agent would pass. I did read to the end of the section, but it didn't grab me enough to make me want to read more. i found the opening a little clunky and I would assume that someone on the run, and as jaded about life in small towns across America, would have a decent backstory concocted well in advance of the dreaded question.

Pleae bear in mind that this is just my personal opinion and you should feel free to completely ignore it.
Best wishes, Stacey 30s/F/UK

Posted: 20/08/2011 15:52:31

Title: Cicada
Genre: General Fiction
Short Pitch: A family and community are swept up in a tempest of violence and tragedy.
Link: Cicada
Thread Page #: 1


Chapter One

Seated in his pickup truck on the side of an isolated country road with a pistol in his mouth, John Sayre considered getting out of the cab so that he wouldn’t make a mess of things. He didn’t want to blow out the rear window. He couldn’t bear the thought of inconveniencing some stranger to clean the pulp and blood of his brain from the upholstery. Of all things, he troubled his mind with that more than with what the act would mean for his wife and son left behind.

How considerate the completely selfish can be. Clear as catfish waters.

Teeth on metal, the taste of gun oil curled his tongue, and of all things it was only that slight repulsion to bring a pause to his plans. Easing the barrel from his mouth and licking his lips, he kept his focus the wrong way down its sights. A tiny black hole for a man to crawl into. Never too late.

On the seat beside him, he had begun a note. At first glance it appeared to be a list, but it was not. In hurried block letters that huddled together as though afraid to be seen, it read:

I pushed Walter
wished I could take it back
don’t expect forgiveness

The words were centered in the middle of a plain sheet of ruled paper and suffered the appearance of needing to be more, something like a schoolboy’s unfinished homework; a little deserted island of half-assed explanation. Yes, the man knew as much, knew that it didn’t begin to make enough sense of what he had come to that lonely place to do. Beneath the last line were two little dots of ink where the pen had been pressed and another thought or two were considered but not put down. They would have been nothing less than insults to his abandoned wife and son; a pitiful inheritance.


Posted: 20/08/2011 15:54:22
Last Edit: 21/08/2011 03:03:22 by Eric Laing

Thank you, StaceyM.

Posted: 20/08/2011 15:54:30

The Perilous Adventures of an Unfulfilled Full Stop
Literary Fiction
Short Pitch:A highly original satirical take on the modern world using the way language works to showcase the patent absurdity of the free marketeers
Link:http://www.authonomy.com/books/35659/the-perilous-adventures-of-an-unfulfilled-full-stop/

I guess it all started with the letters that were delivered way back then. They lay there, unattended, unopened, gathering dust for some unmeasured time, sitting on the metaphorical rug, mat or carpet, or whatever lay behind that door. Eventually though, the door was opened, and the dust was stirred, and hands reached down and picked those letters up and those hands opened the letters and the letters opened into words and the words opened into sentences, then the sentences into paragraphs, and the paragraphs into chapters and the chapters into parts and the parts into the whole which was greater than the parts and the tales were then told around the fire to keep the fearsome night at bay, at bedtime, downtime, sometimes simply quiet times, but it all started way back then with the letters.’

All the characters in the show came back on to the stage and bowed as the entire audience, already giving rapturous applause, rose as one and cries of bravo were heard repetitively at the end of the show.

Zero and Stopper were sat at a table with some other characters discussing the finer points of the show they had just seen.

‘Interesting take on the evolution of language relating to the upright stance, the free use of hands and language as deception, I thought,’ replied Stopper. ‘On one level that is, being a multilevel narrative I’m still pondering the others.

‘Hmm,’ Zero said, ‘the level I caught on to I thought was rather more about the history of sub consciousness, more about ourselves, you might say, than about the others. Hey Stopper, somebody’s paging you.’

‘Hey Stopper, there’s a letter for you.’

‘Just the one’ asked Stopper? ‘Okay, what we got here.’ “A word in your rear Stopper, we need an investigation into the reasons for the breaking up of the language, and we want you to handle it, meet us in the Semantic club, two nights hence.” Hmm, thought Stopper. Word in your rear indeed, I’ve not been sentenced yet, Semantic club sounds interesting.

‘Well this looks interesting.’ Stopper said looking up from the letter he’d been handed.

‘What’s that then?’ Zero asked.

‘They want me to investigate problems with the words, it seems there’s a creeping problem they say here, that there seems to be a limited number of words being used more and more, which is also limiting opportunities for letters. This in itself is creating a dearth of interest, or stimulus for everyone else, which is likely to be a forewarning of oncoming problems.’

‘So they want you to look into it.’

‘So it would appear, seems there’s some meeting with the lower case letters and punctuation marks too, who are a bit worried about the seemingly unstoppable rise of acronyms and abbreviations and the consequences for the letters and punctuation marks themselves. They reckon that that’s probably a good place to start, so I’ll likely pop down there tomorrow.’

‘Are you coming back?’

‘Yes, you want to go now?’

‘Yes, that crossword filling capital is kind of gliding over here and I’d like to escape before he gets us in his grid.’

‘Okay, Zero, let’s get out of here.’

So Stopper and Zero made a quiet but efficient exit.



Posted: 20/08/2011 15:57:29

Title: Cicada
Genre: General Fiction
Short Pitch: A family and community are swept up in a tempest of violence and tragedy.
Link: Cicada
Thread Page #: 1


Chapter One

Seated in his pickup truck on the side of an isolated country road with a pistol in his mouth, John Sayre considered getting out of the cab so that he wouldn’t make a mess of things. He didn’t want to blow out the rear window. He couldn’t bear the thought of troubling some stranger to clean the pulp and blood of his brain from the upholstery. Of all things, he troubled his mind with that more so than what the act would mean for his wife and son left behind.

How considerate the completely selfish can be. Clear as catfish waters.

Teeth on metal, the taste of gun oil curled his tongue, and of all things it was only that slight repulsion to bring a pause to his plans. Easing the barrel from his mouth and licking his lips, he kept his focus the wrong way down its sights.

A tiny black hole for a man to crawl into. Never too late.

On the seat beside him, he had begun a note. At first glance it appeared to be a list, but it was not. In hurried block letters that huddled together as though afraid to be seen, it read:

I pushed Walter
wished I could take it back
don’t expect forgiveness

The words were centered in the middle of a plain sheet of ruled paper and suffering the appearance of needing to be more, something like a schoolboy’s unfinished homework; a little deserted island of half-assed explanation. Yes, the man knew as much, knew that it didn’t begin to make enough sense of what he had come to that lonely place to do. Beneath the last line were two little dots of ink where the pen had been pressed and another thought or two were considered but not put down. They would have been nothing less than insults to his abandoned wife and son; a pitiful inheritance.

@Eric
Title: Cicada
Genre: General Fiction
Short Pitch: A family and community are swept up in a tempest of violence and tragedy.
Link: Cicada
Thread Page #: 1

Thanks for your submission. This faux agent is quite keen to read on. This shows some definite improvements over previous drafts, particularly the description of the note, and I love the line about looking the wrong way down the sights. My only hiccup is in the final pargraph where you refer to him as "the man" rather than by name - it made me go back and check that you had given his name in the first place. Simply putting "John" or "he" would tighten things up for me.

Pleae bear in mind that this is just my personal opinion and you should feel free to completely ignore it.
Best wishes, Stacey 30s/F/UK


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:00:32

Title: Cicada
Genre: General Fiction
Short Pitch: A family and community are swept up in a tempest of violence and tragedy.
Link: Cicada
Thread Page #: 1

I read completely through and would read more. I got stuck on the word "suffering" and read it a couple times. I don't find anything wrong with the word, I think it's the tense. Maybe suffered, instead? What do you think?

Humble opinion of Emma 30s/F/US

Posted: 20/08/2011 16:00:47

Title: Seep
Genre: Horror
Short Pitch: Inexplicable psychosis consumes a town of isolationists, carving out a body-littered, blood-splattered journey into madness. Seep, a gruesome reminder of the fatal nature of life.
Link: Seep
Thread Page #: 2


Chapter One

Only six remained. The old men had been dying off one by one as if their lot had brokered some Faustian deal, exchanging the last of their days to see the new funeral parlor finished. Too long in the tooth for such work, their struggle had become the subject of much ridicule and jest back in town. Even from the outset of the construction crew’s very first loss, the irony of the matter did not escape them. Nor did it elude young Walter Petry.

The boy peered from his family’s kitchen window to count the men as they toiled beneath the sun. He pondered how the supposedly wise could be so thick. Walter had heard the jokes. He found them funny.

So distant from the boy, the men looked like insects scrambling here and there. Just like stupid bugs. Ants, he mused. And, much like ants, it was clear they worked in concert, sharing some grand scheme, some greater goal, something more than just the building that drove them. Walter thought for a moment that he’d grasped that elusive something. Then, like a quail startled from the brush, the thought exploded, replaced in a flash with a bizarre image--a scarecrow constructed of offal. But then his mind cleared. The thought was gone as quickly as it’d come over him, leaving him shaken and nervous to have gotten so close to understanding something that had been eluding him for so many days now.

The boy shivered in the heat and changed his wandering mind’s course, imagining a great stick in his grasp, his god spear to poke the old men cruelly. Or perhaps his subjects needed squashing. Either way, he rendered them lifeless one by one. As he did, Walter marked each death with a harsh thrust of his sweat-damp head and a satisfied grunt. He made his little macabre dance complete by mashing down his foot, entertaining the notion that some of the men were caught helpless in the hole of his worn boot sole. Their pitiful stabs and sad punches into his wool sock would not save them. Walter would smear them into the floorboards like so much spilt jelly.


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:04:12
Last Edit: 20/08/2011 16:05:55 by Eric Laing