Author: Mary McDonald
Date:   11-16-09 14:07

I\'m new here, and normally, I hang out in forums, responding to posts and getting to know people before I ask a question, but I have a time crunch right now, just when I found this site. Figures! I promise to come back and contribute to discussions on this awesome forum later today. In the meantime, if someone would be so kind as to give me some feedback on my query, I\'d really appreciate it.

___

Photographer Mark Taylor has a unique camera. It takes photos of future events. After viewing the photos, come the dreams. Dreams with enough details to prevent disaster. So when he ‘sees’ the tragedy of September 11th, he races to alert the authorities. His warnings fall not only fall on deaf ears, they land him in prison as an enemy combatant.

Isolation in a U.S. Naval brig and harsh interrogations threaten to destroy Mark\'s sanity as he clings to his innocence. He\'s finally freed with help from his girlfriend when she uses the camera to convince lead interrogator that there might be some truth to Mark\'s claims of innocence.

Upon release, Mark returns to Chicago to find his life in shambles. He\'s broke, homeless and owns only the clothes on his back. Plagued with flashbacks of his time in the brig, he struggles to forget the past, and look towards the future. He sees more of the future than he bargains for when he glimpses another terrorist attack in which thousands will die. Mark faces a paralyzing choice: keep the knowledge secret or share what he knows and risk becoming an enemy combatant again.

ENEMY COMBATANT is a 95,000-word thriller. I have included the first 5 pages below. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Author: Amanda Brenner
Date:   11-16-09 14:22

I think this is quite good. I like your opening and the entire theme. Others more experienced with queries may be able to offer more constructive criticism, but this worked for me.

It may be a matter of transmission, but wherever you use an apostrophe, there is a slash mark before it. You have to clean this up.

Good luck.

AB

Author: Mary McDonald
Date:   11-16-09 17:03

Thanks, Amanda. I see those slashes now. I know they weren't in the original, so I'm hoping it's a product of cutting and pasting from my work computer. (the first part of the message was done using that computer, but the rest of the post was my query copied from a google doc.) That's weird. I intend to send myself some test emails with the query and sample pages on a couple of different emails/browsers, to see how they look.

Mary

Author: Greg Kosson
Date:   11-16-09 22:28

I started wondering why a guy with a camera like that can't use it for slightly more selfish reasons. This isn't a problem but I do think you have to quickly explain why he can't use it to predict the stock market, the next lottery numbers or something equally obvious.

I like the ideas, but also think you need to explain why he can't say "Look, jerks, you didn't believe me the last time and look what happened."

Author: Gopa Das
Date:   11-17-09 07:50

thailand export
US export
taiwan export
philippines export
korea export

Author: Robert Wilson
Date:   11-17-09 10:15

I like the query. Sounds like a good story.

Nit-picking---add "the" in front of lead and delete "that" in front of there.

What's with all these exports?

RW

Author: Mary McDonald
Date:   11-17-09 10:47

Thanks for picking up on those nitpicks. Makes sense. Exports? Didn't you know that we all have an import/export biz on the side? ;-)

Author: Erica Bertel
Date:   11-17-09 15:22

This sounds pretty good to me. I only saw one questionable sentence. His warnings fall not only fall on deaf ears, they land him in prison as an enemy combatant. you use the word fall twice.
I think it would read better as:

His warnings not only fall on deaf ears, they land him in prison as an enemy combatant.

Author: Gary Kessler
Date:   11-17-09 15:36

His warnings not only fall on deaf ears, they land him in prison as an enemy combatant.

Afraid you need to go even farther than this. "Not only" is a pair with "but also" or "as well."

His warnings not only fall on deaf ears, but they also land him in prison . . .

Author: Mary McDonald
Date:   11-17-09 16:27

Suggestions noted and changes made. You guys are awesome. Thanks so much!:-)

Author: Janice W-D
Date:   11-17-09 22:46

You've got at least two typos in your query.

One word too many:
His warnings fall not only fall on deaf ears, ...

One word too few:
He's finally freed with help from his girlfriend when she uses the camera to convince lead interrogator that there might be some truth to Mark's claims of innocence.

You need to insert "the" in front of lead interrogator.

Best,
Janice

Author: Mary McDonald
Date:   11-18-09 07:42

Thanks, Janice. :-)