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The blog will be taking a break (and so will I) this week as the holidays descend up on us.
The Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire blog and podcast will return in 2020 with more interviews, query critiques, guest posts and podcast episodes!
In the meantime I’ve got to read 15 books before Jan 1 in order to hit my Goodreads goal of 70 books read in 2019. I don’t think I’m going to make it, but here’s to a valiant effort!
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Eighteen-year-old Maki Hosoya didn't enter her first year of college expecting to be a friend-for-hire. Unlike her rich peers, however, she knows that getting the money for her tuition isn't as easy as calling up mommy and daddy and asking for their credit card verification value. My immediate reaction to this is that you're writing a YA, but it's set in college. That's tricky territory, and something that's apt to turn off an agent from the beginning. If there's a chance of setting this in an elite boarding school, or something similar, that's your better bet. Don't hobble yourself right out of the gate by pushing a YA with a freshman in colleg as your protag. As far as the pitch itself, your opening hook is good.
Not that she's jealous or anything.
Besides, even if she were, she knows that she should be counting her blessings. Her classmates may be party-obsessed and unacquainted with the real world, but they hand out money like it's candy. If they need a responsible “friend” for when their parents visit, a fake girlfriend to make an ex jealous, or a sober sitter, Maki is there. There are just two rules: Pay up, and don’t get too attached. Whose rules are these? Maki's? Or her clients? Pay up seems like a rule for a client, whereas don't get too attached could go either way.
Unfortunately, repeat client Elise Haines doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. Which part of the memo? Again, knowing whose rules these are will help. She invites Maki to parties and asks her to hang out, and before Maki knows what's happening, Elise has convinced her to join the Japanese Club, actually talk to her roommate, and start working as a rave mom. Everything before rave mom sounds social, but rave mom sounds like something that fits her job description, so the waters are muddied a bit here.
But Maki knows that she isn't here to make friends; she's here to make money. Even if it means taking on as many requests as possible to keep herself busy and pushing away everyone else. She doesn't need anyone, least of all a girl who seems hellbent on befriending her. She's just fine on her own. Just fine. I think it might be more beneficial to get Maki's personality in there sooner. This para is good where it is, but the opening makes it sound like we should have pity for Maki, yet she's entirely mercenary about this... or at least, that's the goal. Maybe one sentence earlier to clarify where Maki stands.
BY REQUEST's connection to Asian culture will appeal to fans of Emily X.R. Pan's THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER, and its disconnected and often socially clueless narrator may remind readers of Colin from John Green's AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES. Complete at 83,000 words, this contemporary YA novel weaves together Japanese and party culture, the struggles that come with the first semester of college, and the fear of forming attachments—or more accurately, the fear of breaking them.
Again, this is a great wrap-up down here at the bottom, but I feel like you might be giving us some mixed signals far as Maki's personality. Disonnected? Yes, that fits with what you've given us so far. Socially clueless? Eh... if she's getting paid to pretend to be a girlfriend, the "good girl" friend, or other social step-ins, then she can't be socially clueless. It would make her bad at her job - which she clearly isn't. Overall, what you have here is good, but setting it in a college could kill it.
Today's guest is Shahla Hebets, founder of Think Media and author of What's Working Now: YOU-centric Marketing. Shahla joined me today to talk about her philosophy of how to reach consumers using you-centric marketing.
