Saturday, October 25, 2014

NoQS Minion 12: DEAD INDEED, MG Horror Mystery

Title: DEAD INDEED
Genre: MG Horror Mystery
Word Count: 51,000

My Main Character's Most Fearsome Obstacle:
Tiffany Hart is afraid of pretty much everything—hence ‘the clapper’ for her bedroom lights. But at school she has it all together; the looks, the clothes, the grades. And as long as she keeps faking it, she’s going to nail the seventh grade presidential elections.

Then the ghosts appear.

Half crazy and totally sleep-deprived, she commits social suicide by enlisting the help of the school outcast. As if ghosts and unpopularity weren’t scary enough, the two kids find themselves behind an old orphanage where a demonic headmistress guards thirty tiny graves.

Freakiest. Chica. Ever.

Query:

Tiffany Hart expected seventh grade to be the year she became popular, not a ghost-seer.

She’s determined to be class president at any cost until a near death experience bestows Tiffany with a gift she doesn’t want. Now three small spirit children cling to her, disrupting everything she holds sacred (like her Michael Jackson mugs and sleeping,) and making her look like a freak show in front of her classmates. The only person who can help is her neighbor and the weirdest boy at school, Justin Henderson, a.k.a. The Casper Kid.

Justin has seen ghosts since he was nine, a creepy claim that has earned him the privilege of eating lunch by himself for years. When his long-time crush, Tiffany, begs his help with her ghoulish problem, he’s there in the click of an electromagnetic field detector.

But nothing’s ever as easy as it is on Scooby Doo.

Tiffany and Justin begin to unravel a mystery filled with murder, orphans, plagues, and skeletons that leads them to a backyard burial ground. The only thing standing between Tiffany and normalcy is the dark-hearted apparition who guards the graves and isn’t afraid of hurting children, dead or alive. In order to survive they must face their own demons first. For Tiffany, it’s her pride. For Justin, it’s far more literal.



First 250:

We were so far away from civilization that howling banshees with machine guns could’ve murdered us and nobody would’ve heard a thing. 

As if letting Melissa Henderson, with her million braids done so tight I think it messes with her brain, drive me around wasn’t putting my life in danger enough. How did I ever get talked into letting her drive me to a spot of serious paranormal activity?

Justin.

Grrr.

That nutcase was the reason I bounced around in a junky minivan in the middle of the night. Sure it was his sister, Melissa, who invited all of us twelve-year-olds to join her friends on this spook hunt; and, yes, it was my best friend, Jessica, who actually convinced me to get in the van, but Justin Henderson was where I placed the blame. He was always behind all supernatural weirdness.

Resting my head on the cool window I searched the moonlit hill for shadows behind the scrub trees. The hair on my arms stood on end just thinking about some old man with a bucket that Justin described as a local ghost legend. What was I doing there? I couldn’t even watch Scooby Doo all by myself; I was going to die of a heart attack following these fools around.

“First ones here!” Melissa said, whipping the car off to the side of the road. We all snapped forward as she hit the brakes.

1 comment:

  1. Shiver! Please send me the query letter and ten pages in the body of your message to brent@triadaus.com. Put "#NOQS Query" into your subject line. Thanks.

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