Ghost in the Machine wrote:Hi All,
Yoshima and Justine: Thank you for your insightful comments. I used every one and polished off the 2nd version to my satisfaction.
However, version two is almost 300 words long and for some agents, that won’t work. Below is a shorter version (238 words) in which I considered Kirril’s observations. On one hand, I would like to ditch the anthrax part, but on the other, it contains multipurpose information: First, it establishes Jodie’s ESP. That’s big. Second, it illustrates why the FBI would bother to watch Jodie. A major event, like the anthrax incident, gives credence to her surveillance. Third, it illustrates how Jodie’s ability works—she does something criminal and a life is saved. This puts more weight behind my ending line so I can finish with a stronger punch.
Note: I am hesitant to put Melody's name in the first paragraph, especially now that the FBI agent is named. I don't want to give the literary agent 'name overload' in the first two sentences.
Dear Agent X,
When twenty-year-old college student Jodie Belay kidnaps three-year-old Melody Millera young girl, FBI agent Joel DeAngelis lets allows it to happen. He believesbelieving Jodie is saving the three-year-old’s child's life.
Jodie possesses an odd form of ESP. Her FBI surveillance started two years ago, after she purposefully smashed into another car at the post office. The other driver fled, abandoning several anthrax-laden envelopes on his passenger seat. For Jodie, misbehavior comes with a life-saving reward.
The kidnapping of young Melody Miller isn’t the only concern for DeAngelis’s Guardian Project—the agents who a clandestine FBI sub-division that secretly monitor people with agents who possess the uncanny ability to prevent disasters. Upon discovering several hundred pounds of a potent explosive has vanished from the chemical company where Melody’s father works, the Guardian Project takes notice. But after Melody’s father dies in a suspicious car bombing - the same car that Jodie kidnapped Melody from - DeAngelis expects Jodie to take return Melody the child home. Melody’s kidnapping kept the child out of her father’s car the day it exploded; Jodie’s duty is fulfilled. Jodie however, doesn't do what DeAngelis expects.
With Jodie’s failure to return Melody, her decision polarizes the Guardian Project. DeAngelis begs Begging his superiors for patience, DeAngelis believing believes Jodie’s ESP will lead them to the missing explosives. DeAngelis’s opinion has clout. Before he joined the FBI, he was the first extraordinary person watched under the Guardian Project. His However, DeAngelis' long-time rival nemesis within the Guardian Project thinks otherwise and demands that Jodie be arrested. with the sobering His compelling argument: If it takes a kidnapping to save a child, what crime will Jodie commit to stop a major bombing?
The thriller, A GLASS HALF FULL, is complete at 106,000 words. Thank you for your time and consideration.
And thanks to you, fab forum friends. GIT'M
My opinions:
paragraph 1: I think you are safe with 3 names in your hook as long as its very concise.
Paragraph 2: I think its good.
paragraph 3: I think you need to better tie in that the Guardian Project is connected to the FBI- hence my suggestion. Also, I knew you were trying to say that Jodie saved the child from her fathers car before it exploded, but your wording was confusing to me, I think I made it more lucid for you.
Paragraph 4: took out some stuff in the middle that I felt was back story and irrelevent to the query and Made a few suggestions.
I really think your last sentence is awesome.