Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Dear _,

Please consider my science fiction manuscript VIRTUAL GENESIS, complete at 100,000 words. It will appeal to science fiction fans and video gamers, such as those who buy the Halo books.

The six friends of the Sleepless Knights team have sensors implanted inside their skulls so they can play the newest video game, Virtual Assassin. The game exploits medical monitoring technology to create game scenarios in the real world, with the gamers dodging annoyed adults while running around with plastic weapons that look like real guns to them. It is easy to tell the game-generated weapons and items at first, but as the game progresses the virtual sensations become harder to distinguish from real touch, sound, and smell. Also, the game weapons generate intense momentary pain. As the stress of the game intensifies, many of the top gamers become ill, lifting the Sleepless Knights in the rankings. Since the game achieves sensory mimicry, no one realizes that a virus is at work until a gamer dies. Even more puzzling, the virus appears to be transmitted both biologically and digitally, exhibiting different symptoms in each person. And the virus mutates on a schedule, a virtual genesis of new variants.

When BiPolarBear and SmackJack become ill, the Sleepless Knights must not only battle the game and the competition, but also a virus that mutates at computer speed. Then SoreHead learns that the virtual virus might also increase the integration between their brains and the game computer. The remaining teammates must risk losing themselves in the virtual gaming world in an attempt to save their stricken friends.

I think this query is well written and easy to follow. The story sounds great and I love the character names. You might want to see if you can trim anything from the first paragraph so we get to the characters and stakes involved a bit sooner but overall, I would read this in a heartbeat! Good luck.

My comment is that the plot line sounds like something I saw on TV or On Demand. If it is, you should indicate it is similar to .... but different because ....

I think you've got a really cool high-concept. However, you haven't made it feel personal because you haven't really told us about the characters. Who is the main character? If it is from multiple POV, a lot of people just choose one character to start with. Right now it feels disjointed because the first paragraph describes the scenario and then the second paragraph throws in a bunch of characters. It's hard to care about them because we don't know much about any one of them. What are their personalities? What makes each one unique?

Hope that helps and good luck!

Thanks to all who commented.

Regarding putting more of the main characters in, I have been struggling with this. The six team members are all main characters, so I may have to pick one and write the query from that POV. My problem has been that all six are integral and there is no character who is the most central or important.

I agree with enewmeyer's and wilderness' comments. I'd address the characters sooner, although I don't see anything problematic with not having a single main character or a one who's seen as the Sleepless Knights' leader if you can suffuse your query with a stronger sense of the group dynamic. Your query has me thinking of a group like the Three Musketeers (although for the reader D'Artagnon did mostly take center stage) or the Ghostbusters (sorry, it's just what came to mind when thinking of a leaderless group banding together for a cause).

Cool concept.
I agree about picking at least one MC, just for the query.

Also, the writing doesn't excite me. It's not passive, just more telling instead of showing.

JQ