The Writer's Voice

Somehow, with a child on my lap and another tugging at my arm, I managed to squeeze myself into this awesome contest called "The Writer's Voice" at number 98. I'm quite literally scared out of my mind! Oh sure, I want others to meet my characters, but I feel a certain vulnerability in sharing my query letter. So it is with shaking hands that I post it here, along with my first 250 words.

Hooray for doing something bold today!

Query

     Being a third generation Enhanced, Clair Donahue's future has already been written. Thanks to genetics and the WTPC, she would turn eighteen and become a car mechanic like her mother. But after testing much too high for her parentage, Clair jumps at the chance to choose a career all her own. She knows rejection means placing her occupation in the hands of the World Technological Pharmaceutical Corporation.

      What she doesn’t know is how long they have been waiting for her to take that risk.

      Now that Clair’s dream of the medical profession has been refused, the WTPC reveal that she is to become a Harvester of Phenomenon, to rid their new world of supernatural fear. The serums used to Enhance one’s physical aspects needed in their specific fields have kept many from passing on after death, creating a fortified soul capable of entering the human body and erasing the person inside.

      And now it is Clair‘s job to collect them.

      Flanked by her deadly smart boyfriend, Evan, and her ever-present best friend, Matt, Clair has two weeks to choose between facing her future head on, or leaving everything she has ever known behind her. Staying means being internally assaulted by the Phenomenon; running means sacrificing what is left of her family and her freedom.

 

 

 

 

First 250

The voice of the news anchor droned on in the living room as we waited. Superior hearing aside, I couldn’t make out his words over the pounding of my heart. Each minute felt like its own hour as I stared at the inoffensive white envelope resting against my untouched water glass.

            “Clair,” my mother soothed in her melodic voice. I had forgotten there were other people in the world, let alone the stuffy little kitchen. “It doesn’t matter what it says.” Her emerald green eyes held the same certainty as her words, but they did nothing to calm me. It did matter.

            “That’s right, silly girl,” Matt grinned, his rumbling baritone filling the room. “It’s not like this is the deciding factor for the rest of your life or anything.” My mother shook her head as I let a nervous chuckle slip.

            “Gee, thanks, best friend,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster, placing both hands over my heart to keep it from busting through my chest.

            Matt peered over his habitually worn sunglasses, his dark eyes alive and penetrating. "That thing has been sitting there for a week. Staring at it won't change what it says."

            I let his truth sink in for a moment, cursing myself for the thousandth time for being foolish enough to request a career outside of my bloodline, no matter how badly I wanted it. No matter the fact I had been instructed to do so by each of my professors, hearing them say over and over how my intellect was rare for my parentage.

Best of luck to those who entered!

-Ali