It's Time For #SonOfAPitch
Read the query and first 250 words of EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn here.
Note: The below is an outdated version of my query for EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn. Though the book would go on to be published in 2019, I leave the original query and first 250 words here for historic purposes. The main takeaway should be that these queries and our pages evolve over time—along with our writing, hopefully!
After the break you'll find my submission for #SonOfAPitch. Not sure what this is? Learn more here and join the action!
Query
Title: EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn
Genre: Adult Sci-Fi / Thriller
Word Count: 114,000
Query (excluding personalized greeting/connection and bio):
...I thought you would be a great fit to represent my sci-fi thriller EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn.
EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn is the story of art-school dropout Chandra Adelhadeo, who, in a last-ditch effort to communicate with her comatose wife, enrolls in the first round of human trials for an implant that will give her access to the internet in her mind.
Once on the research compound, Chandra becomes the first patient for whom this technology takes. In light of her success, Doctor Wyatt Halman—the lead scientist behind the EMPATHY nanochip—asks Chandra to become the face of EMPATHY once it goes public. Chandra accepts on one condition: that Halman ensures she'll be able to use the implant to speak with her wife. Free installs for immediate family members are one of the perks of enrollment, after all.
Wyatt agrees to Chandra's proposal, though he makes no promises on its success. As the research progresses and the implant begins to function for other patients, all seems well on the EMPATHY compound—until a smattering of patients begin to seize and go missing. Without answers on the disappearances and concerned for the welfare of the entire patient body, Chandra must team up with an amateur programmer and an EMPATHY administrative assistant to save the study from itself... before this technology turns on her, too.
This multi-perspective thriller also follows the stories of inventor-turned-necromancer Wyatt Halman, truth-bound journalist Meredith Maxwell, and the naive-yet-determined administrative assistant Ariel Commons, each of whose lives are set on a crash course that will determine the fate of the study and singularity technology itself. Complete at 114,000 words, EMPATHY: Imminent Dawn is ready for your consideration.
First 250 Words
Chandra Adelhadeo had survived brain surgery. Surviving the wait for the procedure's results was proving to be another matter entirely. As she sat in the post-install waiting room, she ran a finger along the scar.
Chandra cringed. She knew better than to touch it. The nurses had told her as much. She curled her fingers inward, grasping tightly at the grit of the charcoal pencil in her other hand.
She opened the sketchbook on her knee to a fresh leaf. Before the pencil could hit the page, however, worry took her again. So much hinged on the conversation she would have on the other side of the door at the end of the hall. Any minute now they would call her name and--ugh. She was doing it again.
She wiped the sweat from the webbing between her fingers onto her standard-issue lavender scrub bottoms. The advice of her pre-study therapist came to her.
Draw. Write. Anything. Focus on something you can control.
Chandra eased in a breath and adjusted her grip on the pencil.
Kyra,
I've felt miserable for abandoning you since Ratan dropped me off. That's not the right word, though: abandon. You know I'll be back. This is the right thing. I did this for you. For us. When this is all over, we'll be closer than we've ever been before. Well, closer than we have been in a long time.
You can learn more about my experience with #SonOfAPitch in this follow-up post:
