QK Round 2: Tricks Aren't For Kids vs. Lies and Lovers

Entry Nickname: Tricks Aren't For Kids
Title: NAKED
Word count: 66,000
Genre: YA contemporary

Query:

When sixteen-year-old Anna ran away from home she just wanted a little freedom, she didn't plan on becoming a prostitute. That just sort of happened.

She would do anything for Luis, her pimp, anything for a life with him. Until they both get busted.

Luis goes to jail and Anna is sent back home to the suburbs and the parents who hate her. To Anna, that’s more terrifying than dark alleyways and threats of STDs. She can’t even pretend to be normal when everyone knows her secrets.

Anna feels more naked now than she ever did as a prostitute.

Then she meets Arney, a geeky boy who teaches her to eat honey suckles and climb trees. He's the only one who doesn't look at her like a prostitute. Just when she is beginning to separate Anna from the hooker, an old John finds her and attacks her in the parking lot after homecoming. Now the whispers get louder, the stares get bolder. Anna must face her controlling parents, the nasty rumors, even her old pimp, if she’s ever going to gain control of her own life.

First 250 words:

I look into the familiar blank eyes that stare back at me from a Missing Person’s poster. The name reads: Anna Rodriguez.

The name’s familiar, but it’s not me. Not anymore.

I turn away from the innocent thirteen year-old in the poster, with her pony tail and pearls around her neck. Now I just find myself wondering how much I could cop out of a necklace like that. Three hundred?

Every time I pass this poster I stop and stare at the girl I used to be, but that just brings attention. I’m not allowed to bring attention.

So I keep walking and make a plan to go the long way around Bleecker Street so I won’t ever see my parents attempt at finding me again. I cross my arms, and breathe out to see if I can see my breath. It’s getting cold, I hate cold.

I shake my head. I mean, it’s been three years, I don’t see why my parents still try to find me. I’m not their little girl anymore.

You’d think they could at least find a better picture, you know? No one would guess that girl was me. Why not use a picture like that one from Halloween when I dressed up like Cindy Lauper but really just looked like a hooker? That might catch someone’s eye.

I smile at my stupid joke, but know they want to cling to the ideal, pristine daughter they always thought they had. Too bad I was never that girl.

Versus

Entry Nickname: Lies and Lovers
Title: Lies My Father Told Me
Word Count: 34,000
Genre: Contemporary YA (in verse)

Query:

When fifteen-year-old Eden Thompson’s dad dies, poetry is her only escape. Her friends are distant and her mother spends most of her time shut away with a bottle of wine. Desperate for a connection with other people, Eden shares her words online. Just beyond the screen she finds Mason, a university student who leaves her long poetic messages that fill the empty space in her life. Having also lost a parent, he understands her pain and quickly becomes her one constant.

When they finally meet in person, the heat of Mason's body and the sensation of his fingertips against her skin awaken a part of Eden she didn't know existed. But she swore to her dad that she would wait until marriage to have sex, and she doesn’t want the last promise she made to die with him. Uneasy with Mason's desire for more, but scared of losing him, Eden's resolve weakens with each dizzying kiss.

On the anniversary of her dad's death, Eden's mom drunkenly slurs a secret that changes everything: her dad wasn't the person she thought he was. Her family, her life, her promise to him––all of it was based on a lie. Now that everything she knew is broken and betrayed, she turns to Mason, hoping for an escape from her pain. Torn between what her father wanted for her and what Mason wants from her, Eden must finally decide what it is she wants for herself.

First 250 Words:


This Is The Part Where My Father Dies








Silence

At the funeral,

everyone laughed,
but my mom’s voice—
it sounded more like a cry.

She drank too much wine
and laughed too loud at the stories
my dad’s
family and colleagues and friends and students told,
their voices rushing
to fill the emptiness
with anecdote.

They were all
strangers.

Her lips and teeth were stained
with red,
and when I looked at her,
all I saw was
an empty shell,
a book
without any pages.
Dead but not dead.

She was a stranger,
too.

Sometimes there was a glance
in my direction
for a few moments
too long.

Like sweat,
I could feel it on me.

Nobody said anything.

I had lost
my words.

Afterwards

I couldn’t understand how
there could be
an afterwards
now that
he was gone.

The car swerved to avoid
a deer but
hit
and
killed
my dad instead.

Somehow,
it was ten months later.
I was fifteen
and ready for high school:
with my knee socks and their elastic bands
slipping down my legs,
with my tartan kilt in green and blue,
with my ring and
my promise
I made him
only weeks before
          he died.

Eden,
I want you
to keep this
until you get married.

The ring slid on
so easily.
It fit
so perfectly.

But it was so much heavier
than the metal it was made of,
and the way it wrapped itself
around me,

like it could never leave.
Like it would be there
forever.