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YA Horror set in a small town with Sci-Fi elements. Looking for exchange in March!

February 8, 2019 No Comments

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YA Horror set in a small town with Sci-Fi elements. Looking for exchange in March!
Hello! My name is
Maddie Rue
Young Adult
Fantasy Paranormal/Mythology/Fairy Tales Urban/Contemporary Fantasy Horror Monsters
Last Modified: Feb 16, 2020 @ 12:40 pm
About Me

I started out wanting to write plays or scripts, and I did (just for fun) as a teenager. Eventually, I found poetry and a love for descriptions, which all somehow ended up in me writing novels. Abandoned buildings and urban places reclaimed by nature are endlessly fascinating to me. So I like writing both Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic and Utopian Science Fiction. With all my stories, I like to leave a sense of hope at the end.

Hobbies: I sketch monsters, and read when I get a chance. My favorite non-writing-related hobbies: Swimming, walking my dog, and playing video games.

 

Love to Read

Sci-Fi or Fantasy adventures with long amazing journeys like The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin and Robert R. McCammon’s Swan Song.

I’m currently reading Caravel by Stephanie Garbar

I love anything by Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black, and Stephen King.

 

Hard No's

Hard pass on anything with gratuitous violence or excessive bad language with no purpose.

Experience
I've written a lot, I have an agent
Critique Styles
Back-and-forth Discussion
Brainstorming/Plotting
Chapter-by-Chapter
Track Changes in Document
Whole MS Reads
Critique Strengths
Big Picture
Characters
Description
Dialogue
Pacing
Plot
Worldbuilding
Time Commitment
Monthly, Intermittant (ie. when you have something to share)
Life Stages
Flexible Schedule, Parent (Young Kids)
Preferred Contact Style
Email, Instant Messaging
Approximate Location
California
Around the Web
https://madelinerue.com/
About the Work In Progress
Details About/Query First Page Other Projects
Working Title
Tumbleweeds
Age Category
Young Adult
Genres
Fantasy, Paranormal/Mythology/Fairy Tales, Urban/Contemporary Fantasy, Horror, Monsters
Type of Project
Novel/Novella
Tags
environmental, Girl Power, horror, monsters, romance, small town
Seeking Critique Styles & Strengths
Chapter-by-Chapter
Track Changes in Document
Whole MS Reads
Big Picture
Pacing
Plot
About the WIP (Query)

Facing a long summer in the Central Valley, the last place sixteen-year-old Penrose Sotelo wants to be is at work. When the heat rises, customers flood the grocery store, and her once-childhood-friend Miles spends his work hours treating her like crap. But she needs the money. She longs for the day when she can be a tumbleweed and roll out of her small hometown to better destinations.

Just as she is prepared for a boring summer, an earthquake hits. In the aftermath, Pen discovers her community may be harboring a dark secret. The mining tunnels beneath the market are polluted and festering with something so unimaginable, Pen can’t be sure of what she has seen let alone describe it. But when an overgrowth of plants invades the sewers, plumbing, and even homes, she tries to get the community to declare an emergency and call for outside help.

But her time runs out. The superstorm hits, the town goes dark, and Pen finds herself alone, running for her life as toxic plants break through the roads. The stability of the peaceful life she has taken for granted is literally crumbling. Spurred by the solar energy, the growth rate of the vegetation increases so much so that the entire town changes into an alien landscape. To her surprise, Miles comes to her aid. But they can’t agree on anything, and end up falling into the maze of mine tunnels. Trapped together these two may not survive the night unless they can save their friendship and the town.

TUMBLEWEEDS is a 90,000-word YA Horror that would appeal to readers of THE LAST HARVEST by Kim Ligget.

 

First Page

“Welcome to Wisteria Market. Have a healthy, sunshiny day.”

 

            That phrase dug, claws deep, into my brain. The announcement played at least a hundred times a day . . . not that I counted . . . anymore.

Every summer, for the past three years, Mr. Villalobos assigned me the zero six thirty to fifteen hundred hours shift at the market. Mom was military, and the folks ‘round here assumed I loved getting up before the damp hay soaking the air had dissipated.

My eyes lost focus through the gooey remains of sleep, and my constant yawning sucked in mouthfuls of freshly-mopped-yet-somehow-stale fumes that permeated the store. The shelves of dog food sat there with their labels in mismatched directions, waiting for me to adjust them—one can at a time, like some psychopath.

The scrape and squeak of a shopping cart alerted me that our first customer had gone from standstill to roamer. Probably an early-bird local, who liked to beat the afternoon crowd—better known as that onslaught of out-of-towners who grabbed snacks on the way to the real tourist destinations along the coast.

The speakers in the ceiling crackled—a prelude to the staticky-gritty torture of looped music.

A prehistoric beast could surface from Moon Crater Lake, march over the hills, make a pit stop in our tumbleweed-ridden town, and still, Wisteria Market would never change their greeting or their selection of lost-era songs meant to make shoppers lose track of time.

The loop played loudest in aisle nine—this pasty-yellow linoleum stretch where I currently worked

Other Projects

Revising a 98K word YA Post-Apocalyptic Adventure where mysterious predators roam a fallen city. Has: tarot cards, a determined girl trying to escape her soulmate and get back home, zombies, and container ships.

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