Hi!
I would like to write a little bit more about the book I’ve been working on in the last few months, and recently started to query. This is the book I currently have all my hopes in to land me one of those elusive agents, and I am so proud of how it turned out and how much I feel like my voice and style improved.
So, you may have seen my aesthetic for Marionette floating around my website, or on my twitter. If you haven’t, here it is again!
And here is my current elevator pitch and blurb I’m using to query Marionette:
Cursed by Puppet Master Maurice to dance as a living Marionette for her adoring fans, Emberlyn decides her best shot at freedom is to murder him – even though it could kill both herself and her Marionette sisters.
Emberlyn’s memory of becoming part of the famed Marionettes, a New York dance troupe, exists in fractured moments. The dangerous curse that runs through her veins numbs her to her previous life, so all she knows is the stage, the thousands of staring eyes night after night, and the feeling of her limbs dancing against her will. The knowledge that the curse will one day tear her apart, as it already has her Marionette sister and best friend, haunts her every moment.
Emberlyn wants to escape. Though she doesn’t know what will happen if she attempts to wriggle out of the Puppet Master’s strings, when another sister succumbs to the curse and the Marionettes receive an invite to perform in Paris thousands of miles from home, Emberlyn knows she has to try.
Even if it means becoming a murderer.
Even if it means severing the Puppet Master’s strings, which could be all that is keeping her and her sisters alive.
I can remember the very first seed of an idea that came to me for Marionette. I don’t remember actually getting it, only enthusiastically gushing about it to my Mum as we walked our very large and very fluffy dog. It came from a line in the song Symphony of Destruction by Megadeth “We dance like Marionettes // Swaying to the symphony of destruction”.
I got an image of living Marionettes forced to dance by some unknown force, unable to escape. I had no idea what story was going to go along with the image at the time, only that it was going to be dark, full of music and angst, as heavy as the metal song that first inspired it.
From there, Marionette pretty much snowballed the more I thought about it, along with several more influences such as Phantom of the Opera (both the movie and the soundtrack), and then the whimsical but dark music by Cirque du Soleil. One day, I sat down to write Marionette…
And it came out completely wrong.
The inspiration just wasn’t there. I kept opening the word document, tapping out a few disgruntled words, before leaving it, convinced it wasn’t the right time. I started writing something else, but this too I just couldn’t find the motivation to continue. Granted, the absolute sh**storm that was the world probably had a big hand in my feeling this way, but regardless, the words just weren’t coming.
That was until my lovely author friend Hannah R Palmer posted on her socials that she was handwriting her work for a while.
Hmmm… I thought. Why not?
I grabbed my closest notebook and began from scratch.
And then kept writing…
And kept writing…
And I couldn’t stop.
Marionette was breathed to life over many dark winter evenings. To emulate the heavy, shadowy tone of the book, I wrote by candlelight. In fact, my partner even bought me my own Yankee candle with the scent I associated most with my book, which I burnt every time I wrote (and now can’t smell without feeling like it is several months ago and I’m stooped over my first draft!)
The pages flew out under my hand and I raced to keep notes on scrap pieces of paper as I went, putting it all together like a jigsaw puzzle, until the book was finished.
Bloody hell my hand hurt!
I got straight to work typing Marionette up after that, and after some strategically placed breathers, I worked on several drafts until I couldn’t see a single comma I wanted to change.
And that is how Marionette was created.
I have since entered Marionette into two Twitter mentorship competitions, receiving at least one request in each, but didn’t get any further. Now, I am looking to send Marionette out into the world and hopefully find a home with a literary agent.
Thanks so much for sticking around and reading. If you would like to read the first five pages of Marionette, you can do so here.
Seeya!
E. V. Woods
