Manuscript Delivery Date: One Month
Mentor Name: Kim Long
Mentee Name: Diana DeBolt Johnson
Title: PENELOPE CHARMING AND THE POISONED GLASS SLIPPERS
Category: Middle Grade
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 40,000
Pitch:
Being Cinderella’s daughter isn’t a Happily-Ever-After for eleven-year-old Penelope. After her mom’s glass slippers are poisoned, Penelope must face a candy-magic wielding witch, survive a giant’s Beanstalk Forest, and outrun escaped villains to deliver the cure before her mom falls into a deathly slumber and the villains destroy Fablewood.
Excerpt:
Glass slippers made terrible frog-capturing shoes.
Clink.
Clink.
Clinkety-Clink.
My too-big slippers scraped against the stone of the secret passage, surely announcing my presence.
Pausing, I scrunched my toes to keep the slippers from falling off and knelt to peek through a peep hole in the secret door. In the garden beyond, a small frog stood on a wishing well and rolled his tiny top hat up his arm to his head. He plopped down—belly up to the sun—and slid the hat over his eyes.
I shoved my slingshot and net through my sash, cracked opened the door, and squeezed through.
RIIIIP!
I froze.
A thorn from the bush snagged the frilly hem of my dress. Clenching my teeth, I eyed my prey. The frog stretched his scrawny arms, wiggled a teeny bit, and relaxed. Whew.
I smiled.
The brave princess crept through secret passages, climbed tall towers, trudged through swamps…she was Princess Penelope, daughter of Cinderella. One slimy beastie was no match for her.
I squelched through the mud to the well and stopped.
One happily ever after . . . two happily ever after . . . three happily ever after.
“Surrender!” I sprang to my feet and raised the net.
A tiny splotch of water glistened on the bare stones.
“Rotten peas!” I leaned over the well.
“Gribbit! Er . . . gotcha!” The frog teased as he leaped from behind a broken stone onto my shoulder. He poked my cheek with his twig.
4 Comments
Natascha Morris · November 1, 2017 at 11:39 pm
Hi Diana,
I’m super intrigued and I love fairy tales. Please query me at QueryMe.online/1067/PitchWars2017. Thank you!
Best,
Natascha
Carrie Hannigan · November 2, 2017 at 11:18 am
Hi Diana,
I would love to read more! Please query me at channigan@hsgagency.com and attach the first 100 pages as a word document. Also please include “Pitch Wars” in your subject line.
Thanks so much!
Carrie
Roseanne Wells · November 3, 2017 at 6:17 pm
I love this, and I’d love to read more! Please use the guidelines on jdlit.com to send 100pp (instead of the normal 20), and include #Pitchwars in the subject line. I can’t wait to dive in!
Roseanne Wells
The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency
Abigail Frank · November 9, 2017 at 12:12 pm
Hi Diana!
This sounds delightful. Please send the full manuscript as an attachment to querybb@sjga.com, with “Pitch Wars” in the subject. Looking forward to reading more!
Best,
Abigail Frank
Assistant to Brenda Bowen
Greenburger Associates
Comments are closed.