Dear Lucky Agent Contest
uide to Literary Agents is hosting a contest; the theme for this round is science fiction or fantasy. But only the first 200 words of your novel are eligible!Here are the first 200 words of The Face of A Lion, slightly tweaked, for my contest entry:
Austin met the cat on his first day in Kusadasi.
Bored with helping his parents clean their villa, he set out to explore. He was standing at the boulevard’s edge, watching the waves crash against the shore, when an unearthly howl filled the air. It came again, a long-drawn out screech, close at hand.
Austin ran to the crossroads, skidding to a halt before an empty lot. Among the weeds, two kids crouched over the prone figure of a grey cat. One gripped its front paws as the other tied tin cans to its tail. The cat wrenched and jerked its back legs.
"Hey! What’re you doing?" They shot each other shifty glances but ignored him. He took a step forward, as if to grab the cat and, as one, they released their grip and ran off.
The cat crouched low, eyes wide and ears taut, but did not move as Austin approached. If it would just trust him… Slowly, he bent and untied the twine binding the tins to a tail puffed out and crackling with electricity. He stroked the cat between the ears and, to his surprise, heard the low rumble of purring.
"Thank you,” said the cat.
Enter before tomorrow!
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Here's my entry:
Aries sped her escape pod through space as if she fled the event horizon of a dying star. The controls blinked warnings around her, but she ignored them, firing up the engines to full capacity.
“Let’s see how fast this antique can go.”
Her sweaty palms slipped on the cold metal as she clutched the handlebars of her seat. Freedom flowed all around her and inside her, coursing through her veins like she drank liquid fire.
She squeezed her eyes shut and hollered, releasing raging emotions held back from years of silence. Many times she thought she’d implode from the pressure, but instead she schemed, plotting the day of her departure down to the last water bottle. As the spell dissipated, she opened her eyes and peered up at the stars as they blurred into streaks of shimmering light.
Four-thirty-eight flashed on the screen in fluorescent green and Aries committed the numbers to memory. She’d have at least three hours before the ceremony ended, and her fellow Lifers searched for her.
Good luck to you!