The Writer's Voice 2015 - Teams and Battles

Will there be fisticuffs amongst The Writer's Voice coaches this year as they fight over entries for their teams? Last year, Elizabeth Briggs won two out of her three battles, and I'm sure she'll be hoping for victory again in this stage of the competition.

You can check out our entries here, and if you haven't already joined us over on Twitter, then do stop by #TheWVoice.

The coaches have until 4th June to select their teams, and I'll do my best to keep track of things here in the meantime. A breakdown of all the entries is found in my previous post.

ETA: If a coach makes a pick on a blog, I'll slot that entry under that coach's team. If more than one coach selects it, it'll drop into the 'BATTLES!' section instead until the entrant chooses which team they're going to join.

COACH PICKS:

Brenda (#TeamCoffeeHouse): #76,  #78,  #107,  #116,  #151,  #163,  #177,  #194
#116 = MG Fantasy
#107 = Upper MG Fantasy
#076 = YA Contemporary
#078 = YA Contemporary
#151 = YA Contemporary
#163 = YA Contemporary Fantasy
#177 = Adult Psychological Thriller
#194 = Adult Women's Fiction

Elizabeth (#TeamTRex): #19,  #59,  #64,  #90,  #106,  #137,  #158,  #164,  #178
#019 = MG Fantasy
#090 = YA Contemporary (Withdrawn from contest)
#164 = YA LGBT Contemporary
#137 = YA Fantasy
#178 = YA Fantasy
#064 = YA Horror
#059 = YA Space Opera
#106 = NA Contemporary Romance
#158 = Adult Steampunk

Krista (#TeamMaries): #29,  #67,  #69,  #81,  #109,  #140,  #159,  #169
#069 = MG Fantasy
#159 = MG Magical Realism
#140 = YA Adventure/Romance
#029 = YA Fantasy
#081 = YA Historical
#067 = YA Mystery
#109 = YA SF
#169 = Adult Literary

Monica (#TeamFTW): #16,  #57,  #73,  #79,  #98,  #113,  #131,  #172
#079 = Upper MG Mystery
#057 = YA Fantasy
#073 = YA Fantasy
#113 = YA Fantasy
#098 = YA SF
#172 = YA SF
#016 = NA Contemporary Romance
#131 = Adult Fantasy


BATTLES!:
Brenda v Elizabeth (#116 = MG Fantasy) - WINNER: Brenda
Brenda v Elizabeth (#106 = NA Contemporary Romance) - WINNER: Elizabeth
Brenda v Krista (#169 = Adult Literary) - WINNER: Krista
Brenda v Monica (#107 = Upper MG Fantasy) - WINNER: Brenda
Elizabeth v Krista (#81 = YA Historical) - WINNER: Krista
Elizabeth v Monica (#178 = YA Fantasy) - WINNER: Elizabeth
Krista v Monica (#069 = MG Fantasy) - WINNER: Krista
Krista v Monica (#172 = YA SF) - WINNER: Monica


Additional pages have been requested by:

None this year.


Further questions asked by:

Brenda - #163 #194
Elizabeth - #179
Krista - #81 #159
Monica - #57

The Writer's Voice 2015 - Breakdown of entries

A very special thanks to coaches Brenda Drake, Mónica Bustamante Wagner, Elizabeth Briggs, and Krista Van Dolzer for hosting The Writer's Voice again this year. They're currently checking out the entries to see who they want on their teams in these not-quite-blind auditions.

My 2015 entry can be found here. *Cough* Pick me! *Cough*

There are 195 very talented authors all competing for a spot on one of the teams, and you can check out the links to our entries here.

I've been busy compiling details of the entries, collecting Twitter* handles, prompting people for missing details from their queries (genre, word count, etc), and subscribing to posts (apologies for my stock comments on your posts, btw, but it was the fastest way to subscribe), and I can now share some of the fruits of that labour with you.

Altogether, there were 22 MG, 6 Upper MG, 114 YA (I've included Upper YA in that), 10 NA, and 43 Adult entries.

You wanna further breakdown of categories? (You want to see what competition you're up against, right? ;o) ) Of course you do!

On the whole, I've gone with the descriptions you've given (but I might've made a few tweaks if I didn't think it was entirely correct).

ETA: I've updated the list to include the entry numbers against their categories. Let me know if I need to make any amendments.

Here you go:

MG

MG Adventure x 1 (#120)

MG Arthurian Retelling x 1 (#165)

MG Contemporary x 6 (#11, #23, #32, #125, #127, #190)

MG Contemporary Fantasy x 1 (#48)

MG Fantasy x 7 (#18, #19, #69, #72, #91, #116, #134)

MG Fantasy Adventure x 1 (#61)

MG Ghost Story x 1 (#37)

MG Horror Comedy x 1 (#26)

MG Magical Realism x 2 (#149, #159)

MG Mystery Adventure x 1 (#160)

Upper MG

Upper MG Contemporary x 1 (#20)

Upper MG Fantasy x 2 (#75, #107)

Upper MG Fantasy Adventure x 1 (#148)

Upper MG Mystery x 1 (#79)

Upper MG Mystery Adventure x 1 (#47)

YA

YA (genre not specified) x 2 (#46, #82)

YA Adventure/Romance x 1 (#140)

YA Comedic Horror x 1 (#74)

YA Contemporary x 23 (#5, #10, #21, #27, #35, #39, #41, #43, #49, #50, #56, #58, #70, #76, #78, #85, #90, #103, #128, #136, #151, #180, #185)

YA Contemporary Fantasy x 3 (#40, #135, #163)

YA Contemporary Romance with a Fantasy twist x 1 (#188)

YA Contemporary SF x 1 (#166)

YA Contemporary Thriller x 2 (#4, #87)

YA Dark Fantasy x 1 (#95)

YA Dark Paranormal x 1 (#110)

YA Dark Urban Fantasy x 1 (#156)

YA Fantasy x 24 (#2, #12, #14, #22, #25, #29, #31, #44, #55, #57, #66, #71, #73, #96, #99, #105, #113, #121, #137, #161, #170, #178, #191, #195)

YA Gothic Horror x 1 (#126)

YA Historical x 3 (#81, #145, #157)

YA Historical Fantasy x 3 (#7, #111, #162)

YA Historical SF x 1 (#141)

YA Horror x 3 (#64, #89, #168)

YA LGBT Contemporary x 1 (#164)

YA Literary Ghost Story x 1 (#123)

YA Low Fantasy x 1 (#42)

YA Magical Realism x 1 (#52)

YA Mystery x 3 (#8, #62, #67)

YA Near Future Thriller x 1 (#38)

YA Paranormal x 1 (#9)

YA Paranormal Fantasy x 1 (#174)

YA Paranormal Romance x 2 (#147, #193)

YA Post-Apocalyptic x 1 (#171)

YA Psychological Thriller x 1 (#114)

YA Realistic x 1 (#176)

YA Retelling x 1 (#54)

YA Romantic Thriller x 1 (#119)

YA SF x 13 (#60, #68, #83, #97, #98, #109, #112, #138, #144, #152, #167, #172, #101)

YA SF/Romance x 1 (#94)

YA Southern Gothic x 1 (#45)

YA Space Opera x 1 (#59)

YA Speculative x 1 (#3)

YA Steampunk Cinderella Retelling x 1 (#153)

YA Superhero Fantasy x 1 (#184)

YA Thriller x 2 (#65, #139)

YA Time Travel x 1 (#88)

YA Urban Fantasy x 3 (#17, #33, #53)

NA

NA Contemporary x 2 (#118, #133)

NA Contemporary Fantasy x 1 (#183)

NA Contemporary Romance x 2 (#16, #106)

NA Paranormal Romantic Thriller x 1 (#132)

NA Romance x 2 (#30, #63)

NA Romantic Fantasy Adventure x 1 (#1)

NA SF x 1 (#15)

Adult

Adult Character-Driven Suburban Novel x 1 (#108)

Adult Contemporary Fantasy x 1 (#142)

Adult Contemporary Romance x 3 (#84, #100, #143)

Adult Cozy Mystery x 2 (#124, #155)

Adult Detective Mystery x 1 (#102)

Adult Epic Fantasy x 2 (#13, #115)

Adult Fantasy x 2 (#117, #131)

Adult Fantasy Detective/Fae Noir x 1 (#24)

Adult Genre Fiction x 1 (#122)

Adult High Fantasy x 1 (#104)

Adult Historical Fantasy x 1 (#80)

Adult Historical Romance x 1 (#182)

Adult Literary x 2 (#86, #169)

Adult Literary/Commercial x 1 (#6)

Adult Magical Realism x 1 (#189)

Adult Mainstream Fiction x 1 (#77)

Adult Psychological Thriller x 1 (#177)

Adult Redemption Tale x 1 (#92)

Adult Romance x 2 (#130, #173)

Adult Romantic Suspense x 3 (#129, #186, #187)

Adult Social SF x 1 (#34)

Adult Steampunk x 1 (#158)

Adult Thriller x 1 (#36)

Adult Thriller/Supernatural/Horror x 1 (#192)

Adult Upmarket Apocalyptic x 1 (#154)

Adult Upmarket Contemporary x 1 (#93)

Adult Urban Fantasy x 3 (#146, #150, #179)

Adult Women's Fiction x 4 (#51, #175, #181)

Adult Women's Literary x 1 (#28)

*Don't forget to hang out at #TheWVoice over on Twitter, where you can connect with other entrants and maybe see some teases from the coaches and their coaching team members.

Quest to be selected as a ‘The Writer’s Voice’ team member – 2015 edition

I’ve made it past the Rafflecopter stage of The Writer’s Voice – phew! Now I have to post my query and the first 250 words of my novel in the hope of getting selected by one of the coaches onto their team. The query is spoilerish, so look away now if you don’t want to be spoilered (yeah, of course that’s a proper word!).

Oh, and for everyone else who’s also been lucky enough to make it through (Congratulations, fellow writers!) I’ll be putting a brief comment on your blogs so I can keep track of comments (especially coaches' comments). When pages are requested, or entries selected, I’ll do my best to keep people informed on #TheWVoice on Twitter or in a separate post here on my blog (so you might want to follow me...).

Anyway, without further ado, here’s my entry:

Query:

With a flair for telling fakelore, island girl Fenella lies to conceal her people’s oasis of forbidden magic from outsiders. But the sixteen-year-old’s tales of dragons and krakens can’t prevent a royal visit. Prince Jarek intends to seek a wife from among the islanders. Or so he says.

In the lead-up to the visit, Fenella saves a young man on the beach after a shipwreck. He claims amnesia. She names him Drake and feigns interest to investigate further. Puckering up her lying lips, she kisses her way through his memory loss. He tells her he’s a magic-user on the run. Fenella can’t admit her own magical ability will awaken soon, not with the magic-hating royal family on their way to the island. If they discover her island’s secrets, she’ll swing from the harbour gallows along with every other magic-user there.

But it takes a liar to spot a liar--and Fenella’s not the only one being economical with the truth. That signet ring Drake hides on a chain around his neck? It’s a royal heirloom.

THE FAKELORE GIRL is an 81,000-word YA fantasy novel. Thank you for your consideration.

First 250 words:

Lying spread-eagled on an altar wasn’t an experience I cared to repeat in a hurry; the knife the priestess was sharpening mere inches away looked evil, for starters. And the smile on Cressey’s blood-red lips showed just how much she relished her task. Barbarian.

The evening tide ebbed from the open-air temple dedicated to the goddess Drina. Waves lapped against the two stone columns standing as a gateway to the sea and the krakens haunting its depths. A small mercy I wasn’t chained to those columns, awaiting my death one kraken mouthful at a time.

“Shouldn’t I be naked?” I wiggled my toes. The heels of my feet and the tips of my fingers touched the four corners of the granite slab. Grains of sand rubbed against my skin. “I really think I should be naked.”

“What, right now?” The knife stilled. “Fenella, nobody wants to see that.”

“No, not now. For my Awakening ceremony next month.” For just a few seconds I imagined the full moon casting its silvery light over my unclothed body on the altar, my generous curves a stark contrast against the hard edges of the stone. I took the image a step farther: a gilt-framed portrait of the scene on display in our castle for all to admire. With my hands and long hair covering the appropriate bits (and painted tastefully from the right angle), I wouldn’t be too exposed – just exposed enough for the painting to win pride of place in any exhibition.

Fenella's island