Round 3 Original Post #13
Title: The Truth About Titus Oates
Genre: Historical Fiction
Nat Thompson blames the loss of his post as the Licenser on Titus Oates, a preacher who has sent Restoration London into crisis with revelations of a Popish Plot. Eager to provide for his young wife Anne, Nat attacks Oates in the press, a lucrative but dangerous decision When Oates blackmails Anne, forcing her to become a spy in her own home and has Nat arrested on the night their newborn baby dies, the only way out of their predicament is to prove that the Plot is a complete fiction and make public the shocking truth about Titus Oates.
Interesting! This sounds like a big story with high stakes. I think you need to go longer or shorter with this, though- right now this reads as more of a query than a logline, but without enough room to really get your specifics down. I say pare it way back to 1 or 2 sentences. I LOVED the detail about needing to protect his wife, and her being blackmailed is a great twist. I say focus on that, because it's really intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kate, I love historical fiction and this sounds fascinating, but a tad too long. It needs to be pared down to one or two sentences perhaps focusing more on Nat and his wife and what the stakes are.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I'm in agreement about the length, but I find the plot to be more compelling than the relationship (other than as it relates to the mechanizations of the plan against Nat). I would cut the fact that attacking Oates is a lucrative but dangerous decision--we'll assume or infer that. You may also not need the detail that about the fact that Oates plot deals with the Pope, since that's never referenced again. I think you could also dramatically trim the next sentence ("When Oates blackmails Anne and has Nat arrested on the same night their newborn dies, the only way out is to prove the Plot as fiction and make public the shocking truth about Titus Oates."
ReplyDeleteThat cuts 16 words, and is still likely too long. But right now I feel like your story arc is strong enough that your focus should be momentum, and right now it's being waylaid by extraneous facts, for me. Just my $0.02.
Nice work. Sounds like a great book!