Chicago Will Win

@confunctionist.bsky.social

#Resist, #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #BookSky

Aphelion Lost / SF / Murder on the Orient Express in space When the richest man in the world is murdered onboard his spaceship, rival pilots Dara and Perseus must set aside their differences to find the killer. Even worse, strange temporal effects begin to affect the ship. #questpit #q #a #sf #my

My book mood board (murder on orient express on a spaceship)

#QuestPit #Q #RF #A One witch holds the power to heal and one man has the power to change everything. To master her powers, she must risk her heart with the possibility it could unravel her fate. ❤️Romantic urban fantasy 🧙Ancestral Magic 🖤Chaos Magic 🌪️Dangerous Magic 👫Friends to Lovers

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*Natural Neon* // ALTERED CARBON x STATION 11 A nightclub dancer risks an illegal neural implant to pay for her brother's meds, but when it connects her to other lifetimes, she becomes the key to humanity's next evolution—and its extinction. #QuestPit #A #Q #S #D #U

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Comp: HANK'S BIG DAY: THE STORY OF A BUG SKITTER-SKATTER ANTS A group of ants slack off work to go on a fun adventure. But they encounter many mishaps along the way. Will they learn to have fun in a safe way or will they keep skitter-skattering from dangers? #questpit #q #pb

Nia Moredi just wants to look out for her little brother. Miss Laval needs to attend a governess-teacher meeting. Baarsin Dorvierre's being watched. Pickpocket Wren needs to recharge her misdirection charm. If only Nia could remember which of them she's supposed to be today. #QuestPit #YA #F #LGBT

A Pickpocket's Guide to High Society
(And Higher Mathematics)

YA Fantasy 80K words
Catherine Winters dot com

Against a subtly textured background of mathematical formulae and a hexagonal summoning grid feature a collection of intriguing objects:

The outstretched hand of some mechanical clockwork automaton made of white porcelain.
A purple and gold masquerade mask.
A set of brass architect's tools: a compass, a protractor, calipers.
A set of gears laid out, pulled from some kind of mechanism.
The Pitch
When she picks the wrong pocket, sixteen-year-old Nia unlocks a magical talent she didn’t know she had and catches the attention of people she doesn't want to know. Blackmailed into stealing a mysterious box, Nia accidentally awakens a living clockwork doll—that promptly runs away.

Accused of betraying the blackmailers, Nia and her band of would-be thieves go on the run, pursued by magehunters, street gangs, and the secret police.

When the doll returns to make a deal, Nia turns to the man whose lucky coin unlocked her magic, only to find him missing. Caught in a lie, Nia’s soon posing as an heiress, in the clutches of the man’s elderly landlady—who's intent on introducing the girl she knows as “Baarsin” to high society.

As Nia finds herself disappearing into the role, she and her friends must race against time to track down the people behind it all: a secret society of mathematicians whose influence reaches all the way to the governor herself.Excerpt
Caz tensed. “There’s someone following us,” she hissed.
“I know,” Nia said. The man had been tailing them through the crowd for almost six blocks now. “He won’t be the only one.” She tugged Caz into the empty foyer of a boarding house and pulled out her misdirection charm. “Take my hand and stay quiet!”
“That won’t work on me,” Caz protested.
“No,” Nia said, willing herself to believe. “I can do this.” With all her strength, she pushed more of herself into the charm, the equation unfolding in her mind’s eye. She reached out, and as the world darkened around them, turned the doorknob, Caz clutching her arm. Nia pulled the taller girl close as the man pushed past them, failing to notice the door was already opening.
On the busy sidewalk, Caz let out a breath. A small boy leaning against a nearby lamppost glanced in their direction, an uncertain expression on his young face.
Caz cringed. “Sorry!” she mouthed.Comps & Tropes
Includes the covers of four books:

Never Ever After by Sue Lynn Tan
Den of Liars by Jessica S. Olsen
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo's
Beyond the Black Door by A.M. Strickland

"Tropes" is loosely used here and includes:
Stealing is magical (literally)
Fish out of water (you probably guessed)
Working for the wrong people
Ancient magic (in over their heads)
The MacGuffin is blackmailing us
"Aren't you a little young to be a criminal?"
Metaphorically dyslexic LI (she's also dyslexic)
Creepy clockwork doll that complains all the time
Good at magic, as long as she has a compass & protractor
Grifter vs. con artist
Sword lesbian (in training)
Lying (a lot)
Found family of scoundrels
Ace protagonist (who hasn't had time to think about that)
One big job and then we can retire (oh no, somehow everything went wrong)
Let's break into a data centre!
No chosen ones, no choosing ceremonies, just hard work and practice.

The Merge x Rules For Ghosting When Melody's sister is abducted from their shared body, she'll do anything to get her back. Including subjecting herself to an uncomfortable road trip with an angel inhabiting a corpse and her sister's very confused girlfriend. [ #QuestPit #Q #A #F #S #LGBT ]

A mood board that is a collection of 12 images: breakfast at a diner, women in the front seat of a car, a gas station at night, a cabin in a snowy forest at night, women holding hands, a road at sunset, an angel statue, a car in the dark with its headlights on, a car mirror with a sunset, a snowy forest at sunset, a paper map, a blonde woman holding a paper map, a purple orb, an eye with a purple iris, hands holding a rainbow flag, and a sheet of music.

CRUEL PRINCE x WINGS OF STARLIGHT 🧚🏼 rulers as 7 deadly sins 🧚🏼 faeries earning wings 🧚🏼 she’s grumpy, he’s chaotic 🧚🏼 bargains & contracts 🧚🏼 island hopping 🧚🏼 faerie ‘mermaids’ 🧚🏼 hidden identities 🧚🏼 no humans, all faeries 🧚🏼 themes of worthiness & truth #questpit #q #ya #f

Image of a paper containing metadata of a pitching project and two photos along with a one sentence pitch.

AJ always expected she would die; as the Antichrist, her choices were limited to that, destroy the world, or fall in love with a Heaven-blessed man. She was not expecting Jacquelyn Payne, or the love that could ruin, or save, everything. 💛Sapphic 💛Found Family 💛Grumpy x Sunshine #questpit #A #PR #R

THE EVERWINTER KING Desperate to find his missing sun god, a former holy king returns home to compete in trials meant to bring his god back and stop the onslaught of an endless winter. 🏳️‍🌈 Queer norm world ☀️ Light-based magic 🏳️‍⚧️ Trans love interest 👑 Hidden royalty #QuestPit #Q #A #F #LGBT

Title page for an agent's guide to THE EVERWINTER KING. The title is placed over a moodboard featuring a Mediterranean inspired setting and royalty imagery. In addition to the title the page reads "Adult Fantasy Standalone. Queer normative world. MM romance subplot. 99,000 words."
THE EVERWINTER KING's pitch.

PITCH
A former holy king does the one thing he swore he’d never do in search of his missing god. He goes home.

Malachi was born with God’s voice in his head. When God vanishes in the midst of a decade-long winter, Mal breaks the oath he made to himself and returns to the home he abandoned—the city where he was raised to be king. There, he’s marked to compete in trials meant to select God’s new emissary. His replacement.

After succeeding in the first trial, Mal demands entry to the royal temple, where he learns the skies are empty. God has stopped speaking to his priests and Mal alike. With no other avenue for answers, Mal must win the competition for God’s favor and assume the throne he never wanted, or risk losing his oldest friend for good and damning the world to a worsening everwinter.An excerpt from THE EVERWINTER KING. Next to the excerpt is character art of the main character. He has light bright skin, dark brown hair, facial hair, and a simple jerkin over white shirt. His eye is glowing like the sun.

EXCERPT STARTS BELOW

“My head hurts,” Malachi mumbled into his drink.

“They say King Ridaris’ eye glowed like this.”

Did they? Malachi shuffled through his memories for any mention of that from his mothers, or the history books, and found nothing.

“I think it means God knows who you are.” Sen lowered her voice, eyes shifting toward the surrounding priests. Kinder to pretend she did it out of concern for his headache. “You need to be careful.”

“Aye.”

“It hasn’t stopped glowing. Everyone else’s did.”

He raised a hand to cover his eye, pausing to marvel at the light pouring over his fingers and palm. It spilled into every crack, crevice, and scar his hand had to offer, like liquid pooled against his skin. Malachi closed his fist around the cold light and pressed it to his face. “Hurts.”

“Close your eyes,” Samara offered. “Rest. We’ll handle it from here.”

For once, he did just that.A page listing comp titles.

Comp titles for THE EVERWINTER KING include: "The Raven Scholar" by Antonia Hodgson, "The Raven Tower" by Ann Leckie, "WITCH KING" by Martha Wells, and "The Red Winter" by Cameron Sullivan.

Similarities include: godly shenanigans, political trials, queer-norm worlds, queer male leads, messy homecomings, and a second chance subplot.

Bonus comp! Dragon Age 2.

SHE IS KING sequel in development ‼️ Called on to track down and kill whoever is stirring up conflict between pantheons, Kolby Scott will suffer insult and betrayal until she is forged into something wholly new. 🏙️ urban fantasy ⚔️ monster hunting 🧨 Holy Sexual Tension, Batman #QuestPit #WIP #F #NA

introductory guide to Project: SHE IS WAR, an urban fantasy sequel in developmentour heroine: kolby scott, war goddess' vesseltropes and themes: aimless heroine called to adventure; meddling deities and their egos; slow burn romance between lover boy and hater girlinspiration/comps: secrets of the immortal nicholas flamel series and silver in the bone

ON THE ORIGIN OF LIVING FLAME: THE POET EMPRESS x BLOOD OVER BRIGHT HAVEN, but 2 million years ago at the dawn of community. 😤 Audacious and based FMC 🔥 Gain magic by eating fire 🏳️‍🌈 Queer norm world ✨️ Pre-gender world 💥 Anti-capitalist Neanderthals #QuestPit #Q #A #F #LGBT

OBSESSION x I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS x Micah Nemerever’s THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS An agent’s guide to THE WATCHFUL MR. SHEPHERD, an 86k adult psychological horror that'll soon be query ready featuring— 🏳️‍🌈 LGBTQ+ Rep 👁️ Obsession 🔪 Rising Body Count ❓ Unreliable Narrator #questpit #H #A #W

The Watchful Mr. Shepherd
86K Adult Queer Psychological Horror/Thriller
Querying Q3 - Q4 2026BildCause of death…blunt force trauma. Victim was cut open post-mortem as some sort of…gift?
The envelope felt heavy in Luke’s pocket.
LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID
What did I do? 

“Every day I wake up in the same bed as you and you’re still eighteen, and I’m still eighteen, and nothing ever gets better.”

Kieran talks at you, and you do try to listen, but mostly you’re rolling his name over on your tongue, tasting it.
Ki—
Kier—
Kieran—
—ran—
It’s a pretty name.

As an autopsy technician at the Augusta Medical Examiner's Office, Luke spends his nights attending crime scenes, preparing corpses, and offering condolences to grieving families.
Then an email arrives in his work inbox, a picture of a bridge he hasn't seen for ten years and an ominous message attached:
LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID.
At their high school graduation party, Luke and his future ex-husband Kieran left a boy dead and buried the truth with him. Now someone else knows what happened that night; someone who begins with anonymous messages and ends with murder.
For Kieran, the haunting is proof their past has finally come to collect. For Luke, it's something far more exciting: a reason for Kieran to finally come home.
As their watcher tightens the noose, Luke finds himself less afraid of exposure than of losing the only person who ever made him feel alive. But the closer Kieran gets, the clearer it becomes that the real danger to them both may not be outside Luke's isolated house, but inside it.

ETERNALLY DEAD explores how an injured musician gets a second shot at stardom--only it's by joining an all-vampire rock band in the dangerous Vampire Realm. When blood shortages hit the Realm, she's forced to confront if living out her rockstar dream is worth dying for🩸🧛‍♂️🎸 #questpit #a #f #pr #rf #q

Background of concert audience with giant vampire fangs floating above alongside the words "An agent's guide to: Eternally Dead, Adult Paranormal Romantic Fantasy, 103k words, by @katgoestoshows." A one sentence pitch is featured on bottom that reads: An injured musician gets a second shot at stardom -- only its by joining an all-vampire rock band in the blood-thirsty vampire realm. A red splatter of blood is splashed is corner.BildBildBild