u/slythium

I'm back with another draft! Thank you for your feedback, it's been invaluable and I'm glad I'm moving in the right direction!

My setting is never named, it's based off Manchester where I live, so maybe I should just name it (it's a running symbol that things are rarely named and the power of names holds a lot for John so it's just a stylistic approach)

I hope I've answered some of the plot Q's here but please let me know how I can improve - I don't know if I should have introduced Thomas's father (also unnamed) but he's pertinent to the reason Thomas is stuck running the club.

Thanks again!

TRIGGER WARNING: mention of su*cide

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Dear (Agent) 

I am pleased to share HIS DAYS ARE NUMBERED, a 65,000-word literary novel set in Northern England on the brink of the Second World War. It will appeal to readers of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam and Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, exploring themes of class, masculinity and mental illness. 

1939. John Webb, a quiet man who lived a childhood under state care, sees Manchester emptied after most able-bodied men are enlisting in the new war. Struggling to find stable work in a city that has left him behind, he is forced to compete with a society that has ill-prepared him for life. A debilitating shoulder injury excludes him from any work he is desperate to keep leaving him unable to find somewhere willing to keep him. 

Stability arrives when Thomas Sallow, musician and manager of the exclusive venue, the Storey Club, offers him a job to work on the door.  A weekly pay packet and regular work provide John the stability, and between the familiar rhythms of the staff and Thomas’s growing reliance on him, it becomes the closest thing he’s known to belonging. 

To discover that Thomas is medically unfit for conscription, John recognises vulnerability in another man left outside of the war effort and trying to survive in a world not built for him. Unknown to John, a severe mental health crisis stopped Thomas from enlisting, and his father had worked hard to bury it. Scrutiny from Thomas’s father reminds John how easily his place can be taken away, and why belonging is conditional for men with his institutional upbringing.  

John’s grip on stability slips after he is glassed on his way home from the club. He pushes through a significant head injury to remain useful at the club by stitching the wound himself and fighting a worsening fever. John is unaware that he is not the only man concealing a condition to keep his place.

Everything unravels when John finds Thomas unconscious after a suicide attempt. As Thomas begins disappearing during performances and a disastrous concert threatens the club’s reputation and his father’s faith in its future, John fears losing it all. For the first time, the fear of losing his place in society becomes inseparable from the fear of losing another person. 

(bio)

Thank you for the feedback on my first attempt! I've been working on this for a while to make sure it represents more of the themes and keeps my MC the focus of the query.

Please let me know your thoughts!

TRIGGER WARNING: mention of su*cide

Dear (Agent) 

I am pleased to share HIS DAYS ARE NUMBERED, a 65,000-word literary novel set in Northern England on the brink of the Second World War. It will appeal to readers of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam and Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, exploring themes of class, masculinity and mental illness. 

It’s 1939. John Webb, a quiet man who lived his childhood under care of the state, faces immediate struggles to find stability and work in a community where most able-bodied men are enlisting in the new war.  He is left to compete with a society that has ill-prepared him for life, learning to cope with a debilitating shoulder injury that excludes him from any work he is desperate to keep. 

Stability and work arrive with a chance offer to work the door at an exclusive music club, and John’s usefulness finally outweighs his incapacity to fit in. The club becomes the steadfast anchor holding John in place, allowing him to finally belong somewhere. John’s grip on stability slips when he is attacked by a patron after his shift and the strategies he keeps to hide it no longer work. John’s carefully maintained distance collapses when he finds the club’s owner and musician, Thomas, unconscious after a suicide attempt.  

To discover that Thomas is also medically unfit to enlist, John recognises the vulnerability in another man left outside of the war effort and trying to survive in a world not built for him either. But belonging to the club means becoming entangled in Thomas’s life, which is growing more erratic and unstable. As Thomas begins disappearing during performances, enduring sleepless nights and a disastrous concert which threatens the club’s reputation, John fears losing stability. For the first time, the fear of losing his place in society becomes inseparable from the fear of losing another person. 

(bio)

Hello! I've been working on this first go for over a week and I think I just need to stop editing and get some feedback. It's a character driven MS so I've been struggling to detail the MC's goal etc. It's mostly internal needs.

Thank you in advance! Please let me know where I can improve/tighten.

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TRIGGER WARNING: mention of su*cide

Dear (Agent) 

I am seeking representation for HIS DAYS ARE NUMBERED, a 65,000-word literary novel set in Northern England on the brink of the Second World War. It will appeal to readers of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam and Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, exploring themes of class, masculinity and mental illness. 

Raised in an institution that taught him survival, twenty-four-year-old JOHN, a quiet and restrained man living in a boarding house, searches for stability in a city that constantly throws him aside.  

Deemed unfit for service at the start of the war, John begins a tedious search for menial work that will keep him useful and stable. When his fellow lodger suggests work as a dray man, John takes it without hesitation. The same injury that prevented John from enlisting flares and John loses the work.   

Just as John defaults to destructive habits, draining the little money he has on a familiar woman, a well-timed evening walk lands him a job as a doorman at a music club. THOMAS, a gifted but erratic musician who runs the club, draws John into his orbit. What begins as a distant working relationship quickly deepens when John is attacked after his shift. Stability is earned, and John is desperate to remain indispensable, even if it's detrimental to his health.  

Even at his lowest, John recognises concerning changes in Thomas and when he finds Thomas unconscious after a suicide attempt, John realises that being useful and remaining quiet are no longer enough to contain what is unravelling.  

As Thomas’s behaviour grows more dangerous, and threatens the club’s reputation, the stability John has built starts to fracture and he is forced to decide how far he will go to keep Thomas, and himself, stable.  

(bio)