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I often wonder whatever happened to the person who wrote that first weredingo plot...

a small potatoes thief

Are those the "b" size white potatoes with the thin skins and great taste that he's stealing?

Or are they plain old russets whipped into a frenzy of whiteness to serve as a bowl for my gravy at Tanksgibbon.

If a band of adventurers comes together in search of a quest, and no quest is apparent, no prophecy unfulfilled, and no evil threatening, what do they do?

Let me remind the author of a similar story.
Neil Gaimen once asked the question, "What if they gave an inferno and nobody came?"
And the resulting story was "The Season of Mists" where Morpheus, the king of dreams, finds that Lucifer is closing hell and thus, Morpheus ends up as owner of an empty hell. When he returns to his realm of dreams, Morpheus finds that certain demigods want the key to reopen hell and he must decide who may now own hell. A subplot involves Morpheus' lover who he cursed to hell and his reconciliation with her.

Hmm, a dream must have a meaning. Ain't that so my dear Sigmund.

Let's see, however many odd characters assemble to go on their vision quest, there must be an inciting incident. In Morpheus' case, it was his family, Destiny and Desire criticized his appalling treatment of his lover. They guilt him into going to hell to free her.

The story must have a middle, wherein the odd characters are tested against fantastic creatures and display simple personality traits like honesty, faithfullness, courage and maybe good hygeine. In teen movies this might involve a boy's quest to lose his virginity.

And finally, the story must have an end, Preferably happy - Romeo gets Juliet - A cat gets Sweeny's tongue -- true friendship is revealed - the prophecy is shown true and false because we aren't predestined. A denouement.

And there's the outline of your story for your query.

Personally (can you say personally if you sign as anonymous and therefore don't present yourself as much of a person)...
As I was saying, personally, this reads to me as a winner. Just to put my compliment into perspective, the last quest I read was Lord of the Rings when I was in junior high many moons ago. I wouldn't read one now if you paid me.
Good luck, author!

Oh, I was hoping it would be this one! I think it sounds like a blast, but agree the query needs a bit more about the actual quest to make it seem more like a fun story and less like a fun gimmick.

I would totally read GTP #4.

Are the potatoes small? Or is the potato thief small? Or... (gasp) BOTH? Because if the thief is smaller than the small potatoes, he'd have a hard time stealing those potatoes. And if he's *THAT* small, he wouldn't be much help to a band of monkeys, much less a band of adventurers. Unless he can crawl through key-holes...

- JustABand

I agree that this sounds fun as far as it goes. It should be a simple fix of filling in the rest of the plot. Hopefully, the author will post the rest.

Dave, the fact that there is no inciting incident is the whole point, I think. They go into the quest business for the same reason people start flipping houses in a down real estate market: they're morons. But they seem like they might be entertaining morons, if we knew the rest of the story.

And I hate it when I show up late with a handful of potato jokes only to find two helpings have already been served.

I would definitely give this a shot. Not much of a fantasy fan, but all you need to know is LoTR.

I think the humor here can be very good. I like well written humor. You've got a nice style in the query. More information in the same style and I think you're done.

Where's the beef? (or, in my case, the tofurkey)

And, sigh, yes the potatoes seem to have gotten us all.

Sarah

"Dave, the fact that there is no inciting incident is the whole point, I think."

That is definately the inciting incident. The point is what happens on this quest without a purpose?
Does Owen Masterson become a Knight?
Does Finley Winterbourne write his song?
Does the rest of the band in any way better their lives?
Or do they learn that hard work is the only way to get ahead?

That's what we don't know. It's a fun setup. We've all seen movie plots and read books about "near-morons" who rise to some life enriching situation and become more than just "near-morons." Even in the satirical SPACEBALLS, the guy gets the girl at the end. Tim Allen does save the world in Galaxy Quest.

That's the second and third parts of the story that the query doesn't reveal.

The author, here. I wrote a response earlier but it seems to have been lost in the nether.

Anywho, first thanks to Evil Editor and his minions. Your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Next, here is how I would continue the query, based on EE's revisions:

---

Sadly, the people are so miserably content, the realm so depressingly perfect, that the band of heroes contemplate returning home. It appears their best bet is to simply wait and hope some terrible evil will descend upon Turon in the not too distant future. But then they happen upon the border town of Cobrin’s Cross, a place terrorized by a burgeoning, angst-ridden warlock who is hellbent on avenging his villainous mother’s death. At last, this is what they've been looking for all along. Or is it? A pubescent magician on his own might be easy enough to take down, but when he’s garrisoned himself in a doorless tower surrounded by his mother’s remaining army of mountain trolls and undead… well, that tends to complicate things.

---

Better? Should I still end with the questions or do you think it's fine as is?

Dave, thanks for the in-depth comments. I haven't yet read the Gaiman book you mentioned, though will have to check it out. I hope the third part of my query above fleshes everything out a little more. As for the conclusion and whether they succeed or not, it's been my understanding that a query shouldn't reveal all, so that's the route I went. If I were to include a synopsis all those questions would certainly be answered.


Last but not least, the potatoes would be considered a small B. Possibly a full A.

Much better. Now we know there's a story.

I like that paragraph. It's good. Put the query together and clean it up. Your on your way.
Let us know what happens with your novel.

Man, you misuse a metaphor around here you'll get your ass handed to you. I don't want to beat a dead horse, so I won't, and the best pokes are taken anyway. Wah.

S&M, It would take an army to hand me my ass.

Author, Liked the paragraph you edited. Sounds much better.

good edit author and nice cliffhangery

>Mantor is immortal because of a spell gone wrong.

Ah, if only all spells-gone-wrong had such a nice side effect. Certainly beats "burned to a crisp" or "turned into a frog."

I'm an avid fantasy reader, yet I had many of the same questions EE had. Not to mention, if Mantor is immortal, then the fairies can't kill him.

Is the story actually something like this? Mantor casts a spell that backfires and now has him permanently draining the fairy magic in a way that grants him immortality. The fairies want to stop that drain, but need to work their counter-spell on him in person. Mantor uses bad logic (or likes being immortal even if it means he must work fields all day as a commoner) and hides. The Godfire sword has some sort of anti-fairy-magic effect which allows it to sever this link, which means Mantor is mortal against it and can be killed by its normal-sword aspects.

That was pure guessing, so I doubt it's right. But we need some of those plot holes filled or it sound unbelievably contrived.

Remember that if you include something in your query that raises a big why -- and not the good kind of why where an agent simply must demand pages to find out the answer -- then you either need to provide the answer to that why, rephrase the information in such a way that the "why" factor never comes up, or just delete the information altogether.

Here are the questions this query raises for me:

Is Mantor a good guy or a bad guy?

Is Mantor simply the lesser of two evils to sit on the throne, or does Roland now want to kill both Khismar AND Mantor, but since he can't find Mantor, Khismar becomes the priority?

If Mantor is really a good guy, and has been a decent king, what convinces Roland that he isn't? Just because Foster-Mom says he's not? EE encapsulates this in his blue text well. If the economy is good, the general populace happy, and the kingdom at peace before Khismar intervenes, what convinces Roland that the world must be rid of Mantor?

Same confusion about the role of the fairies that EE has. If it's too complex to address in the query, phrase it differently.
Mantor has a more immediate problem: a horde of magic-sucking fairies are after his power -- and probably his life. Since the fairies can only sense magic in use, Mantor swears off magic altogether.

Now, I have a problem with the cause and effect here as presented in the query. Can running away from the throne and not using magic really throw the fairies off his trail? Why does he need to abandon the throne if he stops using magic? Will the fairies still perceive him as a threat? And I don't understand the "death will not stop the magic" phrase. If death won't stop it, how will simply not using magic appease the fairies or keep them off his tail?

Once Mantor abandons the throne, why does Roland still want to find and kill him if he's no longer in a position of power?

It's not explicitly stated in your query, but I think your hook here is that the young hero is after an evil wizard who really isn't an evil wizard after all. If that's not it, then I'm afraid I can't tell what it is. If it is it, then I'm still baffled about how Roland could be duped into thinking Mantor was evil in the first place. If you can clear that up, then maybe that hook is enough to give this story a unique flavor. Otherwise, I'm afraid it's a bunch of companions on a quest to overcome an evil wizard or two to save the land. And that's been done...and done...and done...

However, GTP #3 appears to be fresh and unique. That's a story I would want to read! (Who wrote that GTP? Please, please 'fess up!)

However, GTP #3 appears to be fresh and unique. That's a story I would want to read!

Isn't that the plot of American Gods?

"Mantor refuses to fight Khismar with magic, certain that doing so cannot justify breaking his vow"
What does that mean?
Some of your constructs are woolly.
It might help if you pick a character to feature in your query and relate the plot in terms of his progress. We start out with young Roland, but Mantor appears to upstage him.

Isn't that the plot of American Gods?

Is it? Oh, I haven't read enough Neil Gaiman! Bad me, bad. Sigh. One more book to be added to the TBR pile. Thanks for tip.

Very hard to follow that plot line although perhaps it works in the book.

Author here,
Wow, this was a lot harder than I thought. First, the novel is long (over 150,000 words), but it's also very complicated. This feedbaack is great, 'cause I thought I'd simplified a complex story into a few easy to follow sentences, and I see I didn't do anything of the sort. Drat and double drat. Everyone's questions are answered clearly in the novel, but I don't think that answering them here is going to help me write a decent query, mostly because there are no short, simple answers to these questions. Just to satisfy anyone's curiousity, Mantor is not good or evil, he's a human being with human faults and virtues. He has done things that could be considered evil as well as things that could be thought good. The story is about misconceptions and misunderstandings, as well as what it means to be good or evil, heroic or just plain ambitious. The hook I was aiming for was indeed the idea that the hero was after the wrong guy, and that killing him could very well make things worse. Sigh. Back to the drawing board. Thanks to everyone for your feedback, it really makes me think about what I'm trying to say.

Over 150k? You'd better edit the book before you query it!

Why does everyone assume any novel over 100,000 words automatically needs editing? On my shelves right now I have more than a dozen fantasies published by major houses in the last couple years that are over 200,000 words, some by debut authors. I personally like long books. I don't like multi-part epics that only resolve in the final installment (but stand alones are really hard to find these days).

People recently jumped all over another author on this site for the length of his novel, but without seeing the writing, no one can know how much editing it does or doesn't need. I understood that GTP is to critique the query, not the novel. Maybe the problems with a query started in the novel, but that can't be known from the query alone.

I don't have a problem with the length, just that the query raised those questions everyone is having trouble with. As written, I couldn't help thinking that all your characters were suffering from the classic "Idiot Plot" (see Turkey City Lexicon at http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html) and thus are not acting like reasonable characters would; but like you want them to.

I am sure that adjusting the letter will show that it is the letter at fault.

I've yet to read a novel that couldn't have benefited from more editing.

Well, maybe "The Road".

Yes, it is possible to get a Fantasy novel published in the 200k zone. However, your chances go up under 150k.

I like longer novels, too, but Jonathan Strange made my hands hurt. Two volumes would have been easier!

Hey long book lover:

I enjoy a good long tale, too. But selling anything over 120K or 130K for a debut novel is not the norm. Does that mean it can't be done? Well, if the following (quote at the end of this post) can happen, anything can. Just don't count on it being YOU it happens to (that's directed to anyone reading this comment). Those are long, long odds to play.

For more about Fantasy novel length, see the following agent and publisher posts:

http://juno-books.com/blog/?p=136

http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2005/ 12/peek-boo-word-count.html

http://www.agentquery.com/format_tips.aspx (about 3/4 of the way down)

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2006/05/too-short.html

Publisher’s Lunch reports on a major novel deal for The Lace Reader:

Brunonia Barry’s originally self-published debut supernatural thriller THE LACE READER, about a woman who can see the future by reading patterns in lace who returns home to Salem, Massachusetts after her great-aunt goes missing, to Laurie Chittenden at William Morrow, in a major deal, reportedly for $2 million (NY Mag), at auction, by Rebecca Oliver at Endeavor (world English).

Author again,
I'm well aware of the problems with over-long novels. I spent a few months breaking it into two books, but it didn't work that way at all. The first half had no resolution, and none of the payoffs in the second half had any meaning. So, I was just going to shove it under the bed, but my critique group howled. They loved it and thought I should at least try. As I said in my previous post, these comments have shown me how lousy I am at writing queries. What made sense to me (and others who have read the manuscript) clearly made no sense to you guys - and I needed to know that. I hope studying these comments will help me come up with a query that won't leave folks scratching their heads. Thanks again to EE and minions for your comments.

I personally think the shorter novel the better because I have better things to do than read fiction. In fact, I recommend haiku for everything.

Locked in jail for life
Monte Cristo gets the loot
Revenge served quite cold.

Lion with wardrobe
Kids and talking animals
It's gospel, moron.

My Joyce impression
Stream of consciousness, but I
ran out of space here

This comment isn't advantageous to anything, but first we have nice normal named Roland. Then we have Mantor Olgaroth and Khismar. I love epic fantasy, but I have to say the switch from a more "norm" name to an "epic fantasy" name just made me go ??? for a moment.

OMG Paca, those haiku!

Pacatrue:

Let's see if I can write a haiku for the 210k monster that I pitched here and got lambasted for. ;)

Jak is unlucky
Just to make his parents proud
He fights empires

Well, if I put the haiku and the ms together, they AVERAGE OUT to around 100k... >.>

-Current Book Status:
-Cut three scenes
-Drastically reduced half a dozen scene-intro expositions
-Destroyed all passive voice
-Trimmed out any unnecessary verbiage

I'm 3/4ths through my edit and I'm only down to 195k :(

From birth, magic coursed through Mantor's body like water down a streambed. While other wizards struggle to pull enough magic from Fairy for even simple spells, Mantor draws it as easily as he draws breath. Even so, controlling magic is not as easy as gathering it: when Mantor tried to bring back his murdered wife and children, he cursed himself with immortality instead. Now, almost 400 years later, the continent he conquered is ruled more by his barons than himself, and Mantor has lost his sense of humanity and purpose. Then unavoidable problems confront him: a rare, wizard-conjured poison turns up in his wine; fairies want to halt the magic running through him because centuries of unchecked flow is starting to disrupt their
world; and a former lover sworn to kill him has finally found the means in a previously unknown distant relation who is the only other living person able to draw and use Mantor's sword, Godfire.

Young Roland's few ambitions include exceeding Baron Khismar's tribute quotas and one day confessing his feelings to the girl he loves. Then Khismar's enslavement spell wears off Roland, jolting him into realizing the baron's tyranny must be stopped. Yet his foster mother persuades him to target Khismar's master, Mantor Olgaroth, the black wizard, claiming only Mantor's death will eliminate his barons. She explains Mantor's sword can break the enchantment keeping him immortal, and Roland's ancestry allows him to wield it. Raised on heroic tales, Roland is eager to take up the perilous quest, determined to right the wrongs he sees. Like the heroes of legend, he meets danger and adversity without hesitation– until he discovers the new companion helping him through much of that adversity is the black wizard himself. How can a hero right wrongs when he no longer knows which is right and who is wrong?

Is Roland the renamed Markus from this earlier dialogue sample?

It's better. But I wanted to stop reading after the second sentence - and the second cliche.

Your version is 306 words. Here's a 230 word version. This version also links Roland to both paragraphs. Otherwise, I feel like he comes out of the blue.

From birth, magic coursed through Mantor Olgaroth's body. Other wizards struggled to pull enough magic from Fairy for even simple spells; Mantor drew it easily. But controlling magic is not as easy as gathering it. When Mantor tried to bring back his murdered family, he cursed himself with immortality. 400 years later, Mantor has lost his sense of humanity and purpose; the continent he conquered is ruled by his barons; a rare, wizard-conjured poison turns up in his wine; fairies want to halt the magic running through him because centuries of unchecked flow is disrupting their world; and a former lover has finally found the means to kill him – a distant relation named Roland who is the only other person able to wield Mantor's sword, Godfire.

Young Roland's ambitions include exceeding Baron Khismar's tribute quotas and confessing his feelings to the girl he loves, until Khismar's enslavement spell wears off. Roland’s foster mother persuades him that only Mantor's death will eliminate the barons. She explains Mantor's sword can break the enchantment keeping him immortal. Raised on heroic tales, Roland is eager to right the wrongs he sees. Like the heroes of legend, he meets danger and adversity without hesitation – until he discovers the companion helping him through that adversity is Mantor himself. How can a hero right wrongs when he no longer knows which is right and who is wrong?

I saw the reposted paragraphs last night and was too tired to deal with it. Sunday was a hard day of listening to Brahms 4th symphony being recorded and Beethoven's #4 piano concerto played brilliantly. and This morning is mundane laundry and rain. My bones ache in the rain.

So let's rip:

1) That first paragraph is backstory. Can it, all of it. Keep it for the synopsis. Feed it to the ravenous bug-blatter beast of Traal.

2) Which seems more important to you?
a) freeing the girl of your dreams from mental slavery
b) paying taxes?

"When Roland discovers that Baron Khismar maintains control of his subjects with enslavement spells, he makes plans to assassinate Khismar. However, Roland's step-mother reveals the perfect weapon - the sword "GodFire" owned by the black wizard Mantor Olgaroth.

Roland sets out to

{Steal, Gain, Rob, Posess) Godfire so he can free his people from the tyranical Baron Khismar and his cronies. Believing himself to be a Knight Errant, he finds a willing companion and sets out to right all wrongs

(jeepers, that's like a cliche, let's just say "quest" and not "perilous" quest. We don't read about quests for the perfect cup of tea. But we do read about quests for the perfect cherry blossom (Hint, go watch the Last Samurai))

Rolands quest for Godfire and his belief in justice is shaken when his companion is revealed to be the black wizard Maxtor Ostrigoth himself. A villian, anxious to achieve his own death and join the beloved family he once tried to raise from the dead.

Can Roland be the executioner to his companion? Or will Rolands quest end with Baron Kissyangel enslaving both the evil wizard and the countryside?



Your story seems to be about Roland and his interaction with the Wizard Martor. (Mantor). It is analogous to telling the story between Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe (opus cit.) You want to tell all the story from Roland's POV and thus, Mixmaster's (sorry, Martor's) story is told by discovery. It is only revealed to Roland in pieces. That's why I eliminated that first paragraph.

Roland is a hero faced with an atypical villian. One he has to kill to set the world right but one he doesn't want to slay in cold blood. I presume there is a scene where Martor reveals his suicidal desires. Now is Roland heroic enough to kill a friend? That, I think is the struggle you wrote in the novel.

You do know that using the name "Roland" is like a giant neon sign saying "HERO"...

I guess I was a little, uh, too giddy with poking fun at the names you use in your book. I apologize for doing that. I hope you realize that I have an odd sense of humor. It just got away from me this morning. Sorry about that.

Dave F., your twisting of names made me laugh, so don't worry about it. The names I use are thought out and deliberate: Roland = hero, Mantor = evil wizard. Except, of course, the characters don't always fit the expectations their names impart. I've written versions leaving out Mantor, but the novel starts with his POV and it's not about a quest for a sword. But all these comments really help my thoughts gel as I think about what I'm trying to say, and seeing what I actually said.

Pacatrue, Markus is a different character with an altered version of Khismar's spell. His mind is free, though his body is not. Until the spell wears off Roland, his body is free but he thinks Khismar is the most marvelous leader in creation (and doesn't even know Mantor exists). Loved you haiku, BTW.

"Rolands quest for Godfire and his belief in justice is shaken when his companion is revealed to be the black wizard Maxtor Ostrigoth himself. A villian, anxious to achieve his own death and join the beloved family he once tried to raise from the dead."

THAT pretty well sums up the whole thing. THAT's what you need to tell us. The new version is useless for a query, great for a synopsis.

Perils and magic and heroic actions are supposed to match. Religious violence is real now and was always real in the past. I don't know why you'd want change the actual danger of your whole family being killed for some trivial 'heresy' to the fantasy danger of having your mind switched with a dragon's. You call it the Inquisition, so are you using the historic Catholic church? Like your protagonist is in peril because Catholicism spread during the Renaissance because gun-weilding Cardinal Whoever was changing the minds of non-Catholics [and heretical Catholics] with the minds of dragons? Or did you make up your own evil religion? So she's going to borrow the mind of her uncle and fence her way out of danger? That just seems to be really messy plotting.

Is Marta still a dragon at the end of the book?

This sounds like oodles of fun!! Even though its for kids I'd love to read it myself. My husband says I'm basically just a big ol' kid at heart and he's totally right too

I love how its two sisters helping each other! Girl power!

I also loved the part where the girl is transformed into a dragon

I soooo want to read this!!

Good luck!!!!!!!

I love that sword scene in Indiana Jones. That and Harrison Ford is a hottie in that hat of his.

Yeah, if you're going to mix guns & knives it's important to remember that sword fight scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark because your audience will immediately think of it. And also they'll know the scene in Pirates 1 where Jack Sparrow shoots Barbossa and visa versa. Knife does not ordinarily beat gun. Sword-fighting skills wouldn't have saved Anne Frank, for instance. And they weren't enough for Joan of Arc, either.

I didn't understand the magic or the perils, either. They seem to be out of proportion, mismatched.

I don't know much about writing good queries, so don't have much of use to add, but I can say that the sentence --

The mage is killed, his magical tattoo appearing on her palms.

-- doesn't make sense. If the tattoo transfers from him to her after his death, maybe say:

The mage is killed and his magical tattoo appears on her palms.

You may want to work some poetry into your story.
To help you, I've come up with a list:

U Surper
U Burper
U Feathery Chirper
U Big-Gulp Slurper

The plot sounds overused and possibly illogical based on the query letter. Also, the use of usurper is pretty funny...not what you need in a query.

Your story sounds like it could be a workable if slightly generic fantasy. Perhaps you can highlight what makes your tale unique and different from other epic fantasies?

Hi Author:

I must agree with WW. From the query, this story seems to be pretty safe and generic. What's your hook? What about THIS story will make me want to pick it out of the slush of similar-sounding stories, whether I'm an agent or simply a reader?

Characters, plot, theme, and execution all seem standard fare as your query is written. Do you have something that stands out? If so, that something should go right up front as the attention grabber.

Now, standard fare in the form of characters and plot can still sell if you have a unique perspective. Perhaps if the mage who transfers his powers to Neska is somehow embodied in the girl and it's he who tells the story... Or maybe the story is told from the perspective of a talking dagger... Or maybe the narrator's voice is the hook. But something of that uniqueness must come through in the query. Right now, I'm afraid I'm not seeing anything in the query to distinguish it and elevate it out of the slush. I'm sure your story is good; it's just the query that needs another go.

I have to agree with Phoenix. Why doesn't the protag go hide in a cave? Something is missing.

Something to consider that comes from your query. This may not be a problem in your book, but it does seem to be one here.

If the usurper has to kill Neska to get her tattoo and the powers that come with it, then did Neska kill the mage? Why didn’t the mage’s tattoo transfer to the killer? Why won’t the same debacle happen if the usurper kills Neska?

I’m assuming that the killer of the mage is one of the usurper’s minions and it somehow knows the tattoo went to Neska. That’s a lot of reading between the lines though. Is this how the king knows he has to target Neska?

Neska’s out for revenge for the murder of her clan (the buttercup bears a sword). As was said earlier – this is a popular theme in a lot of sword and sorcery books. Along with the newly found power, the stranger who helps her awaken it and all of the danger and loss that precedes the eventual success of the mission. So what does make this book different from those?

It’s hard for me to sit back and think that a book I wrote and poured so much of my soul into doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Alas, it can be all too true. Good luck!

Sarah

Well, that was painful, but at least it was painful and useful, as opposed to just receiving form rejections that say 'no thanks'.

So I guess, as the author, I should explain myself and answer a few questions (and then completely redo my query letter so that such questions don't come up.)

I was expecting you to comment on the length. Sadly, it is the biggest hurdle for me to overcome at this point, and yet I can't do as you suggested and chop this into two or three books. There is not any solid 'resolution' until the end of the book, and cutting it off at a cliffhanger would just make it feel incomplete. I've been steadily shortening it, but each revision only trims off a few thousand words at most. It is still going to end up being around 200k words. All I can hope for is that my writing is impressive enough for an agent to work with such a long novel. My only saving grace is that it's in a genre where high word counts are more likely to be accepted (fantasy).

I apparently need to change my query's wording in a few places, in order to avoid giving the wrong impression. For example, with the term 'Merchant Lord', you focused on the word 'merchant' and not the word 'lord'. This whittled an important political figure down to the status of a cheese merchant. Perhaps I'll just cut the word 'merchant' out altogether. Also, while Jak is ten when the book starts (and when he kills the merchant lord), he's thirteen by the end of the novel. Should I describe him as a thirteen-year-old, so that it's not mistaken for a children's book, or leave out the age altogether?

As for the lack of crucial information, this version of my query actually has a lot MORE information than previous attempts! Jak's primary goal is to avenge his mother, but his efforts to do so put him in the position where he is forced to 'save the world'. Squeezing in the entire political situation in a few paragraphs is difficult, but I'll do my best to provide more pertinent information.

Thank you for the critique, and I'll set to work making a more attractive query.

P.S. The dagger's voice is akin to telepathy: the wielder hears it in his head. Is such a detail really THAT crucial for a query?

You could tighten the editing. For instance, consider the number 209,500: two hundred nine thousand, five hundred. Six words. 200,000 makes the point with only three.

I can't do as you suggested and chop this into two or three books. There is not any olid 'resolution' until the end of the book

How about he finds and kills his father's murderer in book 1 and finds and kills his mother's killer in book 2? Or is the latter already the sequel?

I apparently need to change my query's wording in a few places, in order to avoid giving the wrong impression. For example, with the term 'Merchant Lord', you focused on the word 'merchant' and not the word 'lord'. This whittled an important political figure down to the status of a cheese merchant.

What I focus on is what will get laughs (which, apparently, don't come as easily to the author of the query). What you want the agent to focus on is "important political figure." Important enough for two empires to go to war when a kid kills him.

Also, while Jak is ten when the book starts (and when he kills the merchant lord), he's thirteen by the end of the novel. Should I describe him as a thirteen-year-old, so that it's not mistaken for a children's book, or leave out the age altogether?

Neither is a good idea. I assume there are reasons your character seeks revenge on murderers at his tender age(s)? Inigo Montoya's father was killed when he was a kid, but he's an adult when he seeks revenge.

P.S. The dagger's voice is akin to telepathy: the wielder hears it in his head. Is such a detail really THAT crucial for a query?

It's not clear that the dagger itself is crucial, much less how it communicates. But if it's to be mentioned at all, I think a dagger capable of commuicating with the person who wields it sounds more adult and more intriguing than a talking dagger that wants to be friends. So if you don't want it to sound like a kid's book...

Do wait till you receive other comments before taking action. Sometimes people disagree with EE, or manage to make the same points less abrasively.

chro,
I sympathize, as I'm sure we all do, with the whole dilemma of what to put in the query and what to leave out. One thing I am unclear on here is WHY the book is 200k-plus words with no resolution until the end. There doesn't seem to be enough plot described here to warrant that length. I know it's tough explaining a political situation in a few sentences, but try -- that might help convey the book's complexity. It might also help if you can tell us briefly how Jak changes over those three years.
(and oh yeah, if you mention that the novel spans three years, that would clarify the age while also helping us understand why it's so long.)
-mb

Ooo, number 6: Angst-ridden werewolves and bearded zombies - yes!

Talking dagger? My first thought was Knight Rider and then my thoughts turned to the Evil Twin episode. ;-)


In Jak's world, justice is more a means to control than a means to protect, so he takes matters into his own hands.

Like EE said, justice is controlling the bad guys, right? So why would Jak then have to take matters into his own hands if justice is going to take care of the bad ones anyway?

A war spanning a continent is going to be secret - I don't understand that. How can something spanning land that big be kept a secret? Ghosts? I can get the parts where two different empires want to do two different bad things to him, but I just can't buy a war that spread out as being kept secret.

Fourth paragraph - You may need to briefly let us know that Jak is captured or whatever before starting off the para that way, because it sure jarred. Something as simple as

"Jak is captured by Evil Empire 1. But to regain his freedom, he needs to escape a spy ring, an enslavement spell, and the walking dead of his past." Something like that. (I think you can drop "ghosts of his past" and just use "walking dead of his past," as "ghosts" is cliche.)

200+ words from a first-time author? There must be a way you can cut this down. I don't know of any agents that look at anything above 110,000 words or so. Have you had this critted? Sometimes we fall in love with our words (I'm guilty as charged), and it's hard to cut. But I have to tell you, it's not going to be an easy sell for 1 book. It's economics, too. You might want to reconsider EE's advice to cut it into different books.

Tolkien originally wanted LOTR to be one big, fat book, but one of the reasons the publisher said no was because of the printing costs; the other was the cost to the average book buyer.

Good luck, but please carefully consider EE's suggestions.

EE - Sorry if I came off as someone lacking a sense of humor. I understand that many of your comments are only 'poking fun' and not indicative of serious problems. I'm less concerned with you using the term 'cheese merchant' and more concerned with you having to ask yourself, 'Why is this merchant lord so important?' because an agent will ask the same thing.

And yes, there are a number reasons why he's so young. His age actually saves him a number of times (it's easy to underestimate or feel sorry for a kid, even if he's your enemy.)

And I don't think the finding and killing of his father's murderer could be it's own book, since he (*clears throat*) kills him within the first ten pages. The book then goes back and shows the events leading up to the murder, but even that only takes up fifty pages or so.

In response to the anonymous poster, yes I am struggling to get it below 200k words. If nothing else, it's the old retail trick of $19.99 looking so much smaller than $20.00. ;)

I'm disappointed about the dagger. With EE's visual aid, I was picturing a wisecracking vaudevillian spewing terrible puns all over the place. ("Lemme get right to the point." "If I may be blunt--no, not really!" etc...) I figured that's why its prior owner committed suicide.

And I'm sorry, but you're rationalizing excuses for the book's length. There's no way your 200K couldn't be split up, or told in 120K. You're just making it harder to sell at 200K.

So after looking over these comments, I've written up an alternate description of the book, as shown below. Of course, this description would probably make the reader MORE likely to tell me to split it up into multiple books, even when that really is impossible. It also gets rather.. 'listy' at the end. I'd appreciate it if you all could tell me if it answers more questions and yet peaks more interest:

All Jak wants is to make both his parents proud -- easier said than done when his father is a heartless, cynical thief but his mother is a bright-eyed priestess to a benevolent goddess. Even harder when, under completely separate circumstances, both of his parents are murdered.

The murderers are not criminals, but nobles and enforcers of the law, so Jak must take matters into his own hands. But in his pursuit to avenge his parents, he inadvertently steals a powerful artifact, and in doing so thrusts himself into the center of a race for power between two empires. Jak learns that killing one man can unravel a web of secrets, and making friends with the wrong person can target you for enslavement or even death. He also learns that with enough wits and determination, a mere boy can change the fate of the world.

But to survive his three-year journey, he must infiltrate a thieves guild, fight the walking dead, rescue the falsely accused and the enslaved, and keep a deadly artifact out of the hands of those who would use it to start a war. To keep his freedom, he must escape a network of spies, a spell of servitude, and fears that torment him. To succeed, he must rely on a tomb-robber with a fistful of secrets, a sentient dagger with a fear of abandonment, and a goddess that for some reason saved his life but couldn't save his mother's. Above all, to make his parents proud, he must bring their murderers to justice, all while striving to make the world a better place.

It's better, but you're right, it's too listy at the end. Just finish something like:

To survive his three-year journey, Jak must infiltrate a thieves guild, fight the walking dead, rescue the falsely accused, and guard the artifact. Allied with a tomb-robber, a sentient dagger, and a goddess, Jak strives to make his parents proud by bringing their murderers to justice while preventing a catastrophic war.

EE, I just thought I'd point out a standard fantasy element that seems to trip you up in these fantasy queries. (If you point it out just for laughs, then feel free to keep doing it.) In fantasy, gods are rarely all-seeing or all-knowing. This benevolent goddess might not even realize her priestess is in danger until the poor gal is dead. Also, it's rare in fantasy that a god or goddess will personally throw a thunderbolt to zap a mortal because they are too busy fighting other gods, they have an intra-god pact not to meddle with mortals directly, or whatever. Some gods meddle more in human affairs (whether allowed to or not), but generally they tend to hide what they're doing. Most gods tend to chose heroes to do their dirty work on the mortal realm. So what good is a fantasy god? Well, they might give their chosen hero special powers/abilities, magical weapons or armor, or that missing bit of information that they need to succeed.

So the reason the goddess doesn't intervene should be covered in the book. However, I'm guessing it's probably not that critical for a query. Telepathic talking swords and daggers are also somewhat common in fantasy, so probably don't need an explanation in the query.

However, Author, as EE points out, this does sound like a YA book (dagger wants to be friends, kid's age--even at thirteen). Some re-wording might be in order.

Thirteen is still young enough for it to be a kids' book. You may want to touch on what makes it not a kids' book; Ender's Game has a complex philosophical and moral element, for example, and Lord of the Flies includes deep imagery and a troubling insight into society. Young protagonists, adult situations.

If you're serious about cutting down the length, here's something to think about. I've found that my favorite books have plots where everything that happens comes around to impact the ending. (My best example of that is Holes. Holy crap, is that book well thought out.) You list a lot of misadventures for Jak: a thieves' guild, the walking dead, rescuing people, escaping a network of spies, a spell of servitude, and presumably some tomb-robbing, goddess-schmoozing, and good old stabbity with the talking dagger. Is every one of those incidents vital to the ending? Is there anywhere you can combine causes to create the same effect? Are there events that only affect the NEXT event? If so, you can draw a shorter line between A and C and delete B entirely. For a quicker, more visual example of how to do this, try watching the LotR or Harry Potter movies to see how they connected their plot points without having to go through everything in the book. In that respect, OotP really impressed me.

My sister got me the Aladdin DVD for my last birthday. One of the making-of extras pointed out that during story development, Aladdin's mother was a prominent character. It blew me away. "Gosh," I thought, "I hope someday I have the nerve to edit out entire characters." If you're trying to drop 100,000 words, maybe it's time to have a stiff drink and really do something drastic.

Hi chro,

I thought this sounded interesting-
"The dagger's voice is akin to telepathy: the wielder hears it in his head."

I don't have any advice about the length issue- but it seems to me that 150's comments:

"One of the making-of extras pointed out that during story development, Aladdin's mother was a prominent character. It blew me away. "Gosh," I thought, "I hope someday I have the nerve to edit out entire characters." If you're trying to drop 100,000 words, maybe it's time to have a stiff drink and really do something drastic" might be a good idea to think about.

I'm frankly impressed that you've written this extensively for a first novel. I guess now it's time for the editing part.

Best of luck to you.

EE, talking daggers are nothing. It's the weredaggers you've got to watch out for. --Bill Highsmith

Damn, I've been one-upped. The dagger in my story only blinks an eye.

Author, kudos on the perseverance to write 200K plus novel. But I have to agree with all of the other comments that it's going to be a tough sell. I'm no expert, but alot of these folks have some wisdom so they bear listening to.

I think your insistence that it can't be cut in two or edited to half is close-minded. I understand. I think we all get that way with our work. I urge you to open your mind to the idea of editing harshly. You might have to remove some plot elements, and it will basically require a rewrite. But if you love the idea of the story and you really want to sell it, listen to what the people here are suggesting.

My thoughts on the story itself is it sounds pretty complicated for such a young audience. You might consider making the protag older, maybe late teens going into twenty. YA isn't my genre, but 10-13 sounds awfully young to be wielding a knife for revenge. Maybe in fantasy that's okay, I don't know.

I'm sure you don't like reading these types of comments, but if you want honesty, there you have it. And on a positive note, no one cracked on you for your writing, which was just fine in the query.

I wanted to go where Blogless was heading (all those dagger jokes) but now the author seems too nice.

I don't know much about this genre. But everyone is telling you to cut it. You have to get your mind around that and try. I think you can cut sub-plots (he must infiltrate a thieves guild, fight the walking dead.) That's better than chopping your book into two parts down the middle.

Anyway, good luck. You've put a lot of hard work into this. Don't sabatoge yourself by ignoring good advice here.

Cheers.

*makes a copy of his BotF.doc file*
*renames file 'BotF Surgery.doc'*
*deletes two scenes*
*adjusts all the 'threads' connected to those scenes so everything still works*
*checks word count*

204,104

*sighs*

This is gonna take a while.

Forgot to say, EE - love your talkin' dagger picture.

Yeah, try cutting subplots. In the fantasy realm, they tend to proliferate like zombies. You can ice the best ones and keep 'em for sequels.

chro, somehow you remind me of a young author I met when I was fairly new to the game myself, who came to my then agent with a ms. well over 250,000 words. My agent called me because I teach and edit, too, and we sat down with this very talented person and explained why the ms., as written, had roughly 50,000 words of story buried in all that verbiage.

That author went on to become extremely successful. Still writes absolutely massive books that have to be gone through with loppers and a machete by a devoted and hardworking editor--that's the kind of writer they are. They put it ALL in, every detail, down to the number of gestures required to walk into an elevator, press the button for the floor, wait for the door to close...

They made it into print in a much less crowded era, and have staked out strong territory in the giant-fantasy-epic genre. It is now much, much harder to do this. Better to learn to write tight--you can loosen up later when you're a Fantasy Star.

Look at your ms. Pick a paragraph. How much detail do you include? Can you prune it all down to a single, salient one?

Next step up: Pick a chapter. List the scenes. Look at the arc they form. Do they repeat themselves? Do they repeat other chapters? Can you pick ONE that does it all, and focus on that?

Ask yourself if your characters do a lot of daily-izing, i.e. mundane activities that can be left to the imagination. Same goes for dialogue--is there a lot of filler of the "hello, how are you, I'm fine, thanks" variety? Get rid of all of that. Just keep the absolutely essential bits.

There's a lot more to the art of hacking out the underbrush, but this is a start. It's good for the craft, and good for the book.

Now will someone please write GTP #1? I want to read it!

Cutting is not easy. Reducing your own words is very hard. But there's good advice in these posts as to how to start.

Ask yourself - what do I want this scene to say to the reader? What's the purpose of this character's dialog or monolog? Is this scene transitional? Do I need the transition? Do I need it as a bridge to the next scene or from the previous?
Am I telling the story twice? that is, do my characters say what they are going to do and then do I write the scene?

Before retirement, I used to have to collect and do one-page writeups for publicity. Since I was an engineer, I understood the science that and I understood that the audience for the one-page was the average person. PHD and boss types used to deliver 1000 technical words where 500 plain would suffice. Telling anyone to cut half the words was egotistically hazardous to their mental superiority.

It ain't pretty. it ain't easy.

Take 1000 words and make that portion work with only 500 words. Stare at the words sentence by sentence and say to yourself -- I can say the same thing just as eloquently in fewer words.

This is not a simple replace two words with one word. Nor is it just taking out the excess words. It's the hard stuff of rewriting to half the length, of telling the story with less words, of cutting backstory, of cutting out un-needed facts and details, of describing only what is essential in a scene, building character or arc.

I want to say something else about editing for length in a general comment.

Over on Neil Gaiman's website, a lady asked him what he thought of JK Rowling's revelation of Dumbledore being gay.

Part of his answer was that not everything must be revealed in any book. Good authors know so much more about their characters than the facts that are essential to the story. Most details never make it into the story because they have no relevance to the story. BUT, they are highly useful to the author who has to speak in the words of his/her character.

That's a place that editing for length can begin.

Sometimes less story is just as good as more story.

From the agent blogs I've read, 150k is the maximum they'll consider representing in Fantasy. Of course, there are always exceptions--looks meaningfully at "Jonathan Strange"--but cutting it at least that far would probably improve its chances.

I'm pretty sure it can be cut--if you make your mind up to it :).

Jonathan Strange is a great example to look at, to see how to earn exception from the length rule. It is undoubtably a story about adults, for adults. It has qualities that work in several proven markets: romance, humor, drama. The magic is restrained. The characters are human. The prose is tightly edited. The plot has a unified arc consisting of interwoven threads [each with its own arc] that are built of multiple episodes which each has its own beginning middle end. The parts are great, the whole is even better. Excerpts had been published in lit mags prior to the book. Additional excerpts excised from the book have subsequently been published in lit mags and in a collection of shorts. Film rights looked so good, they were sold prior to publication.

I'm guessing the adult market for a story about a vengeful boy and his talking knife is not huge these days and if the manuscript = 210,000 loosely edited words no agent will feel they can afford to spend the time.

Thank you all for the suggestions, particularly those who offered specific methods on how to trim prose, like dave f and dancinghorse. I find these suggestions much more helpful than, "I refuse to believe you can't cut it into two books." :P

Although this book has gone through extensive editing already, I'm doing what I can to trim the manuscript. I don't expect to get it down to 100k words, but I'll see how far I can get. I'm going to go with the initial goal of getting it below 200k, then perhaps down to 180k, etc.

One thing I've noticed is that I really need to pitch this as an adult book. It's not meant for children (too much violence, and things like rape are alluded to), but some of my wording inadvertantly presented it as such (talking dagger, story about childhood, etc.) I'll change this, so that an agent doesn't say, "What is this, a 200k word YOUNG ADULT novel? Hell no!"

The protagonist is going to be young, yes, but there are books out there with adult themes which have children as main characters. I'm reading a book right now where the protagonist is young (15), and it's meant for adults. I've read books where all of the main characters were under 13, and yet the text contained scenes that would traumatize any tween for life. Frankly, Jak has so many adult-themed things happen to him, his childhood is more or less destroyed. This won't be like Harry Potter where evil is defeated by the power of love. This is a story of pain, grief, slavery, conflict, and murder. Just because the main character is a child doesn't mean the story is childish.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to doing some word surgery.

Hey chro, now I'm getting interested. Would you consider posting the first few pages on the Crapometer? Or if you want to send me the first twenty or thirty pages, I'll give it a quick look-over for things that might be bogging down your prose. I could also give you my impressions of what age level it would suit. Let me know!

Chro,

Have you taken any time between drafts? Because it sounds like you're still way too close to this novel. Some very wise friends suggested I do the following before revising my novel (which was a whopping 400+ pages):

--Set it aside for at least a month. Preferably six.
--Before picking it up, list all the key scenes that are in the book from memory.
--Cut everything that doesn't have anything to do with those scenes.

It worked. Beautifully. And don't just delete the bits you cut. There may be some great writing there. Put them in a folder for possible future use.

Listen to the advise that not everything you know about the character, the world, etc. needs to be in the book. You as the author need to know as much as possible about the world you're writing. The reader doesn't.

Leave it be a while. You'll come back with a fresh eye and a lot less emotion about it.

Can't offer useful suggestions without seeing the thing. Guess I lack the psychic powers of the other minions ;).

150 - I didn't realize the crapometer still existed. I was not around when Miss Snark was still active. Or is this something different? I'll post the first 7 pages or so if that would help you get a feel. If you want the first 20-30 pages, I'll need an email of some sort. ;)

Debbie - Yes, I have put time between drafts. But lately, in an urge to get this done, I've been working harder on it, trying to get out all the kinks. As for figuring out which scenes weren't key, I did that last night, and got rid of two. The rest of the scenes connect to the main plot in at least five different ways, so unraveling them will be more difficult. :P

Chro,

It's a different crapometer:

http://crapometer.blogspot.com

I always call it Elektra's Crapometer because of the Miss Snark thingy (even though I know Miss Snark isn't blogging anymore ::sniff::).

Good luck.

~Nancy
http://writerlystuff.blogspot.com

I'm at 150words at gmail dot com.

Thought I replied earlier, but I guess not....

Word ver: Keyth. I swear I saw that name in a book once

All right, I've done some major editing to both the book and the query. The new query is as follows, if I could get any input from the peanut gallery with flamethro-- I mean, from the inspired readers with wonderfully helpful critiques. ;)

-----------------------

Dear [Agent],

I come to you seeking representation for my fantasy adventure novel, BLADES OF THE FALLEN. Complete at 179,000 words, it a tale of broken childhoods, past sins, and living for lost loved ones.

Jak, a ten-year-old boy, is the only survivor of a shipwreck off the rocky shores of Carwyt. When a compassionate priestess takes pity on him and brings him to her temple, she has no idea she is harboring a thief and murderer.

In his new home, Jak seeks solace from his nightmares and atonement for his sins. But even in a sanctuary, peace is temporary. Years later, when the temple is destroyed and his adoptive mother murdered, Jak seeks vengeance for the second time in his life -- with unexpected consequences. By killing one man, he unravels a web of incriminating secrets. By accidentally stealing a magical artifact, he thrusts himself into the center of a race for power between two empires. Even his choice of friends targets him for enslavement in one case, death in another.

To survive his journey, Jak must infiltrate a thieves’ guild, fight the walking dead, escape a network of spies, and challenge an organization that crushes freedoms under a guise of security and benevolence. Through it all, he must rely on the sinful skills his father taught him, while adhering to his mother's moral values. Aided only by a tomb-robber, a sentient dagger, and the blessings of his mother's goddess, he strives to make his parents proud, both by bringing their murderers to justice, and by preventing a catastrophic war. In the end, he finds that his most powerful weapon is not his wits or his father's blade -- but what little remains of his shattered innocence.

I have enclosed the first six pages of my book as an example of my writing, and a SASE if you wish to request a copy or partial copy of the manuscript. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I eagerly await your response.

IMO, your weakest point is the length of the novel. Lead with the story and stick the word count at the end. Otherwise the editor/agent who reads this is likely to stop at 175,000 and toss off an auto reject.

I’m getting confused with the adoptive mother and the priestess. Are they one and the same? Where did Dad come from? Is the priestess married or is it his biological dad?

When you say – “adhering to his mother's moral values” – I’m not sure who you’re talking about.

“unravels a web of incriminating secrets” I need more here or perhaps a different way of saying it as I don’t know what this means or what consequences are being hinted at here.

It’s hard to accidentally steal something as the act of stealing generally implies intent. Was the accident that it was magical or that he stole it?

“To survive his journey” What journey?

If he’s already killed someone in the second paragraph, how is he adhering to his mom’s moral values?

Is the artifact the dagger?

Here’s my stab at it:

Jak, the ten-year-old sole survivor of a shipwreck, seeks solace from his nightmares and atonement for his sins in the temple of his adoptive mother’s goddess.

Seven years later, when the temple is destroyed and his adoptive mother murdered, Jak seeks vengeance for the second time in his life -- with unexpected consequences. Killing one man unravels a web of incriminating secrets which does something bad. Jak steals what turns out to be the magical dagger at the center of a race for power between two empires. Even his choice of friends targets him for enslavement in one case and death in another.

To survive, Jak must infiltrate a thieves’ guild, fight the walking dead, escape a network of spies, and challenge an organization that crushes freedom under the guise of security and benevolence. He relies on the knife skills his father had taught him, while trying to adhere to his adoptive mother's moral values. Aided by a tomb-robber, the sentient dagger, and the blessings of his mother's goddess, he strives to make his parents proud by bringing their murderers to justice and by preventing a catastrophic war. He finds that his most powerful weapon is not his wits or his father's blade -- but what little remains of his shattered innocence.

Sarah - I'll try to make the identities of Jak's parents more clear, thanks. I'll take your other comments into consideration too.

Actually, he does accidentally steal the artifact -- because he accidentally uses it in order to escape. Just imagine if you push a red button on a time machine, and go back 1000 years. You 'accidentally stole' the machine. ;)

The problem with Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic series is that now, every time someone writes about the Dream King, or a female Death, I cannot help but think of Morpheus and his sister. And then I wind up on THEIR side.

EE is usually right, but the specific bit he's right about this time is the vulnerabilities of the gods. It can be deftly handled, the ways of hurting and killing gods, but from this letter, they just seem...wishy washy.

(Begin Rude Generalization) These days, if you tell a 16-year-old that he's to destroy the King of Dreams, he would go "ZOMG!" and talk about how he feels about that on his MySpace page, unto death. (End Rude Generalization).

Yes with the word count, etc.
Think this story has considerable promise though.

OK- which one or two books in the epic fantasy genre should I read, so I know both:

1- what to expect
and
2- what is expected

in them?

How about Neil Gaiman (and which one) plus one other book - I don't have a lot of extra time - so they can't be large tomes.

I need primers, please.

Author- good luck with your work.

EE- "potentate of hallucinate" was a really good one.

I like the idea of "Mother" Death and that a 16 y/o is eloquent enough to stay Death's hand. Obviously, death comes to all, but is Rogund's reprieve only until he complete's his vengeance {?} or for all time?

And I like the dual prophecy - two men have been told that they must face the King of Dreams (who for some reason is only dreaming nightmares). Prophecy is a tricky thing.

I think that the peril is the conquest of the world by incarnate nightmares. Rogund's quest is that he must defeat the King of Dreams when the nightmares threaten the country or else the world will sink into one big long nightmare, never to wake again. That unifies two elements of your story.

I see the outlanders and Prince Dirna-Irsul (reminds me of Dinah Shore planting a big kiss... sorry, I got carried away) as a complication. They raid Rogund's village and kill him and his family but Mother Death permits Rogund to avenge their deaths and fulfill the prophecy.Now we ahve all three elements together.

So begin your query something like this:
When nightmarish wolf-men on skeletal horses come to devour Rogund's dreams, he knows that the time of the prophecy has arrived and he must journey to the City of the Gods and defeat the King of Dreams.

Then you can introduce the Prince.

Something like:
Rogund's journey is cut short when he and his family are slaughtered by outlander Prince DIno Irsul. Rogund begs Mother Death for time to revenge his family's death and complete the prophecy. When Death agrees, Rogund pursues Prince Irsul to the City of Dreams where both men must join together to defeat the King of Dreams.

I couldn't quite fit the revenge conflict into those words. You can do that.
And does Rogund die at the end?
Does Prince Irsul die for his crime?
Does the King of Dreams discover the bluebird of happiness and start dreaming happy things? Like instead of Godzilla on Hate Pills, Beany and Cecil on valium?

The trouble with recommending one or two epic fantasy books is that they're all series. If it's any good, more books are written set in the same world. LOTR was intended to be one book; the movies were true to the books.

The Mists of Avalon tells the King Arthur stories from the women's viewpoint.

Perhaps you've already read Homer's Odyssey?

For a stand-alone book that's not long, try Nobody's Son by Sean Stewart. It was written for YA's, but it has some clever features you'll appreciate more than they would.

Basically, what you should expect is an average person meeting a challenge that's epic in scope in world where fantastical and magical stuff exists.

My favorite Neil G. is Neverwhere, and it's not too long. I wouldn't call it epic fantasy.

Robin, what you need is Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.

I read the Mists of Avalon, but it's been a while. I'd have thought the Arthurian legend epic was almost a separate genre - even though epic and fantasy. But I see what you mean.

Yes also on The Odyssey - I read it in college.

I can't tell, when reading eipc fantasy queries that you receive, what is or isn't a good/overdone/expected/interesting plot line.

I'll check out the website, buffy- and order the two books you mentioned - the Gaiman book (even if not epic fantasy) and the
Sean Stewart book.

Thanks, EE and buffy.

I think that whether you're writing fantasy or not, EVERYONE should Diana Wynne Jones' book. What a wonderful book. (Just like all her other stuff, for that matter.)

I really liked this. The book sounds interesting and the query is well written.

One thing I might clarify is the usage of the term "nightmares." Initially it sounds like you are referring to nightmares in their traditional sense, i.e. bad dreams, and at other points it sounds like the nightmares are corporeal beings, but it's not always clear (to me, anyway) which is which. When you say that nightmares swarm through the Prince's homeland, is this referring to a plague of bad dreams which consume the "sleep energies" of men/gods while they are dreaming? Or are the nightmares physical beings who are literally eating people? Later, when you refer to the equestrian wolf-men, are they nightmares? The way it was phrased, I wasn't sure of the relationship between the two.

Maybe these things were clear to everyone but me, but I was a little confused.

Overall, though, good job.

If you're really interested in reading an epic fantasy, I could send you my teenage diary. It has all the key elements, and scratch 'n' sniff.

Just let me know.

Rogaine with a flowing mane! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

OMG EE, you totally made me forget my comment! And I liked this query and had a good comment too!

ee -- I like the rogaine poem. :) Maybe I'll work it into my draft somewhere ;) (joke!) As for the gods being wishy-washy, I'd like more advice on how to address this in the query letter. The gods in my book are very much in the Greek an Norse tradition. Powerful, petty, and terrifying -- but they can be killed by each other and -- very rarely -- by men. Any tips on getting this across in a query letter hook?

pete - I think I should write the story about the myspace page hero next ;)

bernita - All I can say is that I was too new to the site when I sent it in, and realized my mistake almost immediatetly. When I submitted, I felt that I could handle the formulaic parts of the query letter, and that the "hook" was the part that needed the most polishing. I have no particularly impressive credits, so the rest is very short. I've included the odds and ends below, for perusal:

Opening: "'The Third War of Gods' is a 100,000 fantasy novel about the fragility of gods and men."

Closing: "Enclosed is an SASE for your repsonse. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, (me)"

robin s - thanks! I reccommend George RR Martin's "A Game of Thrones". It's the first in a series, but it will give you a taste of the genren.

dave f - Very useful feedback, thanks! I'll be digesting that for a while, so I can write the next (and hopefully better!) draft. Good questions, too. I hesitate to answer them, because ending also hinges on three other characters that won't fit into the hook -- and I'd have to explain all of them, too.

lightsmith -- good question. The nightmares are real beings, that come in as many forms as you can dream them. The wolf-men are just one aspect.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Powerful, petty, and terrifying -- but they can be killed by each other and -- very rarely -- by men. Any tips on getting this across in a query letter hook?

I think you got their vulnerability across. We only cal them wimpy because there aren't a lot of gods getting killed in the mythology we've read. Perhaps if you mention what it takes to kill a god, we'll see that it's a big challenge for Rogaine, and not just a matter of throwing a bucket of water on him.

Potentate of Hallucinate! Bwaaaahahahahahahaha!

Robin S. - I 3rd or 4th or whatever Neil G's Neverwhere. I've only read other of his (American Gods) and didn't care for it.

Definitely not epic fantasy, but it could be called either urban or dark fantasy.

Dave - I think you hit it spot on about the dual prophecy. Reminds me of the dual prophecy in The Belgariad, which is also epic fantasy. Except it's got plenty of humor, and one of the most fun characters, Silk.

If you have time, Robin S., you might consider picking up that series (yeah, it's 5 books, which will probably put a crimp in your time).

~jerseygirl

Shouldn't it be vizier of vision?

~jerseygirl

I'm with EE that this needs a lot of editing. Watch long phrases that mean nothing - "Such a time passes as when he becomes ...". Examine your word choices. Detriment is a low-emotion word. Would you call your mother murdering your fiance a detriment? Be more exact - e.g., you can't drink yourself into a stupor for an extended period of time because as soon as you're in a stupor you stop drinking.

It's also not clear that the Queen murdered the fiance. You only say she "had taken with her his fiance". Until I read EE's comments, I thought she'd taken her to some physical place, like a vacation home.

Well, technically, you can drink yourself into a stupor for an extended period of time if you have a high enough tolerance - say, that of an Irish barman.

It's all about building tolerance, man.

I knew a barman once, of Irish extraction and proud of it, who kept himself in an extended stupor for a very extended period of time.
It happens.

Anyway... I like your title author.

10 sentences? Easy number to remember, not quite so easy to engineer.
Best wishes

When he invited the blonde beauty to join him at camp, I didn't think he intended to marry her. No, that sentence created a completely different impression....

What anonymous 12:07 said.

I kept tripping over the unlikely names. The hero is Graham Sullivan--modern sounding, reminds me of that fair housing ad, "Hello, my name is Graham Wellington"--but then come Sarsuto, Nincha, Glendja, Natalia (is her first name Jen?), and someplace called Boulvaria, everything ending in vowels. Maybe you could drop Graham's first name, and lop the 'n' off his last name. Then he'd be Sulliva, which would fit in better with the others.

Sorry, author, but by the time my eyes hit the 3rd or 4th paragraph, they glazed over.

"Offered his services..." Graham was a gigolo? ;-)

I was completely confused by this query, and I agree with EE that this is way too long. Start with one sentence that sums up your story (I know, easy said than done), then gradually add to that. At least you might be able to get rid of the minor stuff and concentrate on the major stuff.

Good luck with it!

~jerseygirl

I'd also like to see a little more worldbuilding in the query. For example, what's the role of magic in your land? It's mentioned once, in a fairly major way (the memory-wiping spell), and then never again. I suspect it's more organically handled in the novel itself.

Just something else to think about during the re-writes.

Cheers.

That's a lot of story. I think EE's summation makes it sound very interesting.

I have more questions than comments though.

Why is Brandywine a squire if he has no interest in knightly things? I thought they became squires to learn how to be knights.

The king (seal-wolf!) chooses his seneschal over a prince? That loses him the chance to align with another country. And what country is Dioneo prince of? Why isn't the king wanting to align with Dioneo's country? This almost sounds like the king and the prince are in the same country which would make them father and son. It sounds like Dioneo is wanting to marry his sister.

Brandywine decides to risk life and limb because of other people's opinions? He doesn't seem the sort to worry what other people think, especially not to this extent.

If Brandywine is such a good friend of Dioneo, why is he shtooping Dioneo's intended? This makes him seem even less likely to throw caution to the wind and go on a dangerous quest.

Is there an army or not? I can't tell. It seems like there is, but then it also seems like it really is the storm that kills almost everyone and leaves survivors with false memories of an army.

And this storm also moves mountains? Wow. Does it leave false memories when it does that?

So Birrstan is already under the influence of the storm before he leaves the castle to go do battle?

If the storm has reached the castle, why does it wait for the people to go do battle before it kills the ones it wants to kill?

Are all the things that Brandywine must do necessary to defeat the storm? Seems like a very tall order and like some would be unnecessary once others are done. If the storm is destroyed, what does it matter who set it free? Unless there's another one waiting to be unleashed.


You really seem to have one heck of a story here, but the query opens up a host of logic issues.

Good Luck!!
Sarah

At first I thought this was a "Falstaff" type story and that we were going to see how Prince Dioneo grew up and either took or left Brandywine behind.

Then I thought that this was Prince Dioneo's story because he (although a reprobate) eventually reforms and gets Princess Ettarre. Apparently, Princie Dioneo can marry Princess Ettarre and not the son of King Ceolwulph. But she's the daughter of Ceolwulph. That's important.

And I'm confused about which kingdom this is? Is it the mountain one where the water dried up or the neighboring kingdom which never felt the earthquake. BTW usually water wells go dry after an earthquake because the water table changes. Streams seldom dry up because they are fed from rainwater.

Birrstan is the equivalent of the Prince of Wales (heir to the throne) and not the Prince Consort? Why wouldn't Ettarre be the heir?

And then we hit the Loathly Lady and I think that she is Papagena and Dioneo is Papageno. Or is Brandywine Papageno? That makes Dioneo into Tamino.

The story is about visiting Prince Dioneo and his squire Brandywine as they discover a kingdom in the midst of magical war with faceless barbarians and headed to defeat. That's what I think is happening.
And because of Dioneo's love of Princess Ettarre, Dioneo and Brandywine seek a solution to the war and the salvation of the country to gain Ettarre as his bride.

BTW - These names are killing me but that's unimportant. They are your characters.

And to EE's minions - I changed the name that appears on my blogs ever so slightly.

At about two-thirds of my way through the synopsis, I had completely forgotten about the loathy lady. I gave up there and jumped to Master Evil's summary so that I find out what the story was about, and there she was.

Why do all of the names sound like they're derived from different languages? Ettarre sounds vaguely French. Dioneo sounds Italian. Gwnhyudwy sounds Welsh (as EE pointed out). And Dagâ Dainâ sounds like it's from Star Wars.

Unless this is a country of immigrants, wouldn't the names be more linguistically uniform?

Squires started their training very young. It's unlikely Brandywine had much choice in the matter.

I found this hard to follow, and after a while I gave up trying. Does Brandywine have any redeeming features to keep the reader reading? Okay, THIS reader reading :D.

I snorted so hard I spewed circumflexes all over my keyboard :)

Dioneo is a mispelling of Dio Mio because when he was born, the doctor slapped him on the butt and said Dio Mio what a man this baby will be. Look at the pisser on that kid!

Thank you for your comments, EE.

I put the circumflex accents in to prevent the EE from discovering Daga Daina was an anagram for "Dada again".

Amend: Improve, better.
Mend: Correct, rectify, repair.
But I understand that if it looks like an error, it might as well be.

Thank you again, sir. I shall look towards improving my focus.

Sara:
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. They are much appreciated.

Why is Brandywine a squire
This is a detail explained in the book, but I didn't include in effort to budget an already long query.

Brandywine was forced by his father to serve a superior knight in an attempt to improve his character (perhaps a Medieval version of military school?). BW accepted the situation because the alternative was either vagrancy or learning a trade.

The king chooses his seneschal over a prince?
Dioneo's title is purchased. His family is extremely wealthy. Another detail explained in the story. Perhaps for the purposes of the query, I should use "courtier" rather than "prince?"

Brandywine decides to risk life and limb because of other people's opinions?
An event occurs very early in the book that humiliates him publicly and makes him realize that his behaviors have ranked him as a fool in the court, humiliated his master and the memory of his family, and threatened the planned marriage of Dioneo and Ettarre. He decides to (a)mend his ways.

The arc of the story is his growth from grown-up child to true knight.

why is he shtooping Dioneo's intended?
Because he's an immature a-hole. Breaking it off with her is one of his first steps towards improvement.

Is there an army or not?
No.

This question and all of your remaining comments seem to pertain to my lack of clarity on the nature of the storm and the source of the mayhem.

"Storm" is probably a bad word for me to have used, as it is only visible to those sensitive to magic. A wizard witnessing its approach describes it as a "storm," and I guess the word got stuck in my head.

I've tried a couple times to address the rest of your specific comments, but I just end up going into lengthy descriptions that pretty much amount to a synopsis, so I back off on them.

I think my difficulties to answer them just go to show that my query isn't addressing the right parts of my plot.

Thank you again for your comments. :)

Amend: Improve, better.
Mend: Correct, rectify, repair.

I wasn't claiming you didn't know the meaning of amend. "Mend his ways" is a common expression. If you Google it, you'll find most of the hits contain the exact phrase. If you Google amend his ways, most hits will include those three words, but not consecutively. You get stuff like He will amend the bill his committee sent to the Ways and Means committee. Taken literally, either form is extremely vague. But because we all know what "mend his ways" means, it's less vague, at least in my opinion.

This sounds like an interesting story, but it doesn't sound at all like a story whose title would be "The Loathly Lady"

From the title I'd think this was either a book about a boat (The LL) or a Regency romance with the LL as the main character.

It would be really annoying to find out that an agent or editor had passed on the manuscript because they thought it was a totally different kind of book. You might want to think about choosing something that more closely reflects the kind of story you're telling.

Ooooh- love this- " King Ceolwulph [who, every full moon, morphs into a wolfman who can balance a beach ball on its nose]"

and this -
"[It's almost always a mistake to go into battle against an enemy that is invisible and unstoppable.]"

I love laughing out loud.

And I think GTP 2 would be a really good plot.

Hi Author- There was, as has been said, a lot of information to take in. Good luck with distilling it down - I know that's a tough thing to do.

Witchember,
when you say - "I've tried a couple times to address the rest of your specific comments, but I just end up going into lengthy descriptions that pretty much amount to a synopsis, so I back off on them."

Might I suggest that you write out those answers for yourself and then step away from them and look to see if there is a simple way to say what you wanted to say. A one sentence way.
I find that sometimes when I try to answer the minions questions that I find a better way to write what I want to say or I find clarity in what I want to say.

You don't have to post those answers. And if they turn out to be useless, then you know the technique didn't work for you.

When I had to answer critiques of technical papers, I wrote answers to every comment no mater how inane, silly or (in some cases) downright nasty.
It's a technique for the author to learn about their writing.

I rather like the name "Loathly Lady," though the query makes it look like she's a minor character, not one the book would actually be named after.

I found the query hard to follow--I think too many names and concepts were thrown at me. Is it possible to reduce the number of characters in your query to 2 or 3? It sounds to me like the key points to hit are Brandywine's desire to redeem himself, his investigation into the mysterious attacks, and the Loathly Lady.

I think fantasy must be the hardest genre to query--so hard to condense and focus.

dave f,

Thanks for both comments. I actually replied to your first set, but either EE is delayed in his approval, or I failed to correctly type in the veri word, or it was otherwise lost to the ether.

Regardless, thanks!

The one comment I remember responding to was:

BTW usually water wells go dry after an earthquake because the water table changes.

This was exactly what I was imaging. The quake shifts the water table, sending the river along an underground path until it surfaces some distance away. Meanwhile, the old river bed goes dry.

I did a rewrite of the query. I stripped out all names but three. I explained more the source of the danger through the storm. And I tried to better explain the importance of the character of the Loathly Lady.

It might not be better, but it's different.

Is the appropriate thing to just repost here as a comment?

Yikes!!!....that's a pretty heavy duty query....any poor agent would need a new desk after that dented it!!!!

Heed EE's words (well notes, his jokes probably wont help) and aim for that kind of brevity.

A query is not the time to include salient plot details unless it is in the hook!. That's the synopsis' job....you're query must be designed solely for the purpose of catching an agents eye and getting them to read the whole manuscript.

Which brings me onto point two. You don't have a hook!...sin of all sins that is. Well, you do but you've done 1 of 2 things.

1) you've wrongly identified your hook as the fact that your protagonist doesn't want to be a hero at first but realises he must change because no one likes him

or

2) You know what you hook is but for some inexplicable reason you've hidden it until the penultimate paragraph AFTER a lengthy history lesson. Why? WHy? Why would you do this? The hook is you're most devestating weapon (some would argue you're only real weapon.) you wouldn't go fishing at six am, sit about and drink some beers and finally throw your line in at 3 in the afternoon would you???

Hook: Evil army terrorzes nation, but is in fact only a cloud of magic that makes people think there's an evil army terrorizing them.

That's a pretty unique hook. Use it. Bash the agent over the head with the damn thing until they're so dumstruck by the thought of thousands of people being run through by their own imagination that before they know it they've got 50 pages in their lap and they've read the first 49!

Once you've got your hook sorted and worded so it is as smooth and eyecatching as possible, cut you query by at least half and revise it.

Then you're cooking on gas!

"Surrendering diplomacy to fanaticism, he readies his nation for multiple preemptive invasions and relies on God to see them to victory."

This reminded me of one of those advertisements for TV shows that start out "Ripped from the headlines." I have to ask, was that on purpose or the subconscious?

AmyB:

Fantasy isn't as hard as any other genre to query....the problem is fantasy itself leads to a feeling of posession and paternity.

--You've created this world and you'll be damned if anyone is going to imagine it any different from you!!!!--

and I'm as guilty as the next man of that. Query fantasy takes much, much more trust and faith that the agent/publisher will 'get' the world. You can only hint at some of the hundreds of ideas you've put together, not like, say, an urban fantasy where the world is fine save for 1 or 2 little twists (and they're in your hook probably anyway).

You've just got to trust the agent has enough savvy to think "well it's a fantasy world, so there's going to be a whole new set of rules, histories, maps I've got to learn. I'll wait til I request the manuscript before I worry about the finer points."

If you try and explain too much you end up qualifying every little comment or new word and before you know it you've written a synopsis. They hit agents bins pretty quickly so I've heard.

Is the appropriate thing to just repost here as a comment?



Yes.

Ar present the title (which has a rather specific provenance) is not justified by the query.
While I'm all for stretching the boundaries of language and myth, your lady seems mia.

Andrew:

You've just got to trust the agent has enough savvy to think "well it's a fantasy world, so there's going to be a whole new set of rules, histories, maps I've got to learn. I'll wait til I request the manuscript before I worry about the finer points."

I think the problem arises--and I'm not talking about my own query, which is problematic for other reasons--when one's hook or central conflict ties directly into specific world details, which means you have no choice but to describe them in the query. And in my opinion, it should be necessary to describe those key world details, because a fantasy novel should tell a story that can't take place in any other world. Otherwise there's no reason for it to be fantasy.

Thank you everyone for your remarks. I have tried to glean as much of your wisdom as I could and rewrote the query from a different angle. I eliminated all names but the two principles. I tried to focus solely on the core problem and BW's involvement in it.

Hopefully, it's more effective. It is shorter (no desk denting here).

Thanks again!

Dear EE (again)

The last dragon has been awakened. When a raid on its hoard fails, it rampages across the land in search of the one piece of treasure successfully lifted from its lair: a single gold coin. Blind greed aside, the dragon is not stupid. There are reasons why it has survived while its brethren have been slain. This dragon masks itself with a powerful storm of illusory magic. All who survive its deprecations remember not a dragon, but a horde of savage barbarians. The kingdom prepares for war against its neighbors rather than hunting an epic beast.

Brandywine is a squire, struggling to repair his reputation after years of sophomoric dalliances, and he hopes to one day restore his name and earn his knighthood. He becomes the target of the dragon’s vengeance when he inadvertently comes into possession of its coin. Vastly ill-equipped to deal with such a foe, he flees across the land in search of a means to put it to rest before it can incinerate everyone and everything. He is not immediately aware that proximity to the coin is the only safeguard against the dragon’s illusions. How can he warn a kingdom of a dragon when he and his companions are the only ones who can remember it?

Gwnhyudwy is the Loathly Lady. In appearance, a crone of repulsive visage and vile disposition, she is in truth a creature of great power and greater wisdom, suffering from a curse that only an act of singular generosity can lift. In Brandywine, she sees the possibility of release, and she offers answers to his problems at every step in his journey… if only he would listen. At first he deems her price to be too high, and he refuses to believe she could be of any use to his needs.

Learning that the very existence of his kingdom may hinge on his actions, Brandywine struggles to rise to the challenge. When he narrowly survives a murderous betrayal by his queen, he discovers a vast conspiracy against his nation. All invaders might not be illusory, and there are more monsters here than just a dragon. To save a kingdom, Brandywine must solve the riddle and become the hero.

The Loathly Lady is complete, 147,000 words in length.

Thank you for your attention.

I will try and comment in greater detail another time, but here are a few things.

Wow! A dragon! That's a different image.

I like that you are down to just a few characters. Makes it cleaner.

I'm not sure about the whole curse on the lady bit as it hints at a beauty and the beast reversal. If that's the gist of it, I don't know that it's very interesting. If that's not the gist, maybe a bit different wording. Right now, it leans towards the 'happily every after' fairy tale ending with Brandywine and the lady falling in love and she becomes beautiful.

"When a raid on its hoard fails, it rampages across the land in search of the one piece of treasure successfully lifted from its lair: a single gold coin."

If the raid fails, how does the coin get out? This sentence bothers me with its placement as well. I had to stop and read it a second time to get the context.

"and he refuses to believe she could be of any use."

Last paragraph, Brandywine is trying to save his country then gets betrayed by his queen and then continues to try and save them? Not sure I believe he'd find her worth saving after she stabs him in the back.

On the whole, it's looking much better, though I think some of the excitement is gone.

Hopefully more later. Hope this helps.

Much better, Witchember, but still a bit on the heavy side. I've taken a stab and trimmed close to 100 words. I've probably also taken a liberty or two that might or might not have anything to do with your story. But for the most part, it's your words, just about 25% shorter.

Now, if you can trim your novel by 25%, you'll have a better chance of capturing an agent's attention. The price of publishing a book over about 110,000 words is generally just too costly to gamble on a first novel.


The last dragon has awakened. It rampages across the land in search of the one piece of treasure lifted from its lair in a failed raid: a single gold coin. Blind greed aside, the dragon is not stupid. It masks itself with a storm of illusory magic, cloaking itself as a barbarian horde and inciting kingdoms to war against each other.

Brandywine is a squire, struggling to repair his reputation after years of sophomoric dalliances, hoping to one day earn his knighthood. When he inadvertently comes into possession of the dragon's coin, he becomes the beast's target and flees across the land in search of a means to stop it. He soon discovers that proximity to the coin is the only safeguard against the dragon’s illusions. But how can he warn a kingdom of a dragon when he and his companions are the only ones who can remember it?

Gwnhyudwy is the Loathly Lady. Although a crone in appearance, she is in truth a creature of great power and greater wisdom. Once she had the ability to slay dragons with little more than a thought, but now she suffers from a curse that only an act of singular generosity can lift. In Brandywine, she sees the possibility of release, and she offers answers to his problems at every step in his journey… if only he would listen.

Soon, Brandywine realizes the dragon isn't the only trouble in the land. There's conspiracy and intrigue afoot, and a fanatic monarch who's just another kind of monster. To save a kingdom, Brandywine has only to tame a dragon, dethrone a king, and in the process become a hero.

The Loathly Lady is complete at 147,000 words.

Thank you for your attention.

I agree wholeheartedly with Phoenix.....a vast improvement, but still a little heavy.

I won't cut and slice it up because it'll just become a mess of different versions and points of view.....what I will say though is keep doing what you're doing with regards to revision. Find another two sentances you can explain in just one, find information that isn't necessary, even if its just three or four words. You want you query to be as lean and as dense with information as it can be.

You have to write the query with Dari as the central plot or the Evil Prince trying to get the throne as the central plot. There are a few novels out there with complex plots involving multiple characters in several plot lines. You need to focus the query on the single plot line that encompasses the story.

For instance, Neil Gaimen's "Stardust" is coming out as a movie. It is a fantasy novella (a love story) about Tristan who wants to marry the most attractive girl in the village. He vows to bring back the fallen star they see and present it to her. It turns out that the fallen star is Yvaine and Tristan is not the only person seeking her. The evil witch wants to eat her heart and the five princes want her so they can claim the throne before they kill each other.
(A simple love story get complicated very fast. The quest to find a falling star becomes a meditation on the nature of love. It's a comedy like The Princess Pride.)

When King Kyan marries, he becomes mortal, serves out his reign and dies. Until then his heir, Cassius, remains an immortal prince [this isn't clear in your writeup]. When Dari Imogena's sister is chosen as Kyan's bride, Dari discovers Prince Cassius' plot to kill the king and usurp the throne. To save her country, Dari must foil the plot.

Now that seems to be your plot in a nutshell. But that's not an exciting description of your plot. You have to make a short description like that exciting enough to sell your book. Is Dari going to marry the king? Will Cassius remain immortal even though he has killed. And what happens if the King sires another heir and demotes Cassius?

You haven't quite told us the complete story in that how is the heir picked? Obviously Cassius is not the son of Kyan because Kyan's not married. So Cassius must have another father and some entity must have declared him "Heir" and "Prince"... I guess that's tied up in the "generation" thing, but be careful, that might be too much info for a one page query.

One more question, if Cassius can kill Kyan, does that mean that Kyan cannot die a natural death but can be murdered? If so, That's not immortality, per se.

If the Prince is the heir, of course he has his eye on the throne. It will be his eventual responsibility. Why is this seen as evidence of a nefarious attitude on his part?

This is too long to be a query, I can't see it fitting (with 1 inch margins and 12pt font, all the addresses and your signature) on one page. It contains a lot of back story that can be cut, and too many characters to be clear. For example, you mention Dari's father in the first sentence, then never again. That probably means he can be cut. ("Dari Imogena was only eight when she was forced to seek refuge among(st?) the Southern Sangi.") You mention both her sisters by name, but it's probably not necessary. As in Dave's rough sum-up above, you can just mention "sister".

Your penultimate paragraph, to me, sounded like a decent place to start your letter. "In a land of stories and secrets, Dari makes a chilling discovery: Prince Cassius killed once, isn't afraid to do it again, and has his eye on the throne." Perhaps try that as a first sentence, for now, and then work on one short paragraph following it up, describing what the girl has got to do.

I recall Miss Snark saying you should, in a query, mention the main character and a protagonist, and try your darndest to mention no one else.

Hope this helps. I remember reading a few of your chapters on IWW. Good luck!!

C'mon, EE, you couldn't do anything with "slightly sentient sword"?

We expect better!

(sqrl has now dashed all hopes of being published, except perhaps in Outer Mongolia)

That elaborate system of rules makes it sound like you are pitching a board game.

The word fortuitous is also used incorrectly, though I doubt anyone working in publishing these days would know or care.

What happened to the sister being tried for treason?

*coughs and splutters at curse #6*

Dan--I'll correct your typo for those who may be confused: "main character and *ant*agonist" :-)

Too many names.

*coughs and splutters at curse #6*

And I'm apoplectic at the obvious suggestion by #4.

A lot of these elements sound great, but the description makes me wonder if you have a plot developed that carries all the way through the book. Sounds like you have two half plots, by the description.

Loved those curses, EE.

aaaah, yes, mmm. antagonist. :oP honestly I know the difference. no really. serious.

I need to know a few pertinent facts (wink).
Does this - only David can heal the spreading wasteland in the east... - mean that there is hope for Passaic NJ (it is a wasteland to the east)...

[Hillary] my, my, my, my, my!

And finally, real advice.
This story sounds like fun and I like the author's writing. It's got humor and all the elements of good satire. But please, author step back and take a deep breath. This query is written inside the forest and you need to step back away and rewrite it. I've done this very thing too many times not to recognize it. I still do it write too many words, so you're in good company.
(oooh the minions will throw brickbats at that thought, I bet.)!

Perhaps you can start with your thought "What happens when the hero really is just a commoner? Or when the prophecy proclaiming him king and savior is a pack of lies? Harold, a talentless sheep farmer has to find out."
and flesh it out from that POV.

The most surprising sentence in this query was this one:

The Ivory Tower is a 120,000 word humorous fantasy

Coulda knocked me over with a metpahorical ivory tower. I didn't get any sense of satire or humor in that query.

Which is waaayyyyyy too long, and tells too much of the story. There were too many places where the storyline left motivations foggy and logic in the dust.

I suggest you start with the paragraph that describes what sort of book this is (tweaked to answer EE's concerns), then condense all the rest into one paragraph that introduces setting, character(s), and major conflict, in a colorful and intriguing way.

Dave said: "What happens when the hero really is just a commoner? Or when the prophecy proclaiming him king and savior is a pack of lies? Harold, a talentless sheep farmer has to find out."

Good suggestion. Already I'm hooked.

To me, the most intriguing part of this was the kid having to give up his childhood to keep his village alive. Then it became a standard Hero's Journey...and then it became a spoof. I'd read that first book, but give the other two a miss.

All of which might just be a way of telling you to give us the nature of the book right up front.

I didn't realize quite how excessively long it was. I was somehow convinced that it was no longer than some of the other longish ones, until I saw it in EE's format.

I'm rewriting it now for brevity, as well as moving the genre information to the beginning. Speaking of which, how did y'all like the description of what I was trying to do? I worry that it may be a bit pretentious...

The duel will probably not make it into the revised version of the query, but in case anyone cared, here's the explanation:

A challenge to a duel doesn't need to be made in person, it can be a letter naming the time and place of the challenge. Since wizards' duels take some preparation and the distances involved make speedy delivery impossible, the challenge was sent *well* in advance of the actual day.

David doesn't know he's been challenged because it was sent to him in care of Raven, who didn't actually give it to him.

I strongly second Dave's suggested opening para. I would scrap your entire current query. I'd use Dave's opening plus *one* paragraph.

What Dave, Beth and EE said. Plus:

I would call it a "spoof" right up front. Consider that "humorous" implies a whole different direction. Plus, with "humorous," you have to use a whole lot more words to essentially say it's a spoof. And unless you're submitting to university presses (Bored of the Rings comes to mind) or agents not known for handling fantasy, I would shy away from saying "underlying absurdity" (however true that may be) when flagrantly discussing some of the genre's well-known works. Readers of the genre will accept a sympathetic spoof with open arms, but will not read anything that truly ridicules their taste or the books they love. I don't think that's your intent (although I'm making the assumption your target audience is readers of fantasy; if not, who else?), so just be careful of word choice.

I'm also not buying the statement that the book is more than satire, but also a coming-of-age morality story about choosing your own path/destiny. That's because the Hero's Journey is always about choice. A Hero is the one who can make the selfless choices. Those who can't are, well, the hedge-mages of the world. No matter the prophecies, no matter the task, a Hero must voluntarily choose to take each step. So a Hero can never really be considered a Hero until the end of the journey. In that sense, juxtaposing your statement about making one's own way against "not one big joke" seems to be advocating living a selfish, it's-all-about-me life. Again, not what I think you had in mind. Just be sure you clearly understand the conventions you're satirizing and be sure it's clear in your query. If I made it down to the last paragraph of your query as an agent who represents fantasy, these points -- as presented -- would be auto rejects for me.

Love the duel date dialog, EE!

GTP #3 is great (so true to life!).

Ivory Tower? Why am I reminded of the Neverending Story, which also has an Ivory Tower, an unlikely hero, a wasting plague on the land, a book, etc..

Speaking of which, how did y'all like the description of what I was trying to do?

It seemed pretty clinical to me, and a little wordier than it should be--trying too hard, especially, as EE noted, The book you describe sounds like the book you're supposedly satirizing. How about, "The Ivory Tower follows the classic Hero's Journey while acknowledging--and winking at--the underlying absurdity of its tropes."

Hi author,

I like the *idea* of what you are trying to do quite a bit. I had a similar idea a year or so ago that was supposed to satirize the idea of the great evil overlord on a volcano. Evidence of this on my own blog here. However, you have done much better than me in that you actually wrote the thing.

I don't have any new advice to offer you. The comments here seem good, the rewrites you mentioned seem the right direction, and so have fun with it.

Is this really a spoof on Fantasy? Ha! Sounds great--and could be very funny.
I second Dave's suggestions.

Is Harold really a sheep farmer? How about spoofing some of the names? Like "Woolliam" the Sheep Farmer....that's lame, but you get the picture.

Lord of the Strings. A parallel world inhabited by puppets.

Harry Hotter. Episode 20, in which he chases babes.

Those are the only 2 Fantasy movies I can think of.

Good luck.

"Alas, poor Merric! I knew him, Harold. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent hedgerows, he hath borne me on his sheep a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is!"

EE, I think you've got "hedge-mage" wrong. A Hedge-mage is an accredited investor who invariably makes money on unusual and/or risky investments. Like a 120,000 word spoof. (Is it really 120,000 words? Bored of the Rings is only 42,000 according to amazon.com.)

Loved all the GTPs again--they have seriously improved since the clarion call went out! Laughed out loud at #5.

EE, very fine form this time. I am tempted to like the humor of the query because I laughed so much at the comments. But really, I only laughed at the comments... the query fell flat for me, even after I found out it was satire. After I found out it was satire, the only parts that made me smile at all were the gnomes (possibly due to EE's treatment in the GTP entry) and the "even more secretly" bug.

If this were 45,000 words, I might consider picking it up. But I'm not likely to invest the time to read a 120,000 word satire unless I'm guaranteed a side-splitter every few pages. (If I recall, Bored of the Rings had a side-splitter every few words. But I was twelve at the time, so anything involving the word "fart" was a side-splitter. What I'm saying is that my judgment may not have been entirely reliable.) I think phoenix explained the difference between spoof and ridicule quite well.

And I don't really buy the fact that it's both satire and legitimate fantasy. The Princess Bride managed to pull it off (with the added bonus of using the name Humperdink instead of the more mundane Harold), but from the query I'm doubtful that you've managed it. My suspicion is that either the humor is too subtle or the satire is much too long.

Hmm... one issue that is coming up as I revise the query is that I don't have the vocabulary to describe exactly what I'm doing here.

It is *not* a spoof, at least, not what I think of when I think spoof. It's not Bored of the Rings or Monty Python; in fact, in its original conception it was straight-up quest fantasy. I found the original version lacking a little something. When I switched from third-person to first, I discovered to my delight that David was actually a pretty funny guy, and that, like mos tof us, he uses humor as a defense mechanism.

The jokes aren't the *point* of the story, though, just a glaze on top for added flavor. And the plot isn't necessarily a *parody*. Really, what I did was deliberately reverse genre conventions whenever possible.

Thus, instead of the dramatic revelation that a character is royalty, I have the dramatic revelation that a character is *not* royalty. Instead of a true prophecy, I have a lie. Instead of the restoration fo an old line of kings, I have the creation of a new republic.

That said, the story is meant to be internally consistent and take itself at least somewhat seriously.

PS --

The gnomes aren't funny. They're predatory beast-men made of dirt.

Revised Query

Where there’s a prophecy, there’s a “chosen one”—usually a snot-nosed kid. Ignorant and unprepared, (s)he still prevails against staggering odds. This success occurs because the “chosen one” turns out to be a natural hero. This is very convenient, but also very improbable. The Ivory Tower is a 120,000 word humorous fantasy that explores what happens when the appointed hero isn’t very heroic.
David, a wizard’s apprentice, was ten when a virulent plague killed both his mother and his master. There was no time to grieve; it took all his skill to keep the disease from wiping out his entire town. Five years later, things are finally looking up. Between presiding over holiday feasts, starring in the town’s annual opera, and dancing with all the farmers’ daughters, David is finally beginning to enjoy himself.
His coming-of-age ceremony is interrupted by Harold, a traveler who claims to have known David’s master. He says that a prophecy holds only David can heal the spreading wasteland in the east. David protests, but learns that the plague which killed his family was a magical attack. David accedes to Harold’s demands rather than continue to endanger his hometown.
It is immediately clear that he is not the hero they had hoped for. He’s not even sure he wants to be. In fact, his greatest fear is that he will one day come to enjoy an adventurer’s violent lifestyle. His recalcitrance is justified when he discovers he is being used. His comrades expect him not only to heal, but to conquer. Worse, the prophecy itself is a fraud penned to coerce him into service.
David fins himself with quite a conundrum. Which is more selfish: To go his own way and let his friends down, or to persevere in pretending to be that which he is not?

.....

I should still be shorter, I know. Am I on the right track?

The gnomes aren't funny. They're predatory beast-men made of dirt.

Well, there you go. Predatory beast-men made of dirt is pretty funny to me. I mean, as long as they're chasing someone else.

Sorry I got it so wrong, Orion. I am having a very difficult time really understanding what you're up to. I mean, I get it intellectually, I guess. Have you tried writing the query in David's voice? If it worked for your book, maybe it would work for your query.

Perhaps this is one of those fictional autobiographies we just finished talking about. Perhaps you should try selling it that way. (Dear agent, Having just discovered I'm not actually supposed to save the world, I wrote a book about it. My sister, the frustrated sorceress, thinks I should just go back to the sheep, but...)

If not for the EE comments I would never have stuck around long enough to make it through that plot description. And heroic fantasy would be right up my genre. I'm not an agent, I don't know if they demand humor in queries pitching humorous books, but the alleged presence of humor probably shouldn't be the most shocking plot twist in your query, as it was here.

The "it's not a spoof" comment is a little scary, too close to the dreaded i-don't-even-know-what-my-book-is statement that you never want to send an agent. "I tried to write X but it all came out Y" is another variation on that same theme. Maybe you didn't start with a spoof, but it is a spoof now, right? Or at least it's more like a spoof than anything else the English language has a ready word for, yes? When the agent calls editors to say what she's pitching, she's going to say, "it's a terrific spoof", is she not?

If so, then your new mantra can be, "I wrote a spoof." And when some dolt says it seems more like you tried to write a serious novel but lost control -- you can give them a blank stare like they must be mad and say, "Spoof," then swirl your martini to the other side of the room where all the sophisticated people are.

The gnomes aren't funny. They're predatory beast-men made of dirt.

An orc by any other name...

Well, now I'm confused. Your comment says Harold gets the dramatic revelation that he's not royalty and that the government being established will be a republic. Yet the query states he's on his way to becoming a king. Since the two paragraphs before that one seemingly relate truths, then a reader would also logically think this 'graph, including using the Book to unify a continent, is true, too.

And then there's the lie at the end: That the prophecy was just a ruse to coerce him into service. Your comment indicates a new replublic is created rather than the kingship mentioned right before. Does this new republic get led by David? If so, then he IS following a destiny -- if not a prophecy.

I'm sorry, I'm not feeling the Princess Bride thing shining through at all, either from the query or your comments. So I'm not "getting" a feel for your book at all.

PJD: On a roll tonight, are we? Love your hedgemage def/simile :o)

You could start with "The Ivory Tower is a 120,000 word fantasy that addresses the question: "What happens when the prophecy isn't true? When the unlikely heroreally is unlikely?"

I think that sets the tone without you having to say if it's humorous or spoor or whatever.

Just read the revise, and it's still not working for me. Maybe my confusion about what the book is supposed to actually be comes from the fact that I don't know how it ends.

David is being used. Got that. He's pretending to be something he's not. Not understanding what he's pretending to be from the query. But how does it all resolve? If he's not a hero, then does the plague wipe everyone out in the end? Who do his comrades expect him to conquer and are they the "good guys?" In the end, is everything left in chaos because David is not a hero? Or by his unheroic inaction only do the good guys win?

Without that piece of the puzzle, I guess it's hard to offer comment on what the book may or may not ultimately be "about." Because as I pointed out before, a Hero can only be judged a Hero at journey's end.

Oh God, predatory beast men made of dirt--ROTFLMAO! Now I know what to call my boys!

Sorry, but I can't think of a possible scenario where dirty beast people are scary!

You know, you're really funny even when you're trying not to be. Just go with it!

Cheers,

I should still be shorter, I know. Am I on the right track?

Yes. It now sounds like it was written by a writer. I'm starting to think it should be called a fantasy. Especially if the unlikely hero ends up prevailing against staggering odds. Here's your new version with a few cuts to shorten it:


Wherever there’s a prophecy, there’s a “chosen one”—an unprepared, snot-nosed kid who prevails against staggering odds because he's a natural-born hero. How very convenient. But what happens when the appointed hero isn’t exactly heroic?

David, a wizard’s apprentice, has just turned fifteen. Between starring in the annual opera and dancing with all the farmers’ daughters, he's enjoying life. Then some guy named Harold shows up, claiming that only David can heal the spreading wasteland in the east. Why him? David wants to know. "It's been prophesied," Harold informs him. End of discussion.

As David reluctantly battles his way eastward, he begins to enjoy the adventurer’s violent lifestyle--until he discovers he is being used. His comrades expect him not only to heal, but to conquer. The prophecy is a fraud, penned to trick him into service.

The Ivory Tower is a 120,000-word fantasy in which an unprepared, snot-nosed kid must decide whether to go his own way and let his comrades down, or to persevere in pretending to be that which he is not. Thank you.

Orion, is what you've written here something on the Terry Pratchett-ish side, with David as a sort of Rincewind character? His books are snort-coffee-out-the-nose funny but with a deep, often philosophical stream running underneath the humor. You could use that comparison (or at least go to Amazon and read up on how his books are characterized).

What happens? He finds the Book, and decides that he just isn't interested in that kind of power. He gives the book to his sister (the one who ran away to seek fame and fortune). He uses it only once, to send himself home.

I am a huge Terry Pratchett fan, though I am deliberately *not* imitating him. Since he's got the fast-paced, zany fantasy market sewn up, I'm trying for something a little more subtle and leisurely (though I *do* expect the book to get shorter as I revise).

The question is, can you convince an agent or editor that fantasy readers who've followed your hero on a 100,000+ -word adventure will be satisfied with his decision to say, "Screw this," and transport home?

EE: You did a nice turn with the query in tying it together given the elements to work with. And Orion, it's a great start. But honestly, still yawn. The "As David reluctantly battles..." paragraph is where the wow factor needs to be, where the glazy-eyed agent/editor will jerk upright, spill their coffee, and grab the telephone to beg for pages. But in all the versions, it's just so ... flat.

Nothing in these queries shouts, "Hey, read me, I'm different from any other fantasy in the slush!" Same setting. Same snot-nosed kid. Same reluctance. OK, really hard to tell, but maybe the end is different. David turns his back on the power and goes home. Now, Dorothy did that in the Wizard of Oz. She could have taken the Wicked Witch of the West's place. But no, she chose farmlife in Kansas over fame in Emerald City. And we all cheered, right? But the story was structured to make us believe that Dorothy, the small-time farm girl who becomes the reluctant Hero, belonged on that farm in Kansas, not in Emerald City.

Now, it may be extraordinarily well done in your book, but in the query and in your explanation, I'm not seeing the payoff. What's the "Aha!" moment? What's going to make the reader sit back and go, "Wow, funny story AND a satisfying ending! When's this next author dude's book coming out?"

Make me see how you accomplish that in the query.

I dunno, EE, I was pretty happy when those two little hairy guys destroyed their MacGuffin and just went home.

I would want to know that David went through some serious growth, though, and that he returns to his village with something--new knowledge, respect for the humanity outside his borders, or whatever.

Yes, but did David destroy his? Or did he give his sister the book and tell her to fix things?

Ah, see, I was assuming that David fixed things on his own without Book-related help and THEN went home. The ending you assumed would be much less satisfying, I agree.

But if David doesn't fix anything and instead just leaves the big honkin' wasteland in the east for his successor to clean up, the book's release in October 2008 will be very timely and topical. Particularly if the successor is a bitter sorceress "transformed beyond recognition by her lust for power."

Orion, I like your revision better and even more the efficiently pruned EE version. I'm still with phoenix, but it does seem that you're getting closer.

The political situation in the book is pretty complicated, and there simply isn't space to explain it in the query, which is why I decided not to address it in detail. If you're interested, here it is:

David is supposed to use the book to unify the continenet and reign as king of the entire land. On the other hand, Harold is all set to inherit the one nation that the wasteland is in. Both discover they're being used. David goes home, while Harold says, "Screw this, let's have a republic!"

David does *not* heal the wasteland; however, the quest for the book wouldn't have succeded without him, and now that his sister has it, *she* can do it. He's not *making* her do the work, he's *letting her*. She was always jealous of him, because *she* wanted to be the hero.

He marries a princess who shares his distaste for power; they live in his hometown. He uses the magic he learned on his adventure to make his town healthy and wealthy; she puts her administrative training to work as the town Mayor.

I'm really trying hard to like this. But from your last comment, I see why the resolution paragraph keeps falling so flat. Where's your climax? Is there one? Is the ending more than a bump in the story followed by a long, mediocre denouement? And quite honestly, the more I read about the story, the less funny and fulfilling it sounds, and the more mired it becomes.

I was all onboard for a nice, sympathetic satire that you just needed to tweak into a hook that described well what you were trying to accomplish. Maybe some objective outsiders like the folks over at Critters could help you find the focus and plot points in the story that would help make your query shine. But I think it's going to take critiquers actually reading large chunks of your book to really help out. Sorry.

Then Kavin woke up to find Nadae in the shower and he realized he had dreamed the whole thing. Like the butterfly dreaming it's a philosopher dreaming he's a butterfly conundrum. Or the whole Pam/Bobby jumping the shark dream in Dallas.

EE hit all my concerns about this query. And he gave us art by Perez! Sweet.

GTP #2 holds a special appeal for me... More stories featuring phoenixes, please!

I can't tell if this is a novel or a short story collection. I'm not sure how many scenes you wrote about a guy scrubbing dishes while imaging hot babes, etc. Hopefully no more than a brief one. I don't mind if he starts out in a scullery, if you move on quickly. For more re: the fates and dreams of scullery men, check out this old Jerry Lewis show, "Cinderfella"...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053716/plotsummary

That's something you definitely want to distinguish your project from, which the decidedly uncomical poisoning of that girlfriend will certainly do.

I'm a bit anxious that you seem to be including numerous dream/sleepwalking/semi-unconscious sequences. I've heard rumors that editors more or less automatically reject anything heavy with such scenes because they believe readers prefer heros who are running around doing "actual" stuff. Google "turkey city lexicon" for more info on that.

If it is short stories and not one long one, agents will want to see that a few have already graced the pages of some lit mags, so you should start subbing widely to those, if you haven't already.

GPT 6 is outstanding. My hat's off to whoever blurped it.

As to the Fade Raven, it's not that it's a bad name, per se. It just doesn't sound scary. Sad, maybe, but not "a creature from darkest, whispered myth".

In my experience with cauldrons, the soot is usually on the outside.

A Mmnservant for a man carries the connotations as handmaiden for women. Except, typically, male servants for aprincesses are "snipped" and we call them Eunuchs or Geldings and make silly jokes about them. It's a matter of not wanting royal bastards of less-than-highborn lineage. So you might not want to describe him as manservant.

[Others include the stories of Kanneth the outhouse cleaner, David, the horse-stall scrubber, and Eleanor, laundress to Ivan the Incontinent.] It's a dirty Job, but someone's got to do it.

Does the fact that Fade Raven and Kavin share three of five letters and sound the same mean something?

Does Kaven beat the bad guys, restore order to the realm, bring Nadea back to life, marry her and live happily ever after in the Jade Palace?
If that's the plot - then your query is getting lost in details. If the story is about a rag-tag group of survivors who search for earth {{{(ooops, sorry about that)}}} who survive their king being deposed and defeat the bad guys all while mouring the death of Nadea - then your query got equally as lost.

Is the bad luck coin the proverbial bad penny? That would be just one of the myths reborn. OR is Kavin really the mythic hero reborn? Help us out here.

Personally, I think Kavin is an unsavory rathskallion to cook the food he did. (I borrowed that phrase, BTW).

There's definitely room to dream if you're a scullion. Such lowly beginnings for dreamers are well represented throughout the finest literature, particularly in kung fu movies (probably taking place in restaurants named Jade Palace), and Americanized in such classics as Repo Man. Ironically, it's a character named Kevin (not Kavin as in this query) who says this: "There's fuckin' room to move as a fry cook. I could be manager in two years. King. God."

Today, a scullion. Tomorrow, supervising scullions. Next year, Zeus. The year after that, a talking rat in the sewers of Chigago.

The story might be fine, but I don't get a real sense of it from the current query.

For what particular reason would the princess like a "lowly dishwasher"? Is he dashing? Does he dazzle her with tales of yore? Is she just rebellious?

Her death seems more like the inciting incident for Kavin's story than washing dishes or even meeting her.

---

After rising from a dishwasher to the princesses personal servent, Kavin's world is shattered when the King is assassinated and his daughter, the princess, dies in Kavin's arms after being poisoned.

With the kingdom now in civil war and a creature from the darkest myths pursuing him, Kavin must [must what?]...
---
The rest of the story which I can not determine from this query should follow including what his quest is?

Best of luck with the rewrite.

Ok, here's your brutally honest review. What I'm seeing here is all basically stock fantasy genre plot turns and characters. With one exception.

You threw in a surprise twist with the good guy killing his girlfriend.

There are two problems with this. 1] it's unmotivated: he's not even sure if he poisoned her or not, if he did, an evil coin made him do it. That's just not quite brilliant plotting. 2] having the good guy start murdering the other main characters virtually always kills reader interest. That's why you never see this plot twist. It's not so much original as it is long since proven to be box office poison, as EE insinuates. Editors won't go there because they already know very very few readers want to spend 5$ on a book wherein Joe Scullery yearns for Princess Beautiful and then kills her for no reason. "evil coin made me do it" is a lame excuse which does not redeem.

If you want this story to get out of the slush you're going to have to make the characters more interesting [try adding wit, not afflictions] and you're going to have to make that plot twist motivated and palatable, or totally cut it and revise. Considering that you've already been shopping this book for a year, maybe it's time to just start calling it a trunk novel and move on to a fresh new project.

I was hoping for either 2 or 4.

Author, in addition to the previous commenters input, I think the sentence that really threw me was when you said, "Kavin’s story is but one from the host of characters in Of Myths Reborn." That made it seem like I'd misunderstood that this was a novel and might be a collection of stories.

First, thanks for taking the time to comment everyone.

I guess I give up on this book for good. When there's a host of characters (like A Song of Ice and Fire - structure wise, I make no claims quality wise) AND it's book 1 of 3, summarizing plot is difficult (especially since each character has his/her own plot). To paraphrase an agent's blog, if you can't write a query for your book after a year of trying, your book probably isn't good enough to query.

Though, it passed the Fantasy Novel Test http://rinkworks.com/fnovel/ (or at least thought it did), but I can't figure out how summarize the plot.

For other commenter points: There are actually no dream sequences or even anything like them. The "evil coin" made forced him to do it, the people that wanted the noble's daughter dead gave him the coin... maybe I should include that? Also, noble's daughter isn't quite a main character (though it looks like she might become one when she's killed.)

This book has been shopped for a year? I submitted 6 (absolute trash) queries a year and a half ago and have spent the time since writing and revising 20 different query letters for it, reading Agent Snark, Agent Nelson, and Evil Editor, and working on other writing periodically when I despair of this book.

Anyway, thanks again for the comments everyone. Time to toss this junk.

Yeah, not being able to describe the thing succinctly in a way that does not seem to give people erroneous impressions is usually a sign of serious structure trouble. Many of us eventually find ourselves fondly describing to our first few efforts as "that plotless mess" or equivalent. Maybe you can still extract some publishable short stories from this. That can be a great learning experience.

Sometimes it helps to take a break from writing and do a few months of reading and watching movies before embarking on a major new project. Screenwriters have made a science of structure, so you might benefit from reading about story structure in screenwriting books. STORY, by Robert McKee is the classic but there are many other good ones.

Author, it's true that sometimes the best route is retreat. However, your blog research should also have turned up another very important point: Sell Book I on its own virtue. And be sure Book I is complete on its own. If it doesn't have a satisfying end on its own, then, yeah, relegate it to the closet. From your post here, it sounds like you're trying to sell a SERIES called "Of Myths Reborn," like Martin's series, "A Song of Fire and Ice."

Focus on Kavin and the civil war ensuing. Give some insight into the manipulative desires of the makers of the Traitor's Coin and how even though they might have chosen the right mark to kill Nadae, they didn't count on the boy allying with the Fade Raven and calling forth a host of legends to save the Empire. Or whatever the kernel of THIS story is. And, most importantly, include how this story is different from all the others where a fantasy empire is embroiled in civil war. Specifically, since you brought it up, how is it different from "A Game of Thrones" or any of the "A Song of Fire and Ice" titles?

Have you read all the gazillion reviews of the individual ASOFAI titles? That would be a good place to see how reviewers manage to boil down the essence of a sprawling plot into a short review. What plot points do they pick out and concentrate on? Which characters?

And end simply with the assurance this work is a standalone novel, but that it could be the first in a 3-book or limited series. DON'T try to give the series arc in the query. Sell the book at hand.

Maybe one last try after reading ASOFAI reviews and focusing just on this book and forgetting the rest of the series even exists. If it still doesn't gel, then it probably is time to move on to another project that is NOT a part of this series.

Good luck!

EE, I almost peed myself.

Author, I think if you focus more on Kaven's guilt and horror at the idea that he might have killed the girl he loved, you've got a much more interesting story.

(PS Lol at the shower thing, Phoenix!)

I'm a staunch defender of edgy humour, but I couldn't find #3 funny.

Maybe I'm ill. Wait, I AM ill. That'll be it.

I think you gave up too fast. If the novel is written and all you have to do is write a query, the settle down and write the letter. That bugged me all night.

I borrowed this from EREADER. It's a little dry but it serves the purpose of how to describe a sprawling story of epic proportions.

In The Source, in his signature style of grand storytelling, James Michener sweeps us back through time to the Holy Land, thousands of years ago. By exploring the lives and discoveries of modern archaeologists excavating the site of Tell Makor, Michener vividly re-creates life in and around an ancient city during critical periods of its existence, and traces the profound history of the Jews, including that of the early Hebrews and their persecution, the impact of Christianity on the Jewish world, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition.

He weaves his epic tale of love, strength, and faith until at last he arrives at the founding of Israel and the modern conflict in the Middle East. The Source is not only a compelling history of the Holy Land and its people, but a richly written saga that encompasses the development of Western civilization and the great religious and cultural ideas that have shaped our world.

Fade Raven?
Wow.
Just, wow. That's like having a MC named "Hero Dragonheart" ;) Way cliche.

#5 tickled my fancy.

I was pronouncing his name "Kahvin" until I got to Raven, and then I switched to "Kayven" to rhyme with raven...or maybe it's Rahven. Those darned fantasy names!

That's one of many reasons this isn't my genre.

Re: cauldron soot: I've scrubbed a few (as few as possible) cast iron pots used in cooking over an open fire, and yes, it's the outside that's sooty. The insides are merely disgustingly greasy.

I agree that tossing this novel might be premature. Maybe it's time to focus and tighten, but the only thing it's clear you should scrap and start anew is the query.

pulp

Thanks Gutterball!

"Richard Fudge runs Fudge Pizza like an outpost of Hell."

I am still laughing!!!

Whoa, this is fascinating! On a hunch, I googled the name Joan Winesap, thinking it was more than just a cute name in the Richard Fudge GTP. Guess what came up? You got it, the beginning of a circuitous trail unveiling the real identity of Miss Snark, along with a picture of the lovely literary diva arm-in-arm with you got it! GC himself. Maybe the poster of the Richard Fudge GTP was actually Miss Snark. Clues abound and this is shaping up like the Beatles mystery all over again. I can’t tell you how many hours of my life I wasted studying the album covers of Abbey Road and Magical Mystery Tour.

Number #5 GTP! Most excellent!

Now I'm feeling a little tense, but I attributed it to your tendency to shift tenses. I'm not a fan of fantasy, but I can definitely see why you would call this "High". Sorry I can't be more helpful, but I am Lectros intolerant.

Anon!! Let's stay on thread here! Since there are nearly as many characters in this guy's story as there were on the MMT cover, I am sure there must be some relevant connection you could make. As for me, I was mesmerized by the cover of "The White Albumn".

(The southern village is named Andthensom.)

Author, a reluctant relationship with your owner's son is called "rape". He can take whatever he wants, so he wouldn't be reluctant, and she would either agree or be forced--"reluctant" is a middle ground. Skipping across the realities of slavery like this killed my suspension of disbelief almost immediately. It could be fine in the book, but the wording doesn't seem to reflect a realistic dynamic between them.

On that note, you don't mention how she stops being a slave. Or does she do all this traveling and learning while still being owned?

You might want to scrub this for weak phrases. Things like "various responsibilities", "this is followed by", even "the surprise arrival" can be made snappier with more details or stronger words.

Good luck!

Regarding GTP #2 - Howards Stern did this on the MTV Music Awards one year.
Regarding GTP#6 - In a small town near here, a pizza parlor about 200 feet from a Church and grade school sold special pizzas with packets of cocaine. You can't believe how pissed off the police, tha mayor, the state legislature, etc... were when they found out.

Regarding the query - tooo many names, insufficient plot. EE's GTP is a good place to start with fewer names. Look at the current TV hit that ended tonight - Heroes - it used a catch phrase "Save the cheerleader... Save the world..." That was it. That was the entire plot of the season.

I'm not suggesting that you use only one line, but with a title of Demon's Bane, you have to reveal the Bane right away. And only three characters really count to the story. "Nerea, aided by the angels she can summon, rescues her friend Sescha and her lover Jachan (better not let the letter "f" get near that name) from the (what fate) of the evil Demons and saves the world at the same time."

Those are the three characters along with the Demons and the Angels. It's best to group them into stark B&W groups like that.

If you don't think it works, think of Tolkein - "Frodo and his best friend Sam must travel to the ends of middle earth to destroy the evil Lord Sauron." That's the simple version that you must create for your novel and then sex it up like advertising copy (ugh, gag, shudder) for the query.

Oh, me *groan, groan*

Author, what is Nerea's quest? Simply to make her way alive to the school where she'll be trained? Is this a story of the journey being more important than what's at the end?

So Onago and the demon want Nerea's hide, but they're too inept to catch her? Why didn't the demon possess her to begin with? How does a slave come to have so much freedom? And, of course, if Saska's possession is thwarted, then (a nit) she was never possessed, was she?

Aside from the name list, this query could be tightened up considerably.

"Shortly after a priest thwarts a possession-by-demon of Nerea's best friend, Saska, a mysterious woman and her angel companion not-so-coincidentally arrive to test eligible women for summoner power."

Scrub it, tighten it, then let us see it again...

Counting characters in queries goes about like this: one, two, three, four, many. People are attentive to the first three or four as individuals. Add more and they just enlarge the confusion, er, crowd. Especially if their only distinction is a difficult name like these ones you've slung out.

GTP #2 - I can't stop laughing.

"Aleister Blanc—oppressor of the damned, master of the infidels, and the half-human offspring of the succubus Satonis.....is slave to the most hellish of human curses...the bonfire of the buttocks."

Holy crap - I'm so glad I'm not in my office this morning. I wouldn't want to be taken in for 'observation'.

I really need someone to explain the fantasy genre to me. No offense to the author, because my eyes glaze over during all the fantasy openings/queries.

But I do have a serious literary question: Where's the emotion? The attachment the reader needs to feel to the character? Is Fantasy by definition driven by plot?

I really am curious. I'm not trying to slam the genre. I just don't get it.

Thanks for any clues....

Cheers,

This is one of few queries that didn't make my eyes glaze over, and that's saying something since I often come to this blog late at night after my brain is fried from my own writing. It read smoothly, I found it easy to understand, and I thought the idea of Jachan letting a demon possess him in order to recapture Nerea sounded fun.

I agree with the others, though, that way too many names are being thrown at us. I'd like to know less about the setup and more about the central conflict. If the relationship between Jachan and Nerea is complex and interesting, maybe that would be a good focus.

A primer for Takoda:

As in any genre, good High Fantasy should have good characters with emotional depth. Like the old mythologies, the best fantasies focus on humanity's relationship with the unexplainable, and with characters struggling to carve out a sense of place and civilization for themselves and their people in a universe determined to keep them subjugated and animalistic in nature. World-building and plot are highly visible, but still should take a back seat to character development.

Unfortunately, the genre has a lot of stock characters now, and people attempting their first High Fantasy novel seem to fall into one of three traps:

1) They rely on stock characters to populate their story and, in doing so, neglect to breathe new life into old characters.

2) They come from role-playing backgrounds where the "plot" is paramount -- what happens externally to the characters is much more important than the characters' internal struggles and journeys.

3) They focus on the fantasy elements of the story to the exclusion of making characters 3-dimensional and real.

My couple of pennies, FWIW.

That said, I don't necessarily think this author's story suffers terribly from any of the above. Rather, I think the author is neglecting characterization in the query to get in plot details simply because it's easier to distill plot than emotion, even though the inner journey is often the most compelling part of any novel. And that's a trap a lot of writers in a lot of genres seem to fall into.

I think at its base this could be interesting, but agree there's too many characters in the query. It confused me.

In a small town near here, a pizza parlor about 200 feet from a Church and grade school sold special pizzas with packets of cocaine.

Lol Dave, for a minute I thought that said "pockets of cocaine", like, baked in to the crust, and I thought, "Now that couldn't have tasted good!"

Um. Not that I would know.

Darn, I was really hoping for number 5.

I assume Sano must have had some compelling reason to choose Rica to become Queen (please tell us what it is), but she seems too passive to be a strong character.

Consider:
'I want to be a swordmaster.'
'You can't. You have to be Queen.'
'Oh. OK'
'My minions are so mean - they're even trying to kill me. I know, I'll run away.'
'Now I'll gather evidence ... Gee, this is awfully hard. No-one will talk to me. I know, I'll leave the country.'
'You can't.'
'Oh. Darn. OK.'

Did you see the movie Elizabeth? (the one with Cate Blanchett as E1, not Helen Mirren as E2) All kinds of treachery and she fought back and won. And she wasn't even a swordmaster with Sano on her side.

The biggest plot problem has already been mentioned - if Sano wants her to be Queen, doesn't that pretty much end the discussion? Why doesn't Sano smite the bad guys?

Y'know, the phrase "wrath of Sano" doesn't strike fear into my heart.

Sano, god of scrupulous personal hygiene.
Sano, god of toilet bowl cleaner.
Sano, god of trolley buses and delightfully gay men.

Yeah, go ahead and start plotting against the new queen, you evil ministers - what's Sano gonna do? Q-tip your ears really hard?

Okay; I'll play nice now.

Author: EE's got it right. This query is dry because I don't care about how Rica gets herself out of the spot she's in. I know what happens to her, but I'm not empathising with her.

I'd suggest trying to work in a bit about how all this makes her feel. Try to make us understand just how dire her predicament is. You need the reader to think, "That really sucks. How's the poor kid going to get herself out of this mess?"

You might consider structuring the query like this:
- Rica has problem A
("Oops, I'm queen, but they're all out to get me.")
- Rica attempts solution A
("Ha! I smite thee with my queenly mojo! Eat it, dudes; I rule!")
- This results in problem B
("Crap. Now they're trying to kill me...")
- Rica attempts solution B
("Run away! Run away! No, really; it's a tactical retreat.")
- This leads to problem C
("I AM SANO. SEE MY Q-TIP AND DESPAIR, MORTAL.")

Then stop. You have a nice escalation of tension there, and that's the heart of your story.

Good luck with it!

My first thought was that this sounded like a YA novel, although I suspect that this isn't your intention.

Based on what you have written, I think that your plot elements sound rather bland, and that is because only events are listed, not motivations. Well, there is one exception, and that is your first line, "Rica wanted to stay by her brother's side and that meant becoming a swordmaster," which, quite frankly, immediately establishes Rica as a follower and a fairly weak character despite her swordsmanship. You then continue this trend by pointing out her failings.

I think that approach defeats the purpose, because you no doubt are going to have her be a strong character who gets a handle on her role as queen (or makes the attempt). So, rethink the language you use and tell us what she does to fix the problem and her motivation for doing so.

I'm not sure yet if I'd like to read this, but it certainly seems like the plot elements can make a workable book.

I feel the query is well-written and easy to follow. EE makes a good point, which I interpret meaning that it comes across as a little dry and needs more about the main character. Rica being separated from her brother and what she goes through when having the title of queen thrust upon her sounds compelling, and you may very well be exploring this more in the book, but I think it would be good to touch on it in the letter. The rest of the story sounds good as well, if you clear up the questions EE mentions.

I think that we can al use a visit (and laugh) if we visit
"The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord" by googling "evil overlord"
http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

It's a revelation of fun and bad movie and TV show plot lines. But the lesson to draw is try to avoid these things.

"I smite thee with my queenly mojo" wins as my phrase of the day (yesterday's was "Rule Three: Don't stare at invisible faeries").


I'm a fantasy reader, so I can manage some pretty big suspensions of disbelief, but my first thought upon reading this query was "Why would Sano-the-heavenly-being pick someone with no training, talent, or desire to be queen as the next monarch?"

Someone with talent and training who doesn't want to be ruler, but feels duty-bound to take the throne, okay, I could go with that. But making the country some sort of oversized San Quentin? (complete with competing gang lords---I mean, high ministers). Unless Sano is one sick, sadistic heavenly dude, I'm having a hard time buying it (perhaps he really is twisted and sadistic and he likes to watch random victims be torn apart in the government piranha-fest. If so, the story might be a lot more interesting than it appears).


And EE, I am printing out the Subtleties of Ruling and using them as a bookmark in my copy of Machiavelli's The Prince. No, seriously.

1) Swordmasters train with swords
2) Swords are meant to kill people
3) Rica wants to be a swordmaster

Therefore Rica wants to kill people.

She should be chopping heads off left and right to secure her throne.

Toooo wimpy. No monarchy is well served by some wench who slinks off in disguise when the going gets tough. This chick is fired. Go find her kick-ass cousin and rewrite.

Have you ever read the book or watched the anime The Twelve Kingdoms? Because this automatically reminded me of it. [spoiler plot here] Girl who doesn't mean to be queen chosen by heavenly emisery, she gets abondoned for a while though. When she finally gets to her court she finds the ministers disloyal and tries to please all of them at once. Then they try to kill her so she goes and talks to a sage in the countryside and learns exactly how the country works. She fights with the rebels and gains the confidence to be a good queen who can control her ministers.

--

I think this should give a little more of the reasons:

Why does she want to join her brother?
Why does she want to be a swordsman?
Why is she chosen to be queen?

It always strikes me with these kinds of plots (I've got one too, its very bothersome) that the character, being built for the position she finds herself in, is rarely suited for her previous life. Not in the manner that she can't surive, but in that it doesn't make SENSE for her to be there.

Give us a feeling that she really wants to be a swordsman, and then have the philosophy of a swordsman (or a loving sister) carry through in her change, that will give the reader some attachment and help tie the entirety of the query together.

I'm not saying that your story doesn't sound interesting of course, if I found this in a bookstore I would probably pick it up: I have a softspot for girls becoming queen. Hence I should be very interested it your query being good and finding notice.

For those who missed them:
Rules of Subtle Leaders

Subtlety of ruling #1: When your high ministers are less than cooperative, have them put to death and appoint some spineless, toadying grovelers.
Subtlety of ruling #2: If there's the slightest chance the general of your army is disloyal, have him put to death and appoint a servile, boot-licking apple polisher.
Subtlety of ruling #3: If some of your ministers and lords are corrupt, have them all put to death.
Subtlety of ruling #4: Evidence is for wusses; queens use the guillotine.
Subtlety of ruling #5: Before disguising yourself and leaving your center of power, make sure all your high ministers have been put to death.]
Subtlety of ruling #6: Put those who've plotted against you to death first, then arrest them.

Why would Sano-the-heavenly-being pick someone with no training, talent, or desire to be queen as the next monarch?

You're making the assumption that Sano is a good judge of character. Just because you've got power doesn't mean you know how to use it. We've had six years of the perfect example in Washington.

I'm more curious as to what a "heavenly being" is and whether there are more of them than just Sano. If not, does Sano get bored being all alone in the heavens? Why does he get to pick the next monarch? Why would he (or maybe she) "show up at her sword school"? Is becoming Queen like being selected for American Idol, and Sano is like Simon? "You're through to the throne! No, try the other door, darling."

So many questions!

Anyway, I agree with all EE's comments. If Rica became Queen, wouldn't she be able to fire her ministers? Or, more likely, have them imprisoned and one or two beheaded as examples? If I remember my English history, I think that happened every three or four months from 1100 to 1600 or something. I slept through a few of those classes, though, so I may have the exact figures wrong.

I don't understand why she can't bring justice to the fore right away? She's the Queen. Surely at least a couple of her ministers, soldiers, and high ministers are loyal enough to help her.

The rest (sneaking off to solve a mystery, etc.) doesn't bother me, but the idea that the Queen is powerless to administer justice or actually be in charge of anything does.

Now if you take out the Sano bit and have her chosen by the ministers to be Queen because they think she's a weak woman...but then you can't have her want to be a swordsman.

I think I'll take EE's advice to other Face Lifts and just cut Sano and the brother out. There are no one-sentence answers to those questions that won't raise more questions. Does the following query letter work any better?


Dear Evil Editor:

I’d like to tell you about my 82,000 word fantasy novel, Queen’s Justice.

Rica was unprepared to be Queen of Santor, and she knew it. She was raised as a soldier and knew how to follow orders without question, but now she’s desperately struggling to learn how to give orders. Her high ministers are less than cooperative when she tries to assert herself, and they block her attempts to get advice beyond their own. When Rica goes against her high ministers' wishes and holds a traditional grievances court open to all, two commoners try to kill her during their audience. She suspects that her high ministers and the general of her army may have been behind the attack.

Uncertain of who to trust and fearing for her safety, Rica retreats into a role that she knows how to play. She flees the palace and roams her country disguised as a mercenary. Still, she isn’t ready to give up. She’s determined to discover which of her lords and ministers are corrupt and which she can trust. During her travels, she sees indications that Lord Darris may be abusing his power and terrorizing his people. She tries to gather evidence against him, but no one will talk to a common mercenary for fear that Lord Darris may hear of it and kill them.

Then she learns that Sansu Kobri, one of her high ministers and Lord Darris’ uncle, has usurped her power and has people out searching for her. Rica finally stumbles across the evidence that she was searching for, but she no longer has the power to bring her enemies to justice. Unwilling to let that stop her, Rica joins a group of rebels who hate Lord Darris and leads them in revolt. After they capture Lord Darris, she regains control of her army, orders the arrest of those who plotted against her, and is finally able to bring about the Queen’s Justice.

The full manuscript of Queen’s Justice is available upon request. A self-address, stamped envelope is enclosed for your reply. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

To writtenwyrdd:

I know what you mean about the YA vibe, but this sounds more like the kind of "fantasy for teenage girls" stuff by Mercedes Lackey (e.g. "Arrows of the Queen") which is usually published under a regular fantasy imprint rather than as YA.

To the author:

That's much better! Amazing how a bit of rewording can transform a synopsis :)

Couple of teensy points:

She was raised as a soldier and knows how to follow orders without question (she presumably still knows how, so present tense, not past)

now she’s desperately struggling to learn how to give orders - I would drop the 'desperately', as this clause is already quite long, and you don't need the adverb anyway. I would also change the italics myself, but that's a matter of personal style:

She was raised as a soldier and knows how to follow orders without question; now she’s struggling to learn how to give them.

Bravo on the rewrite. Gives us a look into what's driving Rica and highlights her story. It sounds FAR more interesting to me this way, particularly without the heavenly being. (But of course, anyone in marketing will tell you to beware a sample of one.)

A little tuning and tightening and I think you've got something.

The good news: Your rewrite is much clearer as to what is happening in the story.

The bad news: Two-fold -- it reads like a mini-synopsis and there's still nothing to really hook me as to why it's different. Honestly, I still don't care about Rica or her queendom after reading this.

Because it reads like a synopsis and I never care to read synopses unless there's a real reason to (someone asks me to critique one; I didn't finish the book and my reading group meets in an hour), my eyes started to glaze in the second paragraph. Partly, too, because there are a lot of unnecessary words and sentences in there.

I don't usually try to rewrite someone else's hooks, but here's my shortened version, which still leaves room for you to put in some more touches about Rica and what you have in your story that sets it apart from others of its ilk.

"Rica is unprepared to be Queen of Santor. Raised as a soldier, she knows how to follow orders, but not how to give them. More insidiously, her attempts to rule and seek outside advice are being undermined by her high ministers. In fact, when Rica is attacked during an open audience, she suspects a cabal of her own ministers to be behind the plot to kill her.

Uncertain who to trust and fearing for her safety, Rica retreats into a role she knows how to play. Fleeing the palace, she roams the country disguised as a mercenary, determined to discover which of her ministers are in league against her. The most likely ringleader: Lord Darris. Now she just has to prove it.

But when High Minister Sansu Kobri, Lord Darris’ uncle, usurps the throne, Rica realizes the stakes have been raised. It's up to her to amass a rebel force, lead a revolt against her own throne, and at last mete out Queen's Justice."

Okay... let's play "count the plot points". I'll be generous with scoring.

1) "After her parents died,"
2) "when Sano, a heavenly being that selects the next ruler of Santor, shows up at her sword school and designates her as the new Queen."
3) "Then two commoners attack her"…and she discovers that her high ministers and the general of her army might have been behind that assassination attempt. 4) "Rica escapes the palace disguised as a mercenary."
5) "She seeks to gather evidence against him"
6) "Rica considers giving up and leaving the country,"
7) "One of her high ministers has usurped her power and has people out searching for her."
8) "Rica comes across further evidence against her corrupt lords and ministers"
9) "She finds a group of men willing to fight against Lord Darris and joins their revolt."
10) "After they capture Lord Darris, she regains control of her army orders the arrest of those who plotted against her, and is finally able to bring about the Queen’s Justice."

That's being kind; I skipped a number of things that might be considered plot points, and #10 is really several plot points.

This is way too many for a hook; what you have is a synopsis. I'd recommend picking perhaps three or four, and limiting yourself to them. With all of your "free space", you now have room to just "write". Sure, you're not going to have characters exchanging dialogue or anything of the nature, but you can give a sense of setting and character. By doing so, you'll also give the reader a sense of your voice -- that elusive thing that everyone is trying to convey. You can't really do that in a synopsis.

It's a revelation of fun and bad movie and TV show plot lines. But the lesson to draw is try to avoid these things.

Avoid those things? No way! In the novel I plan to write after my current WIP, I plan to deliberately use as many of those as possible, but in reverse. There's a "good overlord" who's taking over the world, and the antagonists are a plucky band of evil adventurers. The "good overlord" sends her minions after the evil adventurers, one at a time, in order from weakest to strongest. Her fortress is almost straight out of the evil overlord's handbook, except all nice and happy.

The MC is one of the good overlord's minions who realizes that what is going on is pure idiocy, and sets out on her own to develop a better plan. Various other elements include things like spells that literally work through handwaving, a battle that ends with a literal deus ex machina (a god-machine in a greek style amphitheatre falls on one party), a band of "Mary Sue" adventurers on a completely unrelated quest that keep showing up and bungling their way around (including an amnesiac named "Bahb", who they always have to explain things to -- "As you know, Bahb ..."), etc.

The problem with cliches is when you use them without realizing that you're doing so. You don't want to simply repeat them; you want to twist them.

Kinda like The Princess Bride, huh REI? Or maybe Cheech and Chong's Corsican Brothers

BTW, whoever was channeling Queen in GTP #3 -- time to lay off the mushrooms!

It would be fun to see whose deviant minds are coming up with some of these. EE, is it too much trouble to credit the GTPs? Or is there a reason not to that I'm missing? (Like you're already spending inordinate amounts of time on this great blog?)

EE, is it too much trouble to credit the GTPs? Or is there a reason not to that I'm missing?

If everyone read the GTPs for laughs, and no one tried to actually guess, I could credit them. But let's assume there are those who enjoy trying to guess the real plot. If I were crediting them, I could never use two or more fake plots from the same person (which often happens) because it would be obvious those aren't the real plot.

Plus, while there are a few people who submit fake plots only occasionally, there are many minions who submit fakes for every title. Their names would be recognized after a few queries as regular fake plotters.

Suppose you happen to know Kate Thornton writes mysteries, and you see her name on a plot for a book titled Torrid Love or Joey's Birthday Party or Battle for Planet X. You know hers is fake.

Then there's my laziness. I usually have ten or fifteen to choose from, so I'd have to keep a record of the authors of all of them, as I don't choose the five I post until the query comes up. Too much trouble.

Authors of GTPs are welcome to take credit in the comments if they wish. Readers may ask in comments who wrote a specific one; no guarantee you'll get an answer, but you might.

Ah. Understood, EE. Thanks for answering.

Toadying grovelers.

Haven't heard that one before. I'm looking forward to a time I can use it on someone.

You had the first 13 of this up on Hatrack and though you growled at me there, I liked it. So, here's another chance for you to growl at me.

The rewrite is much better. Great job. I understand why Rica goes into hiding and what she hopes to accomplish.

Now you need to stop chopping.

The main tension in your story is: Rica is picked to be Queen when no one was expecting there to be one and now she has to assert control and unseat an evil lord/ advisor without causing a war with the nobility. Focus on that.

But show me why you are different from the rest. Rica is the main reason - She's the hook because she's a warrior (unlike my MC in a similar situation who is a spy).

Also, after mentioning her brother, he gets lost in the synopsis. I'd suggest cutting him from the query.


Stream line:

Ex:

Raised as a soldier, Rica was unprepared to be Queen of Santor when Sano, a heavenly being chooses her. Now rather than practicing her drills, she's struggling with high ministers, who have lost power because of her elevation, and seek to subjugate her to thier will. At a traditional grievances court, two commoners try to kill her during their audience.

Suspicious of her her high ministers' role in the foiled assasignation, and uncertain of who to trust, Rica retreats into a role that she knows how to play that of a common mercenary.

She learns that Lord Darris is abusing his power and terrorizing his people. Chased by assigns and declared dead by one of her advisors, Rica joins a group of rebels and captures Lord Darris. (How does capturing him allow her to regain her throne?)

***
Per Miss. Snark:

Ideally a query is:

The MC X and her main problem/what she wants;
Y; and his main goal;
They meet and all L happens.
If X suceeds then A, if not then B.

Try to find the main thread of your story and build the query around it.

Keep trying.