Thursday, April 21, 2016

Spring Query Extravaganza- 4

Here we go with another query warm up for Query Kombat.

Please remember these are my thoughts only and I'm just one subjective opinion. Others may feel differently on how to shape a query. 

My next victim willing participant:


Dear [Agent’s Name],


Seventeen-year-old Dee is a young priestess born with the Sight and the gift of “divine intuition.” The only healer-in-training in her village with any knowledge of how to care for the Fae, she believes war is brewing between the Twilight Realm and the human world. She’s already lost an eye to the conflict; to survive the coming war, she plans to keep her head down and help the Fae deal with the humans as best she can.

Then, on a trip to the city, a group of men with murder on their minds recognize her as Sight-blessed. Brutally attacked, she only survives when two Elven girls – one with a silver arm – and a black wolf come to her rescue. The silver-armed girl is Nuala, the exiled princess from one of the Fae kingdoms; the wolf is Bryon, a cursed Elven prince and Nuala’s twin brother. The other Elf is Zhenying Phoenix-Child, another disgraced royal. Though they loathe humans, honor compels them to rescue Dee. Fate forces Dee further into their lives when Bryon is injured and Dee must try to heal him, and she realizes she’s developed feelings for him…and for Nuala. Feelings both Elves can’t help but return, despite the mounting tensions between their peoples, and despite the fact that Nuala is repulsed by physical intimacy.

Dragged into the Twilight Realm and to the Elven court in order to protect the three Elves from an aging and willfully ignorant king, Dee must adapt quickly to Fae politics and new cultures while trying to balance her devotion to her God, her loyalty to Nuala as future queen, and her oaths as a healer. Too many Fae are willing to do whatever it takes to start a war – including kill a human girl – or assassinate a disgraced Elven princess in order to try and stop one.

Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings meets Anne Bishop’s The Others in THE SILVER PRINCESS, a YA science-fantasy novel rounding off at 95,000 words. THE SILVER PRINCESS features a genderbent Irish legend (Nuada of the Silver Hand as a biracial girl) in an expansive, glittering, and dangerous Faerie world drawing on various mythologies from around the world. I saw on [your MSWL/#WeNeedDiverseBooks twitter post/etc] that you’re looking for more [LGBT+/something else]; my four main characters are people of color, and Zhenying is a phoenix-child – a transgender young woman. Nuala is biromantic/asexual, and Dee is bisexual.
Sincerely,


With my crazy comments:

Dear [Agent’s Name], (I'm going to keep beating the dead horse, so colon and not a comma.) 

Seventeen-year-old Dee is a young priestess born with the Sight and the gift of “divine intuition.” The only healer-in-training in her village with any knowledge of how to care for the Fae (Your first two sentences actually say the same thing, but the second one is much more interesting. The first makes her sound like "the chosen one" and kinda stuffy. I'd consider cutting the first.)She believes war is brewing between the Twilight Realm and the human world. She’s already lost After already losing an eye to the conflict (And bingo! This makes her interesting!) ; to survive the coming war, she plans to keep her head down and help the Fae deal with the humans as best she can.

Then, on a trip to the city, a group of men with murder on their minds recognize her Dee as Sight-blessed. Brutally attacked, she only survives when two Elven girls (I'm a little confused that they are elves instead of Fae. I've always considered those a separate races in fantasy and the first paragraph talked about Fae.) – one with a silver arm – and a black wolf come to her rescue (I'm not sure those are details we really need. This is veering off to become more like a synopsis.). The silver-armed girl is Nuala, the exiled princess from one of the Fae kingdoms; the wolf is Bryon, a cursed Elven prince and Nuala’s twin brother. The other Elf is Zhenying Phoenix-Child, another disgraced royal. Though they loathe humans, honor compels them to rescue Dee. Fate forces Dee further into their lives when Bryon is injured and Dee must try to heal him, and she realizes she’s developed feelings for him…and for Nuala. Feelings both Elves can’t help but return, despite the mounting tensions between their peoples, and despite the fact that Nuala is repulsed by physical intimacy. (This paragraph really needs condensed and simplified. Something like:)

Dee is set upon by her own kind while traveling and rescued by three elves, including an exiled Fae princess, Nuala. Though they loathe humans, honor compels them to save her life. Dee attempts to return the favor by nursing the injured elves back to health, only to begin falling for Nuala--and her brother. Yet, the mounting tension between their people and Nuala's repulsion of physical intimacy hold them apart.    

Dragged into the Twilight Realm and to the Elven court in order to protect the three Elves from an aging and willfully ignorant king, Dee must adapt quickly to Fae politics and new cultures while trying to balance her devotion to her God, her loyalty to Nuala as future queen, and her oaths as a healer. (This sentence is HUGE! (A little election humor.) I'd break this sucker up. Dee is dragged into the Twilight Realm in order to protect her new friends. She must adapt to Fae politics and their culture, while trying to balance her religion and oaths as a healer, but most of all, get a handle on her feelings.) If she fails, too many Fae are willing to do whatever it takes to start a war – including kill a human girl or assassinate a disgraced Elven princess. in order to try and stop one.(I'm not sure the stakes you are using are the best ones for the story. You leave out Dee's feelings. And maybe it would be better to focus on getting Nuala back in line for the throne to stop the war by moving that to the last sentence.)
  
Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings meets Anne Bishop’s The Others (This is real subjective but having the comps here makes this sentence very busy. They have the tendency to drown out your book. I would put your book first and then list the comps.) in THE SILVER PRINCESS, a YA science-fantasy novel rounding off at 95,000 words. THE SILVER PRINCESS features a genderbent Irish legend (Nuada of the Silver Hand as a biracial girl) in an expansive, glittering, and dangerous Faerie world drawing on various mythologies from around the world. I saw on [your MSWL/#WeNeedDiverseBooks twitter post/etc] that you’re looking for more [LGBT+/something else]; my four main characters are people of color, and include Zhenying is a phoenix-child – a transgender young woman. Nuala is, a biromantic/asexual, and Dee is a bisexual.
Sincerely,

The author asks how she can demonstrate that her book contains diverse characters. The best way is to include that when you describe the plot. I think the LGBT and asexual information is carrying over into the plot paragraphs. If Dee is a character of color, you might be able to work that info into the first paragraph. I would leave it to your pages to show the rest. You can continue to list the diversity at the end of your query, but I'd shorten the list and simplify it as suggested above.

I think this query would benefit the most from cutting the less important details and cleaning up some wording. Also the stakes could be made more dramatic to give the query an extra pop of excitement at the end.    

1 comment:

  1. There's some great advice here. I'm not ready to query yet, but I'm going to keep this stuff in mind for when I am. - Amber

    ReplyDelete