posted
This is the second book in my DUAL MAGICS series, which started with THE SHAMAN'S CURSE. I hope to put it up for pre-order in a couple of weeks. Here's what I've got for the blurb so far:
First version:
quote:When the two kinds of magic combine, strange things happen.
Vatar overcame his people’s superstitions to accept his own magic. That doesn’t mean he’s prepared to tell them about it. He’d rather keep that secret forever. Especially when strange things start to happen that even the experts in magic can’t explain.
Even more when a mysterious voice only he can hear starts volunteering information Vatar can’t possible know.
After enduring an Ordeal to prove he wasn’t possessed by an Evil Spirit, Vatar now thinks he may be after all. Or losing his mind. Or cursed. It’s enough to make him want to give up on magic altogether.
But he’s going to need all his wits—and all the magic he can muster—to defeat those who want to use him and his magic for their own ends.
quote:When the two kinds of magic combine in one person, unexpected things happen.
If Vatar had things his own way, he’d never take the risk of revealing his magic to anyone within his superstitious, magic-fearing tribe.
Especially when unprecedented things start to happen that even the experts in magic can’t explain and make him question his own control of the magic. It’s one thing to sense the presence of lions, quite another to see the hunt through the eyes of one of the lions.
But when a mysterious voice only he can hear starts volunteering information Vatar can’t possible know, it leaves Vatar questioning whether he might be possessed. Or losing his mind. Or cursed. He might have no choice but to expose his magic to at least some members of his tribe if he hopes to understand what’s happening to him.
It’s enough to make him want to give up on magic altogether. Unfortunately, that’s not an option. Because there are others outside his tribe who want to use him and his unique magic for their own ends.
Vatar’s going to need all his wits—and all the magic he can muster—to maintain his freedom and protect those he loves.
Third Version:
quote:When the two kinds of magic combine, unexpected things happen.
Sensing the presence of lions is one thing. Any member of the Lion Clan could do that. When Vatar sees the hunt through the eyes of one of the big cats—well, that’s something else altogether. And that’s only the beginning of the inexplicable manifestations of his magic.
When a mysterious voice only he can hear volunteers ancient information, Vatar knows he’s in trouble. After enduring an Ordeal to prove he wasn’t possessed by an Evil Spirit, Vatar thinks he may be possessed after all. Or losing his mind. Or cursed.
He must hide his magic from his superstitious, magic-fearing people or face consequences that don’t bear thinking about. But he has to control it in order to keep it secret. It’s enough to make him want to give up on magic altogether.
<h2>But he’s going to need all his wits—and all the magic he can muster—to defeat those who want to use him and his unique magic for their own ends.
As always, rip, tear, shred. Help me make it better.
posted
Revision (something important was missing. )
When the two kinds of magic combine, strange things happen.
Vatar overcame his people’s superstitions to accept his own magic. That doesn’t mean he’s prepared to tell them about it. He’d rather keep that secret forever. Especially when strange things start to happen that even the experts in magic can’t explain.
Even more when a mysterious voice only he can hear starts volunteering information Vatar can’t possible know.
After enduring an Ordeal to prove he wasn’t possessed by an Evil Spirit, Vatar now thinks he may be after all. Or losing his mind. Or cursed. It’s enough to make him want to give up on magic altogether.
But he’s going to need all his wits—and all the magic he can muster—to defeat those who want to use him and his magic for their own ends.
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posted
I would use a more descriptive phrase for 'strange'. The adjective doesn't really tell me anything because what's strange to one person/group is perfectly normal for another. And in the world of magic, it's hard to guess what they'd think 'strange' is since magic itself is unusual.
I'm reminded of a story I was workshopping that had a vampire as a main character, yet the human who knew the vampire couldn't believe that the antagonist of the story might be a ghost. Because ghosts can't exist, but this vampire you know does.
I'm a bit confused by the plot, but that's to be expected since this is a sequel.
And the last line feels like a stereotypical movie preview ending. But this is something that the typical reader, I think, won't care much about. You *could* make it sound more distinctive, but the effort might be wasted.
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quote:Originally posted by Denevius: I would use a more descriptive phrase for 'strange'. The adjective doesn't really tell me anything because what's strange to one person/group is perfectly normal for another. And in the world of magic, it's hard to guess what they'd think 'strange' is since magic itself is unusual.
Okay. I could replace strange with unexpected or unprecedented. I think that's a little better.
I don't want to try to go into too much detail in the blurb. That'd likely be even more confusing to someone who hadn't read the first book. The important thing here is not how it's strange, but that it freaks the main character out.
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posted
Sequel installments come with added challenges, for the narrative and for marketing matter, like blurbs. They ought best appeal to existing followers and attract new followers. On the former hand, signals of continued and new doings awaiting complication satisfaction and action escalation signals are a best practice. On the latter hand, signals of stand-alone appeals attract new followers.
Ideally, the denouement of a prior installment leaves a pendent and significant complication unsatisfied, which serves part of the former first need, which also piques new follower interest for prior and subsequent installments. Unsatisfied complication as an event of substance serves all the needs for a narrative and marketing appeals.
For me, this blurb is too generic to serve those appeal functions. Part of the shortfall, in my estimation, is Vatar's underdeveloped personal complication. His troubles are caused by events that happen to him. He's a victim of others' desires and problems. He's not a victim of his personal desires and problems, which is perhaps a strongest-most possible appeal.
Victimism is a common appeal motif across genres. My concern with victimism is that's a broad and too-unfocused motif, too impersonal, inadequately intimate. That, overall, is for me the shortfall of this blurb: generically impersonal.
On yet another hand, the language develops a sense of intimacy from the grammatical vices of the piece that signal potential stream-of-conscious virtues: sentence fragments, slang dialect mixed with formal composition benchmarks, the argumentative debate style that those idea connector terms contrast and compare--as if the persona of the expression, the narrator of the blurb, or implied writer more so, carries out an internal argument discourse: off-the-cuff thought, so to speak.
The net effect scratches at the edges of Vatar's thought, which, if closer distanced, is an ideal appeal of intimate personalness. Doesn't quite reach a complete grasp though. More so, the net effect is an unsettled narrative point of view, more real writer voice than implied writer, narrator, or viewpoint agonist perception and voice, mixed voices that follow no discernible and easily followed pattern or sequence. An over-distanced and alienation net effect results: Bertolt Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt--verfremdung: "distancing, alienation," German loan word (Webster's 11th Collegiate).
The victimism motif has strong potential appeals, especialy so for young and female audiences. If a statement about victimism is intended, that would both benefit from stronger focus, more narrowed, and ease of access, and be a significant message with likewise strong appeals. As the blurb is, and probably the novel and franchise overall as well, I don't see that development or any statement of a similar nature; that is, what the novel and franchise say about a specific moral human condition.
Victimism suits that moral human condition criteria. If a narrative fragment, blurb, pitch, query, part, parcel, or whole expresses a focused moral human condition crisis, appeal value soars. All else, in Damon Knight's Creating Short Fiction vernacular, is daydream writing: a viral pox inherent to self-published compositions. Daydream writing generally only appeals to its writer and perhaps a writer's close acquaintances, maybe somewhat to, again, young and female audiences, though limited in that latter regard.
Consider a focused and narrowed expression of what the narrative says, for example, specifically about victimism, or what the narrative and its parts express about another particular moral human condition and crisis. If a blurb or narrative, whatever, exhibits such a focused and intimately personal feature or motif, appeal strength soars. Guaranteed!
I wouldn't say Vatar is the victim, exactly, though I see where the blurb could come off that way. I'll work on that.
But this is the second of four books and very much the first half of the second act of the series as a whole. So, to a degree, Vatar is still being driven rather than driving. The turning point of that (the midpoint) actually comes at the climax of this book.
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posted
This is, of course, yours to do with as you please, so I'll just echo Extrinsic in that the blurb, as is, is a bit generic. If going into greater details, like what's strange about 'strange', will make the blurb more confusing, than it's best that you don't.
But as someone coming in to this novel, plot points confused me. Who knows about magic and who doesn't? Superstition is what modern folks call old folks who believe in magic, yet isn't this a world of magic? So what are they superstitious about? Because 'experts' are mentioned, so someone must know something.
Perhaps the Ordeal is more detailed in the previous book, but if you're trying to attract new readers, I think they'll want something a bit stronger to whet their imaginative appetites.
And I keep coming back around to the mindset of these people. When you can walk through walls, or summon spirits, exactly what circumstances make you feel you're losing your mind?
Of course, blurbs won't answer all of the questions of the novel. I just think that these lines as written here aren't setting up interesting, intriguing questions that make me go, "Hm, what is going on here? And I really want to find out."
But anywho, that's my take. Lots of luck on whatever direction you decide to go!
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posted
I appreciate your feedback, Denevius. And I'll see what I can do to make it less generic.
In answer to your questions (in hopes that you'll see someway to handle this that I don't):
Leaving out the fringe elements, there are four major cultural groups in this world. Two of them accept and practice magic as a matter of course. (Their magic is inherited, parent to child.) One accepts certain kinds of magic, but doesn't have any magical ability of their own.
And one (Vatar's) distrusts anything like magic (for historical reasons--they got burned by it in the past). Although this group has a more passive kind of magic, that has more to do with perception than action. They just don't call it magic. Their magic is acquired through an initiation ritual.
Vatar's first challenge was to accept that he has magic and learn to use it (Book 1). His second challenge (Book 2) is to come to grips with the fact that his magic is different in several ways. Some, but not all, of the reason for the difference is that he is the first to ever have both kinds of magic. (Hence the series title, DUAL MAGICS.)
Some of those differences really scare him. And the fact that those who know about magic can't explain it either (because it's never happened before) doesn't help.
There's a real limit to how long a blurb can be (and remain effective), so trying to fit all of that in probably isn't going to happen.
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quote:so trying to fit all of that in probably isn't going to happen.
Definitely true.
Actually, I had wanted to add in my previous post that since you've been writing for a while, you know what your audience wants. So definitely stick with what's been working for you.
You have a complicated narrative that I haven't read, so trying to distill it to suggest more specific changes to the blurb isn't really doable. My suggestion remains to try to make each line pop off the page more to draw readers in.
For me (and only *my* opinion), this blurb seems to be covering too much plot in a vague and ineffective way that just leaves me, a new reader, confused. So I guess my last advice on the subject is to choose two lines and expound upon them *only*. From this blurb, I can't tell what the core of this sequel is, though I think it's this:
quote: But he’s going to need all his wits—and all the magic he can muster—to defeat those who want to use him and his magic for their own ends.
If so, I would suggest perhaps an opening line detailing those who want to use his magic to their own ends, thereby beginning the blurb with a problem/tension. Then a line giving an example of how Vatar outwits them one time. And then a line that shows that despite Vatar's attempts, he still has what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle ahead of him with this antagonistic group. That obstacle is why readers will read the book past the blurb in order to see how he overcomes it, and what he stands to gain if he does, or lose if he doesn't.
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posted
Working on some of the suggestions now. For reference, here's the blurb for the first book in the series, THE SHAMAN'S CURSE:
quote:Vatar risked his life to try to save his friend--and failed.
Now he has an implacable enemy in the vengeful shaman, who blames Vatar for the death of his only son. In his isolation, Vatar finds some comfort in daydreams. He knows the strange girl he sometimes imagines is just that--a dream. She’d better be.
Because, if she’s real things could get even worse for Vatar. The accepted magic of Vatar’s plains tribe wouldn’t enable him to see or communicate with a girl he doesn’t even know--or know where to find. That would be more like the magic passed down in certain, closely-guarded bloodlines among the ruling class of the coastal cities. And that’s bad. Very bad.
Unlike their own, Vatar’s people think the city magic is evil. If the shaman ever found out, it could be the weapon he needs to destroy Vatar. And yet, finding a way to accept the other side of his heritage may be the only way Vatar can ultimately defeat his enemy.
The two kinds of magic have always been totally separate. Until now.
quote: When the two kinds of magic combine in one person, unexpected things happen.
If Vatar had things his own way, he’d never take the risk of revealing his magic to anyone within his superstitious, magic-fearing tribe.
Especially when unprecedented things start to happen that even the experts in magic can’t explain and make him question his own control of the magic. It’s one thing to sense the presence of lions, quite another to see the hunt through the eyes of one of the lions.
But when a mysterious voice only he can hear starts volunteering information Vatar can’t possible know, it leaves Vatar questioning whether he might be possessed. Or losing his mind. Or cursed. He might have no choice but to expose his magic to at least some members of his tribe if he hopes to understand what’s happening to him.
It’s enough to make him want to give up on magic altogether. Unfortunately, that’s not an option. Because there are others outside his tribe who want to use him and his unique magic for their own ends.
Vatar’s going to need all his wits—and all the magic he can muster—to maintain his freedom and protect those he loves.
Significant improvement. I have a clearer understanding of how magic works in this world. I now understand that the tribe knows about magic, but they don't trust it.
The line that begins with 'Especially' is a little weak. Maybe a better word than 'things', which doesn't create any image in my mind. Plus, by this line, you've said magic 5 times, and it feels redundant.
I like the example of magic given, which clears up how it works. I get what's going on with the voice more, and I see what's at risk for him with revealing his abilities to his tribe.
So, except for that one line I mentioned, and the overall fact that the word 'magic' is used probably a dozen times, I think this blurb is on the right rack to grabbing readers' interests.
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Misspelling in both versions "possible." //possibly.//
The language for me attempts forced, overly superlative qualities and they cloud the drama generically. Underscores below bracket problematic expressions.
"_When_ the two kinds of magic combine in one person, _unexpected things_ happen.
_If Vatar had things his own way_, he’d _never_ _take the_ risk of revealing his magic to _anyone_ within _his superstitious, magic-fearing_ tribe.
_Especially when unprecedented things_ start to happen that _even the experts in_ magic can’t explain and _make him question his own_ control of the magic. _It’s one thing_ to sense the presence of lions, _quite another_ to see the hunt through the eyes of one of the lions.
_But when a mysterious voice only he can hear_ starts volunteering information Vatar can’t _*possible* know_, _it leaves_ Vatar questioning whether he _might be_ possessed. Or losing his mind. Or cursed. He _might have no choice but to_ expose his magic to _at least_ some members of his tribe _if he hopes_ to understand what’s happening to him.
_It’s enough to make_ him want to give up on magic _altogether_. _Unfortunately, that’s not an option._ B_ecause there are others outside his tribe who_ want to use him and his _unique_ magic for _their own ends_.
Vatar’s _going to need all his wits_—and _all_ the magic he can muster—_to maintain his freedom and protect those he loves_."
Also, several clichés among the superlatives are on the generic and overly superlative side.
I think the second version is clearer though less strong in the voice area, less emotionaly strong. Stronger to me in this case is greater specificity and more robust, signficant verbs. For example, "things" is an idiom used to mean complication events. The everyday, bland, common idiomatic usage "That's the way things are," for instance, bland, nonspecific, and a weak, static verb. What specific event(s) of consequence is "unexpected things happen" and "had things his own way"? to cite two examples.
posted
The second and third versions are better than the first, though I think the second one is the strongest of the lot.
You might want to step away from it for a couple of weeks and let the blurb settle. I will say, though, that most so in the third version, there is no poetry of language. The tone feels like a report of several events that happened in the novel, which is a bit tedious to read.
quote:Sensing the presence of lions is one thing. Any member of the Lion Clan could do that.
Like this. It can be spruced up a little just by two or three words for what 'sensing' entails. Singled-minded focus of the lion crouched to pounce? Carefree joy of cubs tumbling out of their den?
A blurb is limited real estate, so you can't get too carried away. I think you've got the right details down now, but they're just too prosaic.
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I like the third version better. I get a clear idea of how Vatar's magic is different than what his tribe expects. Still, there are issues in this caused by trying to contrast magic with the unexplained.
"of the inexplicable manifestations of his magic" It's magic; it's already inexplicable.
"He must hide his magic from his superstitious..." How can you be superstitious when magic is real? You're telling the reader to just dismiss these superstitions right off the bat, instead of making us wonder if there's something to them. If, instead, you leave it at "magic-fearing," I'm now asking a question that builds tension--why do they fear magic?--as opposed to brushing an entire plot element aside.
"After enduring an Ordeal to prove he wasn’t possessed..." "Isn't." Everything else is in present tense, and I can't see why this should be an exception.
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The important thing here is not how it's strange, but that it freaks the main character out.
