posted
Second attempt. I still hate these. Thanks again to everyone who commented before. Let's try this one more time.
quote:When nineteen-year-old Caylen Loramere discovers that she has a dormant power, the lives of her and her family hang on every decision she makes.
When her father dies, Caylen is the only one capable of running the family horse farm. Drowning in work, she rides off to find someone to hire. She never expects to be ambushed by thieves let alone saved by a drifter named Landis.
Landis is too confident, too derisive, and too skilled with a sword for her comfort. He doesn’t belong in her simple town of Merwood. He couldn’t have been on that road by chance.
Determined to unravel his secrets, Caylen soon discovers that both of them are tainted with magic. There is a secret war brewing between others like them. Landis insists at some point, everyone has to choose a side. To make sure she chooses his, he forms a mental bond with her, linking her to him and creating an emotional connection between them.
What he did was unforgivable. Caylen doesn’t want to hear his damn justifications; she just wants him gone. Only through the bond, Landis can access her magic, making him more powerful. Now his enemies want her dead.
Caylen has to decide to ally with the man who bonded her against her will or fight both him and his enemies armed with a power she doesn’t understand. The only chance Caylen has to protect her family on her own is to embrace her own darkness and become as cold and ruthless as Landis.
I hate these. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
quote:Dear Agent,
Riding alone through the woods is risky, especially for a young woman, but Ferthen’s Road has always been quiet. Caylen never expects to be ambushed by thieves let alone saved by a drifter named Landis.
Landis is too confident, too derisive, and too skilled with a sword for her comfort. He doesn’t belong in her simple town of Merwood. He couldn’t have been on that road by mere chance.
Determined to unravel his secrets, Caylen soon discovers that both of them are tainted with magic. There is an underground war brewing between their kind. Landis insists at some point, everyone has to choose a side. To make sure she chooses his, he forms an unbreakable mental bond with her, binding her to him and creating a strong, emotional connection between them.
Caylen is horrified. What he did was unforgivable. She doesn’t want to hear his damn justifications; she just wants him gone. Only through the bond, Landis can access her dormant magic, making him more powerful, and now his enemies want her dead.
Caylen has no idea how to defend herself against highly-skilled soldiers and assassins. Despite what Landis did to her, he may be her only chance to survive. But the more she is with him the more she starts craving the intimacy of the bond and feels as if is losing herself in him. If she doesn’t get away from him soon, she fears she never will.
posted
G'day MAP. Well, I had to think about this a bit before I could frame a response. To me, it looks like you're trying to hint to the Agent all the twists and turns of the plot; but that won't hook them in, in my opinion.
What's the central dilemma, the initial dramatic complication? Perhaps an opening along these lines, but don't quote me.
You'd think if you was magical, the power would be yours, right? Wrong! Some guy who's too good at fighting tricks you into agreeing to let him do something to you that now means everyone wants to kill you. That just aint fair--or right!
posted
The three things a query needs to show are:
Who is the main character and why should we care about him/her?
What choice does he/she have to make?
What are the stakes?
quote:Riding alone through the woods is risky, especially for a young woman, but Ferthen’s Road has always been quiet. Caylen never expects to be ambushed by thieves let alone saved by a drifter named Landis.
This feels more like a warm up. It doesn't ground me in the world. It doesn't tell me who Caylen is. And it doesn't really introduce the conflict.
Maybe start with Caylen (how old is she?) and what is so important that she'd be out riding alone despite the danger. Help us to know what's important to her--and thereby something about her--and why we should care. Is there something important that she's being prevented from doing by this Landis?
quote:Landis is too confident, too derisive, and too skilled with a sword for her comfort. He doesn’t belong in her simple town of Merwood. He couldn’t have been on that road by mere chance.
Determined to unravel his secrets, Caylen soon discovers that both of them are tainted with magic. There is an underground war brewing between their kind.
Here's a place where I'd like to know a little more. What is "their kind". Are they the same so that this will be an internal war? Or are they from different kinds of magic?
What's the reason for the war? What are the bigger stakes involved here?
quote:Landis insists at some point, everyone has to choose a side. To make sure she chooses his, he forms an unbreakable mental bond with her, binding her to him and creating a strong, emotional connection between them.
Bond and binding too close together. Minor point, but it counts in a query.
All right, creepy. But, why would Landis be so determined to make her, particularly, chose his side. Presumably he can't do this with every magically tainted person he meets. What's important about Caylen?
Would they have been on different sides if he hadn't done this?
quote:Caylen is horrified. What he did was unforgivable. She doesn’t want to hear his damn justifications; she just wants him gone.
Except, you said this bond is unbreakable. So how exactly does she plan to be rid of him?
quote:Only through the bond, Landis can access her dormant magic, making him more powerful, and now his enemies want her dead.
Could she also access his magic?
quote:Caylen has no idea how to defend herself against highly-skilled soldiers and assassins. Despite what Landis did to her, he may be her only chance to survive. But the more she is with him the more she starts craving the intimacy of the bond and feels as if is losing herself in him. If she doesn’t get away from him soon, she fears she never will.
If it's truly an unbreakable bond, then she never will and that's not the main stakes of this story. What's the bigger picture?
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posted
The last paragraph contains the germ of what, to me, from which the pitch should, best practice, start. Caylen encounters a choice between diametrically opposite want and problem force satisfactions. Want and problem satisfaction is the kernel of dramatic complication. Diametric opposition forces are, likewise, the kernel of dramatic conflict.
Caylen has an either/or fallacy decision that's also a cognitive dissonance. Either/or fallacies are weak formal composition argumentation practice though natural and probable for agonists in crisis. I would expect a later surprise of a third or more option for Caylen becomes an avenue she realizes for complication satisfaction, say Caylen realizes she can turn the tables on Landis, force him to her will. Or decide force returned is Two wrongs don't make a right. A message suitable for a whole novel then becomes The ends don't justify the means. Either/or fallacies are fertile and ripe fruit for performance writing like prose: fiction.
Cognitive dissonance causes cognitive freeze while processing reconciling the double bind of two or more contrary, incongruous concepts held simultaneously. A dissonance reconciliation satisfaction typically involves a third or more conceptual strategy that spans the double bind and offers additional satisfaction strategies.
Otherwise, the query to me is forced language. Superlative degree modifiers signal forced and false drama that reaches for appeal and only (superlative term) calls undue attention to the forced language.
The first paragraph's overstated though empty terms marked by underscore brackets:
"Riding _alone_ through the woods is risky, _especially_ for a young woman, _but_ Ferthen’s Road has _always_ been quiet. Caylen _never_ expects to be ambushed by thieves _let alone_ saved by a drifter named Landis."
More empty overstatements throughout the query (artless emphasis). Meaningful and memorable emphasis entails timely and judicious emotion and attitude expression. Use of overstatement superlatives is usually a feminine expression characteristic that enhances emotional bonds, thus appeals to feminine sensibilities, though in everyday life conversation the greater meaning significance is expressed through vocal intonation and nonverbal, nonvocal expression: body language and facial expression; not the words themselves, per se.
The query contains markers for writer surrogacy -- the dread Mary Sue narrative type. Writer surrogate narratives appeal to middle grade readers and younger young adults; they lose appeal the older and more skilled a reader becomes. One feature, though, is essential for writer surrogate narratives; that is, a moral crisis struggle and its inherent moral message, such that social commentary is expressed. That's where a moral message like the above "The ends don't justify the means" informs a narrative's dramatic action. Each "means," for example, causes a poetic justice response: vice punished, virtue rewarded.
The action described in the query is mostly superficial, except, due to Landis' vice-virtue character, behavior, and personality, that action is artful and dramatic. He rescues Caylen though bends her to his will against her will. Moral vice-virtue clashes are the feature of dramatic action most important, not the rest, which is only the package for a moral crisis struggle. Caylen has no moral crisis struggle described in the query, maybe the novel too, only that she must choose between staying with Landis or leaving him.
Writer surrogate narratives are invariably daydream writing, which is part of why they appeal to young or young-minded readers. Two common features of daydream writing are an already noble, heroic, can-do-no-wrong viewpoint agonist: no struggle with moral temptation; and an everyone-is-mean-to-me-unecessarily aesthetic which an agonist patiently, stoically, heroically, and easily perserveres through thick and thin. Self-idealization, self-efficacy, and self-actualization are common, if not universal, for writer surrogate and daydream writing.
Consider the narrative from Landis' viewpoint. He feels justified using Caylen for his own means and ends. That is a moral crisis struggle worthy of a novel. Though, if he be heroic, he's probably aware he strays into ambigious moral territory. What a sacrifice! He strays for a noble cause. What a martyr!
If Caylen is aware of Landis' misguided rationale, that could, should invoke her moral crisis struggle. Revenge for his coercions might be a first motivation: pride and wrath vice reactions, countered by humility and patience virtues, respectively.
How does Landis perceive Caylen? A pawn for his machinations, though noble intents? An equal? Caylen's character development is one-dimensional as the query is now, and probably the novel. Give her a moral crisis struggle and see how that shapes the query and the novel's dimensional fullness. Fully rounded characters, like real-life folk, struggle with moral crises. Even action adventure heroes must at least struggle with whether to save the world or let it rot, the saving at great personal risk and costs: a self-sacrifice of monumental proportions.
posted
Thanks everyone for your insights. Very helpful. I will have to think on this for a while. Did I mention how much I hate these.
Caylen does have a personality. I just am having a really hard time infusing her into the query letter because so much of the plot is driven by Landis. He always over-shadows her in all of my versions. I'm not sure how to fix that and still focus on the main plot.
The antagonist driving the plot instead of the protagonist may be a flaw in the story, but I like the novel. It is the way I want it to be, and it has the themes that I want it to have. Whether that turns off readers or not, I guess time will tell.
Caylen's main choice is between security and independence. In the beginning, she is fighting to keep control over her life against her very patriarchal society. At first she thinks that Landis is helping her keep that control, and then he turns the table on her and traps her. That freedom that she has fought so hard to gain is completely gone.
After his enemies target her, she is so terrified that she is compliant, but as Landis tries to manipulate and control her more and more, she realizes that the risk of death is worth the chance of freedom.
Maybe security versus freedom isn't a moral dilemma that appeals to a lot of readers, but it appeals to me, and it is a theme that I wanted to explore. I'm sure my story is deeply flawed in many ways, but I like it, warts and all.
I don't think the story I am trying to tell is coming off in the query letter. So back to the drawing board. Thank you everyone for your feedback. This really has been very helpful.
And Meredith, the bond isn't really unbreakable. She just thinks it is. I'm going to take that out because I can see how confusing it is.
Once again, thank you everyone. You guys are the best.
quote:When nineteen-year-old Caylen Loramere discovers that she has a dormant power, the lives of her and her family hang on every decision she makes.
When her father dies, Caylen is the only one capable of running the family horse farm. Drowning in work, she rides off to find someone to hire.
In my opinion, this is too much backstory for a query. The beginning of the first version got to the point better.
quote:She never expects to be ambushed by thieves let alone saved by a drifter named Landis.
Landis is too confident, too derisive, and too skilled with a sword for her comfort. He doesn’t belong in her simple town of Merwood. He couldn’t have been on that road by chance.
Determined to unravel his secrets, Caylen soon discovers that both of them are tainted with magic.
Begs the question of WHY she's determined to do this. Maybe just leave off the first clause?
quote:There is a secret war brewing between others like them. Landis insists at some point, everyone has to choose a side.
The order bothers me in that last sentence. It reads like "at some point he insists" rather than "choose a side at some point" could just be me.
quote: To make sure she chooses his, he forms a mental bond with her, linking her to him and creating an emotional connection between them.
Reads just a little too passive. Maybe "forces a mental bond"?
quote:What he did was unforgivable. Caylen doesn’t want to hear his damn justifications; she just wants him gone. Only through the bond, Landis can access her magic, making him more powerful. Now his enemies want her dead.
Possibly lose the "Only."
quote:Caylen has to decide to ally with the man who bonded her against her will or fight both him and his enemies armed with a power she doesn’t understand. The only chance Caylen has to protect her family on her own is to embrace her own darkness and become as cold and ruthless as Landis.
When did her family become endangered in this?
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posted
For me, the pitch here is specific when best general and vague when best specific, as well as too formal a language and at the same time too informal. The grammatical mood is emphatic without suitable context: feels strongly and unnaturally forced. Certain words usage is awkward, not in an appealing way, like clumsy use of temporal conjunction "when" twice and to start the pitch and the next paragraph.
If the pitch is intended for a self-publication marketing campaign, all the above is about par for the abundant cornucopia of the market. Such readers will not notice any of the considerations screening readers will. Like to start a composition with a conjunction word: "when." That was the stopping point for me -- the first word.
The pivotal event I draw from the pitch is Landis imposes a "magic" bond on Caylen, which upsets her. Though no clue what she might do to Landis for betraying her, which should at least be implied. She is posed as a victim of circumstances beyond her control and as a static action overall. Best practice sets her in dynamic, proactive action from the first inciting event, that Landis bonds her to him. Victism is a literary movement, especially in New Feminism, though one with a limited audience. Protagonists best act, not be acted upon. As much as the first quarter word count can progress toward victimization, though proactive action ought best be foreshadowed, shown that Caylen will take matters into her own hands, and right soon, as early as the first page; for the pitch, the first paragraph.
Also, the kinds of magic in contention best practice could at least be hinted at. Otherwise, the pitch more or less details events that happen -- are done -- to Caylen. For me, the pitch could focus on Caylen's efforts to gain an upper hand on Landis; meanwhile, the action moves toward how Caylen will discover the other pivotal influences: the secret magics war (what? types of magic and what Caylen's magic might do and fail initially), a peaceful town's pendent routine interruption -- a stranger comes to town tale (yarn) -- and so on.
Mindful that a moral truth discovery for Caylen is the essential outcome and the intangible though real action of the work. Like, say, Caylen discovers moral truth is shades of gray, where the ends do not justify the means, though the means is all that is possible for the desired end. Caylen chooses to bend her rigid moral code, becomes more worldly, and succeeds from doing so. Best practice not to put that latter overtly in the pitch, only imply that that is the moral dilemma Caylen faces. And at a personal cost -- stakes, like acceptance (approval) and rejection (shunning). Like she would lose her community standing if she violates the community's rigid moral codes -- one code specifically, like trespassing on others' physical boundaries, congruent to what Landis does to Caylen: trespasses on her social boundaries.
Please consider adding to or starting a proscribed word list, include "when" on the list, include the hundred most common English words. Expand the list to include emphatic mood words, such that every word is evaluated for whether the word is in an artful and proper context and texture. A proscribed word list indexes words to study and evaluate their artful uses so that they do their job, function for clarity and strength of meaning.
"When," for example, entails a specific time of an event. "When nineteen-year-old Caylen Loramere discovers that she has a dormant power, the lives of her and her family hang on every decision she makes." "When" there only says a vague time that Caylen makes a generic discovery. When might be a season of the year, a year named by her community, like Bao Rainbow Year -- the year the Bao's tree trunk broke and a rainbow sprouted from the break, or an absolute date specific to the milieu; Yodeday noon of Serpent Year Summer (like the Ides of March), and so on. A relative or absolute time is what "when" describes. Otherwise, the word in subject position is a syntax expletive, a pronoun empty of meaning.
Also, study up on grammatical mood: indicative, imperative, emphatic, and subjunctive. The indicative mood is best practice for prose and for pitches; emphatic for sparing, judicious, timely, warranted, supported emphasis.
posted
Thanks Meredith. Great suggestions like always.
Extrinsic, thanks for your input as well. I did look up grammatical mood, and I am a little confused as to what in my query letter signifies emphatic mood. Could you give specific examples from my query?
From what I understand emphatic mood is seen when the verb "do" or other forms of "do" are used for emphasis.
For example:
"Do you need help?"
The verb "do" in this case is not used for emphasis so this is not emphatic mood.
"Yes, I do need help."
This is an emphatic mood because the "do" is used for emphasis. The word do can be taken away.
"Yes, I need help."
Adverbs can also indicate emphatic mood.
For example:
"I really like him."
The word really adds emphasis and therefore gives an emphatic mood. The "really" could be taken out.
"I like him."
But using "really" for emphasis changes the meaning a bit.
This is my limited understanding of emphatic mood. Am I missing something?
Maybe I'm too close to my writing, but I'm not seeing a lot of emphatic mood in my query letter. Can you be more specific?
posted
The English language proscriptively has three grammatical moods: indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. Prescriptively and descriptively, emphatic mood can fit in any one through construction. The English grammar principle "emphasis" is on point for appreciating emphatic mood. Word, phrase, sentence, and perhaps larger unit constructions -- paragraph -- that emphasize an idea.
"Do you need help?" for example, is simple indicative mood.
"Yes, I do need help." is indicative mood though with the emphasis word "do."
Imperative mood commands, implies command, or advises or suggests direction. For example, You do need to (or must) help your sibling work. Suggestive though imperative mood.
Subjunctive mood, proscriptively, expresses suggestion or requirement, desire, or a condition contrary to fact. For examples, request, Management asks that workers clock out for work breaks longer than five minutes. Requirement, Workers must fulfill daily quotas to receive full pay. Desire, Workers want higher pay and less work. Condition contrary to fact, Workers will strike if underpaid and overworked.
Emphasis, or emphatic mood, uses verb formations, like to do, as noted for an auxiliary verb that emphasizes a main verb, adverbs and adverbial phrases, as noted, plus adjectives and noun phrases. A broader class of emphasis constructs uses superlative and absolute terms that are either verbal (verb-adverb) or nominative (noun-adjective): most, never, earliest, always, only, too-verbal word (adverb), too much-nominative word (adjective), for examples. Note, many modifiers have by turns adjective and adverb uses.
The function of modifiers for prose is to express emotional attitude commentary, emphasis, as it were, personal or impersonal. For other writing, particularly impersonal composition, modifiers may serve as well for linking additional information to main ideas; prepositional noun phrases and clauses, sentence objects, adverbial phrases, emotionally charged interjections, for examples.
The Alamo taqueria closed early on Friday midsummer night -- the night Matise and Jane wanted to celebrate their first-date anniversary, of all the hubber-lover nights -- where they'd met over tacos and cervezas.
Note the only emotionally charged emphasis of the above is the made-up interjection "hubber-lover." That the emphasis falls toward the late middle stage. That the sentence follows an emotional arc. That the interjection's emotional charge provides the sentence context's texture.
The query pitch places numerous emphatic terms and phrases, and clauses up front.
"the _lives_ of her and her family hang on _every_ decision she makes"
First, though the prior subordination clause -- subordinated by conjunction "When" -- sets up for that independent main clause, the clause could stand on its own, as a separate sentence.
The nominative word "lives" constructs emphasis, in that the sentence's main idea of a life and death conflict is emphasized. "Every" is an absolute adjective expressing emphasis to a superlative degree. First, "every decision" is a logical fallacy, Surely, not every one of her decisions risks lives. What about a decision to take a nap? Could, could not, probably not, probably a wise decision, though one that could be as everyday as excretion decisions and not much for forward movement.
Anyway, "every" is an adjective with empty emphasis. Of note, though, the word and similar modifiers is a women's language marker, when used for empty verbal emphasis. Though of everyday women's conversation use, the vocal intonation and gestural expression that accompany the word in speech give the term emotional texture. Texture is all but required for written word to provide implied intonation and tacit gestural expression.
Perhaps an emotionally charged modifier for "decision" is warranted, that provides, implicitly or tacitly, the equivalent of emotional vocal intonation and gestural expression. Say, foolish, peckish, perhaps wise, put-off, immediate -- decision? Such a word's function, whatever word: emotional context that is by default part of everyday speech, though that serves written word's needs.
Just an analysis of that one sentence. Likewise, consider each emphatic expression for arrangement and strength and clarity effectiveness.
Overall, the query's emphasis arc starts strong, though empty emphasis, sags midway, and finishes strong, though empty emphasis. To me, that arc is U-shaped, where a more artful -- more appealing -- arc would be an upside-down V.
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