See revised version here.
Dear Agent,
Reincarnation can be a bitch, especially when a mad goddess keeps killing you.
Seventeen year-old Saekina has never had anyone but herself to rely on. Demons have hunted her since she was a child, her prayers for salvation have gone unanswered. Not even her patron goddess listens. Being alone in the massive city of Dennin is easier than risking someone she loves dying. All she needs is her daggers, and hope that her strange powers continue to work.
She meets three others with the same power—and the same demons. For the first time in years she has friends, and she isn't about to let anyone hurt them—demon or not. The four set out to discover the reason they are hunted, scouring the city for answers.
Their search drags them into the middle of a secret battle between the gods. Even worse, her patron goddess—someone who should be protecting her—is the one sending the demons after them, afraid they’ll access the memories from their past lives and with it, the knowledge to defeat her.
Saekina’s blades are ready, but they can’t kill a god. To break free, she must delve into her past and uncover the secret the goddess is so desperate to protect. If she fails, they’ll all be hunted throughout endless lives. If she succeeds, it might just kill her for good.
DARK CORE is an 80,000 word young adult fantasy with series potential. Thank you for your time and consideration.
I really love the twist about her patron goddess being the one sending the demons after her! That made me sit up and go "Oooh!"
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts:
You might want to establish the setting (even just with a phrase) early on -- the voice of the opening line sounds contemporary, so I thought this was modern urban fantasy, but then the talk of daggers and goddesses made me think maybe it was more traditional medieval/Rennaisance fantasy, and in the end I'm left unsure. (This might be a voice consistency thing as well as a setting thing, come to think of it.)
I think you can tighten this a bit -- there are places where you state very similar ideas more than once in separate sentences, and you can probably pull them together to make this deliver a more compact punch.
What are her strange powers? The vague statement doesn't give me anything to latch on to -- cool specifics might!
I hope this is helpful! Good luck with it!
Great hook in your first sentence. This is a well-written query that establishes voice, character, and stakes clearly. I stumbled over one sentence that read awkwardly to me: "Being alone in the massive city of Dennin is easier than risking someone she loves dying." How about "risking the life of someone she loves."
ReplyDeleteFirst off, this sounds really interesting! Very Greek sounding with a twist. Your first sentence I feel really sets the tone for your letter. But in the second paragraph, I think you could probably find a better way to say, "Not even her patron goddess listens." For some reason I don't like how it sounds. And I agree with Melissa's comment above, we need to know what her strange power is so we can understand why the demons are after her in the first place. I see what Melissa is talking about a place where you state similar ideas. For example, (the goddess is) "afraid they’ll access the memories from their past lives and with it, the knowledge to defeat her." AND "To break free, she must delve into her past and uncover the secret the goddess is so desperate to protect." These do sound similar, and it would go a long way if you could find a way to connect them.
ReplyDeleteI do like the fact her patron goddess is the one sending the demons. Makes for some good conflict. Overall, this is really good.
This sounds like an incredibly interesting story but I think your query is burying the lead. The beginning about being alone, relying on herself, praying for salvation sets up a context, but the punch of your story is the reincarnation and the fact that there are answers hidden in the past that she needs to find.
ReplyDeleteCan you play around with writing this so it's not just a linear re-telling of the story but rather a cut-to-the-chase query top-loaded with the good stuff?
If it's linear - the first paragraph is confusing. There is a lot going on and it took me a few readings to figure it all out. I don't know why demons are hunting her. I don't know who or what a patron goddess is and I don't know what kind of salvation she might pray for. I'm also not sure what strange powers she has other than reincarnation or why she relies on daggers/blades. The second sentence is a comma splice.
The second paragraph gets us into some action but I got lost on this sentence: "she isn't about to let anyone hurt them—demon or not." At first I read this like "I won't let anyone hurt my friends, whether or not my friends are demons" but that didn't make sense so I realized you meant "I won't let anyone - demon or not - hurt my friends." The modifier falls to close to "them" for my addled brain.
Paragraph three is your money paragraph. As soon as I read that the answers are in past lives, I was like, oooooh that is cool.
Paragraph four - how will succeeding kill HER? Seems like the stakes are, "Don't kill the goddess, live and be hunted" OR "Kill the goddess and possibly die." Am I reading that right?
Good luck on this. I do think it sounds like a great story and I'm sorry if I seem to be tearing it apart. I think the query is good but could be really strong based on what you are offering. If you want to send me a revised version via email, I'll post it here with "Revised" in the title.
Erg - please read the above as though I didn't count your first paragraph at all. I LOVE your first line. It's a great hook. I started counting paragraph one below the first line.
ReplyDelete