Guess the Plot
Godfire
1. Poor Tom Humphrey thought it was clever to advertise his peat lumps as fuel to make godfire. Now he's in the dungeon awaiting torture and death - unless his wife convinces Cardinal Salido to intervene.
2. Roland sets out with his magic sword "Godfire" on a quest to rid the world of the king, but the king, disguised as a commoner so that fairies can't find him, meets and befriends Roland. Hilarity ensues.
3. The lives, loves, and machinations of second-rate deities forced into obscurity in the modern world are revealed as they vent their frustrations on each other and the poor slobs whose ancestors once worshipped them.
4. Stinky and Dwight are flabbergasted to discover that the downstairs guy with the weird eyeballs is no ordinary huffer. He's a glue-powered space alien on a mission from the hungry god of planet Xilzah to take over the world next Tuesday. But no one believes them.
5. First the mysterious Plague killed nearly everyone, then a monstrous dragon ate all the animals, and now Duke Harry wants to burn everything that might not be pleasing to God and start over. Should Father John give him all the books?
6. When a religious zealot gets elected U.S. president, he intends to unleash the entire nuclear arsenal to cleanse the planet of mankind's sin. The military backs the plan for their own reasons. Can vice president Janet Castlebury save the world from . . . Godfire?
Original Version
Dear Evil Editor,
Roland is a young hero on a quest to rid the world of the black wizard and king, Mantor Olgaroth– or so he thinks. Just like in the stories he was raised on, he has the right accouterments: a magic sword, the ability to mentally communicate with animals, steadfast companions, and a dragon. Really, though, he's simply a tool for his foster mother's personal vengeance, [What is her personal problem with the king?] and she doesn't care if killing Mantor will aid the murderous Baron Khismar in a coup d'etat.
[Mother: Roland, the king deserves to die.
Roland: Why is that, foster-mom? Unfair taxes? Unwinnable war in Iraq?
Mother: I went to the prom with him back when he was a prince, and he said he'd call me the next day, but he never called.
Roland: I shall rid the world of this vermin.
Mother: That's my boy. By the way, he's your father.]
Mantor has a more immediate problem: the fairies want to halt the magic flowing through his body from their world. Their claim that "death will not stop the magic" convinces Mantor they intend a more torturous fate for him. He swears off magic and leaves his chancellor in charge, disguising himself and vowing to live like an ordinary man. [An ordinary man like Roland, who has a magic sword and communicates with animals? What's "ordinary" in this world? Fantastical abilities, or plowing the fields all day and dropping by the ale-house at night to sing with the boys?] He finds Roland, and, even though Mantor knows the youth will kill him if his identity is discovered, the two develop a tenuous father/son-like bond.
But Mantor's chancellor is in league with Khismar, who is marching with his army to seize the vacant throne. [Doesn't Mantor's chancellor want the throne?
Mantor's Chancellor: Hey Khismar, the throne is empty, and I want it, but I could use the support of your army.
Khismar: I got a better idea. I'll explain it when I get there with my army.
Mantor's Chancellor: Uh, no need to--
Khismar: Don't worry, Your loyalty will be rewarded. I shall make you chancellor.]
Mantor refuses to fight Khismar with magic, certain that doing so cannot justify breaking his vow. Roland and his friends are left to defeat Khismar without Mantor's help, and they must do so before Khismar uses his own magic to bind everyone in permanent slavery. [What is Khismar waiting for? Presto. Everyone's a slave, permanently. What a relief. Now I don't have to worry that I'll forget to make everyone a slave, permanently. I shoulda done this years ago.]
GODFIRE is a heroic fantasy complete in one volume. [If you've written a fantasy that's complete in one volume, you're heroic. Unless it's a 360,000-word volume . . . Well, is it?] The full manuscript is available upon request. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
[Note to Mr. Evil: Mantor is immortal because of a spell gone wrong. Godfire is the magic sword which can break the spell and render him mortal again. Or, of course, it can kill him outright.] [If I've befriended a guy with a sword that can kill me outright or can take away my immortality, I'm grabbing it and pitching it into the deepest part of the lake.]
Notes
I don't get the meaning of "Or so he thinks" in the first sentence. He really is on a quest to rid the world of Mantor Olgaroth, right?
Why do the fairies want to stop the magic flowing to Mantor Olgaroth? Has he been abusing his magical power? Is he the only person whose magic comes from the fairies? Where does Khismar get his magic? Shouldn't the fairies be trying to rid the world of Khismar instead of Mantor? Isn't Mantor a good guy? Are the fairies bad guys?
24 comments:
>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.
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