Face-Lift 1433

Guess the Plot

The Wizterian Chronicles: Solana

1. Having escaped a planetary war and traveled to Earth, 14-year-old Solana finally feels safe--until her guardian inexplicably attacks her, ripping her apart. She survives, but now she must save planet Earth from a dragon.

2. The city of Solana has a new eatery run by wizards, witches, warlocks, and a dog named Ralph (pronounced Rafe). When the menu takes on a life of its own, will they  set it loose on the invading army? Also hopscotch (that is, hops! and scotch!)

3. An acclaimed mobile Japanese RPG comes to life, following Search, an androgynous young man with an uncertain past, as he chases a mysterious girl across a city in the sky to save the world from a horrible magic blight.

4. Augustus Wizter keeps a chronicle of all the romances he has pursued, both his conquests and the ones that got away. Well, so far they've pretty much all gotten away. All three of them. Solana at least showed up at Starbucks for the intro meeting.

5. The planet Solana orbits the middle star of a star triad in the Wizteria system. Which means that it's always daytime everywhere on Solana. Not good for night owls, but perfect for Brad Porter, who's vowed to finally win the "best tan in the universe" competition this year.

6. When Solana goes into her uncle's closet during a game of hide and seek, she finds herself in a strange land called Wizteria, where everything is covered in purplish flowers. Also, a tiger and a warlock.

Original Version

Mr. Agent:

Solana almost did not recognize the slick scarlet that ran down the right side of her body as blood. The piercing pain was an intrusive stranger that quickly consumed everything she knew.  [This sudden piercing pain is consuming everything I know. And this thick scarlet substance running down my body, it must be . . . a McDonalds strawberry milkshake.] Darkness teased at the edges of her sight, threatening to overtake her. Was this what death felt like? Heart-pounding fear that drowned out much else? She wouldn’t know. For the entire fourteen years of her life, she [she'd] never bled. She [She'd] never knew [known] pain. So why was the person who raised her suddenly ripping her apart? [That's an excellent question, but I don't see that it has anything to do with the fact she hasn't bled or felt pain, as that  word "so" implies.] [While I'll admit this paragraph has a lot of information that might entice Mr. Agent to to want to read more, he has probably requested that you send the first 5 or 10 or 50 pages, so devoting the longest paragraph in the query to an event that lasts about a minute might not be the best use of your limited space. Especially as the same event is recounted again in paragraph 3.] [Is "ripping her apart" an accurate description? It makes me think of being drawn and quartered. Not something one would recover from.]

THE WIZTERIAN CHRONICLES: SOLANA focuses on [Solana,] the youngest heir of Wizteria, Solana. Two years old when she fled a planetary war with her bodyguard and [her] guardian, she hid on Earth, [Whether this is set in the past, present or future, anyone who comes to Earth to escape war is in for a rude awakening. We're always at war.] waiting for the day when she was old and skilled enough to return and defend her kingdom. [Seems like most of the last twelve years would have been spent traveling from Wizteria to Earth. Must have been a wormhole thing. Or...was she traveling at the speed of light? Because as I understand it, you don't age as fast when you're traveling that fast, and maybe when she got to Earth she was still only three years old even though the war Wizteria was fighting when she left ended 50 years ago.] [Figures only approximations.]

Now, living in a small, middle-America town where nothing happens, her magic sealed, and her bodyguard breathing down her neck, Solana longs to return to the cushy life of a spoiled magical princess. [You just said she wanted to return to defend her kingdom. Now you say she wants to return to a cushy spoiled life.] That is, until one day, her guardian suddenly snaps and attacks her and leaves Solana with near-lethal injuries. [Apparently on Wizteria, the definition of "guardian" is flexible.] The bodyguard fights her off and barely escapes [This bodyguard is not impressing me.] with Solana in tow. [Including the parts of her that the guardian ripped apart?] That’s only the beginning of their troubles. [This far into the plot summary, I expect you to have gotten further along than the beginning of the main character's troubles. 

With a rogue dragon let loose on an unsuspecting world, it’s up to Solana and her bodyguard to shake off the cobwebs, get up to speed, and defend the place that she has called home for most of her life [Meaning Earth? A minute ago she wanted to go defend Wizteria but she wasn't old and skilled enough yet. But she's ready to defend us? She's 14. Just because we Earthlings didn't suspect a rogue dragon was going to attack us doesn't mean we need this 14-year old, her magic sealed, to defend us. Even if this is set in a time before we had bombs and tanks and airplanes, we still had knights whose job it was to handle our dragon problem.]—all without catching the attention of her kingdom’s enemies. [Her kingdom's enemies are in some distant solar system engaged in a planetary war. They probably aren't monitoring what's happening on Earth.] [And if they are, news of a Wizterian princess on Earth would take a hundred Earth years to reach Wizteria. (Approximation.)

The entire 100,000-word novel is available for your review. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

If "her magic sealed" means she can't do magic, how does Solana plan to get back to Wizteria? Or to defeat a rogue dragon, for that matter? Can she unseal her magic? And if so, why didn't she unseal it when she was being ripped apart?

If you're gonna complain about your bodyguard always breathing down your neck, you have no right to complain if they're not around at the moment your guardian decides to rip you apart.

Is this middle grade? YA? Usually adults prefer a main character who's older than 14.

She's been living on Earth 12 years, and has never felt pain? I've been living here a lot longer than that, and I can't go two hours without feeling pain. 

Is it just a coincidence that Solana is a Japanese RPG gaming platform, that Japanese wisteria is a common plant, and Godzilla is one of your main characters? I'm surprised Solana didn't settle in small-town Japan when she got to Earth.

Why, now that she's many light years away from her enemies, does Solana have to hide? Her enemies, I assume, don't know what planet or solar system she escaped to. Wait, does she look like a 14-year-old human, or does she look like the alien in Alien? In which case she'd be hiding, but from us.

All we really know about what happens in your book is that a Wizterian princess arrives on Earth, gets ripped apart by her guardian, and recovers enough to become the only hope for humanity to survive the attack of one dragon. 

Start over. Paragraph 1: Who is Solana, how'd she get here, and what is her main goal (To get back to her kingdom? To protect her new home? To kill her guardian?) Paragraph 2: What's her plan to accomplish this one goal? What's the main obstacle to accomplishing it? What crucial decision must she make? Paragraph 3: What's at stake? What will happen if she fails? What will happen if she succeeds?

This might get you a more cohesive query, but do you have a cohesive book? Or just a stream of new threats Solana faces in random order?

Why is three fourths of the title The Wizterian Chronicles? Your main character left Wizteria when she was two. It's my understanding that much of The Chronicles of Narnia takes place in Narnia.

There's still a title in the query queue that needs fake plots.