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Guess the Plot

Splintered Queen

1. After getting hit in the head with a wooden baseball bat, tween girl Queenie believes she's the actual Queen of England. Absurdities ensue.

2. A booby trap placed by an offed sibling shatters Amalacia across time, space, and reality. She must find and gather her various shards to be crowned queen. But her shards have other ideas: rock band idol, chess champion, super spy, mother of ten.....

3. A lesbian whose heart got broken returns to her hometown to be with family, and enters a wood-chopping contest, where she competes against her childhood crush and former best friend.

4. She was once a pawn in her nation's affairs, but with the country on the brink of ruin, she becomes queen and destroys the enemy king, saving her people from utter destruction. Still, she'll never forget her checkered past.

5. Drag Queen Fab Ulysses is struggling to make ends meet with a boring 9-5 until invited to a magical adventure on a yacht with the best and brightest Queens of our time. Their cruise becomes a murder mystery when the ship's captain turns up dead.

6. Despite her parents' marriage to one another, their countries couldn't reconcile their differences, and now  Princess Tatiana must decide between saving the homeland of her brutal, sadistic, tyrannical father . . . or her mother, who wouldn't let her go to the ball.  

7. Arvin cleans statues in the museum. One night, he accidentally knocks one over, freeing the queen trapped inside. She goes on to take over the museum, the city, as well as the Tri-State Area.

8. An artist who makes stained glass windows falls in love with the Father of the church she lives near. Heartbreak is the theme, lead veins are the seams.

9. When Accalia's plan to destroy all the gods goes awry, the soul of her youngest sister, Randalin, is splintered, enraging her eldest sister, Bledri, who vows revenge on their mother, who is actually her sister who is dead.

Original Version

Dear XXX,

I’m seeking representation for SPLINTERED QUEEN, a 115,000-word adult dark fantasy and stand-alone novel with series potential. I’m submitting to you because XXX and XXX in my book will seize your interest as well. [As well as what?] [Never mind, you had me at XXX.] Readers will love SPLINTERED QUEEN if they enjoyed the feminist themes of The Night Ends with Fire by K. X. Song or the multiple perspectives and espionage of Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland.

Bledri’s hand drifted to her belt of knives as her magic ran in metallic rivulets from her tattoo. She would be her mother’s weapon. [That was . . . what? A two-sentence excerpt from the book? If it's the first two sentences of the book, put them first and then say So begins The Splintered Queen, my 115,000-word etc. If it's an excerpt from somewhere else, just drop it. You don't have room for it.]

As a skilled and loyal assassin, Princess Bledri does what her mother, the queen, orders without question. The “Dagger” is always ready to strike. She has only one goal: to protect her youngest sister, Randalin, from the attention of their vicious mother who has hinted that she wants Randalin to bloody her hands as well. 

Yet their mother is not who she says she is. Once born as a bastard and half-sister of the princesses, Accalia is now a ghost clandestinely possessing their mother’s corpse. To stay alive, Accalia hides the truth at any cost and selfishly trains Bledri to take out anyone who might expose her secrets—secrets that she doesn’t even want Bledri to know. Accalia has plenty to hide: the witch queen always hosts a goddess. The queen’s body should host a goddess, but Accalia possesses it instead. Nobody can know that Accalia is a ghost rather than a god, so she expertly wields the “Dagger” to carve out a safe place for herself in the witches’ court. [Lemme see if I've got this straight. The current witch queen had three daughters. This queen, as per the norm, was possessed by a goddess. This queen died. Normally, her heir (daughter Bledri) would become the witch queen and be possessed by a goddess, but daughter Accalia's ghost found and possessed the witch queen's corpse first, and now everyone thinks the original queen is still alive? What happened to the goddess who was possessing the original queen when she died? Shouldn't she blow the whistle on Accalia's deception? Shouldn't she inform the gods that they need to send someone to possess Bledri?]

 

But with Bledri’s looming coronation, Accalia’s time as queen is running out. [Do queens have term limits? Or can ghosts possess corpses for only a limited time?] As the heir, Bledri will become queen and host to a goddess, losing all control over her body and mind. Accalia’s secrets will be exposed and she will also lose Bledri, whom she has grown to love. Accalia gains nothing from her half-sister becoming a god and stands to lose everything.

Accalia resolves to destroy all the gods to protect Bledri and her own secrets. [That seems like an unrealistic undertaking for one princess.] That protection turns deadly when Accalia’s spell to destroy the gods goes awry, splintering the soul of Bledri’s youngest sister, Randalin. [So is Randalin the Splintered Queen? I ask because she's not the current queen, and Bledri is the heir to the throne.]

Bledri willingly put herself through years of bloody work for Randalin, who now lies shattered at the altar of their mother. Bledri chooses revenge. She chooses to become more than a weapon wielded by others. Acting without orders for the first time, Bledri gives up her old life to relentlessly pursue the queen with killer intent. 

Still, Accalia will do what she must to protect Bledri—the protégée turned huntress.

I graduated from XXX in XXX with an English BA. I enjoy gardening, long-distance running (5-K every day), and never baking the same recipe twice. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

This is too long and I find it pretty complicated and confusing. It's probably a result of trying to fit all the rules of this world you've created onto one page while also summarizing the plot. And it's probably less confusing in the book (which is also pretty long) but you want the query to be crystal clear. 

Is Bledri looking forward to becoming queen, or dreading it because she doesn't want to lose control of her body and mind? 

If a ghost can possess a corpse, bringing it to apparent life, could the original queen possess her own corpse? Can anyone possess any corpse? Can you tell, when talking to someone, whether they're a person or a possessed corpse?

Why has Accalia taken possession of her mother's corpse? Just because being alive is better than being a ghost? Or does she have an agenda? If Bledri's coronation is looming, I guess Accalia can't be trying to rule the world.

Was the queen vicious before she was possessed by Accalia?

Try putting this in a three-paragraph format with ten sentences total. 

p1: Who's the main character, and what's her situation?

p2: What's her problem, and what's her plan to solve it?

p3: What will happen if her plan fails? What decision does she face?

Here's a rough idea of what that might look like, parts of which may be inaccurate depending on your answers to some of my questions.

Long ago, the gods commanded that the witch queen would always be possessed by a goddess.

Bledri is the eldest daughter of the current witch queen, heir to the throne . . . and the witch queen's personal assassin. Or so she thinks; actually, her mother has died, her body now possessed not by a goddess, but by the ghost of Bledri's sister Accalia. Accalia will do anything to keep her secret, including ordering Bledri to murder anyone who suspects it.

Above all else, Bledri wants to protect her youngest sister, Randalin, from the attentions of her vicious mother. What Accalia wants is to destroy the gods so that Bledri, who she loves, will not be lost to her. Unfortunately, Accalia's spell to destroy the gods goes awry, and splinters Randalin's soul. 

Bledri is enraged. Believing her mother responsible for Randalin's [death?], and not realizing that she, Bledri, is now the rightful queen, she chooses revenge. Acting without orders for the first time, Bledri gives up her old life, vowing to relentlessly pursue the queen with killer intent.