The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1489 would like feedback on the following version of the query.
Shukari doesn't mind risking her skin to protect her eco-city from monsters and crooked mages. But the main reason she joined a guild was to get leads that’d [I prefer "that would"] help solve her parents' murder. [To you, joining a guild means battling monsters and getting access to leads. To the person reading this, joining a guild means hooking up with people who share your hobby or occupation. Instead of saying she joined a guild, say she joined the (specific) guild (Protection, Security, Defense, Resistance). Maybe "force" would be better than "guild."] Defying death only to run into dead-ends is beyond frustrating. But the last time she picked herself over duty, she lost a dear friend. And the last thing she needs is another scar from the knife-edge her morals and ambitions balance on. [Those last two sentences need some background. The paragraph would have more cohesion if the last three sentences were replaced with something like: Too bad every lead she finds takes her down a dead end.]
Finally, [Eventually?] she learns key info about the case belongs to longtime arms dealer Tantalus. More, he fronts a scheme weaponizing human bodies so he can sell the results to the highest bidder. [I'm not sure what the results of weaponizing human bodies are, so I don't know who would bid on them. I'm imagining implanting a bomb in a corpse and auctioning off the corpse.] Save lives and get closure? Of course Shukari’s on the job. Too bad he set a trap he knew she’d trip—and the structure they’re in collapses. People suffer, his trail grows cold, and lucky her, she’s the scapegoat.
One write-up later, Shukari is given a choice, fix this mess or enjoy probation. Deal. Catch Tantalus, tear down his ring, get the info, everybody wins. But the more she clashes [matches?] wits and weapons with him, the harder her precious balance gets to manage. As a wider plan unfolds and many more are endangered, Shukari must choose: those she swore to protect or the two she swore to avenge. [Why is this a choice? There's no deadline for avenging her dead parents, so she can do that after she saves living people.]
VALISTRY (105,000 words) is an Adult Science Fantasy standalone with series potential and a diverse ensemble cast. Imagine our Earth forced into a Norse-like state. [First I'll have to imagine what a Norse-like state is. Are we talking about Norway, Vikings, or Thor?] The story has a similar setting to John Gwynne’s Bloodsworn Saga, but where magic and science are king and queen like in M.L. Wang’s BLOOD OVER BRIGHT HAVEN.
I have a MS in Mechanical Engineering and work as a Research Scientist. Science stimulates my brain during the day, and fantasy keeps my pen awake at night.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Notes
When you mention her precious balance, I think of one of those balances like in chemistry, with her morals in the pan on the left and her ambition in the pan on the right. But you earlier said he morals and ambition were balancing on a knife edge, which suggests they could both fall off in the same direction.
2 comments:
Hey author, there don't seem to be a lot of differences here from the last version.
One of the objectives in queries is to not raise questions you aren't going to answer.
By guild, we don't know if you're using that term for your world's police/SWAT/special forces, or if you mean something more like an MMO guild, essentially mercenaries doing bounty work, which tends to have logistics issues outside of video game worlds.
Saying your arm dealer is selling weaponized humans doesn't have any obvious bearing on the plot. If it is related, you might want to mention how. If it's not, you're bringing up something irrelevant that raises more questions than it answers.
I still don't know why he'd bother setting a trap. What does he gain from it? Is this incident really significant enough to be detailed in the query?
One write-up later, the MCs options and plan appear to be the same--look for more leads/go after the one she already has. I'm not sure what mess she's supposed to fix or how/if that changes things. If the "precarious balance" is between morals and objectives, details about that might help. Details about what the wider plan entails would help if it really is changing things in some way. As is, you say she has to choose between chocolate and vanilla but there's no obvious reason why she can't have both.
If there's a later point where she's confronted with doing something strongly/completely against her beliefs in pursuit of solving a murder (when does it become vengeance?), maybe center the query on that instead.
Hope this helps,
good luck
Author here. Thanks so much for the feedback. I'll rip this version up and approach it differently with all this in mind.
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