The query most recently posted here has a new version.
17-year-old Dulani is the last man standing between his town and the Masques, soul-reaping creatures borne from mythology. He's not expecting backup either—for some reason, only he can see, hear, and kill these things. After losing close friends to them, he's far more focused on seeing his "job" as guardian through. But when a Masque almost kills his classmate, he decides to learn how to end their threat for good.
Following a Masque back into its home realm, Dulani sneaks around locations from legend in search of answers. He soon finds one—along with something startling: past victims, like his friends, aren’t dead. Their still living souls are trapped in pillars weakening the cage around an even worse threat. A god who commands the Masques is one step away from breaking free so it can cross into Earth and subjugate humanity.
Dulani, to his horror, is that missing piece. His magic, his powers, all came from this god so his soul could get strong from his job and open the cage once delivered. Dulani wants to destroy the pillars, which will rescue the souls and lock the realm forever, but as powerful Masques begin a manhunt for him, the risk grows sky-high. He’ll have to choose: fight and save countless lives, or run before he endangers just as many.
MEMORANDUM (90,000 words) is a YA contemporary fantasy standalone with series potential. It combines the otherworldly danger in L.L. McKinney’s Nightmare-Verse trilogy, youths wrestling with grief and responsibility in Kamilah Cole’s SO LET THEM BURN, and the hurting hero of BLOOD AT THE ROOT by LaDarrion Williams.
[Bio]
Notes
This is much better. I'm not that clear on how the pillars are weakening the cage or how Dulani knows destroying the pillars will rescue his friends rather than destroy their souls. Maybe:
His magic, his powers, all came from this god, and every Masque he kills only brings the god closer to escaping the cage.
The decision still seems lose / lose. He can fight and kill Masques, eventually leading to humanity's subjugation, or he can run and the Masques will go back to killing people in his town. The latter seems better, as the Masques don't seem to be killing people all over the planet, just in Dulani's neighborhood. What he really needs to do is capture all the Masques and imprison them in the cage with the god.
3 comments:
Hey author, excellent improvements.
It's still too long, but you might be ok if your inserted bio is very short. However, there are extraneous words/info that could be removed--you might want to take a look after a bit of time.
Rescuing the souls of people he once knew is understandably important to D, but my biggest question is if their souls are alive, where are their bodies? Together with their souls? i.e. Did people disappear (get "eaten"?) and so D thought them dead? Were they in some sort of stasis and buried alive (although, embalming to some degree before burial is apparently pretty common, and that would kill them stasis or no)? I'd assume he'd know if they were all in comas in the local hospital. Even rescued, a living soul isn't going to do much with a rotting, dead body unless your sequel is a zombie story....
Hope this helps,
good luck
Hi there Author.
Your story sounds complex and layered, and I like the idea of someone sneaking around the realms of legends to save the world, but your query needs to be simplified to be more understandable. From the beginning, I was a bit lost.
What does soul reaping even mean? Do the masques wait for someone to die and then steal their soul? Or do they steal the soul, causing someone to die? If the latter, how do they "almost" kill someone? If Dulani has already "lost" close friends to the masques, why does the threatened loss of a classmate cause him to go into the other realm?
I didn't understand the part about pillars "weakening" a cage. Wouldn't they shore up a cage? I also don't get the stakes: "He’ll have to choose: fight and save countless lives, or run before he endangers just as many." I think you could clarify that. Do you mean he has to risk his life to save humanity or flee and contribute to humanity's destruction? Those are pretty high stakes, but it doesn't come through that way in the query.
the story sounds interesting, but the premise is a bit muddled in the query. Try for a little more clarity/simplicity.
Good luck!
Author here. Thanks for the critique, you, EE, and the other Anon!
As the final stakes, as EE remarked, it's too lose/lose, so it appears it was just a word (or plot) issue.
Right now, it's supposed to be "D must risk his life either (1) running away before he gets captured or (2) imprisoning the Masques with their god." The stakes for (1) is Masques keep haunting his town but at least the god can't get his soul and make thing worse. The stakes for (2): a permanent solution to the problem but the god will be in the best position to get his soul.
Just struggling how to elegantly word that!
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