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Covers, Blurbs, 1st Line, Query
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High Fantasy blurb for query
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I agree that this is very long. I think the problem is that there are waaay too many details. You try to introduce around 15 proper nouns, when a blurb should have 4 or 5. I don't really know when the story starts in the book, but the first paragraph feels like exposition. Can you just say "It's been a year since Aleka defeated an evil tyrant, and now he's returned— to seek her help?" That seems to get most of the main ideas across.Really summarizing everything, without all the extra details, should cut down the blurb's length and make it easier for the reader to understand.
Hope this helps!
-Author56
Author56 wrote: "I agree that this is very long. I think the problem is that there are waaay too many details. You try to introduce around 15 proper nouns, when a blurb should have 4 or 5. I don't really know when ..."I actually like that sentence. I guess my main conundrum is figuring out what is absolutely essential to the story and what can be left out.
If I were to do a one-sentence pitch, perhaps it would be "A berzerker hero, a runaway princess, a deposed tyrant and a fallen knight trek through a war-torn countryside to stop a rampaging death cult." Or something like that.
I'll keep working on this. thanks for the input.
Yes, this is quite long. It reads more like the start of a synopsis than a blurb. Chop off the bottom half to start. Keep the set up to the story and introduce the main conflict. Then stop.You also need a hook. High fantasy can come off a bit dry. Consider how you can add some drama in a sentence or two at the beginning. You need the reader to be invested. Exposition hammering political intrigue is not the way to do it.
It sounds like a cool story. Keep with it and thanks for sharing.
I've got a blurb for my high fantasy novel that is way too long. Problem is that I don't know what to keep and what to delete. Any advice would be helpful. thanks in advance.
"It has been a year since princess Aleka of Masarakat and her team of heroes vanquished the mad tyrant of Dylanna, Vladimir. Together they stopped his plan for world conquest, but the tolls of war were too much for the princess. She had run away from her kingdom and the responsibility of royalty to live a quiet life as the doting wife of her champion, the berzerker hero turned simple farmer Zion. She knows deep down sooner or later she must resume her duties as sole heir to the queen mother’s throne, but she is trying to put it off for as long as she can.
That all changes when Vladimir reappears alongside his chief strategist Taima, not seeking vengeance but instead begging for help. Since their fateful final battle, Vladimir has had visions of an eldritch world-consuming horror called Nagoth, and he believes a beacon was inadvertently sent to it during the battle. His resources are too depleted to deal with such a threat alone, so he is seeking the strongest warriors he knows to help. That would be Zion and Aleka. Vladimir wants to rule the world, not see it destroyed.
Zion is distrustful of Vladimir. After all, it was Vladimir's minions that murdered Zion’s first wife and set him on the path of being a warrior in the first place. Aleka has her own misgivings about the cold and calculating Taima for killing her best friend during the final battle. They are persuaded to join by an errant knight named Amin. There is a growing cult that worships Nagoth and are seeking ways to summon it, and Amin has his own personal reasons for wanting to destroy that cult.
Everyone agrees that stopping the cult is the key to stopping Nagoth. They need reinforcements, but Aleka would rather appeal to Amin’s legion of knights for help than go home and ask her mother. This means a trek through a part of their world that is war-torn and ravaged, full of ruins of lost civilizations and relics of extinct species. They will cross paths with the last of the fearsome Glarnox beasts, and the corpse-filled ruins of the Numaal mountain pass. They will fight to save the subterranean Cratogs from extinction at the hands of the cult, and must solve the mystery of what happened at the legendary battle of five legions to escape a watery tomb. And then they must do battle with the Demidemon Sakrieg in her enchanted forest to gain passage to Amin’s headquarters…where they hope to arrive and warn his fellow knights in time for an impending assault by the cult."