Query critique needed

[MiguelT]

Edit: modified according to Nikolow's suggestions.

Edit 2: modified according to Dana's suggestions.

Edit 3: rewritten according to Nikolow's suggestions. Stubborness removed.

Any help is welcome and appreciated.


===

The Woven Forest is a science fantasy book with elements of coming of age, mystery, action and humour, which starts light-hearted in tone but grows darker as the past of characters and the dangers of the setting become apparent. 182K words total.

———— (will be centered when properly formatted)

Ebonfeet's Forest, grown by magic. A bountiful wilderness where no beast would ever attack a humanoid being. Its purpose, to subdue the life-warping emanations of a world-cracking leviathan's carcass and allow civilization to carve out its surface. At the edge of the settled plaques, the tiny carapace-mining town of Coilshade stands. People from harsher worlds come here for honest work where no one asks too many questions. This is where a girl named Arvidra lives, or at least where she sleeps.

Arvidra spends most of her time in the forest, since the town has little to interest her. She travelled with her father seeking a safer place to live than the lethal lands they were made to tend. But ever since his death, Arvidra has felt aimless, wandering the tame Ebonfeet's Forest like a lost soul. Then she discovers a beast that dares to bare its fangs at the townspeople, possessed of magic that commands animals and reshapes the forest. Arvidra latches on to the task of stopping the threat. However, her awkwardness and lack of knowledge make her clash with the townspeople, most of them creatures with their own unique purpose. Alone, she can't stop the mage-beast, who guards secrets that may sink Coilshade.

[Nikolow]

Hi Miguel,

1 - The third paragraph is written in a different style - meant for an agent. You can leave it, but in my opinion separate it from the rest of the blurb/hook by a few lines above or below depending on the agents guidelines. (If none I would put it at the end after a line like this ———— (in the middle) So you create a visual break between the 2.

Further - “growing darker and more frantic as the story advances” I bet this means allot to you, as you have the story in your head. To an agent or a reader in general, growing darker and more frantic is meaningless.
Just consider if I said - “My book is about a love story that grows more frantic and darker.” - what did I just say? Are there vampires? Is it about depression….. about a metaphysical entity….

Yes, you want to get the interest of the agent, but they need to understand your meaning as well.


2- It is appropriate, as we get a sense of the world and your prose.

Only issue here is that the reader may feel let down. How? Because apparently we are not going to talk about the epic hunt of a Leviathan. The etherships, the space-warping stakes and cracked skyshellls and about the one legged blind dog with a spear!! Ohhh No!
Instead we will talk about a forest, some miners and a coming of age story…

(I understand that the story that follows is probably as epic - it needs to come out on the page in the short space you have so we can be reassured.)


3 - Yes. And yes. You are sparking interest but you also need to convey what is happening better. Honestly, judging by the way you asked the question, deep down you know this already.

What I mean by better:
“a tame forest” “dangers that should not be” “disentangle origins” are all meaningless to people whom do not know the story already.

What am I trying to say?

Let us take just “dangers” how big? to whom? to Arvidra? To the city? To the world? ….. And really we do not get any sense of WHAT dangers we are talking about here. Overgrown spiders? A deadly disease? A mysterious cannibal tribe that hunts its pray….. Just give us something.



Other feedback.

1 -I think it will sound better if the Leviathan is a He rather then an “it” given you gave him a name. Thus the story will read better as - “His hunt was a brutal and “a” spectacular affair…”

2- Underpayed lumps - at some point we may need words that ground us. You already have “shells of worlds” “etherships” “space-warping stakes” “condensed mana” “skyshells” so at some point you want to weave in something familiar for our brains to create the world from. Why not just call them miners - or maybe lumps is a therm everyone else is familiar with but me.

Side note - “A place where people from unkind worlds come for honest work” - why would they come if they will get "underpaid"…
also “unkind worlds” is again a meaningless therm that generates no images in our minds - as you can refer to climate, to a political system, to a war that ravages them…

So draw a line between crating mystery that makes us want to read more and words that are meaningless and leave us confused - “a girl named Arvidra, made for a different forest and faraway from her birth vat.” Here birth vat gives us a sense of the world (people born in vats) but “made for a different forest” is meaningless without context.

Distinguish between phrases you use that need more context from things that are exciting, even if mysterious.


"leviathan capable of tearing open the shells of worlds"
"etherships armed to the teeth"
"space-warping stakes made of condensed mana"
"a dog with a spear"
The above are things we want to learn more about ! They sound cool.


Hope some of the above helps. Ignore the parts you disagree with.

Nikolow

[MiguelT]

Nikolow wrote: "Hi Miguel,

1 - The third paragraph is written in a different style - meant for an agent. You can leave it, but in my opinion separate it from the rest of the blurb/hook by a few lines above or bel..."

Thank you for your feedback, it's invaluable. I'm going to rewrite the query around most of it (the leviathan will probably remain as an "it" for lore reasons, even if it's less impactful).

A lot of the stuff you are interested in doesn't actually come up in this book (directly, there are stakes made of condensed mana but not space-warping ones, an ethership appears but its weapons are removed, the leviathan is the setting, and that dog in particular does not appear, but a major character is a dog), but there is a lot of other cool stuff that does. I should put some of that in.

[Dana]

Honestly, first time reading it I had trouble making sense of it all. Though after a couple rereads I understood.

My advice to you, try to avoid the long, list-like sentences. Like the 2nd and 3rd sentences in your synopsis description. These sentences are also packed with vocabulary exclusive to your book which will throw off new readers (we don't need to know the stakes are made of mana, ie). Ebonfeet's first sentence is a fragment.

Second, as Nikolow had brought up, the blurb kind of feels like a bait-and-switch. The story involving the leviathan and how that impacted civilization sounds much more exciting than the story than we are left with with Arvidra. And unfortunately, the fact that her story involves this new creature doesn't sell as an intimidating conflict because we know that this civilization overcame something that sounds much more monstrous. We are going to need more information about this creature & sold on how dangerous it is.

Also finally, be careful with word choice. The words you've chosen have double meanings which could really interfere with the understanding of a sentence. Ex: "Stakes" - here you mean like a long staff or spear, when 'stakes' often refers to the risks or dangers involved in a book. Also "remains". Here you used the verb of what is left to be done when it can also mean the noun version of the remaining components of a corpse or ruins. I think those also messed with my understanding on my first read.

[Nikolow]

Nice to see the Query evolving.

First, You have left:
"made for far more dangerous lands"
&
"at the edge between nowhere and out out on the leviathan's behind"

Which mean nothing to me personally without context, but this is your call if you believe I am an outlier. (but even if you loose only 20% of your readers here, we are in a bad start..... let alone 90% as I suspect)

You have added another meaningless phrase:
"golems in slightly shady working conditions extract precious carapace. "

extract precious carapace - is crystal clear.
slightly shady working conditions... Are they not unionized? Do they not pay taxes? The golems don't have insurance? etc...

I am being silly, but I hope you understand that to YOU the phrase makes sense because you have a whole story in your head. To us, "golems in slightly shady working conditions" is jiberish. (not really because we get what a golem is, and we understand theya re miners, but a golem in slightly shady working conditions...? If you knew nothing about the story you would be scratching your head as well - I bet.)

I feel you may be writing in such way even in your book. my suggestion is to always put your self in the readers shoes when editing and always err on the side of caution.


----

Second, lets break your Query into parts.

1. We start with the Lore (the past events - the switch and bait as you call it)
2. Then we have the setting,
3. An intro to the protagonist
4. And finally what the story will be about - this part is about the essence of your book.

That number 4 is the most important.

Here it is:

"Arvidra discovers a creature that dares to bare its fangs at the townspeople. She sets out to understand it, and uncovers dangers that may change the surface of Ebonfeet's body."

That is it - That is the part of your query that contains what the story will be about. That is the essence of what has to grab us to make us read more.

Is it short? Have you given enough space for it? I mean you have written whole book behind it.... so....

Is it taking too little space?

you decide.

Before you decide, lets analyze what we have for a story.

We are introduced to a "creature" "that dares to bare its fangs" Now here I will point out that in a forest many creatures bare their fangs. That is what we readers are comfortable as an idea with because it is natural to imagin.

That's what wild creatures do. The word "creature" presupposes it is not civilized. Thus why that is some sort of earth shattering event, or a deep mystery will be perhaps lost on a portion of the readers. Again you probably spend time in the book to set it up, but here, why a creature that bares its fangs, is important.... is lost on us.


+ "uncovers dangers" - what kind? Big? SmallI? Why should we care if you just trow one word out - dangers, all naked and alone. (Now I understand that in your head you know what those dangers are...)

+ those "dangers" may change the surface of Ebonfeet's body. - And? Please tell me why the reader should care with only this description. Why the changes to some surface is something we should want to read about? What does it matter if some surface changes?

+ a change of the surface. (what kind a change? What does it mean when there is a change? Whom does it affect, this change? how? etc


-----

My suggestion is for you to think what this story is about. I get the sense it is a mystery. If so set it up like one. Set steps for the reader to understand why it is important to discover the answers, why the creature and its behavior is very special... bring the reader along with you, hold his/her hand along the way.

Right now you have a cool setting and a cool past to the world. Your protagonist is a little bare bones and I don't know why I should care for her, and a story that does not have a real punch yet in the Query. ( or a "pull" as in 'pull' us into the mystery, into the core of the story.)

You are doing great, and I hope I gave you food for thought to polish and make your Query shine even brighter.

Ignore anything you disagree with.

If you make me type a 3rd time I am starting to bill you. ( humor )

Nikolow

[MiguelT]

Nikolow wrote: "Nice to see the Query evolving.

First, You have left:
"made for far more dangerous lands"
&
"at the edge between nowhere and out out on the leviathan's behind"

Which mean nothing to me personally..."

I might just rewrite it from scratch at this point (applying all the feedback, of course), I think the main problem boils down to trying to cram too much into it, which does not give enough space to the parts that should draw the reader to the main conflict. I tried to imply the main character being aimless and out of place, which is pretty much her general state at the start of the novel, so I'll have to find a more overt way to say it. "Tame beasts" imply why this creature in particular is a problem, so I'll have to extend that, too.