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Dear Agent,
Eighteen year old Talya`s main goal is to help her country bring down the Malinorian Empire. And Jalarn, the empire`s new young general, is at the top of her list of enemies to kill. Not only has Jalarn murdered Talya`s king, he almost killed her. Twice.
Gut wrenching, lifelike nightmares of a young boy interrupt Talya`s focus. It doesn`t help when a visiting prophet reminds her of her blood lust problem and tells her that God has called her on a dangerous mission to Hunter Forest days before the battle. Talya agrees to go when she finds out that Jalarn will be there. They run into one another and, after a gruelling sword fight, Talya wins. But her plan to slit his throat does not go as planned when she removes his battle mask and recognizes him to be the same boy as the one in her haunting visions. She spares his life and flees, but Jalarn`s men catch up to her.
When Talya awakens in a prison, she is confronted by Jalarn to make a decision to follow Malinor in the upcoming war, or die. But as Talya`s faith in God grows and she shares it with Jalarn, they become closer. The problem is that there are no secrets in a castle full of magic. And someone is on to them.
By the Sword is a young adult Christian fantasy novel that is 70,000 words in length.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
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4 comments:
This is getting better. Run spell-check, and get rid of the sentence with two "plan"s in it-- I think I remember someone telling you that before.
"she is confronted by Jalarn to make a decision " is awkward.
In fact, read the whole letter aloud and listen for awkward-sounding bits. (Good thing to do with your manuscript too.)
Thank you. :)
This is improving. Good work, and keep at it.
Gut wrenching, lifelike nightmares of a young boy interrupt Talya`s focus. It doesn`t help when a visiting prophet reminds her of her blood lust problem and tells her that God has called her on a dangerous mission to Hunter Forest days before the battle.
The use of "Gut wrenching, lifelike nightmares" comes across as trying too hard to be dramatic, and is purely telling. Showing how the nightmares affect her would be far more compelling. And "gut-wrenching" should be hyphenated.
This paragraph bothers me. We don't know about Talya's focus, so this drops in out of nowhere. And it gives no context as to when the nightmares happened. Are they in the past? And "focus" seems odd, in context of a nightmare. I think a little more info might help, such as something about her being dedicated to fighting for her country but is unsettled by prophetic-appearing nightmares?
And we don't know about her bloodlust problem. Is it that the prophet has a hard time convincing her to leave the upcoming battle because she wants to hack enemies apart? If she is there to kill Jalarn, why would her bloodlust be a problem?
Thanks, glj. Your comments helped me make the query clearer. I hope the third revision will be closer to being...perfect (or close to it). :)
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