Jul 24, 2011

Query-Illusion

Smart-mouthed visual artist Maya McAdam lives on post apocalyptic Earth, where magi and humans coexist in a precarious compact. One of the magical guilds has bargained with an arch-demon (Ba’al) to bring down another guild. Maya avoids magic as much possible, but then her paintings start to animate, her old nightmares return and she wakes covered in blood. When the magical guilds and the law start pursuing her, she realizes it isn't because she hasn't registered her newfound magic.

Unbeknownst to her, she's Ba’al’s daughter, and her illustrations not only reveal her traumatic past and augur the future, but they also create doorways to other worlds, revealing her presence to her father. One of her pictures admits Resheph, a warrior warlock who's been hired to kill her. His task is frustrated by her apparent innocence and the invasion of Earth by demonic beasts, unleashed by her father to bring down the magical elite and drag her back to the Abyss. Maya is Ba'al's ticket to the physical worlds and he'll do anything to get her back.

Maya's apartment is destroyed and her best friend murdered. Her shadowy dreams reveal that in past life she orchestrated the destruction and exile of Resh’s people. She joins forces with Resh and crosses realms in order to find out more about her past, make amends to the exiled warlocks and help evade the demons. But this turns into a bigger problem than either of them realizes as Resh’s soul is lost when they transmute across the Abyss. Maya arrives alone and is held captive by the Arch-Warlocks.
She must dodge demons, magical guilds and dear old dad in order to restore balance to the dimensions, retrieve her warlock lover from hell, and redeem her own soul.

‘Illusion’ is a complete 105,000 urban/dark fantasy manuscript. My publishing history includes policies and frameworks written for government and Flinders University, and short stories accepted by several publications. I’m an active member of the Australian Society of Authors, Australian Romance Writers Association, Paranormal Romance Writers Group and Science Fiction/Fantasy Online Writers Workshop. I’m currently undertaking a Masters of Creative Writing.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and feel free to contact me if you would like a partial or complete of the work.

Yours sincerely
Dy Loveday
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4 comments:

B.E. Sanderson said...

Wow, that's a lot of information to digest all at once. I think your premise might be sound, but I'm having a hard time boiling all of this down to see what your premise really is. I realize the book has a lot going on and it's really hard (trust me, I know), but it's necessary to keep it concise. Look at some of the other queries here and at other places around the web to get an idea how to boil it down to what's most important. The general guideline is to keep it to around 250 words for the whole query.

Good luck. This sounds like a story I'd like to see on the shelves some day. =o)

July 24, 2011 at 11:07 AM
Anonymous Author said...

There's way too much here-- too many names, too many concepts. Try to reduce your story to a sentence, a maximum of 20 words in length. Then build your query upward from there.

The bio paragraph may be what's expected from Australian publishers; I don't know. If you're querying in the US, leave out the policies and frameworks written for government etc. Mention the short stories only if they're paying markets. Leave out all the organizations you're an active member of (there're too many of 'em). Keep the master's program and say where it is.

July 24, 2011 at 4:21 PM
Kelsey (Dominique) Ridge said...

This is long. Really long. Too long. It feels more like a synopsis than a query. You need to distill this down to your premise (she's Ba'al's daughter), the problem (people want to kill her), and what she needs to do (restore the balance and redeem her soul). Anything not related to those things needs to be cut.

July 24, 2011 at 11:16 PM
Dy said...

Version 2 - hopefully shorter!

Smart-mouthed visual artist Maya McAdam lives on post apocalyptic Earth, where magi and humans coexist in a precarious compact. One of the magical guilds has bargained with an arch-demon (Ba’al) to bring down another guild. Maya avoids magic as much possible, but then her paintings start to animate, her old nightmares return and she wakes covered in blood. When the law start pursuing her, she realizes it isn't because she hasn't registered her newfound magic.

Unbeknownst to her, she's Ba’al’s daughter, and her illustrations create doorways to other worlds, revealing her presence to her father. One of her pictures admits Resheph, a warrior warlock who's been hired to kill her. His task is frustrated by her apparent innocence and the invasion of Earth by demonic beasts, unleashed by her father to bring down the magical elite.

Maya joins forces with Resh and crosses realms; on a quest to discover the source of her magic and the reason for her incarnation.

She must dodge demons, magical guilds and dear old dad in order to restore balance to the dimensions, retrieve her warlock lover from hell, and redeem her own soul.

‘Illusion’ is a complete 105,000 urban/dark fantasy manuscript. My publishing history includes several short fiction stories to paying markets. I’m currently undertaking a Masters of Creative Writing at Adelaide University.

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my query letter.

July 25, 2011 at 2:47 AM

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