Friday, April 27, 2012

The Art of Querying

I'm about to start sending query letters to literary agents for The Second Shadow.  Below is the main body of the letter I have so far.  Any thoughts you have would be great, such as "wow, that doesn't make me want to read it at all!"

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Sargoff has long been blanketed by a fear of the unknown powers that once brought it to crumble. Dark forces are once more at work, renewing these fears and threatening the country as it rebuilds. The orb of a forgotten lord is found, and the hands of evil once more glow with the powers of dark magic.

Jothan has devoted his life to the pursuit of the orb of Lord Hamrin, for he knows all too well the powers it holds.  He meets Cymor, a strange magical creature made of light who retrieves the orb, and the pair then fights and flees to ensure that dark wizards do not recover the orb and reclaim their lost authority.  On their fast-paced adventure, they encounter kings and queens, creatures of water and sand, a great two-headed dragon, and other powers not documented by the library of Sargoff.  In the end, they discover terrible truths that are difficult to accept.

THE SECOND SHADOW is an 81,000 word fantasy novel that explores the effects of fear on a society, and questions whether the agents of evil themselves present more dangers than the very fear they create.

2 comments:

Gina Cooper said...

The first part of your first sentence sounds good but I don't like "once brought it to crumble". Also you reuse "once" right away so it doesn't quite flow.
Maybe instead of "once brought it to crumble" you could use "nearly destroyed it" or "once brought ruin to its great cities" or something like that. I really like the first part but your first sentence really really really really needs to grab the reader

Joel said...

Good call G! What about this:

Sargoff has long been blanketed by a fear of the unknown powers that cast ruin upon its cities. Dark forces are once more at work, renewing these fears and threatening the country as it rebuilds. The orb of a forgotten lord is found, and the hands of evil once more glow with the powers of dark magic.