#SonofaPitch - Round One Entry
EDIT: This contest has closed. Thank you for the wonderful suggestions! I've made plenty of changes.
Hello, wonderful people!
This is my first time participating in #sonofapitch, and I'm extremely excited to hear your feedback! Below are my current query letter draft (minus bio and comparisons) and my first 250 words. Bring on the feedback!
Title: Prisoner of Fate
Category/Genre: Adult Fantasy
Word Count: 170,000*
Query:
Dear [Agent Name],
[Insert personalization/reason for submitting to agent, if any.] I am seeking representation for my dark fantasy novel PRISONER OF FATE.
On parchment, Komak Cer-Marin has everything a man could desire: status, wealth, family. Reality isn’t as cliché. Status and wealth taste hollow, and he would cheerfully murder his brothers if his hands stayed clean. So when enigmatic traveler Sedhan Saphadzar offers Komak the chance at an undying legacy, Komak can’t resist its lure.
Komak soon discovers destiny doesn’t come without problems. Sedhan is wanted for murder, with dragonriders hounding him, and his methods grow increasingly questionable. As they flee across the continent with a possessed half-elf woman, Komak finds himself trapped as fate reels him toward an artifact that halts death itself.
The tale of a mid-life crisis gone horribly wrong, PRISONER OF FATE is complete at 170,000 words and has series potential. It embraces a dark atmosphere and world, with flawed characters, religious overtones, and the body count of a George R.R. Martin novel.
I’ve included below [whatever they requested, e.g. synopsis]. May I send you the manuscript? Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Danielle Maurer
First 250 Words:
Chapter One: A Lord and a Traveler
“Sedhan Saphadzar, to speak with Komak Cer-Marin, the lord’s son,” the man said for the seventh time – once to the guard on the bridge across the lake, once at the entrance to the city proper, once at the outer wall, twice at the first gate, once at the keep entrance, and again here, at the door to the audience chamber.
The guard by the door, like all the guards before him, cast a dubious glance over the man calling himself Saphadzar. His accent was rich with the unmistakable lilting of the hills of Old Marin, but something about him seemed foreign. Perhaps it was the color of his hair – a dark auburn more common to the deserts of Baerga, lightly dusted with silver and cut short in the style common to travelers. He was tall, lean but muscled, and his face was handsome, if sharply angular. He wore simple traveling clothes, not distinctive to any land, with a plain hooded cloak and linen shirt of the same inky black as his eyes. He carried no weapons, a fact he demonstrated by keeping his cloak back over his shoulders.
Unable to find anything off-putting, the guard grunted his consent. Sedhan nodded and pushed the door to the audience chamber open. As he stepped through the door, he touched the frame and chanted the threshold rite again, as he had whenever in view of a guard or member of the House.
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*Yes, I'm aware this is an very long word count. I'm working on it - it's much lower than it was.
