So, I've been working on the dreaded query letter and it's a nail-biting frustrating ride, I must say. If you read here please, please, please( did I say PLEASE?) read the following mini-synopsis and comment with whatever thoughts you may have. There are so many conflicting opinions on this in web-land! So, without further ado -
Allyson Hales is a level –headed and goal oriented 19 year old, living in the beautiful state of Virginia among oceans, forests and mountains. When her fiancé is killed on the way to their wedding, she’s plunged into a deep depression and isn’t sure she’ll ever recover.Then she meets Grant Pierce, a young, time traveling, detective, who starts appearing in her dreams, essentially rewriting her past. With Grant in her life she envisions a very different future than she’d ever imagined.But Ally doesn’t know Grants secret or that falling in love with him, she’s made herself a pawn in a war as old as time, pitting good time travelers against dangerous ones.No matter how much Grant loves Ally and may fight to protect her he fears he can never give her the future they both yearn for.class
Comment away!!! I need the help!
6 comments:
I could be wrong but I thought it was great up until the part about the war between good and evil time travelers. Maybe a little more explanation of the conflict.
Hey Melony, I thought this one over...I think you could take out most of the first sentence and get right into the second sentence. Just a thought. good luck, luv erin.
I'm not the expert on the art of writing the synopsis, but it seemed really good to me. You have conflict and action and the promise of doing some interesting rewriting of time. I would make sure you have someone go over it for grammar. It should read: Grant's secret and I'd put a comma in the last sentence between her, he fears. (But I'm also not an expert on grammar.)
Good luck!
Let me preface this comment to say I have not written a successful query letter yet. Heck I haven't written one at all- but I do a lot of reading about them online. So take anything I say with a grain of salt.
I would combine the 1st sentence and the second dropping the descriptions of her and Virginia.
Can you play up Grant's secret and this war to add more drama and conflict to the query?
The story sounds good. I would read it. The query just needs more of a hook.
The things in here that caught my eye: time traveling detective and rewriting her past. These are the elements that distinguish this synopsis from 10K other romances. Suggest you expand on those, tighten the rest. Also, suggest it show a few points of interest about Allyson, “level-headed and goal oriented 19 year old” is not only an oxymoron, it sounds boring. What about her is unique and fascinating? Can you boil that essence down to 25 words or less?
My $0.02.
First sentence - who cares?
Second - Backstory, slip it in later. The depression is pretty obvious. And seriously, dead fiance is really, really cliche...
Third - start here. This is the meat of the story. From here, it sounds interesting, there's conflict and movement.
Finally, check your spelling and grammar - it needs touching up in several places. And, conversely, I hope it's better in the actual manuscript...
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