Query Letter Week 3

Hello Reader!  The summer's been hot, so I've been staying inside reading and writing.  I recently finished Dave Eggers' book Zeitoun which is a fascinating nonfiction account of a Muslim family's struggle to stay together despite the horrors of Hurricane Katrina.  I just want to make a quick comment about the book before I begin the meat of the blog.

It was really refreshing to read a normal story for once, one where there wasn't really a lofty purpose.  A lot of the time I catch myself getting absorbed into stories that are grandiose, springboards for the author to comment on the human condition or some other hoity-toity subject.  (Yes, I know that's what I want to do to, bear with me for a second).  I liked reading a story with a normal family, dealing with circumstances that were indeed extraordinary, but not to the point where existentialist arguments about existence became the theme.  I hope that in reading the next book on my to-do list (Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections) I'll be able to dilute some of the work of these two brilliant authors into my own.  Creating a fantastical world grounded in realistic engagement between characters is my goal for this novel and the ones to come.  Maybe I can learn from Eggers and Franzen how to do that properly.

Now, onto the real reason I wrote this blogpost.  Here's the consolidation of all of your suggestions and a few of my own revisions.  I hope you guys like it, and as always please be frank and honest with your critiques.  I always appreciate them, and they've been really constructive so far!  Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

On the island country of Atlantis, Prince Briok Cwartel is born into an era of uneasy peace.  With an absent father and a mother possessed of an iron-will, Briok grows to become petulant, brave, and ambitious. Then, on the day of his father’s funeral, the immortal Amar tells him that he is the final Magna Beast, heir to the throne of the alien Mags.

Quickly educated on the holy wars between the righteous Mags and genocidal Howlas, Briok is tasked with killing the Howlamega, savage leader of the Howlas and murderer of Briok’s father.  Because of his young age Briok’s quest does not take him far from Atlantis’ clear azure shores, forcing him to deal with the dual pressures of history assignments and Lara Heken’s sweet smile while training for premeditated violence.

Standing in the way of his success is a growing mafia civil war, led by the arrogant Tory Cross.  Power-hungry and grief-stricken at the deaths of his brother and nephew, Tory uses newfound technology to threaten Atlantis’ well-ordered society and Briok's life.  With the mafia on one side and Briok’s petulant nature on the other, Amar decides to enact a desperate battleplan that blurs the line between good and evil – and just may let him die.

Until next time then.

The Breakdown

Hello Reader. After a bit of feedback, I'm thinking a clarification is in order. Well, not so much a clarification as an outright listing of the novels and volumes that comprise Briok's legend.

Beginning with Volume 1: The Proxy Wars, Briok's story starts with the death of his father and ends with a tragic incident at Methoral Palace. The Volume is made of four books: Dramatis Personae, Rising Action, Climax, and Denoument.  Each book is a self-contained story with implications on the next one.  At the end of Denouement, the Howlamega is NOT dead.  I only mention the Howlamega throughout Volume 1.  He, and his son, are never seen.  The crux of the action in the Volume is the war fought between Atlantis and Tory, the proxies of Amar and the Howlamega, respectively.

Volume 2: Qasida is a deep submerging of my story into the richness of pre-Islamic Arabian poetry.  The Qasida in Arabic poetry is the standard epic poem, comprised of three parts: the Nasib, the Rahil, and the Ritha.  Guess what the names of the books in Volume 2 will be?  You got it!  Nasib, Rahil, and Ritha.  Each book serves the same purpose that they serve in the structure of a normal Qasida.  In Volume 2, the war between Briok and the Howlamega culminates into an enormous battle on the planet of Paragon 3, introduced earlier in the series.  So basically Volume 2 is a war novel.  I'm extremely excited to start it.

Volume 3 doesn't have a title yet.  In fact, I have no clue as to how many books I want in Volume 3.  But the story is concrete, as are the ending chapters.  Briok journeys far and wide to find his enemies, alone. His quest takes him more places internally than it does physically, leaving him both scarred and battered.  But he is better for it.  It's a one-man show, with intermittent characters and vignettes of his friend's lives after they abandon him (with good reason).  After two wildly epic stories, I wanted to focus in on Briok and Briok alone.  He transforms the most in this volume, and hopefully I'll get around to writing it.


Again, these ideas are all based on the assumption that the first book even gets published.  Let's hope I can get a handle on my schedule so that dream becomes a reality iA.  If this still leaves you confused, please comment below.  It's important to me that I get as much feedback as possible.  Until next time then.

The Old Man of the Sea

Hello Reader!  The title above is for Chapter 8.  I'm not exactly sure how to describe the way I came upon the name Proteus, who is Briok's best friend and an incredibly, incredibly important part of the story.  To tell everyone here the truth, the names of the most important characters in the book were wholly made up.  I consider myself incredibly lucky that I got these names down.  Anyways, this blogpost is dedicated to a review a friend of mine gave me on the first chapter.


I've been asking some people to review the first few chapters of my book.  And through this process, I realize how the structure of my book may not be the best.  I'm going to still run with it, because those readers who have seen the book say that the storyline is interesting enough for them to continue reading. But I have my doubts about the book's quality.  At this point, I'm wishing that I had an English teacher or something who could read this for me and tell me what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.


My reliance on cliffhangers might be a little too obvious in the novel.  A lot of breaks in the chapters end on quotes by characters, like a soap opera, and the beginnings of some chapters are quotes.  I sort've throw the reader into the novel's dialogue from the very beginning.  Here's the first paragraph of the entire book:

“And here we go again,” Tov sighed.  It closed Its eyes in frustration, and rubbed Its temples, “Are you ready Yfel?  Oh, of course you are.  We’re both ready for this to end.  It’s out with the old, and in with the new!”

So this blog post is going to be short.  I don't want to bog down the blog with an overlong rant about apprehension and anxiety.  I'll be sending out queries this weekend when I'm at home, so that should be a great subject for next week's post.  The main point of today's message to the readers was that if you're reading this casually, and you have time on your hands, read Chapter 1 please.  Just leave your name and e-mail address, and I'll send it to you super-quick.  Not only that, I'll delete your e-mail from the comments afterwards.  Thank you to those who decide to do this.  Until next time then.