Title: Where The Stones Speak
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
When a female warrior on The Isle of Virgins discovers she has the gift of prophecy, she must undertake a perilous journey to find her sacred circle of stones and proclaim her prophetic truths to the multitudes before a corrupt Roman king and a vengeful demon can silence her, the ancient world’s last free sibyl.
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Angela, I can tell you totally listened to what everyone had to say. On first read, I get it! There is no gray area or need to re-read.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I might change is replace "prophetic truths" with something else, only because it's kind of a mouthful and I thought, does she mean prophecies? Then again, I can be a little dim! Maybe change to "...proclaim her revelations to the..."
Just something to play around with!
Wow, I'm amazed by these loglines today and yours did not disappoint! I think you did a fantastic job with this!
xoxo -- Hilary
This sounds great on the whole; it just seems quite long. I ran out of mental breath around the Roman king. Can you streamline, perhaps omitting "to the multitudes"? The last phrase especially seems tagged on or excessive. I'd consider omitting that; seems you have enough conflict before that point anyway. Maybe streamline the undertaking the perilous journey part, too, saying:
ReplyDeleteWhen a female warrior on The Isle of Virgins discovers she has the gift of prophecy, she must journey to find her sacred circle of stones and proclaim her prophetic truths before a corrupt Roman king and a vengeful demon can silence her.
I went back and read your initial query before reading this. Your initial query was a bit confusing. This, however, is pretty tight with a clear line through that establishes the protagonist and the challenges she faces. Great job.
ReplyDeleteVery minor tweaks:
1) I don't think you need the phrase "to the multitudes". To me it reads cleaner without it.
2) Not sure you need the the tag of "the ancient world's last free sibyl" either. I know that's a major plot and character element. It just feels a bit confusing, and blunts the implied danger (and power) of "silence her". Assuming a sybil is a prophet (right?) you already established that, no need to hammer it home.
3. Since this is YA do want to make it clear that she's a young female warrior, or teeage female warrior?
Great job and good luck!
Angela, I can't say enough about how well you've tightened this baby up. Excellent job! You avoided all confusion and summed this pitch up brilliantly.
ReplyDeleteThere are some good suggestions above, and I'd suggest one or two of them as well, to tighten if wanted. But all in all, your hard work created great results, and it stands strong as is. Great job! I look forward to your query.
I am loving this workshop!!Whew! I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief! I have never worked so hard on 1 sentence in my life and it's good to know it hit it's mark.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I knew when I posted that it was a mouthful but before I shortened it, I wanted the smart writers over here at ACP to offer some guidance as to what I should leave out because I just couldn't decide.
Thanks a million for the suggestions and positive feedback. Now on to the query...Gulp :)
This is nice and clear, but uses too many words. I don't think you need 'a perilous journey.' I think it's assumed the journey will be hard for her.
ReplyDeleteI also don't think you need to bring out the Isle of Virgins for the elevator pitch. Save that for the paragraphs. It doesn't mean anything to us here.
There are a lot of ways to combine concepts and take out unnecessary words. Something like:
When a female warrior discovers she's the ancient world's last free sibyl, gifted with prophecy, she must find her sacred circle of stones and proclaim her prophecies to the multitudes before a corrupt Roman king and a vengeful demon silence her.
Thanks so much Suzie!! I really, really like your suggestion. Thanks for taking the time to offer feedback!!
ReplyDelete